How Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Changed Due to Beta Feedback

While beta tests are often nothing more than a glorified demo or a network stress test, it appears Call of Duty: Black Ops III's was more meaningful for developer Treyarch. The studio today outlined a number of ways the game's multiplayer mode is changing as a result of beta feedback.

In a PlayStation Blog post, design director David Vonderhaar highlighted ten such adjustments that will be in place for the game's launch. While these aren't major alterations to its design, many of them sound like changes for the better.

Chief among them, the Black Hat hacking mechanic has been changed. It now takes longer to steal a scorestreak (particularly the higher-end ones), and the game will now do a better job of alerting players of when this is occurring. Hackers will also be called out on the map, making them easier targets.

A new limit has been put in place to reduce the amount of flinching that happens when aiming down the sights of a weapon and being shot at. Vonderhaar said the flinch effect was allowed to stack during the beta, and while flinching hasn't been removed entirely, it will now "be within tighter constraints to keep you closer to your aim."

The Rejack ability, allowing a certain character class to immediately revive, has also been adjusted. Anyone who kills someone using Rejack is now credited with a kill, and any scorestreak progress the Rejack user has made will be reset. In other words, Rejack won't allow players to achieve high-end scorestreaks even after they've died.

Other changes: more feedback to let you know you're hitting (and have killed) enemies; concussion grenades stun players for one less second; escorting the robot in Safeguard provides +25 score every three seconds; and the kill cam offers more information, such as the weapons and equipment your killer has equipped.

You can see the full list here, though it doesn't appear to be a comprehensive one. There's a reference to weapon balancing, but only two weapons (the M8A7 rifle and Razorback submachine gun) are specifically mentioned, and there's no indication of what was actually adjusted.

Black Ops III's beta was available back in August on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, though it was available first on PS4. The blog post notes that PS4 beta testers will soon receive a dynamic theme to thank them for their time. More details on this are coming next week.

The full version of Black Ops III is slated for released on November 6 for the aforementioned platforms, as well as Xbox 360 and PS3.