In the recent days there have been signs of the next PC patch being worked on with Tweets from PCDev and numerous Tweets from David Vonderhaar about items being fixed and in testing for the next patch but today from our wonderful Community Manager JD_2020 on the official CODHQ forums we get an actual “in progress” update for the upcoming patch – but no ETA on that patch quite yet.

In Progress

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  • MP Audio stuttering on certain systems.
  • Playercards sometimes not showing properly.
  • Added three Private Match Server Settings: Team Change, Team-Up Period, and Keep Balanced Teams.
  • Added Alternate Color Scheme for accessibility: Settings / Multiplayer / Player Name Indicator.
  • Changed Team-Up Period countdown interval to 10 seconds.
  • Combat Training sessions are no longer counted in Server Browser Unranked tab.
  • Friends on your team will now show as blue on your minimap.
  • Prevention of various exploits.
  • Objective markers localized for all languages.
  • SP Audio stuttering on certain systems.
  • Addition of new contracts.
  • Addition of the “Dolly Cam” editing mode in Theater.
  • If a player cancels an invite to a Wager Match, then attempts to join another server, they will join the server from the declined invite.
  • Issue where the incorrect perks would appear when spectating another player under certain conditions.
  • Addition of round start explosive delay to China Lake grenade launcher to give it the same “spawn toob” protection as other explosives.
  • Ensure reticle purchases are reset on prestige in all circumstances.
  • Contracts should reset on prestige.
  • Prevention of Valkyrie rocket exploding upon release under rare conditions.
  • Prevention of Gunship and Chopper Gunner failing to give player full control under rare conditions.
  • Prevention of an issue where a player will get teleported outside the map boundaries under very specific conditions.
  • Limit the ability to re-roll supply drops using Hardline Pro to Care Packages only, no other killstreak drops.
  • Increased headshot multipliers for sniper rifles. Sniper rifles with suppressors equipped will now always be ensured one-shot kill headshots.
  • Added a render delay to the red diamond player indicators that appear when controlling the Gunship, Valkyrie Rocket and Chopper Gunner. When a player first spawns, this will not appear for a period of time.
  • Additional minor reductions in knife lunge.

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Now this is a decent list and it is definitely nice to see adjustments to two of my largest complaint points on there – the red diamond player indicators that appear while using the Huey and Hind that point you out immediately on spawn and of course the ridiculous cheesy knife lunge – but seeing this list and referencing back on some things that have been Tweeted and posted in CODHQ in the last few days brings up some confusion and it seems that the Game Design Director and the dev team aren’t quite on the same page.

The topics in point are adjustments to the AK74U (another big complaint point for me), adjustments to the Second Chance Perk, adjustments to the RC-XD damage radius and the fact that it was stated that Treyarch was happy with the sniper rifle tuning and knife tuning and no changes were planned – all seen in the this post on CODHQ by David Vonderhaar (quoted below for easy reading) and also different bits Tweeted by David Vonderhaar over the course of last week (also quoted below). Strangely in this patch we have both sniper rifle tuning as well as knife tuning and yet even stranger is the tuning on the AK74U that David Vonderhaar states was completed as of January 5th is no where to be seen on that list above. Maybe this isn’t a complete list? I really doubt it due to the patch most likely about to be released in the next few days but who knows.

I had hoped by this time in the game life-cycle we would be engaged in a series of constructive debates about the game tuning. Tweaking a few things one way or the other. These are some of the key things on our minds. The ones in bold are done already as of Jan 5th.

We think the AK74U grip variant re-center speed is too quick. Although the tuning in line with other grip variant weapons, the gun itself has a very perfectible kick and other attributes or attachments that make it a popular weapon to use. We have slightly de-tuned the AK74u grip for version 1.06.

We are considering giving full kill credit to the guy who drops someone in Second Chance and Assist credit for someone who finishes them off. We are also considering allowing you to only be revived one time. We are even considering increasing the revive time.
– Forum users like to complain about the “invulnerability period” when someone is dropping. I found where this happens. It’s in code and not script which is why I didn’t see it originally. We need to think about this one clearly. I went through the revision history. Any attempts to remove the “0.5” seconds of invulnerability mean the guy with Second Chance will likely never be given his Second Chance. Removal of this entirely will all but remove the perk from the game (which I know many of you would prefer in the first place, but it’s something we are not yet ready to do). This “0.5” seconds is consistent with the previous games and is not any longer or shorter.

We are evaluating the RC-XD minimum and maximum damage and damage radius and it’s movement speed. Changing the kill requirement isn’t feasible at this time.

We are largely okay with the sniper rifle and knife tuning at this time. No changes are currently planned for either of these for version 1.06.

Twitter poll. Assume you get +100 for dropping the guy into Second Chance and the assist for finishing him. Better or worse. If worse, why?

LINK

What if I drop the AK74U clip size from 30 to 20 and the extended clip from 40 to 30. Alternatively, lower the max damage.

LINK

One other final point that I will call attention to is the fact that there is nothing mentioned about the server side of things. There has been absolutely no communication about the servers from Treyarch since launch. There are still MANY server owners (including myself) suffering from uncontrollable server crashing issues as seen in this currently now 33 page forum post at GameServers.com and then to top things off were given abilities with the last patch to adjust team changing options that were broken from the very start – along with Autobalance; which now forces admins to disable team changing because servers can become very out of balance since Autobalance doesn’t work and in full circle that disables Spectating which makes admining servers a little more difficult with questionable players. Straight to the point – we need to see some information from Treyarch to let us know what is being done with the server code!