Originally Posted by DavidVonderhaar

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).

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.

.....

Please note that I may not necessarily read every reply to this thread. Every day we go to work to fight glitches, cheaters, hackers, "bad judgment" emblem makers, and the like. We mostly work on genuine bugs and connectivity, party, and matchmaking issues. We also have a very aggressive DLC strategy and desire to do some unique things with the level designs of those maps. In-between all that, and when not covering for co-workers who are getting a well-deserved break, we work on gameplay finesse.

It is studio boss Mark Lamia's vision that this be the most well supported Call of Duty MP game in the history of the franchise. This is a tall order but it is exactly what we are going to continue to do. The scale of the game is massive. On any given day, we have dozens of things to deal with. Nothing prepares you for that except living it. And we are. With experience we will get better at it.

As of this morning, nearly 20,000 of you now follow me on Twitter. Although this is a tiny percentage of the online population on a typical day, it is getting increasingly difficult to respond to all your questions, concerns, and thoughts. Please don't take it personally if I don't respond to you. At least for now, I am still able to read every single message you send even if I can't respond to everyone. During the month of January, I will make a concentrated effort to update you with a "blog" style post like this every Wednesday +/- a day and see how that goes and what the reaction is like.

David 'Vahn' Vonderhaar

Update 1: Corrected text for clarity on AK74U grip tuning.
Update 2: Updated status/notes on Second Chance.

Originally Posted by Vahn "Jan 12. 2 of 4.

Since last week, we've made a few more gameplay changes. If they clear QA will appear in the next update.

Second Chance gets a scoring overhaul.

If you shoot the guy and he falls into Second Chance you will get the +100 (in TDM) and kill credit. You don't get this if the guy is revived. You get it if: (1) you finish him off (2) he takes Coward's Way Out (3) he "times out" and dies anyhow or (4) a teammate finishes him off.
If a player is already in Second Chance and you finish him off, you get an Assist and the appropriate credit.

Many community members expressed that they felt "cheated" out of a kill if they dropped someone into Second Chance and a teammate got the kill. In my opinion (which does not necessarily represent the views of Treyarch or every Treyarch developer), if you feel this way you might be taking the game just a little too seriously.

This might have unintended consequences. Perhaps more people will leave guys hanging around in Second Chance. Maybe this will be a problem. Maybe it will benefit Second Chance users. We will see. In the end, we were willing to do this because it doesn't impact how Second Chance works in any significant way.

Additionally, Second Chance users are going to get blown to bits if they die by a shotgun blast. You will not fall into Second Chance. It works the same way it does if you die by a headshot. This might be going too far, but it's something we talked over at length and are willing to try.

The RC-XD has had its top speed and maximum damage reduced. Not much, mind you. Flak Jacket users will survive an RC-XD attack way better than someone without Flak Jacket. However, it won't make you completely immune.

The AK74u also gets some minor tweaks.

Some members of the community expressed that it is the combination of attachments such as grip + rapid fire that present the real problem.

To take Warlord you have to give up Steady Aim or Sleight of Hand (among others). That's two very popular and powerful Perks, if you are an AK74u user. Trade-offs are part of the game design.

The game stats allow us to evaluate the reality of how weapons are used and cut through the perception or emotions. We've started to use those stats to help us analyze the reality. It's early days. We have to think carefully about how it informs our decisions.

As frustrating as the AK74u conversation was for many people, I learned some important things from it. It was a really good reminder how I take for granted how the game works and what is technically feasible. Let me give you an example:

Some gamers said to me, "Why don't you dial back the fire rate on the Rapid Fire version?"

This seems like a completely reasonable suggestion, unless you know how the engine (and Rapid Fire) technically works.

The community provided many suggestions that seem completely reasonable, unless you know how the engine works. Responding to dozens, if not hundreds, of suggestions with an explanation of why they are not practical isn't something I could realistically do.

I don't want this to dissuade us from having a dialog, but I need to think carefully about what topics can realistically be asked about.

Gameplay tuning is a fickle beast. One man's perfect is another man's nightmare. I don't think it's perfect, but it is far from a nightmare. It's the most popular online shooter. If it was horribly unbalanced, unfair, or completely unfun - it wouldn't be.

Finally, I am fully aware that these are not the only game play issues on the minds of the Black Ops community at large. Many are being considered; some will not. When and if it becomes appropriate to discuss them with you, we will.

We remain committed to making small game play tweaks to the game. We've tweaked Snipers as a whole. We've tweaked Knifes. We will tweak Second Chance, the RC-XD, and even some guns.

After all that is done, and we feel comfortable that we haven't made things worse in anyway, we will figure out where to go next.

Fans should remain optimistic, but realistic. Over a million people play the game every day. 99% of them we will never get the opportunity to hear from directly the way we do from forum, Twitter, or Facebook users.

David 'Vahn' Vonderhaar

Originally Posted by Vahn Jan 19. Part 3 of 4

Hiya-

A few days ago, we've submitted version 1.06 to both Microsoft and Sony for certification testing. My co-workers in production are working to get the list together and with a bit of luck we will update the sticky posts for you soon. I do not have a date for you yet. The process is not completely within our control. We do, however, intend to release the next update "as soon as possible."

While working with some key and helpful members of the PS3 Call of Duty community directly, we were:

- able to find and fix a common hard freeze (technically a crash)
- improve the connectivity and reliability of connection between players (which has many cascading side effects seen in various ways when in the game)
- fix an issue where a party joining a lobby would not have the entire party make it if the lobby did a host migration
-and others...

This is not the only thing we have been doing. It's just something I was personally working on very closely. Let me be frank with you. I ignore "...you should be doing this and not that" comments and the people who send them.

We did a ton of work on the game play aspects of First Strike. The Zip Line. Spawn placement. Objective locations. Air kill streak flight paths. Dog and Target Dummy AI pathing. Setting up the playlists. We have many of those types of things to do when you make new levels. It's a huge, huge list.

We've added a new feature for competitive LAN/System Link players. With version 1.06, you will be able to set-up a pre-match timer in LAN games up to 60 seconds. This will allow the host to launch and the clients to join before the game actually starts.

Of course, we also fixed some bugs like getting primary weapons in Second Chance and the "disconnected path" error in Radiation when using the doors after a host migration.

The main thing I hope you take away from this week's update is just because I posted in the forums about topic X, or tweeted about topic Y, doesn't mean that is all that is going on around here day in and day out. Lots of stuff is going on. I'm not the only person working here. Frankly, it's just as busy as ever and people are working just as hard as ever.

I understand some of you might prefer that I tell you more about it, and do so more frequently, but to be perfectly honest about it that takes time away from actually doing it.

Version 1.06 is a big update and First Strike is a very ambitious downloadable content offering. I am eager to get all of it into your hands and then we will start the process all over again.

David 'Vahn' Vonderhaar

Originally Posted by Skuh

no, just the same old connection bullshit

Originally Posted by Colts23

I'm gonna stick my black ops up treyarch asses.