Infinity Ward adjusted Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's time to kill and retuned a handful of weapons in a beta update pushed on the morning of August 31, the last in a run of updates before the beta closed the following day, IGN reported.
Time to kill was one of the loudest points of contention in the beta's opening weekend, where players judged it far too fast. In a statement issued with the patch notes, the studio said the figure has moved back toward the range it wants.
Over the weekend, we've been reviewing your gameplay and feedback carefully. We feel that TTK on average is much closer to where we wanted it to be after Weekend 1, but there's always room to refine individual weapons to make sure they're balanced across the board. These changes provide tuning for each class to do well at its role.
What changed in the weapon pass
The patch notes list buffs across several guns. The ISO Nightshade submachine gun took a slight damage improvement, and the PPSH, Krait P68, Han 86 and Hyeon Burst were all strengthened; the Hyeon Burst's headshot damage multiplier rose from 1 to 1.1.
A handful of weapons were cut back. The most notable of those was the M4 Hurricane variant, whose damage was reduced.
A response to Modern Warfare 2's reception
Being receptive to feedback is a central part of Infinity Ward's approach this year, IGN reported. Players were frustrated with 2022's Modern Warfare 2 because it felt as though the studio ignored or brushed off criticism of major aspects of the game, including gameplay pacing, mini-map functionality and skill-based matchmaking.
Studio multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot told IGN in an interview that the studio has changed how it handles that. "I think in MW2, we definitely didn't communicate as well as we should have," he said. "I think we've remedied that in crazy ways with this project." He described the volume of material sent to his desk for review, including copy written in response to player feedback, and pointed to public posting from Infinity Ward co-studio head Mark Grigsby alongside the Infinity Ward and Call of Duty accounts.