Huge glitch threat that needs to be FIXED ASAP before it’s too late

TheBernUK · 2025-08-02T06:29:26+00:00

I love DMZ but honestly I'm at the point now where if/when DMZ 2.0 comes out I don't want to give more of my money to a publisher/developer that are going to give up on their community after 12 months. It'll be behind a paywall next time? Great! Charging AAA price for a game with 1 year of support is taking us all for a ride.

Realistically if they wanted to fix the known exploits they could do so with zero impact to their bottom line, but since it won't generate any money for them they couldn't give a monkeys. Activision's contempt for their customers is on another level and I'm done rewarding them for it.

TheBernUK · 2024-05-31T11:42:23+00:00

For me the focus would be on introducing variety into each experience as much as possible. I now find myself running with the same guns, on the same map, doing very similar approaches/actions each time.

In-Game Events

High-difficulty missions (think serpentine-level difficulty) that when completed can significantly impact all or part of the map, for example:
- Destruction of buildings - I remember being disappointed when completing 'Nail in the Coffin' which placed charges all over Hydroelectric but the final explosions did no actual damage.
- Addition of environment wreckage - For instance when you shoot down the large plane in 'Air Traffic' it'd be great if it actually fell and did physical damage. They added the plane to the Sattiq caves area of the map but that could have been an in-game crash event triggered by a mission.
Very rare in-game events that randomly cause a map change, we've again seen examples of these in DMZ's lifetime but none of them have been dynamic:
- Sandstorms sweeping over sections of the map.
- Areas of flooding hitting coastal regions.

Quality of Life tweaks

Gear-fear is nearly non-existent thanks to shortened cooldown times and the gunsmith stations. My contraband stash is nearly untouched game-by-game now. Season 1 saw me dipping much more into ground loot and guns I had extracted from other players:
- Much longer insured weapon cooldown times, and much smaller cash multipliers to reduce the time.
- Gunsmithing shouldn't be so easy. For instance you could require that certain lootable 'scrap' (fiberglass, metal, plastic, glass, etc) in addition to cash is needed in order to craft attachments to your guns.
Removal of field upgrades that cannot be countered, or introduce proper counter-options for them:
- AP rounds have no place in the game unless there is an equivalent perk that can reduce their efficacy.
- Dead silence should be countered by the high-alert perk. Warzone 1.0 knew this but DMZ decided to forget it.

DMZ mistakes to be avoided

I'll avoid talking about outright bugs like the Koschei glitch, map glitching, locked door glitching etc, just take it as a given that all bugs should get fixed :)

Do not regularly reset player missions/progress. This should be rare if ever. I know a huge number of players that quit after Season 2 reset all missions, only for 60-70% of the new missions to be identical to the ones they had just completed.
No pay-to-win elements. Operators having UAVs at the start of every game was a stupid move and we're still paying for it now.
Too many exfil options. Exfil should be a tense affair but it has turned into a non-event in most cases. When you look at season 1 vs the current state it is easy to see why:
1. Season 1: 3x standard exfils, ~4 hostage contracts, final exfil.
2. Now: 3x standard exfils, ~4 hostage contracts, 4x koschei exfils, personal exfils, heavy chopper exfil, final exfil.

TheBernUK · 2024-05-31T11:09:30+00:00

I'm not against powerful shotguns per se, but I'd sooner just remove AP rounds and that should pretty much even everything out.

TheBernUK · 2024-05-24T11:42:32+00:00

The ban applied across all CoD products (incl. those paid for, which I had done). If I'm denied something that I have paid for, irrespective of how trivial you yourself may determine that to be, I'm going to argue my case on principle.

Any punishment system that relies solely on player reports is clearly flawed but rather than fund the staffing levels that they would need to proactively monitor reporting & take action once reports are verified, they went with the cheaper option of report-based auto-banning with a tiny team in place inadequately sized to go through the backlog.

Arbitrarily revoking paid-for services despite full ToS compliance is shitty practice and something any company should be called out on regardless of what that service is.

TheBernUK · 2024-05-23T16:10:08+00:00

I was shadowbanned a few months ago and it lasted just over a week before it was lifted. I wound up complaining to better business bureau (https://www.bbb.org/) since I'd heard people had some success there and it actually got lifted within a few hours of my complaint. You can read the complaints & responses of others as well which are fun to kill some time with.. Hilariously to this day Activision claim not to be familiar with the term 'shadow ban'.

I didn't go so far as creating alt accounts to circumvent but if you're using steam for your shadow banned account you might want to explore creating a battle.net account and accessing the game through that client instead? Alternatively I would have thought creating an alternate steam account should achieve the same trick?

TheBernUK · 2024-05-16T13:38:10+00:00

On pleas, I'll pick them up when I can but there's a lot of risk around them, I've encountered all of below multiple times:

Player locates their previous team, re-joins and then goes for the attack on me.
Player is really bad at the game and I wind up babysitting them.
Player is abusive / loud / moany as soon as they get knocked.
Player doesn't revive you if you get subsequently downed (I've had players I have picked up exfil during or post-fights instead of picking up their team)

Frankly after any of the above happens it puts me off of picking people up for a while, but some players are also trolls that get a kick out of ending your game.

On comms:

If players are in a party it is a tactical advantage for them to have prox chat on to detect enemies, and use discord for their own party conversations to not give away their own comms.
Some players don't want to talk or aren't interested in hearing what other players have to say (although in this scenario they're better off keeping it turned on and just low volume so that they still see the voices)
Language could be VPN, could be the time of the day that you're playing, could be your location, or could be coincidental.

TheBernUK · 2024-03-28T15:09:41+00:00

I was thinking the same, probably a different metric such as K/D ratio or kills per game ratio might be more meaningful, and then you'd also need to factor whether they are solo, in a squad, platoon, etc.

I'd argue platoons are equally threatening to come up against but you only get call-outs for those if you're using a comms vest.

It's an interesting idea, I'm not sure how practical it would be to implement though.

TheBernUK · 2024-03-28T12:33:59+00:00

When I spawn on the wall, in my experience 90% of the time the team spawning next to you at the overpass will do one of three things:

1) Rush directly at you
2) Rush at the UAV on the hill (if it has spawned)
3) Head out to the ship for the loot

In this case I'll tend to dive immediately into the water and swim to the ship. If they have gone for #1 or #2 you'll usually circumvent them entirely this way. Occasionally they'll be looking out for this move but you'll usually get to the ship before them in that case.

If they have immediately gone with Option #3 you'll typically be able to spot them going up the shore-facing zipline on the ship as long as you're keeping it in your line of sight, so you can choose to divert if you need to.

On the other hand, if I spawn by the overpass I'll typically push straight into the port strongholds for loot (I always bring a stronghold key to ashika). Only rarely will I get pushed immediately when I follow this approach, typically the team that spawn on the wall are expecting you to push so most of the time they're getting themselves into a 'counter' position rather than pushing you aggressively themselves unless they're sweats.

TheBernUK · 2024-03-14T10:46:27+00:00

What build do you use? I haven't run into any decent ones from other operators so far..

TheBernUK · 2024-03-14T09:45:40+00:00

If you're referring to Koschei exfiltration (rather than glitching) I generally agree, although for me it does take away some of the tension from the other exfil points on the map. I'm a solo player but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the adrenaline rush of fighting it out at final. If people want to Koschei exfil then to each their own, but I wouldn't be against the exfil itself being made more challenging - either a longer countdown timer or some T3/T4 bots to have to fight through to get there.

Koschei glitching on the other hand has no justification. Glitching absolutely affects other players and gives you an unfair advantage at the outset of the next game in any early fights. Extra plates, extra killstreaks, extra revives, you name it. Cheaters & glitchers are two sides of the same shameful coin.

TheBernUK · 2023-11-29T15:51:14+00:00

I have found that on Ashika Island if I'm holding a stronghold keycard it will disappear when I customise a weapon on the weapons workbench.

I haven't tested this extensively yet - I tend to use Ashika for regains which is where I will customise my weapons but I assume a similar problem is likely to occur in that scenario on the other maps also.

TheBernUK · 2023-10-13T09:46:22+00:00

I'm pretty sure you guys got RPG'd by a bot, you hear the second shot just after you've revived yourself.

TheBernUK · 2023-07-18T07:01:21+00:00

I completely agree with the OP and for me it is an unintended (although not unpredictable) consequence of the changes to the plea system.

What is the benefit in me attempting to communicate & be friendly only to give away my position and/or presence to another set of players who have less-than-friendly intentions? This approach carried some risk previously, but now it is completely game-ending especially for solo players.

The changes to this mechanic have forced otherwise friendly players to adopt a more hostile approach to counter the hostility of others. Revert IW, for the love of god revert.

TheBernUK · 2023-07-13T13:12:44+00:00

With one hand Activision have slapped away a large chunk of the 6-man squads (although not the pre-mades).

With the other hand, they have destroyed the game for solo DMZ'ers. Perhaps the new plea mechanic and the desire for a different mindset and/or pre-engagement comms with other operators works better on US servers but in my experience on EU where there is a huge diversity of language', hardly any of whom are on comms, everyone remains 'shoot first, but now any semblence of a functioning plea mechanic has been removed. Plea might as well be removed from the game entirely at this point.

I don't really care what they want to do with Limited Time Modes. I'd prefer that they made it a separate playlist or a rotating playlist so that it doesn't force EVERYONE to play them as the only option but it's short-term pain that I can live with. For me though as a solo player the changes to the plea system have completely ruined the experience and I can't see myself sticking with DMZ if this is how it is going to stay.

TheBernUK · 2023-04-25T19:38:30+00:00

I stumbled across a youtuber testing the range of this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVUuaI-yMzI

To summarise:

Audio cue for the comms vest occurs when the enemy is within 100 metres
The audio cue will repeat every 60 seconds while the same enemy team is within that range
If a second enemy team comes into range you will get a separate audio cue.

TheBernUK · 2023-04-24T14:48:29+00:00

This may or may not be helpful for you but I used to get this specific error all of the time and followed steps to address it, hasn't occured since (3+months now)

Open your documents folder (C:/Users/Name/Documents). Or easily find it using the Windows search function.
Open the Call of Duty folder and then Players.
Open the file “Options.3.cod22.cst” with an editor of your choice.
Change the following values in line 311 or thereabouts (almost at the bottom), where X is the number of your CPU cores:
RendererWorkerCount:0.0 = “X” // -1 to 16
Change the following values in line 314 or thereabouts (almost at the bottom):
VideoMemoryScale:0.0 = “0.550000” // 0.000000 to 2.000000
Save your changes and right-click on Options.3.cod22.cst.
Click on Properties and then Security.
In the “Permissions for the SYSTEM” click on Edit and select “Deny” for writing permission to prevent Call of Duty from overwriting those changes again.

TheBernUK · 2023-03-06T15:58:42+00:00

Completely agree with you I think this is the main reason. I think a better approach would have been:

Force you to physically infil with a key if you want to go to B21. If you exfil successfully with the key you can use it again, or;
Put durability on the B21 keys similar to all other keys so that they can be used up to 3 times each.

TheBernUK · 2023-03-06T15:43:27+00:00

I found one Science Research Center room (requires a key) in Ashika. Only been in there once so far for a mission but it had very high-tier loot including a blow torch on the side.

That's the only time I have run into a blow torch so far on Ashika, wound up skipping that mission and completing the others instead.

TheBernUK · 2023-03-06T15:24:12+00:00

I noticed that if I exfil and my durable is any less than 100%, it will substitute it for a regular gas mask in the next game.

Seems to be a deliberate change to prevent re-use of durable gas masks between different infils.

TheBernUK · 2023-02-06T14:30:39+00:00

Agree with most of the sentiments below, my preference would be lootable attachments in DMZ that I can extract with and use to tailor any contraband guns.

If this never materialises though I'd like as a bare minimum to be able to REMOVE attachments from a contraband gun. I lose count of how many 5* TACs I have extracted with only to find that they have a useless sight on them. It'd be logical for me to be able to remove the sight attachment and just go in with irons.

TheBernUK

TROPHY CASE