Call of Duty Beta: 5 Tips from Treyarch for Black Ops Cold War’s New Mode

Whether you’re a seasoned Call of Duty veteran or simply getting started, here are some essential tips and tricks that will give you the advantage over most players and will help you dominate on the battlefield.

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In the second weekend of the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta, you’ll have access to a new mode called Fireteam: Dirty Bomb.

Get the advantage on your opponents with these tips from Matt Scronce, Lead Designer at Treyarch.

• Plan your attack during infil wisely. Dirty Bombs around the perimeter of the map will be less chaotic, but you’ll need to scavenge more for Uranium and other items since there will be fewer enemies to eliminate and scavenge from.

• Arming a Dirty Bomb for detonation only requires 1 teammate to plant the charge, but the time to arm the bomb will be reduced with each teammate that is nearby. Any player helping arm the bomb will see a progress bar on their Heads Up Display with a count of how many teammates are helping arm that bomb. Huddle up and protect the player arming the bomb to ensure your Fireteam gains the detonation score that you fought for.

• Detonated Dirty Bombs will trigger expanding radiation zones. While these won’t immediately kill players, they will cause players to become radiation sick. Radiation Sickness has 3 levels:
  • Weakness which disables all of your Perks
  • Fatigue which will reduce the effectiveness of your health regeneration
  • Internal Bleeding that will cause damage over time eventually leading to your death

• Throughout the match, there will be several sets of Dirty Bombs revealed. Once the first set of bombs have been detonated and taken offline, there will be a short period of time before a completely new set of bomb come online. Use the time between sets to pick your next target and scavenge for Uranium, Armor Plates, Scorestreaks and more.

• Your Loadout is key to success. If you plan on playing the objective and being the one to arm the bombs, you’ll want to drop in with Perks like Flak Jacket or a Trophy System Field Upgrade to survive incoming explosives. More savvy teams will assign roles, with some teammates working on intelligence gathering with Cold War gadgetry like the Field Mic Field Upgrade to watch out for nearby enemies while other teammates may focus on taking out vehicles with Perks like Engineer and Cold-Blooded and Weapons like the Cigma 2 Launcher.

Keep reading for even more tips to take with you into Black Ops Cold War’s beta.

General Tips to Consider While Playing

• The biggest tip that we can give you today is to simply have fun with the Cold War Beta. Forgot your KDR and in-game stats as nothing ends up transferring to the main game at launch anyway. Instead, use this time to perfect your settings and learn the ins and outs of all the different maps and modes that the Beta has to offer.
• With no stat transfer, use this time to perfect your settings and learn the ins and outs of the different maps and modes.
• Furthermore, try out some of the different weapons that the game has to offer, as what you think may be terrible, could just end up being your new favorite weapon!
• Remember, reaching level 10 in the Beta will unlock the Mutual Animosity Weapon Blueprint at launch!
• Not all items, maps and modes will be available during the first weekend as Treyarch has limited the level cap to just 25. While the level cap for the second Beta weekend has yet to be revealed, we would expect this to rise to approximately level 40.

Tweak these Settings to Enhance Your Gameplay

• At long last, a Field of View Slider has finally been introduced! This is the first time in Call of Duty history that players can adjust their Field of View on consoles. When adjusting the FOV slider, which you will find in the settings, keep in mind that the higher you set the bar, the more frames that you will lose. While it’s entirely personal preference, we found that setting the slider between 100 and 105 was a great balance.
• Nobody likes losing frames, so in order to regain some, consider turning off your Horizontal Compass in the HUD Elements settings. With no need to constantly render anymore, you’ll earn yourself some extra frames. With even more customization options to be found in the HUD Elements, try playing around with the settings and find things that you don’t necessarily need such as the Ally Health Bars.
• Next, be sure to turn off Motion Blur as it makes both your environment and weapon kind of blurry. With the setting enabled, you’ll find it significantly more challenging to accurately fire your shots. 
• Being able to hear your opponents is crucial, so if you’re struggling to hear them, try turning your Audio Presets setting to High Boost. This will help make enemy footsteps even louder.
• Enabling the Slowdown and Strafing Aim Assist setting can drastically help make you more accurate and ultimately land more kills.
• Don’t be fooled though, the game will not automatically aim for you, as you’ll still need to do the majority of the aiming yourself. 
• Finally, there is no better time than the beta to test your preferred sensitivity, as you will be surprised at just how much of a difference that a small tweak can make to your gameplay experience. As stated before, these settings are all personal preference, however, most streamers and professional players will run their sensitivity somewhere between the range of 7 to 12.

Team Communication is Key

• Communicating with your team is crucial in Call of Duty, especially as you face more challenging and experienced opponents. This is why the popular Ping system has made its debut in all of Cold War’s multiplayer modes.
• The locational Ping system will allow you to ping objectives, loot, locations, and enemies for your teammates.
• By default, Ping is mapped to the Left D-Pad on controllers and Z on keyboards. To ping an enemy’s locations or trap, double-tap Ping to create a dedicated Danger Ping.

Essential Combat Tips and Tricks to Help You Dominate on the Battlefield

• Before we delve any deeper, throw everything that you know about Modern Warfare and Warzone right out the window, as we cannot stress enough that Black Ops Cold War does not play like any of these two games. 
• Cold War instead rewards those that play slow and smart, as you will want players to come to you. 
• When it comes to traversing the maps, you will want to avoid traveling through highly populated areas. You will quickly notice that all of the maps encourage you to meet in the middle. Instead, outsmart your opponents by scouting along the outskirts, slowly picking them off as they cross your path while heading towards the middle. 
• Much like other Treyarch games, the Time to Kill is longer than usual. We’ve estimated that the TTK is approximately an extra shot longer when compared to the likes of Modern Warfare and Warzone. The new TTK will take a while to get used to, so in the meantime just remember to keep shooting until your enemies are actually dead.
• Landing headshots has never been more important, so be sure to utilize them as much as possible as they will help lower your TTK significantly. 
• Scorestreaks have received an overhaul as they will no longer reset on death! Don’t be fooled though, as deaths do still matter as they actually play a significant part in being able to earn points towards purchasing scorestreaks.
• While scorestreaks don’t reset on death, your score multiplier will. With scorestreaks carrying some hefty prices, earning them has become a little more challenging as you won’t start earning big points until you’ve reached at least a 4 killstreak.
• Those with high KDR’s will benefit from the new system as they will earn scorestreaks significantly faster than those that die more often.
• When traversing the maps of Miami, Armada, and Satellite be sure to keep an eye out for Snipers! You can usually spot a Sniper by looking for the shiny glints. This will indicate that they’re currently aiming down the scope – hopefully not at you. 
• Don’t be surprised to see more shotguns, as the changes to Create-A-Class has now placed them in the secondary weapon category. So keep your guard up and traverse those tight corridors of Moscow carefully.
• Lasers will not give away your position in-game! So, don’t be afraid to attach them to your weapons.
• While it may take a few minutes to become available, the Field Mic is arguably one of the most powerful Field Upgrades available in the Beta. Acting essentially as a ground UAV, the Field Mic will highlight enemy sounds within a certain radius on your mini-map.
• Movement has also received a massive update since the Alpha. With improved movement, Strafing has become even more effective. For those unaware, Strafing can be described as always being on the move when firing at enemies. Constantly moving side to side will throw off your enemies shot, making them much more likely to miss.
• Remember to always use your equipment! Hoarding your Tactical, Lethal, and Field Upgrades while you wait for that perfect moment will provide no advantage. In most cases you’ll likely end up dying before you even get that chance, wasting a potential opportunity.
• Cold War has no weapon flinch, so when an enemy starts firing at you, your weapon and aim will not move.
• You can now reload while aiming down the sights, as the much-loved feature from Modern Warfare has made a return to the Black Ops series.
• If you’re struggling to compete with your opponents during a match, you’ll be happy to know that you can now edit and completely customize your Loadouts on the go!
• As annoying as the saying “Can anyone take out that Spy Plane” may be, you’ll want to be using your UAV scorestreaks at all times throughout the Beta. As this is your first time playing the maps, the UAV can help you gain a better understanding of popular routes and player spawn locations.