MW3’s latest update features massive changes to Tac Sprint, Armory Unlocks

Sledgehammer Games released another significant update to Modern Warfare 3 on Nov. 17, focused primarily on addressing an “aggressive” issue with Tac Sprint, a much-needed improvement to Armory Unlocks, and a handful of fixes for Zombies.

This is the second major update to MW3 in just a matter of days, although the Nov. 15 update dealt primarily with multiplayer issues rather than ones with Zombies.

MW3 Nov. 17 update patch notes

The most significant update affecting MW3 gameplay is the changes to Tac Sprint. In the patch notes, the team at Sledgehammer addressed the Tac Sprint delay after sliding that was added during launch, noting that it was too “aggressive.” The update today should “improve movement fluidity without making slide and Tac Sprint repetition the only viable choice for players.”

The Tac Sprint refresh delay after sliding has been reduced by 75 percent, and the refresh time has also been decreased “to match the Infantry Vest/Running Sneakers.” The delay between sliding and traditional sprinting has also been reduced by 53 percent.

Progression-wise, the Armory Unlocks system has been controversial among players, to say the least, with many expressing frustrations at the number of items that need to be unlocked while rolling their eyes at daily challenges that ask them to use gear that hasn’t even been unlocked yet. But today’s update will make it go a bit faster, as players will now advance Armory Unlocks via wins regardless if all three daily challenges are completed or not. A future UI modification will “better reflect this change.”

MW3 Zombies has not had the smoothest of launches, but a number of stability and gameplay improvements have been made, with the biggest being a reduction in the number of zombies that spawn at active exfil locations. Farming zombies at exfil has been a popular method of playing among players, but the practice wreaked havoc on the match’s servers, sometimes crashing the entire thing. A number of major fixes have also been made to various zombie-related exploits, bugs, stability issues, and progression issues.