Experience earning dark matter
Decided to write about my experience earning dark matter camo. Decided to order primary weapons in order within my own frustration index rated each gun from 1-10. Launchers I found to be one of the less frustrating items however sort of random compared to other challenges required. Depends people get loads of killstreaks against my team so yea for better players I can see why it would be. Dark matter camo hunt comes down to loads of headshots.
Yet to finish need to do SMGs, LMGs, 2 pistols and M8A7.
Frustration index
- Combat knife 10
- Snipers 9.5
- Shotguns 8
- Pistol 7
- SMG 6
- LMG 5
- AR 4
Combat knife was most frustrating item to get gold with snipers following in close second.
Now to talk about each one in order about my experience in general.
Combat knife
Need to get combat knife gold with pistols for dark matter.
Combat knife is one of the better melee weapons we have in call of duty for some time lunge is back to normal standards around. Don’t agree with the gameplay mechanics of the knife mainly the length of the animation. Does suffer from the length of the knifing animation which can get you killed due to being long in my eyes. Knife does suffer from high amount of inconsistency when it comes to sliding and knifing. Events like double knifing or less lunge or sliding to knifing resulting in different longer animation got me killed. Once you get used to the knife how it works things become easier with time learning experience in general.
Requires a playstyle which is passive/aggressive exploiting the movement system getting to places which are within your range. Looking back at times I did lack the patience needed for this playstyle and made some silly mistakes. Combat knife is high risk high reward with couple things I dislike about it.
Combat knife could be deeply frustrating can times spawns can screw you over nothing you can do. When I did have a degree of patience played the movement system right calculated routes and predicted what my opponents had some good games. Should have done the knife only thing between games instead of just doing knife only for every lobby. Making 4 melee only classes meant I spent all my time going knife only which caused me to get deeply frustrated screwing over my mental state making loads of bad choices.
Times it did play off I enjoyed my time with the knife rather fun doing that playstyle. My best advice is get shotguns done as you do the knife both sharing similar play styles.
Challenges start off simple with 200 kills which takes some time, little bit of advice is stuns and stealth perks. Knife only can work if you use various tools example stuns or sliding.
Challenges are the same as Black ops 2 combat knife
- Knife 10 enemies in the back.
- Get 5 Survivor medals using the Combat Knife.
- Earn 5 Revenge medals with the Combat Knife.
- Kill 5 enemies using their own weapon, after killing them with the Combat Knife.
- Get 5 Bloodthirsty medals using only the Combat Knife.
Heat wave is useful when doing some of these challenges.
Snipers
Never been a fan of snipers in any call of duty game always hated it. Understand why people dislike snipers mainly people play the class wrong try to rail gun with it instead of watching over lines of sights and switching to pistols. Want to be successful required to relearn how to snipe. Can be decent with overkill or switching to pistols. Should be sniping with overkill if you want to be aggressive or pistol switching loads when you move. Dislike rail gunners as much everybody else but understand why players do it given the overall design of CoD.
Defined weapon niche
Treyarch obvious have vision what weapons should do and should not do. Designers with experience often have vision what they want, Treyarch has tried to do this in the past. Trying to get rail gunners to snipe and be more defensive over aggressive. However….studio designers have attacked what makes sniping work in CoD which is drag scoping and long ish range kills. Not sure I agree with this change due to how various gameplay mechanics.
Back in the black ops 1 days designers added random movements to the scope which decreased the odds of you hitting your shot within certain period of time. Scope would be forced to settle down however…..this nerfed quick scoping, drag scoping and long range sniping all at the same time. Snipers suffered hard pretty much forced to long range distances, mid range sniping was no no. At the time sort of understood why this was done rail gunners was common within CoD4/WaW/MW2 people would be overly aggressive with snipers or pull off crazy trick shots.
Obvious the designers wanted to avoid what snipers had become for the community mobile rail guns which was deeply frustrating to play against and break the role snipers meant to fill. Designers did remove some of the changes or tone it down. Making rail gunning little bit easier but making it so snipers could fit into the niche again. Black ops 2 Treyarch made further changes making it harder to rail gun but left snipers untouched apart from couple balance changes. Rail gunning was pretty inconsistent for me whatever the CoD. Black ops 3 designers removed aim assist, lowered it trying to force snipers into long range sniper niche role. Same issue as black ops 1 screwed up the sniper niche making inconsistent sniping a thing. Better compared to black ops 1 which was random this gameplay mechanic forced you to relearn how to snipe.
Not saying want return of rail gun snipers but feel the solution of low aim assist and none is lazy damaging the class removing snipers from the niche role. Vertical elements of the game with various other design choices mean snipers are harder to use. Very easy to dodge avoiding being hit if you know what you’re doing. Not the best sniper in the world but don’t agree with this change at all. Seen some players who can rail gun but not very common often down to luck and positioning. Even if you snipe still at major disadvantage given how the game is designed. Would like to see designers test out other ways to nerf rail gunners and improve snipers after using them high skill ceiling weapon with little or no reward. Snipers are currently at serious disadvantage which is why I bring this up and wish anybody all the best of luck trying to get them gold. Amount of frustration I had with snipers was same level as the knife, knife did teach me that patience is important. Snipers ended up teaching me this game has loads of random elements within it which screw over players at times. Gotten to the stage of not caring about my score due to grinding for dark matter.
Relearning to snipe and advice
Designers have not screwed up sniping changed how it works forcing you to relearn how to snipe. Pretty much have to pre aim, hold your idle sway steady if you want to drag scope you need to move your body not your aim. Relearning how to play with sniper takes loads of practise pretty much forced do it. Possible to do but requires loads of patience and practise. Various tactics you can use which help you pretty much have to be on your toes when sniping and ready.
Not sure how to explain it but feels alien at first.
Moving on to my experience with snipers…..
Dakon is semi auto sniper which should be used like a DMR or markman rifle. Dakon has tiny amount of aim assist which you can notice, smaller than average idle sway think of it as Sheiva in sniper form. Patience rewards you over spam fire shots, worse version of the Sheiva overall. Did enjoy using the Dakon however why use it over the XR-2/M8A7/Sheiva or ICR-1 in it current state. Best way of getting one shot kills is HC spent most of my time in HC with this sniper plus handy pistol to get headshots. Found dakon worked well with recon or default scope and could lay down fire. Liked the Dakon but found it to be worse version of the Sheiva. Dakon requires the right position to make it work with you being mobile markman over a sniper.
Locus first bolt action sniper does not have any aim assist you can feel it forced to learn how to aim again. Movement system screws over snipers with the locus becomes obvious however….by turning down my turn speed found some luck with it. Balanced performance with not many penalties still frustrating to use the locus. More forgiving compared to the SVG due to the higher rate of fire. My lowest K.D sniper not sure why but could not gel with the sniper. Not a bad sniper I can see why people like it but myself did not enjoy using it and my aim let me down with hit markers. Part of me thinking it due being more aggressive with it which does not work out so good. However does free up attachments to use due to low idle sway. Could be mental thing given how people like this sniper so much I dislike it and how much people spam it. Rail gunning with this sniper can work however would not say it good idea given how random it can be. Noticed that centring your aim is key to landing shots quickly when comes to sniping something I found hard to pull off. Lower sensitivity however makes it easier to pull off sniping with the locus. Downside to the locus if you aim at the wrong part of the body can get hit markers which means death.
P-06 burst fire sniper with some aim assist sort of like it but again like the dakon why use it over XR-2/M8A7/Sheiva or ICR-1. Melts people when you can aim on target just dirty good. Loads of people found success using ELO on console but I did not. Second favourite sniper behind the SVG due to just being cool. Low ish burst delay which makes follow up shots easy and stupid powerful. Not sure what else to say…
SVG-100 grandad sniper designed to be the sniper of the class. Meant to hang back be defensive punishing people who are unaware of your location. Does not work as mobile sniper but found success moving from spot to spot just punishing people from uncommon lines of sight. Handling traits of the sniper are rubbish with 400ms aim down sight time with 42 rpm high idle sway. Biggest issue I had with this sniper was the idle sway and lack of aim assist but feels like sniper should be. Rewarding patience snipers who can time shots and aim. Requirement is getting into the right mental state when using this sniper and thinking about the maps like a chess board. Using this snipers I did learn about dozens of lines of sights and counter lines of sight.
My nickname for this sniper is Grandad fun to use sometimes but doubt I use it much after getting it finished.
Still found snipers hard to use even within range meant to be used due to the lack or low aim assist. Deeply frustrating weapons to use but could be fun at times. Best attachments suppressor, thermal, recon, extended mags, CPU. Depends on the sniper but suppressor just good whatever sniper. CPU is great on the SVG, thermal is good on locus. Doing the camo challenges for snipers made me rethink my playstyle becoming more passive when required.
Camo challenges with snipers are not that bad apart from the killstreak ones. Double kills are down to luck and require degree of good aim. Killstreaks did cause the most pain….some advice is only move one stick at time when sniping. Easier to line up shots I found over moving both trying to fight the idle sway and sticks. Some people have found success with overkill snipers but why not use long range weapon instead. Overkill with sniper appears to be good choice in my eyes.
Too long didn’t read on snipers
Short version patch snipers so they can snipe and nerf rail gunners. Snipers don’t fit into any niche and pointless in current state. Require bit too much practise in order to be good.
Shotguns
Disclaimer got shotguns diamond before Treyarch did any rebalancing so my experience may be different compared to yours. In general shotguns are okay borderline useful from my experience make use of the movement system can do some work. Playing it very much like combat knife making use of the movement position and having the same sort of mental state. Various tactics you can use to make shotguns work better like setting up traps.
KRM pump action used to be 1-4 hit kill inconsistent with short one hit kill range. Due to doing the camo challenges avoided using pistols or C4 or ghost. Ghost is useful for shotguns, C4 along with pistols rounds out the class making it good. Lack of one hit kill range still an issue but always 2 hit kill now, aiming down sights does increase one hit kill range little bit but hipfire still better. Suffers from low one hit kill length sort makes no sense to aim down sights with the KRM. From inconsistent to consistent performance easier to use, Argus is decent choice if you have good aim. KRM got buffed now always 2 hit kill with little bit longer one hit kill range but still small. Quickdraw is the best attachment in my eyes, laser is not required due to the spreads can help keep you mobile. Do enjoy the KRM far more compared to launch which was terrible.
Haymaker 300rpm shotgun that 2-4 hit kill from numbers point of view often at a disadvantage. Easy to use spam shotgun that can do loads of damage, good hipfire and good ADS spread. Most of the time I hipfire the haymaker or ADS if somebody is super close. Spray and prey 🙂
Long barrel, fast mags, extended mags are good choices.
Brecci kind of awesome as shotgun also my favorite shotgun even if harder to use compared to the haymaker. 2-4 hit kill often 2-3 hits to kill. Normally spam it hipfire and avoid any sort of ADS. Like the Haymaker ADS is good sooo ye…
Same with sort of attachment choices as Haymaker but I don’t like long barrel that just me.
Argus feels like KSG 12 with pellets over just slugs and has less range compared to the KSG 12. Still always a one hit kill if you aim down sights until maximum range. Quickdraw, stock and suppressor good choices. Argus is hard to use and my lowest K.D shotgun like the KSG 12 was in BO2.
Only issue I had with shotguns was Haymaker, Brecci requiring 100 headshots to even start the final challenges should be 50. Killstreaks just required some clever positioning and exploiting movement system. After using snipers and combat knife grown to love shotguns but still tier 3 weapons.
Pistols
Pistols strong choices for secondary weapon powerful enough to earn spot with various weapons. So far enjoyed using pistols started to use them on various other classes and pistol only classes. Going pistol only is more useable compared to knife only along with forgivable. Does present it own challenges and not going to be meta domination. Some people complained about pistols in the past during BO2. Pistols have been nerfed due to having limited aim assist range sort of makes sense.
MR6 similar to the five seven from black ops 2 one key difference is damage/range. Five seven 2-6 bullets to kill, MR6 3-5 bullets to kill. Often 3-4 bullets to kill due to the range numbers however pistols have no aim assist after certain range. Hardcore mode pistol is good enough to be part of the meta but given every other weapon damage/range they can one hit kill you from longer distance. Liked the MR6 even using it pistol only can be decent. Pistol only does present it own challenges due to the lack of aim assist after certain distance. Apart from getting 100 headshots easy to get the pistols done and good enough to be used instead of launcher. In my eyes should be 50 headshots over 100 headshots. Challenges are pretty easy to do just headshots are grindy.
RK5 headshots with this weapon has been pretty painful so far due to the recoil. Unlike the MR6 this pistol sucks in hardcore but good with snipers or slow firing assault rifles. Yet to finish the headshots on this gun or start the LCAR.
Assault rifles
Not much to say assault rifles are good in this game certain ones which don’t like still good. Headshots high caliber is your friend makes it easier to earn 100 headshots. Enjoyed KN44, XR-2, Sheiva, M8A7, HVK-30. M8A7 just started to use final one to get gold.
After using the snipers found new love for the Sheiva.
Submachine guns and LMGs yet to start.
Sucks that we don’t have high caliber on submachine guns because would make it easier. Right now around 50 headshots on most SMGs apart from later unlock ones and LMGs no headshots.