Highlights
- Modern Warfare 3 Zombies' exfils have been nerfed, resulting in a boring and simple exfil experience due to fewer Zombies spawning.
- The nerf was implemented to address stability issues and server crashes caused by players farming camo challenges and spawning large hordes of Zombies. While this farming was problematic, making exfils lackluster is not a good solution.
- Treyarch should find better solutions to the exfil issues that balance stability and fun gameplay, as intense exfils should not be eliminated entirely.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies has been a bit of an unexpected success for Treyarch. When it was first announced, much of the Zombies fan base pushed back against the idea of an open-world experience, especially after Vanguard 's objective gameplay disappointed. However, though there are issues such as a reused Warzone map instead of an original location, most players seem to be having a good time with the mode. Replayable, unique, and ambitious, there is plenty to praise about Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3 Zombies, but unfortunately, exfils are no longer a strength.
Prior to the latest patch for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies, exfils were a terrific taste of the Zombies gameplay fans had fallen in love with over the years. While enemies attack constantly throughout the match, they come in small groups, but exfils gave a chance for players to train gigantic hordes and rack up hundreds of kills. Fighting a massive amount of Zombies made exfils feel more intense and meaningful, serving as a proper finale to the match. Unfortunately, exfils are a shell of their former selves and are now terribly bland, and it would be a shame if the nerf to them was not reverted.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies’ Exfil Nerf Can’t Be The Answer
Why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies Nerfed Exfils
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies has lowered the amount of Zombies spawning in at exfils from dozens to just 10, and the result is a boring exfil process that is far easier than it needs to be. Dialogue from Fang about “clearing the exfil area” makes little sense when the landing zone only has a few Zombies to fire at, and the entire gameplay loop lacks the payoff it once had. The reason for this nerf to Zombies spawns is understandable, to be fair, but there has to be a better solution that Treyarch can come up with.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies’ gigantic hordes were making the game less stable according to Treyarch, resulting in server crashes and disconnects. More specifically, games were crashing because players used exfils to farm camo challenges, constantly calling in the exfil chopper and letting it depart to spawn more hordes. This, when coupled with an exploit that let players spawn dozens of Sentry Guns at once, resulted in a lot of late-game crashes. Considering how Modern Warfare 3 Zombies’ instability has led to a lot of early game crashes already, the exfil farming causing late-game crashes as well meant that far too many matches were ending in disconnects and lost loot.
The Call of Duty Zombies community has been quick to lash out at camo grinders for ruining the exfil experience, but that does not take into account how some players find enjoyment in grinding camos. While the Sentry Gun spam was absolutely a step too far, those just trying to get lots of weapon kills were not doing anything wrong, and many likely did not know that they were making matches unstable.
Better Solutions To Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s Exfil Issues
While stability is important, especially in a mode like Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3 Zombies where players need to exfil to keep their schematics and other loot, it should not come at the cost of the gameplay experience. Hopefully, Treyarch plans to bring back the big exfil hordes in some way, as they were a vital part of the experience. There are several routes the developer could take to do this while discouraging the farming that sparked the instability.
- Making it so that squads can only use each exfil zone once per match.
- Prevent the use of items that could potentially cause instability during exfils, like streaks.
- Even longer cooldowns between exfil site usage.
- Limiting weapon XP acquired by killing exfil site Zombies.
- Spawning in Tier 2 or Tier 3 Zombies if players stay at one exfil site for too long.
No matter what approach Treyarch takes, intense exfils should not be a thing of the past. They went a long way to ending a match with a bang instead of a whimper, as the only other place where players can reliably fight several Zombies at once is Escort contracts, which do not allow players to train up big hordes like exfils did. In their original form, exfils provided entertaining gameplay that is not seen elsewhere in MWZ. Though camo grinders did get out of hand, nerfing exfils to oblivion not only makes getting certain camos painful, but makes the mode as a whole feel less satisfying.
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