Tried something a tiny bit different and this time we're looking at a whole game overall instead of a single map! Shadows is still coming soon, it's half done already, but while we wait: what are everyone's thoughts on Black Ops 3? It's a lot of people's favourite game, but is that only because of the story and the maps? Do people love the underlying mechanics too? I'd love to hear what you think!

im surprised you didnt mention sliding and slide jumping, a pretty simple addition that had a massive effect on player movement, it mightve been a bit too powerful but slide jumping in bo3 was a really fun way to traverse maps

I think double pap is a great addition because every gun that wasn't a wonder weapon was useless after round 50 on older games

I absolutely loved the mechanics of upgrading guns and attachments. It was a grind getting all of the guns' attachments and fully leveling up every gun, but it's nice being able to control what sights they have and how they operate instead of BO2's randomness.

On the topic of Gobblegums that absolutely broke the game: Near Death Experience. "Revive or be revived simply by standing near other players. Revived players keep all their perks, including Quick Revive." In multiplayer it at least pretended to be balanced by needing another player nearby, but if you were playing solo, as long as you had Quick Revive, you literally couldn't die for four rounds.

i'd still play zombies even if there wasn't an xp system, but i appreciate it because it feels like my progress is going somewhere and not just disappearing into a game over screen

Another problem with gobble gums is that it’s not clear when people are using them. It might sometimes be better to let a player revive themselves, bleed out, or get revived by another teammate, in order to keep their perks. If they can’t communicate they’re using one of their mega gobble gums to you, they’re losing their perks/weapons in addition to their gum, incentivizing leaving games. It would be nice if they had added an icon next to a players score that displayed active gums, so that players had a chance to learn what they do (and when they’re being used) without needing to use gums themselves. It would also help players decide whether or not certain resources are necessary in emergency situations, or just strategize in general, without the use of traditional methods of communication. It’s often vital information that’s hidden from players.

My biggest problem with bo3 is how they made the zombies hit WHILE RUNNING AT YOU ! You seriously cant tell me it was tested ... like seriously all those og clutches that people used to do on motd for example are just gone . You cant do that anymore because 2 zombies running at you hitting you in close corners without widows or a shield WILL ALWAYS DOWN YOU ! Atleast custom zombies exists :)

I've never had more fun in a cod zombies game mode then bo3s

My one issue with BO3 zombies is the sound. They somehow made the zombies feel everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I personally despite the weapon kits system in BO3 and onwards It basically killed off unique PaP variants that were such a cool thing in BO1 and WaW. Starring BO2 most guns had random attachments but there were still a notable few with different firemodes and functions. Now 3 games later in CW, the classic 1911 doesn't even fire the explosive rounds it came known for in Zombies

I might be on my own but I really like the progression stuff, especially as I’ve gotten older I’ve drifted from roguelike type of games as I have a strange “what’s the point” sort of feeling in my mind. That little bit of progression let’s me feel a bit better, that even though I failed a map or it’s EE that it wasn’t for nothing, that I got something from it. It kinda gives me a drive to play a bit more as my progress won’t be reset to 0

Dashboarding is a good exploit to save and collect gobblegums. But I agree that doing it with others is lame and should only be done in solo.

Black Ops 3 Zombies was great despite of his flaws because if you play this game on PC, you will have blast with the workshops and mods, if I remember correctly this is the las COD game that developers actually gave the community the tools to create their own multiplayer experiences in terms of both MP and Zombies.

been loving all of these zombies retrospectives man keep up the good work! crazy to see how fast your channel is growing too haha

For good players in plain sights is gamebreaking. I have done the Gorod EE in 1h 19 min without gums and maaaan... The one gum I missed was in plain. The only thing that would have made it MUCH harder would have been no shield or no jugg or no mk 3 (bc mk3 literally makes valkyre step and mangler step so easy as well as killing nikolai)

I disagree with a lot of the points made here. Mega gobblegums are dummy broken, yes, but they're extremely rare and valuable so 9 times out of 10 you won't be using perkaholic or shopping free, ect on a map and will be experiencing the progression exactly as intended. Yes, some people will cheat for infinite ones and spam them relentlessly, but they're actively choosing to ruin the fun for themselves. On AATs, they _absolutely_ do NOT take away from the specialness of regular wonderweapons. They have a (usually quite long) cooldown making it so that they are an unreliable source of killing unless you're using a high-round training strat where that is your sole source of survival (at which point you're probably a good enough player that having a WW or not doesn't matter) , and they have a much smaller range of effectiveness meaning not only do you have to wait to be able to activate the ability, it's usually going to kill far less zombies than an actual wonderweapon would. You say it makes the WWs of BO3 far less sought-after or iconic, yet BO3 has some of the most iconic wonderweapons in the series since the thundergun. And on it "only" being 2500 to double-pack, yeah that's not that much in itself but you have to also add on the fact that you have to already have pack'd your weapon, and then the AAT you get is random, making it often take FAR more than 2500 to get the one you want. You also praise the specialist weapons, which I want to point out basically act as an extra wonder weapon every player can carry that, yet again, is far more powerful than AATs. All this without even bringing up the point that AATs are so much fun for both casual and hardcore players! For casuals who can't rely on them to survive, still being able to turn zombies into allies, or blowing up a zombie in an array of fireworks is just straight up fucking cool and fun. For hardcore players it MASSIVELY improved high rounds, you don't have to rely soly on traps or wasting dozens of hours trading out your WW in the box over and over again due to the restricive ammo anymore, you can actually use your other weapons once you run out of ammo in your WW now, and it still takes skill to manage the cooldowns for small bursts of infinite damage, unlike later games like Cold War's awful approach where every weapon is straight up just a wonder weapon. Love the content, just wanted to give my viewpoint on these points I feel are rather unfair

Unfortunately I don’t think that bo3 “overcame” it’s game design. The MTX broke matchmaking. I also found the the zombie ai to be easier to handle. Comparing the flow of WAW/BO1’s Der Riese to Bo3’s Giant is like a night and day difference. Bo3 zombie AI seems to take ages before they ever put on the pressure that could be experienced in WaW/Bo1 early rounds

I have so many rare gobble gums because I always just used the classic gums

Me: “Gobblegums are overpowered and the biggest flex is not using them and makes the game fair and balanced!” Also me: *Uses Gobblegums since i know my dumbass can’t even upgrade an origins staff without them in solo.

Gobble gums: It would have been perfect if they had one gobblegum that wasn't a consumable and gave you a random mega/consumable one One like that did exist in the game but it was also a consumable, although it did give you two or three different gobblegums out of it. Would have been perfect.

I wondered where you'd gone. Nice to see you my recommended again 👍

The red hex grind was still fun for me tbh It didn't have any stupid challenges that were a bit weird or didn't really make a lot of sense. But red hex being as simple as "hey get like alot of kills" was a fun way to go out of your way to try a weapon that may not have exactly been the best. Earlier games didn't really have this so I never really went out of my way to use certain guns in other games

man i love your retrospective videos! this was well done and i agree with most of the points you’ve made, however this is still my favorite cod game in terms of zombies. despite its flaws, it was such a great game overall

ghosts didnt start that trend. bo2 did with the peacekeeper

The Gobblegums are one of the few times I've actually been okay with a "pay to win" model. These models often kill multiplayer player bases, because you have the winners who buy all the microtransactions to get that edge over you, when you're just trying to get good with skill. But Zombies isn't a versus mode, it's cooperative. And you don't win, you just last longer. As someone who wants to earn those high rounds in zombies, I don't buy any Divinium, and usually only use classic Gobblegums. I know getting to round 30 or higher isn't impossible without mega gobblegum, because half of the maps came from games that had no gobblegum at all. If I'm in a public lobby and somebody happens to have some crazy overpowered gobblegum on them, it's just a rare treat for me. And occassionally, I do earn enough divinium to get some for myself. It's never enough that I can just cheese the game, but that's the way I like.

The weapon kits are highly underrated putting fast mags on an lmg is game changing

Gobble gums are no problem on the PC with that MXT menu. Unlimited megas

Shadows is a masterpiece. No other map tops it

Yeah the main problem I think was the games changes made it much easier and lose most of that sense of progression. Artificially limiting yourself to not use gobblegums Is available but I prefer to use what the game has to offer most of the time. Especially when gobblegum is accessible at the very start of the game. No power turning on, just in the starting room or next room over

Gobblegum single handedly broke BO3 for me, it made the entire game I enjoyable for me as one of the main ways I enjoyed zombies with surviving with Randoms. It’s why BO2 remains my favorite as all the memories I made with randoms surviving or doing an Easter egg in a public lobby was some of the most fun I had. But became next to impossible or completely unenjoyable in BO3. It’s why I rank BO4 over BO3 as even though BO3 has more value and objectively better ratio of good maps vs bad maps since elixirs were more balanced than gobblegum it was more fun since public lobbies were still enjoyable. While I gotta disagree that it overcame it (I’d argue BO4 did) I would say I agreed with almost everything you said here. Excellent video

I think the thing that makes bo3 the best cod is that both Zombies and multiplayer were impeccable

I really hope you talk about Infinite Warfare zombies after BO3. It really improved and expanded on the BO3 style of zombies, unlike Advanced Warfare and WW2 largely being their own things.

I think the whole point of this OP gobblegums was so players could concentrate on the EE’s. For average players, specially those who play solo, EE’s can be difficult. Removing the need to spent 5-10 rounds setting up with perks and PAP, helps with the EE process.

Thank you... so much for talking about some of the intrinsic design flaws of BO3. I feel like a crazy person when I talk about them as "one step forward, one step back" and because the community now is largely on PC, they can just hack in all the Pay-to-Win items and use Perkaholic every map, break the game's balance and any complaints about enemy scaling or map choke points gets absorbed into "just get good or use megas." I don't know your opinion on it, but I think that BO4 handled its microtransaction situation far better. Increased earn rates, talismans, regular deals in the shop, and contracts all gave players who didn't want to spend money more accessibility. And for those that didn't care much about them, the selection of classics was also more well-rounded, removing the more powerful ones like in plain sight, sword flay and alchemical antithesis because of their ability to break up core progression a little bit too much, but adding the more useless megas like temporal gift to play into the small but situationally beneficial nature that they're *supposed* to provide.

Black ops 2 featured the first DLC gun. The peacekeeper SMG, which was attached to the first map pack for BO2. There was actually talk about each map pack having a DLC weapon attached to it. However I do not remember how much of that is fact or rumour.

I only use gums for doing the super EE in one run

On PC at least matchmaking is in a horrible state. Due to the disconnect to save bubble gums everyone seems to have unlimited mega's. And they basically use reign drops to turn every game into an arcade shooter. Always at least 2 people in the lobby will have game breaking gums :(

ive always thought the leveling/challenge/weapon kit system were implemented very well in bo3, although this is with the benefit in hindsight, because theyre not very intrusive on your gameplay. the only things locked behind levels are weapon kits and gobblegums, both systems that arent really needed that badly by the player. theyre more conveniences, you can still very well succeed in a match without them. the camo and challenges were short little things that didnt really take that much grinding tbh (unless you include mega gobblegum challenges but thats an outlier....) contrast this with bo4 and cold war, where in the former you straight up cant use some perks without unlocking them and in the latter a lot of perk effects and equipment are locked behind levels/grinding. these games are very very intrusive to your gameplay when it comes to leveling. i dont have everything at my disposal from the start anymore. its extremely irritating and honestly it demotivates me to play these games. i should be able to hop in a map at level 1 or level 1000 and still have every important tool at my disposal regardless, yet these two games fail in that right. bo3, despite having a leveling system, doesnt fail like bo4 and cw imo. thats why i think the leveling system works in bo3.

Black ops 2 was actually the first cod to introduce weapons as micro transactions with the peacekeeper.

IMO BO3 should have continued what BO2 started,, gamemodes. A classic mode without gums and without secondary pap effects for example. It would have made obtaining wonderweapons more relevant etc and also appeal to the older audience who preferred their game to be somewhat challenging.

you can't even play with randoms anymore due to modders, so for pc users gobble gums with randoms isn't an issue because you can't even play with randoms

I just got so excited to see the thumbnail of this video!

Most annoying thing is with the chronicles maps like shi no numa and vurruckt how they put in the gobble gums but didn’t add pack a punch. They surely only did that so if you wanted pack on those maps you had to get lucky or buy gums. They already changed the maps like crazy with gums why not just let us use pack a punch.

Lol, I’m surprised you aren’t discussing Black Ops 3 BEING the design flaw. Your Call of The Dead story paints the perfect picture too, you can buy the two doors on the upper deck and not deal with that water at all. Is it tactically sensible? The main strat is training at the bottom of the lighthouse, so who cares? I bought jugg, and I don’t need to go back.

the only design positive for me was the double pack a punch. And maybe the three hit down system and was certainly better than the two hit down system which was a pain in the ass in the earlier games. Other than that, I think Black Ops 3 was the start of this removal of all challenge.

I always thought they could've remedied the Perkaholic issue by not making the perks have their effect (minus Quick Revive on solo) until the power was turned on like in TranZit and Buried when you used to turbine to power perks to buy them, it'd give you some fragility in the early game until you got power on and all of your perks activated.

Missed the bit where at game launch you used to not get a free gobblegum at round start

ty for uploading man

1:56 Not entirely true. Black Ops 2 had the Peacekeeper locked behind a paywall, and unlike in Ghosts, you couldn't acquire it separately from the map pack.

Amazing videos man, I love them, keep them up!

Great video as usual bro! Can’t wait for the shadows of evil one

I always immediately click any new video uploaded. Good work man and please keep it up

This is some really top notch content, I appreciate the effort you put into these videos. Just curious, do you ever plan on covering something other than cod zombies?

I’ve never actually heard anyone say nah I’m good on the apothican servant I got dead wire bro

When you've finished covering the bo3 maps it could be interesting to see you do a video on custom zombies and the impact it had on the game

Here me out, BO3 Zombies is amazing and the best one in the series for one reason on PC. Custom Zombie Maps

Let's not forget custom zombies on pc

Gobblegums add gameplay variety to zombies, where you were able to gain more perks on maps - in which you couldnt otherwise or even Pack a Punch in the World at War Maps. Also you can mess around with Power vacuums and Round Robbin in games, when you dont to play a serious game - thats why the progession skips are not a problem or flaw at all. The only problem with them is how people always want to use a perkaholic etc and then just want to close the game, so they dont lose it. You can also as example use Soda Fountain to gain all perks (admittlingly slower) or Extra Credit to have more points and open up the map faster - these two you get more often from your liquid divinium pulls . But people just insist on using Perkaholic/Shopping Free. Adding gameplay variety is a big plus. Another point is - alternate ammo types on your normal weapons really cant replace the way wonderweapons like Apothicon Servant, Thundergun, Lighting Bow, Wulf Bow, Wave Gun, Wind staff, Ice staff, etc can save you with a single shot as long as you have because the AATs have a cool down and none of them can kill 24 zombies. Also you should have mentioned how only 1 person could have gotten the wonderweapon on every map (besides Mob,ZNS and the staffs/bows), so people had to deal with their weapons damage dropoff which makes longer games just boring to casual player and with AATs thats just not longer the case. I mean Ascension, Call Of The Dead, Shangri-La and Moon had PHD + Mustang and Selly which would hold for a while atleast.

Gobblegum on console had bigger issues being that if the host left the game. The game itself would just end as 90% of the time. BO3 failed to transfer host. This was a big issue as people who leave due to as you said. People not wanting to lose their Gobblegum. Its for this reason that I rarely had a complete maps on the game outside of the Giant as people would just leave, especially on Rev and DE.

Out of all the gums, I almost never used Perkaholic or Power Vacuum after the first time it just feels like cheating

@7:50 I busted out laughing that you mentioned the server glitch with leaving a game to keep your gobble gums .

I like the goofy OP gobblegums since I still just play simple wave defence maps like Kino

This video makes me feel big and round

I am loving these essays on zombies maps, keep it up!

The 2 things I hated about Bo3 Zombies as an old school player like myself where Gobblegums which completely destroyed progression and skill in general and the Ai of the Zombies themselves I've always hated how unforgiving the Zombie Ai is for Bo3 in previous games when training you could learn the Ai and by mastering the pattern were rewarded by being able to get extremely close to the Zombies and create really good trains and really be able to show the skill of a Standard player to a Good player in WAW, Bo1, and Bo2. In Bo3 they Monkey punch the crap out of you and if you try to train like you did in the games before you would down because of how fast they swung. I never liked that and I know widows wine is a counter to that but I don't want a Crutch Perk plus it replaces standard Grenades making it more difficult to create crawlers and Widows throws off trains themselves because one swipe can cause a complete mess up of the train for those 2 reasons plus the sliding mechanic I really don't play Black Ops 3 and I don't even bother with the Garbage games that came afterward.

I think the biggest problem with bo3 zombies and the one that no one seems to get is overpowered against overpowered isn't good game design. There's been a lot of times where I died and I felt that it genuinely wasn't my fault. The AI aggression is exaggerated. I'd rather have a slower paced game where I die in two hits than a fast paced game where you die in 3 but the zombies are so doped up, it doesn't even matter. It leads to a lot of "bs" moments.

I’m a big campaigner for gameplay mechanic changes being done on a map to map basis not universally on the engine it lets map test different things and be unique whereas making it universal gives you bo4 where the stuck mechanics make you not even wanna play the best maps on that game Cold War suffers from This to why would I pick one map over another if they all have the same guns, perks and even enemies

Babe wake up new White Cliff Games video dropped

I just want the black tar heroin they were smoking when they put near death experience and power vacuum in zombies

What I think makes the whole change work is the fact that it's completely optional gör the player to use any of the new features

5:07 chill out bro, it’s just a drink.

"fireworks turning the zombie into a bomb" you mean turret?

There's my favourite Zombies channel. How have you been?

It’s funny, I never thought about how gobblegums broke up map progression. It’s probably why I got so burnt out of Zombies. Playing since World at War, BO3 definitely changed how zombies was played

i think one day bo3 zombies is gonna get an alt launcher that will completely change the game in a good way, rebalencing gobbles, better anticheat and maybe even a server list. I mean i dont think itll happen anytime soon if at all but a man can dream

Great video as always! I was hoping you'd explore the weapon kits a bit more, I always thought they removed the unique nature of each gun and made everything viable. While in BO2 and below a bad mystery box pull could be a game ender, in BO3 once you've got everything kitted out, every gun has a rudimentary version of double tap and speed cola applied to it. I personally opted to play without the weapon kits because I thought they affected the core gameplay loop so deeply. I also felt shotguns in general were given FAR too much of a damage buff and ended up being a mini wonder weapon right off the bat on every single map.

HAPPY PIE DAY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🥧 6:14p.m. 3/14/2023

About the consumable gums. You don’t need to turn off your console. You just have to end the game to keep your gums

Common white cliff games W

i love these analysis videos, so entertaining❤

Lol i have always horted them and now I literally have about 50 to 100 of any mega. I pretty much never use the ultrarare because they just kill the game. Powervacuum? I d rather go work a few hours than sit there and just spam the gum

Pretty good video but the whole thing about alternate ammo types making it so wonder weapons aren’t valuable is very silly. I agree that deadwire is clearly overpowered and turned/fireworks are slightly overpowered but saying they are good enough to the point where the bows, mark 3, and even APOTHICAN SERVANT of all things which is the example you gave is silly. The only time that applies is with the KT4 and the wunderwaffe but those are still a lot more reliable and better than the double packed guns as long as you have ammo and you could also attribute the issue to bad wonder weapons rather than double pack being a fundamental problem.

Great video! I think you can’t really talk about Bo3 without mentioning Zombie Chronicles…this DLC pack single-handily made Bo3 a favorite game for years to come. It added so much replay-ability. Regardless, I look forward to seeing the Shadows video :)

Before CW came out, BO3 was the one I put the most time into, I got to Prestige Master, but not all the way to 1000

it actually baffles me that people want gobblegums back

I think most of the downsides you bring up about BO3 are totally optional. For example, if you think mega gobble gums are broken, just don't use megas. If you think gobblegums in general ruin the experience of the game, just don't use them. If you think weapon kits make the game too easy, just don't use them. If you think aat are overpowered, just don't double pack. I find that each of these make the game more accessible to casual players and gives the players an opportunity to play the game as they want. None of these are forced onto the player which is the important thing. I find BO3 to be the best zombies game because I can grind high rounds solo if I want, or I can just have a laid back game with my friends that are trash at the game and have a great time either way. Also, I think that although megas are overpowered, they are very hard to get if you don't pay money. You probably get 1 perkaholic every 50 games or so. This makes it so the games where you do use the overpowered gums feel special since it's different from the normal zombies formula. Although you can say modding in megas and dashboarding ruin this, just don't do them if you don't want to. They are unintended mechanics by the developers just like the random pileups you could do in previous games that can ruin the experience but only if you go out of the way to do them. The best part about zombies imo is that it has the flexibility to be played however you want to play it and I think that adding more options only improves the game as a whole, especially since the way others play doesn't affect you in any way (unless you're playing public's but that's always been the minority of the player base). I also don't really understand the point made about the challenges being a negative thing. They are so easy to ignore if you don't care about them as you have to go out of your way to even see them but they add a new aspect to the game if that's your thing. I like having objectives to complete similar to how it can be fun to try to unlock camos in mp. It adds to the experience if you want it to and doesn't really take anything away if you don't go for them.

BO3 was by far the zombies I played the least. I think i played shadows a handful of times and found it unfun.

Great video that’s why lately I run classic goblegums only now so I’m not over powers you have to run classics for a high round to count legit

Great video

Some gubble guns are op

I mean it really didn’t, player counts and popularity as the game went on shows that.

BO3 did a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong. Too many on each side, to want to write it all down. However, for something it did well? Double pack making weapons useful beyond the early to mid rounds. I'll absolutely agree it should be far and away more expensive, but there is nothing skillful about high round trap strats. Something bad? Micro-transactions. There is nothing good about that evil in gaming. The three great evils in modern gaming are; Politics pushing, Micro-transactions, and unfinished products being touted as "Live-service." The only people fooled by any of these things, are the suckers born every minute. All are ruining gaming as a whole. All of these are in COD and have been to some degree for years. I'm over it, and long gone.

LETS GO NEW VID

Can you just mod to get as many mega gobblegums as you can want? Asking for a friend

Ah the Black Ops game that I hate the most since I never played BO4 since it ain’t even a game. And I hated every map in this I think, except for Der Riese. Fцск Gobblegum, fцск futuristic guns, fцск the Origins-like maps. I liked sliding and custom maps. That’s it.

the checklist issue is why i hate playing bo4, im always on edge trying to unlock all the stuff like the super long grind for attachments

Thank fucking god you mentioned how ridiculous mega gobblegums are, every other zombies youtuber I know always talk about them like they were some incredible game changing addition when in reality it was literally just a fucking reskinded loot crate

Just bought zombie chronicles. I have never played these maps before and it is the most fun i have had playing a game in a long time

Since I'm poor and I can't afford ps+ I can say that the xp levels sistems and the broken gobblegums aren't necessary to enjoy one of the BEST zombie games!! However its a pity that on local mode you can't unlock new gobblegums missing part of the content of the game. If someone knows a way to do this pls let me know!! Anyway, very nice video, I love your content