Treyarch tries to gaslight Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, leading players to believe that a hit-registration error is actually just 'erroneous blood effects'

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 players are currently experiencing a lot of hit registration problems. Numerous reports have been made about bullets disappearing when players are taking clean shots at enemies that just don't fall. Treyarch believes that it could be user error.

A Call of Duty update stated: "We've identified a problem that could cause erroneous blood effects when actual damage was not dealt while shooting at enemy in all modes." This means that players aren't hitting their targets and the problem is they get blood splatter like they are. This is not a satisfactory explanation for some players.

There's now a note from the community on the original post: "There is a hit-registration issue in Warzone, on the client's side." It is displayed that shots have hit enemies and the blood effect is shown, but the servers do not register them as valid hit. Therefore, the error lies with the unregistered hits, and not the blood effect.

There are two sides. Players claim that Treyarch servers are not keeping up with the number of authorized hits. Treyarch, on the other hand, seems to believe that players who report problems can't aim straight and don't hit anyone.

If only a few players reported this issue, it could be attributed to client-side issues like network. I've seen it happen before with my garbage internet, when I unload a magazine into someone's chest and get hit markers, only to have them walk away like nothing happened, and me lying on the ground like Swiss cheese. But I doubt that all complaints of faulty hit registration are due to a poor internet connection.

One player who regularly tests Warzone or Call of Duty for bugs thinks they may have a clue as to what's causing the issues: "Hitboxes of the client-side blood effects don't seem to line up with the real hitboxes. This means that sometimes, actual (near misses) will still show client-side blood effects. In some cases, shooting clothing and gear on operators outside the hitbox will still result in blood splatter. The actual hitboxes may be too small. But they also admit the hit registration or netcode could be broken.

The majority of players are certain that Treyarch is responsible for this issue, and the original tweet with blood splatters was only meant to cover up tracks, not to inform players. TacticalBrit says that the Call of Duty tweets are genuinely bad. "Because the know it's false. They know that it has nothing whatsoever to do with blood splatter. Anyone with even a week of game development experience knows this. They're deliberately being dishonest, which means they are actively lying about it.

"At worst, they're implying that visual blood splatter should not be linked to your client. It doesn't change that your shots should be on target and that your bullets are registering. They're saying, at worst, that they don't wish us to see the poor server/netcode infrastructure."

TacticalBrit continues to say that it's not the first time that players have experienced a similar problem in a Call of Duty title: "During [Modern Warfare 2], a video I made showed that every server lag and stutter was caused by Infinity Ward insisting that we have AI in-game in Warzone. It took them several months to reverse that decision. "Only because other people also got vocal."

ModernWarzone's response to Treyarch explaining the blood splatter is a good summary of the wider response: "Oh, we're gaslighting now." I will say, however, that just because Treyarch may have been misinformed in their response does not mean that they are intentionally misleading players. We're hoping to get a more honest explanation or proof in the next few weeks that this isn’t a server or hit registration issue.