DaveLo07

Ah Ok, I assume that quote is from the live stream earlier? I wasn't actually aware it was commented on, but that makes sense. Thanks for the heads up. And yeah, you really have to take most of what support say with a pinch of salt, their knowledge seems pretty limited. At least we know it is not worth searching for it at the present time. It may be linked to the easter eggs and summoning key, but I think it is also pretty evident we are going to be getting a lot more of this Apothicon language at some point, so wonder if that will link with finding it, being able to understand what the wonder weapon quotes are saying.

Not really sure where I should post this, but I didn't think it was worth starting a thread for. Spoke to Activision support tonight about a couple of issues with the game and decided to ask a couple of questions about the Apothicon Servant upgrade. The support agent gave slightly conflicting information, but thought I would link the conversation anyway for anyone still looking for the upgrade as I think this response is leaning towards there not being a way to upgrade at all, or the weapon not being able to be upgraded at this point in time:

I think it's a non-issue. Now that a different developer is involved, it doesn't effect quality for xbox one or ps4 players. If I was still stuck on last gen with the already limited game they have been given, I would be pretty pissed if they didn't release any dlc, and considering multiplayer and zombies maps have already been made for last gen, I don't see the logic in not releasing the dlc?

Activision have announced that the Awakening DLC will be released for PlayStation 3 on the 5th of April. This is good news for forum members still playing on last gen consoles. Nothing has been announced yet for Xbox 360, but the exclusivity deal may still apply, so I would guess that 360 players may have to wait until May. Article from charlieintel: http://charlieintel.com/2016/03/29/call-duty-black-ops-3-awakening-dlc-available-today-playstation-3/

Make sure that you set the game to ranked, as non-ranked games will require all 4 bows, regardless of how many players are in the game.

One thing I haven't seen discussed anywhere as of yet is how acquiring perks functions differently on Der Eisendrache compared to the other maps on BO3. On SOE and The Giant, all perks on the map can be acquired through perk bottles and unquenchables, with perk bottles granting the extra perk to all players, and unquenchable allowing a single player to purchase another perk via a machine. Using this method, all perks can be acquired on the map via either gobblegum as all 6 perk machines on TG (with stamina up and dead shot being interchangable) and 7 perk machines on SOE are present. On Der Eisendrache, there are a maximum of 9 perks available, but only 6 perk machines on the map;Juggernog, stamina up, double tap, quick revive, speed cola and mule kick. The other 3 perks; dead shot, electric cherry and widows wine can only be obtained via the wunderfizz machine. The difference with Der Eisendrache is that the perks available via the wunderfizz cannot be obtained from perk bottles. For example, if you were to buy jug, stamina up, double tap and quick revive, then use 2 unquenchables to purchase speed cola and mule kick, any perk bottle gobblegum used after this point will result in Samantha's laugh and no perk being given (although other players in the game who don't possess all the perk machine perks can still receive a free perk). This can be important for strategy. If you are not using perkaholics, getting widows wine can be a frustrating and long process on this map. One way to try and increase the odds is to use perk bottles and unquenchables to take extra perks, shortening the odds on getting the perk you want from the wunderfizz, but because of the mechanic of perk bottles on this map, it can be quite tricky. If you have limited perk bottles and unquenchables, a good trick is to take electric cherry and dead shot daquiri from the wunderfizz as 2 of your initial 4 perks, as they are quite common in rotation and it will save 2 unquenchables later on. Another good tip is to not take quick revive as 1 of your initial 4 perks as this is the only perk that seems harder to obtain from the wunderfizz than widows wine, so you want it in rotation over a more common perk. You can then use perk bottles for your 5th and 6th perk, which will not be widows wine but will again shorten the odds on getting widows wine, and then use unquenchables to fill the remaining perk slots or as many as you need to obtain desired perks. This means that if you can't be bothered to wait for widows wine, you can use 3 unquenchables at this point. Buy the 7th and 8th perk from the wunderfizz in the hope that it will be widows wine, or you can purchase them from the remaining 2 perk machines, either way the 9th perk will be widows wine. I know that if you are going to end up buying all 9 perks on the map using perk and unquenchable gobblegums there is no need to stress too much about the order, but I am more than happy to only use 4 perks on this map but trying to get widows wine from the perk machines is time consuming. The main point of my post is trying to find a strategy to use as few unquenchables and perk bottles as possible to obtain widows wine, but to speed the process up, and also to note that once you have obtained all 6 perks that have machines on the map, perk bottles will be wasted if used. Based on my experience with the wunderfizz machine so far, hitting it with no perks, I would catogerize the perks into 3 groups: Common; Mule kick, Electric Cherry, Dead shot Daquiri Rare; Juggernog, Double Tap, Speed cola, Stamina Up Ultra rare; Widows Wine, Quick Revive I'm also confused as to whether this is a game mechanic or a bug? In Origins, we could dig up perk bottles and use them to obtain perks from the wunderfizz machine, even if the perk machine wasn't present on the map.

@Josh Keatley Really useful information to have, and to work out all the equations/formula yourself so soon after the update is impressive. Your post deserves a like, but I think you have to hit a certain post quota to be able to recieve likes.

The maximum amount of gobblegums you can now use is 3 per round. I was disappointed when I saw the update as infinite uses would allow you to camp these maps indefinetely with alchemical antithesis, but 3 gobblegum uses per round doesn't seem too bad. Edit: The point values are exponential, but the machine costs 500 points for the first spin of the round, 1500 for the second and 5000 for the third.

I'm pretty sure this is a glitch/bug but thought I would ask here as I haven't used the wolf bow much, except for as back up when the storm bow is out of ammo. I know the wolf bow has a freezing/slowing effect on zombies and in the later rounds can knock them to the floor without killing them, but when the zombies are knocked down they are not collidable until they start to get back to their feet. This is the main benefit of the wolf bow as it can be used to clear paths or get out of trouble if trapped. I was making a few silly mistakes in this game, and when I had to train in the anti gravity room with the wolf bow, I mistimed a cutback and got trapped. I used a charged wolf bow shot to get out, and then attempted the same cut back again. Except the zombies had set up a trap. 20 seconds after I had fired the wolf bow shot, a group of zombies are still playing dead on the floor, except I cannot run past them. They are collidable and have set up some kind of shield to trap me for their friends. Then as soon as I go down they all rise to their feet and rejoin the group. I would be interested to know if this is how the wolf bow is supposed to function in later rounds. I could imagine the delay effect freezing the zombies for longer, but I can't imagine that the zombies would be collidable objects when laying flat on the floor. Either way, I found this pretty funny. I was pretty tired at this point and dismissed the group of zombies on the floor as bugged out dead bodies, not noticing the lights in their eyes. And at the end of the day, I was outwitted. These zombies are getting smarter.

@Ragdo11706 That does sound like a pain in the ass, I hate waiting on the rocket test full stop. What strategy are you using for the keeper boss fight? I found that the charged bow shots don't do enough damage to the keeper on solo, meaning you have to recharge the ragnarok at the 2nd and 3rd phases of the battle. Do you have access to all the classic gobblegums playing offline? If so, danger closest and death and taxes make things much easier solo. You can then be liberal with bow ammo against panzers, skeletons and dogs, and damage the keeper enough each time with death and taxes to not need to recharge the ragnarok. 1st and 2nd phase of the battle the keeper will take about 10/12 shots from death and taxes, 3rd phase is somewhere between 18/24 so speed cola helps and having monkey bombs means you can focus fire on the keepers chest each time without worrying about taking damage.

@shirtlessservice You can camp way beyond round 40 with the storm bow. I'm not sure if the damage is infinite, but you can still camp with it well into the 80's, and whilst I haven't had a serious high round attempt myself yet, I would guess it will be a similar situation to the Apothicon Servant where you can camp the majority of higher rounds with Alchemical Antithesis and only bail out and train when you really have to. As for feedback, really enjoying the map in terms of the layout, easter egg etc but I have to agree with @Nieno69, the storm bow is OP and means that if someone knows how to use it, nobody is going to move. We are back to Die Rise co-op strategy where one player uses the WW to cover all 4 players in a high spawn rate camping spot, and the other 3 players may as well head off out for the rest of the day. They won't be needed. There are also the 2 recent issues added with the latest update. Zombies bugging out when waiting on the control panel for the ragnarok part at the rocket test site, and slow walking zombies for the whole game. Interacting with the pack-a-punch machine seems much more buggy than usual (getting the machine to take your weapon, and taking weapon back from machine). There is also a bug with death and taxes which makes your character get stuck in a running animation, meaning you cannot fire the death and taxes again until you cycle back through your weapons.

@Ragdo11706 I assume you have downloaded the map pack and are now playing offline again? I have had no issues myself, but have heard that all 4 bows need to be upgraded in order to complete the easter egg offline or in non-ranked games, regardless of how many players in game. As @JJMFP said, there is a hue of colour around the screen when doing the keeper step which corresponds to which bow needs to be used. The storm and wolf bows both have a turquoise/blue glow, the fire red and the void bow purple. So when you get to that step, if the colour around the edge of the screen does not match the only bow you have upgraded, the issue is needing all 4 bows. If the colour matches but no souls are being collected, the issue is something else.

Both of these issues seem to have been added with the most recent update. It doesn't effect every game, but I have had walking zombies on round 25. Funny thing is, you will still get the occasional runner on an early round, and the last zombie of the round will still be a runner. With the rocket test, when I activate the switch for the ragnarok part, a couple of zombies will spawn from the windows, then the rest will bunch up to the left of the teleporter on a ledge. When the 3rd light on the control panel flashes green (before it is ready to activate), all the zombies will drop down in one group. @Nieno69 I hope the rocket test bug is a byproduct of the fix, not the answer! That would be one of the laziest solutions to a problem to date.

This is the key point for me. I still think the maps are well designed, and a lot of the features added in like buildable and upgrade quests don't bother me, but the survival aspect of the game has been steady declining since BO2. I'm surprised they haven't learnt from BO2 that ww's that infinitely kill and have delayed/chain effects make for negative strategy. As someone who started with gameplay being the main draw, I want it to be hard. I want it to be more of a challenge than an endurance test. I can appreciate that we are never going to get maps that are simplicistic as Nacht or Verruckt again. The game has come a long way since then. But at least BO2 had survival maps, which I would love to have seen implemented in BO3, with various different perks/weapons available as it encourages diversity in strategy. Der Eisendrache, for example, looks like it has some tight areas. We could have had survival maps in these tigher areas, with limited weapons and perks, for that old school feel. I would really like to see a survival map with pack-a-punch but no WW or perks. I think striking the balance between maps that are rich in story, and gameplay that allows casual gamers to experience all features of the map is not easy, but some of the new features feel poorly balanced/implemented. Funnily enough, from a gameplay point of view, Bus Depot and Nuketown were my favourite 2 maps from BO2 as they provided a challenge that most of the other maps couldn't.

I don't know about the wrath of the ancients, but I agree with what you are saying about the upgrade process. I have seen a lot of people suggest that the Apothicon Servant pack-a-punch was patched out because it was too OP, but if you look at the way people were upgrading it, I don't think it was ever designed to be upgraded this way. Same probably can be said for using the ephemeral enhancement gobblegum. That's why I believe it was patched/fixed. I don't think that reflects the upgrade process being removed from the game. They just removed a bug that allowed players to bypass the designed upgrade process. Based on the mechanics of the staffs in Origins and the bows in Der Eisendrache, I think if there is an upgrade process for the Apothicon Servant, it will not involve the pack-a-punch machine.

@deamonkeeper I honestly don't think it matters what they choose for the 'twist' at the end of the storyline to be, as long as the writers realise that we want a resolution for the original characters/storyline. This is where so many storytellers seem to let their fans down. Whether zombies was a child's game, a nightmare, or any other scenario should be secondary as long as they don't use it as a way of justifying not tying up loose ends or as an easy way out.

The Scarab beetle which represents the red Apothicon Servant portal power up in DOA2, is also a statue in the multiplayer map Breach. I have some better close ups of the hieroglyphics ( a few look like hieroglyphics, but there were many symbols I couldn't find) so if anyone can help to translate them, I would be interested in finding out what they say, if anything.

Those deals seem pretty reasonable, I don't think they could discount much more than that with 3 dlc's remaining without upsetting customers who paid full price. And if they still charge full price for a digital copy of bo1( I believe I paid £49.99 last year) then that is some clever thinking by yourself to get a cheap digital copy, although you could pick up a used copy for next to nothing. And you get to be one of the few people who can compare the 360 version of the game compared to the One/ps4.

I don't think anybody has reported spawning in the sprayer, but it was rumoured to be in the code. What did you do differently to make it spawn, I assume you already built the WW or got the part from the pods before the sprayer spawned in? Maybe the sprayer was the issue that they fixed, I can't believe no one would have found it by now, I've spent 50 rounds before opening purple pods to see if I could upgrade/change it, but never really thought about the possibility of another spawning in. If you have a pic, I would be interested in seeing it.

Yeah, I agree with @Stop Mocking Me0 It looks like it spawned you back in a dodgy spot, so you died instantly when you respawned, that's why you heard the laugh. Quick revive did work, just not for very long!

Are you saying that you have turned the pack a punch purple, or you believe hearing Samantha's laugh after you go down is significant in the process? Samantha's laugh is normally heard after you throw equipment out of bounds, or when the game thinks you are cheating/trying to abuse the mechanics (I think most of these issues were patched). If you are hearing Samantha's laugh and nothing else, chances are it is not easter egg related at all.

@Rago11706 I did watch the video yesterday, and saw it when it was posted on reddit a couple of months ago. I have to agree that I believe it to be fake. It triggers at the end of round 7, for what seems like no apparent reason. The player has no sword and no Apothicon Servant, yet I believe the clue was to destroy the statues. Seems improbable that you would have to destroy the statues before even filling the egg, and that the pack a punch would be able to be altered before the WW is acquired. The steps given also seem to be off. The WW qoutes can be triggered in any location on the map, and are not triggered by 50 kills. There have been some convincing fake videos in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is another one, but one thing I did notice was a black smoke forming behind the pack a punch machine and being drawn into the machine as the machine and cursed symbol turn purple. If it is a fake, then they have taken a lot of time to try and make it look convincing. At this point, with so few leads, I am willing to be open minded about it, but this video has been around for a long time and no one has been able to replicate it.

I'm pretty sure the green and purple fountains are just a visual glitch. I get them frequently, they will always appear directly where the lil arnie was thrown, and remind me of the visual glitch with fireworks when the animation freezes and remains for the rest of the game. You can also get rainbow zombies from the zombies that survive a lil arnie explosion in later rounds. The zombie will have a multicoloured glowing body, but the visual effect comes from the lil arnie effect and does not seem like it is intended.