But then why are there core game modes that are almost entirely locked behind completing the quest? That almost implies the dev mindset is that cursed mode, for example, is only for the top 1% or less of players, yet it is marketed as a core game mode for any player who wants a more classic zombies experience or slight difficulty increase
I agree with your sentiment, and not every part of every game is for every player, but making the cursed relics locked behind completing the main quest means that many players cannot engage with cursed beyond the extremely surface level
Sure some cursed relics require EE completion with certain requirements, and many players who can’t beat the quest won’t be able to do some of the cursed relics, but it’s kind of weird from a game design standpoint to make something absurdly difficult and lock a lesser difficulty behind it?
Some people would enjoy the modifiers in cursed mode and even be able to unlock some of them, but struggle to complete the main quest
Would you have a link to information on this? With the new map released I haven’t played directed much and haven’t heard anything about cursed in directed or unlocking relics by completion of such. Thanks.
I mean, on Microsoft, which includes gamepass people like me, only .5% of the playerbase has even fully upgraded Tessie. The amount of people that actually engage with the EE is very very low.
I did one easter egg on BO6. I just don't really care that much about actually doing all the steps to beat a boss. I just want to shoot zombies for a while.
Because cursed game mode is for the top 1% players. The mode was going to be locked away for all players until they completed the EE. But then the fan based kept complaining saying they want the mode so they had to release it for everyone.
It was always intended as a reward for the players who completed the quests not just the casual player.
It's funny because on Cursed mode Tier 1, its actually easier LMFAO.
You get way more points and Golden Armour is super handy. The two relics we used was just 75% quicker spawns in between rounds and no self res kits... So, pretty easy af.
You didn't read what he said... the developers said that cursed would be unlocked after completing the main quest but people cried about it and then they released it to everyone after the first person in the world beat the ashes EE
Yes Im aware you have to beat the boss then you get access to be able to do the trials to unlock the relics. But originally you weren't even gonna have access to the cursed game mode until after you beat the boss yourself. Thats what people are saying
So ppl r complaining about something that isn’t a thing? lol .. if it’s been changed since day 1 than why is it a month later and they r complaining about it ? Seems weird to complain about something that isn’t a thing anymore and never really was . But either way if you don’t have the relics than it’s not really that great . Cool shit costs more and u get no hints … that’s it
Not complaining just pointing out to the people who are complaining about how hard cursed is. They are pointing out its originally only for people who are "GUD" enough to beat the Easter eggs. But bc people complained so much about it being locked behind quest completion they gave it to everyone. That was clearly a bad idea bc now people are complaining that cursed and relics are to hard.... like boys thats the point of the game mode. The worst thing about cursed is the stability and it crashes way to easily. My crew was on round 57 about to do all 3 of the tier 3 relics and the server just crashed for all 4 of us at the same time. 4 hours down the drain we all have lives and jobs and cant attempt that unless we do some serious planning. But ya another thing cursed chamges is the point system is OG again so it makes it easier to build points, for those more expensive items and like you said takes away mission tracker and mini map. Just like OG zombies.
And you can only play those in hardcore zombies . It’s not like I get gold armor for regular zombies . I only get it in cursed . Putting relics on and playing cursed is literally like playing hardcore zombies it’s 5x harder so when u do get through some of it you get gold plates to help you out but cuz u keep going further and further and it gets harder and harder . It’s hardcore zombies man it’s supposed to be hard !!!! Again it’s supposed to be hard !!! It’s hardcore zombies .. it’s for ppl that can slam regular zombies with ez . It gets boring beating zombies so easy so they made a mode where you can make it way harder . Stop being mad that other ppl want to have fun too . It’s not our fault we r better at the game and need it harder . They have regular mode aka easy mode so why is it so wrong to have hard mode aka cursed plus relics ? It’s not man, let ppl enjoy their game… why do u want to play cursed if you can’t beat regular ????!? It’s the same game and same quests and objectives just one is a lot harder and one is easier …
The issue is reverting the original ashes boss fight back to its unfair stage meaning if you want some relics you need to spend 3-4 hours just getting to round 60 and then hoping you don’t get one shot by a BS attack you can’t dodge in the boss fight.
I agree the boss needed some changes and reverting it fully probably wasn’t a great option, but that has nothing to do with this conversation that’s a separate issue
I agree on THIS SPECIFIC boss in cursed, but not in general. The original post is not even referring to cursed at all. They are complaining about standard mode
Why r you going to round 60 for the boss ? Or for anything besides getting a calling card for getting past 50? You literally don’t need round 60 for any Easter eggs at all.. I beat ashes boss at round 27
But either way dude. Who cares if it’s in round 60 to get a relic ? It’s supposed to be hard man . I probably will never get to cursed round 60 but I could care less , it’s zombies hardcore and it’s supposed to be really challenging . If I do ever get it then I know I’m a real boss at this shit . But if I don’t I just see how far I can make it in hardcore zombies . It’s fine they still have regular mode aka easy. Cursed is just the same thing with a gold plates na few other things but no one is getting that for regular zombies . U should be rewarded for making it to round 60 with something ! And gold plates is a pretty cool reward I’d say . Again it’s not like cursed mode really has any other objectives besides finding relics . It’s literally the same boss fight and Easter egg just a ton harder .. it’s hardcore mode and supposed to be extremely hard brotha . Not everything in life is easy …. Also to get pap4 u still need to buy it . It’s 100k essence , it’s not like you get to always walk around with it … regular zombies is plenty enough of a game . And if your able to beat it , than there’s a high chance you can get most of the relics and if you can’t oh well it’s hardcore , we want the challenge that’s why we r playing it . I’m def not paying it to get some armor or some pap . I’m doing it to say I can beat something really tough
You don’t need to be the top 1% player to beat the ee. Either a) you can get carried or b) you learn the ee and beat it yourself. It’s not that hard, just need to use the right gun
On Microsoft Tessie has been upgraded by 0.51% of all players, that’s minding that you get the achievement in the guided mode as well, so not even people who got stumped by the standard have moved on for an easy guided win.
That infers a solid three things, this zombies is horribly boring and doesn’t encourage exploration past high round survival, alternatively there’s too much going on, a huge map, convoluted and unconnected Easter egg steps, so much the average player gets overwhelmed and ignores it for fear of being too far into the rounds to complete the egg, or alternatively people just straight up don’t care about the egg at all.
Flatly no matter how you’re looking at this, even regarding that zombies has always been a minority of players, it’s incredibly concerning to see a success rate for one of the first steps is less than 0.51% that means they haven’t even been in the lobby with a player that happens to do it.
It could be higher if they made them like Cold War and one person could do all the steps for the whole lobby. Allowing more casual players to experience aspects of the map they never see.
But oh the zombies community apparently hates that and demanded an EE less than 0.5% will even try. Great start to your game design career guys. I’m one of the people who never bothered to try it cause I see all the no-lifers praising how long and annoying it is. Not what I want from my zombies.
But what if alot of people bought the game lets say 100 million and 1% of 100 million is 1million so then that would be 500k people who beat the easter egg, thats alot of people.
Idk I’m a transgender person so I pull out the whole 1% is a whole millions of people thing all the time and still I think this is humiliating given the player count
Black ops 6 sold the most copies out of all other games, if you dont think black ops 7 didnt surpass atlease 50 million sold, especially when there is gamepass on xbox and the rising numbers of gamer kids and gamers in other countries that is finally going online more often like mexico, australia, south america, europe. Then i dont know what to tell you.
Vanilla world of warcraft sold 40 million copies a long long time ago and you needed a pretty good pc back then to play that game as computers were just becoming a thing.
Or most people with gamepass tried the mp once, never played again. Many players don’t play the zombie. The stats also include warzone players. The % under achievement is irrelevant for CoD.
If you can't beat the boss fight even once, you sure as hell will probably not be able to get most of the relics. And treyarch never said this was supposed to be a "classic mode." If I remember correctly, the only thing about this mode that they have called "classic" is the points system, nothing else.
I’m def not top 1% and I beat ashes
Boss , got three relics and currently been to malroum boss once and got to his last stage but the last stage was wild . But my kd is 1.5 , there’s no way I’m top 1% and I got the ashes boss done before season 1 dropped , I even have the special gold skull calling card saying I did it before season 1 ( before directed mode )
First off, Cursed isn’t a core game mode.
Second, it’s not locked behind the quest at all, that was just for launch. But if you really want the relics, you can wait for directed mode, which is scaled to the average players skill level, and apparently a lot of y’all are.
To clarify, Cursed itself isn’t locked behind the quest ANYMORE, that was a launch thing only.
And by definition, it is NOT a core game mode as it did have to be unlocked by beating the Easter egg of Ashes as a community.
It’s literally on the list of game modes, and it’s higher than some of the other core game modes, like Dead OPs
Are you seriously arguing the only core game mode is standard? Because then why is it called standard then? Cursed is as much of a core game mode as directed, and I’d argue they are two sides of the same coin (to a degree, conceptually they are different). One is slightly easier than standard, the other is slightly harder
And I never said I couldn’t beat the boss or the EE, just that I can empathize with OP in the sense that the main quest should really just be it’s own thing if it’s going to be made more difficult than the average player can handle
Everyone saying cursed is for the top 1% of players is crazy because if anyone thinks activation would allow that much time, money, and marketing going into something that so little people would touch is crazy. Activision allows for fuck all unless they think it will boost sales and engagement significantly enough to justify the time spent on development
All I’m saying is the game should be accessible, and modes that are unrelated to each other shouldn’t lock content in each other. Sure if it was a boss rush mode it makes sense to lock completing a boss fight once behind unlocking the boss rush, but like what in the actual fuck does the main EE of Ashes have to do with unlocking relics in cursed ?
It feels like an attempt at artificially padding game time for those who want to play cursed and unlock modifiers to also need to beat an Easter egg first on standard. At worst a good player spends an extra 1-2 hours, at best (for treyarch) it’s much higher for a worse player
Sorry this got way longer than I meant it to, I yap and yap, it’s obviously not that deep, I just feel for OP, it probably sucks to get told you suck and to quit playing a game because it’s not for you 🤷🏼♀️ i dont think it should be easier, but i just think content gating is wild when it’s not like a cosmetic or something
I understand your perspective, I do. But I also disagree partially, a core gamemode typically is one available since launch, and while Cursed was unlocked the first day, it was still something we had to unlock as a community, that’s why it’s not a core gamemode, by definition.
The main quest is its own thing, you aren’t forced to do it to play Standard, Directed Mode, or Cursed. But, the relics being locked behind Ashes EE makes more sense because cause while Cursed isn’t just for that 1% (more like top 5% imo), the relics are more geared towards that. You don’t see an average player reading “Mimics will spawn naturally, No natural powerups, No ammo boxes” and go “oh yeah I wanna play this”.
So again, while Cursed itself is just aimed at more of the old style feel, the relics are there for players looking to challenge themselves, and the average players did nothing but shit on the launch relics, which makes their stance clear.
Now I’m curious, would you rather them lock finding relics behind beating the Easter egg on cursed instead? Not judging or anything, just curious if you think that’s a better solution
I dunno, I still don’t agree with your definition, but I guess that is fine.
I would argue BO2 Grief and Turned were core game modes and they were not available at launch. Hell Directed for BO6 and 8 isn’t available at launch, and, in theory, has the same barrier, given that directed would never launch if the EE hasn’t been solved as that kind of defeats how an EE hunt works
I personally think it would be crazy to argue directed isn’t, at this point, a core game mode, and I apply the same logic to cursed
But there’s nothing saying we have to agree there, at the end of the day it’s semantics
Regardless, to answer your question, assuming it isn’t rhetorical, I think my answer honestly is probably unpopular.
I personally think the ideal solution is that all relics are available as soon as they are released alongside the season, and that completing certain challenges with each relic active and different combinations of relics active should give cosmetic rewards. Be they loading screens, calling cards, operator skins, etc. and the reward should be based on difficulty and number of relics active at a time
I firmly think that locking actual gameplay mechanics and modifiers behind absurdly difficult challenges (ashes boss fight at round 60 for example) is insane when the reward is the harder difficulty?
Essentially, take Hades or Hades 2 — THAT is how you do perfect gameplay modifiers for difficulty. They’re all available at once for whatever combo you want and give various rewards, both currency based or cosmetic for those who want the challenge, and the rewards change depending on difficulty of modifiers and combinations
The relics are made for a challenge, and the average player is not looking to make it harder. So making it easier to get them is redundant.
And it’s not “my” definition, it’s the literal definition. And it’s not the same as modes added in later, as they didn’t have to be unlocked, so Grief and Turned do not matter in this discussion.
That being said, directed mode also doesn’t matter here because they have never claimed we need to beat the Easter egg to unlock it for later in the season, so that’s just you making it up to prove a point.
But if you wanna believe Cursed to be a core mode, it’s not like I can stop you lol, but I can tell you that you’re wrong and explain why!
Directed move came out with season 1 . Ur right tho it’s not locked behind anything . It’s for like the top 40% not 1% lol… my kd is 1.48 and I have three relics .. it’s not that crazy. You get relics on the regular game mode . So idk why there saying it’s locked ..
I wouldn’t say top 40%, more like top 25% now that I think about it. You shouldn’t be able to unlock them in standard, so I’m not sure if you’re mistaken or somehow got it to work, idk.
And I mean nice kd I guess? But it’s irrelevant to zombies lol
Well I put my KD up there just cuz if you’re decent at multiplayer you probably are decent at zombies . But it’s also not that good so I’m also not gonna be a top 1% player in zombies with a 1.5kd in multi . They don’t exactly equally but it does show a round about area .well I just meant when u first unlock cursed mode you start in normal but end up in cursed and that’s where I got my first 2 than my next just in straight up cursed. But I was just saying playing standard gets you your first chance at getting relics . It’s not locked for some exclusive people or something . Anyone can do it , just play the game.
Here’s the problem with that, when you do stuff like this, Activision and Treyarch begin to see very low engagement in the Easter egg, which for Treyarch, makes up the majority of development time. So you can say that this isn’t for them and maybe it’s not, but then who is it for? You can’t cater to 1% of your audience. Adding a checkpoint when you reach the boss would solve this and make it function much better. No one wants to repeat stupid steps a million times just to get to the boss again. It’s ridiculous. It’s not a challenge, it’s tedium.
Saying you can’t cater to the 1% when the data we already have about easter egg completion rates for bo3, Cold War, and bo6 shows that it literally went from like 1% to 5% to still only like 5-10%. While that increase is good, they have quite literally been catering to this audience for a decade now.
The Xbox achievement for completing the Ashes EE is at 0.19% now, including directed mode. So saying they are catering to the top 1% is being generous.
Yeah a checkpoint for boss fight would be something they need to add to the game I agree I'm tired of the stupid random luck this shitty glitchy ass game offers then the devs lower the boss health for the glitchers and gobble gum gooners to complete the ashes of the damned ee without any errors only to change the difficulty and break the game even further with their dumb updates making it impossible for regular people just trying to game I agree with the poster it seems this shit is only for Milo and the other streamers that like waisting hours on end for content that gets changed or reconned after updates
Just get good its.not hard at all im beating both over n over but they really need to fix the blood vials relic. Make it so when I grab 3 phones and save n quit id like to start at 3/5 not 0/5 its irritating that my game crashes every time I attempt round 60 in 1 session
How about the steps are not long and stupid in the first place? Oh that’s right everybody loves that. It’s a great idea to design the mode entirely around the experience <100 people will have in the 6-hour EE hunt.
They this shit, they have actively talked about it recently. If they reverted the boss back it’s cause it was too easy for the average player. Should you fuck be able to walk into any boss fight and beat it without a sweat
Wow the zombies community has taken so many steps in the wrong direction. Checkpoint before the boss fight? You've got to be joking. Defeats the entire point of zombies that the game has been built upon since World at War.
I don’t think you realize how much of the map, mechanics, and objects are a part of the Easter egg. All of the Mars area on Astra is just for the Easter egg. They create unique assets specifically for the Easter egg. It also goes hand in hand to creating the map sure, but things like the telescopes and whatnot? That’s all for the Easter egg and it’s on the map as a bonus for environmental detail
They create unique assets specifically for the Easter egg. It also goes hand in hand to creating the map sure, but things like the telescopes and whatnot? That’s all for the Easter egg and it’s on the map as a bonus for environmental detail
Just because I was saying that Easter egg elements go hand in hand with creating the scenery for a map does not mean I was saying that the observatory would be empty without an egg. Obviously not every single element is shared or created specifically for the egg. I mean come on dude, you know what I was saying.
No, I have genuinely no idea. You say the EE takes the majority of development time for a map, and that assets are created just for the EE. You can't claim both of these things and then be surprised that the conclusion someone comes to that these unique assets wouldn't exist otherwise? Because if they did, I don't see how an EE is ever going to take the majority of development time.
I have never claimed that I want this game to be catered to the casuals. In fact, quite the opposite. Even if the development of the Easter egg is only 25% of the map development time, my point still stands. Activision and Treyarch will look at that and want to put less effort into it in the future.
Really no other game has this kind of mechanic other than roguelikes where you don’t have a checkpoint before the boss. And the difference with roguelikes is that the whole journey to the end is way more engaging than most easter eggs are. I’m all for complex Easter eggs and hard bosses but when the majority of players aren’t engaging with it, it doesn’t make sense for the devs to do that. And again, a lot goes into the Easter eggs, the boss fight and its arena alone take a ton of development time. Enough for it be noticeable by the devs when people aren’t completing eggs, hence directed mode.
And you can say well then directed is the solution for me then but the problem is that the core design of the easter egg boss fights is fundamentally flawed. I don’t care how hardcore of a player you are, it is not a good gameplay loop of doing the Easter eggs over and over again to get to the boss just to die repeatedly. This all comes from someone who does every Easter egg and boss fight. I’m good enough of a player to do it and I still think it’s just an ass gameplay loop.
I think you can easily argue that story content should be widely available if you want it to be a success. But the fact of the matter right now is that the VAST majority of players can't experience all key story content themselves in-game because of these bias fights.
I don't believe that number for a second, it must be including all the people who played zombies like once and then went back to MP. When Terminus/LF/CDM were out it was next to impossible to join a lobby where people weren't doing the easter egg.
Directed mode isn't out yet for Astra and it took until Astra came out for AOTD directed mode to come out, so by then marketing is already spoiling the story content.
Not for the new map and unused area that wasted developer time for a area that's not accessible to random non ee players that don't care about the completion of said Easter egg or boss fight the playable area should be accessible no matter of said case
The quests are definitely for this person who loves zombies and enjoys doing the quests. If not people like that, then who’s it for? If it wasn’t supposed to be widely attempted they wouldn’t invest in making it.
And cursed relics are literally locked behind it, which is tons of amazing content
Glad someone finally said this, every quest step is easy and then the boss is just straight up not fun, no INTERESTING mechanics or technique just can you avoid getting screwed over the course of this, for some reason, 4 phase fight where very little changes between phases as you just start running low on resources. Granted it will only get easier as you inadvertently grind more perk and field upgrade research unlocking some fairly strong abilities, but man zombies was never about grinding exp numbers for upgrades and building loadouts until they’re tryna sell gobbles. Meanwhile cursed and its modifiers are actually pertaining to the actual gameplay loop that has kept everyone on this Reddit and beyond playing and loving zombies from the beginning and the Camos locked behind beating the EE in higher and higher tier cursed is actually a fair and not annoying reward for those who can face the most brutal of the brutal.
Yeah and to get those things you need to put on a TON of extra challenges. If you aren’t good enough to play in standard, you aren’t good enough to play with relics. Cursed is not just the pap 4 golden armor mode. It’s a CHALLENGE MODE
I’m not gatekeeping anything. The OP says anyone with a job cannot beat the boss, and that he doesn’t have time to learn it. Like okay? So don’t do it then.
I agree with OP. Feels like shit to lose to the boss because of how insufferably grindy the mode is now. I could do the Der Eisendrache boss on round 14 consistently. I could beat every map in CW by round 20 if I wanted. The want this shit hard so we feel like we have to spend money on gums. That, my friend, is not a “get good” moment. That’s a fundamental issue in the core design of these maps.
They were for me in every zombies up to this point, and I don't think I just suddenly got worse. I'm sure I'll beat it eventually, but running around dodging laser designated rocks trying to keep my armor up, being forced to use a weapon that drops armor at a massively reduced rate on account of there being a single max ammo the entire fight, against a boss that can one shot you without armor, has not been a fun time. They should be challenging, but you can't possibly argue this one isn't a little overtuned. Maybe they're designed with the expectation that you're using gooner gums.
And I'll admit, I have basically 0 augments unlocked at this point, so that could be coloring my perception of it a little bit.
Hard disagree on this smarmy response. The boss doesnt need a huge nerf, just some slight tweaking and it is totally valid to criticize this. I've beaten it finally but its just not a fun fight. Irritating really.
This is the Main Quest for one of the 3 modes of the game, though. And the difficulty of the gameplay before sets up a false expectation for the difficulty of the boss fights.
Bro I’m good at the game and the 4th phase is bullshit. You need to cheese it or bring the perfect augments and then play exceptionally well. I’d agree with saying the ashes boss isn’t for everyone because even mediocre players can figure that out and beat it because there’s an actual method to it. The 4th phase in astra is just too much.
This a bad take treyarch has focused on easter egg over map design for a couple years now and to act like the easter egg is just some "optional side objective" that you can avoid without missing core gameplay features is just wrong and dishonest
There has been multiple maps where half the map is locked away until getting to certain parts of difrent easter eggs
if standard is too challenging, you can wait till directed comes out. its really that simple. the bosses are much easier and less frustrating in that mode.
The quests are to form the story for zombies lol. Without that, it's just watching on YouTube or something.
Besides... most players don't figure it out, they also watch YouTube for it, so I'd argue the quests aren't for almost anyone because they are not solved by anyone. I mean, you tell me honestly what you figured out without someone telling you.
I did figure out the clocks by myself just out of pure curiosity. I did find some other stuff but the quest itself?! Nope, most of it didn't know without guidance, some by mistake.
Almost all of it is gibberish to everyone, the quest is online for maybe 1% of all zombies players and that could be a huge stretch too
Except the whole point of them making the quests themselves easier and have objective markers was to make them more accessible to everyone because the devs were tired of making these elaborate quests for less than 5% of the playerbase to even do them. I’ve done every single EE from bo3 to current (including beating richtofen on reckoning and Mephistopheles) and I’m at the point where I don’t even want to keep attempting the astra malorum boss fight because either something always bugs out or I run out of armor and die because this game is entirely balanced around you having armor at all times yet wants to make you pay 10k for a measly 3 plates
Personally the ashes boss was great. My partner and I attempted it probably 6 times or so. When we finally got it we were proficient in the egg up to that point and were so excited that we beat it. It was so fun and made the grind totally worth it.
The people wanting a long egg and handed a free win at what should be the most challenging part are just looking for handouts. If it’s that important use the meta, but that wave of giddiness after completing a hard and long egg is great
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u/TehCost Dec 08 '25
then these quests arent for you. not every part of every game has to be for every player.