The Season 1 notes will be read for the weapon tables, and the part that actually changes how a round plays is further down. Infinity Ward's bug fix list for this drop is heavy on the things a one-life mode runs on: sound, smoke, perk behavior, and whether a private match obeys the rules you typed into it.
Confirmed. Each fix is a line item in Infinity Ward's own Season 1 patch notes on callofduty.com, in the Bug Fixes sections and the November 5 addendum. The notes say what was fixed, not how well it was fixed, so treat the audio and smoke entries as claims to re-test in your own lobby rather than closed problems.
Why Hardcore SnD cares
In Core you can be wrong about where a shot came from and respawn. In Hardcore Search being wrong once ends your round and shortens your team's. Three of these fixes sit directly on top of that: what you hear, what you can see through, and what your scrim lobby is actually running.
- Gunfire near walls Infinity Ward says it fixed an issue that caused some gunfire to sound distant when firing near or into a wall. If you have been calling a shot as far when it came from the next room, that is the bug, and it is the single most round-deciding item on this list.
- Smoke that was not opaque on Sentry, exterior lights could remain visible through Smoke Grenades and Smoke Walls. A smoke that leaks light is not cover, and an execute built on it was never as safe as it looked.
- Smoke Wall now breaks explosions failed to create gaps in a Smoke Wall before this patch. That changes how both sides play a smoked-off bomb site: the wall is contestable again.
- Battle Hardened was overperforming the perk provided complete immunity to Shock Sticks instead of reducing their effects. Shock Sticks were a dead slot against anyone running it. They are not any more.
- Private Match setup several Private Match issues affecting game rules, available modes, enemy loadouts, lobby information and Operator customization were fixed, along with the Damage Dealt display after death. That is scrim infrastructure, not polish.
The rest of the competitive sweep
Mode-side, Hardpoint capture progress could fail to register while a player stood in the zone, and a Gunfight second-round countdown ended too soon. Shipment had a loadout selection issue before a match begins, which anyone warming up on it will have met. On the exploit side the notes close drones reaching out-of-bounds areas on certain maps, Proximity Mines attached to Seeker Drones, and an out-of-bounds spot at Wolves Stadium in Combat Outpost. Portable Radar, which did not work in Free-for-All, also got fixed.
A smoke that leaks light is not cover.
What the notes do not claim
A fix line is a statement of intent, not a measurement. Infinity Ward does not say how much the wall-adjacent audio moved, which maps besides Sentry had smoke leaking light, or whether the Private Match rule issues were one bug or six. Audio direction in particular has been a repeat theme on this engine since the beta, so the right posture is to go check your own lobby rather than assume the problem is retired.
Put two people in a private match, have one fire from behind a wall at a known distance, and confirm the direction and distance read you get. Then throw a Smoke Wall on a bomb site and break it with a grenade. Those two tests tell you more about this patch than the whole notes page.