PLAYERUNKNOWNS BATTLEGROUNDS

Region locking is huge! So happy about that.

Played some Ring of Elysium and really enjoyed it, more than I enjoyed Blackout. It's easily the closest thing to PUBG that's been made (and you can tell they copy/pasted a ton of things from PUBG).

Pros:

- UI is simplistic, but has QoL improvements over PUBG and Blackout. If you have a completely decked-out AR and you pick up another AR to replace it, all of your attachments automatically carry over.
- Snowboard/Ziplines/Hang glider. Just so much cool mobility options other than vehicles. Really fun to use all of them and they're all very useful.
- No parachuting, you just pick where you spawn and you can see where other people have chosen. This means there is generally a very calm early game as you loot and then you just fight and fight and fight until the end. There aren't very many "hot drop" zones, so the majority of initial players stay alive in the midgame. It's not objectively better than PUBG/Blackout parachuting, but it's very different and equally good. Really helps separate RoE from the competition and makes the entire 15-20minutes action-packed.
- You spawn with a gun (pistol or sawed-off). Crinkle should immediately love this game. In the rare scenario where you do encounter an enemy early on (less rare in Solos) and you haven't found a weapon in your first house or two, you can still defend yourself. This also means they've removed melee weapons from the game.
- Less crap loot. No melee, no pistols. There are only 2 tiers of helmets/vests so it's a lot easier to find level 1 gear and be combat-effective.
- Med system. No painkillers/energy drinks. You can get back to 100% HP with just bandages. Med kit is 100% heal, First aid is 50%, and bandages are 10% each. Very simple and easy to understand. Feels very balanced. You can't move full speed while bandaging like in Blackout, but you can move a little bit while you bandage unlike PUBG. It's a very good middle ground and the best of the 3 games.
- Helicopter ending. Instead of fighting to the very last person, there is a helicopter that comes into the last circle. This creates a natural "final" circle that people revolve around, but it has more room to flank and outplay. You want to try and camp the ladder to the copter and kill people as they attempt to board. People will either love or hate this mechanic, but I think it's really cool.

Cons:

- Gunplay is better than Blackout, but still inferior to PUBG. There is something weird going on with the mouse. It's...not smooth. It's kind of choppy when you try to track an opponent ADS. I'm chalking this up to Tencent's mobile background as it feels a LOT like how mobile shooters feel when you aim. This has to change in order for RoE to have lasting power.
- Netcode needs some work, but I trust Tencent to solve this. Had a bunch of teleporting enemies. Didn't die behind cover, though!
- After a few hundred meters, your bullets basically disappear. It's hard to explain but instead of seeing the tiny hole you created 400m away through an 8x like you can in PUBG, it's basically just a large orange tracer that disappears. You can still hit people far away, but it's hard to know how to adjust your aim.
- No peeking. Real bummer. Removes a lot of skill from midrange engagements.

I could add a lot more to both lists, but I've said enough. Considering how close RoE is to PUBG, I think this is useful information for everyone. EDIT: Created a catch-all for RoE.

RoE is free to play, so give it a shot.

Tempest wrote:

Can't we like both games!?

Liking both and playing both is a different story for some. The feel of the games are so different that for me personally and I know going back and forth at the same time frame is hard. I already had this with R6Siege and PUBG. I liked both but generally I had like week-month spurts where I mostly only played one because they feel so different. This also probably go's to my personal enjoyment of a game go's down drastically if I am not playing at as high of a level as I'm capable (which varies on different games). It's one of the reasons I often have problems getting back into series/games after breaks.

Side note Ring of Elysium did have FPS and what I also did not realize as tempest noted is it was 100% Free. Movement felt very much like PUBG (not talking about snowboard/hang glider)
Ballistics felt group certainly closer to PUBG than any other BR i've seen.
I like the spawn system. It's unique.
Starting with a pistol is perfect IMO
Starting load outs/Non circle zones/Snowboard/Glider/Climbing gear - Are all interesting but would need to play more with to have an opinion.
Inventory system was interesting. Auto attaching attachments is nice. Interface itself better than COD but could still use help. I feel like it's not as good as PUBG but that could be because I am use to PUBG.
Graphics - Were pretty bad.

My biggest complaint.
I do not like the "Win scenario". I say this after my first squad win I would of lost because I was in 1v4 situation. For those that have not played it. There are like 14ish zones on map (random guess). The first closing is longer than PUBG like 10 minutes (3 min looting like 7 min warning ). However, it closes significantly down to 4 sections. Then to 1. Then to 1/2. Once it's 1/2 a section helicopter will come soon after. It can hold 4 people. Anyone that can climb the ladder and get on alive. Wins. Anyone else loses. So for instance my first squad win helicopter was coming their were 3 squads left. Me solo and I quickly positioned near the helicopter. A squad of 3 and a Squad of 4. I was able to get an angel on the squad of 3 and killed 2. Then Helicopter got there. As the squad of 4 was finishing the last guy I was able to slip on. So then 3 of the squad was able to get on and the last in lost. Personally as Ranalin also said if I was the guy last in line I would of shot/downed the 3rd guy and then got on but he was nicer than I. My problem on it is it does not feel like a win just sneaking on like that. I would also not be satisfied if I lost because I was fighting with someone else couldn't move at the moment and some squad got on and I lost. Both of my solo wins I did not allow this to happen and camped until every person was dead. You can shoot them off the ladder but their is certainly situations where you won't be able to protect yourself from group A and stop Group B from getting on helicopter. So to me just seems to add more randomness like "bad circles". Just changes how they look.

They need to give more information on region locking. If it is IP based and not Ping based it is useless. VPN's will sidestep that very easily.

Another cool thing about RoE is the circle isn't really a circle and is an asymmetrical blob

Yeah, the helicopter thing is going to be THE THING about RoE. The intention was clear: in games like PUBG/Blackout, the final circles are so small that you can't outplay your opponents with positioning. You're very much at the mercy of RNG with the very last circle.

With the 'copter, you don't have to continually shrink the circle until people kill each other as there is a natural zone around the 'copter that people will fight over. However you have a lot more room to flank and position so the final fights are a LOT more interesting. You're also constantly keeping an eye on the ladder to catch a sneaker. As people become more experienced/better at the game, the instances where you board the 'copter without killing everyone will be super rare. Our current strategy is try and get one person to board and have the others stay on the ground fighting while the person aboard the helicopter uses the 3rd person view to give instructions. It's actually a ton of fun and very frantic.

I think it's a great idea but could use some tweaking:

- Make landing spot known sooner and make the helicopter take a LOT longer to get there. Currently, it's so fast that some games you can get to the ladder and up into the copter before anyone else can get in range to shoot you.

- Make the ladder longer and/or make climbing it much slower. It should be an enormous risk to try and go up the ladder while enemies are still alive. Currently it's too easy to sneak a guy in while the other teams fight momentarily.

- If people are still alive on the map but not in the 'copter, the game will simply extend the "blue zone" to the whole map and reveal everyone's position. This is meant to prevent eternal standoffs by damaging players and removing their secret position. This should happen quicker but not damage anyone. Just reveal the positions and people will battle it out very quickly.

WackyJacky did a video review of the patch that he just put out today. According to him, the region lock they are adding is ping based, so everyone should be around the same ping in a given game. He also goes over a system to turn low rank scrub items into higher tier items which sounds really nice. Sure it's another random gen, but at least you can eventually level up items to rarer ones. Might bring up the value of some of those low tier items while also bringing down the value of those top end ones.

The problem is that the loot box percentage drops are well below normal (i.e. below any other game I've ever seen). Until they fix that, their entire economy will always be messed up and worthless.

Love the region lock.

Happy to see some sort of ranking system, but until they fix the algorithm behind the rating points, it will always be less-than-optimal. My idea is to lower the RP loss for an early death because coming in 39th place isn't more difficult than coming in 98th place. Also raise the RP gain for kills by a tiny amount and you've got a better system that rewards skirmishing AND placement.

When someone can get into the very top of the leaderboards for an entire region with a 0.01% win rate and a 0.09 KDR...there is a problem. You shouldn't get rewarded for grinding top 10 finishes and no kills.

Free wrote:

When someone can get into the very top of the leaderboards for an entire region with a 0.01% win rate and a 0.09 KDR...there is a problem. You shouldn't get rewarded for grinding top 10 finishes and no kills.

I thought that person was doing it right. However people play the same number of deaths occur but a bit more towards the end if everyone plays in that way. Does this make it less fun for the general population?

I suppose there is an element of kills in the overall rating but I always felt it was a survival game rather than death match. I hate in COD, for example, you get little for objective play compared to kills regardless of the game mode.

This all way above my play level anyway. My xbox stats say I'm in the top 3 or 4% but I am very average. I suppose I must be playing too conservatively.

yregprincess wrote:

but I always felt it was a survival game rather than death match.

It is. There's a ton of other games out there people can play to get judged primarily on their kill totals.

People are free to hot-drop and play this game however they like, but the "scoring" and rewards should continue to prioritize survival above all else.

See, I am still not sold in Ranked for BR's. Yes I know their technically is a PRO Fortnite/PUBG scene etc. However, if you watch it is pretty random on who wins etc. Yes when you put Shroud/Justin in Streamer events they destroy often, but that is against streamers when they are at closer to pro levels and other than viss/halifax majority of those players are very good but not at "pro levels". If you watch any of the actual pro events the best teams rarely win more than x games etc. Best players can win game 1 then take 80th game 2 which tanks their score.

BR simply too luck dependent. I love the game mode and always will play it. Their is tons of skill. However, following reasons I think it will never be a truly good ranked mode
1 - Loot Luck. Generally you find a weapon in 1-2 houses. Sometimes you can hit 8 with nothing but a pistol. If another team lands nearby this could alone kill you. Other times you hit 25 houses and find 0 first aids. Random loot means random luck.
2 - Circle screws - Face it sometimes you land and for 3 circles in a row you have to go opposite side. Can you do this and win absolutely. However, you are at a huge disadvantage to a team that just needs to hold up in a nice area. This could be improved by doing things like showing first circle before you drop and things like last few circles moving in fortnite. However, people still get advantages because of it.
3 - More than two teams. What competitive team sport to more than 1 team play at same time? Technically you could argue racing. This is for pretty easy reason. Once you have more than two teams "fair" kind of go's out of the window. You get sandwiched, shot in back fighting another group. Certainly things you can do to strategize and make this happen less. However, you can't make it "fair".

First season (well actually EA so pre season) I tried hard in the ranked got up to top 300 and top 100 in solo/duo (forget which was which). Then I realized how I needed to play to do that and was like yeah this is no fun and have not cared about ranking since.

Myself included at first people put to much in thinking because you are competing to "win" you need a competitive or ranked mode. Which I just don't agree with. Certainly when PUBG even normal mode uses ELO to match people already for better and worse.

BR simply too luck dependent. I love the game mode and always will play it. Their is tons of skill. However, following reasons I think it will never be a truly good ranked mode
1 - Loot Luck. Generally you find a weapon in 1-2 houses. Sometimes you can hit 8 with nothing but a pistol. If another team lands nearby this could alone kill you. Other times you hit 25 houses and find 0 first aids. Random loot means random luck.
2 - Circle screws - Face it sometimes you land and for 3 circles in a row you have to go opposite side. Can you do this and win absolutely. However, you are at a huge disadvantage to a team that just needs to hold up in a nice area. This could be improved by doing things like showing first circle before you drop and things like last few circles moving in fortnite. However, people still get advantages because of it.
3 - More than two teams. What competitive team sport to more than 1 team play at same time? Technically you could argue racing. This is for pretty easy reason. Once you have more than two teams "fair" kind of go's out of the window. You get sandwiched, shot in back fighting another group. Certainly things you can do to strategize and make this happen less. However, you can't make it "fair".

It's kind of like poker rankings. Any given hand, you could be in a no-win situation through zero fault of your own. It's trends over a long period of time where you establish meaningful values.

*Legion* wrote:

It's kind of like poker rankings. Any given hand, you could be in a no-win situation through zero fault of your own. It's trends over a long period of time where you establish meaningful values.

I would agree if you always played against people of similar skill. When you play professional poker you are always only playing against other pro's. Which is why in somewhat Pro Fortnite/PUBG works. But when you come to a ranked mode with 100+ people the skill variety needed to get those kind of people as quickly as you need means you are playing games against people of far to varying skill levels. It's not like say LoL/Dota where you need to match up in reasonable time with 9 other players of the same skill (being you are going in solo). Finding 99 is much harder.

When I was living in Colorado i would go play poker in Central city/Blackhawk (small gambling town). We would have 90 man tournaments Fridays I would final table probably 50-70% of time. I'm back in NJ now and when I go to AC and enter a similar 90 man tournament competition is much better and I final table maybe 20-30% of time. If I entered a WSOP open event I am sure it was fall much more.

Same thing here, but they don't have schedule events, weeks/days to get players of similar skills. PUBG they have about 1-2 minutes until people would get angry and say queues are too long. They need to fill the 100 people with anyone they can get. This ends up being a very wide variety of skills which then screws up the rankings. Also the skill difference between someone like rank 500 and 5000 (which would easily be in same game probably more like 500 to 50,000 would) is so much higher than you would think.

Do note this is my same issue with college Football. The top rankings change so much because teams only play 3-4 real games a year. This is where they really need to do something like the English Premiere league system but that's a completely different story.

*Legion* wrote:

the "scoring" and rewards should continue to prioritize survival above all else.

That's like saying I "survived" my walk with my dog last night. Just because you make it to the top 20 doesn't mean you "survived" anything.

No one is advocating that we score this like a team deathmatch, but ladders should reflect the skill of the player and the "likelihood they survive when confronted with enemies". To me, that is more than simply placement.

The best scoring system hasn't been found, but it has to account for ADR (average damage per match) as well as placement. Maybe there is a higher weight towards winning? You can't weenie your way to victory on a consistent basis, but you can weenie your way into top 10 easily.

I wholeheartedly disagree that you can't find a good ranking system for BRs. There is a reason that pro players can dominate ladder games if they want to. Over enough games, the inherent luck in the game gives way to player skill. Similar to poker as mentioned above.

yregprincess wrote:

I suppose there is an element of kills in the overall rating but I always felt it was a survival game rather than death match. I hate in COD, for example, you get little for objective play compared to kills regardless of the game mode.

This isn't true for CoD objective game modes. It's very easy to come out as the top one or two spot and have very few kills by PTFO.

As for rank play there's so much RNG/luck involved at the start of the match that trying to get the 20+ kill in every match is a losing proposition over time. Yea the few times you make it happen it'll boost you up, but over the course of the season when bad swings start coming in people will start turtling up more and the gameplay will be like some of those initial tournaments with people just turtling for most of the map. At the end of the day you want to be the only one left which where the largest reward comes in.

Free wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

the "scoring" and rewards should continue to prioritize survival above all else.

That's like saying I "survived" my walk with my dog last night.

People die walking their dogs every day. I'm glad you made it.

I kind of am going to take both sides on this one. Making it to late game should be more important then number of kills, but making at least one kill is an important part of the game. If they were to give early kills worth much less then later kills, then those that hot drop and kill 8 people and die in 60th place won't get as many points as the guy who hides until the top 10 and kills 2 people and takes 2nd place. But that guy that hot dropped, if he survives to the top 10 should get more points.

I think the biggest problem from a competitive stand point is that pros will get games where they lose early because of RNG. If a tournament is one game, then even the best player won't win most of the time, which is why most tournaments are 5-10 games. Late game RNG is only when you get circle screwed, but a good player knows how to reduce that risk.

D-Sync as of last week. It really isn't any better. There was only 5 people left.

D-D-DSYNC'd

The "region locking" was implemented in the most backwards, counterproductive way possible. Like, they had to go out of their way to do it this badly.

*Legion* wrote:

The "region locking" was implemented in the most backwards, counterproductive way possible. Like, they had to go out of their way to do it this badly.

Agreed. This is the single worst patch they've ever produced. It's near-unplayable.

I should be flabbergasted, but how can I expect more from Bluehole?

I've started watching what servers I connect to.

I haven't connected to a west coast server since the patch. Instead, I've landed in the AWS east coast region (Virginia) most of the time, and also the Netherlands.

PUBG uses the AWS region in Oregon for the west coast, or at least they used to. From other people complaining about the same issue, I'm guessing they no longer host any games on the west coast, and host all US (all NA?) in Virginia.

How can you tell what server you are connected to? In the games I have played since the patch I just watch for pings, if I get on a server over 100 I just bail because my ping usually sits around 60-70.

Gaald wrote:

How can you tell what server you are connected to?

You have to use a tool outside the game to monitor the network traffic of the game executable. From the IP address that all the traffic is coming from, you can determine the AWS region.

I played several games on Friday and Saturday, and other than a few 200+ ping games that we abandoned, I was mostly sitting between 100 and 150 which is what I would expect for connecting to an East coast server. Maybe I just got into a few good games.

It's not just the ping, though. I've had games with my normal 35-50 ping that have played awful. I'm talking 3-4 shots into someone, dying, and then seeing them at full health in the replay.

There are also a lot more cheaters. I hadn't encountered more than one in the last 5-6 months, but I've encountered 3 in my last dozen games. I chalk that up to the region lock debacle; these guys wouldn't be in my server normally.

I was playing last night, and I agree with Free. The ping doesn't fix the dsync issue. In one game I died to a guy who was running up the stairs and shooting into the railing while I was shooting him from the top of the stairs. So he was firing into the empty room and somehow hit me.

Then in another match I was firing at a guy directly into his head from above on a small hillside and again died after having put half a mag into his head. Terrible!

Free wrote:

There are also a lot more cheaters. I hadn't encountered more than one in the last 5-6 months, but I've encountered 3 in my last dozen games. I chalk that up to the region lock debacle; these guys wouldn't be in my server normally.

They're rolling out new anti-cheat, which is way overdue.

So I've noticed a couple of times where I have connected to a server that is not in AWS, but rather SoftLayer, and with pings that are a lot higher than they should be. Others have noticed this too.

It's just mind-boggling they would release this...especially right now with Blackout/Ring of Elysium ramping up.

They just destroyed months of good work and made the game so much worse to play. Last patch they had a very good game running with very little desync.

I was always banging the drum for them to abandon PUBG and make PUBG2 ASAP because of PUBG1 spaghetti code. However, now I don't have any confidence they could make a competent PUBG2. As a dev team, it's like they've regressed...which is insane!

Free wrote:

I was always banging the drum for them to abandon PUBG and make PUBG2 ASAP because of PUBG1 spaghetti code. However, now I don't have any confidence they could make a competent PUBG2. As a dev team, it's like they've regressed...which is insane!

I have been more wanting a bigger dev studio that has a reputation of making good polished FPS games to take on it's own version of a PUBG clone. Fortenite is too different and while I love BO4, I think there is room for something more like PUBG but without all the baggage. I was thinking last week that they should just put PUBG into maintenance mode and do a PUBG2, but then realized that they would fall too far behind if they did that as it would take a few years to make that happen.

The irony is that PUBG has become so much more of a polished product in many many respects over the course of all of these updates.

It's just their uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot along the way. Fix 5 things, then stick a bomb inside something else and blow it to pieces.