Season 6 is in full-swing! Best hope the intensity and explosive gameplay of Karakin has you ready for our newest heart-pumping, non-stop action game mode- Team Deathmatch. PUBG LABS is also returning with the next iteration of our Skill-Based Rating test, with changes based on feedback received fro mthe first test.
We’re making some much needed and often requested changes to throwables. Extra-attention has been paid to Frag Grenades, which will be seeing change reducing their overall strength.
Read on for more details!
TEAM DEATHMATCH
The long-requested Team Deathmatch mode has now arrived! Intense 8v8 FPP fights on 7 different battlefields pulled from your favorite maps. TDM features classic PUBG gunplay and mechanics with all the fun and action of respawning back into the fight. The boost gauge functions differently in TDM and fills by scoring kills and assists, restoring your health after you haven’t received damage for 5 seconds.
The team with the most kills in 10 minutes, or the first to reach 50 kills wins the round, with 2 round wins securing the match victory.
Game mode overview:
- 8 vs 8
- FPP only
- Weapon Spawn Kits
- Respawns
- No knockdowns
- No friendly fire
Read more details on the introduction of Team Deathmatch here.
Jump into TDM through the new Arcade section of the menu.
Gameplay
Grenade Changes
Frag Grenades
- Vests now mitigate damage received from Frag Grenades, but vest durability isn’t reduced when taking damage from Frags.
- Damage mitigation amount is dependent on the level of vest worn by the player, with the same % reduction as for bullet damage.
- Frags will deal 20% less damage to prone players.
- Item weight increased by 50%.
- Each Frag Grenade now takes 28 inventory capacity, up from 18.
- Pulling the pin of a Frag is now louder and audible from further away.
Smoke Grenades
- Decreased fuse time from 3 seconds to 1 second.
Stun Grenades
- Increased indirect hit effect radius
- Ringing sound now impacts players through walls
- This matches the Frag Grenade mechanic, although the impact effects a smaller radius.
- Added slight camera shake to players near the explosion.
- Default fuse time mechanic:
- Stuns now explode 0.7 sec after first impact, or after fuse timer runs out, whichever comes first.
- Fuse time without cooking has been increased to 5 sec.
- 2.5 second fuse timer when cooking the stun remains unchanged.
Molotov Cocktail
- Increased the speed at which fire spreads by 50%.
- Fire can now spread slightly further, with an increased damage radius.
- Changed the way fire spreads around objects. Fire will now more consistently reach the back side of objects (especially thin objects like trees).
- Re-introduced direct damage while standing in fire, in additional to existing damage over time.
- Players in fire will now take an additional 10 damage per second
- Fire now reaches higher and should be obstructed less by small objects.
Frag and Stun Grade visual effects have also been updated, alongside a more realistic Frag Grenade sound
Right Peeking/Leaning
Historically, when moving to the right around objects in PUBG (without peeking/leaning), much less of your character was shown than if you moved out to the left. This recently received increased visibility in the community, leading to players using this mechanic to their advantage more often, which has led to some frustration.
This mechanic is closely tied to the fundamental design of the PUBG gunplay system, making it difficult to resolve the issue completely without potential adverse changes to the feel of PUBG gunplay.
With that said, as we announced earlier this month in response to community concern, we’ll be making a change in this patch to reduce the advantage gained when peering at your opponent from the right side of objects, by exposing more of the player model.
- Players viewing their opponent from the right side of objects will now have more of their body exposed
- Player’s head will lean slightly more towards the scope when ADS, so that character’s head is more exposed
- Made adjustments to some weapons to have characters body be more exposed when peering to the right of objects
We will continue to monitor community feedback regarding this change.
Karakin Changes
A few weeks ago, we implemented a loot adjustment for Karakin based on player feedback. Since then we’ve been monitoring games to determine if any further adjustment needs to be made and a couple things have stood out to us. First, healing items are still a bit too hard to find for how frequently people are fighting. Second, Snipers and DMRs are really strong on Karakin.
We’re going to try an updated loot setting that will increase meds, while reducing bandages, SRs, DMRs, and the Win94. We know many of you prefer these guns on Karakin, but we feel that Karakin needs a little more risk for the reward of these weapons. To help mitigate this adjustment a bit, we’re adding the G36C and MP5K to Karakin as requested by many of you when Vikendi started its vacation. Also, we have adjusted the care package airplane speed to move faster across the island.
Of course, your feedback is essential here. Try out the new settings and let us know how everything feels. Is it worth it for you to spend more time searching to get that SLR? Do matches feel more competitive without as many long range weapons? Let us know so we can continue to adjust!
- G36C and MP5K have been added to Karakin
- Spawn rate of First Aid Kits and boost items have been increased
- Spawn rate of bandages has been decreased
- Spawn rate of DMR, SR and Win94 on Karakin has been decreased
- Increased care package airplane speed to move faster across the island
Adjusted Blue Zone effects
- Distortion effect has been removed
- Altered effect where the Blue Zone meets the ground, to more clearly identify the Blue Zone edge
- Lowered the top wall of the Blue Zone
- Updated visual shaders
- Effects will become more intense as phases progress
- Changed sounds for entering and exiting the Blue Zone
- Low volume humming sound can now be heard while within 10~15m from Blue Zone
- This should help players identify when the Blue Zone is getting close
Blood Effects Visibility Improvement
- Increased blood color saturation over distance for better visibility
- Added distance scaling to blood effects
Parachute ‘Follow’ Feature
Added parachute follow feature to help teammates land together
- During the pre-match countdown, follow UI will be shown at the bottom left of the screen.
- Open the map to select a teammate to follow.
- You can still select a teammate to follow up until exiting the plane.
- After selecting a teammate to follow, you can cancel on the map screen, or also by holding F while in the plane, or while actively following a player in your parachute.
- If you’re obstructed by terrain or an object, your follow will be cancelled.
PUBG LABS / Skill Based Rating Test
LABS: Skill Based Rating – Second Test
A big thank you to all the players who checked out PUBG Labs and took part in the first test earlier this year! We’ve poured through all your feedback and other data from the test and have made the following changes:
- Players will need to complete 5 placement matches to earn a rank in the new test.
- The highest initial placement rank is Platinum 4 (2600 RP).
- The overall algorithm used has been tuned based on data and feedback from the first test.
- Assists now influence your rating.
- Assists are considered to be the same value as Kills for the purpose of RP gains and losses.
- Any kills resulting from friendly fire will count as negative kills
- The maximum amount of RP that can be gained or lost after a match is now dynamic per tier, with lower tiers having a larger cap than higher tiers.
- The expected performance of players in the Master tier will now increase at every 100 RP above 3500, making it much more difficult to climb in Master tier the higher a player rises
- The highest RP a player can reach is now 5000.
Test Duration (live server):
- Start: February 19th, 2020 @ 9:30 AM KST / February 18th, 2020 @ 7:30 PM EST (after maintenance)
- End: March 4th, 2020 @ 5:00 AM KST / 3:00 PM EST
Survey Duration:
- The feedback survey will be live for 1 week after the test is over for players to leave feedback on their experience.
- Start: March 4th, 2020 @ 3:00 PM EST / 5:00 AM KST March 5th, 2020
- End: March 11th, 2020 @ 3:00 PM EST / 5:00 AM KST March 12th, 2020
UI/UX
Friends List UI improvement
- Visual improvement on friends list has been made
- A new icon to distinguish on/offline state has been added
- Improved ID search button UI
- Leave team button has been relocated to the team tab
- Button features which were provided in icons are now available in the context menu on the left
- Hover the mouse cursor on the ID to bring the context menu
- INVITE, FOLLOW/UNFOLLOW, PROFILE, KICK functions can be used on the context menu
- Online users are listed on the top and offline users are listed separately on the foldable list
- Slots in the Team tab are separated into 4 slots. Slots are activated accordingly to selected game mode (Solo/Duo/Squad)
- Host player will be displayed with a star on the top left of the ID
- Invite button has been added on the Career page
- Key guide text displayed on the starting island has been modified
- It will be displayed in nouns just like other options which have no direct effect on the game play (Map, Mission List, Inventory etc.)
- Alt+K: Toggle Key Hint → Alt+K: On-Screen Key Guide
- Added brightness adjustment for Karakin
Performance
- Performance has been improved with additional WorldOriginShift optimizations.
Custom Match & Observer
- Custom match
- Erangel classic has been removed
- Observing UI polishing
- Adjusted the sidearm weapon slot in the name layout UI to have weapon icon centered
- Made fine grid adjustments on the all areas of name layout UI
- Default pattern of team number (logo) area has been modified
- This pattern is displayed when not using the logo. Fixed the pattern area so that stripe pattern is displayed properly on trapezoidal shape.
- Relevant UIs are player list, name layout and team list
World
- PGC 2019 champions and new contents have been added to the hall of fame, Erangel.
- Picture of PGC 2019 champions, Gen.G and 2019 PGC panorama has been added
- PGI key art insignia/banner has been deleted. Gen.G insignia/banner has been added on different location
- Added posters of global events (PAI, PNC, PGC) run by PUBG in 2019
- PGI 2018 FPP champion, OMG’s graffiti has been removed and replaced with 2019 champ, Gen.G
- PGI 2018(OMG, Gen.G gold), PGC 2019 Champion’s (Gen.G) uniform has been added
- The names of champions on the molding has been deleted
- PGC 2019 trophy has been added
Skin & Items
- Store sales (Sales period 2/19~3/19)
- CHEERLEADER SET, 5 items
- BADLANDS LEISURE SET, 4 items
- Improved parachute backpack model design
- Improved backpack design will be applied to all parachute skins
Survivor Pass: Shakedown
The 2nd track of Survivor Pass missions has been unlocked, along with 6 new Karakin exclusive missions! Please note that new missions will be unlocked after the Live server update!
- Detailed list of missions
- Survive for more than 3 minutes in Karakin
- Destroy 2 destructible walls with sticky bombs
- Survive 2 times in the Black Zone
- Drop into a named location on Karakin
- Deal total amount of 100 damage through penetrable walls
- Get a kill through a penetrable wall
Mastery
- Weapon Mastery Balancing
- Early levels of Weapon Mastery now require less XP to earn. As a result of this change, players may find that some of their Weapon Mastery levels are slightly higher than before.
- Due to a technical issue, the PUBG ID feature has been temporarily disabled.
Replay System
- Replays from previous updates are no-longer playable, as the replay system has been updated
Bug Fixes
Gameplay
- Resolved issue which allowed a players breath gauge to instantly recover in certain situations when coming out of the water
- Resolved issue that prevented players from being moved to their correct spawn location when vaulting at match start in War Mode using ground respawn
- Resolved issue with player death boxes blocking grenade damage
- Resolved issue with care packages not blocking grenade damage
- Resolved issue with the headshot blood effects blocking vision in FPP
- Resolved issue which preventing healing/boost item animations from playing when spamming the use hotkey
World
- Resolved issue of some object edges becoming transparent when close to the blue zone
- Minor map bug fixes on Erangel and Karakin
Skins & Items
- When a female character wearing Rapture Squad Gloves with tattoo sleeve, wrist looks transparent
- Visual issue with character model’s arm when wearing the Tenebres Combat Vest
UI//UX
- Fixed issue in replays which could prevent certain players from being displayed on the minimap
- Fixed issue in replays which would display incorrect grid sizes on some maps
Sound
- Reduced volume of Sticky Bomb sound effects, as they were louder than intended
