The goal of this system is to contain the impact of players abusing the friendly fire mechanic, while maintaining a degree of flexibility for accidents. We will collect data and feedback from both ranked and casual playlists on the Test Server, and iterate before releasing it live.

With Reverse Friendly Fire, when a player shoots an ally or the hostage, a warning message will appear on the offending player’s screen. The same will occur if a player uses their unique operator gadget to hurt a teammate (i.e. Maestro’s Evil Eye or Twitch’s drone).

After a player’s first validated team kill, all further damage inflicted upon teammates or the hostage is reflected back to the player. When a player uses a unique operator gadget to deal this damage, reflected damage will impact the gadget itself.

A message will pop up for the offending player to notify them when Reverse Friendly Fire has been activated. All players in the match will be notified of this change to the offending player’s status through the kill feed.

During the kill cam, a team kill victim is able to validate whether they were intentionally team killed. If the player confirms that the kill was intentional, Reverse Friendly Fire will stay active for the offender. If the player believes it was unintentional, Reverse Friendly Fire will be deactivated.

Should the victim not make a decision, Reverse Friendly Fire is activated by default.

After an intentional team kill is validated, Reverse Friendly Fire will stay active for the match instead of kicking that player. We will continue to track team kills, and we may issue appropriate sanctions after multiple offenses.

We will continue to address toxicity as we proceed into Year 4 and beyond. We look forward to hearing your feedback and findings on the Reverse Friendly Fire system through the forums[forums.ubi.com] and on the official subreddit!

Kompletter Artikel: DEV BLOG: REVERSE FRIENDLY FIRE

Our 1.1 patches are primarily geared towards fixing any last minute issues that were reported on the Test Server, with larger updates coming as X.2 and X.4 patches.

• Fixed – When Operators are prone on their back, the weapon switch animation is faster than intended.
• Fixed – All operators have animation issue transition who make them slide when they sprint just after prone position.

OREGON

• Fixed – Operators break collision when vaulting into the broken shelf in Laundry room.

OUTBACK

• Fixed – Problematic run out/spawn kills via the catwalk in the Motel Parking Lot.
• Fixed – Players can rappel through a blocked window on Outback.

MOZZIE

• Fixed – With the right timing a player can enter and see through a drone that Mozzie just captured.
• Fixed – The drone outline for a hijacked drone is not visible behind a Black Mirror or from a Maestro camera view.
• Fixed – Hacked drones will sometimes lose signal on various maps. These need to be fixed on an individual basis, and we have not fixed every location as of this update.

GRIDLOCK

• Fixed – Barricades can not be deployed near deployed trax stingers.

• Fixed – Game will show a black screen for a few second after moving windows up or alt-tabbing.
• Fixed – Onkochishin elite skin has a gap between the holster and the secondary weapon.
• Fixed – The letter "V" is censored in the in-game text chat.

Kompletter Artikel: Y4S1.1 PATCH NOTES

We’ve made a number of changes and updates over the course of the Burnt Horizon Season Test Server. Below you will find a list of changes and updates.

To help optimize player experience for future updates, we are also in the process of restructuring how our game data is stored – this will help consolidate and reduce the overall game size. This means that the Burnt Horizon Patch will be larger than normal. Patch sizes for each platform will be provided prior to maintenance.

LEAN SPAM CAMERA PLACEMENT

• Previous camera placement at a full lean allowed players to fire without being completely exposed. As part of our fix to counteract lean spamming, we are shifting the camera to the center of the head instead of the far side of the head, even when at a “full lean”.

• With Y4S1, we have cleaned up the animations in the back end, and streamlined them. This will allow us more freedom to implement new features and unique aspects of the game in the future, as the overall animation development pipeline has been streamlined. We have also updated the new running animations based on the player feedback we received so that the head lean is less aggressive to make the sprint animation look more natural.

Running animation comparisson[ubistatic19-a.akamaihd.net]

• Minimum Clearance Level for Ranked Playlist increased from 20 to 30.
• Reduction in HP after being revived from a DBNO state: PvP = 20 (down from 50), THunt = 15.
• Holosight color is now determined by the base skin of the weapon it is equipped on.

CAPITAO

• Back to Wind Bastion version.

We’re reverting Capitao back to his Wind Bastion version while we take a look at and evaluate the data and feedback we’ve gathered.

DOKKAEBI

• Auto – hangup timer of Dokkaebi calls reduced to 12 seconds (down from 18).

We’re cutting down the amount of time it takes to auto–hangup a call based on feedback, so mom will go to voicemail faster now.

• Fixed – When prone, moving/turning the camera even slightly will cause the Operator to make noise.
• This problem is tied to the shield operator rotation fix for Y4S1, so we’re reverting back to the old rotation system for the time being.

What that means for the Shield Rotation Desync fix: While we have reverted the new rotation system for now to address the rotational noise issues, we’re going to work on improvements to the rotation system and the shield desync fix so neither is an issue. Unfortunately, this means that the shield rotation desync issue will be present again for the time being. We are still targeting some time during Y4S1 for the shield rotation fix to be implemented, and will update players when we have more info.

• Fixed – Incorrect kill feed Death Icon.
• Fixed – Attacker’s still receive electric damage even after leaving electrified reinforced walls.
• Fixed – Defenders are not being affected by Mute’s Jammer when prone (players not registered as being within the AOE buff, blue indicator missing, cleanse not in effect).
• Fixed – Attackers can control a drone if they deploy a drone while being injured at the same time.
• Fixed – Transition animation from prone to sprint is almost instantaneous (the worm).
• Fixed – Moving while prone and leaning produces no sound.
• Fixed – Deploy and pick up animations are broken for the shield operators in 1st and 3rd person when using the breach charge.
• Fixed – Shield clipping when a shielded operator reload while aiming down at the ground.

GRIDLOCK

• Fixed – Defenders pushed back by Nomad’s Airjab into Gridlock’s Trax Stingers destroy them without taking any damage.
• Fixed – Gridlock’s Trax Stingers sometimes don’t deploy.
• Fixed – Gridlock’s M249 SAW contains an extra bullet.
• Fixed – Gridlock’s F90 reload animation restarts if the reload animation is interrupted

.MOZZIE

• Fixed – Pest is unusable if deployed on Mute’s Jammer.
• Fixed – Pest can hack drones through single bullet holes on single layered destroyable surfaces.

ALIBI

• Fixed – Alibi’s hologram still appears even when an Attacking Operator is moving through/on top of the gadget while in prone.

BUCK/BLACKBEARD

• Fixed – Fire rate of Buck and Blackbeard’s DMR in PVE are too low.

CAVEIRA

• Fixed – Fire rate on Caveira’s Luison is lower than intended.

KAID

• Fixed – Barbed wire is being electrified when vertically outside of the active radius of Kaid’s Rtila.

YING

• Fixed – Ying’s Burnt Horizon headgear model collapses her character model.

IQ

• Fixed – When sprinting, IQ keeps her gadget up to her face.
• Fixed – Popping animation when IQ is prone and leaning with her gadget.
• Fixed – Leaning with IQ’s gadget while rappelling is not replicated from a third person POV on her model.

• Fixed – Various level of detail fixes across maps.

OUTBACK

• Fixed – Sound does not propagate through a section of the floor in 2F office in Outback.
• Fixed – Players can vault onto the fridge in 1F Convenience Store in Outback.
• Fixed – Pixel line of sight in Compressor of Outback.
• Fixed – Players can get stuck inside a barrel after vaulting the fence in EXT Storage Yard of Outback.
• Fixed – Players can get onto the ceiling tarp in Gear Store in Outback.
• Fixed – Players can plant the defuser on the ceiling tarp in Gear Store in Outback.
• Fixed – Players can vault onto the shelf in 1F Garage in Outback.
• Fixed – Players cannot place barbed wire on 2F Back Stairs of Outback.
• Fixed – Defenders are being detected on the Stairs in 2F Outback.
• Fixed – Defuser can’t be planted on the North side of 1F Bushranger room in Outback.
• Fixed – Vaulting inconsistency in Convenience Store in Outback.
• Fixed – Spawn locations are misplaced on the Outback map overview.

YACHT

• Fixed – Placeholder model can be found in the 4F Cockpit on Yacht.

• Fixed – The black holographic sight takes more space in the screen than the brown one.
• Fixed – Visual issues with some models’ eyes + eyelashes.
• Fixed – After cooking a frag grenade until it explodes, the grenade model remains + nearby grenade indicator remains for other players.
• Fixed – Overexposure of items when viewing in the shop/preview when switching between items.
• Fixed – In PvE/custom, hostage can be picked up before the progress bar is full.
• Fixed – Operators missing VO lines in the Article 5 PvE mission.
• Fixed – Character animations freeze in the main menu.
• Fixed – Pistol appears in the hands of an Operator when throwing their Drone.
• Fixed – Holographic sight is sometimes reflective and unusable.
• Fixed – Laser attachment is slightly misaligned with the mod rail for the SASR’s Super Shorty.
• Fixed – FPS Drops.

COSMETICS

• Fixed – All skins/uniforms should now be available and correctly skinned/equippable.
• Fixed – The "Ocean’s Teeth" Weapon Skin for IQ’s 552 Commando is unavailable.
• Fixed – Crocodylus weapon skin missing texture.
• Fixed – Some legacy weapon skins missing for the Primary and Secondary shotgun for SASR ops.
• Fixed – Volcano and some weapon skins apply to the .44 Mag Semi–auto’s scope.
• Fixed – Elite Ash Chibi isn’t displaying when equipped on Shields.
• Fixed – Minor errors in the loadout description of Hibana’s Elite skin.
• Fixed – Spelling error on Mozzie’s badge in bio.

Kompletter Artikel: Y4S1 BURNT HORIZON PATCH NOTES ADDENDUM

Rainbow Six goes to the land Down Under for Operation Burnt Horizon. Protection specialists with the SASR Mobility Platoon, Gridlock and Mozzie are assigned protection detail for a high-value convoy across sunburnt country. An unscheduled pit stop at a lonely petrol station turns into a standoff when their convoy is unexpectedly pinned down. Discover the new Outback service station map, where the red desert brings plenty of heat. Find more details in the full Patch Notes below, as well as many gameplay fixes implemented this Season.

GRIDLOCK

The Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) Mobility Platoon recognized Gridlock’s leadership qualities and mechanical prowess right away. With an airplane mechanic father and raised on a cattle farm where something always needed fixing, Gridlock found her calling in repairing engines. She’s a get things done person, who doesn’t shy away from hard work. Her skills don’t end there. She has expertise in a range of weapons and close protection duties, and has the ability to adapt to unexpected situations. Thanks to her engineering expertise, she received the National Emergency Medal for saving firefighters during the Esperance bushfires. When the stakes are high, she’s calm and collected. Her dry wit and patience makes her about the only one able to handle her Aussie cohort, Mozzie.

UNIQUE ABILITY
GADGET: TRAX STINGERS

Working in the SASR’s Mobility Troop Gridlock devised the Trax Stingers. A variation of road spikes, they aren’t just about stopping vehicles. Trax’s design is a portable version that when activated, deploys a hexagonal cluster of spikes. These Trax Stingers cover uneven ground better than a straight mat. Once deployed they can replicate and spread out over a large area. This feature, unique for an Attacker, enables them to use the Trax as an obstacle to reshape the map and control an area. Effects on the enemy include slowing them down and causing damage when stepped on. Trax Stingers will be destroyed when shot or dealt impact or thermal damage.

MOZZIE

Mozzie is a daredevil and fearless member of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) Mobility Platoon. He excels in protection detail and reconnaissance operations, specializing in off-road driving and quick thinking. From an early age, he’s been racing bikes and building robots. Mozzie catches many people off-guard with his charm. He is clever and unconventional, and this can attract both the praise and wrath of his superiors. He and Gridlock have been friends and partners for many years. This partnership was put to the test when they were deployed together during the Esperance bushfires. Mozzie received the National Emergency Medal alongside Gridlock for saving firefighters during this operation.

UNIQUE ABILITY
GADGET: PEST LAUNCHER

Mozzie’s Launcher is like no other. Pests are tiny 4-legged bots that can be used to target a single drone, or deployed into an area to prevent access by a drone. When launched, the Pest latches onto the nearest enemy drone and obscures its camera. It then initiates an override sequence to hack the drone and give control to Mozzie. Counter-intelligence is enabled with no risk of a counter hack. Single-use only, Pests self-destruct by dissolving into thin air once their target is in Mozzie’s control.
Attackers are notified when their drones are nearing a deployed Pest. Once aware of the Pest, Attackers need to think carefully: should they risk giving their drone to Defenders, or retreat and lose potential intel?

Welcome to the Outback! This map kicks dust in your eyes in its homage to all the lonely service stations and motels along the forgotten highways that cross Australia’s desert. Fan favourites Oregon and Clubhouse were the inspiration when designing the 21st map of the game.

The map is divided into three distinct sections – the Garage, the Motel, and the Restaurant – with much effort put into ensuring each section is recognisable, even from a distance.

The focus returns to a style of gameplay that players have enjoyed in the past. There’s only one door between each of the sections but roamers can create new paths by destroying walls, and there’s always the option of changing floors as a flanking strategy. It’s a medium-sized map, so players won’t need to go far to find alternative routes. Packed with twists, turns, and Australiana, Outback is filled with unexpected corners and souvenirs from the Great Southern Land.

Explore this map in Australia’s Red Heart on our test server and submit your feedback on R6 Fix.

The Rainbow Six Siege team is releasing a new Newcomer playlist and offering updates to the Casual playlist.

First off, we are releasing a new multiplayer playlist for players under level 50, called the Newcomer playlist, to help them learn the basics of Rainbow Six Siege. They will play the Bomb mode of classic maps most representative of the game’s core gameplay, namely Chalet, Bank, and Consulate. Attackers will vote for a team spawn point while on the Defenders’ side, the bomb sites will be automatically pre-selected by the game.

The Casual playlist will now improve the flow between the Newcomer and Ranked playlists. There are three key updates. First, the Defenders will know which bomb sites are selected before choosing their Operator. Second, the Attackers will now choose their individual spawn points. Third, the Action phase now lasts 3:30, allowing for an intermediary step between Newcomer and Ranked.

Finally, in order to stabilise the Ranked gameplay experience, the required minimum level has been raised to 30. This is meant to encourage beginners to take their time and learn the game before engaging in Ranked play.

We are sharing the teachings of the Japanese martial art Kyudo with this elite set. Operator Hibana knows better than most that learning a martial art takes a lifetime to master. Embodying precision and beauty, Elite Hibana proudly wears the Onkochishin uniform, along with the following: Victory animation, operator card, gadget skin for X-Kairos, and weapon skin for the Type-89, SUPERNOVA, P229 and BEARING-9. She’ll also have the Elite Hibana Chibi charm.

This set will be available with Operation Burnt Horizon.

Operation Burnt Horizon features a series of iconic themes of the land Down Under. From traditional aesthetics to sand, sea and surf, these skins evoke the fun and wild atmosphere of Australia.

This seasons weapon skins include the scaly freshwater Crocodylus, dangerous Ocean’s Teeth and finally hit the surf with Board Cove.

Seasonal weapon skins are released upon season launch and can purchased during that season. Once unlocked, the seasonal weapon skins can be applied to all available weapons and will remain in the player’s inventory.

We are thrilled to launch another year of Rainbow Six Siege content with our Year 4 Pass. Your continuous support is essential as it drives us forward, and ensures our longevity.

As a thank you gift to Year 3 Pass owners who renew their Pass for Year 4, we offer 600 additional R6 Credits. Follow the link below for a detailed list of everything included in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Siege Year 4 Season Pass.

Find the Contents of the Year 4 Season Pass here[rainbow6.ubisoft.com].

ASH
Removed ACOG from R4-C

LESION
Reducing Gu Mine damage per tick from 8 to 4

MAVERICK
Increase swap time between SURI Torch and weapons

DOKKAEBI
After 18 seconds, phone calls from Dokkaebi will hang up on their own
Being in range of Mute jammers will prevent Dokkaebi from calling you
Walking into range of Mute jammers will hang up phone calls during the call

CAPITAO
Increasing area of effect size
Reducing damage per tick from 19 to 12

CLASH
Removing Muzzle Brake on Machine Pistol

GAME BALANCING

BREACHING CHARGES
Deployment animation is much faster
Damage on Attacker’s side is reduced from 150 to 50
Damage area of effect on Defender side is increased
Lethal damage area of effect on Defender side is reduced
We wanted to make the breach charge safer and more comfortable for the attackers to use.

CROUCH AND LEAN SPAM
We have identified a way to have a substantial impact on the viability of spamming crouch and lean commands. Currently, player animations allow players to snap from left to right lean, as well as crouching, without going through the full animation for that action. We will deploy a fix that prevents this from being exploitable in Y4S1.

We will continue to monitor the situation following the deployment of this fix, and take necessary steps should it not have the desired outcome.

PLAYER COMFORT

ADVANCED DEPLOYMENT
We will be testing a switch to Advanced Gadget Deployment for all players. We feel very strongly that Advanced Gadget Deployment is the proper way to play Rainbow Six Siege, as it allows for more control over your Operator, as well as increased fluidity.

As always, we will be monitoring feedback on the Test Server, so please let us know what you think about this feature!

GAME HEALTH

SHIELD OPERATOR ROTATION
When Shield Operators turn in place, there is a slight delay before the shield and upper body snap to align with the legs. This can cause a mismatch between first and third person perspectives. We are deploying a change that will make this left and right motion more fluid, and ensure that first and third person perspectives are aligned.

MMR ROLLBACK
With the launch of Y4S1, we will be activating the Match Making and Rating (MMR) Roll Back feature. When a cheater is banned, this feature will roll back MMR gains and losses for all players from matches that the banned cheater participated in for that Season. The system will not grant you MMR beyond your max MMR for the current Season.

NEWCOMER PLAYLIST MAP POOL
-Bank
-Consulate
-Chalet

RANKED PLAYLIST MAP POOL
-Bank
-Clubhouse
-Oregon
-Kafe
-Consulate
-Chalet
-Border
-Coastline
-Skyscraper
-Villa
-Hereford
-Theme Park
-Fortress
-Outback

CASUAL PLAYLIST
Ranked Playlist +
-House
-Plane
-Favela
-Kanal
-Yacht
-Tower

GAMEPLAY

Fixed – Bulletproof cameras can no longer be deployed underneath a Welcome Mat to make it impervious to bullets.
Fixed – Bulletproof camera is not destroyed if it is placed underneath electrified barbed wire.
Fixed – Drone destruction sound effects can be heard clearly through floors.
Fixed – Ambient sound is louder than intended.
Fixed – The swapping animation from a gun to a primary gadget can be skipped.
Fixed – ACOG on the M249 does not accurately show where bullets will land.
Fixed – Spamming the crouch button will lead to cases where the 1st person view is granted before the model is visible from another point of view.
Fixed – Frag grenades do not always destroy a barricade near it.
Fixed – Nitro cell damage was not reliable when placed on certain objects across all maps.

OPERATORS

SHIELD OPERATORS

Fixed – Guard break animation is not present in kill cam replays if the shield Operator is in motion.
Fixed – Shield Operators crouching and leaning clip through their shield and can be damaged through it.
Fixed – Legs of all shielded operators are clipping through the ballistic shield while in prone.
Fixed – Sometimes Guard Break is cancelled when a player shoots the shield and melee’s at the same time.
Fixed – The guard break animation displays incorrect behaviour when the shield Operator leans to the side.
Fixed – The kill cam does not show the meleed stance for shield Operators.

CAVEIRA
Fixed – Silent Step’s lowered stance is not replicated in first person.
Fixed – Attackers are immune to Luison’s damage for a few seconds if Caveira cancels the interrogation and shoots that attacker.

NOMAD
Fixed – Audio cue for Airjab detonation does not always play properly.
Fixed – No sound when Nomad’s Airjab becomes active.

FUZE
Fixed – When deploying in player’s blind spot, Cluster Charges will have a delayed explosion effect.

ECHO
Fixed – Yokai’s attack lowers FPS when the Operator is near the effect.
Fixed – When using advanced deployment, camera position returns to default for Yokai drones after following specific steps.

HIBANA
Fixed – The X-KAIROS pellets positioning is unreliable.

CAPITAO
Fixed – Capitao’s asphyxiating bolts can go through Mira’s Black Mirror and kill Operators on the other side.

LEVEL DESIGN
BORDER

Fixed – Explosion sounds are muffled in 2F Security Room when listening from 2F Armory Lockers.

HEREFORD
Fixed – Spamming crouch allow a player to vault through the floor.

CONSULATE
Fixed – Drones can clip through a wall to provide an advantage to Attackers.

FORTRESS
Fixed – Players can use a ledge outside to get inside the courtyard.

THEME PARK
Fixed – The Defuser will remain stuck if dropped in the bush on the corner of the EXT Cafe Terrace with 2F Cafe.

GAME MODES

CASTER CAMERA
Fixed – Appearance for various objects while using the caster camera.

USER EXPERIENCE
Fixed – 2-0x0000C004 Session_Not_Found Error when accepting squad invite.
Fixed – Player receives friendly fire message when using Evil Eye to shoot another Evil Eye.
Fixed – Elite Mute – SMG-11 is missing Mute Elite’s Royal Fusiliers
Fixed – Missing promote/demote animation in the result screen at the end of Ranked matches.
Fixed – MMR points appear as if added from zero at the end of a Ranked match.

Kompletter Artikel: BURNT HORIZON – PATCH NOTES

Gridlock and Mozzie are mates from way back. From the first time they met at a robot destruct-o-rama in their teens to a few years later when Mozzie convinced Grid to join the Defence Force, they stayed in constant but distant contact. It wasn’t until they were called in to help fight one of the century’s largest bushfires that they really clicked. They’ve been deployed together ever since.

A farm girl from Central Queensland, Tori “Gridlock” Tallyo Fairous learned from an early age that the best way through any hardship is with the help of family. Years spent running the family cattle farm honed her natural leadership skills, but her preferred method for dealing with problems is to get stuck into them herself and to ignore the inevitable paperwork that piles up afterward. Suffice to say, taking on a more formal role as an officer in the SASR hasn’t been one of her top priorities, despite the many attempts made to promote her.

Max “Mozzie” Goose is her opposite. Affectionately known as a “show pony” there’s no mistaking when he walks into a room. He can talk for hours about the wild stunts he’s pulled… But at the end of the day it’s his exceptional work ethic and ability to integrate with any team – as well as his unnecessary yet spectacular derring-do – that made him a candidate for Rainbow.

Now that they’ve officially signed up, they’re in for an unwelcome surprise: for the first time they’re going to be facing off against each other. As an Attacker, Gridlock will be deploying her Trax Stingers – originally designed to stop pursuing vehicles in their tracks – to add a new dimension to her team’s control of their surroundings. And Mozzie, as a Defender, will deploy his Pest to make the enemy think twice about their intel gathering strategies.

Whether the two of them can work against each other as effectively as they have together remains to be seen. Regardless, they’re set to bring a sea-change to the Rainbow team with their can-do Aussie attitude and unique sense of humour, which may turn out to be just what the doctor ordered.

Gridlock and Mozzie are joining Rainbow Six with Operation Burnt Horizon. For more information, follow us on Facebook and Twitter or join the discussion on our subreddit and forums! Visit our Rainbow Six Twitch Channel on February 17 for the full reveal of Operation Burnt Horizon, live from the Six Invitational in Montréal.

Kompletter Artikel: MEET GRIDLOCK AND MOZZIE

We have a few changes that will have an impact on gameplay. We are currently in the process of making tweaks and adjustments to some of the high impact Operators, while we continue reworks for Operators like Lion in the background.

These changes will come with the Y4S1 patch, and will be available on the Y4S1 Test Server. Please note that not all changes are final, and we will monitor feedback during the Test Server.

ASH
Removed ACOG from R4-C
Ash is very popular, and very strong. Within the balancing team, we are challenging whether or not all Attackers have ACOGs by default, and feel as if Ash is a great place to learn what impact the removal of Attacking ACOGs will have. Also, her R4-C is currently picked 99% of the time, and this should help balance her weapon pick rate a bit more.

MAVERICK
Increase swap time between SURI Torch and weapons
His ability to quietly make a hole in a reinforced wall and quickly swap to a weapon to punish Defenders is difficult to counter, so we will be increasing the amount of time it will take for him to swap from the blowtorch to a weapon.

We investigated making the sound louder, but that will require audio work that we cannot complete right now, and is therefore on the backlog of potential future changes.

DOKKAEBI
After 18 seconds, phone calls from Dokkaebi will hang up on their own
Being in range of Mute jammers will prevent Dokkaebi from calling you
Walking into range of Mute jammers will hang up phone calls during the call
Our goal with these changes is to reduce the Defender’s frustration when playing against Dokkaebi. By introducing additional options for countering her Logic Bomb will offer more choice for Defenders.

CAPITAO
Increasing area of effect size
Reducing damage per tick from 19 to 12
We are introducing an improved propagation system that will make the area of effect not to go through objects. We have been working in this new version for a long time and, finally, we are able to see it in action with Capitao’s asphyxiating bolts.

This new system allows us to improve the area of effect and, consequently, to reduce the damage inflicted by the bolts. With these changes we want to shift Capitao back to his original intention, which is that of an area denial Operator. Currently, his asphyxiating bolts are being used almost like a frag grenade, so the damage reduction and area of effect increase should reduce the viability of these asphyxiating bolts being used as frag grenades.

We will also be using the Test Server to experiment with different methods for how the area of effect from asphyxiating bolts interacts with the environment. We are looking for ways to increase how dynamic this area of effect can be when encountering environments with variable heights. Here is an example:

https://preview-static19.ubisoft.com/resource/en-us/game/news/rainbow6/siege-v3/3-9b0c1eda02c8_344177.gif

CLASH
Removing Muzzle Brake on Machine Pistol
The Muzzle Brake on Clash’s Machine Pistol is the worst choice in all scenarios now that it is fully automatic, so we are removing it.

LESION
Reduced Gu Mines damage per tick from 8 to 4
Lesion is currently very strong, and we believe that it has to do with the total amount of damage that Gu Mines can inflict to player combined with preventing sprint and defuser planting actions. In order to minimize that, we are reducing the amount of damage that a single Gu Mine can do each tick.

BREACHING CHARGES
Deployment animation is much faster
Damage on Attacker’s side is reduced from 150 to 50
Damage area of effect on Defender side is increased
Lethal damage area of effect on Defender side is reduced
We wanted to make the breach charge safer and more comfortable for the attackers to use.

CURRENT STATUS
DEPLOYABLE SHIELD
We are reworking the Deployable Shield, which has always been difficult to place properly, and also offered very little insight into whether or not your body was protected. We are reworking how the Deployable Shield functions, and how it is used within the game.

SHIELD OPERATORS
We are aware that the current playstyle for ballistic shields heavily favors direct gunfights instead of teamwork and tactical positioning. We are looking to address it by slowing down the speed of aiming down sights while having a shield equipped.

LION
As mentioned in the intro, and in the Designer’s Notes from Y3S4.2, the Lion rework is in progress. More details at the Six Invitational!

GLAZ
We want to bring Glaz back to the original intention of being able to hold an angle or corridor and lock it down without becoming a very strong entry fragger.

BLITZ
We recognize that Blitz is one of the more frustrating Operators to play against. Increasing the amount of time required for him to aim down sights with his pistol is one of the ways we hope to alleviate this.

Additionally, we explored increasing the cooldown of his ability and tweaking how we detect flashes, but both of these changes will require extensive audio/code work, and are therefore on the backlog to look into for the future.

Kompletter Artikel: Y4S1 DESIGNER’S NOTES: PRE-SEASON

Welcome to the Outback! Set in Australia’s Red Heart, this map is an homage to all the dusty service stations and motels that populate the forgotten highways of the continent, places filled with hardworking locals and specialty menu items you’ll find nowhere else.

Unfortunately for this particular pit stop, a passing nuclear convoy came crashing to a halt while under attack, forcing locals and patrons to flee and causing Rainbow to be called in. As to what inspired the team when designing the game’s 21st map, Assistant Level Design Director Jacques Wong says they referred to two fan favourites – Oregon and Clubhouse.

“We divided the map into three distinct sections – the Garage, the Motel, and the Restaurant – and put a lot of effort into making sure each section is recognisable, even from far away,” Wong explained. “There are specific colours for each section, and we used lighting and geometry to direct the player’s gaze to where they need to go.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECMPpPIHJ4o

Additionally, the focus was on returning to a style of gameplay that players have enjoyed in the past, while keeping the meta in mind. “We wanted to emphasise the impact of player decision-making, so for example, there’s a limited number of doors between each sections” Wong continued. “Roamers can still create new paths by destroying walls, and there’s always the option of changing floors as a flanking strategy. It’s a medium-sized map, so players won’t need to go far to find alternative routes.”

Meanwhile, the three sections are as unique inside as they are out. Get ready for rooms packed with souvenirs and cultural artifacts from many a roadside petrol station across the Great Southern Land. You might even run into our friendly resident mascot, Norman, in the restaurant, though we do ask that you try not to stare.

Outback will be launching as part of Operation Burnt Horizon, the first season of our Year 4 lineup. For more information, follow us on Facebook[www.facebook.com] and Twitter or join the discussion on our subreddit and forums[forums.ubi.com]! Visit our Rainbow Six Twitch Channel [www.twitch.tv]on February 17 for the full reveal of Operation Burnt Horizon, live from the Six Invitational in Montréal.

Kompletter Artikel: New Map: OUTBACK

With the launch of Y4S1, we will be activating the Match Making and Rating (MMR) Roll Back feature. When a cheater is banned, this feature will roll back MMR gains and losses for all players from matches that the banned cheater participated in for that Season. The system will not grant you MMR beyond your max MMR for the current Season.

The goal of the MMR Roll Back feature is to help reduce the long-term impact of cheaters on your seasonal rankings, and it will be an additional tool in our arsenal as we continue to move forward towards establishing greater countermeasures against cheaters.

In preparation before going live, the MMR Roll Back system has been silently running in the background over the course of the last Season as we collected data to identify potential issues, account for outliers, and properly investigate edge cases. We have tested various avenues and parameters within the new MMR Roll Back environment, but we continue to look forward to further developing this process further with feedback from our community.

In this graph, we can see the highest amount of MMR removed to a single player every 30 minutes, over the course of 24 hours.

Part of the reason we are doing this is also to push back against boosting services that use cheats to boost accounts. In the chart above, the larger spikes are boosted players having the MMR rolled back from Platinum/Diamond to a much lower rank. The larger spikes in particular (-5600 MMR for example) are the result of players that are consistently playing with cheaters over an extended period of time having their MMR rolled back.

The current Roll Back feature will roll back all games (victories and defeats) the banned cheater participated in. We also explored a few other options, but based on the results of the data, rolling back all games will help to maintain a stable MMR environment, while still reducing the impact of cheaters on games.

In test-cases where we roll backed MMR only from when a team with a cheater wins a match (only victories, no defeats), we found that it severely imbalanced MMR equity as the MMR they lost from losing remained, but MMR they gained from winning was rolled back. This led to exaggerated MMR compensation spikes (as seen on the chart below), and consequently tanked the MMR of players that played with a cheater (intentionally or not), specifically in the low Copper ranks. This one-sided removal of matches is not an ideal system, and we have concluded that, win or lose, rolling back MMR from all matches that have a confirmed cheater present is a more effective solution. You can see what this looked like from a data perspective below.

In this graph, we can see the highest amount of MMR granted to a single player every 30 minutes, over the course of 24 hours. This indicates that MMR swings are not nearly as significant as we had initially anticipated.

Due to our process of detecting cheaters, and then the subsequent banning process, there is no way for us to identify which specific matches a person cheated in accurately (such as when players toggle their cheats on/off prior to being caught). With this in mind, we also explored the possibility for limited MMR resets based on recency, and tested MMR resets for the last 7 days vs the entire Season. However, the results were too random, and there was no way to determine if we had actually reduced the entire footprint of their negative behavior. So in order to confidently ensure that we maximize our removal of the impact of a cheater, we will be moving forward with resetting the MMR from matches that player participated in from the entire Season.

We look forward to evolving this feature with feedback from our community on the forums[forums.ubi.com], and the official subreddit.

Kompletter Artikel: DEV BLOG: MMR ROLL BACK