Three Best Changes in the PUBG Dev Update - June 2020

Another month, another PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS developer update. This update holds far more weight than previous entries, as they look to change the game of PUBG for the better moving forward with new modes, better stability, and robust anti-cheat measures to employ against hackers and boosters.

Alongside the 7.2 patch notes, Joon H. Choi, PUBG console lead project manager has shared the developer’s notes on Reddit to engage with fans and let them know the reasoning behind their actions. The developer’s update mainly focused on these four areas:

• Ranked Mode
• Anti-cheat
• Stability
• Bots & Matchmaking

Out of these four, three issues were thoroughly addressed, while one will have to wait until at least next update as the devs continue to iron out the kinks.

Three Looming Issues Addressed by DEVS in June PUBG Dev Update

1. Ranked Mode

First up on the list of impressive changes made in the 7.2 update has to be Ranked Mode. A long time coming in PUBG, Ranked will no doubt inject the game with much-needed competition and an influx of players who might have moved on to other titles, as well as those looking to give PUBG a try for the first time.

Currently limited to Squad queues, the devs have acknowledged that fans are looking for Solo modes as well - that will have to wait until a future update. For now, you can grab some friends and start grinding those ladders.

The breakdown of how Ranked Mode will be implemented is as follows:

There are a total of 6 tiers in the Ranked system (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master) with 5 Divisions (V – I) within each tier.

A player’s current rank is determined by their Rating Points (RP) in a given queue.

At the start of a Ranked season, players will be considered ‘Unranked’ in all queues.

The first 5 games they play in each ranked queue will count as placement matches.

At the end of the fifth placement match, players will be given an initial rank for the season.

2. Anti-Cheat

Next up is the implementation of a more robust anti-cheat system, one that the devs have not revealed its inner-workings in an attempt to keep hackers from dismantling it. Not only this, although cheating on consoles is considerably more difficult and rare, the devs will be implementing SMS 2-factor authentication in a future update - another strike against hackers and cheaters that ruin fun for everyone else.

Choi mentions that “Radar hacks have been a big thorn in the side for us for a looooooooong time...”, and eradicating this exploit has been the primary focus. Not only this, but the devs have instituted bans across the board to accounts found guilty of hacks and cheating.

New platforms including using Discord to set up community-reported infractions are being created for Community Managers to be able to implement more bans against those found to be gaming the system.

3. Stability Fixes

Lastly, crash stability on consoles has apparently been rectified in update 7.2. There was an issue causing memory leaks and increased crashes, and Choi has noted that “our crash rate is sitting at half of where it was with Update 6.3.”

This is good news for players suffering from not knowing when theri game will fail, and with the introduction of Ranked Modes and queues, could not have come at a better time. We will need to stay tuned to monitor if this decreased crash rate holds up, but for now players can rejoice in the work being done to bring stability to PUBG across all platforms.

Unfortunately for bots and matchmaking, more details and tests need to be ironed out in order to help players who have been increasingly seeing the bot population in their games increase, despite their game skill level. Choi mentioned that funneling players into less queues (to whittle down player separation) might help the situation, a more permanent fix is still being researched. The way that communication from PUBG Corp. is handled has been excellent, so expect to see an update on Bots and Matchmaking in the coming weeks.