Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege News

Rainbow Six Siege Doc charity bundle raises over $170k for AbleGamers

In November last year, Rainbow Six Siege developer Ubisoft launched an initiative called the Sixth Guardian Program for the FPS game's Operation Neon Dawn. This kicked off a series of seasonal operator gear bundles with 100% of net proceeds going directly to selected charities - and it seems they've been a roaring success. The first chosen charity, The AbleGamers Charity, has announced its own bundle has raised a whopping $170k.

Well, $171,183 to be precise, which is a pretty huge final total. AbleGamers, which is a US-based non-profit organisation "dedicated to bringing inclusion and improved quality-of-life to people with disabilities through the power of videogames", was the first charity to be assigned to a Sixth Guardian Program bundle and has announced the total in a press release.

The charity's Siege bundle was for defending operator Doc, including a gear set inspired by the charity's colour scheme, with white, yellow-orange, and grey tones. The bundle kitted Doc out with a new uniform, baseball cap headgear, weapon skin, and charm, which you can check out in the image below.

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Rainbow Six Siege's Tachanka is getting upgrenaded

The latest patch notes for the Rainbow Six Siege test server include an initial operator balancing pass, and several of the tactical multiplayer game's ops are getting notable buffs and nerfs. Among them is lovable beefcastle Tachanka, who Ubisoft says is still getting picked with less frequency than his designers had hoped following his extensive rework last year.

This initial test server balancing patch improves Tachanka's grenades in just about every way. His Shumikha Launcher's magazine is being increased from five to seven rounds, its fire duration is going from five to seven seconds, the time to detonate on the rounds has been reduced to 0.75 seconds from one second, and the fire area radius has been increased to 1.9 metres from 1.7 metres.

The rounds themselves go quite a bit further, too - their speed has been boosted to 30 (up from 20) and the "distance to start drop" has been increased from eight metres to 20 metres. That's going to make the launcher much more useful as a direct-fire weapon, with less need to arc the rounds up to make sure they travel far enough to hit their targets.

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Y6S1.3 DESIGNER'S NOTES

In this latest edition of Designer’s Notes, we'll go into more detail about the balancing changes that’ll come with the Y6S1.3 patch and give you an insight into the reasons behind these changes.

BALANCING MATRIX AND TOP OPERATOR BANS

[h3]WIN DELTA VS. PRESENCE[/h3]

Please note that we are using presence to gauge the popularity of an Operator. This notion had to be introduced to reflect the implementation of the pick & ban.

Presence definition: pick rate of an Operator when not banned. Win Delta: The Win Delta is aggregated from Operator’s Win Deltas per Bomb Site.

[h3]OPERATOR BAN RATE[/h3]

OPERATOR BALANCING

[h3]ACE[/h3]

Replaced Smoke Grenades with Claymore
The S.E.L.M.A. will destroy Black Mirror Window

Population targeted by this change: Casual, Top Ranked, Pro.

Looking at the Balancing Matrix, Ace has climbed higher in pick presence and win rate. Overall, we see him as a fast and versatile hard breacher, but he should not be the dominant pick for hard breachers in all situations. We’ve replaced his smoke grenades with a claymore, reducing his late game execution to give room for other breachers such as Thermite.

We are also changing how Ace’s gadget will work with Mira’s Black Mirror Window. Players already use Ace to counter Mira by opening a space beneath the mirror to deny defender access. Now, it can destroy the Black Mirror completely, adding more counterplay options for dealing with Mira.

[h3]JACKAL[/h3]

Reduced C7E magazine capacity to 25+1 bullets (from 30+1)
Reduced C7E damage to 42 (from 46)

Population targeted by this change: Casual, Top Ranked, Pro.

Jackal is seen both a lot in matches and ban picks due to his overall strength and versatility. We’ve taken a look at the data for the C7E and found it a tad too strong. The change should bring Jackal in line with other operators, while not dramatically reducing his capability. Additionally, this should give more room for his PDW9 to be used, empowering players with the option to use either weapon depending on the map or strategy.

[h3]JÄGER[/h3]

Reduced 416-C magazine capacity to 25+1 (was 30+1)
Increased 416-C weapon recoil vertical kick

Population targeted by this change: Top Ranked, Pro.

Jäger is a community favorite and we can understand why! While we all love Jäger and the utility he brings to team compositions, his 95% presence is too high to ignore. This is something we've spent a great deal of time working through how to address, understanding it will affect so many players and we want to maintain the identity of such a beloved operator while also encouraging greater pick diversity.

Our last change addressed his utility and while this was a change in the right direction, the data shows that his presence is still overwhelmingly high compared to other operators. Our next step is to look at the frag potential of his 416-C, which has been performing above average among ARs. By reducing ammo and increasing recoil, we believe this will require a greater degree of finesse from players to make the most of it. These changes help make the weapon less of a must-pick compared to other weapons and operators, while keeping it a strong weapon in a skillful player’s hand.

At the end of the day, though, we know that his denial utility is a huge part of what makes him such a draw—not just his loadout. We have potential tweaks for the ADS that we are considering for the future, but also understand this topic encompasses more than just Jäger. Balancing is an iterative process for any operator or weapon, so we will be closely monitoring how this affects everyone's favorite ADS-wielder and will continue to tweak as necessary as we seek that sweet spot.

[h3]TACHANKA[/h3]

Shumikha Launcher
- Increased magazine capacity to 7 (was 5)
- Increased fire duration to 7s (was 5s)
- Reduced detonation time to 0.75s (from 1s)
- Increased fire area radius to 1.9m (from 1.7m)
- Increased projectile “distance to start drop” to 20m (was 8m)
- Increased projectile speed to 30 (from 20
DP27
- Reduced equip time to 0.65s (from 0.9s)
- Reduced unequip time to 0.3s (from 0.42s)
- Population targeted by this change: Casual, Top Ranked, Pro.

Initial feedback after Tachanka's rework suggested that he would be too overpowered and game-breaking. However, the data now shows Tachanka with a low presence and low usage of grenades, causing his lethality to not be where we would like. We hope to see Tachanka viable in all levels of play, and as a good alternative or complement to Smoke to create new strategies based on area and time denial. We’ve increased the power, duration, radius, speed, and capacity for his grenades to make them more useful and lethal in combat. These changes should make them more deadly and useful in fights while also not feeling overpowering.

[h3]THERMITE[/h3]

Replace claymore with smoke grenades
Population targeted by this change: Casual, Top Ranked, Pro.

We want to improve Thermite’s capability in a wider range of in-game scenarios. By giving him smoke grenades, we feel he will have more impact in late game execution, offering another avenue for providing utility, even after walls have been opened.

WEAPON BALANCING

[h3]DMR (ATTACKERS)[/h3]

Removed access to 1.0x scopes
Gave access to 1.5x, 2.0x, and 2.5x sights
3.0x as default option

Population targeted by this change: Casual, Top Ranked, Pro.

DMRs are designed to be effective in long range engagements. However, they are currently limited by only having a 3.0x for these fights, which is not comfortable in all maps or situations. We are adding more sight options for DMRs to give players more freedom in their options, while keeping the intended focus of the weapons in sight.

Rainbow Six Siege's 'ELO glitch' is getting patched today

It seems a pesky glitch has impacted Rainbow Six Siege's ranking system of late, causing matchmaking rating (MMR) gains and losses to be a bit skew-whiff. Called the 'ELO glitch' among the FPS game's community, the bug can be exploited to score more favourable MMR outcomes for a player's team, but the devs at Ubisoft are patching it out later today.

"We will be deploying a hotfix today, April 19, which will aim to resolve the MMR exploit known in the community as the 'ELO glitch," the studio announces on Twitter. "Players affected by this exploit may have noticed opponents leaving and rejoining their match, resulting in irregular MMR gains/losses. With this update, that can no longer happen."

Rainbow Six Siege streamer and former pro player George 'KingGeorge' Kassa posted a clip about this ELO hiccup earlier this month, in which he outlines what the glitch does. Essentially, he explains, if a player leaves the game - either accidentally or intentionally - and then returns, it will cause their team to take a smaller ELO hit if they lose the match or gain more ELO if they should win.

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Rainbow Six Siege's defuser timing is off, confusing esports casters

Two mechanical quirks of Rainbow Six Siege wound up making the difference during a match between G2 Esports and Team Empire last weekend. An Ubisoft game designer has helped explain what happened, and it has to do with how the bomb defuser process begins, and with how bodies are handled between the multiplayer game's server and game client.

With seven seconds remaining on the clock, G2 player Virtue began counter defusing - a process which, on paper, takes seven seconds. While this was happening, Team Empire's Joystick began firing at him from the floor below. From the broadcast booth, it seemed that Virtue should have had time to counter defuse, except that he would have been shot by Joystick. But in the game, neither of those things happened. Virtue ran out of time, and none of Joystick's rounds ever touched him.

Rainbow Six Siege game designer Emilien Lomet took to Twitter to explain the discrepancy. It's true that the defuse time is seven seconds, he said - but there's a 0.6 second animation to start the defuse process, which makes the whole thing take 7.6 seconds.

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