PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS News

PUBG's next rebalance is all about footsteps

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is getting a rebalance, but this time it isn't guns - it's sounds. Specifically, it's how footsteps register on certain materials or even barefoot and how that affects what an enemy hears.

In a developer post from the team at the PUBG Corp, the makers are having to take time to consider how sound is really impacting players in the battle royale. When listing the specific issues with footsteps three areas are highlighted. First the poor quality of footsteps on soil, sand, and grass, second the unnatural sound changes over distances, and the acoustic differences between players wearing shoes and when they're barefoot.

That last point is important because when players are barefoot it makes a lot less noise than when they are wearing shoes in certain situations. This makes it hard for players to hear where enemies are and although "this certainly makes sense realistically, it's not ideal for the sake of PUBG gameplay".

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Propane tanks and mystery backpack uncovered by PUBG dataminer

The last couple of updates for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds have been pretty explosive. Jerry cans, sticky bombs, C4, and Panzerfausts have all been added to the game in recent months, but that's clearly not the end of PUBG Corp's fiery plans.

According to a prominent dataminer known as Sapphics on Twitter, propane gas tanks have been found in the game files. The tanks, which will explode when you shoot or damage them, are destined for the rocky outcrops of Karakin, but there might be plans to bring them to other maps in the future.

While some of the new explosives were trialled on one map initially, they have been rolled out to others as time has gone on and many errant bugs have been quashed. However, given Karakin has many soft penetrable walls, floors, and ceilings that can be blown to smithereens, the addition of a propane gas makes perfect sense.

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Dev letter: Footstep Sound Rebalance

Hello players,

Sound is a topic brought up quite often in the community. We know that sound is extremely important to PUBG gameplay and while our goal has always been to offer a highly immersive, realistic sound environment that is fair to everyone, we have seen some issues along the way. Footstep sound effects have been an especially large undertaking for us. Today we want to talk about footstep sounds in particular, and what we’re doing to improve them for you.

Footstep Issues:

Poor quality footstep sounds on some materials such as soil, sand, and grass.
Unnatural sound changes over distances.
Large acoustic differences between shoes and barefoot.
- In particular, when an enemy is barefoot, it makes much less noise from certain distances compared to when they are wearing shoes, making it difficult to pinpoint enemies. While this certainly makes sense realistically, it’s not ideal for the sake of PUBG gameplay.

Your feedback on the above issues has been clear, our current footstep sounds do not give you the info you need to make key decisions while playing. As a result, many players have resorted to cranking their volume to hear these sounds, which can also lead to a negative experience when PUBGs other, louder sound effects kick in.

We tried to implement a fix last Summer, which was deployed a bit too hastily and led to some pushback due to unintended confusion and negative gameplay experiences. As a result, we rolled back these changes and promised we’d be back with changes to the system.

Since then, we’ve been heads down working on a better system and have come up with the following solution for footstep sound effects.

[h2]Enhanced quality and defined details[/h2]
Our previous footstep sounds lacked detailed differences for various ground materials, causing the same sound to be repeatedly produced. This made sound effects dull and unnatural, especially over longer distances.

The updated version produces more detailed sound effects, even on the same materials, compared to the previous version. We’ve also added a variety of random variations to minimize the dull redundancy of footstep sound effects.

[h2]Enhanced quality and defined details[/h2]
Our previous footstep sounds lacked detailed differences for various ground materials, causing the same sound to be repeatedly produced. This made sound effects dull and unnatural, especially over longer distances.

The updated version produces more detailed sound effects, even on the same materials, compared to the previous version. We’ve also added a variety of random variations to minimize the dull redundancy of footstep sound effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHm1R3Asps

[h2]Enhanced footstep quality over distance[/h2]
When trying to create different footstep sounds that vary by distance, we kept the resource itself unchanged but reduced the volume and the bandwidth of high-frequency. Consequently, footstep sounds in mid and long range distances became muffled, lower quality, and more difficult to hear.

We divided distance into two (short and long distances) or three (short, mid, and long distances) depending on the materials and characteristics movement and created a new sound design better suited to them. Thanks to these changes, mid and long range footstep sounds should now be more audible compared to the previous ones.

[h2]Minimized auditory gap between going barefoot and wearing shoes[/h2]
Realism is important for us, but we also believe that fairness in gameplay is one place where there can be exceptions to realism. The huge sound gap between footsteps with and without shoes in the existing sound rules are a big issue. In this case, we skewed realism a bit to make the gameplay feel better.

Our new footstep sounds are generated using a combination of what you’re wearing and how far away you are.

At close distances, footstep sounds will be different depending on if the player is wearing shoes or not, however the volume of the steps has been equalized, giving no advantage to being barefoot.
At mid-to-long distances, the footstep sound will be exactly the same, whether the player is wearing shoes or not.
We feel the above compromises realism enough to make approaching enemies easier to hear, but keeps the realism of the different sounds once they’re close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S4TI9v0U70

This is just a brief overview of the sound improvements we’ve been working on.

We’re still tweaking other sound issues and exploring the proper volume balance between everything from firing to footstep sounds internally. We’ll share another Dev Letter when we’ve settled on our strategy for those. For now, we hope you enjoy the footstep sound updates in Update 8.1. We want you to be able to fully immerse yourself in all aspects of PUBG without a negative sound experience pulling you out and hope this first step helps us towards that goal.

Thanks, and we’ll be back with more soon!

Kyungwon Park, PUBG Sound Team.

PUBG Season 8 "remasters" Sanhok and adds a truck full of loot

As often as seasons change in battle royale games nowadays, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Season 8 is coming in like a bombshell. July 22 will see the new season kick off, but this won't just be another map-focused trip through a survivor pass in search of new skins. Instead, there's a newly remastered Sanhok map to explore, complete with some brand new mechanics that are set to shake up what you think you know about PUBG.

The most surprising new element coming when the Season 8 release date arrives is the loot truck, which PUBG Madison studio director Dave Curd says is like a 'mobile care package.'

"It's this ten tonnes of terror," he says. "It's this truck that's just chock full of confiscated weapons from previous players. And if you take it out, there's a king's ransom in loot. There's really enough [level] three gear to get a squad mostly suited up."

The loot truck - armoured to the gills and fitted with a vicious-looking cowcatcher on its front - rumbles around the roads of Sanhok, even until the final circles, and that's going to have a major impact on how players plan their routes through each match. Curd says it's inspired by the 'loot goblins' found in games like Golden Axe and Diablo 3, giving players a target of opportunity to take down for a valuable prize: confiscated weapons, which come equipped with attachments and skins. But as ever, it's a calculated risk-versus-reward proposition. You may be the type of player who wants to go straight for the prize, using the spike strip and panzerfaust to ambush it, or taking to the skies to tail it in a motoglider, a squadmate letting rip with an LMG from the passenger seat.

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A new armoured loot truck is coming to PUBG

Hear that rumbling? That's the sound of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' new loot truck. The armoured vehicle, which is packed full of contraband and customised weapons, will be trundling through remastered Sanhok when it gets the green light for release next week.

The truck will drop alongside Season 8, which brings the new and improved jungle map back to the forefront of the game's competitive scene. While lots of changes have been made to the map, the eyes of loot-hungry players will be drawn to the autonomous cargo transports that drive around the jungle. These offer new ways for players to gear up, but they're not easy to take down.

Players will need to be persistent to destroy the truck, but once inside they'll be rewarded with big caches of weapons, including weapons that come pre-installed with attachments and cool skins.

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