PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS News

As many of you know, Australia has been devastated by bushfires that began all the way back in September. While the New South Wales Fire Agency has now declared the fires contained, the impact they have had on the people and wildlife of Australia has been immense. An estimated 33 people and 1 billion animals were killed by the fires, with many more affected.

While we’re happy to see the fires contained, there’s an incredible amount of damage left in their wake. To help Australia through this difficult time, PUBG Corporation is raising funds through the limited time sale of the Australia Fire Relief - Pan skin. The skin, which features original art by community artist @swatercolour, will be sold for $2.99 with 100% of the profits from each sale going to help Australia.

The Australia Fire Relief - Pan will be available on PC and Console.

• PC: 19th February - 18th March - $2.99
  
• Console: TBA
  
  • The sale of this item on console has been postponed, as Update 6.2 has been delayed. The new sales schedule will be announced in the near future via a separate announcement.

After the sale ends, we will send all funds raised via a lump sum donation to a chosen charity.

For those who purchase the pan, we thank you for your contribution to this effort. If the pan is not for you, we encourage you to research the disaster relief efforts and donate directly to a charity of your choosing. It will take some time for Australia and its environment to recover from a disaster of this scale, but we are thankful to be in a position where we can help in some way and are grateful to have fans like you willing to contribute to such a worthy cause.

Thank you,

- The PUBG Team

Dive into the mayhem of the all new Team Deathmatch game mode, the first in a series of alternative ways to play PUBG that are coming to our new Arcade section of the menu. We’ll add and rotate new game modes as time goes on, but for now you can enjoy the FPS classic 8v8 frag fest.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Battle Royale is getting a bit of a change up as well with some much requested alterations to how frag grenades and other throwables work. There’s a lot here but the main changes are that frag grenades weigh more and their damage is now reduced by your vest. To see all the changes, be sure to check out the Update 6.2 Patch Notes.

We’ve also got loot changes, including the fan favorite G36C and MP5K guns, coming to Karakin, a visual update to the Blue Zone to help you see better, some improvements to blood effects at a distance, and the new parachute follow mode that ensures you always land near your chosen squad mate.

All this and more in Update 6.2, now live! For full details, you can check out patch notes here.

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 from the 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!

[h2]TEAM DEATHMATCH[/h2]


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.

[h2]Gameplay[/h2] 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 27 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
  
  • Up to 6.5m, from 5.5m.
• 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
  
• Updated Blue Zone Effects
  

Updated Blue Zone Effects

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

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.

[h2]PUBG LABS / Skill Based Rating Test[/h2]

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

[h2]UI/UX[/h2]
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

[h2]Performance[/h2]

• Performance has been improved with additional WorldOriginShift optimizations

[h2]Custom Match & Observer[/h2]

• 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

[h2]World[/h2]

• 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

[h2]Skins & Items[/h2]

• Store sales (Sales period 2/19~3/19)
  
  • CHEERLEADER SET, 5 items
• Improved parachute backpack model design
  
  • Improved backpack design will be applied to all parachute skins

[h2]Survivor Pass: Shakedown[/h2]
The 2nd track of Survivor Pass missions has been unlocked, along with 4 new Karakin exclusive missions!

• 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

[h2]Mastery[/h2]

• 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.
  

[h2]Replay System[/h2]
Replays from previous updates are no-longer playable, as the replay system has been updated
[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
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
  
• Visual issue with PGI Title Leggings when equipped with certain multi-slot shoes

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

Team Deathmatch will be live with Update 6.2 on both PC and Console

PUBG is founded on the premise of Battle Royale, but we know that sometimes you just need to change it up a bit. For those players, we’re happy to introduce Arcade, a new feature that focuses on the PUBG gunplay that you love, but in new game types to thrill and challenge you. While the idea is to continually add and rotate game types into Arcade, we’re starting with a tried and true FPS classic: Team Deathmatch.

PUBG’s Team Deathmatch will bring intense 8v8 fights to 7 different battlefields pulled from your favorite maps. Choose from several different weapon loadouts and utilize classic PUBG gunplay and mechanics to frag your way to victory! Whether you enjoy the relentless challenge of 8v8 battles or are just looking for a new way to train your gun skills in heavy combat scenarios, you can get right into the action with Arcade.

For fans who prefer Battle Royale, not to worry! Our core focus will always be to bring you the most realistic and intense Battle Royale experience out there!

Read on for more details on the Team Deathmatch game mode!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Rules of Team Deathmatch

• 8 vs 8
  
• FPP only
  
• Spawn Kits enabled
  
  • Open the map to select your weapon Spawn Kit
  
  Respawns enabled
  
  • Respawn 5 seconds after each death
    
  • Players respawn close to friendly players if the location is safe
    
  • Players will be briefly invulnerable after respawning
• DBNO disabled
  
  • No knockdowns
• Friendly Fire disabled
  
• Kills and assists fill your boost gauge
  
  • After not taking damage for 5 seconds, your health will begin to regenerate, whilst also depleting your boost gauge
• Players cannot reconnect to TDM matches.
  
  • Unfortunately, this includes accidentally leaving the match or crashing

Win Conditions

• First team to reach 50 kills, or the highest kills after 10 minutes wins the round
  
• 2 round wins secures the match victory
  

Rewards

• BP will be rewarded based on your individual score
  
• No Survivor Pass XP is gained
  

Players may be placed into in-progress TDM matches, but won’t be placed into matches which are nearing completion. AFK players will be removed from the match after prolonged inactivity.

The Battlefields of Team Deathmatch

Team Deathmatch features 7 different battlefields pulled from 4 of your favorite PUBG maps.

Each battlefield was chosen to provide a different TDM experience. For example, Podvosto from Vikendi features long range combat over a bridge, while the Docks of Sanhok battlefield features close quarters combat around containers. TDM will also support each battlefield’s variable weather conditions, so be ready to change up your Spawn Kit to adjust to the map.

List of TDM battlefields:
ERANGEL – Stalber, Sosnovka Military Base
SANHOK – Paradise Resort, Docks
VIKENDI – Podvosto, Peshkova
MIRAMAR – Campo Militar

Respawns

In Team Deathmatch, players who are killed will respawn at a respawn point based on their team’s current situation. Players will respawn close to friendlies and far from enemies when possible. For example, when your team has occupied an advantageous area, teammates can respawn close to this area’s perimeter. Be aware that players won’t respawn when the location is considered contested due to enemies in range! In this case, they will be safely respawned closer to their starting zone. All players will spawn invincible for a brief time to help reduce spawn camping.

Scoreboard

The scoreboard in Team Deathmatch tracks more than just total team points. You can check the stats of everyone in the match, including player kills, assists, and even multi-kills. You earn points for winning rounds and the more points you earn, the more BP you are rewarded.

Players can also earn assists by being the highest contributor to an opponent’s damage after the player who completes the kill.

TDM Boost Gauge
The TDM Boost Gauge fills by scoring kills and assists during the match and begins to restore your health after you haven’t received damage for 5 seconds.

The Boost Gauge in TDM works differently than in a normal Battle Royale match. When you spawn, your gauge will be 50% full and will not decrease until you’ve taken damage. In TDM, this gauge both heals and depletes much faster and can only be filled by scoring kills (+50%) and assists (+20%). If 5 seconds have passed since you took damage, your Boost Gauge will begin to deplete by 10% per second, replenishing 10% of max health each tick until full. The Boost Gauge in TDM will not grant any movement speed increases.

Spawn Kit
Spawn Kits are sets of equipment and weapons you choose as your loadout. Players will be able to see their current Spawn Kit and the scoreboard by toggling the map while in-game. If you change your Spawn Kit on this screen, it will apply the next time you respawn or at the start of the next round. There are currently 8 different types of Spawn Kits to choose from: 2 AR kits, 2 DMR kits, 2 SR kits, 1 SMG kit, and 1 Shotgun kit. You can select any kit you like, just make sure you’re choosing the right kit for the current situation.

This is just the beginning for Arcade. We’ll be adding new battlefields for Team Deathmatch and will be watching your feedback closely for other ways to improve it. Moreover, we’re planning to add new and familiar game modes to Arcade, blending PUBG’s unique gameplay into thrilling new experiences.

Have something you’d like to see make its way to Arcade? Send us your ideas! Your feedback drove the addition of Arcade and we’d love to hear what else you’d like to see.

For now, spawn onto a battlefield and get your frag on!

Sincerely,
-The PUBG Dev Team

Welcome back Survivors,

With the December update, we introduced improvements to our in-game blood effects, which included changes to both environment splatter and misting from bullet hits. There's been varying degrees of sentiment from the community regarding the change, so we'd like to explain our reasoning for these changes in more detail.

The first change was a new particle effect, which was designed to remain consistent across all color mode settings. This change means that the size of the blood splash will be the same, no matter which colorblind or rating setting you use, keeping the experience consistent for everyone. The core intention here was to create a new effect that would be unified across all graphic settings to make sure that a player's settings could not provide significant advantage over others.

Secondly, all head shots (including those hitting the neck area) now produce distinct particle effect for better identification of the hit. Before the change, determining where you hit became more difficult the further out you were, causing players to have to guess whether or not their hit was accurate. Since your course of action can be heavily influenced on this information, we wanted to make sure you had a clear indicator. A beneficial side-effect to this change was a small performance boost by replacing the cloudy effect.

The third change was the addition of blood splatters on the environment. These splatters on the walls and floors near where enemy players are hit can give you information about recent skirmishes in the area. Doors closed tight but blood everywhere? Someone might be setting up an ambush. These visual queues are in line with what we wanted from footprints on Vikendi.

Last but not least we updated the way wound textures are displayed on characters. We minimized or in some cases completely removed the chance for stretching and dislocating of the impact positions and fixed a bug which would cause wound textures to sometimes be projected onto incorrect body parts.

After roll out, we came across a few concerns thanks in part to community reporting. One of the main points being that the new blood effect was harder to see than before. After the blood effect update, it was reduced in size and visibility, making it difficult to see at distances or unclear when characters were in the shadows. We deployed a hotfix on December 23 to increase the size and visibility of the new blood effect and to fix the issue with incorrect blood colors displaying under various lighting conditions. Even with the hotfix, there are still feedback from the players that the visibility of blood effect is still not clear compared to the original version.

We will continue improving the visibility of the effect based on your feedback and our next phase of improvements aim to smooth the effects and adjust the size of the blood splatter to more accurately reflect FOV zoom. Formerly, particles didn't scale (their LOD/size) with change of field of view (FOV) and they only scaled by distance. After the changes have been applied, the players should be able to clearly see the hits regardless of zoom level and distance.

Even with the size changed, we're also working on tweaking other components of the blood effect. Color will be adjusted to make the blood more visible regardless of the light level. Blood particles will be spawning faster which will allow players to take notice of how many shots have been hit. We'll also be tweaking its texture to make it look less like liquids and more like splatters.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

On console, the new blood effects are currently reverted, as we saw performance issues which need to be worked out before we can reapply the patch. Once this issue is resolved, we can start working on improving the effects on console as well.

We're working hard to make sure these effects look good and give players helpful visual cues, while not offering an advantage to those who tweak their display settings.

We're planning to have the improvement updated during February. We'll keep you updated as improvements continue to roll out and as always, we appreciate your feedback. Our Community Managers will continue to pass along your thoughts as we build out our road map for this and future quality of life improvements.


Thanks,

Animation & Gameplay Unit