[2020] Ask Me Anything - Sanhok Remastered | Event Thread & Giveaway

Hey guy. I know you've kept competitive play in mind when working on these updates to Sahnok. Would you mind briefly covering some of the changes that were directed at improving the experience for Ranked and Esports?

Sanhok is already a more aggressive map in the rotation; so, we wanted to play off of that concept and create some points of conflict that were dynamic. Originally, we had talked about making "public airdrops" which would be identified on the minimap and having players fight over them.

The more we talked about the idea though, the more we rejected it because we felt we were too close to normal airdrops and starting to step too far outside of the PUBG DNA.

Riffing off that idea though, we talked about a roaming loot pinata and how interesting it could be to chase the pinata or engage it if you felt the opportunity presented itself. The more we discussed it, the more we liked how it fit the PUBG world and the lore behind the Sanhok map itself.

Originally we had talked about the Loot Truck playing loud music to notify players that it was nearby; which I call the "ice cream truck" effect, but we determined that the sound was too disruptive for combat and gameplay. We ended up cutting this part of the feature.

With maps these large, we start with a generated topography making sure that we're hitting our goals for fitting the look and general design that we're going for. From there, we heavily modify the terrain to adjust to our unique locations, house sets, or map features that we want to highlight.

We always consider sight lines, cover, and concealment when making adjustments to these spaces. We strive to make fun spaces that look great and feel fair to fight in.

The Loot Truck moves faster than a player running; so, you'll have to make use of your window of opportunity as the Loot Truck drives by.

One of my favorite things to do in playtests, though I admit extremely risky, is to chase one down in a vehicle.

There's nothing quite like going on a Mad Max chase through the Sanhok countryside on a motorcycle while your teammate is brandishing a Panzerfaust for some big damage.

Our overcast weather type has a really nice rain effect that can happen at times.

It's actually pretty soothing, and I've definitely caught myself drifting off of focus at random times haha

One of my favorite games of all time is Shadow of the Colossus, and specifically how they incorporated their level design into the different challenges.

Some of the maps that stick out in my mind are Office from Counter Strike, Terminal from MW2, Oasis from Overwatch, and The Longest Yard from Quake 3 Arena. This is by no means an exhaustive list though haha I enjoy a lot of other games in my spare time.

As a Designer, I get this question a lot from both high school and college age people.

My honest advice is to continue to develop your passion for games. Play video games, play board games, play weird stuff you make up on the spot with your friends. Analyze it, find the fun, try some different house rules and see if you can make an experience that many people can enjoy.

Grab opportunities where they present themselves in terms of education for yourself. I took programming, math, and art classes in Highschool which helped to develop the fundamentals that I use today.

I also dabbled a lot in level editors building my own MP maps in Unreal when I was in college. I think with something like modding or building your own content it can feel a bit overwhelming in the beginning.

My advice is to start small in scope. Don't try to build an entire game straight out of the gates. Start with maybe modifying weapons or creating a small building based on reference. Once you feel comfortable, branch out. Hand your content over to people and let them play with it and give you feedback. Try to give yourself constraints so you can practice creative problem-solving.

Lastly, try out new experiences and hobbies. I took music in Highschool, played a ton of D&D in Highschool/College (still do), and am thankful for the opportunities I've had to travel in my life. All this stuff inspires me when I'm designing or iterating on ideas.

I don't want to get too in depth into exactly how the truck works as I believe players should explore and experience the new content.

What I will say is that the Trucks have routes that they can take, but in the interest of keeping gameplay dynamic and "no two games the same", the Trucks can make decisions about paths they'll take along their routes.

Clearly my childhood is leaking into my designs.

My task was to identify the opportunities to change/improve the map, design some town layouts, and work with our other talented developers to establish the features/lore for the season. I'm also lucky enough to work with amazing designers and artists- so lots of meetings/feedback with them, and lots of late night meetings with the mothership in Seoul! =)

I think if the glider doesn't totally break Sanhok, it stands a chance of getting into Vikendi. I think it feels fun, but let's see what yall think! (that's the beauty of a live game: things can go in, things can come out)

It's very simple: first we ask "what do we want to achieve/what's the desired gameplay?" And then, we draw the rest of the owl.

Make bad games, and if it's fun, keep going until they are good games.

"Fans First" is one of our 4 pillars- so yes, we're interested in what our fans want to see, and of course, we're all following our own creative muses.

I think it's okay that we're seeing cross pollination between BR games- it's a wide genre now. If creators weren't remixing/improving each others ideas, we'd still be stuck on vanilla team deathmatch!

I'm really excited to see it- we've really considered their feedback (overpowered big mountain/tough rivers), so I'm absolutely pumped to see it get there one day.

Play them map, earn the skins- but as they say... 'WAIT, THERE'S MORE"...

It's gonna be a cruel Summer...

Let's see how it goes- if people love it, I think anything is possible!

I'll be honest, there's no pleasing everyone, but I always try to hear them out. I look at negative comments and try to find valuable information out of them. Doing so requires practice and I've had to develop a thicker skin throughout my career.

I love me some positive comments. If you're one of those people who leaves simple, positive comments when you don't have to - Absolute rock stars.

People who leave constructive, well thought out comments - also rock stars. I read through all of those. I find the best constructive comments tend to be the ones that talk about the experience rather than how to fix the experience.

Glad you're having a great time with the remaster. Definitely going to be catching some streams later to see how the map is playing.

Could have been so much ice cream.

I went into this a bit lower in the thread, but the main thing was Ranked and Esports players have been on the struggle bus re: traversal and wonky final circles. Shear, 90 degree cliff faces, brutal river crossings, big NW mountain being so unbalanced, these features make it hard to play a fair, competitive game. We want tactics to matter, high ground should be advantageous, but not overwhelmingly so.

So the big focus was re-balancing those engagements to feel a little more fair, and then adjusting areas of the map that weren't seeing enough love (REST IN POWER, COCONUT FARM!).

100 percent- we love the nighttime too! The main thing, is when (if?) we bring it back, it needs to look and perform well, and offer interesting gameplay implications. If we ever find that balance- we would love to revisit night settings. Thanks for the question!

There is no plan to cut the crate drops currently. Loot Truck and crate drops were designed to exist together.

That said we're always monitoring feedback and looking for improvements that can be made to content.

Whoa, this is a cool idea.

Great questions- lemme try to hit all 3

1. Audio team works like demons to get the sound perfect- everything that bothers you, I promise it bothers them 10 times worse.
2. We're a diverse group of developers- so we draw from a pretty deep well. There's real life location scouting (shout out to Thailand), movies (Apocalypse Now/Only God Forgives), other games (Loot Truck = Loot Goblin from Golden Axe), and just a ton of blue sky conversations. The reality is the opportunity to make games for a living is rare and special, and we all take great pleasure in the process. In fact- when developing THIS MAP, during crazy Covid times- diving into Sanhok has been a great escape from a weird world. We hope that playing it offers a little break from the madness...
3. They would snipe me through my office window if I told you...

I know the team has considered this- I think the concern is a balance issue of everyone switching to their tactical outfits to best match each map's color scheme, and I see that argument, but I'm also a big fan of maximizing the player's ability to express themselves in game. I'll pass this feedback up the chain!

For the Design side of things, reviewing a lot of heat map data, player feedback, esports feedback, and our own experiences with building the map the first time around.

From there, working with engineering teams to design our various features, assessing loot distributions to incorporate new content, and working with the environment art teams to build out our new spaces. Design has a hand in just about everything.

Make something. Be able to talk about it. Be able to talk about what's good about it, what's bad about it. Be able to talk about what you would do if you had infinite time. Be able to talk about what you threw away. Play other games. Be able to talk about them. Try to figure out why things were done the way they were. Think about what you would do differently. Think about how that would change the game. Maybe rethink about what you would do differently. Make something. Be able to talk about the worst parts of your favorite game. Identify good parts of games you don't like. Also, what Dave and Andre said. That, and make something.

So here comes some PR speak, but I came up with it during press stuff this week, and I'm proud of it, and I'm gonna keep wheeling it out every time I can:

We wanted the beats to stay the same (between old and new), but the melody to be sweeter!

This really is just normal Sanhok- but polished and improved to the level we've always wanted it to reach.

And 2 years after the fact, all of the artists were ready to take another swing at old content!

Everybody's got a chance to make suggestions. Then those suggestions hit a bunch of different filters like will it be performant, does it truly add something to the game or is it just unnecessary complexity, what's the likelihood of us being able to complete it on schedule, etc. Eventually management has to make the call as to whether something makes the cut or not, but who exactly that is can vary depending on the feature.

Yep.

That'd be cool if they were.

Alex always seems to find things he's not supposed to find.

that's all we ask!

At the moment, the gliders are Bring Your Own Gas.

Yes.

Probably.

I'm glad you dig the skins this pass- we're trying to offer a variety!

So I can't speak specifically on the Smoke Grenade issue (diff team, sorry), I can say from the world team- when we approached this map the philosophy was "leave it better than you found it", meaning players don't care about new content if it plays worse. So every blade of grass, rock, tree, and building has been remade to look better, and be more performance (less verts, smarter, fewer materials, better LODs). Our texture memory, for example, is in a better place from legacy Sanhok. So we are doing our part to save you sweet frames! =)

It's not really my team- but from my perspective, I think ESports functions as "PUBG as a competitive contest" and Ranked is aiming for "perfectly distilled BR experience". And I think a big part of the PUBG BR experience is "no two games the same", and the variety of player stories that come from the world being somewhat unpredictable. I'm sure that's not the answer you were looking for- but I kinda think that's the deal.

Sometimes I have a meeting at 7am. I hereby apologize publicly to everybody else in them. I can't help what happens before the coffee kicks in.

Also, there's nothing quite like having another language auto-translated back to you to make you appreciate how quirky your own language is (try moving the word "not" around an English sentence to see what I'm talking about) and how awesome your team of interpreters is!

Probably :)

ooh... cool ideas!

Find them and see!

I played way, way too much Office in CS. Also, I was lucky enough to work on five CoDs, it was a pleasure to art direct Octane on Ghosts- that might be my favorite CoD map!

There is some more mid-season content coming, yes. You'll see them first on Sanhok. Whether they make their way to the rest of the world will probably depend on the players' reaction to them.

For me, the Loot Truck. I like hunting the squads hunting the truck!

That'll probably depend on the feedback we get from the player base.

I used to play in MUFA before I sprained my ankle and got old and fat. I still have my team t-shirt from 1999. "Army of Darkness" forever!

1. My team has a Slack video meeting every morning at 10:15. We've had a few "hot mic" moments with other people, pets, and/or grandfather clocks in the households. Pro-tip: a headset with a wide band on top helps cover up the occasional bed head combined with a coronavirus-induced lack of a haircut for 6 months.

2. The every 2 season thing isn't necessarily a fixed pattern. It's just how these last 2 happened to work out.

All of the above- we begin with a procedural system, and then so much hand painting/tweaking!

Video meetings are nice for not having a commute and getting some extra sleep, but I really miss seeing the team in person. There are also about a hundred restaurants and bars within walking distance of the office that I really, really miss.

A hot dog is a sandwich.

Thanks for the question- I think all in, we've been on Sanhok for a little over 6 months. And we love Miramar too- we've absolutely been thinking about how to improve it!

I think video games have taken on a larger role in people's lives than ever before during the pandemic. That said, I'd happily trade it all to make it go away.

We hit the cheat button like everyone else! Yes, every Thursday night in Madison, we watch a stream of Seoul playing (their Friday playday), see how the content is playing outside of our office, and then we join pubs and just get wrecked for a few hours...

This is my first big update with the PUBG team, so I really, REALLY hope you all like it!

Change over time? Hmm... interesting.

There is definitely some cool lore coming. Stay tuned.

We had a few playtests to make the rivers as navigable as possible. Check out Pai Nan for added boat-related fun.

Haters gonna hate. You get the best views from that glider ;)