PUBG - PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Dev Tracker

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!

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.

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! =)

Probably.

Yes.

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

that's all we ask!

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

That'd be cool if they were.

Yep.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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...

Whoa, this is a cool idea.

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.

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!

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!).