The PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds test server is live with some changes to the blue circle in an effort to improve pacing and distribution of combat encounters.
The blue zone has been altered in three ways. The waiting time of the blue zones in mid-to-late match has been slightly decreased, the shrinking speed of the blue zones in mid-to-late match has been slightly decreased, and the damage per second of the last blue zone has been slightly increased. To put it simply—it’s slower, but it hits harder.
The changes will be tested for several days and further alterations will be made based on feedback, according to PUBG Corp.
“Over the course of the Early Access period, we received a lot of feedback from you that the pacing and distribution of combat encounters in a match could be more even and less chaotic,” PUBG Corp said in a blog post. “We performed a series of internal tests to find ways to address this issue. However, we were not able to take any action until now as other fundamental systems had to be developed and fixed first.”
PUBG Corp also addressed the ever-present issue of cheaters and hackers in PUBG. With the comments to the post filled with posts saying “Add Ping Lock” and “Region Lock China,” it’s clear that players are fed up with dealing with hackers, many of which come from that region.
“We recently discovered a new pattern of cheats in action,” PUBG Corp said. “This week, we performed a thorough gameplay data review of 10 million players and completed analysis of tens of millions of data logs. Through this exercise, we were able to identify over 100,000 instances of the new pattern related to use of cheat and now we have confirmed that it was clearly an attempt of compromising our game. These players will be permanently banned in a single wave.”
The fight against hackers wages on, but small improvements to the game like changes to the blue zone are also in the cards. Although PUBG is out of early access, its development is still a constant journey.
