PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PC, Xbox One) will soon receive a new matchmaking system based on PINGs. This aims to group players with similarly good or bad connections together. It could also address the issue of cheating Chinese players – even without the regional lock.
In PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, up to 100 players compete for victory at once. However, worse than a nasty sniper on a camping trip are players with poor ping. Their bad connection makes the game much worse for everyone else.
But a new matchmaking system will soon provide a remedy!
New matchmaking in the testing phase
In the coming days, the developers of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds plan to test a new matchmaking system.
The brilliant and simple idea: players with similar ping values are grouped together in the same matches. This means that only players with good ping will play against others with optimal values.
Those with a poor ping will only play with gamers who are similarly underperforming. This leads to better performance for everyone. However, the new matchmaking could also resolve another, much more serious issue in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Chinese players only among themselves?
Notoriously high pings are not just an issue for those with dial-up modems. Many players from far-flung regions often have bad pings when they play on servers here. This applies, among others, to Chinese players who play on servers in Europe or the USA.
Especially players from China have a bad reputation among the rest of the PUBG community, as a large portion of cheaters in PUBG are said to come from the Middle Kingdom. Frustrated gamers have long been demanding a ban on the China region from other PUBG servers.
However, PUBG head Brendan Greene has never wanted to handle it that way. After all, they don’t want to punish an entire nation for the misdeeds of a few countrymen. However, with the ping matchmaking, no Chinese player would be excluded due to their nationality. They would simply be placed in matches with other Chinese players.
The new system will soon be tested. If it is successful, PUBG could soon be fairer and smoother.
Performance improvements on the test server
Currently, developers are testing further methods on the test server to improve the game. Two methods are particularly interesting and could make a significant impact if they were implemented on the live servers:
- Not all 100 players will be shown in the plane at the start of the game anymore. Only when someone jumps out will they be visible in the game. This should improve performance.
- The reporting function from replay videos is being improved. Developers can now view a one-minute video of the incident reported. This should help in better identifying cheaters.
Why are cheats so prevalent in China? We have an explanation attempt.
