Tag: Gaming News

Dev Blog: Playlist Improvements

09/16/2019 Source = Ubisoft® (CA)

When we announced our Y4 roadmap, we revealed several major playlist changes with the addition of the Newcomer Playlist, updates to Ranked Playlists and Casual, and more. For this purpose, we created the Playlist cell, a multidisciplinary team dedicated to working on the Playlists. With the playlist changes, our goals were to provide more guidance in the onboarding experience for new players, foster a healthier competitive scene at the higher ranks of play, while also finding better ways to disseminate information to ease the leap between casual and Ranked.

This dev blog aims to provide insight on the changes and improvements that have been made to Playlists throughout Y4, and will shed some light on the decision process that goes into helping us look for ways that we can improve the player experience for all types of players in our community.

GUIDING NEW PLAYERS

Rainbow Six Siege is a complex game to pick up. Even for experienced FPS players, Siege requires more than just shooting, as there is an expanse of game knowledge that can and should be learned as you grow as a player. As the game continues to grow, we realized that we had to begin developing initiatives to ease the learning curve and better guide our players.

Entering a casual PvP game as your first Rainbow Six experience is daunting and can easily turn into a frustrating experience for new players. The creation of the Newcomer playlist aimed to offer a compact experience for new players. So with only three bomb-only maps, and a maximum Clearance Level of 50, we sought to create a space for newer players to learn among themselves in a more controlled environment.

The Newcomer playlist is just one step in our plans for improving the onboarding process, and we are continuing to search for more ways to inform, guide, and educate players. The Operator selection screen now contains difficulty ratings and full loadouts. We also added in default loadouts for new players as well. Furthermore, we have been monitoring feedback and understand that the Clearance Level cap prevents new players from playing with their friends. Part of the solution to this is the upcoming Unranked Playlist (read for more on this below), but we are continuing to look into ways we can improve the Newcomer playlist further while keeping our core purpose of the playlist intact.

FOSTERING COMPETITION

At the other end of the spectrum, we also wanted to focus more on creating a better Ranked experience for our highly dedicated competitive players. We wanted to provide an experience that more closely mirrored Pro League, improve Ranked competitive balance in all aspects, and develop long-term engagement with players and Ranked. It was time the Beta tag came off ranked.

We first began with the introduction of Ranked Pick and Ban as a first step to bring Ranked closer to Pro League. A logical next step with our pool of Operators increasing season by season, Pick and Ban has helped to shift the meta, act as a balancing check, and refresh gameplay experience from one match to another. With the next season, we’re taking one more step closer to Pro League by changing the plant and defuse timer to 7 seconds, forcing teams to plan and commit more in order to plant.

Next, we turned our eyes towards shaking up the Rank distribution. While the average player placed in Gold, what we knew from feedback and what our data was telling us were that progression in lower ranks felt very difficult and led to diminished motivation to rank up. As a result, we added an additional fifth Rank to Copper, Bronze and Silver and removed the fourth Rank in Gold – making movement for players at lower Ranks feel more progressive as they climb up the ladder.

Additionally, we’ve added a new Rank for our top skilled players. Any player that reaches 5000 MMR will enter the Champions Rank and maintain a leaderboard position. The more MMR you have, the higher your Champions positions. We believe this will help ignite the competitive spirit at the top, and drive our best players to show they are at the top.

Further changes coming to Ranked in Y4S3 bring the focus on improving competitive health, balance, and integrity. The Rank restriction will prevent players with greater than a 1000+ MMR gap from playing with each other as a means to prevent boosting, and the new Ranked map pool will be reduced from 14 to 12. We will be looking at feedback on these changes with the new season to see what tweaks and further improvements can be made.

BRIDGING THE GAP

The leap from Casual to Ranked can be overwhelming due to the stark difference between competitive and casual players in terms of mentality, playstyle, and even personal comfort level. This gap was the driving motivation behind the new Unranked playlist.

The Unranked playlist maintains all the same rules and settings of Ranked, but without the pressure of Ranks, MMR, and importantly, no Rank restrictions. Players can warm up in a more focused environment, create pre-made squads with friends without restriction, and familiarize themselves with Ranked to prepare themselves for the next step up.

Unranked is a new playlist, and we hope it will be the answer to players’ needs. We will be gathering data during this Season to see if we achieve the results we are aiming for!

PROVIDING MORE AND BETTER INFORMATION

Finally, information and knowledge is everything in Siege, but sometimes finding that information can be difficult. To better disseminate this wealth of information and to keep our players updated on any and all changes, we’ve made a couple of improvements.

In the Casual Playlist, we’ve enhanced player comprehension by adding the “Locations” screen by allowing players choose their Attack spawn point and highlighting the objective room for Defenders. For Ranked, we’ve created the Ranked Guide which provides Ranked rules, ban policies, the current map pool rotation, information on ranks and rank distribution, and more to prepare and inform players before queuing up for Ranked.

With all the Playlist changes, we feel that they will all contribute to improving player experience, no matter what type of player you are. These changes are by no means the end and we look forward to your continued feedback as we move towards even more improved Playlists.

Stay tuned for more future updates from our Playlist cell!

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It hasn’t been a great year for blockbuster games, but dig around and there are some absolute belters, including Apex Legends, Outer Wilds and Tetris 9

By WILL BEDINGFIELD

Original source = wired

Apex Legends
Any casual observer, skimming through lists of blockbuster releases, might conclude that 2019 hasn’t been a great year for games. At a certain level, they’d be right: the dearth of real must-have titles is most likely down to the fact that we are reaching the end of every console’s life-cycle.

Fear not, however – if you venture deeper into 2019’s murky depths, you can find a panoply of shining gems. (The trick is not being afraid to go indie). Speaking of which, we have a handy guide to the best indie games if you’re interested, and try our guide the new games in 2019 for what’s coming soon. But, without further ado, here’s our list of the best games of 2019 so far.

1. Resident Evil 2

This is the best kind of remake. Rather than lightly remaster 1998’s version with new textures and effects, Capcom has re-made the game entirely for today’s hardware. The result is a terrifying delight that looks incredible and plays better than ever thanks to a switch to the over-the-shoulder viewpoint first seen in Resident Evil 4. For anyone who loved the original but didn’t enjoy its awkward fixed camera angles, it’s a great chance to revisit a genuine classic.

2. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

From Software, of Bloodborne and Dark Souls fame, give us yet another ridiculously punishing action-adventure, but this time set in an ancient samurai mythos. There’s also less role-playing and levelling up: this is stealthier, story-driven quest. A grappling hook lets you zip around and sneak up on your kills. Single-player only, you won’t be able to summon buddies to help you in a game some reviewers have said is the hardest From Software release of all time. Depending on your relationship to the Souls series, this news may excite or terrify you.

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One and PC

3. Devil May Cry 5

Much like Mortal Kombat, Devil May Cry is an old series, and this latest version is the best entry. The series focuses on Dante, (named after the Italian poet), who must avenge his murdered mother by killing legions of demons. The game is combat heavy: players must string chains of attacks into special moves and eliminate hundreds of enemies. Reviewers are pretty much unanimous: “the question of which Devil May Cry game is the best has gotten much easier with Devil May Cry 5”, says Mitchell Saltzman over at IGN.

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC

4. Outer Wilds

An action-adventure game set in a magical-looking solar system, with an emphasis on exploration. You play as a member of a four-eyed race of purple aliens, on a mission to find out where they come from, and whether life existed in the solar system before them. Plot twist: every 22 minutes, the sun implodes and you start again. The game is currently generating massive acclaim as well as much discussion around its deep, moving story and extraordinary vistas. A lot of this is down to the game’s central conceit: much like Majora’s Mask, the sun ends all life, which adds both an interesting gameplay trope and a moving theme to proceedings.

Platforms: Xbox One and PC

5. Mortal Kombat 11

More heart-ripping, acid-dissolving, scorpion-biting fun from one of the most beloved and controversial series in gaming. As Wesley Yin-Poole explains over at Eurogamer, this is the superior Mortal Kombat offering: “a kind of Mortal Kombat greatest hits package and certainly NetherRealm’s best-playing fighting game ever.” The gameplay caters to old hands while providing entertainment for the large, amateur section of the game’s audience who just want to button bash and pull off their friends’ heads. Playing online, as with any fighter, is still a harrowing experience. You will get destroyed.

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One and PC

6. Tetris 99

It’s Tetris, but battle royale: it sounds impossible, but it’s incredible fun. The clue is in the title: you and 98 other players play a fast-paced game of Tetris until one player is left standing. You get upgrades to attack other players. Mayhem ensues. Extremely addictive and extremely popular, this has been a coup for Nintendo as a Switch exclusive. It’s free-to-play, but you need a Switch Online subscription to play. Unless you really like NES games, Tetris 99 is the best reason to get one.

Platforms: Switch

7. Hypnospace Outlaw

A gorgeously animated detective game, which draws on the aesthetic of the late 90s and early 2000s internet pages (think Myspace and Geocities). You surf this exciting looking web, trying to stop illegal activities such as copyright infringement. If you were around during this era of the internet, the game will bring you back to a time before Facebook and the iPhone changed the web. The puzzles themselves are also fiendishly constructed and rewarding.

Platforms: PC

8. Metro Exodus

The Metro series, based on a series of books by Dmitry Glukhovsky, are broadly set in post-apocalyptic Russia. These survival horror games are known for their claustrophobic atmosphere, stunning graphics, and mix of stealth and FPS shooting action against desperate humans and irradiated monsters. Metro Exodus, the fourth entry in the series, takes place in more sandbox-like open-world levels, as opposed to the linear offerings of the older games. Be warned, it’s scary!

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One and PC

9. Void Bastards

Void Bastards is an indie FPS with some of the most stunning comic-book inspired graphics we’ve ever seen. If you are at all into cel-shading art styles, Void Bastards is a must play. Luckily, the gameplay is also excellent: a thoughtful shooter inspired by Bioshock and System Shock 2. Why the name? Well you’re a convict sent into space to repair the ‘Void Ark’ and it’s full of alien bastards. As Samuel Roberts at PC Gamer explains, “While there is a stealth element to Void Bastards, it’s mostly about shooting weird, British aliens in tight corridors and rooms.“

Platforms: PC, Xbox One

10. Wargroove

This turn-based tactics game is a must-buy for all Advance Wars fans. Imagine Nintendo’s classic reinvented with a fantasy theme, and you’ll be pretty close to what Wargroove offers. Choose between four factions, take turns to build up your armies and guide them across a top-down map into battle against the opposition. Solid multiplayer and an in-depth level editor will keep you coming back for more.

Platforms: PC, Xbox One and Switch

11. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Fire Emblem is one of those series, now at sixteen main games and three spin-offs, that’s absolutely massive and seminal in Japan but reaches more of a niche market in the West. (Players may know its characters best from the introduction of Marth and Roy to Super Smash Bros Melee). The games are famous for their permanent death feature – if your character dies, that’s it. The latest release is a tactical roleplayer, where you move your characters across grid-based environments but also level them up like a more traditional role-playing game – it’s a Nintendo exclusive, and a high point in the series long history.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch

12. Blood and Truth

Playstation VR hasn’t had many great games – Blood and Truth is one of the better ones, and it was in fact the first ever virtual reality game to top the UK charts. It’s an expanded version of the “London Heist” level from VR Worlds – you’re an army veteran pushed into a murky London criminal underworld. Expect lots of shooting, explosions and bad cockney accents.

Platforms: Playstation VR

13. Pikuniku

A loveable 2D puzzle platformer where you play a small being called Pikuniku, trying to save his cartoon town from corporate interference. Animated in a children’s book style, the visuals in Pikuniku are beautiful and charming; the title character reminds you of a child’s drawing of themselves, where they draw only legs and head, forgetting their body. You use these long legs to solve puzzles and kick objects, including many of the game’s characters.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC

14. My Friend Pedro

An absolutely chaotic shoot ’em up where your goal is to create as much cinematic mayhem as possible. Careen off walls and bullet-time spin through the air to mow down your prey. You’re also best friends with a talking banana. The shooting action is addictively frenetic. There are tons of different ways to finish your enemies: throw a frying pan in the air and use it to spray bullets at unlucky foes; swing through the air from a bungee rope and chuck dead enemy’s body parts at their allies.

Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch

15. Apex Legends

A challenger to Fornite’s dominance approaches. Apex Legends hit one million, ten million and 50m players faster than Epic’s cultural phenomenon. It offers the now-standard battle royale formula – players skydive onto an island and try to kill each other. Innovations, like a character class system akin to Overwatch, keep Legends from feeling stale. And just like Fortnite, it’s free-to-play, so you’ve got nothing to lose.

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One and PC

16. Sunless Skies

The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, Sunless Skies is a top-down steampunk space adventure set in a universe where the British “Victorian Empire” has gone interplanetary. It’s as much a literary experience as a gaming one, filled as it is with bizarre, intriguing vignettes. The gameplay leans heavily on the survival and rogue-lite genres, forcing you to make hard decisions to survive as you battle space pirates and monsters. It’ll leave you with memorable tales of surviving by your wits and absorb you for forty hours or more.

Platforms: PC

17. Observation

In Observation, you control a space station AI trying to recover after the crew disappears. It’s a neat reversal of the trapped in space trope and the limitations of controlling an AI, as opposed to a mobile protagonist, creates an interesting dynamic for this story-driven adventure. Echoes of 2001: A Space Odyssey are writ large throughout and it’s short enough to be completed in a day.

Platforms: PS4 and PC

18. Super Mario Maker 2

The original Super Mario Maker was a brilliant idea sadly marooned on the colossal failure that was the Wii U. But it’s back and it’s on the Switch, where many a Wii U game has found a second life. As the name suggests, it’s all about building your own Mario levels based on assets from numerous previous games, and playing those made by others. It includes local and online competitive modes, a co-op level making mode for two players, and a Story Mode with 100 levels to complete.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Roblox passes Minecraft and Fortnite as world’s favourite video game

Original story by GameCentral

Monday 5 Aug 2019 9:27 am

Looking like fake Lego is apparently the secret of video game success The most popular console and PC game may be one you’ve never even heard of, as kids’ title Roblox passes 100 million monthly users. Game review: Age Of Wonders: Planetfall is Civilization meets XCOM Back when video games were sold in shops, and that was it, it was pretty easy to tell which was most popular. There were never any sales figures, at least in the UK, but at least it was obvious which was selling the most. Things are much more complicated now but it seems the current number one game might be… Roblox. Many gamers, especially if they don’t have kids, have probably never even heard of Roblox but according to its makers it now has over 100 million monthly users, which is more than the 91 million Minecraft had back in March.

The problem with these figures is that they’re not updated regularly and it’s usually the game makers themselves that provide them, so it’s hard to know exactly how accurate they are. The last one for Fortnite, in September 2018, put it at 78.3 million – which is a completely different number to the number of people that have ever registered to play the game, which stands at around 250 million. In terms of how many are actually playing it right now though, Google search data seemed to show Minecraft passing Fortnite back in June. MORE: GAMING Pokémon Center opening in London this autumn Evo 2019 news round-up: Tekken 7 and King Of Fighters XV, but no Solid Snake Game review: Oxygen Not Included is a deep space survival game At that point Roblox wasn’t even in the picture but then it’s not something most adult gamers know or care about, as it’s a mix of MMO and game creation tool, which features more than 50 million mini-games created by mostly younger players. It’s even less of a traditional game than Minecraft but that’s a large reason for its success, with a userbase that’s 40% female. Half of its players also play with their friends, rather than alone, which also helps to encourage regular play. Whether Roblox really is the most popular game is hard to say, as Pokémon GO claims to be more popular now than at any time since launch, but in terms of console and PC games it seems like Roblox is currently number one.

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By Austin Wood of Gamesradar+

The next chapter in The Division 2 is Episode 1 – DC Outskirts: Expeditions, and as Ubisoft and Massive announced today, this free DLC will arrive on July 23 for Year 1 Pass owners and July 30 for all players. Aside from myriad fixes and balance changes, Episode 1 will introduce two new main missions, the Expeditions game mode, new gear including two Exotics, and two more Classified Assignments. The Operation Dark Hours raid is also getting a lowered “Discovery” difficulty (with reduced rewards), and even amongst the many balance changes, skill overhauls stand out.

The new missions are set in Camp White Oak and the Manning National Zoo, and star President Andrew Ellis and Outcast leader Emeline Shaw, respectively. Expeditions, meanwhile, will take players to Kenly College. Unlike missions, Expeditions will be split into three “wings,” with new wings released on a weekly basis. “Completing all three wings grants access to an exclusive treasure room full of rewards,” Massive said in a statement. The new Classified Assignments, meanwhile, are set in Washington’s Central Aquarium and NSA Site B13, and are exclusive to the Year 1 Pass. 

You’ll likely find some of the DLC’s new gear in that treasure room, including the Diamondback Exotic rifle and the Exotic BTSU Datagloves. Two non-Exotic weapons are also coming in Episode 1: the Stoner LMG and the Carbine 7. The Carbine 7 is a shooter staple and has been well-received on The Division 2 test servers, so its impact on the meta may well rival some Exotics.

On top of new weapons, agents will get to play with refreshed skills in Episode 1. Massive said “Skill power will be fine-tuned, adding more power to agents’ builds,” with game designer Bruce Kelly highlighting skill cool-downs as a point of focus in a recent live-stream. Simply put, the hard cap on cooldowns has been lowered from ten seconds to three seconds, so if you really invest in cool-down reduction, you’ll get to use skills much more frequently. 

Finally, crafting is also getting an update in Episode 1. “Players can now craft their gear up until Gear Score 500 and share blueprints across characters (available after reaching World Tier 1),” Massive explained. “Additionally, crafted weapons can now be recalibrated.” You can find tips for crafting and recalibration in our Division 2 crafting guide. 

Ahead of the big DLC, here’s everything in the latest Division 2 patch notes. 

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