During a Reddit AMA discussing operator balance and today’s big 2.2 patch announcement for Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft devs from the balancing team shared some aspirations and hinted at a few plans for operators that are in the works. Most notably, Ubi is not happy with one of the most popular operators in the game: Thatcher.

Redditor Jay-Aaron wanted to know why Thatcher’s EMP grenades can’t destroy Alibi’s Prisma decoys and Maestro’s Evil Eye cameras. Typically, the EMP is a surefire way to permanently disable any electronic on the defender side. In response, game designer Jean-Baptiste Hallé said that this is because the team isn’t satisfied with the way Thatcher is played right now.

“EMP [temporarily] disabling things like Alibi's Prisma, Maestro's Turrets, or Bullet Proof Cameras are first steps towards bigger changes that we have in mind for Thatcher. In general, we are not satisfied with the interaction of the EMP and electronic gadgets when this interaction is a simple destruction. We believe that it is often too binary and doesn't leave enough room for counterplays,” Hallé said.

By “too binary,” Hallé refers to a gadget that doesn’t leave itself open to creative use. With Thatcher, you simply throw his EMP grenade. If it blows up anywhere near an electronic, it’s gone. The power and simplicity of this ability has dictated large parts of the meta since the game’s launch. Compare this tactic to similar operators like IQ and Twitch, whose gadgets require timing, positioning, stealth, and inherent risk to make the same impact that Thatcher can by simply tossing an EMP from outside.

It’s this type of gadget that Hallé believes is inherently problematic. Redditor ASCIIPASCII put it best with how this relates to trap operators like Kapkan and Frost. “Personally, I've always felt like traps like those of Frost (or pre-nerf Kapkan), capable of killing or downing an attacker from full health with only a single trap is too hard to balance in regard to the current meta. Leaving them either very much overpowered or underpowered depending on how they are designed.”

Hallé agreed with the commenter, citing Kapkan’s recent rework as an effort to curb an ability that was too binary. Siege data scientist Geoffroy Mouret also chimed in, saying they “want to avoid ‘all-or-nothing’ situations and have more consistent mechanics.” Instead of instantly killing an enemy upon triggering, Kapkan’s traps now explode for 60 damage and are much easier to hide.

Keeping with today’s theme of overly binary abilities, user research project manager Julien Huguenin touched on one fan’s concerns with Blitz being too weak when far away, and too strong up close. “Blitz is a tricky operator to balance—he can easily swing between being much too strong or too weak as the shield mechanic is rather binary as of now,” Huguenin said. He also went on to hint at future efforts to make shields less annoying, saying “we have larger plans in the future to give more counter to the defending operator when facing a Shield at close range.”

We got a few other coy references to future features, too, like a mysterious Mute buff and a gadget for next season that might focus on slowing attackers down. The devs are also looking into Capitão’s asphyxiation bolts to make them more consistent and useful.

Para Bellum’s big mid-season patch is on its way to Rainbow Six Siege, and with it a big balancing pass on nine operators. Many of these changes were previewed on last week’s test sever, but there’s plenty of new changes on the way.

The largest changes are coming to Finka and IQ. In response to new statistics showing the win rate and pick rates of all operators, Finka specifically is in an awkward spot. She has an extremely high win ratio, but is also underplayed. “We want her to be more popular, but also make her weaker. This is somewhat counter intuitive, and thus presents us with a unique opportunity to make some tweaks and adjustments,” Ubisoft noted in the post.

In hopes of remedying this, Finka’s Adrenal Surge ability is being nerfed. Each use will now last only 10 seconds (down from 20), aiming down sights will only be 25 percent faster (down from 50 percent), and Smoke’s gas canister won’t do as much extra damage to those using the surge. She is also stealing IQ’s frag grenades, to the disappointment of many IQ mains.

In addition to losing her frags in favor of a claymore, IQ’s electronics scanner is also getting a slight nerf. Its maximum range will now be 15 meters instead of 20. These changes are targeted at IQ’s high pick rate in Pro League. Ubi wants IQ to primarily play a  supportive role and limit her fragging utility. “In the past, we gave her a Frag Grenade in a time when her gadget was less useful. The increase in detectable gadgets has buffed IQ each time, so we need to balance her a bit.” With the increased number of cameras introduced in Para Bellum, Ubi believes she’s never been stronger. Interestingly, the post also mentions plans for more “drastic” changes to IQ in the future, but gave no other details.

Blackbeard is also seeing some significant shakeup that will affect his play style. His two bullet shields will now have 50 health (down from 60), meaning in most circumstances they’ll be able to withstand one or two fewer hits. To compensate, his movement speed penalty when a shield is attached has been reduced to only 30 percent. His MK17 assault rifle is also getting a slight damage buff from 42 to 49, and his SR-25 DMR is seeing a big damage nerf of 72 to 61. The MK17 has historically been one of the weakest weapons in the game, so these changes will make his kit choices more attractive.

To round out a few other nerfs, Glaz’s rifle damage is going down to 71 from 85 while Twitch’s FAMAS is going down to 37 from 40. This makes a lot of sense for Glaz, who has become extremely strong since a surprise buff to his rifle fire rate in Para Bellum. A damage of 71 brings the weapon to the stronger side of other DMR’s with the added benefit of a smoke-vision scope, of course. With Twitch’s nerf, Ubi is hoping to encourage more operator diversity by making her gun less of a powerhouse.

A few more buffs were also touched on. The range at which Jackal can track footprints is going up from 5 meters to 8. With this change, Ubi wants to “improve player comfort while playing Jackal, and reduce a bit of the risk involved with scanning enemy footsteps.” Both of Frost’s primary weapons are also seeing a buff. Her 9mm C1 SMG damage is going up from 43 to 45, and her Super 90 shotgun damage is up from 32 to 35. These are small tweaks, but Ubi admits that they “probably need more extensive work done to make her as viable as some other Operators, but that is something that we will have to look at doing in the distant future.”

To make room for IQ’s new claymore, Dokkaebi will be losing hers in favor of flash grenades. This likely won’t change the play style of most who main her, as smoke grenades are often seen as the more useful piece of kit to bring along. Barbed wire is also seeing a change in speed reduction. It will now slow down attackers by 50 percent instead of 45, but still require two hits to destroy.

Ubisoft closed with some thoughts on several operators that they’re currently working on. They’re happy with how Maestro is performing, but think he might be too strong in the Pro League. Alibi is performing a little too strong in Ranked, but is underused in the Pro League. They’ll be keeping a close eye on how to improve her. Win rates for both Kapkan and Frost have also suspiciously dropped, so that is also being examined closely.

A rework of Castle is also in the works, but has been put on the backburner for the time being. “We are looking to make more drastic changes to Castle, but do not have an ETA. We have an idea for what we would like to do, but it is currently in the back log, with no time frame for when work on it will begin,” Ubi said.

The first quarter of Ubisoft's 2018-19 fiscal year was a very good one for the company—a record-setter, in fact. Ubi reported sales of €400 million ($466 million) for the quarter, driven primarily by continued growth of digital sales and "player recurring investment" [PRI] in "digital items, DLC, season passes, subscriptions, and advertising."

"We had a record first quarter, which exceeded our expectations. This performance was fueled by steady growth for our back-catalog and an excellent momentum for PRI, once again confirming the increasingly recurring profile of our business and the ever-greater success of our digital transformation," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said. Back-catalog net bookings reached €333 million ($388 million) over the quarter, an increase of nearly 75 percent that represents 87.2 percent of total net bookings. 

Ubi's future is looking pretty bright too: "Our teams are continuing to deliver on our strategic plan of ramping up our franchises. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and The Division 2 were very well received at E3, confirming their full potential in a highly competitive environment. Our new creation, Skull & Bones, also made a very good impression due to its innovative gameplay combining naval battles with a multi-player experience." 

And of course we don't want to overlook the PC's role in all of this: PC sales accounted for 24 percent of Ubisoft's total for the quarter, up from 21 percent of the first-quarter total in 2017-18 and behind only the PlayStation 4, which accounted for 38 percent of sales (down from 44 percent in Q1 2017-18). The Xbox One, which barely edged out the PC last year, came in third this time around, accounting for 22 percent of sales by platform.

It's not the first time that PC sales have surpassed Xbox One—in the first quarter of Ubi's 2016-17 fiscal, the PC notched 26 percent of sales versus 23 percent on the Xbox One—but the Xbox 360 was more of a factor then, too, claiming 3 percent of sales by platform. This time out, the 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Wii U collectively accounted for just one percent of by-platform sales.

Note: This story contains a video and image that uses homophobic and racist slurs. Dropping hate speech in Rainbow Six Siege now comes with automatic consequences. Since yesterday, dozens of players have been saying that they received an automatic instant ban after using a racist or homophobic slur in text chat. Ubisoft has confirmed to PC Gamer via email that a new banning system is live in Siege.  

These bans seem to last for 27 minutes on first instance, and prevent playing any aspect of Siege, including Terrorist Hunt or custom games. Upon second and third offense, the ban increases to 2 hours. After the third offense, an official investigation into the account is conducted that could lead to a permanent ban, per the Siege Code of Conduct. 

Asked about the ban on Twitter, Ubisoft referred to a post in its dev blog from April that addressed toxicity. Back then, Ubi promised several features coming this year, like muting text chat and enhanced chat monitoring for abusive language. A chat filter was also promised with an estimated arrival for Season 3, but the feature set is a bit different than what is in place today.

“Our team is working on the creation of an automated system that will censor text chat in game based on a chat filter list. This will replace words that have been identified as offensive and provide players with a notification that their language was found to be unacceptable. We will also be tracking the number of times players trigger this filter and will take action as necessary for players that are intentionally having a negative impact on other player’s gaming experience,” Ubi wrote in the April post.

As seen in the video below by Redditor EMU4, the current system doesn’t appear to censor the slur used or hide it to players, but immediately after typing it the player receives a ban and is removed from the match.

Some have praised Ubi’s efforts to curb hate speech, while others expressed anger that their favorite words are now off-limits. “Just wanted to say I’ve watched a few people get banned right in front of my eyes! It’s beautiful!” Reddit user TheDeaves said in a post on the front page of the Siege subreddit. 

The Rainbow Six Siege team has revealed patch notes for its current test server, and they come with a wide array of balance changes across the attacking side. The test server is live today with these changes as of 1 PM EDT.

One of Siege’s strongest operators, Finka, is buffed further on the test server, with her inconsistent flashbang grenades being swapped out for the more powerful frag grenades, and she’s now less vulnerable to one of her biggest counters—Smoke. Operators under the effects of one of Finka’s nano boosts now only take 50% more damage from Smoke’s canisters, rather than double damage. As of last season, Finka was one of the most effective operators in the game, but her pick rate at high level was still lacking. While this change will certainly up her pickrate, further buffing one of the strongest operators in the game doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

IQ and Blackbeard, meanwhile, are nerfed. IQ is losing her frag grenades in favour of a claymore, and the range on her scanner is being decreased from 20 metres to 15. IQ’s main utility comes from her solid guns, frag grenades and high speed rather than from her situational gadget. Without frags to rely on she may have to change roles from a speedy entry fragger to a slower, intel based operator, using her gadget to remove utility from the defending side, which seems more in line with her original role within a team.

Blackbeard's shield is getting weaker, down to 50 HP from 60 HP, but he also receives a slight speed buff while his shield is equipped. While this may not seem like much, it lowers the number of shots required to break the shield across many defender weapons. This could mean that instead of being forced to aim well and land shots on Blackbeard’s unprotected body, players can now just blast away at his head and get a relatively similar time to kill. Forcing a camping Blackbeard off a window, where his shield can cover him nearly completely, becomes plausible rather than near-impossible. This change probably won’t affect higher levels of play as much though, which are more dominated by one-shot headshots, where Blackbeard’s shield still offers a significant advantage. 

A smaller change is coming to Dokkaebi, with her claymore being swapped out for flashbangs. The claymore offers less utility than her smoke grenades anyway, which are more useful for cutting off important lines of sight in the objective. Flash grenades might see some use for disabling players whose location has been revealed by her phone calls, but I doubt that they’ll provide more overall use to the team than smoke grenades.

Obviously these operator tweaks could change or be abandoned before they reach Siege itself, but they indicate what Ubisoft considers to be worthy of testing. Also coming in the test server are a variety of smaller changes and bugfixes. Check them out yourself on the official Reddit post, or on the test server itself which is currently live.

In response to a recent wave of new cheating tactics in Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft has laid out its plans to bolster their anti-cheat efforts moving forward. Most notably, following in the footsteps of CS:GO, plans are in the works to require two-factor authentication for all players wanting to play Ranked.

Reports of an increase in hackers and cheaters started boiling up in the community near the launch of Operation Para Bellum last month. Siege Youtubers complained that hackers were showing up more and more in high-ranked matches and exploiting the game in new ways, like defenders teleporting to the attacker spawn at the beginning of the round. Ubisoft had been made no public statement on the issue until today.

According to the devs, one unspecified exploit has been corrected today through a hotfix. They have also improved their “internal penetration testing efforts,” meaning they hope to be able to catch more exploits in the future before they are seen in-game.

On July 16, Ubi will launch a ban wave for about 600 players that it says have taken advantage of boosting services. Boosting refers to when players hire hackers to squad up with them to rank up. Rainbow Six Siege currently awards in-game weapon charms at the end of each season to players based on their rank. A few weeks ago, Ubi updated their official Code of Conduct to make boosting a bannable offense. 

Other options are also being explored by the devs to increase match integrity and counter boosting, like limiting MMR disparity between squadmates in Ranked. This would mean a Bronze player potentially couldn’t play with their Platinum friend. Despite the inconvenience, many other competitive games like Overwatch already implement a similar system. The post also briefly touches on plans to improve the reporting options in-game, which are currently limited to a simple “report toxic behavior” button. Another option they’re looking at is to negate the MMR loss or gains in matches where a cheater was present.

No concrete date was given for any of these new security standards, but the two-factor authentication requirements are already in testing, so this might be the first change to reach players.

VIDEO: A closer look at the new items for IQ, Lesion, and Dokkaebi.

Ubisoft added 12 special summer skins to Rainbow Six Siege as part of a limited "Sunsplash Collection." Every player should see two packs waiting for them when they log into the game next. 

The skin can otherwise only be purchased with Siege's real-money currency, cannot be earned through the normal drop system, and are only available until July 17. This is the second such temporary cosmetic pack, following the Outbreak packs we saw earlier this year. 

Siege's art department continues to grapple with how irreverent they can be with themed cosmetics. There are a few truly ridiculous skins in the game—clown ballistic masks, Luchador headgear, bits of medieval armor flare... but mostly the look of Siege's cosmetics is restrained and tactical. Would this stuff be better if it was more cartoony, like Overwatch, or should Ubisoft keep it more sleek and serious? In any case, Dokkaebi's "Scuba Six" wetsuit is the standout for me.

As a Lesion main on defense, I'm happy to see him get any new cosmetic options but also disappointed that they double-down on his Cargo Shorts Dad persona, which I'm desperate to shed. 

The whole collection is 2700 R6 Credits, which translates to about $23, depending on how you purchase Siege's cash currency.

I've put 400 hours into Rainbow Six Siege. This weekend, a teammate said something I've never heard before:

"Hey, will one of you guys please play Tachanka?"

If you've been following our coverage of Rainbow Six's 'Lord and Savior,' you'll know that Tachanka is not considered the best operator in Rainbow Six Siege. By Ubisoft's own data, at some skill levels, he was the least-picked defender by a long shot in Year Two Season Three (Q3 2017). In March at the Game Developers Conference, Ubisoft said it didn't have plans to rework the character.

 But my teammate's request was serious: against all reason, we needed a Tachanka. As we got into the match, they explained why, describing a technique that sounded so ridiculous that I was convinced they were trolling. "Get on and off Tachanka's turret like five or six times, and you'll get a speed boost," the teammate promised.

A line formed around the static MG. Spending precious time in setup phase, operators hopped on and off the turret, toggling control of it several times in quick succession. They emerged from the gun, as promised, quicker than before, both in base movement speed and when sprinting. The heaviest defenders, like Doc and Rook, were noticeably quicker—as fast as an Ash or an Ela.

Speed and armor are trade-offs in Siege: fast operators have smaller hitboxes, but are fragile, and heavier ones can take an extra bullet or two but are bulkier. This exploit allows any defender (but particularly the three-armor defenders like Rook) to have the best of both worlds. 

Based on YouTube video history, the exploit seems to have been in Siege for at least a week. It's definitely an unfair advantage, but it hasn't been game-breaking for me personally—so many of Siege's gunfights happen while standing or laying still, particularly for defenders. The main issue here is how easy it is to execute this glitch: it works reliably and takes seconds to explain to a teammate. Hopefully we'll see a hotfix soon.

Rainbow Six Siege’s Operation Para Bellum is finally upon us, and there’s a lot to take in—new operators, a new map, and significant rework to Echo. We’ve put together some tips for the new ops and map that are worth checking out before jumping in.

Alibi

Alibi’s kit is built for mobility, so if setting up rotations is your thing, consider taking her ACS12 shotgun. It can chew up a wall faster than anything else in the game. It’s okay as a combat shotgun, but fires a little slower than the semi-auto alternatives. Most players will likely stick to her Storm SMG, which makes up for its low damage with controllable recoil and high fire rate. If you do, I recommend carrying the Bailiff revolver as a secondary, as it’s great for opening quick murder holes without wasting a clip of ammo.

Her signature gadget, Prisma decoys, require planning, precise timing, and good positioning. To better trick enemies, place them behind a piece of cover that watches a door, or a common anchoring spot. You want the enemy to peek a corner, see just a piece of your decoy, and fire reflexively. When they trigger the decoy, always be nearby to capitalize on their mistake. This can also work for setting up a fake spawn peek on a window, but enemies will wise up to this quickly. Also consider keeping your last Prisma in your pocket until you need it, like in the middle of a firefight. After exchanging blows and falling back, leaving a decoy behind is a great way to guarantee they’ll fall for it and give you the advantage.

Maestro

Maestro is a hardcore anchor, and the first defender with an LMG, the ALDA. This thing is a beast, outpowering most other defense weapons. It’s also relatively accurate when hipfiring, as its grouping gets tighter the longer you fire. He can alternatively take the ACS12, but the LMG feels like the easy choice in most situations.

His gadget, the Evil Eye, also plays into his role as objective guardian. The most consistently useful strategy for them is to have one watching the objective itself, and another watching the adjacent hallways or rooms. Since the laser has an infinite range and no damage drop-off, go for maximum field of view. The more square-footage you can see, the better. If you are zapping an enemy, only fire a few times and then quickly turn your camera away to hide the exposed area. You can also hide an Evil Eye near a commonly breached wall to zap away Thermite’s charge. And in the event of Dokkaebi hacking the Evil Eyes, consider removing them yourself or with a teammate's impact grenade.

Villa

Villa has lots of buffer rooms between attackers and objectives, which means there’s a lot of map to learn. One thing you should know going in is that it's divided into two main halves to the north and south. The first floor has a red rug that runs the length of a lot of the map, guiding you to the objectives nearby. The second floor has a large skylight that looks down to the first floor, but the only way for attackers to utilize it is rappelling, so defenders don’t have to worry about it too much. The map is also full of breachable floors and ceilings, so expect a lot of Sledge and Buck. The bottom floor wine storage is always safe for entering the building, but drone it out to make sure a roamer didn’t have the same idea.

Echo Buff

Echo might not be a new operator, but his buff in Para Bellum really makes him feel fresh again. Having two Yokai drones lets you watch two places at once and improves his survivability. Consider keeping one Yokai on the objective near your body to stand guard and use the other to explore and scout for the team. Be careful with the sonic bursts, though, as he now has fewer shots to work with and a higher cooldown.

Ubisoft confirmed today that Rainbow Six Siege's next expansion, Operation Para Bellum, will launch this Thursday, June 7 (or June 8 if you're in Australia). In addition to the two new operators and map, there will be a lot of quality-of-life tweaks to the game itself. One of these will see the controversial Tower map removed from Ranked play.

In an update today, Ubisoft presented six reasons for the removal. It's worth presenting them in full here:

• Tower’s overall balance is not where we want it to be for a Ranked playlist.
• Due to the size of the map, roamers have an unfair advantage as it takes a significant amount of time to drone and clear the map.
• Our Level Design team direction lends itself to more vertical gameplay.
• Tower does not include the competitive design learnings that we have applied to other maps, such as the buffed Clubhouse and Villa.
• Many areas are too dark for optimal performance.
• Difficult to play in a group that does not work together regularly.

These are all criticisms the Siege community have levelled at the map, so it makes sense to remove it from Ranked playlists – it'll still be available in Casual. And who knows, maybe one day it'll get a subtle remake, just like the one Clubhouse is receiving with this update.

For the full list of tweaks, additions and updates ushered in with Para Bellum, check out Ubi's notes. For a look at the new operators and map, here's Morgan Park's impressions.