In Y4S4 we are changing bullet penetration on character models in Rainbow Six Siege. This new system aims to increase the lethality of shots and provide guidance on where a bullet should land.

The goal of the new bullet penetration system is to reduce the impression of inaccurate hit registration, reducing past player confusion as to where a shot will land. The new penetration rules will be dependent on the type of gun used, and will determine how the bullet will travel after its initial hit.




NO PENETRATION
A bullet hits one body part and will not pass through to hit other body parts. This was the case for almost all guns in Rainbow Six Siege up until now.

SIMPLE PENETRATION
A shot that connects with a body part will then potentially hit another body part behind the first hit appendage of the same Operator.

For example, you shoot at an enemy with their hand up in front of their face after being flashed. If you hit their hand, the bullet will penetrate through to their head. The actual damage done will be calculated by taking into account the hit on the body part with the highest modifier (please see “Damage Modifier” section). In this case, the bullet’s damage will equal the headshot.

Please note that in simple penetration, a bullet will never hit a third part of the character. Nor will simple penetration bullets shoot through the first person to continue doing damage to another body.

As an additional note, should a bullet pass through two of either of the following: chest, neck, or head - only the 1st area hit will be accounted to calculate damage. This avoids issues where hitting the lower back of an operator results in a headshot.

FULL PENETRATION
If someone else is behind the first person shot, the bullet will damage the first person, then go through to penetrate a second person or surface. The second person will only take 70% of the initial damage.

For each body that the bullet hits under full penetration, the bullet’s damage and route will follow the same simple penetration rules above.


Under the Simple Penetration system mentioned above, the body part with the highest modifier will be considered when determining damage when multiple parts are hit.

Hands/Arms: 0.75 (1 and 2 armor) and 0.65 (3 armor)

Groin/Lower Torso/Upper Torso: 1.0

Legs: 0.75 (1 and 2 armor) and 0.65 (3 armor).

Neck and Head: 50.0

Since an operator’s Armor also affects the amount of damage taken, below is a breakdown of the 3 different Armor Ratings and how much of the initial damage a limb will actually take.

1 Armor: 1.0 (full damage)

2 Armor: 0.9 (10% lower)

3 Armor: 0.8 (20% lower)


The new Bullet Penetration system will be on the Y4S4 Test Server. We appreciate any feedback you all have to offer us on the new system and look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Hold onto your seats, Operation Shifting Tides is rising from the depths. NIGHTHAVEN Special Intervention Group joins the fray as this season’s new ORG. Its owner, Kali, joins Six as the new Attacker. One of her best agents, Wamai, is also coming aboard as the new Defender.

These two Operators are unlike any that have come before and bring their particular talents to the roster. With them, expect a newly reworked Theme Park to surface, as well as a few other features worthy of note. You will find more details on these updates in the full Patch Notes below.

View Patch Note

Updated: 29th October 2019

We wanted to update you on the DDoS/DoS article that was shared a few weeks ago, Click Here to read up on this again.

The deployment and delivery of our previously communicated plan has resulted in a 93% drop in the frequency of DDoS/DoS attacks.

While this is a huge improvement, we are committed to continuing our work on strengthening the network infrastructure to prevent further attacks. We are also improving our automated monitoring that detects people initiating attacks to populate DDoS Ban Waves.

Below you will find updates on the status of action items outlined previously.

BAN WAVES
With the DDoS/DoS ban wave process for both PC and Console now in place, we plan to continue these in the future as needed.

Status: COMPLETE


REDUCING MATCHES PER SERVER

Status: COMPLETE


REMOVE ESCALATING ABANDON SANCTION

Status: COMPLETE

We are in the process of determining the best time to reintroduce this feature, as the DDoS attacks have lessened considerably.


NETWORK TRAFFIC MONITORING/MANAGEMENT

Status: COMPLETE


LEGAL ACTION
Cease and desists to websites and people hosting these services.

Status: ONGOING

Legal action against prominent DDoS/DoS attackers, and cheat makers.

Status: CLAIMS FILED


WORKING WITH MICROSOFT PARTNERS
Development is ongoing with our partners on the Microsoft Azure team, and we are working closely with them to develop both short and long term solutions.

Impact: This will have a substantial impact on DDoS, DoS, Soft Booting, and server stressing.

Status: IN TESTING

Something’s not quite right with Doc. Soon after Theme Park closed, he moved in and made the castle his home, where he performs all sorts of disturbing experiments. In the end, he created something more evil than he intended...

Can you survive?

The Y4S3.3 patch will deploy for PC on Tuesday, October 22nd. For full details on the balancing changes, please see our Designer’s Notes.

With Y4S3.3 the MMR Rollback system is getting a few improvements that allow us to more appropriately target and address those who exploit the integrity of the ranked system. A drastic MMR change is a sign of massive irregularity and a red flag in our system. So we will now be resetting MMR for such players.

This means that instead of undergoing a significant change in MMR, players will have to redo their placement matches to get back appropriately on the ladder. Players who have their MMR reset will also not receive the seasonal ranked charm for their highest rank prior to the reset.


GLAZ
Stay focused on the details, but detail a bit faster now.

Increased Glaz’s rate of fire to 380 (up from 285)

TWITCH
Less fragging, more tactical dabbing.

Reduced Twitch’s F2 Magazine to 25 (down from 30)

WARDEN
Warden’s Glo Up.

Warden changed to 2 speed – 2 armor type instead of 1 speed – 3 armor


FIXED – Players can use a 3rd party hack to change other players’ operators.
FIXED – After switching from advanced to standard deployment, Attacker’s first breach charge deployment attempt gets canceled.

OPERATORS
FIXED – Blackbeard’s shield clips through his body when equipping while leaning.
FIXED – Hibana’s XKairos pellets can destroy other pellets deployed on the same wall even if they are out of the blast radius.
FIXED –Defenders can place a barricade or Castle’s Armor Panel over Goyo’s Volcan Shield.

USER EXPERIENCE
FIXED – Radio music doesn’t stop playing even when the radio is destroyed.
FIXED – Right clicking when in the scoreboard will cause player to enter ADS and the selected tab simultaneously.
FIXED – Mute text chat option does not work on LAN.
FIXED – When going into observation mode, SFX plays twice.
FIXED – My Rank UI tab now shows your current rank in the season instead of the highest rank achieved.
FIXED – Minor visual texture issues for Uniforms.
FIXED – Visual glitch if players switch weapons after rappelling.
FIXED – Menu UI visual fixes.

In this patch’s Designer’s Notes, we are looking back at what has been shared earlier. Our Dev team had the pleasure of welcoming Prodigio Pete, Rogue-9 and Get Flanked into our Barcelona office, home of our balancing team. The discussion and data shared during the podcastt is available below, as well as the changes that will be implemented in the Y4S3.3 update.




Please note that we are using presence to gauge the popularity of an operator. This notion had to be introduced to reflect the implementation of the pick & ban.

Presence definition: “pick rate of an Operator when not banned.”





TWITCH

• F2 magazine capacity reduced from 30 to 25

Twitch is still one of the top performing Operators, and despite a minor recoil nerf in an earlier patch she remains a top attacker. We’re reducing her magazine capacity to lower her fragging ability, but no changes to her gadget as we feel her ability remains crucial to teamplay and is in a good spot now.

WARDEN

• Changing Warden’s from a 1 speed, 3 armor Operator to 2 speed 2 armor

Warden’s presence is quite low, and we want to address that. By increasing his speed, he will have more opportunities to use his ability effectively. This is a first step into increasing the potential surrounding Warden operator and his gadget. We are also taking larger changes to his kit under consideration for the future.

GLAZ

• Rate of fire increased for the OTs-03 by 33% (from 285 to 380 rounds per minute.)

We are still looking to calibrate the Russian sniper to find the right balance. We are quite happy about the previous work done to address the frustration stemming from his gadget but would like to increase his presence as he is the least played attacker now.


BLACKBEARD
Blackbeard’s win delta is currently on the rise. While we did not expect to see such a steep increase, we are following a few leads. We will continue to monitor his performance to see if tweaking is necessary to keep him on par with other attacking Operators.

NØKK
Nøkk has had a slow start and her pick rate is quite low. To make her a more attractive choice, we are currently reviewing some suggestions to improve her loadout. We feel it is premature to change anything regarding her as an Operator for now, so for the time being, we would like to keep monitoring her performance. The last few weeks of Pro League have shown a few interesting uses of her ability, and we would like to keep an eye on it to see how she can evolve.

KAID
We are exploring a few options for Kaid as we would like to offer the Moroccan defender more opportunity to use his secondary gadgets. We are not quite ready to give more details, as it is a work in progress.

JACKAL

• Added different coloured circles around the targeted footstep for better visual feedback. These circles also have varying pattern lengths to be Colour Blind friendly.

As the most banned attacker, Jackal is a high source of frustration for many players and one of our top balancing priorities.

The primary focus of our design with the Jackal changes were on his tracking ability. Jackal’s tracking ability should require a more active contribution from the player and should be overall less frequent and shorter for defenders. We want to reduce the number of pings, based on the “age” of the footprint. We would also like Jackal mains to decide if scanning footsteps is the correct choice to make, as it will make them disappear.

The new version of Jackal is currently available on the Test Server and our goal is to have his update go live next season.

Try out the latest Rainbow Six updates on the Test Server and earn and exclusive charm through the BugHunter program.

Follow us and share your feedback on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and on our forums.

The Y4S3.2 patch features an update to the surrender feature, a fix for a bug with attacker/defender side assignment bias, and various other bug fixes. The patch is scheduled to deploy to PC on October 8th.

• Surrender now requires a unanimous vote.
  
• Surrender feature is now only available if the team is currently losing in rounds.
  
• Surrender is still only available starting with the 3rd

In hostage mode, anyone who detonates a Volcan shield is now responsible for any explosive damage it does once the hostage is picked up. Prior to hostage pick up Goyo is still responsible.

• FIXED – Fixed an issue with Attacker side logic bias during lobby creation. Attacker and Defender side assignment is now completely random
  
• FIXED – Users are able to vault over an operator with extended shield if that operator stays between a player and a vault prompt.
  
• FIXED – Players can get stuck in the leaning position after ADSing when Lean to Hold is on.
  
• FIXED – Defenders can keep using their camera when a logic bomb is activated.
  
• FIXED – Players sometimes do not receive a matchmaking penalty if they cancel right as the match begins.
  
• FIXED – Defuser can sometimes disappear if an attacker is killed immediately after it is secured.

ALIBI

• FIXED – Alibi’s Prisma animation outline remains after players collide with it.

ASH

• FIXED – Ash’s breaching round is not destroyed when used on barbed wire with an active Bandit Battery.

GOYO

• FIXED – Goyo can complete deployment of his Volcan shield before gauge bar has completed.
  
• FIXED – Goyo’s Volcan shield clips with operators when forcing collision with the shield while prone between the shield and other props/walls.

HIBANA

• FIXED – Replication for Hibana’s X-Kairos destruction pattern is inconsistent between clients.

KAID

• FIXED – Electricity VFX disappears when the reinforced wall on which Kaid’s Rtila is deployed is shot at.

MAESTRO

• FIXED – Maestro's turret movement SFX remains for users that are still spectating his camera after he leaves it.
  
• FIXED – Maestro’s Evil Eye will sometimes shift position if another player is moving and spectating another camera and suddenly switches to the Evil Eye.

MONTAGNE

• FIXED – Players can sometimes change between ADS and non-ADS when Monty’s shield is out.

MOZZIE

• FIXED – Mozzie drone SFX remains after being destroyed.

We have monitored an increase in the amount of DDoS and DoS attacks against our servers following the release of Operation Ember Rise. Below you will find our next steps for how we plan to address the situation and move forward.


BAN WAVES

We have identified the worst offenders perpetuating these DDoS/DoS attacks, and will be initiating a ban wave. This will apply to both PC and Console players.

Impact: Players that have been found to be initiating DDoS/DoS attacks will be banned.

Target: Next Week, will continue as needed

REDUCING MATCHES PER SERVER

We currently host 3 matches per server. When a server crashes, or when a DDoS/DoS attack occurs, this results in 3 matches being impacted and taken offline. We are splitting this to have each server host a single match to reduce the impact

Impact: 66% reduction in the impact of DDoS/DoS attacks.

Target: End of this week

REMOVE ESCALATING ABANDON SANCTION
We have noted the unintended consequences of the escalating abandon sanction on players impacted by DDoS/DoS attacks. We are disabling this feature to reduce the longer term impact that is felt by legitimate players.

Impact: Reduce impact felt by legitimate players after a match has been ended via DDoS/DoS/Soft Booting.

Target: End of this week

NETWORK TRAFFIC MONITORING/MANAGEMENT
We are making adjustments to how we manage and monitor network data, and how we accept packets sent to our servers. We cannot provide details on this topic, as it will expose information that can be used to circumvent the work we are doing. This will have a substantial impact on DDoS, DoS, Soft Booting, and server stressing.

Impact: This will have a substantial impact on DDoS, DoS, Soft Booting, and server stressing.

Target: Early October

LEGAL OPTIONS
We have discussed the current situation with our legal team, and assessed our options. We will be issuing cease and desists to websites and people hosting these services.

Legal action against prominent DDoS/DoS attackers is in progress.

Impact: Reduce the availability of DDoS/DoS service providers

Target: Ongoing

WORKING WITH MICROSOFT PARTNERS
Development is ongoing with our partners on the Microsoft Azure team, and we are working closely with them to develop both short and long term solutions.

Impact: This will have a substantial impact on DDoS, DoS, Soft Booting, and server stressing.

Target: Ongoing

These terms will be used regularly throughout this article:

DDoS – An attack on the server, or network, from multiple PCs/devices that overloads the network. This results in all players being disconnected and the match ending.

DoS – An attack on the server, or network, from a single PC/device that overloads the connection. This sometimes results in all players being disconnected.

“Soft Booting” – A DDoS/DoS attack that degrades the network/server to the point that some players are dropped from the match.

“Stressing” – A DDoS/DoS attack that degrades the network/server to a lesser degree than “Soft Booting”. This results in all players maintaining their connection, but having a constant ping >1,000ms, making the game unresponsive.

Highlights of the Y4S3.1 patch includes an update to the Reverse Friendly Fire system with RFF Squad Management, and a change to how Goyo (and Capitao’s) fire interacts with Hostage under the RFF system.

The 3.1 patch is typically smaller as it focuses on addressing immediate issues and some lingering ones from season release as we prepare for the next patch. The Y4S3.1 patch will be deployed Thursday Sep. 19th for PC, we will update you on the dates for consoles as soon as possible.

BALANCING

GOYO
Hostage has evolved.

• Hostage is now immune to fire (both Goyo’s Volcan and Capitao)
  
• To prevent incidences of team griefing towards Goyo under the RFF system, we’ve decided to make hostage immune to fire.

RFF SQUAD MANAGEMENT

• We have now expanded the RFF system to squads. If players of the same squad damage or TK other team members, RFF will be activated for all members of that squad.

• FIXED – Crashing issues on PS4

We are also in the midst of investigating crashing issues reported for PC and XBONE as well, and will update when we have more.

GAMEPLAY

• FIXED – Player exploit to vote on themselves when a Vote Kick is triggered and they are the ones being kicked
  
• FIXED – If player crouches or goes prone and then falls, their upwards view can be obstructed by their character model.

LEVEL DESIGN

BORDER

• FIXED - Operator's shield clips through the wall at 2F Offices on Border

COASTLINE

• FIXED – Inconsistent wall destruction in 2F hallway on Coastline

FORTRESS

• FIXED – Players can barricade a door behind the boxes in 1F Hannam Hallway of Fortress
  
• FIXED – Flickering wall texture in EXT Garden Path of Fortress
  
• FIXED – Small texture gap on Central Stairs of Fortress
  
• FIXED – Players can clip through the ceiling domes in Fortress
  
• FIXED – Misaligned wall in 2F Bathroom on Fortress

KAFE

• FIXED – Missing visual texture on walls in 3F Cigar Lounge on Kafe.

PLANE

• FIXED – Mira’s black mirror can clip through an unbreakable surface if deployed at the West wall of 2F Staff Section on Plane.

USER EXPERIENCE

• FIXED – Level skybox sometimes visible when loading in on the first boot
  
• FIXED – Stat tracking issues when using Twitch drones to destroy gadgets
  
• FIXED – Various minor visual cosmetic fixes on headgears and uniforms.
  
• FIXED – Phone reset animation plays on the wrong side when getting a call from Dokkaebi.
  
• FIXED – [Caster] Operators are detected on the basement level instead of the first floor in spectator mode.

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.


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.



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.



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!



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!