Cheaters Delay 'PUBG' Matchmaking Fixes, New Map

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By Rexly Peñaflorida
published

The work is never done for Bluehole, which continues to prevent cheaters from playing the popular PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Even with its vigilant efforts on that front, the studio is testing new matchmaking methods and plans to share its development road map with players sometime in March.

The studio initially announced improvements to matchmaking in December. Bluehole specifically said it would implement a maximum ping limit so that all players have a fair shot at the prized "chicken dinner" received for outliving all other players. Unfortunately, the plan never came to fruition because of the ongoing fight against cheaters, which has accounted for many of the developer's resources in the last few months.

Now Bluehole is testing a modified version of its original plan. Instead of imposing a maximum ping limit, players will now be divided into pools based on their ping. Those with lower ping will get priority during the matchmaking process; those with higher ping will have to wait longer to get in a game. That should help reduce the number ping-related problems you experience. Bluehole will test this process in a few regions this week.

The constant monitoring of cheaters also delayed the reveal of a road map of other features and content slated for 2018, which was supposed to be shared earlier this year. Bluehole said that it will reveal its plans for the game in March. What exactly the developer has planned is still unknown, but we do know that Bluehole intends to show off a third map for the game, which should add more variety to the battle royale title.

In the meantime, your version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds should have received an update earlier this week. In addition to a new paid and free crate, the patch removes the ability for you to see inside the plane at the beginning of the match, which is said to improve client and server performance. When you report a player, the developers will also receive a one-minute replay file that shows the crux of your complaint. This new reporting system comes with some restrictions: You can’t use a replay file that is more than a week old, and you can’t use the same file to report a player multiple times. You can read the the full patch details on the game’s Steam page.

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NamePlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
TypeShooter
DeveloperBluehole
PublisherBluehole
PlatformsPC, Xbox One
Where To BuySteam
Release DateDecember 20, 2017
Rexly Peñaflorida
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • BulkZerker
    ...". Those with lower ping will get priority during the matchmaking process; those with higher ping will have to wait longer to get in a game. "

    Challenge accepted.

    https://premiumlag.com
    Reply
  • Kennyy Evony
    isnt there a way to increase your ping then reset to default after you get into the game? This will not solve anything.
    Reply
  • anbello262
    I don't really understand why lag is a wayof cheating. Shouldn't hit/miss calculations be made on the server side? The lagged person would see "old" information, whereas the low-ping one would see what is TRULY happening right now, so low-ping shots would hit the target, lagged shots would arrive at the server (and game world) a lot later, therefore missing everything that moves.

    Why doesn't it work like that, can anyone with some knowledge explain?
    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    You know, I wouldn't mind if game companies started an online consortium to ban across entire platforms, players that cheat, from playing with non-cheating customers. I also wouldn't mind if all players who were caught cheating, were still allowed to play, so long as it was only with other cheaters. If cheating carries a heavy enough burden to the average cheater, there would be less of it. The professional miscreants would still likely get away with it, but it would pare back the numbers of the average nuisance players.
    Reply
  • R_1
    as long as games monetize cheating, via loot boxes and twitch.tv proceeds a fair game will NEVER be had.
    Remove the incentives for cheating.
    LOOT BOXES AND STREAMERS KILLED THE GAME AND NOTHING CAN REPAIR IT.
    RIP
    Reply
  • larkspur
    20730095 said:
    I don't really understand why lag is a wayof cheating.
    I don't think anyone is saying that it is. It sounds more like Rexly is saying that bluehole has been forced to devote most of their resources into anti-cheating rather than implement some of their new matchmaking schemes (ping-based for better server response and stability) and the new map. That's what it sounds like to me anyway. I'm sure he can further clarify.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    20730095 said:
    I don't really understand why lag is a way of cheating.
    From what I've heard, the game uses client-side hit detection, so if it looks like you hit someone on your screen, then the server trusts that you actually hit them. If one player has a high ping, they could pop out of cover and shoot someone before the other player even has a chance to see them. They might also be able to get multiple shots off against a player before the target even has a chance to hear the first one and duck behind cover. To the low-ping player getting shot at, it will appear to them that they got shot after taking cover, but to the high ping player, they would have been taking multiple shots while the other player was still exposed. In short, it sounds like the game might have poor netcode.

    That might be due, in part, to the large number of players in a match though. And it probably was less of a problem before the game became hugely popular in China. Ping times between that part of the world and North America or Western Europe tend to be quite high, on the order of hundreds of milliseconds. A lot of players from that region join servers in other parts of the world where their ping to the server can be very high, making this more of a problem than it had been previously.

    20729758 said:
    isnt there a way to increase your ping then reset to default after you get into the game? This will not solve anything.
    Technically, if properly coded, it could detect and account for that. They could, for example, keep track of the highest ping spikes a player has had to a server in recent games, and base their placement on that. Or if they wanted, they could even detect if a player's ping is suspiciously changing repeatedly, and either ban them, or just send them to a server for all those with wildly unstable pings. In any case, I suspect that the number of players doing something like that is minimal compared to the number of players simply joining servers halfway around the world, so at the very least sorting players by ping would help a lot.
    Reply
  • therealduckofdeath
    It's a good way to go. If they keep stats on ping during matches they should be able to weed out most of those cheaters.
    Reply
  • Olle P
    I feel sorry for those with slow connections. Not only do they suffer from that, but now they will also be put last in line for match-ups.
    Why not have more servers worldwide and re-direct them to a server where they get lower delays?
    Reply
  • Dantte
    You know, I'm going to go a step further here, why are cheaters not in jail? You steal a car - JAIL, rob a store - JAIL, ruin a game through cheating and cost company 10-of-$1000s - absolutely nothing (maybe you get banned.) If I robbed a store of $1000 and all that happened to me was I was banned from going to that store... I'd be robbing places left and right!

    Bottom line is cheating happens cause there are no real consequences. Make better cheat detection software, and they will make a better cheater.
    Reply