Source: qz.com
In a continued series of check-ins with the Xbox One version of the hit “100 people land on an island and kill each other” game, we take a look at the 4th patch which dropped Monday January 8th. This was claimed in advance by the development team over at BlueHole to be the first “client-side” patch, meaning that it would finally address issues pertaining to the frame rate dropping as well as the crashes players have experienced. These fixes were indeed added in this patch, but the patch notes make sure to claim that they were “slightly increased” in the frame rate department as there is surely still much more work to be done.
What was more interesting is that gameplay adjustments also debuted with this patch, which many weren’t expecting. The awaited First Person Perspective Only mode was brought in, though currently only available Solo in NA/EU/Oceanic servers. The ability to adjust aim acceleration was also granted in the options menu, which judges how fast your aim moves in accordance to the movement of a thumbstick. The most controversial change, however, came in the form of players now doing increased damage to vehicles. This is a response to the increasing “car meta” that has taken place in the console version of PUBG.
On PC, it’s easier to take out someone who is spending a majority of the match in a vehicle, while XBO players have harder times nailing fast moving vehicles due to the frame rate and decreased mobility in controls. This caused several matches on the XBO to end with the majority of surviving players driving around the final few circles of the game, taking out on-foot players while they either tried to destroy the vehicles or keep out of sight futilely. I predicted that this issue would be addressed by either increasing gas consumption of vehicles or increasing the damage they receive from players, to which the latter was the correct answer. Was this the correct action to take in this matter seems to be a question on player’s minds now. As time went on, the car meta was starting to lose out as players found new tactics to deal with it, so a change wasn’t wholly necessary. Some are now worried cars will be taken out too quick, but BlueHole has explained that they will continue to monitor the feedback to this change and adjust accordingly in the future.
Check out the full patch notes below and let us know if you believe the game now runs better or your opinions on the car changes.
Gameplay
- Aim acceleration can now be adjusted by players via in-game option
- Player weapon damage has been increased against vehicles. We will continue to monitor player feedback and telemetry and make further balancing adjustments as needed in future updates
- FPP Solo matchmaking queue will be made available for NA/EU/and Oceanic servers. We will open other modes within those regions as concurrency allows
- Fixed an issue that caused indoor lighting and shadows to appear too dark and blueish
- Analog stick acceleration added while exiting the plane and while parachuting
Optimization
- PhysX performance enhancements
- Server FPS slightly increased
- Client FPS slightly increased
- Some VFX received slight optimizations
Option
- Music on/off option added
Bug fixes
- Addressed a number of known crashes
- Fixed a UI issue that occurred when multiple players attempted to loot from the same source
