On Thursday, a number of Ubisoft Rainbow Six: Siege developers engaged in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) which gave the community a chance to get answers to their most pressing concerns.
The AMA can be read in full here and included nine total developers across a number of departments:
- Leroy Athanassoff - Creative Director
- Benjamin Azoulay - Technical Director for Live Operations
- Paul Vlasie - Technology Director
- Emmanuel Larive - Player Behaviour Product Owner
- Aurélie Débant - Game Director
- Aurélien Chiron - Associate Game Director
- Mohammed Benhenneda - Business Strategy and Live Performance Director
- Christopher Budgen - Associate Game Director
- Yann Sylvestre - Level Design Director
While we couldn't include every response, we've summarised some of the most interesting bits together into a quick summary:
Jump to:
- New Maps -- "For Y6S3, we're doing Buffs in Clubhouse, Coastline, and Bank"
- Operator Balancing -- "We need to look at Kali's sniper itself how to buff it"
- New Game Modes -- "We are actively working on a new Shooting Range"
- In-Game Fixes -- "We’ve banned a total of 69,139 cheaters in 2021"
- Siege 2.0 -- "We do not want to move to a new game"
- Esports -- "R6 Cups is the end-game, the raid of R6"
The quotes listed below are extracts of the full responses, a full answer can be found linked with the question.
New Maps: Three Map Buffs, Bartlett Rework & New Maps in the Future
Starting off with new content, the map reworks for next season have been confirmed to be on Club House, Coastline, and Bank.
Considering two of these are in the pro-circuit map pool, this has pretty major ramifications for the esports scene. This will also be Club House's second rework after its initial change in June 2018.
Additionally, it has been confirmed that new maps will come to the game in the future, following the much-needed map buffs that have been releasing during Years 5 and 6.
Finally, the long-forgotten map of Bartlett University was brought up, as it may see a return in the future.
For those unaware, after initially being released as a PvE Situations map, fan demand led Bartlett to be revamped into a PvP map for the game's first anniversary.
Unfortunately, the map was so widely disliked that it was removed from all game modes as of March 2018.
Operator Balancing: IQ/Twitch Changes Incoming
Most of note concerning operator changes was a rundown on the process the developers go through to decide which operators get changed.
This can be read in full here, with the main criteria they look at listed below:
- The balancing matrix
- The responses from the pro workshops as well as calls to pros
- Internal play sessions to test each change/rework
- Community’s feedback
The two most recent attacker's win deltas
As for operators themselves, Kali was brought up.
Furthermore, a potential rework/gadget balance was teased for both Twitch and IQ:
New Game Modes: Warmup & Shooting Range Incoming, T-Hunt Possibly Outgoing
The biggest announcement of the day was likely the confirmation of a long-awaited shooting range being added to the game.
In a similar vein, Leroy also stated there was a more casual game mode coming to help players practice with new weapons in a casual setting.
This mode may be needed considering the potential removal of Terrorist Hunt (TH).
While not a definite, that would be a major change as Terrorist Hunt (recently renamed to Training Grounds) has been in the game since Day 1 with minimal changes.
In-Game Fixes: Cheaters, Gameplay After Death & the Reputation System
Asked about more than any operators or game changes were questions regarding cheaters.
In response, Emmanuel Larive gave a deep rundown on Ubisoft's anti-cheat actions and plans which can be read in full here.
As a part of this, he stated that 69,139 cheaters have been banned in 2021 alone, showing the scale of the issue.
Parallel to this, to counter toxicity, Emmanuel also gave an update on the long-awaited reputation system:
Finally, after a community outcry surrounding the "Gameplay after Death" feature, an update surrounding this was also made:
Siege 2.0? No Need For It
Another fairly popular question was surrounding a possible 'Siege 2.0', with the game being remade with a new engine to help it run smoother.
Across a number of responses, the developers explained exactly why this isn't needed.
In a separate response about the need for Siege 2 due to the antiquated engine, another developer echoed the same sentiments.
Effectively the engine doesn't need updating meaning a 'Siege 2' would not be too helpful fixing core game issues.
Esports
Finally, the only thing related to the esports scene was a question about in-game tournaments:
We didn't get any more esports-related responses, but developers seemed open to having another with the esports team instead.
And so that's a quick summary on the R6 developer AMA, which you can find in full here.
Be sure to check back for further updates as we approach the reveal of the new season in just four weeks.