Ubisoft have admitted they knew there were problems with Rainbow Six Siege’s Lion before he was released.
Check out our list of the best Rainbow Six Siege operators.
Yesterday, Ubisoft released their mid-season designer’s notes, giving players an insight into the team’s thoughts on operator balancing. The post outlined upcoming nerfs for Lion and Hibana, as well as substantial buffs for LMG damage.
The devs then took to Reddit for an AMA session. One Redditor asked how the team could give Lion the green light even though it’s clear he is unbalanced, and a similar situation had occured with Ela, resulting in the devs admitting they knew there was an issue with Lion before release.
“There are clearly limitations and flaws in our pipeline when it comes to testing and iterating on operator balancing before releasing them,” game designer Jean-Baptiste Hallé said. “We have pro players come in early to test content, but we don’t get a full picture as it is limited in time and the number of players involved. Also, we don’t always have the time to correct the issues that they spot during these sessions.
“For example, on Lion, they did spot that the full outline detection was problematic. We did not have time to modify that system before the release of the operator. This shows that we have room for improvement in our iteration pipeline.”
Lion is currently too strong, making him almost a 100% pick in pro league, and generally not fun to play against. Hopefully the nerfs will fix this. Additionally, the developers revealed they will be looking to update older operators throughout the year.
Test Server patch notes are due later today. You can check out the full list of designer’s notes here.