June is here, which means it’s time for the next Rainbow Six Siege ‘after action’ report, and some hints about what developer Ubisoft has in store for the FPS game soon. May’s iteration of the report has now dropped on Twitter, and it offers hints about some “top issues” it’ll be offering updates on soon, as well as some gameplay changes coming when the Rainbow Six Siege Operation North Star release date rolls around.
The May post doesn’t tell us what Ubisoft’s next ”top issues blog’ update will look at in any detail, but we do have an idea of the topics the studio will be exploring. First up, the devs will be offering an update “explaining next steps” for MMR rollback – a feature introduced way back in Y4S1, which was implemented to “help reduce the long-term impact cheaters may have on other players’ seasonal rankings”. Essentially, the mechanic rolls back any gains and losses in MMR made by all players in matches in which a banned cheater participated for that particular season.
It’s not clear what Ubisoft has in mind in the way of next steps for the feature, whether that means some changes – significant, minor, or otherwise. But, it’s a pretty complex system that means balancing various different factors (such as how many matches’ worth of MMR to roll back) to get right, as you can see in the dev post explaining it, so it’s possible the studio’s got some tweaks in mind going forward to optimise it further.
Elsewhere, Ubisoft has some explainers coming for next steps on “data bans for cheating” plus some mysterious “new issues under investigation” coming in its next top issues blog. Again, there’s no detail, but it looks like we can expect to find out more when the Y6S2 release rolls around, which is now set for June 14.
📰Our May After Action Report is hot off the press!
It's no secret the team's been hard at work on North Star, so we wanted to give a look at some other things they've been working on.
And what's that about a new Top Issues blog coming soon with updates on some hot issues 👀 pic.twitter.com/29b3pAOHCN
— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) June 5, 2021
Elsewhere, the studio highlights two of the big gameplay changes coming to the game when that date arrives: fixes for Smoke’s gas propagation and bullet hole peeking. As outlined in Operation North Star’s test server patch notes, Ubisoft has decided to block the line of sight through bullet holes in soft surfaces, in order to prevent “unfair gameplay scenarios” of players using them tactically, and to encourage a wide range of strategic approaches in gameplay. As for Smoke’s gas grenade gadget, the studio has reworked it to “prevent the toxic gas from traveling through walls, floors, and ceilings”.
So, not much to go on for now, but it’s worth keeping a weather eye out for that new top issues post from Ubisoft soon if you’re keen to see what it’s aiming to do with these aspects of the shooter. For now, you can check out our rundown of the best Rainbow Six Siege operators for some handy tips ahead of North Star’s arrival.