Year 2 Season 2: Operation Health

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

 

 

 

OPERATION HEALTH Q&A

 

05/11/2017 09:00 AM

With the announcement of Operation Health, we have anticipated some of the questions you may have. We are confident that our decision to shore up the foundation of Rainbow Six Siege will provide us with both a short term improvement to the player experience, but also longer term viability. We are very excited about the success of Rainbow Six Siege and its incredible growth has exceeded our expectations. While this is exciting, it has also highlighted core difficulties in supporting the continual growth of the player base. As such, we are going to take a Season to fix several key issues and invest in better technology to make sure we keep growing strong in the upcoming years.

 

Q&A

What is Operation Health?

As announced during the Six Invitational, game health is our priority. To achieve this goal we took the decision to fully dedicate the next three months to improving our game. This means pushing back our season set in Hong Kong and launching instead, Operation Health.

Operation Health is all about fixing several issues and investing in better technology to make sure we keep growing strong in the upcoming years. This includes better servers, 1-step matchmaking, better deployment of updates, and many other improvements on issues that have been around for a long time.

 

 

YEAR 2 ROADMAP IMPACT
Operation Health will follow a much more iterative pace and new deployment philosophy in three steps ensuring we gradually inject new developments. For instance, the One Step Matchmaking will be released first on the Technical Test Server (TTS), then on PC and finally, when ready, on Xbox One and PS4.

 

With Operation Health pushing back our season set in Hong Kong, we needed to rethink our Year 2 Roadmap. Hong Kong will be released in August as part of Season Three and South Korea in November during Season Four. While Poland no longer has a dedicated season, our GROM Operators will be released at the start of Season Three and Four.

Finally, we have decided to reduce the number of new maps to three this year (including the released map set in Spain) to truly prioritize our game’s health. You can find below our updated Year 2 Roadmap:

 

 

So we will now be getting 3 Operators in Hong Kong and South Korea Operations?
Yes. We have already progressed on these operators and want to make sure we keep them.

 

What happened to the Polish Season and map?
The Hong Kong Season will now be released when the Polish Season was intended, this is to make room for Operation Health. The Polish map will be canceled, but the two Polish operators will still be released, 1 in Hong Kong and 1 in South Korea. The reason behind it being canceled is to truly prioritize our game’s health over adding new content.

 

Will there be compensation for Year 2 Pass owners?
The Year 2 Pass provides players with early access to 8 new Operators. While we will not have 2 new Operators every three months this year, we will still deliver on your early access to the remaining Operators. You will receive the content and early access benefits you have paid for.

 

Year 2 Pass holders will also still receive any cosmetic items associated with the Polish Operators.

 

Why did you cancel the Polish Season and not Hong Kong or South Korea?
We did not cancel Hong Kong as we have already made progress on its development. South Korea’s plan was maintained as a result of assessing our development team’s needs and capabilities. We determined that we are better able to deliver the content from the South Korea Season by keeping it in the original time frame that was scheduled.

 

Will there still be Mid-Season Reinforcement updates and balancing updates to operators?
The focus of Operation Health is addressing the key issues regarding stability and performance. Because of this, we will be reducing the modification of gameplay data, so there will not be a mid-season Reinforcement during Operation Health. You can expect its return during Season 3.

 

Why are you making this decision now instead of earlier?
While we have been working diligently on improving the health of the game, we were not satisfied with the pace at which we were able to deliver major improvements and fixes. So we are dedicating an entire Season to both eliminating the highest priority issues and restructuring for a more sustainable update pipeline. This will allow us to deploy fixes that have the highest impact possible without putting undue pressure on the development team to deliver both gameplay content and major health improvements. Basically, we are prioritizing health this season.

 

When will these fixes take place?
The roadmap will be communicated during the Season 1 Pro League finals on our Operation Health Panel on May 21st. We are confident in the plan that we have set forth for Operation Health.

 

You had a focus on Health in Y1S3 too. Why is this going to be different?
Year 1 Season 3 revolved around the introduction of an additional Anti-Cheat, as well as various other quality of life improvements for our players. Where Operation Health differs is in the scale of the improvements and changes that are coming. We have outlined our plans for Operation Health here.

 

Will you still be releasing cosmetics during Operation health?
Cosmetics are created by our Art team and are very low impact to the production cycle. Much of the work we are doing with Operation Health is specifically designed to deliver sustained development as required by the live environment, ensuring that further updates to the game can be implemented without risking stability. The creation of cosmetic items does not affect stability.

 

How are you going to be communicating updates with us?
First and foremost, you will be able to find all updates on the Operation Health Hub, which will be available at the end of May. We will be providing frequent updates through Dev Blogs, a more in-depth Known Issues list, and we will be maintaining high engagement on forums and the subreddit. We will be striving to communicate more frequently with you during Operation Health.

 

How will you be using the Technical Test Server (“TTS”) in the future?
We are continuing to explore the possibilities and various ways to approach our testing process. As noted in the Operation Health announcement, we will be utilizing the TTS to test patches featuring major tech improvements. Once a patch is determined to be stable, we will deploy it to PC first, then consoles. We have chosen to deploy patches to PC first, as it allows us the most flexibility in terms of hot fixes and other adjustments. Once we are confident in the quality of the patch, we will begin the approval process with Microsoft and Sony to deploy the patch for our Console players as well. While this will extend the amount of time between title updates, we found it to be necessary in order to provide all of our players with the most stable experience possible. Note that this will not be the pattern forever, just Title Updates with major technical improvements.

 

How will you be prioritizing bug fixes in Operation Health?
We have made an effort to prioritize our fixes based on what has the highest impact, but the impact was not always aligned with what the community felt were the biggest issues. We will be adjusting the bug fixing process to place community feedback on our Known Issues as a higher priority.

 

If I have more questions, where should I ask them?
We will be closely monitoring the Rainbow 6 subreddit and the Rainbow 6 Twitter.

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

 

OPERATION HEALTH 2.2.1 PRIORITY LIST

 

05/23/2017 10:52 AM

Below you will find some of the priorities that we are currently working towards during the first push during Operation Health. The current goal for the following priorities is to have them completed and included in Patch 2.2.1. That being said, Development is an extremely complex process, and some of these may be bumped to 2.2.2 in an effort to ensure stability.

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding on the following topics in their own blogs. We will include more information, as well as answer some questions that you may have. Keep an eye out on the Operation Health web page for the latest updates and information regarding our Priorities!

 

One Step Matchmaking

We are focusing on the testing and implementation of One Step Matchmaking. We are currently testing this on the TTS.

 

Map Fixes

Our level design team will be taking a pass on all maps to correct various bugs/glitches.

 

Game Crashes

Our technical team will be reviewing the layers of code that are leading to game crashes. This will provide you with a more stable playing experience.

 

Hit Boxes

Currently being tested on the Technical Test Server, the hit box refactor is continuing to under-go further testing prior to being deployed to the live build of the game.

 

Spawn Killing

We have seen the community’s frustrations regarding spawn killing, and our level design teams will be taking steps to mitigate the locations where this is still possible. To be clear, spawn killing is when a Defender is able to kill you within seconds of spawning. Running towards the objective and dying for not using cover is not considered spawn killing.

 

Join in Progress

We do not intend for players to be placed into Ranked matches that are already in progress. We are also going to be working on the various bugs encountered by people when they join a match in progress in Casual.

 

Defuser issues (audio, planting, destroying)

Interaction with the Defuser is not always fluid and intuitive, and sometimes does not work as intended. We will be doing a pass on the Defuser as a whole to address these issues. The various Defuser issues will be worked on throughout the entirety of Operation Health.

 

Glaz

Glaz will be receiving some attention. Stay tuned for details!

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

So my thoughts on this season start with "Ubisoft never intended for this game to be as bit of a hit as its become. In typical fashion they designed a game that would live for a year and be forgotten about; but as the player base continues to increase and as leagues continue to continue with big pay outs they decided to stop applying a band-aid to the situation and fix it".

 

• I couldn't care less about new operators. Sure they are neat and wonderful but if your game doesn't work then why push these out? Ubisoft does not make money off of them (Season Pass is their bread and butter)
• New map? Again, who cares. After 4 seasons Border is just now being recognized as a balanced, solid competition map. The others are all loathed by professional and casual players.
• Ubisoft last year claimed to upgrade their servers from a 30 to a 60 tick-rate, but now we found out their current infrastructure could not handle it past 50. Sucky that they did not tell the community about going back from 60 but hopefully we can continue to increase this.
• I am disappointed to see Glaz not being address for what could be three months, and even then his balance proposal isn't going to address his biggest problem (thermal scope). Our league, the Cyberathlete Championship Series held a captains meeting which voted to remove Glaz from play during our first season. 
• Alpha packs are for cosmetic skins, think of Overwatch loot crates that can only be redeemed by in game Rewnown, not R6 credits. 
• I am also disappointed they aren't addressing ping abusers in this game. Having a higher ping in Rainbow 6 is a massive advantage on both PC and console.
  • 68 ping (left) vs 278 ping (right)

 

So while a lot of the community is pissed and feeling cheated; players who participate in competitions and ranked matches feel this is a well needed time to potentially iron out come of the biggest flaws in the core game.

[GazzaGarratt 11,037]

I'm glad I didn't buy the season pass for the second year to be honest. If they were going to call this a health check then I don't see why they didn't go further with Glaz. Any obvious person at Ubisoft in charge must've seen the issues with him. Also, whilst they the sentiment is good for trying to focus on fixing the game's finer details, it would've been nice to release some extra operators. That tells me they may have run out of ideas for this game.

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

I personally don't care about a new operator if you cannot find ranked games or disconnect from them. Season pass holders still get everything advertised to them but in a different order.

I don't want a new chandelier in a haunted house.


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