‘PUBG’ Now Testing New Loot Crate System And New Report Feature From Replays
Loot crates have been a part of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds from the beginning but have largely been free to earn except for the Gamescom Invitational crates last August. Bluehole updated the PUBG test servers Tuesday morning to begin testing a new paid loot crate system along with a new reporting feature and many bug fixes.
The second PC update since PUBG was officially released is now available to try out on the game’s test servers. It weighs in at 6.2 GB and those interested will need to install it to their computer from their Steam library. The test build will be released to the live servers once Bluehole feels it is stable enough.
New Loot Crate System
The new loot crate system adds two crates to PUBG. The “Biker” crate is free to open while the “Desperado” crate will require a key to open. The idea is players will pay for keys to open the paid crates once the update goes to the live servers.
In the meantime, every test server account has been given 100,000 Battleground Points (BP) and 6 Early Bird Keys. Every time players spend BP to purchase a crate, there is a 40 percent chance to receive the “Desperado” crate, 40 percent chance to receive the “Biker” crate, and 10 percent chance each for the existing “Wanderer” and Survivor” crates. The cosmetic items received from the crates are locked to the test server.
Creative director Brendan Greene previously explained that the loot crates will remain cosmetic only and will be used to help support PUBG over several years of updates. Steam users will be able to sell items on the Steam marketplace.
PC players, we have deployed a new test build on our test servers. We will be testing our expanded in-game reporting tool, as well as the new crate system. The patch also includes other fixes and improvements. You can read the detailed notes here: https://t.co/Ikvtgj4mlb pic.twitter.com/mGdilCPb4o
— PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS (@PUBG) January 9, 2018
New Report Feature
PUBG users can now report other players suspected of cheating from the replay system. The replay system allows PUBG owners to record the game action in a large area around them. Currently, the only method of reporting opposing players is watching the replay of your death. This new system should put more eyes on suspected cheaters, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Bugs And Performance
Bluehole continues to hammer out bugs in PUBG too. There are several issues fixed along with an optimization tweak to make the game run more smoothly when parachuting out of the plane. The developer has reduced the visible distance when parachuting.
The China Pickle
The number of PUBG cheaters banned passed the 1.5 million mark before the end of 2017, according to anti-cheat service BattlEye. While Bluehole continues to implement new anti-cheat measures, cheaters from China remain a major source of complaints from the PUBG community. The Reddit and Steam forums are frequently filled with complaints about players from China cheating.
Unfortunately, China has been a major source of growth for PUBG over the last few months. This makes using region locks to keep Chinese players out of servers from other regions a tricky situation, as the developers don’t want to upset a large portion of their playerbase.
