One of our core missions at PUBG is to maximize the Battle Royale experience of our players. Providing fair play conditions within this competitive environment allows players to focus on the intense and thrilling experiences where survival and battle coexist. Matchmaking is crucial to this goal, and it is a high priority of ours to ensure our players the best game experience we can.
We know that our existing matchmaking systems have not always reflected the above, and some regions especially are experiencing excessive wait times to get into PUBG matches. With the above beliefs in mind, we've been working on improvements to our matchmaking system to better serve these regions. Today, we are ready to share and test those new plans with you all.
The Direction of Matchmaking System Update
- Map Select (Specific Regions)
AS-IS: Any map can be selected.
TO-BE: FEATURED MAP and OTHER MAPS, or RANDOM MAP
- Mode Select
AS-IS: Players must wait for the queue or leave the queue.
TO-BE: Players will be offered to play Squad mode if a solo or duo match isn't found in a set time.
- Region Select
AS-IS: Players will be moved to other regions if matchmaking is not ideal.
TO-BE: Players will be offered the chance to change regions if a match isn't found in a set time.
- Improved matchmaking system based on Network Latency
We'll also be putting more ping restrictions in place to make sure that people with similar pings are playing together and not inadvertently disrupting other players' experiences.
Applying the Matchmaking System by Regions
PUBG has fans all around the world and different regions enjoy the game in different ways. To ensure we're providing PUBG's core values in every region we analyzed the matching pool and play characteristics for each region and divided them into three levels of concern- normal, moderate, and heavy. We then modified the matchmaking system of each level accordingly, as outlined below.
- Regions that are experiencingnormalmatchmaking times- AS, KR/JP, SEA, and EU
If wait times go over a certain time after matchmaking on Solo or Duo mode, a message will be displayed recommending that you play Squad mode instead.
- Regions that are experiencingmoderatematchmaking issues - NA
We’re changing queuing for a specific map to RANDOM, which will give players an equal chance to play each map. But, we believe that having a choice on selecting which map to play on is important as well as getting into a match fast. When we see the matching pool of NA region, we believe it's right to give our players a choice of one map as an option, separated from the other group. Therefore, we'll be adding FEATURED MAP(Limited time)
- Regions that are experiencingheavymatchmaking issues - OC/SA
We understand that these regions have been hit hard with long matchmaking times and we're continuing to work on better solutions for our fans in OC and SA. For now, we're narrowing matchmaking pools down to only allow RANDOM map selection, which will choose equally from all available maps.