The never-ending battle against cheaters has occupied the attention of the Playerunknown's Battlegrounds team in recent months, to the point that plans to implement some sort of ping limit had to be delayed. The upside, as the latest Steam update explains, is that the developers are now testing a different method of addressing ping issues that they hope will be even better than the system they first envisioned.
"Unlike the method considered earlier, we are going to divide the matching pool depending on ping. This means that the users with lower pings will be prioritized during matchmaking," the update explains. "The team is expecting to improve the overall play experience by splitting the matching pool rather than restricting connection depending on ping. Preparations are underway to test this method in some regions, with first trials planned to start this week."
The struggle to contain cheaters has also pushed back the announcement of new content and changes to the game that the developers say will result in a "deeper and more realistic" gameplay experience. Information about what's coming in the first half of this year, including the announcement of a new map, will begin to flow in March.
The current test server patch is focused primarily on optimization and bug fixes. Test build patch notes are below, and a timeline for a full rollout will be released soon.
World
Replaced some fences in Miramar to unbreakable fences or walls in order to optimize the client
Gameplay
When the player is riding in the airplane, they will no longer be able to see the inside of the airplane. This is to improve the early game client and server performance
Other players will be visible once they jump out of the airplane
When riding the airplane, you can check the number of remaining passengers via the new UI element at the bottom left of the screen
Replays
When reporting someone through the replay system, we now receive a 1 minute replay file centered on the point of your report
It is impossible to report through a replay file which has been created longer than a week ago
It is impossible to report the same player multiple times in the same replay file
Bug Fixes
Fixed the issue where the player would die from falling when vaulting and climbing
Fixed the issue where after reconnecting to the game, the player would get a glitched view when using ADS on their weapon
Fixed the issue where the player didn’t receive any damage after entering a vehicle from a prone position and then exiting while the vehicle was moving
Fixed the issue where after entering the vehicle (passenger seat) from prone position and using heal/boost items, the player was shown using the items in prone position instead of sitting down
Misc.
Made changes to prevent the reduced heal/boost time cheat
