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Rainbow Six Siege DLC #3 (Skull Rain) patch notes: game health, new operators, QoL

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In Operation Skull Rain, two BOPE Operators join Team Rainbow to pacify the Favela, our new free map. This third major content update aims to improve the game experience by adding countermeasures for toxic behavior, a new weapon attachment, several game enhancements, customization content and lots more.

RELEASE DATE: 8/2

Today the relases notes for Siege's thirdfree DLC, "Operation: Skull Rain" were released. Check the launch trailer here.

Like the other DLC, this is *free* to all Siege customers. Operators costs 25,000 renown apiece; Season Pass owners get access to them for free/immediately.

Detailed info:

2 NEW OPERATORS
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With Operation Skull Rain, Team Rainbow recruits two of the BOPE’s finest: Caveira and Capitão.
The new Operators are immediately unlocked for Season Pass owners, with exclusive access granted for seven days. All players can then unlock the Operators with Renown or R6 Credits after the exclusive period ends.

CAVEIRA (Defender)
Known as a brutal interrogator, Taina “Caveira” Pereira’s makes for a fearless Operator on the field. Originally from a small town on the outskirts of São Paulo, her life could have taken a turn for the worst when she was arrested at 16 on robbery charges. Her promising profile allowed for an exception, giving her the option between entering a juvenile reformatory and working with BOPE.

UNIQUE ABILITY
Caveira’s predatory stealth technique, the “Silent Step,” allows her to lurk on her preys, almost inaudible, until it’s too late. Caveira’s ability allows her to sneak on her target, swiftly immobilize them and force them to divulge the position of the opposing team (the interrogation mode). She is also equipped with the “Luison,” a unique PRB92 with a custom suppressor and subsonic ammunition. Do not simply neutralize your opponent; make sure that no one gets away.

PRIMARY:
M12
SPAS-15

SECONDARY:
LUISON (Custom PRB92)

CAPITAO (Attacker)
Born and raised in Nova Iguacu outside of Rio de Janeiro, Vicente “Capitão” Souza was recruited by the Cooredenadoria de Recursos Especiais (CORE) soon after high school. After being ambushed as he cleared a house, Souza was captured and tortured for two months. While Souza endured his ordeal with stoicism, he had irreversible damage done to his person. From there Souza developed unprecedented tactical strategies and caught the attention of BOPE.

UNIQUE ABILITY
Equipped with the Tactical Crossbow TAC Mk0, Capitão can fire two types of ammunition: asphyxiating bolts and micro smoke grenades. The asphyxiating bolts burn the oxygen in a given perimeter, which is lethal to your target. The micro smoke grenades enable you to mask your movements. Deliver swift and agile assaults without alerting your opponents of your position.

PRIMARY:
Para-308
M-249
SECONDARY:
PRB92

FAVELA
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Team Rainbow has been called to pacify and regain control of the Favela. Two BOPEs stationed in the area have been enlisted to provide their tactical expertise of the terrain to Team Rainbow. Mixing colorful and narrow streets with high vantage points, this map supports exterior shell destruction which renders it as the most destructible to date. The new Favela map is available for free for all players.

SKULL RAIN WEAPON SKINS
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Kick off the new Season with the four Skull Rain signature skins: Amazônia, Ceifador, Azulejos, the Piranha, and Skull Rain. These weapon skins are available in the shop exclusively for Operation Skull Rain. Visit the Shop section for more details.

HEALTH PROGRAM
To make sure the new content in upcoming seasons would be built on solid foundations, we decided to dedicate Season Three to improving the health of the game. As you may know, we supplemented the server-side FairFight anti-cheating engine with BattlEye, an active client-side system.

To improve overall gameplay experience, we also enhanced an array of features. We created a dynamic body part clipping solution, which serves to prevent revealing the limbs of your Operators through walls. For more enhancements, please refer to the General Tweaks & Improvements section below.

NEW ATTACHMENT
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To cater to a variety of playstyles, we created a new attachment: the angled grip. We had the opportunity to have Serenity 17, a R6 top level player testing it at our Montreal studio. Here are the observations and tips he had to share with us: "The angled grip accelerates the transition between hip fire and ADS, which allows for an aggressive and fast-paced playstyle. However, make sure to take into account that the angled grip is less stable in terms of recoil than the standard grip, so holding your angles might be tricky with this one."

NEW CUSTOM GAME MODE (BETA)
We’re glad to finally introduce the Tactical Realism, which will add a new gameplay mode to Custom Games. Inspired by your enthusiasm towards getting a ‘Hardcore’ mode, we created the Tactical Realism mode to foster a better immersion by relying less on the in-game feedback. We endeavored to offer a realistic experience via several modifications, namely, limiting the HUD to only display the Round Timer, Compass, Gadget & Weapon Panels; preventing you from marking your enemy; removing the kill confirmations; providing a realistic Magazine Management for ammo; and much more. This is a first step toward immersion, and we wish to gather your feedback in order to improve this iteration.

Normal:
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Tactical Realism:
R6-skull-rain-feature-realism.jpg


By implementing this mode we tried to simulate a real tactical experience. Its most unique aspect is the ironclad team spirit it fosters. You must now entirely rely on your teammates and their skills to figure out who and what is around that corner. For instance, communication is your only tool to keep track of both your teammates (avoiding team killing) and the enemies eliminated, which is tricky without the help of the kill confirmation. With Tactical Realism the tension runs high as you must carefully assess, coordinate, and communicate your movements to your teammates—and so at all time.

SURRENDER SYSTEM
If the field becomes too rough for your team, you can now cut it short and move on to another match. The objective was to accelerate the process by allowing a team to forfeit if they do not wish to be forced to play the match through the end. You can now cast a vote to surrender during a Ranked match. You will need the majority on your side for your team to forfeit. Please note that this new feature is only available prior to the 3rd round.

GENERAL TWEAKS AND IMPROVEMENTS
GAME HEALTH

CLIENT SIDE ANTI-CHEAT IMPLEMENTED TO COMBAT CHEATERS
Not only have we implemented a client side anti-cheat, we have also been working with our partners at FairFight to improve their detection methods too. We are excited about the changes that our efforts will bring in Season 3. You can read more about our client side anti-cheat test here.

ADDITIONAL TEAM KILLING COUNTERMEASURES ADDED
After monitoring the adjustments that were made with Patch 3.3 and 3.4, we have taken steps to improve the methods that we are using to detect excessive team killers, and punish them accordingly. As a reminder, when players are removed from a match for team killing, they will suffer the following punishments:

First offense:
Casual- Kicked from match.
Ranked- Banned for 15 minutes, 50% Renown penalty for 30 minutes.
Second offense: Banned from Matchmaking for 30 minutes.
Third offense: Banned from Matchmaking for 2 hours.
Fourth offense: Banned from Matchmaking for 24 hours.
Fifth offense: Banned from Matchmaking for 7 days.

IMPROVED VOTE TO KICK FLOW
Steps have been taken to improve the Vote to Kick feature, and improve the overall experience for players. Players will now be met with a walk through for how to vote kick another player on their respective platform. Additionally, once a vote has been initiated, all other players who are eligible to take part are presented with a notification, as seen in the top left corner of the screenshot below. Once you have voted, the notification is removed. Also noted in this screen shot is the updated scoreboard that you will see in Patch 4.0.

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MORE TOOLS TO HANDLE TOXIC PLAYERS IN TEXT CHAT ON PC
You are now able to hide text chat on PC. This will allow players to avoid those who wish to spam the chat, or send toxic messages. For those players, we encourage you to report them to our Customer Support team, and they will be handled in accordance to our Code of Conduct.

You can disable the in-game text chat in the HUD Preferences section of the Gameplay tab on the Options menu.

OPERATOR’S LIMBS NO LONGER CLIP THROUGH WALLS AND BARRICADES
One point of frustration from the community occurred when a player was killed through a wall, and only realize after watching the Kill Cam that their leg was visible from the other side. We have addressed this in Patch 4.0, courtesy of significant improvements to what we call “dynamic clipping”. When a player goes prone against a wall or a deployable shield, their body parts will no longer be visible from the other side. This is done by clipping body parts that collide with the geometry of a given object. This will also prevent Operators from clipping through walls by going prone or entering a DBNO state next to them, as well as instances where an Operator would clip through a trapdoor. It is extremely important, as it provides a more level playing field for all Operators.
We are very excited about the changes that this will bring, but would like to note that this technology is still being tweaked and improved, so there may be fringe cases where clipping still occurs. Additionally, while body parts will not be visible when they are clipped through an object, they will still be able to take damage. As previously noted, this technology is still in its infancy and we will continue to work on improving it. One particular goal is to apply the same process to weapon and gadget clipping as well. Keep your eyes peeled for this in a coming patch!

FIELD OF VIEW IS NOW STANDARDIZED FOR ALL PLAYERS WHEN USING CAMERAS AND DURING THE KILL CAM
Prior to this patch, making adjustments to your FOV would allow defenders to gather more intel than originally intended for cameras. This has now been standardized, and the same FOV will be applied to all users while they are using cameras, and will then be reverted back to their chosen FOV setting upon exiting the camera. This will also apply to Kill Cams. In the past, this could lead to discrepancies on the Kill Cam versus what players were able to see due to their personal FOV settings, and accusations of misconduct were made based on these erroneous replays.

KILL CAM IS NOW A MORE ACCURATE REPRESENTATION OF WHAT HAPPENED
Prior to Season 3, the Kill Cam has been used as a tool to identify specific tactics utilized by the enemy to circumvent your team’s defense, or as a way to identify a particularly suspect play. After Season 3 releases, the Kill Cam will provide more clear insight as to how a player was killed. Improvements have been made to bullet trajectory replication, camera offset, blood splatter effects, and Operator movements during the Kill Cam replay. Not only will this improvement allow players to learn their enemy’s movement more accurately, but it will also cut down on the number of plays that look a little too incredible to be real.
While we are very happy with the progress we have made in this patch, we will continue to work on improving this feature to provide the most accurate information possible.

MODIFIED INFORMATION IN RANKED LOBBY TO IMPROVE MATCHMAKING EXPERIENCE

While searching to ways to improve matchmaking times, as well as the overall matchmaking experience, we noticed that players would sometimes leave a match before it started after viewing the Win/Loss or Kill/Death Ratio of the opposing team. This has been removed in order to facilitate a smoother matchmaking experience for all players, and will provide all players with a significantly improved experience.

BETTER TRACKING OF CONNECTIVITY AND MATCHMAKING ISSUES THAT PLAYERS ARE FACING
We improved tracking for disconnections and the matchmaking process in order to more quickly reach the root of issues that some users are facing. This will allow us to react more quickly in the event that we see a specific error code on the rise, or a negative trend in the matchmaking process.
Overall, this will lead to a decrease in the number of disconnections, as well as an improved matchmaking experience.

PLAYER COMFORT

TEAMMATE LOADOUT INFORMATION ON WAITING SCREEN
You can now view your teammate’s loadouts on the updated waiting screen. This will allow you to adjust your loadout depending on what your teammates are carrying in to the field. To quote the Presentation Director Toni Da Luz, “Players will now have real-time access to the weapons and gadgets their teammates have chosen. For example, being able to know if Fuze went for a shield or a 6P41 is a game changer in Siege, where team composition matters a lot.” This will be particularly helpful when you are not playing with your regular squad, or a group that uses voice comms, as you are able to adapt on the fly to the choices that your teammates make

R6-skull-rain-tweak-teammate-loadout.jpg


FULL SCREEN WEAPON PREVIEW
You can now zoom in on weapons in the Operator loadout screen, as well as rotate them. You may also attach weapon skins and charms in this preview window as well. Utilizing the “centered control” feature, you can focus on a specific point on a weapon and pan the camera around this point. You are also able to use the “Points of Interest” to immediately zoom in to the appropriate part of the weapon. This will allow you to create content focused on the weapons, as well as enjoy your weapon skins and weapon charms in more detail!

R6-skull-rain-tweak-weapon-preview.gif


MAP ROTATION WILL NOW APPEAR MORE RANDOM
After playing a specific map a few times in a row, we noticed that players would get frustrated at the perceived lack of variety in the map rotation. We have introduced an algorithm that will improve the likelihood of a new map being selected by picking one of the least played maps by all players in their current game session.

TACTICAL MAPS HAVE BEEN REDESIGNED TO PROVIDE MORE DETAIL
During the Planning Phase, both Attackers and Defenders will be able to enjoy the new Tactical Maps. These maps offer significantly more detail than their predecessors, and will allow for a more intricate strategy to be devised during the Planning Phase. We have provided you with some in-game screenshots below!

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PLAYERS CAN NOW CHOOSE WHICH OPERATOR SPAWNS WITH THE DEFUSER
Teams are now able to coordinate and decide which player will spawn with the Defuser. This will help to prevent situations where players would need to drop the Defuser at the start of the round should carrying it not fit with the team’s strategy. This will allow for a smoother start for the Attackers on Bomb, as well as provide them with more options for attacking the objective!

ATTACKERS ARE NOW ALERTED WHEN ALL DRONES HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED
Attackers are now met with an alert when all drones have been destroyed during the Preparation Phase. This alleviates confusion when players are taken to the Spawn Location Selection screen.

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COMPASS IS NOW DISPLAYED WHEN USING DRONES AND CAMERAS
As requested, players will now have a compass on their HUD when they are using a Drone or Camera. This will enable players to more accurately relay information to their teammates. Having access to the compass makes players using drones and cameras even more integral to the success of the mission. Acting on accurate intel is half the battle!

LOCATION PING HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO BE MORE USER FRIENDLY
Adjustments were made to the location ping feature. We have increased the maximum range, duration, and scale of the marker. It has been increased from 3 to 5 seconds, the max distance is now 100m, and the ping marker will now scale with distance for better readability. While we will always recommend that you communicate with your team, improving on this feature allows teams to communicate in more ways than one! The location ping is now the perfect feature for any situation in which you need to quietly listen for an enemy Operator on the other side of a wall, or while needing to accurately communicate with your team over the sounds of an intense firefight!

THE IN-GAME HUD NOW PROVIDES MORE CLEAR INFORMATION AT A GLANCE
Updates were applied to the in-game HUD that will make determining the status of your teammates a much smoother process.

R6-skull-rain-tweak-hud-01.jpg


In addition to the teammate status display, we have also updated the health gauge in the bottom left. We have removed the Armor Rating display, as it is irrelevant to you while you are in the middle of playing a round. Players who have equipped Rook’s Armor Plates will still have a green indicator, as seen in the screenshot below. In this screenshot, you will also notice that North is now accentuated with a red background!

R6-skull-rain-tweak-hud-02.jpg


LESS INVASIVE HUD WHEN THE DEFUSER IS ON THE GROUND
Players sometimes had difficulties locating enemies through the HUD elements relating to the Defuser. We have taken steps to trim down the impact that the Defuser has on player’s HUD. For example, we have reduced the overall size of the HUD indicator to the point that you will be able to clearly see an enemy should they be on the other side.

R6-skull-rain-tweak-defuser-new.jpg


MOST RECENTLY PLAYED PLAYLIST WILL BE THE DEFAULT SELECTION WHEN ACCESSING THE MAIN MENU
By the community’s request, your most recently played Playlist will be the default selection when you navigate to the main menu. This will provide a more streamlined flow through the matchmaking process for all players.

PING (LATENCY) AND FPS INFORMATION IS NOW DISPLAYED TO IMPROVE AWARENESS OF PERFORMANCE
In an effort to equip you with as much knowledge as possible, you are now able to activate an in-game overlay that displays your ping, FPS, and version number. The color of the values will change depending on performance. For example, a high ping or low FPS will be displayed in red, whereas a low ping or high FPS will be displayed in white. This will be adjusted automatically depending on the game mode/platform you are playing on. This will allow players to be more aware of situations when they are suffering from high latency or low FPS.

Please be aware that this tool is for debugging and troubleshooting purposes, and may block other information on your HUD. Use at your own discretion.

MORE INTRICATE MOUSE SENSITIVITY OPTIONS
Fine tune your mouse sensitivity to help improve your performance on the battlefield! Courtesy of feedback from our Pro League players, players on PC are now able to adjust their mouse sensitivity both vertically and horizontally.

NEW MENU MOUSE ALGORITHM HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED
We have introduced a new algorithm that will allow for a smoother menu navigation experience for players using a mouse. Prior to this patch, when you would move your mouse from the M590A1 tile on the left side to the preview pane on the right, hovering over a different object would bring that object in to focus. After the patch, you will be able to move from one tile to the side content without the content changing, even if you cross over it. In the image below, as long as your mouse cursor remains within the blue triangle and maintains a high velocity, you will not interact with the objects between the far left and right sections.
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PLAYLIST CHANGES

RANKED
Ranks will be partially reset at the beginning of Season 3

As Season 2 comes to a close, we have monitored the population of each rank bracket, and are satisfied with the results. The Season 2 breakdown is as follows:

14% Copper
30% Bronze
35% Silver
16.5% Gold
4% Platinum
0.5% Diamond
Given that we will be resetting ranks for Season 3, we would like to go into more detail regarding how we plan on executing this. We will be performing a soft reset of all ranks. All player’s ranks will be shifted towards the center (high Bronze-low Silver) based on their “uncertainty” value. The “uncertainty” value is revolves around the number of matches you have played. In an effort to reduce the amount of matches required to regain your previous rank, we have increased the uncertainty, which will allow players to advance more quickly from their placement matches. For example, the more games that a Diamond player has played, the higher their Match Making Rating will be after this soft reset, thus making it easier to reclaim their previous rank.
All players will be required to play 10 placement matches at the start of Season 3 to obtain a rank.

Number of Ranked qualification matches remaining until your first rank is assigned

We have included a new element that will inform you of how many Ranked matches you have left until you obtain your initial rank. This will remove the need to keep track of how many qualification matches you have played. After each match, you will be presented with the number of Ranked matches you have completed out of 10. Once you have completed 10 Ranked matches, you will be assigned a rank based on your performance.

There are also a few features (10% discount for Season Pass owners, thoughts on furhter balancing, and a shit ton of bug fixes) but it puts me at double the GAF allowed character count. Check the full notes here.

Ubi Montreal stays based
 

Skel1ingt0n

I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
Wow - those are some phenomenal enhancements! Love this game.
 
I picked this up this Spring for a LAN and really enjoyed it. Played a decent amount this weekend and it continues to get better.

For the life of me, I can't figure out UBI's priorities. This game is killing it, but I rarely hear anything about it.

As someone who hasn't picked up the season pass, I really want these operators though :/. I still don't own the previous four either.
 
Man this is impressive as hell how much the support for this game has been. Its Ubi's best game this generation imo and I just keep going back to it over and over again.

This whole patch sounds fantastic

I picked this up this Spring for a LAN and really enjoyed it. Played a decent amount this weekend and it continues to get better.

For the life of me, I can't figure out UBI's priorities. This game is killing it, but I rarely hear anything about it.

As someone who hasn't picked up the season pass, I really want these operators though :/. I still don't own the previous four either.

I'm not the kind of dude who typically rushes out to advocate Season Pass but this one is totally worth it for the Operators alone. They are great fun to play
 

Recall

Member
Played for the first time yesterday, after a few hours of the training stuff I jumped online. I was team killed twice for doing something wrong.

It says Casual right there on the playlist, I'm going to make mistakes but hey, they got their kills at least.
 
Played for the first time yesterday, after a few hours of the training stuff I jumped online. I was team killed twice for doing something wrong.

It says Casual right there on the playlist, I'm going to make mistakes but hey, they got their kills at least.

It sucks, but just grind through and you'll get better. Once you have Ranked unlocked you don't have to worry much about that kind of BS
 

D23

Member
played it for non stop this weekend because it was free..

im definitely going to buy it now!
 

thenexus6

Member
One of the best shooters in years. I hope they make just the overall experience quicker. The game noticeably hangs on menus all the time.
 

KodaRuss

Member
Only thing it is missing is a Tachanka buff!

Overall good update, excited to get started on the new operators and map. The season pass is really worth it if anyone is still on the fence about it.
 

CrayToes

Member
The developers recently said they are actively making it so that Siege lasts years.

Hopefully, it is the case.

That doesn't bode well for the chances of a sequel. I love the game dearly but I would kill for a sequel with better foundations/infrastructure and a fleshed out single player & terrorist hunt experience.
 
One of the best FPSs this gen keeps getting better. Love the support they are giving. I keep telling myself to get back into it. But I'm summer backlogging it right now.
 
NICE!
Crossbow, fuck yes.

Though for T-hunt there needs to be more freedom in customisation.

For mp all is very well balanced, but that does not hold any ground in T-hunt. Let people have more fun there.
And bring back incendiary grenades please!!!
 
played during the weekend--fantastic game

so what does the full price of the game buy you? thought I heard something about there being a free to play system now
 
That doesn't bode well for the chances of a sequel. I love the game dearly but I would kill for a sequel with better foundations/infrastructure and a fleshed out single player & terrorist hunt experience.

We will get a sequel. Ubi has said from the beginning this is a multi year title. Don't expect a sequel for another 2 or so years probably. We already know its outsold Vegas 2 by 2x and that it is on track to have the largest sales in the history of the franchise
 

CrayToes

Member
We will get a sequel. Ubi has said from the beginning this is a multi year title. Don't expect a sequel for another 2 or so years probably. We already know its outsold Vegas 2 by 2x and that it is on track to have the largest sales in the history of the franchise

That's reassuring. I hope you're right.
 

packy34

Member
That doesn't bode well for the chances of a sequel. I love the game dearly but I would kill for a sequel with better foundations/infrastructure and a fleshed out single player & terrorist hunt experience.

It's ubisoft. If the game sold within expectations, it'll get a sequel.
 
That's reassuring. I hope you're right.

For sure right. Its been an unabashed success for Ubi. At every single investor meeting and Earning report they spend tons of time / slides bragging about Siege. They posted shortly after launch in February Investor Meeting that Siege will be supported until at least FY19. I'm expecting the sequel probably FY18 or 19
 

Erban1

Member
Can't wait for this...new season means a shift in playstyles and strategies. Hope Favela is a good map, i'm not a huge fan of the first 2 dlc maps.
 
The Idea of a Bope officer walking around with a crossbow is so utterly absurd that i cant help but find it fascinating.

Wish more games had THIS kinda support
 

manhack

Member
Over the last year that has become one of my favorite games of all time. Really glad to see the improvements the game has made each patch and the fact the player base is growing is a big deal.
 

therapist

Member
new anti cheat , time to fire it up on pc again
great game but was marred by abysmal anti-cheat on pc.

free dlc is always good
 
Yeah, at this point, the Season Pass represents something of a greater value, simply because the renown/microtransaction model makes the most sense if you've been playing since launch (ideally, you play regularly enough to have enough renown to buy the two DLC operators each quarter/DLC release). If you haven't, playing catch-up requires a LOT of play time.

At least they're now offering a 10% discount for in-game items/cosmetics for Season Pass owners now, too. Glad I didn't spend anything this weekend.
 
QoL
Should have added a strict region filter. I've had several matches in the past week where many players had 100-200 ping.

Glad Montagne's ADS exploit has been fixed. Had a player abusing it yesterday.

Vote to kick - option should only be available if a teammate has been idle for a certain time or has team killed otherwise you'll have people voting to kick the last player alive because they didn't rush in like an idiot.
 
This and overwatch have been my console multiplayer darlings this year. Glad I picked up Siege when it went on sale in May, kinda tempted to pick up some currency tbh
 

nynt9

Member
Wow, this is seriously impressive. Good job on them for continuing to support this game so. Time to go back in with the new content!
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Game's one of my favorites from last year, and I'm glad to be a little hipster about it, since I first played it at E3 2014 and had already loved it then, haha.

I'll be back once Skull Rain hits to visit the favela (and maybe finally get the one trophy I'm missing, the one given for a breach charge kill :p).
 
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