The team at Bluehole Studios has released update #14 to the PC version of PUBG, and they set their sights on overhauling the throwables aspect of the game and other improvements. Frag grenades, stun grenades, and even the often considered useless Molotov will see major changes in this release of the game. The developers also focused on continuing to tune weapon and attachment balance in the game, to help even the playing field for players. Additionally, a load of performance improvements have been tossed at the game that all players will enjoy.

Bringing the focus back to the throwables aspect of the battle royale, some necessary changes were made that will make players start paying more attention to explosive side of PUBG. Frag grenades recently had their knockback effect removed, which reduced its potential impact. Fighters will notice an improved range and damage in this new update. Stun grenades will now effect players vision, hearing, and ability to shoot accurately in addition to seeing an improvement in effective range. The least popular throwable weapon, the Molotov, will now see an increased area of effect that easily spreads across wooden surfaces. To see just how much more effective they are, check out the clip below:

Check out all the details on PC Update #14 for PUBG below, via Steam:

First, let’s share a little context about the changes to throwables:

1. Frag grenades: In a recent update we removed the frag grenade’s knockback effect, greatly reducing its potential impact. To restore the trusty frag’s killing power we’re buffing its effective range and its damage.
2. Stun grenades: Stun grenades have never been the most popular pickups, and recent changes to frag grenade audio effects have made them feel a bit redundant. To make stun grenades more rewarding, they’ll now affect stunned players’ vision, hearing, and their ability to shoot accurately. We’re also bumping up the stun grenade’s effective radius and introducing new animations so it’s possible to tell when your grenades have stunned opponents.
3. Molotovs: These have traditionally been among the least popular items in the game. To make molotovs more useful, we’re increasing their area of effect, introducing new properties that allow fire to spread along walls and wooden surfaces in houses, and imposing new debuffs on players who catch on fire.

Patch Notes

Gameplay

Improvements have been made to throwables (frag grenades, stun grenades, and molotovs).

• Increased frag grenade damage and effective range
  • Frags previously had to be within 2.6m of player models to deal lethal damage. They now deal lethal damage within 3.5m, moderate damage from 3.5m through 8.5m, and low damage from 8.5m through 10m.
• Stun grenades’ blinding effects have been improved
  • First, let’s explain some terms. “Direct effect” is defined as stun grenade explosions occurring within a 100˚ angle of the player’s visual field. “Indirect effect” occurs when stun grenades explode outside of that “direct effect” range and players are within 5.5m of the explosion
  • The maximum effective range of stun grenade has been increased to 20m
  • Depending on distance from the explosion, the direct effect can blind the player for a maximum of 5.5 seconds, and a minimum of one second (when 20m away).
  • Depending on distance from the explosion, the indirect effect can blind the player for a maximum of three seconds.
  • Characters blinded by a stun grenade now cover their faces. This is a new animation.
  • Spectators are now also blinded when spectating someone hit with a stun grenade
  • Stun grenades will now briefly blind and deafen the thrower if they explode behind their back when cooked.
  • You’ll now be unable to ADS while blinded.
• Molotov cocktails now have new effects and their damage has been increased.
  • Molotovs can now deal indirect damage and burn damage (as damage over time), depending on whether or not you’re standing directly in the flames. If you’re in the flames you’ll take both types of damage.
  • Indirect damage (taken when standing in the flames) has been increased from 10 to 12.5 damage per second.
  • After catching fire, players will take burn damage as damage over time (10 damage per second) for a total of four seconds.
  • You’ll now be unable to ADS while taking burn damage.
  • Flames now spread further along wooden surfaces in houses
    Flames from Molotovs spread further if another Molotov is thrown on top of the flames.
  • A new animation has been added for character models who are suffering burn damage. They’ll attempt to pat out the flames using their hands.
• Adjusting some weapon and attachment balance:
  • Reduced vertical and horizontal recoil of the SCAR-L
  • Decreased basic damage of the M24 from 88 to 79
  • M24 will no longer dropped in care package. It spawns in the world
  • The tactical stock and cheek pad are now less effective at improving recoil recovery rate. It now improves ADS speed.
  • Adjusted light grip
    • Light grip no longer affects weapon basic recoil control or recoil recovery speed
    • Light grip now decreases first shot/single shot recoil by about 15%. Animation kick reduction has been changed to 20% (from 30%).
  • To make the Vector a little easier to find, we’ve increased its spawn rate at the expense of the spawn rate of the UMP-9 (overall SMG spawn rate remains the same).
  • Increased world spawn rate of DMRs.

• Added a UI message showing when healing items can’t be used.

New Anti-Cheat Tech

Note: The new anti-cheat tech is currently only on the test servers, once additional testing is complete, it will be added to live servers.

We’ve added a new anti-cheat solution, developed in-house at PUBG Corp. Before we implement this tech on live servers, we’d first like to see how it works out on the test server. For this, we’ll need your help!

Expect to see a new popup when you start the client. To help us refine our anti-cheat service it would be helpful for us if you play with the “Enable Anti-cheat” box checked, if you experience issues you can disable this.

The option to disable the anti-cheat service will not be available when this is moved to live servers.

In last week’s dev blog we wrote in detail about upcoming work we’ll be doing to increase performance holistically. Many of these fixes will take time to deliver, but we’ve already finished a handful of fixes that should make a positive difference:

• We’ve improved the character model rendering process to prevent some small frame drop issues.
• We’ve optimized character movement and animation while skydiving to improve framerate when multiple players are nearby.
• We’ve made some improvements to our network code to reduce network latency.
• We’ve increased the speed at which the server transfers data about objects (items, doors, fences) to address the fact that sometimes items spawn in late after players parachute in.
• We’ve improved some inefficient processes with the way the server updates certain frames on vehicles and character models. This should resolve resolve some abnormal physics affecting vehicles.

• You can now toggle the new HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) sound feature in the options menu (for opponent’s gunshot sounds only). The feature, which simulates fully three dimensional sound even for two-channel stereo headphones, was explained in greater detail in our dev blog last week.
• Reduced the volume of the care package airplane.

• Average swimming distance has been added to player stats, on the career screen

• The total rating points gained/lost per match has been increased, to better define the skill difference between players.

• Fixed some issues causing abnormal collisions in spots on Erangel and Miramar.
• Characters should no longer get stuck while vaulting in particular spots around Erangel.
• Fixed an issues allowing characters to pass through objects in certain locations on Miramar.
• Improved the accuracy of the throwing trajectory indicator for stun grenades
• Fixed a visual glitch in the inventory screen that occurred when attaching a choke to the sawed-off .
• Fixed an issue that was resulting in some strange collisions if players ever jumped on top of a vehicle which had players in it.
• Scope zeroing on the crossbow is no longer incorrectly enabled and set to an incorrect value by default.
• Fixed an issue causing stun grenades to appear to bounce around for while after breaking a window.
• Fixed an issue where the cheek pad’s vertical recoil control attribute was excluded in in-game tooltip.
• Fixed an issue which prevented the cheek pad from adding 10% vertical recoil recovery when attached to the SLR.
• Fixed an issue when hip-firing for an extended duration, the gun would appear to be lowered
• Fixed an issue that caused the effect from stun grenades to appear differently depending on graphical settings

What do you think of all the changes deployed by Bluehole Studios in the latest release of PUBG? What else would you like to see added or fixed in a future update? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below, and don’t forget to check out DFTG on Twitter for gaming and entertainment news live 24/7!

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