Hello Hunters!
Today, we want to share some information about the current state of play with Hunt and give you some insight into what's coming to the game in the future.
Matchmaking:
Matchmaking is a topic that gets discussed quite a lot in the Hunt Community, so we'd like to take a moment to quickly explain how our matchmaking system works for those of you who are unfamiliar with it.
At the moment, we are using just one parameter: player vs. player performance (aka pvp_rating.) This rating is calculated in a similar way to the ELO system in chess. When two players have the same pvp_rating, each has, statistically, a 50/50 chance of winning a showdown between the two of them. So if Player A has a higher pvp_rating than Player B, that means that Player A has a statistically higher chance of winning in a one-on-one showdown against Player B.
As players encounter each other during live Hunt matches, their pvp_rating will continue to evolve. If two players have faced off against each other, and one is killed, the player who is killed will lose rating points, while the player making the killing will gain rating points.
The amount of points added or subtracted depends on the difference between the players' pvp_rating at the moment of the kill. A player with low a pvp_rating who kills a player with a high pvp_rating will gain more points because they overcame the odds against them, demonstrating considerable skill. A player with a high pvp_rating who kills a player with a lower pvp_rating will gain fewer points than the player in the previous example because the odds were already in their favor.
It's important to note that the Kill/Death ratio does not influence the pvp_rating. It is still possible to meet other players on your skill level, even if their K/D seems significantly different from other players' in the match.
There are several skill brackets, but it's still possible for a player to match against an opponent with a different pvp_ranking. This is dependent on many factors, but it's highly impacted by the server population. A smaller region will have fewer brackets and consequently is more likely to match you with players that are in other brackets.
You can read more about the Hunt matchmaking system in our previous blog post here: https://www.huntshowdown.com/news/hunt-s-new-skill...
We are always looking to enhance the game, and naturally, we are aware that Hunt's matchmaking system can be improved. To that end, rest assured that we are currently investigating ways to make the matchmaking experience better. With update 1.4.4, we will be deploying some stop-gap changes that will benefit new players. The system will favor fairness of matchmaking over full matches while in Trainee Mode. We hope this change will result in less frustrating situations as newcomers will encounter fewer veteran players within their first games.
We are continually working on making the matchmaking experience smoother for everyone, and we will let you know as soon we have new updates or changes that we're bringing to the system.
New Player Onboarding:
Besides bringing new content to Hunt, one of our biggest priorities is providing a seamless experience for new players, helping them to become part of the Hunt community. We believe Hunt offers unique and exciting gameplay, but.. well, the beginning of the journey can be a little unforgiving at times.
This is something we are looking to improve, and with the recent addition of the Trials mode and changes to the tutorial, we have taken our first steps in this direction. The next update will bring even more changes and improvements to ensure that players have an exciting onboarding experience as they take their first steps in the bayou.
In addition to the aforementioned safer matchmaking for new players, our next step is to better promote the Quickplay mode as a way to learn the game in a royale-like environment for solo players. Some changes were also made to the players' initial loadouts, to make the first minutes in the game more enjoyable. For example, every player will now start with a melee tool and a medkit, ensuring new players are better equipped to face the upcoming challenges.
Bugs/Issues:
The main focus in the last three updates has been fixing bugs and other issues. We have fixed more than 150 bugs and issues (and more than 200 if we count minor fixes) in Update 1.4.2, 1.4.3, and 1.4.4 combined, some of them being important community issues. Of course, we are still aware of some of the main issues that are bothering the community. For example, we're still monitoring and investigating hit registration and high ping issues, and we hope to have these fixed in future updates.
"I have stutters and freezes. Can you help?"
For specific issues like stutters and freezes, we have added additional logging to pinpoint the problem faster. Please follow these instructions:
1) Switch to the lightweight_profiler Steam beta branch
2) Go into games and play normally
3) If stutters/rubberbanding occurs during a game, send us the log after the game has ended. You'll find the log here: - Steam\steamapps\common\Hunt Showdown\game.log - Steam\steamapps\common\Hunt Showdown\user\telemetry
4) Please send the logs to one of our Community Managers or Moderators on Discord (discord.gg/huntshowdown) or our Customer Support Team (huntshowdown.kayako.com)
Find out how to switch to lightweight_profiler: https://gyazo.com/f14b41bd6ef84bf3375e0cc1bcd4da5b
Larger content updates:
Many of you have asked when larger content drops like a boss or a map are coming, so we want to use this blog to give you an idea of when these are planned. Please note that we obviously cannot share exact dates, and dates are always subject to change. Nonetheless, here's a snapshot of what will be coming to Hunt!
A new boss is planned to arrive in Q4 of this year.
A new map is planned for the beginning of Q2 of 2021.
Custom ammo is planned for Q4 of this year.
We plan on holding more special events in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021.
We are looking forward to sharing more info with you about all of these things as we get closer to them coming to the game.
While these bigger features are still a little while out, we are still hard at work on exciting new and updated features to enhance the player experience, such as new weapons, new Traits, and balancing improvements.
Next-Generation Consoles:
We cannot share any information regarding next-gen as of today. While we would like to bring Hunt: Showdown to next-gen consoles, our focus is on the current game.
However, we see great potential with the next generation of consoles. We feel that Hunt: Showdown would be a great addition to these platforms, especially for showing off the game's visuals and bringing that classic Hunt gameplay to new and veteran Hunters in our ever-growing community.
If we have an update on this topic, we will share it. But nothing is planned as yet.
GeForce Now:
Many of you asked for the return of the game on GeForce Now, and we have worked hard to bring the Hunt experience back to the platform.
It took a little bit of time, but we are excited to let you know that Hunt: Showdown is back on GeForce Now! You can read more about it here.
Server Status:
We understand that nothing is more frustrating than playing a game, collecting the bounty, and ending up at a disconnect screen. So we'd like to share some insights from our Network Operations Manager.
As we have analyzed the game data, and we see that the disconnect ratio is around 2%. It's low, but obviously 2% too much! We know how important the game experience is for you all, and we are always looking at different ways to provide you the best experience.
• Our data centers operated by our partners are always located in key locations.
• The best path selection is automatically selected from the data center, choosing the network provider offering the least hops.
• Hunt is played on high-performance servers. We are constantly watching how technology is improving, and we take measures to be up to date with the latest standards in the gaming industry.
Please be aware that traffic must be rerouted on occasions due to maintenances within networks, or outages on the provider's end, leading to a bad experience for a short amount of time. As this is the nature of the internet, we monitor what is happening 24/7 and try to take action where we can to ensure your experience is the best it can be.
We really appreciate the community's feedback, and we hope that this update answered some of your questions and concerns. There are many new features that we are working on, and we are really excited to be able to talk more about them in the coming months. You can stay up to date with the very latest news by following our dev streams and our social channels.
See you in the bayou, Hunters!