The next year of siege

In the next year of siege, there are some quite large changes coming into place. These will definitely change the meta for esports, as well as having a large effect on how the game is played for the everyday gamer.

What’s the issue

The issue is that as this article was written, it is clear in the esports meta, each round goes fairly similarly (there are of course, always exceptions). The first two minutes, there is very little going on. Maybe a gunfight or two between the attackers and roamers, but the majority of the action comes in the last minute, or even 30 seconds. This has come from the last few seasons, the amount of utility that the defenders have, and the lack of attacking ability to counter it, has grown so large that nothing can really be done until the last few moments. A very clear example of this, is just one of Jager’s ads can get rid of an attacker’s entire utility. He has three, and in many situations three operators have wasted a part of their ability, or both of their stuns, grenades or smokes. This creates a large issue and Is common in so much gameplay. Another large issue is information. All operators have two drones, and very few have other means of gathering information. On the attackers, you have the cameras, possibly black eyes, maestro’s cams. They have a plethora of information in contrary to the attackers. These situations and gameplay scenarios may sound very situational, or uncommon. But in the most recent designer notes, operators who have been mentioned here are all very high in pick rate and win delta.

Jager: 90%+ pick rate, 0.75%-win delta

Valkyrie: 47% pick rate, 1.3%-win delta.

Maestro: 15% pick rate, 0.4%-win delta (under picked but still in the ‘Too Strong’ category)

This has created a very defender’s sided game, and the developers want to make some changes.

What are they going to change

There have been many ‘scare’ stories going around. The possibility of Jager losing an ads, Doc and Rook losing acog, Echo losing a drone. The general theme is that the defenders are going to lose some utility or ability, and the chance for attackers to gain some more. We might also see this in the new operators added this year, and even possibly in some map reworks. We can’t be sure about anything, since we are not the devs.

What will happen to the gameplay

The final goal that both a lot of players would like to see, as well as the devs, is the possibility for rounds to be played in a variety of different ways, influenced by the defender’s choices of operators, as well as the attackers. This is a very hard balancing act, but it would certainly make everyday gameplay more engaging, as well as the competitive field.