Ubisoft released R6 Siege update Y8S3 on August 29. This update introduces Operation Heavy Mettle, gameplay changes, and more. While the patch notes are currently missing, Ubisoft has revealed that this Y8S3 is 5.5GB to 6.75GB; is size varies across platforms.
🤘Y8S3 Maintenance🤘
Operation Heavy Mettle will be deployed today, August 29th.
💻PC: 09:00 ET / 13:00 UTC
🎮Xbox: 09:00 ET / 13:00 UTC
🎮PlayStation: 09:00 ET / 13:00 UTC⏲Downtime up to 60 mins pic.twitter.com/YiDbU8fQ9b
— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) August 29, 2023
R6Siege Patch Notes
As per the test server, these are the changes coming through:
PLAYER PROTECTION
PLAYER COMMENDATIONS
Coming this season are Commendations, a new way for players to shout-out others for their positive behavior contributions to the team.
Every match, each player can give out 2 commendations to teammates and 1 to the opposing team. To keep things fair, a player can only commend the same teammate once during each 7-day period.
The available commendations are:
- Valor: a great teammate who stays cool and is fun to play with.
- Dedication: a reliable teammate who stays engaged, fills in roles, and actively relays intel.
- Guidance: a teammate who takes on a leadership role, helping the others by sharing knowledge and developing strategy.
- Players can vote as a team to commend the opponents for playing a fun and fair match.
Commendations also lead to rewards. Players with a Commendation Streak are those who are frequently commended. They’ll be highlighted to others in-game unless this option is turned off in the privacy settings. Having an active streak grants increased Alpha Pack drops, and there will be exclusive rewards for commended players at the middle and end of each season.
REPUTATION SECTION UPDATE
With the addition of Commendations, the Reputation section has gone through some changes. These updates add two new pages to give players more visibility.
- The Commendations page keeps track of a player’s commendations, their Streak, and Alpha Pack drop rate.
- The Misconduct page gives players visibility on behaviors that are affecting their Reputation Standing.
PRIVACY OPTIONS UPDATE
New options are coming to Privacy Mode this season which hide your Commendation Streak and add a link in-game to the Ubisoft Account privacy settings to allow quicker access.
PLAYLISTS UPDATE
Multiple changes are coming to playlists this season, including a Quick Match rework, a redesign of Unranked (now called Standard), and a brand new Arcade mode.
QUICK MATCH REWORK
Changes to Quick Match focused on making this playlist quicker than before. Round timers have been reduced, objective locations are now automatically revealed, and bomb sites are set up in advance with reinforcements and rotations.
Also coming to Quick Match is Attacker safeguard which grants a 10-second invulnerability to them at the start of the Action Phase to stop spawn peaking and allow Attackers time to safely get to the building. If an Attacker enters the building before the 10 seconds runs out, their invulnerability is removed and they can be injured or eliminated.
Players must now be Clearance Level 10 to join Quick Match games, but matchmaking has been tweaked to decrease wait times, and a soft Skill reset has been applied.
STANDARD PLAYLIST
Replacing Unranked from this season onward is Standard, a playlist which offers the core Siege experience without Operator or map bans. This change aims to be more welcoming to all players by further separating it from the competitive nature of Ranked. To help with this, the competitive Play section has been renamed Tactical, to make finding both Standard and Ranked more intuitive.
With Standard being designed for players of all experience, the Clearance Level has been set to 0.
WEAPON ROULETTE ARCADE
Get ready for some chaos and fast action with Weapon Roulette this season, a new game mode coming to the Arcade playlist. In this new game mode, respawn is active and all players start with the same weapon, which automatically swaps to a new one after a set amount of time.
BALANCING
GRIM BUFF PT. 2
The second part of Grim’s buff adds a new firing mode to the Kawan Hive Launcher, letting players select whether the Kawan Hives stick to a surface or bounce off of them. This new bouncing firing mode lets players specify the location in which they want to activate the Hive, without needing a line-of-sight.
FUZE
Fuze can now deploy Cluster Charges on Deployable Shields and Osa’s Talon-8 Shields. This change aims to create a new synergy with Osa by allowing the deployment of Cluster Charges in new places at the cost of shattering glass of the Talon-8 Shield.
SHOTGUNS
Standard shotguns have been reworked so they are more consistent and easy to learn, by normalize the firing range based on the average kill distance. The goal here is to reward good practices such as aiming for the head or holding angles, and decrease the value of spray-and-pray.
PLAYER COMFORT
MATCH REPLAY & SPECTATOR MODE
Players can now enter Free Camera mode in spectator mode to watch the action from any distance or angle. In both Match Replay and spectator mode, players can also hide the HUD to capture footage with a more cinematic experience.
SQUAD MANAGEMENT
The Squad Leader can now remove players and promote another player to Squad Leader from the in-game player profile, accessed from the Squad panel or scoreboard.
IN-GAME PATCH NOTES
Patch Notes can now be read directly in-game from the Notifications section, ensuring players can remain up-to-date with game changes. This new feature also directly links to R6Fix, making it quicker to report bugs or provide feedback on reported issues.
ONBOARDING
This season, newcomers to Siege will get a brand-new first-time experience.
This new flow leads newcomers through playable Tutorials, where they will learn the basic, core mechanics of Siege before going on to learn about the Attacker and Defender roles. After completing all Tutorials, players are rewarded with 10 Operators to play with and practice their learnings. If any of these Operators are already owned, they will earn the Operators value in Renown instead.
BATTLE PASS UPDATE
The Intro section of the Battle Pass has been reworked to showcase rewards as complete sets and track their completion, as well as provide easier access to the Battle Pass progression track.
SEASONAL WEAPON SKIN
This season is a heavy hitter, and the seasonal collection items of the Dynamic Entry bundle strike just as hard. Make your way to the top with the Explosive Surprise weapon and attachment skins, and the Collateral Damage operator card background. Don’t forget the Locksmith charm as well to complete your rather… unconventional lockpicking kit! The seasonal weapon skin will be released at season launch and available for purchase throughout the season. Once unlocked, it remains in your inventory indefinitely and can be applied to all available weapons.
OPERATOR PRICE DECREASE
This season brings about its fair share of operator price decreases. Just updated, Grim is now priced at 20,000 Renown or 480 R6 Credits. Next is Osa, who will now be available at 15,000 Renown or 360 R6 Credits. Finally, Zero’s price is now down to 10,000 Renown or 240 R6 Credit
OPERATOR BALANCING
LESION
Base stats
- Refill timer: Reduced to 20 seconds (from 30).
- Max. resources: Increased to 9 mines (from 8).
GU mine
- Initial damage: Re-introduced at 5hp (from 0).
- Poison damage: Increased to 12hp (from 8).
- Poison timer: Reduced to 2 seconds (from 2.5).
- Cloaking removed.
- HUD Icon removed.
- Stepping on a GU Mine while being affected by another will reset the Poison timer and deal the Poison damage instantly.
- Added Area of Effect feedback.
- Gadget isn’t detectable by IQ’s Electronic detector.
- Gadget isn’t hackable by Brava’s Kludge drone.
Loadout
- Weapons: Added Super Shorty as a secondary weapon option.
ZERO
Argus camera
- Piercing rules: Can pierce through Deployable Shields and Talon Shields.
TWEAKS & IMPROVEMENTS
PLAYER COMFORT
OPERATOR GUIDES
- New Seasonal Operator (RAM) Operator Guide is available in-game and in the Operator section.
- Updated Operator Guides for Grim and Lesion with the balancing changes.
GPU SELECTION OPTION
- GPU Selection option allows players to select which graphics card to render the game with if several are installed on the PC.
DEFUSER PICKUP OPTION
This new option lets players decide the defuser pickup behavior from these choices:
- Automatic
- Manual
- Both (Default setting)
DEFUSER FOUND UPDATE
- To be consistent with Bomb Found visuals, the location of an activated defuser is displayed in the HUD to Defenders once they’ve located it.
CROSS-SAVE FUNCTIONALITY
Some parts of the player’s saved profile will now be shared across all platforms, including:
- Visual customizations
- Common gameplay options
- Progression
- Matchmaking preferences
Additionally, Operator loadouts and equipped weapon attachments will be shared across console platforms, but not between consoles and PC.
GAME HEALTH
PLAYLIST UPDATES
QUICK MATCH MAP POOL
- House
- Villa
- Club House
- Consulate
- Chalet
- Favela
- Coastline
- Tower
- Bank
- Nighthaven
STANDARD MAP POOL
- Oregon
- Club House
- Plane
- Yacht
- Consulate
- Bank
- Chalet
- Kafe
- Border
- Coastline
- Villa
- Nighthaven
- Fortress
ARCADE GAME MODES
- Weapon Roulette added to the Arcade Playlist
- Headshot Only removed from the Arcade Playlist rotation ( expect it to return in the future)
BUG FIXES
GAMEPLAY
FIXED – FPS drops when players spin around quickly in B Laundry Room of the Oregon map.
FIXED – The wall button on the interactive panel isn’t highlighted when the destructible wall is active in the Shooting Range.
FIXED – Brava doesn’t get scoring points when using Jager’s Active Defense System or Wamai’s MAG-NET System that’s been hacked by a Kludge Drone.
FIXED – Scoring doesn’t count the 4th device deployed by Amaru, Gridlock or Castle.
FIXED – Weapon SFX loops when players shoot and fast exit rappel at the same time.
FIXED – Players skip reload animation during pick up or weapon swap animation.
FIXED – Texture flickers on carpet in 1F Open Area of the Consulate map.
FIXED – Laser attachment is visible through the wall when the Operator is facing it while prone.
FIXED – Metals crates are see-through to Operators in the 2F Server Room of the the Kanal map.
FIXED – Operator gets stuck when jumping onto a balcony at EXT Back Alley on Favela map.
FIXED – Operators can’t retrieve the defuser if it’s dropped while entering or exiting rappel in specific spots on various maps.
FIXED – Various defuser planting and pickup issues.
FIXED – Various collision, asset, and texture issues on maps.
OPERATORS
FIXED – Scoring points aren’t awarded when Operators destroy Goyo’s Volcan Canister by destroying a barricade it’s placed on.
FIXED – Fenrir’s F-NATT Dread Mine clips through the floor, making it harder to spot.
FIXED – Grim’s Kawan Hive Launcher doesn’t ping opponents inside the swarm until affected by the decay debuff.
FIXED – Hibana’s X-Kairos pellets go through the cubicles in the 2F Admin Office of the Consulate map.
FIXED – Frost’s Welcome Mat doesn’t deploy properly when dropped on top of the defuser.
FIXED – A Bulletproof Camera affected by a hacked Signal Disruptor shows glitched VFX even after the Signal Disruptor is destroyed..
FIXED – Brava’s Kludge Drone looks higher and lower than intended.
FIXED – Ping doesn’t display the right color when used on Goyo’s Vulcan Canister.
FIXED – Echo’s Yokai Drone doesn’t move properly when exiting the Observation Tools mid-jump and then re-entering.
FIXED – Brava’s Kludge Drone loses signal when moved outside after re-hacking it from Mozzie’s Pest.
FIXED – Missing VFX feedback when spectating Nokk when HEL Presence Reduction is active.
FIXED – Fenrir’s F-NATT Dread Mine location displays as a placeholder when deployed outside of EXT Terrace of the Kafe Dostoyevsky map.
FIXED – Drones don’t recover from a lost signal status when reclaimed from Mozzie’s Pest using Brava’s Kludge Drone.
FIXED – Sledge’s Breaching Hammer can’t destroy Iana’s Gemini Replicator.
FIXED – Valkyrie’s Black Eyes are turned off when hacked outside by Brava’s Kludge Drone.
FIXED – Osa’s Talon-8 shield can’t be guard broken if Opponent is prone or crouched while Osa is standing while holding the Talon-8 Shield.
FIXED – Grim’s Kawan Hive Launcher ammo counter always shows 0 during replay.
FIXED – Grim’s Kawan Hive Launcher doesn’t accurately ping the opponent’s location if they’re scanned by a drone.
FIXED – Grim’s Kawan Hive Launcher still pings Opponents if Grim is eliminated while deploying a canister.
FIXED – Brava’s Kludge Drone doesn’t display HUD feedback when aiming at devices through certain assets.
FIXED – Sen’s R.O.U. Projector System doesn’t destroy projectors if deployed more than once.
FIXED – Operator video missing for Smoke.
FIXED – Various animation issues.
FIXED – Players under level 5 can’t reconnect to a custom online match.
FIXED – Player commendations appear unresponsive when attempting to commend a player a second time.
FIXED – Multiple actions can’t be bound to the same button in Customize Controls menu.
FIXED – Crosshair disappears when trying to aim down sight multiple times after getting eliminated.
FIXED – Custom games can’t be created using non-Latin characters in the playlist name.
FIXED – The unread notification from Challenges doesn’t refresh after exiting and re-entering the Challenges section.
FIXED – Various spectator mode issues.
FIXED – Various UI issues.
FIXED – Various customization issues.
FIXED – SFX loop when players are eliminated while downed
