Esports
We spoke to caster Cameron Davis and pro TeaBone to investigate the differences between casual and competitive PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to see if they’re detrimental to the esports experience.
A lot of games developers try to keep the casual experience of their game as close to the competitive experience, and this is for many reasons. Casual players can get a real understanding of the esports scene for a given game if they’re similar, and this is important in making them feel as if they too, have the access available to go pro. It also helps to display just how good the professional players are, highlighting the things they know and do that casual players may not excel in – whether that’s having highly-precise aim or impeccable map knowledge.
First-person shooters such as Call of Duty and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – which see differing levels of popularity, both casually and competitively -– excel in keeping everything as similar as possible. These titles allow amateur and casual players to get a taste of playing in a competitive setting against people of relative and similar skill levels, which can only be a positive thing.
PUBG Corp., on the other hand, with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, have developed an esports scene that’s largely different from what casual players experience. The spectator experience for competitive matches doesn’t always line up with what players see when they’re playing themselves, nor is the competitive ruleset currently available in the game itself. Is the large difference between casual and competitive play actually a hindrance on PUBG’s esports circuit, though?
“Without direct familiarity with the game settings, the importance or difficulty of a play by a professional player or team may not be as apparent, which lowers the potential enjoyment of the game,” says Cameron Davis, a seasoned PUBG caster, analyst, and host.
The ruleset utilised in official competitions – named SUPER, which stands for Standard and Universal PUBG Esports Ruleset – has been tweaked and toyed with over time to enable professionals to compete under the most competitive and entertaining circumstances currently available.
“In most games there's at least a small difference between professional and casual play, mostly because the difference between organised teams of top level players and casual matchmaking changes the meta slightly,” says Davis. “What makes PUBG unique is that the professional leagues use completely different settings than standard matchmaking. Under PUBG Corp.'s SUPER ruleset, the loot is increased, the circles move faster, and there's a set win condition with the points settings. Casual matchmaking has no win condition outside of the typical win or lose condition. These drastically change the way that professionals play compared to anyone else.”
“The competitive side of PUBG is definitely much different from the casual side of PUBG,” says Luke ‘TeaBone’ Crafer, a professional PUBG player for Zoekt een Naam. “Noticeably, the biggest differences are the circles, circle damages, car spawns and loot. Some third party websites have closed the gap somewhat, but they’re still not known to the wide audience PUBG has.”
SUPER was created by PUBG Corp. for use as a global ruleset alongside the launch of its official circuit. The developer consulted with players and viewers to identify the biggest discrepancies with the state of the competitive landscape at that time – it’s important to note that different regions were utilising their own rulesets. While it’s important to have a competitive standard, it’s also important for players to be exposed to it too to really understand the changes.
“For anybody on the casual side, it is really hard to appreciate what is going on in the competitive side of the game when they have not experienced it themselves,” says Crafter. “It’s also very hard to imagine what the competitive side is like without actually experiencing it first hand. A lot of people, to this day, still do not know about the professional side of the game and it’s definitely something PUBG Corp. should continue to work on.”
A good portion of figures involved in the PUBG esports circuit – whether that be a player, coach, caster, or personality – all believe the same thing: the SUPER ruleset should be available in standard matchmaking as an option for players.
“If we want to grow PUBG esports, I think it's especially important, among other things, to create a ranked mode that is as close to SUPER as possible, including the points system,” says Davis.
Whether we’ll see that come to fruition is up to PUBG Corp., but if the regular PUBG experience can become closer to what the pros play, we could see even more players rise up the competitive scene – until then, there’s no clear path just yet, but hopefully we see a closer alignment in the near future.
