In the fourth Rainbow Six Siege Community Checkpoint, the dev team shared their insights on the current state of Siege, particularly regarding Player Protection. They clarified the core rules of Siege, reviewed what actions are sanctionable, and spoke about anti-cheat measures that are coming to the game to help curtail cheaters. Additionally, they discussed Operator balancing, giving players a sneak peek at some of the balancing updates coming in Year 11 Season 3.
Core Rules Update
Rainbow Six Siege has a set of core rules to ensure that all matches are a competitive, fair experience. These rules encompass fair play, team conduct, and match mechanics, and the player code of conduct emphasizes no cheating or toxic behavior. Last week, in response to the growing community and evolving competitive playlists, the core rules received an update in order to clarify what behaviors are acceptable and which ones will get a sanction. You can find the detailed list of core rules here.
Sanctions are issued based on the severity, frequency, and intent behind the cheating behavior. During the most recent Community Checkpoint, the devs gave additional context for some of the key cheating behaviors that would lead to a sanction:
- Cheating: Using any kind of software or hardware to get an unfair advantage, even if it’s not in active use. This includes exploits like spoofing, which disguises a device’s identity.
- Smurfing: Using alternate accounts to bypass bans or dominate in lower-skilled lobbies.
- Boosting: Playing with cheaters, intentionally matchmaking against specific accounts to manipulate ranking progression, or using external services to influence your rank.
- Using any negative communication like bullying, harassment, threats, or hateful language.
- Botting: Using bots, scripts, or automatic systems to mimic player behaviour and farm progression.
- Account Abuse: Using a shared account or one that is not yours or providing false account information.
- Circumventing any anti-cheat detection systems or account bans.
Anti-Cheat & Legend Division
The current season of Rainbow Six Siege, Operation System Override, has the lowest number of cheating reports in recent seasons, except in high-ranking match pools. As a result, the team is aiming to improve the impact of anti-cheat tools at the Diamond ranks and above.
In the upcoming Legend Division, new measures will be put into place, including two-step verification with an authenticator app, which will be required to help protect your account. As a bonus, everyone who enables two-step verification will receive an Alpha Pack. Eventually, two-factor authentication via app will be rolled out to other divisions of Rainbow Six Siege as well.
Another new measure that will be introduced with Legend Division will be The R6 Shieldguard Secure Platform, which marks the most significant anti-cheat update the game has had since Siege launched. It will have the following pillars:
- Secure Boot: This verifies the legitimacy of every step of your PC’s startup chain, such as firmware, OS, and drivers, making it easier to detect cheats before the game even launches.
- VBS/Core Isolation (HVCI): Runs Windows’ most sensitive processes in an isolated virtual environment, out of reach from the rest of the system.
- Trusted Platform Module (TPM): An enforcement layer, this cryptographically ensures Secure Boot and VBS/Core Isolation are genuinely active.
To take part, players need to enable Core Isolation in Windows Security, and some may need to upgrade their firmware to allow Secure Boot and TPM to run effectively.
If cheating is suspected, players are encouraged to report it in the correct category through the in-game systems to help keep matches fair and competitive for everyone.
Operator Balancing
Operator balancing is a critical part of Siege’s continued growth, as it’s a way to ensure all Operators have a chance to shine in a given match and keep gameplay competitive, even as new Operators enter the scene. It’s also a way to keep gameplay fresh for seasoned players by changing how the meta works.
With Siege’s meta currently trending towards power Operators, balancing Operators while maintaining their core appeal can be tricky, but the team are hard at work refining Operators to strike that balance.
Check out some of the balancing changes coming in Year 11 Season 3:
Dokkaebi
- Removing the Impact EMP in favour of the Breach Charge
- The Jageo Payload will now be an active upload that can be interrupted before the call is placed, instead of an instant problem for Defenders:
- The active upload will be able to be countered by entering the radius of a Mute’s Signal Disrupter or eliminating Dokkaebi before the call goes through.
- Tubarão can disable the upload using their Zoto Canister.
- IQ will be able to see the targeted Defender’s phone.
- Solis’ SPEC-IO Electric Sensor will be able to detect Dokkaebi’s tablet when it’s uploading the Jegeo Payload.
SMG 12
- Damage reduced
- Magazine size reduced
DMR (MK14 & AR-15.50)
- Both brought back down to doing under 60 damage. Most targets will require another shot now.
- Increased recoil
- Muzzle brake removed
Rainbow Six Siege Year 11 Season 3 will also introduce a new Operator. Players got a glimpse of their shield-countering abilities at the Six Invitational; be sure to tune in to the Esports World Cup on August 15 for all the Season 3 balancing updates, and the full Operator reveal.
Mousetrap
Console cheating remains an issue, particularly with players spoofing so they can use mouse and keyboard inputs while competing in controller pools. To counter this, the dev team has an established Mousetrap system, which is designed to detect players using these cheats and hit them with sanctions. While it’s a highly effective tool, the devs encourage players to report those suspected of using mouse and keyboard in controller lobbies to help make it even more efficient and successful.
There are also several instances of players using recoil macros to unfairly remove adverse recoil effects from gameplay. Because of this, a new model is being introduced to detect programs and scripts that enable recoil macros. It’s designed to be extremely cautious and will only issue account bans after several confirmed instances of cheating. This detection system will go live on PC later this month and is currently in development for consoles.
The team also announced they are working on a program that can analyze past matches, so cheaters can be retroactively caught and sanctioned as is appropriate. The devs are also analyzing AI-assisted cheating on console, and anti-cheat measures will evolve to combat this.
Anti-Cheat & Toxicity
There’s an exciting new anti-cheat measure coming to the game. A dedicated team on Ubisoft Security is working on a kernel level, shared anti-cheat solution across all Ubisoft games, and Rainbow Six Siege is one of the first games to incorporate it, which players will be notified of once they launch the game in Season 3.
As many modern cheats function and hide from detectors at the deepest levels of the game, having this anti-cheat system active at the kernel level will help weed out cheaters more effectively. While kernel level anti-cheat isn’t a new concept for Siege, the dev team just wanted to be up front about the implementation of this new system, and make sure players understand what it means for them.
The devs also provided clarity on manual bans during the Community Checkpoint, confirming they are only done after the team has physically reviewed evidence and determined there is enough proof of cheating to warrant a ban. Manual bans never happen based solely on a clip shared by players and content creators online; backend data is also reviewed to ensure all bans are justified.
The dev team continues to iterate on anti-toxicity measures, particularly with voice chat, leading to:
- Updates to anti-toxicity voice chat programs before the end of the year
- A new, mandatory Code of Conduct beginning in Year 11 Season 4
- More communication on what happens after filing a cheating or toxicity report
- Year 12 will introduce features that recognize and encourage good behaviour
WATCH THE FULL LIVESTREAM
For additional details and developer insights, be sure to watch the Community Checkpoint #4 livestream VOD and hear directly from the team about the future of Rainbow Six Siege.
