After a dramatic overhaul to Tactical Gear with update 24.1, the devs behind PUBG are making another set of changes to the feature. The previously announced removal of the Blue Chip Detector will go into effect when update 24.2 goes live on July 12.
On top of that, two pieces of Tactical Gear are seeing changes.
The EMT Gear gets better with usage and revive times seeing a one-second decrease across the board.
- The usage time for the following heal items, when applied to oneself, has been slightly reduced.
- Med Kit usage time: 8 seconds → 7 seconds
- First Aid Kit usage time: 6 seconds → 5 seconds
- Bandage usage time: 4 seconds → 3 seconds
- To retain the role of team play, the usage time of the following items when used on team members has been slightly reduced.
- Med Kit usage time: 7 seconds → 6 seconds
- First Aid Kit usage time: 5 seconds → 4 seconds
- The revival speed of teammates has been shortened from 8 seconds → 7 seconds.
The All-In-One Repair Kit gets dinged with uses falling from 10 to 6.
In the patch notes, the devs explained why they decided to strip the Blue Chip Detector from the game. Despite having one of the lowest win rates across all the Tactical Gear, it was seen as too strong in the early game.
“Though it ranked lowest in terms of win rates across all Tactical Gear, it provided a significant advantage during early combats by making enemy location easier. This ease of locating enemies, especially among seasoned players who rely on sound play and world terrain for positional awareness, was seen as diminishing the tension of the game and causing stress, as it exposed their locations easily.”
As for the EMT Gear? The devs believed the adjustments made in the last patch went too far, and opted to go with the small tweaks seen above. And the All-In-One Repair Kit was seen as a little too strong, with game data showing it having the highest win rate across all the Tactical Gear.
The EMT Gear change is a step in the right direction, but it still needs to improve, especially the revival speed. When Tactical Gear was an item pickup, revive speed was three seconds. I agree that’s way too fast now that Tactical Gear has its own slot, but 7 seconds still seems too long. 5 or 6 seconds would be the sweet spot.
I still lean towards Tactical Pack, Repair Kit, or Drone over the EMT Gear.
The rest of update 24.2 focuses on overhauling Arcade mode, a new Compliment feature, and other small fixes and additions. The latest map rotation pool is also out with no significant changes. Erangel and Sanhok still hold permanent slots, while the other maps rotate each week.