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The future of R6 Analyst

A development update.

Intro

Well, with 111 days since the last Development Roadmap update, it is high time for another one! A lot has been happening in the past couple months, so let's dive into it!

I’ve released 20 updates in the past 111 days, that's a little over one update every week. Some of those were small tweaks, others had big new features or improvements.

This is another large amount of text, so feel free to fast forward to the parts you're most interested in:

Table of Contents

  • Read Finished if you want a quick overview of what I promised last time and actually delivered on.
  • Read Did Not Finish if you want to shame me for the things I didn’t get around to yet but did mention I would work on.
  • Read What Else is Next if you want to read spoilers for some of the things I’m planning on working on in the next 3 months.
  • Skip to All-in-All if you’re too lazy to read.

🏁 Finished

Let’s first quickly run through everything that I said I’d do and actually completed in the past 80 days.

Operator-stats fix and improvements ✅

A complete overhaul of how the app pulls the Operator-stats for every player was completed at the end of February, and even more improvements were made in May.

What this means is that the app is better at knowing what Operators each player you encounter has played in the past, and can "learn" faster what they are likely to want to play currently.

Improved first-time user experience ✅

Released with update v2.0.3.1 (April 28th), the new First-Time User Experience is a much more fluent introduction into the app.

Upon install the app now automatically detects all your Siege accounts, and then runs you through a couple preference-based settings before being all set up.

This allows me to do away with the "play one match to start using the app", which had a lot of players that refused to read any instructions very frustrated.

Since its introduction, I have seen an increase in the number of users that stick around using the app after installing it, which means it is doing its job properly.

Map Stats Editor and Second Monitor Rework ☑️

I have revamped the style of these windows to be in line with the overall style of the app.

However, there is a lot more potential for the Second Monitor window that is as of yet untapped.

Due to the quite limited number of app users that actually make use of the Second Monitor (3.3%), this is just really low priority for me right now.

Local Custom Match History expansion ✅

This was implemented on the 26th of February. Custom Matches are still only stored locally (for scrim privacy reasons) but the storage limit was increased from 10 to 100 matches.

Operator Stats Dashboard Page Improvements ✅

I added stats per map to the Operator Stats page, and completely revamped the Operator History page as well.

Operator Comparison Dashboard Page Rework ✅

Similarly to the Operator Stats and the Operator History pages, the Operator Comparison page was also completely redone. This added the ability to compare KOST, SRV, KPR and much more between your different Operators, in a gamemode and timeframe of your choosing.

Team Dashboard Page ✅

My pride and joy, the Team Performance Report (and the Personal Performance Report) were launched 10 days ago on June 3rd. I've heard a lot of great response on these new pages, and I'm really glad people see the value in them!

Tracking the stats is one thing. Translating those stats into information that you can learn from, is quite another. This has definitely been a tough thing to try and accomplish. And even though I'm really happy with how the reports turned out, I do feel there is definitely another step to take here:

Translating the information provided, in to advice on how to do better. Right now, that is left to the interpretation of the app user. Given that I had to make a 47 minute tutorial video running through the Performance Reports, I feel like there are some steps yet to take there.

Account Statistics Dashboard Page Improvements ✅

Although I did add a few additional graphs/tables to the Account Statistics dashboard, I ended up combining the bulk of this work into the Personal Performance Report.

Streamer Mode – Local Implementation ✅

When the very first iteration of "streamer mode" launched in the game, so did my interpretation of it for the app. I think it's pretty useless except in extremely niche cases, but then, the same can be said about the in-game version I think!

Much Improved Back-End Systems ✅

Wow, the back-end requirements for running an app for 100.000+ users is so much more than I anticipated.

Since the last Development Roadmap update, I increased the power of the system by a factor of 6x! The flipside of this is that I'm now spending well over $3,000 per month on AWS. 💰

Don't worry though, the ad revenue has also been steadily increasing, so I am not going broke over this. 👍

Quality-of-life Improvements ✅

Some small quality-of-life improvements have also been released recently.

This includes being able to reset settings to default, a dedicated tray icon for the app, automatic in-game Aspect Ratio detection, some small UI alignment fixes, and some background changes on the update flow of the app.

❌ Did Not Finish

Bug-reporting tool

I put this as low-priority long-term last time, and I haven't spared it a single thought since. I'll remove this from the to-do list for now I think.

Honestly, the Discord has been working as a bug reporting tool, and mostly I need to ask several probing questions anyway, so a static report won't help much.

Stitching Rehosted Custom Matches

Really, still the same as the last two times: This has been an oft-requested feature, and I agree it should be something the app can recognize and do automatically.

Honestly, it's just really fricking boring programming work that I'm not inspired to do at all. 😅 However, I vow to attempt it before the next Development Roadmap is released.

This is a low-priority medium-term project.

Defuser Plant Detection

Overwolf added some potential technical stuff to perhaps allow a more reliable detection of who planted. Unfortunately, after some extensive research, this didn't really pan out.

The current system is 95% accurate, and that's good enough for right now.

Drone Economy Tracking

As I mentioned last time: This is the dream stat! The metric I am most looking forward to being able to work with, as it is such a vital, yet hard to measure skill.

I have managed to convince Overwolf of the value of expanding their technical implementation to include tracking this. That, together with the changes in Drone Economy visibility coming in the in-game UI with Operation North Star, give me high hopes that this will come to fruition, eventually.

For now though, it remains a "hurry up and wait"-scenario as it depends on input from Overwolf.

Streamer Mode – Networked Implementation

As I mentioned last time:

Ubisoft have announced that they are working on a networked implementation of Streamer Mode. This is still in the distant future, so I won’t speculate on what this means for Overwolf apps. However, I vow to ensure that my app cannot be used to circumvent Streamer Mode for legitimate streamers, to the best of my abilities.

This depends on input from Ubisoft and is a long way off.

⏭️ What Else is Next?

So… Do I have anything new to share? Of course! I have a long list of potential features, updates, and improvements, in varying states of readiness. I want some of them to be a surprise, but here’s a couple I’m willing to share:

1vX Attempts Stat

Currently the app only tracks the number of 1vX's that you have won. But really, that's only half the story.

It would be a much more valuable metric if you could compare the number of 1vX's won to the total number of 1vX situations you were put in. This can give you a Clutch Win% and could even help give additional context to your Traded Death% stat.

I will attempt to add this in the downtime at the start of Operation North Star.

This is a high-priority short-term project.

Personal Operator Win Delta graphs

The Operator Win Delta graphs that Ubisoft publishes with each Designer's Notes update, are a great way to showcase the current "power" of each Operator.

I think generating these graphs dynamically with your personal stats could be a nice streamlined way of showcasing your performance on each Operator.

This is a low-priority medium-term project.

Map Stats Rework

The Map Stats page in the Analyst panel is definitely due for an overhaul. I'd love to add more stats, and make it easier to parse.

This is a medium-priority long-term project.

Coaching Features

This is very vague, and intentionally so. I'm not 100% sure how I want to approach this yet.

The Team/Personal Performance Reports translated the tracked stats data into information. Now I want the app to start to tackle the translation from information into advice.

This is probably a bunch of different projects rolled into one large "want-to-have", so we'll see how I get on!

All in All

Some great stuff came out over the past 3,5 months. It's really good to take a moment to reflect on what has been accomplished, as it can feel like running in place when looking at it day-by-day.

This season especially had some frustrating moments with Ubisoft's highly erratic update schedule, and some supposedly small "hotfixes" breaking the Overwolf Integration in new and interesting ways.

On a personal note:
I've really been enjoying playing Operation Crimson Heist to be honest. The new META has been really challenging for me, as it is the opposite of my natural playstyle, but I managed to rise to the challenge and reach Plat 1 comfortably on several occasions throughout the season.

I also met and played with a bunch of new friendly people, so I hope that continues in Operation North Star.

My GTX 3080 is still waitlisted. I've been top of the waiting list for 209 days and counting. 😒


THIS COMING SATURDAY I will be playing in the CCS Esports organized charity event: DBNO Tournament for 30+ years old. This for-fun tournament is to support fundraising for TheTrevorProject.org. I will attempt to stream my POV of this live over on the newly created Official R6 Analyst Twitch channel.

Thanks for reading, and hit me up on the Discord if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!

Tweet at me @R6AnalystApp.

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