Interview with Ubah

— Why did you leave DotA? Did not want to search for the team after HellRaisers got rid of the line-up?

— Yes, there was simply no desire to play. I would go queue and realize: "No, I'm not in a mood."

— You also tried coaching in Power Rangers. Did not like it?

— Yes, I was not actually a coach. Just the title, so to speak.

— Did you ever help the team?

— Nope.

— How did you understand that you want to play PUBG professionally?

— We played public games with Igor Nexus. Well, just for fun. Then he called Molodoy ( Vadim "POKAMOLODOY" Ulshin) to create the team. I thought, "Why not? I'll give this game a chance. "

— How did it go online at first, and how did you manage to qualify for PGL Invitational?

— Let's start with the fact that the boys were playing well without me, they just had bad luck somewhere. And then, something just clicked between us. There were similar ideas, everything went according to plan ...

— Why did Snoopykx leave after qualifying for PGL? Did he consider Team Empire more promising? Maybe you decided to part ways with him?

— Nobody wanted to let him go because he is one of the strongest players in the CIS. We mostly [broke up] because of problems with the documents: he understood that he could not attend LAN tournaments with us. And we realized that this makes very little sense: qualify and then play with a stand-in - it's not ok. So we had to part ways. It was not a kick.

— Why couldn't you find the fourth player for a long time, until Drainys became free?

— It's tough to find a decent player in the CIS There are eight people who know how to play this game: us, AVANGAR and Snoopykx. The rest played this game on a mediocre level - at least, we thought so. And so it turned out that we signed  Draynis.

— How do you like the last tournament in Bucharest? Was there a feeling that this is an esports with great scope and good conditions for the teams?

— Yes, I could say I felt that. But again: it all depends on the developers of the game. If they pay more attention to their game, then PUBG has every chance.

— What problems do you see now? Maybe there's something wrong with the meta - especially after patch number 12, which changed almost all the weapons?

— There are no problems with the patch. The problem is that developers do not care about FPS. They push an update, then in two months they receive a feedback that the FPS is dropping, and they think: "Where did we screw this up?". People run the test server for two days, do not fix anything and transfer it to live. Disregard for the game, I would say.

— Should the developers ask for a feedback of professional players, as it happens in Dota 2 and League of Legends?

— No doubt, it's worth it. But it seems to me that they do not care. We try to interact with developers, but they ignore all the feedback that they receive from us.

— The teams do not have a person from PUBG Corp. they can write if they don't like something?

— There is no such person.

— What do you about the format of PUBG Global Invitational in this regard? Nine teams from Asia, a third-person view in half of the matches - does it seem that the developers are too busy with marketing and the competitiveness is left alone?

— On the one hand, this is correct. The number of teams is not good, though. Perhaps the developers themselves do not understand that their game does not support so many people on the server. If they had solved this problem, it would have been much easier. Marketing is normal because 90% of the viewers come from Asia. Of course, the tournament has Asian teams.

— What's the problem with there being 20 instead of 16 teams in a lobby?

— It turns out that in the middle of the game - if it's a normal tournament with good teams and everyone is trying to live as long as possible - the car rotations begin. 70 people are alive, 30 machines are simultaneously being used: you have 30 FPS, and even 20 if you're "lucky". Plus, the lags begin, and the players teleport, as you saw in the PGI StarLadder qualifiers. Teleports, terrible lag - it's simply impossible to play.

— When you're training, do you have the same problem - or are there less than 20 teams?

— Generally, there are not as many teams, but now they are more or less guided by PGI. There, it is absolutely the same thing: everyone lags, everyone is upset.

— Do the observers matter in this respect?

— During training, there were observers - probably to check the load. In the qualifiers for PGI we had them, too, and we lagged. As far as I know, when there are no observers in the lobby, then it's only FPS problems - there were no teleports. But this is not accurate information.

— How do you organize scrims in PUBG? It's not Counter-Strike, where you can find one team and go play.

—There is a Discord conference with the top teams. There are usually scrims for every day: the teams just confirm participation. If you do not get enough teams, then you simply cancel it for today. There are no problems with this.

— Do I understand correctly that only top teams can launch "a custom game" or get into the Discord conference? So, it is more difficult for beginners to get on stage?

— In this respect, yes, it is more difficult. You need to prove yourself in the leagues, qualifiers. If you play well - you get access to the Discord.

— Do you like the decision to play Miramar and Erangel equally on GLL? Maybe you would prefer to avoid Miramar at all, like PGI?

— I would play them both. Again, the maps are unfinished - both of them. Both have their pros and cons. It's just some people are afraid to play Miramar - I do not know why. Not the teams [are afraid], but the organizers.

— What is the ideal format for a PUBG tournament? Should we encourage survival or frags?

— I think the game is about both. I liked most the format of PGL and GLL: there you get points for kills and placement. 16 teams are optimal, there can be 16 or 20 games.

— Are there still problems with cheaters? What do you think about the format of qualifiers for PGI СIS, where even you and  AVANGAR play from the open stage?

— Well, I do not know. I have not seen cheaters for a long time, but still, organizers need to give some invites. Just throwing everyone in one basket is wrong. There can be two strong teams in one group, eight in the other - and only five can exit the group.

— Did "Starladder" make it better? In the first qualification, I did not see a team with an organization leave the tournament.

— You can start with the fact that the CIS and the teams are much smaller - quite smaller, in fact. Ten teams would exit the group: it's really difficult to lose. You need to commit a really big mistake and play badly to actually leave the qualifiers. There is also the second stage.

— Tried to play on the Russian server?

— No, I did not even log in there.

— Do you think it's a problem that the first-person view is only available in solo games? Does it seem to hinder the appearance of talents? You play from the first-person view during the vents, after all.

— I do not know ... Well, talents - if they were there - almost all have already appeared. I do not think that a lot of people are interested in PUBG now. In my opinion, whoever wanted to play is already playing and knows how to play.

— So, has PUBG already peaked, and there's only a decline ahead?

— No. It all depends on the developers of the game. If they can support the online players, improve the game, then it will be better.

— Do you think that the developers rush the maps? If you take into account Sanok, which is in the beta test, three maps came out in a year. Maybe they should concentrate on optimization?

— I do not know, in fact, what they have in mind and what is in the priority. It makes no difference to me: release as many maps as you want, just make the game playable. So that it's actually interesting and engaging to play, and not raging after every bug or lag.

— Can Fortnite become a competitive esports?

— I don't know, I don't know at all. I do not follow Fortnite, and somehow I'm not very interested.

— Did not even try to play?

— No.

— What do you think about where PUBG is going?

— It is necessary that the developers begin to listen to the feedback of the players. I do not like the current situation.

— Shade1 is on the bootcamp right now, while his stand-in - iLame_ru, is not there, is he? Will you gather with him before PGI? Or is he too busy with the streams?

— No, probably. So far, I do not really see the point [of bootcamp]. We will see.

— PGI is just one tournament from many for you and not the ultimate goal?

— One of the tournaments, yes. We will prepare for the third-person only if we go through the offline qualification in Minsk. In the meantime, we do not even think about it.

— You don't like TPP at all?

— I do not like it, it is a more random regime.

— And what's with the random? I see the problem that people are sitting in the building and at the same time, they see what's around them - what does the random have to do with it?

— Whoever takes the compound first will win. It is very difficult to move on the map because someone may be just around the corner. In FPP you need to look out of the window, and you can die just like that.

— By the way, is it not a problem that the teams land each time in the same place? They do not seem to even try to fight the random.

— Well, this is logical. If you want to win, then you do not want to fight in the beginning. If you want to fight in the beginning, you will never win.

— Yes, but is it normal that the game pushes the team not to fight at first? Are fights between teams with good loot better?

— Yes, it reduces random. You might not find anything in the first house, and your enemy will find something.

— Is the proportion of random chance high now?

— Compared to other games - yes, it's high.

— How would you change this?

— I don't think there's a way. The game is still unusual, and it should not be like the others. It's still the first battle royale on the competitive stage. So I like it thus far.

— Who do you see as the main competitors at PUBG Global Invitational?

— Liquid, FaZe - most likely, one of them. Vitality still, maybe. In Europe, there are many strong teams.

— Do not you consider North America?

— Maybe North America. Sometimes you don't know what to expect from them.

— Do they have their own meta in scrims?

— Yes, maybe. You do not know what to expect from the Chinese just as well. They really have something on their mind, they play in different ways. They can sit behind the blue zone and wait for someone. Players from Europe understand that this is a suboptimal solution, but the Chinese still do it.