I feel like the popularity is dropping off fast for a lot of reasons that I'm hoping some new weapons/new map, other change can help fix it.
My biggest gripes that are killing my interest personally is what feels like the lack of replayability and different situations.
1) 50-90% of the players jump out of the plane they moment that "smash that E button to eject" appears. Seriously, watch it some games, you will see it go from 60 players down to 10 or less sometimes within 5 seconds, especially if Skulltown is reachable from the initial drop.
2) Still way too much of the meta revolves around the fucking wingman and peacekeeper. I think ultimately they're ok as weapons but the other weapons leave a lot to be desired in a lot of situations. Some are garbage (p2020, mozambique hi), others are too rare. And the really shitty ones are still way too common. I think this is also possibly a spawn rate issue or situational use It really pisses me off when I'm not the jump master. if I'm with pugs (or sometimes even with friends) and we go Skulltown for the hot drop, I'll end up running through 5+ buildings and sometimes just come out with nothing other than attachments/grenades, or even just p2020's and mozambiques. Then someone, who could be an absolute shitter, but with good rng luck, walks in with an r99/301/peacekeeper etc and blue+ armor from their first building and puts me back to the lobby.
But I appreciate the fun that CAN be had in skulltown or other busy close range/indoor areas, IF the RNG isn't shit and I can get the loot to actually enjoy a fight. The game is great fun in close quarters around compounds. The open area fights are pretty boring and predictable, because the game/map focuses more on close range than long range encounters and open areas are just exposed hills with the occasional cliff or rock to hide behind, and just makes you an easy victim of a 3rd party as well. And this may also be why other weapons feel useless, because the game focuses so much around pushing close range fights. Sniper rifles dont have as much use as the other weapons because of it. The main one I will use is the scout because for some reason I do decently with it in close range when I run out of ammo on my primary and just hip fire it or 1x sight it.
3) map is way too small/lacking in amount of weapon spawns in the map for the size. There are a LOT of compound areas that look busy but there is hardly any loot in them. The water treatment place looks massive, but has very minimal weapon spawns. The water itself, the structures around the water etc have nothing. So it's just the main building and some supply chests. It's barely enough for 1-2 squads to start a fight. It's not fun to drop with 2-3 other squads and find nothing just to die with your fists out.
I think it was Doc who said PUBG actually had some benefits over Apex to both play and watch because it was a much more meaningful journey to being in the top 10. Whereas in Apex, even with my shit tier friends who are lucky to hit 50-100 damage in a game, we can just drop in some obscure spot in the corner, move slow and make it to the top 3. Yet you can even drop in a distant corner in pubg and still get fights that play out differently every time in comparison. Despite the maps being vastly bigger.
But the game has some real big plusses too, the gun play overal feels good, can land some really solid hits that feel skillful etc.
