New GamersFirst site

[New GamersFirst site]

12 minutes ago, MattScott said:

Rest assured that an entirely different team did the work, and it did not take away from our APB development schedule.

It's a bit sad that this has to be mentioned. People not realizing that the web designers aren't the same people who are working on the engine overhaul. But I like the look of the new site

[Am i the only dude that dislikes the slow ttk?]

4 hours ago, BrandonBranderson said:

I remember not liking them though.  Can't quite recall what was different though.  I think it involved even more RNG but I could be wrong.

Like you mentioned, the test were done poorly, and I believe it was deliberately see. Qwentle always preferred faster TTK, and were proud of his implementation for when G1 took over, so if a TTK change would've gone through, it would've invalidated his work and forced him to rebalance every weapon in the game. The districts died out quickly because they were pretty much unplayable due to the perc one-shotting cars, and even though the weapons were slowed down, their accuracy were never improved which only made the RNG more apparent.

I believe it would've been better with a smaller TTK increase, such as 0.7s -> 0.9s, but instead we've only had lower TTK creep over the years, just reinforcing the issues with the rest of the game never being balanced around it. Animations such as entering vehicles, climbing ladders, opening door were created with a certain TTK in mind, and the same goes for the level design where you don't have time to reach any cover if you start getting shot at.

The low TTK were implemented to make it possible for lesser skilled players to get kills aswell, but I think the change actually worked against them instead, as they only die faster now. Third person view with low TTK makes for a very frustrating experience as people can simply stand around a corner with perfect information, and pretty much get a free kill without much effort. It makes the game stale, repetitive and very uninteresting.

The biggest difference was that it made coordinated gameplay much less important, as one guy can now cover an entrance by himself, while before he would've been overrun if more than one player attacked from that direction, making it a trade-off to spread out the defense to cover more areas, or having more people cover one entrance, leaving other areas open. This is what made defense having such a big advantage over attackers.

I really wish they'd reconsider this, but I don't even know if this community would be open for a change anymore, as they have had the same game without changes such a long time now.

[Where's the playerbase?]

4 hours ago, indi said:

nothing is new beyond broken weapon balance

What's broken about it currently, beyond what it has been the last half decade?

[Not enough stored amo!]

25 minutes ago, Lixil said:

A new patch is going up onto the OTW server. This patch included a number of fixes and some added features.

[...]

Players will now always spawn with ammo fully resupplied for equipped weapons. If they don't have enough bullets in their locker, the rest will be automatically purchased.

 

[Range nerf for .45AP / RFP-9]

Well society isn't really balanced either, and I don't think it's good to model a game after reality. I'm sure you're aware of the issues with P2W, and how it leads to people stop playing the game due to being at a disadvantage against paying players. Weapons shouldn't be balanced around how much they cost in Armas (and I don't think there should be Armas exclusive weapons other than legendary ones), so if it's too expensive in comparison to similar weapons, then it might be better to tweak its price instead.

[Range nerf for .45AP / RFP-9]

5 hours ago, TeraOctet said:

.45AP belongs to the unique weapons you can buy only on armas so I think the price take importance from this point. That makes a kind of p2w part. And if we dare spend 3900G1C for that stat of weapons, there would be a logic, and a justice for other players to put an appropriate price depending the stats of the weapon.

So you don't think .45AP should be nerfed, since it is meant to be stronger due to its high price?

[This might get weird.]

10 hours ago, BaronSaturday said:

Let's not monetize a play time extender that is created by the community.

[...]

/me and /e which would create custom emotes that appear in the chat box that aren't accompanied by an animation in game.

And I meant the emotes that triggers an animation, like /dance or /smoke does currently. Nobody would be interested in purchasing an emote that only creates a text prompt. I'm not sure what added value there is to do /me as opposed to simply typing it?
 

[Not enough stored amo!]

9 minutes ago, LilyV3 said:

if new palyers wouldplay the Tutorial they would know this, because thats covere din the Tutorial.

Most players skip the tutorial, and for those who doesn't, it's not very straight forward. I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to purchase ammo without having any money on their newly created character either. People just want to quickly get into the game and see if it's enjoyable, and if their first impression of it is one of frustration, they're not very likely to stick around.

You say it's a minor thing, but so are alot of other things in APB that causes minor annoyances, which put together becomes a major impact on the enjoyment of the game. The biggest question is if having to purchase ammo makes the game better or not. Does this feature make the experience of the game better?

[[GAME] Ammo Refill Update]

1 hour ago, iTzBlackout said:

My suggestion is focus on that we don't have automatically restore anymore. If we get autorefill for free again then we don't need that whole ammo menu.

Ah, right. Your suggestions are good if this is the way we want it to be, but it's hard for me to discuss this as a feature, when I'd rather see it removed entirely (incl. the ammo menus) 

[Not enough stored amo!]

So after every mission:
- Visit a contact.
- Pay off notoriety.
- Delete mission reward mail spam.
- Refill ammo for every ammo type.

Well that's fine, shouldn't really take more than a minute at most... after every mission. Thousands of missions later (with small freezes every time you open up the UI), is it still fun to click on the purchase ammo button, just to make sure you don't spawn without ammo or grenades?

New players won't have a clue about why they're spawning without any ammo, and will only get even more frustrated with how unintuitive the game is.

That ammo cost money to resupply (and preferably stated clearly with how much ammo was resupplied, and how much it costed), is a good thing. Having to go out of your way to do something tedious is not.

[[GAME] Ammo Refill Update]

Refilling ammo in APB is an old mechanic that has always been terrible. It's confusing for new players and tedious for everyone else. There's not much else that could be worse than respawning without ammo or grenades.

We've played without it for years, and people weren't even aware of it being broken.

It's good that refilling ammo would cost you, but having to make a routine to restock your ammo after every mission is a terrible idea when we know better.

[This might get weird.]

Introducing new emotes to Armas could be a good way to monetize.

[Range nerf for .45AP / RFP-9]

RFP should have its hipfire accuracy nerfed. 45AP should have its range nerfed. ACT44 and RSA should have their accuracy severely buffed.

Oldschool variant of RFP with high hipfire and jump accuracy, but much less range, could be introduced as a new weapon.

[So you've proven you care about the game... when are you going to start caring about the players?]

12 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Still waiting on that promised report system... the complete lack of even the slightest mention about it in any recent blog post or other official comment makes one question whether it'll ever actually be a thing. Although one questions if it even matters, since Little Orbit seems incapable of even the slightest caring about obvious toxicity in the community.

3 hours ago, MattScott said:

We needed to launch the new Trading System because the new Report system uses some of the same underlying logic.

 

[Improved Rifling changes reverted ?]

32 minutes ago, Frosi said:

The Obeya and N-tec in CQC play the exact same way if you ignore that one is fully automatic and the other is semi-automatic.

Obeya min-TTK with perfectly timed shots: 0.84s (0.78s with CJ3)
N-TEC min-TTK: 0.70s (0.65s with CJ3).

Sure, 140ms isn't much of a difference when you have the drop on someone, but the gap becomes even bigger if you don't fire at perfect intervals, and for me it's hard to see how the Obeya could compete against the N-TEC in CQC, much less any other CQC weapon. These are just stats though, and doesn't reflect actual gameplay, so I'd still need to watch someone use it effectively in CQC. If you got any videos or past broadcasts that shows it being used in CQC, I could get an better understanding of it.
 

32 minutes ago, Frosi said:

I just think at this point it will be hard to completely change mods and how they work as it'll piss off a lot of players, especially the veterans. I want changes for sure, the meta has been dominated by ranged weapons for too long, however, I believe that they need a team of dedicated players to give them proper feedback on weapon changes before pushing things to live and then also have a team of more casual players that are also willing to give proper feedback. There should be a fair balance between balancing things around average players and also highly skilled players. 

There are things in the game that are "easier" to balance that weapons such as missions, namely 4-5 minute Scavenger missions or missions that require you to raid and deliver 2 heavy items in the same stage.

It's hard to pick a group of players that would be able to provide good feedback for weapon changes. Just look at the two of us having different opinions already. It's a pity that there isn't more people posting suggestions and feedback on this forum. Though I don't believe there's a difference between balancing things around average or highly skilled players, as balance implies it would be balanced all-around. Opinions would of course differentiate based on experience, but lessening the skill ceiling to make the game more casual isn't a healthy longterm solution, which has already been proven with this low TTK and increased amount of RNG to weapon behaviors.

I'm not under any illusion that weapon balance will bring in new players (at best, it might bring back old ones), but it could mean that newcomers would stick around longer. Mission balancing is another thing that the game needs, but it's in kind of the similar scenario as weapon balancing. Though with a better balanced game, it might make people less ashamed of playing it, and more prone to recommending it to their friends.

I'd personally prioritize performance, and making the game more intuitive for new players. But I need to take a day and go through the negative reviews on steam, and check all the old youtube reviews for the game, to see what actively turns people off from playing it.

[Improved Rifling changes reverted ?]

2 hours ago, Frosi said:

Mid to long range in APB was always about versatility and as it stands right now weapons that relied on IR3 are average at best now.

Weapons shouldn't rely on mods to be good, and like I've said before, mods shouldn't be upgrades to weapons, but rather a tradeoff to make them more focused on a niche. If a weapon is bad without the mod, then that's a problem with the weapon balance, and not the mod itself. Unslotted weapons should be as viable as modded ones, but having weapons slots allows you to tweak a weapon more to your liking.
 

2 hours ago, Frosi said:

The N-tec while still an insanely good weapon is getting outclassed on range now due to the meta shifting to CJ2/3 Obeya when it comes to range, making the Obeya while argueably a little worse in CQC the flat out better gun for pretty much every situation as it does everything the N-tec did before the IR change.

The IR changes were for the exact reason of making more weapons viable, and if a single weapon is no longer the dominant choice, that just justifies the change. Obeya doesn't compare to N-TEC for short-mid range, and likewise N-TEC now justly doesn't compare to the Obeya at mid-long range. That is, if you don't trade its short range effectiveness for a longer range with Improved Rifling.
 

2 hours ago, Frosi said:

IR on Live is currently a dead mod, you barely ever see it being used anymore, making it a second Heavy Barrel which means that its only useful on less than a hand full of guns, leaving Cooling Jacket as the only viable Red mod in the game.

It seeing less use is no surprise, since it pretty much didn't have any drawback before, while now it has a drawback that justifies its upside. I expect it will take some time before people getting used to it having an actual downside, and before they get accustomed to the new meta. If Cooling Jacket is the dominant choice, that might need further adjustment aswell, and the same goes for Heavy Barrel which might not have enough of an effect. It could also be that weapons need further tweaking as to have their stats closer the line where the mods start affecting them.
 

2 hours ago, Frosi said:

The change they did to it now where IR3 gives 15% increase in range +3 meters on top of that only makes the mod even more confusing, go and ask a random max rank gold that you've never seen before and ask him what the effective range of the OBIR is, he will not be able to tell you because it isn't explained in the game properly.

This argument doesn't make it any difference for how Improved Rifling were before. Weapon stats should be displayed in the game similar to how APB Vault show them, so that you can clearly see what and how much a mod affects a weapon. But until then you could simply take 10% whatever range, then add half of that ontop, and sum it up with the extra 3m range. I don't expect everyone to know all the ranges in their head, nor being able to do simple math, but there's always APB Vault to help people figuring those things out, until it's actually represented in the game.

Either way, that's not as much critique for the mod itself, as it is for how unintuitive APB is.
 

2 hours ago, Frosi said:

All in all, rebalancing the mod because its downside was not affecting all guns left many other guns crippled and changed the meta in a very stale way because the way it is right now the past 3 ranged meta weapons were cut down to one, going from N-tec, OBIR, Obeya CR-762 to just the Obeya CR-762. While the other two guns are still somewhat effective they are far less versatile which makes them not really all that viable in the Meta anymore.

I've heard Obeya sees alot more usage now, but I'm not sure why you'd think it being comparable when it comes to short range? OBIR didn't see much usage before other than by quickswitchers, and if Obeya is being used more often than N-TEC now, that's still an improvement in the meta. The rifle range tweaks would further solidify this, but if Obeya becomes the dominant choice for rifles, then there might be more weapon balancing needed.

I think you and I look at this from different perspectives. You're used to the weapons pretty much being the same for half a decade, and seemingly see these changes as making the weapons behave worse than you are used to. I'm thinking about how to make more weapons become viable, aswell as the game being more fair towards new players.

It seems alot of the APB community are being conservative when it comes to changes to the game, since alot of those changes have been bad in the past, and then never touched again. I believe this is an ongoing effort for overall improvement of the game, which is required if the game will have any hope of surviving. I don't think everything is perfect right now (far from it), but I do think the IR changes are a step in the right direction.

[Joker Tickets lets talk about it]

1 hour ago, Nite said:

JT weapons are supposed to be there to provide 'a taste of ARMAS' to non-paying players, so if you remove Joker Tickets and fold the current crop of Ticket weapon leases into regular leases, what happens to future ARMAS additions going forward?

Reworking the economy is a bigger project than just removing joker tickets, and the same goes for introducing new additions to the normal economy. Having everything tradable would go a long way, but can't be done smoothly currently due to the heavy inflation the game have suffered, with players having millions of APB$ on their characters.

[Joker Tickets lets talk about it]

I've always been against Joker tickets, and the only reason they exist is because G1 FUBAR:ed the normal economy. I think APB's economy needs to be reworked, and Joker tickets removed. JT weapons should be available through normal weapon leashes.

[[GAME] Remember Last Category]

I'm all for small improvements that makes the game Iess frustrating.

[Improved Rifling changes reverted ?]

36 minutes ago, Frosi said:

I ask myself this quite a lot because something definitely needs to be done since the mod is completely dead since the change. Funnily enough everytime I think about a new downside it just ends up with the same thing which is me realizing how increasing max bloom is the downside that just makes the most sense

I believe the new version is good, and people only need to get used to that the mod being a tradeoff rather than a straight upgrade. Max bloom was completely insignificant for every weapon except the ones that you'd be going fully automatic with on range.

[Improved Rifling changes reverted ?]

1 hour ago, DouglasFalcon said:

Wait, what? Can you please elaborate more?

Like Frosi said. There's config packs that use the localization files for APB to change the name of missions, so instead of saying "Dr. Borious's Snake Oil", it says something like "Stage 1 / 5 [Ends in VIP]". The thing with those config packs are that they're using localization files from before the patch, so they will also have the old description for the mod.

[Improved Rifling changes reverted ?]

If you use any of the configs that show the the end stage as part of the mission name, they're usually using old localization files with the old mod descriptions in them.

[So this is still a thing...]

1 hour ago, GhosT said:

Anyone remember the mystery of random car spawners disappearing with each patch?

Or that parking building with cars that explode by themselves on random. Especially objective ones.

[So this is a thing now (The Sequel)]

This seems pretty alright, depending on the hitbox size of your car, so it's not something you do accidentally when trying to shoot at something else.

[Polishing car hit kills]

This is how the system works already. Cars don't kill you if they're not moving at a certain speed, and if you're running into it or away from it affects the speed required for it to kill you. If the speed isn't high enough it just pushes you aside.