Revoluzzer
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Posts posted by Revoluzzer
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I guess it's easier for anticheat-developers to test drive stuff like this on smaller titles like APB. Less risk to burn your reputation if it does go wrong. But a great case study to sell their product to big games if it goes well.
Since I don't like the idea of running non-critical software with potentially system-breaking access, I'd much prefer a purely server-sided approach using big data and neural networks.
Going with a shadow-ban approach is the better way to go, too, I believe. If it doesn't impact matchmaking too much, which it will at such low player numbers. So you'll need to get that sorted out somehow as well.
Outright banning people has led to false bans. Not outright banning people has led to cheaters running rampant (and/or people feeling this way). To pit potential cheaters against other ones might even lead to more reliable data.
On 11/22/2024 at 2:44 AM, Darkzero3802 said:FailFight still failed more then is succeeded. It did more then any anti cheat Matt and LO have tried and retried but it still failed pretty badly as you still had plenty of hackers running around and not getting banned
I'm still curious if FairFight couldn't accommodate for the fact that APB gives players what is essentially wallhacks in some missions and thus couldn't make proper use of the data, since everyone at some point showed signs of being at least a wallhacker. Also third person view allowing players to track others "through walls" when peaking around a corner using the camera, while the line-of-sight between (LOS) barrel and target is obstructed. And subsequently "instantly locking on" to a target once the player moves out of cover, thus technically establishing LOS according to some data, while already having LOS according to other data.
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On 10/6/2024 at 7:19 AM, Hexerin said:The current system is fine, they just need to adjust it and then reset everyone's threat so the system can start fresh. As for what needs to be adjusted, that's simple:
Remove green threat, so that there's only three threat levels (gold, silver, bronze). Make gold and bronze account for the upper and lower 25% of players, with silver being the 50% in between. This makes it much easier for the system to matchmake smartly, since there's less variance to consider. It also allows for the matchmaker to be tightened up, such as removing the ability for bronzes to be in the same match as golds. This will, over time, smooth out matchmaking and result in healthier matches overall.
Then, have the system soft reset everyone's threat level every 3 months, with soft reset being defined as "threat is reset, but the system is temporarily more inclined to move a given player's threat level towards where they were before". This will account for the issues that plague the current system, such as existing players quitting the game and new players joining.
Once those adjustments are in place, perform a hard reset on the entire account database. Every single player's threat information being completely deleted/reset, making everyone start as if they were brand new accounts (as far as threat level is concerned). This will result in outright chaos at first, possibly even for the entire first soft reset cycle (aforementioned 3 months). However, once past that initial stretch, the system as a whole will be good to go and matches going forward will be significantly improved.
Also, it goes without saying, but the districts need to be put back to 50v50 and LO needs to get the game hosted on actual servers instead of the 20 year old laptop they've got it on currently. Ideally, they should also just remove the factions from matchmaking, so that all 100 players in the district are available for consideration of both sides in every potential match.
The colours are only representations of underlying Glicko values. "Removing" green threat means expanding the other colours to occupy value-ranges previously occupied by a different one.
A system which dynamically keeps all active players (e.g. everyone who participated in opposed missions in the past 30 days) evenly distributed across the entire threat-range would help, I believe. The colours aren't really relevant. Could just as well have each represent 25% of the full range. Though a more natural distribution would have the majority of players be in bronze or silver and only the very top end in gold and the very bottom end in green.
Again, the colours don't really matter, mind you. Removing them altogether and leave the matchmaking to work in the background would probably be the healthiest choice.
Something like soft reset is a mechanic already in place, called confidence. And what this does, is slowing down your threat-"progression". In other words, as confidence increases, threat-mobility decreases. A new player will have a confidence-value of 0, thus their threat swings up and down rapidly. A long-lived player will have a high confidence value and their threat moves like molasses. If the value reaches 1, you have to lower it before your threat starts moving again at all. This confidence value is also the reason why it is difficult to de-threat at first and then becomes very easy to gain threat again. (Copied from here.) Supposedly confidence will increase when you do not log in / participate in opposed missions for a prolonged time, as well as threat slowly decreasing. But I could not confirm this so far. It was only hinted at in past blog posts about the matchmaking system.
A hard reset is nonsense. We had two of those and they barely qualified as stopgaps. The system is already self correcting. Once mechanics are in place which hinder players from gaming the system, it will heal by itself. Hard resets are great for people who want some easy matches. Once they're back in the matchmaking-bracket where they belong (and opponents are tough again), they will complain.
If phasing ever becomes a reality the population limit on districts won't matter either, because matchmaking will be more global and the pool of available opponents potentially even greater than 100.
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On 7/3/2024 at 11:45 PM, killernerd said:Edit 2: looked it up, the 3 groups were furious fighters, heavy hitters, and then sharpshooters. Couldn't find the order in which they were invited but if the listing was chronological then chances are I was in the heavy hitters too.
I believe it was Heavy Hitters first, then Furious Fighers, then Sharp Shooters.
Heavy Hitters had several rounds of invites, I wasn't in the first batch. Perhaps the second, possibly the third. Furious Fighters had a few quick rounds, I think and Sharp Shooters got in all at once. But as you say, it's been quite a while since then.
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2 hours ago, killernerd said:By the time the closed beta rolled around the HUD was already pretty close to what we have today (unless LO made changes to it since I last played this game years ago but I somehow doubt that).
The beta-UI was fairly similar to the one in that video.
Looks like they updated some of the UI before they changed the security truck model, even. The radar is different here, for example.
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On 6/18/2024 at 7:24 PM, R3ACT3M said:In my time playing escalated missions I never really felt attacking or defending were at any advantage or disadvantage. If they are it's certainly not because there is 10 people now, it's because of the map designs not having good attack routes and flanks. That and way too many camping spots. That's not a 10vs10 problem that's a map problem.
The maps are designed for 4v4 at most. And I think most of the districts manage to find a good balance between authentic cityscape and tactical playground.
Of course all of this falls apart in a 10v10 situation, because coordination usually goes out the window and respawns happen too frequently to keep the defending team away from objectives long enough to complete them.
On 6/20/2024 at 8:39 AM, Noob_Guardian said:I have to try this, but my past experiences from the ooooold days are this:
1v1s - absolute garbage
2v2s - absolute garbage
3v3 fairly balanced
4v4 balanced
5v5 relatively balanced
6v6 unbalanced towards defenders
7v7+ just broken, no way to lose when defending unless you're all bad or the enemy team is just a bunch of coordinated tryhards or bots.
I agree with all but 2v2. That's peak competitive gameplay, as far as I'm concerned.
Weapon choice matters most, because you can't cover all bases. Focusing on / teaming up against one opponent at a time matters most in this setup (which is very reminiscent of the very old days). Saving a mission while your teammate is respawning is still very much a possibility, which keeps it interesting at all times.
Also I believe 2v2 is a sweet spot for balancing, because you get a lot of teams per district at that size.
4v4 is much more casual in comparison and 3v3 strikes a sweet balance between the two.
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If Matt wants to woo us: Show, don't tell.
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On 11/11/2023 at 9:57 PM, CookiePuss said:The simplest explanation is that at the end of a match, win or lose, the top half of player scores gain threat and the bottom half lose threat.
The actual simple explanation is: At the end of a match, the system will expect you to perform at a certain level. You meet that level, your threat doesn't change. You excel, your threat rises. You miss the mark, your threat degrades.
But here's the thing: You don't know what the system expects of you. You can kinda sorta guess, based on the threat-colour of your opponents. But in OP's screenshot, everyone could be just around the tipping-point between Silver and Gold. Which, mathematically, could be nearly identical.
Also the amount your threat moves depends on how confident the system is about your currently assigned threat-level. Confidence rises when you consistently meet expectations and lowers when you fail to do so.
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Most favourite must be the VBR 'Temptress'. Not a huge fan of the looks, I'd prefer the M14 EBR body over the Ruger Mini. But I really enjoy that fast firing, semi-automatic gameplay it offers. And the versatility both in CQC and at mid-range.
Least favourite probably the N-Tec, because it was historically way too prolific and hampered my enjoyment of other assault rifles in the game. Using those meant deliberately putting yourself at a disadvantage. Shame, too, because I'd love to enjoy the COBR-A if it weren't a polished turd.
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22 hours ago, Frosi said:Players top rendering at around 98m~ but their nametag still shows so you can still hit them
Crosshairs still turn red, too, I believe.
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I think the lore for APB is pretty fleshed out and intricate. Not everything is spelled or laid out and you might have to fill in the gaps here and there.
The story or storytelling however is basically non-existent. @mtz's post is really great and acknowledges a layer of depth which I have never really grasped before. I have read the contact-e-mails whenever they arrived and quickly forgotten about them. And I largely ignored their voice-lines at the start of a mission.
So APB did never tell me a story. It just provided a canvas for my own.
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On 5/23/2023 at 11:53 PM, Yapopal said:She was forced to be a shooter. And very bad.
Hard disagree here. The arcade-y 3rd-person shooting mechanics in APB are some of the best I've played so far. Before they introduced curve mechanics, they struck the perfect spot between simplicity and complexity.
I'd wager the driving mechanics struck a similar note, but vehicle balance was always terrible.
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On 3/11/2023 at 12:23 AM, Hexerin said:Then you haven't been around for several years. Some years prior to the LO takeover, old G1/RG shifted the threat math so that most of the threat range would gravitate towards gold. This was done in the hopes that matchmaking would have an easier time getting matches put together (due to the hemorrhaging population).
They also massively lifted the matchmaker's restrictions, so that it would expand the search parameters at a much faster rate. This is why we see so often these days matches which are a team of full golds vs a team of mixed silver and bronze, with both sides have equal numbers (4 golds vs 4 silvers, 4 golds vs 2 silvers and 3 bronzes, etc).
It would be extremely easy for LO to revert these changes, and the matchmaking in the current game environment would MASSIVELY improve basically overnight. However, they very clearly don't actually care to make any changes that would help the playerbase in the short term.
That is news to me, indeed. Beyond the introduction of the score system, the only "shifts" I remember G1 applying to threat was moving everyone down a couple notches to improve the situation, primarily because the community felt like too many people were moving towards Gold. That didn't work out because the threat system did self-correct. So they did it again a year or so later. And then, iirc, a third time just before LO took over.
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7 minutes ago, SkittyM said:Main issue with the current system though is that its easy to get gold as well as become gold locked, hard to lose gold without actually trying to dethreat.
If there truly is a mechanism/flaw which pushes players into Gold threat despite a lack of skill (which I have not seen any explanation for yet), then tweaking matchmaking won't solve it.
The only explanation I could see for it is this: New players will jump in, inflate the threat of slightly more experienced players, then give up if they can't get a foot in the door. In my opinion the threat system should already be self-healing, though.
If it isn't, then I assume it's because the inactive population is still taken into account when it shouldn't be. Only taking the active current population into account (say actively playing a mission within the last 30 days or so) should solve that particular issue. And with the elimination of threat-based districts, they wouldn't even need to adjust their threat-preference dynamically based on their population.
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On 3/8/2023 at 7:01 PM, SkittyM said:I'm guessing the new matchmaking thing means the current matchmaking will just be gutted? My main issue has always been with Phasing being kinda marketed as a fix to matchmaking but throwing more people at the problem wont fix it, just look at the American highway system.
Besides throwing more people into the pool (which is a good thing when it comes to matchmaking), it will also increase the difficulty of gaming the system. Dethreating and hiding in Bronze districts for easy matches won't work anymore. Of course the next logical step would and should be to remove visible threat altogether.
On 3/9/2023 at 12:58 AM, Optimus_Crime said:- We will migrate the existing worlds to ‘regions’. Each region will host their own game servers and characters. These are grouped by location and latency to keep things as fast as possible. The idea is to have more, smaller regions vs. less larger worlds."
- We hope to start adding previously supported regions back to the game like Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, and South America – even if its just a couple district servers to start.
What good will this bring? it's not 2013 anymore, the game's player base is not big enough to be divided like this, it hardly ever was. The servers were merged before for a reason and that reason was waning player count and even if you go this route most players will stick to the most populated region either way even if at the cost of slightly higher ping.
From the sound of it, they will consolidate all players into a single pool. The regions will be represented by physical servers, but those can be spread finer (e.g NA-East, NA-West districts, both in the NA region). Everyone can play in all regions (on all servers), no matter which region the character originates from.
So I could take my EU-region character and play on a NA-East server. A player from the NA-region could have the same name as I, so I'd have the appendix @EU while I play in the NA-region.
On 3/9/2023 at 12:58 AM, Optimus_Crime said:- As a result of this system, we will be doing away with platform-specific worlds and districts. PC and console players will be able to interact together in Social districts, and PC matches can be happening right alongside console matches in the same district.
You need to clarify what this will look like for missions. Otherwise what's the point there, assuming they get put in the same district but never fight amongst eachother? I feel like this should be limited to social district for performance.
With cross-district-matchmaking, it wouldn't really matter which district you get put into. Your next mission might not even take place in the current one. So why not have everyone play on the same servers? Even if one group might be significantly smaller, they'd feel like they play a well populated game.
On 3/9/2023 at 12:58 AM, Optimus_Crime said:- This means our servers can be put where they are most needed.
Why does this sound like we're going to have to deal with laggy social districts because of you cutting corners and having say mission districts get the priority now
Which performance-critical activities happen in social district? Aren't they already much less performant because the number of heavily customised avatars is much higher?
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On 2/22/2023 at 10:32 PM, Hexerin said:For any conceptual daily login system to have any relevance to a veteran like myself, it would need to give significant amounts of APB$ and JT. I already own all the weapons, cars, etc, so such rewards would not be incentives to me. That being said, "significant" in this context would also almost assuredly be more than LO would be willing to provide.
Daily rewards aren't for veterans or people who play on the regular anyway. They're incentives for people who otherwise wouldn't, so players like you have someone to play with/against.
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On 1/8/2023 at 1:20 PM, CookiePuss said:“Just add bots”
If only it were that easy.
EZ PZ
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On 12/31/2022 at 3:46 PM, Nagletz said:Jeez u guys should get a game analytics job or something, waste of wall texting talent on apb lol
If someone would pay me for this, I might take them up on the offer. Until then, it's just a fun exercise and pretty exclusive to APB, because I spent so much time with it in the past.
On 1/2/2023 at 4:21 AM, R3ACT3M said:with a longer TTK players might actually find themselves being more aggressive rather than more defensive since running into a storm of bullets will actually get you some action vs just dying immediately. Of course clotting agent and kevlar should be balanced around a longer ttk.
Definitely agree. APB heavily punishes risky manoeuvrers at the moment.
On 1/2/2023 at 4:21 AM, R3ACT3M said:I feel like what LO was trying to do, is make it so weapons like the NTEC didn't kill as fast by making it bloom much more aggressively. When instead they should have left it as is, buffed some other rifles and raised the overall health of players. (or reduce damage of guns across the board).
Hard disagree on the "buff other rifles" part. The same argument was made in the past and the same approach also lead to overall TTK getting lower over time.
The N-Tec, imo, needed on simple change: A minimum TTK of 0.75 seconds to bring it into the same range as the STAR. It doesn't sound like a massive change, but it directly tackles the core issue of having the N-Tec kill as fast as dedicated CQC weapons in CQC, faster than other assault rifles at medium range and at times even going toe-to-toe with the Obeya CR within it's own territory.
On 1/2/2023 at 4:21 AM, R3ACT3M said:I personally think instead of what LO is trying to do which is make guns bloom more. They should make guns more accurate, but they should take more shots to land in order to actually kill.
I wouldn't increase the required shots to kill across the board, but at least put all guns in a narrower kills per mag range.
The N-Tec has 5 potential kills per mag, while the Joker SR has only 3. This might make sense if the Joker would reload much faster than the N-Tec, but it doesn't.
On 1/2/2023 at 4:56 AM, gremlen said:The problem is that 90% of new weapons were about reinventing the wheel. Cobra is worse carbine but automatic. Ursus is ntec but less stk. Far is basically ntec with slightly worse accuracy at range. SBSR is worse dmr and many other things. You can't balance it right because the core gameplay mechanic of these weapons are the same and the only difference is their stats. If FAR gets a buff and becomes better ntec everyone just switches to it. You can't make people using such core identical weapons on the same rate, people either play far or ntec. There will always be meta.
Definitely agree on this. APB didn't need more weapons, it had a good roster. I don't mind different skins for the same weapon, but they should be selectable like the texture-skins.
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On 12/28/2022 at 5:15 PM, yourrandomnobody74 said:Obnoxiously high bloom, low TTK, unnecessary movement penalties, damage curve mechanics have no place in a game that claims to be a proper competitive shooter, unless (as Matt seems to mention that a ton in his latest AMA), the devs see APB as a RPG then it does not matter
APB is hardly a competitive shooter, there are way too many random factors regarding everything to allow such a label. Doesn't make any of the curve mechanics more fun, though. Quite the contrary.
6 hours ago, gremlen said:The long ttk will make the game much worse. First of all attacking the mission will become much harder in many areas because how easy it will to run away to regen hp and comeback to defend the point, especially with a car gameplay meta. Sniper rifles will be dead in 99% scenarios, The meta will be just to drive close to the enemy and try him in cqc to prevent him running away and regen because the game will become more forgiving for him. Semi-auto will be dead for sure because none will want to click 20 times at one enemy, it will quickly exhaust you. The idea of increasing stk means that you won't be able anymore to clutch vs N-amount of enemies by one round + secondary gun. The game will end up as a tactical step by step strategy with trading kills because one guy will just not have an opportunity to keep fighting after the 1st kill without reloading. But if LO will increase the capacity of magazine it will make the game look stupid with ugly numbers (45ap with 14 bullets in one mag). What about long range fights? Should weapons have a limited effective range or maximum damage at any distance? If weapons will keep their effective range, so how many shots I need to land at one enemy at long range? 30? Fighting in this game will look unsatisfied and feel unrewarded.
Missions will play out differently for sure. At the moment wiping out the enemy team is practically the only way to work an objective, because a single enemy can easily take you out before you have moved the progress-bar/circle beyond the next checkpoint. It was designed with a higher TTK in mind, so you could more easily sacrifice yourself for some desperately needed progress. Whereas now you can easily sacrifice yourself for no progress at all. It goes from a wipe and reset style of combat to a push and pull style.
It also requires a greater team effort to succeed, because one person could indeed rarely "clutch vs N-amount of enemies". A much better tactic was to "focus down" individual enemies, i.e. taking them out one by one as a team-effort, thus pushing them away from the objective. The HVR 762 played a crucial role in this, because of the (arguably too) high burst damage. Once the enemy was short one member, they could easily be pushed off the objective.
Cars were less of a safe haven, because getting blown to bits in or around one was more likely than making a successful runaway.
The combination of lowering TTK and allowing all weapons to reach across the entire range spectrum, also meant that falling back from a fight became less viable. Since any amount of damage will completely stop health regeneration, players can, with some weapons, still take you out way beyond their effective range.
QuoteFor example Pre-LO ntec was op at most situations with meta ir3 and hs3 but at close-mid range it could destroy in cqc if you switch to cj3, you didn't really need oca or pmg. So, the balance here works like that: instead of switching mods in one weapon, you're forced to switch to other weapons.
Minor correction: The N-Tec was so great in CQC because it had the same base TTK as dedicated CQC weapons combined with good accuracy and precision. It didn't have the mobility, but it didn't really need it in a low TTK environment.
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On 12/28/2022 at 3:47 AM, BlatMan said:You personally are unable to compare and contrast weapons based on their overall stats, so you think no one should have easy access to that information.
Everyone interprets words differently, and translating to other languages isn't perfect. Math doesn't change. You know what does change? Weapon stats, like the ATAC's effective range from 50m to 40m, and some accuracy stats back in 2020. You'd need to read through a hundred patch notes to find that change if it wasn't for APB:DB.
Most people manage to pass kindergarten, They can handle it.
Slow down there, fella. I'd wager many people who passed high school can't even work those numbers properly. Some people interpret math differently, too.
As long as the wording is consistent, it doesn't matter how anyone interprets it. Translations can get icky, if someone doesn't follow the original consistency, though.
On 12/29/2022 at 2:11 AM, SkittyM said:Honestly hadn't thought of this idea but now that you mention it, it sounds pretty solid. All of RTWs weapons already have this in their description though they may need a bit of updating. Weapons RP has added are either "functionally identical" or just have random lore, seems to depend on when the weapon was made.
I'll try writing up some revise weapon descriptions for those that don't have them and see where that goes.
Those lore-bits in item descriptions are such a nice detail, too.
It's also a good exercise for game design when creating a new weapon, because a good description already outlines what the weapon is supposed to do and how the stats must be shaped to create those characteristics.
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18 hours ago, BlatMan said:Your first sentence contradicts itself. You can't accurately describe a weapon without the stats. How do you describe the difference between 40M and 50M with words, other than Forty and Fifty?
I wouldn't. 40 and 50m are both medium range, for all intents and purposes. That's the crucial information a player needs.
Say we have two medium range weapons, but one is slightly better designed for short range and the other for long range. Essentially the original concept for the STAR and the N-Tec. I would have them both described as medium range assault rifles, but outline their preference towards one end of the spectrum. Naturally this is also reflected in their other stats; after all, no gun should be defined by a single one of its attributes.
Conversely, I wouldn't describe the original ATAC as a medium range assault rifle, despite it's effective range of 50m. Because that was not what it was designed to do and that information would not be relevant.
The advantage of describing in prose what a weapon is supposed to do and then setting the numbers to reflect those words, is that most people easily understand words, but hardly understand numbers.
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On 12/26/2022 at 3:09 PM, AlienTM said:My prediction what will happen.At this test in february(if is open to everybody)they will realize that still the optimization needs some work and will have to implement this cooked package sytem(which improve load times and the genaral smooth running)So they will delay the official 1.30 launch to may(when LO makes 5 years since took over)or to june(for the apb 13th anniversary)
Thanks for an actual recap/summary.
And I think you are spot on. Every previous endeavour of this kind fell flat on its face once an actual full district of complex custom designs came into the mix. I hope this won't be the case here, but I doubt it.
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On 12/26/2022 at 6:08 PM, MonkaS said:this. many br's suffer from this problem of not enough action per time invested who wants to wait minutes for seconds of action.
At least battle royales have stressors during the low-conflict-phase, which keep the player on edge. Grab good loot, make sure nobody jumps you when you're ill prepared, figure out a decent route for the ever-shrinking battlefield.
APB could have something like that, if it was set up more like a true cops-and-robbers game. Start a mission and anyone who notices you are on a job can intercept. But it would be much more difficult to lay down some basic rules, to prevent districts from simply devolving into mayhem.
I guess nowadays such emergent gameplay would be much easier to realise. When APB was being made, the idea was certainly there, but the technology wasn't.
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1 minute ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:I unironically do enjoy 3 second long fights. Most of the games I like have fights that go for 10+ seconds.
I don't mind a 3-second-fight if it doesn't take me much longer than that to get into the next one.
But when I spend 80-90% of my time waiting for or getting back into that fight, I quickly lose interest.
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On 12/25/2022 at 8:36 AM, BlatMan said:The real issue is none of the real accuracy numbers are listed in game, so new players have no way of accurately calculating accuracy.
I don't think this is a necessity, as long as each weapon is accurately described in the way it behaves. Which is not and has rarely ever been the case in APB.
But just like showing players where they stand in terms of matchmaking, I think showing them exactly how a weapon functions ultimately leads to a worse gameplay approach.
Each weapon should be designed with certain strengths and weaknesses and those should be communicated to the player. You like getting up close and personal? These guns will help you with that. As long as description and behaviour do not diverge, players will more naturally find a weapon that suits them.
Should the actual numbers be kept secret? No. But put them somewhere for enthusiasts to look up (like APBdb).
01/08 PATCH ANNOUNCEMENT
in Social District (General Discussion)
Posted · Edited by Revoluzzer
Perfect accuracy with the first shot would allow players to cancel their opponents health regeneration at any distance. Unless you also introduce hard distance limits after which bullets simply disappear / deal no damage (as it was originally designed), retreating from combat would become significantly less viable. Thus forcing players to duke it out quicker, thus lowering the time players actually spend battling each other (the fun part) and instead increasing the time players spend respawning and rejoining the fight (the boring part).