DedGaem

1. We can't create a perfect solution at this stage of deterioration. 2. Our playerbase is ridiculously too small even for appropriate matchmaking... if they start a banwave, the game for all intents and purposes won't exist.. and being F2P these guys will come roaring back ragehacking because they lost their accounts and farm back all the joker ticket legendaries they used to own. 3. Hack sites haven't had to worry about detections since Little Orbit took control. I doubt the APB hacker population is substantial enough to warrant the cost investment of having to continually update the cheats they make and sell. Moreover, the POINT of a functional anticheat is to DETECT.. if it fails at this, it is useless and a better anticheat should be used. 4. Temp kicks will serve the function of forcing cheaters to tone down their rage hacking. I'm being honest here... APB has ALWAYS had cheaters. But, when they KNEW they could be banned they played "sort of" within the rules... aka closet. After G1 went on intensive ban sprees.. literally banning THOUSANDS of accounts... the game never recovered. LO bought the game and promised an unbanwave which was, at the time, extremely popular because there WERE false detections, false bans... and THOUSANDS of unhappy people.. sadly most left the game permanently... LO's failed promises were the icing on the sad cake. 5. The point of Temp Kicks is to keep the game at a "reasonably fair" manageable level. You can beat a closet cheater, sometimes, with skill. No one can beat a rage cheater who's ballstothewalls. When a lot of players are hardcore cheating without bothering to hide... because there's no detection, no report, and no penalty... it severely compromises the exiting playerbase and we lose MORE people. Temp Kicks are a REMINDER that rage cheating won't be tolerated... and this is to PRESERVE the game's existence. There are a few players who are... for lack of a better term... psychopathic. They play to DESTROY everyone else's enjoyment using full bore rage cheats.. even when matched against new and clueless bronzes. These few guys make full gold teams quit out midmatch.. and are responsible for a huge drop in the playerbase. Because... why play... when there's no chance at all and you're just being repeatedly farmed like a fool? They don't care what you do to them, because a stock gun can perform miracles while rage-hacking... they can lose their accounts again and again and just make new ones... but... if there are tempkicks on detection which have an immediate consequence... to PLAY they will be forced to tone down their excessive, blatant, playerbase eradication mode playstyle. If they somehow BYPASS detection... there are few enough of them that cumulative reports should be looked into by GMs who can then SEE the blatant rage hacking IF THEY BOTHER TO LOG IN AND SPECTATE SAID RAGE CHEATERS.. They can then fine tune settings to kick those guys. If BANS actually worked... it would be a thing... but in the age of F2P and VPN... it doesn't. Temporary kicks on detection would act like a SPEED BUMP in the road to derail the reckless SPEEDERS racing too fast and derailing the game... who make loyal players quit playing.

The solution with a tiny game population isn't bans... well maybe for the exceptionally psychopathic game disruptors who are egregious. The solution isn't REMOVE an anticheat. and let things slide into uncontrollable deterioration.. The SOLUTION is TEMPORARY KICKS on detection. If someone is detected cheating, kick out of game for 15 min. If he's detected a 2nd time in 24 hrs... TEMP KICK out of game for 30 min. If he's detected a 3rd time in 24 hrs... TEMP KICK for 1 hour... and for every detection within the rest of the 24 hour time frame... every detection kick for 1 hour. ALL kicks to be reset following 24 hours without detection. No points. No lifetime bans. Just DISCIPLINE in game to preserve the integrity of it. That 1. Preserves the playerbase when too many use cheats.. and removes desire to rage cheat after losing their account on perma-ban. 2. Protects the accounts of people from false bans... as they can work with support to find out WHY they're being falsely detected.. 3. It PROTECTS THE GAME from cheaters by removing them when they cheat. Essentially it makes the whole game into a Purgatory District... but that's a LOT better than a rage cheating broken game that causes everyone BUT cheater's to quit.. and effectively prevents any new players. In short... it's a CHANCE to save the game... even if it brings back closeters who "judiciously" use cheats, and rarely.. because even THAT is closer to normal than the insane broken, predatory depravity the game is becoming. Another thing you might consider since population is far too small to bring back Threat Districts... is HIDE THREAT. Let it be an internal detection.

Spare us the gaslighting. A lot of us have matched people who are just the extreme blatant cheats to go along with the numerous wallhackers, triggerbotters, macroers, ESP guys. He's not lying. Weekends are the worst... the game is nearly unplayable if u don't have cheats or carried by a cheater. The EXTREME hackers.. are few.. maybe 2-4 guys.. but they're pretty unmistakeable. You can watch on your map... as they full speed warp and kill EVERYONE on the mission. It's out of control. This is on Citadel btw. yeah and FC is a hacker's paradise as well... but it's worse when the blatants play in missions... because they just farm until the district empties. Name & Shame has been a horribly ineffective policy that clearly protects the cheaters and frustrates the legit players. Come on, you don't even have an anticheat or a working report system. Look, the game has ALWAYS had cheaters. IN fact, the golden age had closet hackers. Closet hackers play very close to normal. We're way beyond that. When he's talking about these warping, porting, speedhackers... it's a whole new level and entire teams of golds quit out and stop playing. While it isn't the role of the playerbase to POLICE the game... Blaming the guy who mentions something egregious happening to deteriorate the game should have SPCT/GM/VOLUNTEERS logging into the damn game... to spectate the guys who multiple people have reported... with zero result. If not, then at this point and level of failure... just add proprietary cheats to the game for a sub and delete accounts detected using"other companies cheats." At least then the game would be remotely fair and playable... right now it's flushing down the cosmic commode.. and so many players just give up and AFK the mission or quitout and leave you against RIDICULOUS level of cheating. Why would any sane company allow a handful of selfish psychopaths ruin their game, make their loyal players miserable and quit playing... not to mention eradicate any new players trying the game for the first time. You think they don't see the guys insta-porting to objectives or warping out of the line of fire while never missing... or speed hacking so fast they kill everyone on the team, at different distances... in seconds? We ALL see it. Some might deny to hide THEIR cheats... but anyone with half a brain who wanted their game to thrive would log in and see for themselves the DAMNED obvious. This is why game reviews are all saying the Devs don't care... not only that... their volunteers are clueless and also don't care.. and aggressively attack and blame the critics. It's well beyond some hackers now. It's hard core out of control hacking to a level that's downright abusive to the longsuffering playebase. But yeah.. punish the guys who get frustrated when report does nothing and "name and shame." It's not even fair to call it "name & shame." It's friendly warning to other players after they've seen the degree of insanity.. giving fair warning about outrageous cheaters to beware of. The only SHAME belongs to Matt Scott and Little Orbit for treating this game and the playerbase like abandoned dog POOO.. and ofc defending all the outrageous cheaters.. and I'm not even talking about the closeters. MATEK94 x RAGEKINGS VS KOVAAKSCHAMPIONS DONKEY-BEARDED, TURBAN-WEARING, SANDALS WEARER, MONKEY LEGS.-  399 views  1 day ago

You're so wrong... GamersFirst has confirmed that APB: Reloaded has over 3 million user accounts. The game sees between 25,000 and 30,000 active players every day. APB: Reloaded Surpasses 3 Million Players Following Steam Launch

So your entire response is... don't give a damn... don't bother. The decisions they make are based on the people telling them what they want to hear.. but it's adversely impacting a lot of us who never say anything... since it doesn't matter... that is my 2 cents. In my view the game could still be saved, and turned around... it's not too late, but if LO has given up... then our last hope is they leave as publishers.. and hand over the reins to a company with more resources and experience. The WORST thing they can do is let incompetent half-patooties screw the game code.

1. You spend inordinate server downtime with this stupid matchmaking"fix." It's not a FIX. Putting in a WORKING ANTICHEAT is a matchmaking FIX. Bringing back ESCALATION is a Matchmaking FIX. But... forcing players into missions makes playing in an open world impossible and turns the entire thing into an ARCADE GAME... which is really BAD. 2. Maybe your tiny dev team thinks "doing something" to the game code is an accomplishment. It's not. You're simply breaking the game further... and eventually, even your tiny loyal core population will vanish. Look at the HISTORY of this game... things that were POPULAR were having a working anticheat. I realize banning your tiny playbase is self-destructive... so just do TEMP KICKS for 15-30-45 min. per detection... then reset at end of day.. at the very LEAST it will knock down the flagrant rage hacking that goes on, daily, interminably, without any anticheat or GM presence. The game ALWAYS had a core of cheaters. Who knows.. by now maybe 20%. Listen, when cheaters are FORCED to "closet" essentially hide their hacks... the game was popular and playable... not so much nowadays... you have wall hacks, warping, speed hacks, smooh aim, not to mention macroers.. just an absurd, out of control situation.. and ZERO oversight. Why expect cheaters to "behave" when there's nothing and no one to stop them? Of course the logical conclusion is preventing any new players or legit plyers from staying. It's also RIDICULOUS to put the burden of proof on the playerbase to POLICE the cheaters in your game with a WEAK report system... and no staff to sift through. REMEMBER when LO bought this game, they wanted to remedy the wrongs of false bans and toxic hackusations. Now you went to the OPPOSITE EXTREME... and created a game with hardly anyone left playing.. new, casual and legitimate players are treated like DOG POO,,, kicked, TK'd, shit talked... treated like toxic, unwanted trash.. and EVERYBODY seems to love the hackers on their teams.. because.. ya know... it takes a hacker to BEAT a hacker. Imagine thinking a hacker streaming (yes, all hack sites advertise no visibility of hack UI on the stream) will bring new players to this game... while the core of this game is to EXTERMINATE NEW PLAYERS with the most vulgar toxicity, hostility and ostracism. WHAT a DELUSIONAL company. Your company never even bothers to ask WHY the game is in this condition... but HEY... let's put in a ridiculous "matchmaking FIX" that forces players OUT of the open world and into a gimicky arcade instance (essentially an instance because matches are often ported to basically EMPTY unalive districts) and CHANGE the game structure COMPLETELY.. while keeping the SAME PROBLEMATIC mismatch matchmaking... because, let's face it... doesn't matter if a there's a gold pro, elite player on a team... a wallhacker, aimbotter, full auto macroer will still win... and definitely will screw the game for lower ability teams. We ALL know by now.. hackers aren't always gold... there are NUMEROUS reroll, low lvl accounts where trainees, bronzes, silvers perform MIRACLES... TRUST ME... the stupid Matchmaking fix FORCING players into matches will NOT make matches fairer. What will make matches FAIRER... is when you can escalate and bring 10 people to help a couple bronzes unfairly matched against a team of max golds... and a WORKING ANTICHEAT that temp kicks BLATANTS on detection. People want to play in an OPEN WORLD... where they can roam around, chit chat with friends... not be ported into essentially empty and dead, arcade-style instances. STOP BREAKING THE GAME DESIGN. YOUR COMPANY IS THE WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO THIS GREAT GAME.

Being rickrolled, repeatedly, outplayed, tk'd, shot at by own team, trashed talked by own team for NOT being a tryhard gold or cheater... and farmed by literal cheaters, macroers, exploiters, and toxic tryharders... who want nothing more than 25-30 kills per match... is how we lost THOUSANDS of players. If people CAN'T compete... they go away. For the game to THRIVE and SURVIVE... there has to be some grace extended to the newer/weaker playerbase... and I don't mean reroll cheats. No one is taking them under wing or teaching them... the game is so hardcore toxic... they literally tell you to go away, to uninstall... to fuck off. They only want their core 200 gold players... and this is all that's left of the game. Merged. Agree. Segregation was, way back in the day.. the beginning of a host of problems. The escalation is actually a shining improvement... but the weighting of the matches needs work. Back in the day... your threat wasn't as easily lost, which removed some of the tryhardism.. and when very low players met with a rank 10 gold... they would get like 4 guys to help versus the rank 10 gold. Alas, matchmaking is now unrecognizable since it's original system, which was actually great. In any event, fight club for the longest was the domain of the hardcore cheaters/tryharders... and now.. all that's left of the districts is the same.. the slower paced.. play with lower/newer toons... letting them get objectives, giving them clothes/cars, inviting them to clans... is long gone. The game expresses just sheer HATRED of newer/lesser skilled players... literally exterminating them. And then there's absentee Mat Scott.. doing jack turd nothing... listening to the tryharders whisper in his ear... about how to make the game they way THEY want... and not the way it was when it attracted tens of thousands of REGULAR players.

Woot, patcher updating and working now... Can't wait to play dedgaem

launcher logs say... buncha stuff but basically: 5484 WARNING: Exception while downloading http://apb.patch.gamersfirst.com/Patches.xml after 0 attempts 9:31:33 PM 5484 WARNING: GetLastWin32Error:0 ... 9:31:33 PM 5484 WARNING: System.Threading.ThreadAbortException: Thread was being aborted. at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() ... 9:31:33 PM 5484 WARNING: GetLastWin32Error:2 9:31:33 PM 5484 WARNING: http://apb.patch.gamersfirst.com/Patches.xml System.Threading.ThreadAbortException: Thread was being aborted. at Hosting.cDownloader.DownloadFile(String sTargetURL, String sDirname, String sFilename, Int64 nExpectSize, Int64& nDownloadSize, cDownloadFileControl DFControl) 9:31:33 PM 5484 Deleting D:\STEAMLIBRARY\STEAMAPPS\COMMON\APB RELOADED\___.tmp 9:31:33 PM 5484 Setting file attributes for D:\STEAMLIBRARY\STEAMAPPS\COMMON\APB RELOADED\___.tmp to normal 9:31:33 PM 4892 [STATS] APBLauncher 0.0.0.0 0, 0, 0, 0 9:31:33 PM 4892 [STATS] ==LAUNCHER PATCH== 9:31:33 PM 4892 [STATS] etOverall 9:31:33 PM 4892 [STATS] PATCH_SUCCESS FALSE 9:31:33 PM 4892 [STATS] FILE_REQUIRED_PATCH 0 9:31:33 PM 4892 [STATS] FILE_PATCHED 0 --- I donno if that helps or not. Some people are saying they can get into the game bypassing the launcher. I uninstalled and reinstalled, that might have affected things but going to the binaries folder to launch from APB.exe a launcher quickly pops up then disappears so I cannot log in or even try to repair files. I might be a noob but, when you click on http://apb.patch.gamersfirst.com/Patches.xml There's a 502 Bad Gateway notice saying bunny.net Edge Network server hosting the website apb.patch.gamersfirst.com

It's not fixed yet. I still get the same grayed out Updating on launcher. When I try to log in using the APB.exe a splash screen shows and then disappears. But I'd glad you guys are aware of it and hopefully can fix it.

Same, but it took me 30 minutes before I could even log into the forums without getting an oops error message. I also uninstalled and reinstalled.. Tried logging in from the APB.exe outside of Steam.. nothing works. Everything worked fine earlier this am before I logged out... but since this afternoon... that same stuck updating message as ur pic.

Look, Matt.. the condition of the game is abandoned. SARD, isn't even active or doing anything. If you added a two-tier sub, with a free option... 1. Free (no support). 2. $2.50/month (support + 250 Joker tickets with 2.5% chance of legendary) 3. $5/month (support + 500 Joker tickets/w 5% chance of legendary)... Then POSSIBLY, you could afford to bring back FairFight. I get that no one "really" knows for certain (unless blatant) if someone is cheating... and you haven't wanted to be UNFAIR. NO PROBLEM! The game population is really small, and besides bans are pretty punitive, uncertain, and permanently destroy an account someone cares about or has invested in. SIMPLE FIX! Don't BAN. Just make it where someone who's performing well above normal (could be legit and highly skilled... but it's enough ABOVE the general population to be disruptive.)... Have them TEMPORARILY KICKED from the game. That's not evidence of a hack (though it could be).. and it's a CLUE to that player... he needs to tone down his playstyle or cheats.. to stay in the game. LISTEN, you can't eliminate cheating at this stage of the game, and it opens a can of worms for the superbly skilled playerbase. BUT... if one guy, whether an APB genius pro... or a cheater... is rick rolling EVERYBODY, nearly EVERY MISSION... that playstyle is disrupting the small matchmaking population and causing a lot of players to stop playing or quit trying and never log back in again. ONE PRO... or cheater shouldn't be given that right... to ruin the game experience for everybody. Fairfight was good at detecting out of norm actions. And the serverwide KICK announcement was actually GREAT FUN! Just list an official caveat to the players the kick is NOT for cheating... but for being far enough ABOVE NORMAL... that the PLAYERBASE needs a time out. Some pro's might understand and wear that as a badge of honor... PLUS, they lose nothing but a little time.... In a 24 hour span (to be reset daily) 1. first kick - 15 minute lockout 2. second kick - 30 min lockout 3. third kick - 2 hour lockout 4. Every kick thereafter in the 24 hour span - 2 hour lockout It really doesn't have to be punitive or permanent... to moderate a game and make it "somewhat" fair... and would be a darned sight BETTER than ZERO MODERATION AT ALL.

Were on Russia's Innova server. Way more affordable cheaper guns and car kits... in-game GM's who actually spectated the game and kicked caught cheaters on the fly... proprietary Frost anticheat that only a few hackers could bypass... and literally 25 full open districts to choose from... it was the very best iteration of the game... sadly neither GM nor LO could implement what needed to be done to actually make for a PLAYABLE game experience that attracted new and old players alike. Now that EU is officially acknowledged to be dead... and now that LO is virtually bankrupt... I doubt they would have the capability or inclination to implement the POLICIING and MODERATION it takes (other than hysterical WOKE bans) to make the game VIABLE and revive it. Y'all just don't get the game you purchased... neither does it seem you ever gave a crap about it.

I miss when Tiggs was flaming banned cheaters who were crying on forums and begging to be unbanned... it was the golden age of APB drama... that and FFbans,,, what a forum!~ Alas, all the snowflakes melted and LO killed the game.

Sad... it shows that LO has no proper judgment, no adequate cash to successfully develop or run a game (obviously) and probably no developer studio... and is just a BIG FAT LIE of a company that promised the moon and delivered a turd. Since LO bought the game they did nothing but let it rot and die. Seriously, for all the hate, under Tiggs and G1 at least there WAS a gameplaying population... and a functional anticheat. BLEH BLEH BLEH no anticheat killed APB. Thanks LO you deserve to go bankrupt. The decisions you made were atrocious.