DedGaem

The problem isn't what side anyone argues, it's that Little Orbit as a company actually doesn't give a shit. They are utterly incapable and incompetent to simply install auto-kick on Bronze districts once someone plays well enough to achieve gold rank. Dethreaters aren't the real problem... GRIEFING TYHARDS are, who dethreat to enter Bronze District, then relentlessly play at gold level all day and all night WTFSTOMPING the actual lesser skilled playerbase (you know the one that gets repeat kicked, tk'd off teams and shit talked if they dare log on Silver District) so that they have absolutely no place to play. It isn't GOLDS who can't play the game, they play everywhere... it's the lesser skilled and new playerbase that cannot, and is not welcome to play the game. There is ZERO moderation in this game. Tryhards grief the living crap out of lower skilled and weaker teams... literally scoring 10, 20, 35 kills per mission... while the noob team can't even complete ONE SINGLE OBJECTIVE because they are shut down so hardcore. What exactly do you think that does for the game population? Well, we're seeing the fruits of Little Orbit's mismanagement. Soon, there won't be a game.

LO can't manage the game and leave it to manage itself. What then transpires is the most aggressive, most bullying or most tightly knit groups... such as large numbers of xyz nationality, or cheaters, play the game in such a way as to defend themselves against everyone else. Meaning, if your playing crim, and hackusate a Russian playing enfo op... he tells the Russians on your team and they all start TKing you. OR, his Russian comrades start to ghost outside of the mission ramming your cars repeatedly or blocking your item to force a loss in favor of their friends team. When this kind of in-group bullying thing goes on... the not in-group players start to fade away. Larger groups win exclusive rights in the game because they moderate on behalf of their own self-interest, and no outside force makes them play fair.

I hope above all that LO can pull it off... but I'm not especially optimistic...

Well come on now, perception is everything. There are cheaters cheating for fun. Despite the popular denial game I have encountered them occasionally. One guy for example was speed hacking and running circles around our team and running faster than cars, so don't deny... there's always going to be suspicion in highly competitive matches, especially when you throw in a blatant nerd now and again. Doesn't really matter if 1 or 2 guys are cheating, with a tiny population you're going to match them over and over and does sometimes make it seem like the advantaged team might all be cheating, even if they are not but just skilled, and the op team is just prostrated because of one illegitimate. The problem is these few cheaters seem to have impunity, as the easy anticheat doesn't detect them... whether it's quality privately coded hacks, or just inability of LO to afford an upgrade, or easy anticheat simply being bypassed... it's a problem... and the lack of skilled in-game GMs makes the game all but abandoned, while nerds devastate what's left of an already diminishing playerbase. The responsibility for this magnitude of failure belongs to LO... it was never up to the players to police the game... and LO doesn't have any ability to properly manage APB... that's why it's in a death spiral.

It has always been out of touch, horribad decision-making that ruined this gem of a game.

APB is the kind of game that would make Jesus, Buddha and Gandhi rage... and then sometime totally ridiculous happens and you can't stop laughing which makes the game exciting and fun... there's really no other game like it.

Uhm... you own nothing in a virtual game and cannot sue if you violate the EULA. That said, I atill advocate for temp bans... that way cheaters, suspected cheaters, and their grouped allies could all get TEMP kicks for suspicion, and no permanent loss at all... just the irritation of having to LEARN to play within the designated parameters of the game and stop attracting suspicion by either playing TOO well... or rick-rolling lower level op in such a way it devastates the game population. (Not saying anything about you personally, just a reply based on my own in-game observations and opinion of what needs to be done to save the game.

It was always bad... ofc when there was actually a population, there were more shenanigans... but now, LO has done a few devastating things... 1. added the Russians, and 2. added the Brazilians and 3. rely on an utterly ineffective anticheat. What I well and do remember is under G1 the game had actual fast response to tickets, regular, even weekly Armas sales, GMs who at least tried to be in-game and observe based on player reports, and banned a lot of cheaters. There was a point where hardcore banning accounts was unproductive and I long advocated temp bans... but as G1's population declined, their funding declined and they stopped paying for Fairfight updates and simply manually banned in the name of Fairfight... prior to that, and had the bans been temporary and faster than Fairfight's entirely too slow algorithm, the game population would have remained stable. What LO has done to the game has shrunken the population by a magnitude of 10... leaving a game populated by thousands... a game populated by a few mere hundreds... and yes.. the SAME cheaters and exploiters who were mass unbanned... continue with impunity... because the system is so compromised, and the GMs so incapable and so lax... that nothing is done... except the playerbase continues to shrink... down that toilet bowl.

The good news is, LO has so horribly managed the game it is now infested with exploiters, cheaters and toxics... as a consequence the game is almost dead and sure to be sold and LO's utter incompetence will be gone for good. Game may die... but if a company actually installs an anticheat which isn't easily bypassed, and puts GMs into the district shadowing the gameplay and district communication... like they did on Nekrova... APB just might come back to life again. LO listening to known cheaters, has failed harder than a G1 nightmare circling a toilet bowl.

What are you on about? The best time of this dying game was Fairfight bans, Tiggs banning nearly everybody and that toxic, hilarious website where people trashtalked the FF banned people and created a whole new kind of celebrity. There was quite a bit larger population back then as well. I think LO's iteration of APB is the worst, and the nearly deadest lowest population in APB history. The best iteration of APB:r was Nekrova and it's proprietary Frost anticheat and active in-game GMs... that version literally had 25 full districts, virtually all day. G1 never had such a lively playerbase... well not since release anyway.

At the very least, once someone plays so well they turn Gold in a bronze district they need to get auto kicked out if it. What's the literal POINT of having threat segregation if the hardcore GRIEFERS dethreat to get at the newbs, lowbs, and boomers... rickroll them and go insta gold, and play for hours and hours and hours rickrolling trainees, bronzes and low silvers? Is it too much to ask that players who achieve a certain "level of play" are not allowed to WTFPWN newbs and casuals? I mean, if the goal is attracting any kind of population back to the game that is. Strictly speaking, to make a casual-new player District, certain items should be disabled... for example all joker box weapons... ursus, volcano, etc... since the POINT of a lower threat district is to attract and PROTECT guys who for the most part don't have access to grenade launchers and osmaws and whatnot... Fr0g, nano, bloody mary, etc... So, weapons up to a certain rank should be disabled and make it a proper NEWB-LOWBIE-CASUAL District. I made a trainee toon to see if I could invite a couple of new friends to the game.... logged into the Bronze District, matched max rank golds with Ursus and volcanos... and could immediately perceive why the game population is dying... there is NOWHERE for lower skilled players to play without facing a game of literal extinction mode tryhards who stream killing new guys repeatedly 26, 36, 40x a mission. Who the hell plays a victim in any game? These tryhard griefers are exterminating the new playerbase... and LO seems incompetent to perceive what is going on or preventing it. At least Tiggs had a cluestick. Merged. It's true, and the original design of RTW APB was a much more stable matchmaking system... However, since then we have the pros who kick, grief, tk and trash talk lower threat/new players out of mission so they can call gold backup. Seems the toxic version of APB lately is pro golds who only want to match up with pro golds and only want the weakest low threat op possible... so, not only is the matchmaking borked... it's exploited... alt AFK trainee accounts who start TKing when the op is losing to push a win, etc. In other words, no solution will be good without in-game GM moderation... and I don't mean some joker who "talks" in district... but GMs who shadow or actively "play" the game and see what's going on... and work towards a more balanced game that retains players and attracts new ones.

Whats the point when max golds with ursus and volcanos and nanos are allowed to roll trainees and bronzes on the bronze district? I think it's sad and fairly obvious LO is completely out of touch and incompetent at managing their game... which is why it's in the worst possible state it has ever been,,, and population wise... failing fast and hard.

Some toxic golds routinely stack full gold premade groups, and sadly TK or trash talk any silver who joins the mission in hopes of making him quit. They ofc only want silvers as op so they can play the grind into extermination game.

I think they'd be a lot better off financially to simply sunset APBr, and re-release APB with the original RTW code.

The Engine Upgrade, hopefully will render most of the old hacks and exploits coded by premier cheat companies useless... They would have to rewrite cheats, and given the plummeted population, the profit for them would not be there. Ofc, a talented coder could write new cheats/exploits for the new code but, those people are very few and the general playerbase wouldn't get them and we would have (hopefully) an even smaller actual cheater core than we have now... and that will help a lot... because with a limited player pool... you can easily match v the same cheater a few times... and that's demoralizing and hurts what's left of the population.

The snarkiness is deserved. They promised the moon and have not delivered. That said, if they can manage to pull it off it will revive some semblance of the game I have no doubt at all. Even leaving and playing other games, there's nothing quite like APB... it's a gem... a literal diamond in the rough. With a little love and resuscitation... and sadly, for 2 years we've seen none of it... no moderation within the game at all... but with some attention and love... the game will prosper. But I agree w/o the engine upgrade, they probably can't do the things needed to save it from it's broken and easily exploited code.

Jeez. 2 years ago I remember when LO took over this game and said the Engine Upgrade was around the corner and they even had screen shots to post. Wonder if it was just a con to milk what was left by this G1 shadow company and totally mismanaged, but amazingly awesome great game.

At this stage of the game there are hardly any actual new players. What we have is a kind of split community between essentially 1. tryhards and 2. chill players. Makes no difference if an actual gold (skill level wise) wants to play in more chill districts, provided he isn't playing to his full "gold" capacity and rolling the less-skilled. How is this considered by you "freely exploit the system?" The system is inadequate. We're all just brainstorming ways it "could" work. The whole point of mad dethreaters who "exploit" in order to tryhard versus the less skilled, is a system that insta-kicks on attaining "gold" skill-level in the Bronze District. And such an open-ended system allows for lesser skilled to opt to play with tryhards and for higher level skilled to opt to play more chill or with lower skilled friends sometimes. It's not an exploit, it's trying to to prevent abuses and provide a "choice." "but since the only way for these dethreaters to stay in bronze for any length of time is to lose missions" Welp, If a Gold has been losing a streak of missions in order to tryhard and rick-roll the playerbase... he will turn gold quickly, and get kicked out of district quickly. That forces the "gold" to "dethreat" in the Gold District. If he's in the Bronze District playing AFK... he should get kicked from mission in say 4 minutes. If he's simply not playing, no one can really make him. The whole goal is for him to just play more "chill" and not tryhard for you know 25 kills... if he's skilled but plays slower for the District and tones it down to maybe the mission average (I donno 6 kills...) why would he have to AFK? If he's playing chill, he won't get Gold. If he's playing Gold he should get insta kicked and not be able to get back in unless he dethreats in Gold District. If he wants to "not play" well... he'll get bored and leave. Y'all can start Tking him or something.

Sometimes there's only a waterfront open. It could be there's only a silver waterfront and folks need waterfront to rank up. They should be able to dethreat in gold district and choose where to play. Also, a bronze/silver might want to join in special competition day on gold server, again the freedom to choose is priceless.

Thats why a system where older players who want a less tryhard game should be able to dethreat and play in the bronze districts, help there friends, etc.... BUT, the moment they are playing "too hard" for the district and turn gold, they should get insta-kicked back to lobby and be stuck playing the gold district (or fight clubs) so as to prevent the kind of long-term trolling dethreaters who only played on Bronze to WTF-Hardstomp and destroy (all day long) the lesser skilled and chill playerbase. I know it's not a perfect suggestion but, at least that way people who dethreat are limited in the degree of District disruption... they can opt to 1. play more chill or 2. go play with the Golds. *Edit also the Golds should get some form of recognition/reward to keep them interested and not resorting to rick-rolling the lower threats all day... such as planned events, competition, new public scoring system, special titles, special clothing, special reskinned guns, special cars, special logos etc... to encourage the hardcore competition, clan wars, special streamed matches, etc... to at least make it fun for the truly skilled longterm players... and an incentive for the chill crowd to "up their game."

I griped loudest and longest against Threat Segregation when it first rolled out. Now, some years later there's almost no population... and everyone is thrown to the wolves with an easily exploited and broken matchmaking system... as a consequence, sincerely talented Gold teams of try-too-fkin-hards + yeah exploiters and cheaters are sht stomping everyone... resulting in them being virtually the only population left... and a few, somewhat talented silvers, and desperate bronzes getting hard face-wrecked nearly every mission... as their population slowly disappears. I don't have a solution to cancer that's been ignored for so long... Maybe bring back a Silver + Gold District. Give some special titles or items for playing on Gold at least, might even be clan wars type of thing... doesn't have to be gifting OP weapons, just maybe special reskins with clan logos or titles. Then the talented Try-harders can at least get recognition for their expertise, and championship matches would be worth streaming... rather than creaming the crap out of bronzes who get killed 42x and never come back... And for the slower, older, noobier crowd... deserve a more chill, slower paced District all their own... with a different scoring system, a better tutorial. There wouldn't be skilled competitions or special items or anything, BUT... some cool, light-hearted, fun events once a month would bring people back, at least a few. The more chill crowd wouldn't worry about getting totaly hard-fk-wrecked every mission,,, and could invite new guys to come try the game. The minute someone turns gold, skill-wise they should get KICKED out of district. SURE, folks will dethreat to come back, and that should be OK... so long as their PLAY is lower-slower paced to match. NO ONE should dethreat, turn gold, then WTF-STOMP the noobier district for hours and hours and hours until all the noobs perma rage-quit. Insta-KICK, let them dethreat playing on the REAL Gold server... and then they can come back. It's not a perfect solution, but... maybe LO could fine-tune the scoring and match-making, so that everyone could REASONABLY play together... and not be exploited all to hell with stacked Gold teams with Ursus and Volcano and Ogres ripping the faces off... some sad bronze who got an AFK team mate (fake alt) trainee account... probably belonging to some dweeb on the Gold team for the LULZ so they could stream how gawd damn hard they could rip this guy apart.

Thx, I'm makin that my new siggy.

Yeah expert Cookie tellin us how the Ogre is worse than a stock nfas is so credible. Trading is just somethin to do anymore... idc so much about

Me: WTT/S Volcano player1: trade Bloody Mary + cap40 for volcano Me: sure Me: WTT/S Bloody Mary and/or Cap40 player2: trade Ogre for Bloody Mary + Cap40 Me: sure Me: dying with ogre cos I'm noob

Naw man, before Tiggs went nuclear banning people she used to make these awesome fire sales...