Guartorias

I'm skeptical that APB will ever make any sort of return. I feel like it's far "too little, too late." Though, I do hope it makes a come back. To this day, APB has some fantastic features and concepts.

Funny how a few years ago, everyone fanboy'd over Intel. Ryzen isn't the ABSOLUTE BEST in every situation. Intel still has better IPC and can get higher clocks. Which is ALL APB cares about. APB hardly uses 2 cores iirc. That said, I doubt you would notice any meaningful difference between modern CPUs on APB. Read down v APB does weiiird stuff depending on clock speeds. Because modern CPUs basically auto-overclock if they're able to, I was curious if that was causing an issue. Last time I played APB was on an FX-8350, and with that CPU, it was possible to exploit the game's engine for noticeable and very real advantages. It was a trade-off though, having its own disadvantages as well.

Why are people trying to turn this into an AMD vs Intel thread? And a poorly recommended one at that. OP, do something weird and turn off any turbo clock features, see if the issue still comes up. Just a theory I have.

Were you the Hitler character I saw? lol.. That'd be why if so.

It was trying to contact login server an hour ago when I tried, thinking it was time.

As I said, that's my personal preference. Not what I'd recommend LO do, as a business. Just if I had a private APB server or something, those are the changes I would want. Players do respawn in groups, but it never really feels like it. What I had in mind was that the team's respawn timer would start at the death of the first teamate. But giving that more thought, 12 seconds probably wouldn't be long enough. Again, for my ideal APB. Also, what Anubis bug are you referring to? I haven't really played in a long while. Last thing I remember, G1 changed the Anubis' special crosshair to be much smaller than it was. I liked it at that time. Aside from that, it ghost fired fairly often, though the DMR did as well. (Oddly enough, DMR-AV always felt to ghost-fire less than DMR-SD. A couple of my friends felt the same way, but it could've just been the power of suggestion.) lol, glad you enjoy the pie chart. G1 released it a long while ago. I thought there was a 2nd one somewhere, but couldn't find it. As I've said, I never played RTW's APB. But looking at old footage, and a couple of my friends played it since beta, I don't see anything G1 did to make it worse. Aside from (arguably) adding things like Car-surfer and spawner. I'm interested in what you feel G1 failed at. I don't care much for GTA V either... Though not for the same reasons, it seems. If you don't like GTA V because it has kids and cheaters, then why do you play APB lol. It's full of cancer and cheaters. I'd love to see new contacts. But more importantly, I recently came to the realization that APB only has 2 Assault Rifles, not including Armas/Joker tickets. (Which I don't consider JT's to be a viable way of getting weapons. It's just a pain.). APB needs more guns that are unlockable in-game. I agree that the weapons used are because of the meta. And that's exactly what I don't like. The meta has never changed. It's always been N-tec for most cases, HVR for sniping (or just QS and it's a shotgun), and OCA for CQC. PMG did get buffed, to the point where everyone hated it and it was OP. (That pie chart is definitely after the PMGs buff. Not sure if it was before or after the nerf that followed a few months down the line though.) Don't get me wrong, I'd be fine if they just did a weapon balance patch. APB's balance is practically non-existent, but most of the community is fine with that. Nobody sits there and says "How could they make the snub-nosed revolver a viable sidearm?". Most people probably forget that it's even in the game. But if it was my APB, I'd enjoy weapons being changed every few months. 6 months is probably what I'd go with.

Population spiked, but it's nothing impressive. I'll be surprised if LO can get APB's population even to 3k. G1's lack of communication was a terrible thing, but worse than that, was their lack of doing anything (Referring to the past year). APB as it is, or even with an overhauled tutorial, new players will still avoid the game. Or rather, they'll leave after a week or two. I'm not saying a complete transformation. Unless you view the change from RTW to G1's APB a complete transformation. I'm saying a lot of the mechanics need to be modernized and balanced. Which was in my OP. I'm sure server improvements are high on LO's list. That's something everyone can agree on. But as for RTW's popularity, things were different then. GTAV didn't exist, the game wasn't old as dirt, and it was before Steam's huge F2P library. Now APB has to compete with everything else that's F2P, GTAV, and the fact it's a double-zombie'd game that's 8 years old. It really doesn't have a lot going for it. The only things APB really has going for it, is the fact it's a 3rd person PvP shooter on PC (Fairly rare imo), and the customization... The customization that most people think "wow cool!" and proceed to make a Naruto character by buying the clothes off the market. Iirc Matt also said that as it is, APB is almost impossible to add new content. Or something among those lines. Adding Armas content might've been G1's only viable option till the engine upgrade, which who knows what happened there. Obviously that's fairly old, but not much has changed, afaik. N-tec has over double the usage of the Star, which will have inflated stats because it's the starter weapon. HVR has several times the usage of the next sniper rifle. Joker Carbine has about three times the usage of the next Marksman rifle. Why? The N-tec/Star thing makes sense. They're the only assault rifles you can unlock in-game (Not including joker ticket bs.) HVR though? Second place is the Scout, and it's waay down there. And it's an Armas weapon. So really, the DMR-SD should be it's competition for usage... And it's at the bottom of the barrel. You're saying small tweaks would make the DMR viable, when compared to the HVR? I definitely don't think so.

The problem with me listing changes I'd like to see, is just that. They'd be changes I personally want. My ideal APB probably isn't your ideal APB, and I'm sure it's different from what LO has in mind. For instance, I think car-spawner is a lazy work-around to "compliment" the broken spawn system. I'd want to see it completely removed. But spawns in general are broken. So I'd have to decide if I want a faster-paced APB, or slower paced. I personally lean towards slower paces. So I'd increase respawn time to something like 12 seconds, and spawn in groups (To make team-work a little more impactful, and a squad wipe a bigger deal.). Then I'd make attackers spawn something like 90-120m away from the objective. But I'd also make sure that attackers spawn points always provide a circle around the assault targets. So if they want to approach from the north, they can all spawn north, or maybe 3 spawn north and 1 spawn south for a flank. As it is right now in APB, it's very easy for the defending team to manipulate spawn points, and force enemies to spawn (roughly) where they want them to. I'm also a big fan of constant change in balance. I believe there is no "perfect balance" in games. Every few months, I'd rebalance weapons depending on how much they were used. If stats showed that the HVR was the most used sniper, holding 70% of use, then obviously it'd be nerfed. If it showed the DMR was the least used, coming in at 5%, then it'd be buffed. The weapons in the middle-ground wouldn't be changed much. (% numbers were random, so don't take them literally.) The biggest thing that would reboot APB is marketing. Problem is, if they market APB as it currently is, there might be a bunch of new players that give it a try, but I guarantee most would quit shortly after. Matchmaking sucks to the point where a new player will hit gold in just 5 wins. Which is super easy, if you play shooters. Because your first 5 matches are (probably) going to be in a green or bronze district. Then next time they log in, they'll be pit against Gold R255's with OPGLs and car-spawners. So they lose. The way matchmaking currently is, when you lose it feels like it's because the other team has all this gear you can't have. I lean much more towards Rating based matchmaking than threat based. At least with rating based matchmaking, people win or lose because of their skill. Not how much theyve played. (But matchmaking in general should be overhauled.) One thing I'd say that (I assume) everyone would hate, is to just have missions completely instanced. You start APB, load into a district, and there you can drive around and see all the other players... But if they're in a mission, you won't have collision with them. As soon as you get a mission, everyone else fades out of your screen. It's just you and the mission. Possibly include an option to make yourself invisible to people out of the mission, to combat against ghosting. (To clarify, if you're in a mission, by default everyone else can see you. But with the option, it'd make it so only people in your mission can see you. Their friends and random players wouldn't be able to anymore.) This would also (possibly) allow the complete removal of districts. Instead of "Financial 1" and "Financial 2" it'd just be "Financial". It'd load in maybe 2-6 groups within a 200m radius or something. Then as you got farther away from them, it'd despawn those people and spawn in fresh ones for you to see. Everywhere you went would be populated with new players. That'd require a lot of tweaking and fine-tuning I'd imagine though. So It's pretty much wishful thinking. (Even for a wishlist) Increasing the weight of the car wouldn't do anything. People could pioneer + vegas, or just get a dumptruck and take the mission car for a spin. If I couldn't have the car completely immobile, then I'd make it have a kind of tethered respawn. If the car got x-distance away from its original spawn point, it'd teleport back to it. Problem is, there are car spawn points that are already within 10m or so of impossible to breach places. More things could go wrong with introducing a spawn point like that though. As for Jump-pickup items (AKA Juggling), I wouldn't be sad if it was removed. Though I'd also love to see the ability to use side-arms while holding briefcases. And honestly, I'd completely remove heavy items. Probably small items too, as they're just nuisances and something that can be camped by the defending team. (Which depending on where they're lost, can make it almost impossible.)

Title isn't the most descriptive thing in the world. But what I mean, is that APB needs a massive overhaul. I don't mean the engine, or threat. I mean the entire game. There are so many ways to break the game entirely. APB is currently a mess. I'm not talking about nerfing the HVR or N-tec. I'm talking about mechanics. Crouch-shooting is and always has been broken. The ability to push a car that's a defend target is broken (Get a pioneer or two, and cruise away. The only thing that could possibly stop you is car-surfer... So you need R195+.). Spawns are often broken (Spawn in LoS of a point, or sometimes 15m off a point.) Griefing (As enjoyable as it is sometimes) is just a stupid concept. If you want APB to be taken somewhat seriously, the game needs a massive overhaul. Problem with any of this, is you'll upset the long-term players. The people who've been playing since RTW, or even G1's "beta" stage. Most of them will throw a fit if you make any changes to anything. Because they enjoy stagnation. That's exactly why they've been playing the same borderline dead game for all these years. And that's also why I'm betting this post is going to get a ton of hate. So you have to decide. Keep the game mostly the same, and keep the same 1k-ish players happy, or Reload APB:Reloaded. Change things up, and bring in new players. It doesn't matter if you make a great new tutorial. APB:Reloaded is cancer to new players. For the record, I didn't play RTW's APB. And I'm glad, because the game looked like shit (And I don't mean graphics. I mean no recoil, for one.). APB still looks like shit, but G1 did do some great things for it. They also ruined some things, imo. But if Little Orbit can look at what G1 did, learn from their mistakes, and make massive changes to the game, like G1 did to RTW's, then APB might actually get a decent population for once in it's life.

"Nerf or buff" "Yes or no" ..... Yes. Buff? Yes. Nerf? Yes. Maybe? Yes.

Where are you getting this stuff from? Ignoring the 16,900 FF bans thing, because I'm ignorant on the "how many people were banned" subject... 40 players actively playing? Steamcharts shows the lowest population (within a month) being at 222. And that was only for an hour. Give or take 2 hours, and the population goes to 500. But let's take worst case scenario, and say you just happened to be on during the worst possible time. You're telling me that 180 players were online, but not "actively playing" or something? I'm aware that APB sometimes doesn't close properly, and Steam still sees it running (At which point, most other steam games won't launch.). But that'd mean that 80% of APB players had that bug, and none of them fixed it. Your "40 players" number seems like absolute bs to me. As for "Majority" of bans being unfair, if you're talking about the Q&A stream, you misread or something. Here's the quote I think you read, but then ignored parts and misunderstood others:

Little Orbit, Are there any plans to upgrade servers (again?). Or rather, what are your plans/thoughts on the terrible server performance?

Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see any links to go to Gamersfirst.com Obviously, I could just type it in or something. I would think the forums would have a link to Armas at least, or something.

K.

Wow. You don't include my ultimate TL;DR version? I see how it is. (Ignore the fact I made my post after yours.)