R3ACT3M

Matt mentioned something in the AMA where he would like to have districts where players can test out balance changes. I wonder if it's possible to get there attention on bringing longer TTKs into the realm of possibility. I know I already said (in a really long rant post tbh) that if gun fights in APB were longer it would make the running from point A to Point B feel like less of a waste of time. Now I could be wrong. But 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. 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). "Never be balanced" is probably not true. Right now there are a lot of core issues that are going to make balancing guns really hard. Raising the ttk across the board could make a lot of weapons feel less cheap to play. 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. An original argument I made is that guns should be more accurate but have more recoil, but that might be too much for this style of game according to another user. So why not make guns more accurate but take more shots to kill? This would make guns more reliant on a person's skill rather than the randomness of the bloom. Part of APB's skill ceiling is it takes a long time to master the perfect rate at which to click your mouse to get that min ttk. Which is where the issue of players cheating and using Macros come into play. Gunplay needs some core fixes for sure. I think weapons like the PMG and OCA shouldn't allow players to strafe as quick as they can right now. As once you are in range it's pretty much game over for most. Then you have the issue with shotguns and corner popping. That im not really sure how you could fix, maybe by making players have to aim the shotgun and then reducing their movement speed when aiming to punish that style of play (corner popping) whilst promoting a risk and reward with the shotgun, if you nail the hit deal massive amounts of damage, whilst missing could mean your doom. Another way they could test out balance changes is by doing gun game events where players can test out the changes in a more focused in mode. idk, another one of my posts that ended up in me just spitballing some ideas.

I can only imagine making the servers 50v50 a thing they could do for now if the x64bit upgrade allows for it. If not the cross-district matchmaking is still the better way to go. But I wonder how 20 more players in the district would feel. Would it be too chaotic? Or would it bring more life?

will 64bit allow for higher player counts in districts? And wasn't it in a RTW trailer that 100 people could be in a district at once?

anubis is one of my favorite guns to play. It sounds nice and feels nice.

I would at least like to try a longer ttk just to see how it plays. I can say for sure though that I can't stand respawning 100+ meters away and dying in .923 seconds and then doing it all over again. I'd like battles to last a while.

I re-engaged with this game around the time LO took over. I have been very supportive still, but now truly understand the unrest. I mean think about it. It's been 4 years and the game is an absolute mess right now. (not that it was ever better before). Ill start with just how I feel playing the game currently. I hop into a server and feel like it's a struggle to pick a gun. I can't play anything without the looming feeling of "Did I earn this victory? Or did I just play another broken gun? Then comes the multiple lost games I have to go through, because the matchmaking is just horrible. I won't say everyone is a cheater just because when I finally play decently I get called a cheating prick. And with a small population like APB's that's what you will become known for, a cheating prick in all of it's toxic glory. Support and moderation is useless, even when GM's made themselves known in a server, THEY COULDN'T ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING. WHAT WAS THEIR PURPOSE!? Then you get into the issues with the game's performance that is becoming worst and worst as time goes on. And the numerous issues that STILL have yet to be fixed Like a big one: How come STILL the crosshair doesn't inform the player of the ACTUAL bloom of their weapon. (Unless you turn the hud scale up to 100%) Once you do turn it up to 100% do you realize how GOD AWFUL ALL THE GUNS ARE IN THIS GAME. ALL of them just bloom WAY TO MUCH. They nerfed every gun into oblivion making them feel like paint ball guns malfunctioning. Most of the mission objectives for this game just do not work for it. They all will end up in a toxic match if the enemy team is better than you: VIP: Turns into the enemy bum rushing the VIP in a car jumping out and just obliterating you Item hold: Turns into lets take it to 1 of 3 locations on the map to camp it Deathmatch: You are spotted ANYWHERE, which makes doing anything impossible especially if the enemy is already using an aimbot Take the item to your base and hold: Oh boy I can't wait to be stuck doing the same objective for 10minutes on top of having to play a running simulator. There are so many things that need to be done still, this 64bit upgrade is just the start of the mountain. And it's understandable to be upset when it took 4 years for it to happen (only counting when LO took over as G1 did nothing). I still honestly think that there will never be a "final nail in the coffin" for this game though. As matt said it is still one of the most unique experiences on the market. I feel as if there needs to be a lot of stuff remade from the ground up for APB. Sections of financial need to be redone with better balance in mind (since LO already recognized that each block is it's own mini-map) dido for waterfront Gunplay just needs to be different. This area of the game has not aged well at all in the current market. I do not care how controversial this opinion is. Most modern games feature more recoil but more accuracy. If LO tried this for the NTEC instead of just increasing how much it blooms maybe guns would be in a different state right now. But no, they take way too much single finger muscle memory to get the min-ttk that the experience is just not fun. And I know i'm right because hitscan macros wouldn't be such an issue in this game. No one wants to learn how to perfectly time the Colby 45 to get the perfect ttk. It's just not fun to fight with or against. Yes WITH cause when you have that one teammate who just popopopopopop all the enemies you come across it becomes a bench warming game with you on it. At this point this post is too long and usually I would delete all of it cause what's the point. I'm just going to get quoted about why i'm wrong and how I must be a bronze or some other reason. But the facts have to be faced. That these are the core issues with the game still and they are the reasons people don't stick around to play. Lets just say Little Orbit does make a tutorial that teaches new players how to actually play APB they still wouldn't stay because of these CORE issues. It does sound like Little Orbit recognizes these core issues, but are too passive to act on them at this time. Why? I don't know...engine upgrade or something. I worry for the future of the game after this 64bit upgrade cause it feels like they don't have plans on what to do next.

Anything that makes visibility easier should not be allowed to be changed

That's on them, they can't have an unfair advantage just because their hardware can't play the game.

Basic weapons should be free yea Unmodded guns should be free and relatively easy to acquire. Then the free perma weapon choice should be one of mod ability 1 or 2 slots. That way new players can easily sink their teeth into the modding system of apb without feeling pressured to grind. I think consumables should be removed for purchase instead be put into a battlepass reward system with increasing amounts. (just as something to add to a battle pass)

You're right but weapons are extremely accurate which makes staying on target more skill based and not up to the weapon bloom gods I WILL NOTE that not every weapon in over watch is hitscan and most are fast projectiles. But movement is very key in overwatch as it is in apb. So I do agree with the car one. As every player has a car available to them. The jumps though can't be TOOO hard to pull off. I know there are some jumps in apb already but they feel more like glitches/exploits. So that one needs some thought. I think the worst roof hold is that one area in financial where the bridge overwatches 2 ladders to get to a hack/spray. Something like that needs to be fixed/have some kind of counter besides taking your car to a bridge with no cover. Headboosts would definitely increase team play, and im not against just chilling on my team8s head while waiting for a match

There could be limited time pre-customized cars for a free last tier reward. This would give free 2 play players a reason to play every day and try and get a decent car at the end of the pass if they can't play well enough to get the cash to buy one/don't have time to grind to something like 195. Weapon skins are another thing that could be put into the pass. I think it was mentioned somewhere, that muzzle flash could have some customization too. Have some more free rewards like consumables for early tiers. Maybe some free trials to higher ranked mods (car surfer, spotter, wide-boy ammo box) I don't think anything besides reskinned weapons should be added to the pass and it should be emphasis that it is a reskin of a acquired in-game through gameplay weapon. There could be some more professionally made themes, or even music that can be played from a boom box or player's car. Some nice spray art/symbols could be put out preset clothing A lot of these suggestions of course need to have at least some level of quality behind them.

Very true, can you come up with some examples?

well my first worry is that a sniper projectile is much faster than an opgl rocket so I just imagine there is room for something like a sniper projectile to desync and/or be impossible to land in a game like this. Regarding the recoil thing, I personally would prefer if APB had more recoil and less bloom for it's weapons. This would make landing shots feel a lot more like a skill than your luck. I think LO just made too many guns bloom just too much. That's just my opinion though. Lmao poor silvers, it is surprising how many players don't understand that movement is key. Yea I suppose. I guess the core issue is the maps having some big gaps that leave you completely vulnerable. Matt did acknowledge that the maps needed tweaking (coughs and says waterfront) . I know financial has quite a few spots as well where it's a sort of king of the hill situation. Ladders are just not super fair when it comes to trying to flank enemies as they can make quite a bit of noise. (not saying to nerf the sound they make XD) But maybe add in some more spots where stairs are then have ladders in spots that give quicker access. A sort of Risk and reward thing. Ladders get you up there faster but can leave you vulnerable to attacks but if you do make it can put you in a good spot. While stairs are a safer and quieter choice for a possible flank attack. idk just spit balling.

Yea ignoring is only good for players who are harassing someone. And players shouldn't have to ignore so many people, Cause there are still ways to be toxic without using the text chat. (imagine tea-bagging one just to make yourself feel better)

I think one of the things i don't like about apb is that you can shoot under cars. Since you have some areas where there is just no cover for players to use besides their car. And if you get someone who is like you said trigger botting landing those shots will be super easy. I think fixing this issue does have to be a core fix to the game. More recoil would at least put more skill to moving a player's mouse but would still give snipers an advantage. A good balance for snipers would be a projectile, but im aware that syncing that projectile in a server would be near impossible (i assume)

Yea I really hope they can pull it off

Agreed

I don't want to fight bots thinking they are players. But I would be all for limited events that come out with some simple large scale PVE content. Like a simple horde shooter for a Halloween event. Letting players fight a common enemy might actually help reduce toxicity. I think the nicest I ever seen players was when those Free for all matches were being held in financial where everyone fought everyone and it was just fun chaos.

There needs to be some way for the fear of god to be put into players. The feeling that what they say can have them be held accountable. I know overwatch does it, where it informs the player that text chat may be recorded for reasons related to such matters. Have some blatant words be sent to support (please don't over censor as that will definitely be more annoying that resolving) But words related to hate speech or real-world issues should not be allowed. This is a game not twitter.

40vs40 is not as big as ~vs~ Something like this would be huge for the game.

If the stuttering and freezing can be fixed alongside a smoother framerate + faster load times and I will call the 64bit upgrade a success. But keeping the momentum after the upgrade is a must.

A server merge should happen in as clean of a way as possible, but make sure to keep the player informed on what district they join and what region it is. So many players don't even know that the advanced tab during district select is where you go to find a populated district as the automatic selector almost always puts the player in a low pop server. (thus making new players assume the game has 0 players instead of 40)

Yea the name and shaming thing is not okay to do. But there does need to be some sort of proof that these systems are working otherwise players will continue to say that the anticheat does not work even if it is. I only remember once LO saying that I think it was Battleeye banning a bunch of what were assumed to be new accounts testing cheats.

I'm still just waiting for EasyAntiCheat to do the same amount of work as battleeye. I think most cheating comes down to the game design of APB. Hitscans could be mitigated by removing the crosshair turning red and reworking how to tell if someone is an enemy. I will say it over and over again but APB NEEDS a killcam feature. It would be a great way of teaching players how they died or if incase there is a cheater it can easily be captured and sent into the support team for proper investigation. I'm not someone who goes around and calls everyone a cheater, I only once seen a speed hacker.

A big problem with companies looking at game balance is they simply look at how often a gun *wins* a game. And if said gun is not winning games it gets buffed. When in reality the gun gets tons of kills but just doesn't win games and/or is just very unfun to play against. Generally speaking weapons that take less skill to use are what's going to be annoying to fight. So instead of making them weaker, make them take more skill to use.