KnifuWaifu

and yet i wrote so much in response. are we politics now?

I disagree. in my experience the amount of hackusators and griefers/trolls/undesirables isn't in the above average range. It's more the noisy/annoying minority and a reasonable player that learns to just chill would only have a handful of bad eggs on their list than over half the district. But it doesn't matter because it is customisable, it can be undone and it leans towards teaching players to become more chill - if someone is finding that their matchmaking times have skyrocketed they've either put too many on that list or they are exhibiting behaviour which puts them on other people's lists. The first is easy to fix - just chill and remove names, maybe that player who t-bagged you once isn't such a bad OP, maybe that rank 255 Silver wasn't aimbotting and just got lucky/was better than you, maybe that friendly-fire incident was actually an accident. The second scenario not so much - it means you're toxic and no one likes you, so you gotta 180 that behaviour or just not play anymore. That all said, again in my experience, I've found very few players are outrightly toxic, there are a noisy few and I can think of maybe 1-2 names I'd put on the /ignore+ list off the bat, but most who are intentionally toxic tend to be those with names like Names removed. - Azukii people who really didn't make those accounts with the intention of become long-term players, so putting them (or them putting themselves since it's their behaviour) in perma-timeout really doesn't seem like a bad idea.

I think our UndeadConfection is making a point that invisible does not mean immaterial. Canonically something that is invisible is still a solid object, only light passes through it, but it will still interact with material objects. But I understand that you mean they'll basically turn into ghosts, so they can't be seen, heard, or interacted with in any way once they're on the /ignore blacklist. Some games have a thing where they just turn immaterial but still transparent, this stops physical griefing but those pesky players still find ways to make their ghostly visage an annoyance, so really just having them disappear altogether is the best option. This is true. I mean letting us Mute Themes was a step in the right direction and that still before and after got some push back from those cool kids so hopefully it's just a matter of time for making APB a safer place to play. I have no idea what that means for Fight Club though - Missions and Open World is easy because Matchmaking can just keep them separated and in Open World there's not really any significant interaction for it to be too much of an issue. Fight Club though? Like will you or they be blocked from joining the District because there are ignored players there? I guess if you're both completely disappeared (I'm assuming that /ignore blacklist will make you invisible/immaterial to each other) then it wouldn't be that big of an issue, but it sure would confuse other players to see two enemies completely ignore each other, also for those using the /ignore blacklist they'll be seeing friendlies and enemies open fire at "nothing". I mean that's not completely game-breaking imo but it sure would take some getting used to, especially on this nights where the FC numbers are barely enough to start a match. Ah what about Events and an ignored player becomes the Horseman?

I had an idea similiar to this but it just blocks those on your /ignore list from ever being matched with you on missions (both as a friendly/enemy) but some seem to think that giving us the power to tailor our gaming experience this way will lead to everyone being blocked ala that one episode of Black Mirror and no missions ever happening again. I think it'll just quarantine the toxic few into this purgatory and make for a better experience for all, especially since you can /unignore players, so those who are really keen with that command might see the light and not /ignore every player that ever so much as does anything remotely displeasing. Having them go invisible however is going to take a fair bit of code-fu beyond my understanding.

There's also that equally super effective Compare option when sorting through your Weapons Locker...

This is true but still need to retrain my brain to not panic when I hear a passenger start "psss, psss, psss"ing at my car. Just like the DMR AV and ALIG, you become afraid of certain sounds when "safe" inside a vehicle. I really wished that was a thing, they had me excited for a minute there. Although I have the barrel-mag version but I'm assuming since I haven't seen the banana-mag version leaning out of any windows I'm going to go with that version can't be used as a passenger either. Now the Rabid - I think that's the only LMG that can be used out of a window - it's Hard Damage is pretty weak, but like the NSSW, you're equipped to put more lead down-range than the CR762, but considering the speed of most car chases - I'd go with the CR over LMG, most vehicles aren't in shot long enough to take advantage of a 50+ round mag. HOWEVER I'd like to take this opportunity to once again shamelessly plug my fantastic idea to turn the poor Espacio into Gunships! - now use of the poor Espacio didn't come up much in the event, not nearly as much as the Vegas or Pioneer, but they were around and it would have been really awesome to have had them given an advantage about those other two reigning champions because being a rear passenger in a van is pretty lame except for those few circumstances where your side of the vehicle is facing the enemy. With the growing hatred of Car Surfer and calls for CA3 to be standard, maybe a Player Mod Revamp/Redesign is on the horizon, so I think gunships would be a good solution to us Heavy Weapon users who sometimes feel the need to stop camping corners and venture outside a bit. That said, I do like how the front passenger is higher than the rear door dweller - this made for no friendly fire incidents between passengers, although a few times my shots seemed to go through them so I'm wondering if FF was just not turned on which was probably more likely the case than the Espacios actually been advantageous to use in these (too frequent) arenas where my beloved Car Surfer is disabled.

True. They'll always find a way and like I said it'll then be extra code and patches and constantly tweaking the system to stop them as they find more and more ways to avoid any anti-griefing system so they get to grief. I totally agree that this issue isn't big enough to go through all that trouble and add more headaches to the developer's list of headaches. I think that's where my second part was going - I'm assuming that this anti-griefing system defines griefer as "anyone not in this mission right here" as opposed to people who just haven't K'd up. So two groups on separate missions can still get caught in the trap since, although they are missioning, they're not this missioning so they'll become attackable by members of the other mission. I mean, it sure stops your scenario where people are joining missions just to be immune to the anti-griefing thing but it opens up a whole scenario where the whole server could potentially stack objectives in the one spot just to have a massive free-for-all at Double B, now that sounds fun to me, but probably not to everyone, so best to leave it alone and just /report those that do it intentionally enough to rustle our collective jimmies.

You just, you just described my whole existence... I'll try! I think for the HP not mattering thing - we're suggesting that if a out-of-mission player/griefer enters the "mission zone" (so far it's <10m near an objective) the griefer will become hostile/attackable to both factions in that mission. This obviously includes their vehicles too. Reducing them to 10% HP while in this zone/attackable phase is probably to counter them parking a APIII or Dump Truck over a point and still managing to grief/disrupt a mission for those crucial few seconds. I'm guessing also that the change into attackable would be until the griefer died, so not just while they're in the zone because another exploit is to sit at 11m to objective, jump in and be a banana but an attackable banana, and then jump out to be immune again. So to stop that the phase change will need to be permanent until death. But then what's to stop them just respawning and keep doing it - I mean even being attackable and at 10% some really dedicated griefers can still cause a lot of harm, so do we respawn them >1000m from that zone? Put in a kick rule, like with friendly fire incident? if they phase-change too many times they get booted? Now it's getting complex and needing exceptions and added content just to counter what again I still agree with isn't that big of a deal in the greater scheme of things, it's a shitty thing to do to players but at the end of the day unless this solution can be very easily implemented with little fuss and lots of foolproofness, it's probably not worth it to stop that <1% of griefers out there. Easier to teach players to just chillax and press K again than to combat this - I mean being chill in game helps with so many other circumstances than just dealing with griefers, so it's win-win really. Totally. Like with DoubleB's Stabba fiesta, which I love, it seems like those accidental griefers or those """forced""" into being griefers will get the worst of it. I am def more guilty of accidentally booping into another's objective more times than I've had it done to me intentionally. Oh and what about those in a different mission entirely? It's again not uncommon for missions to have overlapping areas of play, imaging having your mission destroyed because you took a shortcut through someone else's objective? Objectives dropped on other objectives? Now there's a 10m zone of "everyone gets fucked". Yeah as much as I love the idea of combating griefers by making them attackable, it seems a huge risk now to solve a little problem.

I like this idea the best. Maybe even have their/vehicle hp tick down while they're blocking mission things instead of just a blanket 10%, that way it'll stop those rare times someone is unintentionally blocking/disrupting a mission. Not sure how it'll work with item/object carry missions - will the killzone move around with the item? Because that then opens up a whole new world of reverse-griefing - players in missions (now with extra time added) running around murdering those afk/not in mission. Imagine plonking a brief case outside of DoubleB on a busy day - mayhem. I mean I like the sound of this mayhem, but yea sounds messy and some might not enjoy it. These are both my experiences - I mean out of mission players griefing those isn't unheard of, but it's maybe one or two a session and oftimes it's either someone crusing for a ban/warning/theydontcare or they're butthurt from a previous mission or a newbie fresh from another game and doesn't realise that they're no in on the mission, see other players, and just start going ham. I do enjoy the chaos in open world APB - they definitely shouldn't remove that and I think griefing is such a minor thing it doesn't need to completely change that chaotic atmosphere just to stop what really doesn't hurt missions all that bad - yes you might lose 1 mission if they're lucky, but losing is OK, just K up and do another - if they keep it up - well look at that ToS violation and /report them and go chill out for 5 minutes while they tire themselves out.

https://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/news/2020/10/19/halloween-event

As long as I get at least 1 assist per match I get paid, so what? Personally I wouldn't report this unless I have some really hard evidence like basically them in chat admitting that they're doing it on purpose to spite everyone, otherwise, how can you prove that their intent and it wasn't some other factor? Also Asylum/FC is different, for one it's brutal with the AFK timer so I find it hard that they managed any sort of idleness without being removed from the server. And it's not that detrimental to the match tbh, in a Mission District it's a bit different as each player has a larger role to play and people AFKing/throwing the mission is a really big no-no, but FC? One player intentionally feeding every 2 minutes isn't that big of a deal and you shouldn't let it ruin your game. Win or Lose you still get points in FC, so let people be. For reals, as someone who is legitimately bad at this game and has had that AFK timer pop up while they were actively trying in the game I think you should give them the benefit of the doubt. Like I said - that AFK timer, it is brutal in FC, so they could be lagging and maybe tabbed-out to find out what's making their PC run like patootie, this happens to me so often and so often it's fkn Windows Update lurking in the background, so I gotta shut that shit down. Also maybe someone is blowing up their PMs, Discord is a btich and loves to ragequit its overlay for no reason so now I gotta alt-tab to find out who is bloop-blooping in my ears every 1.2 seconds and hey maybe they're a friend and I'm trying to get them to get in on the APB action or I'm just chilling and playing APB at the same time, let people enjoy their gaming moments, not everyone needs to be 210% focused on a video game to play it. If they're trying to beat that AFK timer and be intentionally feeding, they've got to be climbing ladders, spawning cars, or doing damage to other players, like I've said I've legit had the game almost kick me because I couldn't in the time allowed do any of those things while I was playing. I suck, my PC sucks, and my connection sucks, I can miss every shot, die before I find a ladder, and in Asylum the opportunities to use a vehicle are limited, so for someone to do all that and not be kicked, they're some pro-feeder really intent on ruining other player's experience which I find really unlikely they won't be boasting that in the chat, or they're just playing and having a bad time, or a good time, like I said I suck and still play and I find it hilarious that the score-topper rage-whispers me and my 1-26 because I made his 38-2 go 38-3, like bruh you're sweaty af and I'm just glad I'm on the scoreboard this round, so just let people play, if they're feeding, ignore them 1 player doesn't rule your experience, if they're just bad, help them or leave them alone, it's just a game. That said, it's just my opinion, I'm way more relaxed in FC than I am in Missions, but if you really want to go CSI on them and somehow prove that they were intentionally throwing the game, it does fall under griefing, maybe dethreating, although again FC is different, but you do you.

As a regular squatter this rustles my jimmies. I feel like threat colour should be included too, you know, those yellow painted silvers we all know and love, who "can't help but go all-out in every engagement" because "muscle memory" which gives them the above behaviours by default.

Without really knowing a great deal about the current way threat works I am of course going to throw in my highly (self)valued opinion - I agree that the thresholds between each Threat Colour should be very difficult to cross and maybe even twice if not three times as difficult to dethreat into. A ton of yellow players are really just either lucky or noob-stomping silvers But obviously there isn't a single cure all approach to threat, it needs to be tackled from different angles. Phasing, less flexible matchmaking, and more difficult crossing of threat thresholds are good starts though. Here's some random idea - try to completely deinsentivise Higher Threat players from attacking Lower Threat ones. Make it cost money instead of win money to kill someone more than 1 tier lower? So like if a Gold kills a Bronze they have to pay money (maybe to the dead player) instead of earn money? If they kill someone 1 tier lower (Gold kills Silver) they just get $0. Another option is to simply have the Gold threat player's money (and JTs to be extra evil) count down the longer they spend in the Bronze district. That would be fun. Increase lower threat damage and health if in matches against higher threats? I know some games (mostly RPGMMOs) have ways of pseudo-levelling up players so they can play together in the same level dungeon, maybe somehow work that into APB? Establish a "happy level" of damage and HP and either increase the lower threat's stats or decrease the high threat's stats to """balance""" the match? Mess with the spawn timers and distances? The higher the threat the more time it should take them to respawn and the further away from the "battle" they should spawn. Increase costs to spawn vehicles by factors of 100? Want to spawn that 4x4 Vegas with all the mods but you're Gold in the Bronze District? That'll be $100k. Yeah I have no idea what code-fu will be required for any of that, and no doubt just Phasing, Tweaked Matchmaking, and that little Pop-up/District Removal Notice that Matt mentioned is in the works would be a ton more effective at treating the issue with dethreating/threat levels, but it's nice to dream. Yes. I was around back in the days when the game rarely matched you with lower rank players and remember the 30+ minute queue times, it sucked but I think the veteran players need to take this one for the team so we can grow a healthy base of newer players. Yea it may be simply delaying the problem as they'll have to come up against veteran players eventually but at least in the time they can have a better chance to get a feel for the game. I've said before that new players need some sort of extended protection so they can really hone in on how to play APB and get a grip on it's little quirks before just being let loose on the greater population. And I have way more fun in balanced matches away - quality over quantity I say and I'm saying that as someone who barely has a few hours a week to play APB anyway and at the end of the day I'd rather spend those few hours in a tiny few good matches than in frequent matches wrangling bronzes/greens/Ts like escaped kittens while getting kerb-stomped by golds(yellows). As anecdotal as it is - the majority of players that I know that have stopped playing APB have done so due to that OOM issue after upgrading their PCs. They do intend to return once the Engine Update is complete, but as the time goes on they're finding more and more other games to occupy them in the meantime so I feel bad for APB's chances but the good news is that nothing out to date has yet to completely do what APB does that brings us back time and again and no doubt the "release the same trash with a new hat every year" practice that dominates the gaming industry, they'll no doubt come back, it just might be a while. Yes definitely, it sure sucks for the silver/gold (yellow) players who rubberband between threats but the vast majority of those are veteran players anyway and like I said maybe we just need to take this hit to our collective egos for the time being to give newer players a chance to get involved in the game before being noob-stomped by the power of 1000+ hours of gametime. At the very least, they should make it near impossible to dethreat while playing in a District that's below your current threat level, although that could just make the yellow players camp in the bronze server for longer since they no that there's no chance they'll be able to dethreat until they leave, but maybe they could just make it so a Gold player simply can't K up if they're in a Bronze District? And at least the Silver (Gold) Districts will get the occasional player boost.

I love this idea, lore/practicality be damned I really want to see more heavier weapons in APB because anything with large barrels just tickle my fancies. That said, I feel like this thing will just be a SHAW/AMG with extra steps (literally cause you'll be walking slower to get anywhere) so will rarely be used over anything more superior than the AMG which I think is touching the top of the TTK limits and that's not mentioning how easily SMGs will run circles around this thing. I suggest in addition to the great ideas they gave it like it has a shotgun spread or something, so it kinda drenches an area in a hot load of lead rather than an ever expanding group of points, with an effective range higher than a shotgun, I think it'll be a great way to make the gun more viable, at least to include it in the quirky Legendary category it should belong to.

I hate yes/no. I think I said it ages ago - but I wouldn't buff Kevlar directly, I'd just keep going on the tiers, bring out some Kev IV, Kev V, Kev XX. Give me that 1000% HP and 0% movement. But really I wouldn't mind seeing the game if they kept going up the tiers on mods.

Artistic perfection. And it's yours for £501.00. Please stop. We know that it's an AI program and what it does and it's doing it's best, so let us enjoy things because surely you're not suggesting that everyone here goes off and does thousands of hours and dollars worth of artistic training just to derp around with our character portraits. That's even less realistic than the AI which literally has the word Artificial in it.

Exactly. It isn't LO's way of coddling us and forcing positive-only reactions - it was because the other reactions (everyone does see how they removed more than just the downarrow right?) weren't shown to actually improve interaction and were being used for malice/trolling. It's the same reason Mute Themes option arrived - something good spoiled by the toxic few. As long elements in the community are hellbent on spoiling things, we won't be able to have nice things. APB community is to blame for these changes, no one else.

Like I said earlier, it was pretty obvious that the reactions were being misused and we can't have nice things if elements of the community insist on ruining it.

I think I said it somewhere else but totally yes. It was very apparent the reactions were being used for malice and unhelpful means, seeing certain member's post always end up with a certain number of negative marks and also negative marks being placed on places where they just weren't called for, again the APB community gets the tinfoil medal for taking something that should be used for good and using it for bad. We only have ourselves to blame for its misuse and now removal. I agree this would have been a nice alternative but probably would have the same effect as just removing them as, and I say this with all the expertise and knowledge of talking completely out of my butt, the element of anonymity was the driving force behind a lot of the negative reactions - force most people to put their names (even forum names) on to something and they're suddenly very polite.

Finally able to give this a chance, those sliders sure get addictive.

I am so confused over all these changes so many to read, and not a great deal of pictures - this is going to take a while. But my knee-jerk reaction is OBIR nerf? OBIR nerf?! And nerfing the SNR is just cruel and unusual.

You're so right. This is what happens when I only look at the pictures.

Awesome, I'm loving all this unbundling and alternative ways of getting gear/weapons. One question though: Does this mean items will be available for APB Cash only and not Joker Tickets? Or at those just for items already owned but you had to delete because you ran out of inventory space? I've said it before but seriously I hope putting inventory/outfit slots on ARMAS/JT stores is in the making. It's the only thing, besides Russia's greatest gift to humanity, I want to drop money on. Now you've got be intrigued - what forbidden weapon skin?

I agree that player made music is yet another area where an amazing tool of creativity has been ruined by a few toxic idiots and yes like how players have the option to Broadcast Music, all other players should have the option to refuse to listen to those broadcasts. Car music is actually pretty tricky to control at the moment, if you're in a match with them - it's pretty easy just blow up the vehicle, also if the music is particularly toxic (high-pitched or loud repeating notes) than you can report that player. Although if you're not in a match - the vehicle is near indestructible, and add in the fact that a player can park their toxic music spewing vehicle anywhere and abandon it, so you'll never know who is playing that music and can't report them. Options are never a bad thing, ultimately I'd prefer a volume sliders, or have the volume slider in the Music Player also react to player broadcast music, I mean most cars have all these weird customisation for stereos, it's a shame to block out a whole massive part of the game because some idiots can't control themselves. I think it's just more reason for the Music/Theme editors to have some sort of quality control built into them but at the end of the day toxic players have more time on their hands than LO's developers so even if the Editors are super locked down with magical-anti-toxic-music technology, the dickheads in game will still find ways to hurt other players, so a Mute button is really the cheapest and most effective option. It's just so shitty that those toxic few really ruin what is one of APB's strengths - customisation.

Yes. We need more recognition for positive happenings and behaviour, and also to encourage it more because we all know listing off the bad things just gives those who thrive off it more fuel for their toxic fires. One thing I like is when you get nice comments on your outfit, sometimes you notice them mirin' your corpse after they've killed you and will send a whisper like "nice outfit" or "nice car", that usually opens a conversation which melts the barriers of anonymity and hate between factions and you can both admire each other. That. Is. SO. Adorable. I wish my new player interactions were like that other than "Can I have a legendary?" I honestly think this is a mark of respect - the enemy clearly thought taking you down was great enough of a challenge that they needed to take a victory dance afterwards so you're doing something right in terms of rustling their jimmies.