StevenDeckard

Some are trying the game out due to the current situation - but with "dethreaters" haunting all of the bronze districts and "*lol*-stomping" new players, it is very likely that most will not stay (which is unfortunate).

Like I said above I have seen bigger teams being pitched against one another (and playing it "lag-wise" was not any worse than when the game decides to select the same mission locations for different teams at the same spots). My initial question (and idea if you will) revolved around the fact that clans usually like to play together with their own clan-mates (if not they would not be in that clan in the first place). Let me give you an example: When our cop-clan is out in force, we easily can fill two 4-player groups. As we are a roleplaying clan, it would be very nice to have everyone in one big group, so we could do things together as a "real" group (i.e. know where everyone is), as opposed to two 4-player groups. This would be especially useful for us when we do our normal police-roleplaying stuff (like for example patrol the streets, looking for open world crime, removing abandoned vehicles from roads and impound stolen ones). I am aware that this type of gameplay might not be what most people like, might want or even know is possible or done. The bottom line would be to give clans at least the option to have/play in bigger groups if they want to, but not to force it either. Aside from that it would of course be nice to not get any random group or random players as "backup" in normal missions, but have clan-mates in the same district be the first the game adds (if group sizes for clans are not changed). This is the main reason why we almost never call for backup, since one usually ends up with random players despite having one's own clan-mates available too. (Needless to say, aside from the availability of bigger groups, we would LOVE if more open world crime options for both enforces and criminals would be available, as there are so many possibilities of what could be added, even including dynamic events, making missions more unpredictable and fun for the participants).

@Crusadeer - Might be a bit off topic, but if you do not mind my asking but what servers do you play on? Our clan plays on the EU servers and we regularly have games with more than 4 vs. 4 players being pitched against eachothers, so something like 4 vs. 4 is usually no problem (that most of the opposition is made up of "golds" and "fake silvers" (i.e. dethreaters) thesedays is another matter that seems to get worse each day - a topic that is also - sometimes heatedly - discussed in several threads on the forum).

The reason why I suggested it as something clan specific is, that it seems unlikely that random players would group up this way (except if they would be people from one's the friends-list). Clan members on the other hand are bound to want to play with their clan-mates. While I do see problems getting normal matches I was not even thinking about normal missions, rather about "open world" missions (would LOVE to see more open crime mission possibilities, with dynamic mission parts that include vehicle pursuits, crime scene investigations, evading the cops,etc.), which I do like a LOT more than the normal ones to be honest. For example our police rp clan loves patrolling the streets, just like cops tend to do IRL, and it would be much more fun to do, if the group could be bigger. So instead of having two 4-player-groups trying their best to more or less cooperate their patrol, having an 8-player-group being able to do so much more efficiently.

The current standard group size of 4 players max, is very limiting, if one wants to play together with more than 3 members of one's clan. I am pretty sure that other APB clans might feel the same way and that they find it equally annoying that one can not invite more than 3 other clan members into one's group. Hence my suggestion that clans gain an increase in standard group sizes and thus the ability to invite more members into a single group. It should not be a problem in my opinion because many "teams" that are thrown together in normal missions do count more than 4 players on each team. That way clans would gain the ability to better play together (do not get me wrong members in our clan still try to play together, but not really having everyone in the same group still is very limiting). Anyway I wonder how other clans see this issue and would like to hear your opinions. Thanks!

@VickyFox - Thanks for your input and sharing your thoughts on the matter! Things were as bad before the threat levels came back, only then you had no choice and could not even report dethreaters. --------------- @Fortune Runner - I could not agree more, especially the past few days have been a total catastrophe. I did not encounter a single bronze opponent in the past 20 matches I had in any of the bronze districts. Instead found myself constantly pitched against max leveled players, using highest character mods and assets as well as gold weapons and weapon mods. Any new player having to endure something like that over and over and over will eventually turn around, uninstall and never touch the game again. Worse the "golds" even taunt others they stomp, making fun of how bad their opponents are - saw quite a few bronze players and beginners become completely desperate yesterday (we could have really used the help of a GM at that point)! Some even openly say they dethreat or worse they honestly claim they are "new" players (when evidently they are nothing of the sort if one checks them: level 255, high powered mods, etc.). What these "players" want is to stomp others, nothing more (seems more like the fulfillment of some rather petty power fantasy), they practically "farm" low level players and the game even rewards them for this. They do not want any real challenge or opposition, or else they would play in the gold or even the silver districts! And if they would those districts would not be empty. Oh I forgot it is more "fun" for them to stomp new players... - ...so sad and so maddening! Do not get me wrong, I like a challenge and do not mind loosing - but it is different if you play against someone who is at your own skill level and he/she manages to best you than being forced to play against some overpowered enemy against which you have no chance at all, no matter what or how hard you try. The way things are now any new player is greatly discouraged.

Could very well be due to the increased use of the internet and online features worldwide.

After having to suffer through several consecutive missions, fighting against waves of dethreathers (i.e. "gold" and "fake-silver" players) in bronze districts (both in Financial and Waterfront), I remembered that I did have a discussion revolving around this issue with a fellow player not that long ago in another thread. As the situation is growing worse it seems, I thought it best to copy-paste these parts into a new thread, to be able to discuss everything further (see the quotes below). The gist of the discussion was, that it might be helping the dire situation to introduce some kind of an automatic system, that moves someone who gets to "gold" thread-level to the appropriate gold server, disabling his ability to manually change back to any bronze district. In addition to that, the ability to gain points or earn credits should be severely limited for anyone playing at a lower threat level: Gold on Silver 50%, Gold on Bronze 5%, Gold on Green -100% (making them in fact loose money and with their kills not even being counted). I also do wonder why there is no system in place to disallow de-threating at all, especially since data from each player must be available (otherwise we would not be leveling up and all that), could that not be used to recognize if someone is playing badly on purpose to dethreat and punish that? Best thing for us bronze players and all the new players would of course be to not make it possible for "golds" to ever go back to a bronze district, period, no matter how badly they try to play. Also yes I am not a particularly good player and only play casually and for fun (mostly doing police RP, but having to do normal missions from time to time to progress in order to gain new items). But matches against overpowered golds are no fun for new players, casual and/or bronze players like myself - even if some gold players really seem to think so (getting wrecked and getting GG whisper spams is even less fun btw.).

@FirstCommander Holy moly, you guys really caught a truly big one there - congrats on that arrest!

@Artorius_ - The timer idea and having to shell out cash a huge amount of cash to remain (would even say having to pay that fine per mission and getting 95% less payout - although I still think auto-moving golds to a gold district is the best solution, since the pay-option would not deter griefers) as well as the inability to dethreat for a longer period - here I would suggest something more like for example 12 hours or even 24 hours - are a good ideas and should definitely help to get the situation under control. Had three matches in a row yesterday against those kind of players and it was an absolute nightmare - any new player would immediately uninstall the game after that, since such matches are no fun at all for anyone.

Would be much better for new players and players that have a lower threat-level (i.e. bronze) if dethreatening would not be possible or if a player gets to gold threat level he is allowed to finish the current mission and then is automatically spawned to a gold district (without the ability to immediately de-threat again). Gold-districts are almost always empty and one encounters hundreds of "silver" and golds in bronze districts, shredding lower-threat and new players. Another option would be to disable a de-threater's character mods, car mods and weapon mods automatically (there has to be a way to check if someone does this on a regular base) if he enters a lower level district, giving the population there a chance.

@Kevkof - the not-registering arrests happened during normal missions. I get that there should be rules in place to prevent "farming", but to be honest I do not really see why "open world crime arrests" are not counted towards roles, especially since it does take quite an effort to actually patrol the streets and look for crime happening. The way it is set up now is that people who like to roleplay cops are practically punished, since their efforts are not counted. It makes even less sense, if those cops do not use any character mods or weapon mods, carry no special equipment (i.e. cuffmates) and only use normal Less-Than-Lethal weapons - my standard loadout for example is: the starting "Obeya" pistol, the first Less-Than-Lethal "Stabba – CCG" one is able to get and 2 stun grenades. I do not even use any car mods in the squad cars I use or that are issued to our members! Why? Well all to make it as fair as possible, regardless of who you encounter (this usually means one can easily be taken out by any criminal, even with "only" starter equipment and/or escape with ordinary vehicles). While on the issue most of our clan would love to see more pursuits happening and maybe have missions specifically involving those (without artificially slowing down the suspects car!). It is loads more fun having to try to catch up to a good driver or having to try to set up roadblocks - but sadly all of this does not happen very often.

I agree, if an arrested criminal is freed it should not count as an arrest! But, like I tried to explain, it sometimes does not seem to count arrests even though the arrested was NOT freed by a fellow criminal. As the majority of members in our little cop clan tries to arrest criminals instead of killing them, we did notice that something seemed to be off with arrests for a while now. A second issue is that cops are not able to activate (witness) open world crime missions from inside their cars (this was definitely something that was possible a few years ago). That said having to jump out of the car to activate a mission against a suspect is only a minor inconvenience, even though it is now more likely that a cop misses the small time window allowed for activation.

Yes - our clan members and myself have experienced the same issues with arrest not counting (even though none of the arrested suspects were freed by fellow criminals). This is very weird. Also - this may be an related issue - any arrests made during "open world crime" missions (when enforces witness crimes in progress) do not seem to be counted towards one's cop rank level.

@FirstCommander - Nice job mate, thanks for sharing! Wish you had time to stay on for a tiny bit longer yesterday evening, because Fenton, Foxtail and I ended up in an awesome high speed chase on Waterfront, that lasted for at least 15 or so minutes: A random player went on a rampage with a stolen concrete truck and we tried our best to stop him, which resulted in a wild ride through the whole district (including some truly epic moments)! The pursuit finally ended with him attempting a jump and his truck getting stuck. Was loads of fun.

@FirstCommander - Thanks for sharing mate! Shame that there was only so little open world crime going on yesterday, since we were out on patrol in force this time. In any case keep those videos coming (totally remind me of the "Cops" reality-tv-show)!

Great videos, FirstCommander - thanks for posting them!

@ Skarma - Thank you for your posting and interest. You are very welcome to ride out on patrol with us in order to see if you like what we do (and vice versa). Do not hesitate to contact one of us in-game and we will also keep an eye out for you (your enforcer's name is "Skarma"?). We see you in game hopefully! @ FirstCommander - Nice screenshot - keep them coming! The new service car with its Belgian Customs Service paintjob turned out very good indeed. (Btw. I will refrain from posting screenshots made on my old "potato", since the game sadly does not look nearly as nice there and might actually lead to people wanting to poke out their eyes).

Thanks LO, and stay safe and healthy everyone!

Nice job on the updated cars mate!

A new branch of service that is in the process of being added to the clan roster is the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department. Fox has already made a very smart looking female deputy uniform as well as fitting LASD vehicles!

Oh bummer, thanks for clearing that one up FirstCommander (good to see you here on the forums) - Foxtail will fix this error as soon as he can (sadly he also has the problem of being unable to edit his postings yet due to some strange restriction here on the forums - as soon as he is able to he will be editing the first posting accordingly).

@ Ellen - Hope we did not overlook any in-game message yesterday (Fox was pretty busy most of the time with a new car in social and I only logged in pretty late myself).

@ Fenton - Thank you for sharing and well done on the classic NYPD cars (I kind of like the old look much better than the new ones to be honest). @ Ellen - You are very welcome to join up! We will keep our eyes open for your character (should you spot one of our leading officers - StevenDeckard, MrFoxtail79 or FirstCommander - before we do see you, just send us a whisper, so we can invite you).

@ Fenton - Very nice police cars and uniform, thank you for sharing! I also would love to see your Retro NYPD car. The NYPD livery seems to be quite prominent among cops in APB, since I have seen quite a few of those. @ Ellen - Thanks!