MattScott

Fair point as usual.

Hi all, For the record, we get daily analytics from /report. We had a different process until June when Easy Anti Cheat launched. Now /reports go directly into Easy Anti Cheat and trigger extra client inspection and a number of other items. The /report system itself is rather complicated. We don't weight additional reports from the same account to the same account. We also reduce the weight of new account reports. And we reduce the weight of false reports, but over time all reports lose weight and "fall off". So in Seedy's case, he doesn't need to do a thing. Things will self correct. With respect to dethreating, griefing, and AFK players, we have struggled. None of our previous efforts have made much of a difference. However in the last 2 weeks, we have adopted a new strategy which utilizes a combination of behavior analytics, invisible GM reports, and player reports. We sent out a significant set of warnings to players violating this policy. Many got a 1 day ban. That seemed to have a much better impact overall on the issues, so we will stick with that procedure. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I believe this issue was fixed in last night’s patch. Thanks, Matt

I promise to post more complete info on the Weapon Balance. Let’s not get too hung up on the ‘current balance’ verbiage. Nothing is going to happen in a vacuum.

Hi all, Max rank players will have the new contact automatically unlocked, but they will need to play missions to level them up and unlock the rewards. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, My July blog is up here: https://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/news/2019/7/23/content-update We've talked a lot about the Engine Upgrade, and even though I know many players are excited, I don't feel like a visual and performance update is enough to get players excited about the future of APB. So this month I'm revealing a lot of our new content plans for the main game that will launch alongside the Engine Upgrade. NOTE: A lot of the design elements are subject to change as they are still in development. NOTE: A couple players reached out to me asking if we are still going to release the new content tomorrow, and I realize now that I wasn't clear enough in the blog. These new contacts will launch with the Engine Upgrade - not in July. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments below. Thanks, Matt

Yes. I was only indicating "golds" and "bronzes" as a way to describe their skill. The plan is to try and remove the information used by dethreaters to game the system. We have another idea in progress to indicate ELO. The whole point of Phasing is to avoid any loading. There may be a transition screen while server-side objects are resynced, but there is no loading of assets on the client, since those are already in memory. Our matchmaking logic chooses a server that is more appropriate for your skill level, and then from there, you shouldn't need to phase at all.

Hi all, I just posted a minor update. We took a break from the new engine for the last 2 months to troubleshoot FE's existing servers to get the game running better. We just put a big fix up today (crosses fingers). Hopefully that will stabilize things so we can get back to the fun stuff. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We just made another change this morning. I wont go into the technical details, but it appears that when moving servers, one of the core libraries was left linking to the OS version. There was a slight difference in OS compared to where the servers were hosted. After fixing this issue, we did notice another significant improvement in performance. My hope is this will help clear up the Character Select / lag issues. Let us know. Thanks, Matt

I have commented multiple times on this, and the SPCT have also revealed that general loading times in the Engine Upgrade are already drastically faster (even without Phasing). The Phasing implementation will spin up new server instances for each type of district when we need them. However, these wont be unique, empty districts just for 1 mission like what you see on WoW. That is only necessary for PvE situations. We are also looking at changes to how threat (or matchmaking calculations) are done to help prevent dethreating. For obvious reasons I am not ready to comment on this yet, but we will be scrubbing all visible indicators of threat from the game, so players wont have as much information to abuse.

Hi all, Phasing is simply our term for seamlessly moving a player between two instances of the same type of district. It allows us to matchmake across instances and then aggregate each side together. In rare cases we may need to spin up a new instance which may be empty for a time till we add more players, but for the most part players will be moved to instances where other missions are taking place. Phasing can sometimes be confused with Instancing, where players are moved to a unique unpopulated area to play just for their quest/mission/etc. We are NOT implementing Instancing. Thanks, Matt

Okay. Back to the drawing board.

Hi everyone, There are now 581 total tickets (unsolved). And there are 386 tickets that have not been touched (untouched). We have been getting quite a few older players needing help to get back into the game, which is why our untouched ticket count went a little higher. Today we are answering tickets from July 5th, which means we are now at a 2 week response time. If your ticket is older than July 5th, and we have not reached out, then I recommend updating your ticket and asking for status. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We have been troubleshooting several solutions for the ongoing Character Select / Lag issue that happens regularly. Several changes were made last night, and the logs have cleared up, so we could use some community feedback to see if this has fixed the issues. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We are working with select players to collect logs and diagnose the issue. Many players reported this issue initially after the 4th of July. As of last night's patch, some of the same players reported a slight improvement where the issue would either die down or only showed up when many characters were on the screen. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I was asked specifically to weigh in on this poll. First, I am very much aware of the overwhelming negative opinion of RIOT on the forums. However, I also feel like those players that gave specific feedback on changes would complain if we dropped the mode and did nothing. So there is a bit of a catch 22 for us. Second, we have completely changed our strategy with respect to this game mode. We may still continue making small tweaks, but there are no ongoing plans to do any significant amount of development on RIOT itself until we get better feedback from the console launch. Instead we are incorporating some of the underlying systems into future plans that will go towards improving the main game. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, We have been actively working on this. Unfortunately the bug only appears in end user builds - not development versions. That means we have been unable to reproduce the problem in a way that gives us enough information on fixing it. However, it is one of our high priority issues to fix, and we will continue to hunt for the problem. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, This thread has gone long enough without a response from LO, so here is where I stand on this. 1) We are working on getting more GMs in-game to help But this is not an effective solution. Just like drivers who slow down when a cop is around, they always speed back up as soon as he's gone. 2) LO is not ignoring this issue Every solution we have discussed or seen discussed on the forums takes development resources and will compete directly with releasing the Engine Upgrade. I'm not opposed to spending dev time to fix dethreating. But from what I can see, all the ideas thrown around would take a couple weeks of dev time and players would find new work arounds in a couple days, which doesn't seem like time well spent. 3) Dethreating is an issue but its the symptom of larger problems IMO, we need real change in the architecture of how players are matched. The only lasting solution that I can see is to launch 3.5, merge all the worlds, and finish implementing cross-district phasing, so that we can match players across all districts / regions. This will move all 8 players to the "best" district based on best ping and best tick time. In this scenario players will simply choose the district type based on where their friends are, so they can mess around till a match starts. No spamming a district with 79 players to get the last spot. No visible threat segmentation. Once a match is ready, they all get moved. That way we can have golds fighting golds alongside bronze fighting bronze in the same district. The new phasing also allows us to spin up more servers dynamically, so we can add more Waterfront or Financial servers based on demand. From there we can work on ways to improve the algorithm and incentive all players to reach Gold rather than dethreat to Bronze. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I want to make sure my comment isn't taken out of context. During a chat I was having on unofficial Discord channel with the players, the subject was brought up "Why don't you just kill RIOT?" (I'm paraphrasing) I gave the stats and analysis that we found as a response. For clarity, the actual stat I gave was based on analyzing the same period of time and matches played across Fight Club and RIOT. During that period, for every 100 unique accounts that played a match in FC, 150 unique accounts played a match in RIOT. There was no comparison on matches per account or total matches across each mode because the length of matches varies a lot. I tend to agree with Tigrix that none of these modes are in competition with each other. Players all have their own preference. I felt our research was worth mentioning, because the forums can be an echo chamber for a relatively small percentage of the community. If RIOT wasn't getting any traction, then Little Orbit would simply remove it. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, Things continue moving the right direction. There are 613 total tickets (unsolved) which is our lowest amount to date. And there are 345 total tickets that have not been touched (contacted). Today we are answering tickets from June 24th, which means we are now at an 18 day response time. I went back three months to look at our average response time then vs. now. 90 days ago our average response time to new tickets was 19.3 days. Right now our average response time is actually 13.5 days with the *longest* wait time being 18 days. Lastly, if your ticket is older than June 24th, and we have not reached out, then I recommend updating your ticket and asking for status. Thanks, Matt

Hi all, All Firecracker titles on our list went out today. If you haven’t received it, go ahead and open a ticket with Support. We will start sending all the ARG Tier 2 individual codes tomorrow. Each code unlocks one Redhill weapon skin and the Conspiracy symbol set. These need to be hand delivered. We appreciate your patience. Thanks, Matt

This is something we are looking at, but it requires Phasing in the Engine Upgrade. On a side note we did discover a fairly big bug that only occurs in low pop situations in RIOT that basically abandons players who are waiting for a match. The team is working on a fix now.

Hi all, The Firecracker rewards from the 4th were awarded today. Thanks, Matt

Here is an update on this week's patch which includes some RIOT changes based on community feedback.

Yes. You'll be able to buy account bound versions. Understood. The current rewards are just for players that want them for free.