MattScott

See my explanation here.

Hi everyone, This one is on me. I spent the last two weeks meeting with a portion of the team for 12 hours a day to map out the future of APB: Reloaded. I got excited about some things we have been playing with, and I made a vague/not-so-vague comment in a thread that completely derailed it. I usually don't delete or remove forum threads, but in this case I've decided to do it, because the information I gave was poorly handled. Ultimately I shouldn't have said anything at all. Not because of the negative reaction that followed, but because I didn't provide enough information. My comment made it sound like Fight Club was being removed entirely and sooner than the new mode will be ready. I'll do better with information in the future. Here is where we're headed: - There is a new mode coming fairly quickly. I'll be posting more details as soon as possible when I get the final feedback from development, but I intentionally want to wait till we have completed work on the servers and lag. - Internally the new mode is being called "Riot". It will go to OTW long before we add it to production, and we can run it as a replacement to Open Conflict. - I'll take a harder look at Fight Club to create a better strategy for fixing the issues I have with it. Nothing is going to change without a lot more discussion with the community and testing. We are new, and I want to start adding new content, but that should never involve destroying anything that players are having fun with right now. Sorry, Matt EDIT: I went ahead and made the original thread visible for reference. I have locked it, just to insure that players don't continue to read it and panic.

Hi all, Just for clarity, I think we've designed something that fills the spot that FC was intended to from a gameplay / reward stand point. The problem with FC is in the implementation. It's using a small corner of an existing district, and frame rate will always be a problem till we fix it. Ultimately we'll let the players decide. If they really like FC and want it to stay, then I'm 100% fine with that. We can run the new mode in place of OC, but I'm super excited to get players feedback on something entirely new. Thanks, Matt EDIT: Nothing is getting removed till the new mode is ready, and we'll likely beta test the new mode long before that.

Hi guys, Spoiler: I am going to get rid of Fight Club and Open Conflict. Besides the awkward FPS problems, I don't feel either of these are fulfilling their role in the game at all. We're 100% focused on cleaning up the lag and server performance right now. But as soon as that's done, and the game is playing smoother, then I'll announce the new mode that will be replacing them. EDIT: FC will stay in until we fully release the new mode, and we see a significant drop off in FC players. Apologies for upsetting anyone. My excitement got the better of me in this post. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, I regularly scan through this thread, but I've been posting my updates to some of these issues publicly. We're all focused on lag/DDOS issues before we jump into any more content. But this thread factored into my recent Roadmap update. Thanks, Matt

Hi guys, We have performed an emergency patch to address the disconnect issues. Can you let me know if the issue is improved? Thanks, Matt

Hi all, I like this idea, but it doesn't honestly solve the core problem of why people want to join the most populated servers in the first place. At the end of the day, it shouldn't matter what server you join - except for what kind of district you want to play in. Players should match with any other player currently in any instance of their same district. This would significantly improve your matches, because the server can choose from a much wider population. Unfortunately we need Phasing to make this work. Phasing is the ability to throw away the network layer and rebuild it without unloading all the level assets. That isn't supported in Unreal 3.0. So we've put this change as soon as possible after Unreal 3.5 launches. Thanks, Matt

Hi everyone, I'm seeing three different issues being discussed here: 1) Random disconnects (reported by the OP) We are experiencing heavy DDOS issues, and that will cause disconnects as well, so this is tricky to diagnose. If you weren't getting disconnected before, and you are now, then we likely need to look at something. The timing is too suspect with respect to the latest build, so I'll assume that's the cause. Please PM me any details for what you're doing when you get disconnected, and I'll send those to the devs to investigate. 2) Kicks for disallowed programs This comes from BE. These will always be accompanied by a message within five minutes of joining a district. Right now the majority of these are for Auto Hot Key style programs running on the system. We need to get a pinned post up in the Technical Support forums to help players with this issue. 3) Being forced AFK while actively doing something in the District This is another issue we need to look into. Can someone PM me with details surrounding specific actions that seem to trigger this? I'll forward them to the devs to investigate. Thanks, Matt

This is generally where we're heading with a couple differences.

As a direct reply to the OP: In my opinion dethreating is the symptom of a larger problem which is low populations to match against. Today, we have the highest concurrency in the game in over a year, but we're still only matching you against the 40 other players on your server. We should be matchmaking across all districts - not just the one you happen to make it onto. We are working to fix this but it will take some time, because we can't implement the solution I want till we get the new 3.5 engine upgrade out the door. In the meantime, we are also working on a new mode (as opposed to Fight Club or Open Conflict) for players to engage in that will help them be able to practice tactics, weapon switching, map knowledge, and other skills while giving them a better experience. I'm hopeful that mode can go live before the 3.5 upgrade. We'll see. Thanks, Matt

This has gotten as far as it's going to go. I'm going to close this off now. Thanks, Matt

With all the new systems in place, we are re-evaluating how /report should work. I still want a way for players to flag behavior that can give GMs people to spot check. TL;DR - We are going to reimplement /report so it actually benefits the system with information we can use. We currently only kick for AHK. You should be fine. I couldn't have said it better myself.

The initial temp ban period allows for us to review the offense and determine whether to convert it to a permanent ban. If the system started crazy banning people for no reason, and my team was too swamped to keep up, then we know those bans would only be temporary and self correcting. Fairfight is still active. We have just disabled all the messages.

You wont get banned for those. You do get kicked though. We are working on making that error more understandable. BattlEye need to pass us a better explanation.

Hi everyone, I've seen this topic floating around the forums, and it's time to set the record straight. We are banning for hacking and cheating. The goals of our cheat implementation are: To eliminate cheaters and hackers from the game, so that regular players can enjoy themselves To avoid inaccurate bans for cheating and hacking To avoid having to mass unban players ever again This last goal is crucial. Unbanning players resets the balance of the game. I felt it was necessary based on my own research, but only because I didn't like the previous subjective banning implementation. Here are some answers to avoid any miscommunication of our strategy: We only ran BattlEye in observation mode for about a week after it first launched. This was just to review data without triggering any potential unfair mass bans. The bulk of "easy" cheats or AHK programs simply don't work with BattlEye. (NOTE: If you're getting kicked from APB then disable any Auto Hot Key programs. They are not allowed in APB). We have three different systems that can ban a player. These are *mostly* escalating temp bans that get longer and longer the more you get flagged. Here is the important part that makes sure we achieve all three goals I outlined above: My CS staff gets real time reports on the temp bans. We use that initial period to review each case and determine if we want to make it a permanent ban. I can tell you right now that 100% of the bans we've reviewed were made permanent. I am not proud of banning. I've already spoken on this topic a lot before, so I'm not going rehash that here. We will not name and shame banned players, and we will not provide numbers on how many people we have banned. Thanks, Matt

I am VERY interested in adding new languages.. however there is a lot of text in the game. Typically localization rates are $0.10 a word, and we have more than 400,000 words which means $40k per language. I think right now, I want to focus on working through the contacts and progression to make sure we've locked in the content we want, and then we'll start the process of translating. Yes. But I didn't list it because we need to identify where the art went and make sure the UI system is still supported. Once I have all the moving parts nailed down, I'll add it to the Roadmap.

Hi everyone, For the most part, I really enjoyed reading this thread, and I want to personally thank those players who took the time to offer advice or tryto answer the OP’s question. To the OP, I appreciate the honest open question. It raised a lot of good points. I did mention the matchmaking and threat systems in the Q&A, and they are big priorities (although not as big as lag right now). Changes are coming. Thanks, Matt

This is something in design, and I'm really excited about where we are headed. However it is complicated. There are a number of things that need to occur in tandem, some of which aren't possible with Unreal 3. So changes will go in after Unification is complete.

This is absolutely a pre-requisite to any action mentioned above. It's a great example of why we need to take this slow.

Hi everyone, Here are the current CS stats right now: -5,580 total tickets have been created for APB since the new portal went up on 5/25 -3,293 of them have been closed. -14,092 interactions back and forth on tickets. -1,249 of them are untouched. I'm not going to try and sugar coat these numbers. We slowed down due to staffing changes and training. We are continuing to hire to meet demand. We are committed to doing better. Also if you didn't get unbanned, you do not need to open a new ticket. Please just reply to your existing ticket to have it re-opened so you can request a review. Thanks, Matt

Hi there, This is something I'm contemplating, but the implementation would be very very different from what has been discussed. We have already started more regular email communication with our players, and something like this would need to be communicated months and months in advance to give everyone enough time to react if they want. Nothing is going to happen immediately with this. Thanks, Matt

Hi guys, I can understand your trepidation. I'm not even saying it isn't warranted. We are attempting to bring back as many former RTW employees as possible, and for this we have rehired a former APB designer. He has a deep and intimate knowledge of the game, and while you may not agree with his direction, these changes wont be made by rookies. He has read through the forums and also reviewed how each weapon is performing to make sure it's meeting the original goals of that weapon. This wasn't about nerfing. This wasn't about evaluating how many players are using a specific weapon or its popularity. This was about looking at the overall matrix and evaluating how each weapon fits into our game to make sure everything is where it needs to be. We have lots of new content planned, including a new gun in the near term. But before we can add stuff, we need to tighten up the design a tad. I said in the Q&A that we needed to be careful and I meant it. I'm hopeful that this wont be as big of a change as you're anticipating. Thanks, Matt

Yes. We are planning to make a complete pass through the console district maps to help fix things. We are hoping to correct some of the areas that were handled badly We do have to be careful with this effort. Our main focus right now is just getting the districts to play better. I don't want to spend months revising district maps and holding up more content. I can definitely say that we are removing the N-HVR nerf from the Anubis. I can't speak directly to different crosshairs yet. Good idea, and I hear everyone on their concerns over ARMAS. Please bear with us. We need to clean up the store. This wont be a one-and-done effort. After this change, we'll see how the system works and continue making adjustments. There are competing goals at work here - show everything for advance players but make the store friendly enough to new and casual players. I'm not at all opposed to working out a way down the road where everything can be seen and bought. Right now, we can't do anything with the PC store because it's a mess. This first step is just to get our hands around it, and then we'll keep iterating till we all feel comfortable with it.

For clarity mostly we're removing duplicate references for items in the store. You'll still be able to buy the variation under the item itself. Having said that, some of the items are being removed and then added to a sale rotation to help clean up the sheer volume of stuff in the store. Map changes aren't in the weapon balance pass, but we will be working through map issues in the Roadmap. Basically, we have made a pass through the existing weapons and looked at how well they fit into the niche they were designed for. We also looked at under performing weapons to try and figure out how to make them more attractive. To give one specific change, the Anubis is getting a new crosshair, because the old one was wonky. I felt this pass was necessary to properly define the empty space in our weapon line-up before we started implementing new items. I'd like to see a proper database of every item as well, but the store isn't the place for that. We need to balance usability and align the stores across all platforms in prep for the codebase unification. Right now we spend lots of time administrating the each storefront differently. There is also a redesign coming. Yes. That is the goal.

Hi all, I'm not avoiding a Roadmap in any way. I had thought I spelled things out fairly well in the Q&A session to live up to my promise of a Roadmap in 30 days. However several players have expressed a desire to see more detail, so I'm translating our dev sprints into a post now. That should be up tomorrow. Thanks, Matt