PolarKC

Hindsight is usually 2020. In this case we can't really estimate how long it would take to build a minimal viable product of APB from scratch in a newer Unreal version. Building a game is a monumental task, especially on the scale of APB. Even using current APB as a reference to build out a detailed game design doc... estimate accuracy for a project of this scale is a lofty if not unobtainable goal. Ask any dev, they've poorly estimated how long a single task will take countless times (I have), scale that up to a full project even with 30-40% padding and you could be off months or years. Suffice to say, if they could enter a time machine and go back 3 years to make a different decision, would they have enough knowledge at this point to do so? Probably not. Trying to start from scratch would be just as large a pipe dream as untangling the absolute mountain of spaghetti that is/was the RTW/G1 codebase. It is good that we see progress every week. It may not be identifiable to players or even the devs (I'm sure it feels this way sometimes), but they're working through problems. That is progress. At a point does one say "enough is enough" and walk away? Sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a drug. But like I said before, making the game from scratch was never necessarily a better option.

Woot woot! It's good to see you all are committed to this.

This is not an eSport. The ranks aren't accurate representations of relative skill anyway, all they do is give people false perceptions of how well matched they are to their opponents.

That's fair, but good discussion about the game is always productive even if there is a plan already. Plans change or need to be reinforced by the community. Do you have a link btw? I miss stuff like that all the time.

TLDR: Read the post please. I want to have a real discussion about Threat and it's effect on the playerbase and game. I agree. The threat system on a whole isn't healthy for the game. Bare with me while I explain why I think that. - Threat doesn't indicate relative skill very well. There are only 3 levels (bronze, silver, gold) meaning that each threat level has VASTLY different skill levels within them - Matt talked about this already in a dev blog, but it doesn't take very long to threat up or threat down. This makes ranks unstable and inaccurate. - Seeing a threat imbalance is demotivating (2 silvers vs 2 golds for example). This is the reason games like CS:GO don't show you ranks until the END of a match. Someone could be playing really poorly this match and be a higher threat, but if you saw they were gold going into the match you may be pessimistic. - It creates an avenue for people to trash talk. I get that trash-talk is a part of PvP games, but we need clean our fucking community up so more new players stick around. The gist is that the public facing threat system gives players a perception of how balanced a match is going to be... that is pretty inaccurate. I don't think any game has precisely pinned down a player's ELO because skill levels of an individual can change daily. With that knowledge in mind we can build systems that communicate to players more effectively. What do I think should be done? (essentially what you said, but w/ more explanation and plan) This is a complicated problem that requires a nuanced approach. - Remove district threat segregation... BUT only after the cross-server matchmaking system is implemented. This of course requires the engine upgrade to 3.5 to be completed. Once that capability exists there is very little reason to keep the districts segregated. - Remove visible threat. Keep a hidden ELO so matchmaking can continue attempting to provide fair matches. I think what Reloaded had confused about this game (in part because they listened to the highly competitive community on these forums) is that this game was built to be a community based MMO shooter. This is NOT an eSport like Valorant or CS:GO. I play this game to win, but this is not an eSport. I'm glad I'm gold, it gives me the warm and fuzzies but I don't play this game to "threat up" to the highest threat. I play this game because the core game loop is so fucking engaging and fun. What are your thoughts? I'm just one guy with an opinion. I love discussing game design so I'll try to respond as much as I can.