mtz

Ignore tools are stopgap measures which put the responsibility on the victim of toxicity to block the toxic users instead of putting the responsibility on the toxic users to behave properly towards fellow community members. They work best as supplementary measures to other prevention systems. Optimally we should be solving problems by working at their core instead of applying band-aids to bullet holes. As @R3ACT3M put it, toxic users should be faced with consequences for uncivilized behavior – and an obvious starting point in this case is, for example, temp-restricting offending accounts from using in-game communication, much like the idea in the Open Letter crossposted by Matt Scott in the opening post here. If certain users can't utilize the in-game chat without insulting other users or straight up throwing hate speech around, I see no benefit to the community as a whole in letting them continue to do that.

One more tech to add to the list could be about entering vehicles. If a car is positioned in such a way that the door can be accessed but the door opening animation would not be able to play properly (i.e. not enough space), you just warp into an available seat instantly, with the driver seat being given priority. Other than that, man, this topic is making me mildly aware that there might not be as much tech in APB as I used to think. Hope there's more nuggets of knowledge that people can share though!

Honestly, for all flak a certain forum user over here gets for repeated insistence* about their preferred green mod needing a buff (and Clotting Agent needing a nerf), it is entirely correct that the meta needs adjustments in the green mod field. Clotting Agent is the go-to option because of how drastically it changes the combat experience. The default health regen time of... 8 seconds, if I remember correctly? Being put out of combat to regenerate health for such a long period of time is too harsh of a punishment for simply participating in combat. However, simply setting CA2 as the default and then letting players alter that with CA3 is a band-aid solution to a deeper problem causing the rot in APB's meta. I feel like if we want to touch anything further in the character mod department, we need to open up the options – and one of the first things that would need to be done, even if it's a band-aid fix too, is the removal of the R195 restriction. Its only function is to keep the options stifled until you reach the halfway mark in progression. It can be argued that you actually have a choice of 6 green mods before hitting R195, but fundamentally it's the same mod, just with varying intensity. On top of that, Clotting Agent's three levels actually have a tangible difference, but the 3 levels of Kevlar Implants differ so little that it's hard to argue for any one of them in particular – and that's if you even find someone willing to defend a mod that lowers mobility in a game where mobility matters so much. In order to broaden your options, you have to force yourself to use the same few mods for however long it takes to reach R195, and then your mod choices expand. If we treat number variants as the same mod, you get 4 blue mods to choose from instead of 1, 4 green mods instead of 2, and 6 orange mods instead of just 1. Until that happens though, you're stuck with Field Supplier, Happy Landings, and Clotting Agent because there's no real reason to pick Kevlar in the current state of the game. Ultimately the issue I see here is a lack of available options, and our collective inability as a community to come up with a solution or brainstorm new mods or anything of that sort. I don't subscribe to the notion that we should act careful so as not to upset the delicate nature of the current meta – it just feels like a surefire way to keep the gameplay stale and unchanging. Sitting on our asses and never making any changes so as not to upset anyone gets us nowhere. Instead of catering to specific demographics within the playerbase we should focus on things that can breathe some fresh air into the playscape. On the other hand though, how many stats can we even alter as part of modifications? The "main" trait of green mods (and I use the word "main" very loosely) is trading mobility for survivability or the other way around. Flak Jacket experiments with resisting specific damage types, but that's about as adventurous as things get right now. We could have a whole multi-stage process of adding new things. Have people suggest new mods on the forums in dedicated threads, pick the most well-received one (or multiple ones; we don't have to limit ourselves to adding just one new mod and we shouldn't) and add them to the game later down the line; we could even hold an art contest by having people create in-game symbols that will be used as mod icons. I think one of the biggest hurdles to overcome here is pessimism. Active suggestions for new things are better than passive reactions to things that are added without prior polling. I understand disliking the history of changes so far, but LO aren't mind readers and I don't think it's fair to blame them for not getting things right on the first try. (Hopefully I've conveyed my idea here in a relatively clear manner :V ) *the issue that I personally take is that they are at the right conclusion, but they reach it through absolutely incorrect analysis and they offer completely wrong solutions.

So far, Todesklinge's track record with threads regarding Kevlar and game balance (ignoring this very thread) includes, as listed on his forum profile: a demand for Clotting Agent and a few other things to be removed because he can't combat them, in September 2021. a miscategorized thread which calls Kevlar's underperformance a "bug", in January 2021. a complaint about Clotting Agent beating him, a Kevlar user, which somehow proves that Clotting Agent needs to be nerfed, in October 2020. a claim that using meta weapons is actually cheating, in August 2020. a whole slew of weird demands for gameplay changes that essentially boil down to "Kevlar should make me a bullet sponge", in July 2020. an empty complaint with no proposed fixes regarding the shape of the meta, in December 2019. a proposal that Kevlar go as far as increasing player health by 45%, along with a whole bunch of other wild math misadventures, in October 2019. a suggestion of making Kevlar the only way to survive an N-HVR shot, in October 2019. a "bug report" of Kevlar 3 making players slower at retreating into cover in fights against snipers, in August 2019. a call for Kevlar to become singular instead of existing in 3 variants, and to have it increase player health by 60%, in September 2019. a generic complaint about being too slow because of Kevlar, in August 2018. If you feel like you've seen this thread before, it's because this is almost the only thing this user posts about. Credit where it's due, Todesklinge is the most persistent member of the community, even if for the worst possible reasons. Continuing to use a character mod that has – over the course of over 5 years – proved itself to drag you down in most fights is a feat that I quite literally don't know how to describe.

That would be a smaller deal of features though, wouldn't it? As a sidenote, I think "they" is inaccurate since I'm pretty sure that was taken out of the game long before Little Orbit took over. Different devs nowadays and whatnot...

First things first, I obviously don't mean this as a suggestion for Right Now™. This is largely just slapping ideas together so that hopefully they can be used at some point down the line when APB is in a better spot and new content for the game can be developed and added properly. Just because it can't be done right away, doesn't mean we shouldn't think about it at all. --- Let's address the elephant in the room: the clan functionality in APB in its current form kinda sucks. In most cases, there's no reason to join up with other people in an in-game clan. The only tangible perk out of having a clan is the ability to set its name as a title under your character's name... which people often utilize by creating their own 1-person clans and getting themselves custom titles this way. Clans really only exist on the sidelines of APB as something that's available to the players, but has no real incentive to build it up. I've read a few other threads regarding the subject of clans and people have been suggesting various things. Some of those suggestions are more grounded in reality, while some of them are... slightly less so. While thinking about how I would handle the subject, I've tried to consider what issues the other community members have tried to tackle in those threads and what issues were brought up in the replies there. My idea/suggestion for the clan system boils down to a few key components, which I will try to outline to the best of my ability. The placeholder clan in this thread will be the Dead Diamonds clan. It's a made-up clan whose logo came before the name (so don't tear into me too much about the name being bad; I am spectacularly bad with names) and which doesn't actually exist to my knowledge. Whenever Dead Diamonds are referred to, just imagine your dream clan in that spot. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 1) Establishing the Brand Making a name not just for yourself, but for those you run with. Being in an APB clan in current day isn't really noticeable to other players unless you specifically get your clanmates to dress up in identical clothes or do other stuff like that. I believe one way of changing that is for the game itself to let other players know about the clans existing. APB should promote clans through providing them in-game visibility. One player acting alone isn't really noticeable, but a group of players flying under the same colours will cause some waves. When Dead Diamonds roll out in a group, their opponents should *know* who they're up against. This particular piece of my idea borrows from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which already does the same thing. If all players in the team are in the same Steam group and set it as their in-game clan, the scoreboard and HUD will display their team name instead of the standard "[COUNTER-]TERRORISTS" text. Similar adjustments could be made to the ticker in the map screen. Regular matches in random alliances would remain in the old system: "[Team Leader A]'s team has won against [Team Leader B]'s team." Premade groups of people from the same clan would, however, have their ticker text changed adequately: "The Dead Diamonds clan has won against [Team Leader B]'s team." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 2) Building the Clan Identity Let other people know you're not just any random group of friends. The name and the logo are just two aspects of a clan. There's more to them that meets the eye, and when facing off against one, you should be able to grasp who that other clan is. The clan management interface could have an additional panel allowing the clan's officers to customize some aspects of how their crew shows up to other players. Depending on the size of the clan (upon which I'll elaborate in the next section), its "brand" or "type" (or simply designation) can be changed from a set of options offered by the game. Basic words such as "Clan", "Crew", or "Alliance" could be available to everyone regardless of whether they're Enforcers or Criminals, but faction-specific names could also be available (for example, a small Enfo clan could call itself a "Patrol", while a massive Crim clan would have the term "Syndicate" available for itself). This could be further expanded by offering additional customization options in the Armas Marketplace, either as standalone purchases or as bonuses included with certain items. As a hypothetical, a clan whose leader owns all the Yakuza-themed items on Armas would also gain the ability to label itself as a yakuza. The showcase in the mockup below is supposed to be the panel underneath the player's character card on the scoreboard. In current day APB it always shows the gray flag icon and the name of the clan, if the player belongs to any. "Accolades" would display a statistic related to the clan, selected by the leader or officers. Possible accolades include: clan age, total sum of money deposited into the clan's bank account, missions won in a full group, missions won against other clans who were also rolling in full groups, etc... Showing nothing there would obviously also be an option. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 3) Assembling the Arsenal (or Sorting Things Out) Because you're all in it together - and so is your gear. Clans, by their nature, should offer players some benefits for deciding to work together. One way of promoting that is to allow players to share some select equipment - if you're sharing the metaphorical locker room with the other Dead Diamond schmucks, why wouldn't you also share the tools of the trade? Each clan would have a shared "locker" available to all members. Said lockers would accept tradeable items, but wouldn't allow anything to be taken out - only destroyed. Instead of occupying a slot in each individual player's locker, they can be equipped for as long as the player is a member of the clan. All members can contribute items to the locker, but only the leader and officers can put something in the shared slots. Items stored in the clan locker cannot be equipped by anyone, not even the Officers and Clan Leader, unless they are specifically placed in a shared slot. Think of regular slots as disabled/inactive items, and shared slots as enabled/active items! Each clan would also have its own Bank Account. It would be completely separate from individual characters' banked money and funds could be deposited by everyone in any amount they want, but they couldn't be withdrawn directly into anyone's wallet. A clan's level could be determined by its member count and the amount of money deposited into its account, incentivizing putting the clan before one's own character - at least in terms of funding, that is. The higher the clan's level, the more slots it receives for the purpose of sharing items, along with further clan customization options to built its reputation further. Imagine having your clan reach a level at which your clan's symbol replaces the typical APB logo splash your opposition sees when starting an opposed mission... Alternative requirements could also be utilized. Instead of measuring for money accumulated by the members in the shared bank account, one of the level up checks could be, for example, the amount of standing (without the Premium bonus) gained by the members during missions completed as a clan. Officers and the leader of a given clan would have the option to "Buy for the Clan" at any given vendor, which would use funds from the clan's account instead of that character's funds and instantly put the item in the clan locker. Items bought with clan funds would be able to be customized in all the corresponding places (so, for example, clan cars could be edited in the Garage Kiosk, just like any other car). Item editing permissions would apply to all Officers and the Leader of a clan. Deployment would not be limited to just one person at a time; multiple clan members would be able to equip and use the same item at the same time. If a clan were to get disbanded or deleted, all of the items in its locker would be deleted and become inaccessible. I think that APB's built-in clan hierarchy system could probably work just fine. To illustrate: * Leader - Rank automatically assigned to the founder of the clan; can be reassigned to other players. Has basically all permissions and can choose whether regular members (as in, besides them and officers) can also invite new members. * Officer - Rank second to the leader. Can't kick the leader & other officers, change invite permissions, or disband the clan, but has editing permissions for clan info and clan items. * Member - Rank indicating regular membership in the clan. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 4) Talking the Talk & Walking the Walk Showing the naysayers that you're not just bark - you're also a whole lot of bite. Let's face it - Breakwater Galleria is painfully empty (aside from our new RedHill buddy occupying the topmost room). A section of it could probably be dedicated to clan affairs. As monitors/display points would showcase the highest-ranking clans and dedicated contacts would open menus that allow to see more in-depth statistics and leaderboards, those who grow their clans would have their reputation precede their actions. Each player could visit the Clan Aisle (placeholder name; I'm not good with names) in the Breakwater Galleria and check the clan leaderboards to see who's at the top, what's their clan biography, what category they're at the top in, and compare them to the others... ...not much else to say here, I think. (Or at least I can't think of how to expand this section properly.) In my opinion clan leaderboards are a bit of a given when there's clan functionality. It only makes sense to incentivize players to grow their clans through competition with other clans. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- There's probably a whole bunch of things that could work well in combination with the clan system. Ultimately, this is just a concept with a few images to go with it, written with passion for the game and none of the knowledge about the technical feasibility of such systems. Still, it's something I wanted to share for the sake of discussion, so yeah, there's that! Hope you enjoyed the thread! I'm looking forward to your feedback!

Todesklinge today: Todesklinge almost a year ago: See you all in another 11 months for another one of Todesklinge's "remove Clotting Agent and concussion (or "concurssion") grenades" posts! Realistically, the only things on showcase here aren't any balance flaws in the game, but you insisting on a specific playstyle and wanting the rest of the game to be changed to suit your specific playstyle more.

Emphasis mine. In true fence-sitter fashion, I will now put myself inbetween two sides of an argument and garner the sympathy of neither of them :^) I feel like the N-TEC 5 being the untouchable golden child of the meta (a sentiment common among the replies here) is a problem, but nerfing it specifically instead of buffing other guns surrounding it in the respective class (the approach adapted in these changes) is not the right solution. If other assault rifles underperform compared to the N-TEC 5, they should be put up closer to it... but it is valid to discuss whether we should even be treating the N-TEC 5 like this cornerstone that we can't touch and merely mend everything around it. My way of looking at things is that the STAR 556 should be the baseline, given that it is the starting gun for everyone; N-TEC's place should be as an alternative which sacrifices consistent accuracy for higher DPS/damage output — but this discussion would reach far beyond the scope of this thread. Bold move, I'll have to admit. We can already see the outcry in this thread about how this "punishes higher skilled players", but I think the real issue here is whether anyone should have had the ability to shut down approach routes through resupplied grenade spam in the first place. This alteration should hopefully harm this tactic of spamming nades to prevent entry through some pathways. The resupply delay change alone doesn't alter anything about the grenades themselves... ...but this change does seem to be mixing some things up. I see the logic here, I absolutely do, and to some degree I agree with it. The regular frag grenade has been consistently the most versatile and most reliable in terms of damage output... but right now its max damage radius is just 25 centimeters higher than that of the concussion grenade. That proximity of their stats to each other sounds mildly concerning. The total radius, however, stays the same, so it should still be as good at spreading damage over an area as always...? I don't have a strong opinion right now. It seems like a good change on paper. I guess we'll have to see how it works out. _________ About the Med Spray change, I think it goes without saying that I like it. As for the rest of the changes — yeah I guess. I don't have a strong opinion on those in particular, and the justifications seem mostly alright/agreeable/reasonable (the most appropriate term here is up to personal preference).

Yes, that is normal. Little Orbit have been giving the playerbase free Premium status over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rest assured it's not a bug — you really do have Premium at the moment

YouTube links should automatically embed upon pasting them into the reply field. Kinda odd it didn't happen for you there. As much as I don't want to be another brick in the wall there... that old login screen theme really was something, huh? I much prefer it over the current BWOOOOOM we get upon starting the game up. I'm in a weird spot about Farfletched's theme for APB — I don't think it's bad in terms of quality (and in some ways I think it fits the gritty "urban warfare" atmosphere of this setting), but... I guess the grandiose opening has lost its grandeur to me. My earliest memories in APB consist of being overly proud of my laughably basic-looking outfit and being happy about finally getting my hands on a no-slot Charge Cisco for my character. Then, when I switched to launching the game through Steam and not through the GamersFirst Launcher, my first Steam character had his outfit be based on Ness from EarthBound for no other reason than "I could". I think I even got a Joker Carbine lease out of "joining" APB as a Steam player. Hell, over the years I've made friends in this game. I'm still engaged in the community, I still post in Discord servers dedicated to it, I got to meet so many people through it — and if the interaction was more amicable than smacktalk during the matches, chances are I'm still familiar with those people. It's kinda weird, actually, to think about how I'm still in this game, almost a decade later. Sure, we've fallen on hard times, that much is self-evident, but as for myself, I'm staying here until the bitter end (not that I hope it ever comes to that). I believe that if we are to turn APB around, we've got a lot of work to do — and I mean all of us. Beyond Little Orbit making sure the mechanical foundation of APB works properly, we as a community will have to try to bring in new players by generating talk about the game, creating content that'll people get to see, helping new players find their way around San Paro and the game's mechanics... all that stuff. also, bring back old login screen theme :^)

I can see where you're coming from with this idea... but you're not putting forward anything substantial, so it's kinda difficult to gauge what exactly you're suggesting. Just a few example questions off the top of my head: Would this equipment be considered a character mod, a deployable, or something to replace one of the weapons? Would it have any cooldowns between individual uses? Other than offering faster movement than just sprinting, how would it interact with the environment? How would a player using one of those "deployable vehicles" go about doing things such as opening doors, interacting with fences, or getting into cars?

Considering LO had only purchased APB in 2018, I don't understand why you're blaming Little Orbit specifically for not delivering on something that was promised about over half a decade ago, by different leadership, long before they had any say in the game's development.

I would consider this sentence here the key part in all of this. The best treatment we could have hoped for from GamersFirst before Little Orbit was the cold shoulder - and that was if they didn't opt for radio silence altogether instead. Though obviously things are far from perfect right now, I would take the current state of things over pre-LO G1 any day of the week.

Wait, we had an election for a Spokesman for the Whole Community? I don't remember voting for you — or appointing you to speak on my behalf.

Kill-steak? Clearly this is a teaser/hint that we'll be getting a piece of steak as a throwable Half-Brick reskin once the Engine Upgrade drops! :^) Thanks for organizing a bit of something inbetween the 2.1 development!