mtz

You are trying to balance the entirety of the game around the existence of Kevlar Implants and the Heavy HVR. Kevlar Implants has the effect of slightly increasing your health. You are not meant to be able to tank several shots with it. It's supposed to be this tiny little sliver of health that could potentially help in some situations. You pick this mod with the knowledge that it will slow you down and put you at a disadvantage in some speed-related situations. Heavy HVR is a support weapon. You deal immense damage with the initial shot, which will soften the shot enemy enough for your team to pick up the scraps with a health advantage of their own. The downsides are that you are slowed down while carrying the Heavy HVR, and you have to reveal your location when you take a shot - which gives your enemy this ~1s to quickly process that "an enemy is shooting from that direction. find cover immediately or you risk dying". Scout HVR is also a support weapon. It shares the refire rate of the Heavy HVR, but is significantly less hard-hitting in comparison. The Scout HVR lets you regain the speed you lose by using the Heavy HVR, but the downside is that you don't deal as much damage - meaning that in a 1v1 situation your refire will need to be practically immediate if you want to secure the kill, otherwise Clotting Agent users will be able to regenerate lost health much sooner. The very moment you eliminate the Heavy HVR's need to take two shots, you cause a massive problem in the metagame: CQC weapons become obsolete. If a Heavy HVR is anywhere with a height or distance advantage, shotgunners and SMG users cannot close the distance in any way. While they will be exposed for practically the entire time they try to get into a closer position, the Heavy HVR user only needs a single peek to completely stop the CQC player's approach. If the defended objective is out in the open, the defense doesn't require you to be anywhere near the objective. You are equally deadly to a cornerpopping JG user - the difference is that you don't even need to expose yourself or put yourself anywhere near the actual fight. Targets of HVR users have no chance of fighting back. When you're on attack, specific dangers are present at specific ranges. If an enemy is at long range, you will know that they're a sniper and that they're equipped with a weapon hindered by slow refire. None of this actually matters if the Heavy HVR were to kill in one shot. You're dead and you have no chance of fighting back. The gun isn't meant to win you every fight at range - it's supposed to weaken the target and open them up to attacks from closer range. The fight starts and ends when the Heavy HVR user lands their shot - literal 0 TTK. Shifting the meta towards one weapon which immediately stops fights and forcing everyone to use Kevlar Implants in order to have a fighting chance against it is not the way to go. I have no idea why you want Kevlar Implants 3 and Heavy HVR to 1) be buffed, 2) become the new standard. If there is one thing I agree with in this thread, it's that Clotting Agent 3 (and to a smaller degree, Clotting Agent 2) obsoletes all other green mod options in the game. Everything else - dear Lord, no, no, no, we absolutely should not be doing this.

Character name: Martinz Server: Citadel I've decided to also include a mock biography just for fun. I know it's not a part of the contest, but hey, I wanted to spice it up a bit... and it's an excuse for me to get my creative juices flowing If you think it's too long, just click on the top bar of the quote to hide it. As a disclaimer: I'm not the first person to do the whole "Snowman Head as eyeball" thing - credit for that goes to @Leefekyn. My costume is a spin on his idea - this outfit is meant to be "surreal", with no skin showing anywhere on the character, in order to give off the impression that he's not quite human. My character's eyeball head also includes those red eyestalk thingies on the back for more creep factor. Best of luck to everyone participating in the contest!

Personal bias here - my current outfit is a relatively spooky one and I want to submit it - but I feel like applying this kind of restriction could cause some viable competitors to be unable to participate just because the outfit wasn't created in the precise time frame.

Regardless of their faction, the player character is basically a mercenary, or at the very least someone offering their work to criminal organizations or private military contractors. Something like this actually happens at least once with one of the actual contacts! In his first e-mail (at Level 2) Darryl Kent is stated to be working as a data analyst for the Praetorian Corporation despite being a member of the Prentiss Tigers. Predictably, he uses this position to forward some of the Praetorian intel to the Tigers.

https://youtu.be/EKvAdRXOeYY#t=1h24m16s

In my opinion, the offending players should be permabanned (or at the very least given a lengthy tempban). Before someone goes out and asks if this is not too heavy-handed of a punishment - no. This kind of behavior (deliberately streamsniping new players who just want to learn the game) is deliberate, malicious and detrimental to the community. They went out of their way to deliberately stomp a new player and give them no fighting chance for nothing but their juvenile enjoyment. This is textbook bullying, no matter how you look at it. Bullying new players is not how you draw attention to the game for a potential playerbase.

The phrasing used in the OP suggested that the error is with the command and not the description.

This was a deliberate change made by Little Orbit... but I can't remember the exact reason why. I think it was done to counter streamsniping or stalking - but take this with a grain of salt. Either way - not a bug.

That probably depends on how acquainted you are with the contacts. Templeton at level 1 barely gives a rat's patootie about you - Templeton at level 20 considers you a great friend and a potential drinking buddy. Assuming we're all at max "friendship" with every contact... My first pick would hands down be Ernst 'Mule' Templeton. He is a skilled marksman, with years of combat expertise. Ernst handles everything for his company even in spite of often going unnoticed. A proficient warrior who's loyal to his team is probably the best guy you could get in San Paro. Second pick... probably Orlenz' Moretti. The difference between him and Justin Teng is that the latter is strictly a businessman - a non-combat guy. Orlenz' actually rose to the top of the Prentiss Tigers through proving himself in combat and leadership. He would probably be the most likely guy to come up with a plan and lead his team to victory by using it. Third pick... honestly a tough one. It would probably be Kaspar Danko. He is a down-to-earth war veteran, but he's willing to adapt to the situation he's in. A few other Enforcer contacts speak of him with respect, establishing him as someone known to be a good teammate and warrior. Even if we were to mix and match factions, I would still not feel too comfortable with most of the Criminal contacts in my team. A lot of them are only out for themselves, with very little respect for team loyalty. The vast majority of Blood Roses are essentially posers or backstabbers. Jeung, Charlotte, Lilith, Strega, Pagan, Britney - they are all the easiest to pick out in that regard. Birth calls himself a terrible fighter, Michael Simeone is a has-been and a stooge for Luke Waskawi... I could go on. Notable exceptions to that (if we assume that Enforcers and Criminals stop fighting each other and can actually form loyal alliances) would probably be... - Chiro for third pick. He's got a history of gang warfare behind him, but "nowadays" (even though San Paro has been stuck in 2010 for a long time now) he runs a tattoo parlor on neutral ground; beyond his combat skills he is a good mediator, able to cooperate with people regardless of their allegiance. - Tiptoe for second or third pick, either with her Brood (Bowse, Gruff, Whut) or without it. Unlike a lot of Blood Roses, she is actually capable of dishing out pain and has a very strong sense of loyalty, to the point where she would not even think twice about rendering someone unconscious for insulting her father. - Harmon Benjamin for third (or very very very barely second) pick. At level 10 he is established as a competent mission coordinator, in spite of what his family thinks of him after the mistakes he's made in the past. He is the definition of a self-made man, what with the Benjamin family essentially forcing him to hold his own after they distanced themselves from him and excluded him from the family business.

I wouldn't say it's a "this is the only option now" sort of situation. If you have something to add to the thread beyond "thanks for saying this" (like, for example, elaborate on an idea in the thread or discuss it), obviously no one should be taking moderative action on your post. As for "making it less personal" - eh. If anything, that would be beneficial for our community; we're practically a bunch of high-schoolers with how prone we are to holding grudges and creating cliques. Obviously not all of us are like that, but a noticeable amount of people is. Can't say I disagree with these rule changes. A similar system worked for Facepunch forums (RIP) - rate someone's post to show your opinion, make a post of your own to actually add more to the discussion than just the opinion.

Reactions refer to those silly little icons (heart by default) in the bottom right corner of each post. Unless you knew this right away and didn't need this post/were just making a joke, in which case I blame the lack of /s in your post. Text is awful for conveying sarcasm.

In its current state, APB's /ignore command only blocks in-game communication with a given player (and mutes their kill themes) - which obviously doesn't ignore them on all fronts. The people you ignore are still very much a part of your gameplay experience, and if they're particularly persistent, they will go out of their way to be actively detrimental to it. I believe the /ignore command could be improved in a couple of ways. Obviously some of these ways (or their aspects) might require more work to be done on the dev side, but in my opinion it would very much be worth it in the long run (provided that the whole phasing thing doesn't fix things in its own way). #1 - Prevent all custom content created by ignored players from being displayed. This specific part would be an extension of the current functionality which simply mutes the kill themes of the players you ignore, allowing you to counteract players with ear-abusing themes (such as white noise, several instruments filling the entire studio canvas, high pitched whines, or the life support machine sound which is an interesting concept in theory but an obnoxious thing in practice). Putting someone on your ignore list would essentially drown out anything they have created from your vision: character and clothing customization (replacing them with our beloved green-hatted Default Player), purchased display points (having them be blanked out [in the case of billboards] or in their default state [in the case of statues]), vehicle customization (turning the car into its most basic form, removing all kits and decals, showing what's basically the default grey-painted form of it), marketplace activity (rendering them unable to bid on/buy things created by the player ignoring them, while also preventing their own auctions from showing up in the ignoring player's marketplace listings), - all of these things would be rendered invisible to the person ignoring a given player. #2 - Also prevent ignored players themselves from showing up. This one is highly arguable (and may even become obsolete when phasing is introduced), but I still want to throw this idea out there for the sake of a discussion/feedback. If removing a player's customization isn't effective enough, they could essentially become invisible to the person ignoring them. An ignored player would be prevented from making physical contact with the player who's ignoring them (they would just phase through each other), thus rendering them unable to do things such as push/grief cars when out of a mission, or block an objective with their car. This would obviously not apply if the ignored player is in the same mission as the player ignoring them - in this case, the player would show up normally, and the invisibility/ghost mode would be reinstated the very moment the mission ends. (An idea which I don't want to push here, but I want to get it out there, is for matchmaking to entirely exclude the possibility of matching against a player on one's ignore list. This wouldn't be without issues though - it would be entirely possible for players to ignore certain specific people for no other reason than "I don't like to play missions against them". This is why I'm only bringing it up for discussion and not actually pushing it for its implementation.) As always, this is a discussion first and a suggestion second. Ultimately, it's Little Orbit who have the final say in the matter - but giving feedback helps gauge the community's opinion on the subject and estimate what is best for the game.

From a certain standpoint (that is, taking rank limitations on items into account) this suggestion makes sense. I've seen a similar system in other games - off the top of my head, Dirty Bomb (RIP sweet prince) had "Max Level 7" servers, which served to prevent veterans from stomping on newbies and players who may not have as much as them in terms of unlocked content. The suggested system also seems to take into account that a Rank 10 Silver will have a very different skillset from a Rank 10 Bronze - which is a big plus. I feel like one of the biggest positives of this type of matchmaking would be the removal of the first impression that some new players have - that everyone is stomping on them using mods they can't get for themselves just yet... though it does raise the question of what to do about R195 mod leases from Joker Distribution.

So how would you rework it, then? You still haven't given us any ideas, y'know. What's the point of this thread then: genuine voicing of opinion or a half-hearted attempt at satire? 1) This is literally only a thing if you allow the other player to close the distance/get close enough. 2) So basically that (i.e. dealing finishing blows) is the only thing they're good for, whereas regular fragmentation grenades can be used in many more situations. I thought I had already said it, but hey, kudos for confirming that we're on the same page here :V There are several missions in the game which require a bit of looking into; Antisocial Networking is just one of them. I would worry more about things like The Hidden Menace, which to this day has a broken final stage where the winner is decided by who holds the point in the last second, not who controls the objective for the most time. Or... what about Bad Investment, where two consecutive stages happen in the exact same area, which takes about ten consecutive seconds for the Enforcers to stand in, but about three seconds for the Criminals right afterwards (and both teams have to keep the area clear for 5 minutes)? Not to mention the famous mess of a mission, The Fast and The Incarcerated, where the winner is whoever jumps into the truck along with a teammate with a Blowtorch. Get a second Blowtorch with Car Surfer on top and you're practically unkillable. What I'm trying to say is that this one specific mission is part of a bigger concern that you're barely scratching the surface of. Which you should if you want people to see your point. Without explaining why things are not balanced, you will not convince anyone that wasn't already sympathetic to your ideas. Your approach to the problem of a lack of balance is to just remove the outliers and "think of how to fix it some other time" without any concise idea of how to tackle the problem - or how to fill the void that would be created in the metagame upon removing one of its parts.

Because if I just left my reply at the "everything you're saying is terrible" stage, it wouldn't be any better than saying "fuck this, this is bad" about parts of the game. I'd rather spend some time on constructive feedback than try to squeeze in a witty one-liner.

You know, some of the things you try to attribute to your imaginary version of Little Orbit in this post sound really unprofessional (and a bit concerning in general) - but whatever; this thread is basically a glorified fanfic. Okay... rebalance them how? If you're proposing a rebalance of the weapons, you should have some kind of an idea as to what should be done about it. Saying that "it needs a rebalance" and not pointing to anything in particular is akin to saying "I don't like it, change it to something" and never specifying what needs a change in the first place. You seem really hellbent on insisting that some specific types of people are idiots. You also seem really confident that you would pass the same tests you want to impose on other people. (There's also the issue that IQ tests don't accurately measure for all types of intelligence and have been said to be fundamentally flawed since you cannot accurately boil down someone's intelligence to a number on a scale - but that's a separate topic that I don't want to get into here.) Devil's advocate here - percussion grenades are fine as they are due to their very limited versatility. They aren't practical when it comes to dispatching vehicles or getting rid of targets hiding behind walls - other grenades do that way better. Percs are basically only good when you're already in close range and are very desperate for that finishing blow. Same thing as with "rebalancing weapons". You're saying that these missions are flawed, but you're not really pointing to any flaws. You want to assure us that they are there, but you're not bringing up any of them, nor any ideas how to fix them, for that matter. In that case, why even have the mission be focused on an item in the first place? You might as well replace the item with an area to hold - in both scenarios, the target is immobile. That's 13 minutes and 20 seconds. For comparison, Explosive Material has its first stage last 8 minutes - or 480 seconds - and asks the Enforcers to raid three targets and deliver the items to the drop off. You don't need me to tell you why your suggestion is silly. All that being said, this thread isn't entirely filled with bad ideas. I, for one, support the removal or reworking of the Bounty system so that it can no longer interfere with mission flow. (I've already posted about it on the forums before.) Fixing car spawning spots so that single cars can't block the entire spawning area is a change that's honestly long overdue. Perhaps we (as a community) could assemble a list of places affected by this issue.

This opening post isn't even a good debate starter. You are not trying to persuade anyone to allow naming and shaming; you created this thread to name and shame a specific player by trying to give specific details but not the name itself - sorry, but the end result is that you are still naming & shaming (and thus are in violation of the Forum Rules). My stance is no, let's not have naming and shaming back. Firstly, name & shame only gives the suspects/culprits easy publicity and makes them the talk of the town instead of punishing them for misdeeds. Secondly, even with (or perhaps due to) such a vivid description, I still will stick to the "innocent until proven guilty" mindset. I have no idea of who you're talking about, I don't know who you are - I see no reason to trust one person's word over the other. Mob justice is hardly ever the right thing to do. Thirdly, just forward the information to the moderation team through reports. They can exact much more punishment than you as a member of the community. If the offense is egregious enough, they can even ban the offender - the most you can do through N&S is make them more popular/known.

...we've already gone through this - it doesn't have to be literally spelled out word by word verbatim for it to be a rule. If something is banned on the game's forums, you should be able to extrapolate that the same behavior isn't wanted in the game. Again: do you really think LO would ban certain behavior on the forums, but allow the same behavior in the game? You're trying to cherrypick this really hard. The later part of literally the same sentence (which you conveniently omitted) refers to the fact that creating content (which includes sending any message in any shape or form) with malicious intent towards other players is forbidden. I'm afraid you don't get to ignore what I'm really saying and instead pluck your ears and shout "THIS PROVES I AM RIGHT!" (which I've noticed to be a disturbing trend in this community recently). Regardless of whether the person in question is a blatant cheater or just a suspect, publicly calling them out is literally meant to smear their opinion in the eyes of the other players. You are deliberately trying to cause damage to the reputation of the person you're accusing of cheating. By calling them out publicly, you give these people publicity instead of letting the company handle the situation and remove them from the game. Why is anyone supposed to trust your judgement? You are (rather thankfully) not the judge, nor the jury, nor the executioner here. I have no way of verifying what is your measurement of cheating, especially in a game where accusations of cheating are pretty commonplace. If confronted with your hackusation and the anticheat system's verdict, I'd be more inclined to believe that you're rage-hackusating before I'd consider the possibility that the system is wrong. (Disclaimer: inaction =/= verdict.) I don't even have the words to describe the inanity of the sentence about teabagging. Forums are, according to LO's ruling, PG-13 appropriate. This is done to prevent topics from turning into a mess where nobody discusses anything and instead everyone just hurls insults at each other all the time. It has nothing to do with age restrictions, it has everything to do with acting like a civilised human being. APB's ESRB rating (Mature 17+) has nothing to do with the rules laid out by LO. The most basic principle behind the rules, both in the game and on the forums, is "don't create a hostile environment" - and publicly throwing around accusations of cheating does just that. --- You honestly strike me as the type of person who will go to extreme lengths to skirt the rules given to them and will later claim innocence by saying that their way of breaking the rules was not explicitly described in exact wording - even though the Terms of Service we're discussing here take specific measures to disclose that the list is non-exhaustive and you can get banned for hostile behavior not included on it. I implore you - use common sense. If naming and shaming is forbidden on the APB Forums, why would it be allowed in the APB Game? If the rules forbid hostile behavior, and your behavior is hostile but doesn't match the exact words used in the examples on the rule list, is that behavior allowed then?

Wrong assumption. === Wrong assumption. === Actually, allow me to ask: why do you think that something forbidden on the game's forums would be permitted in the game itself?

Which they won't, because most end user license agreements are just a lot of lawyer-speak that protects the company from fraud and other damages that may incur from abuse from their consumers - if you don't act maliciously towards the company, you have practically no reason to fear anything from them. Expecting the company to just lash out one day and ban half of their consumers for no reason is... a bit silly of a thought, don't you think? Plus, as I've said in this thread already, this is normal in the industry. Most EULAs in the video game industry outright mention that the companies reserve the right to ban you for any reason or no reason. For example, Warframe does that, and Warframe is fairly big, and nobody is complaining about that in their EULA. I have to say, "the in-game chat is not part of the game" is probably my favourite take on the EULA at the moment. It's pretty fair to assume that the term "chat rooms" refers to the chatting feature in APB. When you are in an instance, you are connected to its District chat, which is only accessible to players connected to the instance at the moment - which is pretty much how a chat room works. EDIT: On that note... do you really think you're not generating content when you talk in chat? The term "User Generated Content" doesn't refer to customized in-game content - it literally refers to whatever is created by you in the game. It can be a shirt design, it can be an arrangement of sounds in the Music Studio, it can be speech you post to APB servers. Also, what about this part? In simple terms, "things listed here are not meant to be the list of the only things you can/can't do, because humans are assholes and they will look for ways to skirt any rules they find". I'm afraid it wouldn't be as easy to break the rules as harass someone and say "this exact type of harassment I committed isn't forbidden by ToS/CoC/EULA!". EDIT because I forgot: The section you quoted above this sentence says nothing about "offensive words". What it does talk about, though, are interactions between players. You really don't need me to tell you that conversations count as player interaction; it's not limited to clothes and cars you customize.

...but it is bannable*, as evidenced by those quotes. Even if you somehow assume that forum rules and game rules can prohibit something in one place but not the other, the End User License Agreement states that you are not allowed to use the game (so, among other things, talk in the game) to defame another player or incite hatred towards them regardless of circumstances. It is also left to Little Orbit to decide if the rules are being broken; they have the final say in terms of what is allowed in their game. Which is, y'know, normal for pretty much any company out there. *though how well this is being enforced is a different topic.

Based on the copy of the APB EULA available on the GamersFirst site [ (link) ], the 9th section titled Rules of Conduct has the answer. Emphasis mine. Emphasis mine. I hate cheaters as much as the next guy, but the way I see it, turning into an angry mob helps no one. Inform LO, let them handle the issue, don't give the cheaters any publicity.

...how does one obtain the power of determining a weapon's sexual orientation just by looking at it? And do weapons even have sexual orientations? I thought all they did was spit out bullets. Also, the Volcano has the "story excuse" of being called the "Joy Cannon" in the description (hence the name, "Volcano JC") - it doesn't seem farfetched for a San Parite to want it wrapped in rainbow colours to spread love and joy and happiness or something like that. (Hey, as long as the other guys get blown up, you're gonna be happy, yes? ) Though ultimately I guess no one would lose anything if the guns got some less flashy optional skins - and net positives are always good in my book :V

Tried my hand at making a RedHill IOT company vehicle to "celebrate" finishing Season 0 of RIOT. Nothing top shelf or super impressive, but I still feel like sharing!

Some of the things may have already been mentioned by other community members in separate threads (shoutouts to @AlishaAzure for having probably the most organized post); here's my two cents. The engine upgrade really should have taken priority over RIOT. I respect LO's decision to give us new content despite still being limited by the old engine -- however, I still believe that the best choice would've been making a beeline for UE3.5 and only releasing new content once the foundations are there. That being said, I don't hate RIOT. Though I dislike the battle royale genre in general due to various reasons, I honestly enjoy LO's spin of the formula and I believe that, with enough improvements, RIOT could become a really enjoyable gamemode that I could honestly see myself playing more of once it's out of this beta state. The thing that I enjoy the most is the strategic aspect that RIOT brings to the table. I like the idea of coordinating with my teammates whether we're ready to arm the device in our zone or leave it be for a little bit more. Similarly, I find it fun to quickly determine if I can make good use of the weapons I find or if I should leave them for a teammate. Another thing I enjoy is evaluating what I can allow myself to do with my money (for example, in regards to respawn fees; "will buying my weapon set me back too much to continue?" and all that). This isn't a list of positives and negatives - these are mostly just disorganized ideas and things I want to mention (and which I could remember). The interface feels unintuitive, filled with unnecessary information. Also, for some reason "RIOT DEVICE ARMED" and "Zone Name" are split into two different messages showing up in the center of the screen; they could very well be merged together. The chat also gets filled with [Event] messages VERY quickly (I think picking up just one HazMat suit is two or three lines worth of text?). The whole thing with using zone names would've been better if people knew where each zone is by name. I only know some of the names (I have an idea of where Gresty is, where's Havalynd, The Needles, Border, Merchant Park...) but some of the people I've played with have openly admitted to not knowing what any of these names mean. (Though, who knows, maybe this gamemode could encourage the players to learn the names of the zones?... ) The respawn location algorythm is notorious for not accounting for the actual safety of a respawn zone. If a zone has been armed and is at 2 seconds until the toxic gas is released, it will still be considered safe enough to let you spawn in it - which often results in being put too far away from a safe zone to survive the run there. Insult to injury if the safe zone ceases to be safe at just an unfortunate enough moment to ensure your death in the gas cloud. Speaking of the gas cloud... it's VERY thick. I understand that it's meant to be obvious to the player that the zone is super unsafe, but as it stands, your vision is VERY limited when running out of the cloud, to the point where it's entirely possible to be shot to death by people outside of the cloud, who can see you clearly, but whom you could not even catch a glympse of. This is not helped by the HazMat suit cooldown being so long. In my opinion, changes should be made to the HazMat mechanic - just as a discussion starter: the "mercy HazMat" you get right after respawning should not count towards a cooldown, so if you manage to snag another one, you should be able to pop it right away, and then have the cooldown kick in, to prevent people from sitting the match out in the gas cloud, popping one suit after another. The gamemode likes to crash the game - but that's mostly the issue of the engine, I presume. All the more reason to get UE3.5 out. Minor nitpick: the truck at the end of the match is labelled as "RIOT Evactuation Team" :V EDITED IN: In my opinion, the ability to buy weapons from a Y/N prompt should be removed and only left possible through the fixed points in the district. I think making the weapons purchasable at theoretically any point (both in time and in the game's world) makes it a bit too easy to "smuggle in" the exact weaponry a given player will always feel the most comfortable with. My ultimate opinion is that I can't say the gamemode is perfect, but I don't hate it either. I actually quite enjoy it. ...but if you want my honest opinion: please put the Engine Upgrade as the top priority and come back to improving RIOT once UE is out. We've waited for years for new content, we can wait a bit more. Tidying up the code, unifying all the versions, and fixing the old engine's issues will streamline content creation, maintenance work, releasing updates, and will hopefully improve the performance for those players who can't run the game without stripping its graphics down to the bare essentials.