Boys and girls of APB;
As many of you who still roam the forum, I've been playing this wonderful and amazing game since the old RTW days, on and off.
After following LO in social media since they took over, reading their posts, watching the new engine stream, seeing the amazing work they are doing and how open @MattScott is with the community, I'm posting my list of suggestions to improve the game, hoping to get some traction and reaching the people who can take action.
Feel free to add your own suggestions, I'll edit the post to include them.
CHEATING
An actual, working anti-cheat for the game would be nice...
Shadow ban hackers so they can only play against other hackers - this is the feature I want to see the most.
Ban macros and triggerbots - these external apps are not being monitored at all and there are clans that even distribute them to all members as if a triggerbot was something normal and acceptable to use in any other shooter game...
Add potential cheater flagging methods based on stats, so a mod is required to review a player live in a district to determine if they are hacking (ie: a K/D ratio above X ==> flags an account to be reviewed by a game mod).
THREAT LEVEL
Make intentional dethreating much harder (more games required to dethreat (especially to Bronze), additional factors considered to dethreat, etc) and lock gold players out of bronze districts (if you're a Silver threat player in a Bronze district and get bumped to Gold for abusing lower skilled players, you {and your group} should get automatically moved to a Silver/Gold threat server without the possibility of rejoining the Bronze district until there are no Gold players in the group). The game is already hard to pick up and currently new players get rekt until they uninstall by people that shouldn't be in low level districts owning them non-stop.
Add more factors to how threat level is calculated (K/D ratio, assists, medals per game, etc).
A new threat level above Gold and sub-levels within each threat level.
A seasonal pinnacle reward system for reaching the highest levels (similar to Destiny 2) would be nice, but it won't work unless the hackers are dealt with.
In a completely different, alternative scenario, remove threat level based districts, create a "skill level" value for every player and allow anyone to join any district, but make the matchmaking strict within skill level.
WEAPONS
Rethink weapon balance: instead of nerfing the weapons that perform well, take what makes them good and buff the weaker weapons accordingly. This, of course, is tied to the vision LO has about the overall weapon balance, TTK, etc.
Reduce the huge impact RnG has in gunfights.
A LTL weapon series for Criminals, or at least an option as annoying as them.
Add a "test" feature to Joker Ticket weapons similar to what the ARMAS marketplace has.
Weapon loadout creation for easy swaps during missions.
ACCOUNT-WIDE CHANGES
Increase to symbol, theme, song and clothing limit.
Symbols, cash and Joker tickets shared across all characters in the same account.
Add a safe way to quickly transfer tradeable weapons between characters from the same account.
Make Joker ticket weapons account bound.
SERVER CHANGES
Server login queue.
Increase population cap and remove Green threat servers. Have an Trainee exclusive server not visible from the District list) only available for new accounts until they get a proper threat level assigned.
Add the option to turn off other player's customization (turn them into a default Criminal or Enforcer skin) to improve performance for lower end PCs.
Rework in-mission spawns ensuring you can't have someone spawn X meters away from you with direct LoS.
Ping considered for matchmaking.
OTHER / QOL
Disable other players' car radio. Please. Pretty please.
Character and vehicle customization limit increase.
Increase the drop rate of vinyls
Twitch integration (streamer mode, Twitch drops, Twitch Prime packs).
Clan progression and the always requested Clan base/house/club/whatever.
Create a standard tutorial mission for new players against bots, going over the basics.
Take faster and harder action against Nazi symbology. Every day I see multiple people with Swastikas and SS uniforms roaming the Social district like there's nothing wrong with that and it's weird AF...