vsb

just don't worry about it big brain moves

it is a challenge, but a challenge is not an inherently positive concept so this word distinction isn’t really relevant imo when a challenge is impossible, is not correctly applied, and provides no benefit, it becomes a negative action (punishment) n5/p5 puts the player at an extreme disadvantage that is theoretically infinite; there is no mechanic that allows a player to continue normal mission gameplay without their bounty constantly interfering until they die, and yet there is also no sufficient reward for doing so and (for like the 15th time in this thread i think) the bounty system may have been intended to be placed on players doing exceptionally well but in practice it doesn’t actually limit itself like that, it’s entirely possible to go n5/p5 with even average or subpar performance in your current mission

you can’t sue for that as you agreed to allow little orbit to ban you for any reason as they see fit, no contest

making a perfectly balanced apb is impossible, that’s something i’ve already said but tweaking mission stages to be fairer for both sides or ensuring objectives don’t spawn in areas with zero cover or adding alternate movement paths through the map is not going to magically ruin the game spread/bloom is the only thing you’ve listed that i don’t think can be changed, at least not without completely reworking how every weapon functions

everyone might theoretically be equal but a game based entirely on rng removes a large majority, if not all control from the player obviously they’re within the same franchise and genre so there are broad similarities which allow the transfer of skills, but i find that to be a poor measure - you could take anyone with decent tracking/aim and fling them from shooter to shooter (even apb) and they would perform adequately

no that would be a BR game, which are definitely not competitively balanced by my standards csgo was released in 2012 iirc, its a very different game from og counter strike

i don't see the contradiction, competitive balance and giving players more control over their actions (not more control over winning or losing, i have no idea where you got that from) are not mutually exclusive it seems more contradictory to me that you seem intent on declaring the "ntec hoodie" crowd to be secretly manipulating the game despite the ntec getting nerfed several times over the years, including just last month the necessity of concs is a direct result of vehicle play remaining terribly unbalanced despite pretty much everyone agreeing it needs to change, i think it says a lot about the old loyos that they were ever chosen over concs in the first place except the bounty system was not limited to crazy killstreaks or soloing enemy teams, because the bounty system was not based solely on current mission performance i also feel its healthier for any team getting solo'd to just lose the mission and move on, rather than prolonging the stomping through another 3-10 minute mission stage i'm not really sure what you mean here as enforcers can't ramraid without breaking the tos, or at least breaking the tos under g1

rayscaling was intended to make shotguns more forgiving, thats a move towards casual gameplay weapons have an effect on competitive/casual balance, and so far all we've seen little orbit add are weapons geared more towards casual play - 2 shotguns that are incredibly forgiving thanks to rayscaling and an AR intended to be used full auto with no real penalties the problem with the hvr is and always has been it's damage over every range, but that's a different discussion apb is competitive by nature for the sole reason that gameplay is entirely based on pvp, now that n5/p5 has been partially disabled the only things that can affect a player in a mission are other players in vehicles and civilians (if those can even be considered "out of mission") i personally don't really enjoy csgo and i play siege pretty sparsely but i can still recognize that they're at least attempting competitive balance no idea about toxicity or how that relates tbh being a f2p gta clone is definitely more generic than being the only (that i know of) competitive open world pvp shooter what game is 20 years old? csgo went f2p in dec 2019 iirc, but it was gaining pop even before that

i'm unclear on what other response there can be to anyone who accuses approximately 25% of the population of cheating based on their arbitrary threat color, that's a pretty clear indication of someone with a major disconnect

wouldn't this already make apb generic? making apb into a more competitively balanced open world shooter would actually make it less generic not more siege is 5 years old i wouldn't exactly consider that new, and csgo recently hit its highest population since 2016 a valid tutorial that shows players mechanics before making them actively apply those mechanics is invaluable, for an apb example a player that knows what marksmanship mode is and what bonuses it gives will outperform a player that doesnt in basically every situation

you had me at least listening up to this point, deleting people's accounts (including accounts that have invested time not only playing but creating unique items ingame) is a one way ticket to deadville the only acceptable times for account wipes are in early access pre-release game versions, and while apb might (still) look and feel like an alpha it's not advertised as such

they temporarily nerfed the bounty system because it wasn't working as intended i've already addressed that apb doesn't have to be perfectly balanced, not even when compared to other shooter games however there is a large difference between "perfect competitive" and "not competitive" and apb is closer to "not competitive" than it needs to be imo

chess is a highly competitive game that is also playable for casuals and it’s also entirely red vs blue (or black vs white technically), i have no idea where you’re going with this example apb is objective oriented just like dozens of other competitive shooters, and competitive balance can be achieved asymmetrically

my definition of competitive balance as stated above does not require apb to be a red vs blue game

i won't disagree that there are a lot of reasons people quit but seeing as the game has been moved in a casual direction since day 1 of reloaded (looking at you, ttk decrease), and has pretty much failed every step of the way, i think its valid at this point to assume this direction is not working which people would those be, because from my pov little orbit has been favoring casual players until just recently shotgun rayscaling, hvr accuracy-based-damage, all 3 of the "new" weapons little orbit has added, and riot just to name a few examples, have all been geared towards a casual gameplay experience perhaps we have a different definition of competitive vs casual balance to me competitive balance is when players have a large amount of control over their actions/reactions and are rewarded for making use of that control, there is no "forcing" everyone to play a certain way other than ensuring that as many factors as possible are as equal as possible and casual balance is where a large amount of control is taken away from the player, rewards for making use of that control are arbitrary, and there's little to no thought given to equality given that apb is an inherently pvp experience and its also theoretically supposed to be fun i support a more competitive balance direction, since imo losing due to factors outside of your control is rarely a fun experience - especially if it happens consistently a highly competitive setup is not impossible will apb ever be as balanced as a static arena shooter where the only variables are each players' skill level? probably not, but that doesn't mean we can't get close and it definitely doesn't mean we shouldn't try i disagree, games like csgo and seige have kept and even grown their population years after their releases despite both being highly competitive shooters the true barrier to new players coming in to highly competitive games "late" are tutorials and matchamaking imo i fail to see how this has any bearing on apb as mentioned above, siege remains a very popular shooter despite being even more of a "csgo clone" than apb could ever be and by your logic gta online (the ultimate hyper casual open world shooter) already exists, so why continue pushing apb towards a casual direction either?

i don’t really understand why pushing apb towards a more competitive gameplay experience is a bad thing, we’ve desperately tried the casual approach for almost a decade now and all we have to show for it is lower population than ever

seven hundred milliseconds, actually

i’m a little confused, the valentines guns are being removed even tho the valentines event isn’t over? edit: oh nvm the guns are being removed at a different time from the patch

laughs in colby subforums

what's with people assuming they know how hard it would be to add things into a codebase they've never seen?

what if i don't enjoy any people? this is discrimination

if you're so hung up on the need for me to present a suggestion, then you can consider that technically my counter-suggestion is that we leave the /abandonmission system exactly as it is right now there problem solved

provided you or the n5/p5 player is on a mission the previous system: n5 player and you are an enforcer/p5 player and you are a criminal - a yellow nametag, a yellow star on the minimap, and a red crosshair when aimed at n5 player and you are a criminal - a yellow nametag, a yellow star on the minimap, and a green crosshair when aimed at p5 player and you are an enforcer - a green nametag, a green star on the minimap, and a green crosshair when aimed at all n5/p5 players can be interacted with the new system: a grey nametag, no star on the minimap, and a white crosshair when aimed at no n5/p5 players can be interacted with its far simpler imo easier does not always mean more powerful

it's only confusing to you because you're used to the old even worse system, and now you know better i'm willing to bet you're in a very small minority that doesn't operate based on red/green nametags or crosshairs edit: i guess i should add that i don't have any issue with the icon not appearing, it just seems like a really small nitpick to me when you would have had the same issue under the old system where friendlies had n5/p5 icons as well

the icon won't appear unless the name is visible the only thing you have to keep in mind when seeing n5/p5 players now is whether you're currently on a mission or not, imo that's far simpler (especially when playing a criminal character) than determining what faction they are and whether or not you can fight them without putting yourself at a disadvantage