Flaws

Yes and yet the OSCAR remains an ice-skater so that change accomplished nothing.

What? No, I mean the FAR. Its better than pre-nerf N-TEC at the exact things the N-TEC got nerfed for. https://i.gyazo.com/44b7042ea8e8433c909065bab1aed548.mp4 https://i.gyazo.com/2080d6caad86f62c11c3f6c3bcc28dca.mp4 https://i.gyazo.com/99ed7e3124a6bf6446ccbcdc6e848dca.mp4 And before you pull out your classic argument of "but it can't tap fire as efficiently at range as the N-TEC": Thats argueable but even so, it has all the """issues""" that were a """problem""" on the N-TEC and they're even """worse""" on this gun. The gun not becoming a useless watergun in CQC = issue by your standards.

smfh

Lol... so me pointing out the obvious flaws and drawbacks of something is suddenly somehow about me? Stainless steel logic.

I didn't hate 12 Deaths of Christmas And that was actually well executed and fun.

Fun? Lol. I wouldn't touch that shit with a 10m stick if it didn't give a good amount of JT. I've already explained how it needs to be fixed. In its current state it is an unfun, luck based, 100% RNG clusterfuck. Whoever gets a lucky spot/corner somewhere usually wins because they just slaughter all the oncoming fresh spawns. I've been on both sides of that coin many many times.

3-slot weapons need to become much much more accessible even on new characters. Having to grind roles to rank 15 on a single character (or grind 10k JT) for a single 3-slot weapon is insane and no one would bother to do that, who isn't commited enough to APB to spend some money on it regardless. On top of that, having to lease it every 10 days for 20k APB$ is even more insane for a newer player. Also your argument is the same as what people were saying when they lowered ARMAS prices. I have 3 maxed PRIMARY weapon roles on my main by just playing tons of fight club and I still wouldn't mind if they reduced the grind significantly. New players that only get a STAR and an FBW and get devastated by players with fully modded weapons that they have to pay for or grind for a year to unlock would much rather go play a more balanced game. Even in games like R6S or Apex where you need to unlock characters its still a waaay shorter grind to be able to compete against everyone else. In APB not only do you need to grind all that weaponry but you also need to buy overpriced level 3 mods for each of them. It is so much effort for so little reward in the end due to how busted the game is in general. I personally fully support the reduction of grind for 3-slot weapons of all kinds. It is necessary for APB to get at least some new players in. As a matter of fact, I wonder whether there should even be weapons that are less than 3-slot in the game. They could just give you 3-slots at like rank 5 and role progression beyond only awards cosmetic changes, so we get more weapon skins that are unique and require grinding, ones which you cannot buy anywhere, such as Chrome. That way, everyone can compete but fancier, more rare and unique cosmetics come at a grindy cost. We need to look past our own ego's if this game is to go anywhere. On top of this, all roles should be account wide. If I have chrome on my main, I should have it on all of my characters. Period.

Those aren't prenerf at all, you can clearly see the butchered N-TEC accuracy here. The screenshots are all taken at 1920x1080 so they are as accurate as it gets. I've overlayed the screenshots and added transparency + made each reticle more visible on top. This is how the guns really are. Mods are exactly the same on all 3 guns: HS3, IR3 because having IR3 shows even more how fucked the situation is, a mod that should make you bloom out a ton, meanwhile here we see something else. Even pre-nerf N-TEC wasn't ever this accurate at max bloom. I can upload one with full sized/non-cropped screenshots but for such a comparison it shouldn't be needed to spot the problem. The problem being that even when something is better than the N-TEC (at the very thing the N-TEC got nerfed for), if the silvers don't cry about it it won't be changed. There's literally a pre-nerf N-TEC in the game and no silver bats an eye because the gun is way less popular and accessible and also because they don't know jack about how the game should be designed and balanced. Its just noobs getting emotional to losing and the first thing they blame is the gun (other than cheats kek), there is literally nothing else to it. A stupid nerf caused by a not-very-smart group of players.

All fine here, guys. I see no issues whatsoever! N-TEC is totally 100% fine now! smfh

The more they listen to clueless silvers - the faster they kill their own game and its already becoming apparent. From a fun gameplay experience which had some variety we're now stuck with point and click easy peasy guns (shotguns/snipers) and the easiest W + LMB spray and pray guns dominating the field. Unless, you actually want to call a whole pile of mediocre, boring guns with a low skill-ceiling and no potential - "VARIETY" LOL (which is what we get now). All that was done was the skill ceiling got lowered significantly across the board and the game was made unfun, boring and frustrating for anyone above mediocre skill level. And yeah sure, hurr durr the N-TEC was ruined but the N-TEC isn't the first and will not be the last either and thats what concerns me the most. You'll see more and more players leave, I've already seen plenty leave recently for a multitude of reasons but weapon changes definitely play one of the big roles in that. No one that takes their own time and effort seriously will accept getting blasted by obvious noobs thanks to RNG and because weapons no longer allow for talented players to excercise their talent for very long. And let me assure you, APB will never make it as a scuffed, off-brand GTA which is what these most of these forum warriors' vision seems to be for it, even if they don't quite seem to realise it. You can huff and puff and pour your entire hearts into a thread about how X nerf and Y nerf were "necessary" only after the fact (not like you would know whats objectively necessary and what isn't for the game) all you want but at the end of the day, its all based on your emotions and your hate for the few things that made this game's gameplay fun and tolerable over the years, which you couldn't quite be a part of, you didn't want to or you don't have what it takes. All the casual players who didn't put much time into learning the game will easily move on to other games if APB shuts down without much care but the players that actually put thousands of hours and tons of effort, in most cases thousands of dollars too, are being cut short because of clueless delusional people that won't notice or suffer the consequences. Just to clarify, there is nothing wrong with being silver/casual/noob but there is objectively no reason why that category of players should ever have a say in how a game is designed and balanced. They don't in any other game and they shouldn't here either. There should be a group of carefully picked out high skill players that are verified who should have a say in how everything is balanced, just like in any other game and then everyone (that cares) strives to master it. If you're bad - you're bad, period - no crutches, no JGs, no ATACs, no Medusas, no HVRs, no NFAS, no W+LMB, no point and click around corners dominating everything else, no broken remote detonator, no grenade spamming, no car gameplay, etc etc. And I'm not suggesting that they should be removed from the game, but simply balanced so that they don't serve as crutches for dickheads and lazy people who want easy kills and wins without putting in real effort. Also, new players don't look at the weapon balancing of a game when they try it out. If your game sucks and is unappealing to a new player and has no proper tutorial, they will leave even if you have the most robust weapon balancing in the industry because they will never get to see it anyway. Noobs also don't care about balance because they just use whatever they feel like using regardless of how good it is, that whole thing is completely beyond their understanding or care. Stop destroying guns, revert most of the gun changes and mainly focus on the new player experience instead. If things get reverted (save for things like Yukon), weapon balancing can wait until after the engine upgrade. Its quite simple really. You need to give an incentive for the players that kept the game alive for so long to stick around until after the engine and that incentive is currently being stripped away through these mindless changes.

Revert it.

Which it is, objectively.

^ This. Its very cringe that all these people are doing it in fc all day long so blindly and they don't realise why it doesn't work for them like it works for others.

Yes, precisely and thats a huge concern regarding every other game which has a less-intrusive anti-cheat. Client side anti-cheat alone simply doesn't cut it in shooters in present day, you need a high quality server side anti-cheat which scans how players play the game in real time as well and also dedicated human personnel that monitor players on a daily basis, even on weekends because thats when some of the cheaters play most actively. Cheats such as silent aim, no recoil scripts/macros, speedhack, 0ms delay triggerbot should all be detected within an hour (or a day at best) due to how unnatural they are in comparison to any legitimate player's gameplay. Smooth aim and wallhack would likely take longer to detect which is understandable as they can be set up and used in a way where its "mostly" legit-looking.

I wouldn't say it is exactly EAC's fault but there are some cheat coders out there who really know their stuff and they manage to inject even through EAC/BE without much issue. Not only in APB but also in other games such as Fortnite which uses EAC as well. I do not know whether this info is correct or not but as far as I know some of the people that sometimes code for APB (in their spare time) also make working cheats for Valorant which has the most intrusive anti-cheat on the market with its kernel access. If they can make that work then whats EAC/BE going to do to stop them in an old game such as APB on such an old and well explored engine? I fear that even going to Unreal 3.5 or even 4 isn't going to make a significant difference on those who really want to cheat at all costs. Let's just hope that this isn't going to be a downgrade in anti-cheats because it would be detrimental.

Whatever it takes to clean out the little remaining trash that manages to circumvent EAC and closet cheat, I'm on board.

Its in my config which you can obtain from my twitch channel. I will private message you which file it is and the line you need to change because its against the forum rules to talk about configs and APB mods in public threads.

APB itself overall is very RNG and weapons are no exception. The game feels like it has a competitive base but then there are so many "features" that trip over any competitiveness. From weapon spread (bloom) being so big on most weapons (especially since LO's terrible weapon changes, cough N-TEC cough) down to simple things such as jumping on certain objects/walls/fences that are too high for a proper jump but too low to be inaccessible through a simple jump so you jump repeatedly to get on top and its 50/50 whether it will work or not. And then let's not forget the fact that to this day players outside of your mission can still collide into you with their cars and block/grief objectives. That is somehow STILL not fixed even though it is a relatively simple fix. Much simpler in comparison to an engine upgrade. Then the fact that the game is heavily one-sided towards defending and especially so in certain spots in both Financial and Waterfront that are completely out in the open with 0 cover or just simply straight broken ("German fortress" in Financial; Michael Simeone balcony in Waterfront etc). The spawn system which lets players that you've literally just killed, respawn in line of sight and in range (within 100m) of you or the objective and open fire directly which makes you lose the mission entirely only due to that alone. Also, car glitching and losing important fights due to that alone. The list goes on and on, I can write pages upon pages about the amount of problems this game has and why it isn't competitive in its current form even though it's base is competitive. Unfortunately, the only skill based side to the game is team play and reducing RNG as much as possible by playing it strictly as a team. For example, teams only ever stick to 2v1ing, 3v1ing players due to the fact that 1v1s are actually RNG in APB, more so than in any other shooter that is at least semi-competitive+. The biggest reason for those being RNG is exactly due to how weapons work in APB, where first-shot accuracy doesn't actually matter as much as it does in a shooter with headshots in it (save for snipers and the like). I actually agree with OP that weapons should be further buffed and made more accurate across the board (thus minimizing RNG and maximizing skill) instead of nerfing the only already balanced weapons in the game just because they are meta and are fun to play (cough N-TEC cough). And the fact that LO somehow think that the weapon balancing changes they've done so far have improved the game and not made the meta extremely stale, the game extremely boring and repulsive to even think about launching (because its literally nothing but JG, PMG, nades and car gameplay) would sound more like a joke to anyone who's actually aware of how the game is played and has decent+ skill in it, than an actual statement. The current weapon balancing is the worst I've seen in my 10 years of APB and even when some things were broken (which lots of them still are), at least most weapons were also strong and powerful and didn't cater to people that can't aim. You could actually counter it and have fun with the game and now its simply: Pick this weapon (PMG/JG) to be able to even have a chance at beating the opp that has that exact same weapon (PMG/JG) because everything else you can opt to use against it is basically a paintball gun. Sit in your car all day long, position it in a way you can glitch inside quickly when you are tagged, prenade every fight, resupply nades every chance you get and so on. It is undoubtedly the most dreadfully boring and restricting meta we've ever seen in the history of APB. It makes me and many others not even want to play missions in it's current state due to the horrific weapon balance situation alone thanks to LO's changes and utterly wrong focus. We went from having more diverse options of loadouts to just 1-2 exact presets that are forced down our throats if we want to compete. And if you wanna argue that this is somehow better for lesser players, casuals and newbies it actually isn't because they don't know what weapons to pick that are efficient anymore. Most weapons that you could get as a newbie or F2P had their strengths and their weaknesses so most starter options worked. Not so much anymore, is it? N-TEC is way more accessible than the FAR and now the FAR dominates the AR category by being better or at least as good as pre-nerf N-TEC 5. But the FAR is an ARMAS, Joker Store (10k JT) or rare event exclusive weapon AKA way less accessible and visible to any newbie.

I saw this last night and I'm not entirely on board based on what it sounds like and looks like in other games shown on the Anzu website. I fear that it will ruin APB's lore/world to an extent, as it will most likely replace many of its fictional companies/adverts which takes away from a game's world (unless its some racing game of course). I'm not even educated much on the APB lore and I still feel that way. But it is a "revenue that doesn’t come from the gamer’s pockets" so thats a good thing. I am curious to see how they go about doing this.

It is character bound and it gives you all 4 kits on the character so even if you are a crim but you have obtained a Jericho through Armas, it would be available for that Jericho too and vice versa for enforcers with Bishadas. That's how it works with the Pioneer kits and obviously the Vegas ones.

That's what they SHOULD do with almost all of their changes so far save for 2-3 such as the Yukon and COBR-A. Everything else has been a disaster.

Nah, it never really was that great. It might be nice for killing silvers and low golds but against decent players it will struggle, especially if they play PMG or even current OCA. Let alone a shotgun. The PMG has insane mid-range capabilities which the Aces rifle comes nowhere near and its much easier to use overall.

JG is shotgun king but inconsistent. CSG is too unforgiving to pick over the JG. PMG is SMG king. OCA is a direct downgrade to PMG. (aka completely useless) Bad balancing all around.

Even if, that kind of weapon combo shouldn't be in the game to begin with. It is game breaking as its the fastest TTK in the game. The fact that its possible at all is a problem.

Gun testing in a special prototype test district or in the normal live game doesn't change the feedback players would give. It all depends on who is doing the testing, what their APB skill level is, what their knowledge is about the game and how biased they might be. So "testing" and this "data" are broad terms that, if tested by the incorrect crowd would lead to incorrect "data" that is being used for rebalancing. In the case of the N-TEC, most of the people who've already made their decision that N-TEC is OP in CQC will likely not change their stance and will end up giving the same data regardless of what they tested and if they even went to do a test of any kind. What we are talking about is factual experience that we have had for the years and years of the N-TEC being the way it was and being used in the live game against tons of different players with different tactics, playstyles and loadouts. We are not biased against it and if any weapon is truly in need of a nerf, we would gladly have it nerfed, even if it were the N-TEC. On top of that, I don't recall the community ever being asked to test the pre-nerf N-TEC to form any opinions prior to it receiving any changes. We were given an already butchered N-TEC that no one liked in a prototype district, they put the N-TEC on hold for a few months and then gave us another test for a slightly less butchered N-TEC and within a week or two they put it in the live game. Testing changes for a weapon does not really shed light on the current state of said weapon. But again, I don't think it would've ever made it to the drawing board if it weren't for the masses of people complaining about it. I believe in the 1st or 2nd Q&A, Matt Scott specifically mentioned that they've heard that the "N-TEC is a big one". As in, tons of complaints from people getting smacked by it. I never heard any high skill players complaining about it personally over my years and I would know about it. I rest my case as this thread is derailing.