Goldtiger

Before you purchase, keep in mind that the OCA-EW 626-SD NFCP3 is not the same as the OCA-EW 626 'Whisper'. The Whisper has preset mods on it, as well as unique zoom and range values that you cannot get on any other OCA variant. The OCA-EW 626-SD NFCP3 that you talked about buying is just a modular OCA-EW 626 with a suppressor on it; no range or zoom value changes like the 'Whisper'. IMO, it's not that great, since OCA is really powerful with Cooling Jacket and not having that is a bit of a downside in its own. I would, however, recommend the PMG 'Hush', since it literally has no recoil and is a laser (just cant run cj3 tho). If you're asking about the Modular suppressed OCA vs the PMG, go with the PMG. If you're asking about the 'Whisper' vs the PMG, it's up to you. While I prefer the PMG, the OCA is much more reliable in CQC, just the 'Whisper' gives you more versatility in range at the expense of preset mods.

As I've told my IRL friends, don't come back just yet. Things have changed, yes, and a lot for the better, but there's still an annoying amount of tryhard players using basic meta setups such as ntec/fbw, ntec/.45, nfas/rfp, obeya/fbw, obeya/.45, etc (you all probably know the annoying meta combos), all combined with yolos or percs to spam once they've dealt a dumb amount of damage in half a second. Even if they make this game easier to play in terms of progressing, the base gameplay is still unbalanced as hell, and that has honestly been the main issue with APB since the beginning. Once balance has actually taken place, then it will be worthwhile coming back. And there's a lot that still needs to be done so, if you do want to come back soon, come back after U.E. 3.5.

I definitely dont see them as a shameful title, but more like a warning that I probably don't want to play against them EDIT: though people do tend to pull that "I've played more than you" card when they have that title

Good list. You should probably add balancing ARs to the list, so that the ntec isn't the king of all ARs anymore (or just nerf ntec lmao).

To answer the topic question, yes, grenades are too powerful in this game. It's always been annoying to me how focused this game has been on landing grenade hits rather than the gunplay itself (especially in top-tier play). I agree with pretty much all the things here (except for the pig+perc thing but that's not relevant in my post). There's really a couple of things I'd suggest LO do to balance grenades. I'd prefer they don't do all of these but at least some combination of these. Decrease the damage radius of grenades (excluding concs). Grenades have too large of a radius imo. There are many times where I've personally felt like I've gotten a fair distance away from a grenade but still gotten greatly damaged by it. This is especially the case with Low Yields and Percussion grenades. Reducing its radius by at least half will encourage precision. Decrease Low Yield Frag Grenade count by 1 OR nerf Low Yield Travel Speed. Either one of these changes (not both together though) should be a good nerf to yolos, while giving some advantage over regular Frag Grenades. Decrease grenade supply globally (excluding 8-ball, brick, and snowball) by 1 Should make grenades more of a tool to get people off of a corner RATHER THAN used as a tool to engage/finish fights -- excluding percs, which are made to do that. Low Yields would at base be 2 grenades, while everything else would be 1. Remove the -1 grenade count drawback of using Flak Jacket & add a new drawback. Give Flak Jacket a new drawback. This could be: Decreased grenade damage (output). Decreased grenade radius (output). Remove ability to hear grenade ticks (either your grenade, enemy grenades, or both). Decrease damage of grenades. Decrease Frag Grenade damage to 600. (Slightly above Low Yield Damage). Decrease Low Yield Damage to something between 400 and 475 (Slightly above above live Percussion Grenades). Decrease Percussion Grenade damage to 300 (This should make it purely used for finishing players. Spamming it should be less effective). Decrease Concussion Grenade damage to 850, keep hard damage the same. (Should make it purely an anti-vehicle grenade, and serve as an hvr shot in battle). If any or all grenade damages are nerfed, Flak should be nerfed to remove 20% of grenade damage (just because it would be too strong). Of course, this is just how I would go about balancing grenades. I would definitely not do all of this, but personally would find it better to do #s 1, 2 (yolo count), and 4. If grenades are still too strong after testing, then maybe 5 would be necessary (or parts of 5). I made this post kinda intricate and big so please forgive me if you didn't want a response of this sort.

You can't just do improve/renew, you need to add a "keep the same" option. I've personally never had a problem with the n5/p5 system; I've always seen it as a balancing mechanic to give losing teams a slightly better chance at coming back. Like yeah, it's frustrating to be killed by someone random outside the team, but all b/c something is frustrating for the one affected, that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be changed.

obeya ntec fbw/.45 pig-perc is debatable, just b/c LTL is risky in its own. If you're playing against a coordinated team, you'll usually never be able to get any arrests off.

New players have and will continue to be drawn away from this game, no matter how much interest they may show in the game. The only thing we can truly blame is the community, unfortunately. The amount of times I've tried to get my friends into the game (and failed) has really put that perspective in my mind. So imho, APB is doomed unless the community changes (and the only way it can change is by punishing for toxicity). The people shown in this video were clearly reroll accounts with probably a (couple) thousand hours in the game, just looking to bully someone new for attention. I will never be able to understand why people think it's a good idea to bully new players (sometimes, I let new players kill me or get wins against me just to avoid 'bullying them when the matchmaking puts me against them)...like if this continues, the game will continue to have a low pop (look at Jericho!!!).

That's just the ntec lol, it has nothing to do with the player, which is exactly why it needs a nerf.

Yeah, like said by the 2 above, it worked for a few days just a couple of days ago, but now it isn't working again.

So just a couple of minutes ago, I was playing a mission titled, "Consumer Rights". This mission is essentially one where criminals must shoot storefronts to progress the mission, while enforcers prevent the criminals from shooting them. Due to the difficulty of defending these storefronts, I've personally always found these objectives to be a waste of time, so I take it upon myself to shoot the storefronts (being the one defending them), so that the mission can progress faster without the need to attempt to defend something so indefensible. Today though, I discovered that shooting these storefronts as a defender will not progress the mission like it used to. Instead, the objective will stay on the storefront, and the storefront will remain broken through the duration of the mission. Additionally, the criminals will be unable to progress through the mission since the storefront cannot be damaged, resulting in the Enforcers winning by time running out. I have a screenshot below that shows this bug active. If you look at the bottom-left, I whispered an enemy to see if it was bugged the way I described it, to which they confirmed (I heard them try to shoot it earlier). Also, I see no reason to censor names and other shit so get over it. This is a bug that should be fixed immediately as it is completely gamebreaking and literally decides who wins at what time. You should also consider that this objective (as i remember it to be) appears not only once in the mission, but 2-3 times.

Yeah, I'm in favor of nerfing grenade spam but not explosive weapon spam. Sure, they can place some form of limit ig but not the ones they have proposed rn. And the blank firing thing is so annoying, it screwed me over the other day in a mission. I agree though, the opgl and other explosives need to be more consistent. All explosives primaries are pretty situational, and need to be consistent for that reason. They need to be just as consistent as the boring Meta weapons that everyone loves to run (also when it's the ntec getting nerfed wtf LO).

Blatant hackers aren't really common anymore, at just in NA servers. Only closet hackers, using things such as triggerbots, walls, or aim assists..you know, things to help them but not gain too much suspicion. I've lately been suspicious of many people for using these things but it's really hard to tell. All you can do is report any suspicious behavior and try to catch them cheating with clear evidence. A game can never be hacker free, especially a shit game like APB. So don't let it kill your experience too badly.

I've always thought that the solution would be to keep R195+ players from playing with people before R195.. And if grouped with someone lower than R195, then they'd suffer the same restrictions. Just to keep the many try hard max rank players from ruining less skilled players' fun. When people get to R195 though, I'm not sure how to balance matchmaking from there other than the shitty that system being reworked.

I kinda wish they merged Russia with the NA servers...maybe the server wouldn't be as dead lol

This. Well, I feel like it should be like "If your account has any character who is R195 or above, it should be blocked from becoming bronze threat and immediately be brough to silver threat if already bronze threat". This would fix SO MUCH dethreating issues but for some reason this still hasn't been implemented. EDIT: Also, to the person arguing that bronze is for bronze players and not new players, you realize that bronze players (legitimate bronzes) are most of the time new players? And that the fake ones are just dethreated high-ranked players who want to go bully new players?

LOL

Yeah, I thought i was supposed to end 30~ minutes ago but ig not

He just recently clarified that he did get banned for griefing previously (temp banned), and that now he is perma banned for it. Also, I'm pretty sure dump truck "griefing" was never a bannable offense, just an annoyance to many in the community. I know some people in the past have been banned for dump truck griefing one select person, though. Other forms of griefing (such as ghosting) is definitely a bannable offense, though. I know from personal experience that it actually is. I only found out the reason why I was banned in the past by G1 (pre-LO) due to me asking on the forums and Tiggs herself replying with the reason. So you have no idea what you're talking about.

Dethreating is definitely an issue but I'm honestly not sure it will ever be solved unless completely new matchmaking principles are established....OR the game's population is revived (but that won't happen for years at best).

OK, you should've definitely been given a temp ban for griefing (so long as it isn't dump truck griefing, cause that's an acceptable form lol), but a perma ban is not okay. Perm bans are also a part of the reason why this game is dying. How are people supposed to learn from such minor bad decisions (ones that don't involve hacking) from a perma ban? I've never understood that. The most he should've gotten was a 30-day ban. You've been here since 2014, so its sad to see that you go down to something this minor lol. I'm not gonna be an pleasant fellow like a lot of the people in this community and say "good riddance" but rather good luck getting a ban appeal. Also, when you believe that you've been perma banned for an unfair reason, the forum posts are the fastest way to get a response. Back before LO took over, it was the only way to, but nowadays you have to wait a couple of months for a response. So why not rack up attention about it than let it go forgotten? People who have never been pemabanned for an invalid reason would never be able to understand this until it happens to them. That's the sad truth.

This, unfortunately. With how long the 3.5 has taken (including before LO took over), people coming back to the game will probably have high expectations and be left disappointed with what they get. I could always be wrong, but my guess is that APB will actually die before 4.0 is completed/released.

Another thing to add on the list of things to do...lol

Here, I'll say it for all the people who probably viewed this but didn't respond (so this post doesn't look ignored): I don't know.

Right now I'm planning on buying that S1-NA. It seems like it's pretty similar to the ATAC but more built for CQC which is much more appealing to me. As for what I would recommend, I'd say Golden OSMAW since that's the only form of permenant explosives you can get...and if not that, get a permenant PMG (since it's probably going to stay meta), so a 3 slotted CBMP. For secondaries, definitely get yourself either a showstopper or a .45 AP: both are great weapons.