Rikard86

In RTW times and in early G1 beta all guns produced tracer effects when firing. This made it easier for people to identify where they where being shot from (really useful in case of snipers) and gave silenced weapons a proper reason to be used over unsilenced counterparts since they produced no tracers. The feature got broken along the development and up to today still hasn't been restored.

Because that's how the game used to work before it was changed. Buy no ammo, spawn with no ammo. It was basic inventory management which however managed to be very confusing and didn't do anything to justify its existence.

Please elaborate. Ammo system is pretty much useless as a money sink mechanic and doesn't add anything to the game except the annoyance of spawning with no ammo

You don't want clanwars in an environment that is 95% random

But I was told that fixing the shotgun balance would bring back 4000+ players!! You want to know why nobody plays APB? The community is honestly the worst I've ever seen. Just as an example, yesterday night while leveling up an alt (Gold in the mid-100s) I had a lovely encounter with a much higher ranked player that by his own admission had been forcing people into 1vs1 all night (which is a banana move in itself, but that's another story). During the whole match he'd call me out critiquing my weapon choices, the ways I killed him, trash talking, and generally being very a terrible sport despite very easily leading the game (I was pretty much being slaughtered tbh, no use in denying it). At first I thought it was an 'internet tough guy' gimmick but I quickly realized he was serious. Mission ends in a VIP phase which I barely win due to the game being stacked against him, he then just goes on a tirade with the same argument as before. We both move districts (low population) and I find him doing the same thing in district chat with other people. I've played really toxic games in the past and this takes the cake for me. Imagine downloading the game, going to the fullest instance to get more opposition and getting this guy as your first match.

The Strife is a beast right now, wanted to try other shotguns and give proper feedback but haven't been able to put it down since it's too much fun lol.

Frankly the ammo system might as well have been removed after it got "broken" since you always spawned with full ammo anyway and the impact on your income as a money sink has always been negligible, especially if you have Premium.

Just popping in to write this: Strife gud. That's all I have to say on the matter.

they lowered the multiplier on consecutive pellets meaning you now have to land more to kill AND increased the TTK across all shotguns (DOW and NFAS excluded). on paper it works, however when I tried the JG on Test A it wasn't that much different, at least until 7m

ye thats true, somehow the values are not correct, but it shows some kind of a nerf to it and it rather needs a buff than a nerf. The Strife on Live does not oneshot Fragile users, the one on Test A does. I'm pretty sure that being able to eat anything that has taken even minimal damage in a single shot counts as a buff. Which is good, I want to like the Strife so much.

Aren't the "from" values from the current Test A setup? Because I'm pretty sure the Strife does not deal 945 damage on Live

Pump-action shotguns right now are fine, they're supposed to be that strong in close range. The "bandaid" range nerf made it so that they can be fought with SMGs pretty easily, all they need now is the tune up they're getting in the upcoming patch and they're good, Test A JG feels very good to use and not weak at all. Shredder got overbuffed to hell and back, the game is borderline unplayable if the opposition has more than one on their team, can't wait for the nerf to drop tbh.

Basic, external triggerbot is the most diffused triggerbot atm since it's not injected and as such is "safer" than "proper" cheats, while still guaranteeing an edge on legit players. All you need is to look for the process and shut down the game if you find it, but frankly I wouldn't know if BE can do that without proper admin access. Injected cheats are another pair of sleeves and need to be detected via other means.

No need to remove the red crosshair, just make sure it's a different shade of red each time, something barely noticeable by the human eye but just different enough that if somebody tries to set up their triggerbot by color range it either ends up picking up everything and they end up firing all the time or it ends up being so precise they fire 1/4 of the time. Switch the color ranges each patch for maximum enraging profit.

RFP's dropoff starts at 40m, but the overkill and the high damage per burst make it really damaging even past that range. It stops being dangerous (more than 4 full bursts - 12 bullets) around 50m, with the Fang going well past that. ACT44 and RSA can't compare - the ACT is pretty much blown out of the water at what it's supposed to be its optimal range (it's too inaccurate for longer ranges, even the HS3 version, so the 70m dropoff doesn't mean squat), and while the RSA might have the range advantage it does not have the TTK and fire rate advantage - RFP can fit almost 5 full bursts in the time RSA needs to fire 3 bullets, enough to cover 2/3 of RSA's range. Add to the fact that in APB it's easier to close a gap than to keep your distance and you know where I'm going with this.

Yeah... except that the problem with the RFP9 is not that it's too good in mid-close, but that it shits all over ACT44 and RSA up to 50m (better equip and reload time, easier bloom and recoil, faster TTK). This makes the ACT44 useless (not that it is that great of a gun, it's pretty terrible IMO) and gives the RSA too much of a fierce rival. Making it marksmanship only wouldn't change that, even if it's given N-TEC levels of bloom when moving.

Volcano is another pair of sleeves, I've played with and against people whose modus operandi is to whip it out during Kills phases to spam 1000 damage missiles from out of visual range. Why was the missile gravity curve removed? 4x4 and Coywolf have no acceleration penalty when running with VIPs or items, they are a bit broken, yeah - but there are ways to face this kind of VIP and not all of them require an OSMAW or car surfer. yeah I read that as Car Hold, go figure (which doesn't make sense since you can get into the van once, blow it up, keep blowing it up to prevent enemies from getting it and win). what you just described is what happens in Cisco districts, since car delivery missions are much easier to do when you're delivering Vegas due to the car being faster, heavier and sturdier, but that's mainly a car balance problem and not strictly mission balance.

this wouldn’t really solve the problems that the test districts have Na, I was speaking hypotetically. We all know that the solution for the test district issues is to have devs pop in and say "just play missions normally". and that's terrible.

It's an old concept you're all familiar with that helps with player retention. In case you're not, let me clarify: With this idea each player has 2 stamp cards - a single and a clan card. Simply log in and play in a mission district to get a login stamp on one of your two cards (play solo or in a pick up group to get a single stamp, play with at least a clanmate in your group to get a clan stamp). You have to actively play missions and not just sit in the district: in order to earn your stamp you have to either complete 5 missions or play 1 hour of mission time, whichever comes first. Stamp cards award prizes when completed, and are reset to day 1 if you don't play for 48 hours since your last login. The longer your streak, the better the prizes. Ideal prizes might include: APB$ (daily reward) Consumables (daily reward) random JMBs (daily reward) vehicle kit parts (one part per prize, weekly reward. Duplicates get turned into JTs.) weapon skins (each skin applies to a single weapon - ex. Hi-Tech skin for the N-TEC. Weekly reward. Duplicates get turned into JTs.) Joker Tickets (small amount each 3 days, bigger amount each week) Random clothing unlock ARMAS items (timed weapons/vehicles, obtained when a 30 day card is completed) Clan cards, instead, give you gifts you can trade with your clanmates. The items contained are random between all the items of the single stamp card. The longer your streak, the more gifts you earn on each stamp (maxing at 3 per day after a month). You cannot open the gifts yourself.

Don't put any open objective. For an Open Combat district to work you should have the players play as they normally would with the added extra of being able to kill players outside your mission. As such, you need to give them an incentive to play missions instead of just killing random people. - Introduce the following leaderboards for Open Combat. Longest survived (in mission) Opposed missions won Longest kill streak (in mission) Most damage dealt Most money earned Most missions interrupted (kill other players while they are on a mission) Most Bounties killed Rewards are divided in Single and Clan, with Clan rewards being the sum of all of its players efforts, but since the reward is shared between each player it's not as big as a single player reward.. Reward players daily, weekly and monthly, with prizes getting better as time goes on and they keep their spots (items for daily, Joker Tickets for weekly, 30 days Armas weapons for monthly). Players that are on top on the leaderboards are marked on the map at all times, so that you can chase and hunt them down if you're after the same prize (nothing better than going after the guy that just beat your Longest Survived record, right?) DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU

Not a fan of VIP vs VIP tbh, splitting the team into attack and defense means that whatever VIP dies is at a much harder disadvantage than just VIP lives, depending on how many people decide to stick with defending him instead of attacking the opponent's VIP. Antivehicular combat is the least of our problems here, the biggest trouble is caused when one of the teams decides to challenge the opposition to a parkour run while they take potshots with snipers. Make it so that points are awarded only when somebody is actively driving the car - i.e. distance traveled instead of time. Problem solved. Or get rid of the worst offending delivery points during final phases, i.e. anything that is not at ground level.

miss once with the RFP and you wait for the refire timer, that's an extra .5s the opponent has to take you down. Miss once with the FBW, you have another round in the chamber. That's what I meant by slightly harder - up close with no cover the FBW wins hands down only because it's easier to hit your opponent with. RFP rewards the use of cover, and that's another reason why it needs a damage nerf, because - again - almost 400 damage on a pistol burst is insane, you just need to tag them a couple times with your rifle while they're rushing you for an instant facemelt once they get up close.

And hitmarkers, in case you hit something. Can't confirm hits on what you can't see.

Slow slow i talk about Mission balancing ..Same Cars to deliver, same Time in missions for both factions and so on that's easy to fix. Yeah, that was for the guy who wanted "competitive APB". Also yeah, missions badly need a complete revamp, or a rebalance at least. The second should be pretty easy, since everything they need is already in, they just need to change the mission flow to involve both Crims and Enfs in a more active way (i.e. switching attack and defense more often) Ideally we should get a more 'freeway' mission flow to keep things interesting (i.e. if defenders win the first phase go to A, otherwise go to B, or a Phase Point system where both factions are given the same target and the end result of the mission is based on whoever won most phases), but that would require not only to redesign missions from scratch, but also to completely rewrite the system.

APB is not made to be a competitive game, there are too many random factors involved in an APB match, included but not limited to: Objective location and type (picking up an item on the street is one thing, delivering multiple PCs to the top of the mall in Waterfront, well...) Unbalanced locations (the roof on top of Double B's subway station comes to mind, but it's just one of many) Vehicle availability (nothing like respawning and finding no cars, with the closest spawn being at 100m) Random vehicles based on instances (depending on your instances the same mission might require you to deliver a Vegas or a Cisco, each one having a different approach) Influence from outside players (being pushed by cars, someone blowing up your cover item, being killed by or as a Bounty, and the list doesn't stop here) RNGJesus weapon accuracy (self explanatory... I'm all for making the first bullet of each burst being pinpoint) As you can see, mission balancing is only one of those factors. Some of these are easily fixable, some are stupid hard. For a game to be competitive, matches must exist in a vacuum where players have complete control over what happens, random elements are the complete opposite of this, and the resulting mahyem is what makes APB ultra-casual, as you might be doing your best at winning but your efforts might be invalidated by something you have no control on.