Salvick

I think a lot of stuff has been said in the recently closed post about the GMs program and I'd like to bring this now: The community GMs will be basically players, regardless their ingame stats and performance they are players like us who wants the better for the game and the other players (I believe so) and the idea of bringing or enforcing more ingame moderation should be a definitive solution for a lot of things that makes many players feel uncomfortable often. Either it is because you don't like cheaters or you don't like to be harassed with hackusations, or be it because of a player de-threating or ruining your mission on purpose or simply because you are lost in a higher threat district than your current threat level so in that case someone could assist you to find a more appropriate district instance or something like that. As many things here are changing, this GMs thing is something that will also evolve (hopefully), and will keep dynamically changing along time to improve, and these players will be around here too, listening and bringing their concerns every day as everyone does, and all of this will be under the direction of Lixil and LO management whose will be always there as they already demonstrated and they are very accessible if you need to reach them. I would like to know, what would you kindly request from a GM regarding ingame moderation and what are your positive expectations or any constructive opinions you may have about this? I hope this thread is welcomed since I also want to take my chance to humbly bring a few things for any Community GM, TGM or GM, based on a few issues I've been facing or have seen others do over the years playing this game: Players behavior ingame, many issues can be avoided with a kind word of warning from a GM. It would be great to be able to poke a GM ingame any time we need, even if we get a reply like that he is actually busy or that he is unable to address a particular concern or something is a million times better than feeling there are no GMs, since we will know someone eventually will take care of these things we can't handle ourselves as players. Oh and events, hope to see some crazy announcements in the ingame broadcast where they'd invite us to move to a specific district to meet with the GMs and have some fun there with them and their tricks. A little wall of text there so sorry for TL:DR ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (And please refrain from off-topic/shit posting, I'd be requesting to clean up the thread if needed, so don't say you didn't read the small print. : P ) EDIT 1: Right after posting this thread I've read in another thread a comment where someone asked Lixil about the red <GM> tag and it seems she stated all the GMs will have the same tag, that also implies that it shouldn't be necessary to have different tags because only Lixil and a few staff members from Little Orbit will have ban powers, and they are easy to spot. I'll still leave the poll open to see what people think about despite we know now how its going to be. EDIT 2: Removed the suggestion for GMs Tags, although I want to clarify the tags would be for GMs on duty and no the players. Shortened the suggestions I made at the end of the post. EDIT 3: I forgot to mention also that it was said by Matt that Tiggs's GMs will remain, which means we weren't lacking of GMs during this transition and experimented GMs are already in the team and perhaps ready to introduce and train the TGMs if needed too.

I believe there are countermeasures that are really easy to implement to avoid this. One of them is what we already had that were the "Trainee" districts, but since a lot of cheaters and also experienced players used to reroll on new accounts everytime, destroying newbies in the Trainee districts all day in their way through higher threat districts, there's the need of another step to stop rerolls from crushing newbies. The most simple solution I'd try is locking new accounts (not new characters) to Trainee districts for an entire hour before they can see the full list of districts, this way you not only get the new players playing safely against each other but also those thinking on breaking the rules will think twice before they get stuck for an entire hour on a Trainee district every time they reroll new accounts, now if you are just creating a new character then it does the inverse and only show you the advanced servers. Also I don't know why it doesn't count the played hours for match-making, I mean, does it? I think it doesn't count your global hours but just character wise or am I wrong with this?

What about this, the provider will not charge the days the server got DDoS for x amount of minutes, so Tiggs is paying $3 dollars x day to a DDoS'er to attack the servers and get the service totally free of charge, all this under strict instructions of Sadam Hussein who is still alive in an island with Michael jackson and lot of dead people who are not dead. >.< But being honest and back on-topic, I agree that maybe trying a different provider wouldn't cause any harm, but I really don't know about this, so.

Hey nice post. I mean, I skipped the 2nd page and I admit I find hard to understand the last sentence in your op but I'm not native English so forget it. I'd like to make an input myself, but I'm not gonna talk about which specific areas of the maps would be more or less difficult, I was thinking instead the same way some of the guys already said, I believe that the algorithm, or code, or whatever is needed for such system to work with the in-place threat system would require a nearly impossible work though I still think is not possible at all to do it. Instead, when you think of how to balance things in a game, besides the fact you can try to tweak current values and nerf and buff everything around, sometimes there's a simpler solution that might fit if there's no real need to modify anything of what you already made work. I'll be more specific, if you are willing to create a system that depends on the map to produce the desired effect on the players, then instead of manipulating the player's threat system which requires to give a new shape to something that already was carefully modeled, you can simply add a new object, value, currency or "threat measure" that usually works together with the rest of the game mechanics to contribute to a better match-making. Then, after reasoning the way I'm doing (I might be wrong with a lot of things ofc) what I was thinking when I saw your map draws and I definitely believe could work for what you propose, is to create a new value, let's call it a "consistent skill" requirement, or just "skill", which is assigned to each area of the map, this way the game will collect your stats from the last 'x' amount of days and will determine in which areas you are more likely able to get missions, this along with current character rank (standing points/contacts progression) could work as some sort of Tourf Wars or Mission Tiers, or something like that. If there aren't enough players for your mission tier then you of course will fall in the next poll below or above yours depending on available players, and if you are in a group the player with the highest "skill" value will determine the group missions tier. I don't know if I derailed too much your idea but I like the propositions you are bringing on and I thought of some sort of Tourf Wars with fixed "skill" points required to join each area. Pretty much like most MMORPG games where you can't enter areas unless you have the required XP for it, and I think we already saw some game modes in APB where they used some useful stuff to set map areas and such. My grain of sand to help you build the castle man, idk.

Honestly that sounds like the descriptions you read on those android games in google store. lol.

Bear in mind that the GMs program aims to improve the overall experience of the game and not exclusively chase after cheaters. If any of you have experience playing in private servers for any other games which I think you do, such as Counter Strike in example, you know you can have a great experience playing in a peaceful environment where the rivalry is okay but no one is disrespectful to each others because small communities usually have direct contact with the ingame admins every time they need them. I think pretty much this is what they expect to have when the Community GMs starts doing their job. Also, lot of players forget they should consider the latency values of each player on a given situation when they "feel" someone is killing them "faster" than the weapon allows to, let's say a TTK of a gun is, idk let's say 0.71 secs and one of the players on a fight is playing with +180ms, that's a quarter of the overall TTK of a gun so that would add a considerable delay in the TTK imo. Also I think that when it comes to investigate a suspected player, first of all the investigation should never be closed, so if someone else reports the same player again they shouldn't dismiss the report but take another look at the suspected player instead, and if the GMs have more info about what they should be looking for, such as wallhacks or something like that, then they should take a considerable amount of time to determine because is a very sensible matter to ban a player and personally I rather have a suspected player playing till I can prove he was definitely cheating than banning someone based on suspicions while he might be just skilled and/or lucky. (Even I do some stuff sometimes that I get scared of being considered a cheater because I just turn corners shooting or I just throw grenades to where an enemy could be coming from and many times I success with my predictions.) You shouldn't be worried about protecting anyone, whoever is playing legit will be fine and confident that if something wrong happens they'll be able to explain it. What I couldn't explain myself instead is how there's so many people concerned about being "hackusated" when I personally consider it something to be proud of and I always enjoy exchanging some words with the ones I suspect or the ones who hackusate me so we both understand what we did that just looked like cheating. I think a good tag for them once they pass the Trial stage would be CGM = Community Game Moderator.../Master/Mister/Monster or whatever the M stands for lol

So, back on topic....wait, what was the topic about? lol Ok, going serious now, regarding the roadmap will the players be able to participate in the OTW servers to provide feedback about the weapons re-balance? I recall this thread from the past where they invited everyone to provide feedback following the guidelines posted there: APB Reloaded Open Test World also known as OTW Also I wonder if the ignore function stops the ignored ones from seeing your posts too? Guess it doesn't but I really don't know so I'm asking.

Going a bit further in this topic, although I couldn't know better than you and your devs team about this, I think the /report system should work more like a ticket system that puts you on a queue when use it and you can't send more reports till the GMs review your report and they flag it solved or working on. Even in a server with a dozen of players they still abuse the /report channels spamming every time if they feel nothing happens. Also would make it easier to analyze the logs and gather statistics about GMs activity as same as avoiding getting the logs flooded with multiple /reports from the same player. Just my two cents, but I'm looking forward to see how it goes when it improves, sounds great to be talking about this with such detail.

+1 ^__^ I miss so much PvP'in with my peeps waiting for opp.

Please, just make sure the person who did the Spanish voices/translations of the civilians NPCs in the game is far, far away from the offices! These are hilarious!

Yeah I know what you mean, I just think sometimes we need a GM to monitor other players ingame and maybe do it for a while to catch them doping whatever they aren't supposed to be doing, adding the reason would be a good way to let them know what's your issue with the player you are reporting and take actions in the moment this is happening if needed. That's what I wish.

Creating a new post or commenting around forums every time you need to answer the community about our concerns is priceless Matt, thank you very much! I wish we could have a second parameter to add in the /report function too because sometimes I just use it for people who are not cheating but just doing other stuff that might require moderation ingame. We need something like /report [name] [reason] so the GMs would know what they are looking for when a player is getting reported.

I have learned a few things out of this game too, I remember the time I tried a symbol for 3 hours and the server crashed, next day I was decided to do it and this time my game crashed and lately I tried one more time and I just deleted the symbol by mistake because of the thumbnails bug...the third day I told to myself "Will I going to let things outside of my being decide over my own will?" and finally finished what I wanted to do and added the sentence Never Give Up on it (it was a tattoo) but the most important detail here is that I've learned what "never give up" really means, it doesn't mean you have granted success or that you'll be always a winner, it means instead that you'll fail a lot of times and you'll have to keep trying since your own will is the only power to stand up and keep going. However, I didn't want to sound corny but as people said to you already, no one can hurt you on a video game and neither should they irl, usually what it hurts the most is what we think of ourselves than what we really are, and many times people around will try to convince you that you are that bad but, you know what? They just don't know you yet, I think you and almost everyone are amazing, and the special ones that are always pulling your emotions to negativism, you rather have the bad luck of meeting them than the disgrace of being yourself such a person like that, rite? Also: ...and: Take care buddy, Sal.

Awesome news!

Yeah, but remember that there are players applying for APB and Fallen Earth, besides also server worlds.

Having so many talented players all around the world who would gladly help I think you'll find yourself in love with this game pretty soon if you aren't already, I always admire the talent and effort that everyone puts on their characters and creations which inspires me to try myself to improve my own ones taking ideas and asking every time I need advice. Why don't you set some sort of regular event where you ask players for help, so you could watch a live stream of a different player every time, arranging with them a session to help you out with the customization features of the game? I don't know if this is a good idea or it is possible for you at all @Lixil but I think it would be a great interaction with the community at the same time that a lot of beginners and anyone else who wants to learn from others could join if they see something like this announced regularly and I'm pretty sure the streamers would love it, although I'm not very informed about the streamers scene tbh. I'll be looking forward to see more staff ingame and even play whenever is possible!

I really think we should expect this, I might be wrong, but it looks like they just had the chance to put their hands at work right once they announced the purchase of G1 and its games, which would mean they still need to train their CS staff along with tweaking the old staff remaining if so. I've been working in a customer support area for bigger companies than G1/LO in the past more than once, and usually when there's a transition, either it is because of technical improvements or just because of new staff joining, there is always a little gap with the support requests received during such time, particularly if these are handled by new staff, they usually need to ask about every detail and make sure they are all aligned with their management guidelines. I'm guessing they are taking their time and doing a great effort to make sure everything will work smooth once they tidy up everything plus the fact that this game is a free2play and that gathers tons of players who may feel in a need of support for anything they think so Customer Support must be getting thousands of players creating new tickets and even multiple tickets from the same players. Be patient, we must be glad they didn't shut down the game for a while during the transition, I still think that would be the best choice to save a lot of this issues that players are having with the CS but I'm still ok with just having the game running in the meanwhile and I consider this stage of the transition as a purge time till everything settles down. Regards, Sal.

@NotZombieBiscuit @CookiePuss My bad, I think I was mistaking "multiple accounts" with "account sharing" which is something different, thanks for pointing this out, have read the ToS and EULA again and there's nothing about registering multiple accounts. Thought I got confused because in the past I used to be super scared of sharing accounts when people wants you to edit something in their characters or cars and I remember I always refused to log into anyone's else account because of that.

I can tell people don't read the ToS, it clearly says that you are allowed to have just one single account and you're not supposed to create multiple accounts. I have mine since ever and never played with any other account so I really don't understand why people do that...oh and name changes. Why so sneaky you people!?

Exactly what I try to say, those are practically impossible to tell unless you clearly see what the player see to determine if he is effectively tracking his enemies through the walls. Even I do some stuff a very few times that is a mix of luck and experience where I just pretend the enemy could be right in the corner and I come out ready to shot and even shooting and a very few times that work just incredibly well, then I regret the times also I thought someone else could be cheating because how they kill me, but this game makes it very easy to predict some players behaviors when you are used to the map and the different game style some players have. Indeed, when I suspect someone is cheating these suddenly becomes the most predictable ones when I starting to think that they might be wallhacking, so I start doing thins I usually wouldn't do and these odd tactics end up giving good results, or at least I manage to find them and engage besides I might die almost every time.

Nice one. I'd like to add a humble comment about this, as someone who have been playing ~6-7 years and also I've been a cheater myself on a different game that was also a third-person-shooter back in 2003/2005 lasting years doing what is known as "closet cheater" I can tell it is impossible to determine if someone is using wall-hacks unless you can spectate everyone's name tags/icons through objects to see if the suspect is effectively tracking enemies through the walls, plus the fact that there are methods to by-pass BattleEye which means that the current available cheats that many hackers already coded in the past would only need to bypass BE in order to work, without the need of much more coding or none at all, so I'd put a very special attention in those players flagged f there are any. Regarding trigger-bot and macros those are also hard to tell by just "spectating" but FF and BE should do a good work to flag these so I'd put my trust on it, and last but not least you have the "smooth aimbot" which is when a player does not exactly "snaps" but is smoothly transitioning from one target to another while locking his aim on targets, they set it up like this to avoid triggering flags by FF. The problem is that an experienced players knows how to toggle on and off his hacks to avoid suspicions and they can even assign a key for the auto-aim button which they only tap a few times when engaging so they land enough shots while still making it look natural. To enforce their "closet" techniques they could even refrain of being on top scores so they don't get fingers pointing at them, sounds oddly difficult to determine any of this so I'm just saying what would be possible for them to do but not claiming that anyone in particular is doing so. I'm concerned with the amount of methods to bypass BE that seems to be available out there, I just hope that along with FF and GMs spectating players they manage to spot cheaters when it comes to it, and the fact that it can be a 7 years old player shouldn't make any difference if FF and BE are flagging them, these should stay under the scope more than anyone else even if you can't spot anything on first sight but lately someone else is able to report new suspicious behaviors on a same player. I hope you guys improve the /report function as well since it would be really useful to stealthy send a message specifying what is what we are reporting, such as if it is a griefer, a player insulting other players, or any other of the many possible disruptions of the game the players can do. Regards, Sal. Dislaimer: by no means I'm trying to encourage or advertise anything related to cheating, if this comment or any part is considered a way to support such activities please dismiss the message and let me know to avoid such comments in the future.

Man, love your cars bro!

meh, you're just about right, I've been finding trouble to use spoilers since they get merged weirdly and I can't edit them anymore once posted. Idk, I'm using Firefox, should try with Chrome to see if also happens.

I'm quite sure that the deletion of items must have be done when the ban was applied and L.O. might have no trial to follow these. Personally I don't care if they banned real money trades since its against the ToS that a lot of other people have been sticking to, and would make sense if they edited the account to delete the items obtained through such trades, I think it fits, wouldn't call it a "deserved punishment" but more like a properly measured action. The "there's no proof" excuse could be truth not gonna deny it, but also G1 had a policy of not giving information of how they prove something so neither could we know. If there is a way to check "manual bans" and there's no proof to back these, I do agree that it is unfair to touch anything regarding these accounts, but in the other hand we must look at the fact that L.O. had to try their best to release these accounts in order to allow all the players to return and this was the best choice they could do to finally deploy BE and bring back the population the game was waiting for, they could still hold all the data to analyze each case individually, but that would make things delay way more than considerably, so I'm just looking at the bright side of things and as someone said, you are literally coming back from the death row, these accounts were already dead if it wasn't for L.O.