sweetLemonade

He's not the only developer at hand in the game. The old "APB is custom spaghetti code" arguement is a old-wives tale at this point. How can we even objectively verify whether the game is actually as badly coded as they keep on mentioned to us for years now? There's clearly a blocker between what the passionate community members wanted for years and what we're getting (breadcrumbs) Is it a pure developer skill issue? A complete lack of care for the game and merely viewing it as a cash-cow, coupled with ignorance on what the game actually needs? Is it just ego and refusing to listen to opinions of veterans on what makes the game good? Is it a management issue? I'd say its a little bit of everything. The more these syntagmas such as "spaghetti code", "custom code", "incredibly complex" gets regurgitated around, the more it loses it's value. Why would we as a customer care about the reasoning a product's company provides on why they've shipped a broken product to customers? They've had 14 years to deliver a working product. Do you understand how long 14 years is? They either deliver a good product or they don't and suffer the consequences. The latter is what we're currently experiencing right now. There's absolutely no excuse for the state the game is in right now. Games such as CS1.6 or CSS pull 100x more players (games made in the year 2000 and 2004) than APB right now. What are the deciding factors that these games provide to a player that APB doesn't? Two things: 1.) Immense amount of community-made content (high variety of game modes, skins, custom dedicated servers,...) 2.) Dead simple, but high skill-ceiling gameplay mechanics. Both of these concepts incentivise the player to grind and stick to the game. The only "awful" thing about the guns is the fact they're comparatively higher TTK than the majority of guns played in the game (when you min. TTK with them aka when you get lucky) Though, in my books, the ISSR-B has a tad bit too much bloom compared to the Oblivion, Coroner & Scout The ISSR-A is the lowest bullet spread assault rifle in the game, even at it's 0,84s TTK it's worth it over it's counterparts. You can just run the ISSR-C and enjoy the high accuracy low TTK gameplay The entire ISSR series is a straight upgrade and a league in it's own over other guns. Btw, thank you for confirming your mechanical skill level publicly. Greatly appreciate the self filtering.

Very concerning that it took me this long to find a critique of LO in a patch thread. Though thankfully, the 2 of us are not alone. It seems that most people don't wanna face the real situation this game is in. Either that or everyone passionate has already left. If LO expects anyone to touch & STICK to this game when the basics of what makes a shooter game aren't established, such as: 1.) Game having the least amount of RNG as possible (there shouldn't be any bullet spread) when it comes to weapon & game mechanics There's no coherent weapon design philosophy. Why are there 0,5s and 1,5s TTK guns in this game? 80% of guns in this game are <0,8s TTK, a value which the game originally wasn't designed with. Why are there guns such as the ISSR-C, Dog-Ear and Oblivion which have 100% accuracy regardless of moving or not? Why are all guns inferior to this? Why not just make the whole game actually skill-based instead of introducing a small set of guns which behave as they're supposed to? This game wasn't designed for the <0,8s TTK that Qwentle wanted, it's a failed philosophy. Get over it already. Apply MM_Mod=0 to all guns already and adjust from there on. Push the TTK of all guns into 0,9s–1,1s range already. Remove the stupid inverse curves or at least make them known to players in some way, shape or form. 2) Bloated weapon pool (+49 unique guns) The VBR 'Enchantress' and addition of LRR reinforces my opinion above even further, where the lead game designer is completely out of touch with what's needed for the game. Whether on purpose or out of ignorance is irrelevant. 3.) No unified UI. We're still stuck between Scaleform & Kismet for +10 years now. This in itself pulls the strings on many topics such as :crosshair customizations, inability to host 3 fight club instances, inability to expand inventory space, vague weapon statistics displayed instead of concrete numerical values, lack of in-game FPS capping method (this is a severe problem) 4.) Game completely loses sync past 120fps.(sliding bug) I don't understand how something this crucial still isn't fixed for ages now? Do you think anyone remotely serious will stick to this game without this being in check? 5.) Non-existant anti-cheat and LO seemingly being silent over any counter-measures against blatant cheaters. 6.) Unbalanced missions & district spots Waterfront as a whole needs a desperate revamp and there hasn't been much talk about this on last AMA either. I don't understand the wait for it? 7.) Complete lack of new-player friendly game mechanics and lack of tutorial. The above mentions of how to balance the game would indirectly lead to a easy to get into experience for new players, along with a proper tutorial. 8.) No separate competitive and casual queue. Matt mentioned that APB is competitive, so what's the issue? No, the arguement that the game doesn't have enough players doesn't fly. There are players who just don't want to face against a 3 premade made up of veterans, with bronze players in their team and want to play the game casually. 9.) No login awards, gift system, no incentive to play or log into the game ...then they'll be in for a surprise. And APB specific quirks such as: - Bloated mod pool (LRR, consumables which are a meme in itself... spending in-game money to get a finite amount of consumables is ridiculous), tho this ties in with above mentions - No new game modes which would entice older players to come back or new players to flock in (BR, racing district, PvE or just letting people do their own game-modes akin to Fortnite Creative) - Locked equipment slots (in a 100 pop game.... people are swapping equipment mid-game due to this nonsensical limitation...) - Gender-specific clothing still not having their counterpart - Ability to grief any kind of other player mission - Lack of clan warfare content & generally underused clan system - Arguably dated graphics, though I'd rather have these graphics refined over jumping on newer bloated engines. - Particles destroying the game's performance (just a lack of performance optimizations) - Broken weapon tracers & (subjectively) hideous shaders / bloom And many more which I can't think of right now. These small, byte-sized patches are something which could've been done in a single grand patch. Especially considering that the current lead designer is someone who played this game for +10 years. It's not someone who never touched this game, such as is the case with many other games. From what I also recall, they seem to be interested in releasing the game to the Epic Games Store soon. In the same patch, the supposed PvE district & the new contacts are supposed to be released. The game is barely in a beta stage in terms of shipability... TLDR: Only way this game can sustain a decent population & revenue is by fixing broken game mechanics, fixing UI, having a proper ban system for blatants, introducing separate comp & casual queues, allowing community-made content such as OW, FN, CS or R5Apex NOT by these types of patches, where you're merely sweeping the dust under the rug.

Great point made, this part sounds interesting to play-test. Definitely interested in how both scenarios would play out in practice. This is exactly why the voice of veterans is needed in balancing. No, I want all guns to behave like the ISSR-C in ADS mode. This way you'll help both the less-skilled and more-skilled players. More accuracy isn't bad, it just needs a slightly longer TTK than what guns in this game have. I'd like to see experiments conducted around 0,9 - 1,1s TTK Funny how one can tell a lot about the skill level of a player from the way one wants to balance the game

Yes, we've had this conversation, I'm not against it. I'm against pushing this when there are guns which are <0,8s (<800ms) and especially <0,7s. oh and the "controlling part", you're basically elongating the ttk up to a certain value, depending on how fast the bullet spread resets (thus achieving potentially achieving the same u'd do from just X seconds of basic tracking without bullet spread meme) dont see a reason for this over my proposed version (no spread & no movement penalty in ADS at all, along with MMship_Mod = 0 on all guns) in another thread, but all of this talk is in vain anyways so whatever.

This does not work with the current TTK of this game. The game needs a longer TTK to be able to sustain a healthy gunplay in this direction, if these changes were to be implemented. It will not happen, sadly, as the current designer does not seem to want to even consider this idea (while making guns such as the Coroner and ISSR-C into basically that...) scrubbing the idea off entirely. All of the games long-standing issues can be fixed/done in a single content patch, but they just wanna do these byte-sized.... blobs of barely anything? Even simple things, such as: - High-fps slide bug (it's insane that Matt can even utter the word "THIS IS A COMPETITIVE GAME" when a game-breaking bug such as this exists?) - a WORKING FPS CAP (its also ridiculous that they haven't made one for +10 years already, relying on garbage config editing), - a WORKING granular sensitivity (>5 decimals) input field, - Missing kiosks in Social district Gallery, - Missing unbundled weapons & items from Armas in JT and vice-versa - SPECIFIC weapon statistics instead of vague bars, so new users can gauge guns based on values are undoable for them. The priorities are just not on the right places. I don't understand how they even consider marketing this game to the Epic Games Store in this state, it's like they haven't tried a single game outside of APB to see how boring it will get for everyone?

Can you finally fix the horrendous high-FPS sliding bug already? It's unacceptable. Along with implementing a in-game FPS cap inside the menu, so we don't have to edit the config every time.

The OP of this thread seems to be someone with their mechanical skill in the lower than average region of the normal distribution curve of skill in this game. The ISSR-C is a monster in it's range and dare I say it's one of the best guns in the game right now. They seemingly decided to mix short TTK (<0,8s) with high ADS accuracy and no movement penalty while in ADS. I wouldn't mind the accuracy concept of the ISSR-C while in ADS be implemented across all guns, but mixing both concepts together in a single gun is a recipe for disaster. Especially considering the fact that other guns don't come close to the level of accuracy you can get with the gun while ADS. It's as if one is playing a whole different game compared to everyone else while using it.

This is just one of many moves they've done, while being clearly opposed to prior to it. More examples include: - Bringing a (1-)slotted CSG (for a limited time!) to the game, - Making a 2STK Jumpshooting weapon (VBR Enchantress), - Adding secondaries with lvl 3 mods (hard to balance) or any kind of mods (cant think of anything else anymore) The game is too dead for anyone to care about this, everyone is waiting for it's end.

"We all need to have faith in the anti-cheat, because it's just #1. You know, it's a competitive game. Anything that affects those matches has to be our top priority" (c) MattScott, Dec 2024 AMA (@ 00:05:35) Order of priority: - More Anti-Cheat work - More Matchmaking work (they're moving to "instancing" / "phasing") - A little bit of mission work (@ 00:43:20) - PvE (tutorial district, won't happen before Easter) district ("Redhill will better suited for new district" @ 00:49:17) - examples: mission against bots, common enemy, technological elements,... - Next big patch will include 2 new contacts (around Easter), cross-world matchmaking & "some more content behind those contacts" & "other things we're working on" They'll edit contacts which are in-files already and re-release them "way, way cooler" (@ 00:48:30) The two new contacts won't be Redhill and they're Matt's favourite contacts in the game "which are thrown away and underutilized" Small tidbits: Game will come to Epic Games Store "soon" (@ 00:06:13) CQC will get looked at "soon" (@ 00:11:00) Car "teleport" will get nerfed by adding a delay, it's "on their list" (@ 00:12:02) Clan system & player (monthly) leaderboards talk (@ 00:16:50) Private district talk (@ 00:19:00) NA-East server talk (@ 00:29:35) "New district & some other stuff" will happen afterwards - post Easter (inventory, more than 100 layers, music studio was mentioned as post-easter as well, "possibly even post that patch") (@ 00:57:15) EMP was created for RIOT and will release for the next big patch. (@ 00:55:30) A new login screen is "very low priority" "Hairstyles are tricky...and a bit lower on the list" (@ 01:02:43) Plans to make a "Disable Garbage Collection" option in settings. "The more modern way technique is gonna be doing it in another thread" (@ 01:09:00) High frame-rate slide issue is "an artifact of framerate and animation timing" and it's "fixable but sorta low on the priority right now" (@ 01:12:50) HUD glitch is "sky-high priority and is on their radar" (@01:13:25) Mouse-sensitivity issue - is completely unknown to them (don't expect anything from it) (@01:14:04) More vehicle mods will be coming, according to Frosi Spawn points are "high on their priority" and work was started on it but got sidelined for anti-cheat (@01:18:20) Melee weapons won't happen. (@01:22:32) Login rewards & gifting system mentioned but not elaborated on. (@ 01:32:00) Personal comments: The fact the sliding bug & GC being something which are low priority is... very sad, considering the statement at the top. Not to mention the fact that they're completely unaware of the mouse sensitivity issues this game has. (IT NEEDS A SEPARATE THREAD AS WELL) EMP Grenades will break the game, both in balancing & in it's performance impact on the client. Just look at the Flare Gun, the particles are mega FPS bombs. Very similar to last AMA in the end...

Hitreg is fixed by playing the most accurate guns in Marksmanship mode such as the Scout (with HS3), ISSR-B, Oblivion, Coroner and hoping the server will register shots. Oh, and increasing server tickrate would help tremendously.

I'm not sure that we're playing the same game. You have to be standing still or crouched to have usable accuracy in hipfire. This is akin to any non-CQC gun in this game apart from obvious outliers such as the ISSR-B, Oblivion, Coroner Are you referring to the fact you don't gain bullet spread when bursting someone while you're stationary? Adding more bullet spread to hipfire won't solve what you're trying to achieve. The jump accuracy is still less than clearly superior guns at the moment and I sincerely don't see why it's an issue. This is a completely different topic. This is a issue of the underlying game design (short interval TTK & low character health, inseparable variables) than anything else. Increasing it's equip delay won't solve the issue it has, it will only make the gun feel clunkier (as seen with similar nerfs throughout the years) All heavy-hitting guns suffer from the same issue you're referring to (tag & finish off with pistol scenario)

it has a 1.2s TTK mate... If you die by an OBIR in CQC, then it's purely a skill issue. ^ two examples of people who don't understand that: Close-Quarter-Combat Guns Are Supposed To Be Good In.... close quarters. The Whisper has a 50m range fyi.

ISSR-C 'Kingdom', OSCAR, ISSR-B 'Dogear', ISSR-A, OBIR, Coroner, Oblivion, Scout, SWARM (with LRR), N-SSW 74 (with LRR) Rest is irrelevant.

I'm under the impression that segmenting updates in chunks every few weeks is not a sustainable way to balance a dying game. This is a live-service with 300 pop, drastic changes are necessary. The game designer is a person with 10 years of experience in this game. One can easily pinpoint the big hotspots the game has in terms of game design. Just look at them basically copy-pasting a previous event (look at post above). I can think of a more creative event on the spot without the need for duplication due to lack of means / creativity: A melee-only candy cane Beacon event game.

The "Redhill Experiments...?" and "Prototype Testing Grounds" events are ENTIRELY IDENTICAL in essence. Did you have any testers to tell you this? What is this absurdity? No, it's not fun to play in a 1STK weapons in a (smaller) district in which you stutter every second from unoptimized particles. Everytime I play the STAR 'Deadeye' and PMG-SD 'Staple Gun', I get reminded how bad almost every gun is in this game. In terms of accuracy numbers (disregard TTK), the no-accuracy penalty from movement and MM_Mod ~0 on them are amazing. Now imagine that, ~0.9 - 1.1s TTK and the return of sprintshooting? Amazing. I forgot how great sprintshooting is in closing in on corners when someone is holding you. No wonder it was a mechanic that was a thing since RTW days. It was there for a reason, to balance out pushing people pixel-peeping you from corners. Longer TTK was also a thing cause of the situation above. I will say, however, the OSCAR Bricklayer's FoV when in marksmanship mode is FANTASTIC. Playing around with FoV as the main differentiator between Hunting Sight (IT SHOULD NOT AFFECT THE MM MODIFIER) levels is how it should be done.

I sincerely don't understand why it took you so long to nerf the OBIR's damage, when it has been a talking point for quite some time amongst lesser skilled players? Neither do I understand the reason for nerfing the M1922's and Coroner's range, when the whisper has a 50m range? You're adjusting the wrong statistics. Do any of the "testers" and main game designer (who is considered a "veteran player") play this game at all? All of these weapon changes you've done for the past few months could've be done in a single patch, I don't understand the reason to be splitting them up into pieces every 2 weeks. The experience is present, but apparently the foresight as to what to do isn't? When on the topic of the joker store: Can we get a 4-slotted skinnable Coywolf for Joker Tickets, along with all the other missing items (such as the Beret or other clothing items from Armas) from there? This is such a trivial addition and there's no reason it's taking so long. Oh, and I'm gonna start the trend already. #RevertBackToOldDispatchSystem #AbolishCDMM

That is your definition, the game does not use these terms from my understanding. What you're referring to as "Spread" is actually the following: x = Accuracy Radius at 10m * Marksman Modifier I agree with you on this, this is a big nuisance on all guns. What you're referring to as "bloom" (the word is used in context of the visual effect originally) is actually called bullet spread (this is the unified term for the area of a cone's base where the bullet object can hit, reliant upon a randomized number generator algorithm) I personally think bullet spread shouldn't exist in Marksmanship Mode in any way, only in hipfire. (something akin to the PMG-SD 'Staple Gun', but only applied to MM mode) Bullet spread is a way to elongate short TTK games, it is not a mechanic meant to catter mechanically good players.

The new Cross-District Matchmaking system has signed the death certificate to APB. Getting hit with a loading screen each time you want to play the game is ludicrous, even as a veteran of the game. Not sure what was on their mind when designing it.

Hope you understand that the game is "kovaaks reloaded" already when you use the ISSR-B, ISSR-C, Coroner, Scout, Oblivion. OBIR & ISSR-A (less so) are strong contenders to the list. They show clear superiority over other guns precisely due to that aspect, having only your aim / mechanical skill be the decisive factor in battles. Exactly how it should be. "Bloom" is a improper term to describe this. It's bullet spread. I never meant removing bullet spread entirely, this seems to be a misunderstanding. I only want it eliminated when in MM mode (mm modifier = 0), while also eliminating movement spread penalties (walk modifier=1) from all guns. This, in turn, would also buff Mobility Sling indirectly. It would be a more viable choice on most guns. It would also help out new-players tremendously, who complain about guns "feeling completely different with mods" There are a multitude of practical benefits to balancing around weapon instead of modifications. Keeping bullet spread is "fine" when you hipfire. You can also sprinkle in recoil (even though I'm against both aforementioned ways of balancing) and mess with ranges (while removing mods which affect range & ttk) to properly balance weapons out. This is the only way forward. Qwentle's weapon design philosophy has died. It had 12 years to stand the test of time and it failed, the current population is the best showcase how "good" it was. Whoever tries to dwell onto it, as seen with Frosi's recent attempts to reinvoke nostalgia by reverting to stats similar to early 2013 G1 APB, has completely misinterpreted the problem at hand.

Gonna repost my old one, since in the last AMA, Matt ignored it completely (I wonder why...) A few more: 1.) All equipment slots unlocked, when? 2.) What happened to 2019's EMP grenades? Will you consider some of these grenades in the picture? 3.) When will there be a casual & competitive queue, to separate the game into their respective communities? 4.) Account-bound Coywolf, when? 5.) Debundling clothing items & weapons stuck in bundle/pack hell, when? 6.) Bombing mission final stage, why is it not more common? Will we get a fix for this? Missions as a whole need a overhaul 7.) Are there plans on changing out mission selection in Fight Club to Capture Point only? Kill missions have no place there. 8.) Will you make consumables permanent already? They're a APB $ sink hole. 9.) Can we get the missing kiosks in Social already? 10.) Can we get Parka Hoodie Down in Live and all the missing Innova items? It's a 300 pop game...

I'd agree with this, if it weren't for the fact there's no accuracy to be fighting for on almost all guns (especially not without HS) A mod deciding whether you're accurate in ADS is completely ludicrous for a new player to swallow, let alone a veteran who wants to grind the game. What accuracy are you fighting for when using a FBW or Carbine in MM mode? In the live game, you're always relying on a ton of game-based RNG (cause there's no way to get in a state of perfect accuracy with 95% of guns) instead of relying on mostly real-life based factors (such as mechanical skill). Good game design will minimise the former, while incentivizing the latter as much as possible. This will lead to overall player satisfaction for both new-comers, good veterans players and worse players. Even OBIR & Obeya are irrelevant when you have the guns I've mentioned below, simply because their base accuracy in ADS is just leagues ahead with no movement penalty (which is good, its how the game is supposed to play imo. id rather see them balance around range & recoil than this) The addition of the ISSR-A, ISSR-B, ISSR-C, Oblivion, Coroner completely made all other guns irrelevant in their range classes, apart from 2STK ones (HVR due to high dmg, shotguns due to corner popping nature, scout cause it's a mobile cannon) as they're impossible to balance because they're 2STK. Don't get me started on the fact the ALIG is completely irrelevant with the addition of the SWARM (and the fact LRR makes all LMG's a 80m cannon), though that just ties in with the critique of weapon bloat. I'd rather have a consistent TTK experience at 0.9 - 1,1s (with suggestions I've mentioned in my post history) on all guns than this abomination we've had for years now. Even if they have to consider raising HP of characters to compensate (which would in turn make mods such as fragile, flak jacket and kevlar more viable), I'd call that a valueable trade-off. To be even more specific, I find these games to have good weapon balancing: Dirty Bomb, Apex Legends, Overwatch (there are a few problematic heroes however) They're just shooting themselves in the foot by adding even more weapons to the game, as mentioned already, instead of fixing the mess they've created with this new broken MM band-aid system, a broken renderer (causing sliding behavior >120fps in 2024 is unacceptable), a broken map (Waterfront), a broken UI (Scaleform & Kismet mess) and a broken mess of a TTK they're dealing with (thanks Qwentle)

So, another jumpshooting sniper to add. Now you have the ISSR-B, Oblivion, ISSR-C and the VBR 'Enchantress' which fit this criteria. I wonder if the lead developers play this game at all to realise that they're hiding low RNG / no RNG guns behind a pay wall? No, making HS a ""requirement"" doesn't balance this out. Make all guns behave like the ISSR-C 'Kingdom' in MM mode already, without requiring HS (it should change FoV only) To be specific: MM_Mod=0 && Walk_Mod=1 This is still a problem up to 30-40m with the Scout using HS, now it's just one more gun added to the list Dogear and Oblivion make it even easier. When will Frosi & co learn that bullet spread should not exist and longer TTK is the only saviour? I wonder... The game already forces a player into a longer TTK indirectly by "CONTROLLING THE SPREAD"

I assume these are all done in Beacon? What are the exact weapon stats you're reverting to? Or perhaps a easier variant of the question, which year of the game's lifetime are you reverting back to? RTW or early G1 2012-13? Bringing back sprintshooting for a gungame is a interesting way to spice things up. Still short ttk though...

If I understood the blog post correctly, you (indirectly) want to tackle the griefing problem with cross-district matchmaking? If so, that'll be great. However, this quoted line could be a big issue if this is enforced on everybody. I don't want to play against 150ms players personally, as with anybody who wants to play this game remotely serious. But I fear that this won't be a consideration for LO in any way, cause that's their way of solving the dying game population (as remarked by LilyRain) I do think there needs to be a bigger emphasis in more easy to-do things, which require basic changing lines in a file. I'll give you an easy one: There's absolutely 0 reason to play any gun in the game right now apart from the Scout, Coroner, Oblivion, all ISSR guns (especially ISSR-C). Why? Because they are the only 0 to none bullet spread guns in the entire game. The arguement of "BUH UH NTEC IS FASTER TTK" is also irrelevant since ISSR-C exists, which has no movement penalty in MM mode and has almost pixel-perfect total bullet spread regardless of firerate. All guns should behave akin to the mentioned guns above, it's ridiculous to implicitly enforce longer TTK by "SKILLFULLY CLICKING BETWEEN SHOTS" while not even having the base accuracy of the aforementioned guns. Why does this matter? Because this game is a TPS game and it's the only way to counter someone pixel-hugging you from a certain distance. You need accuracy & a longer TTK together, they come in a package together to form the bigger picture. The game ACTIVELY tries to harm any kind of incentive to grind it fully because of this. This was the main issue people had with the game for years now. Not cheaters, not content, but actual core gameplay foundations not being well-thought-out. Oh and the fact the server is stuck at these low tickrates doesn't help it either. I'd even go as far as increasing the overall character health of the game to 1500 or 1750. It would allow for more leeway for balancing the sheer amount of redundant guns you've brought into the game. Drastic changes are needed: - Mods that change TTK, range, rate of fire, MM accuracy should not exist (CJ3, IR3/LRR, HS3 - hs should only change FoV), - Vastly different sprint to run modifier is also just unnecessary bullet spread / randomness added to the game, - Slow crouch speed and the lack of any movement mechanics in fights completely make this game linear and boring. It's as bland as it gets. - MM modifier = 0 and elongating TTK to 0.9 - 1s range across all guns is a must, it would make the game playable. - Removing broken / redundant mission selection in districts (anything that isn't capture point or plant bomb on Fight Club is just ridiculous) - Balancing the broken spots in districts which have been an issue for years (roofs near the west side of Waterfront close to police station, German Fortress etc.) - Adding melee weapons or a melee attack (the animations are there, ever since blowtorch came out people have been wanting it. as easily seen with goomba stomping) Then you can worry about things such as UI unification (Kismet & Scaleform are still intertwined, opt for ImGui if any of those are an issue), tutorial, adding new game modes (a 5 vs 5 mode bomb plant mode, BR, PvE modes which you've seemingly been exploring for next set of contacts if I understood Matt correctly), a new map (the groundwork for Midtown has been done by forum members), clan war content Even trivial things such as finally adding the missing vending kiosks in Social's Gallery would be a welcome QoL addition to the game, or just unlocking all equipment slots. Why does it matter if cheaters realise they've been shadowbanned? Now that you mention it, it would be funny if they only apply cheat points to accounts in action districts... Can't wait for all the false bans in a 300 pop game, just because someone was mad over getting stomped by other players (indirectly just APB's RNG) ^_^

I'm genuinely against addition of these health bars to shooter games, as it dumbs the game down tremendously. However, in APB, which doesn't claim to be a competitive shooter (look at Apex, they're "competitive" yet they added HUDs to much of the communities despise) I'd definitely make it a top priority QoL change (especially after they iron out the Kismet / Scaleform dilemma they currently have)