sweetLemonade

Of course, the servers have always been an issue in this game, ever since they downgraded the hardware (to keep server costs low) in G1 days and change of server tickrate, the servers have been wonky sometimes. But, how can you be so sure that every hitreg problem reported is caused by flawed netcode? In a game that fundamentally relies on RNG/Bloom as much as APB, after having played games which lack it, I can't say for certain anymore. I just know that this game needs a radical shift in game design if it wants to start to get people hooked to the overall gameplay. Make weapons reliable and most importantly CONSISTENT, without the need of modding (mods shouldn't affect ttk and bloom in any game that tries to be a shooter) it.

To add to this, all of those test districts attempts have been on purposely gimped by the devs due to Qwentle's design choice in keeping the game with a faster/lower TTK, they haven't even bothered implementing high TTK in those districts right. They created an illusion to the community that longer TTK (with less bloom) is bad, but implemented a (slightly) longer TTK over live but adding an element of randomness to it (high bloom with slow recovery), resulting in weapons feeling like waterguns, inconsistent. None of the "aaaHHH HiTrEg iS bAd, FiX sErVerS pLoX!!" issues people keep on mentioning wouldn't exist if they balanced the game around longer/high TTK, less/no bloom, less/no movement penalties and especially no curve mechanics that they've added later on (lazy band-aid to fix the fundamental problem this game has)

Exactly. To add to this, the game wasn't designed for this low/short TTK and huge bloom gameplay, resulting in this mess of so-called 'weapons' we have in the game. When will we get high/long TTK and low bloom/no bloom, so we can finally have a proper TPS skill-based game?

Unfortunately, very true. Though tbf, I do think LO doesn't have any plan on how to make APB a better game as they lack the experience in managing a FPS game, thus they've relied on the members still actively playing the game (most of which do not know how to change APB for the better, as they're used to RNG-based mechanics that this game had since 2012 and never tried proper FPS/TPS games). To me, it seems like they're trying, but they lack proper input. The regression of this game started with Qwentle's vision of APB in early APB days, making the game cattered towards the casual, beginner crowd. Since then, people have been desperately trying to make APB a competitive game when it was never one to begin with sadly (RTW and early G1 can be somewhat of an exception, as they had a few concepts right), even though it has major potential to take off in today's market. There's a huge lack of good FPS/TPS games and APB could fill in this void easily (even though it lacks modern features due to a very archaic engine) I sincerely think it is not possible to make APB into something big without progressing into a new engine though, such as UE4.2-UE5 for example. UE2.5 is very archaic and I hope this "64-bit version is better!!" is just a phase to gain money, on the roadmap to make APB a better version. Hope Matt addresses some of the concerns on staying on this engine iteration, but porting it to 64bit.

^ this basically, also why not list the "18 page weapon balance form"? Who were the authors of proposed changes? What model of game do they have in mind when balancing? Have they balanced around the actual weapons or around mods? Do said changes catter a certain crowd more than another? Does better mechanical skill win? Many unanswered questions. Sadly, no mention of adding more complex movement mechanics, which are very desperately needed in a low TTK game like APB. Some good points were made in general though, let's await for Matt's response. Also about the UI suggestions, due to mess we have in-game in form of Scaleform + Kismet, it is very likely not possible to do anything listed (source: old dev posts from old G1 forums when Scaleform first hit the game). I'm hoping Matt will address this, along with the possibility of adding all 3 fight club maps in rotation (a UI limitation/Engine limitation, not mentioned by old devs if it's due to bit size or some other reason) EDIT: A user below mentioned RIOT, which I forgot to mention. How would this 64bit upgrade handle adding new game modes (such as RIOT, racing district etc.) and content to the game? Can it scale? UE3.5 was promised for this. Staying on an archaic UE2.5 version of the game very likely isn't a very 'future-proof' thing to do.

Make gunplay actually skill-based (no RNG ads, less movement penalty), add movement mechanics (faster AD strafes, walljumps, faster crouch speed), change vehicle handlings and a ton of other things which will never get implemented

So: • No talk of what'll happen to the UI (scaleform + kismet is a mess), • No talk of the ability to ship updates faster in form of new content (main reason engine update was supposed to happen), • No talk about whether this 1.3x version allows you to create new content in form of maps, clothing, vehicles etc. (Can you even go over the speed limit in this 64bit APB?) • No update on whether to tackle anything gameplay related (weapon balance, mod balance, car handling, RIOT, mission adjustments, spot adjustments on maps which have been requested for years and just died) • What about the horrendous designer, symbol issues and model issues that this game is plagued with since the beginning? • What about tracers? All I'm seeing is a missed train, that's long gone, trying to capitalize on hope. What exactly did you tell us that's new? You haven't said a single new thing which wasn't known till know, an update is supposed to deliver SOMETHING NEW. Or do you consider switching back to a previous, horrendous anticheat an update? If so, then you've succeeded.

This does not fix the fundamental issues the current engine code has, you do realise this? It does not fix the mixed UI we have (Kismet + Scaleform), thus it will not fix the inability to feature all 3 fight club maps, thus meaning it won't allow for vehicle speed increases, thus meaning it will run on archaic code unable to get good performance. Not only that, the main reason the engine upgrade was promised was to deliver content easier and faster, due to new code. What will happen of that now? It is quite clear the game has unofficially died with that announcement and will not get any surge of population unless they do DRASTIC changes in gameplay and add some band-aid new content to get people back and hooked perhaps. 64-bit APB won't allow for coat physics, for map changes, for new maps, for new cars, it'll still limited. Not only that, it'll be limited to old code that was written without any documentation left, so good luck in deciphering that in any way possible (even the devs which worked since RTW cannot accomplish this, so glhf) ^ this man said everything that should be said in regards to this topic, only thing I'd add to it is a bit of pessimism in form of "engine upgrade cancelled? gg apb dead"

The ATAC and Raptor aren't "point-and-click" guns, there is no gun like that in APB right now (the exception is the Scout with HS somewhat, even it isn't 100% accurate when in ADS, they've nerfed this back when jumpshooting was a thing) What's funny is that both guns you've mentioned have bloom too You ever heard of recoil? Accuracy while shooting/bloom and initial accuracy should NEVER be a metric used to balance and differentiate guns. It makes the aiming part irrelevant in this game. Differences between guns should be seen in damage/TTK (balanced around a higher ~1.1s value), range at which drop-off starts, magazine size, reload speed, weapon sound, recoil. All of these would still allow the more skilled opponent to win duels, not whoever has better luck in regards to hit registration of the server or bloom. On top of my head, these are the changes I've been proposing for quite some time on the forums (taken from some old veteran players as well) which we should've got before the roadmap post where their only supposed hope got shattered: • Removal of bloom - would lead to ADS being 100% accurate (or if you wanna gimp players, up until a certain bullet count, somewhat similar to OW's soldier old rifle gameplay for the NTEC for instance) • Increasing TTK overall to ~1.1s of all guns (this is very relative, on estimate +2-3 STK • Adjust health regen (either making CA3 the default regen by default and making CA2 into Clotting Agent or the opposite, streamline character mods like they should've been in the first place. Great thread on it in the suggestions forums.) • Balancing mods: Making green mods viable and removing downsides of blue character mods. Removing weapon mods such as Cooling Jacket and Improved Rifling (no gun should get a instant upgrade in form of better range and lower TTK, regardless of bloom factor and inaccuracy). Adjusting Hunting Sight to give lower FoV and not more first bullet accuracy and overall accuracy (all guns should have their first bullet be 100% accurate in ADS, making the game less reliant on mods, they should be sidegrades not upgrades) • Adjusting weapon ranges accordingly • Make all snipers and shotguns ≥3 STK • Removing the atrocious mechanics on the HVR and Tommy Gun and all the other mechanics which are not intuitive at all. • Increasing crouch movement speed (Dopefish's thread has more in-depth suggestions, sadly the old forums have a ton of good suggestions removed, such as balancing spots in Waterfront as mentioned below) • Adjusting broken map spots, especially in Waterfront • Making a PROPER tutorial with the help of the veterans of the community. • Reverting shaders to early G1, RTW era Link to Dopefish thread (can't embed properly) : https://web.archive.org/web/20150128031946/http://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/288723-dopefish-list-of-suggestions-and-issues-v2/ I have ton of other suggestions in mind, which a ton of the left-over community base wouldn't agree since only silvers are left from what I've seen, so they wouldn't agree on making the game harder to master. After engine upgrade release: • New content in form of contacts, vehicles, symbols, clan activities, battle passes, 3 fight club maps (hopefully this'll happen after getting rid of Kismet, the old UI APB has. APB runs on Kismet + Scaleform and this can contribute to some major FPS drops, it's a big performance culprit tho in this day and age it's irrelevant as APB runs fine on modern systems) • Adjusting vehicle handlings (requires new engine upgrade for increasing vehicle speed) • Adding movement mechanics akin to Bloodhunt and other movement games • Adding headshots if above changes are done.

APB never had good gunplay, nor will it ever had good gunplay if they continue to follow Qwentle's path of balancing weapons and overall gameplay. They managed to increase the TTK's of AR's to ~1.1s (as mentioned by a fellow forum member) by adding unnecessary bloom if one is looking for max accuracy (which isn't even accurate to begin with, if the crosshair gap is to be judged as a measurement of accuracy) and lower TTK if one wants to spray and pray (a way for silvers to outgun better players in fights, relying on RNG) Why would they just not remove all bloom and stick to those values mentioned above? It would make the game feel 10x more fluid and it would feel rewarding to frag someone. But, judging by the abandonment of the engine upgrade (the only thing which kept most people hoping for a better game, and the thing the devs relied on for so many years for their incompetence to handle things), the game will never make a comeback and die out slowly. I sure hope someone will take it's spot at some point in the future since I find APB has immense potential, in the BR-infested scene, to be a money making machine.

The fact people still think that it's better to have lower TTK with bloom (which artificially lengthens ttk to ~1.1s, as you've mentioned) than just having high TTK with values set to ~1.1s without bloom baffles me to no end. It'll be the same TTK, it would just feel consistent instead of being a RNG based mess? smh... Hopefully someone will make a private server APB with proper balancing since LO doesn't seem to care anymore.

Calculate it by recording the footage and counting frame by frame (some players should have granular adjustments so you can see how many seconds it takes. I can tell you a estimate, almost all TTK in this game is ~1s TTK if you want the best accuracy (waiting between shots) You can always spray and pray, get lucky and kill faster, because bloom is a skill based mechanic and totally not random.

Then what would? What changes would see the game prosper again? What would bring people back? I've seen many people quote anti-cheat being their main issue with this game, but, every F2P online game has had this issue for quite a while now. Only Valorant is successful combating this to some extent. Yes, I do agree we should get EAC back (a proper version of it at the very least), but this will not make veterans return and players from other shooter games come. APB at it's core has always been casual, the devs have always agreed and stated so. But, the community has been desperately trying to make the game competitive while the game never was, nor did the devs care about the competitive crowd (even though they kept the game alive and are keeping the game alive to some extent even right now) So, why not listen to both crowds and fulfill the needs of both? A two birds with one stone type of scenario. People are looking for concrete, skill-based changes that reward their aim traning and tracking across multiple games, not waiting for the game to HOPEFULLY hit the shot (no, artificially lengthening TTK by adding bloom is not a skillful mechanic, it's RNG to help people who cannot aim) With a proper TTK and no bloom (and some slight recoil), the game would feel more responsive and fluid. It would feel rewarding when you win a aim duel, not praying RNG plays a favour in your fight. Not only will this help out older players, this will also be helpful to new players if they invest the time and grind to become better. The game will feel rewarding to play, you get a sense that if you put in the effort and brain power, you can out-aim/outplay a more skillful opponent. Not only that, I think adding movement mechanics in form of walljumping and rolling/sliding would make the game much more fluid as well, as the game is very static sometimes with it's stale movement. (tho this will never happen but w/e, one can believe) APB's main thing for years has been it's customization. Why keep it at that? Why wouldn't one introduce something gameplay related which would make the game unique? You can only pull the wool over their eyes for a short while with new content in form of new guns, cars and contacts (mods etc.), the game needs a re-approach in the way it's played from the ground up. QoL changes which have been requested for years (Dopefish has a huge QoL list in the suggestion forums, the old forums were also full of good input but sadly they've been shut down) and input from veterans which have poured countless of hours in suggestions should be more valued and not shunned away. Proper matchmaking (differentiating casual and competitive, like it shouldve been in the first place), a pinging system, a PROPER tutorial, car handling and stats getting tweaked to finally make them feel unique and making them more fun to play, implementing all 3 fight club maps, increasing TTK to ~1s along with removing bloom (and the dreadful bloom mechanics they've added the past few years) while adding some slight manageable recoil, changing shotguns and snipers to 3STK. In fact, if all of these changes are too drastic to implement in live, why not just make a OTW with some of these changes and give it a chance? Interaction with the community is necessary for proper thrival of the game, which they seemingly are unwilling to do the past few months as they're in a financial crisis and have no direction in how APB should be played and what should be done to make this game good But, sadly, they seem to not care, as their blogpost has indirectly stated that they're abandoning the game with the engine upgrade being abandoned. The game cannot stay on this engine iteration and all veteran players know this and have known this for ages, especially if one has been closely following dev comments in regards to the artificial engine limitations in some aspects of the game, such as the inability to have 3 fight club maps running at the same time, car speed limit, Kismet tanking performance (no info on complete Scaleform implementation ^_^) etc.

It has been a month since the roadmap blogpost and we've yet to get any word back as to what's happening in the background and when/what the next update will be. You announce live is gonna get updated instead of a full engine overhaul (a fatally flawed move), yet deliver silence afterwards. If you hype something up to be good, at least deliver it to ride on the train.

So, why would one write out the 2022 roadmap post (which is full of half-assed arguements as to why upgrading live is better than a full engine overhaul, fundamentally flawed if one remotely knows the history of this game) when you're not gonna implement these changes immediately cause the game is dying? Can anyone from LO fill us in? You state it's much easier then you don't deliver it (and from what I've gathered from the blog post, its already done?) Excuse me? Can you stop giving us false promises? Be honest that you don't have a vision on what this game is supposed to be and how it's supposed to be played. You clearly need help, involve the passionate community members in the reconstruction of this game and it's people.

^ perfectly said, I'd rather see drastic balancing changes (and a working AC lmao) and new content while we wait for a game that doesn't run on kismet+scaleform and on UE2.5 (and that's unable to have more than 2 FC maps, 2 district maps and social running at the same time....) But, they clearly aren't keen on giving us anything, they're just beating a dead horse now

So, we went from "we have to make the engine upgrade to fix the game" to "we're gonna upgrade the live game with X features to maintain it" So the graphical downgrade is postponed (game looks patootie to begin with anyways due to the changes G1 did in the early days of the game) and back-end stuff is being changed. Excuse me? What took so long? What exactly will these new things bring us? What benefits will the end user get? Will it fix the broken weapons, cars, missions, stutters, awful designer bugs and all the arbitrary and anti new player limits this game has? Will we have all 3 fight club maps running simulatenously? Will we have new content in form of new maps, vehicles, clothing etc? New tutorial? I don't even wanna delve into the anti-cheat issues this game has, as this is a concern in all f2p games that aren't Valorant. A major shake up is needed for this game to get remotely any players back and it's needed now. Again, the devs show us time and time again that they have no end-goal how their game should be and how it should be played.

I think it's pretty simple you lack the vision on what this change would bring to anyone who has remotely any gameplay awareness. It will only increase the skill ceiling of the weapon, not lower it. Let me picture it for you, have you ever had someone corner peek you with a weapon? Perhaps crouch behind a wall and crouch spammed you? Hitboxes around objects are wonky and this is the only way you can get around them. You can just shut them down with this each and every time without questioning if RNG played in your favour or not. It is not a matter of aim or not aim.

You gotta keep in mind that Little Orbit is essentially the core dev team that has been working on this game for so long, just with a new front-end so to say, which as you've said, seem to be incapable of realizing that they're not helping the game by keeping it in this borked state of gameplay. Little Orbit is doing the same thing G1 did back in the days, just be a megaphone for someone that the engine upgrade is the holy saviour of APB. I'd disagree with the "very old" statement though. CS:GO is old as well yet is still played in masses. People stay for gameplay and content (the latter being provided by the EU, but the latter can't keep the crowd hooked if the former isn't satisfied to the max) The griefing aspect is sadly something I cannot see being preventable without the engine upgrade hitting live (or rather, they won't bother) Also, a correction, the engine currently is running on UE2.5, the devs are upgrading to UE3.5 I think some people seem to not realize that the reason the game is so anti-new player is because the gameplay & current content doesn't favour new players in any way, along with only veterans being the majority of this game's population (similar situation with Quake and arena shooters) And, as you've said, sadly, they seem to be unwilling to change anything, to mix things up, to involve the community that wants the best for this game in any way, shape or form. The devs' vision of the game seemingly doesn't coincide with our vision for the game.

no confirmed staff number was thrown out as far as im aware, still not a excuse for their current state. they can always open-source the game and/or ask for help from community members willing to lend a hand in their favourite game.

key words, how can he know if something is right when he doesn't play the game (admitted so himself)? i could see him just letting a dev take care of it... probably the same dev that clearly failed to deliver for +10 years now in regards to gameplay balancing. ...a dev that even decided to make emp grenades to "counter car gameplay" in a properly functioning structure,, we'd have the community do gameplay playtests every month/week so constructive feedback can be given as to how the game can be a better product (perhaps even hire some people to do some work for them in regards to the tutorial) so that the wait for the engine upgrade will feel shorter apb won't magically become new and improved after the engine upgrade, which seemingly the dev team wants us to think?... either that or they're planning some kind of mega-giga engine update launch patch that addresses a ton of issues at once (obv not the case but hey, wishful thinking)

Matt is not the only dev and I'm very sure he's not in charge in anything related to balancing.

A small gesture in form of QoL updates that we've been spamming patch threads for would yield much better results than the "FOCUSING ALL TASKS ON ENGINE UPGRADE" automated response we've been getting the past year, while them doing weapon balancing in ways no one asked for? There's no vision whatsoever on how this game is supposed to play from anyone it seems, nor does anyone other than the community bother talking about it. Is Qwentle still hindering this game since 2012? Has the SPCT put in some bad word about the community and LO/G1 devs just decided to refuse cooperating with us and SPCT? Questions over questions.... I don't understand, it is very simple why everyone is upset, the core gameplay of this game is still flawed to death after numerious years of suggestions due to some dev just REFUSING to realise his vision of APB is flawed.

the fact the majority is disagreeing is very concerning, kinda tells u what type of players comment on the forums nowadays....

Until they remove R195 restrictions and make consumables a permanent mod They're clearly able to buff and nerf uncalled weapons a week later and nerf med spray, don't see why they can't implement these normal changes.