sweetLemonade

According to Matt's comments from the last AMA, advertising is planned after next content patch which is due in May–June this year. The content patch will include 2 new contacts, a (very likely) new PvE district, Epic Game Store launch, Cross-World Matchmaking and the new "GamersFirst Technology Platform" (A in-house client & server anti-cheat) along with a supposed Monthly Leaderboard (from the description of it, it'll be akin to Battle Passes in other games) Considering the state they plan to advertise the game in, the constant mention of a potential UE5 release (but explicitly mentioning that they won't repeat a "engine upgrade" scenario) in the AMA.... I don't have any hopes of this game gaining attraction again from new users, especially with the current gameplay mechanics. They've seemingly transitioned all their news updates to Discord, which is quite bizarre considering they host these forums and that's what forums are for...

1 — TTK & Accuracy (total bullet spread) should always be linked together in a discussion and it's completely ludicrous to treat them as separate entities when discussing balancing attempts. One cannot implement longer TTK properly without adjusting accuracy. My point with the N-TEC is to have a full-auto gun which doesn't have bullet spread in ADS (or at least has a 100% accurate 1st shot) and only has consistent recoil & range to deal with. I'd even go a step beyond and change walk modifier to 1 across all guns in the game, to make it viable to move & shoot in ADS. I don't see what's “ironic”. I'm getting the sense that you're trying to devalue my arguement with some ad hominem attempts without fully reading through my posts & getting my intention. 2 — I get the feeling that you've never played a competitive PvP game, in which there is a clear distinction between skill tiers based on aiming mechanics & game positioning level. I've even explicitly mentioned that I don't want modifications which provide an accuracy (or change accuracy for worse in form of larger bullet spread) & TTK benefit to players with more access to resources. I want the stock guns to have MM_Modifier=0. I want new players with a STAR to have an equal change at beating an NTEC consistently if their aim is mechanically better than their opponents. I don't want RNG (bullet spread) to decide whether someone wins encounters or not. It's that simple. You seem to want to give the worse player a larger chance against a better player due to the current prevalence of high bullet spread. When you extend that analogy & design approach to higher levels of gameplay, where veterans are having encounters between each other, the better player wouldn't consistently win. This is how it is in live right now. This is terrible design in a game that purports itself to be competitive. Matt has explicitly stated that APB is competitive. If you want me to be even more specific: - Removing HS3's accuracy benefits, only allowing it to adjust FoV (values can be decided upon later), removing LRR, IR, CJ altogether - MM_Modifier=0 across all primary & secondary guns, ideally changing out bullet spread implementations across all of them as well. - Walk Modifier=1 across all primary & secondary guns, potentially even run modifier=1 on secondaries since they rely on hipfire combat mostly, though I'm unsure of how this will play out in practice. - Elongating the TTK of problematic guns (<0,7s TTK) to a range of 0,9–1,1s (upper range bound can be evaluated further), which would mean adjusting 32 out of 49 (65%!!) distinct guns in the game. Only 17 guns in the game have an adequate TTK. - Making shotguns & snipers at minimum 3 STK, not 2STK. One can implement them into a "2STK for 85"-type of approach Please stop twisting my words & read through my paragraphs with a unbiased mind. I've written & repeated myself enough. I've assessed that your intention is to belittle the other party and not have a meaningful discussion about this. If you want more of my opinion on balancing matters, take a look through my post history for further elaboration. Have a nice day. You should consider fixing your hardware & software stack if you are battling with this amount of lag, where you cannot determine the difference between 0,6s and 1,2s Your game also seems to suffer from the large bullet spread that's available in the game, as per your second sentence. There are only a handful of guns which promise you 100% accuracy in marksmanship mode. Try using guns such as the iSSR-C, Coroner, Enchantress, OBIR (HS3), Oblivion, Scout for a while and you'll understand where I'm coming from. What I'm recommending is precisely fighting for equal conditions for someone that just started playing the game & someone who has accumulated in-game items. Equal capability to consistently win duel based upon aim mechanics, not relying on RNG (bullet spread) to determine the outcome. This is not only relevant for gold players.

You are seemingly binding the term "new player" to a person who does not know how to hold a mouse. A new player may be a person coming from a TPS / FPS background and wanting to have his aiming skill translate into APB, which you cannot fully accomplish due to lack of total accuracy during hipfire or marksmanship mode on a majority of the guns. The main reason some guns are preferred to be used in hipfire is because their marksmanship mode is identical to hipfire... I don't see how my original point was a lie. To further elaborate: Mixing together Hunting Sight (marksmanship modifier = 0) benefits and elongating the TTK (0,9 – 1s) would provide a structure for new-comers to not opt for modifications right away. It would stop people from complaining about "hitreg" (most of which are bullet spread complaints) and focus on aiming & positioning. I find it completely ridiculous that a modification has so much power, that it can determine the RNG (bullet spread) of a fight by tightening the cone in which bullets travel. That is completely unacceptable in a competitive game, which Matt has personally stated APB to be. This clearly deviates from the old premise of APB being a casual shooter, which was said during the G1/RP era. I would advise you to re-read my original paragraph, as I get the feeling that you haven't read it. The current game with "bloom" (bullet spread) enforces randonmness into the equation where 2 equally skilled players may have an engagement in the same range in the open. It is not "boringly casual" to make the game more aim-intensive by asking of you to track a target for 0.4s more, it is in fact much more demanding, all things considering. It allows for a proper hierarchical structure to be created in terms of skill, where one can rely on investing time in becoming a better aimer in APB rather than relying on the RNG (bullet spread / "bloom") aspect of the game netting you a kill. The game currently has a range of 0.6s – +1.2s TTK guns, which is a huge discrepancy between TTK's of guns. Do you think that's healthy for the game? I don't. A gun may kill you 2x faster than the other gun. Many other veterans who left this game also agree, the population numbers speak for themselves. The only players left are people who are there for nostalgia purposes, not for the shooter aspect of the game. The layout of the map was not designed for such changes in TTK, as is evident by the fact that the game barely is able to keep a population of 200 people alive. You can take examples of other games, where games such as CS1.6 still have a +10k player base in 2025, simply due to good core gameplay mechanics triumphing over fancy graphics. To understand what type of game I'd like to see APB become, take a look at guns such as the Oblivion, OBIR, Scout, Coroner, ISSR-C, ISSR-B. They are decently long TTK, while keeping the bullet spread tight in ADS mode, exactly how the mode should behave. I don't want Hunting Sight to determine my overall accuracy during marksmanship mode either, I want it to become a modification that changes FoV only. I don't want Cooling Jacket to determine my TTK and overall accuracy either, it's a cop-out & breaks balancing. I don't want Improved Rifling to determine my range & overall accuracy either, it's a cop-out & balancing. I don't want Long-Range Rifling to completely wreck the range-based classification of guns in the game, it was clearly a hastily done decision on someone's part. LMGs have 80m range now.... I don't want a large weapon pool, where most guns play identical. The game can offer new content in form of clothing items, cars or skins. Not by reskinning existing guns and bloating up the possible selections. Hope I've got my points across. I won't derail the AMA thread further. I find Dopefish's post & my small additions to be sufficient to get it across. The two of you don't want or don't see the game to become more aim-intensive, relying on the old "but worse players NEED to have a chance to get a kill on a better player" arguement. This was Qwentle's way of thinking, as mentioned by Dopefish's old article in regards to the TTK district tests. The game needs a drastic shake-up for the better and this is the only way forward. Qwentle's weapon balancing philosophy has died and it should be burried already. Have a nice evening.

1 — So? This is how every PvP game should be, the decisive factor being the hands of the user, not the random number generator. It is the main gripe people have had about the game for a decade now. Scale your analogy up to engagements between 2 veteran players, the one with more RNG will win. Do you think this is a proper way to balance guns? I certainly don't. If a game is specifically mentioned by the main CEO as a competitive title, then lowering the overall RNG is #1 priority. 2 — Yes, where lies the problem in making the game more aim-intensive and to an extension more team-intensive? Newbies can get better if the game provides them with the framework to get better at the game, which is built upon consistent & repeatable behaviors (guns & mechanics). Why are you trying to make it seem as if having a good foundation (low RNG) to get better is a bad thing to implement? It benefits both groups equally as much. The game is already played at ~1s TTK in mid-long range encounters though... it doesn't need to be sped up with headshots. Yes, the devs "experimented" with longer TTK and botched it on purpose. It seems that you've (conveniently) forgotten to mention that. I'll quote @Dopefish, as he's summarised the testing pretty well I sincerely don't see a single road blocker to making the game have less RNG in Marksmanship mode (perhaps even setting MM_Modifier=0) and lengthening the TTK to 0.9–1s. You are essentially elongating the TTK of guns “artificially” by tap-firing full-auto weapons such as the N-TEC, STAR & others. It'll just require tracking the target for slightly longer and making the gun play more consistent.. It's a small change but it'll pay dividends. If you've played guns such as the (all with HS3) Oblivion, OBIR, Scout, ISSR-C (outlier due to TTK), Dog Ear(slight of an outlier due to 3rd bullet accuracy), Coroner — all of these guns behave consistent & great due to their low bullet spread and longer TTK. Another thing which they can bring back is sprintshooting, which would very favorably make the game feel faster & consistent.

Q1: When will the >120 FPS sliding bug get taken care of? It's a ground-breaking issue that's plaguing people for months. Q2: When will we get a proper in-game frame limiter to combat low 0.1% and 0.05% lows instead of relying on external solutions such as RTSS with front edge sync? Even something as simple as a drop-down menu with most common frame limit values such as 60, 75, 100, 120, 144, 165, 180, 200, 240, 250, 280, 300, 360, 400, 540 may suffice. Yes, there is a need for a higher frame rate limiter with new high refresh rate displays to avoid tearing and microstuttering in APB, which you've said is a competitive title in the last AMA. Q3: Are there any plans for upgrading the server tick rate to 60fps or 120fps? Q4: Are there any plans for balancing the faster TTK weapons to a higher value, making them longer TTK? I'm talking about lengthening the TTK of problematic guns (NTEC & faster) to around Snubnose TTK (0,9 – 1s). Having a longer TTK & higher base accuracy in marksman mode would greatly enhance new-player experience and reward players for refining their aim. Q5: Will you ever adjust the in-game crosshair to accurately reflect weapon accuracy, regardless of resolution? Q6: Are there any plans for changing out the in-game bloom implementation? Visual fidelity has taken a nose-dive since RTW Q7: Gun bullet tracers? When? Q8: Would you ever consider adding sprintshooting back to the game, perhaps with the aforementioned TTK changes? Perhaps even adding different movement mechanics, such as wall-bouncing or sliding to APB? It would greatly enhance the skill ceiling of the game, allowing for much variety in dodge-ability. Q9: Now that the SARD is fully implemented, when will Clan Leaderboards get implemented to the game? Q10:: What happened to the Epic Games Store release? Will it ever get released there? Q11: Any works for a new Tutorial or perhaps a fully separate district for new players? Q12: Crosshair customizations, when? Q13: Kismet or Scaleform? Which one have you decided on to fully implement in APB? What are your thoughts about ImGui & similar frameworks, which are less demanding? Q14: Will there be a second district layout balancing pass to districts such as Waterfront? There are still too many defend spots which are unfeasible & almost impossible to attack due to their layout. Q15: Are there any anti-griefing solutions in the works? Q16: What are the names of the new contacts, ready to be released for April? Q17: Are there any plans to debundle certain clothing items, weapons or vehicles from ARMAS packs and place them into the Joker Store? Q18: You've teased a UE5 version of APB, a concept. Is there any particular reason why that engine was chosen and not a more optimized solution such as idTech's engine or even CryEngine? Q19: What are your thoughts on buffing the crouch movement speed? Something along the lines of multiplying it by 2. Q20: Are there any plans on upgrading the pinging system? Perhaps adding a bind which allows for a user to ping a location without entering the map.

It would help if you could list your hardware specifications so one can provide assistance to your issue. What Windows version are you on? If you are on Windows 10, have you perhaps checked the "Disable Fullscreen optimizations" setting on APB.exe? Have you tried running the game on stock settings without a config applied?

Considering how much hype there was over the Waterfront changes, they are very miniscule. Yes, the added ladders from the front side of Eva Orlandez' rooftops and the added vents close to the buildings are great QoL changes, but they're very miniscule and don't fix the fundamental issue of Watefront. The map still has way too many open spots with no cover. The randomly positioned bus stops (worst type of cover) don't help some areas one bit. Not only that, they seem pretty randomly placed at times as well, such as the bus stop in Block 17 across Harmon Benjamin Add a car spawner across the vending machines of Lynette Casey's building while you're at it, it always looked like it needed one. The area around Jeung Bloodrose definitely didn't need bus stops, but some other type of prop (unbreakable wooden planks, concrete pipes or something similar) and/or a huge arch structure at the end of the ramp to provide proper cover instead of a breakable bus stop. Changes to Pier are almost non-existant in terms of gameplay? It's still way too easy to defend. Some problematic areas have also been untouched at all, such as: Michael Simeone roof, the small inside area close to Chung-Hee & Orlenz Moretti, Prentiss Atlas Appartments (the worst spot to attack), block 03 & 04 mall, block 16 & 42 (the inside area with 2 entrances, there was a great recommendation on old forums on making a new entrance to it) etc. I hope this was only one out of many balancing iterations to the district, even though I'm not a big proponent of byte-size patches. Considering the long downtime, one would've expected more drastic changes to the entire map... I'm happy these 2 got added, especially the former. Took you a decade only. I can't help but wonder why there still isn't a way to set a frame rate limit inside the UI of the game? Even something as simple as a dropdown menu with common refresh rates (60, 75, 85, 100, 120, 144, 165, 180, 200, 240, 250, 280, 300, 360, 400, 480, 500, 540) would suffice, if one would say that a input field text box is not possible. Hiding behind the age-old claim of Kismet & Scaleform being intertwined thus blocking further development really doesn't cut it now, does it? Very concerning how something as simple as this isn't implemented yet and one has to still fiddle with BaseEngine.ini to apply the in-game FPS limiter (which is atrocious either way, but still better than using external solutions) The crosshair is still inaccurate past 10m, the UI is still a mess, the >120FPS sliding bug is still present... I don't understand how weapon skins have taken precedence over the most basic function of a game? I assume the splash screen is also one of the new contacts which is supposedly coming out in April's content patch, another re-used asset... Hope you'll finally give us the locked equipment slots with the new set of content. Oh, and the weapon balancing is still atrocious. Try playing the STAR, which is what new players would have to deal with in the Valentines' Day event, against any gun in the game, it's like using a water gun. I also remembered, why have you decided to strip down some female contacts such as Violet Prentiss & the contact in social? This along with the recent BDSM-like ARMAS release has me concerned about the future clothing pieces this game is gearing towards...

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.