mojical

Nice to see the changes will be tested on Asylum @Sakebee, looking forward to that. On another note, would it be possible to slightly readjust the ACES SMG to be slightly less annoying to play? I'm talking about bringing its damage up to par with the ACES Rifle so it becomes a 14STK weapon. This could be done while lowering its firerate so it pretty much keeps its current TTK. Both weapons use the same platform and ammo and the Rifle has other distinct advantages such as range, so it would make sense that they do the same damage. This weapon is very seldom seen ingame and a small buff like this would help it. Here are the stat changes I would make: ACES SMG Damage: 70 -> 75 (14 STK) Fire interval: 0.045 -> 0.048

I agree with the 8GB "minimum" suggestion. 16GB+ should be used if you want to move APB's cache and logs to a RAM drive for (slightly) better performance and less SSD wear. As for the swap/paging file I recommend that you leave the settings on their default position, of course a swapfile is no substitute for RAM but having it can make so that programs at least slow down rather than crash, should they run out of memory. I have never seen any gains from turning it off for APB.

Can you clarify whether file modifications such as no grenade smoke, no muzzle flash etc. are allowed? I felt like this was missing from the rules, since some players use these on stream even though they theoretically are against TOS. Personally I would allow only Advanced Launcher and equivalents, but this is up to the organizers. If everyone's gameplay is recorded it should be relatively easy to spot and enforce this.

Is there a chance the DOW Stock could be added to ARMAS or the Joker store? A 5 day lease could be obtained from RIOT daily activities for a limited time until RIOT was disabled. I prefer its model to the more common "Thumper" variant and the red mod is not necessary for me, so it is a weapon I would really like to have permanently.

Would it be an option to use prototype stats on Asylum, once it returns after this patch? That would be an easy way to see how the new (old?) shotguns compare against other close-range weapons, since mission matchmaking doesn't get in the way in FC. I don't really see the appeal of prototype mission districts, as even if they were full, nowadays it is far too easy to get matched against newer players who would just render the changes irrelevant.

Even though dropoff begins at 35 meters for the Joker Carbine it is still able to kill in 6 shots at 40 meters, because it barely loses damage for those first meters. Other semi-automatics show similar results, for instance an Obeya CR762 with no mods will easily outrange a Misery with IR3 despite theoretically starting its dropoff earlier. I do believe the VBR's range should be increased to 40m though, since it lacks overdamage to compensate for the reduction for 35m, and thus is very rarely chosen ingame.

It will be interesting to see how the Showstopper behaves with these changes, since it didn't exist pre-LO. It does look like a step down from primary shotguns now, as it should be. Also, have the OCA stats been applied correctly this time or is the Whisper still evading the nerf?

The SHAW would appreciate increased hard damage to be worth picking over the easier to play AMG, perhaps to 23 (still lower DPS than SWARM) up from 15. Many newer players assume that it is good against vehicles due to being a LMG, however it is barely better in terms of anti vehicle DPS than an OCA. The SWARM is already quite effective against both vehicles and enemies on foot so I don't see the reason why the SHAW shouldn't be competent at both.

Indeed, before per ray scaling was introduced almost noone used the NFAS except the occasional newbie, even though its theoretical damage output was much higher at just a few points short of a 2 shot. Most of the other (circled) stats were the same when the weapon had almost zero usage. That value of 0.81 is excessive though, and in my opinion no shotgun should have below 0.9. This of course, if the system does not get scrapped completely... However I wouldn't say the NFAS is the worst offender in terms of overpowered weapons right now. The Showstopper for instance is essentially a better NFAS except for being a tenth of a second slower to kill... and it's a secondary.

There is a potential issue with the OCA changes @MattScott has pointed out on the OP of this thread. The OCA's fire interval should have been increased to 0.098 seconds, however, none of the OCA variants have obtained this fire rate according to APBDB. Standard (such as the Stiletto) and non-Whisper silenced models have been downgraded further to 0.100, giving them a 0.7s TTK: PDW "Stiletto" stats The Whisper and its reskin (Kris), on the other hand, have not been touched and retain the pre-patch 0.64s TTK, making them superior to the other variants: PDW "Kris" stats I have tried to measure the fire rate by recording myself emptying the magazine of a Kris, then doing the same with a Stiletto. It takes noticeably longer (when slowing down the video) to empty the Stiletto, which backs up the APBDB stats. However, this is not the most precise of methods and it would be nice if someone else could test to see if there is an actual fire rate difference in game.

I don't believe a TTK improvement is the only thing that could make the STAR more viable as an N-TEC alternative. Here is what I would do: - Reduce the reload time to 2.40s from 2.80s (the STAR having a ridiculously long reload time has already been brought up in this thread). This would make it match the N-TEC. - Increase marksmanship strafing speed from 175cm/s to 275cm/s. Even the LCR, for all its faults, got this right. It makes absolutely zero sense that the long range version of the same weapon has more mobility (and less accuracy, but that's a problem of the LCR, not the regular STAR) than the close-medium range version. - Improve the marksmanship modifier from 0.63 to 0.4 for the STAR LCR variant. This should be self explanatory to anyone who has tried to use the LCR in its intended range. The point is to not make it a clone of the N-TEC, but to offer an alternative that has different strengths and weaknesses and can be appealing to both new and veteran players, like the N-TEC already is.

On the topic of changing secondaries' preset mods, have you considered changing the RSA "Hunter"'s modification from High Magnification Scope to Hunting Sight 2/3? While it has phenomenal accuracy with the new stats, the modification makes very little sense as the model has no scope, and also is very clunky on a secondary to begin with. I very much doubt this would be overpowered given that the ACT does have the ability to use HS3 and plenty of advantages compared to the RSA. Adding a JT-buyable version could also help dispel any "P2W" concerns. As for the rest of the changes I fully agree with what has been pushed to Live so far. I hope the N-Tec is dealt with soon (it's not much of a problem in my opinion) so the focus can move to shotguns again.

I fully agree and it's nice to see the Talon isn't being disadvantaged for no reason anymore. RFP Test A (aka reducing effective range) is not a good idea in my opinion, as it makes the Fang's advantage over the regular RFP much more noticeable. It would have to be accompanied by a downgrade of the Fang's Improved Rifling, as has been suggested many times before, but even so I believe B is a superior choice as the game already has plenty of 30m-capped secondaries. On the other hand it seems like a bad idea to release the OCA nerf before something is done about shotguns, as even with the OCA being very powerful currently it still struggles against JG and NFAS at distances where a shotgun shouldn't have an advantage anymore.

As the title says, it would make sense to increase this rather underused weapon's effective range so it can keep up with the much less accurate PMG and Whisper. I believe 35m or even 40m would make sense. At the moment it feels like all that accuracy goes to waste without Improved Rifling, and this weapon already pays the price for being accurate in form of higher TTK and bloom compared to the more popular SMGs.

The Scoped N-Tec in particular was one of the weapons that worked best with that temporary IR change. One possible option to make the weapon more appealing would be to make it behave exactly like the regular N-Tec did during those IR changes, with a reduced firerate and increased range, but less of a penalty when strafing and shooting. That would make the Scoped N-Tec and Scepter very attractive to those who miss the slow-firing IR3 N-Tec, and a solid alternative to the Obeya CR762.

It's pretty certain making the NFAS 4 shot would be overnerfing anyway, particularly if per ray pellet scaling is removed. The NFAS being a 3 shot kill in ideal conditions was never the issue as it has been that way for years before LO, it's the ridiculous 0.81 per ray scale that it was given which is way too low for a gun with so much spread and overdamage. As for per ray scale values, given two shotguns with the same maximum damage output, lower is better. I think this 4 shot change only makes sense if pellet scaling is kept the way it is on Live. If pellet scaling was made linear again (while keeping the 3 shot and exact same ideal damage) shots that hit only 1 pellet would do less than half than they do now. The difference this mechanic makes is pretty large in practice, even if the gun has a lower maximum damage output than when RP was in charge. So even without touching anything else on the weapon I could say that it wouldn't be overpowered.

I agree with most of the changes to weapon balance, especially the return of linear pellet scaling. I did not dislike the mechanic itself but felt like the chosen values were extremely random and contributed to imbalance across the whole category. The problem is that the entire idea of "forgiving" this post showcases seems to be rather strange. If the CSG is supposed to be more forgiving than the JG, the current patch didn't do a very good job. In situations which would be an easy 2 shot kill for the JG, the CSG tends to fall just short of that causing +85 assists which really should have been kills. This is partly due to the differences in per ray scaling and also because the difference in maximum health damage is simply too big right now. On the other hand I do agree with the idea of giving it better range and better accuracy in return for worse anti vehicle potential and worse TTK. As for stating that the OCA is more forgiving than the PMG... well this is where things get a bit out of touch with reality. Let's go through all the comparison points (comparing 2014 OCA vs. PMG) mentioned in that paragraph: - TTK: The pre-RP-buff OCA was tied with the PMG at 0.7s. - Damage per shot: The PMG has higher damage per shot and at a given TTK, less shots to kill are better provided there are no other compromises to other statistics of the weapon. This is because a higher amount of shots to kill, as stated elsewhere in the post, requires higher amounts of exposure to secure a kill. In short, the PMG wins here. - Magazine size:. Of course the PMG has a smaller magazine, but saying this is a disadvantage over the OCA would be ignoring the lower shots to kill count of the weapon. Instead it is better to compare kills per magazine, as in the amount of kills a player could (ideally) get with one magazine. This is 4.20 for the PMG and 3.75 for the OCA currently, meaning the PMG has an advantage here as well. Rather surprisingly, the PMG also has the faster reload time of the two. - More bloom: This was particularly strange since both the OCA and PMG recover all of their bloom in between shots, so they effectively do not bloom. Cooling Jacket 2 and 3 do cause a slight bit of bloom, but the effect is extremely small and similar across both weapons. In other words, bloom is completely irrelevant when comparing both weapons in their current (or 2014) state. - Slower fire rate: The PMG fires slower, but given that the TTK is the same as OCA this is not a disadvantage in itself. - More range: The PMG's dropoff starts at 35m and the OCA's starts at 30m, giving an advantage to the PMG. Another thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the PMG having a slight edge once again in terms of accuracy (33cm vs 36cm spread), and also the ability to have both a crouch bonus and equip red mods at the same time. The conclusion is that reverting the OCA to 0.7s TTK will essentially make it a downgrade compared to the PMG due to the above reasons. This does not mean that the OCA shouldn't be nerfed, but perhaps the PMG should be at 0.75s TTK rather than 0.7 so the arguments for and against each weapon are similar to the current patch where I feel that they are balanced relative to each other. Surely high skill players are going to favor the higher skill ceiling weapon (OCA) but that is far from the big picture. Also, I feel like some changes to the N-Tec are in order. There is absolutely no reason why the N-Tec should match the STAR's magazine size but have a much faster reload time, as is the case now, The N-Tec should match the FAR's 24 round magazine size at best, not the STAR's 32.

This is a lot more convenient than the command line exe, will see if it improves things as I have been getting some stutters since the RIOT patch. Thanks a lot!

I play this secondary a lot when using close/medium range weapons such as Carbine/STAC/ACES. High Magnification Scope makes it harder to use in many situations but I feel like that is an acceptable tradeoff for having nearly 30% better accuracy than the Titan, making it the most accurate sidearm in the game. Obviously HS3 would be a better mod, even though it would make it borderline pay to win compared to the regular RSA and Titan, since RSA hipfire is rarely useful. As for the model I do agree it was just plain lazy and it should be reworked. It feels as if whoever conceived the weapon did not know that scoped revolvers are actually a thing in real life. Not only that, but APB has several revolver type weapons and none of them have received a scope yet. The main problem with the entire RSA family is that with its slow firerate and low overkill damage, it makes it easy for an opponent to hide and regenerate, especially with CA3. I believe the RSA should have its damage increased to 449, a generous improvement but 1 point short of introducing new quickswitching mechanics involving the Scout.

What's with the maximum framerate on Live being 156, as in higher than the current 145 fps cap observed in game. Is this a special build of 3.0 with no limiter or a benchmarking artifact? Also, it would be interesting to know whether the framerate cap has been removed or made user adjustable for 3.5. Not that going beyond makes a huge difference, but Smooth Frame Rate's pretty much hardcoded target of 62 fps makes little sense in this day and age. Users should be easily able to choose a target framerate without having to edit config files.

Even though it looks the same as the 3 slot version, the JT variant only has up to two slots making it equal to the Euryale at best.

I agree with this. Many times APB's events and new content have had underwhelming rewards, but this is not the case with RIOT. The Yakuza skin aside, the ability to get a rare 5 day weapon every day is a pretty major advantage of reaching rank 5. Some of those weapons such as the 3-slot AMG had yet to be available before. Overall though, RIOT turned out to be more than just a gimmick and a decent alternative to missions in my opinion. I do agree though with the general notion that it was rushed and has more potential than what the current state of this gamemode shows. I would certainly have pushed for a simultaneous RIOT/3.5 release and put the current "beta" out on the OTW for true public testing, not just designated test times. I'm not a fan of buying the boxes themselves, I really hope Loyalty boxes won't go away. Getting a bonus (potentially a legendary) with each purchase is a good idea. The problem with boxes is that for those players who already have purchased many of the weapons account-wide, the likelihood to get something useless or duplicate increases dramatically.

There was already a discussion about this here: However, I decided to bring it up again since I found some instances of the ACES and ACES Rifle in RIOT that have modifications such as Cooling Jacket or Improved Rifling, which these weapons (in their ARMAS open slot form) normally can't equip due to being saddled with useless red modifications. These certainly do not make the weapon game-breaking so I believe the preset modification should be removed to bring them closer to currently dominant SMGs such as the OCA, Whisper and PMG. Also, the argument that Heavy Barrel 3 would completely negate bloom on this weapon is nonsensical, as this already happens on the N-SSW with HB2 and noone had the idea to disallow red modifications on that weapon.

I believe VIP missions in Fight Club (Abington/Asylum) are unnecessary and should be removed from the rotation, as the experience of being VIP is neither fair nor fun. As its name implies Fight Club is centered around combat, and being VIP means being heavily disadvantaged for the duration of the match. It's no wonder experienced players will just leave and rejoin when they are randomly made VIP, so the VIP just gets constantly passed on until someone who either does not know that "trick" or actually wants to have a bad time keeps it. Newer players are especially affected by this since not only will they be overwhelmed more easily, but also become a target for toxic chat from certain teammates who (strangely) care about winning/losing in Fight Club. An alternative to this could be to reward the VIP with a few Joker Tickets if he/she wins a VIP stage, to provide an incentive to stop leaving and rejoining to pass the VIP around. However, I would much prefer to see it removed.

As the title says, the Citadel server is having some trouble at the moment. It started to stutter slightly a few minutes ago and has progressed into being completely unplayable with players getting disconnected and unable to return. EDIT: Seems like the lag has mostly stopped, but it's impossible to select a character after logging in (gets stuck at "Contacting World Server").