mojical

Besides the issues that you and many others ingame already pointed out, here's the absolute trainwreck of a description from a blog post about the current patch: Not only is this extremely contradictory about whether the weapon is slow or fast firing (also compared to what?), it also promises no accuracy loss outside of marksmanship mode. I assume with "accuracy loss" they mean bloom, which would make it slightly better when running and shooting like with a standard SMG, and decent at medium range when crouched. However it seems the only thing the mod does is decrease fire rate in marksmanship mode, by a far too large amount at that. It provides no bloom reduction at all and therefore is a downgrade to any player with decent trigger control. This besides the fact that the Ursus has a pretty much ideal orange mod already which is a Hunting Sight 3 without the associated field of view reduction.

What about those items that players can't buy permanently even if they wanted to spend G1C on them? Such as the unmodded VAS-C2. I was looking forward to one of those permanently, since I don't like any of the presets on ARMAS and a slotted one doesn't exist for some reason.

I am pretty sure there will be a version without Controlled Aim on the Joker or Armas stores in the near future. The test version on APBDB seems to be a VAS C2 reskin, here's hoping that we get a 3 slotted C2 or reskin finally, or at least a way to get the plain unmodded C2 permanently rather than in 7 day leases from the Joker store. Somehow I find that after it was nerfed all mod setups on ARMAS are counter productive. I guess we'll know in a couple of hours...

It is a decent gun in the right hands, but the curve mechanics patch hurt it (as stated above, its range was reduced to 35m for some odd reason) and I would really like to have a 3 slot variant or reskin instead of having to choose between only 1 slot or a "straight downgrade" purple mod. Most of the time it is not worth the effort over something like NTEC or ATAC, and it is also unobtainable right now. I would say that it is overall better than the Joker Carbine though. It is not seen often mostly because of its rarity.

Vehicle health is too spread out between different cars and also too high on the "meta" ones, Espacio, Pioneer and Vegas should definitely have less. It isn't nearly as easy to do "car gameplay" in a Jericho for example. Also the fact that high burn fuel eliminates the explosion (instead of just mitigating it/halving its radius as it should IMO) contributes as it basically eliminates the inherent risk of staying for too long in one's car. I believe if vehicle health was normalized and reduced to a maximum of say 1250 for the tankiest cars, and high burn fuel reworked as stated above, there would be less complaints about this topic. Additionally, "car gameplay" is not the only problem caused by too sturdy vehicles, car spawners and radar towers just take too much investment of time, ammunition and/or grenades to be destroyed. Agree on both counts, it is very bad for player retention and gives a cheesy/boring impression of APB's gameplay. This being mostly to new players who happen to watch streams at a level where this tactic is pretty much necessary.

You are right, I mistakenly assumed the values from Pilate's old database were the pre-LO ones. The change log shows all changes that were made to shotguns to compensate for per ray scale.

NFAS is problematic because LO forgot to adjust its stats to compensate for ray damage scaling, The JG received a reduced fire rate, increased spread and slightly decreased maximum damage, as did most other shotguns. Before LO started messing around with shotguns the NFAS had far higher spread than the JG, now they are equal in that regard. This makes the NFAS far more dangerous than it was, as the total number of pellets that need to hit for a 3-shot kill has been reduced. In my opinion, the ideal way to solve this would be to eliminate per ray scaling for the NFAS family, setting the per ray scaling to 1.00 and base pellet damage to 41. This would basically revert it to pre-LO stats.

I think it's just a case of plain old copy + paste by whoever made that page, rather than an actual clue. See this: https://codepen.io/Khrystyna/pen/aBNZXL Also, official Google documentation also uses that university as an example location, which I guess was the origin of this: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/custom-markers?hl=fr#presentation

58,054 G1C total. Some of these G1C were from Gold Rush and rebates, and some was bought with the new exchange rate, so it's hard to tell exactly. Should be around 600 € total. This translates to about 100 € per year (I didn't spend anything before early 2013, even though I started in 2011), which isn't as bad as I initially thought... The best purchases were the Juggernaut and Revelations packs because of the value they offered, especially back then when account wides had ridiculous pricing across the board. Most of the weapons they include aren't able to hold their own in the meta but they don't really overlap with any F2P ones and for the most part are fun to use. The worst purchase has got to be the account-wide RFP Talon which by the way, still hasn't been fixed. Thanks to a sale and its great aesthetics compared to other RFPs I was deceived into buying a weapon clearly inferior to the F2P counterpart. I know I sound like a broken record about this, but AFAIK LO hasn't even acknowledged the issue yet. At least it taught me to check APBVault even for seemingly obvious stats before buying anything.

This is an excellent post, thanks for taking the effort to screenshot all the objects. It's just a pity that there are only two weapons with Piercing and the CAP40 was completely ignored when the OCA was buffed. The CAP did not even get the accuracy buffs and is less accurate than the OCA. Also having the Innova/Nekrova "standalone" piercing just to test and experiment would be great, but I have no idea how that one was obtainable in the first place or whether it is in OTW.

I disagree about this if you bring weapons into the mix, since the RFP Fang exists. However this has been said enough and also there are plenty of ways it can be fixed. It is now up to Little Orbit to fix it or continue to lose players because of this game's P2W stigma. Then again, that is beside the point of this thread. At least on Citadel, most teams who are actually trying to win have at least one, provided they are not playing arranged games where most rulesets ban spotters. I have seen full 3-stacks with everyone in them having a spotter. Spotter is not only meta, but since spotted players cannot see that they have a giant exclamation mark on their heads.Iit can cause players to believe they are fighting cheaters, which makes APB's cheating issue seem worse than it already is, especially to newer players. Besides the above which doesn't hold true for fireworks, a firework launcher requires giving up the secondary slot, which is much more useful than having a blowtorch or ammo supplier.

Even with these changes the Pioneer would be part of a small group of vehicles able to withstand a concussion grenade and keep going, and it would keep its decent acceleration and high cargo capacity. Also, the Kurai is a SUV and the T-25 is a pickup truck, they shouldn't be turned into sports cars, but into sturdy and stable vehicles that can't be thrown 30m into the air by a muscle car.

Here are some suggestions about balancing vehicles and vehicle mods. This is really nothing groundbreaking but given the amount of complaints by players about this topic, I am surprised nothing has been done about it in years. Vehicles There is a general consensus among APB players about vehicles (especially the Pioneer, Espacio and Vegas 4x4) being far too resistant to gunfire and grenades, which makes staying in cars in the middle of a gunfight a prevalent tactic. Those three aforementioned vehicles also completely dominate the meta. Also, car spawners and radars are hard to disable due to cars being overly tanky. I believe all cars' health pools should be brought closer together by lowering those of the most resilient cars, also in the hopes of making more vehicles a viable pick. Right now any advantage off-meta cars may have such as acceleration or handling is practically negated by their subpar health. Here are the adjustments I would make to the 3 above vehicles' health pool: Vegas/4x4: 1350 -> 1150 (tied with Kurai) Pioneer/Espacio: 1600 -> 1300 (tied with T-25) This is quite conservative but would already go a long way towards making more vehicles viable. Also, independently of health, vehicle handling needs an overhaul. Some vehicles such as the Cisco simply don't have enough grip, and most off-meta vehicles are too light causing them to be easily pushed around. High Burn Fuel Most modifications, as the name implies, are limited to changing existing mechanics slightly rather than completely nullify them. Yet High Burn Fuel is one that does the latter, becoming a near-essential pick for anyone able to equip it. High Burn Fuel completely does away with vehicle explosions and thus the risk of staying in a car for too long, assuming the player can get out at any point before the "explosion". So I think a more appropriate effect for High Burn Fuel would be that it simply halves the car's explosion radius instead of completely nullifying it, kind of the reverse of the Explosives mod.

Keep in mind that just lowering the dropoff range increases the relative impact of the Fang's IR3, so while it would help when playing against it with ARs, it'll make the Fang seem more overpowered in comparison to the F2P version than it is now. This is what I would do: - Put the Talon in line with the other variants with 40m dropoff range. Come on LO, it's a bug, not a balance change... - Set damage to 112 so a perfect 9 shot is required to kill a full HP target in 3 bursts. This'll also reduce its effective range indirectly. It will also reduce its effectiveness in hipfire due to the high likelihood of not hitting a full burst. - Downgrade the Fang's Improved Rifling from level 3 to level 1 or 2 (not sure what the best option would be here). Another more risky option would be to replace it with HS3, since it has a scope after all. In all honesty, I would be perfectly fine with the RFP if the Fang wasn't a thing, or at least wasn't a straight upgrade over the standard RFP. It's hard to fight the P2W stigma of this game with weapons like this.

I agree about the 3.5 update, pretty sure it will give us at least a period of cheat-free APB like the release of BE did in its day. What LO seems to be doing right now is having GMs manually freeze players who are either blatantly cheating or attempting to troll others by pretending to be cheating, which is also detrimental to new players' impression of the game. This is more or less a band-aid fix but I expect the serious crackdown against cheaters to happen in tandem with the 3.5 rollout. However OP has a point about the recent increase of cheaters, it seems they sometimes also advertise their cheat sites in game. I'm not sure if it would make sense to implement a word filter in the chat to make this impossible or difficult, such as the one that already exists for names. As for cheaters mainly being an issue to high threat players, I disagree there. Cheaters won't have an easy time winning against a full team of top tier players unless the mission is heavily in their favor (such as them defending in Antisocial Networking), especially without using speedhack and/or lagswitch. Also while this might be an unpopular opinion, I'd rather face cheaters than some newbies that just got the game off Steam and are simply going to get frustrated and uninstall. It is solo players, and newer/more casual players, who LO's matchmaking and anticheat needs to protect the most. Of course I'm not saying that cheaters are beneficial or necessary in any way, quite the opposite. The idea is that the shortcomings of the current matchmaking system exacerbate the cheating problem by allowing cheaters to play even against those least prepared to deal with them.

@MattScott I don't want to seem impatient or anything, but is the LO staff aware of this issue? Players are potentially spending real money for an item which is inferior to the free-to-play version with no description or anything indicating that this is the case. This is a bug rather than a balance issue. I messaged GMs during the Autumn Assault and holiday events about it, expecting to find it in the patch notes at some point. Surely some will think "well duh, don't buy/use it then", but being my favorite RFP in terms of aesthetics and one of the better looking pistols overall, it's a shame that it's weaker for no reason.

I'd go ahead and say that High Burn Fuel is a worse offender than all of the above, but it "disguises" itself as a quality of life mod pretty well. It takes out the risk of relying too much on one's car for cover, and some cars' huge health pools don't exactly help.

I can agree with this. "Car gameplay" wouldn't be as much of a problem if Pioneers, Espacios and 4x4s were brought in line with the rest of the cars rather than outclassing them.

I hope that when it comes down to testing the EU, there's at least one SPCT member with a Radeon GPU or Ryzen CPU to iron out any possible bugs appearing on that hardware. AFAIK most of the SPCT players listed are using the widespread Nvidia + Intel combo (like I am currently), so if new testers have to be added, having more diverse hardware to test with would be a good criterium.

While secondary weapons focused on close range fights (<30m) are plenty and usually perform well, more range-focused sidearms (except of course the RFP, which is in a league of its own) such as the RSA, ACT 44 and Harbinger are seldom seen in game. Since I'm a fan of the looks and basic concept of the latter, here's what I think would make it at least a consideration over the ACT GM or even the RFP: - Increased damage. I don't mean that it should 3 shot, but since the fire rate required to maintain the Harbinger's great accuracy is extremely low, the weapon suffers a lot against players who are using Clotting Agent 3. Having zero overkill damage makes the weapon too easy to counter. Putting it up to par with the ACT would probably be too much, but a solid 275 damage would make it less frustrating to use in fights where both players have cover. - Equip time. While I understand that being a heavy revolver should translate into having a long equip time, 1 second is excessive, with 0.80 being a more sensible value for both it and the RSA. The ACT is also "heavy", and has a similar niche, but is equipped in only 0.60 seconds. The RFP and .45 would still have a clear edge in terms of equip time. - Redistribute its accuracy. While its marksmanship modifier is great, its base accuracy and equip time are really not, and those two conspire to make it really difficult to line up a shot quickly. Also the low base accuracy causes the weapon to be near useless in close range fights, where it should at least get a chance with its rapid fire gimmick. I would change the base accuracy to 25cm from 30cm, and the marksmanship modifier from 0.20 to 0.24. This would also give it reduced bloom, albeit only slightly, while keeping the same initial scoped accuracy. I was a bit sad to see that this weapon caused plenty of frustration for those who gut stuck on it during the Autumn Assault gun games. Hopefully it can one day live up to its potential.

IMO a great idea. If LO had to go back to the drawing board to make sure the Butcher skin keeps its exclusivity, why go on to ruin the (relative) exclusivity of the new skin? It wouldn't be consistent. Alternatively, those who won it could perhaps receive a skin selector (as received in previous events) to choose one from several ARMAS/Joker Store skins, if it's possible to retroactively apply such a thing.

I agree with the accuracy buff suggestion, it won't make it meta but the RNG it has currently makes it frustrating to use to say the least. Though whatever niche it might have had is mostly gone with the Thunder being a thing, which feels a bit like a pre nerf SNR on steroids. At least the SNR is uncontested in terms of equip time and per shot damage combination.

You're right in that the ACT and RSA have more range than the RFP... however they don't even have close to the accuracy required to be reliable at 70m (or really any range that exceeds the Fang's dropoff). So that range is basically useless unless the enemy is in a completely open space and the RSA/ACT user is safe enough to be able to stand still and crouch. Better competition from those two (ACT and RSA) would help the RFP shed part of its overpowered image and gain real alternatives as a secondary for SMG players. Both the ACT and RSA need substantially improved marksmanship accuracy in my opinion, even if it has to come at the cost of some range. For example, a 60m ACT with the marksmanship accuracy of the RFP would be far more usable than the current 70m RNG cannon. And let's not even mention the Harbinger...

The regular RFP is still somewhat fine. It's the Fang that's a problem, but since one's stats derive from the other and the base RFP is far from underpowered, lowering it makes sense.

APB DB seems to be accurate, only the regular RFP (and Fang of course, but that is beside the point) is able to 3 burst kill at 40m range.