Thial

People would simply ready up together and abandon if they didn't end up in the same group.

Yes some systems first check the assembly version and if the version on the server is higher they will download patch files and validate afterwards. Pretty much no company makes such data public unless it's something public on github where you can either http GET the releases or some developers include a text file with versions and/or checksums. In terms of APB your only option as far as I know is to use APB.exe or the advanced APB launcher and use the launcher only when you can't log in due to an incorrect version popup. You can track http traffic and pinpoint the exact request/response used for checking/validating the version and/or see the request/response for downloading files but I don't know LO's stance on people using their APIs outside of the official APB Launcher. If it would be allowed then you could just write your own launcher which behaves exactly the way you want it to.

No, the way such systems work is that they get the manifest from the server with the list of files and their checksums, then the app needs to compare that manifest to what is installed on your computer to check which files missing or don't match the ones on the server so that it can download them again. After the list has been compiled that's when the download starts. Without knowing which files exactly need to be redownloaded you would have to download the whole game every time therefore checksum comparison is a necessary step. The simplest way is to launch via APB.exe or the advanced APB launcher and only update when you get a popup during login saying that you have to update your game. The game most likely either sends the assembly version or the checksum of APB.exe along with the login request and if that value doesn't match what's on the server side then it tells you that you need to update your game. If you have to wait for 30 minutes for the files to be checked then either you are using a very old and slow HDD or your HDD/SSD is dying. If you can, move the game to an SSD. This check should be very fast so if it's slow for no reason I would check your drives with something like HD Tune.

It's not impossible, it's just difficult. From programming standpoint you have full control over the accuracy, awareness and response time of bots. You could easily adjust those values to match the real players which includes veterans. Even creating braindead bots includes nearly all of the things I have listed as the bots would need to be able to use the features of the game. They would need to use the guns, switch them, use the mods, know how to drive around the whole map, how to reach/defend/push objectives and of course play as a team and understand dynamic scenarios like blocking objectives with cars as they would have to destroy them. Otherwise you would have the bots just run around like headless chickens, get stuck on things, storm points one by one etc. And if that's the case then literally nobody would want to play with bots. People would just spam abandon just like it is when a gold has a team full of silvers.

There really aren't as many cheaters as you think there are. Plenty of veterans have the fire rates mastered which to others looks like macros. I know because I played with just fbw for 2 months and the amount of macro and triggerbot hackusations I got was insane. But unfortunately people continue to hackusate everyone who's better than them and exaggerate stories to seek confirmation from others. It has always been like this.

If you got stopped for violating traffic laws and said that 10 years ago the law was different do you think that the police would say "oh I see, you are free to go". No, they would say that ignorance is not an excuse, give you a ticket and send you on your way. It's irrelevant how other things are being handled. In this particular case it is 100% the fault of the player by using dodgy apps while it was explicitly stated not to do so therefore they got banned.

I disagree. Creating good AI for something like APB is very very difficult. The map is big, it has verticality, it has a lot of hiding spots, lots of different strategies. The gameplay itself is also complex at the high skill level. The AI would need to understand the verticality, how to cover points from good camping points, how to use mods, how to drive and where to park cars to utilize things like mobile spawner. It would need to be able to coordinate with other bots to storm points as a team rather than just rushing in one by one. It would need to understand throwing nades or suppressive fire. It would need to understand weapon types and switch them depending on the location/situation. It would need to be able to actually play the game which involves dodging, taking cover, corner popping, using mods at the right time, switching between main and secondary weapon etc etc. The missions are also very dynamic with cars being griefed or destroyed, items stuck in the middle of the road, points being blocked by cars and a bunch of other things which the bots would need to understand. I could keep going. There are tons of little pieces which would all need to work together to create believable bots. Anything other than that would result in braindead bots just storming points one after another and being butchered. And if that's the case then what's the point ? Sure maybe it would be enough for bronze or even silver players but if you approach high silver / low gold level you need the bots to do a lot more, not to mention making them be able to play against veterans.

That literally doesn't matter. LO stated which 3rd party software is safe to use. They also explicitly said that using something which was not officially approved might result in a ban. Also they won't whitelist something they don't have the source code of as there could be some hidden malicious features. Even the Advanced APB launcher was fully verified first before it was officially approved.

Sure if you will count all of the rerolls and blatant cheaters then of course the false bans are a minority but it's important to recognize that false bans were taking place probably pretty often as Matt Scott said that they were subjective which tells you that G1 was impulsive and/or was acting out without enough evidence. I don't know what's happening right now as I have left around 2019 since I saw that nothing is being fixed or improved and the game is stuck in limbo and will probably remain that way until the community dies out. I did play recently and I haven't faced any cheaters. I don't doubt that there are some but as usual I'm sure that a lot of people are also hackusating anyone who's better than them.

I'm quoting Matt Scott from an article I have posted a link to. Kempington was just hosting the Q&A on Twitch which I have now posted a link to as well with the timestamp.

There were absolutely cases of false bans taking place. Some live on stream mid mission because either someone was playing against someone from G1 or they had contacts at G1 or G1 was watching the stream and it was bad PR to have a "cheater" in the match. There were several instances of people being banned because they were disliked by silvers / low golds who were spreading misinformation everywhere that they were cheating. Some people were even banned because G1 themselves disliked some players or banned some sketchy players for good measure because they couldn't tell if they are legit or not. Also how do you expect G1 to configure fair fight correctly if entire G1 was bronze/silver as they were playing on streams from time to time so you could see that they have no idea what it means to be good. When LO took over they said that they have found a ton of instances of false bans, that's why LO decided that they can't in good faith accept those bans and have to reset the whole thing. There's a news by Matt Scott which states the following: https://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/news/2018/6/7/june-2018-anti-cheat-update You can also listen to what Matt Scott has to say at 11:40 in the Q&A itself.

They didn't. Lots of false bans were issued simply due to streamers and the community crying about some people to which they themselves admitted or perhaps it was LO that uncovered that this was the case, don't remember anymore. Nobody ever did a good job against cheaters as you can instantly reroll and continue cheating so it literally doesn't matter if people will get banned or not. And this was the case as blatant cheaters were sometimes cheating every day for 1-2 months before being banned so I'm pretty sure that at some point they just didn't care anymore. I believe that only adopting a system where you have to register with your real ID would help. So when you get caught cheating your whole ID gets banned and you can't play anymore. In some places cheaters are also taken to court where they have to pay severe fines. If we won't have strict systems like that then cheating will never end I'm afraid. But of course people always use the privacy argument against this as if corporations like google didn't already know everything about them anyway.

The delusions are getting worse. What is real ? What is fake ? Nobody knows. In what kind of a universe do you think this would be a good PR move ? Hey guys, it's us Little Orbit. From now on you can cheat, grief and flame each other. Also give us money. This would literally earn them the ridicule of the whole internet and most likely end up in LO closing down shop. Not to mention that this would contribute to an already big problem of cheating and toxicity in games. Literally a lose-lose situation.

He wants to show his skill.exe That's literally it, oh and flame you while he's at it.

No buddy, the pop is low due to cheaters, griefing, always putting ARMAS first, neglect by both G1 and LO, deadlines missed by 10 years which ultimately even lead to the engine upgrade being cancelled, false bans by silver GMs, silvers balancing the game etc etc, I could keep on going. Not because "people are restricted". In what way are you restricted ? You can't cheat ? Flame people ? Grief ? It's clear what your goal is with this, you just want a dogshit server for all of the banned players. And yes I'm, talking about cheating and griefing as everything else you listed is in the game so those are the only 2 things you want to explicitly allow therefore your goals are clear.

Quite defensive aren't you ? Almost as if you are guilty. Anyway. Better think of an idea which reduces cheating (and griefing) not introduces more of it. "every game has cheaters" is a piss poor excuse. Also the whole idea is idiotic as you are expecting LO to ruin their reputation by endorsing cheating and griefing while raking in cash. Not to mention that cheating and griefing are the reasons why the pop is so low now. I really don't know who do you think will come back to that, not to mention spending money on it.

The name of this painting is: "A closet cheater looking for a chance to cheat legally"

Depending on the screen mode you are using this kind of an app works differently. If you are in a window then you can create a screen overlay which doesn't care about APB. If you are in full screen on the other hand or if the software is written to pick a specific process then the overlay would need to be injected which is probably why EAC picked it up. LO also clearly stated which software can be used in APB without a risk of being banned so you just had to do a bit of research on how apps like that work and pick a non invasive one and also check which apps were allowed by LO. You can't expect a company to whitelist dodgy 10 year old programs especially without knowing the code as there could have been other malicious features in it.

There's a very simple solution. Just move on like many did years ago, myself included. Unless you want to waste several more years waiting for the engine upgrade and/or some magical anti cheat which will stop all cheaters. Spoiler alert, no such thing will ever exist. Same as all this talk about AI anti cheats. Guess what, you will have AI cheats as well to fully simulate the skill of veteran players. It's literally a never ending race of cheat and anti cheat devs.

You can check the consistency of clicks and the intervals. Most macros are literally click, wait 0.1s click, wait 0.1s. Nobody and I mean nobody clicks with perfect consistency either, we all mess up the rhythm, no matter how good you are. You can't really ban someone off of that alone unless the data is really obvious but in cases against some closet cheaters it can serve as a good indicator or an additional piece of evidence that someone is cheating. I have encountered so many macro users in random groups I was invited to that it's scary.

You literally said to buff fire rates by 2 or 3 times across the board. If that doesn't sound like making an smg out of every gun then I don't know what does.

You are essentially asking for every weapon to become a laser smg and for people to become bullet sponges so that you can just have more focus on tracking people rather than just killing them. That would just kill the gun variety, the fun and probably the game. All we need is to buff the non meta guns so that every gun becomes meta.

The whole progression/role/reward system needs an overhaul as it's super outdated and doesn't match the pace of modern games at all anymore.

You can't just upgrade a game. First of all UE3.5 and UE5 are two completely different things. You would need to design the whole game from scratch. Sure you have the art assets and the sounds but you have to build everything from scratch on new UE5 systems. This is especially horrible when you are doing it on existing legacy code as you first have to put all of the systems apart to understand their design which includes everything from handling of weapons, movement in the game, mission systems, networking, resource management etc and then you need to translate it onto the new systems. Yes you can do a new game rather quickly but then it wouldn't be APB anymore. Translating a legacy project to a new engine is super tedious and the only way to have the game keep the exact same feel and mechanics.

I'm interested in how FairFight will operate alongside of EAC. As we know from the past some unfair bans were issued due to FairFight and also incompetence of G1. The line between top tier skill and cheating is extremely slim where a lot of people were fine tuning their cheats to make themselves look like top tier players or they were adding slight aim assist or they were using esp in a way where there were no hints that they are doing it. Therefore I'm interested to see if we'll be having another wave of incorrect bans or will we be seeing actual cheaters being removed and the game slowly regaining its playerbase.