Songbearer

Deep breaths, take it easy, don't worry about losing. This is the most important advice for gaming, something that took me a stupidly long time to learn: Losses are for learning. In APB in particular, you're going to get stomped. The game doesn't explain itself, the vehicles and combat are unlike any other game and learning the map is a mammoth task. Matchmaking is definitely broken and you'll find yourself fighting people outside your skill range probably 85% of the time. If you can get yourself into a clan of friendly people who communicates you'll instantly start doing better, but even if you can't half the game is learning about where to be and when to fight. But most importantly, don't let yourself get tilted. Don't get so emotionally invested that the game makes you feel like crap. There's no cash prizes to be won for being great at APB and by and large it's a forgotten game except for a few curious newbies (Who generally get stomped by dethreaters) and people who have been playing for the better part of eight years. I've been away from this game for four and my skills went right into the toilet, it's been almost a week and I've almost gotten to the point where I can engage people and maybe win. Long and short: Just do your best. You'll get there.

Yeah, I hope they can fix the wheel bug. It exists in the Jericho, too. It is a useful tactic in gameplay at the very least, it turns PIT manoeuvres into "oh shit" manoeuvres.

Bounties are great fun, the game would really lose something if they were gone. Sure they can mess up players on a mission but so can a lot of other things, it's nice to see the chaos roll in and especially participate in car chases trying to hunt them down.

You want some hot takes? Oh, buddy, have I got some hot takes for you! Moirai Looks: Like a dream. Beautiful, smooth, stylish. After you've dragged your broken body away from a gunfight, buddy bleeding all over the leather upholstery while sirens wail in the distance, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you've died and gone to heaven. I mean, your buddy has, but that's besides the point. The Moirai is simply gorgeous and screams luxury vehicle. Drives: Like a terrified, greased-up pig after it's been hurtled down a slip & slide - which is also covered in grease. This vehicle reacts to corners by immediately spinning around at a 165 degree angle and then will take half an hour to recover due to its turning circle of "a few blocks, if you're lucky". It's fast, though, and providing you're delicate enough to not scare the poor thing you might get some use out of it. Usefulness: Even if you're the worst designer in the world, it's hard to make this car look bad. One of the fastest four person vehicles, but it's not a daily driver and you'll replace it very quickly with a factional vehicle. Fun Fact: Back in RTW this vehicle was simply divine. Long-time players will cry if you remind them about its former glory. Try it in social sometime! Vaquero Looks: Cute and tough rolled into one fun little package. It's like you've dressed a puppy dog up to look like a grizzly bear and the puppy is just enough of a rabid monster to pull it off. Drives: It doesn't. To call the Vaquero a "drivable vehicle" is like calling a drowning man a "thirsty chap": Entirely inappropriate. The upside is that a drowning man will soon be put out of his misery. A Vaquero is eternally tortured by its complete joke of a physics model. It bounces all over the place like a Parkinson's sufferer with a pneumatic drill on a bouncy castle, isn't so much prone to understeer as "not steering at all" and launches itself forwards with the fury of a man who's just sat on a porcupine. Usefulness: If you want the enemy to laugh at you and feel bad for you at the same time (Without even being a silver), this is the car for you. It's a great little stunt car and you can wedge it in all kinds of places, but forget about using this vehicle at all for anything worthwhile. Fun Fact: When a RTW veteran has finished crying in misery when you've reminded them about the old Moirai, you can throw them back into their well of sadness by reminding them about the old Vaquero. In the RTW beta, you were only able to get a Vaquero as a clan reward when leaderboards were a thing, and the sight of one meant you were in the presence of greatness. Or poopsockers. Or aimbotters. Vegas G20 Looks: Bad to the bone. Classic musclecar greatness. Sharp lines, intimidating design, even the basic pedestrian cars scream "steal me and drive me to death." You will. You'll do this many, many times. Drives: AAAAH! AAAAH! OH GOD! OH GOD, I LET GO OF THE ACCELERATOR AND IT'S NOT STOPPING! WHERE'S THE BRAKES? OH NO, I PRESSED THE BRAKE PEDAL AND NOW THE CAR IS LAUGHING AT ME! HOW DID I GET ON THE ROOF OF THIS BUILDING? WHY AM I ON FIRE? HELP! HE- Usefulness: I'VE JUST KILLED HALF THE ENEMY TEAM AND ALL OF MINE BUT IT WASN'T MY FAULT I WAS JUST STEERING TO AVOID A BUS STOP. THE CITY LIES IN RUINS BUT THE CAR IS STILL GOING! IT'S STILL GOING AND IT WON'T LET ME OUT! IT HAS MY FAMILY Fun Fact: You can thank G1 for this car being so dumb/hilarious to drive. In RTW, the Vegas had no personality whatsoever and was easily one of the most boring cars in the game. This isn't me being sarcastic or anything, it was literally like driving cardboard. The new version is so much more fun it's not even fair. I think they sacrificed the Moirai and Vaquero as payment for this change.

They just need to get rid of TL displays altogether. It just breeds toxicity. I've been gold for a while but I've never been (intentionally) cruel to silvers (and lower) who wind up in a team with me, but for the most part I just don't like being a rude for no reason. It does get real tiring to see it all the time, though. Most recent experience: We had a big ol' match (Cremé de la crem, the 5 item hold mission, called in as backup so it was a 5v5) against a bunch of golds and managed to win through sheer attrition, it was a close call but we won through being sneaky, wrestling three items away and displacing theirs in the last few minutes so we overtook them by a couple of points. Gave them a "gg" - it was a genuinely good game, close matchups are few and far between in APB - and got a whole load of anti-silver ranting in response. Happened earlier during a match that was a draw as well where someone threw a hissy fit. While it doesn't bother me any longer (It's the internet and RIP if you're taking videogames so seriously, especially APB) it's outstanding how vitriolic people can be about it. I guess people get so invested that they start developing a real emotional attachment to APB and take so much stock in their victories and losses that it feels downright insulting when someone "undeserving" manages to best them. I should know because some five or so years ago I was in exactly the same place, I think it's just something you mellow out about with age when you get things that are, you know, actually worth worrying about. Basically, don't worry about it. If people are giving you shit because you're not a Pro Master APB God, well, there are worse things to be called out about. At the end of the day there are going to be people who are overinvested and chances are if they're not cool enough to be chill about other players in their game, their opinions of you aren't really going to be worth a damn anyway.

I really enjoyed a lot of the matches last night but there's a huuuge skill gap between players returning and the players who've been playing over the last four years. I was low gold and my friends were two silvers and a lot of the long-term names I recognise that we were matched up against were untouchable. It was clearly skill and not hacks - their placement and gamesense was spot on but it wasn't ridiculous - but we're all fairly casual players and the game decided to square us off against dedicated daily players that I've known of for years. I'm so rusty that the game finally had enough of my mediocrity and downranked me to silver, a position I frankly completely agree with at the moment. The last match of the night was against two golds who managed 22 kills apeice to our combined total of maybe 6, at which point my friends called it. Repeated failures don't put me off but it's left a sour taste in my friend's mouth, so we're going to visit bronze today and hope that maybe the matchups are a little bit more sane - at least until we blow the cobwebs off and feel like we're a bit more competent at the game. It's definitely playable again though, I had a lot of fun and all the matchups I can safely say were hack-free, but the matchmaking is the next sore point that needs addressing. It's a big task and I have confidence in LO after their strong start, but unfortunately it's still one of those "the sooner, the better" deals.

Are you sure your account didn't get compromised and your things emailed away to another player?

The authorities are on their way now. Quickly, hide the PC under the rosebushes! I'll cover you. Just run! Now!

Individual skill ceilings are real things, though. You can learn a lot through time played and by watching and playing against other, better players, true, but some things can't be learned or easily improved. I've been playing since RTW closed beta so I've got a pretty good handle on the maps, tactics and weaponry in the game and can drive well under pressure but my aim is subpar - this is something that's been a constant across all my years of gaming and I've finally reached a state where I've realised I'm not going to get much better, especially as I get older. I'm nowhere near as good a shot compared to when I was a teenager, for example. I'm sure this applies to a lot of people too. Remember that not every gamer has the time, dedication or the reflexes to be a tactical aiming god. A game is only profitable and retains an audience for as long as the majority of the players have a consistently fun experience - and there's nothing fun about getting stomped. It's hard to learn anything from being completely dominated, too.

Once again, I'd like to state that gutting the matchmaking system and making it fully open, no TL taken into account, would be my solution for this. The playerbase is just too small at the moment and TL has caused so many headaches throughout APB's history - just scrap the lot and generally most players will probably have enough equal matches to make it worth it. Also reduces a ton of toxicity regarding TL being a perception of worth.

Lidl Orbit, you say?! (unfortunately this uniform, colourscheme and slogan is now out of date - I'll have to fix that)

Also, not to speak on LO's behalf, but: There will be teething troubles. There will be bugs and issues that will probably arise with the introduction of BattleEye. It's LO's first patch, and one that probably had a lot of fresh faces working on APB's spaghetti code to make it work. When something goes wrong - and it inevitably will, since this is APB we're talking about - don't be so fast to declare LO the worst company ever, things were better before they came along, all that hyperbole that always comes to the fore whenever any change is made to the game. Constructive criticism and bug reports are what's needed, not "the end is nigh" defeatism when something breaks.

LTL is one of the few things that seperates enforcers from criminals and I doubt crims will ever see a mechanic that mirrors it. I like the flame weapon idea, but honestly if you want to LTL you should just, y'know, roll an enforcer. It's not even a particularly good or entertaining use of your time unless you're rolling with a group who's up for it because you're effectively throwing all your combat efficiency in the bin for a grind. If you've not experienced it before and want to try it on a crim, give the enforcer LTL experience a go and see how it feels.

Definitely this. Yeah, it's not going to dominate the NTEC, but it's absurdly controllable and super versatile. If you give it extended mags it can basically act as a light machine gun, it's still absurdly accurate outside of marksman mode so it can be used in close quarters very easily and it's got a decent range. People tend to abandon it fairly quickly but it's a great workhorse of a gun.

Never consider an enemy car safe. If anything, if you're not capable of destroying it yourself you should always be giving it a wide berth - and if the enemy is driving up to you and popping it then it's not something you should fall for twice.

We took this for a web article talking about how effective the snubnose is(n't): That was a fun shoot. Inaccurate nowadays because it shows the Colby killing someone. Also, sometimes servers suffering from huge serverside lag would cause vehicle physics to freak the hell out in hilarious ways:

Honestly I think carsurfer should just be an innate ability. It's only marginally useful in certain situations but it's another one of those "Confuses the heck out of newbies" mechanics because it seems like something you should just do from the get-go. I'm inclined to agree though, especially since most mods are a matter of preference. I know a lot of people who are split between CA 2 and 3. I'm not 100% sold on removing them entirely but I'd definitely crush the heck out of modification requirements so there's still some line of progression between the different ranks.

Honestly I think LO handled this as well as they possibly could and it's commendable that they gave an apology and promised that they'll take action against it in the future. I think if you're a GM you should fully be expected to use your powers responsibly: This means not messing with them unless given explicit permission by a superior. The only time you should see something out of the ordinary if you're a normal gamer is during announced events featuring GMs - otherwise they should be heard, not seen.

I played a mission today and I actually had a good time. Lost and I'm rusty as hell after 4 years of not playing, but still surprising.

If you're playing properly and you're put up against vastly outgunned/inexperienced players, the best (and nicest) thing you can do currently is to ask them if they want help on the mission or otherwise take it easy on them. This game is hostile enough to new players and getting hosed by the matchmaking isn't ideal.

Wahey! Look at what I just found in my mail as I was searching through the last four years of post: This is a special 1-slot (open) version of the CR5 that you could get a code for in a german gaming magazine. This is super minor in the big long list of things people want to see in the game, and even though it's not the prettiest skin in the game it'd be great if we could see this as a tertiary skin for the CR5. I don't think people can get their hands on it anymore, and it's a 365 day time-limited weapon: Once it's gone, it's gone. That means nobody will ever be able to use this skin again, which is a real shame if it already exists in the game. Reskinnable weapons weren't available in the game when this came out so it was always neat to see someone with it. I guess I never withdrew mine because it came with a car and inventory limits were tight back in the day.

Chaos District had a lot of flaws, but it definitely had its moments: I have a huge playlist of APB videos I've made but for understandable reasons I've not made anything for - wow - almost 4 years now.

Usually I try to approach people with empathy and understanding, but after seeing so much of this "beeh, LO hasn't gotten anything done!" mentality, despite LO having only taking over several weeks ago - and despite people thinking the game was abandoned entirely for several years: Get out, good riddance.