Songbearer

Another thing very few articles critical of APB don't seem to look too deeply into is why the car handling is the way it is. I'll agree that like a lot of mechanics in APB it's totally unlike many other games, but the sluggish handling is due to the vehicles being serverside physics objects. What this means is that everyone sees the cars performing exactly the same way, which is something very few games do. This means every bump, every flip, every jump and every drift displays the same for everyone so people with laggy connections don't have teleporting cars, physics don't freak out at a moment's notice for one player but not the next and entire districts have cars placed exactly the same for everyone else. So yeah, initially the cars feel sluggish and strange, but driving them is also a core skill that all players have to learn. There's no winning in car chases because your car decided it didn't exist for a few laggy seconds, and driving too dangerously could mean all the difference between winning a mission or losing valuable time while you desperately search for another vehicle after you flip your current one. To my knowledge, no other game makes sure that all the vehicles in the game behave exactly the same for everyone else, and that's something I've always respected in APB.

Gold and I've never intentionally dethreated (If I recall I borderline silver). I don't like crushing new players and will throw any match that looks like I have a massive advantage over my opponents to the point they can't effectively retaliate. I've not played any matches in recent history due to the state of the game, the only time I've revisited APB in the last two or three years was to either play in Fight Club or drive some cars around. I still think matchmaking should be abolished entirely though, this system is broken as it currently stands.

I generally like RPS but yeah that article is rough. A common thing that crops up in APB related discussions is "Why not play GTA Online?" which can be easily answered by playing both games and realising that they're aiming for completely different things. APB is a semi-tactical shooter that requires teamwork and co-ordination, similar to Counterstrike (minus the polish and laser-sharp gunplay). GTA: O is a wide open sandbox with diversions. I've played both for more hours than I'd care to admit, but it only takes a moment to realise that both games offer things that the other one can't. APB's customisation is also used to dismiss the game as nothing more than a barbie dressup simulator, and while this is true for some and a lot of the longterm players generally are in it for the customisation (I wouldn't have played the game for any length of time if the customisation wasn't so good), it's the sense of personality and attachment to your character that you get when you make your character "yours" which you really don't get in any other game that has premade outfits. The article's tone just seems hostile and dismissive from the get-go, something that I'm glad a lot of people have called the author out on. APB has a rotten history, there's no denying it, but for it to have been this tenacious there has to be something to the game. All the players here know what it is, and outsiders can definitely see the appeal, but with its reputation it's a hard sell and it's unfortunate the writer chose to take the approach he did. It feels like he pities the people for playing something he doesn't personally enjoy.

The job of policing this community is an unenviable one and I sincerely wish you the very best of luck in achieving this monumental task.

There will be new hair styles, only they'll be different variations of combovers.

Can I have a list of these lists

Not entirely in the spirit of the thread but I hope LO's vision of APB includes the glorious return of a drivable, smooth handling Vaquero instead of the horrible uncontrollable rubber ball that it is currently. In RTW that vehicle was on par with the Mikro and now it's a laughing stock. This goes for the Moirai too, I miss the way it handled before Reloaded. It's such a beautiful car but why would you risk driving it when it desires spinouts whenever the slightest suggestion of one arises?

Dude he cheated in a forgotten internet videogame, he didn't murder a guy. You can't equate a few hours of someone hacking for a giggle to cold-blooded killings. Second chances for hacking are a-ok and if Little Orbit didn't think they'd be able to catch people out again they'd just maintain the bans. If the people who come back decide to do it again, they'll be removed - or they'll just reroll a new account, which would've happened if the bans were maintained anyway.

I just keep playing no matter if there's a hacker on my side or the enemy's side. I'm here to play the game, it's not my fault if other people are abusing the system. As long as I'm performing to the best of my abilities I couldn't give a toss how well other people are doing. Of course I only play with my friends who I know for a fact don't hack so if there's someone on my team doing it, it's due to the backup system and thus is beyond my control.

Wait, are you heavily implying you performed credit fraud? Yikes.

You started this topic, replied a few times and now... no responses! I still haven't seen your next post yet. What's the hold up? I know you're thinking of typing one, so why haven't you typed it yet? Oh my god, don't you care?

Yowza dude, give LO a chance to settle in.

I was actually gonna say this. Second Life really sounds right up these people's streets - any nudity you make in that game will look a billion times better than what you'll get in APB, and you'll find a lot more people willing to "take advantage" of it. You horny dogs.

I think you should remove all weapons and make the HVR a one-shot kill. Then add low gravity. Then make all the cars Vegas with Nitro 3 stuck permanently on.

Looks and style: Obeya Effectiveness: Nekrova (NTEC & HVR, baby)

Tough call. As frustrating as ghosters, blockers and lunatic traffic can be, I think a lot of the best moments in this game came from some of the downright crazy things that happened as a result of other players being able to come into contact with one another despite not being on the same mission. While people abusing the game without being countered did affect a portion of my missions, seeing giant car chases wind up in horrible wreckages and running gun battles because a stranger accidentally rams an opponent off the road, or someone's made a giant roadblock for fun that cordons off a main road, or just seeing a car come flying through the air after doing a huge stunt probably added more to my game than detracted from it. APB doesn't have much going for it in the way of being balanced or competitive, so those random elements can really give you a unique experience from time to time. I think if you got rid of that sort of thing APB would lose a lot of its charm.

I dunno dude, I've managed to record and report several hackers successfully back when I was playing and I didn't pop off at players who I knew were respectable and played often. I wouldn't dismiss anyone who say they were running against hackers more and more frequently as APB's popularity and support from G1 began to decline. I have hours and hours of fun missions, close calls and good fights on my Youtube page to safely say that yeah, I do know what a fishy matchup looks like - and they were becoming more and more common to the point that me and the rest of my clan, who were playing just as long, dropped the game. I'm not claiming that 9/10ths of my matches were up against hackers, and I agree that it's probably far less than people think - but the presence of more than just a few to the point that it's a concern every time you boot the game up makes a major impact to the perception of the game to most people. Combined with the stagnation of the game, its laughable performance even on high-end systems, a lack of players and daily reports of server instability and DDOS attacks, it's a hard sell to come back to it in its current state. A new anticheat system is, at the very least, one of these issues solved, and it's one that may alleviate what was a major problem for me. I doubt you can deny that there's a lot of potential former players that have the same concern. As an aside, I'm glad there'll be a clean slate for all former bans. Hopefully that'll give a good boost to the playerbase of the game and a lot of people who tried hacks due to boredom or frustration might give APB a real shot if LittleOrbit can make it worth people's time.

I'll check out the game again when they implement the alternative anti-cheat. The main reason I stopped playing was because a lot of the matches were very clearly against aimbotters and hacker re-rolls - and this isn't whining. Simply stating facts at this point. I've played enough matches to know just how much information is available to players at a time and when something is fishy.

It's been a while since I've played but for the NTEC, its lethality and versatility over a huge variety of ranges completely overshadows the other rifles - some like the COBRA feel like you're throwing pennies at enemies, which is bizzare for a SCAR pattern gun. I'd make an argument that it'd be better to just raise the lethality of all other assault rifles across the board, or follow the same approach as most other games where AK pattern rifles are "high damage, low accuracy" semi-short range weapons and western rifles are higher accuracy with lower damage.

Like the poster above says, I'm not salty or raging at you for saying the HVR should be a viable up close weapon, but I'm absolutely allowed to give my opinion as to why that doesn't make sense. Discussions work both ways. I understand that at some servers and skill levels there might not be a culture surrounding certain weapons, but with 2k+ hours between APB RTW and APB Reloaded you start to see patterns and the eternal debate surrounding the HVR and NTEC has never had a satisfying answer. Those two guns are simply far too versatile and overshadow every weapon in their categories outside some fringe cases, and if you're not running either gun for "serious" play then you're at an immediate disadvantage. It's simply bad gameplay to have two weapons that grossly outvalue the vast majority of other weapons in the game because you're effectively punishing people for wanting to use anything else. I like a lot of weapons in the game and when I used to play I'd switch up often to entertain myself - but if a match became too one-sided it's time to break out the HVRs and NTECs. This is why most games these days go one of either two routes: A) All weapons feel mostly the same with very few variations such as magazine size, recoil patterns (Call of Duty and so on) B) Characters are forced into specific roles or characters with specific drawbacks for their skillsets (Battlefield, Overwatch etc) If you want to use the HVR close-up you should definitely still be able to - but since sniper rifles aren't designed for close quarter combat it should reflect this. Rolling up on a sniper to take him down for your team should be a success for the attacker and a punishment for the defender's poor positioning or lack of support, and that's not the case currently where dinging people for maximum damage is as simple as landing a shot anywhere on your target. Personally if we were keeping the HVR at its current stats I'd make it the only weapon you can carry, solving quickswitching and the ability to defend yourself easily up close. It'd still be a behemoth for supporting your teammates, but the reduced mobility and lack of survivability when you're away from your teammates would give you cause to consider it.

Wh... what I'm sorry I just started reading this topic but isn't that the entire idea In most games aren't snipers usually relegated to support positions to compensate for their power? Can't you just pack an FBW or uzi for up-close defense? HVR has been my main gun since RTW and even I think it's dumb bullcrap that I wouldn't mind seeing nerfed to the ground. In pretty much every game sniper rifles suck the fun out of any engagement, are only fun for the sniper and it's even less defensible in APB because you don't even need to be skillful enough to land headshots like in every other game. One bodyshot is enough to effectively remove someone from a fight for several seconds and people have to go out of their way to get you in a game that doesn't have much wriggle room for diversions and errors. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

No, they're saying to wipe matchmaking rank until the game can figure out where you're supposed to be placed in whatever threat level the new matchmaking uses. It's been done several times in APB's history and is the standard for any game that has a massive overhaul of its matchmaking, kind of a no-brainer.

Never thought I'd type this but I'm with those people who say matchmaking probably shouldn't exist at all. I'd make an exception that maybe brand new players should be kept in an instance with other brand new players for like, the first 10 missions of their account (Enough to level up a starter contact but not long enough to keep them away from playing with their friends - and if there's a low population count they won't be kept away from the main action for long) but otherwise? Just match players up with whoever's available. Yeah, you might get some massive differences in skill level, but that's currently still the case with gold and silver players dethreating to stomp newbies anyway. As it stands the current matchmaking system is ridiculously easy to abuse, punishes players for being at gold level regardless by having too small of a player pool, and immediately instills a stupid bronze/silver/gold based elitism in players that just leads to toxicity. APB's entire vibe is about making a name for yourself through your style and notoriety, by removing all the matchmaking trappings you can ensure people get to interact with the broadest spectrum of players available.

Thanks for this, massive help. I'm genuinely excited and optimistic for the changes - I'll probably give APB a (wary) look again when the anticheat has changed. Bold move to give the community a second chance but maybe people will clean up their act. Very interested to note they hired some old talent again, looks like they're really going the distance to try and make APB worth a second (third?) look.