July 2019 New Content (for release with the Engine Upgrade)

[MattScott 15242]

Hi everyone,

My July blog is up here:

https://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/news/2019/7/23/content-update

 

We've talked a lot about the Engine Upgrade, and even though I know many players are excited, I don't feel like a visual and performance update is enough to get players excited about the future of APB. So this month I'm revealing a lot of our new content plans for the main game that will launch alongside the Engine Upgrade.
 

 

NOTE: A lot of the design elements are subject to change as they are still in development.

NOTE: A couple players reached out to me asking if we are still going to release the new content tomorrow, and I realize now that I wasn't clear enough in the blog. These new contacts will launch with the Engine Upgrade - not in July.

 

Feel free to leave feedback in the comments below.

 

Thanks,
Matt

[SkittyM 287]

Hell yeah, OCA nerf!

[Sadira 292]

Finally, a counter to car gameplay. Really looking forward to EMP.

[stargazer 83]

When you say contact tier 3, does that mean max rank players will automatically max the new contacts when you login? or does max rank players need to level them?

 

can we get an f in chat for the rfp

Edited July 24, 2019 by stargazer

[speee 90]

Looks like we are heading in the right direction with the balance changes.

 

Also, the EMP grenade is an interesting angle to balancing the car gameplay meta.

Edited July 24, 2019 by speee

[Cheeseburger! 47]

I'm more excited for the new contacts than the engine upgrade.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Cheeseburger!

[Acornie 490]

I'm scared about any shotgun changes tbh, they feel tricky. I hope they don't end up in a weirder place than they already are.

 

Also: Tfw Matt Scott himself calls your fav gun, the RSA, irrevelevant :c Any chance it could be looked at for some buffage? Pls and thanks ;D

Edited July 24, 2019 by Acornie

[UnawarePolarBear 50]

Shotguns getting changed yet again. "This is the only shotgun [Strife] to remain a 2 STK" - Thats a major yikes.

[Kewlin 692]

Matt, for the love of God, please, stop with the reworks for the sake of reworks. Nobody complained really about shotguns before you changed them, and as it is they only need minor tweaks. If I want to play the JG, I want to play the JG, not the Showstopper. If you think that people want a more reliable shotgun, add a new, more reliable shotgun, don't change the ones you already have. The showstopper is cool, I like it, but if you want a primary showstopper it should be a new gun, not the old ones we already have and like.

 

I've already made a lengthy thread on suggested starting numbers for keeping the original feel of shotguns while implementing your pellet curves, and I urge you to please take a look at them, not because I wrote them in particular, but because I actually got a lot of support.
 

 

I know you think people are just afraid of change probably, but as I see it, forcing changes on all of these guns because you think people don't like that they're too random is absurd. You just are making new guns, deleting the old ones, and putting the new ones in their place, because 3 shot JGs and CSGs are not JGs and CSGs at all.

 

(Sidenote: decreasing pellet count doesn't make shotguns more reliable, in fact if anything it makes them more random. Also, a perfectly aimed JG or CSG shot has never dealt no damage, except when there was bad hitreg: they've always been rather reliable in the right hands. I have no idea how you think a complete miss can do significant damage, as that's by definition not a complete miss. It really sounds like you just don't like shotguns.)

 

 

In addition, all the RFP needs is a burst interval or RoF change. We don't need an RFP rework, yet again, if you want an entirely new gun, add a new gun.  The reduced RoF IR3 Fang was really fun IMO, you could reduce the RoF and that would have basically the same affect as increasing it to a 4 shot burst with making it harder, but without entirely reworking the gun. It has the same affect of requiring you to aim more during a burst, but keeps it fundamentally the same gun.

 

 

(P.S. I don't care about skill ceilings or bad aim not being penalized. APB is already a very, very difficult game to get into, and I have never thought, "well geez, I hate that this gun doesn't need you to be a pro at aiming.")

Edited July 24, 2019 by Kewlin

[Hexerin 1140]

That feel when the Koi skin preview image contains the ACT 44 Last Stand, even though that weapon is no longer available to be obtained.

 

Please, add it into ARMAS like the rest of the retail pack weapons have been.

[UnawarePolarBear 50]

3 minutes ago, Kewlin said:

 

I 100 percent agree with this. Shotguns fill a niche role in the weapon balance sphere. By changing them to 3+ STK, even if you keep the same TTK - it's going to be a real rough weapon to use. Risk/reward in this case.

 

Obviously we should wait to see the full changes, but the description of them does not sound great.

Edited July 24, 2019 by UnawarePolarBear

[speee 90]

1 minute ago, Kewlin said:

(P.S. I don't care about skill ceilings or bad aim not being penalized. APB is already a very, very difficult game to get into, and I have never thought, "well geez, I hate that this gun doesn't need to be a pro at aiming.")

This right here is why your post shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Kewlin 692]

2 minutes ago, speee said:

This right here is why your post shouldn't be taken seriously.

 

What? Do you care to explain?

 

 

3 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

That feel when the Koi skin preview image contains the ACT 44 Last Stand, even though that weapon is no longer available to be obtained.

 

Please, add it into ARMAS like the rest of the retail pack weapons have been.

 

I seriously already thought it was on there, and as someone who uses the gun it definitely should be added.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Kewlin

[SkittyM 287]

Every time i see the SG-21 mentioned in balance changes i die inside a bit.  Balancing something around a mod that isn't particularly good to begin with is just asking for a bad time, and this is coming from someone who lives in the Fragile Zone.

[speee 90]

1 minute ago, Kewlin said:

 

What? Do you care to explain?

I don't care to discuss specifics about each gun change. But in general, every gun should reward good aim. What is the alternative philosophy? Shotguns are wildly inconsistent and NFAS is a gun that kills way too fast with little requirement from the player, for example. Guns do need to be changed and reworked. Most people tend to use the guns that are most effective. Therefore, adding new guns to the mix will just create more problems.

[Hexerin 1140]

Quote

Strife - The Strife currently suffers from an insanely high TTK, not just by CQC standards, but by weapon standards overall. This is the only shotgun to remain a 2 STK, but the damage has been reduced with the fragile modification in mind, removing the ability to kill users of that mod with one shot. The fire interval has also been greatly decreased to 0.9 seconds, though this may be subject to further change if deemed necessary.

Please, don't kill my Strife! The insanely high TTK and excessively extreme damage per shot is exactly what makes the gun so incredibly fun. It requires a completely different playstyle, and rewards skill the highest of any gun in the game. Most people may not like the gun's design, and that's perfectly okay, but don't kill one of the only unique guns in the game just to homogenize it for the masses that just want everything to be point and spam...

[Kewlin 692]

Just now, SkittyM said:

Every time i see the SG-21 mentioned in balance changes i die inside a bit.  Balancing something around a mod that isn't particularly good to begin with is just asking for a bad time, and this is coming from someone who lives in the Fragile Zone.

 

And even then it's SO RARE that an SG-21 can 1-shot someone with Fragile.

 

 

1 minute ago, speee said:

I don't care to discuss specifics about each gun change. But in general, every gun should reward good aim. What is the alternative philosophy? Shotguns are wildly inconsistent and NFAS is a gun that kills way too fast with little requirement from the player, for example. Guns do need to be changed and reworked. Most people tend to use the guns that are most effective. Therefore, adding new guns to the mix will just create more problems.

 

I disagree on every point you made, lol.

 

 

1 minute ago, Hexerin said:

Please, don't kill my Strife! The insanely high TTK and excessively extreme damage per shot is exactly what makes the gun so incredibly fun. It requires a completely different playstyle, and rewards skill the highest of any gun in the game. Most people may not like the gun's design, and that's perfectly okay, but don't kill one of the only unique guns in the game just to homogenize it for the masses that just want everything to be point and spam...

 

Agreed. The Strife is actually pretty good ATM too, IDK why it needs a "buff" (i.e. a rework claiming to be a buff.)

[lvrq 113]

when is this

[Iazer 204]

No more jg spam

[Havana 216]

Now we are talking  about  some real  change. Sure it won't  be great at first and will  have  to tweaked a few times. 

Be happy! We have been asking for things and here they  are and people  are going to complain. 

Oh well, can't  please everyone. 

[KNickz 46]

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by KNickz

[vsb 6170]

damn, there's a lot to unpack here

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

3.5 ENGINE UPGRADE UPDATE

not much to say about this - it certainly sounds like good news but as you've pointed out, without any concrete "proof" i imagine many players will continue to complain about the engine upgrade timing

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

RIOT SKINS ARE COMING TO ARMAS NEXT WEEK

this is good news and im glad to hear that apparently there will be more skins in the near-ish future, ive always felt that aspect of customization was abandoned by g1

 

can we get any pricing info?

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

NEW CONTACTS - LUCAS VAN ROOYEN & LYNETTE CASEY

we have set these two contacts in Tier 3 based in Waterfront

as t3 contacts they have 10 levels i assume

 

will everyone be able to level these contacts up, or will higher ranked players (max ranks) automatically max out their standings?

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

The EMP Grenade will be a brand new unlockable alternative to other grenade options. When thrown, instead of a regular explosion, the grenade will trigger an Electromagnetic Pulse effect that will last for a certain duration. Anything in the radius of that field will be affected until it dissipates.

Two of the larger complaints about the gameplay right now is that Vehicle Spawns can be really frustrating to destroy, and that it's very common for combat to revolve around getting into vehicles to avoid taking damage / regenerate health and postpone the fight. The EMP helps offset these issues by giving players an optional tool that deals with these.

The effects of an EMP field are:

• Disabling BoomBox
• Vehicles are electrified and:
  • People inside of them take damage every few seconds.
  • Can be prevented from entering vehicles.
  • Alarms are silenced.
  • Lights are turned off.
  • Vehicle is no longer available for spawning.
  • Remote detonation can no longer be triggered.
  • The vehicle will explode if remote detonation is active.
  • Mobile radar is disabled.
  • Accelerator is disabled, vehicle can still turn and break, but not accelerate.
• A HUD message will show up showing that you are affected by EMP.

will emp grenades stick to targets or have a very large radius? otherwise i feel like they can only be successfully deployed against stationary cars, since even with acceleration disabled most cars may just coast (seems like a small indirect muffler buff) free of the affected area

• not sure if its possible but perhaps having emp grenades lock steering and braking as well, momentary loss of control could be used to good effect on moving vehicles

 

do emp grenades deal enough damage to players inside affected vehicles to outright kill them within their duration?

 

can emp grenades be destroyed?

 

i recognize that new contacts need new content, but im not sure i like another grenade type being locked behind contact leveling (admittedly its a much easier hurdle than r204 or whatever is required for low yields) rather than the grenadier role

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

Alongside the addition of EMP, we are modifying Radar Jammer.

In order to make this interesting to play with, we are making the following changes:

• Certain flagged HUD Markers are no longer updated / shown on the screen and/or map:
• Tagger
• Spotter
• Mobile Radar Tower

Potential additions:

• Opposition Player (team-deathmatch)
• VIP

i think this is a much needed buff to a pretty lackluster mod

 

will there be any changes to how players are notified that they are tagged/spotted? both tagger and flaregun require a camera angle change and there is no way to know if you have been tagged with the spotter modification

 

not sure i like the tdm addition especially with mission stage configs still about, but VIP seems like it could be balanced

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

CHANGES TO CONSUMABLE/DEPLOYABLES

After spending a year running the game, I feel like consumables are an area in the game that need a lot of help. Currently they invalidate a lot of mods, while unbalancing the newbie experience versus veterans who have hoarded these random rewards to help them in missions.

its nice to have my opinions validated lol

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

Disable or limit explosives from deployable ammo boxes

In order to limit explosive spam, we want to limit the amount of explosives you can get from the ammo boxes by either having a very limited amount available for certain ammo types, and/or disabling certain ammo types out-right.

Remove or limit inventory access from deployable ammo boxes

In order to reduce the amount of ammo access in the game, add to the tactical aspect of it, and reduce the likelihood of the limited ammo changes above from causing players to be stuck with a weapon without ammo, we want to remove inventory access from boxes that are limited.

i'd like to throw my suggestion in the ring again, and have all consumable ammo boxes severely limit all available ammo, something like 25% - 50% of equipped weapon ammo, the lower to prevent any grenades from being resupplied at all and the upper to allow 1 grenade to be resupplied

 

im undecided on inventory access

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

Connect mod active time to deployable active time

In order to increase tactics with deployables, we want certain deployables to sync with the active time of the modification. When the deployable is destroyed, the mod is automatically de-activated as well. These mods should last through death. Cancelling the modification (if cancelable) should also destroy the modification

idk if its just me but i have no idea what this means

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

CHANGES TO WEAPON BALANCE

This obviously didn't work out so well last time. Now, after a lot more evaluation, we feel ready to jump back in and try another round.

We will be setting up the same series of test districts so that players can work through changes and give feedback. However, this time we will be adding the test district to LIVE for all players.

I don't have a timeline for when this will start, but we already have the first round of changes ready.

This time around we wont finalize the changes until we have had enough testing.

We want to refocus on shotguns, which we feel still suffer from 2 major issues: unreliablity & not punishing bad aim (especially with the NFAS/Ogre).

The unreliability is caused by the extremely fast widening of the shotgun pellet cloud, making most of them ineffective long before their dropoff range. In theory, no core functionality of a weapon should be so dramatically effected by random chance that a perfectly aimed shot can do almost no damage, or a complete miss can do significant damage. It contributes to the feeling of uselessness of the weapon archetype. There is also pop shooting, which is a particularly difficult to balance use case. Due to the third person camera players can see people coming and use the corner to hide during the fire interval, making them take close to no damage in these cases. Other close range weapons (OCA, PMG, Joker Carbine etc.) require the user to constantly expose themselves to apply damage, this is not the case with shotguns.

The Shotgun changes from summer last year were focused on increasing the reliability of shotguns at the cost of severely reducing the punishment for missing. This new proposal is designed with the original linear damage scaling per pellet, but leaves room to adapted stat wise if needed. We want to greatly reduce the pellet spread, as well as pellet count to both reduce frustrations with the spread making well aimed shots essentially not count and badly aimed shots still counting.

having LIVE districts should help with feedback, i remember otw being a ghost town last weapon testing - but will the LIVE testing districts allow people to use all the weapons being balanced or will they have to own them in order to use them?

 

nice to know we'll be going back to the og pellet mechanics, the current new mechanics are way too inconsistent

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

JG-840 - The baseline of the proposed balance is the Showstopper "Thunder", which is by far the most consistent and least irritating shotgun to use in the current balance. Having the stats almost 1:1 transfered to the JG forms a great baseline for the balance of all other shotguns.

does this mean the jg will be able to 2shot up to 25m or is it just the pellet spread/numbers that are being duplicated?

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

NFAS-12 - The NFAS is a tricky one to get a good balance on. It is specifically designed to be a spray-and-pray kind of weapon, but currently it is far too effective with the 0.58 second TTK (making it the second or third fastest killing weapon in the game stat wise, depending on how you count the "True Ogre") We reduced the NFAS's spread the least (save the Showstopper and Ogre) in order to accomodate the original design, but the damage has been reduced to make it a 4 STK and the fire rate increased to bring the TTK to a competitive but not dominating 0.72 seconds. Statistical effective range has also been adjusted to match spread.

i strongly disagree with these changes, treating the nfas like other shotguns (higher ttk in exhange for corner popping) doesnt work because the nfas is used far more like an smg - this also makes the nfas too similar to the shredder imo, especially with the ttk buff you're giving it

 

you'll be reverting the oca back to "normal" why not revert the nfas the same way? a facemelter at uber cqc that is balanced because it is outranged by every other gun (except the pig, barely) even its cqc counterparts

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

NFAS-12 "True Ogre" - The "True Ogre" is also a difficult weapon to place in the balance due to the ideal way to play it: wait around a corner for the spin-up to complete, then pop out to use the 0.4 second TTK to kill anything before it can even mathamatically compete. To solve this issue we have greatly reduced the spin-up timer and increase the TTK by adding another shot to kill, with very little over-damage, meaning realistically it will be a 5 STK. This weapon is going to need a lot of testing, and may need the most tweaking to get the balance right.

if im reading this correctly the ogre will have a .6s - .8s ttk + windup time?

 

tbh i think the ogre is just fine as it is, but i guess testing will determine my feelings on this

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

Shredder - The Shredder remains largely unchanged save for a slight reduction of TTK, evening of damage values and the general spread decrease with corresponding pellet count decrease.

the ttk reduction on its own sounds good but again, i think combined with the nfas ttk nerf will make the two guns overlap in a bad way

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

Strife - The Strife currently suffers from an insanely high TTK, not just by CQC standards, but by weapon standards overall. This is the only shotgun to remain a 2 STK, but the damage has been reduced with the fragile modification in mind, removing the ability to kill users of that mod with one shot. The fire interval has also been greatly decreased to 0.9 seconds, though this may be subject to further change if deemed necessary.

"with the fragile mod in mind" means full damage of ~850? this brings the strife even further in line with the other pump shotguns, but it still has a longer ttk

 

will the "bolt timer" be removed from the strife now that the damage has been so nerfed?

 

the strife is very well balanced atm, the insane damage output and high ttk make for interesting and unique gameplay

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

Showstopper - The base Showstopper stats have remained largely unchanged, save for adjustments for linear pellet damage. In addition to this, some other strange stand-out decisions were reversed. Reload time is increased to be more in line with existing shotguns, and range has been reduced to account for it's secondary weapon status. The Minimum Damage % has also been brought in line with all other shotguns in game. We will be evaluating the Thunder more thoroughly to determine what changes need to be made.

 

Changes made compared to the Thunder is evening out the spread at 10 metres and reducing the TTK to be competitive in CQC.

the base showstopper already has a fairly low range, im not sure a further nerf was needed

 

the thunder already has a 1.02s ttk bringing it perfectly in line with the other 30m secondaries, i don't feel this needs to be changed - the range nerf (due to base showstopper changes) + the ttk decrease will leave the base showstopper and the thunder feeling a little too similar imo

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

RFP-9 - The RFP, especially the 'Fang' variety with Improved Rifling 3 is currently the go to for all long range secondary engagements. Every other alternative: ACT 44, Colby RSA etc.. is completely irrelevant. The recommended changes are:

• RFP-9: drop off starts at 40m with 1.05 sec TTK
• ACT 44: drop off starts at 70m with 1.5 sec TTK
• Colby RSA: drop off starts at 70m with 1.7 sec TTK

The trend for secondaries is that the less range, the less TTK. Roughly following that trend, we are nerfing the RFP by bringing its TTK up to 1.4 seconds and making it a 4 burst (increasing skill ceiling). This should hopefully also increase the usage of alternative secondary weapons.

with these rfp changes will the rfp 'talon' pistol silencer and range be fixed? i feel this would open up another rfp option, further nerfing (indirectly) the fang meta

 

2 hours ago, MattScott said:

OCA - The focus here is to revert the OCA to the pre 2014 buff in order to bring it in line with most other short range close quarters weapons. Look at the 'Colby PMG 28' for comparison. It comes with higher damage per shot, a smaller magazine size, more bloom, slower fire rate, yet more range. The OCA is much more forgiving, therefore it should not be faster to kill players. This was previously planned to be a part of the weapon balancing of 2018, but was scrapped due to the amount of focus/attention on shotguns.

fantastic, altho i suspect we'll see a lot more pmgs around as a result

 

 

 

a lot of changes, some sound good and some really dont

 

guess i'll have to wait and actually test them before final judgement 

 

edit: i missed the part where the strife is the only 2shot shotgun, i'll point out right now that this is a really fucking dumb change and shouldnt require actual testing to confirm 

 

edit 2: this was seriously so close to being a really good balance patch, i get that there will be testing and blah blah blah, but if we have to start off with "these changes are already stupid" how much time will be wasted?

 

 

1 hour ago, Cheeseburger! said:

I'm more excited for the new contacts than the engine upgrade.

the new contacts are being held back until after the engine upgrade so

 

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Glaciers
merged

[MattScott 15242]

Hi all,

 

Max rank players will have the new contact automatically unlocked, but they will need to play missions to level them up and unlock the rewards.

 

Thanks,

Matt

[Acornie 490]

14 minutes ago, Glaciers said:

I missed the part where the strife is the only 2shot shotgun, i'll point out right now that this is a really fucking dumb change and shouldnt require actual testing to confirm 

I missed it too, I agree with you and @Kewlin and everyone saying changing them to not be 2 shot anymore is a completely unessecary rework. I unsterstand trying to fix gunplay is important but tweaks > total reworks. #keepmuhJGandCSGtwoshot

[BrandonBranderson 672]

3 hours ago, MattScott said:

Hi everyone,

My July blog is up here:

This is all awesome news and stuff Matt, but please stop tinkering with shotguns so much!  Before the first rebalance that you guys did they were in a pretty good spot with the only main issue being bad hitreg which doesn't really seem to be an issue anymore.  Please consider just reverting the old base shotguns to their pre-rework stats.  They worked fine until the rework with the only complaints being the hitreg.  I don't mean to bring down the mood from the rest of the update because everything else was some really awesome stuff, I just felt that this was really important. Shotguns will not be fun anymore if you go forward with your plans.  Also I just need to add, making the strife the only 2-shot shotgun is seriously a stupid idea.  Shotguns are fun to use because of their high damage and impact.  If you go through with this it'll feel like you're shooting your opponents with popcorn cannons.  If you start to get this much backlash this quickly about one single change in a whole broad update covering a lot of different areas in the game, it's probably a bad idea.  Especially when all everyone is talking about is the shotgun changes when there's news as good as the engine update being almost done.  Don't apply these changes to normal shotguns, please.

Edited July 24, 2019 by BrandonBranderson