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

[ZoriaDunne 327]

Oh boi, EMP nades + Swarm, no one getting near in cars.

[moxxichixx 148]

Oh my god, new content.... finally they listened!

[Haganu 104]

6 hours ago, Glaciers said:

what about it?

The Thumper is the only shotgun not mentioned in @MattScott's blogpost, so I wonder too whether it will undergo changes or not. Right now the Thumper is pretty reliable, but also pretty easy to kill with in CQC. I think in the new weapon balance the Thumper will be too forgiving.

 

Quote

As for stating that the OCA is more forgiving than the PMG... well this is where things get a bit out of touch with reality. Let's go through all the comparison points (comparing 2014 OCA vs. PMG) mentioned in that paragraph:

 

- TTK: The pre-RP-buff OCA was tied with the PMG at 0.7s. 

- Damage per shot: The PMG has higher damage per shot and at a given TTK, less shots to kill are better provided there are no other compromises to other statistics of the weapon. This is because a higher amount of shots to kill, as stated elsewhere in the post, requires higher amounts of exposure to secure a kill. In short, the PMG wins here.

For how long you expose yourself depends on refire rate and how likely your weapon's going to hit, too. Not just amount of shots to kill.

 

Also, OCA is exactly more forgiving than the PMG, because it has a higher refire rate, meaning you can miss a few more bullets. If you miss a round with the PMG you're likely to get punished harder for it than when you do with an OCA, exactly because of that refire rate.

 

I really don't want to do maths, but I'm quite sure 9/8 * .7 is closer to .7 than 6/5 * .7.

 

OCA's firerate is only less forgiving in the scenario when you're killing multiple people in rapid succession, since you're wasting more bullets inbetween your enemy kills with an OCA, this also goes for clip size, and how many you can kill at once per clip (assuming you don't miss a shot).

 

By now I feel like most people that want to really use (and protecc) their dear OCA for OCASYLUM should have already figured a way around the OCA's constraints when blitz killing.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Haganu

[Farbon Ciber 65]

19 hours ago, Kewlin said:

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.")

I agree with you and would like to add that it isn't cool when a gun is purchased with actual cash, I play with it for months and incorporate it in to my play style, just to have it nerfed. I would prefer that all guns be left alone once they pass through testing and that if you need to balance, introduce new guns that counter the "over powered" ones. Alternately, off a refund if a gun is changed after purchase

 

[vsb 6171]

12 minutes ago, Farbon Ciber said:

I agree with you and would like to add that it isn't cool when a gun is purchased with actual cash, I play with it for months and incorporate it in to my play style, just to have it nerfed. I would prefer that all guns be left alone once they pass through testing and that if you need to balance, introduce new guns that counter the "over powered" ones. Alternately, off a refund if a gun is changed after purchase

no

[Leefekyn 203]

Just throwing in my opinion to the thread.

1. Would love to see the proposed damage stats for the EMP grenade. Give it some decent stun damage, and I've got a new main grenade. That solves two of my biggest problems with the current stun grenades:

• 1. Them overall being a bit too powerful and feeling cheap
• 2. Cars

2. Riot weapon skins/rewards should have some small exclusivity to them in the future imo. Just some slightly different variants for armas vs unlock perhaps?

3.New Contracts

• Glad to see they aren't max tier contacts to reduce the leveling for them.
• Hope to see some new lore to follow, not that I particularly read too much into it, but it's nice to have available.

3. Weapon changes could be cool, will have to wait to test them out before making any hard statements. Thanks for removing the 1 shot strife against fragile, that's pretty neat.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Leefekyn

[KNickz 46]

46 minutes ago, Farbon Ciber said:

I agree with you and would like to add that it isn't cool when a gun is purchased with actual cash, I play with it for months and incorporate it in to my play style, just to have it nerfed. I would prefer that all guns be left alone once they pass through testing and that if you need to balance, introduce new guns that counter the "over powered" ones. Alternately, off a refund if a gun is changed after purchase

 

being that you are just now voicing your opinion on shotguns you must be an nfas user

[Kewlin 692]

12 hours ago, AxeTurboAgresor said:

3 STK JG and CSG? Rly??

EMP in APB? (for me its someting that does not belong. Id rather see some satchel charge buff so it has more uses)

 

Also I ve never came across a gamebreaking nade spam gameplay,

...becouse there was none.

Refilling nades is important to smoke off hard campers to break thro their unbreakable defence.

 

Agreed, I've personally rarely, if ever had grenade spam be a serious problem.

 

 

3 hours ago, Pedroxin said:

On the topic of long-range secondaries, why isn't the "R-2 Harbinger" mentioned? 

By far it's the most good looking, yet overlooked, revolver in the whole game.

Edit* if you search Harbinger in the forums only 3 results will show up.

 

IDK, the R-2 is my favorite long range secondary gameplay-wise. . . but boy oh boy does it suck.

 

Still, I find it in some ways really good for getting assists (I know this sounds strange, but it can put 500 damage down range faster than any other secondary *EDIT* specifically reliably, because the ACT 44 has no accuracy. . . but also. . . it certainly needs overdamage if nothing else.)

 

Merged.

 

Oh, and I want to voice a concern that the EMP grenade will almost certainly make heavy item stages even more of a pain than they already were.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Kewlin

[Shozonu 14]

Oof, 3-shot shotguns. Might as well use one of the auto-shotties at that point.

[Jinu_Sean 0]

Been playing this game on and off since 2011 and I just wanted to chime in. I'm really excited for the new content, but please invest some money to promote and advertise this game once the engine upgrade and contacts release!!

[UnawarePolarBear 50]

2 hours ago, Shozonu said:

Oof, 3-shot shotguns. Might as well use one of the auto-shotties at that point.

Might as well not use them at all, to be honest. The risk of landing 3 shots vs someone using a full auto weapon will never outweigh tbh.

[Zolerox 564]

19 hours ago, Thial said:

yeah with IR3 PMG can become a literal sniper smg since it will have 40m+ dropoff , shoots a little slow so it's up to you if you wanna swap it with CJ but overall despite the rng claims PMG can be accurate AF over long ranges. Can't count how many whispers I have received in the past of people being like wtf bro because I was sniping them with just few shots using a PMG at around 35 meters or more with IR3.

 

It was one of the main smgs everyone played with in the past for a reason. So if we don't wanna see another PMG season LO should definitely pay attention to it too if they are going to nerf OCA.

40 meter pmg? that's cute *takes vas c-2's 95 meter potential and skips along*

[Hexerin 1140]

7 hours ago, L0pht said:

New contacts will be released, before or after EU 3.5? @MattScott

I would be incredibly surprised if Matt would to say that's coming before the engine upgrade.

 

I'm more interested to know if the weapon balance pass will start soon, or if this entire blog is just "it'll happen, someday."

[FakeBungo 248]

no ntec nerf? only the most overused gun of all time

[BlatMan 711]

EMP grenade is like taking a pain killer to help with a bullet in the head. Vehicles are overpowered because G1 added broken mods to the game. If you want to balance vehicles, balance them within the game's current state. Adding more items complicates the already overly complicated balance process.

• Blowtourch: Allows players to instant repair their vehicle significantly faster than a gas station can, without the damage delay.
• Mobile Spawner: Bypasses the spawn system entirely. It allows you to spawn directly on objectives, and significantly closer to other players.
• Remote Detonator: This mod turns your vehicle into a remote activated bomb. G1 added a windup timer to the osmaw to prevent players from using their vehicles as explosives. This mod is basically an upgrade to that since you don't need an osmaw equipped. You can also use flak jacket to reduce the risk of killing yourself with the explosion.
• High Burn Fuel: Completely removes the explosion damage from the vehicle. This means if a vehicle is on fire, the player can safely use it as cover.

The issue with spotter, tagger, radar, and VIP is that players are given what is basically a wall hack. Spotter should just be removed, radar should too since it hasn't worked consistently for months, and VIP should have a VIP players on both teams to make things even.

 

I can't say if I'll like the shotgun changes or not, but I don't feel it will work well in APB with such short range to work with. The changes would work great in PUBG, considering the fact that game has 1000M of shooting range, yet shotguns are barely usable beyond 10M like in APB due to stupid high pellet spread.

 

I like the suggested changes for ammo boxes, but I think grenade resupply should be limited in general. Often players can hide near vending machines or next to their car with the ammo mod and spam grenades that way. Low-yield frag grenades should also be limited to 2 to prevent spamming them.

 

The RFP-9 change doesn't make sense either. Why not just reduce it's range to 30M? Hardly anyone uses the 'Talon" due to the reduced range.

[FakeBungo 248]

will LO ban the 20 or 30 odd cheaters on twitch.tv apb section?

4 minutes ago, SquirrelFace said:

EMP grenade is like taking a pain killer to help with a bullet in the head. Vehicles are overpowered because G1 added broken mods to the game. If you want to balance vehicles, balance them within the game's current state. Adding more items complicates the already overly complicated balance process.

• Blowtourch: Allows players to instant repair their vehicle significantly faster than a gas station can, without the damage delay.
• Mobile Spawner: Bypasses the spawn system entirely. It allows you to spawn directly on objectives, and significantly closer to other players.
• Remote Detonator: This mod turns your vehicle into a remote activated bomb. G1 added a windup timer to the osmaw to prevent players from using their vehicles as explosives. This mod is basically an upgrade to that since you don't need an osmaw equipped. You can also use flak jacket to reduce the risk of killing yourself with the explosion.
• High Burn Fuel: Completely removes the explosion damage from the vehicle. This means if a vehicle is on fire, the player can safely use it as cover.

The issue with spotter, tagger, radar, and VIP is that players are given what is basically a wall hack. Spotter should just be removed, radar should too since it hasn't worked consistently for months, and VIP should have a VIP players on both teams to make things even.

 

I can't say if I'll like the shotgun changes or not, but I don't feel it will work well in APB with such short range to work with. The changes would work great in PUBG, considering the fact that game has 1000M of shooting range, yet shotguns are barely usable beyond 10M like in APB due to stupid high pellet spread.

 

I like the suggested changes for ammo boxes, but I think grenade resupply should be limited in general. Often players can hide near vending machines or next to their car with the ammo mod and spam grenades that way. Low-yield frag grenades should also be limited to 2 to prevent spamming them.

 

The RFP-9 change doesn't make sense either. Why not just reduce it's range to 30M? Hardly anyone uses the 'Talon" due to the reduced range.

emp is a gimmick to make kids grind new contacts and buy premium to do so

[BlatMan 711]

7 minutes ago, largeAPBgamer said:

will LO ban the 20 or 30 odd cheaters on twitch.tv apb section?

emp is a gimmick to make kids grind new contacts and buy premium to do so

If it took up an orange slot and you could only activate one at a time maybe it would be better. Losing grenades seems like a pretty steep tradeoff when you're up against 4 vehicles on average on the opposing team.

Edited July 25, 2019 by SquirrelFace

[FakeBungo 248]

8 hours ago, Shozonu said:

Oof, 3-shot shotguns. Might as well use one of the auto-shotties at that point.

so my 5 shot kill JG will now be 7-8 shots to kill? epic

3 hours ago, SquirrelFace said:

If it took up an orange slot and you could only activate one at a time maybe it would be better. Losing grenades seems like a pretty steep tradeoff when you're up against vehicles on average on the opposing team.

3 low yields are way better to spam at players
and not having grenades means enemies will be infinitely more inclined to spam nades at you because ur defenceless
concs are useless because high burn + kev3 cars + slow asf to throw + dont even hurt big cars + people can just exit cars in <1 seconds and shoot u while u hold the grenade like a smart and then tbag u

 

Merged.

 

3 hours ago, SquirrelFace said:

EMP grenade is like taking a pain killer to help with a bullet in the head. Vehicles are overpowered because G1 added broken mods to the game. If you want to balance vehicles, balance them within the game's current state. Adding more items complicates the already overly complicated balance process.

• Blowtourch: Allows players to instant repair their vehicle significantly faster than a gas station can, without the damage delay.
• Mobile Spawner: Bypasses the spawn system entirely. It allows you to spawn directly on objectives, and significantly closer to other players.
• Remote Detonator: This mod turns your vehicle into a remote activated bomb. G1 added a windup timer to the osmaw to prevent players from using their vehicles as explosives. This mod is basically an upgrade to that since you don't need an osmaw equipped. You can also use flak jacket to reduce the risk of killing yourself with the explosion.
• High Burn Fuel: Completely removes the explosion damage from the vehicle. This means if a vehicle is on fire, the player can safely use it as cover.

The issue with spotter, tagger, radar, and VIP is that players are given what is basically a wall hack. Spotter should just be removed, radar should too since it hasn't worked consistently for months, and VIP should have a VIP players on both teams to make things even.

 

I can't say if I'll like the shotgun changes or not, but I don't feel it will work well in APB with such short range to work with. The changes would work great in PUBG, considering the fact that game has 1000M of shooting range, yet shotguns are barely usable beyond 10M like in APB due to stupid high pellet spread.

 

I like the suggested changes for ammo boxes, but I think grenade resupply should be limited in general. Often players can hide near vending machines or next to their car with the ammo mod and spam grenades that way. Low-yield frag grenades should also be limited to 2 to prevent spamming them.

 

The RFP-9 change doesn't make sense either. Why not just reduce it's range to 30M? Hardly anyone uses the 'Talon" due to the reduced range.

40m is the current dropoff and 1.05 TTK is the current TTK.
matt wrote something wrong.
rfp does WAY too much damage in 1 burst (399 damage) which is why its cancerous, its basically better than obir cos its lightweight

Edited July 25, 2019 by FakeBungo

[Hexerin 1140]

14 minutes ago, SquirrelFace said:

EMP grenade is like taking a pain killer to help with a bullet in the head. Vehicles are overpowered because G1 added broken mods to the game. If you want to balance vehicles, balance them within the game's current state. Adding more items complicates the already overly complicated balance process.

• Blowtourch: Allows players to instant repair their vehicle significantly faster than a gas station can, without the damage delay.
• Mobile Spawner: Bypasses the spawn system entirely. It allows you to spawn directly on objectives, and significantly closer to other players.
• Remote Detonator: This mod turns your vehicle into a remote activated bomb. G1 added a windup timer to the osmaw to prevent players from using their vehicles as explosives. This mod is basically an upgrade to that since you don't need an osmaw equipped. You can also use flak jacket to reduce the risk of killing yourself with the explosion.
• High Burn Fuel: Completely removes the explosion damage from the vehicle. This means if a vehicle is on fire, the player can safely use it as cover.

Blowtorch is actually extremely easy to fix. First, swap the repair rates of Blowtorch and GA5 stations. Second, remove the damage delay from GA5 stations. Congratulations, you've fixed the mod and also made GA5 stations important tactical locations at the same time. Sidenote, Blowtorch's active duration might need to be increased so that it can still fully repair the beefier cars at its slower rate.

 

Mobile Spawner needs so much work, it'd probably be easier to just remove it entirely and be done with it. At the very least though, it needs to have the additional restriction that it cannot function if it's within 150m of the objective. This prevents spawn cars sitting on/inside the objective location, while also preventing snipers from spawning with instant line of sight on the objective.

 

Remote Detonator simply needs to be outright removed. It's a terrible mod that is actively detrimental to the game's health. There is no actual legitimate argument to be had in its favor, and no way to have it actually be balanced without making it completely useless. Definition of a negative binary mechanic.

 

High Burn Fuel shouldn't remove vehicle explosions like it currently does, instead it should just cut their damage in half. Basically making it the reverse effect of the similar Explosives mod.

[FakeBungo 248]

3 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Blowtorch is actually extremely easy to fix. First, swap the repair rates of Blowtorch and GA5 stations. Second, remove the damage delay from GA5 stations. Congratulations, you've fixed the mod and also made GA5 stations important tactical locations at the same time. Sidenote, Blowtorch's active duration might need to be increased so that it can still fully repair the beefier cars at its slower rate.

 

Mobile Spawner needs so much work, it'd probably be easier to just remove it entirely and be done with it. At the very least though, it needs to have the additional restriction that it cannot function if it's within 150m of the objective. This prevents spawn cars sitting on/inside the objective location, while also preventing snipers from spawning with instant line of sight on the objective.

 

Remote Detonator simply needs to be outright removed. It's a terrible mod that is actively detrimental to the game's health. There is no actual legitimate argument to be had in its favor, and no way to have it actually be balanced without making it completely useless. Definition of a negative binary mechanic.

 

High Burn Fuel shouldn't remove vehicle explosions like it currently does, instead it should just cut their damage in half. Basically making it the reverse effect of the similar Explosives mod.

along with making all of these mods available to players <r195

matt u should remove limited lease contact weapons, because its pay2win

[Farbon Ciber 65]

6 hours ago, KNickz said:

being that you are just now voicing your opinion on shotguns you must be an nfas user

Lol, I am terrible at all Shotguns

[Kaori1 3]

Quote

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'm fine with you guys messing with the ammo/grenade resupply but please reconsider taking away our ability to swap weapons every 5m with the orange ammo box deployable skill (at least for the one using it). As an LTL user I need to be able to switch my weapons whenever the mission changes to an area less favorable to LTL gameplay (such as wide open areas made for snipers or during car-related missions).

Edited July 25, 2019 by Kaori1

[Hexerin 1140]

23 minutes ago, Kaori1 said:

I'm fine with you guys messing with the ammo/grenade resupply but please reconsider taking away our ability to swap weapons every 5m with the orange ammo box deployable skill (at least for the one using it). As an LTL user I need to be able to switch my weapons whenever the mission changes to an area less favorable to LTL gameplay (such as wide open areas made for snipers or during car-related missions).

That part of the blog isn't referencing the orange mod, it's talking about the yellow consumable. Pretty sure MattScott is well aware that the orange mod is perfectly fine as it is.

[Millan 0]

Thanks for the update.  One another thing is now EMP grenade really has an interesting angle to balancing the car. Amazing work...!!!

[Darkzero3802 611]

Hey @MattScott nobody is going to get those riot skins for free when nobody ques for Riot still. You waited too late to add the additional skins and to reduce the amount of players required to start it. Ontop of that by announcing these werent limited to riot season 0 only and would be in armas killed off the mode further. Just look at the history ull find that there arent any riot matches being played.