Power creep, its alternative, and you!

[Running Eagle 16]

Power creep refers to the practice of applying a higher-than-normal power level to new content over time. It basically means if you drew a graph of the average power level of everything in the game over time, it would be sloping upward. The opposite of sloping upward is sloping downward.  While there is no term for power 'regression' it is mainly due to the overwhelming opinion that it would, by and large, only anger and frustrate the players.  In this game, the answer to what was becoming a steady trend of power creep, was the bullet curves system and when it was implemented seemed to be received highly negatively.

 

Although everyone seems to agree that balance is an issue that needs addressing, nobody seems to agree on how it ought to be done on a weapon by weapon basis.  Multiple discussions (read: arguments, fights, and other volatile interactions, as this topic is HIGHLY debated and leads to more than a few people become extremely heated) recently have made it apparent that there is a large portion of players that find more than 'just a few' weapons have no place in the game as their purpose is filled more capably by the current META, thus leaving many to already feel as though their $ was wasted, or their time/effort spent to earn the JT and buy the weapon in game was wasted, leaving a bitter taste in their mouth and furthering the discontent that seems to be rife within the playerbase among both new players and veterans.

 

This poll is simple:  The idea is that balance is achieved when the power levels of all implemented weapons are more or less 'standardized' across the whole of the game and are made competitive and fair for F2P and Premium players, veterans and new players -- that 'balance' has been achieved when the only advantage in the game is had on an experience level, skill level, map knowledge level etc. and is not dependent upon the gun you are using, bringing ALL guns to a place where they are competitive, enjoyable to use, and capable of standing against the current META (most effective tactic available.)...

 

TL;DR people are unhappy with how guns are currently, but also seem unhappy with how the guns are being adjusted, so instead of having LO waste their time which could be better spent on more important content development/game fixes and updates (like the engine) by implementing changes, and then repeatedly rolling them back, let's help them figure out what kind of changes OVERALL we, as the playerbase, want to see in the guns.

 

There are two straightforward options that will most effectively achieve balance across the board and should (conceivably, fingers crossed) satisfactorily apply a literal baseline to build towards in the future, as trying to adjust each weapon individually with no 'baseline' to compare to, no standard to measure against, is simply that -- adjustment, not balance.

 

1:  Buff the sub-meta to be comparable and competitive with the current meta.

 

2:  Nerf the current meta to be comparable and competitive with the sub-meta.

 

Important Edit!:  Buffing/nerfing is by no means generalizing all the guns.  It is intended to mean adjusting the guns niches, and their balancing factors, to be more competetive with each other in relation to the environment.  The meta is currently capable of reaching well beyond/extending far beyond its intended niche, while the sub-meta is far too specialized/has too strong of balancing factors for the niche it fills.  This is something I likely should have stated, but for some reason to me it felt it should have been taken as a given that this was the intention and not that I was suggesting we generalize all the guns/remove the rock-paper-scissors style of gameplay that APB has always enjoyed.

 

Balance is only achieved when one of these two is achieved, and fiddling with all of the guns weapon by weapon has so far only served to polarize (to the extreme) the community and damage the game's longevity.

 

Please stick to the topic at hand -- this thread is not intended to discuss what the current META is, or anything at all beyond how to most effectively achieve weapon balance across all weapons and make the game fairer, more playable, and more enjoyable across the board.  This thread is not to discuss individual weapons and how to balance them either.  It is very specifically to get the playerbase's thoughts and feelings on whether or not balance should be scaled upwards, or downwards, so that the dev team can have a goal to aim for that will be represented as the desires and preference of the playerbase.

 

If you do not vote you are opting out of your chance to be heard and make a difference and thereby cannot blame anyone but yourself if changes are implemented you do not like.

 

In the spirit of maintaining the constructive intention and purpose of this thread, I would ask that any forum moderators please delete any posts that they feel are solely inflammatory and do not lend towards a civil, useful discourse.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Running Eagle
Tags added, IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION

[Saxtus 497]

Just to be sure, META means Most Effective Tactic Available?

[Running Eagle 16]

Yes, it does.

[swft 356]

Instead of generalizing game balancing with these 2 options you provided, why not mention the actual things that need to be balanced? For me, it's all about the specifics, if you only mention "Buff the sub-meta to be comparable and competitive with the current meta", that's just way too broad for me to agree with. There are guns, vehicles and modifications that aren't meta that should be adjusted, but not everything should be buffed just because it isn't used as much. So, clearly, the best option is to adjust things that actually need to be adjusted. There are lots of gimmicky things in the game that I'd like to see gone because they are not healthy for the game (as in, they introduce player frustration: simple case of gear > skill), but there's a lot of people that rely on them even though they are "sub-meta" and for that, your proposal isn't looking towards this aspect.

[Running Eagle 16]

In this instance I am speaking solely on guns and PERHAPS weapon mods, but before we can address any specifics like you mentioned, there needs to be a baseline set for those things to be adjusted towards so, my primary intention here is standardizing unslotted/unmodded guns.  You cannot know where to build/how to adjust/which gimmicks to remove until there is a standard/baseline set for what is, without modifications or any gimmicks at all, 'balanced.'

 

Personally I think step #1 is going to be removing mechanics from guns that reward bad aim instead of punishing it.  This is a PVP shooter that plays at being an e-sport, I do not think guns should be built to be 'more accessible' to people who are not good at shooters/cannot aim.  The entire intention of shotgun raycasting, it seemed, was to 'make shotguns more forgiving and accessible to people' meaning to me that it was intended to reward players who were unskilled and had poor aim and could not land their pellets.  There is absolutely no logic behind weapon mechanics that are 'forgiving of unskilled players' being added to guns that are on the cash shop/earned through JT grind (aka endgame content).  The reason the FBW is still one of the most used secondaries among players of all 'ages' (veterans/new players) is because it is extremely forgiving of player error.  But that's the point of it being a starting weapon, as with the STAR.  They are given as the first guns, because they are considerably more forgiving of UIE (user input error.)  You should not be rewarded for constantly screwing up.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Running Eagle

[swft 356]

3 minutes ago, Running Eagle said:

In this instance I am speaking solely on guns and PERHAPS weapon mods, but before we can address any specifics like you mentioned, there needs to be a baseline set for those things to be adjusted towards so, my primary intention here is standardizing unslotted/unmodded guns.  You cannot know where to build/how to adjust/which gimmicks to remove until there is a standard/baseline set for what is, without modifications or any gimmicks at all, 'balanced.'

 

If weapons become balanced without modifications then you will need to re-balance every single modification and they'll need to give different advantages and disadvantages for every gun type there is. This didn't work well last time LO tried balancing Improved Rifling so I doubt this is the way.

Instead, things need to be adjusted around the current meta and then they just have to shave power off of things that are just too good like any other game. Obviously this requires a lot of community input which also needs to be filtered because, as you've probably seen around the forums, even veterans have completely wrong opinions about the game from a game health perspective.

 

All in all, I think LO is starting to understand this and listening to some of the right people.

[Nitronik 348]

1 hour ago, Running Eagle said:

The idea is that balance is achieved when the power levels of all implemented weapons are more or less 'standardized' across the whole of the game and are made competitive and fair for F2P and Premium players, veterans and new players -- that 'balance' has been achieved when the only advantage in the game is had on an experience level, skill level, map knowledge level etc. and is not dependent upon the gun you are using, bringing ALL guns to a place where they are competitive, enjoyable to use, and capable of standing against the current META (most effective tactic available.)...

I think this idea is flawed.

Weapons don't have to become jack-of-all-trades useable in all situations for them to be balanced or worth using - some of the meta weapons established themselves as such due to some outstanding characteristics

APB by design should give you an advantage or disadvantage based on the weapon you are using in a given scenario - it's why you're always enticed to switch weapon when the situation demands it

 

I like thinking of APB weapon balance as a straight line, with each weapon laid on it side by side. Some go above the line due to them being all around good - some are a few notches below due to their suckines.

Slightly nerf those weapons that are over-performing and buff / slightly buff those deemed to under perform, adjusting them further upwards/downwards as necessary


tl;dr "I don't think either option will help balance the game!"

50 minutes ago, Running Eagle said:

The entire intention of shotgun raycasting, it seemed, was to 'make shotguns more forgiving and accessible to people

EDIT : Pretty sure the purpose of ray scaling was making their damage output more consistent and less based on luck / hitreg's feeling at that moment

[Running Eagle 16]

I didn't really say 'jack of all trades all situations' I agree with what you're saying completely but in order to know what guns need what adjustments, that straight line needs to be established definitively.  s an example, I am consistently told by people that the ISSR-A is a useless gun and serves no purpose/has no place among the assault rifles, as 'every other assault rifle can outperform its every function.'  I have been told the same thing about the Rabid, that it is 'pointless to use because many other LMGs can fill its role.'  I don't agree with these statements at all, but it seems to be a commonly shared perception among the average player.

 

Truth be told from what I can tell it seems like most veteran players want to go back to the days of RTW where there are ONLY two guns per gun type.  NTEC STAR, JG NFAS, HVR DMR, Obeya OBIR, OCA PMG, SHAW ALIG...when these conversations/arguments about 'useless guns' are had, what I can gather (and occasionally has been said outright) by RTW-era vets, is that they think all these extra guns are stupid and the game ought to go back to having fewer guns.

 

...which would be the only thing that would kill this game for me.  Pretty much exclusively the only thing that's fun for me is the extreme variety in the arsenal and how the gunplay among gun types is so varied and different from gun to gun.

[Nitronik 348]

I haven't seen many RTW vets bring this old style of balance up - the game wasn't exactly well off during RTW in terms of balance either

As usual there's people clamoring for the balance dated to when they started playing - like 2012 balance with .6 TTK carbine, or 2014 balance where shotguns still had perfect circle spread and could be abused easily

A few of the guns you mentioned would be a perfect place to start drawing the line - OCA is pretty balanced (if not a tiiiny bit UP) , SHAW and ALIG each fill unique niches in the LMG category (in which the only outlier is likely to be the AMG-556) etc...

[vsb 6171]

13 minutes ago, Running Eagle said:

I didn't really say 'jack of all trades all situations' I agree with what you're saying completely but in order to know what guns need what adjustments, that straight line needs to be established definitively.  s an example, I am consistently told by people that the ISSR-A is a useless gun and serves no purpose/has no place among the assault rifles, as 'every other assault rifle can outperform its every function.'  I have been told the same thing about the Rabid, that it is 'pointless to use because many other LMGs can fill its role.'  I don't agree with these statements at all, but it seems to be a commonly shared perception among the average player.

 

imo the way to balance apb and the way it was balanced originally was to give each weapon an area it excels at, a niche, then as a result of that niche each weapon would have areas that it does not excel at

 

most problems occur when weapons either don’t have their own niche or that niche is so small/situational that it doesn’t make up for shortcomings in other areas

 

to use your examples, the issra’s niche is unique among other ARs but completely swallowed by the issrb while the rabid’s “lmg from vehicle windows” is not enough to make up for its terrible accuracy or unpredictable recoil mechanics

 

imo it’s not a matter of simply buffing the nonmeta or nerfing the meta, it’s a matter of pushing each weapon towards its own niche, which will naturally develop a system of hard counters for each gun

 

 

32 minutes ago, Running Eagle said:

Truth be told from what I can tell it seems like most veteran players want to go back to the days of RTW where there are ONLY two guns per gun type.  NTEC STAR, JG NFAS, HVR DMR, Obeya OBIR, OCA PMG, SHAW ALIG...when these conversations/arguments about 'useless guns' are had, what I can gather (and occasionally has been said outright) by RTW-era vets, is that they think all these extra guns are stupid and the game ought to go back to having fewer guns.

i can’t say that i’ve ever seen anyone express a desire to delete every g1 weapon (although i have seen people wish to go back to cbt/obt stats and start balancing from there), but i can at least understand why - the original weapons covered basically every range and situation 

 

there were certainly balance problems back then as well, things were by no means perfect, but the original weapons were far more of the defined rock-paper-scissors gameplay that apb was designed around

[Running Eagle 16]

And I personally heavily support that rock-paper-scissors style of gameplay

 

And while I feel there are no 'useless' guns, I DO feel as though many of the guns that weren't part of the base game, have delineated from that intention and I would frankly like to see them brought in-line with that again.

 

Although, this is kind of precisely what I mean by 'nerf the meta or buff the submeta.'  By and large the reasons the meta guns ARE the meta, would be because they are extremely generalized comparatively.  While the G1 guns fit into niches really well, the original guns fit general scenarios in the rock-paper-scissors style.  Rock-paper-scissors, in this context, will almost always be able to beat lizard, spock, dynamite, wizard, and dinner plate.  The 'almost' is the reason I dont think the submeta is 'useless.'  But it certainy does not feel like they are legitimately on a level you could consider 'competitive'.

[PotatoeGirl 220]

The TTK in this game feels too short at times.

Also it woudl make more sense just to nerf the bigger offenders than buffing everything else. The more things you change, the higher the risk to screw something else. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by HawtGirl

[GhosT 1301]

Buffing sub-meta to current meta would mean that every gun becomes super powerful, rather than one gun becoming less powerful, which results in much faster and more stale gameplay.

[notHunky 32]

I'm kind of in a weird place on this one. Some weapons definitely need to be tweaked but I feel like gameplay mechanics (and some bugs) have a much larger impact on balance issues. For example: certain missions are built horribly one sided, the spawning system (spawn me 200 meters away from the objective while the enemies spawn within 30 meters of it), people being able to run with items or the VIP by pushing things at max speed with a vegas 4x4 when clearly you're not supposed to be able to go that fast, a bunch of map exploits which allow you to place items/objectives into inaccessible areas (like inside of a wall), rooftop/high areas where there is only one single point of entry, sometimes being able to see enemy names through map geometry, etc...

[KnifuWaifu 499]

Why can't we do both? 

I mean, I'd actually like the struggling weapons to get buffs to be more competitive - but then I'd also rather longer engagements, nothing crazy or hyperbole, just maybe nerf the tall-poppies but buff the stragglers? Bring things to a happy medium but every weapon still gets its niche, which I guess is what the problem is because the NTEC's niche is to be competitive in the biggest niche.

 

That said, since vehicles are popping up - i'd prefer slight nerf to the current 4x4 vegas, but also buff the other vehicles to make them actually relevant, ideally I think each vehicle should be stupidly powerful in doing one thing and suck at the rest but that could get silly quickly especially considering, much like weapons, whatever that "one thing" is happens to be the "one thing" that helps the most in combat is going to become the new meta, which is why imo the NTEC and Vegas are so popular - they excel in what is the 90% norm of APB.

 

So maybe we just need more variety elsewhere? No more nerfs, some buffs, but more variety in APB's environment, missions, and tactics so jack-of-all-trade metas equipment like NTEC and Vegas don't seem so OP.

[Fortune Runner 796]

47 minutes ago, KnifuWaifu said:

i'd prefer slight nerf to the current 4x4 vegas

how so?

[KnifuWaifu 499]

1 minute ago, Fortune Runner said:

how so?

make it steer slightly to the right, smell of stale fries and occasionally get stuck in second cause your dumb patootie thought it was a neat idea to let you cousin learn stick in it?

idk I'm not a professor. 

 

but speaking out of my butt - I'd make it a little less tanky as HP and SPD tend to make it crying time for any AV. The other high tier vehicles are either tanky and slow or weak and fast, Vegas cant still be tanky and speedy, but just a little less tanky so they can't just drive past an open ALIG with no worrires, just make the driver sweat just a little and get them to think of a route other than a straight line to the OBJ which is basically what the Vegas excels at.

 

Although I'm more than happy to cede that opinion to anyone with the stats to conclude where the vegas really should be nerfed. Again I'm not talking about a massive 500HP drop, maybe like 5-10%? 1-2%? like I said I'm not a professor idk wtf numbers do.

[Fortune Runner 796]

Certain cars are fast and tinfoil so they are not used.

Other cars are slow and tinfoil but have nice handling.

The Vegas does not handle well because its a muscle car and cornering can be difficult if someone  pushes their luck and speed too much then tries to turn without adjusting  appropriately.

While i firmly believe the weakest of cars die way too easily and need an adjustment , I do not know if the Vegas should be touched or not  because of the handling factor that people forget to include.

 

however i do firmly believe we need at least ten times the amount of cars we have for more of a variety , if not more cars than that.

a more diverse driving experience could then be possible and give much needed content at the same time.

 

[Nitronik 348]

The handling factor which people forget to include goes out of the window when you're talking about the Vegas 4x4

[Alani 475]

"I don't want the guns to all be balanced and standardized, I like having advantages based on gear not skill!"

 

when u make polls at least try to be unbiased

 

this just makes you look like one of those people who will cry if someone kills u with an ntec from 60m

[Running Eagle 16]

33 minutes ago, Alani said:

"I don't want the guns to all be balanced and standardized, I like having advantages based on gear not skill!"

 

when u make polls at least try to be unbiased

 

this just makes you look like one of those people who will cry if someone kills u with an ntec from 60m

I literally only added that poll option in an effort to be unbiased.  There's no judgement attached to that poll option, it is a valid opinion and preference to have.  The reason I made votes anonymous instead of showing the names and publicizing who voted for what, was specifically to ensure that there was no judgement placed on someone's vote.

 

Edit: No, I personally do not think it's the right direction to move a PvP game in, but it is not my game to make that decision.  This is a publicly available game, on a Freemium business model that is available on Steam.  If I were to assume that my opinions of what the game should be, relating to mechanics, were "right", that would make me a terribly bad sport and an awfully self-important piece of crap.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Running Eagle

[Alani 475]

1 minute ago, Running Eagle said:

I literally only added that poll option in an effort to be unbiased.  There's no judgement attached to that poll option, it is a valid opinion and preference to have.  The reason I made votes anonymous instead of showing the names and publicizing who voted for what, was specifically to ensure that there was no judgement placed on someone's vote.

 

that poll question implies u feel thats what is in apb currently

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

35 minutes ago, Alani said:

"I don't want the guns to all be balanced and standardized, I like having advantages based on gear not skill!"

 

when u make polls at least try to be unbiased

 

this just makes you look like one of those people who will cry if someone kills u with an ntec from 60m

When are polls going to be banned again like old forums? They are just abused, a waste of time, or biased like this.

[Running Eagle 16]

7 minutes ago, Alani said:

 

that poll question implies u feel thats what is in apb currently

There's no implication.  It's not even remotely inferred.  Preferring gear-based PVP over skill-based PVP is legitimate and valid.  Most MMOs that are PVP-centric (although few of them are shooters) are gearbased and not skillbased.

 

6 minutes ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

When are polls going to be banned again like old forums? They are just abused, a waste of time, or biased like this.

You are one of the most blatantly negative people I have seen on this forum and I am struggling to think of anything you have said recently on any post in any thread that was remotely constructive or added anything useful to the topic, you don't even make counter-suggestions when you try to cut the legs out from under someone as you are doing here.  If you don't like what was proposed here, make a counter-suggestion.  But I hve reason to believe you don't actually have anything to suggest, seeing as how you are crapping on these suggestions as well as PVE's, and in neither thread did you say anything that would lend to being a positive remark, as much as said derisive things that equate to you doing your best to derail the intended topic of conversation* without being able to be accused of outright flaming.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Running Eagle

[Alani 475]

3 minutes ago, Running Eagle said:

You are one of the most blatantly negative people I have seen on this forum and I am struggling to think of anything you have said recently on any post in any thread that was remotely constructive or added anything useful to the topic, you don't even make counter-suggestions when you try to cut the legs out from under someone as you are doing here.  If you don't like what was proposed here, make a counter-suggestion.  But I hve reason to believe you don't actually have anything to suggest, seeing as how you are crapping on these suggestions as well as PVE's, and in neither thread did you say anything that would lend to being a positive remark, as much as said derisive things that equate to you doing your best to derail the intended topic of conversation* without being able to be accused of outright flaming.

 

u are legit talking about playing with current apb time to kill with this thread and u wanna complain about someone being negative?

 

xd

 

apb is not battefield or call of dooty the current gameplay is slow or fast dependent on the mission and loadout of both teams. nerfing or buffing weapons will do nothing but change the meta. no one is going to use a cobr even if the ntec gets nerfed unless they wanna be edgy like me. when they started talking about nerfing the ntec everyone went from ntec to fucking obeya because the majority of the people who play do not give a shit about what you do. they will find out what weapon is the best to use in most situations and use it.

 

there are so few peopel who actually give a shit about weapon balance unless its something stupid like shotguns

 

balancing shotguns will never end because of how the game is played, theyre too fucking situational and no one plays apb by changing load outs. they want one single loadout to get them through their mission. and its mostly because of how fucking short the mission times are

 

when you want to discuss changing weapons, you also need to look at the mission times, the objective times, the distance to a to b, and so on. you cant simply adjust weapon damages and call it done. and of course anyone who thinks about weapon changes will assume 'BUT IF U NERF THIS WEAPON PEOPLE WILL USE THT ONE' and yes

 

that will happen. did u not see everyone using the fucking obeya when they announced ntec changes? obeya was the next best thing to use in most situations like the ntec

 

no one seems to wanna look at gameplay they only wanna look at stats and values. it happen to all games