Why can't we have accurate weapons?

[Resine 144]

I am wondering about it for a decade, why does APB needs so much RNG in weapon system?

In retrospect, over the years there are so many missions I won, or lost due to RNG factor, that either me or my opponent were more or less lucky during "mission deciding moments".

Like most weapons have bad accuracy to begin with, while others more accurate are usually the ones that play into the meta and are finally nerfed in the end.

Reading this on AMA

I think we are doomed to play around RNG till the end of times.

In the future as we are going to delve into weapons, would it be bad to make basic assumption that weapons are accurate within their niche and balance them around this definition?

Edited May 31, 2020 by Resine

[CookiePuss 5378]

18 minutes ago, Resine said:

~snip~

For me nothing is more frustrating than losing a gunfight because of RNG and it is my opinion that too often RNG determines winners in APB.

[Xnetexe 78]

Almost every FPS/TPS is RNG reliant past the 1st shot. It's just more noticeable in APB because the higher TTKs.

[xHenryman90x 129]

9 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

For me nothing is more frustrating than losing a gunfight because of RNG and it is my opinion that too often RNG determines winners in APB.

Having no RNG benefits cheaters alike.

[CookiePuss 5378]

44 minutes ago, Xnetexe said:

Almost every FPS/TPS is RNG reliant past the 1st shot. It's just more noticeable in APB because the higher TTKs.

If that's another way of saying there is more bloom which leads to more RNG in APB, then yes.

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by CookiePuss

[Flaws 1033]

APB itself overall is very RNG and weapons are no exception. The game feels like it has a competitive base but then there are so many "features" that trip over any competitiveness. From weapon spread (bloom) being so big on most weapons (especially since LO's terrible weapon changes, cough N-TEC cough) down to simple things such as jumping on certain objects/walls/fences that are too high for a proper jump but too low to be inaccessible through a simple jump so you jump repeatedly to get on top and its 50/50 whether it will work or not. And then let's not forget the fact that to this day players outside of your mission can still collide into you with their cars and block/grief objectives. That is somehow STILL not fixed even though it is a relatively simple fix. Much simpler in comparison to an engine upgrade. Then the fact that the game is heavily one-sided towards defending and especially so in certain spots in both Financial and Waterfront that are completely out in the open with 0 cover or just simply straight broken ("German fortress" in Financial; Michael Simeone balcony in Waterfront etc). The spawn system which lets players that you've literally just killed, respawn in line of sight and in range (within 100m) of you or the objective and open fire directly which makes you lose the mission entirely only due to that alone. Also, car glitching and losing important fights due to that alone. The list goes on and on, I can write pages upon pages about the amount of problems this game has and why it isn't competitive in its current form even though it's base is competitive.

 

Unfortunately, the only skill based side to the game is team play and reducing RNG as much as possible by playing it strictly as a team. For example, teams only ever stick to 2v1ing, 3v1ing players due to the fact that 1v1s are actually RNG in APB, more so than in any other shooter that is at least semi-competitive+. The biggest reason for those being RNG is exactly due to how weapons work in APB, where first-shot accuracy doesn't actually matter as much as it does in a shooter with headshots in it (save for snipers and the like). I actually agree with OP that weapons should be further buffed and made more accurate across the board (thus minimizing RNG and maximizing skill) instead of nerfing the only already balanced weapons in the game just because they are meta and are fun to play (cough N-TEC cough).

 

And the fact that LO somehow think that the weapon balancing changes they've done so far have improved the game and not made the meta extremely stale, the game extremely boring and repulsive to even think about launching (because its literally nothing but JG, PMG, nades and car gameplay) would sound more like a joke to anyone who's actually aware of how the game is played and has decent+ skill in it, than an actual statement. The current weapon balancing is the worst I've seen in my 10 years of APB and even when some things were broken (which lots of them still are), at least most weapons were also strong and powerful and didn't cater to people that can't aim. You could actually counter it and have fun with the game and now its simply: Pick this weapon (PMG/JG) to be able to even have a chance at beating the opp that has that exact same weapon (PMG/JG) because everything else you can opt to use against it is basically a paintball gun. Sit in your car all day long, position it in a way you can glitch inside quickly when you are tagged, prenade every fight, resupply nades every chance you get and so on. It is undoubtedly the most dreadfully boring and restricting meta we've ever seen in the history of APB. It makes me and many others not even want to play missions in it's current state due to the horrific weapon balance situation alone thanks to LO's changes and utterly wrong focus. We went from having more diverse options of loadouts to just 1-2 exact presets that are forced down our throats if we want to compete.

 

And if you wanna argue that this is somehow better for lesser players, casuals and newbies it actually isn't because they don't know what weapons to pick that are efficient anymore. Most weapons that you could get as a newbie or F2P had their strengths and their weaknesses so most starter options worked. Not so much anymore, is it?

 

N-TEC is way more accessible than the FAR and now the FAR dominates the AR category by being better or at least as good as pre-nerf N-TEC 5. But the FAR is an ARMAS, Joker Store (10k JT) or rare event exclusive weapon AKA way less accessible and visible to any newbie.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Flaws

[BlatMan 711]

In ideal conditions, the only weapons I consider RNG are shotguns. You can't tell how many pellets hit because the visual effect is client sided.

 

I say ideal conditions because the visual bloom can desync between the client and server.

 

Maybe the SHAW could be considered RNG with the heavy horizontal recoil, but at the same time you shouldn't rely on it to min ttk. Pick fights you know you'll win.

Edited May 31, 2020 by SquirrelFace

[Aeronaut 647]

or maybe we just don't shoot guns good

[Noob_Guardian 417]

17 hours ago, Flaws said:

Then the fact that the game is heavily one-sided towards defending and especially so in certain spots in both Financial and Waterfront that are completely out in the open with 0 cover or just simply straight broken ("German fortress" in Financial; Michael Simeone balcony in Waterfront etc). The spawn system which lets players that you've literally just killed, respawn in line of sight and in range (within 100m) of you or the objective and open fire directly which makes you lose the mission entirely only due to that alone. Also, car glitching and losing important fights due to that alone.

True, and car spawners make this issue much worse. WTF is german fortress? However that balcony has been needing fixed forever by simon. Those areas could be fixed like TENG had been easily, hopefully we see that sometime. G1 had done it a little, but they ended up hosing additional changes because the difficulty it feels like. (They fixed the place by bloodroses in fin, and made a car spawner disappear for ages)

 

 

17 hours ago, Flaws said:

 

Unfortunately, the only skill based side to the game is team play and reducing RNG as much as possible by playing it strictly as a team. For example, teams only ever stick to 2v1ing, 3v1ing players due to the fact that 1v1s are actually RNG in APB, more so than in any other shooter that is at least semi-competitive+. The biggest reason for those being RNG is exactly due to how weapons work in APB, where first-shot accuracy doesn't actually matter as much as it does in a shooter with headshots in it (save for snipers and the like). I actually agree with OP that weapons should be further buffed and made more accurate across the board (thus minimizing RNG and maximizing skill) instead of nerfing the only already balanced weapons in the game just because they are meta and are fun to play (cough N-TEC cough).

 

Teams only ever stick to 2v1 and 3v1 because it means they can easily kill people with minimal losses. It has nothing to do with negating RNG, as it does "taking out an enemy quickly". I've never charged 2v1 or 3v1 at someone thinking "oh crap gotta stop my teamate from dying due to RNG." No, it's "there's an enemy here take him out".

 

Weapon accuracy is fine, stop trying to full auto weapons like they're lasers and it won't be an issue. APB FORCES you to burst and tap fire at range. It does so for a reason, and whining about it because you can't figure that reason out is dumb. You're not meant to hit the min ttk for rifles at their max damage distance.

 

Maybe it wouldn't have been nerfed if it was actually balanced and fun to play *against*. People seem to forget that aspect of balance as well. You can claim somethings balanced all day, but if no one likes playing against it, and feel they have to use it as well just to compete and do "decent" then it's not as balanced as you claim.

 

17 hours ago, Flaws said:

And the fact that LO somehow think that the weapon balancing changes they've done so far have improved the game and not made the meta extremely stale, the game extremely boring and repulsive to even think about launching (because its literally nothing but JG, PMG, nades and car gameplay) would sound more like a joke to anyone who's actually aware of how the game is played and has decent+ skill in it, than an actual statement. The current weapon balancing is the worst I've seen in my 10 years of APB and even when some things were broken (which lots of them still are), at least most weapons were also strong and powerful and didn't cater to people that can't aim. You could actually counter it and have fun with the game and now its simply: Pick this weapon (PMG/JG) to be able to even have a chance at beating the opp that has that exact same weapon (PMG/JG) because everything else you can opt to use against it is basically a paintball gun. Sit in your car all day long, position it in a way you can glitch inside quickly when you are tagged, prenade every fight, resupply nades every chance you get and so on. It is undoubtedly the most dreadfully boring and restricting meta we've ever seen in the history of APB. It makes me and many others not even want to play missions in it's current state due to the horrific weapon balance situation alone thanks to LO's changes and utterly wrong focus. We went from having more diverse options of loadouts to just 1-2 exact presets that are forced down our throats if we want to compete.

 

And if you wanna argue that this is somehow better for lesser players, casuals and newbies it actually isn't because they don't know what weapons to pick that are efficient anymore. Most weapons that you could get as a newbie or F2P had their strengths and their weaknesses so most starter options worked. Not so much anymore, is it?

 

N-TEC is way more accessible than the FAR and now the FAR dominates the AR category by being better or at least as good as pre-nerf N-TEC 5. But the FAR is an ARMAS, Joker Store (10k JT) or rare event exclusive weapon AKA way less accessible and visible to any newbie.

 

Oh no, how dare the meta not be what it's been for 7+years, how boring. The weapon balance is pretty good aside from a the small list of problem weapons that have always either been too powerful upon release, buffed too much, or completely under powered on release.

 

Here on Jericho we still see lots of different weapons, pmg is still used over the OCA most cases by certain people, however OCA's still exist, there's still a number of other weapons being used. If you're salty about that car play, might i suggest not sitting on the roads? Or concs? or you know, any other explosive method that doesn't mean being dumb and letting enemies rush you? If APB is about "competition" and "competing" then why not compete and find new ways to "compete" against your servers "stale" meta? Rather than just choosing to die by standing on the road all day.

 

NTEC is still so called "competitive" and it's still used a lot on Jericho, i've seen a handful of more stars and fars as well, as well as obeyas. Most weapons as newbie and F2P still have the same strengths and weaknesses. If it's not working now it's not because they nerfed the "ntec". The "NTEC" didn't keep PMGs in check, and if it did and is why the PMG was used much less, then wouldn't you agree that it was too effective in cqc and the reason SMGs and shotguns were used "less"? (FAR isn't just armas and JT, however it was locked behind an event, same as those other SMG rifles)

 

We went from "HVR NTEC PMG CARBINE" to "HVR PMG NTEC CARBINE" hmm.....  i don't actually see a "meta" change, however other weapons are being used more. I see no change in people charging with vehicles though, aside from what carspawns have created with it. It's always the same people car pushing anyways.

 

Merged.

 

18 hours ago, Resine said:

I am wondering about it for a decade, why does APB needs so much RNG in weapon system?

In retrospect, over the years there are so many missions I won, or lost due to RNG factor, that either me or my opponent were more or less lucky during "mission deciding moments".

Like most weapons have bad accuracy to begin with, while others more accurate are usually the ones that play into the meta and are finally nerfed in the end.

Reading this on AMA

I think we are doomed to play around RNG till the end of times.

In the future as we are going to delve into weapons, would it be bad to make basic assumption that weapons are accurate within their niche and balance them around this definition?

APB's weapon system is made so that you can hit the TTK in cqc fairly easily, however they inflate the TTK at ranges intentionally.

 

Rather than having lasers where every AR has 1-1.2TTK, they have it so that they can TTK at .7 in cqc, and when you fire at range, the bloom recovery and recoil makes it closer to 1.0-1.2s. This is intentional so that you can have faster cqc fights, but ranged fights last longer.

 

This is to balance distanced firing as well so that rifles with TTKs of .8-1.2, and snipers have a TTK of .9 (ISSRB CQC sniper capabilities), with an average of ~1.4 (oblivion/ISSR) to 1.75 (HVR) can compete fairly well against each other 50m, without getting lasered at .7s by AR's.

 

There are RNG moments because "omg recoil" and "oh no, i bloomed too much". While you can't really do anything except try to control recoil, the bloom is ones own fault. Can it be frustrating at times? Absolutely, however, that also falls on you to properly handle your weapon and adjust your aim as you fire.

 

I think you have the idea of "niche" wrong as well. A weapon with a 50m range for example, doesn't mean that its "niche" is the "full" 50m. Look at the OCA, its 30m range, but a 0-15/20m "niche" where it's most effective. A weapon's "niche" is not fully defined by the total range the weapon has, it's defined by the accuracy, handling, ttk, and bloom/bloom recovery of the weapon.

 

The star has a more 0-35m niche with decent tap/burst past that to 50m.

The NTEC has a ~5/10-60m niche.

The HVR has about 20m-100m niche where it's capable but it's best closer to 60-85 more outside the midrange where NTEC/STAR can be issues for it if it doesn't have cover.

JG has a niche of 5m but full damage up to 10m

ATAC has a niche of 0-25/30m or so,  40m full damage

 

The niche is defined by the "effective range" not the "total range". The "effective" range would be where it's most effective at with all factors considered. As such weapons in APB have both an "effective range" and "overall range". Niches are then defined within the effective range via weapon handling, and "overall range" simply means where full damage "drops off". A lot of people don't understand weapon functionality within these "niches" and try to go the whole way with it, or claim weapons that are effective from the entire  0-Xm range are "balanced" (they aren't).

 

This is why APB weapon balance is complex and difficult as well. Buffing a single weapon in one niche, can impede it into other weapon niches where it should not be effective. As such any weapon "buffs" HAVE to be handled much more carefully than weapon nerfs. However, nerfs must be handled in a way that it makes the weapon less effective in the intended ranges where they don't want it to be as effective, while maintaining its effectiveness in the range niche they want it to be in.

 

You can somewhat see this in the NTEC nerf, where they nerfed its full auto and CQC, but left it's midrange capabilities intact, and when G1 buffed the STAR's bloom recovery, maintaining it's cqc-lowermid range effectiveness, while making it able to fire into the further "40-57m" distance easier as well, or the Cobra buff where they reduced the TTK and adjusted bloom/recovery so that the weapon can full auto in cqc, but is pretty good at bursting up to 30-40m, but has difficulties at 50m.

 

There tends to be more thought into weapon balance than just "nerf this and make it useless", or "buff this completely". The changes tend to be geared towards where they want it to be effective, and with about what TTK within those ranges do they feel is balanced. Hence why you fire an ntec at 50m and it takes 1.0-1.3s to kill, while using the obeya at 50m, also takes up to 1.0-1.3s to kill. Despite the NTEC having .7ttk and obeya having .8 ttk. But cqc obeya can fairly easily hit a .9 or so, while ntec can be at .7. NTEC is meant to be more cqc to mid, while obeya can be more effective than ntec past 50m up to 100m, it comes with a much higher ttk at those further ranges, so that snipers have a chance.

 

Hopefully this makes sense.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Noob_Guardian

[RespectThis 121]

As i have said many times before. They should just revert a handful of the weapons back to pre RP last breath nerfs and work from there. Adding stupid mechanics to guns hurts this game more than anything. And the lack of any sort of weapon trinity/jenga tower hurts this game even more. The "fun" mechanic of the hvr now with you doing more damage when your cross hair closes is just stupid. No one wants that. Why change how a gun functions 9 years into its life span? Same with the ntec. Both RP and LO are rather lost it would seem when it comes to making things "balanced", "adjusted", or "fun". 

Edited June 1, 2020 by RespectThis

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

Make guns more accurate.

 

Add more recoil.

 

Allow more movement.

[EVInezca 81]

its very good idea when i see how many downloads are on scripts and macros whatever. Its nice idea to give all players more accuraty and make the game more fair and a better balance.

[Resine 144]

5 hours ago, Noob_Guardian said:

Hopefully this makes sense.

Well, let me explain my point on some theoretical scenario. 

Let's do it with OCA as it the essence of APB CQC SMG fights.

The scenario would be that we have two players that meet each other around 15 meters mark in fairly open area. Now let's determine how good these player actually are. To make it fair let's say that they reacted in about same time. 

Now OCA has a fixed bloom, quite big resulting that in any given moment at 15 meters mark the crosshair would be wider than opponent hitbox. 

Our test players would be quite skilled, but not cheaters. So let's assume that they could keep the middle dot of crosshair on the hitbox at all times but not on the center. 

Meaning the average coverage would be around 70% which imho is really good result all things considered. 

Now, as the bullet distribution is random across the plane of crosshair in a perfectly balanced situation like this RNG would be the biggest factor of determining who wins the gun fight. 

You can get some average from that surely, but extreme happens too, and you can go from hitting everything to missing everything in those events. 

Now, let's say one of the players wasn't so good, and he could make an average coverage of 50% even going outside of opponent's hitbox, with optimal RNG he could come out victorious. 

Thus the skill gap diminishes. 

Don't get me wrong though. It's not like skill doesn't matter anymore, but getting 7 out of 10 and losing 3 to RNG might cost you a victory because each frag taken has different value depending when and under what circumstances it was taken. 

Like it could be first kill on take outs allowing opponents to run to a stronghold position? Or the first take out of VIP denying him the position and snowballing him on the road with fast assaults? First engage on the tricky point that's a nightmare to do if you let your opponents prepare a camp? No one can predict importance of it. 

 

Now about the Mid-long range. Yes bloom is a mechanic that in theory makes the weapon less effective over range as you need to manage it, but in practice one of players or both of them can take their chances allowing the weapon to bloom more and with Rng blessing you can melt your opponent who tried to perfectly tap his weapon or wasn't lucky enough. 

 

I can give you a real fight example i had yesterday. White roofs near corner of the map. 

I was Obeya+FBW 2v2 defend match. I was standing on the back floor ground. My teammate got himself into a gun fight on the road against CSG after some car game play obviously and died without hitting him once. 

I was 2v1 CSG on the road 60 meters or so and PMG making it's way through the roofs to my right. 

Feeling knife on the throat with 30 seconds left i picked to kill the CSG on the road, I risked it, there was no time I shot as close to ROF as I could manage, bloom going crazy i landed every shot, the last bullet I would have missed if it was perfectly accurate gun, but because the bloom got so enormous and I was lucky enough I managed to land finish blow. 

The moment I do I get naded from the side, I take out my FBW and fire at PMG that tries to finish me off, I can't tell if he missed, but he didn't land a single hit from around 30 meters away to finish me off which was odd considering he had a high ground and I was heavily tagged by a nade, my luck saved me again as I panicked my aim was gismo somewhere at him but poorly, I had hit mark after hit mark and melted him down winning a mission. 

 

It surely felt great to have a moment like this, but at the back of the mind I knew that I was just lucky. Nothing more nothing less. 

 

That's why I hate it, from day one I started playing I looked for weapons that are more accurate than others. But those weapons always were meta and got nerfed eventually, instead of upgrading other weapons accuracy to same level. 

 

About your car comments, well if I wanted to equip hard damage weapons and shoot heavily armored cars all day, I would play World of Tanks, I imagine it would be more fitting my taste then. 

Times before car surfers, fuel mods, car spawns 4x4, blow torch were much more enjoyable to me at least. As people used the car to go from A to B and made their approach on foot, or risked getting blown up by rushing in with their Jericho.

 

 

 

[safdfsgkjhdgsjkhs 140]

if they arent gonna ban cheaters id like more accuracy for me to be able to compete vs them atleast.

[Mitne 724]

12 hours ago, Aeronaut said:

or maybe we just don't shoot guns good

I wish that was thing but sometimes it appears server loves to fuck up too and bullets disappear.

Honestly I don't think what is going in APB was intended in design...

[Spy 152]

16 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

For me nothing is more frustrating than losing a gunfight because of RNG and it is my opinion that too often RNG determines winners in APB.

I fully agree, it's frustrating as hell.

[proxie 271]

I personally strongly dislike balancing guns around inaccuracy but i also do not think all the guns should be laser rifles. Spray and pray with an ntec should be innacurate as that is using the gun incorrectly for example, but a STAR is intended to spray and should be more accurate when spraying. An SMG like OCA should be accurate on the move and while spraying as that is its role, but currently i believe OCA to be a bit too inaccurate. 

[PingOVER9000 189]

19 hours ago, Flaws said:

(cough N-TEC cough).

 

Still I fatigue to understand why u are so mad for a (pretty right) nerf where at the end lose what Ntec has lost is the accuracy when jump shotting in CQC..... (not only this has quite no sense but also made this weapon quite unforgiving versatile)

 

The if the fact u are mad it's because u spend a lot of time for improving at jumpshotting for then arriving at the conclusion you have just wasted time... then Ok I give u credit, probabily u were one of the best if not the best in Citadel to use (abuse )  this mechanic.

 

20 hours ago, Resine said:

I think we are doomed to play around RNG till the end of times.

In the future as we are going to delve into weapons, would it be bad to make basic assumption that weapons are accurate within their niche and balance them around this definition?

Edited 20 hours ago by Resine

 

Weapon balacing is a mess, TOTALLY AGREE, but eliminate totally the RNG isnt the answer in my weak opinion..

 

Take a example to a Scout/HVR, if you remove that "little RNG" during jumpshotting, we have again people with them while going around in servers jumping as grasshoppers and bishotting from 80m

Aww I dont totally dislike that old times, but what to point to have Smg, assault rifles, shotgun etc when I can running wherever with a sniper?

Edited June 1, 2020 by PingOVER9000

[vsb 6171]

3 hours ago, proxie said:

I personally strongly dislike balancing guns around inaccuracy but i also do not think all the guns should be laser rifles. Spray and pray with an ntec should be innacurate as that is using the gun incorrectly for example, but a STAR is intended to spray and should be more accurate when spraying. An SMG like OCA should be accurate on the move and while spraying as that is its role, but currently i believe OCA to be a bit too inaccurate. 

i think that’s kind of the point

 

avoiding rng by using the weapon “correctly” should reward the player with accuracy, maximizing their control during an engagement

 

the choice of either relying on their own skills to out aim/track their opponent or relying on the rng of max bloom to out ttk them, something that won’t always work in their favor

 

instead many weapons either start off with spread and get worse while firing or they start off with spread and remain the same, neither of which is ideal for a game that wants to rely so heavily on player skill

 

this is a large reason why balance is such a mess and why the meta has remained the same for so long, because the guns with the least rng are generally the guns that scale the best with player skill

 

rng (along with other factors like ttk and range) should be more of a subtle guideline to indicate when a player is pushing their weapon too far outside of its niche, rather than the brick wall of limitation that it’s usually used as in apb 

[Noob_Guardian 417]

18 hours ago, RespectThis said:

As i have said many times before. They should just revert a handful of the weapons back to pre RP last breath nerfs and work from there. Adding stupid mechanics to guns hurts this game more than anything. And the lack of any sort of weapon trinity/jenga tower hurts this game even more. The "fun" mechanic of the hvr now with you doing more damage when your cross hair closes is just stupid. No one wants that. Why change how a gun functions 9 years into its life span? Same with the ntec. Both RP and LO are rather lost it would seem when it comes to making things "balanced", "adjusted", or "fun". 

Many of the weapons needed changed sooner, it's just as you know, G1 was lazy and didn't make changes quickly. It took 2 years AFTER it was discovered the jumpshot accuracy was a bug in the weapons code, for the scout before they fixed it. They took 4+years to fix simple locations and make them easier to break. They left other weapons completely underpowered for 4-5+years. Do you reaaally think that "it's been this way 9 years" means it shouldn't be changed? We get it, you hate change.

 

Merged.

 

12 hours ago, Resine said:

Well, let me explain my point on some theoretical scenario. 

Let's do it with OCA as it the essence of APB CQC SMG fights.

The scenario would be that we have two players that meet each other around 15 meters mark in fairly open area. Now let's determine how good these player actually are. To make it fair let's say that they reacted in about same time. 

Now OCA has a fixed bloom, quite big resulting that in any given moment at 15 meters mark the crosshair would be wider than opponent hitbox. 

Our test players would be quite skilled, but not cheaters. So let's assume that they could keep the middle dot of crosshair on the hitbox at all times but not on the center. 

Meaning the average coverage would be around 70% which imho is really good result all things considered. 

Now, as the bullet distribution is random across the plane of crosshair in a perfectly balanced situation like this RNG would be the biggest factor of determining who wins the gun fight. 

You can get some average from that surely, but extreme happens too, and you can go from hitting everything to missing everything in those events. 

Now, let's say one of the players wasn't so good, and he could make an average coverage of 50% even going outside of opponent's hitbox, with optimal RNG he could come out victorious. 

Thus the skill gap diminishes. 

Don't get me wrong though. It's not like skill doesn't matter anymore, but getting 7 out of 10 and losing 3 to RNG might cost you a victory because each frag taken has different value depending when and under what circumstances it was taken. 

Like it could be first kill on take outs allowing opponents to run to a stronghold position? Or the first take out of VIP denying him the position and snowballing him on the road with fast assaults? First engage on the tricky point that's a nightmare to do if you let your opponents prepare a camp? No one can predict importance of it. 

 

Now about the Mid-long range. Yes bloom is a mechanic that in theory makes the weapon less effective over range as you need to manage it, but in practice one of players or both of them can take their chances allowing the weapon to bloom more and with Rng blessing you can melt your opponent who tried to perfectly tap his weapon or wasn't lucky enough. 

 

I can give you a real fight example i had yesterday. White roofs near corner of the map. 

I was Obeya+FBW 2v2 defend match. I was standing on the back floor ground. My teammate got himself into a gun fight on the road against CSG after some car game play obviously and died without hitting him once. 

I was 2v1 CSG on the road 60 meters or so and PMG making it's way through the roofs to my right. 

Feeling knife on the throat with 30 seconds left i picked to kill the CSG on the road, I risked it, there was no time I shot as close to ROF as I could manage, bloom going crazy i landed every shot, the last bullet I would have missed if it was perfectly accurate gun, but because the bloom got so enormous and I was lucky enough I managed to land finish blow. 

The moment I do I get naded from the side, I take out my FBW and fire at PMG that tries to finish me off, I can't tell if he missed, but he didn't land a single hit from around 30 meters away to finish me off which was odd considering he had a high ground and I was heavily tagged by a nade, my luck saved me again as I panicked my aim was gismo somewhere at him but poorly, I had hit mark after hit mark and melted him down winning a mission. 

 

It surely felt great to have a moment like this, but at the back of the mind I knew that I was just lucky. Nothing more nothing less. 

 

That's why I hate it, from day one I started playing I looked for weapons that are more accurate than others. But those weapons always were meta and got nerfed eventually, instead of upgrading other weapons accuracy to same level. 

 

About your car comments, well if I wanted to equip hard damage weapons and shoot heavily armored cars all day, I would play World of Tanks, I imagine it would be more fitting my taste then. 

Times before car surfers, fuel mods, car spawns 4x4, blow torch were much more enjoyable to me at least. As people used the car to go from A to B and made their approach on foot, or risked getting blown up by rushing in with their Jericho.

 

Weapons in APB shouldn't be pinpoint accurate. While I can somewhat understand your aggravation, there's literally zero reason to have every weapon be lasers. RNG can be aggravating at times, however most times i've encountered where "omg i should have gotten that kill he's in my reticule", was because bad server performance not because "omg rng". APB isn't COD or CSGO or other games. As such it's game mechanics don't revolve around "spray with near pinpoint accuracy".

 

Sounds like the PMG just kept missing you and didn't have you in his reticule, not rng.

 

Those "more accurate than other meta" weapons tended to be overpowered in some fashion or another, whether it be because qsing, jumpshooting, sprint shooting, accuracy, or damage. Might I suggest that you try to get better rather than relying on a weapon to carry you?

 

I don't know what game you played back before car surf and car spawners. However I was still heavily spawn pushed back then, mostly it was specific clans like RAOV charging spawns and hunting them down til your team spawned up to 500m from the objective but it was pretty common back then. Such tactics only became easier because of car spawners and torch. The only way to counter such tactics is to double team the pusher, or to destroy the vehicle. Another method is to get into a building before you're seen or choose a better spawn if possible. This "issue" isn't going to go away until the players doing so either quit playing, or people adapt to punish such tactics to the point where it's not worth it. Your choice.

 

3 hours ago, 404 said:

rng (along with other factors like ttk and range) should be more of a subtle guideline to indicate when a player is pushing their weapon too far outside of its niche, rather than the brick wall of limitation that it’s usually used as in apb 

How then would people know if they are using a weapon wrong? If you don't brick wall them and the weapon remains effective, then there's litterally no reason not to use the weapon "outside" of its niche at all times.

[Aeronaut 647]

2 minutes ago, Noob_Guardian said:

Those "more accurate than other meta" weapons tended to be overpowered in some fashion or another, whether it be because qsing, jumpshooting, sprint shooting, accuracy, or damage. Might I suggest that you try to get better rather than relying on a weapon to carry you?

Could one not argue that those "more accurate than other meta" weapons are actually moving in the right direction, and the other weapons just need to be catch up in one way or another? (also should be okay with completely reworking or deleting a weapon depending on it's fit for fun and fair gameplay)

power creep or everything becomes overnerfed and gameplay feels ineffective and illogical. it's about finding that balance. hence, weapons balance haha im so funny

[Noob_Guardian 417]

11 minutes ago, Aeronaut said:

Could one not argue that those "more accurate than other meta" weapons are actually moving in the right direction, and the other weapons just need to be catch up in one way or another? (also should be okay with completely reworking or deleting a weapon depending on it's fit for fun and fair gameplay)

power creep or everything becomes overnerfed and gameplay feels ineffective and illogical. it's about finding that balance. hence, weapons balance haha im so funny

 

They weren't moving in the right direction though? Most of the weapons that needed and got nerfed were far too effective in comparison to literally "every" weapon within their role, and at the same time the problem weapons took over other weapons which should have had a clear advantage over it within their niches. Mechanics from these weapons also broke them more than necessary.

 

Sprint shooting borked the game's player location determining system, so that you would be firing on someone, and not hit them because they weren't actually there.

Jump shooting to pixel shoot someone at 80+m crouched behind cover.

the list goes on...

 

Powercreep should be limited at all times. Powercreep is not something good.

 

A lot of games end up powercreeping and it messes up the game balance extremely bad, and every "new" weapon just gets stronger and stronger until it forces PTW. The objective of balance is to reduce powercreep, and maintain a good balance across the board, so that players have "options" not "must haves".

 

That there is the problem that people have with nerfing these weapons that are too powerful, too versatile, or powercreeped. APB's design team has stated multiple times already, that they intend to have players have viable options, NOT must haves. If this means nerfing NTEC, or reducing the intial buff on the PMG, and doing things like removing jump shooting, so be it.

 

Not every weapon should be a laser, and not every weapon should at all times hit its min ttk. Fire most weapons full auto in rl and you'd have worse recoil and worse accuracy than what your make believe "APB bloom and recoil" indicate.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Noob_Guardian

[Abduct / Devote 69]

1 minute ago, Noob_Guardian said:

 

They weren't moving in the right direction though? Most of the weapons that needed and got nerfed were far too effective in comparison to literally "every" weapon within their role, and at the same time the problem weapons took over other weapons which should have had a clear advantage over it within their niches.

 

Powercreep should be limited at all times. Powercreep is not something good.

 

A lot of games end up powercreeping and it messes up the game balance extremely bad, and every "new" weapon just gets stronger and stronger until it forces PTW. The objective of balance is to reduce powercreep, and maintain a good balance across the board, so that players have "options" not "must haves".

 

That there is the problem that people have with nerfing these weapons that are too powerful, too versatile, or powercreeped. APB's design team has stated multiple times already, that they intend to have players have viable options, NOT must haves. If this means nerfing NTEC, or reducing the intial buff on the PMG, and doing things like removing jump shooting, so be it.

 

Not every weapon should be a laser, and not every weapon should at all times hit its min ttk. Fire most weapons full auto in rl and you'd have worse recoil and worse accuracy than what your make believe "APB bloom and recoil" indicate.

 

 

I think you are really off the mark here, lol. Aero is on to something, and you are over here bringing up YOUR interpretation of what other's said by saying "APB's design team has stated multiple times already, that they intend to have players have viable options, NOT must haves." Powercreep is when you bring a new element in that demolishes the predecessor, but the Ntec has been in the game, it was no new intro? A lot of these "powercreep" weapons you speak of were already here before lol. Overnerfing is bad, but apparently that's fine to you!

[Aeronaut 647]

7 minutes ago, Noob_Guardian said:

 

Apologies, I completely agree in terms of powercreep. should have clarified that it wasn't a choice between powercreep or overnerfing. I tried to sum it up by saying it's a balance between the two, otherwise you get the extremes which is bad.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Aeronaut

[Noob_Guardian 417]

4 minutes ago, Abduct / Devote said:

I think you are really off the mark here, lol. Aero is on to something, and you are over here bringing up YOUR interpretation of what other's said by saying "APB's design team has stated multiple times already, that they intend to have players have viable options, NOT must haves." Powercreep is when you bring a new element in that demolishes the predecessor, but the Ntec has been in the game, it was no new intro? A lot of these "powercreep" weapons you speak of were already here before lol. Overnerfing is bad, but apparently that's fine to you!

I'm not saying the NTEC was powercreeped, the NTEC would fall under "too versatile".  Powercreeped would have been like C-9, ATAC, Nano, and a few others that got nerfed after they came out.

 

3 minutes ago, Aeronaut said:

Apologies, I completely agree in terms of powercreep. should have clarified that it wasn't a choice between powercreep or overnerfing. I tried to sum it up by saying it's a balance between the two, otherwise you get the extremes which is bad.

Ah, okay makes sense. Yeah the initial statement kinda sounded like you "wanted" powercreep and im like whuuuut bruh. I don't want weapons being completely overnerfed. Most of the changes i've ever suggested for nerfing have been minor changes, i don't want to see weapons go from like... NTEC power level to ODIN series powerlevel. (That would be BAD)

Edited June 1, 2020 by Noob_Guardian