Some worries of mine....

[proxie 271]

Hello, i felt the need to collect my own thoughts and worries in the wake of the Reddit AMA with Matt Scott. These are worries i've had since before the AMA and i believe have been validated now. 

 

The current state of the game is currently in such a embarrassing state that i could not recommend it to anyone and i would feel ashamed at admitting that i play it. Even though this is the game i play the most over the last 10 years. Even though this is the game i want to succeed more than any. I want to enjoy the game, but actually playing it daily i feel that a majority of the matches are plagued with the same few issues that are bringing down the enjoyment. The game is in a state where cheap tricks and easy to use guns are the meta because there is no drawback to using them and it does not reward the player in any way to not do it. This is even more prevalent in bronze districts and is even more harmful to the game. To be more specific about what i am talking about, it comes down to a specific few things; remote det, spotter, pmg, atac, hvr, volcano. 

While i understand that to truly do in depth analytics about gun performance and balancing would be pretty much a full time job to keep reaching for equilibrium, this is not what i am asking for.  While having regular balancing would be a dream (if done correctly) it's not what the game needs right now as i understand that spending all the available recources to get the new engine completed so that the larger scope changes can be picked up such as server phasing etc. But all that would really be needed as of now is an hour or two to patch the holes of a sinking ship by tweaking a few numbers and let the community try them out to see how it plays. The mentality of balancing needing to be big sweeping motions that change everything at once that we have seen previously in APB is in my opinion not maintainable and always risk swinging to far. A small nudge and seeing how the community uses it can be so much more effective.

 

As i mentioned bronze districts are even harder impacted by the abuse of overpowered "mechanics" and guns. I have made 5 new accouts in the last month to try out the new player experience in bronze districts and i strongly get the feeling that there are a few different groups that present. There are the dethreaters that actually are low tier golds that actively use any crutch in the game to abuse thier opp, they pretty much exclusively use PMG, ATAC, HVR and/or Volcano. They are happily abusing new players with pig percs and remote det full well knowing that they have no idea what is going on. This needs a solution to combated on its own, but i believe removing some of their tools is a start. The new players that are clueless and trying to find what foot to stand on while they are being rolled by dethreaters. Then there are the long time players that are low tier gold or high silver that find it too hard to play in the silver district so they play on bronze district.

 

If i were a new player starting the game today and had to face guns that are straight up overpowered, get cars thrown at me that explode, get wallhacked by spotter without my knowledge, try to drive or walk anywhere when there is a volcano that will one shot my car and me, get instantly stunned by PIG without a chance to fight back and so on and so on... I would not stay. Matt mentioned that APB is getting thousands of new players per day right now yet the population is still getting lower every day. How many of these players would be willing to to try the game out again when the new engine comes? This brings me to why not changing the current meta sooner rather than later might be the death of the game.

 

The new engine is the holy grail, i understand that. It will enable the devs to actually do changes to the game and create new features. But i fear this will be all for nothing if people come back to APB and give it another go but are met with the exact same experience with a different look. If Summit were to stream the game and bring new players in to the game in its current state i don't see any good outcome. I believe some smaller changes are needed to be made right away to the current engine so there is time for the game to find an acceptable balance before the flood gates open. Doing balance post engine upgrade as mentioned in the AMA, sounds incredibly risky to me and the post gives me the impression that Matt is very detatched from how the game plays currently. Im not sure where he gets his impression of the current gun balance but i am very interested in knowing. Is it is from the very vocal community of mid-range skill players? Or is it from the people that have practiced and studied the game enough to basically having a doctorate degree in it? Which do you think holds more merit?

 

I have a couple ideas that i have discussed with others players that would be simple and not change too much.

PMG - reduce effective range from 35 meters to 25 meters. Right now it is way too strong on close mid range

ATAC - The gun is a simple point in the right direction and hold one mouse1 on mid range. Very forgiving and low effort/skill required. While i dont want to take away from the playstyle of the gun i believe it is too effective. Either of these changes are worth a try, but not not all. Reducing damage to 120 from 135, making it one extra bullet to kill. Reducing effective range to 40m from 50m. Reducing refire rate to 0.115 sec from 0.100 sec giving the gun a longer TTK of 0.805 sec.

HVR - Reduce the damage to 750 from 850. Might not have a big impact but small changes mean alot.

Volcano - Reduce the max health damage to 550 from 1000. This way you won't get one shot from someone outside draw distance but will still die if both rockets hit.

Spotter - Remove it, it is way too broken right now and not worth dev time to try to find some way to re-work it.

Remote det - Double the time it takes to detonate as a start. Personally i would just want to see it removed.

 

While i know there are alot of other things that desperately need a change these are the low hanging fruit imo. Missions balance and car balance is important but might take more time than they are willing to commit right now. There are many other guns that deserve a buff and there are many changes that could be done, like reverting the OCA nerf or bringing back jump scout for example, but the game is atleast playable without them. 

 

Ok bye lol

 

 

TLDR; Resolve simple but big gameplay issues sooner rather than later, if the new engine still has the same issues it will keep losing players.

Edited June 1, 2020 by proxie

[Lign 361]

16 minutes ago, proxie said:

~snip~

Nerfing certain weapons won't fix the problem of bronze district at all. Matchmaking rework is the only solution that should be done after engine upgrade

[iRawwwN 289]

LO should limit all 195+ mods to the Silver/Gold districts tbh. The nerfs need to happen anyway to those weapons, but don't forget the manic and ursus.

 

edit; 4 dislikes - dont worry all you r255 serial dethreaters you will get whats coming to you.

Edited June 2, 2020 by iRawwwN

[Orcas 6]

41 minutes ago, Lign said:

Nerfing certain weapons won't fix the problem of bronze district at all.

A combination of what @proxie proposes and a strong nerf to running with capture items/vip would already make a huge difference when it comes to new players getting steamrolled by 'veteran' silvers.

[Resine 144]

Fast fixes

Things to remove. 

Spotter 

Fuel

Car bomb 

Car spawn 

 

Things to nerf

Blow torch

4v4 HP

Tanks HP

Range of explosive weapons grenades included. 

 

Things to adjust 

Spawn system

mission timers

Make VIP into dual VIP from fight club 

 

About weapons 

I think it's complete gismo at this point. 

I would like a simple solution to make weapons bloody accurate and adjust their range by using damage drop off mechanic and balance around that rather than play into Rng where the most accurate guns always end up in the meta only to be complained about and nerfed so meta can shift yet again. 

 

But hey, let's do none of it and keep waiting for engine upgrade even though most of these changes are few clicks in tables that could be adjusted over the weekend and tested afterwards. 

But that would require a Dev with half brain that actually understands how the game is played. 

[arkup 13]

wind the game back to 2011 and start again 

[Lign 361]

3 minutes ago, Orcas said:

A combination of what @proxie proposes and a strong nerf to running with capture items/vip would already make a huge difference when it comes to new players getting steamrolled by 'veteran' silvers.

I don't think that it's a good idea to implement such crutches into the gameplay artificially limiting player's game experience. Just wait for new engine

[MrChan 337]

Nerfing weapons or banning certain things from Bronze district (although I'm not necessarily opposed to the latter) will have minimal impact. An R255 dethreater is going to massacre as many new players with the STAR 556, FBW and Frag Grenades as they will with current meta guns and remote detonators.

 

Experienced players need to be stopped from intentionally going in to low threat districts and stomping on new players. That is the only solution. At this moment in time, the only way to do that is manually police Bronze districts with GMs, make judgment calls about who genuinely should and shouldn't be there and kick people who shouldn't, or actively police dethreating. The former would be a giant, unmanageable clusterfuck, so let's park that idea, and I'm not sure the latter is actually possible. Unless LO have access to the threat history on an account and can see repeating strings of threat loss followed by suddenly facerolling all their opposition, they're relying on reports from players, which probably aren't going to be comprehensive or detailed enough to act as proof.

 

Also, I wonder how much is new dynamic matchmaking going to help if people are still dethreating to get easy matches. Sure the game will stop you from going into a low district, but it'll still pull lower skilled players to put you against.

Edited June 1, 2020 by MrChan

[Mitne 725]

1 hour ago, proxie said:

As i mentioned bronze districts are even harder impacted by the abuse of overpowered "mechanics" and guns. I have made 5 new accouts in the last month to try out the new player experience in bronze districts and i strongly get the feeling that there are a few different groups that present. There are the dethreaters that actually are low tier golds that actively use any crutch in the game to abuse thier opp, they pretty much exclusively use PMG, ATAC, HVR and/or Volcano. They are happily abusing new players with pig percs and remote det full well knowing that they have no idea what is going on. This needs a solution to combated on its own, but i believe removing some of their tools is a start. The new players that are clueless and trying to find what foot to stand on while they are being rolled by dethreaters. Then there are the long time players that are low tier gold or high silver that find it too hard to play in the silver district so they play on bronze district.

Server phasing should fix problem of dethreating... mostly. And about weapons, I agree. Been there recently on side account to help out with cop rank to one of my friends. That wasn't pleasant experince as we were basically moped down by constant waves of PMG, ATAC, HVR teams. Volcanos are just cherry on top.

1 hour ago, proxie said:

I have a couple ideas that i have discussed with others players that would be simple and not change too much.

PMG - reduce effective range from 35 meters to 25 meters. Right now it is way too strong on close mid range <- Fine with that

ATAC - The gun is a simple point in the right direction and hold one mouse1 on mid range. Very forgiving and low effort/skill required. While i dont want to take away from the playstyle of the gun i believe it is too effective. Either of these changes are worth a try, but not not all. Reducing damage to 120 from 135, making it one extra bullet to kill. Reducing effective range to 40m from 50m. Reducing refire rate to 0.115 sec from 0.100 sec giving the gun a longer TTK of 0.805 sec. <- Agreed

HVR - Reduce the damage to 750 from 850. Might not have a big impact but small changes mean alot. <- HVR damage needed reduction for long time.

Volcano - Reduce the max health damage to 550 from 1000. This way you won't get one shot from someone outside draw distance but will still die if both rockets hit. <- Disagreed. Volcano up close won't kill already and rocket ramp up damage only on distance. On far distance, it's easily avoidable as you can hear it's characteristical screech. Volcano maybe would be pushed out but would put place for much worse for newbies option, OSMAW (to which newbies obviously don't have access).

Spotter - Remove it, it is way too broken right now and not worth dev time to try to find some way to re-work it. <- I would say that people tagged by spotter should not be tagged for so long instead. Rework is possible.

Remote det - Double the time it takes to detonate as a start. Personally i would just want to see it removed. <- Agreeing on removal, abuse with remote detonator is way too visible everywhere.

^

Edited June 1, 2020 by Mitne

[proxie 271]

My main point is that small simple changes can do everything, while other rewoks of things would be great for later when they feel they can invest the time. While i do agree with a lot of the comments here still.

 

While i understand that this wont be the fix to help new players, its a bandaid to have them be less abused.

[TheMessiah 430]

the forum right now have actually more visitors than the game itself..

[Resine 144]

What's the current time line anyway? Soon?

Ama was bullshoot if not a single date was specified. 

If we get Asylum alone by the end of the year in some limited way, I would call it a great success. 

For full implementation of engine with it dynamic districts and threat system... I would say late 2021 if we are lucky. 

Then any balance would come around 2022.

 

I think it's biggest issue why G1 failed. 

Players wanted small dynamic changes to the system. In return we got even more broken mods and useless weapons from boxes and broken mechanics that never got revered back or adjusted. 

Why does it have to take years to do simple changes tweak this or that weapon, make spawn further away or closer. Nerf that mod or buff that mod slightly. For the last 5 years we are being told there is no time to implement simple changes every week because everyone is so busy with engine upgrade that's became a meme at this point. 

 

[Orcas 6]

15 minutes ago, Lign said:

I don't think that it's a good idea to implement such crutches into the gameplay artificially limiting player's game experience. Just wait for new engine

Crutches? Limiting player's game experience? Do you mean the experience of playing against a full group of low tier golds in a bronze district, players who use kevlar, percs, atacs, ... who run in vip/capture missions with 2 carsurfing volcano's on the roof? I don't know if you're one of these players but if you think it should be kept like this you're not better than them either.
 

This game can come a long way with simple value changes when it comes to both new and veteran player experience. And these changes don't have to wait until the engine upgrade, which by the looks of it won't be here any time soon in a finished state.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Orcas

[Lign 361]

2 minutes ago, Orcas said:

Crutches? Limiting player's game experience? Do you mean the experience of playing against a full group of low tier golds in a bronze district, players who use kevlar, percs, atacs, ... who run in vip/capture missions with 2 carsurfing volcano's on the roof? I don't know if you're one of these players but if you think it should be kept like this you're not better than them either.
 

This game can come a long way with simple value changes when it comes to both new and veteran player experience. And these changes don't have to wait until the engine upgrade, which by the looks of it won't be here any time soon in a finished state.

No, I mean a full group of low tier golds shouldn't be matched with new players and balancing weapons and players equipment around that problem instead of fixing is not a right way

[proxie 271]

42 minutes ago, Lign said:

No, I mean a full group of low tier golds shouldn't be matched with new players and balancing weapons and players equipment around that problem instead of fixing is not a right way

I feel that you are missing the entire point. Yes there are direct actions that can made to combat dethreaters, but it would require a significant engineering effort. The people that dethreat have in my experience been people using the cheapest tricks in the books. Nerfing these things will help new and old players alike. It's not just about peoples first hour in the game but their first couple of days too. It doesnt take long to spot that the same couple of weapons are being used all the time. And when it comes to remote det and spotter, they just don't have a place in the game in my opinion. At the very least not like how the function right now.

Getting killed by bullshoot is frustrating for new and old players, it's just that a new player is more likely to drop out of the game completely.

[Lign 361]

23 minutes ago, proxie said:

I feel that you are missing the entire point. Yes there are direct actions that can made to combat dethreaters, but it would require a significant engineering effort. The people that dethreat have in my experience been people using the cheapest tricks in the books. Nerfing these things will help new and old players alike. It's not just about peoples first hour in the game but their first couple of days too. It doesnt take long to spot that the same couple of weapons are being used all the time. And when it comes to remote det and spotter, they just don't have a place in the game in my opinion. At the very least not like how the function right now.

Getting killed by bullshoot is frustrating for new and old players, it's just that a new player is more likely to drop out of the game completely.

There're no weapons that completely broken like old troublemaker. Nerfing it only because new players matches with low golds can affect other aspect of the game. Anyway nerfing certain weapons won't fix its problem and low golds will find their way to ruin new player's experience because you don't really need strong weapons to kill someone who doesn't even know that he's on mission and have enemies.

[proxie 271]

2 minutes ago, Lign said:

There're no weapons that completely broken like old troublemaker. Nerfing it only because new players matches with low golds can affect other aspect of the game. Anyway nerfing certain weapons won't fix its problem and low golds will find their way to ruin new player's experience because you don't really need strong weapons to kill someone who doesn't even know that he's on mission and have enemies.

I encourage you to read the my previous comment again, these are huge pain points for experienced active players. They carry over to new players too. The nerf would help everyone.

[CookiePuss 5384]

As someone how spends way too much time on the forums, it's nice to see a well thought out post.

I do however disagree with your suggestions for weapon balance.

 

I would rather see the OCA lowered to a .67 from 70 to give back the only edge the OCA had over the PMG (ttk), and for me while it may be needed dropping effective range to 25m I'd like to start at 30m and then see if more is needed.

For the ATAC, the gun's poor base accuracy already makes the gun poop past 40m, so I see no reason to nerf its range, heck even tap firing at 40m doesn't net consistent hits. I also am not sure why you'd want to nerf it's ttk, it already loses to pointman weapons in CQC, and is outperformed at mid range by several other assault rifles.

I absolutely agree that the HVR in its current state is a not great, and while I'm not against a damage reduction I'd honestly like to try a damage ramp system similar to the DMR.

I hate explosive weapons, but deleting them isn't really an option, so I'll leave it to you and others to make the suggestions.

Spotter is indeed problematic, but I'm not a big fan of deleting content. Plus I feel like there are plenty of options for balance including letting those spotted know they have been, marking the spotter on the radar while they are spotting,  increasing the cooldown timer, any combination of these or any other options I haven't thought of.

Remote det is cheese, but aside from effectively having no cooldown I don't have much of a problem. I am of the belief that dying to RemDet one time is alright, but dying a second time is your fault.

 

These are just my opinions, and I thank you for giving yours.

 

 

 

 

 

[Orcas 6]

 

1 hour ago, Lign said:

No, I mean a full group of low tier golds shouldn't be matched with new players and balancing weapons and players equipment around that problem instead of fixing is not a right way

Of course you shouldn't be matched against them. But the point is that there is a range of weapons/mods (atac, pmg, percs, remote det, volcano, ...) that are way too strong and very easy to play. And this applies in all tiers/threats in the game.

The problem is that a certain group of people, consisting of low tier golds and dethreaters who play in bronze districts, utilise literally everything they can to win games. New players don't just get beaten when they play against these players, they get overwhelmed and completely destroyed. Losing a match because they lose gunfights is acceptable. But some players throw everything they have at them. Remote det, pig perc, item running with carsurfing volcano's, true ogres popping from behind a corner, killing them before they know what happened, ... Don't you see the problem?

Even with fair matchmaking many of these weapons/mods are just completely unbalanced. Tweaking some of the stats right now is a good temporary solution to make the game bearable for new players.

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Orcas

[dr0zone 15]

8 hours ago, proxie said:

.. game is currently in such a embarrassing state that i could not recommend it to anyone and i would feel ashamed at admitting that i play it.

i kno that feel too bruh

[dogfish 22]

Spotter: Make it so spotted enemies show up on the radar instead of a wallhack. Suddenly Radar Jammer has an actual use (good for the game) and Spotter is no longer an insane crutch with absolutely no skill required to use.

 

Guns: All the meta guns are low risk high reward, change it so high risk gives high reward.

[ExoticZ 131]

20 hours ago, proxie said:

PMG - reduce effective range from 35 meters to 25 meters. Right now it is way too strong on close mid range

ATAC - The gun is a simple point in the right direction and hold one mouse1 on mid range. Very forgiving and low effort/skill required. While i dont want to take away from the playstyle of the gun i believe it is too effective. Either of these changes are worth a try, but not not all. Reducing damage to 120 from 135, making it one extra bullet to kill. Reducing effective range to 40m from 50m. Reducing refire rate to 0.115 sec from 0.100 sec giving the gun a longer TTK of 0.805 sec.

HVR - Reduce the damage to 750 from 850. Might not have a big impact but small changes mean alot.

Volcano - Reduce the max health damage to 550 from 1000. This way you won't get one shot from someone outside draw distance but will still die if both rockets hit.

Spotter - Remove it, it is way too broken right now and not worth dev time to try to find some way to re-work it.

Remote det - Double the time it takes to detonate as a start. Personally i would just want to see it removed.

Agreed.

Small changes like this are very much appreciated by the community.

For the Spotter mod, they could just disable it for now. Just like they did with the Mobile Radar Tower. (or remove it )

 

5 hours ago, dogfish said:

Spotter: Make it so spotted enemies show up on the radar instead of a wallhack. Suddenly Radar Jammer has an actual use (good for the game) and Spotter is no longer an insane crutch with absolutely no skill required to use.

 

Guns: All the meta guns are low risk high reward, change it so high risk gives high reward.

Agreed.

I also think that the person "being spotted" should be given an alert like "You're being spotted" or something similar.

Would love to see Radar Jammar actually being more used.

[Nanometic 265]

 

22 hours ago, proxie said:

...

HVR - Reduce the damage to 750 from 850. Might not have a big impact but small changes mean alot.

...

My personal favorite HVR change i'd like to see is a change in fire rate and equip time. Force it into that support role its suppose to fill. Lots of tiny changes to the HVR would definitely make it better.

[Iazer 207]

On 6/1/2020 at 10:47 AM, proxie said:

PMG - reduce effective range from 35 meters to 25 meters. Right now it is way too strong on close mid range

ATAC - The gun is a simple point in the right direction and hold one mouse1 on mid range. Very forgiving and low effort/skill required. While i dont want to take away from the playstyle of the gun i believe it is too effective. Either of these changes are worth a try, but not not all. Reducing damage to 120 from 135, making it one extra bullet to kill. Reducing effective range to 40m from 50m. Reducing refire rate to 0.115 sec from 0.100 sec giving the gun a longer TTK of 0.805 sec.

HVR - Reduce the damage to 750 from 850. Might not have a big impact but small changes mean alot.

Volcano - Reduce the max health damage to 550 from 1000. This way you won't get one shot from someone outside draw distance but will still die if both rockets hit.

Spotter - Remove it, it is way too broken right now and not worth dev time to try to find some way to re-work it.

Remote det - Double the time it takes to detonate as a start. Personally i would just want to see it removed.

PMG - Yes very nice I agree

ATAC - What about also increasing the bloom of it so you are more reliant on tap firing at distance

HVR - Not as fun as removing it but

Volcano - Whilst it would make it more in line with the OSMAW that is a hard nerf to it, and yes I know they are supposed to be 'Micro-Rockets' but maybe instead of 550, 650-700?

Spotter - Remove it but then possibly have it come back as a method for pinging a players last known location?

Remote Det - Press 5 Get Kill NO REMOVE  for real though, the Firebomb has a 2 minute cooldown, why doesn't this?

Edited June 3, 2020 by Iazer

[PingOVER9000 189]

On 6/1/2020 at 11:47 AM, proxie said:

I have a couple ideas that i have discussed with others players that would be simple and not change too much.

PMG - reduce effective range from 35 meters to 25 meters. Right now it is way too strong on close mid range. OK, AGREED

ATAC - The gun is a simple point in the right direction and hold one mouse1 on mid range. Very forgiving and low effort/skill required. KINDA AGREE, BUT A WEAPON AS NTEC/OSCAR ETC WITH DECENT SKILL/EFFORT> ANY ATAC USER. While i dont want to take away from the playstyle of the gun i believe it is too effective. TOO EFFECTIVE SINCE WHEN, OVER 3 YEARS IS ALWAYS THE SAME? Either of these changes are worth a try, but not not all. Reducing damage to 120 from 135, making it one extra bullet to kill. NO, IT HAS ALREADY 8 SHOTS PER KILL FROM THE LAST NERF, IT HAS ALREADY WORSE IT HIS ACCURACY AND EFFECTIVENESS. Reducing effective range to 40m from 50m. YES, FLAW SHALL BE HAPPY Reducing refire rate to 0.115 sec from 0.100 sec giving the gun a longer TTK of 0.805 sec.  WHY MAKE IT SO A SLOW FIRE RATE?

FOR ME THE WEAPON IS OK, NOOB FRIENDLY AT THE BEGIN BUT FURTHER WITH ALREADY A LOT OF LIMITS, A PLAYER WITH NTEC/ OSCAR ETC WITH DECENT SKILL WILL PERFORM A LOT BETTER THAN ANY ATAC MAIN.

HVR - Reduce the damage to 750 from 850. Might not have a big impact but small changes mean alot. NO, I WAS AND I AM STILL AGREE HVR DESERVED THE LAST NERFS FOR PERFORMING WORSE IN CLOSE RANGES, BUT IN HIGH RANGE DESERVE TO HAVE ALL ITS FEATURE, HIGH DAMAGE (AND SLOW DPS)

Volcano - Reduce the max health damage to 550 from 1000. This way you won't get one shot from someone outside draw distance but will still die if both rockets hit. I guess it's enough for make it balanced, then for better telling.. Explosive weapons arent balanced well especially after G1 messed up with car healths. AGREE FOR A LESS DAMAGE AGAINST PLAYERS, BUT BETTER INTERVENT TO THE DAMAGE RADIUS FIRST AND BUFF A LITTLE THE DAMAGE MULTIPLIER AGAINST CARS,ESPECIALLY OSNAW.

THEN I REMAIN OF THE IDEA,  IF U RECEIVE A DIRECT ROCKET IN FACE U SHALL DIE.

 

 

Spotter - Remove it, it is way too broken right now and not worth dev time to try to find some way to re-work it. NOT AGREE TO REMOVE IT,  JUST INCREASE THE TIME OF RECHARGING OF REUSING IT.

Remote det - Double the time it takes to detonate as a start. Personally i would just want to see it removed. I BET U SPEND A LOT OF TIMES IN BRONZE SERVER... AGREE FOR A DOUBLE TIME OR BETTER A LESS DAMAGE RADIUS

 

 

Personal opinion: Players above 150 rank shall not join in bronze server (around 200 game hrs? )

 

Volcano shall get a rank from when can be utilizable from just highers rank and cannot access in bronze servers.

 

HVR is ok, high damage slow DPS, seem fair to me.

We have tons of BAD SNIPER WEAPONS, let's buff them before starting with the nerf MeMe again and again

Edited June 2, 2020 by PingOVER9000