hey idk how u guys allocate ur resources but...

[claude 223]

think weapon balance should be put on the backburner guys! rather you spend more time balancing/redesigning waterfront, and maybe rebalance some awful missions (mah-jong money, repo racers, etc) because they make me wanna plant my fist foot and head thru my monitors and my wall!

 

and ik it would be "ideal" for the engine upgrade to be pushed out before this, but i feel like another 3 or 4 month setback wouldnt hurt in the name of keeping ur players sane!

Edited September 11, 2020 by claude

[BlatMan 719]

I liked the mission changes, but the weapon balance changes are all over the place. I don't think changing a ton of weapons in one go is a good way to balance either. Change 1 or 2 at a time and see how it goes.

 

[Flaws 1033]

Hard disagree with this one.

 

Last weapon balancing along with the switch back to BE from EAC is what killed the population and dropped it to new lows even for APB. After LO's previous few changes the meta had become so stale and so horrible you couldn't even play the game unless you were running JG/PMG 24/7. This was the right step and in fact it should've happened months ago. They just killed a bunch of weapons and still allowed cheesy guns and tactics to thrive and we're finally getting out of that period. In fact, they need to make more changes based on feedback from this upcoming patch and change more guns as well.

 

14 minutes ago, SquirrelFace said:

I liked the mission changes, but the weapon balance changes are all over the place. I don't think changing a ton of weapons in one go is a good way to balance either. Change 1 or 2 at a time and see how it goes.

Also hard disagree because they've changed 1 or 2 at a time and it goes horribly wrong. The only right way to balance weapons in APB is in categories and bigger batches. When you rebalance a gun, you need to take all other guns in the category into consideration like they finally did now. For example, last time they nerfed N-TEC and OCA and then FAR and PMG became dominant because they didn't take those into consideration at all. This is finally the right way to do things.

[Motorola 107]

im not sure what they changed with missions other than just re-enabling the ones G1 disabled.

 

• spawning needs to be looked at, like really really really looked at and fixed up.
• some missions actually need to be changed... ma-jong money for example. you need to deliver 3 trainee cars that anyone with an FBW can blow up AND the enforcers can see the car when its being driven.
• the low level/new player experience desperately needs to be buffed. lower costs of all mods, 60k is too much. Remove level locks on every mod. having to reach level 40-85 with no mods is ridiculous. 
• stop making the gunplay clunky with these 'balance' changes.. bolt timers on obir? its just going to make people not want to use this gun if they cannot defend themselves from the players rushing them with CQC weapons all day. changing how assault rifles work... again just making everyone who rushes you with a CQC weapon even harder to defend yourself against. making the gameplay with all mid-long range guns clunkier/slower.

[R3ACT3M 489]

11 hours ago, claude said:

think weapon balance should be put on the backburner guys! rather you spend more time balancing/redesigning waterfront, and maybe rebalance some awful missions (mah-jong money, repo racers, etc) because they make me wanna plant my fist foot and head thru my monitors and my wall!

 

and ik it would be "ideal" for the engine upgrade to be pushed out before this, but i feel like another 3 or 4 month setback wouldnt hurt in the name of keeping ur players sane!

ive been waiting too long for the PMG to be nerfed DO NOT TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME!

[Jinsen 11]

13 hours ago, Flaws said:

Hard disagree with this one.

 

Last weapon balancing along with the switch back to BE from EAC is what killed the population and dropped it to new lows even for APB. After LO's previous few changes the meta had become so stale and so horrible you couldn't even play the game unless you were running JG/PMG 24/7. This was the right step and in fact it should've happened months ago. They just killed a bunch of weapons and still allowed cheesy guns and tactics to thrive and we're finally getting out of that period. In fact, they need to make more changes based on feedback from this upcoming patch and change more guns as well.

 

Also hard disagree because they've changed 1 or 2 at a time and it goes horribly wrong. The only right way to balance weapons in APB is in categories and bigger batches. When you rebalance a gun, you need to take all other guns in the category into consideration like they finally did now. For example, last time they nerfed N-TEC and OCA and then FAR and PMG became dominant because they didn't take those into consideration at all. This is finally the right way to do things.

I would've just kept the same weapon balance, like it was before LO took over i never had a problem with it

[Darkzero3802 614]

No how about resources get put into combating hackers so this way we can actually play games without them getting ruined.

[rooq 175]

13 hours ago, Motorola said:

• spawning needs to be looked at, like really really really looked at and fixed up.

That has nothing to do with the mission system. But eehhhh.. Maybe..

 

The only complaint I have is that spawns are not taking stage context into account. They are just distributed around the average location of objectives or players on the mission (in case of takeouts). This becomes extremely annoying in scavenger or drop-off stages when the enemy team spawns in front of the attacking team's vehicle which is carrying  the item-to-drop. There should definitely be a rule to prevent this, which instead forces the enemy team to spawn at their base.

 

The issue largely comes down to where the spawns are distributed according to the context of the stage - not so much the spawns themselves.

Most issues I see streamers whine about is them picking brainless spawns.

 

13 hours ago, Motorola said:

• some missions actually need to be changed... ma-jong money for example. you need to deliver 3 trainee cars that anyone with an FBW can blow up AND the enforcers can see the car when its being driven

Agreed.

 

13 hours ago, Motorola said:

• the low level/new player experience desperately needs to be buffed. lower costs of all mods, 60k is too much. Remove level locks on every mod. having to reach level 40-85 with no mods is ridiculous. 

That has nothing to do with the mission system - but agreed.

 

13 hours ago, Motorola said:

• stop making the gunplay clunky with these 'balance' changes.. bolt timers on obir? its just going to make people not want to use this gun if they cannot defend themselves from the players rushing them with CQC weapons all day. changing how assault rifles work... again just making everyone who rushes you with a CQC weapon even harder to defend yourself against. making the gameplay with all mid-long range guns clunkier/slower.

None of the rivals of the OBIR (same range/role alternatives) can achieve the same thing. By comparison it is extremely overpowered. With the bolt timer the OBIR can still defend itself in close range. 55 damage is a lot for a single very fast burst. The only difference is that you are required to wait approximately 0.3 seconds longer before you switch to your pistol.

 

Assault rifles have not been changed. The jump shooting modifiers were normalized according to changes (N-TEC 5 nerf) that most of the community seemed to be very happy about. You can't have one gun that is absolutely terrible, and every other alternative be drastically better. Things need to make sense within the individual categories that weapons reside in.

 

Nothing has been made clunkier or slower. You're just forced to use your secondary, as intended, when engaging a player in close range.

 

20 minutes ago, Darkzero3802 said:

No how about resources get put into combating hackers so this way we can actually play games without them getting ruined.

This is a constant never ending effort. Just because bans are no longer broadcasted doesn't mean they are not occurring or that player reports are not thoroughly looked at. In most cases the player you are reporting is not cheating - people spend literally thousands of hours to get good at this game, some even caused serious instabilities in their lives by dropping out of school to reach that level. It's depressing but it's the truth.

 

 

13 hours ago, Motorola said:

im not sure what they changed with missions other than just re-enabling the ones G1 disabled.

"This first mission pass is intended to provide as much improvement as possible to the APB player's experience without fundamentally changing any of the existing missions you know and love. Our efforts here were focused on reducing pain points, like unwieldy timers, odd group sizes for missions, or awkward objectives."

 

The first pass on mission changes involved re-enabling old missions then going through each mission in the game (243) and manually adjusting the timers of every single stage (approximately 1500 stages) to scale with objective count, objective distances and type of objectives. Last stages were also revamped to focus on points required rather than time limits, in order to further focus the mission experience on group skill rather than objective location randomness. Bonus time missions were also revamped to prevent stage time pooling and overall make them more balanced for the attacking team. This and many more minor changes to improve quality of life.

 

---

 

As a side note: it was never stated that any of these things were finalized or forever finished. In fact, Little Orbit has assured the community many times that everything is an ongoing process based on statistics and player feedback. Stop panicking and assuming the worst possible thing.

Edited September 12, 2020 by rooq

[claude 223]

1 hour ago, Darkzero3802 said:

No how about resources get put into combating hackers so this way we can actually play games without them getting ruined.

?

[CookiePuss 5384]

41 minutes ago, claude said:

?

He wants his reports taken seriously I think. 

But they already are. 

He just doesn't like that people he thinks cheat arent banned. 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by CookiePuss

[Motorola 107]

8 hours ago, rooq said:

 

 

None of the rivals of the OBIR (same range/role alternatives) can achieve the same thing. By comparison it is extremely overpowered. With the bolt timer the OBIR can still defend itself in close range. 55 damage is a lot for a single very fast burst. The only difference is that you are required to wait approximately 0.3 seconds longer before you switch to your pistol.

 

Assault rifles have not been changed. The jump shooting modifiers were normalized according to changes (N-TEC 5 nerf) that most of the community seemed to be very happy about. You can't have one gun that is absolutely terrible, and every other alternative be drastically better. Things need to make sense within the individual categories that weapons reside in.

 

Nothing has been made clunkier or slower. You're just forced to use your secondary, as intended, when engaging a player in close range.

 

 

long range guns should be amazing at long range, which they arent really. they nerfed the obir's 3 round burst accuracy and range by a ton in past balance changes. an ntec shouldnt give problems to an obir or dog ear past 50m... but its like you blurred the line between long range and mid range somewhere. not asking to nerf anything in that specific matchup like ntec accuracy/range vs obir range/accuracy/rate of fire... but you should look at the gun matchups like that.

 

assault rifles should be insane at mid range, but it seems like certain smg/shotguns can even compete vs them at mid range.

 

why is the focus about jump shooting and ammo capacity? really take a hard look at gun ranges and how accurate guns should be for these ranges. one of the biggest nerfs that no one talks about is the marksman role range nerf.... whats the point of a joker carbine or oscar when smgs are about the same range and full auto/easier to use without the need of using improved rifling even.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Motorola

[Alani 475]

I don't think weapon balance should be placed on back.

 

However, the way they're doing balanced based on 'X weapon has not been seen a lot' is the wrong way to balance things.

 

That's like balancing champions in league of legends based on people using them.

 

Instead of looking at the less used weapons, they need to look at the most used weapons and balance around that.

 

Otherwise they're just going to end up buffing certain weapons (like the carbine) and then have a bunch of angry people when the git guds are running around laser beaming carbine shots like its 2015 and people crying about cheats and macros.

[rooq 175]

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

long range guns should be amazing at long range

They are.

 

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

which they arent really.

They are.

 

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

they nerfed the obir's 3 round burst accuracy and range by a ton in past balance changes.

And it remains as one of the best guns in the game, never falling from meta usage and works in every imaginable situation in every imaginable range.

 

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

an ntec shouldnt give problems to an obir or dog ear past 50m... but its like you blurred the line between long range and mid range somewhere.

Except none of these things were touched under LO, or even in the last few years.

N-TEC 5 begins to become less dangerous at around 60 meters and on (add 7 to that to account for IR3). It has always worked this way.

 

But you have to slow down your fire rate a lot to achieve this - which is where rifles will win.

 

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

assault rifles should be insane at mid rage, but it seems like certain smg/shotguns can even compete vs them at mid range.

 

Well no. They can't. Not any longer. That's a huge part of what this patch is fixing.

 

Try and read through the changes perhaps?

 

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

why is the focus about jump shooting and ammo capacity?

Jump shooting prevents guns like the NTEC-5 from being all powerful, and actually encountering situations where your secondary pistol should be preferred. APB is about choosing the right weapon for the right situation, hence why you have so many different ways of changing your loadout during missions.

 

I think we could have changed the ammo capacities without you noticing, if we refrained from adding it to the patch notes. I am almost certain that it won't cross your mind again this time next week and onwards.

 

11 hours ago, Motorola said:

 really take a hard look at gun ranges and how accurate guns should be for these ranges. one of the biggest nerfs that no one talks about is the marksman role range nerf.... whats the point of a joker carbine or oscar when smgs are about the same range and full auto/easier to use without the need of using improved rifling even.

That's exactly what was done. Read the descriptions along with all of the numeric changes.

Carbine/Oscar and SMGs are not the same ranges. Not at all.

 

I don't think you read the changes or understood what they do.

 

Merged.

 

7 hours ago, Alani said:

I don't think weapon balance should be placed on back.

 

However, the way they're doing balanced based on 'X weapon has not been seen a lot' is the wrong way to balance things.

 

That's like balancing champions in league of legends based on people using them.

 

Instead of looking at the less used weapons, they need to look at the most used weapons and balance around that.

 

Otherwise they're just going to end up buffing certain weapons (like the carbine) and then have a bunch of angry people when the git guds are running around laser beaming carbine shots like its 2015 and people crying about cheats and macros.

Your worry was addressed in the first paragraph of the announcement.

 

(..) it is important to stress that what you see here is part of an ongoing effort to dial weapons in to a healthy place. We are committed to cultivating a dynamic meta where each weapon style has a use. We've missed some weapons in the past when we've tackled this issue. It is likely you will see some weapons that aren't addressed this time around either. This is a process we will continue to iterate on, and your feedback is an important part of that process.

 

This is not the final weapon balance patch.

 

Many different approaches were used to reach these changes.

If you read through the changes you'll notice that not just the carbine was changed. If you scroll up and down there are a lot of other changes - some of those affect guns that you don't see a lot, others affect guns that you see all the time. What you are asking for is already being done.

Edited September 13, 2020 by rooq

[claude 223]

8 hours ago, Alani said:

I don't think weapon balance should be placed on back.

 

However, the way they're doing balanced based on 'X weapon has not been seen a lot' is the wrong way to balance things.

 

That's like balancing champions in league of legends based on people using them.

 

Instead of looking at the less used weapons, they need to look at the most used weapons and balance around that.

 

Otherwise they're just going to end up buffing certain weapons (like the carbine) and then have a bunch of angry people when the git guds are running around laser beaming carbine shots like its 2015 and people crying about cheats and macros.

I mean, pickrate/banrate in league is what drives champ balance... so I dont think buffing underutilized weapons is necessarily wrong, and also, I dont think this is what LO is doing at all.

 

the weapons they've been changing are pretty commonly used weapons... ntec, ursus, obir, JG, PMG, etc.

 

I cant imagine them buffing the carbine even more, the reserve ammo buff was needed for sure. seems like a lot of the changes so far have been fine, especially ever since that IR3 change.

 

dont really like this blanket equip time nerf thing they're doing to all guns though, sorta just nerfs weapons with 3ps3 presets, and a lot of 3ps3 presets lack red mods, so the red mod presets are just gonna be better.

[Darkzero3802 614]

On 9/12/2020 at 1:06 PM, rooq said:

This is a constant never ending effort. Just because bans are no longer broadcasted doesn't mean they are not occurring or that player reports are not thoroughly looked at. In most cases the player you are reporting is not cheating - people spend literally thousands of hours to get good at this game, some even caused serious instabilities in their lives by dropping out of school to reach that level. It's depressing but it's the truth.

Duh. But they can do better then they already are. Tell me after years of the same acc ban only has it really done much besides have new accounts made to bypass the ban? Im well aware not everyone is cheating but those that are need to be caught.

[Motorola 107]

22 hours ago, rooq said:

tl;drzzz...

Carbine/Oscar and SMGs are not the same ranges. Not at all.

 

 

LO reduced the ranges of all marksman weapons when they tried to change how Improved Rifling works..... they reverted the whole change to IR but left the reduced range for all the marksman weapons.

 

all of the marksman weapons had their ranges nerfed, for what? and they even changed the accuracy of the obir without mentioning it in any patchnotes.

 

as for what i said earlier about marksman carbines vs smgs.. pmg is easier to use than a carbine (carbine has curve system so you cannot just spam every bullet and still be accurate), slower ttk, less damage... why are they the same range if its a no-brain decision on what gun to use for this range?

 

now they are going to change the pmg (which i dont mind, i would've just buffed the OCA and left it at that personally) and they are changing the carbine a bit... but will they be reverting the range nerf? thats like the only thing that really matters for these guns

[claude 223]

16 hours ago, Darkzero3802 said:

Duh. But they can do better then they already are. Tell me after years of the same acc ban only has it really done much besides have new accounts made to bypass the ban? Im well aware not everyone is cheating but those that are need to be caught.

maybe you need to face the reality that you're playing a free to play game owned by a company that can't afford to develop an inhouse kernel-based AC that forces the same 5-10 people off the game, just to have them reformat their PC, swap around some hardware, and be back cheating again. BE does what it's supposed to do, and can only do so much. 

 

the hackerwave has been dead for years, put the arc to rest. I would find it highly unlikely you've played against a single cheater within the past couple of weeks.

Edited September 14, 2020 by claude

[rooq 175]

1 hour ago, Motorola said:

LO reduced the ranges of all marksman weapons when they tried to change how Improved Rifling works..... they reverted the whole change to IR but left the reduced range for all the marksman weapons.

No - those changes were reverted. There have been no frampdistance changes (incl. Unreal curves) to any rifles since at least 2016.

And no curves were changed either.

 

 

1 hour ago, Motorola said:

all of the marksman weapons had their ranges nerfed, for what? and they even changed the accuracy of the obir without mentioning it in any patchnotes.

No marksman weapons had their ranges nerfed after the Improved Rifling changes were reverted.

The accuracy of the OBIR was not changed either.

fradiusattenmetres has not been changed since at least 2016

fmarksmanshipmodifier has not been changed since at least 2016

 

1 hour ago, Motorola said:

as for what i said earlier about marksman carbines vs smgs.. pmg is easier to use than a carbine (carbine has curve system so you cannot just spam every bullet and still be accurate), slower ttk, less damage... why are they the same range if its a no-brain decision on what gun to use for this range?

PMG is indeed easier than Carbine. The curve system for damage drop-off has no impact on bloom.

They are not the same range. They have roughly the same damage drop-off, but you are ignoring accuracy and time to kill.

 

All of the SMGs have insane ranges (drop-off) on paper, but their accuracy is much lower: fradiusattenmetres or fradiusattenmetres * fmarksmanshipmodifier.

A high base accuracy (fradiusattenmetres) means a very inaccurate gun, which results in them being less effective on range. Here's an example:

OCA

- fradiusattenmetres: 36

- fmarksmanshipmodifier: 0.98

effective accuracy: 35.28 CM

 

Carbine

- fradiusattenmetres: 24

- fmarksmanshipmodifier: 0.6

effective accuracy: 14.4 CM

 

So.. the OCA is much more inaccurate at range. You can do the same math for the PMG and you'll see the same result.

Even though the carbine has roughly the same damage drop-off, it will be much more effective on range because you can hit your shots consistently.

Your argument is simply not valid or correct.

 

1 hour ago, Motorola said:

now they are going to change the pmg (which i dont mind, i would've just buffed the OCA and left it at that personally) and they are changing the carbine a bit... but will they be reverting the range nerf? thats like the only thing that really matters for these guns

So, no.

 

Anything else I can correct you on?

 

sources:

https://apbdb.com/changes/ - lists all changes in every single patch since 2016 (including "hidden conspiracy changes")
https://apbdb.com/beacon/items/Weapon_Rifle_JokerCarbine_Slot1 - raw weapon values for the joker carbine
https://apbdb.com/beacon/items/Weapon_SMG_OCA - raw weapon values for the oca

https://apbdb.com/beacon/items/Weapon_Rifle_OBIR_Perm - raw weapon values for the obir

Edited September 14, 2020 by rooq

[Motorola 107]

lol 1 vs 1 me with a carbine vs pmg at 35m ill show you whats better.... do you guys even play the game or just sit in your own server shooting walls when testing?

 

Quote

No marksman weapons had their ranges nerfed after the Improved Rifling changes were reverted.

 

you mean they did or didnt? "No, marksman weapons had their ranges nerfed after..." or "None of the marksman weapons had their ranges nerfed..."

 

carbine was never a 35m drop-off weapon till they changed how IR works... 

 

also to better clarify how they nerfed the obir's accuracy... they changed the way burst fire is affected by cooling jacket (or tried to change it) and this is when the obir became way less accurate. 

 

don't link the patch notes... none of these changes are there. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Motorola

[rooq 175]

1 minute ago, Motorola said:

lol 1 vs 1 me with a carbine vs pmg at 35m ill show you whats better.... do you guys even play the game or just sit in your own server shooting walls when testing?

Yeah that's what I thought.

 

gg

[Motorola 107]

yeah i edited my post... what are you talking about?

 

[rooq 175]

10 minutes ago, Motorola said:

don't link the patch notes... none of these changes are there. 

They are not patch notes - they are the actual designer value diffs.

They are not there because they were never applied to the real weapons.

 

10 minutes ago, Motorola said:

carbine was never a 35m drop-off weapon till they changed how IR works... 

The values for frampdistance are not relevant/representative if the weapon uses Unreal curves.. which is the case for carbine.

 

11 minutes ago, Motorola said:

also to better clarify how they nerfed the obir's accuracy... they changed the way burst fire is affected by cooling jacket (or tried to change it) and this is when the obir became way less accurate. 

They tested it - the changes never went live OR they were never applied to the real guns, only the test varieties for the prototyping districts.

[Motorola 107]

ok thats what i thought, you dont play the actual game i guess. gg

[Acornie 490]

I think @rooq they may be thinking of the -5m that was taken off the OBIR and CR762 at one point, but that didn't affect the Carbine, so

(man I wish I could find that in the https://apbdb.com/changes/ so I know I'm not crazy)

[vsb 6182]

6 minutes ago, Acornie said:

I think @rooq they may be thinking of the -5m that was taken off the OBIR and CR762 at one point, but that didn't affect the Carbine, so

(man I wish I could find that in the https://apbdb.com/changes/ so I know I'm not crazy)

the carbine is also down to 35m from 40m, afaik it all happened at the same time