This game is finally dead in a way.

[BlatMan 711]

On 7/15/2021 at 12:33 PM, xiphos said:

what has orbit learned that would change fairfight's poor performance or g1's lax banning policy?

Don't forget Punkbuster. So many "Disallowed program/driver" kicks.

[vsb 6171]

18 minutes ago, SquirrelFace said:

Don't forget Punkbuster. So many "Disallowed program/driver" kicks.

punkbuster was a dumpster fire, but i dont think its really relevant since all pb bans were lifted and the anticheat was discontinued before g1 sold apb to orbit

[SpuzvaBob 92]

I've had to remove several posts from this discussion for breaching the forum rules. Please keep discussions civil and on topic.

 

-Spuzva

[Uhtdred 238]

On 7/14/2021 at 12:25 PM, Flaws said:

I knew that it would end up like this the moment they announced that we were forced to go back to BE. The short period that we had EAC's client side (not even the server side) was the most playable APB's been in many years. EAC was the one thing that could've at least kept the game going. I saw a certain private stream on a random discord server of a player ragehacking in Baylan on the same day as BE's return. This is the main reason why I've barely streamed the game for the past year. I can't even turn on my stream without every closet lowlife coming out of the woodwork to streamsnipe me (not that they need to try too hard, considering that there is only one single silver district to play on nowadays).

 

The Engine Upgrade will not solve the cheater problem on its own either. Without serious anti-cheat measures, the fate of the game will not change and this has always been the case. It originally lost most of it's leftover players during the FFbans era (2014-2018) with G1's shenanigans and them somehow deciding that its a great idea to make every single ban public, in a game with such a small community where half of it are immature egofiends of some form. We were already down to ~600 average players on EU in May 2018 when LO picked up the pieces. Most of the EU silver district players here should recall what absolute hell it was to play APB towards the end where you'd face multiple full premades of cheaters back to back non-stop. FF was useless and G1 had given up on investigating cheaters completely. Bans seemed very random, most of them were manual (as we now know for a fact), and somehow certain players were able to ragehack for months or even years on end in some cases, somehow the anti-cheat completely ignoring their perfect aim and accuracy but then also re-banning certain people who were either not cheating or wouldn't go as hard even if they were, which still makes no sense however you try to stretch things.

 

A lot of players seemed to think that APB was dying due to lack of content but that is only somewhat true. Most players that still played have largely enjoyed APB for its combat mechanics and the more competitive players would come back for more for years on end, very few of us still today. Bottom line is that the biggest issue has always been cheaters and they have actively been killing the game for half a decade now. You can only hold onto players' dedication to keep the game alive for this long, until there is nothing but aimbots fighting aimbots and you having to deal with it to be able to play APB in any capacity. Anyone would leave at that point.

 

And don't even get me started on weapon balancing which has been completely butchered by LO and whoever thought that making the game unplayable as a solo player was a good idea. You know, at least when we had cheaters during FF we also had decent weapons and cars to outplay cheaters with if we were skilled enough. Now we got that taken away but the cheaters are still here. I used to think that soloing was bad before but, boy, was I in for a treat. APB has become progressively worse and worse for the solo player and catering entirely to premades 100% and that is all due to improper balancing and lack of vision on LO's side. Imagine that for one or another reason you don't have people to play with or maybe you only have one friend who also still plays APB and all you get are full premades of four who play APB all day long, half of them probably having at least one closet cheater in their group at all times. A lot of them running at least one OSMAW/DMR-AV and concs which completely obliterate cars now after the nerf (because somehow they decided to nerf cars but not all anti-vehicle weaponry.) Who would want to even try when you already know that you've lost from the very first second of the mission?

FFBANS public was the best thing that ever happened to this game. 

[Flaws 1033]

1 hour ago, Uhtdred said:

FFBANS public was the best thing that ever happened to this game. 

The fact that you think so means that you don't understand the situation APB was in at the time. I can speak about this because I saw everything it lead to and I've experienced it first hand. Players were being targeted for harassment because of FairFight bans which had a high probability of being false positive manual bans and weren't deserved in the first place. Players got doxxed, their private pictures leaked and posted all over FFbans, their relatives were harassed, players were DDoSsed and so on and so forth. G1 employees got their share of the pie as well. Some of them were doxxed and they even had death threats sent to them. Just like I wrote to Eviltara, its very easy to be ignorant of targeted harassment online when you have not been targeted yourself. Add to that the fact that the very owners of the game were the ones who set things up that way and let the players tear each other apart for the sake of protecting their fragile egos for years. Most of the people who camped the website on a daily basis and made insane "investigations" on FFbans in an attempt to ruin people's lives because of an APB ban (which is likely false to begin with) were all mentally ill in some shape or form. And do I even need to mention the fact that there were running ads on the ffbans website which were generating revenue for the owners of the website so in reality they were making money off of APB's toxicity and mentally ill playerbase?

 

No, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to APB and it effectively killed the game due to the incredible amounts of toxicity it introduced to it. Everything was based around ffbans and who was banned/how many times. And lets not forget the amount of mentally ill people who cheated and got purposefully caught over and over again just so they can get attention in the community. There have been many names over the years which only became known because they've been on FFbans. Positive or negative attention doesn't matter to these sorts of people, as long as they get any at all.

 

Most of us here hate cheaters more than anything but cheaters don't deserve to be publically doxxed with their home address, phone numbers and their relatives becoming targets because of a ban on a video game. No one does in fact, no matter what they've done simply because it leads to nothing good. It does not fix the problem. The only thing it does is it lets silvers feel better about themselves because daddy G1 manual bans the same group of people over and over again to make you think that the anti-cheat works.

 

APB is a game with a small community and it always has been. There is always bound to be drama and tension between players in such a small community. Giving players such a huge incentive to be infinitely toxic to each other is a recipe for doom for the game. All of this is the reason LO did away FFbans and public bans in general and this is the only way to go with this game. If a player is cheating then they deserve to be punished by having their account permanently suspended and thats that. They don't deserve to have their lives ruined or to be scared of consequences for their relatives over their game ban. If you think that they do then you're simply being immature and a part of the problem.

[TheJellyGoo 343]

My apologies.

Didn't know pointing out the hypocrisy of a pathological cheater who himself has admitted to have cheated in more than one occasion in more than one game was against the rules.

That's not an accusation, but simply had to be mentioned for context but I understand the urge to keep this all under wraps for good looks. Keep living with the consequences. 

 

[Flaws 1033]

2 hours ago, TheJellyGoo said:

My apologies.

Didn't know pointing out the hypocrisy of a pathological cheater who himself has admitted to have cheated in more than one occasion in more than one game was against the rules.

That's not an accusation, but simply had to be mentioned for context but I understand the urge to keep this all under wraps for good looks. Keep living with the consequences. 

 

People change and people grow, believe it or not.

[Uhtdred 238]

4 hours ago, TheJellyGoo said:

My apologies.

Didn't know pointing out the hypocrisy of a pathological cheater who himself has admitted to have cheated in more than one occasion in more than one game was against the rules.

That's not an accusation, but simply had to be mentioned for context but I understand the urge to keep this all under wraps for good looks. Keep living with the consequences. 

 

you know what they say right? Once a cheater, always a cheater.

[BlatMan 711]

11 hours ago, Uhtdred said:

FFBANS public was the best thing that ever happened to this game. 

It was a circle of cheaters pleasuring themselves, with some innocent players getting caught in the crossfire.

[stateofthegame 23]

I don't really get the dilemma with ffbans ASIDE from the false-positives.

If you cheat at the game and constantly 'troll' people by saying you're legit to irritate them, then it's kinda fair game to be name & shamed.

[EVInezca 81]

4 hours ago, Uhtdred said:

you know what they say right? Once a cheater, always a cheater.

that's what I think. And just because one no longer cheats you can not conclude on all. because almost all cheaters remain cheaters. for why did they cheat..  to look better. bad players just who want feel pro.  

 

I'm talking about the right cheaters. not from any reroll children. These closet cheaters remain and leave only with a ban and they most no come back when banned.

 

Once a cheater, always a cheater. so yes. And im long gamer but that cheater become unban its for me very uniqe.  And to see this names from cheaters alrady   hurts every day!

 

And we need manual bans. And FF was good how it worked. to have statistics over players say more then 1000 words.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Eviltara

[vsb 6171]

3 hours ago, UpholdThePeace said:

I don't really get the dilemma with ffbans ASIDE from the false-positives.

If you cheat at the game and constantly 'troll' people by saying you're legit to irritate them, then it's kinda fair game to be name & shamed.

ffbans immediately became an ego stroke for most cheaters, leading them to cheat longer or more blatantly for their 5 minutes of e-fame

 

i also dont think doxxing falls under name&shame or acceptable retribution for cheating, but thats merely a personal opinion 

[stateofthegame 23]

13 minutes ago, xiphos said:

ffbans immediately became an ego stroke for most cheaters, leading them to cheat longer or more blatantly for their 5 minutes of e-fame

 

i also dont think doxxing falls under name&shame or acceptable retribution for cheating, but thats merely a personal opinion 

I don't really feel like revealing the in game name of someone is equivalent to doxxing. I totally agree if personal details of any kind were revealed then yeah it's a huge problem and I wouldn't agree with it, but you're only really seeing a name that's not even relevant after it shows up.

 

Ego stroke point is fair though, but I personally never found the ffbans period to alter the quantity of blatant cheaters too much.

[Bambola 379]

4 hours ago, Eviltara said:

Once a cheater, always a cheater.

Whilst there is some data to back it up, scientifically, this tired cliché and old adage is not necessarily true, you deeply underestimate people’s ability to change, and people do change. Admittedly, some people are incapable of feeling remorse and of changing, they remain perpetual cheaters, but not just a handful of them, for various reasons, never go back to cheating again. Literally anyone can make an effort to alter their specific habits or behaviors. There are whole case studies on this subject worth checking.

 

I would argue that none of us should be defined by our worst behaviors, but our willingness to change and actions we take to change ourselves. It certainly makes more sense to me than just blindly holding on to the belief cheaters will always cheat.

[vsb 6171]

2 hours ago, UpholdThePeace said:

I don't really feel like revealing the in game name of someone is equivalent to doxxing. I totally agree if personal details of any kind were revealed then yeah it's a huge problem and I wouldn't agree with it, but you're only really seeing a name that's not even relevant after it shows up.

 

Ego stroke point is fair though, but I personally never found the ffbans period to alter the quantity of blatant cheaters too much.

obviously ingame names don't count as doxxing, what even?

[TheJellyGoo 343]

12 hours ago, Flaws said:

People change and people grow, believe it or not.

I do believe that people can. But that was never really the issue.

They can earn second chances and they can be given second chances, but they do not have the right to persist to be granted them from each and everyone.

Damage has been done, the enjoyment and time of many people are wasted by cheating on a daily basis. This is time people won't get back.

And while some may contribute more or less than others it is the combined total that ultimately leads to vast grievances of the general playerbase.

 

I imagine a good start for showing remorse would be to not call people "silvers" when they rightfully point out those past missteps.

From my experience showing acceptance instead of trying to denunciate their objections leads far more often to goodwill and a dropping of the matter.

I understand it can be frustrating not being forgiven while actively trying and showing best intentions but sometimes it is just to late for some and one has to accept that too.

It will take strength to remain true to their new proclaimed person through all that but if one really has changed or wants to it is part of that growing.

 

Also APB being such a small community means it's not your general cs mm cheater that you will report and never see again (banned or not).

Sometimes you met these individuals every other day, got downright mocked. I would very much differentiate in the weight of such cases.

Edited July 19, 2021 by TheJellyGoo

[stateofthegame 23]

5 hours ago, xiphos said:

i also dont think doxxing falls under name&shame or acceptable retribution for cheating, but thats merely a personal opinion 

 

2 hours ago, xiphos said:

obviously ingame names don't count as doxxing, what even?

Maybe I misunderstood your point, but I took this as you thinking ffbans WAS doxxing which I agree, it isn't at all. 

 

Regardless it isn't coming back, and yeah it's probably healthier for something equal to it not to be integrated once/if we get a new anticheat. 

[CookiePuss 5378]

39 minutes ago, UpholdThePeace said:

 

Maybe I misunderstood your point, but I took this as you thinking ffbans WAS doxxing which I agree, it isn't at all. 

 

Regardless it isn't coming back, and yeah it's probably healthier for something equal to it not to be integrated once/if we get a new anticheat. 

He means people were literally doxxed on ffbans.

Some real messed up stuff went down there. 

[stateofthegame 23]

23 minutes ago, CookiePuss said:

He means people were literally doxxed on ffbans.

Some real messed up stuff went down there. 

Thanks for clarifying, wasn't aware of this. Yeah, definitely a bridge too far. 

[Infinito 100]

On 7/16/2021 at 11:29 PM, ninjarrrr said:

lol not just cheaters but the kevlar 3 med spray scumbags too, lit couldnt get a mission without them would rather go to hell and stay there then play missions nowadays imo

I bet you're talking about the Terminator guy who I shall not name due to the forum rules xD