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[yourrandomnobody74 106]

2 hours ago, Frosi said:

There need to be weapons balanced around new players, average players and the best of the best, balancing around just one will leave the game frustrating for the rest and on top of that a lot of top players think very one dimensional with the goal of turning APB into some sort of competitive game, no bloom, laser beam guns and supposedly "high skill" requirement. In a world in which the game was balanced around top level players guns that are aimed to be entry level guns for newer players will not even get close to be able into whatever the 'top players' decided should be the meta. 

 

Meanwhile SPCT has housed some of the best and most experienced players in the game that all have their fair share of ideas amongst other things. I've read your recent posts and its becoming increasingly obvious that you have some sort of grudge against the SPCT because they aren't adding wall running, crouch sliding or recoil patterns to the game, let alone reworking 100+ unique guns, to someone that actually understands a fair share of the inner workings of APB, comments like this have about the same value as "Add horses" or "Add motorbikes". Everyone is allowed to have their ideas for the game but the second you attack those that have been giving non-stop feedback, making them aware of issues as well as using countless hours of their free time to help the game in any way, shape or form then your argument immediately becomes a whole lot less valuable as it shows that you are not able to have a proper discussion.

 

We test patches, we don't ship them.

Fatal flaw in decision making. You're adding low skillcap guns (or lowering the skillcap of guns artificially with unnecessary bloom)  just to catter casuals who don't want to grind out this game and get better. This is not how balancing is done in any way, you are gimping the top players with this, as seen with the NTEC changes which were suggested by your fellow SPCT member.

 

My mentioned balancing suggestions would in fact help newer players too (the pros have been mentioned in my previous posts), they could get accustomed to this game easily if the mod discrepancy wasn't so huge, stock F2P guns were more consistent and accurate (without mods dictating so) and there were so many unnecessary mods which add to the feeling that "veterans have more mods and better weapons hurr durr".

 

The last decent SPCT member I recall was rooq (as he has qualities that extend beyond APB in other shooters, or atleast that's how it seems to me) and Kempington (due to his knowledge in weapon stats), about you specifically I cannot talk as I don't know you. You seem to be one of the few gold players SPCT has...

I do not have a grudge against SPCT in any way possible, you have misread my intentions. Rather, I have a grudge against people that want to dumb down the game (and games in general) further for no reason by adding unnecessary RNG mechanics (i.e. bloom) that artificially lenghten TTK (and have mods that impact RNG too, i.e. HS) and negating impact of weapons in multiple-ranges where combat is done (a.k.a whisper should always win close range fights against an NTEC, even though the better aimer should win these encounters), instead of just increasing TTK and making them reliable and consistent (allows for much easier minttk, thus making combat more fluid). Consistency and higher TTK allow for grind-ability, allowing players who are dedicated to shine (and people's mechanical skills would translate over to APB easily)

 

The mentioned tweaks that you quoted from my threads are "far away" land, tweaks which would be nice to add but cannot be added now due to EU constraints. Weapon balancing, car balancing and mission balancing can all be tackled however.

You can always start by adjusting F2P guns, the thing everyone has access to and 3/4 of the mentioned "+100 unique weapons" , or I should say, reskins are based upon. 

I do appreciate the time and effort all of you put in testing, not trying to devalue it in any way. I just question the decision making sometimes... There does not seem to be a agreement between you on what a game is and what it should be... Or rather there is, but that path seems to steer away from what a competitive game is supposed to be... This is when comparing APB to proven, competitive titles come into play and where I come in, suggest things and you can talk about it inside your testing circle.

 

1 hour ago, glaciers said:

if it works at the top it works all the way down

 

theres really only one gun intended to be an entry level weapon for new players and its already in the "not even close" situation youve described - holding back better balance to preserve the performance of the "new player gun" instead of just changing which gun new players receive is backwards logic

^ this man gets it, kudos to u

Edited September 16, 2021 by yourrandomnobody74

[AlienTM 138]

Another suggestion lol but probably not easy to build.Option to challenge to a match player/group of ur same threat.There must be list of the current players/groups in the district with info about their threat,ongoin status(if they are in mission or not)if they are solo or in group.So if ur lets say silver player and u want to challenge another silver whos not in mission(same for groups)u must be able to do that

[FakeBungo 248]

9 hours ago, Frosi said:

Meanwhile SPCT has housed some of the best and most experienced players in the game

lol such as?

[vsb 6171]

19 hours ago, Y2Venom said:

Are you really quoting the trickle down effect. Its very apt in this conversation. The 2 % making all the decision and everybody else can feed off the scraps.

its not the trickle down effect, didn't realize i was quoting something else

 

there aren't any scraps with "top down balancing" otherwise it wouldn't be balancing in the first place

[MonkaS 215]

16 hours ago, FakeBungo said:

lol such as?

me but that was before it was cool

Edited September 17, 2021 by MonkaS
quit though since they required people to use ventrillo which was just inferior to teamspeak

[Truehin 8]

Words, words...

 

How you can see no one SHOWED how to play now. We ourselves know the theory.

This means that those who develop and maintain the game DO NOT play it (Can you show me how you stand up to golds?). But why then do you dare to make such changes?

By the way I'm tired of playing 1v1, 2v2 against golds ofc (CANNOT CALL FOR BACKUP (sic!)) as if the game is all gone mad. Previously, there were constantly 4v4, 6v6 missions, which is much better.

 

How we figured out this innovation is dishonest, so I not being a developer have to stand AFK against these esportsmen.

I urge others to do the same. Awful answer to a terrible question.

 

Little Orbit, I played this game long before you bought it out. You are doing very badly.

If you turn off threat levels for districts, you need to ensure BALANCE in missions So that at least the players with a high level of threat don't play against low-threat players.

 

By your actions Little Orbit, we can say that you want all players with a threat level of silver and below to leave the game. Then tell uw about it directly.

[JiMMY13 19]

IMO, the game at gold level is not fun, so my rule is always to play in bronze or leave.

 

Still works.

 

In-game VOIP also added a lot to the game, IMO, which set it apart from many others.

Edited September 19, 2021 by JiMMY13

[RespectThis 121]

On 9/16/2021 at 10:05 AM, Frosi said:

There need to be weapons balanced around new players, average players and the best of the best, balancing around just one will leave the game frustrating for the rest and on top of that a lot of top players think very one dimensional with the goal of turning APB into some sort of competitive game, no bloom, laser beam guns and supposedly "high skill" requirement. In a world in which the game was balanced around top level players guns that are aimed to be entry level guns for newer players will not even get close to be able into whatever the 'top players' decided should be the meta.

The game really doesn't need to be balanced around everyone. In doing so will only lead to awful balancing (like the current state of the game). Balancing around the higher end players is a better approach as these are the players who are investing the most time into the game. They have the hours, knowledge, and dedication to give constructive feedback on weapon balancing. Not silver sniper Jimmy who logs 30mins every other day teetering between bronze and silver. Not talking about Jimmy above me. They just happen to be named Jimmy .  In regards to APB being a competitive game it very much is as is the nature of any PvP game.

 

The game was in a better state years ago when the meta was defined by all players as the Ntec, Oca/Pmg, and Hvr (the Holy Trinity). Top tier players just re-enforced the meta due to their proficiency with them. In having this defined meta it allowed new players to see these meta defined weapons and decide if they wanted to play with them (all of which are f2p weapons) or go with something in-between like the Obeya (another gun that shouldn't be getting nerfed....). Finally you claim weapons that are aimed to be noob friendly won't be able to compete with the decided meta. Considering the Star is actually a solid weapon (jack of all trades master of none) that could very much compete with the once Holy Trinity weapons. I'm really not sure where you're getting this idea from.

Quote

 

Meanwhile SPCT has housed some of the best and most experienced players in the game that all have their fair share of ideas amongst other things.

Honestly can't say I've seen many if any SPCT member excel or be "the best". Only one member comes to mind immediately. Maybe the SPCT have a good personality but that would be all I could really say about them. Even then most of the ones who talk about ideas for the game tend to have questionable ideas.

Edited September 19, 2021 by RespectThis

[Revoluzzer 274]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:30 PM, FakeBungo said:

you are exactly right. the game needs to encourage more 3v3, 4v4, 5v5, 6v6, 7v7, 8v8. occasional 9v9, 10v10, and very rarely anything larger. of course there should be the odd uneven match-up too. like 5 silvers vs 3 golds. or 5 bronzes vs 3 silvers.

and there definitely needs to be something to encourage larger fights if the enemy is in a pre-made group. because 4 randoms vs 4 organised is an obvious loss. it should automatically increase the match size to atleast 5v5, 6v6 or greater if its putting randoms against an actual group or several smaller groups.

The game shouldn't allow anything but 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 and their uneven variants (e.g. 2v3).

Mission design is built around those numbers. Anything bigger and the defending team will gain a major advantage (unless the attacking team outclasses them by far).

A pre-made group will always win against a random team, unless the latter is far better at the game. A pre-made group will therefore also routinely end up in a higher threat bracket, which ideally results in them fighting other pre-mades rather than randoms. Of course, this will only work when people can't game the system so much.

 

On 9/15/2021 at 11:50 AM, TzickyT said:

what about putting mmr on 0 and restart from bottom again?

Has been done in the past, doesn't work.

You'd have the current situation, but everyone's threat would wildly fluctuate for a while, before settling down back to where it currently is.

 

The problem isn't how threat is caluclated, the problem is how players try to game the system.

If you want to tackle that issue, you need to take away their ability to do so, for example by removing manual district selection.

 

On 9/16/2021 at 4:05 PM, Frosi said:

There need to be weapons balanced around new players, average players and the best of the best, balancing around just one will leave the game frustrating for the rest and on top of that a lot of top players think very one dimensional with the goal of turning APB into some sort of competitive game, no bloom, laser beam guns and supposedly "high skill" requirement. In a world in which the game was balanced around top level players guns that are aimed to be entry level guns for newer players will not even get close to be able into whatever the 'top players' decided should be the meta.

There need to be weapons which are easy to use, but not very powerful (low skill floor, low skill ceiling), weapons which require some understanding of game mechanics and can deliver a punch (low skill floor, high skill ceiling) and weapons which require fundamental skills at the game and can turn the tides of a mission (high skill floor, high skill ceiling).

 

But ALL of these weapons need to be balanced against each other, otherwise you end up with some garbage nobody needs after a few hours and the hot stuff everyone uses once they got comfortable with the game.

 

APB had a good foundation with their original gun setup, but lacked some variety. The introduction of recoil allowed for more variety and made guns not only look and sound, but also feel different. The (poor) implementation of alternative models for guns added some visual variety, without the necessity to disrupt gun balance too much (which they did anyway, tough luck).

 

Here's what I find a good example: The ALIG, when first introduced, allowed players to rapidly shred vehicles to bits, which could heavily influence the way a mission would play out. It was still very good at fighting human targets, provided the user had good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of his weapon and kept within the ALIG's comfort zone.

A more novice player would lack the fundamentals of how to fight human targets and only use the ALIG's strength of destroying cars.

Another more experienced player would also understand how to counter an ALIG user outside of his comfort zone, by picking an appropriate weapon and an appropriate path of attack. (Normally half the population used the N-Tec anyway and thus had a perfectly capable counter-weapon already at hand, even within the ALIG's comfort zone. In a more balanced situation assault rifles would've been viable, but CQC weapons would've been far more capable.)

[KillerHippie 3]

On 9/14/2021 at 11:54 AM, Frosi said:

While I can understand the frustration, it is not like this change is only for the worse. Yes, there will be awful matchmaking moments but I wouldn't say its nearly as bad as some people are trying to make it out to be, yes you will sometimes face incredibly talented players but at the same time you can also have those players on your team, sometimes it'll be one-sided in your favor and sometimes in the enemies, its not perfect by any means but its far from unplayable and more often than not you will still play against the same players you would've faced on silver districts, just because they're gold, doesn't mean they're good.

 

On top of that, no threat segregation also means there are 3 to 4 districts to play on at peak times, if one district is stacked with good players, you can now opt into a different district instead to avoid situations in which you feel like you are outclassed more often than not, this also means that there is usually two Financials and one Waterfront districts which allows players to freely level their characters without feeling stuck because people refuse to play Waterfront, this for example is one of the few reasons I've been playing as of late, since it lets me level some of my other characters without having to constantly check https://will.io/apb/ in hopes that a Waterfront district is populated.

 

Jericho has also seen a decent increase in player numbers (although still fairly low) which means that the change is doing what it was intended to do, while it causes some minor issues on Citadel, those issues have workarounds that work at just about any time of day other than the early mornings.

 

In the end, I feel like a lot of people have had their mentality crushed by this change, a lot of players assume every gold they see is one of those golds that wouldn't be the ones they would've seen on Bronze districts and must therefore be gods at the game, this is wrong and almost every single Gold I've gotten as random team mates would've been better suited as a Silver player if Threat was better at judging player skill instead of arbitrary inflation to their MMR by doing objectives or collecting all sorts of passive Score gains which are no indication of player skill let alone how well they're doing.

Thank you, that made me laugh so hard I almost peed myself.

So is "talented" what the cool kids are calling botters and cheats now days? But you are right, there is a 70/40 chance you will also get a "Talented" player on your team also.

 

and yes I said 70/40 on purpose. if you do not get the reference, you do not play enough other games. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by KillerHippie

[Nijavid 44]

On 9/14/2021 at 5:03 PM, Truehin said:

I would add that this is a terrible idea. Golds are the only ones to whom it played into the hands

Even golds don't benefit from this Decision Because of the quality of matches we playing are so poor 

It's just not fun playing against someone who just started the game or a really lower skill level 

[Tenginima 74]

On 9/14/2021 at 7:54 PM, Frosi said:

While I can understand the frustration, it is not like this change is only for the worse. Yes, there will be awful matchmaking moments but I wouldn't say its nearly as bad as some people are trying to make it out to be, yes you will sometimes face incredibly talented players but at the same time you can also have those players on your team, sometimes it'll be one-sided in your favor and sometimes in the enemies, its not perfect by any means but its far from unplayable and more often than not you will still play against the same players you would've faced on silver districts, just because they're gold, doesn't mean they're good.

 

On top of that, no threat segregation also means there are 3 to 4 districts to play on at peak times, if one district is stacked with good players, you can now opt into a different district instead to avoid situations in which you feel like you are outclassed more often than not, this also means that there is usually two Financials and one Waterfront districts which allows players to freely level their characters without feeling stuck because people refuse to play Waterfront, this for example is one of the few reasons I've been playing as of late, since it lets me level some of my other characters without having to constantly check https://will.io/apb/ in hopes that a Waterfront district is populated.

 

Jericho has also seen a decent increase in player numbers (although still fairly low) which means that the change is doing what it was intended to do, while it causes some minor issues on Citadel, those issues have workarounds that work at just about any time of day other than the early mornings.

 

In the end, I feel like a lot of people have had their mentality crushed by this change, a lot of players assume every gold they see is one of those golds that wouldn't be the ones they would've seen on Bronze districts and must therefore be gods at the game, this is wrong and almost every single Gold I've gotten as random team mates would've been better suited as a Silver player if Threat was better at judging player skill instead of arbitrary inflation to their MMR by doing objectives or collecting all sorts of passive Score gains which are no indication of player skill let alone how well they're doing.

Ofc Frosi of all people lowkey supports this decision, just so that he can go up against people he can actually fight. 

Matches are hilariously boring now, it's so bad I just have my brain turned off half of the time and the other half when you actually fight decent players im ethier to high or bored to give a shit anymore.

And fyi why are LO even listening to your balancing suggestions, even all the apes left in this game with half a brain realises that the shit you spout is some serious asscrack shit. It's people like you that make these insane counterintuitive nerfs and balance changes that only bog down the meta into the most boring shit i've seen in for ever. 

[Lolita_reloaded 2]

Small player base. That's the fundamental problem for every MMO when it comes to matchmaking issues.

 

End of story for APB:R since early 2010s.

 

Note: It's Lolita from long time ago if anyone still remember me. Lost access to old email address XD

[AlienTM 138]

6 hours ago, Lolita_reloaded said:

Small player base. That's the fundamental problem for every MMO when it comes to matchmaking issues.

 

End of story for APB:R since early 2010s.

Not really.In open beta(spring 2011)the game had more than 12k players.Even with 3-4k players matchmaking in apb can be made.G1 didnt made it after they failed with lockin golds to gold dist. back in 2013-2015 was somewhere there.The game still had thousands of players back there.They had to lock all players to their threat districts and create another mixed threat dist. for everybody to join and this was only one of the options

Now the game have 300 players-not much u can do..

[Cuve 244]

On 9/14/2021 at 4:03 PM, Truehin said:

Golds are the only ones to whom it played into the hands.

Do you have any idea how boring it is to play against bronzes and silvers? It's not like we're having fun all the time lmao.

[Hexerin 1140]

12 hours ago, Cuve said:

Do you have any idea how boring it is to play against bronzes and silvers? It's not like we're having fun all the time lmao.

Then why weren't any of you playing in the gold district during segregation? There's more than enough of us to fully populate the district during most hours of the day.

 

Actions speak louder than words.

[Cuve 244]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

Then why weren't any of you playing in the gold district during segregation? There's more than enough of us to fully populate the district during most hours of the day.

 

Actions speak louder than words.

My guy... I played & quit in the days that everything was fully populated and came back to a dead game.
Most of the people that play the game right now (till a few years back) really didn't have a choice of going in to the gold districts.
Silvers had fully migrated in to bronze and golds had fully migrated in to silver district, who was to blame first?!

If the game had a decent population I'm sure people would go back in to gold districts (which is never happening ever again but still).
There are not enough bronzes, silvers and golds to fill up all the appropriate districts and be able to actually play non stop in prime time.
Removing the threat segregation really was the only way LO could make it so people could play any time at cost of the total population.
If you have a problem with it, just quit the game it's as simple as that.

The devs are destroying your beloved game if u like it or not, deal with whatever you have to play against or don't play at all, simple as.
You could also look at it from a different standpoint, playing against better people will actually improve your own gameplay
 

[Nagletz 215]

1 hour ago, Hexerin said:

Then why weren't any of you playing in the gold district during segregation? There's more than enough of us to fully populate the district during most hours of the day.

 

Actions speak louder than words.

Because they were allowed to. Golds could just join silver district and start snapping silvers playing there. The problem is, that every gold been following that trend at this point, so this whole thing doesn’t make its sense now. Same with the bronze. Segregation is not useless, it at least somehow protected people from balance issues apb has. That’s why it should be brought back, with strict threats restrictions like Gold - Gold threat and so on.

[Lolita_reloaded 2]

On 10/10/2021 at 4:38 PM, AlienTM said:

Not really.In open beta(spring 2011)the game had more than 12k players.Even with 3-4k players matchmaking in apb can be made.G1 didnt made it after they failed with lockin golds to gold dist. back in 2013-2015 was somewhere there.The game still had thousands of players back there.They had to lock all players to their threat districts and create another mixed threat dist. for everybody to join and this was only one of the options

It really depends on your definition of a "small playerbase" here. I mean, the matchmaking mechanism can also be a problem even for the big names in the industry (LoL, the Clash of Clan series, to name a few here) that have more than 1 mil active playerbase currently. It's no wonder this problem has been the pain in the patootie for APB:R.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 4:38 PM, AlienTM said:

Now the game have 300 players-not much u can do..

It is indeed tragic to see such a game that is full of potential to be fallen like that over the years.

Since the joining of this forum in 2012, we can see the same set of problems have been looped over and over again (Hackusation, playerbase toxicity, threat settings, engine upgrade, unbalancing weapon settings, anti-cheating system, G1 unresponsive attitude...)

People come and go, and yet San Paro stays pretty much the same...

[FartyBumBumGuff 107]

Wullaballoo everyone. I'm perma bronze, I play at my friends house on his old computer, on bad wifi, I'm often dead before I can even target the enemy. When I started the game in the segregated days I couldn't level up at all doing missions, couldn't get near any objectives or kill anyone at all due to all the car surfers with heavy weapons so levelled up purely by looting, I now have a garage full of cars and a few million cash. Golds still slaughter me, I may only get 1 kill a a match. Still having fun though it can get a bit depressing if there's a team full of super golds, I may run one over if I'm lucky, if I have a good team then assists help level me up and sometimes there's bronze or silver enemies who actually die when I shoot them. Gained 2 levels on my contact last night. I really need a better secondary weapon, I shot a player with my semi auto pistol like 3 times, three bullets a time as he was going up a ladder, then another 3 times as he jumped down, turned around and killed me instantly.

[Haganu 104]

Almost 10 years later and a population of a single player game and people still post ridiculous ideas to solve the issues involving threat distribution.

Amazing.

 

At least Revoluzzer is still there though!

Edited October 11, 2021 by Haganu