Engine Upgrade

[Berkshire 38]

Wouldn’t it make sense for the engine upgrade to be released now and bugs/performance issues be improved with patches and updates, unless the current upgrade is game breaking. 

[CookiePuss 5378]

22 minutes ago, Zombication said:

Wouldn’t it make sense for the engine upgrade to be released now and bugs/performance issues be improved with patches and updates, unless the current upgrade is game breaking. 

afaik we are a long way from the engine being playable at all

 

[Berkshire 38]

1 minute ago, CookiePuss said:

afaik we are a long way from the engine being playable at all

 

If that’s true then this games on its last legs, I got little no hope at all. I reckon 2022 is the last year for APB:R. 

[GhosT 1301]

4 hours ago, Zombication said:

If that’s true then this games on its last legs, I got little no hope at all. I reckon 2022 is the last year for APB:R. 

 

People have been saying that for years now. Yet the game still remains playable due to its extreme potential.

 

Yeah, APB really is on its last legs now with the pop being critically low, but there's still a marketing campaign planned for it and some streamers will come back (including summit).

And that will only work if the engine is ready and won't cause much of an issue. Releasing it now would be a deathwish.

 

There's only one chance to revive the game, and LO wants to use that to its full potential. You can't market it with a heavily unfinished engine and bring back players who will then quit shortly after because it's far from playable. And you can't launch a second marketing campaign after such a disaster.

[AlienTM 138]

This company is dead.Not gonna make sht.They did 0 to the game in 2021.This new 2.2 version of the engine was in work from last spring and even social is far from finished.Which means that nobodys workin on the game and this company is broke and with debts(probably)Thats why for me at least - is pointless to keep hopin something to happen.I think they had good intentions but last couple of years fkd em up badly so best thing rigt now is to sell the game to another company.Otherwise is going nowhere

Edited January 12, 2022 by AlienTM

[Noob_Guardian 417]

34 minutes ago, AlienTM said:

This company is dead.Not gonna make sht.They did 0 to the game in 2021.This new 2.2 version of the engine was in work from last spring and even social is far from finished.Which means that nobodys workin on the game and this company is broke and with debts(probably)Thats why for me at least - is pointless to keep hopin something to happen.I think they had good intentions but last couple of years fkd em up badly so best thing rigt now is to sell the game to another company.Otherwise is going nowhere

"THEY DID NOTHING TO THE GAME"

 

yet the only way to easily add new content or do literally "anything" other than add weapons or change em, is to get the engine upgrade done. It's almost like every plan to update the game is hinged soley on the engine.

[GhosT 1301]

1 hour ago, Noob_Guardian said:

"THEY DID NOTHING TO THE GAME"

 

yet the only way to easily add new content or do literally "anything" other than add weapons or change em, is to get the engine upgrade done. It's almost like every plan to update the game is hinged soley on the engine.

 

I mean, it makes it way easier, but it's still possible to add tons of new stuff on the current engine.

It's just that LO is pretty much the fourth company working on this game, which adds a LOT of issues development wise. So they absolutely have to do it.

[PLAYLUXE 54]

If you're moving to a new house, are you gonna buy new furniture before or after moving?

 

It makes absolute sense to not add new content to the current engine. The more they add now, the longer the upgrade will take because they'd have to move more content to the new one.

Since Reloaded Games did basically nothing, Little Orbit had to start from the beginning when they took over in 2018. So count at least 5-7+ years up from 2018 since Covid pandemic slowed down everything the last 2 years. And still will be slowing down progress for at least additional 2 years.

[LilyRain 674]

2 hours ago, PLAYLUXE said:

If you're moving to a new house, are you gonna buy new furniture before or after moving?

 

It makes absolute sense to not add new content to the current engine. The more they add now, the longer the upgrade will take because they'd have to move more content to the new one.

Since Reloaded Games did basically nothing, Little Orbit had to start from the beginning when they took over in 2018. So count at least 5-7+ years up from 2018 since Covid pandemic slowed down everything the last 2 years. And still will be slowing down progress for at least additional 2 years.

That is absolutely true. However, LO is simply delaying EVERYTHING, even things that don't need to be, such as improving the game's balance for both current and potential new players by the time the engine is actually out. 

 

Whether on the current or new engine, stats are stats. Unlike some vehicle shenanigans (embrace the new Vegas physics), A STAR will kill in 6 shots under its drop off range and so on. There is no better time than now to at least come up with a plan for execution rather than start making one after the engine and new players flood in. There is no way LO would balance the game, improve new player experience, get a better tutorial out, etc before the new players realize the game is incomplete from the first week (realistically from the first day or two).

[MeanBetsy 24]

50 minutes ago, LilyRain said:

That is absolutely true. However, LO is simply delaying EVERYTHING, even things that don't need to be, such as improving the game's balance for both current and potential new players by the time the engine is actually out. 

 

Whether on the current or new engine, stats are stats. Unlike some vehicle shenanigans (embrace the new Vegas physics), A STAR will kill in 6 shots under its drop off range and so on. There is no better time than now to at least come up with a plan for execution rather than start making one after the engine and new players flood in. There is no way LO would balance the game, improve new player experience, get a better tutorial out, etc before the new players realize the game is incomplete from the first week (realistically from the first day or two).

To LO's credit, every time they've tried to even tap the concept of balance in this game at all the community just starts attacking them and demanding that they revert their precious mods/ntec. The bad part about this game and balance is that people paid for weapons (when they used to be exclusive to the Armas Marketplace) - so it's not even like the community is in the wrong when they get mad at their weapon getting nerfed. This was the hole that G1 dug themselves; when a player pays for something, they expect it to just work and be the same way since you bought it. This is how any purchase you make should be. It's a double edged sword whenever they nerf/buff any weapon whatsoever. I still remember the backlash that G1 got for touching the shotgun spread.

[LilyRain 674]

Just now, MeanBetsy said:

To LO's credit, every time they've tried to even tap the concept of balance in this game at all the community just starts attacking them and demanding that they revert their precious mods/ntec. The bad part about this game and balance is that people paid for weapons (when they used to be exclusive to the Armas Marketplace) - so it's not even like the community is in the wrong when they get mad at their weapon getting nerfed. This was the hole that G1 dug themselves; when a player pays for something, they expect it to just work and be the same way since you bought it. This is how any purchase you make should be. It's a double edged sword whenever they nerf/buff any weapon whatsoever. I still remember the backlash that G1 got for touching the shotgun spread.

The community wasn't in the wrong. A lot of changes weren't even close to being well thought out, completely out of place and others didn't even need to happen (e.g buffing OCA to oblivion and not a buff across the board, x2 heal Med Spray that lasted for over a year).

 

When it comes to the community getting mad that their weapon got nerfed, we have a great example to look at. RFP and RFP-Fang. The weapon is beyond "nerfed", it is completely destroyed. Who's talking about RFP these days, really? It was long forgotten and most others would've been not forgotten but praised that they are a part of a decent balance state.

 

A successful company should be able to tell what is reasonable and what isn't and the history of balance changes under LO's reign (discounting the Vehicle balancing because that one was actually good), doesn't really show much improvement. The good part about LO is that it is willing to revert bad changes, so once some do indeed happen, there is nothing wrong to demand going back to the previous state. It is actually the right thing to do.

[MeanBetsy 24]

5 minutes ago, LilyRain said:

The community wasn't in the wrong. A lot of changes weren't even close to being well thought out, completely out of place and others didn't even need to happen (e.g buffing OCA to oblivion and not a buff across the board, x2 heal Med Spray that lasted for over a year).

 

When it comes to the community getting mad that their weapon got nerfed, we have a great example to look at. RFP and RFP-Fang. The weapon is beyond "nerfed", it is completely destroyed. Who's talking about RFP these days, really? It was long forgotten and most others would've been not forgotten but praised that they are a part of a decent balance state.

 

A successful company should be able to tell what is reasonable and what isn't and the history of balance changes under LO's reign (discounting the Vehicle balancing because that one was actually good), doesn't really show much improvement. The good part about LO is that it is willing to revert bad changes, so once some do indeed happen, there is nothing wrong to demand going back to the previous state. It is actually the right thing to do.

I didn't say the community was in the wrong, I specified that. I do agree, a LOT of those changes missed the mark - but I see why it's hard for LO to really come up with a balance that will make people happy. It's not like they have the same liberties that game devs have when they're developing a game (pre-retail). They can't vault weapons (because of the paid weapon issue from earlier) and they can't modify modded weapons or else people's paid for weapons will stop working as intended. About the RFP, I haven't played the game lately enough to know about that situation - but I'll take your word on that. In order for this game to even become viable, the complete business model needs to change concerning weapons - which may have to involve refunding upset customers about their fav premium weapon being nerfed.

This is why their balance attempts are less than stellar - a successful company would realize this also, and avoid attaching weapons to real life money at all costs unless you're a looter shooter.

[LilyRain 674]

33 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

but I see why it's hard for LO to really come up with a balance that will make people happy. It's not like they have the same liberties that game devs have when they're developing a game (pre-retail). They can't vault weapons (because of the paid weapon issue from earlier) and they can't modify modded weapons or else people's paid for weapons will stop working as intended.

Except vaulting or developing aren't even needed to take another, more reasonable initiative towards balancing some numbers or fixing things. Of course they have the liberty to vault things, they own the game and they DID vault some things. They did vault the blue vehicle mod "Mobile Radar Tower" as well as most of the Heat System (Prestige5/Notoriety5) in order to fix the former and make the latter better. Instead, those two were simply dumped and forgotten. Considering how RFP got the same treatment, HVR's damage now scales proportionally with the crosshair size (silliest band-aid fix ever, because simply changing its damage output would've been better). Vaulting other weapons are likely to end up the same or also taking over a year (like Med Spray did).

 

33 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

About the RFP, I haven't played the game lately enough to know about that situation - but I'll take your word on that.

To clarify, RFP now requires 1.5 seconds at BEST to kill up to a mere 41 meters for what it sets out to do. Can it occasionally get a kill or an assist in the middle of a chaotic fight? Yes. But speaking of vaulting, LO might've as well vaulted it because right now it has no reason to even exist. Any mediocre performance would've temporarily sufficed (e.g 1.2-1.3s). Better even they should've just removed Improved Rifling 3 from RFP-Fang and gave it some 'Fang' tagger or even Improved Rifling 1 to keep it consistent with most preset secondaries (because IR3 is the root of the problem).

 

33 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

In order for this game to even become viable, the complete business model needs to change concerning weapons - which may have to involve refunding upset customers about their fav premium weapon being nerfed.

This is why their balance attempts are less than stellar - a successful company would realize this also, and avoid attaching weapons to real life money at all costs unless you're a looter shooter.

No, per EULA, no one is entitled to a refund no matter what. Players 'agreed' to this but most have played and paid without reading the EULA. Plus, they got their money's worth of it by now anyways.

 

I agree when it comes to not attaching weapons to real life money, if anything payments should only be made towards cosmetic items for the best results. But their balance attempts are less than stellar not because of any of that but because they are holding on to previous beliefs that shouldn't be held on. APB is a shooter so they should make it a shooter. Instead, they are trying to make it a super-silly arcadey chess board (yes, they made epinephrine consumable ridiculous also. 150% speed boost for a cheap 25% health cost) where every weapon must be a distinct chess-piece on the 2nd row. This never succeeded and certainly won't after the game re-advertises with the new engine. Literally not many outside the current community would ever find this appealing but I hope LO's luck shines and proves me wrong.

Edited January 13, 2022 by LilyRain

[MonkaS 215]

Its not coming out until the performance is equal to or better than live which is going to take a while since g1's bright idea was to crudely port everything to unreal engine 3.5 and just "fix" any conflicting/broken code which was a bad idea(see console[missing features and bad performance] or the previous engine upgrade beta) since apb had huge sections of custom code. Now LO according to matt brought in an expert to go through step by step and actually properly fix things which will take a while you might see something later this year if LO doesn't default on any payments and any investors they have don't pull out. 

[MeanBetsy 24]

55 minutes ago, LilyRain said:

Except vaulting or developing aren't even needed to take another, more reasonable initiative towards balancing some numbers or fixing things. Of course they have the liberty to vault things, they own the game and they DID vault some things. They did vault the blue vehicle mod "Mobile Radar Tower" as well as most of the Heat System (Prestige5/Notoriety5) in order to fix the former and make the latter better. Instead, those two were simply dumped and forgotten. Considering how RFP got the same treatment, HVR's damage now scales proportionally with the crosshair size (silliest band-aid fix ever, because simply changing its damage output would've been better). Vaulting other weapons are likely to end up the same or also taking over a year (like Med Spray did).

 

To clarify, RFP now requires 1.5 seconds at BEST to kill up to a mere 41 meters for what it sets out to do. Can it occasionally get a kill or an assist in the middle of a chaotic fight? Yes. But speaking of vaulting, LO might've as well vaulted it because right now it has no reason to even exist. Any mediocre performance would've temporarily sufficed (e.g 1.2-1.3s). Better even they should've just removed Improved Rifling 3 from RFP-Fang and gave it some 'Fang' tagger or even Improved Rifling 1 to keep it consistent with most preset secondaries (because IR3 is the root of the problem).

 

No, per EULA, no one is entitled to a refund no matter what. Players 'agreed' to this but most have played and paid without reading the EULA. Plus, they got their money's worth of it by now anyways.

 

I agree when it comes to not attaching weapons to real life money, if anything payments should only be made towards cosmetic items for the best results. But their balance attempts are less than stellar not because of any of that but because they are holding on to previous beliefs that shouldn't be held on. APB is a shooter so they should make it a shooter. Instead, they are trying to make it a super-silly arcadey chess board (yes, they made epinephrine consumable ridiculous also. 150% speed boost for a cheap 25% health cost) where every weapon must be a distinct chess-piece on the 2nd row. This never succeeded and certainly won't after the game re-advertises with the new engine. Literally not many outside the current community would ever find this appealing but I hope LO's luck shines and proves me wrong.

I never said they had to vault weapons, but it would definitely benefit them to have total creative control over the project. Mobile Radar Tower was not a paid mod and the Heat System was not paid content either. I am strictly talking about purchased items from the Armas causing LO a lot of grief when it comes to even attempting to balance the poophole that is APB. Go to a lot of the updates regarding any update to do with weapon changes when LO first got in - most people who were complaining were talking about the weapon they had purchased in the past now suddenly becoming bad.

 

I know what the EULA says, which all EULA's say that. I am not saying LO will or would, but it would definitely help populate the player base and force them into being more open-minded to a new type of business model. And it's not like they couldn't change it anyway (they changed a couple of EULA when they kicked G1 out). 

 

Shooters are, especially nowadays, and always have been arcade-y chessboards. Even down to Halo: CE, your weapon choice mattered very much depending on distance and your ability to aim. Those two factors are like that of chess pawns. In fact, most well-thought out games play a lot like analog games. And Halo still does this to this very day because it is very viable and generates healthy player competition - and a successful product. Trust me, the game is not balanced in its current state and should definitely play more like a chessboard when it comes to weapon variables. A "shooter", as you put it, is what a single-player game is - not a competitive multiplayer game sadly

[explosiveUA 48]

18 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

afaik we are a long way from the engine being playable at all

 

afaik we are still far from the game that will be live

[AlienTM 138]

They aint gonna finish anything even if you give them 5 more years.They r broke..or if they r not-give us update whats going on right now...

p.s. new content can be the contacts already made by G1(the mma guy and the woman)which Matt said in one of the streams with Kemp that they r finished.This way they can bring more players(old and new)so people will have something to do.They can add other contacts later with the engine(which will never happen with LO thats clear as day)

Edited January 13, 2022 by AlienTM

[Hexerin 1140]

17 hours ago, Noob_Guardian said:

It's almost like every plan to update the game is hinged soley on the engine.

Which they aren't working on, so what's your point? The person you quoted is correct, nothing is being done with this game. It's in maintenance mode, which costs next to nothing to maintain. Considering the amount of money people still spend on this game to this day, Matt will be able to keep the game in maintenance mode probably indefinitely.

[LilyRain 674]

10 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

I never said they had to vault weapons, but it would definitely benefit them to have total creative control over the project.

What makes you think they don't? The C.E.O said it himself, while LO sold the IP to the Chinese, the selling deal involved retaining complete control over THIS game, APB. LO can do anything gameplay related to this game and they did, both the good and the irrational.

 

10 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

Mobile Radar Tower was not a paid mod and the Heat System was not paid content either.

This is a first-grade online games problem. 'If it doesn't bring money there is no need to fix it or even talk about it', hmm? This is the mentality of short-term thinkers, a.k.a failures.

 

They don't really have to be in order to receive fixes/improvements. If anything, if you think about it, there are players who religiously bought premium for the extra benefits such as more end-of-mission payout to skip grinding. Hence to them, indirectly, Mobile Radar Tower (amongst other things) were indeed paid for.

 

10 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

Go to a lot of the updates regarding any update to do with weapon changes when LO first got in - most people who were complaining were talking about the weapon they had purchased in the past now suddenly becoming bad.

"Most" here is an inaccurate exaggeration because the most talked about weapon was the N-TEC, which happens to be available for free.

 

Since you were absent for so long, such a thing wouldn't matter anyways because ARMAS weapons are now available for purchase with JTs from the Joker Store, which is one of the great things LO did to this game.

 

10 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

I know what the EULA says, which all EULA's say that. I am not saying LO will or would

NOW you do. Had you known previously, you wouldn't have said this:

 

 

But you always seem to say things that you don't really mean so it is whatever.

10 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

but it would definitely help populate the player base and force them into being more open-minded to a new type of business model. And it's not like they couldn't change it anyway (they changed a couple of EULA when they kicked G1 out). 

It isn't new at all. In fact the rational half of the player base (not the trolly side who suggests wrong things just to see the game fail, because that's what they like to see) was actually suggesting ARMAS to stop selling weapons completely to kill the existing and future stigmas it brings, as well as to kill Joker Boxes because lootboxes are also a scummy practice. The latter was forced to happen when some countries declared lootboxes in online games illegal, the former is yet to happen.

 

At the present moment and the near future, it won't help populate the game at all. The damage was already done. Those who thought the game is pay2win/pay4advantage because of it already left, dragged their friends with them and probably DDoSing the game just how they DDoSed Jericho to its death door.

 

This will only help the possible new breed of players once the game re-advertises after the engine is out. Problem is, such changes must happen promptly, not afterwards like LO's roadmap shows. As it stands, it is a recipe that guarantees losing a good portion of those yet to arrive players.

 

10 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

Shooters are, especially nowadays, and always have been arcade-y chessboards. Even down to Halo: CE, your weapon choice mattered very much depending on distance and your ability to aim. Those two factors are like that of chess pawns. In fact, most well-thought out games play a lot like analog games. And Halo still does this to this very day because it is very viable and generates healthy player competition - and a successful product. Trust me, the game is not balanced in its current state and should definitely play more like a chessboard when it comes to weapon variables. A "shooter", as you put it, is what a single-player game is - not a competitive multiplayer game sadly

Not even remotely accurate. Halo CE.. "distance and your ability to aim. Those two factors are like that of chess pawns"... do you even know what you are talking about?

 

For starters, the Halo franchise's balance was all over the place so it is a bad example to use to begin with, but we'll go with it. You got it backwards, btw. Halo CE was a faster game so no, weapon choice matters less in it:

 

 

On the other hand, on the disaster that is Halo Infinite with controller-aim-assist being an aimbot AND substantial time to kill, THAT game actually puts more weight to weapon choice. It isn't really hard to understand. APB is in a similar situation anyways (minus the controller aimbot).

 

When it comes to "competitive" games (e.g counter strike), each weapon is dangerous in its own right (even when considered sub-par), because they can still kill quite fast with further ability to headshot people. So they really aren't "chess" as you call them out to be. They are "competitive" because unlike APB, the dominant factors there are player speed and skill and hence, solo players can still wipe out an entire team in rapid succession. But in APB? Not even close. Good luck doing that in APB without camping some corner, abusing car gameplay or consumables against players that know what they are doing. You can start a fight with someone, have your teammate or theirs join a decade later to end the fight. Cohesion doesn't need to be good in APB to be effective because APB is by far a chess game in comparison. There wasn't much comparison anyways.

 

That game plays like a shooter, APB not so much and no, APB doesn't need to play more like a chessboard. The game is already at a point where a lot players wouldn't dare play solo and hence population counts being lower than they would've been for the current state. You are in fact on the side of some who suggested APB should have longer ttks. I won't trust you on your stance because evidently, strategically, factually, with APB's spacial design AND statistically, that will be the end of APB's gameplay.

Edited January 13, 2022 by LilyRain

[FartyBumBumGuff 107]

Good things come to those who wait, everything tastes better when cooked properly.

I keep getting destroyed by people with gold 3 upgrade N-Tecs I think it was, they can kill me in half the time it takes me to shoot them, even if I start shooting them in the back first, 90% of the time I die first. I've dropped back down to bronze now. I need a new gun, I've got about 2000JT left, I just don't have a clue which gun to choose from. I've been using an SMG, I prefer the other one though, the rate of fire on this one is shit, I can shoot quicker with the pistol.

[proxie 271]

Guys im working as fast as i can on getting engine playable, thats why i spend the last 4 months on vacation! You know how important my time off is for me! Just be patient and #BelieveEngine2022January.

 

And remember to use armas, these piña coladas dont pay for themselves!

[FartyBumBumGuff 107]

36 minutes ago, proxie said:

Guys im working as fast as i can on getting engine playable, thats why i spend the last 4 months on vacation! You know how important my time off is for me! Just be patient and #BelieveEngine2022January.

 

And remember to use armas, these piña coladas dont pay for themselves!

Don't burn yourself out, please take some more time off, I fear you are working yourself to death with only 4 months off in the whole year. Please make sure you drink plenty of water with those Peeny Cladas, we don't want a dehydration hangover to affect your productivity.

[MeanBetsy 24]

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

I won't trust you on your stance because evidently, strategically, factually, with APB's spacial design AND statistically, that will be the end of APB's gameplay.

I appreciate how much time you actually took to dissect what I said, I think discussions like this can be helpful even for the developers. But at the same time I don't think you were actually reading what I am saying.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

14 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

I never said they had to vault weapons, but it would definitely benefit them to have total creative control over the project.

What makes you think they don't? The C.E.O said it himself, while LO sold the IP to the Chinese, the selling deal involved retaining complete control over THIS game, APB. LO can do anything gameplay related to this game and they did, both the good and the irrational.

In the text that you quoted from me, I clearly never said they did or didn't vault weapons. I was just stating that it would be in their best interest to do so on a much more game-changing/overall balancing level - if that is even possible without much backlash.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

14 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

Mobile Radar Tower was not a paid mod and the Heat System was not paid content either.

This is a first-grade online games problem. 'If it doesn't bring money there is no need to fix it or even talk about it', hmm? This is the mentality of short-term thinkers, a.k.a failures.

 

They don't really have to be in order to receive fixes/improvements. If anything, if you think about it, there are players who religiously bought premium for the extra benefits such as more end-of-mission payout to skip grinding. Hence to them, indirectly, Mobile Radar Tower (amongst other things) were indeed paid for.

Again, I clearly never said they didn't need to fix it or not talk about it - it was just irrelevant to our conversation because I was specifically talking about the paid content getting vaulted. Saying that Mobile Radar Tower was indirectly paid for via premium is silly at best, you're reaching.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

15 hours ago, MeanBetsy said:

I know what the EULA says, which all EULA's say that. I am not saying LO will or would

NOW you do. Had you known previously, you wouldn't have said this:

 

 

But you always seem to say things that you don't really mean so it is whatever.

I always knew, that screenshot doesn't prove the point you're trying to make here. I still never said LO will or would, I said it may involve refunding upset customers - this doesn't insinuate at all whether LO would do that or not. In essence, this was my opinion on what it would take to be able to change the business model.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

For starters, the Halo franchise's balance was all over the place so it is a bad example to use to begin with, but we'll go with it. You got it backwards, btw. Halo CE was a faster game so no, weapon choice matters less in it:

Just because it didn't achieve balance up to the standards that most games today would be balanced by doesn't mean they didn't try. In Halo CE, you wouldn't use a shotgun against a sniper player at long distances, correct? You wouldn't use the pistol against a shotgun in CQC would you? It's a good example because there are rules that very much resemble that of chess. That's also why spawn points and map design generally follows the same rules across most shooter games - they almost always symmetrical in nature to ensure fairness.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

On the other hand, on the disaster that is Halo Infinite with controller-aim-assist being an aimbot AND substantial time to kill, THAT game actually puts more weight to weapon choice. It isn't really hard to understand. APB is in a similar situation anyways (minus the controller aimbot).

Here you're literally agreeing with me past the example of Halo CE lol

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

When it comes to "competitive" games (e.g counter strike), each weapon is dangerous in its own right (even when considered sub-par), because they can still kill quite fast with further ability to headshot people. So they really aren't "chess" as you call them out to be.

That's pretty chessy in nature to me. Each pawn is dangerous in their own right.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

They are "competitive" because unlike APB, the dominant factors there are player speed and skill and hence, solo players can still wipe out an entire team in rapid succession. But in APB? Not even close. Good luck doing that in APB without camping some corner, abusing car gameplay or consumables against players that know what they are doing. You can start a fight with someone, have your teammate or theirs join a decade later to end the fight. Cohesion doesn't need to be good in APB to be effective because APB is by far a chess game in comparison. There wasn't much comparison anyways.

I do agree, and have always agreed with that point: APB Is not competitive - hence why people are leaving. Hence why I said things need to be drastically changed, starting with the business model lol. There are definitely steps they can take to ensure that the player base doesn't leave to annoyingly unfair gameplay advantages and an unfun meta thats been the same for 11 years - but like I said, it'd be in their best interest to have more creative control with APB. The current business model prevents that.

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

You are in fact on the side of some who suggested APB should have longer ttks.

I literally never said that in this conversation lol

 

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

APB doesn't need to play more like a chessboard

Doesn't need to but it's dying? Struggling to reach 100 people in a whole server yet it doesn't need to be a more strategic game? I am pretty sure APB is already on its last leg, even if the engine upgrade comes unless something changes drastically.

[Noob_Guardian 417]

5 hours ago, LilyRain said:

That game plays like a shooter, APB not so much and no, APB doesn't need to play more like a chessboard. The game is already at a point where a lot players wouldn't dare play solo and hence population counts being lower than they would've been for the current state. You are in fact on the side of some who suggested APB should have longer ttks. I won't trust you on your stance because evidently, strategically, factually, with APB's spacial design AND statistically, that will be the end of APB's gameplay.

APB used to have a higher TTK somewhat in RTW, it wasn't much of an issue then. But I do agree atm it's a bad idea, to retouch all of the games balance. It had been tried at one point, but the "tests" to do so, felt more like G1 had intentionally blundered it by not stating weapons the same as RTW and by intentionally making other weapons terrible so they didn't have to do so.

22 hours ago, GhosT said:

 

I mean, it makes it way easier, but it's still possible to add tons of new stuff on the current engine.

It's just that LO is pretty much the fourth company working on this game, which adds a LOT of issues development wise. So they absolutely have to do it.

 

Everything they add, has to be ported over, everything they "change" has to be ported again.

 

I believe Matt at some point, stated they thought about doing certain changes/adding some things, but decided not to because it would mean re-porting it and the extra stuff ontop of it and making sure it "worked", instead of just adding it "after" the upgrade. Which would have meant doing 2x the work on what was being added.

 

I agree its possible, however, G1 and the other company before LO? Had even shown how much work it meant to add or change a simple map object. Showing why it was imperative to get the EU complete to do anything. (I believe that's also why they haven't done anything in terms of map balance since like 2014/5? In the mission districts like they had when it came to adding the tunnels in the buildings and extra cover, and removing some spots, they had to use like 2-3 programs instead of just "1" to make the changes or something along those lines, it's been a few years).

Edited January 13, 2022 by Noob_Guardian

[LilyRain 674]

58 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

I appreciate how much time you actually took to dissect what I said, I think discussions like this can be helpful even for the developers. But at the same time I don't think you were actually reading what I am saying.

I have, it is called discipline. You just didn't think things through, hence denying your own words & attempting to change your stances so rapidly as shown and explained down below.

 

58 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

In the text that you quoted from me, I clearly never said they did or didn't vault weapons. I was just stating that it would be in their best interest to do so on a much more game-changing/overall balancing level - if that is even possible without much backlash.

You say people don't read but you aren't reading yourself (most likely pretending)..

 

In response to that, I've already told you that they DID vault weapons in their own way through destroying them till they get fixed in the future, ultimately debunking your point. It wasn't really in their best interest nor it helped whatsoever. All it did was cause further concerns in LO's ability to actually balance the game. You call it backlash, smart people call it feedback. Learn the difference as the feedback LO received was in order.

 

Repeating it over and over won't make it any less false.

58 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

Again, I clearly never said they didn't need to fix it or not talk about it - it was just irrelevant to our conversation because I was specifically talking about the paid content getting vaulted. Saying that Mobile Radar Tower was indirectly paid for via premium is silly at best, you're reaching.

You just lost it.

 

It is perfectly relevant. It affects gameplay. If it didn't, it wouldn't have been vaulted.

 

58 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

II always knew, that screenshot doesn't prove the point you're trying to make here. I still never said LO will or would, I said it may involve refunding upset customers - this doesn't insinuate at all whether LO would do that or not. In essence, this was my opinion on what it would take to be able to change the business model.

It proves a lot, you weren't aware prior of the EULA hence saying what you said about possible compensations and you still continue to say it.

 

BY LAW, LO under no circumstance whatsoever, is liable or should provide monetary refunds in any shape or form. It doesn't matter if said players who paid for weapons agree/disagree with the changes, can deal with it or get upset enough to RIOT over their entire continent.

 

No legal liability from LO towards Players for monetary refunds, period. You said you've seen many EULAs, then you should know that EULAs really doesn't leave room for opinions and thus, yours. Going against that after supposedly agreeing to it upon entering the service is foolish on the fundamental level. Why would you do this to yourself? What did you gain telling everyone that you didn't read the EULA?

58 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

Just because it didn't achieve balance up to the standards that most games today would be balanced by doesn't mean they didn't try. In Halo CE, you wouldn't use a shotgun against a sniper player at long distances, correct? You wouldn't use the pistol against a shotgun in CQC would you? It's a good example because there are rules that very much resemble that of chess. That's also why spawn points and map design generally follows the same rules across most shooter games - they almost always symmetrical in nature to ensure fairness.

Too many mistakes were made, I'm afraid.

 

- Your opening sentence is wrong in essence. Attempts that failed aren't really a positive point. Quite the contrary. You may have sympathy but they are still failed attempts that had their effects on the game's population, profitability and playability.

- You proceed to imply that Halo CE was a failure when it really wasn't. The game was made from scratch and ended up being a decent accident that works better in comparison to other Halo games, gameplay wise that is.

- The most extreme examples aren't representative of something as a whole. Again, Halo CE puts more emphasis on player skill compared to weapon choice due to players dying faster on average. The chess-factor is less there in comparison. Just because it exists doesn't mean it is dominant.

- Fairness can't truly be "ensured" in unbalanced games. Map design will always favor a set of weapons over the rest, things don't really work like you say.

 

58 minutes ago, MeanBetsy said:

Here you're literally agreeing with me past the example of Halo CE lol

I didn't really agree with you.

 

I was affirming that you got the games mixed up. Halo CE is nothing like Halo Infinite when it comes to what someone can do with a controller's aim assist, which changed a lot of things. I was simply building up the stage to say that unlike Halo CE, Halo Infinite is closer to APB when it comes to "chess" like decisions due to obvious overall less demand from the Player.

 

You just can't follow.

 

1 hour ago, MeanBetsy said:

That's pretty chessy in nature to me. Each pawn is dangerous in their own right.

That's not how chess works and it proves you didn't understand the "chess" discussion at its core.

 

I made it perfectly clear that APB requires less cohesion due to how slightly too high time-to-kills are. Chess in this light means to check mate a player back to the spawn screen... Your reading comprehension is beyond concerning.

 

It also goes without question that some chess pawns aren't really dangerous alone. They aren't really much of a threat in few quantities as well against say the Castle, the Bishop and of course the Queen. Pretty much half of the chess pieces without a good plan and patience to make them useful, are half-garbage. This is why Chess strategies get developed in the first place.

 

1 hour ago, MeanBetsy said:

I do agree, and have always agreed with that point: APB Is not competitive - hence why people are leaving. Hence why I said things need to be drastically changed, starting with the business model lol. There are definitely steps they can take to ensure that the player base doesn't leave to annoyingly unfair gameplay advantages and an unfun meta thats been the same for 11 years - but like I said, it'd be in their best interest to have more creative control with APB. The current business model prevents that.

Again, you lie and change stances too much...

 

 

So should APB play more like an unfun MeanBetsy-Chess or more competitive? You advocated for both yet they are complete polar opposites? Which one are you for truly? Make your choice once and for all.

 

1 hour ago, MeanBetsy said:

I literally never said that in this conversation lol

You don't really have to say things directly. Welcome to the English language. Your stance and adjacent sentences that you throw around too much to cancel later did the talking for you.

 

Your understanding of chess-like play directly supports longer-ttks, because if player speed and skill were dominant, there wouldn't be much chess to begin with.

 

1 hour ago, MeanBetsy said:

Doesn't need to but it's dying? Struggling to reach 100 people in a whole server yet it doesn't need to be a more strategic game? I am pretty sure APB is already on its last leg, even if the engine upgrade comes unless something changes drastically.

APB is already at the bad-paramount of how strategic it can be. Again, I repeat... many Players wouldn't dare login to play solo because solo-gameplay is gimped to the maximum. Teamplay is as easy as one attack per decade. This is a strong reason as to why APB is not competitive enough to attract competitive-seeking players. A lot of decent APB players moved over to Valorant, APEX Legends, etc. 

 

While player counts dipped, APB isn't really "on its last leg". Even Jericho is populated enough to play missions. Can't really call a game dying if you can press k and play still.

 

But you want to make gameplay more loadout-based than performance just because 'player counts, we must do something'?  No, thank you. The things you ask for are self-contradictory, you don't really seem to understand the general direction of where things should be to achieve what some people call better "competitiveness".

 

26 minutes ago, Noob_Guardian said:

APB used to have a higher TTK somewhat in RTW, it wasn't much of an issue then. But I do agree atm it's a bad idea, to retouch all of the games balance. It had been tried at one point, but the "tests" to do so, felt more like G1 had intentionally blundered it by not stating weapons the same as RTW and by intentionally making other weapons terrible so they didn't have to do so.

I really hope so too. Indeed, G1 messed up quite a bit.

 

The biggest reason and obstacle to retouching all of the game's balance isn't the idea in itself but the belief and approach that they should only touch 1-2 weapons at a time. That belief still exists today, it was actually posted 2 days ago by an SPCT on LO's official Discord server:

 

 

While I do agree that playtesting to verify changes practically is important, it doesn't truly help in staying on an approach that was tried before and wasn't fruitful nor it really supports his claim of things not being addressed for a long time because of it. It isn't like those District A and B weapon tests were rapid enough to prevent that long time either. It would actually take longer, months upon months to visit every weapon in the game in this way and there would still be discrepancies/inconsistencies at the end of the first pass, because with this approach, those mini-changes also keep in view other weapons that were touched and to be touched.

 

With their reasonings and how they approach this mess, it just won't end in a reasonable time, especially when that is the plan according to LO's roadmap and that is to wait for the New Engine before attempting to make the balance better (amongst other qualities of life), which brings another great example, being that OCA buff and PMG nerf in order to swap their places in the meta when simply nerfing the PMG would've sufficed. Problem is they didn't really bother to make other weapons that are in desperate need of a buff faster either. Funny enough they actually nerfed LTL. They simply don't seem to be even trying.

 

At this stage, a healthier and rather unavoidable approach is to simply decide on a baseline (which SakeBee said they did establish one but didn't really show where it is in the current roster of weapons) then buff/nerf all weapons towards it by a certain percentage, because atm, a lot of weapons are their own distinct baselines when there shouldn't be this many. From there, tweaking weapons individually in smaller increments would finally become less of a wall, because then weapons wouldn't be so niche or with some ancient unchangeable identities that don't really allow for narrowing the gaps between weapons a bit further.