APB Roadmap 2023 (03/08)

[SkittyM 287]

3 minutes ago, Revoluzzer said:

Besides throwing more people into the pool (which is a good thing when it comes to matchmaking), it will also increase the difficulty of gaming the system. Dethreating and hiding in Bronze districts for easy matches won't work anymore. Of course the next logical step would and should be to remove visible threat altogether.

The catch about that though is that i don't believe threat segregation is coming back.  It was incredibly bad for the game; now the issue is just the skill variance.  Main issue with the current system though is that its easy to get gold as well as become gold locked, hard to lose gold without actually trying to dethreat.  Since the 1-10 levels are still there in the background you just see that you're gold, but not what level of gold are you or anyone else.

 

Already talked with Secrets however.  Sounds like they plan on doing more needed adjustments to matchmaking (group size, rating, etc) though my main issue will continue to be "being locked at gold".

[Revoluzzer 274]

7 minutes ago, SkittyM said:

Main issue with the current system though is that its easy to get gold as well as become gold locked, hard to lose gold without actually trying to dethreat.

If there truly is a mechanism/flaw which pushes players into Gold threat despite a lack of skill (which I have not seen any explanation for yet), then tweaking matchmaking won't solve it.

The only explanation I could see for it is this: New players will jump in, inflate the threat of slightly more experienced players, then give up if they can't get a foot in the door. In my opinion the threat system should already be self-healing, though.

If it isn't, then I assume it's because the inactive population is still taken into account when it shouldn't be. Only taking the active current population into account (say actively playing a mission within the last 30 days or so) should solve that particular issue. And with the elimination of threat-based districts, they wouldn't even need to adjust their threat-preference dynamically based on their population.

[Nickolai 206]

I like the upcoming changes but I feel you missed 2 important points.

Wrap Decal Saver - APB's main draw is customization. After all these years a proper system was never introduced to save and distribute "wraps" for cars. Since I cannot sell my ARMAS cars to other people, I should be able to design a wrap, save it and copy it just like a symbol and distribute it as I see fit. Designing clan vehicles now is an absolute headache.


Clan Overhaul - Another thing I did not see mentioned. Clan Overhaul. It is 10 Years Overdue. No Coffers/Clan Bank system, no way to upload clan clothes, vehicles and symbols, no benefit of being in a clan. 

At the moment people use the clan system to create edgy titles so they look cool while driving around.

[N66 97]

15 hours ago, SkittyM said:

 

Actually curious, what's wrong with the current vehicle balance the game has?  So far the only changes have been upping cargo space on some vehicles and undoing some of the bullet sponge mobiles.

 

The only problem right now is the Coywolf being the goat mobile.

 

12 hours ago, Connor said:

1 - How can you say the 4x4 Vegas is 'somewhat meh'? It is undeniably in the top 3 vehicles in overall strength for missions and I would personally put it ahead of the Pioneer in 2nd.

 

2 - They very clearly didn't say 'all vehicles need to be equal', just that there needs to be a rebalancing to bring some vehicles that have been left behind in terms of overall strength - e.g. Mikro, Vaquero - closer into line with the other more recent releases (e.g. Coywolf).

 

I thought this is a really positive change as vehicle variety is low in this game. 

 

My issue is the HP nerf of the vehicles, what I said about bullet sponges I mean about people, not vehicles, I think a vehicle being difficult to destroy using bullets, for 1 or 2 people, giving it a chance to run is a good balance in APB, that also is complimented by the fact that you can't shoot the driver through the window.

 

The old balance allowed cars like Vegas to take an osmaw hit and possibly give the driver time to exit if he's faster than his enemy, now with HB most vehicles (not even Pioneer? correct me if I'm wrong) won't take an osmaw anyway, that's also my beef and why I said Vegas is kinda meh because it's still a good choice, but it's plastic like a Bishada.

 

Not to mention AV guns, especially ALIG, now eat through vehicles like butter, the concept is great, but this is too much

 

Lastly, yes, Mikro and possibly Vaquero need a reasonable buff, maybe HP buff, I think that's the difference between our views, I'd like to see a buff to them, not a nerf to bring the other vehicles closer to their level

[BlatMan 711]

17 hours ago, SkittyM said:

 

Actually curious, what's wrong with the current vehicle balance the game has?  So far the only changes have been upping cargo space on some vehicles and undoing some of the bullet sponge mobiles.

 

The only problem right now is the Coywolf being the goat mobile.

They nerfed other vehicle's health which makes the Coywolf's lower HP less of a downside. However, the free Coywolf comes with the high burn mod which lowers it's health. If it was an open 4 slot like the 4x4 and other vehicles, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

They increased the cargo space, but they didn't adjust for the heavy item slowdown. The Micro is slower with a heavy item than the starter car. Buying a micro is a trade off, not an upgrade.

 

The high burn change made it useless on all free vehicles. I used to run it on the cheaper vehicles to give myself cover, or to do remote det jumps, but the health decrease is too much. You can't outrun an smg with some vehicles. Than again, smgs probably deal too much hard damage.

Edited March 10, 2023 by BlatMan

[Hexerin 1140]

4 hours ago, Revoluzzer said:

If there truly is a mechanism/flaw which pushes players into Gold threat despite a lack of skill (which I have not seen any explanation for yet)

Then you haven't been around for several years. Some years prior to the LO takeover, old G1/RG shifted the threat math so that most of the threat range would gravitate towards gold. This was done in the hopes that matchmaking would have an easier time getting matches put together (due to the hemorrhaging population).

 

They also massively lifted the matchmaker's restrictions, so that it would expand the search parameters at a much faster rate. This is why we see so often these days matches which are a team of full golds vs a team of mixed silver and bronze, with both sides have equal numbers (4 golds vs 4 silvers, 4 golds vs 2 silvers and 3 bronzes, etc).

 

It would be extremely easy for LO to revert these changes, and the matchmaking in the current game environment would MASSIVELY improve basically overnight. However, they very clearly don't actually care to make any changes that would help the playerbase in the short term.

[SkittyM 287]

5 hours ago, N66 said:

My issue is the HP nerf of the vehicles, what I said about bullet sponges I mean about people, not vehicles, I think a vehicle being difficult to destroy using bullets, for 1 or 2 people, giving it a chance to run is a good balance in APB, that also is complimented by the fact that you can't shoot the driver through the window.

 

The old balance allowed cars like Vegas to take an osmaw hit and possibly give the driver time to exit if he's faster than his enemy, now with HB most vehicles (not even Pioneer? correct me if I'm wrong) won't take an osmaw anyway, that's also my beef and why I said Vegas is kinda meh because it's still a good choice, but it's plastic like a Bishada.

 

Not to mention AV guns, especially ALIG, now eat through vehicles like butter, the concept is great, but this is too much

 

Lastly, yes, Mikro and possibly Vaquero need a reasonable buff, maybe HP buff, I think that's the difference between our views, I'd like to see a buff to them, not a nerf to bring the other vehicles closer to their level

If by Vegas you mean the 4x4, that one kinda exists in a weird balance spot.  It really shouldn't be a replacement for the regular Vegas so it should probably have some tradeoffs comparatively?  the only tradeoff it previously had was a 1m/s lower top speed which doesn't mean anything cause everything else about the car makes it better and/or more interesting than the regular Vegas.

 

I could see the Mikro/Vaquero with buffs, but i honestly don't see that as being enough.  My thinking isn't more nerfing the Coywolf HP or cargo space but more adjusting its handling maybe?  The Coywolf is literally a Mikro with 4 doors and better overall performance.

 

High Burn Fuel, is in a weird spot as a previous dev actually made a good point in that how High Burn works makes no sense.  Nearly every video game out there has an ability of some sort that will reduce or prevent explosion damage against a player (Flack Jacket, for APB); what games have an ability that entirely removes an objects explosive damage against everything though?  High Burn prior was just incredibly strong as it was sort of a 'get out of jail free' card from vehicle explosions.  The reason it reduces health is cause another idea we had (reducing damage output instead of removing it) wasn't really feasible.  And i do agree the current implementation is pretty dumb and im hoping that with 64bit, we can fix it in the near future.

4 hours ago, BlatMan said:

They nerfed other vehicle's health which makes the Coywolf's lower HP less of a downside. However, the free Coywolf comes with the high burn mod which lowers it's health. If it was an open 4 slot like the 4x4 and other vehicles, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

They increased the cargo space, but they didn't adjust for the heavy item slowdown. The Micro is slower with a heavy item than the starter car. Buying a micro is a trade off, not an upgrade.

 

The high burn change made it useless on all free vehicles. I used to run it on the cheaper vehicles to give myself cover, or to do remote det jumps, but the health decrease is too much. You can't outrun an smg with some vehicles. Than again, smgs probably deal too much hard damage.

Refer to above regarding High Burn.  I do agree with the cargo space problem though, that was something i was aware of but the changes went ahead before anything could be done and stuff just kinda died out after.  Its another thing on the list of vehicle balance fixes.

 

For both regarding AV weapons. 

 

Do you think AV weapons are a problem, or do you think mods like Car Surfer enabling AV weapons is perhaps the problem?  My opinion though I think Car Surfer is more of the issue as vehicles and the ALIG/DMR AV/OSMAW weren't really an issue prior to it.  Been dwelling on the idea of having car surfer reduce weapon accuracy (specifically tying into the value weapons use when leaning out of a car) but with a more intense accuracy hit on heavy weapons like the DMR AV and ALIG.  In concept, it would impact the upper range of these weapons without entirely rendering them moot.  The DMR AV damage ramp up is a serious issue and its incredibly easy to just hover at 90m and destroy cars in about 4 seconds.

 

More throwing ideas out there.  Biggest issue with APB is the clashing in which way balance should go.

[vsb 6171]

19 hours ago, N66 said:

I think a vehicle being difficult to destroy using bullets, for 1 or 2 people, giving it a chance to run is a good balance in APB, that also is complimented by the fact that you can't shoot the driver through the window.

the inability to damage players inside vehicles is exactly why vehicles should have lower hp, something has to balance out the ability to get kevlar 10 just by pressing F

 

 

19 hours ago, N66 said:

The old balance allowed cars like Vegas to take an osmaw hit and possibly give the driver time to exit if he's faster than his enemy, now with HB most vehicles (not even Pioneer? correct me if I'm wrong) won't take an osmaw anyway, that's also my beef and why I said Vegas is kinda meh because it's still a good choice, but it's plastic like a Bishada.

the old balance wasn't really balanced at all, it was 3 vehicles with high hp and high speed (and high price tags, a total coincidence i'm sure) being able to use a mod that removed the largest drawback of vehicles

 

high burn should be a risk consideration, not a mandatory upgrade - even now after the nerf its arguably still the most popular vehicle mod, that's how strong it is

 

that the vegas is now "plastic like a bishada" means people actually choose to use some of the 25 other cars in apb now, which is only a positive imo

 

 

20 hours ago, N66 said:

Not to mention AV guns, especially ALIG, now eat through vehicles like butter, the concept is great, but this is too much

i think AV weapons are in a fine spot atm, except perhaps the dmr-av that's a straight upgrade over the dmr-sd

 

what needs a rework are missions and mission objectives that are vulnerable to AV with no other option - vehicle delivery missions with subpar vehicles and objective tags for the defending team would be a good place to start there

 

 

20 hours ago, N66 said:

Lastly, yes, Mikro and possibly Vaquero need a reasonable buff, maybe HP buff, I think that's the difference between our views, I'd like to see a buff to them, not a nerf to bring the other vehicles closer to their level

i'm pretty sure the idea is that nerfs have gotten us about halfway to decent vehicle balance and now buffs can push us the rest of the way, there's a reason the roadmap focuses on changes to underutilized vehicles

[Yapopal 168]

How annoying are the Joker's screaming ammunition replenishment points. The voice and laughter themselves are terribly infuriating, but they weren't so loud before. Maybe you should just turn off the sound until you find a solution to the problem?

 

The problem with the Joker ammunition replenishment point is quite revealing. Imagine what will happen when a new matchmaking is added. The new system will change the rules of the game in a way. There will be a lot of problems. For example, disappearing mission markers. Given the pace of developers, we won't see normal matchmaking even in a year. They will add new contacts and a car (oh yes, mob, you will be given a whole one car!) but matchmaking will not be completed.Figure out the current matchmaking system before making a new one. I am sure that the current system is good, but needs to add new features and configuration. I am sure that with your approach, the new system will not work better.Don't you think the situation is repeating itself? You again want to take a great height in one jump. You'll end up breaking your legs.

 

The speed of cars is limited due to the low loading speed of the surrounding space and streets. At least that's how it used to be. If this problem is solved now, perhaps it is worth increasing the speed of vehicles? Sports cars Cisco, Bishada will finally occupy their niche. Why not make really fast cars out of them?

Edited March 11, 2023 by Yapopal

[cowhorseman 441]

so what i understand is that if people streamed FE maybe it would to get an update? seems like your trying to make more cash by making things easier for people who stream games. which are also known for being whiny people who cry until devs make games like that want, even though there going to stop streaming it in 2-3 weeks more then likey

 

oh and wears my traffic cone hat?

 

[Nickolai 206]

Another thing regarding vehicle balancing. A simple change that can make the new player experience A LOT better.

Just allow the preset vehicles you unlock from contacts to be permanent, instead of the 10 day lease. 

Even with all the money I have ingame, I look at that and say...that is just a bad deal. Most new players can barely scrape up enough to buy a few guns, (we are talking here without the free premium)

So when they have scrape up 10k/15/20k for a 10 day lease of a car, its just a bad deal. 

And these cars could give a great headstart to new players starting the game. Eventually they will discard them and purchase their own vehicles from ARMAS or the customizable ones. 

[SkittyM 287]

7 hours ago, Yapopal said:

The speed of cars is limited due to the low loading speed of the surrounding space and streets. At least that's how it used to be. If this problem is solved now, perhaps it is worth increasing the speed of vehicles? Sports cars Cisco, Bishada will finally occupy their niche. Why not make really fast cars out of them?

Has nothing to do with the game loading stuff but more to do with the size of the map and the games sense of scale.  In theory you could make cars go as fast as 25m/s (they currently go 23m/s) before you have to start adjusting missions and the map itself.

[PLAYLUXE 54]

What’s the point of a new car if handling in this game still feels like driving on ice?

 

No ones expecting a Forza like simulation here but at least take GTA 5 for an example.

 

APB vehicles just look and feel like toy cars - no matter how fancy they’re customized.

[Reprimand 98]

Someone mentioned this but I think a weapon balance is long overdue. 

 

Some of the weaker weapons need to be buffed and the max player health needs increasing.

[vsb 6171]

1 hour ago, Reprimand said:

max player health needs increasing

is this just the weirdest way to phrase "bring back longer ttk" or something else?

[LilyRain 674]

1 hour ago, Reprimand said:

the max player health needs increasing.

Kevlar: Thank you for indirectly buffing me, I needed it.

 

But solo-play will be further gimped. Spending longer on a single enemy would make a lot of solo-players just not play.

[Thial 176]

I'm interested in how FairFight will operate alongside of EAC. As we know from the past some unfair bans were issued due to FairFight and also incompetence of G1. The line between top tier skill and cheating is extremely slim where a lot of people were fine tuning their cheats to make themselves look like top tier players or they were adding slight aim assist or they were using esp in a way where there were no hints that they are doing it. Therefore I'm interested to see if we'll be having another wave of incorrect bans or will we be seeing actual cheaters being removed and the game slowly regaining its playerbase.

[Hexerin 1140]

10 hours ago, Reprimand said:

Some of the weaker weapons need to be buffed

Nah, we need the strongest guns to be nerfed so that overall TTK goes higher.

 

What really needs to happen though, is that all guns have their damage cut to half (or even a quarter), and fire rates jacked up by double or triple across the board. Same amount of damage in a given time frame, but spread across significantly more bullets. This would resolve a current issue the game has, where slow firing weapons will miss shots simply because of the left/right movement that normal gunplay encourages (which makes faster firing weapons automatically superior for consistency).

 

10 hours ago, Reprimand said:

and the max player health needs increasing.

Absolutely fucking not.

[Weaboos 89]

On 3/10/2023 at 7:53 PM, Sergsininia said:

My first desktop was an A8-6600k with 8gb RAM and a GTX650 1gb, ran the game at a solid 45-60fps on high. Upgraded GPU to an RX560 4gb then the whole system to a Ryzen 5 3600, 16gb RAM and a RX 5700xt. Never did I have severe stutter issues between 2012 and now. Even now the game runs great on a Steam Deck granted you adjust the settings and wait for the shaders to load.

Different people, different perspectives. I would not call 45 fps as solid especially having seen how game ran in 2011 and having played on older hardware. For me 45 fps is cancer when I have to fight other people (who play like they are in a tournament) and my pc at the same time. When fps dips below 60 my mouse movement starts to feel weird as if it's some sort of input lag or something along those lines. Big stutters is no longer an issue like it was on my old pc, what really helped for me with stutters is installing the game on SSD. Small stutters still exist and everyone has them from time to time as they are part of the game. Some districts sometimes have more stutters than others and I'm guessing there's too many cheaters and/or macro users doing 1000 clicks a second. Changing districts usually help. This game is sometimes weird too in a sense that the fps counter shows 80 fps but it feels "bad", and then there's instances where it shows 60-something but it feels "fine" Idk how to explain this one...

 

3rd gen Ryzen 5 is a good CPU and it makes sense that the game runs good for you seeing as you called 45-60 solid. I dont expect 3rd gen Ryzen 5 to drop below 70-80 fps.

 

For me performance is hit or miss. The 47 fps is the worst case scenario, usually it does not drop this much. 47 is what I've seen a few days ago in waterfront in an area where a few different groups where having missions. I tend to avoid waterfront as I get lower fps there and constant sniping becomes old really fast. Usually my fps is in 90-60 mark. Problems begin occurring in full districts when there's multiple groups in one place doing missions or those big 8v8, 10v10 missions etc, then my fps goes to low 50's and it becomes problematic to aim. 30v30 districts are fine and can actually be enjoyable.

 

Yesterday was a weird day, I did not see my fps drop below 60-something, except after about 1.5 h of playing when performance degraded and I needed to restart. Didn't meet a single cheater there so maybe that had something to do with it.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Weaboos

[ninjarrrr 255]

 

the new car got leaked

[Thial 176]

16 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Nah, we need the strongest guns to be nerfed so that overall TTK goes higher.

 

What really needs to happen though, is that all guns have their damage cut to half (or even a quarter), and fire rates jacked up by double or triple across the board. Same amount of damage in a given time frame, but spread across significantly more bullets. This would resolve a current issue the game has, where slow firing weapons will miss shots simply because of the left/right movement that normal gunplay encourages (which makes faster firing weapons automatically superior for consistency).

 

Absolutely fucking not.

You are essentially asking for every weapon to become a laser smg and for people to become bullet sponges so that you can just have more focus on tracking people rather than just killing them. That would just kill the gun variety, the fun and probably the game. All we need is to buff the non meta guns so that every gun becomes meta.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Thial

[MonkaS 215]

30 minutes ago, Thial said:

You are essentially asking for every weapon to become a laser smg and for people to become bullet sponges so that you can just have more focus on tracking people rather than just killing them. That would just kill the gun variety, the fun and probably the game. All we need is to buff the non meta guns so that every gun becomes meta.

The game was originally designed/balanced around a slower ttk; the map and animations all designed around slower ttk. Unless you want to speed up animations and change the map I think slowing ttk is best/better solution.

Edited March 13, 2023 by MonkaS

[CookiePuss 5378]

4 hours ago, MonkaS said:

The game was originally designed/balanced around a slower ttk

It should be noted that the game, as originally designed/balanced, failed spectacularly.

 

[SkittyM 287]

Just now, CookiePuss said:

It should be noted that the game, as originally designed/balanced, failed spectacularly.

 

Should also be noted that that failure wasn't entirely the fault of the design but the financial mismanagement.  RTW TTK is too long and nobody wants that, people just want a slower TTK than the current game.

 

Tbh the game itself probably wants a longer TTK, it performs pretty bad.

[Hexerin 1140]

5 hours ago, Thial said:

You are essentially asking for every weapon to become a laser smg

This ain't Twitter, but relevant in spirit: