Can't APB be a fresh turd instead of a rotten 12 year old one?

[doorkicker 46]

Longtime APB player, since RTW.  Come back to the game every so often.

Familiar story, sure anyone can relate.  Feels nice to land back in San Paro after that time away, soak in the APB vibe, etc., etc.

 

Well, for a minute anyway.  Then the reality of this broken, underwhelming and disappointing game kicks in.  

 

A hundred million dollars in development, a team of highly talented engineers, artists, designers and more...  Three companies now, ten plus years of 'development', the list goes on...

And what's there to show for it?  A third-rate shooter (if you can call it that) with a dwindling population and no vision, no significant changes in years and the lingering stench of G1's incompetence on every level.

 

The game can continue as is, and it might just, but it's not going to have a sudden renaissance of popularity where gamers across the world ask themselves what they're missing out on and answer up with APB, a decidedly average game in every feasible way where nothing happens and the only thing that's worth a damn in it is a customization system that's largely untouched since the initial RTW days and is perhaps the only possible reason, sweetener or feature that could possibly be marketed or promoted for an otherwise outdated and static cesspool.

 

Ok, sure, the words are a little harsh but such is the unavoidable disappointment when you see the state of this game.

 

Now look, I don't pretend that most of APB's problems can be fixed or that it can become some amazing, popular, viral game that everyone's talking about...  At the same time, it can be a lot better than what it currently is and there's really no reason why it can't be.

 

If you ask anyone about APB, the recurring, haunting theme is "missed potential".  Those two words are entirely freaking synonymous with this game.  They probably accompany each other in a dictionary somewhere in the world - yes, it's actually that bad and yes, said dictionary probably actually exists somewhere.

 

For something that started off as a cutting edge, next big thing, popular before it was popular open world with shooting and... customization, and... well not much else (we won't mention the driving because that'd be too cruel), it sure is fascinating to see that over ten years later APB's still exactly the same.

 

It has shooting (okay, it's not going to blow your socks off but I digress)

It has customization (the one jewel in APB's otherwise non-existent crown)

 

What else does this game actually have?  Cars?  Open World?  'Action' Districts?

I don't know, it's slim, it's marginal, it's all severely underutilized, underdeveloped or simply forgotten...

 

When RTW first conceived this game, it was marketed to the world (with quite the budget) that APB was going to be the next big thing.  It was GTA Online but before its time, it was everything you'd ever dreamed of, and much more, in a lively and action-filled open world filled to the brim with districts upon districts of hundreds upon hundreds of players.

 

And yet, in, the end, the core gameplay loop of this game (if you exclude Fight Club) is that you spend five minutes in one area of the map fighting over who gets to take home a briefcase to the storyline dude that lost it for the five hundredth time and needs you to go pick it up for him, before the other side does.

 

(Actually wait, that sounds a lot like freaking Fight Club)

 

That is, of course, if you even get an opposed mission in the first place after you stand there at the objective, deliberately -- almost benevolently -- delaying its completion until someone shows up to stop you.  Like, wow, for a city as torn and rife with problems as San Paro is meant to be, these Enforcers and Criminals sure mind their manners in giving each other time.

 

So look, here you have it.  Under RTW, this game was meant to be along the lines of an MMORPG or whatever - there was the whole cops and robbers thing with a little bit of story and theme, and... whatever.

Now, obviously, we can't ignore the (liquidated) hundred-million-dollar elephant in the room and pretend that RTW was a success, but...  In come GamersFirst, saviors of APB.  It's going to be great, they said!

 

I don't actually know what GamersFirst were trying to do (print money not withstanding), and clearly they didn't either, but I do think their direction for the game was quite clear.  They took up this failed online 'sandbox' GTA-clone and they just went the other way and focused it as third-person, and equally third-rate shooter.  Gone are the days of criminals being criminally and doing despicable things for money like killing their own, gone are the days of any actual spontaneous interaction or combat like the bounty system (which, yes, was flawed ... but not because of the system itself) and gone are the days of APB offering any actual excitement, connection or whatever-the-fuck else your random Joe Gamer is looking for, not that it offered much in the first place admittedly except being new and unique for its time.

 

Now, LO are small and less ambitious than either G1 or RTW, and that's fine, and I don't fault LO for anything because this game could've quite easily died a somewhat more dignified re-death many years ago even despite G1's ugly resuscitations of its bloodied corpse since 2011 but just picking the game up and bogging yourselves down in failed project, after failed project probably isn't going to yield substantial returns.  Maybe they realize this now, maybe they don't, but that's besides the point.  There are far more consequential ways that LO can and should engage with APB and in a lot of cases they're so bleedingly obvious that if you summoned a genie and wished for them, you'd probably get refunded another free wish out of pity.

 

The social aspect of this game lags so far behind what it should.  You have all of these assets that RTW made in terms of art, design, animation ranging even to vehicles and weapons and yet the most exciting thing that happens in the dedicated Social District is that people do their best statue impressions while standing on a railing.  The hell's up with that?  Why is there even a dedicated Social District?  It's not social, it's barely a district and the various kiosks and such that it contains could quite easily have been built into the other parts of the game.  Now, yes, while I understand that it might be too late to change this kind of stuff and perhaps it's fundamental to the way the game is designed but...  It still sucks, and it's hardly marketable in face of competition or the alternatives of today.  Likewise, it's not as if standing on a railing is the theoretical maximum peak of said district anyway.  Literally anything would be better: officially scheduled/promoted meets and contests, a gun range where players can temporarily try each others' weapons...  Even simple, benign stuff like being able to sit on a bench would be about ten times cooler than anything else you can do there just now.  You could at least try, LO.

 

Likewise, it's genuinely unthinkable that the only meaningful use for a 'clan' is to have the name of said 'clan' as your character's title.  I mean just think about that for a moment... you have this game based around vaguely competitive teamplay and the system that above all others should encourage teamplay and competition is relegated to little more than a freaking UI element.  Just think about that for a minute, seriously.

 

And then, let's not even get started on all the poor design choices that plague this game and its awful, awful mission-based combat system.  Nobody wants missions like these, they suck.  It's a terrible idea, and there's a reason no other game has anything even remotely close to them.  They are truly terrible and are a complete bastardization of the open world, of the concept of 'action' districts, and of everything that either a MMO, an RPG, a TPS, or whatever-the-fuck you want to describe APB as, should be.  They tick literally zero boxes.  Zero.

 

The ONLY reason that you'd make an open world for a game like APB is if you wanted the game to be a dynamic sandbox of sorts.  Somewhere that players can dip in, leave their own mark on the game world, and dip out.  I can understand the thought behind having matchmaking and whatever, but you only need that if you design the game around matches.  Yeah, fine, CS has matches.  R6S has matches.  Whatever.  That's great.

 

Are they open world games?  No.

Is APB?  Yes.

 

If you're going to have an open world, then it should be open!  In what twisted, warped reality does it make sense for all these supposed bad patootie characters in a twisted, crime-torn city on the brink to wait for orders to tag up a wall, or plant a bomb, or steal Justin Teng's hot Asian wife's girlfriend's panties?  It doesn't!  It's against literally everything the game is supposed to be about and it completely kills the potential for players to make their own moments within the game, or for clans to leave their mark on one district, or for people to stream creative gameplay where they're doing ridiculously outside-of-the-box things like creating a roadblock full of dump trucks that nobody can pass, with the difference being that this time they're Enforcers and with some actual new gameplay features can, oh I don't know, scan whoever passes for bounties, or stolen goods, or wait for it...

 

... an actual APB for something they've just done in the game (omg, imagine that!)

 

Or just give people dumb things to do with their cash, or time...

• You wanna plant a bomb at the main spawn in Financial and get marked on the map for every Enf to come kill you?  Why the fuck not?  San Paro is meant to be a warzone, dude.
• Let groups of players/clans hold territory or turf, reward them with cash, dispatch players to take the turf back and create a new type of mission in the process.
• Make ramraiding/mugging/witnessing actually worthwhile with increased rewards scaled by number of active players in the district.

 

What about the bounty system?  Yeah, it sucked during missions.  I think everyone gets that.  But is the solution really to remove it, but only remove half of it, still penalize players for TKs of these imaginary bounties, and still nag the opposition faction to come and claim them?  No!  Do anything, literally anything.  Do a GTA style wanted/heat level that scales progressively whereby a criminal does crime, gets a star for it, and they become fair game for any nearby Enf, but only for 30 seconds.  They get 2 stars?  Make it 60 seconds, and so on.

 

And, no, this is nothing to do with GTA.  APB is not GTA.  It's similar, it's made by many of the same people, but it's different and it existed well before any online GTA did.  It's cops and robbers, GTA isn't.  It has proper servers, GTA doesn't.  It has a player economy with user created content, GTA doesn't.  The list is long if you think about it.

 

That being said, it doesn't mean that APB shouldn't look at what other games since it flopped in 2011 have done.  It doesn't mean that APB shouldn't try new things.

I don't think anyone seriously wants apartments that you can buy and drink animated wine in in APB, ala GTA, nor does anyone seriously want dogs that you can train and pet...

 

But, come on, you've got a half-working game with some wonky mechanics and I completely accept that there are many, many things in this game that need to be fixed, but that's only so much more of a pressing issue if the game continues on the downwards spiral that it's on, where the entirety of the game hinges on whether or not an N-Tec kills at 75m with IR3 or not, and doesn't at least try to reinvent itself in other ways where it matters much less what the current situation with the N-Tec is because...  well, there'd be more to the game than one fucking assault rifle. 

 

Like, really, you have to accept that APB as a game, in it's current form, is dead.  People have tried it, they've seen that all of the cool branding and the marketing is just that, and they've moved on.  No amount of buffs or nerfs are going to fix that.  Any game is going to have a meta, any game is going to have a gun people moan about...

 

Make the game exciting and offer more than just the stupidly designed missions that haven't changed in 12 years and suddenly those problems become less and less.

 

APB might not be a truly awful TPS, or it might have great customization, or it might have cool art design...  But that doesn't mean that it's not a bad game.

It's a terrible game (yes, you can play it while still honestly recognizing that it's without doubt the worst game ever made, ever).

It's not something people would watch on stream, see some spontaneous moment (random dump truck griefing excluded perhaps) and think "woah, that's cool". 

It's not something you can invite friends to play casually because they'll just get stomped out it in ways that'd put off even the most determined newcomer.

It's not something you can play competitively because there's no functional matchmaking, rankings or casual/ranked modes.

It's literally a contradiction.  It's a game that doesn't know what it wants to be.

 

No Engine Update is going to save that.  No 64bit Update is going to save that. 

 

As the saying goes, you can polish the turd but it's still a goddamn turd.

Yeah, I mean, sure...  APB's probably destined to always be a turd but...  Can't it at least be a fresh turd instead of a rotten, decomposing 12 years old one?

[vsb 6171]

6 minutes ago, doorkicker said:

Can't it at least be a fresh turd instead of a rotten, decomposing 12 years old one?

no

 

 

[PingOVER9000 189]

11 hours ago, doorkicker said:

bla bla bla 

Yeah, I mean, sure...  APB's probably destined to always be a turd but...  Can't it at least be a fresh turd instead of a rotten, decomposing 12 years old one?

Long answer: Just take the  L as every Chad of the past and future believing a bleeder nostaglia will last longer than you may hope as every dreamer with their passion/s , you have to accept something ended.

Short answer: LO is not different than G1 sadly, for a reason or another, planned or unluck, we got baited us all

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by PingOVER9000

[R3ACT3M 489]

This was like reading the intro sequence to star wars

Yea there are a lot of fundamental issues with everything in this game. The only thing that aged well is the customization, it is still by far the most in-depth and lets me make the characters I WANT to make. Games these days have such terrible face models where no one is allowed to look hot or handsome because it will offend someone im sure.

Missions I hard agree on, none of them are fun. They attempted to expand the mission roster but the mission types are all the same and they're all terribly designed. I think a HUGE stepping stone for this game would be to start over from scratch a lot of this game's systems when it comes to combat. I think everyone agrees that VIP is the WORST mission your sorry butt could get stuck doing. If your team is newer and your opposing are veterans you can count on your VIP getting rushed by them in a VEGAS until the game is done with. The runner up for worst mission would have to be the ones where you take the item to your base and defend it. God forbid that it's a heavy objective because it will be taking you 3 years to get it anywhere and once you loose momentum the game is over before that last objective started. There are countless other examples but missions are more or less Go here -> Do task -> Go here -> Do task - Go here -> Do task -> alright now for a 7 minute deathmatch. Can we just skip all that intro garbage and just go to the mission's finale? It just feels like such a waste of time to struggle over breaking into a car for 4 minutes getting absolutely slaughtered to have to deliver the car only to do a similar objective for 6 minutes. Missions should be short and chaotic, Have 1-3 objects per dispatch and have like 5 vs 5 player minimum. This would be FAR more fun than the constant 2v2, 2v3, and 3v3 the matchmaking CONSTANTLY puts you in. 

I personally hate this game's modification system. There is a clear meta for certain things and a lot of the struggle with balancing this game stems from these mods. Imagine if all the guns in the game had no mod slots. Think about how easy it would be to balance them all. Because right now you more or less have to ruin the base gun because people put HS3 and IR3 on it, or CJ3 and RS3. Then there are character mods and just about everyone runs Clotting agent three or you're just at a disadvantage. I've been running 2 as of late and have been liking it.

So my proposed solution would be to remove mod tiers, example: Take CJ1, CJ2, CJ3 and replace them all with just 1 mod: Cooling Jacket 
This would allow for LO to instead of having to screw with every gun in the game to try and balance it to only have to worry about the handful of mods that someone COULD put on the gun. I just feel like this would be the best compromise of keeping mods in the game while also sliming it down to be more coherent. Then when something like this is done go back and make the base weapons stronger and have these mods be a tool for players to *nudge* a weapon in a direction of their choosing VS making it a MUST to have these mods on the gun.

Next progression in the game is also not amazing. I think the idea is there, that you gain trust/respect from contacts by doing missions for them which in turn they give you better gear. But this style of leveling is only suitable for a game that is PVE focused. Which APB has none of ATM outside of ram raiding. I think a compromise here would be to change what contacts give as rewards. The whole idea behind leveling is that when you do hit that max rank your character should look the best they can or at least have the tools to do that. So I would remove any mods, and guns from contacts and instead pump them up more with "gear" like clothing, cars, and character cosmetics like new hairs, makeup tattoos, and beards. Then have combat related stuff be tied to an account bound check list like the one that's already in game (but is currently character bound).

Now all of what im thinking of needs to be woven together by a dev team that can weave all these changes together, and I know that some things are more important than others. Content being one of them and stability fixes is the other. But these are the things that I hope to see completely overhauled soon(tm)

[Yapopal 168]

APB will die as shitty as she was born. A huge number of functions, settings and rules were violated in it. The game is as bad as possible for beginners, and the further, the worse. I spent a year of playing time in the game, and it's a shame that my favorite game has degraded for 10 years due to incompetence of developers. I have absolutely no desire to spend money on this game. The customization system does not make sense because of social atrophy. Meta guns are such because they are broken. This game is comfortable for players with connected automatic running, macro, and NTEC. It's time to change the genre of the game. She has long been a meat simulator or a simulator of a machine gunner stung in the patootie. 

Some points of the roadmap hint that the developers sincerely do not understand what is wrong with the game. None of the items on the list will attract the main resource - new players.

[JohhnnyBoiii 0]

On 3/27/2023 at 4:53 PM, doorkicker said:

APB might not be a truly awful TPS, or it might have great customization, or it might have cool art design...  But that doesn't mean that it's not a bad game.

It's a terrible game (yes, you can play it while still honestly recognizing that it's without doubt the worst game ever made, ever).

I think dubbing it the worst game ever made is undoubtedly harsh. Do you know of or remember the notorious Bubsy 3D for the PS1? lol
I doubt anyone has spent over 50hrs in Bubsy 3D, meanwhile there's tons that have in APB

[Temporal 21]

APB is not worst game ever made. It's game with most wasted potential ever.

Simple cops & robbers premise + amazing customisation + style = what could go wrong??

Welp...

[proxie 271]

I completely agree with your assessment of APB. It's a game that has been around for over a decade and yet it still feels like it's stuck in the past. The core gameplay loop is still the same, and there have been no significant changes in years. It's a shame that such a promising game has been reduced to this state.

 

That being said, I do think that there is still hope for APB. LO has taken up the mantle of trying to revive the game, and while they may not be as ambitious as G1 or RTW, I think they can still make a difference.

The social aspect of the game is severely lacking, and I think that's one of the main issues that needs to be addressed. The Social District should be a place where players can interact with each other, not just stand around like statues. There should be more activities and events that players can participate in, such as officially scheduled/promoted meets and contests, or a gun range where players can temporarily try each others' weapons.

 

The clan system also needs to be improved. It should be more than just a UI element; it should be a way for players to form teams and compete against each other. There should be rewards for clans that hold territory or turf, and new mission types that involve taking back the turf from the opposing faction.

 

Finally, I think that APB should look at what other games have done since it flopped in 2011. It doesn't mean that APB should copy other games, but it should take inspiration from them and try new things. For example, it would be great if there were more activities for players to do with their cash or time, such as planting a bomb at the main spawn in Financial and getting marked on the map for every Enf to come kill you.

 

Overall, I think that APB still has potential, but it needs to be willing to take risks and try new things. If LO can make the necessary changes and improvements, then I think that APB can still be a great game.

[Jinsen 11]

On 3/27/2023 at 11:38 PM, R3ACT3M said:

This was like reading the intro sequence to star wars

Yea there are a lot of fundamental issues with everything in this game. The only thing that aged well is the customization, it is still by far the most in-depth and lets me make the characters I WANT to make. Games these days have such terrible face models where no one is allowed to look hot or handsome because it will offend someone im sure.

Missions I hard agree on, none of them are fun. They attempted to expand the mission roster but the mission types are all the same and they're all terribly designed. I think a HUGE stepping stone for this game would be to start over from scratch a lot of this game's systems when it comes to combat. I think everyone agrees that VIP is the WORST mission your sorry butt could get stuck doing. If your team is newer and your opposing are veterans you can count on your VIP getting rushed by them in a VEGAS until the game is done with. The runner up for worst mission would have to be the ones where you take the item to your base and defend it. God forbid that it's a heavy objective because it will be taking you 3 years to get it anywhere and once you loose momentum the game is over before that last objective started. There are countless other examples but missions are more or less Go here -> Do task -> Go here -> Do task - Go here -> Do task -> alright now for a 7 minute deathmatch. Can we just skip all that intro garbage and just go to the mission's finale? It just feels like such a waste of time to struggle over breaking into a car for 4 minutes getting absolutely slaughtered to have to deliver the car only to do a similar objective for 6 minutes. Missions should be short and chaotic, Have 1-3 objects per dispatch and have like 5 vs 5 player minimum. This would be FAR more fun than the constant 2v2, 2v3, and 3v3 the matchmaking CONSTANTLY puts you in. 

I personally hate this game's modification system. There is a clear meta for certain things and a lot of the struggle with balancing this game stems from these mods. Imagine if all the guns in the game had no mod slots. Think about how easy it would be to balance them all. Because right now you more or less have to ruin the base gun because people put HS3 and IR3 on it, or CJ3 and RS3. Then there are character mods and just about everyone runs Clotting agent three or you're just at a disadvantage. I've been running 2 as of late and have been liking it.

So my proposed solution would be to remove mod tiers, example: Take CJ1, CJ2, CJ3 and replace them all with just 1 mod: Cooling Jacket 
This would allow for LO to instead of having to screw with every gun in the game to try and balance it to only have to worry about the handful of mods that someone COULD put on the gun. I just feel like this would be the best compromise of keeping mods in the game while also sliming it down to be more coherent. Then when something like this is done go back and make the base weapons stronger and have these mods be a tool for players to *nudge* a weapon in a direction of their choosing VS making it a MUST to have these mods on the gun.

Next progression in the game is also not amazing. I think the idea is there, that you gain trust/respect from contacts by doing missions for them which in turn they give you better gear. But this style of leveling is only suitable for a game that is PVE focused. Which APB has none of ATM outside of ram raiding. I think a compromise here would be to change what contacts give as rewards. The whole idea behind leveling is that when you do hit that max rank your character should look the best they can or at least have the tools to do that. So I would remove any mods, and guns from contacts and instead pump them up more with "gear" like clothing, cars, and character cosmetics like new hairs, makeup tattoos, and beards. Then have combat related stuff be tied to an account bound check list like the one that's already in game (but is currently character bound).

Now all of what im thinking of needs to be woven together by a dev team that can weave all these changes together, and I know that some things are more important than others. Content being one of them and stability fixes is the other. But these are the things that I hope to see completely overhauled soon(tm)

BASED

[Jama 10]

Simplifying the game just forces everyone down the same boring meta, you need to throw more wrenches in the gameplay, no one should be comfortable with their loadout.

Look at the game now, it's just .45 + whatever else works well with a macro.

The game is saturated and has been for a long time, no (real) new player can keep up, they don't even get a chance to figure out what's going on.

Hell most of them quit because the game automatically puts them in a dead west server district lmao.

[PotatoeGirl 220]

The problem with this game is that it never changes outside of things getting removed.

if I login now, the game will be the same as it was 9 years ago... just with less players.

Edited March 31, 2023 by PotatoeGirl

[Kirusan781 0]

Finally someone that thinks like me.

This is not an open world cops VS criminals game, everything that has to do with open world and spontaneous interaction and not in a matchmaking mission was practically deleted, considering the witness mechanic, unless you go to empty servers to search for half an hour for someone to bully.

 

The game right now is basically a matchmaking csgo like game with cars, with the open world being a huge waiting lobby.

 

I don't think it could even be hard to change it.

Maybe make matchmaking a different option for those who like it, and for the worlds themselves, remove the creation of these missions, (from that point on being ready will make you join in a witness mission or any other that might be added, which happened spontaneously) maybe make it so citizens witness creates a mark on the map of where a crime was committed, return the notorious/prestige system from the past, and in every couple hours or so make it so a certain big world event will occur.

 

From then on you can continue in that path for developing the game, but for a start these changes will already make the game in the open world actually feel and have the cops VS criminals open world theme it is supposed to have, and for those who like the matchmaking missions, they could happen in separate worlds without anyone outside of the mission disturbing.

Win win for everyone