Hey so what's going on in this game?

[Kinun 3]

I've been pretty on/off in this game since 2015, and had several periods where it was the only game I really played. I genuinely enjoyed it and still find ways to.

 

I consider myself a pretty decent player overall, though I tend to play much more casually since I just don't have the heart to play seriously anymore. There's been some issues I've seen for years now, but also a bunch of progress on things that the community has been asking for. Here I would like to ask for an honest look into what's happened since I started, all the way to where we are today. How things have changed, how things have been the same, and what future prospects are both in terms of your expectations and your experiences.

 

1) Cheating

I'm gonna be honest, either people are good at hiding their cheats, people are cheating so much that it's the unspoken norm, or I'm just oblivious, but I see some people talking about how there's blatant cheaters everywhere. I just haven't felt like I've experienced that. As a casual I guess I'm not looking for it too closely, but at the same time, how many of these people are just your everyday salty sore losers? How many actually confirmable cheaters are you finding? Do you have any stories relating to them?

 

2) Weapon balancing

I think this was one of my biggest pain points playing this game. I'm a player who can use just about any gun (except machine guns for some reason, someone pls teach), and I really like to dive into the off-meta stuff. I'm the type of human that used the strife, curse, oblivion, heavy HVR, snub, bricks, with spotter and satchel charges as my specials. I've created multiple different little scripts for just generating a loadout to play some weapon roulette. But no matter when I played, I always felt like I was entirely outclassed by the same sort of issue from the beginning: mid range powerhouses. I think no matter what era you play in, meta will be dominated by the [overpowered mid-range rifle with IR3 and HS3 + .45 (+medspray)] loadout.

The game feels stuck in a cycle where what wins is the rifle that can basically cover every range in the game, sometimes better than specialist guns. I log on today and I literally get outsniped by someone using an LCR at 85m. Like, what? I understand that if I went with my own scout + CJ3 + .45, I'd probably have a much better time than my Anubis + snub, but I feel like I can't even compete if I miss even a single shot, despite being in my weapon's ideal range and outside of what should be my opponent's effective range. Before the LCR, I heard it was the OBIR. Before the OBIR, I played when it was the Obeya. Before the Obeya, the NTEC, and it's felt like this has never changed. Why even is there a mod that breaks the very fibers holding guns to their respective niches? "Gitgud" for some reason necessitates the use of these "jack of all trades, master of many" weapons. It's always been the same feeling.

 

3) Matchmaking

This one I actually like that LO is finally trying to address (they did say this was what they wanted to tackle first... 5 years ago). I think this is one of the biggest potential frustrations for players, and I've definitely felt like it's worn me down. I don't really want to say too much on this since we're in such a turbulent time right now regarding matchmaking. I wish LO the best in making it work, despite the challenges of a dwindling playerbase and salty keyboard warriors. I just don't want to keep facing the same dudes 12 times in a row who, you guessed it, have that incredible meta loadout. It's just not fun to essentially be in a single 3 hour long mission. Gotta also balance it with the fact that people don't want to wait 3 hours for a mission too, I guess. It's a pretty challenging thing that I'm honestly pretty lost myself on how I would tackle.

 

4) Map and mission design

No matter the era, no matter the rank, no matter the group, there's always this question in every single match: "man what the fuck are these spawns?". It's kinda funny to think about, but it ties into such a deep rooted and far-reaching problem tied to the map and mission design. I recognize that even trying to address this problem would mean upending the entire game's structure, but I do think it's one of the game's heaviest chains. I feel like the map was made first to be pretty and nice and cohesive, which it really kinda is. But then you add in a competitive mission element to it as an afterthought, and you end up with areas that are so incredibly unbalanced that you wonder if it was even intended to house a mission. A lot of points are okayish, but there's still a significant amount of places on the map where it's so closed off with such hostile chokepoints for offense that it's already super difficult to push, or places where it's so open that you can get shot from anyone from anywhere. You have the rare places where it's an attacker's wet dream as they can essentially go in and take over every undefendable position in the area. You have super high rooftops where one sniper can singlehandedly shut down an entire team, where they have to spend the 1/3 of their mission timer to fight their way up and remove the sniper, only for them to go to another perch. It's kinda ridiculous. There was an obnoxious creme de la crime location where you're fighting over 5 items, but the criminal drop-off is literally within arm's reach of a car spawn and accessible directly by street, while the enforcer drop-off requires you to hop a fence and go through a very defensible door. WHY?

On the macro level, I think this ties back into weapon balancing. The game is only designed to have 100m maximum engagement distance. The map is properly scaled with that in mind, but I don't think the weapons could possibly be. Naturally, you should find that different weapon types are less or more effective depending on mission location, but in practice you'll find that some guns just dominate everywhere. There's also some locations where it seems like it wants to be a close-quarters area, but there's that like one sniper perch that you need a solid minute to set up, where you can shit on every pleb that was fooled into thinking their cqc guns were the move. Just a lot of places where it feels plain unfair to play in. I feel this immediate like pre-tilt when I get a mission on attack, because my god do I know that it's gonna be an uphill battle for the next 20 minutes. I get that it's not easy to rebalance something so fundamental and delicate, but I also don't like that mission locations felt like an afterthought in a lot of cases. plz fix

 

5) QoL and non-competitive experiences

I think what prevents this game from fading into nothingness is that it offers a lot of things outside of your guns and missions. People love their cars, their symbols, their music, and their clothes. They love them almost as much as they do just driving around the city (and crashing into me when I'm trying to get to my mission or use my car as cover you assholesjasklbdfjsa also pls fix griefing potential). I've never been super into the player customization portion, but y'know this is what people bond over. It's an incredibly social and customizable game, and there's so many ways that can manifest. The only real complaint I have about it is that it feels so neglected and outdated. The music system uses the same set of instruments and the same MIDI creation layout with the same exact limitations as when I started. Legit need to split some songs into multiple parts because length limits. Some songs I had to drastically simplify because uh oh my song was too complex. Symbol limits are also still severely limited if you don't have premium, which they've given us for free for so long, but what happens if that disappears? Will we just go back to the same like 5 symbol cars? There's also inventory space that's concerned me. I feel like I'm back in 2007 playing maplestory when I see that I need 3 characters to hold all my songs and symbols. I know they had talked about this before, but I would love it if they actually made it feel like it's not being held together by a indefinite premium band-aid.

 

In conclusion, I think I've just been sorta watching and waiting for so long now. It feels like the same game since 2015. I see LO trying their best to either tackle the biggest problems first (or at least gaslight us into thinking that they are), and I understand the absolute hell it must've been to gamble everything on an impossible update for so long. I feel like they're genuinely trying to get something out for the playerbase with the 64-bit and matchmaking updates, or maybe that's just Matt's smooth talking in his sometimes yearly updates. I'm sure we as a community genuinely want this game to be something we can enjoy, even if we do get salty and lose hope and throw around lovely insults. I just want to know if I'm alone in thinking the things I do. If others have their own well thought-out opinions, or their own stories to tell, or what they genuinely wish for the game to have, for the good of the game. All I see in forums are people dooming and throwing shit around, but I do think that they're here complaining in hope that it improves. However, there's enough of that on this forum. Let's actually have a discussion about it.

[Gro 104]

It's always nice to have a bit of nostalgia, but let's be real: no thing is going to change.

Feel free to jump in and get back to 2015 from time to time though.

[R3ACT3M 489]

I have no idea why so many people cry cheater. in my entire 2000 hours I only had a couple of really blatant cheaters. LO gotta put kill cams or something in this game to prove once and for all if people are really cheating or I just give players the benefit of the doubt.

[TheMessiah 430]

in this talkshow a cheater in apb right now tells if some1 cheatin or not(watch like the next 5-10 min)

 

 

[magik 184]

I too have felt the actual "cheating" issue is largely overinflated. Sure, there are people cheating, and for the most part, we should have adequate anti-cheat. It seems like we do. At least for the NA server. As for everything else, it would be great to see some weapon balancing as a continuous update every couple weeks or so, with some valuable feedback from player where changes can be tracked more specifically than a forum thread.

 

The funny thing is, I can really only remember a few blatant cheating instances in 3900 hours of gameplay.

 

When was the last time we had a map balancing update? I thought I remember there being a few where some ladders changed etc. around 2015 or so...

[PingOVER9000 189]

On 2/19/2024 at 12:27 AM, Kinun said:

I'm a player who can use just about any gun (except machine guns for some reason, someone pls teach),

Not a expert, but a passionate LMG player here, I am sharing the little of fun I know with them  

Muzzle break and High Magnification scope, while tapfiring in long ranges (YES almost ALWAYS, also against cars, you destroy cars also faster while tapfiring) or Pray/spray in closer range try to get accostumed with the bloom and managing it, you'll gain a better understanding of the weapon ... later you may switch with HS

 

You can use HB instead of MB if you prefer or you've a a more fresh character.

 

jump crouch shotting may be a decent habit for having a little momentum in close range/ corner fights... and in close range dont waste time going in markmanship mode, switch to secondary or prayspray directly.

 

 

References:

ALIG/overall recoil tips 

gameplay  with HMS  alig

 

 

About the game itself... the game has the same problems, first a desperate need of new contenents and still carrying a lot of the same problems for years, resolving the matchmaking at this point it's just something. . . like probabily giving new teeths to an old man but still tasting the usual liquid grob at the retirement home, became tastless after some years.

 

So Play if you've fun, leave if it's not , , , HF

Edited February 22 by PingOVER9000

[BlatMan 706]

10 hours ago, TheMessiah said:

in this talkshow a cheater in apb right now tells if some1 cheatin or not(watch like the next 5-10 min)

 

 

 

From my perspective, it's mostly cheaters who make the claim that other players are using color based cheats. They get killed 1 time and claim the other player is using a trigger bot. Maybe I'm crazy, but shooting while you're aimed at a player seems like the right way to play a shooter.

 

Battleye allowed virtual machines. That alone made it stupid easy to cheat. I don't have enough info to comment on detecting cheats within the same operating system. Looking through various open source repos, it seems like all the anti-cheats have exploits.

 

But they might have a point. The players other people claim cheat, I tend to not take notice of. I have stupid long names on most characters, and abuse the move+lean mechanic to shoot bursts around corners.

 

Another thing I often hear is APB doesn't use Epic Online Services, and it's using and outdated EAC. The EAC service description in Windows is literally called "Easy Anti Cheat (Epic Online Services)". That was installed when APB dropped Windows 7 support. Maybe they don't have the full feature set, but it's using the latest version from what I can tell.

 

- Back to OP

 

I agree and disagree on weapon balance. I think there's too many weapons with niche roles, and not enough weapons with a wider range of use. Yes, those few weapons you mentioned have the widest niche, but It's hard to give every weapon a wide niche when there's only 100M of range to work with. You'd have to turn APB into a class/hero style game where each weapon does 100% damage within it's niche, and less damage on either side of it. That would not feel right for a shooter that sorta resembles GTA. Even then, a certain combo of XYZ range weapon will always be best.

 

This new matching system will make you face the same 12 players over and over if it works as LO says it will. Currently it matches worse than old system, with looser threat requirements. Backup isn't an option in matches that it should be.

Maps and mission designs suck together. Financial as a whole is a decent map, but the forced to spawn on a road mechanic makes it impossible to win offense in many areas, with equal threat teams. Waterfront just sucks. Too much open space. There's a lack of alternative routes on foot. Missions have too many issues to list, but you've covered the main issues.

 

Something I think will help with the customization would be to change it from slot limited, to memory limited. I forget the exact symbol limit in your inventory, and don't know the memory usage. Lets say it's 20, and max complexity is 1000 KB. Currently, you can have 20 symbols with 1000KB each (20000KB total), or you can have 20 symbols with 1KB each (20KB total). Instead of limiting you to 20 symbols, you should be limited to 20000KB. This would keep the current complexity limits, but you would be able to have more symbols if you don't make them as complex. There should also be a detailed view of what is adding to the complexity, so you can optimize your symbols. For example, you may have accidentally rotated a solid circle. It will look the same at any rotation, but rotating it adds complexity. Knowing this, you can then set it to default rotation, and save a few KB. Another trick to save on complexity is to use the same symbol. Experienced players know this, but a new player may not, and no one will tell them unless they ask for specific help.