Back in the Streets AMA with Matt

[MageLO 199]

Hello everybody, 

 

with the servers back online, and the Back In The Streets event is in full swing! We figured it'd be the perfect time for another AMA Session with Matt.

 

Join our CEO, Matt Scott, on March 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM UTC over on Twitch as he dives into what caused the extended downtime and answers your burning questions live.

 

If you would like some of your questions to be answered then please post them in this Forum Thread!

 

Don't miss it—see you there! 

[llXketchupXll 9]

Q: Would you be willing to slow down the game as a whole? I think of the game time scale, but it could be another method. I'm talking about 10%, 15%, max less than 20%, (slowing) so the game could really behave better.

Q: Can u Add some Rank player system it will be in 2025 ?

 

Q: LAG compensation and Latency  you shood look for some changes even for testing purposes...

the game shouldn't reduce delays in such a lenient way and speed up the player's position because he has a weaker connection

[StevenDeckard 288]

Did post that question too late during the past two AMAs, so here it goes again:

Hey Matt, I wonder if there is any chance that the "open world part" of APB will get some love down the line? More to do for enforcers, more to do for criminals, including BOTH sides being reliant on the other (i.e. more cops on patrol = more gain for the criminals, less cops out = less gain for criminals), as well as "drop off" points not spawning right next to where the "witnessing" happens, but on the opposite site of the town for both sides, so we can have MORE fun hot pursuits happening (after all we got cars)?

Oh and if there is any chance that clan groups could be larger than just 4 people?

Thanks!

Edited Sunday at 11:40 PM by StevenDeckard

[Westford 176]

Question:

 

Could LO provide monthly SARD stats by Server/Faction/Rank ?

Just add it to https://www.gamersfirst.com/apb/news/

 

Non interactive, with no names to avoid the trash talk drama fest
that so many of us enjoyed during the Fairfight days.

 

I think that most players would agree that some/any type of regular
communication would go a long way in reassuring the community that
“things are getting done” with regards to those players who are not
supporters of fair gameplay, and their continued use of'
- Cheats (Aimbot, Wallhack.. etc)
- Macros (Consistent maximum fire rate (.45 pistol comes to mind))
   No Recoil

   Triggerbot (color identifier)
   etc

 

Do you support this level of transparency ?

Would this effort be labor intensive, or just a matter of running a query
and formatting the results ?

 

Thank you

Edited Monday at 12:45 AM by Westford

[BlatMan 724]

Providing those ban stats will be useless for legit players, but cheaters will be able to use those stats to determine what is getting them banned.

 

Are more bans a good thing? Does it mean the anti-cheat is working as intended? Does it mean there's more cheaters? What percentage of cheaters are caught?

 

Besides, a bronze player won't know the difference between an aimbot and the character turning when shooting.

[Ardita 125]

Question:
When will Little Orbit look into the using of low graphic configs who clearly give those who're using it an advantage in combat?

 

Will /report 'playername' end somewhere else than in Recycle Bin or is there literally someone who's looking into these reportings? Reported griefers so many times and even people saying in chat that they don't care because nothing ever will happen.

[Westford 176]

1 hour ago, BlatMan said:

Providing those ban stats will be useless for legit players, but cheaters will be able to use those stats to determine what is getting them banned.

 

Are more bans a good thing? Does it mean the anti-cheat is working as intended? Does it mean there's more cheaters? What percentage of cheaters are caught?

 

Besides, a bronze player won't know the difference between an aimbot and the character turning when shooting.

 

I am not sure I agree with all of your opinions, and I usually stay away from making
any assumptions unless there is more information  available.
 

Providing those ban stats will be useless for legit players
I do not agree with this opinion.
I am a legit player, and having the knowledge that “cheaters” are actively being banned,
does provide myself, and other legit players that SARD is flushing out the bad actors
on a consistent basis.
I am sure I am not the only legit player that feels this way.
I agree that there will be some legit players that would find this information useless.

but cheaters will be able to use those stats to determine what is getting them banned
Interesting…. I am curious how Server/Faction/Rank will provide enough meaningful data
to the cheat community as to what cheat they used that caused a ban.
Also, there would be some lag time between an individual’s ban, and when they would be tallied into the stats.
Can you elaborate more ?
 

Are more bans a good thing?
More cheaters banned or just bans in general ?
If you are referring to cheaters, than of course.
Yes, that would be a good thing.

Do you disagree, and if so, why ?

Does it mean the anti-cheat is working as intended?
Only LO will know if it is working as intended.
Posting ban stats would provide transparency to the playerbase that SARD is actually doing something.
Would it improve the confidence level of the playerbase ?
I believe it would, but that would only be my opinion.
As you said, for some legit players, it would be useless information.

 

Does it mean there's more cheaters?
More than what.
Than initially assumed ?
Sorry not following the question.

 

What percentage of cheaters are caught?
Not sure that can be determined.
If a cheater is not caught, then there is really no way of knowing
what percentage are caught vs not caught.
Or maybe I am misunderstanding your question.

 

Besides, a bronze player won't know the difference between an aimbot and the character turning when shooting.
Not sure how this is even relevant to the discussion of SARD ban stats.
what difference does it make if a Bronze. Silver or Gold player can or cannot tell the difference ?

I didn’t  want to hijack this post on discussing whether or not LO should or should not provide ban stats or not.

I’ll leave it to LO to decide.

 

 

[LilyRain 688]

Yay, no US-East.

It would be nice to actually have World Consolidation ship out next rather than another, subpar useless 'priority' that nobody cares about.

[vsb 6183]

 

5 hours ago, Westford said:

Posting ban stats would provide transparency to the playerbase that SARD is actually doing something.
Would it improve the confidence level of the playerbase ?

if you don’t trust that the devs are banning cheaters, why would you trust that the devs would post legitimate ban statistics? 

[Westford 176]

2 hours ago, vsb said:

 

if you don’t trust that the devs are banning cheaters, why would you trust that the devs would post legitimate ban statistics? 

 

I had not realized that there would be much objection to monthly SARD ban stats.

I was wrong, but am curious as to why this type of transparency is a bad thing.

 

And I never said that I do not trust that cheaters are being banned or not,
I did not realize how uncomfortable this level of transparency would be
received by some players.

I understand that for some legit players, as @BlatMan had mentioned,
this information would be useless, and those players would not even bother
to take a look at the stats.
So no problems there, as they would never see the stats.
That information to them provides no value.
 

why would you trust that the devs would post legitimate ban statistics?
Good question.

Let me see if I can make an analogy.

LO releases patch notes fairly regularly.
One might assume that these patch notes are released for the sake of transparency,
which is a good thing.

 

But now you have me thinking, what if… those patch notes are not legitimate.
How can we trust them ?

Seriously ?

 

Yeah, I trust them, patch notes and all.
Would be kind of ridiculous to post made up ban stats, but now you’ve got people thinking.
lol

 

Hey, if people are so dead set against ban stats, fine.

Again, not sure why this information is so uncomfortable to some.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

EDIT:
I have explained my reasons and value added to the player base as to
the benefits of SARD monthly ban stats.
- Transparency
- Reassurance that bad actors are being removed on a consistent basis

I have not read any negatives to providing this level of transparency.

The argument that "cheaters will be able to use those stats to determine what is getting them banned."
I do not believe is valid, as there is not enough data being posted that could provide ANY 
indication as to why any cheater was banned.

 

Cheater X is banned on the 13th of the month.
Cheater X knows they have been banned since they get the infamous error code when trying to log in.
They do not know what was identified that caused the ban.

At the end of the month Cheater X's ban is tallied up/or not tallied up with the others for a cumulative count.
Cheater X still does not know anything, or even if the ban stat listed included themselves.

 

So, can anyone provide some information/details as to WHY ban stats are a bad thing.

Please.

 

Thank you
 

Edited Monday at 10:53 AM by Westford

[Yapopal 187]

The game cannot provide stable communication between players, this is a fact. The distance from the server, low graphics, and server lags compound the problem. Please pay attention to this issue.

[NotTheEnforcer 222]

Q: Are there any plans to bring APB Reloaded up to some standard of modern graphic fidelity?

Currently APB is extremely outdated, and I think the argument of player performance is a null value at this point. The game could do with a refresh to at least semi-modern standards. You can visibly count the polys on most ingame models, not to mention the pixels on most decals, its a shame really. The customization would still hold up well if only it were in a better state.

[Reprimand 121]

Will you consider giving more powers to volunteers to dissuade and punish cheaters, especially those who mission block, grief and troll? It seems that there isn't much of a hierarchy to stop players other than SARD, and the kick function can only do so much.

 

Will you scale back in-game reliance of mods in order to reach gameplay meta and adjust stats to ensure that new players don't have an uphill battle to climb when playing?

Edited Monday at 08:56 PM by Reprimand

[sweetLemonade 121]

Q1: When will the >120 FPS sliding bug get taken care of? It's a ground-breaking issue that's plaguing people for months.
Q2: When will we get a proper in-game frame limiter to combat low 0.1% and 0.05% lows instead of relying on external solutions such as RTSS with front edge sync? Even something as simple as a drop-down menu with most common frame limit values such as 60, 75, 100, 120, 144, 165, 180, 200, 240, 250, 280, 300, 360, 400, 540 may suffice. Yes, there is a need for a higher frame rate limiter with new high refresh rate displays to avoid tearing and microstuttering in APB, which you've said is a competitive title in the last AMA.
Q3: Are there any plans for upgrading the server tick rate to 60fps or 120fps? 
Q4: Are there any plans for balancing the faster TTK weapons to a higher value, making them longer TTK? I'm talking about lengthening the TTK of problematic guns (NTEC & faster) to around Snubnose TTK (0,9 – 1s). Having a longer TTK & higher base accuracy in marksman mode would greatly enhance new-player experience and reward players for refining their aim.
Q5: Will you ever adjust the in-game crosshair to accurately reflect weapon accuracy, regardless of resolution?
Q6: Are there any plans for changing out the in-game bloom implementation? Visual fidelity has taken a nose-dive since RTW
Q7: Gun bullet tracers? When?
Q8: Would you ever consider adding sprintshooting back to the game, perhaps with the aforementioned TTK changes? Perhaps even adding different movement mechanics, such as wall-bouncing or sliding to APB? It would greatly enhance the skill ceiling of the game, allowing for much variety in dodge-ability. 
Q9: Now that the SARD is fully implemented, when will Clan Leaderboards get implemented to the game?
Q10:: What happened to the Epic Games Store release? Will it ever get released there?
Q11: Any works for a new Tutorial or perhaps a fully separate district for new players?
Q12: Crosshair customizations, when?  
Q13: Kismet or Scaleform? Which one have you decided on to fully implement in APB? What are your thoughts about ImGui & similar frameworks, which are less demanding? 
Q14: Will there be a second district layout balancing pass to districts such as Waterfront? There are still too many defend spots which are unfeasible & almost impossible to attack due to their layout.
Q15: Are there any anti-griefing solutions in the works?
Q16: What are the names of the new contacts, ready to be released for April?
Q17: Are there any plans to debundle certain clothing items, weapons or vehicles from ARMAS packs and place them into the Joker Store?
Q18: You've teased a UE5 version of APB, a concept. Is there any particular reason why that engine was chosen and not a more optimized solution such as idTech's engine or even CryEngine?
Q19: What are your thoughts on buffing the crouch movement speed? Something along the lines of multiplying it by 2.

Edited 13 hours ago by sweetLemonade

[LilyRain 688]

6 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

Q4: Are there any plans for balancing the faster TTK weapons to a higher value, making them longer TTK? I'm talking about lengthening the TTK of problematic guns (NTEC & faster) to around Snubnose TTK (0,9 – 1s). Having a longer TTK & higher base accuracy in marksman mode would greatly enhance new-player experience and reward players for refining their aim.

This is incorrect.

1- Newbies will not maintain aim on opponents like seasoned veterans/aim_labbers would. Longer TTKs will pretty much guarantee a newbie always losing a gunfight vs a Veteran.
2- This will further skew balance towards ganging up on people MMO-style. Veterans usually play in squads while Newbies are often going in singular commandos. This will further solidify the destruction of Newbies.
--------------------
And APB doesn't have anything to speed up killing like headshots. The only way is to cook a grenade for pre-damage which again, Veterans are far more skilled than Newbies in that department.

APB experimented with longer TTK before. It is truly NOT in a position to attempt that again.

[Deadliest 388]

When's the web 2.5 strategy coming out? so we can all cash out.

 

You going to turn apb into a crypto game? is this the workings for the future?

 

 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by Deadliest

[MACKxBOLAN 452]

3 hours ago, LilyRain said:

Veterans usually play in squads while Newbies are often going in singular commandos. This will further solidify the destruction of Newbies.

You're right, I never group cuz i don't want to be told what to do or listen to their clown music, and or don't know them, much less trust them. 

That said, as far as weapons are concerned, they are all butchered to a splinter of their real life versions. 

 So in my mind if I have to shoot you 5X with a slug shot gun, that gun is worthless.

Then You understand I would only have a spit second to pop out, aim and fire.

So if I hit him, he won't be significantly wounded nor will i receive any cash or credit unless the target is killed 

directly thereafter by a team mate, So this reflects on the value of a given weapon.

If it won't kill a gold in 1 or 2 shots, its really worthless.

[sweetLemonade 121]

6 hours ago, LilyRain said:

This is incorrect.

1- Newbies will not maintain aim on opponents like seasoned veterans/aim_labbers would. Longer TTKs will pretty much guarantee a newbie always losing a gunfight vs a Veteran.
2- This will further skew balance towards ganging up on people MMO-style. Veterans usually play in squads while Newbies are often going in singular commandos. This will further solidify the destruction of Newbies.
--------------------
And APB doesn't have anything to speed up killing like headshots. The only way is to cook a grenade for pre-damage which again, Veterans are far more skilled than Newbies in that department.

APB experimented with longer TTK before. It is truly NOT in a position to attempt that again.

1 — So? This is how every PvP game should be, the decisive factor being the hands of the user, not the random number generator. It is the main gripe people have had about the game for a decade now. Scale your analogy up to engagements between 2 veteran players, the one with more RNG will win. Do you think this is a proper way to balance guns? I certainly don't. If a game is specifically mentioned by the main CEO as a competitive title, then lowering the overall RNG is #1 priority.
2 — Yes, where lies the problem in making the game more aim-intensive and to an extension more team-intensive? Newbies can get better if the game provides them with the framework to get better at the game, which is built upon consistent & repeatable behaviors (guns & mechanics). Why are you trying to make it seem as if having a good foundation (low RNG) to get better is a bad thing to implement? It benefits both groups equally as much.

The game is already played at ~1s TTK in mid-long range encounters though... it doesn't need to be sped up with headshots.
Yes, the devs "experimented" with longer TTK and botched it on purpose. It seems that you've (conveniently) forgotten to mention that.

I'll quote @Dopefish, as he's summarised the testing pretty well

Quote

Like you mentioned, the test were done poorly, and I believe it was deliberately see. Qwentle always preferred faster TTK, and were proud of his implementation for when G1 took over, so if a TTK change would've gone through, it would've invalidated his work and forced him to rebalance every weapon in the game. The districts died out quickly because they were pretty much unplayable due to the perc one-shotting cars, and even though the weapons were slowed down, their accuracy were never improved which only made the RNG more apparent.

I believe it would've been better with a smaller TTK increase, such as 0.7s -> 0.9s, but instead we've only had lower TTK creep over the years, just reinforcing the issues with the rest of the game never being balanced around it. Animations such as entering vehicles, climbing ladders, opening door were created with a certain TTK in mind, and the same goes for the level design where you don't have time to reach any cover if you start getting shot at.

The low TTK were implemented to make it possible for lesser skilled players to get kills aswell, but I think the change actually worked against them instead, as they only die faster now. Third person view with low TTK makes for a very frustrating experience as people can simply stand around a corner with perfect information, and pretty much get a free kill without much effort. It makes the game stale, repetitive and very uninteresting.

The biggest difference was that it made coordinated gameplay much less important, as one guy can now cover an entrance by himself, while before he would've been overrun if more than one player attacked from that direction, making it a trade-off to spread out the defense to cover more areas, or having more people cover one entrance, leaving other areas open. This is what made defense having such a big advantage over attackers.

I really wish they'd reconsider this, but I don't even know if this community would be open for a change anymore, as they have had the same game without changes such a long time now.

I sincerely don't see a single road blocker to making the game have less RNG in Marksmanship mode (perhaps even setting MM_Modifier=0) and lengthening the TTK to 0.9–1s.

You are essentially elongating the TTK of guns “artificially” by tap-firing full-auto weapons such as the N-TEC, STAR & others.
It'll just require tracking the target for slightly longer and making the gun play more consistent.. It's a small change but it'll pay dividends.
If you've played guns such as the (all with HS3) Oblivion, OBIR, Scout, ISSR-C (outlier due to TTK), Dog Ear(slight of an outlier due to 3rd bullet accuracy), Coroner — all of these guns behave consistent & great due to their low bullet spread and longer TTK.

Another thing which they can bring back is sprintshooting, which would very favorably make the game feel faster & consistent.

Edited 13 hours ago by sweetLemonade

[LilyRain 688]

1 hour ago, sweetLemonade said:

1 — So?

So your claim "Having a longer TTK & higher base accuracy in marksman mode would greatly enhance new-player experience" is simply a big fat lie.

[neophobia 216]

Is APB profitable at the moment, can we expect it to run many more years and have further developments?

[N66 101]

3 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

 

It's not RNG, long TTK's will eliminate most of the skills involved with this game and make it boringly casual, anything involving starting the fight with the upper hand due to an ambush or knowing where the player is mostly gone if the TTK is long, it'll be much more about what TTK you have for the fight's range than anything else, so fights will be rock paper scissor in a way..

[sweetLemonade 121]

4 hours ago, LilyRain said:

So your claim "Having a longer TTK & higher base accuracy in marksman mode would greatly enhance new-player experience" is simply a big fat lie.

You are seemingly binding the term "new player" to a person who does not know how to hold a mouse. 
A new player may be a person coming from a TPS / FPS background and wanting to have his aiming skill translate into APB, which you cannot fully accomplish due to lack of total accuracy during hipfire or marksmanship mode on a majority of the guns. 
The main reason some guns are preferred to be used in hipfire is because their marksmanship mode is identical to hipfire...
I don't see how my original point was a lie.

To further elaborate:
Mixing together Hunting Sight (marksmanship modifier = 0) benefits and elongating the TTK (0,9 – 1s) would provide a structure for new-comers to not opt for modifications right away.
It would stop people from complaining about "hitreg" (most of which are bullet spread complaints) and focus on aiming & positioning.
I find it completely ridiculous that a modification has so much power, that it can determine the RNG (bullet spread) of a fight by tightening the cone in which bullets travel.
That is completely unacceptable in a competitive game, which Matt has personally stated APB to be. This clearly deviates from the old premise of APB being a casual shooter, which was said during the G1/RP era.

 

2 hours ago, N66 said:

It's not RNG, long TTK's will eliminate most of the skills involved with this game and make it boringly casual, anything involving starting the fight with the upper hand due to an ambush or knowing where the player is mostly gone if the TTK is long, it'll be much more about what TTK you have for the fight's range than anything else, so fights will be rock paper scissor in a way..

I would advise you to re-read my original paragraph, as I get the feeling that you haven't read it.
The current game with "bloom" (bullet spread) enforces randonmness into the equation where 2 equally skilled players may have an engagement in the same range in the open. It is not "boringly casual" to make the game more aim-intensive by asking of you to track a target for 0.4s more, it is in fact much more demanding, all things considering.
It allows for a proper hierarchical structure to be created in terms of skill, where one can rely on investing time in becoming a better aimer in APB rather than relying on the RNG (bullet spread / "bloom") aspect of the game netting you a kill.
The game currently has a range of 0.6s – +1.2s TTK guns, which is a huge discrepancy between TTK's of guns. Do you think that's healthy for the game? I don't. A gun may kill you 2x faster than the other gun. Many other veterans who left this game also agree, the population numbers speak for themselves. The only players left are people who are there for nostalgia purposes, not for the shooter aspect of the game.
The layout of the map was not designed for such changes in TTK, as is evident by the fact that the game barely is able to keep a population of 200 people alive.
You can take examples of other games, where games such as CS1.6 still have a +10k player base in 2025, simply due to good core gameplay mechanics triumphing over fancy graphics.

To understand what type of game I'd like to see APB become, take a look at guns such as the Oblivion, OBIR, Scout, Coroner, ISSR-C, ISSR-B.
They are decently long TTK, while keeping the bullet spread tight in ADS mode, exactly how the mode should behave.
I don't want Hunting Sight to determine my overall accuracy during marksmanship mode either, I want it to become a modification that changes FoV only.
I don't want Cooling Jacket to determine my TTK and overall accuracy either, it's a cop-out & breaks balancing.
I don't want Improved Rifling to determine my range & overall accuracy either, it's a cop-out & balancing.
I don't want Long-Range Rifling to completely wreck the range-based classification of guns in the game, it was clearly a hastily done decision on someone's part.
LMGs have 80m range now....
I don't want a large weapon pool, where most guns play identical. The game can offer new content in form of clothing items, cars or skins.
Not by reskinning existing guns and bloating up the possible selections.

Hope I've got my points across. I won't derail the AMA thread further. I find Dopefish's post & my small additions to be sufficient to get it across.
The two of you don't want or don't see the game to become more aim-intensive, relying on the old "but worse players NEED to have a chance to get a kill on a better player" arguement.
This was Qwentle's way of thinking, as mentioned by Dopefish's old article in regards to the TTK district tests.
The game needs a drastic shake-up for the better and this is the only way forward.
Qwentle's weapon balancing philosophy has died and it should be burried already.

Have a nice evening.

Edited 7 hours ago by sweetLemonade

[LilyRain 688]

2 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

You are seemingly binding the term "new player" to a person who does not know how to hold a mouse. 
A new player may be a person coming from a TPS / FPS background and wanting to have his aiming skill translate into APB, which you cannot fully accomplish due to lack of total accuracy during hipfire or marksmanship mode on a majority of the guns. 
The main reason some guns are preferred to be used in hipfire is because their marksmanship mode is identical to hipfire...
I don't see how my original point was a lie.

To further elaborate:
Mixing together Hunting Sight (marksmanship modifier = 0) benefits and elongating the TTK (0,9 – 1s) would provide a structure for new-comers to not opt for modifications right away.
It would stop people from complaining about "hitreg" (most of which are bullet spread complaints) and focus on aiming & positioning.
I find it completely ridiculous that a modification has so much power, that it can determine the RNG (bullet spread) of a fight by tightening the cone in which bullets travel.
That is completely unacceptable in a competitive game, which Matt has personally stated APB to be. This clearly deviates from the old premise of APB being a casual shooter, which was said during the G1/RP era.

Your original point is a lie because:

1- This is about TTK. Accuracy is usually more often than not considered already when it comes to TTK (unless a player full Auto's N-TEC, meaning true TTK can indeed be slower than advertised, not faster. Ironic because your post directly mentions N-TEC).
2- Even if accuracy is considered, you have elaborated exactly why a Veteran has the advantage here as well even if a newbie comes from a shooter-background. PLUS Veterans actually having access to accuracy mods while Newbies have to get them first.

Nice try but it is time to take a step back and rethink a bit.