Back in the Streets AMA with Matt

[sweetLemonade 121]

14 hours ago, LilyRain said:

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.

1 — TTK & Accuracy (total bullet spread) should always be linked together in a discussion and it's completely ludicrous to treat them as separate entities when discussing balancing attempts.
One cannot implement longer TTK properly without adjusting accuracy.
My point with the N-TEC is to have a full-auto gun which doesn't have bullet spread in ADS (or at least has a 100% accurate 1st shot) and only has consistent recoil & range to deal with. I'd even go a step beyond and change walk modifier to 1 across all guns in the game, to make it viable to move & shoot in ADS.
I don't see what's “ironic”. I'm getting the sense that you're trying to devalue my arguement with some ad hominem attempts without fully reading through my posts & getting my intention.
2 — I get the feeling that you've never played a competitive PvP game, in which there is a clear distinction between skill tiers based on aiming mechanics & game positioning level.
I've even explicitly mentioned that I don't want modifications which provide an accuracy (or change accuracy for worse in form of larger bullet spread) & TTK benefit to players with more access to resources.
I want the stock guns to have MM_Modifier=0.
I want new players with a STAR to have an equal change at beating an NTEC consistently if their aim is mechanically better than their opponents. I don't want RNG (bullet spread) to decide whether someone wins encounters or not. It's that simple.
You seem to want to give the worse player a larger chance against a better player due to the current prevalence of high bullet spread.
When you extend that analogy & design approach to higher levels of gameplay, where veterans are having encounters between each other, the better player wouldn't consistently win.
This is how it is in live right now. This is terrible design in a game that purports itself to be competitive. Matt has explicitly stated that APB is competitive.

If you want me to be even more specific: 
- Removing HS3's accuracy benefits, only allowing it to adjust FoV (values can be decided upon later), removing LRR, IR, CJ altogether
- MM_Modifier=0 across all primary & secondary guns, ideally changing out bullet spread implementations across all of them as well. 
- Walk Modifier=1 across all primary & secondary guns, potentially even run modifier=1 on secondaries since they rely on hipfire combat mostly, though I'm unsure of how this will play out in practice.
- Elongating the TTK of problematic guns (<0,7s TTK) to a range of 0,9–1,1s (upper range bound can be evaluated further), which would mean adjusting 32 out of 49 (65%!!) distinct guns in the game. Only 17 guns in the game have an adequate TTK.
- Making shotguns & snipers at minimum 3 STK, not 2STK. One can implement them into a "2STK for 85"-type of approach

Please stop twisting my words & read through my paragraphs with a unbiased mind. I've written & repeated myself enough.
I've assessed that your intention is to belittle the other party and not have a meaningful discussion about this.
If you want more of my opinion on balancing matters, take a look through my post history for further elaboration.
Have a nice day.

 

8 hours ago, Yapopal said:

I envy you. You must be playing a different game. In my game, TTK is determined by the presence or absence of delays and lags. In my game, a character dies from two pistol shots. In my game, it is not clear whether the bullets hit the character or not. Competitive play should have equal conditions, but APB cannot provide them. Everything you are talking about is relevant for a bunch of gold players.

You should consider fixing your hardware & software stack if you are battling with this amount of lag, where you cannot determine the difference between 0,6s and 1,2s
Your game also seems to suffer from the large bullet spread that's available in the game, as per your second sentence. 
There are only a handful of guns which promise you 100% accuracy in marksmanship mode.
Try using guns such as the iSSR-C, Coroner, Enchantress, OBIR (HS3), Oblivion, Scout for a while and you'll understand where I'm coming from.

What I'm recommending is precisely fighting for equal conditions for someone that just started playing the game & someone who has accumulated in-game items. Equal capability to consistently win duel based upon aim mechanics, not relying on RNG (bullet spread) to determine the outcome. This is not only relevant for gold players.

Edited Wednesday at 04:29 PM by sweetLemonade

[NotTheEnforcer 222]

Vehicle Related Questions

Q1: Are there any plans to make kits or addons for the Mirage? The car itself seems nice, but the lack of any real customization kinda leaves it in a barebones state at the minute.

Q2: The Moirai desperately needs a fix to its Reverse gear acceleration. Can we please have someone look at that and just massively up its torque/power value? Currently it's almost as slow as the dumptruck, rendering the car basically unusable.

Q3: There were talks previously about bringing the "early" vehicles like the Patriot T-25 to be more in line with the "Later" vehicles like the Vegas, Bishada, and Jericho. Are these plans still in place, or have they been shelved? Having a cool pickup truck again would be nice, but I feel like the truck itself would need to be updated in some form. Maybe give it the 4x4 treatment (if its not already), add some mass+power+armor and a kit or two it would be all set. Same for the rest of the vehicles.

Weapon Related Questions

Q1: The FFA R&D 3 is effectively just a reskin of the OBIR with slightly less zoom. While as a veteran player myself I do somewhat understand the essence of "rarity" items, this gun seems like an odd choice to be kept behind an "invisible wall" persay. Is there any chance we could get it as a permeant addition to the JT store since it has no actual unique modifiers to it?

Q2: Are there any plans to go back and look at/change the old legendaries that have been neglected over the years and currently have mechanics that are deemed unlikeable?
Such weapons issues like:
-FFA Bullshark being utterly useless in every regard that its literally earned the nickname "Bullsh*t".
-The Huntress's reload timer serving no real purpose
-CAP40/Colby Commander piercing being overly situational in a game where most objects cant be pierced.
-Medusa's spreadfire. (Doubly overrun when most people have the Euryale.)
-Hazardous not even having any legendary effect.
-New Glory being laughably bad.
-EOL Series as a whole just needing a rework. (Maybe no timers?)
-Anubis having the god awful sight.

Edited Wednesday at 06:06 PM by NotTheEnforcer

[Hexerin 1150]

2 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

I want new players with a STAR to have an equal change at beating an NTEC consistently if their aim is mechanically better than their opponents. I don't want RNG (bullet spread) to decide whether someone wins encounters or not. It's that simple.

This isn't a competitive shooter. It's an arcade shooter that has some allowance for team coordination and personal skill to grant certain advantages in some situations. What you're asking for simply isn't within the parameters of what this game is, nor will it ever be. Additionally, it's very clear (and has been for a very long time) that MattScott doesn't give a shit about competition-level balance in the game. Hell, the person currently in charge of the weapon balance is yellow-plated.

Edited Wednesday at 06:31 PM by Hexerin

[Yapopal 189]

A very relevant question... When will shotguns become more dangerous than a rubber banana? There is a whole type of weapon dead in your COMPETITIVE game. I believe that the old NFAS specifications were competitive. This weapon ruled where it should rule, and lost where it was needed. Limited fans of a limited style of playing with a machine gun and a pistol are to blame for this. They are also to blame for the nerf impact grenades. A smart person will die once from NFAS or shock grenades, then they will draw conclusions and change the style of the game. A fool will run to scribble complaints and insult players in a game chat. Tell me Matt, why do you listen to fools?

[Yapopal 189]

3 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

You should consider fixing your hardware & software stack if you are battling with this amount of lag, where you cannot determine the difference between 0,6s and 1,2s
Your game also seems to suffer from the large bullet spread that's available in the game, as per your second sentence.
only a handful of guns which promise you 100% accuracy in marksmanship mode.
guns such as the iSSR-C, Coroner, Enchantress, OBIR (HS3), Oblivion, Scout for a while and you'll understand where I'm coming from.

What I'm recommending is precisely fighting for equal conditions for someone that just started playing the game & someone who has accumulated in-game items. Equal capability to consistently win duel based upon aim mechanics, not relying on RNG (bullet spread) to determine the outcome. This is not only relevant for gold players.

It's not about guns and how to use them. The game was much more convenient on the Pioneer server than it is now. Let's say I can't use the AP 45 right now because of frame stuttering and target teleportation during shooting. I have a new computer, but that doesn't solve the problem. For a COMPETITIVE game, you need more servers scattered around the world.

Edited Wednesday at 07:51 PM by Yapopal

[Yapopal 189]

A few suggestions for the game:

What about closing escalation and backup if the timer is less than one minute?

How about awarding a penalty medal for 30 seconds of inactivity?

Edited Wednesday at 07:50 PM by Yapopal

[LilyRain 689]

9 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

You seem to want to give the worse player a larger chance against a better player due to the current prevalence of high bullet spread.

Also sweetLemonade: "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."

Again, we're discussing TTK here,. I have also made it quite clear that N-TEC usually doesn't perform at its advertised TTK of 0.7s when accuracy is factored in..

Again, Newbies are by default at a disadvantage due to lack of experience with APB. You can circle jerk around all you want when it comes to their prior experience with shooter games. As if they would magically nullify a decade+ old Veteran's abilities with a mouse in APB.....

 

 

9 hours ago, sweetLemonade said:

Please stop twisting my words & read through my paragraphs with a unbiased mind. I've written & repeated myself enough.
I've assessed that your intention is to belittle the other party and not have a meaningful discussion about this.
If you want more of my opinion on balancing matters, take a look through my post history for further elaboration.
Have a nice day.

Or you can just quit the BS.

Again, we've seen what happens when APB gets longer TTK. You can go enjoy that in Quake, it doesn't fit in this game,

Edited yesterday at 02:10 AM by LilyRain

[Ardita 128]

15 hours ago, CookiePuss said:

Without getting into the “do configs give an advantage?” debate, the last we heard the plan was to add those low graphics options to the game so you won’t need a config anymore

this should at least make it “fair”.

Thanks for the info, and I can relate till why we don't take this debate in the question section.