Changes To In-Mission Collision That Could Foster Growth And Fix Objective Griefing

[Spudinskes 41]

There was a time half a decade ago when APB was an unknown game to most of the gaming community. It was also a time when the idea of a GTA-esk cops and robbers game was still very relevant (GTA 5 released in 2013). This was also a time when the game could have taken advantage of Twitch, a powerful streaming platform that has the ability for a single person to expose games to tens of thousands of viewers. A very popular streamer, in 2013 streamed APB and genuinely thought it was cool idea of a game. Unfortunately shortly after him and his friends finished customizing their characters and started a mission they were bombared by mobs of griefers.

 

As a previous streamer myself who has experienced griefing and had to give up streaming to play, I knew the streamer wouldn't enjoy the game if he'd stream it. Not surprisingly, griefers constantly pushed him and his team around with cars during gunfights, pit maneuvered them as they reached objectives, and sat in cars over and on top their objectives. It was painful watching his stream, to say the least. Every day he would get on to try to get some games in but would continue to get griefed again. It got to the point where he had to stop streaming, to his tens of thousands of viewers, in order to play the game. Can you imagine the impression that his viewers got from that? Being forced to stop streaming, which is the streamer's livelihood and source of income, just to enjoy a game that he genuinely wanted to play? If I were one of his viewers nothing would convince me to ever touch APB.

 

If the streamer continued to play and stream APB longer than he did more of his viewers would have played, possibly purchasing things from the ARMAS marketplace and producing more revenue to the game. Now while I acknowledge that there are a plethora of other issues in APB that would have made many of the new players quit, there are bound to have been many of them that would have stuck through. Regardless, with a new company picking up APB that hopes to make a lot of changes to improve this game I highly encourage that changing how collision works in this game be one of the first. This would allow content creators and streamers to have an easier time to enjoy the game and share their experiences, and in turn foster growth. After all without the power of multi-million dollar advertisements, word of mouth will be key in bringing in new players.

 

The issue of objective griefing isn't specific to just streamers though. It can happen to anyone. You beat someone and they're a sore loser? You lost and the guy is just a bully and wants to rub salt in the wounds? Maybe some random guy got up one day and decided to grief anyone they see? It could happen to players in a green district where one green thinks that the other has to be a cheater. Objective griefing can happen to anyone, and due to how easy it is to do it it can be done on a whim.

 

There are several ways that the company can decide to handle this. One example that satisfies both sides of the fence is to have a zone in a small area around active mission objectives (phone booths, store fronts, doors, etc) that makes vehicles outside of the mission not collide with players inside it. This way players that enjoy the chaos of crashing into people on the way to objectives get to keep their fun, while still allowing for players in the mission to actually complete the object. I would like to hear your thoughts, do you think griefing hurts the marketability of APB to popential players? How would you suppose Little Orbit fix this issue?

Edited May 30, 2018 by Spudinskes

[vsb 6171]

might as well just throw in a “passive mode” where you ghost through player cars as well as player characters

 

that way people who want the immersion of out of mission interference don’t whine and the people getting griefed by out of mission players don’t whine

[freq 54]

I think Matt briefly touched on griefing and said he wanted to do something about it in the Q&A.

[Spudinskes 41]

2 minutes ago, BXNNXD said:

might as well just throw in a “passive mode” where you ghost through player cars as well as player characters

 

that way people who want the immersion of out of mission interference don’t whine and the people getting griefed by out of mission players don’t whine

I disagree that there should be a selectable "passive mode". I believe that people should still be able to bump around others that aren't in missions. Really we just need a change to how collision works for players that are in missions.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Spudinskes

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, BXNNXD said:

might as well just throw in a “passive mode” where you ghost through player cars as well as player characters

 

that way people who want the immersion of out of mission interference don’t whine and the people getting griefed by out of mission players don’t whine

 

As long as you can still see the players and player vehicals etc. Im game for that. Given that they discussed doing something about going P5/N5 and getting interupted in a mission. This has potential of actually getting looked into.

[Kat 27]

Keep collision the same for the sole purpose of never letting scummit return to the game

[Keshi 436]

collision isnt the issue. players griefing 24/7 is the issue... Specially when those griefs can cost you a mission. Some of us drive normally, try not to ruin other people's missions and then comes the garbage truck drivers and bam

Edited May 28, 2018 by Keshi

[Spudinskes 41]

Just now, Kat said:

Keep collision the same for the sole purpose of never letting scummit return to the game

Haha, while I can agree with you there you have to keep in mind the viewers that people like him can bring to a game. For the greater good

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, Keshi said:

collision isnt the issue. no players griefing 24/7 is the issue... Specially when those griefs can cost you a mission. Some of us drive normally, try not to ruin other people's missions and then comes the garbage truck drivers and bam

Part of the issue is Garbage trucks/dump trucks in general. Remove those and some of the problem solves its self.

[Spudinskes 41]

Just now, Keshi said:

collision isnt the issue. players griefing 24/7 is the issue... Specially when those griefs can cost you a mission. Some of us drive normally, try not to ruin other people's missions and then comes the garbage truck drivers and bam

I would have to disagree. Collision is what enables people to grief, in fact it's really one of the only few ways for people to grief people in missions. There are annoying themes and attention grabbing outfits but those won't likely impede your chances of winning the mission.

[Keshi 436]

4 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

Part of the issue is Garbage trucks/dump trucks in general. Remove those and some of the problem solves its self.

then again, you have the d**kheads griefing with their pioneers as well.... not so much but i can imagine them driving pioneers instead of the trucks if it ever gets removed. 
Let's say they DO remove the trucks, what can counter the pioneer for griefing? 

1 minute ago, Spudinskes said:

I would have to disagree. Collision is what enables people to grief, in fact it's really one of the only few ways for people to grief people in missions. There are annoying themes and attention grabbing outfits but those won't likely impede your chances of winning the mission.

I do agree, but not everyone is a d**k head. Some respect others on the road regardless if they are in a mission or not, well i respect others so i dont grief.

 

Edited May 28, 2018 by Keshi

[Spudinskes 41]

4 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

Part of the issue is Garbage trucks/dump trucks in general. Remove those and some of the problem solves its self.

Removing those would not solve the problem. Pioneers have a lot of power to ram and are really heavy to push off the point with other cars, even with another pioneer. Griefers will simply use cars like that instead.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Spudinskes

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, Keshi said:

then again, you have the d**kheads griefing with their pioneers as well.... not so much but i can imagine them driving pioneers instead of the trucks if it ever gets removed. 
Let's say they DO remove the trucks, what can counter the pioneer for griefing? 

by recording them doing it (video evidence) and banning them for it. Even if only temp for the first few times.

[Spudinskes 41]

10 minutes ago, freq said:

I think Matt briefly touched on griefing and said he wanted to do something about it in the Q&A.

That's great to hear! Hopefully it won't take long.

[Keshi 436]

Just now, EnragedLlamaTV said:

by recording them doing it (video evidence) and banning them for it. Even if only temp for the first few times.

There was a time that i thought reporting would help....maybe now that Matt is here we can try reporting griefing now... good idea 

[Spudinskes 41]

1 minute ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

by recording them doing it (video evidence) and banning them for it. Even if only temp for the first few times.

Griefers will simply create new accounts and circumvent IP bans with VPNs. Not only that but admins won't get around to the report for hours or more likely days.

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

Just now, Keshi said:

There was a time that i thought reporting would help....maybe now that Matt is here we can try reporting griefing now... good idea 

I mean i know that recording isnt exactly accessible to everyone. But in the end, griefing is in the rule book. its up to LO to uphold the rule book or throw it out the window. Video evidence is pretty hard to refute. The question is what is considered 'excessive' Which imo i would consider the act of persuading the person to grief them. if u hit each other passing by thats one thing. but following them around for a while ramming them cuz your mad, should be a 24h ban so they can take some time to grow up and cool off. With Mods in server, this should be fairly swift.

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

2 minutes ago, Spudinskes said:

Griefers will simply create new accounts and circumvent IP bans with VPNs. Not only that but admins won't get around to the report for hours or more likely days.

If they do infact resolve the deranking/up ranking issues. New accounts will be irrelevent unless you are completely trash and end up in their server again. Additionally, they wont own a pioneer to grief you with. And if your not playing in nub-tastic server. They'll have to re-rank up repeatedly. to then seek you out and grief you. I wont say it wont happen. but griefing in large margins would stop. It would also give mods/support time to look into it.

[Spudinskes 41]

6 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

If they do infact resolve the deranking/up ranking issues. New accounts will be irrelevent unless you are completely trash and end up in their server again. Additionally, they wont own a pioneer to grief you with. And if your not playing in nub-tastic server. They'll have to re-rank up repeatedly. to then seek you out and grief you. I wont say it wont happen. but griefing in large margins would stop. It would also give mods/support time to look into it.

Every multiplayer game has a lot of low ranked players, including APB. It's not a smart business decision to abandon those players. I was also using the pioneer as an example, there are security trucks, vans, and fresnos that are very hard to move.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Spudinskes

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, Spudinskes said:

Every multiplayer game has a lot of low ranked players, including APB. It's not a smart business decision to abandon those players. I was also using the pioneer as an example, there are security trucks, vans, and fresnos that are very hard to move. We shouldn't remove those as well.

Well I assumed we had moved on from the removing the vehicle comment but i guess not. This issue comes down to griefing or removing player interaction. You either play GTA and play alone. Or you play apb and all the ups and downs that come with it. I agree that a passive mode would be nice at least while in missions. Additionally, New players/early rank players rarely spend money on a game. ( i work marketing for another game, so this isn't an assumption) While it is important to not abandon them. But its the curse of being really bad at a video game. If you cant get out of the worst of the worst in terms of servers. You are bound to have rerolls. As soon as people can get over the fact that "rerolls" will ALWAYS exist, be it in a free game or paid game. The sooner we can get into actually resolving issues for the other 99% of the player base. Short of going to their home and blowing up their computers/consoles and draining all of their money from their bank accounts to prevent a new pc and making all of their friends hate them to prevent them from loaning them their PC. Nothing will solve that issue so lets stop grasping at the straw-man case and deal with the majority.

[magik 184]

I personally liked the uniqueness of the game, especially with collision. The ability to collide with a person outside the mission makes it feel more alive, that the game has people. However, griefing, imo can be handled with in game GMs that actually pose a presence. If someone is griefing, and the report system improves, alongside the increased 'authority' then I see griefing dying down.

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, Sergsininia said:

I personally liked the uniqueness of the game, especially with collision. The ability to collide with a person outside the mission makes it feel more alive, that the game has people. However, griefing, imo can be handled with in game GMs that actually pose a presence. If someone is griefing, and the report system improves, alongside the increased 'authority' then I see griefing dying down.

Exactly this. I too enjoy that having the game feel alive is important and a reason im drawn too it. But while in a mission it could be frustrating. But what if only while in a mission, you cant collide with other player vehicals that are not in the mission? all passives remain the same (kinda goes back to garbage truck issue but still)

[Spudinskes 41]

11 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

Well I assumed we had moved on from the removing the vehicle comment but i guess not. This issue comes down to griefing or removing player interaction. You either play GTA and play alone. Or you play apb and all the ups and downs that come with it. I agree that a passive mode would be nice at least while in missions. Additionally, New players/early rank players rarely spend money on a game. ( i work marketing for another game, so this isn't an assumption) While it is important to not abandon them. But its the curse of being really bad at a video game. If you cant get out of the worst of the worst in terms of servers. You are bound to have rerolls. As soon as people can get over the fact that "rerolls" will ALWAYS exist, be it in a free game or paid game. The sooner we can get into actually resolving issues for the other 99% of the player base. Short of going to their home and blowing up their computers/consoles and draining all of their money from their bank accounts to prevent a new pc and making all of their friends hate them to prevent them from loaning them their PC. Nothing will solve that issue so lets stop grasping at the straw-man case and deal with the majority.

What part of my reply do you believe is a straw man argument? Anywho new and early rank players often get better at least somewhat, over time. If you snuff out those players before they get their foot on the ground then there's a problem.

 

But while in a mission it could be frustrating. But what if only while in a mission, you cant collide with other player vehicals that are not in the mission? all passives remain the same (kinda goes back to garbage truck issue but still)

Can you clarify on what you're conveying here?

Edited May 28, 2018 by Spudinskes

[LaQuandra 91]

I am pretty much against being able to ghost through cars and I don't like catering the game to popular streamers. Summit isn't going to be the savior. He has promoted the game and streamed it before. Where are the players? Why weren't they retained? They didn't get griefed like Summit. 

 

Concentrate on the issues that affect 98% of the player base. We are the ones who fund the game and the reason Little Orbit bought it.

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

2 minutes ago, Spudinskes said:

What part of my reply do you believe is a straw man argument? Anywho new and early rank players often get better at least somewhat, over time. If you snuff out those players before they get their foot on the ground then there's a problem.

Griefing as a whole is already a strawman. As the vast majority of the players dont have this issue. ESPECIALLY early in their game experience. Then you mentioned Rerollers doing it, Which is already a subset of a subset of players and an even further subset of an issue for players. So everything about your response was a straw man. Nor did I say anywhere that they should ignore new players or "snuff out" any new players. Additionally there is no "new player" server. There are "Low Threat" servers. Which by far (especially now) not populated by new players. So to answer your question. You're entire reply was based on caring about what only a few players do.