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

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

3 minutes ago, LaQuandra said:

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.

I know nothing of summit other then his CSGO stuff and im not a fan personally. But i very much agree that catering to streamers is a very slippery slope. I don't know what he has or hasnt said regarding this game nor do i really care. But i would be interested to hear why you wouldnt be interested in being able to ghost through player vehicals while in a mission?

[Spudinskes 41]

7 minutes ago, LaQuandra said:

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.

You need to keep in mind that a lot of new players either come from advertisements or watching a video on youtube or stream on twitch. A lot of gamers out there don't dig deep in the internet through thousands of games out there, they often see it from somewhere. I was simply using Summit as an example, please don't have a preconceived notion that I think that only big name streamers are of help. As for why his viewers aren't here it's either they were put off before even installing or one of the many issues with APB pushed them away after trying the game. However, you don't fill a bucket that has a hole with more water. You plug the hole (aka fix the issues), but in the case of APB where are you going to get more water (aka players)?

Edited May 28, 2018 by Spudinskes

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, Spudinskes said:

You need to keep in mind that a lot of new players either come from advertisements or watching a video on youtube or stream on twitch. A lot of gamers out there don't dig deep in the internet through thousands of games out there, they often see it from somewhere. I was simply using Summit as an example, please don't have a preconceived notion that I think that only big name streamers are of help. As for why his viewers aren't here it's either they were put off before even installing or one of the many issues with APB pushed them away after trying the game. However, you don't fill a bucket that has a hole with more water. You plug the hole (aka fix the issues), but in the case of APB where are you going to get more water (aka players)?

Completely disregarding the summit conversation. Games like APB are in. Especially if they kick out a Battle Royale game mode. The game will blow up on its own with a few well placed ads. And even then, the game as a whole is getting quite good media with its buyout from G1. I would imagine LO will do some ad campaigns here and there that will consistently boost the playerbase. But we're not likely to see many(if any) until they get the game at a very stable state. Otherwise they dont generate more players, they generate more support tickets.

 

Just to reiterate. How many people were on APB Jericho prior to the buyout? 40? 50? Now just yesterday there were nearly 800 players adding all of the Jericho instances alone. Word of mouth goes far.

[Spudinskes 41]

7 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

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. 

You are ignoring the entire point of the topic. But I digress. You were implying that the issue of griefers only occur to players that have higher rank, and thus would require the reroller to rank up in order to reach their victim again. It is entirely possible that a lower ranked player is getting griefed. It is obvious that there are no "new player" servers, but where do "new players" go first? The "Low Threat" servers. There are none there at the moment but that is because the game was virtually dead a few weeks ago. You have to take into consideration new players that will be populating those servers whenever this game manages to get more players.

[LaQuandra 91]

1 minute ago, Spudinskes said:

You need to keep in mind that a lot of new players either come from advertisements or watching a video on youtube or stream on twitch. A lot of gamers out there don't dig deep in the internet through thousands of games out there, they often see it from somewhere. I was simply using Summit as an example, please don't have a preconceived notion that I think that only big name streamers are of help. As for why his viewers aren't here it's either they were put off before even installing or one of the many issues with APB pushed them away after trying the game. However, you don't fill a bucket that has a hole with more water. You plug the hole (aka fix the issues), but in the case of APB where are you going to get more water (aka players)?

 

You get more players when you tell your friends. You play other games and make friends. They ask what other games you played. I find most of my new games by looking at the games the people on my steam list are playing or links they send me or whatever. I then research and make a decision best for me. Word of mouth is better than what Summit says or plays. I found the game SOS from someone always playing it on my steam friend's list. I thought it look fun and got it and then reccomended it to a majority of people on my list. Some got the game and played it. When it died I recommended APB to some of the people I met. Some of them are still playing APB now and spending money. That is how it works.

 

Instead of Little Orbit worrying about making collision and griefing going away they concentrate on optimization. They concentration on upgrading the engine. They concentrate on adding new content. They concentrate on adding new game modes and maps and guns and vehicles. That is how you plug the hole. Then when you recommend APB to your friends you don't need to qualify it with, "but there is a big amount of server lag. but the population is dead and not many people are playing. but there hasn't been any content update in 4 years."

 

Nobody complains in APB that they are getting griefed 24/7, it just doesn't happen. I have streamed. I have played 5000 hours. Have I gotten griefed before? Yes. Is it a common issue? No. The bucket of water's hole isn't made from griefing. 

 

 

 

 

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, Spudinskes said:

You are ignoring the entire point of the topic. But I digress. You were implying that the issue of griefers only occur to players that have higher rank, and thus would require the reroller to rank up in order to reach their victim again. It is entirely possible that a lower ranked player is getting griefed. It is obvious that there are no "new player" servers, but where do "new players" go first? The "Low Threat" servers. There are none there at the moment but that is because the game was virtually dead a few weeks ago. You have to take into consideration new players that will be populating those servers whenever this game manages to get more players.

 

The entire point of your topic is you want Summit to come back and your sad that you had to stop streaming this game because your viewers are a$$holes. How is that anyone elses problem? Or even more importantly how is that a problem everyone should care about? Or, Use the delayed viewing feature of your stream that was specifically built for this exact issue. I ignored that portion of your issue because its already not an issue.

 

New players as a whole ARE the griefers just having fun with the game. The whole issue comes down to support in dealing with the evidence and having an on-server GM to be able to react to the issue on the spot and warn the player, or if needed kick them from the server and/or apply a temp ban.

 

The other alternative is allow players in missions to ghost through other players vehicles only while in mission. But that wont resolve a player from taking an NPC car and smashing you with it. Unless you make those ghostable. Then you have a case of a huge pile of cars, some you can drive through. some make your car explode ultimately not really solving anything other then adding confusion and prayer that you can ghost through a car.

[LaQuandra 91]

17 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

But i would be interested to hear why you wouldnt be interested in being able to ghost through player vehicals while in a mission?

 

Because it just isn't APB. All collisions are not griefing. I've benefited from and lost missions because of collisions. The open world and randomness is what makes APB. So what if you're on mission and a random car smacks you while they are on their mission. It can create some pretty great clip-able moments. The game is not going to be competitive because of many other issues so why take the fun away? Might as well just queue in a lobby and then load in only against your opp. Boring........

 

 

[EnragedLlamaTV 7]

1 minute ago, LaQuandra said:

 

Because it just isn't APB. All collisions are not griefing. I've benefited from and lost missions because of collisions. The open world and randomness is what makes APB. So what if you're on mission and a random car smacks you while they are on their mission. It can create some pretty great clip-able moments. The game is not going to be competitive because of many other issues so why take the fun away? Might as well just queue in a lobby and then load in only against your opp. Boring........

 

 

I could see that point of view. And you are very right that all collisions are not griefing nor is the griefing issue really that prevalent. And again you are right that APB isnt really a competitive game as a whole but at the same time. A mission APB really kind of is. You vs them in a world of chaos. There are huge amounts of variables in the game to really make it a "ranked" style. Really when i think back about that car ghosting thing. I remember just a few times that it ruined my mission but there were maybe 3 times it happened that it even effected anything. And the biggest one was a Defuse/Plant mission where a guy kept bumping people that were trying to defuse it canceling it. Which is a griefing with a car issue more than a collision issue. So thinking deeper about it. i agree with you, no ghosting.

[Spudinskes 41]

21 minutes ago, EnragedLlamaTV said:

 

The entire point of your topic is you want Summit to come back and your sad that you had to stop streaming this game because your viewers are a$$holes. How is that anyone elses problem? Or even more importantly how is that a problem everyone should care about? Or, Use the delayed viewing feature of your stream that was specifically built for this exact issue. I ignored that portion of your issue because its already not an issue.

 

New players as a whole ARE the griefers just having fun with the game. The whole issue comes down to support in dealing with the evidence and having an on-server GM to be able to react to the issue on the spot and warn the player, or if needed kick them from the server and/or apply a temp ban.

 

The other alternative is allow players in missions to ghost through other players vehicles only while in mission. But that wont resolve a player from taking an NPC car and smashing you with it. Unless you make those ghostable. Then you have a case of a huge pile of cars, some you can drive through. some make your car explode ultimately not really solving anything other then adding confusion and prayer that you can ghost through a car.

Summit is an example, the situation could apply to any other streamer out there. Delay feature also doesn't work, as it was what many streamers utilized but it's not an effective solution. It may work for games that has matchmaking that places you in a phased area or in a seperate server, but not in APB. The griefer can still locate the victim in multiple ways, and once they do it's hard to shake them off. This issue is something we should all care about as it affects the playerbase. You don't have to be a content creator to get griefed, you just need a sadist player to decide on a whim to add you to their friends list, and grief you whenever you get on.

 

If the amount of players ever grow, that would require the GM team to grow in order to cover as many districts as possible and could end up being expensive.

 

I agree that confusing phase-able vehicles and non would be an issue, but my idea was just a suggestion and I would hope that if LO were to implement something like that that they would handle the consequences gracefully.

 

Either way as strong as the opinions are for or against griefing are, it seems like the developers have already mentioned that they plan on doing something. As long as other players outside a mission can't stop a mission from being completed, I don't care how they accomplish it.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Spudinskes

[Salvick 248]

I don't think this is even possible and if so neither do I think is something strictly necessary. In my 7 years playing the game I used to face a few of these a couple of times and there were two easy ways to sort them out: 1) Ignore them and don't let them notice what your objective is. 2) record them or take enough screenshots and send these to support, they actually temp-banned everyone who got reported for griefing with solid proof.

 

I think might be hard to modify the game code for such purpose, although I might be wrong since I don't know, but putting the focus in something that we all can handle by ourselves by reporting such griefers and doing our best to avoid such kind of players works pretty well imo.

 

And also Seiyo Espacio / Nulander Pioneer sales would go to drain if they implement such thing like that, lol.

[Nessie 81]

I think a great point of the game is right the permanent world where all players encounter each other while doing their own activities. It is right the unexpected crash with other players that keeps each match unique: if you remove that, you make the game grow boring quickly.

 

 

Instead of changing an already functional gameplay (if ignoring the rare griefers purposely trying to harm other players, which anyway are an entirely different issue easily solved by more present GMs), I would instead make a new mode just for those who want pure competitive play without interferences from other players. Heck, I would do also the opposite too: a mode where everyone can shoot everyone regardless of being in a mission or not.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Nessie

[Spudinskes 41]

2 minutes ago, Salvick said:

I don't think this is even possible and if so neither do I think is something strictly necessary. In my 7 years playing the game I used to face a few of these a couple of times and there were two easy ways to sort them out: 1) Ignore them and don't let them notice what your objective is. 2) record them or take enough screenshots and send these to support, they actually temp-banned everyone who got reported for griefing with solid proof.

 

I think might be hard to modify the game code for such purpose, although I might be wrong since I don't know, but putting the focus in something that we all can handle by ourselves by reporting such griefers and doing our best to avoid such kind of players works pretty well imo.

 

And also Seiyo Espacio / Nulander Pioneer sales would go to drain if they implement such thing like that, lol.

I'm curious, let's say you're in a mission 4v4 and a random griefer, how would you manage to not let the griefer know where the objective is? If you "lure" the guy away with one of your players then you'd be fighting 3v4. I also wonder what the turn around time for reports were. Were they hours or days?

[Spudinskes 41]

1 minute ago, Nessie said:

I think a great point of the game is right the permanent world where all players encounter each other while either doing their own activity. It is right the unexpected crash with other players that keeps each match unique: if you remove that, you make the game grow boring quickly.

 

Instead of changing an already functional gameplay (if ignoring the few griefers purposely trying to harm other players), I would instead make a new mode just for those who want pure competitive play without interferences from other players.

I understand that there are players that enjoy crashing into people and I respect their desire to keep that uniqueness. There are also players out there that enjoy a bit of competitiveness in their game, so I would be glad if LO introduces a revamped competitive mode that satisfies the desire of those players to play without intentional outside interference.

[Salvick 248]

8 minutes ago, Spudinskes said:

I'm curious, let's say you're in a mission 4v4 and a random griefer, how would you manage to not let the griefer know where the objective is? If you "lure" the guy away with one of your players then you'd be fighting 3v4. I also wonder what the turn around time for reports were. Were they hours or days?

 

The time for reports were months indeed, rofl.

 

And yes, you are right, having a griefer around already screws you pretty much, but I'm saying that you still have to deal with it and there are a few ways that might help.

 

I absolutely support your point to clarify, what I don't see viable is the concept of changing the collisions mechanics, neither do I want to, because it would remove the fun of going with your mammoth Seiyo Espacio/Nulander Pioneer ramming anything that comes in your way disregarding if we both are on a mission as it usually happens along with the fun there is in driving the dump truck along with some friends causing some serious mayhem around the city.

 

I'm more leaned to think it fits the lore of San Paro, having more dangerous things to be concerned about when walking/driving around, even while on a mission.

 

Plus, most of the times someone is griefing me I usually try to join the fun with them once I have a mission and I kindly tell them to please let me leave since I'm on a mission and they usually understand that.

 

Now, ghosting to help your friends win a mission or screw someone else is an exception that must be handled by the admins, so I'd rather hold back a bit and see if the GMs presence ingame helps with this as I think it will.

[Songbearer 72]

Tough call. As frustrating as ghosters, blockers and lunatic traffic can be, I think a lot of the best moments in this game came from some of the downright crazy things that happened as a result of other players being able to come into contact with one another despite not being on the same mission. While people abusing the game without being countered did affect a portion of my missions, seeing giant car chases wind up in horrible wreckages and running gun battles because a stranger accidentally rams an opponent off the road, or someone's made a giant roadblock for fun that cordons off a main road, or just seeing a car come flying through the air after doing a huge stunt probably added more to my game than detracted from it.

 

APB doesn't have much going for it in the way of being balanced or competitive, so those random elements can really give you a unique experience from time to time. I think if you got rid of that sort of thing APB would lose a lot of its charm.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Songbearer

[LaQuandra 91]

16 minutes ago, Spudinskes said:

I understand that there are players that enjoy crashing into people and I respect their desire to keep that uniqueness. There are also players out there that enjoy a bit of competitiveness in their game, so I would be glad if LO introduces a revamped competitive mode that satisfies the desire of those players to play without intentional outside interference.

 

So you allow players to create their own custom matches/districts. Summit or whoever else can make the parameters for their match. They can choose the mission(s) they want to play, which guns/mods/cars to exclude, etc. They then receive a custom code which they share with those who are invited. They then get to play the game on their terms without the griefing or whatever else. Of course you cannot progress in this custom mode but you can still have your competitive match and not worry about griefers. This way everyone is happy. 

 

Please do not change a core part of APB and remove the collision. 

[Westford 167]

I think collisions should stay as they are.

As others have said, it makes the game feel alive.

 

How many times have you raced to an objective as your car careens into another players car

as they too are racing to their objective in the opposite direction.

Makes for a real challenge getting to the next point when avoiding other player vehicles.

 

As far as dumptrucks, I'v done that a few times, not targeting anyone specific ,

just driving around and wreaking havoc to anyone that get's in my path.

 

A challenge for other drivers, but also a fun aspect of the game.

 

If GM's have a strong presence in districts, and word gets out that they are acting 

swiftly towards excessive griefing, (not 4 months after the fact), but during that hour,

than potential griefers might think twice before excessively griefing others or face a temp ban or something.

 

It's the excessive griefing that needs to be addresses, not the incedental collisions.

It's about the GM's being vigilant in policing the districts.  (which we really didn't have before)

  

Edited May 28, 2018 by Westford

[Spudinskes 41]

4 hours ago, Songbearer said:

Tough call. As frustrating as ghosters, blockers and lunatic traffic can be, I think a lot of the best moments in this game came from some of the downright crazy things that happened as a result of other players being able to come into contact with one another despite not being on the same mission. While people abusing the game without being countered did affect a portion of my missions, seeing giant car chases wind up in horrible wreckages and running gun battles because a stranger accidentally rams an opponent off the road, or someone's made a giant roadblock for fun that cordons off a main road, or just seeing a car come flying through the air after doing a huge stunt probably added more to my game than detracted from it.

 

APB doesn't have much going for it in the way of being balanced or competitive, so those random elements can really give you a unique experience from time to time. I think if you got rid of that sort of thing APB would lose a lot of its charm.

 

4 hours ago, Westford said:

I think collisions should stay as they are.

As others have said, it makes the game feel alive.

 

How many times have you raced to an objective as your car careens into another players car

as they too are racing to their objective in the opposite direction.

Makes for a real challenge getting to the next point when avoiding other player vehicles.

 

As far as dumptrucks, I'v done that a few times, not targeting anyone specific ,

just driving around and wreaking havoc to anyone that get's in my path.

 

A challenge for other drivers, but also a fun aspect of the game.

 

If GM's have a strong presence in districts, and word gets out that they are acting 

swiftly towards excessive griefing, (not 4 months after the fact), but during that hour,

than potential griefers might think twice before excessively griefing others or face a temp ban or something.

 

It's the excessive griefing that needs to be addresses, not the incedental collisions.

It's about the GM's being vigilant in policing the districts.  (which we really didn't have before)

  

Hmm what if they implement a "dead-zone" around active mission objectives (phone booths, store fronts, etc) that makes players in vehicles outside of the mission not have collision with players that are in the mission. That way people that like the chaos of running into people as they go to the objective still have their fun, and also the players in the mission can complete the objective. Both sides win

Edited May 29, 2018 by Spudinskes

[Dopefish 248]

I agree that this is an issue for big streamers, but you don't fix the problem by removing the symptom. Having out of mission interaction is a big part of what makes the game what it is.

 

Griefing on the other hand, is not, and simply having active GMs would severely mitigate this issue. For worst case scenario, a GM could toggle a flag for the player to temporarily remove collision of out of mission players.

 

Utilizing streamers is an important and efficient way to promote games, and there have been smaller streamers than Summit who have been paid $5,000 for playing their game for two hours. If all it takes is a GM to follow him around whenever he plays, that's a huge return in investment.

[Dopefish 248]

4 hours ago, Spudinskes said:

 

Hmm what if they implement a "dead-zone" around active mission objectives (phone booths, store fronts, etc) that makes players in vehicles outside of the mission not have collision with players that are in the mission.

This actually sounds like a pretty good solution, as long as the area is small, and only affects the people in the mission. This wouldn't stop players from blocking entrances, but would fix the worst case scenarios.

[Excalibur! 207]

I think it would be easier removing streamers.

[trismatic 2]

The game wouldn't lose anything if collision was taken off when an opposed mission starts. It would do both, prevent deliberate griefing and make this game a bit less annoying by removing a bit of the luck factor. So would removing the P5/N5 during an active mission.

 

Thus, I vote for change and change it so that collision with players outside of the mission is disabled. Obviously keep collision on with the NPC cars and with the players in the mission.

Edited May 29, 2018 by trismatic

[LilyV3 323]

collision is fine it makes much of the fuin in the game. Lets not ruin a feature because 1% of idiots abuse the system, instead act vs these idiots.

[LaQuandra 91]

8 hours ago, Dopefish said:

Utilizing streamers is an important and efficient way to promote games

 

Not important enough to change core aspects of the game. The general player base is more important than streamers. Again, if Summit was so influential where are all the APB players from his streams? APB has an issue retaining players and running into out of mission cars while on a mission is at the bottom of the list.

 

Like I suggested before....why can't the big time streamer just be able to create a custom match and spin up their own district? Catering to streamers and leaving out your real population is dangerous.

 

5 hours ago, trismatic said:

The game wouldn't lose anything if collision was taken off when an opposed mission starts.

 

It would lose the whole open world aspect of APB which is a core part of the game.  The game would lose it's identity. which is a lot.  

[Spudinskes 41]

14 hours ago, LaQuandra said:

Not important enough to change core aspects of the game. The general player base is more important than streamers. Again, if the streamer was so influential where are all the APB players from his streams?

Disregarding the topic of collision for a second, you can't disregard a streamer's benefit to player count just because a game has a problem retaining players. Anyways for example, when an advertising agency brings in millions of people to an event and it turns out the event is shit and people leave you don't say the agency was useless. The event coordinators need to fix the problems with the event so that the agency's efforts aren't gone to waste. You also don't have the event coordinators fix the issues and then sit twiddling their thumbs hoping that more people come. The coordinators need to have the agency reach out again. It would be foolish for the event coordinators to think that the advertising agency was useless. Also, Fortnite can thank streamers for its absolutely explosive player count.

14 hours ago, LaQuandra said:

APB has an issue retaining players and running into out of mission cars while on a mission is at the bottom of the list.

The issue isn't simply the problem of players accidentally crashing into each other in vehicles during missions. It's specifically griefing that makes a large aspect of the game, missions, virtually impossible to complete. You could say it's basically game breaking

 

14 hours ago, LaQuandra said:

It would lose the whole open world aspect of APB which is a core part of the game.  The game would lose it's identity. which is a lot.  

What do you think about a very small dead-zone around active mission stationary objectives (phone booth) where outside mission player collisions don't affect in-mission players. Surely that satisfies both sides of the fence since people still get to collide everywhere except for .01% of the map.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Spudinskes