Community Discussion Topics

[bicycle 67]

My pr1 csg sucks cuz I cannot change the mod of it. Improved rifiling changes made the csg pr1 a useless trash. I just want something can happen. Change my csg pr1 with csg country gent. Same price same weapon or just let me change the mod. Thats kinda good solution for every weapon. Let us play our weapons with any mods we want. 

Except IR issue Im totally ok with LO. New anti-cheat new trade system up comming engine updates and new events and more. Im totally okay and happy about them but pls fix that IR issue.

Edited October 17, 2018 by _gousk

[Westford 170]

Matt,

Very much appreciate Little Orbit’s level of communication from day one.
Always a breath of fresh air,

For you to list the TOP grievances, is most definitely a testament, that you, your staff,
have been reading the forums, and have a “flavor” of areas, your player base are most displeased with.

Here are a list of issues that I see on the forums right now:

- Why did Little Orbit unban all these cheaters? / Demo version of BattlEye / Ineffective anti-cheat / Matt said he wont ban anyone

Cheaters…
The bane of any online games existence.
There will always be cheaters in any online game.
Contrary to the naysayers that have spouted their logic on the APB forums for the last 7 years,
yes, cheaters are very much alive and well, in San Paro, even to this day.

Just like any other online game.
It is what it is.

 

- Why hasn't Little Orbit fixed the Matchmaking system? / Threat needs to go back to the way it was / De-threaters
No comment.

 

- Why did Little Orbit do the Weapon Balance? / Shotguns suck / IR3 changes are garbage
Ahhh, IR3 ….  
Yes, this has been a mess.

Now for those players that had open slot weapons, not a huge deal.
If they used IR3 in the past, after LO’s changes, most dropped that particular mod.  (I did)
Ezy – Pzy…   problem solved.

For most, it is now a useless mod that “borks” the weapon.
So they dropped it.
I no longer use this mod for any of my Open Slot weapons.
IR2, on occasion.
 

For those players that had either “purchased” or was “gifted” a weapon with preset mods,

that has IR3, ….. well , that’s a different challenge.

I mean, they can’t swap out the IR3 mod.    (It's a preset weapon)
So, what do they do ?

It has been strongly suggested here on the forums, that you need to simply “re-learn” the weapon, and change your play style to accommodate.

Huh ?

 

Wait… I bought (was gifted) a weapon, with preset mods, that fell into my style of gameplay,
and now that that weapon modifications have changed, I need to change my playstyle, to accommodate the weapon ?

What fun is that ?

Nope.

I no longer use those preset weapons with IR3.
They sit in my locker. collecting dust.

That’s your choice.

Yes…. I choose to play the game and use specific weapons that are most enjoyable, and fall into my genre of gameplay.
Why should I change my playstyle ?
I want to have fun.

That’s it.

 

- Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me? / Why is Little Orbit listening to people that don't know what they are talking about?
No comment.

 

 

I appreciate you posting in the forum, and “opening” the flood gates, as it were.
I look forward to hear your responses regarding these grievances , and future news about the game.
 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Westford

[PingOVER9000 189]

I have to be sincere.. I am  quite happy for the changes and care of the game.

The fact then the pubblisher/administrators is constant interested, in person, for the opinions of his costumer, it's not only very professional, it's rare.

In my opinion what need a resolve it's that :

 

SHORT PERIOD

-Make something for these tickets, here the situation is really embarrassing 

-Weapons in Armas haven't clear stats, and at the same time someone of them don't have the option TRY IT, resolve this problem please, I as others have got tricked from that

-CHEATERS are a damn problem, if them are the cancer, the hacksellers are the VIRUS, report need to be activate and study/work properly, a GM for what I understood can't get any action immediately although without tell name happened it was clear that a player 200+ was cheating in front of his eyes.

 

IN FUTURE???

-Maybe more events or add some activity? the game is  quite dish, need something for diversify like running race or the old legend to implement, war between clans... that's will make finaly a sense for join and stay in a clan

 

2 hours ago, TackoGirl said:

Thank you for your willingness to discuss the "problems" with us.

 

I wish the First topic is: IR 3 changes, shotguns sucks as they are now.

 

I find all changes okay and love new things except ir 3

IR changes are good and balance the game perfectly as it's now.

 

What do you want? NTEC etc, aassault rifles with a range of 60m without losing nothing, it's not logic, then...

 

I would to see if really exist a assault rifles with a more and less caliber of a NTEC used efficiently at 60m+

 

Bye

Edited October 17, 2018 by PingOVER9000

[Vante 63]

I’m happy you guys are working as hard as you do right now, really I am. And thank you for being active in the community.

 

What I am going to tell you now is maybe not that neccesary minding that you have already posted some what of a future plan for the game. But I would appreciate if you prestented the actual plans for APB. Right now I feel like it’s only the engine upgrade and a few things more that is being talked about (from what I have seen), and of course these are really important stuff, don’t take me wrong! But what exacly is your goal with this game? What more can we expect from you and Little Orbit, other than the engine upgrade, the anticheat etc?

 

 

 

[TheDogCatcher 176]

3 hours ago, Seedy said:

dont worry about the haters.. they will try to bring down anything that is doing well enough. I think your doing well.

 

Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me? / Why is Little Orbit listening to people that don't know what they are talking about?

Most people have no clue how to make games. They complain about physics, matchmaking and so on yet they have never debugged a single line of code or actually considered the maths behind such systems. Until they even have the simplest understanding of these things they need to just keep out of it. Their opinions just bread hatred for the people making the games from more people who have no clue. Everyone is a critic yet 99.99999% of people are faceless blowhards with no clue. Please critic, take your self out of your mothers basement and look up at the sky. There is someone out their who maybe will even like you. You dont have to be critical of every single thing. Little Orbit are doing well. I have faith in them.

 

 

If this were in any way true why do games developers employ testers most of whom have never written a line of code in their life ?

 

If you have to attack the people making the comments rather than adressing the points they make you've already lost the debate.

 

Players can identify problems with games they have an intimate knowledge of even if their proposed solutions don't make much sense from a programming perspective.

[TheDogCatcher 176]

For me the two biggest issues are dethreaters and cheats with dethreaters being by far the biggest problem right now, it's at epidemic proportions and it's destroying any chance you have of attracting new players, this absolutely must be dealt with.

[Zolerox 564]

Content. Balance changes are needed but that doesn't make me login , Giveing me something to play with does. But that's just me.

[Pufty 113]

2 minutes ago, Zolerox said:

Content. Balance changes are needed but that doesn't make me login , Giveing me something to play with does. But that's just me.

That takes time. I'll have to repeat my assumption - LO Can't add when there's too much to break. LO needs to progress with engine upgrades to be able to add to it, but for now they need to fill the time in between.

And to Matt - Your openness sometimes scares me. It's neat that you keep addressing these things with what you have, so to you I wish only endurance. Still, this wouldn't change that one side isn't satisfied. I have a really neat reference meme here -

 

Patience is key.

[UnawarePolarBear 50]

10 minutes ago, Pufty said:

That takes time. I'll have to repeat my assumption - LO Can't add when there's too much to break. LO needs to progress with engine upgrades to be able to add to it, but for now they need to fill the time in between.

And to Matt - Your openness sometimes scares me. It's neat that you keep addressing these things with what you have, so to you I wish only endurance. Still, this wouldn't change that one side isn't satisfied. I have a really neat reference meme here -

 

Patience is key.

I see you speak for the bitches.

 

But no really. I've been scouting the forums, came back to play a bit when LO took over to just fill a craving, and went back to watching. There's nothing for me to do, I'm at 3000+ hours. Until that engine upgrade hits and we get some new things to do (I may try the new halloween mode) there's no reason to play. I'm willing to bet the 500 people that came back and left feel the same way.

 

What's annoying to me is how everyone is blaming LO, when G1 was trending downwards, consistently, for the past 3 years. They hadn't communicated and lied about their progress on any engine upgrade. The content had completely shorted to zero after they released everything in the vault.

 

Folks around here don't seem to realize this is a 9 year old game with a revival effort undergoing. It's basically at the level of a relaunch.

[Knite 158]

4 hours ago, MattScott said:

- Why did Little Orbit unban all these cheaters? / Demo version of BattlEye / Ineffective anti-cheat / Matt said he wont ban anyone

Due to LO's silence on the topic of banned cheaters, and since it is directly opposite the behavior RP displayed, there is a perception that LO is doing nothing to curb cheaters; all we've gotten so far are statements from you to the effect of "we are banning cheaters", which for plenty of people (including myself) is an acceptable level of information, but for others, is clearly not enough.

 

A more complete discussion of the "cheater problem" should assuage the squeakiest wheels.

[EMilika 41]

15 hours ago, MattScott said:

Hi everyone,

 

We're all working overtime right now to finish up the Halloween event and to keep the engine upgrade rolling along, so I apologize for not being more present on the forums. However after reading through the various posts tonight, I can see a lot of unhappy, vocal players all pointing at Steam stats and blaming Little Orbit for various issues.

 

Many of these posts debate whether Little Orbit has accomplished very much, and I'm not here to convince you one way or the other. Instead, I'd like to participate in the discussion and maybe share a little bit of my own perspective. To accomplish this, I'm going to try and create one post a week, where I will pick a topic that the community seems to be unhappy with, and we'll discuss it here in the open (as much as I can). 

 

Here are a list of issues that I see on the forums right now:

- Why did Little Orbit unban all these cheaters? / Demo version of BattlEye / Ineffective anti-cheat / Matt said he wont ban anyone

- Why hasn't Little Orbit fixed the Matchmaking system? / Threat needs to go back to the way it was / De-threaters

- Why did Little Orbit do the Weapon Balance? / Shotguns suck / IR3 changes are garbage

- Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me? / Why is Little Orbit listening to people that don't know what they are talking about?

 

There are plenty more. Perhaps you guys can recommend the first topic you would like to discuss with me.

 

Thanks,
Matt

I'm more worried that you really want to debate with trolls. 
I see no benefits doing this.

[Haganu 105]

5 hours ago, MattScott said:

Hi everyone,

 

We're all working overtime right now to finish up the Halloween event and to keep the engine upgrade rolling along, so I apologize for not being more present on the forums. However after reading through the various posts tonight, I can see a lot of unhappy, vocal players all pointing at Steam stats and blaming Little Orbit for various issues.

 

Many of these posts debate whether Little Orbit has accomplished very much, and I'm not here to convince you one way or the other. Instead, I'd like to participate in the discussion and maybe share a little bit of my own perspective. To accomplish this, I'm going to try and create one post a week, where I will pick a topic that the community seems to be unhappy with, and we'll discuss it here in the open (as much as I can). 

 

Here are a list of issues that I see on the forums right now:

- Why did Little Orbit unban all these cheaters? / Demo version of BattlEye / Ineffective anti-cheat / Matt said he wont ban anyone

- Why hasn't Little Orbit fixed the Matchmaking system? / Threat needs to go back to the way it was / De-threaters

- Why did Little Orbit do the Weapon Balance? / Shotguns suck / IR3 changes are garbage

- Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me? / Why is Little Orbit listening to people that don't know what they are talking about?

 

There are plenty more. Perhaps you guys can recommend the first topic you would like to discuss with me.

 

Thanks,
Matt

First and foremost:

I'd look forward to an open discussion about the dethreater issue that old G1 has neglected ever since their poor countermeasures to keep this ridiculous way of player distribution didn't work.

IIRC they didn't even change matchmaking as a whole. It's still using glicko values.

I remember reading a very detailed post from Revoluzzer about it a long time ago, which left the impression to me that they only changed the skill brackets and how they're distributed, but I don't remember much of it considering the time passed, so I can't tell for sure.

 

250 points for pressing F and 150 points for someone in the vicinity of someone pressing F was a mistake. 

40 skill brackets is another mistake.

Too bad it's left up for as long as it is.

 

Secondly:

The other point I'm looking forward to is the weapon balance discussion. IR3 changes would've been good if we had more than 100m to play with. The only reason its demerits are vastly outweighing its merits is because 1) the TTK of this game is too low for it and 2) 100m is too little space to increase TTK by up to nearly 20%.

 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Haganu

[Kewlin 692]

Why haven't you done a full rework of ARMAS pricing, and are you considering it?

 

To be clear, I'm not asking for the prices of things to be reduced overall, I'm more referring to pricing just being random and all over the place.

[CookiePuss 5382]

Could we maybe add:

 

-Why is APB information spread across the forums, Twitter, and Facebook?

-Why cant everything be explained on the forums?

[Lato 188]

Why don't you take a deeper look and feedback into the suggestion section of the forum?

[DouglasFalcon 125]

- Why did Little Orbit unban all these cheaters? / Demo version of BattlEye / Ineffective anti-cheat / Matt said he wont ban anyone

Tbf I think people have really short memory. Back to Mayb 2018, this game was literally a cheatfest and your best friend in APB could be a wallhacker and you didn't know. I feel like LO's policy of avoiding to mention cheater, and thus negating them their moment of celebrity, is actually very effective in stopping many players from cheating. This comes with the drawback of playerbase not knowing numbers and names, and since APB is full of crybabies they'll find anything to blame rather than blaming themselves.
Cheating in games has always existed and always will, there is no 100% foolproof way to prevent someone from cheating in a game. I am personally very ok with the cheaters policy you guys have adopted.

- Why hasn't Little Orbit fixed the Matchmaking system? / Threat needs to go back to the way it was / De-threaters

That's a big issue, but I'm assuming you guys want to prioritize Engine Upgrade in order to open up more solutions to matchmaking/dethreating. While I understand your thought process here, this is imo one of the biggest reason why APB miserably fails in attracting new players, as they'll get stomped without any mercy by a bunch of assh*les that can't git gud at all. Once engine upgrade comes out, make sure to fix this whole thing asap, because it's very important.

- Why did Little Orbit do the Weapon Balance? / Shotguns suck / IR3 changes are garbage

As I stated above, people love to complain and hate changes. I died because I tried to outrange an OBIR with NTEC? "OMG IF I STILL HAD MY IR3 I WOULD HAVE KILLED THAT LOSER, CURSE YOU LO". That's the thought process most people make. I'm not a big fan of shotguns myself but I see a lot more of them running around and now I'm legit scared when I see one, it's no longer a russian roulette of you being dead to 2, 3 or 4 shots; and I've never seen someone complaining about shotguns for being bad in the last weeks. I think they are fine.

Speaking of IR3, this change is universal and drastic. Universal means that it affects the metagame as a whole, and drastic means that the change is very noticeable. It's perfectly normal that some weapons end up getting the short end of the stick imo, that's the very definition of a metagame change. Some weapons totally did not deserve that (STAR LCR is still crying in a corner), some definetely did (lookin at u NTEC), but I think people will eventually adapt and stop complaining. Overall tho I'm happy that now weapon don't get a free +7 metres range buff anymore, but it comes with a real downside that makes you think twice before slapping that red mod anywhere.

- Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me? / Why is Little Orbit listening to people that don't know what they are talking about?

LMAO do I really have to discuss this? I mean come on, this game is PEGI18 afaik and children shouldn't be allowed to play.

[MartisLTU 265]

6 hours ago, MattScott said:

There are plenty more. Perhaps you guys can recommend the first topic you would like to discuss with me.

 

Thanks,
Matt

Here topic that you need to clear out for sure ... "Hitreg issues" and "mini freezes". these 2 things makes ppl. want to leave APB at the moment. Even  APB streamers are mad about servers.

[Similarities 226]

6 hours ago, Archon said:

Haters gonna hate *dabs*

 

Also, I'd say you guys have been going in the right direction, but it often feels like you're moving 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. I love that you guys are working on server performance, net code, anti-cheat, etc, I believe people just want things to move along faster than they really can. Balance changes need a lot more thought put into them next time, the shotgun push had rippling effects throughout the community, a lot of my friends quit the game until the busted corner popping hell machines got fixed as a result, and I'd imagine some still haven't (and maybe won't, at least for a while) come back.

 

Focus your balance on making guns that are not currently good better (Norseman, SBSR Coroner, ISSR-a? Anyone?) but keep the TTK around the 0.7-0.8s range, with bolt rifles being around 1.2s, if you don't like this TTK then avoid making too many changes to the TTK of weapons until you at the very least have a plan on what direction you want to take the game, rather than making some weird changes (The ISSR-a accuracy "buff" for example was literally useless,) it seems you guys try to be too careful in some areas and too reckless in others. I'd rather see some controversial ISSR-a gameplay for a patch than an entire weapon category broken to the point of CQC being nearly unplayable for 2 months. Just my 2c.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Similarities

[Weeb TheEpicGuyV2 269]

8 hours ago, MattScott said:

To accomplish this, I'm going to try and create one post a week, where I will pick a topic that the community seems to be unhappy with, and we'll discuss it here in the open (as much as I can). 

Will we be getting one this week, and if so, what will it be on. Or is it a surprise until it goes up

[Nickolai 206]

One thing that was not stated when you purchased G1 and APB is that this is most childish b*tchy community you will ever face.

 

People here are like fucking toddlers. They expect results NOW! They act like investors (which they kinda are) but don't seem to understand that this game never left BETA stage. Let's be honest. This game has been broken for 10 YEARS! It can't be fixed with a magic wand.

 

I'm not hopping on the bandwagon but I can see what they are trying to do here. They have made more progress in 5 months than G1 did in 2 years! Also, any smart company would not invest 10 million dollars into a failing product if they don't plan on making a profit. I am patiently waiting for the revival. Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

I see LO as Rockstar from 2004 when the release of GTA San Andreas changed Rockstar from a small developer into a gaming industry TITAN! I kinda get that vibe from what they are doing.

 

So everyone just chillax and let them WORK! It's not like they don't have enough shit to deal with!

[TheMessiah 430]

thx for this 

8 hours ago, MattScott said:

Ineffective anti-cheat

I do not know how true it is but still think EAC(easyanticheat)was the better choice instead of BE

8 hours ago, MattScott said:

- Why hasn't Little Orbit fixed the Matchmaking system?

I know LO plan to present cross-district matchmaking solution(i dont think is good idea,possibly lag fest)after 3.5 but still think they could make improvements to current system.Suggestions:

1.Replace green with iron threat(grey)because green is dumb(not important)

2.Rework the speed players move between threats(specially between silver and gold-too fast)

3."Show recommended only" tab must stay permanently checked and hide it so players cant change it

4.Hide players threats and districts threats.Thats how all players will play in theyr skill lvls(at least most cases)

5.Option to play in free for all districts where matchmaking is off and all irons,bronzes,silvers and golds are free to group and join

6.Possible inner faction matches?

8 hours ago, MattScott said:

De-threaters

My suggestion is: If player stays further than 100m objective range radius-after 2nd minute get penalty.After 3rd minute- 2nd penalty and after 4th minute - 3rd penalty and 0 exp. and money after mission ends

8 hours ago, MattScott said:

- Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me?

So can u make this small changes i want from long time(probably u too busy with all the work)

1.Give us the option to "toggle" grenades(not only hold)

2.VoIP needs some work.Separate master volume from voIP because i think theyr connected.Currently you need to turn your in-game volume to max and then turn APB down in windows in order to have both sound and the ability to hear others decently on voIP.Also the test option is not working

3.Remove weapon rank 16. It takes about the same amount of time to go from 1 to 15 as it does to go from 15 to 16.Quite an arduous grind

4.Revisit: kevlar,marketplace 20% tax and spawn system-this honestly used to be worse before elective spawning was introduced but it's still far from perfect. The biggest problem being people spawning down range of enemy snipers

5.Increase number of clothing decals for free players from 3 to 7,vehicle decals from 7 to 10

 

thx for ur attention 

Edited October 17, 2018 by TheMessiah

[vsb 6174]

13 minutes ago, Nickolai said:

hey act like investors (which they kinda are)

purchasing a product that’s being sold in no way makes you an investor, it makes you a consumer

 

nothing worse than seeing entitlement because so-and-so “invested” x amount of money over the years

 

[IROCkiller 210]

8 hours ago, MattScott said:

 

1. Why did Little Orbit unban all these cheaters? / Demo version of BattlEye / Ineffective anti-cheat / Matt said he wont ban anyone

2. Why hasn't Little Orbit fixed the Matchmaking system? / Threat needs to go back to the way it was / De-threaters

3.Why did Little Orbit do the Weapon Balance? / Shotguns suck / IR3 changes are garbage

4. Why isn't Little Orbit listen to me? / Why is Little Orbit listening to people that don't know what they are talking about?

First off, this is a great idea. Reloaded G1 never really did something like this(as far as I can remember). So thank you for doing this. It shows you're listening.

 

1. I can understand the unbans. Fairfight wasn't being properly maintained and that could cause some false bans. Also, some of the bans were manual bans so there's always the possibility for false positives. Battleye has reduced the number of cheaters immensely. I rarely see them in missions anymore.

 

2. MM is all sorts of messed up because of low player count. Dethreaters can cause big problems, so I'd suggest a system that kicks players from bronze districts when they go gold. 

 

3. Shotguns have hitreg issues. I actually like the IR3 changes. It needs work on some guns. Is it possible to have the same mod have different effects on different guns?

 

4.LO staff is busy. 

 

 

[Uminee 15]

When I first heard Little Orbit had acquired this game, I wondered who exactly was in possession of a genie's lamp and decided to use up a wish to save APB. I was pleasantly baffled. I don't think I was alone in that feeling.

 

A few months go by, and now the forums are full of rage that everything isn't already fixed up and perfect.

 

I saw something like this happen over the years with G1, the never ending barrage of players spewing negativity. You could actually see G1 losing morale each time, not knowing how to interface with a community that is determined to tear them down ... Occasionally restructuring to put forward a new approach or new public face to deal with things, only to be attacked again. I can't imagine how hard it would be to work on a game like this while constantly feeling like the people you're making it for despise you.

 

And so I jump on the forums  to check out the state of things, and see the community up to their same old hate cycle, and so I whisper, pleadingly into the void, "Please, please be nice to them, we lucked out in getting them, don't drive them away... "

 

So far I've been extremely impressed with Matt Scott's ability to not let the negativity get to him, I just don't know if there's anyone who could maintain that forever. The current community is one which adapted to survive in a toxic environment. APB actively teaches a player to communicate in a way which is damaging to the morale of those you are addressing, it's simply part of the culture that's developed in a game with such a strong psychological component in outplaying opponents. I don't think they actually know other ways to express themselves, so please never take it too seriously.

[notMateo 23]

good post OP