You need to make APB:Re:Reloaded

[Guartorias 8]

Title isn't the most descriptive thing in the world. But what I mean, is that APB needs a massive overhaul.

 

I don't mean the engine, or threat. I mean the entire game. There are so many ways to break the game entirely.

 

APB is currently a mess. I'm not talking about nerfing the HVR or N-tec. I'm talking about mechanics. Crouch-shooting is and always has been broken. The ability to push a car that's a defend target is broken (Get a pioneer or two, and cruise away. The only thing that could possibly stop you is car-surfer... So you need R195+.). Spawns are often broken (Spawn in LoS of a point, or sometimes 15m off a point.) Griefing (As enjoyable as it is sometimes) is just a stupid concept.

 

If you want APB to be taken somewhat seriously, the game needs a massive overhaul. Problem with any of this, is you'll upset the long-term players. The people who've been playing since RTW, or even G1's "beta" stage. Most of them will throw a fit if you make any changes to anything. Because they enjoy stagnation. That's exactly why they've been playing the same borderline dead game for all these years. And that's also why I'm betting this post is going to get a ton of hate.

 

So you have to decide. Keep the game mostly the same, and keep the same 1k-ish players happy, or Reload APB:Reloaded. Change things up, and bring in new players. It doesn't matter if you make a great new tutorial. APB:Reloaded is cancer to new players.

For the record, I didn't play RTW's APB. And I'm glad, because the game looked like shit (And I don't mean graphics. I mean no recoil, for one.). APB still looks like shit, but G1 did do some great things for it. They also ruined some things, imo. But if Little Orbit can look at what G1 did, learn from their mistakes, and make massive changes to the game, like G1 did to RTW's, then APB might actually get a decent population for once in it's life.

[Simondson 0]

APB:RE:REMASTERED LETS GO BOIS

[vsb 6131]

can we get some examples of what changes you'd like to see?

 

the few things mentioned wouldnt really reboot apb if they were changed/fixed

[weissraider 21]

1 hour ago, Guartorias said:

The ability to push a car that's a defend target is broken (Get a pioneer or two, and cruise away. The only thing that could possibly stop you is car-surfer... So you need R195+.). Spawns are often broken (Spawn in LoS of a point, or sometimes 15m off a point.) Griefing (As enjoyable as it is sometimes) is just a stupid concept.

There are some interesting suggestions. 

How ever I think pushing a Defend target Car should not be removed entirely. (not sure how it is calculated) But maybe increase the Weight of an Mission Car.)

 

We should mention the Ability to Jump-Pickup Mid Items.

[Guartorias 8]

2 hours ago, BXNNXD said:

can we get some examples of what changes you'd like to see?

 

the few things mentioned wouldnt really reboot apb if they were changed/fixed

The problem with me listing changes I'd like to see, is just that. They'd be changes I personally want. My ideal APB probably isn't your ideal APB, and I'm sure it's different from what LO has in mind. For instance, I think car-spawner is a lazy work-around to "compliment" the broken spawn system. I'd want to see it completely removed. But spawns in general are broken. So I'd have to decide if I want a faster-paced APB, or slower paced. I personally lean towards slower paces. So I'd increase respawn time to something like 12 seconds, and spawn in groups (To make team-work a little more impactful, and a squad wipe a bigger deal.). Then I'd make attackers spawn something like 90-120m away from the objective. But I'd also make sure that attackers spawn points always provide a circle around the assault targets. So if they want to approach from the north, they can all spawn north, or maybe 3 spawn north and 1 spawn south for a flank. As it is right now in APB, it's very easy for the defending team to manipulate spawn points, and force enemies to spawn (roughly) where they want them to.

 

I'm also a big fan of constant change in balance. I believe there is no "perfect balance" in games. Every few months, I'd rebalance weapons depending on how much they were used. If stats showed that the HVR was the most used sniper, holding 70% of use, then obviously it'd be nerfed. If it showed the DMR was the least used, coming in at 5%, then it'd be buffed. The weapons in the middle-ground wouldn't be changed much. (% numbers were random, so don't take them literally.)

 

The biggest thing that would reboot APB is marketing. Problem is, if they market APB as it currently is, there might be a bunch of new players that give it a try, but I guarantee most would quit shortly after. Matchmaking sucks to the point where a new player will hit gold in just 5 wins. Which is super easy, if you play shooters. Because your first 5 matches are (probably) going to be in a green or bronze district. Then next time they log in, they'll be pit against Gold R255's with OPGLs and car-spawners. So they lose. The way matchmaking currently is, when you lose it feels like it's because the other team has all this gear you can't have. I lean much more towards Rating based matchmaking than threat based. At least with rating based matchmaking, people win or lose because of their skill. Not how much theyve played. (But matchmaking in general should be overhauled.)

 

One thing I'd say that (I assume) everyone would hate, is to just have missions completely instanced. You start APB, load into a district, and there you can drive around and see all the other players... But if they're in a mission, you won't have collision with them. As soon as you get a mission, everyone else fades out of your screen. It's just you and the mission. Possibly include an option to make yourself invisible to people out of the mission, to combat against ghosting. (To clarify, if you're in a mission, by default everyone else can see you. But with the option, it'd make it so only people in your mission can see you. Their friends and random players wouldn't be able to anymore.)

This would also (possibly) allow the complete removal of districts. Instead of "Financial 1" and "Financial 2" it'd just be "Financial". It'd load in maybe 2-6 groups within a 200m radius or something. Then as you got farther away from them, it'd despawn those people and spawn in fresh ones for you to see. Everywhere you went would be populated with new players. That'd require a lot of tweaking and fine-tuning I'd imagine though. So It's pretty much wishful thinking. (Even for a wishlist)

 

1 hour ago, weissraider said:

There are some interesting suggestions. 

How ever I think pushing a Defend target Car should not be removed entirely. (not sure how it is calculated) But maybe increase the Weight of an Mission Car.)

 

We should mention the Ability to Jump-Pickup Mid Items.

Increasing the weight of the car wouldn't do anything. People could pioneer + vegas, or just get a dumptruck and take the mission car for a spin. If I couldn't have the car completely immobile, then I'd make it have a kind of tethered respawn. If the car got x-distance away from its original spawn point, it'd teleport back to it. Problem is, there are car spawn points that are already within 10m or so of impossible to breach places. More things could go wrong with introducing a spawn point like that though.

 

As for Jump-pickup items (AKA Juggling), I wouldn't be sad if it was removed. Though I'd also love to see the ability to use side-arms while holding briefcases. And honestly, I'd completely remove heavy items. Probably small items too, as they're just nuisances and something that can be camped by the defending team. (Which depending on where they're lost, can make it almost impossible.)

Edited May 31, 2018 by Guartorias

[Fleshpound 7]

Why not APB:Reeeeeeeeloaded!?

Edited May 31, 2018 by Fleshpound
Missing !?

[LUST 215]

You want players to know that changes are in the works...you don't do that under the shadow of G1's mistake and suggesting things that would change what this game actually is.

 

They don't need to massively overhaul it to bring new/old players to the game, they just have to be completely transparent on the state of the game.  When the news of LO's acquisition broke out-- the population spiked upwards for the first time in months. Not valuing communication is what hurt G1 and many other games/studios beyond APB.

 

There's a lot that works in APB and there's a lot that isn't fully fleshed out. A lot of what's in APB (most which was added under G1) don't flow well with the game. Under new ownership and a new developmental roadmap, they can easily put this game back into an Early Access state while they continue to re-vitalize it, understand it, and really exploit its marketing potential. Keeping the game in the current "live" state while changes are going to be made is wrong.

 

[weissraider 21]

2 hours ago, Guartorias said:

The problem with me listing changes I'd like to see, is just that. They'd be changes I personally want. My ideal APB probably isn't your ideal APB, and I'm sure it's different from what LO has in mind. For instance, I think car-spawner is a lazy work-around to "compliment" the broken spawn system. I'd want to see it completely removed. But spawns in general are broken. So I'd have to decide if I want a faster-paced APB, or slower paced. I personally lean towards slower paces. So I'd increase respawn time to something like 12 seconds, and spawn in groups (To make team-work a little more impactful, and a squad wipe a bigger deal.). Then I'd make attackers spawn something like 90-120m away from the objective. But I'd also make sure that attackers spawn points always provide a circle around the assault targets. So if they want to approach from the north, they can all spawn north, or maybe 3 spawn north and 1 spawn south for a flank. As it is right now in APB, it's very easy for the defending team to manipulate spawn points, and force enemies to spawn (roughly) where they want them to.

 

I'm also a big fan of constant change in balance. I believe there is no "perfect balance" in games. Every few months, I'd rebalance weapons depending on how much they were used. If stats showed that the HVR was the most used sniper, holding 70% of use, then obviously it'd be nerfed. If it showed the DMR was the least used, coming in at 5%, then it'd be buffed. The weapons in the middle-ground wouldn't be changed much. (% numbers were random, so don't take them literally.)

 

The biggest thing that would reboot APB is marketing. Problem is, if they market APB as it currently is, there might be a bunch of new players that give it a try, but I guarantee most would quit shortly after. Matchmaking sucks to the point where a new player will hit gold in just 5 wins. Which is super easy, if you play shooters. Because your first 5 matches are (probably) going to be in a green or bronze district. Then next time they log in, they'll be pit against Gold R255's with OPGLs and car-spawners. So they lose. The way matchmaking currently is, when you lose it feels like it's because the other team has all this gear you can't have. I lean much more towards Rating based matchmaking than threat based. At least with rating based matchmaking, people win or lose because of their skill. Not how much theyve played. (But matchmaking in general should be overhauled.)

 

One thing I'd say that (I assume) everyone would hate, is to just have missions completely instanced. You start APB, load into a district, and there you can drive around and see all the other players... But if they're in a mission, you won't have collision with them. As soon as you get a mission, everyone else fades out of your screen. It's just you and the mission. Possibly include an option to make yourself invisible to people out of the mission, to combat against ghosting. (To clarify, if you're in a mission, by default everyone else can see you. But with the option, it'd make it so only people in your mission can see you. Their friends and random players wouldn't be able to anymore.)

This would also (possibly) allow the complete removal of districts. Instead of "Financial 1" and "Financial 2" it'd just be "Financial". It'd load in maybe 2-6 groups within a 200m radius or something. Then as you got farther away from them, it'd despawn those people and spawn in fresh ones for you to see. Everywhere you went would be populated with new players. That'd require a lot of tweaking and fine-tuning I'd imagine though. So It's pretty much wishful thinking. (Even for a wishlist)

 

Increasing the weight of the car wouldn't do anything. People could pioneer + vegas, or just get a dumptruck and take the mission car for a spin. If I couldn't have the car completely immobile, then I'd make it have a kind of tethered respawn. If the car got x-distance away from its original spawn point, it'd teleport back to it. Problem is, there are car spawn points that are already within 10m or so of impossible to breach places. More things could go wrong with introducing a spawn point like that though.

 

As for Jump-pickup items (AKA Juggling), I wouldn't be sad if it was removed. Though I'd also love to see the ability to use side-arms while holding briefcases. And honestly, I'd completely remove heavy items. Probably small items too, as they're just nuisances and something that can be camped by the defending team. (Which depending on where they're lost, can make it almost impossible.)

True that. Yeah.

Edited May 31, 2018 by weissraider

[sundere 25]

idk, i like the game how is until now, obviously i will change some little things here and there, but no the entire game, you can make a new game from 0 is much better than try to decode this game, and i don't know the state of the core code 

[BuckyTheBronco 37]

The game doesn't need a complete transformation, it just needs it's foundation fixed and repaired back to a stage of stability similar to RTW. The players that are still around from RTW can vouch for me, that the game was popular and had a large playerbase back then. Seeing Financial/Waterfront districts in the numbers of 40's and 50 instances was a beautiful sight before it all crumbled under the bankruptcy of RTW. If Little Orbit can just fix the foundation of the game, i.e. server stability, new content relevant to the standard players rather than Armas Marketplace, events, promotions, sales, new features, etc. 

 

The biggest reason why the game again crumbled under GamersFirst was because they were too focused on Armas content rather than the actual game itself. We all heard during the Q&A with Matt that the game has not had an actual patch for over 9 months. 9 MONTHS. You know how much new Arma's content was added in those 9 months? An outrageous amount. The time and effort used to add new Arma content (which wasn't even new, it was mostly files left over from RTW) could of been used to actually patch the game, add new content and features that would draw players back in. Instead, GamersFirst put themselves in a situation where money was more important than the players, which ultimately led to the downfall of the games population. 

 

The only thing Little Orbit needs to do is bring the game and the attention back to the community and the players. GamersFirst took the spotlight away from the players and shined it right on the dollar signs, nice and bright so everyone could see the "new" features that only costed them $4.99 for 30 days or $39.99 for a lifetime! Honestly, so far Little Orbit has done what they need to do. They've been in constant contact with the community, they've released more blogs with updates in the past 20 days that GamersFirst did in the past 6 months. They're implementing features (such as BattlEye) that are popular among the community and are offering second chances to all of those who were banned (for reasons or falsely) to bring back old players. They are open to the community about opinions and ideas that they take into consideration. Most importantly, they are more focused on the game rather than the Armas Marketplace. They are releasing a patch soon with the new anti-cheat and I would imagine small bug fixes. Once this first patch is released and the gaming world who may or may not of played APB in the past see it, the game is again in a good state. It's amazing what a single patch to a completely lost and forgotten about game can do to the player count. Even whenever Little Orbit obtained GamersFirst and APB, the player count spiked to nearly double. The game has hope again, and honestly its the biggest amount of hope since RTW owned the title. 

 

Edit: Since I can't figure out how to add a quote to an edit and it's making me frustrated, I'm just going to add another wall of text 

 

Your points about matchmaking is logical and is an issue in the game, you're right. I don't want you to think I'm disagreeing with you completely. However, I think matchmaking is a reachable goal to fix, especially with the rating system. I always thought the threat system should be completely removed, or should be something like RTW where it was 1-15, however matchmaking should been determined off of rating rather than threat levels. Having districts with rating ranges would be better than the threat system. For starters, you can't dethreat your rating. Your rating is the progress you have through the game and is impossible to reduce. This won't fix matchmaking but I think it'll make it better. Honestly, I don't know if there is a way to fix matchmaking and make it perfect, mainly because you can always create new characters and be back with the newbies (which is also a flaw with using rating). APB isn't really a friendly game, and it's going to be hard to make it friendly considering its a tedious game and it takes special people like all of us to play it (we all know it's rage inducing )

 

Honestly, I for one hate constant rebalancing. In every game I play that has this, it's always you break one thing while making another extremely overpowered and oh look, next rebalance it's the same issue. It's a constant never ending loop where some weapons/vehicles get completely ruined while some get buffed too much. While you always want variety in a game, APB has reskins for days. The ongoing debate on the N-TEC and CR-5 is silly. They are literally the same exact gun. One just looks different and sounds different than the other. However, the game has a large amount of variety, which is good. If you constantly change every single gun over and over again, the process is annoying and quite honestly dumb. Having little tweaks here and there isn't bad, its good. As you add new content into the game, others become less valuable in certain situations. However, the complete overhaul of guns to make them rebalanced I think is silly. Let things go, and simply don't add content that'll change the game for everyone. 

 

Although, the removal of juggling objectives I can 100% get behind of. It's a stupid bug/feature/who knows what it is, its a thing that shouldn't be able to be done. 

@Guartorias

Edited May 31, 2018 by BuckyTheBronco
Added more to topic discussion

[Kewlin 692]

Only things you mentioned that actually should be fixed are pushing objectives and spawns, and your suggestion for fixing spawns would make attacking even more difficult, which is an issue because attacking is already harder than defending.

 

APB doesn't need flavor-of-the-month balancing, a "good enough" balance approach is what's healthiest for APB, where they simply try to keep all guns useable, and buff or nerf any outliers, with occasionally finer passes to try and get everything closer to even. The only time a game should have constant major balancing is when the game is almost primarily aimed at e-sports, which APB is not and never will be. Are there things that need to be tweaked? Yes, the OCSP needs a range buff, M-1922 needs its recoil reverted or changed, the Anubis needs its bugs fixed / reverted, HVR needs a damage nerf, R-2 Harbinger needs all sorts of buffs, the OCA needs to go to a middle-point between its pre and post-buff states, I could go on, but these are all, in the scope of things, relatively minor changes, and a lot of times if a company goes too far trying to "fix" balance too often they end up simply changing the game instead of fixing it, and within a year or two every gun, character, or whatever's being balanced is unrecognizable from what it was at the start.

 

Furthermore, this is not an acceptable way to fix griefing or ghosting. Perhaps the second most major selling point of APB since its initial announcement has always been the fact that it's a large open world living with player interaction, and removing that would simply make APB not APB anymore. APB has never been marketed as fair, or balanced, or any of that, it's always been intended to be a very social game dependent on interaction with the entire district to make the game fun an unpredictable. The correct way to fix griefing and ghosting is a good report system, not destroying the very foundation of the game.

 

Also, rating based matchmaking could very well be the most destructive thing they could possibly do to APB, because rating has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with skill, or even, if you're going to argue gear has to do with winning and losing, gear (with the exception of reaching R-40 for CA3, and 195+ mods, which are really not all that life-changing usually.)

 

Also, P.S. players uhh. . . already respawn in groups.

[Guartorias 8]

11 hours ago, LUST said:

You want players to know that changes are in the works...you don't do that under the shadow of G1's mistake and suggesting things that would change what this game actually is.

  

They don't need to massively overhaul it to bring new/old players to the game, they just have to be completely transparent on the state of the game.  When the news of LO's acquisition broke out-- the population spiked upwards for the first time in months. Not valuing communication is what hurt G1 and many other games/studios beyond APB.

 

There's a lot that works in APB and there's a lot that isn't fully fleshed out. A lot of what's in APB (most which was added under G1) don't flow well with the game. Under new ownership and a new developmental roadmap, they can easily put this game back into an Early Access state while they continue to re-vitalize it, understand it, and really exploit its marketing potential. Keeping the game in the current "live" state while changes are going to be made is wrong.

 

Population spiked, but it's nothing impressive. I'll be surprised if LO can get APB's population even to 3k.

 

G1's lack of communication was a terrible thing, but worse than that, was their lack of doing anything (Referring to the past year). APB as it is, or even with an overhauled tutorial, new players will still avoid the game. Or rather, they'll leave after a week or two.

3 hours ago, BuckyTheBronco said:

The game doesn't need a complete transformation, it just needs it's foundation fixed and repaired back to a stage of stability similar to RTW. The players that are still around from RTW can vouch for me, that the game was popular and had a large playerbase back then. Seeing Financial/Waterfront districts in the numbers of 40's and 50 instances was a beautiful sight before it all crumbled under the bankruptcy of RTW. If Little Orbit can just fix the foundation of the game, i.e. server stability, new content relevant to the standard players rather than Armas Marketplace, events, promotions, sales, new features, etc. 

I'm not saying a complete transformation. Unless you view the change from RTW to G1's APB a complete transformation. I'm saying a lot of the mechanics need to be modernized and balanced. Which was in my OP.

 

3 hours ago, BuckyTheBronco said:

The game doesn't need a complete transformation, it just needs it's foundation fixed and repaired back to a stage of stability similar to RTW. The players that are still around from RTW can vouch for me, that the game was popular and had a large playerbase back then.

I'm sure server improvements are high on LO's list. That's something everyone can agree on. But as for RTW's popularity, things were different then. GTAV didn't exist, the game wasn't old as dirt, and it was before Steam's huge F2P library. Now APB has to compete with everything else that's F2P, GTAV, and the fact it's a double-zombie'd game that's 8 years old. It really doesn't have a lot going for it.

 

The only things APB really has going for it, is the fact it's a 3rd person PvP shooter on PC (Fairly rare imo), and the customization... The customization that most people think "wow cool!" and proceed to make a Naruto character by buying the clothes off the market.

 

3 hours ago, BuckyTheBronco said:

The biggest reason why the game again crumbled under GamersFirst was because they were too focused on Armas content rather than the actual game itself. We all heard during the Q&A with Matt that the game has not had an actual patch for over 9 months. 9 MONTHS. You know how much new Arma's content was added in those 9 months? An outrageous amount. The time and effort used to add new Arma content (which wasn't even new, it was mostly files left over from RTW) could of been used to actually patch the game, add new content and features that would draw players back in. Instead, GamersFirst put themselves in a situation where money was more important than the players, which ultimately led to the downfall of the games population. 

Iirc Matt also said that as it is, APB is almost impossible to add new content. Or something among those lines. Adding Armas content might've been G1's only viable option till the engine upgrade, which who knows what happened there.

 

3 hours ago, BuckyTheBronco said:

Honestly, I for one hate constant rebalancing. In every game I play that has this, it's always you break one thing while making another extremely overpowered and oh look, next rebalance it's the same issue. It's a constant never ending loop where some weapons/vehicles get completely ruined while some get buffed too much. While you always want variety in a game, APB has reskins for days. The ongoing debate on the N-TEC and CR-5 is silly. They are literally the same exact gun. One just looks different and sounds different than the other. However, the game has a large amount of variety, which is good. If you constantly change every single gun over and over again, the process is annoying and quite honestly dumb. Having little tweaks here and there isn't bad, its good. As you add new content into the game, others become less valuable in certain situations. However, the complete overhaul of guns to make them rebalanced I think is silly. Let things go, and simply don't add content that'll change the game for everyone. 

 

Obviously that's fairly old, but not much has changed, afaik.

 

N-tec has over double the usage of the Star, which will have inflated stats because it's the starter weapon. HVR has several times the usage of the next sniper rifle. Joker Carbine has about three times the usage of the next Marksman rifle.

 

Why? The N-tec/Star thing makes sense. They're the only assault rifles you can unlock in-game (Not including joker ticket bs.)

 

HVR though? Second place is the Scout, and it's waay down there. And it's an Armas weapon. So really, the DMR-SD should be it's competition for usage... And it's at the bottom of the barrel. You're saying small tweaks would make the DMR viable, when compared to the HVR? I definitely don't think so.

[BuckyTheBronco 37]

1 hour ago, Guartorias said:

 

 

Obviously that's fairly old, but not much has changed, afaik.

 

N-tec has over double the usage of the Star, which will have inflated stats because it's the starter weapon. HVR has several times the usage of the next sniper rifle. Joker Carbine has about three times the usage of the next Marksman rifle.

 

Why? The N-tec/Star thing makes sense. They're the only assault rifles you can unlock in-game (Not including joker ticket bs.)

 

HVR though? Second place is the Scout, and it's waay down there. And it's an Armas weapon. So really, the DMR-SD should be it's competition for usage... And it's at the bottom of the barrel. You're saying small tweaks would make the DMR viable, when compared to the HVR? I definitely don't think so.

This pie chart is awesome, I didn't know this existed. I'm so blown away that this exists that I couldn't keep concentration while reading your response. 

 

However, I do feel like the change from RTW to G1 was in a way a complete transformation. The feel of the game in my opinion changed heavily and some was for better but some was most certainly for the worse. 

 

I do agree that APB has a small number of things going for it compared to modern day games. Customization is a huge one of them. Another is the unique style of game, nothing is truly like APB. GTA V in my opinion was garbage. The singleplayer was good (as most GTA's) but the multiplayer was nothing but hackers and children running around. There was no true purpose to multiplayer besides the heists. It has been awhile since I played GTA V online, so there could be a bunch new content since then. I got a bad taste for GTA V online from the beginning, simply because of the community and the hackers. I went from SA-MP role playing servers to GTA V online, so that's most likely why I didn't enjoy GTA V online. 

 

As for new content, I just mean content that isn't on Armas. Like a new contact, with new character mods, or weapon mods, vehicle mods, etc. A new weapon added that is completely new could be ideal, that is unlockable from a contact. I mean, we don't really ask for much as APB is content filled in my opinion, but something to keep the max ranks busy would be something interesting. 

 

For the gun usage, that I am so blown away by, despite the outdated information (props to finding this btw), I think it has to do heavily with the meta of the game. Everyone seems to use an SMG, or an assault rifle. Each weapon has it's unique situations, but the overall popular choice is an assault rifle or SMG. Snipers, Marksmanship rifles, and shotguns all have their situations and scenarios but I feel like the meta is more towards a run and gun which is probably while people use what they use. You touched on the slowing down of the pace in your OP which I wouldn't be against honestly. I feel like it would bring more weapons into play, such as the Obeya, OBIR, Scout, DMR, etc. I think the DMR needs to be reworked for sure. It never was good, unless your using it to troll stun or basically draw distance snipe (90-100m) where it's a two hit kill. Otherwise there are some weapons that do need reworked, I will agree but in a way that will avoid the constant reworking of weapons to reach a "balanced" state. 

[Guartorias 8]

5 hours ago, Kewlin said:

Only things you mentioned that actually should be fixed are pushing objectives and spawns, and your suggestion for fixing spawns would make attacking even more difficult, which is an issue because attacking is already harder than defending.

 

APB doesn't need flavor-of-the-month balancing, a "good enough" balance approach is what's healthiest for APB, where they simply try to keep all guns useable, and buff or nerf any outliers, with occasionally finer passes to try and get everything closer to even. The only time a game should have constant major balancing is when the game is almost primarily aimed at e-sports, which APB is not and never will be. Are there things that need to be tweaked? Yes, the OCSP needs a range buff, M-1922 needs its recoil reverted or changed, the Anubis needs its bugs fixed / reverted, HVR needs a damage nerf, R-2 Harbinger needs all sorts of buffs, the OCA needs to go to a middle-point between its pre and post-buff states, I could go on, but these are all, in the scope of things, relatively minor changes, and a lot of times if a company goes too far trying to "fix" balance too often they end up simply changing the game instead of fixing it, and within a year or two every gun, character, or whatever's being balanced is unrecognizable from what it was at the start.

 

Furthermore, this is not an acceptable way to fix griefing or ghosting. Perhaps the second most major selling point of APB since its initial announcement has always been the fact that it's a large open world living with player interaction, and removing that would simply make APB not APB anymore. APB has never been marketed as fair, or balanced, or any of that, it's always been intended to be a very social game dependent on interaction with the entire district to make the game fun an unpredictable. The correct way to fix griefing and ghosting is a good report system, not destroying the very foundation of the game.

 

Also, rating based matchmaking could very well be the most destructive thing they could possibly do to APB, because rating has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with skill, or even, if you're going to argue gear has to do with winning and losing, gear (with the exception of reaching R-40 for CA3, and 195+ mods, which are really not all that life-changing usually.)

 

Also, P.S. players uhh. . . already respawn in groups.

As I said, that's my personal preference. Not what I'd recommend LO do, as a business. Just if I had a private APB server or something, those are the changes I would want.

 

Players do respawn in groups, but it never really feels like it. What I had in mind was that the team's respawn timer would start at the death of the first teamate. But giving that more thought, 12 seconds probably wouldn't be long enough. Again, for my ideal APB.

 

Also, what Anubis bug are you referring to? I haven't really played in a long while. Last thing I remember, G1 changed the Anubis' special crosshair to be much smaller than it was. I liked it at that time. Aside from that, it ghost fired fairly often, though the DMR did as well. (Oddly enough, DMR-AV always felt to ghost-fire less than DMR-SD. A couple of my friends felt the same way, but it could've just been the power of suggestion.)

 

3 hours ago, BuckyTheBronco said:

This pie chart is awesome, I didn't know this existed. I'm so blown away that this exists that I couldn't keep concentration while reading your response. 

 

However, I do feel like the change from RTW to G1 was in a way a complete transformation. The feel of the game in my opinion changed heavily and some was for better but some was most certainly for the worse. 

 

I do agree that APB has a small number of things going for it compared to modern day games. Customization is a huge one of them. Another is the unique style of game, nothing is truly like APB. GTA V in my opinion was garbage. The singleplayer was good (as most GTA's) but the multiplayer was nothing but hackers and children running around. There was no true purpose to multiplayer besides the heists. It has been awhile since I played GTA V online, so there could be a bunch new content since then. I got a bad taste for GTA V online from the beginning, simply because of the community and the hackers. I went from SA-MP role playing servers to GTA V online, so that's most likely why I didn't enjoy GTA V online. 

 

As for new content, I just mean content that isn't on Armas. Like a new contact, with new character mods, or weapon mods, vehicle mods, etc. A new weapon added that is completely new could be ideal, that is unlockable from a contact. I mean, we don't really ask for much as APB is content filled in my opinion, but something to keep the max ranks busy would be something interesting. 

 

For the gun usage, that I am so blown away by, despite the outdated information (props to finding this btw), I think it has to do heavily with the meta of the game. Everyone seems to use an SMG, or an assault rifle. Each weapon has it's unique situations, but the overall popular choice is an assault rifle or SMG. Snipers, Marksmanship rifles, and shotguns all have their situations and scenarios but I feel like the meta is more towards a run and gun which is probably while people use what they use. You touched on the slowing down of the pace in your OP which I wouldn't be against honestly. I feel like it would bring more weapons into play, such as the Obeya, OBIR, Scout, DMR, etc. I think the DMR needs to be reworked for sure. It never was good, unless your using it to troll stun or basically draw distance snipe (90-100m) where it's a two hit kill. Otherwise there are some weapons that do need reworked, I will agree but in a way that will avoid the constant reworking of weapons to reach a "balanced" state. 

lol, glad you enjoy the pie chart. G1 released it a long while ago. I thought there was a 2nd one somewhere, but couldn't find it.

 

As I've said, I never played RTW's APB. But looking at old footage, and a couple of my friends played it since beta, I don't see anything G1 did to make it worse. Aside from (arguably) adding things like Car-surfer and spawner. I'm interested in what you feel G1 failed at.

 

I don't care much for GTA V either... Though not for the same reasons, it seems. If you don't like GTA V because it has kids and cheaters, then why do you play APB lol. It's full of cancer and cheaters.

 

I'd love to see new contacts. But more importantly, I recently came to the realization that APB only has 2 Assault Rifles, not including Armas/Joker tickets. (Which I don't consider JT's to be a viable way of getting weapons. It's just a pain.). APB needs more guns that are unlockable in-game.

 

I agree that the weapons used are because of the meta. And that's exactly what I don't like. The meta has never changed. It's always been N-tec for most cases, HVR for sniping (or just QS and it's a shotgun), and OCA for CQC. PMG did get buffed, to the point where everyone hated it and it was OP. (That pie chart is definitely after the PMGs buff. Not sure if it was before or after the nerf that followed a few months down the line though.) Don't get me wrong, I'd be fine if they just did a weapon balance patch. APB's balance is practically non-existent, but most of the community is fine with that. Nobody sits there and says "How could they make the snub-nosed revolver a viable sidearm?". Most people probably forget that it's even in the game. But if it was my APB, I'd enjoy weapons being changed every few months. 6 months is probably what I'd go with.

[Kewlin 692]

5 minutes ago, Guartorias said:

Also, what Anubis bug are you referring to? I haven't really played in a long while. Last thing I remember, G1 changed the Anubis' special crosshair to be much smaller than it was. I liked it at that time. Aside from that, it ghost fired fairly often, though the DMR did as well. (Oddly enough, DMR-AV always felt to ghost-fire less than DMR-SD. A couple of my friends felt the same way, but it could've just been the power of suggestion.)

They accidentally applied part of the HVR nerf to the Anubis, so it no longer goes into MM basically as fast as a semi-auto rifle like it used to.

 

Also yeah, as you said, it has awful hitreg.

[speee 90]

The APB name has a bad reputation, but I think this can be use to the advantage of the game. Instead of trying to hide the game's past, I think people would respect seeing the new developers own up to this shaky past in an effort to show serious improvement to the game. We don't want another WarZ situation where they rebranded the exact same game in an effort to cash grab consumers. Get rid of the Reloaded tag. "All Points Bulletin" is about as fitting of a name as this game could ever have.

[Similarities 226]

51 minutes ago, speee said:

The APB name has a bad reputation, but I think this can be use to the advantage of the game. Instead of trying to hide the game's past, I think people would respect seeing the new developers own up to this shaky past in an effort to show serious improvement to the game. We don't want another WarZ situation where they rebranded the exact same game in an effort to cash grab consumers. Get rid of the Reloaded tag. "All Points Bulletin" is about as fitting of a name as this game could ever have.

Not only this, but the "Reloaded" was partly there because the developers of the game were Reloaded Inc/Reloaded Productions, who are still around and do still exist, but are no longer their own entity, they're a part of Little Orbit, and from what I remember, they're being moved from being primary developers to a more "supportive" role where they produce content and another team in Australia is the one doing the engine upgrade from here on out, so Reloaded isn't even really doing primary development anymore.