The good, the bad and the silver

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

Before I begin.
I love apb and everthing good that this game has to offer. Even tho I'm an old player (since 2013) I never played this game for too much. I play for week - two, for month and then I mostly leave it for a half of the year. I started playing more constantly since G1 been bought by LO and I never woud've write any of this since I know my opinion is just "add it to the pile" but I really want to talk about the stuff I'll adress.

Okay, good to know, so what's your freaking problem?

I'm not gonna adress all the optimization issues and matchmaking, simply because it's topic since ever, I guess. Yes, I think matchmaking should be reworked simply because 1gold,3 silvers VS 3 T-players match is complete and utter bullshoot, not to say 1 V 1 missions shouldn't exist at all. Optimization should be impoved and I know it's not coming until 3.5 atleast.
While some of you not suffer from optimization, some of us do. I have a crappy laptop wich are giving me 40-50 FPS on max setting in APB with constant freezes, fps drops and crashes. But regardless if i'm playing on max setting or potato graphics using advanced launcher, low fps and freezes and crashes never leave. While it's really frustrating sometimes, I'm still dealing with dying because of freezes and with drops to 5 frames per second because somebody uses LMG or NFAS. I deal with all this stuff because there's no other way for me to play this game. But this is not what makes me really upset, this is not what makes me wanna quit the game. Guess you can really imagine now that APB is something special for me same as for all of us, I guess.

What really makes me wanna quit the game is a threat system.
I'm between regular silver player and superiorly good gold player. I can't play on silver bronze because in most of the cases I will get gold. I can't play on silver simply because i'm not that good. I'm tired of getting demolished, tired of doing my best just to instantly die. I want to enjoy the game, I want to just chill and relax not to get a depression because 9\10 matches I'm just being raped and teared to pieces. And if you're reading this and thinking "just get gud lul", just stop reading and leave. Silver district is punishment for me, for being too good for regular silver. I don't want to dethreat, why do I have to always dethreating to enjoy this game? I want players who are +- level of my skill. I want fair fights, I want to win, I want to lose, I want to have fun, I want to enjoy the damn game. For all this years of APB existence it wasn't really a problem since I wasn't that good to be gold and most of dethreaters were better than me, even tho I was dethreating from time to time myself. I hated dethreaters, I was sreaming in my mind "go to silver server for god's sake!". Not as I'm a bit better, when I play on silver I'm simply happy to see dethreaters (don't get me wrong, deathreating is not right, but now I understand why most of dethreaters doing this), because I know, that even they still can kick my patootie, I'm not that worse than they're, meaning there's a change i'll have a fair and fun game. When i'm playing on silver 4\5 matches look like this. My team: 3-4 players R30-100, golds, most of the cases 1-2 silvers. Enemy team: 2-4 players R200-255, in most of the cases same clan. And score 1/10, 3/15, 3/13 ect while enemy team just feasting on our agony with their 20\1 10\1 KDs. I can't predict every enemy move, I can't land my every hit with 100% accuracy, I can't throw a granade with perfect timing always hitting my target. I can't shot with N-tec like it's a laser rifle and got no bloom with TTK of 0.7 second while being 50m away, I can't land every shotgun hit while dodging all the bullets and outshot sniper with carbine on the distance when the game simply stops rendering players. Sure there was a fair matches in silver district, but why do I have to gamble everytime I press K for that 20% chance of fair and fun game.

I met a guy I I became friends who happened to play APB in the past. He haven't played more than 100h hours because of the "unfair matchmaking and P2W guns" but I teached  him to play the game, told him about it's not the guns, but the way you play and pick your loadout. He finally had fun with the game, untill he got gold. Now he doesn't want to play since it's unplayalbe for us in silver district and not everybody wants to spend time dying to dethreat.

I know that @MattScott and LO overall knows that matchmaking should be fixed and I know that it's not coming until engine upgrade. But what I think is also should be mentioned and worked on is threat system. You simply cannot devide players into Silver and Gold. Specially in game like APB where skill plays a big role and a lot of people have different level of skills. I don't have to struggle to play the game only because I'm too good for silver and too bad for gold.
Imagine games like R6 and CSGO having only bronze, silver and gold. (I don't want to talk about bronze cause if you're still bronze after 10 hours of missions, then you probably need 10 seconds of brain processing information to start shooting a standing enemy). You have to add more levels of threats, atleasts 6, shit, even 5 would be better! Why golds who are just better than regular silvers should play against players with years of non-stop playing and skill of an enormous level. This and broken matchmaking (plus a lot of other reasons) is why noone stays in this game. I love the game, but if I simply can not enjoy it, what's the point? Honestly this is first time when i'm having such a bad time with the game, and reason I haven't left yet only because I love APB and times when it can be fun game, besides APB has so much potential and you know there's no other game like APB. It drags me back, I can not leave, I don't want it to die, not yet, not until there's no better successor.

My opinion on future of APB.

While i'm still here might as well adress my thoughts on APB future and LO decisions as well as few suggestions on improving overall experience for players, specially new comers.
First of all I want to thank @MattScott and LO staff for keeping the game alive. I understand that different people work on different stuff, not every LO employee have a knowledge of C++ and OPP required to work with engine not to mention time needed to figure out how APB works. (people sure really understand this). While I think APB is sure need content and RIOT is not a bad thing (if done right, can be super enjoyable) I feel like doing it separately from game engine is might be mistake. This is why: Most of people doesn't want to play game untill new EU and even if they return for new content they may just leave pretty fast since apb didn't change much.
If you'd let your people work on new content and game engine and then fixing all major problems (perfomance, matchmaking) and release it all together I honestly think it woud've brought more old players and created an opportunity to advertise the game to people who never heard of it or heard of it's being not really a good game, create a whole "we turned apb into a new experience/made an new content and improved game/ or even apb2" thing making it interesting for more people. I feel like APB need a fresh start.

 

Some of my thoughts how to make the game more friendly for newcomers and making them want to stay.
Overall I think APB as it right now is not the game that everyone can enjoy for reason listed lots of times. Also please consider all already said major issues.
1) Refer-a-friend system. I know it's been abused in the past, but after all it's might have brought some players too. And even if it's abused, meaning people gonna spend time on APB getting those rewards and later stay in the game to enjoy and play with those rewards. I think it should be brought back.
2) Tutorial. Tutorial as it is i think it's something players ignore mostly, even i back in the day didn't know it's existed. You need to create a special level or mission where players must go over all basics of the game including how to use chat channels and customization.
3) Make the game more rewarding. Game is very grindy and not everyone are get along with it. Add rewards, add perma guns selectors through contracts. For example STAR LRC isn't that popular and even got removed from armas, why can't you then add it as something you can get from contracts? But anyway, I think this is something that deserves it's own topic.
 

In general we all want APB to a better game we all can enjoy. Thank you for your time.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Soundwave2142
Typos, lots of typos

[AxeTurboAgresor 268]

Not worth of reading.

3/4 of actual content is complaining about threat system, and matchmaking.

EU > RIOT opinion again.

A few suggestions at the end. Tutorial district. RAF. Give away of rare STAR LCR by making it a regular contact weapon and on top of it its permanent.

 

Goin to sleep. Gn

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

5 minutes ago, AxeTurboAgresor said:

Not worth of reading.

3/4 of actual content is complaining about threat system, and matchmaking.

EU > RIOT opinion again.

A few suggestions at the end. Tutorial district. RAF. Give away of rare STAR LCR by making it a regular contact weapon and on top of it its permanent.

 

Goin to sleep. Gn

I made an example there with STAR, but it's not about STAR itself and as far as I know it's so "rare" now cause it was considered bad and noone was buying it, so they removed it. You can still get it in Joker store. At the start you get a perma gun selector , so why can't we get more as we spend 500 hours on getting to that Devil Dog or Ernst.

 

You can call it complaining, but I'm pretty sure I'm not complaining but rather adressing real issue APB has.

[vsb 6174]

43 minutes ago, Soundwave2142 said:

You simply cannot devide players into Silver and Gold. Specially in game like APB where skill plays a big role and a lot of people have different level of skills. I don't have to struggle to play the game only because I'm too good for silver and too bad for gold.
Imagine games like R6 and CSGO having only bronze, silver and gold.

just like in r6 siege and csgo, apb has multiple different “levels” within each threat color (bronze1-bronze10, silver1-silver10, gold1-gold10) they just aren’t visually shown 

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

16 minutes ago, AxeTurboAgresor said:

Not worth of reading.

3/4 of actual content is complaining about threat system, and matchmaking.

EU > RIOT opinion again.

A few suggestions at the end. Tutorial district. RAF. Give away of rare STAR LCR by making it a regular contact weapon and on top of it its permanent.

 

Goin to sleep. Gn

Plus I didn't say RIOT<EU, so maybe next time you read more carefuly? First of all I mentioned that riot is not a bad thing, and only explained why I think releasing fixes, new content and EU AT THE SAME TIME could be better for APB

[Fortune Runner 796]

Engine Upgrade and  RIOT  are said  by Little Orbit to be planned to be released together.

So yes new content and the  Engine Upgrade is planned

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

13 minutes ago, Glaciers said:

just like in r6 siege and csgo, apb has multiple different “levels” within each threat color (bronze1-bronze10, silver1-silver10, gold1-gold10) they just aren’t visually shown 

Knew someone is going to joke about me bringing up popular games like R6 and CS GO

7 minutes ago, Fortune Runner said:

Engine Upgrade and  RIOT  are said  by Little Orbit to be planned to be released together.

So yes new content and the  Engine Upgrade is planned

Hm, if that means RIOT going out of beta then it does make sense.

 

And i know content is planned, what I meant is realising it all like in 1 day.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Soundwave2142

[swindIe 120]

you think im reading that?

[Fortune Runner 796]

Just now, swindIe said:

you think im reading that?

its a good read

[Too_many_snowflakes 80]

If you're in between gold and silver you're not a real "gold" player...

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

5 minutes ago, TrinityFSB said:

If you're in between gold and silver you're not a real "gold" player...

I don't consider myself a gold player.

Even if I team up with random players I had a good match with (by pressing 'y' on "do you want to stay with your team?" message), most of the times I warn them that I'm a bad gold.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Soundwave2142

[vsb 6174]

1 hour ago, Soundwave2142 said:

Knew someone is going to joke about me bringing up popular games like R6 and CS GO

maybe next time try reading the things you quote instead of just smashing your face into your keyboard

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2019 by Glaciers
typo

[Havana 216]

Here is another guy saying the same thing. But, they never hear. I agree with you man. Golds are the problem, cuz they don't play in GOLD and shit runs downhill.

Same Poop, Diff day. 

There are a few real turdhead dethreaters. But most people are like this guy and just want a honest decent match. Bronze sadly enough is the closest thing you can do.

I still say this is an easy fix, But we never TRY ANYTHING. Its like G1 and LO are afraid to lose their GOLD pop. Who cares, they  will never leave. They have already spent what they are going to spend. Stop being so afraid of making the game better for new players.

An RIOT and going to do anything for more than a week.

[Goldtiger 133]

33 minutes ago, Havana said:

Here is another guy saying the same thing. But, they never hear. I agree with you man.

This

33 minutes ago, Havana said:

Golds are the problem, cuz they don't play in GOLD and shit runs downhill.

But NOT this

Becoming Gold is way too easy. We've already had a period of time in APB where Golds were strictly segregated to their own districts, and things were CHAOTIC. I remember not playing the game at all while that was change was active. We do not want to repeat the same mistakes.

 

The problem itself is both the matchmaking and the threat system. In reality, there are 3 types of Golds: The Highly Skilled, the Average, and the 'Fake' Golds. I feel like the threat system does an awful job at separating the 3 from each other. I feel like things would be better if greens/bronzes were "merged" together as similar "skill level" into the Green Threat, Silvers were put at Bronze Threat, 'fake golds' were put at the Silver Threat, and the Average players were put at Gold. As for the "Highly Skilled", I think a threat above Gold (maybe Diamond Threat), should be added for them. This WOULD NOT fix all the problems that are currently set in stone, and would probably divide the community even more, but it would definitely classify the skill levels of players more accurately. Cause' as it stands, Green is a useless threat that dethreaters only really use (honestly), and Gold is way too normal for all sorts of players. In hindsight, the best way to clear any issues to do some sort of server-wide matchmaking (as Matt Scott described a while ago), and tweaking the algorithms to search for, as close to, an 100% fair pairing.

 

33 minutes ago, Havana said:

I still say this is an easy fix, But we never TRY ANYTHING. Its like G1 and LO are afraid to lose their GOLD pop. Who cares, they  will never leave. They have already spent what they are going to spend. Stop being so afraid of making the game better for new players.

The fix isn't as simple as you think, but there are MANY fixes that they can try that for some reason all the veterans of the game are too afraid to try. I don't think they should go by the "TRY ANYTHING" mentality, but they should be trying out some things that will make things better than what they are right now.

 

As for pleasing the Gold population, I am right here with you on that. There are some diehard golds that make it clear that they will NEVER leave the game. Though I don't fall in that category necessarily, I will always end up coming back to it... I'm pretty sure a lot of Gold Vets are like that. So they need to stop focusing on pleasing us and focus on pleasing the new players so that this game can grow again. They need to start asking what new players don't like about the game or wish was different about the game. Though veteran players will say they'd be speaking ignorantly, finding out why people aren't wanting to continue playing the game is the only way you can revive the game. Don't keep trying to fix what isn't broken. The Gold population will be here, it is the others that you need to be trying to convince.

 

~~

 

4 hours ago, swindIe said:

you think im reading that?

You're on a damn forum, why the hell wouldn't you. It bugs me that so many people are able to post things that do not at all contribute to the discussion. (not trying to throw shade on the moderation)

 

4 hours ago, TrinityFSB said:

If you're in between gold and silver you're not a real "gold" player...

This is very true, but you do not need to be gold to give a valuable opinion on the state of the game and on what needs to change.

 

5 hours ago, Glaciers said:

just like in r6 siege and csgo, apb has multiple different “levels” within each threat color (bronze1-bronze10, silver1-silver10, gold1-gold10) they just aren’t visually shown 

This is true, however the difference is that APB is definitely more lenient about threat level than R6/CSGO, and R6/CSGO has a much bigger population. Additionally, the matchmaking in APB can be rather inconsistent, as you can still go up in threat if you lose and can still go down in threat if you win.

 

5 hours ago, AxeTurboAgresor said:

Not worth of reading.

3/4 of actual content is complaining about threat system, and matchmaking.

EU > RIOT opinion again.

A few suggestions at the end. Tutorial district. RAF. Give away of rare STAR LCR by making it a regular contact weapon and on top of it its permanent.

 

Goin to sleep. Gn

This entire post is completely toxic, I don't even think I need to explain why 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Goldtiger
Cleaning up the original post

[Alani 475]

tbh when engine upgrade roles around they outta rename apb

 

 

"All Points Bulletin: Silver Edition"

 

[AxeTurboAgresor 268]

@Soundwave2142 u r mad over details, and over word "complaining".

Its called summary, or tl:dr. Cuz ur post brings nothing new and is unnecessarily long.

 

 

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

4 hours ago, AxeTurboAgresor said:

@Soundwave2142 u r mad over details, and over word "complaining".

Its called summary, or tl:dr. Cuz ur post brings nothing new and is unnecessarily long.

 

 

I'm not mad over details, it's just your "summary" is inaccurate, meaning you got things wrong and im trying to clarify it for you

 

Merged.

 

4 hours ago, Goldtiger said:

The problem itself is both the matchmaking and the threat system. In reality, there are 3 types of Golds: The Highly Skilled, the Average, and the 'Fake' Golds. I feel like the threat system does an awful job at separating the 3 from each other. I feel like things would be better if greens/bronzes were "merged" together as similar "skill level" into the Green Threat, Silvers were put at Bronze Threat, 'fake golds' were put at the Silver Threat, and the Average players were put at Gold. As for the "Highly Skilled", I think a threat above Gold (maybe Diamond Threat), should be added for them. This WOULD NOT fix all the problems that are currently set in stone, and would probably divide the community even more, but it would definitely classify the skill levels of players more accurately. Cause' as it stands, Green is a useless threat that dethreaters only really use (honestly), and Gold is way too normal for all sorts of players. In hindsight, the best way to clear any issues to do some sort of server-wide matchmaking (as Matt Scott described a while ago), and tweaking the algorithms to search for, as close to, an 100% fair pairing.

I agree with this. If you're just win a few games with kd > 1, Games just gonna throw you into that moshpit called gold threat.

Honestly I feel like adding 1 "diamond" or whatever threat level might cause diamond people still to dethreat so they can either play with larger population or esier enemies.

While adding 2-3 threat levels for very high skill and good golds so if one dethreat they still may have a solid chance of fair game.

 

Again, I agree on you saying the population of the game is a problem compared to r6/csgo. But it's not gonna increase if nothing is done about threat and matchmaking

 

Merged.

 

8 hours ago, Glaciers said:

maybe next time try reading the things you quote instead of just smashing your face into your keyboard

 

 

 

I tried googling what you said and found no confirmation, so I assumed you just being sarcastic. 

 

Source maybe?

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

People still complaining about threat and matchmaking system while not even understanding the system.

 

What a surprise /s.

 

Learn how the actual threat system functions and then maybe you'll be worth listening to. If you wish and request, I can type it out for you for the billionth time.

Edited June 3, 2019 by NotZombieBiscuit

[WaIeed007 65]

why did i read all this . . .

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

38 minutes ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

People still complaining about threat and matchmaking system while not even understanding the system.

 

What a surprise /s.

 

Learn how the actual threat system functions and then maybe you'll be worth listening to. If you wish and request, I can type it out for you for the billionth time.

What difference does it make if I'm not completely aware of how system works if it doesn't work as it should.

 

You're not complaining about game creating missions for you because system does it's job. If it would have created an objective to raid a door wich is out of the map preventing you and your team from proceding then it has fatal errors and fails as a system, people would have still complain about it whatever they know or not how it works, same goes for game optimization.

 

Threat system should define players to different categories based on how they play creating a better conditions for fair matchmaking. So far it fails. And this what i explained in this thread. Not why it fails, but that it does fail.

 

So I'm not really seeing your point.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

Just now, Soundwave2142 said:

What difference does it make if I'm not completely aware of how system works if it doesn't work as it should.

 

You're not complaining about game creating missions for you because system does it's job. If it would have created an objective to raid a door wich is out of the map preventing you and your team from proceding then it has fatal errors and fails as a system, people would have still complain about it whatever they know or not how it works, same goes for game optimization.

 

Threat system should define players to different categories based on how they play creating a better conditions for fair matchmaking. So far it fails. And this what i explained in this thread. Not why it fails, but that it does fail.

 

So I'm not really seeing your point.

I'll take that as an ignorant no.

[CoolAssDisplayName 93]

2 hours ago, WaIeed007 said:

why did i read all this . . .

Why did you post this?

 

Merged.

 

1 hour ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

I'll take that as an ignorant no.

Maybe try explaining why I should learn how actual threat system works and how knowing of it's formulas defines end result wich me as well as plenty more people are not happy with and then maybe you'll be worth listening to.

[Lato 188]

 

[Defibrillator 132]

12 hours ago, Soundwave2142 said:

~snip~

Go and play in fight clubs..dont play there for the joker tickets..play to improve urself. The best thing about fight clubs is that u get to play with all kinds of players Good,bad,average. Learn to play the game for urself..then play it as a team.

 

Well thats how i learnt it.

[TheJellyGoo 343]

I wonder where all these top golds are when I play the game?

Saying that you get stomped 9 out of 10 games implies that there are roughly 90% top golds on a district (vague estimate due to repeated clashes etc).

I consider myself fairly decent and those would be the groups that give us (my group) a balanced match and tough fight but we do not have 9 out of 10 matches like that.

In fact the numbers would be flipped there is usually 1 max 2 groups of those on a server which would mean 4-8 (10-20%) top gold players because all our other matches are pretty straightforward winstreaking. Following that logic it would mean that the other 80-90% (mirroring factions for ease) would play between themselves and have rather equal matchups (which includes losses since balanced matchups would still give you 50%).

 

So let's say you meet the top group twice = 2 losses

Leaves 8 balanced matches = 8

50% win/loss = 4 losses and 4 wins

Together 6 losses and 4 wins maybe on a bad day few more losses and voila we are close to your 90% depression rate.

 

I just think you can't handle losing and are partly looking for an escape. Btw. your chill games after dethreating are probably stomping on some newbs that do not enjoy that. All about perception.

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by TheJellyGoo