APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[Hoax]

I agree with you, I had already mentioned the how to unlock stuff needs to be expanded, a few times as a matter of fact. A simple tool tip on the locks would do wonders, or more verbose messages in the unlock updates. Where are you people getting this crap from?

GUI covers a lot of shit and is a very broad category, "The GUI sucks" and "None of it made any sense" is all the complaints anyone has given until I prodded it out of people, I thought you guys were talking about the HUD, so I made a guide so we can at least share knowledge and continue playing. GUI is a bit different then "How do I unlock stuff, and what did I unlock". All this stuff was a complaint of mine in beta, and I made feedback posts about it, thankfully someone had made a guide and the Vault had info on it, they need to migrate that data in game.

Perhaps I should just go with my original plan of not posting anymore.

Perhaps you should. Because posting with a full of shit attitude and being called on it will most likely continue.

The progression stuff does not and will not make any sense. Have you ever noticed the numbers at the end of a mission? Typically the final number is something like 4945/36 what the fuck does that mean? It means nothing.

The real kicker is, its not like players have time to stop and smell the flowers and figure this shit out. They are constantly on a mission or being asked to join another one. Which is great except for when you are completely lost as to what is going on but you don't have time to wander around the buried menu system to figure it out.

Oh yeah, another retarded thing: the /abandonmission command doesn't even work, though it is listed as a valid command. So either they don't listen to testers, have the wrong testers or haven't done enough testing. Orrrrrrr they are just under a financial pressure to make X money before Y date no matter what the long term consequences because this game clearly is not fucking ready and not just in the no game like this is feature complete at launch but in the they are going to lose a chunk of playerbase to easily corrected bad first impressions due to poor new player experience via hidden mechanics and overall shit documentation and explination of just about every single system in the game.

[FatuousTwat]

Err, has bloodworth told anyone to buy this game in this thread? Or has he just been saying he thinks it's great and he is buying it/pre-ordered it.

If it's the latter, wtf, people need to chill the fuck out.


Also, +1 to what the hell are all these unlocks crowd. The knowledge base doesn't work for me, so yeah, no way to tell I guess (when asking in district I got "fuck off newb/scrub" every time I asked, great community).

[Mrbloodworth]

 That command worked for me (In the KTTC when I played over the weekend), so perhaps it was broken in the last patch, the only time it does not work is in a mission that's contested (you have opposition) and it would tell you that.

The fact that people don't have time to figure this shit out, is exactly why I post what ever I (think) know. As for those numbers under the standing category in the mission finished window, I was never able to figure it out myself.

[HaemishM]

The GUI seems simple, until you actually have to try to figure out all the different levels of things. It's almost as bad as WAR with the different bars you can fill up, only there are no bars clearly visible and lots of hidden achievement/faction grinds that are never explained. Something about the entire layout of the game was almost panic-attack inducing - like it was throwing so much shiny stuff at me that my brain couldn't process it correctly.

And yes, that goddamn tutorial thing needs to be shot in the face.

[lesion]

I think every single massively blurgh game I've played in the past five years was completely confusing for at least a few days.

The reputations visible on-screen (top left) are faction on top and contact below, which are the big/small numbers from missions respectively. There's a progression tab on your character sheet which shows each faction and contact with happy lil' numbers. New levels get you more crap to buy and what are effectively quest rewards.
The skill things like car thievin' and killing dudes in the face don't actually show where you're at as far as I know. Yeah, that's dumb. They also unlock buyable equipment and/or designer stuff.

[Mrbloodworth]

A lot of the red lock icons on equipment refer to roles I don't understand.  Defender.  Mentioned above as arresting people?  What's Trooper?  Inspector?  Arms Dealer?

They are roles, (under "J"), they are some what like achievements, but they unlock things, some of them kind of hint in the title, but if they are to be modes of unlocks, they should really say whats is needed, even if that not a "0/100" but a "Shoot a lot of faces". I do not know what many of them require myself, or what they grant, and of course all the beta threads are gone.

Progressing a contact, increases your faction, they also mail you rewards in the mail, some from contacts (usually when you max out) and some for each level with the faction. Doing roles unlock things as well, though they are not mailed to you, it just opened up stuff to buy from contacts or the various editors.

EDIT: It just dawned on me that the 1234/12 numbers in the mission over window may be faction and contact gains but that's a guess (as in how much you just gained, not total).

EDIT2: Ok, im dumb. They are roles and achievements, and they do tell you what you need to do to unlock them, just not how many times ETC..

[FatuousTwat]

Holy fuck, why is that so buried?

[Koyasha]

Not all of them do.  I don't have Defender, Trooper, or Arms Dealer on my screen.  I noticed on your screenshot under Detective it says Inspector, so I think I missed that one in game, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen Defender, Trooper, or Arms Dealer.  And those are some that are needed for unlocking various weapons or upgrades.

And yeah, if you know any of that stuff I asked I would like to know.  The lack of information is considerably more frustrating to me long-term than the frustration of getting killed over and over.  Especially when I wonder if the former leads to the latter.  While I'm still...probably...going to pick up the game, this kind of thing sure discourages me.

[01101010]

Holy fuck, why is that so buried?

Because no one likes to see a grind on the front page. It puts people off.

[SnakeCharmer]

Holy fuck, why is that so buried?

Because I think it's new.  I don't remember seeing the achievements that were unknown to your character during beta, but then again I didn't look that hard.

[caladein]

I was able to see all achievements and roles on my character for the last two phases.  That's how I got the idea to work on Car Thief (steal and return parked cars) instead of just stealing nice cars already on the road.

[Furiously]

Yea - I don't think most enforcers realize to get the +health unlock you need to be arresting people.

[Koyasha]

Defender requiring arrests to level seems stupid considering most of the less than lethal weapons are gated behind requiring defender levels.  So I need less than lethal weapons to arrest people, but in order to get the weapons, I have to arrest people?  What?  I don't even have a weapon I can use to arrest people available to me.  At all!  You would think this would be basic equipment, but noo...

[caladein]

It's the same way with all the mission objective-y upgrades on Criminal.  Faster breaking into cars, spray painting, getting people out of handcuffs, explosives... all tied to Car Thief levels.

[Mrbloodworth]

Holy fuck, why is that so buried?

Its not really, you can press "J" or its listed under the ESC menu. Its been there for, well for as long as I was in beta. The text on the right may be new, as until someone here asked i never noticed it before going to look last night. That may be a ninja addition. I'm thinking some people may not see this or that achievement or roles, because you have to unlock the achievement itself like other FPS/TPS. Get the stun gun, do your first arrest and I bet it becomes added to your list. Some seem to be listed already, some are "hidden".

Defender requiring arrests to level seems stupid considering most of the less than lethal weapons are gated behind requiring defender levels.  So I need less than lethal weapons to arrest people, but in order to get the weapons, I have to arrest people?  What?  I don't even have a weapon I can use to arrest people available to me.  At all!  You would think this would be basic equipment, but noo...

It is, at level 3 with the contact Ty Durrant, you can then buy the offhand Stabba tazer thing. We should probably stop calling things levels though, all this stuff is more like achievement unlocks, not really levels its a bit more free form that just leveling, you could skip that contact and not unlock the gun, however other contacts give out other things like pre-moded named guns or devices for things like a better door ram or spray thingy.  For instance, i used the ammo resupply box almost exclusively.

The thing that comes closest to level is the rank, and thats mostly completion of contacts and faction gain stuff, though, if you do one you get the other.

It does however seem that some things roles/achievements are more valuable than other in getting things to customize your toons though, hopefully they flesh that out more. Becouse yeah, defender is kinda "THE" thing for enforcers. Kinda makes sense that arresting is so important though.

Yea - I don't think most enforcers realize to get the +health unlock you need to be arresting people.

Hum? Not sure what you mean. Duh, I read that wrong, yeah I think thats defender too, defender seems overly weighted with really useful stuff.


Also, see the little world icon? Its in a good deal of windows and stuff, if you click that it opens the browser and goes to the knowledge base for that items, well it did. I bet they switch it to the vault.


Before I forget, I think getting level 23 with a Faction, also unlocks the second character mod slot.

[Chinchilla]

Well I played a little more APB last night (about 45 minutes).  I customized my wheels a little bit (most things were locked) and my toon a little.  I'm not a big customize happy kinda of person, I'd rather be in there and fighting.  So after some customizing I went and joined Financial District again.

Did 1 solo quest and then the next quest that was grey (I thought was a solo non-PvP one) must have been something else because I got killed.  So I come back and manage to complete it.

I turn on my LFG flag and go about doing a few more things.  Eventually I get in a group.  It starts off a little rough, but eventually we start doing better.  I plan on reading that tutorial book because there are quite a few things I don't understand about the game, but even with that aside I really am enjoying it still.  If anyone else in F13 is going to play I would love to team up sometime.  If you guy(s) are enforcers I will make another toon if needed.  I am seeing more and more that the real fun[/b] in this game is grouping up, but that is basically true for most MMO games.

Oh and I got arrested for the first time last night LOL! It was pretty funny.  Do criminals have a arrest type thing that takes that XYZ player out for a little bit like enforcer arresting does?

[Koyasha]

It is, at level 3 with the contact Ty Durrant, you can then buy the offhand Stabba tazer thing.

...

Also, see the little world icon? Its in a good deal of windows and stuff, if you click that it opens the browser and goes to the knowledge base for that items, well it did. I bet they switch it to the vault.

I had no idea I had to level up Ty.  So I was working on Violet Prentiss instead.  The game of course never told me 'you must level this specific contact in order to gain access to half your abilities', I kinda had the idea I could pretty much just go do missions for anyone.

And as for the little world icon, so far it hasn't been working for me.  Brings up a window that eternally loads.

The hourly thing is also an issue with all this.  None of this would be anywhere near as big an issue for me if I could just, y'know...go out there and try shit without worrying about wasting my time.  But with only a few hours to play, whenever I go into an action district I feel like I have to constantly be doing something to advance, so I do what little I know to do without spending time going 'maybe I'll try this' or experimenting.

If I buy this game and it comes with 50 hours, and I spend most of that time harried and not sure what I'm doing, or burn a lot of it experimenting and figuring things out, it's not really going to give me much incentive to keep playing.  If nothing else, the decision to go with hours included in the box price instead of one unlimited month in the action zones seems like a really poor one to give new players a way to figure things out without stress or a time limit hanging over their head.  My fun is lessened by the thought that every second I'm not doing something is a wasted moment.

Still, as much as I'm bitching about not knowing what the hell I'm doing, on the occasions when I've just been doing a mission it can be fun.  So if I am going to get it, be nice to hook up with some other people to play with that I know, since most of the pugs I've had are...well....worse than me.

[Mrbloodworth]

And as to display points, how do you purchase the purchasable ones?  I can't seem to get them with money, but I don't know what to use to buy them with.  And how long do they stay yours if you do buy them?  How long do the free ones stay yours?

And what can you do other than missions?  Some of you mentioned committing non-mission crimes as a criminal, but I don't know how to go about it since the game never told me.  And what do enforcers get to do outside missions?  Look for criminals to witness?  Anything else?

So, the display points like the statues and such I think are tied to leagues, there are daily weekly and monthly leagues that come with unique rewards and of course prestige stuff. They are things like arrests, muggins, K/D standard fare, there is also a set for entire clans that pay out for everyone, i think this is how you get clan billboards and can put your clan symbols on buildings and such. I never focused on them myself, I don't have that kind of time, but I think that stuff, mostly is tied to that.

As a criminal, you can bust windows and make off with loot, jack cars and turn them in (the parked ones that you must jimmy), mug people/npcs. As an enforcer, other than witnessing, you can return stolen cars (says if it was stolen on hover of it), also if you kill a criminal, and they drop things like cellphones, money and various other things, you can also drop that stuff off at static drop off points for cash and standing.

As I said before, I'll be starting an enforcer clan with some buddies, the more the better, its just pointless to do right now any of you are welcome to join us.

Threat level icons chart:

[01101010]

Jesus christ you need a god damn handbook to keep track of all the shit in this game. I am not OCD enough to play this...not to mention just uninterested in general, but all the stuff they packed in all the little nooks just makes it seem very tedious to keep track of everything just to play.

[Chinchilla]

Jesus christ you need a god damn handbook to keep track of all the shit in this game. I am not OCD enough to play this...not to mention just uninterested in general, but all the stuff they packed in all the little nooks just makes it seem very tedious to keep track of everything just to play.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I like it when they pack lotsa stuff.  Keeps me coming back for more so I can learn more :)!

[Falconeer]

My opinion on the game, after playing through different stages of beta including the present one, isn't very original: it is a pretty fun and appealing game with two great flaws:

- Utterly boring without a party of friends.
- Lack of any staying power. As a shooter, it's not compelling or visceral enough to justify coming back for pure skill-based action. As a MMO, it lacks any endgame, PvP, PvE or PvW (Player versus Whatever).

[Mrbloodworth]

Jesus christ you need a god damn handbook to keep track of all the shit in this game. I am not OCD enough to play this...not to mention just uninterested in general, but all the stuff they packed in all the little nooks just makes it seem very tedious to keep track of everything just to play.

Honestly, if you just play, it all kinda happens. That was my experience anyway. There really isn't "levels" its more "There is a bunch of unrelated stuff you can do to get cool do dads and changes to your toon, do what you want". None of the stuff above is liner, or necessarily required. In practice, if you kinda just play, stuff comes to you that supports your playstyle. Do a lot of driving or shooting from a car, get a bunch of car and car related stuff, do a lot of raids and or tagging stuff, get stuff for that, like to group up a lot, stuff for that comes your way. That's my take anyway. It does have a lot for a lot of different kinds of players thats for sure.

But yes, there is a good deal of stuff going on, its a very odd beast, its not fully a shooter, its quite a bit sandboxey, and its not fully a RPG, I find this hybrid rather refreshing. Barring the issues raised.

I definitely agree with Koyasha, they should have gone with the free month first, I do think the time frame puts unneeded pressure on the player, after that first month, let the choose the route they want to go, monthly or hours. There is to much to get accustomed to, that is familiar, but different in all the things it incorporates, people may need time to overcome this hurdle.

I meet people in game that they wanted to grind out this or that thing, I have meet people that did not want to group or do missions, I met people that all they wanted to do was roll around as a prestige 5, some people enjoy only bounty missions, some people want to only do missions, some people focused on leagues.... Some I meet just played "whatever" (Kinda like me). I think its kinda unique in this way, there isn't one way to do things. Very sandboxey in a number of ways.

[Hoax]

- Lack of any staying power. As a shooter, it's not compelling or visceral enough to justify coming back for pure skill-based action. As a MMO, it lacks any endgame, PvP, PvE or PvW (Player versus Whatever).

I agree but disagree. It has much more staying power than AoC/WAR/Aion/ChampO because its bringing something new to the table and it does manage to have a much better shooter experience versus many/most of the f2p shooters though I haven't tried any for quite some time so they may have improved though I doubt it, certainly superior to Global Agenda's fps aspects, not saying much but it at least has that going for it.

As for endgame, clearly, beyond customization which is a compelling endgame but more as an aside it is absolutely lacking.

I have no idea what the fuck RTW has been doing all this time, the social zone is barren to the point that its uncomfortable to spend time in it. This game is DOA if they can't chase the f2p crowd in its current state. I hope they make enough money to implement whatever it is they come up with or planned to implement in terms of other activities (racing, auto shows, events, fuck if I know) whatever those might be because right now its fun but will quickly be exhausted and then what? I fully expect them to knee jerk massively nerf all the progression since you know, "MMO devs" 

[Lantyssa]

Honestly, if you just play, it all kinda happens. That was my experience anyway. There really isn't "levels" its more "There is a bunch of unrelated stuff you can do to get cool do dads and changes to your toon, do what you want". None of the stuff above is liner, or necessarily required. In practice, if you kinda just play, stuff comes to you that supports your playstyle. Do a lot of driving or shooting from a car, get a bunch of car and car related stuff, do a lot of raids and or tagging stuff, get stuff for that, like to group up a lot, stuff for that comes your way. That's my take anyway. It does have a lot for a lot of different kinds of players thats for sure.

As someone who isn't very good at shooters paired with someone who is, I was getting jack and shit.  I watched them get all kinds of achievements and medals.  It was actually rather discouraging.  The only things that ever unlocked for me were the basics just from raising rank.  Having at least some clue how to get something I was interested in would have been exceptionally nice since then I could have focused on it and maybe had a chance in Hell of seeing it one day.

[jakonovski]

Oh dear, even the devs/publishers know this game is shit: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/17/apb-review-embargo-set-week-after-release/#more-32106

[01101010]

Oh dear, even the devs/publishers know this game is shit: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/17/apb-review-embargo-set-week-after-release/#more-32106

 

Wow... that is telling.

[Sky]

Well, really you shouldn't review a game until after it's been released for six months.

[kildorn]

Wait, you can't review this game.. even if you can go to the store and just pick up a copy?

At what point do the reviewers start pushing back on really absurd developer or publisher demands?

[Musashi]

Pfft.

[LK]

Review embargoes are a very normal part of games journalism. Companies will put restrictions on when publications are allowed to talk about games before they’re released.

What the flying god damn fuck...

God damn it Lantyssa, you make me think twice about using cocksucker references now, out of respect and not wanting to go kneejerk. Can I please get a another term that doesn't imply homosexuality but does imply someone being a submissive bitch out to pleasure their master that can be used in this game developer / gaming press relationship (or fuck, all of mainstream media)?

It's duplicit to not have an independent information source outside of the company *after the game is out* because the company doesn't want people to see what other people honestly feel. RTW wants to be the sole source of information for a consumer when making a purchasing decision.

I say fuck that.

Now I'm getting worked up on a shit game combined with SHIT business practices that seems to want to choke the money out of the consumer rather than give them something of value.

WILL SOMEONE IN GAMING PRESS PLEASE FIND THEIR TESTICLES?

[jakonovski]

What the flying god damn fuck...

Standard practice. Games journalism isn't.

[Sky]

Now I'm getting worked up on a shit game combined with SHIT business practices that seems to want to choke the money out of the consumer rather than give them something of value.

Welcome to capitalism.

[LK]

So what's THIS site's policy once the game is released?

I was fine with the guidelines set by the mods + RTW during beta, but once the game ships, I'd like to have all bets off.

[jakonovski]

So what's THIS site's policy once the game is released?

I was fine with the guidelines set by the mods + RTW during beta, but once the game ships, I'd like to have all bets off.

Every user who talks about the game in a reviewing fashion too early will be banned.

[Nija]

Are the vehicle physics and damage model superior to GTA3? The one before vice city.

I wrote this game off about half a year ago after seeing one of the trailers that showed some high speed crashes vs parked cars where the parked cars moved about 6 inches and still looked pristine. I guess at this point in MMO gaming, for me, I'm not even going to bother with games that can't keep up with gameplay elements that were in single players games from 5+ years ago.