APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[caladein]

Rank passed 100 or so is totally a level equivalent.  There's no way to get up there without unlocking a whole load of things: equipment, upgrades, customizable weapons.  Now yes, you can buy tons of 1-2 slot items on the Marketplace, but that's not what we're talking about.  (Being in a good clan, or having friends in one, is another big advantage.)

Really, there's no way for a new player to avoid total frustration without a ton of help from friends.  There's just not enough new players full-stop, so they're going to get matched up against bad, old players who have enough toys to make their lives hell.

That said, my problem with matchmaking isn't the balance issues so much as missions being 1km+ away.  I understand there's only 1-2 possible groups of players the team I'm on could get matched against at any one time (which is a fucking joke in its own right), but the other team getting 2-3 free phases that continue to spawn away from you is completely silly.

[Mrbloodworth]

The last few times I played VS. people with 3 or more upgrades on the person or guns (incidentally it they were threat level 11+), the match making put 10 VS. the 4, using the call for backup system. But I don't really see this as any different than say, a full galaxy hot dropping on a tower being held by 4 players.

I actually enjoy that the backup system requires players to accept it. Some times, back up just never comes. The asymmetrical system, and the back up system is what keeps it rather exciting for me.

AFAIK, the system works like this.

You are threat 10.
The game will look for another threat 10, if not, two 5's. It may also match you VS an 8 and a 4, but then offer you the ability to call for back up (Here where things get crazy).
If you call for backup, and get say, a 10 on your side (two 10's now VS. an 8 and a 4), the opposition now gets to call for back up. This will continue until things are "balanced" or, the mission is over, to the top limit of 20 vs. 20.

The key though, is someone has to answer the call for back up. (Meaning they are not on a mission currently, and are offered this call) Some times, back up just never comes.

I agree with the distance issues when going on a "dispatch", or even a bounty. Its very annoying. I can concede that rank does mean you will have more rewards to play with, but it doesn't instantly mean they are uber comparatively. Mostly, because the ways you can progress are nonlinear, you can reach 100 rank, and not have maxed out half of the contacts you have unlocked, nor be of the faction standing required to unlock the other character upgrade slot. So its hard to pin it down as a number that directly means better IMO. Like i said before though, in no way shape or form do i think the upgrade system is perfect, in fact I think it needs tuning. The match making system however, is quite different than most systems, it looks at the rating of the group, and individuals, and like i said there are times it will not be 1:1.

Part of me really enjoys the unknown of what I may end up matched to, and because it may be 3 vs. 4 right now, but others could potentially jump in mid mission.

However, after saying all that, and understanding everyone's point of view, the last thing I want as an answer is that I can't play with my friends. I really hate having to say "We will group when you are level 30".  

Just to add to all of this, there is a thread on the OF that players have put together as a guide to unlocking "named" guns and items.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe there shouldn't be a disparity in ability based on leveling in a FPS. Then your answer would never be "you can't group with friends".

[Mrbloodworth]

Maybe there shouldn't be a disparity in ability based on leveling in a FPS. Then your answer would never be "you can't group with friends".

I don't have this problem now. They can do everything I can do, right now. Same as I could group with friends in Plantside, even if they did not have the certs to use everything I could. APB isn't an issue of ability, its more of potency, due to all mods being upgrades, with no downsides, even the utility based ones.

TBH, the base model guns are all well balanced, with possible exception of the N-TEC, its a jack of all in a game where all the rest are mostly niche. Thats a flaw IMO.

My current guns:
OCA-EW 626.1 "Mortician" (-15% Reload Time)
OBIR "Jesse James" (+5 Clip Size, +5m Range, +5% Damage)
I have a basic secondary, and its usually a Stabba-PIG (stun, 5m range, two shots, takes two to stun)
And stun grenades.

I have no other advantages than the next guy, and I'm rank 190 or so.

[Lantyssa]

Potency, ability, level... it doesn't matter what you call it.  Older players have a distinct advantage over newbies on top of knowing the system.  It's a bad system design.

[Mrbloodworth]

Potency, ability, level... it doesn't matter what you call it.  Older players have a distinct advantage over newbies on top of knowing the system.  It's a bad system design.

It does matter what you call it, they are different things. There is not a "distinct advantage".  Look at the guns I posted. Again, most encounters come down to gun choise, and personal skill. (with three exceptions I posted about).

EDIT: let me put it this way.

OBIR "Jesse James" (+5 Clip Size, +5m Range, +5% Damage)

See that +5%. That does not even equate to one less hit. It still takes three full on bursts to kill someone (as long as they dont have the heath buff, but I already brought that up) What it does equate to however, is in a combined fire, the +5% does mean something to whoever also shoots at that same player. So, one to one, I may as well be using the un-moded gun, but in a group/team setting combined fire is where it makes a difference.

[Threash]

The N-TEC is basically the second best gun almost any range.  The shotgun is way better at close range, the SMG at medium range (specially that fucking mortician), Machine guns shine at longer ranges and against vehicles and sniper rifles can two shot from outside N-TEC range.  The only reason i'm still using an N-TEC atm is because it's the only 2 mod gun i have access too, and 5% dmg + 5% firing rate owns.  I went up against a pig with a sniper rifle and the stun gun secondary, both two shot weapons, one very short range and one very long, and i got thoroughly owned.

[Mrbloodworth]

The N-TEC is basically the second best gun almost any range.  The shotgun is way better at close range, the SMG at medium range (specially that fucking mortician), Machine guns shine at longer ranges and against vehicles and sniper rifles can two shot from outside N-TEC range.  The only reason i'm still using an N-TEC atm is because it's the only 2 mod gun i have access too, and 5% dmg + 5% firing rate owns.  I went up against a pig with a sniper rifle and the stun gun secondary, both two shot weapons, one very short range and one very long, and i got thoroughly owned.

The "Mortician" only reloads faster, everything else is the same as the base gun. The sniper rifle (there are two kinds AFAIK, one two shot one 4-7 I think), even fully moded (Damage rank 3) is STILL 2 shots to kill. You also can't sprint with it.

The N-TEC is just decent in most situations (meaning you don't really need to switch to fit the situation), its the one gun I think needs to be nurfed to hell and given a niche like everything elese, or removed. I am almost convinced it is in game for the soloists.

[FatuousTwat]

Potency, ability, level... it doesn't matter what you call it.  Older players have a distinct advantage over newbies on top of knowing the system.  It's a bad system design.

It does matter what you call it, they are different things. There is not a "distinct advantage".  Look at the guns I posted. Again, most encounters come down to gun choise, and personal skill. (with three exceptions I posted about).

EDIT: let me put it this way.

OBIR "Jesse James" (+5 Clip Size, +5m Range, +5% Damage)

See that +5%. That does not even equate to one less hit. It still takes three full on bursts to kill someone (as long as they dont have the heath buff, but I already brought that up) What it does equate to however, is in a combined fire, the +5% does mean something to whoever also shoots at that same player. So, one to one, I may as well be using the un-moded gun, but in a group/team setting combined fire is where it makes a difference.

You can get a +10% dmg reduction char upgrade, a +10% health char upgrade, and a +10% damage upgrade on a weapon. Now imagine an entire team using them vs a team with unmodded weapons. There is an unbalance here, and this does happen regularly, due to the fact that you can lower your notoriety at will.

[Threash]

Yeah, got confused there for a second.  I meant the other named SMG with three mods, the undertaker.

[Mrbloodworth]

Potency, ability, level... it doesn't matter what you call it.  Older players have a distinct advantage over newbies on top of knowing the system.  It's a bad system design.

It does matter what you call it, they are different things. There is not a "distinct advantage".  Look at the guns I posted. Again, most encounters come down to gun choise, and personal skill. (with three exceptions I posted about).

EDIT: let me put it this way.

OBIR "Jesse James" (+5 Clip Size, +5m Range, +5% Damage)

See that +5%. That does not even equate to one less hit. It still takes three full on bursts to kill someone (as long as they dont have the heath buff, but I already brought that up) What it does equate to however, is in a combined fire, the +5% does mean something to whoever also shoots at that same player. So, one to one, I may as well be using the un-moded gun, but in a group/team setting combined fire is where it makes a difference.

You can get a +10% dmg reduction char upgrade, a +10% health char upgrade, and a +10% damage upgrade on a weapon. Now imagine an entire team using them vs a team with unmodded weapons. There is an unbalance here, and this does happen regularly, due to the fact that you can lower your notoriety at will.

Yes, those are the ones I take exception to. I would rather see them just removed TBH. Still, +10% damage is still not one less bullet.

[Threash]

It has to be, on some guns.  Otherwise what is the point?

[Mrbloodworth]

It has to be, on some guns.  Otherwise what is the point?

Games balanced for team play. I could be wrong, I have no hard numbers, but I count my hits ans shots when I play. I have even shot group mates and counted. I have not yet experienced any + damage mod that reduces the number of shots to hit even by one shot. The advantage comes in to play with focused fire.

Example: Sniper rifle Damage/hit and Damage/hit is a 2 shot kill. Sniper rifle Damage/hit + 10% and Damage/hit +10% is a 2 shot kill (of course its overkill). However! Sniper rifle, Damage/hit + 10% and a miss, is not a kill, but it will reduce the number of shots required by your team mate on the same target.

Shot guns are the same way, two shot kills. Of course all of this assumes you are with in optimum range and not subject to degradation. Of course things like refire rate will mean you hit faster, and accuracy mean you will hopeful hit more, and more shots in a clip means you have more room for error. But I don't have a problem with those. Its not really out of line with any other FPS. Its just in this one, you get to pick and choose to match your play style (when you unlock 2-3 open slot guns, or buy them).


Not to drag him into this, but Furiously was making a comment about the STAR, you start with the STAR, Furiously has a rocket launcher and is usually 11+ in threat and if I am not mistaken, he has the + to health or something.  

[Modern Angel]

So, despite the reviews and most people on forums like these saying noobs can't compete, the aimbots are back, gear is fucked, insert thing we all knew from beta, there's still literally nothing this game to do that would make you not make excuses for it. I like you Blood. I think you're keen. I also think the blowjobs RTW gave you must have infected your brain because this thing is a dog turd.

[Mrbloodworth]

Um, did you read anything I wrote?

Your right, nothing is wrong with this game, nothing at all. Nope. Thats what I said. 

[Modern Angel]

I did. Did you read what I wrote? Because I didn't say that you haven't pointed out flaws in the game. I pointed out that you like to make excuses for awful, awful systems.

[Threash]

So, despite the reviews and most people on forums like these saying noobs can't compete, the aimbots are back, gear is fucked, insert thing we all knew from beta, there's still literally nothing this game to do that would make you not make excuses for it. I like you Blood. I think you're keen. I also think the blowjobs RTW gave you must have infected your brain because this thing is a dog turd.

One thing the reviews and people on this forum have said is that there is plenty of fun to be had.  Noobs can compete just fine 90% of the time, and of the times they are hopelessly outmatched the weapons make very little difference because the catasses that have them would be better anyways just by virtue of having played a shit ton more.

[Modern Angel]

Oh, I totally agree. There were snatches of fun in the beta, there will be snatches of fun to be had for the future until the noobs start to dry up. Then the matchmaking issues start up all over again, you still have aimbots, weapon balance is a joke and the city is still a bunch of quasi-featureless blocks stuck into the ground.

[Threash]

Well i have 25 hours left, if i have as much fun in those as i did on the first 25 i will consider this game a wild success.

[Chinchilla]

Anyone have any suggestions on where I can go to get a better laptop.  Get the most bang for my buck?  I want a laptop for mobility.  Even though I know the best bang for buck is desktop I just want that mobility since my GF sometimes wants me to be around her while I game so she doesn't feel lonely.

FYI on what happened Trucegore: I was just ingame and was trying to set my mic settings and once the game exited me out to adjust the Win Mic settings my game slowed to a damn crawl so I had to restart.  Can't log back on since I gotta start some dinner for tomorrow.  I might be on tomorrow though.

[Rasix]

/slap

[Threash]

I need a good car website with pictures for paintjob ideas, anyone know a good one?

[Furiously]

Bloodworth - you are wrong.

I went up against a ton of people tonight with the Ntek Adeen slotted with only savage (damage) and I think accuracy mods. Lost every single match. I think there is also a huge aimbot issue happening rght now as well. I hope to lose 5 more threat ranks so I can have fun again. So - my advice. Don't buy, don't subscribe. Don't get.  Game was fun until now though. Maybe someday they will patch the fun back in. Cause losing every match due to shitty mechanics or cheating isn't fun.

[Kageru]

I doubt they'll have the time to patch the fun in. I'd love to see what their box sales and retention numbers are like but I suspect both are going to be well under what they hoped for.

So I'd expect some sort of panicked promises of a "miracle patch" once they come out of the bunkers. And then management trimming the dev team to save costs at the same time.

[Shatter]

This wont have much retention, its no different then other MMO's(again, I dont know why this even falls into the MMO category) as of late...It has 10 seconds of fun and then it dies off for X number of reasons.  Is this game F2P?  If its not you have to be an idiot to pay a monthly fee for this type of mmentertainment, I can get this kind of pvp for free in CS and with an equal amount of cheating!

[Harlequin101]

This wont have much retention, its no different then other MMO's(again, I dont know why this even falls into the MMO category) as of late...It has 10 seconds of fun and then it dies off for X number of reasons.  Is this game F2P?  If its not you have to be an idiot to pay a monthly fee for this type of mmentertainment, I can get this kind of pvp for free in CS and with an equal amount of cheating!

Indeed.

Also somthing they screwed up in the patch was the designer ranks not giving money anymore. Ok... so we (I got a free copy) who was there at early launch and made over a million on the afk grind push up the prices on the AH while new people cant make that kind of money anymore. Exactly how are they expecting to get new players to this game? If you join today, you cant make enough money to get good weapons (300.000+ for a good shotgun, you make around 1000 per mission on average), you cant afford a good car (base 1 slot car is about 130.000 without the mod), you will get matched against people who has access to both and even better stuff from rewards... uhu...

Never mind the fact that we who grinded money at early launch stuck that on the AH and now have waaaay over 2000 RW points to pay for 5+ months of playing... how are they planning to make money? Unless they miracle patch there is no way Im even spending the points I have on sub time, nor any of the people I play with. I think most of us will maybe spend 400 points to get to play the month out and then wait for something to happen to make the game intresting.

Lets face it, its 2 maps, some unlocks, shitty shooting and a half decent driving system, what exactly are we supposed to pay a sub for? There are other games out there that are better in one or more areas that do not require you to pay anything beside the box. I just fail to see how they were thinking when they slapped an MMO tag on this.

Finaly, doing some testing while grinding org-standing (i.e. playing my enforcer while constantly tagging one of my friends criminals over and over and over) the weapon statistics shown have nothing to do with reality. Hell even the mods you put on the better weapons MIGHT enable you to kill with one shot less... out of the half clip most require to kill... so hardly worth the effort. Is it too much to ask to be able to trust ingame statistics for the gear? Take the cobra pistol thingy. It shows about 75% on the damage bar, yet requires 3 shots at least (thats at point blank) to kill someone. In my stupidity I thought a weapon showing about 75% damage would sorta take away 75% of the healthbar. Not so in this system apparently.

It feels like this game is about ready to step out of alpha and enter the friends and family beta status.

End of rant for now.

[Mrbloodworth]

I think there is also a huge aimbot issue happening rght now as well.

Yes, I have been seeing/feeling it myself, mentioned it a few pages back.

[Koyasha]

In my stupidity I thought a weapon showing about 75% damage would sorta take away 75% of the healthbar. Not so in this system apparently.

It seemed rather obvious to me that those bars show relative effectiveness as compared to each other.  It's not a great way of giving the player information about the weapons, but I can't imagine thinking that it means they will do that much of a health bar of damage.  What did you think the other bars meant, then, the ones that aren't related to health, like reload speed, rate of fire, or effective range?

[SnakeCharmer]

Also somthing they screwed up in the patch was the designer ranks not giving money anymore.

They didn't screw that up.  They did it on purpose.  It's about the only smart thing RTW has done in the last 6 months with APB.  Why?  Because that is how the gold APB buck farmers were getting the cash to broadcast in /district and /whispers.  It will drive prices down in the long term.  Give it a few weeks and prices will adjust.

[Kageru]

It does not count as a smart thing to repair an obvious piece of brain-damage quite some time after launch. Not only has the damage already been done (the point Harlequin was making I think) but why did it ever go live? I mean it's AFK generation of substantial resources in complete safety and endlessly repeatable. How little thought went into their design process that they missed that.

[SnakeCharmer]

Ignoring the fact that it was a stupid thing to do to begin with, the best thing to do now was correct it and remove it and move forward.  Now, the farmers actually have to play to get the money to sell - which is going to drive APB buck costs sky high, but that's not a bad thing.  Additionally, it stops APB bucks from flooding the regular game market and the market will eventually correct itself.  It may take a while, but it will level out.

Leaving it would have made the market worse.

[Mrbloodworth]

APB 1UP Review - Gave it a "D"

EDIT: Scottish developer staffs up just-launched online shooter at the expense of as-yet-unannounced MMOG, "small number" of layoffs confirmed.

[Hoax]

None of this matters if its f2p + cash shop.

But RTW was too stupid to see that.

[UnSub]

It does not count as a smart thing to repair an obvious piece of brain-damage quite some time after launch. Not only has the damage already been done (the point Harlequin was making I think) but why did it ever go live? I mean it's AFK generation of substantial resources in complete safety and endlessly repeatable. How little thought went into their design process that they missed that.

Because things like 'in-game economy' and 'business model' (the RTW points thing) aren't given proper consideration by most people who build MMOs. The in-game economy problem - mudflation and exploits - is well known, but US developers appear to believe in the free hand of the market to sort things out and that's doomed to failure due to how most MMOs work (i.e. not enough cash sinks, too easy to get money into the system overall). A lot of developers seem also to think that business models tend to just fall into line and work, seemingly oblivious to how critical it is to actually keeping the lights on.

A major issue is that fixing these things now is much harder than if they'd been fixed in beta. You get sort of a free pass in beta since no-one is paying to play, but come launch day the player mindset changes. As I've said, I fully expect APB to go F2P and that whole 'RTW points can be earned and you can play for free' is going to be dumped (or significantly reduced in scope).

[caladein]

There doesn't seem to be any way for RTW points to enter the system without a person buying them from RTW. (?)

Really, this just seems like a way for people to work for a commission paid in "real money".  That said, I haven't looked at all at the RTW points Marketplace but I imagine it's pretty barren.