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[APB: Reloaded] New name, same game?
Posts
dickwads
steps for compound profit (ie profit on profit action):
-release pay2win weapons that are pretty OP at what they should be good at with a minimum lease of 30 days.
-introduce even more OP versions of the same weapons a few days later
-???
-sit back and watch as your puppets dance their way up the pay2win arms race escalation.
-profit
I'm not bitter at all. honest.
Edit: And, as near as I can tell, they haven't "fucked up" anything. They've probably made more money in these first few weeks of the open beta and Armas Shop than Realtime Worlds made in the entire 79 days the game was online. And I'm very glad for that, because it lets me keep playing this game.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Meanwhile my groupmate shoots someone three times, they fall 30 feet off the side of a freeway and I shoot them four more times, only to have them turn around and kill me in two bursts.
Lost 90% of all my matches today because everyone on the other side was kitted out with weapon and body mods.
They're making money, i'm not having fun. Hooray.
I really don't actually hate the armas weapons, generally they're pretty balanced in that they're great at something but bad at something else, but I hate that I committed to buy the colby csg20 PR1 a week ago, it was simply one of the best close range weapons you could have. Then less than a week later they introduced the colby csg20 PR2, which is the same but infinitely better, which makes me pretty salty considering that had I known there'd be a better one in the immediate future I wouldn't have bought the first one. Now, when I run out of the PR1 I'm questioning whether I should even buy the PR2 because maybe the PR3 will be out the next day? Or if I wait for the PR3 what's the guarantee that PR4 isn't going to come right after? I just feel like I've lost confidence in the market. Why did they have to release the PR2 so soon when there are plenty of other weapon varieties that don't even have a premium version yet?
Also a little salty that currently the scoped ntec is good at short range, near unbeatable at medium range, and great at long range, making it generally a pretty damn good choice.
but anyway I generally get the feeling that either the hitmarkers in this are lying to me, the sprays of blood when you hit someone are indicative of actually hurting people, or that the hitmarkers aren't actually hitmarkers at all because it is extremely frustrating to shoot someone a few times in the back with pretty full hits (at least 80% of the shotgun pellets) before they even notice me, then hit them again while they're turning around spraying, only to die from seemingly 3 hits from their gun. This is against people with no health affecting mods at all, I always make sure to check. I've got a 50ms ping and pretty solid 55FPS so I don't understand how or why I am failing at this.
the other thing I'd like to point out is how I think treating unranked people as completely skill-less in their matchmaking algorithm seems kind of senseless especially where it creates situations where a few gold and silver level players can get matched in a 3v7 with no opportunity for back-up. I imagine it comes from an assumption that the rating/threat systems in this game are equivalent to the level system of traditional MMO games. If you look at a typical MMORPG someone at level 40 has near-zero lethality against someone at level 50, so it would make sense to give the lower player help.
In APB though, even the starter STAR is nearly as lethal as the upgraded version an R100+ player has access to, and is exactly as lethal when paired with a well timed grenade. Couple that with the fact that even when teams are matched player-for-player it can be extremely difficult to assault a well defensible capture/steal/burn objective, having one team able to respawn and be back into battle faster than the team with less player can kill them makes that objective literally impossible.
I think it would make significantly more sense to treat low threat low rating players as mean threat mean rating where the mean is of players currently in the instance for matchmaking purposes until it can collect enough data to assign their actual threat level.
The rage: I am seeing that alot in the folks I play with. Sometimes you get a coordinated group that plain isn't better, their kits are. More rage inducing is getting a group you know you are kitted better than, owning them, but they have numbers on you and the last mission be in some lil nook with short spawns that they can zerg 4tw.
And the mere perception of hacking is almost worse than hacking. About 25% of the time I win I get tells "Nice aimbot" On a GD OBIR. I engage at range and flank with a not top shelf weapon and I am suddenly a hacker.
I think I may be minority, but I just don't care. The game is dumb fun. Its fun to go 4's (or twos if you want a better shot in close). I factor in the fact that some mish types are horse shit (takeouts on a 5 min timer, take outs after a drop off where theres no time to reset.. meaning they start out ahead in kills, or some cramped or high defendable spot) and some people will cheese the system with rockets, oca and Ntec schnanagins. After all that it is still dumb fun.
I grew out of that shit years ago, but here it is manifesting itself when I run into compound-bullshit.
I hope it's clear that I'm bitching because I love this game and not because I don't like it.
I agree that the whole culture of assuming everyone else hacks is mind bogglingly retarded. It seems the way to prove someone doesn't hack is to win against them and then shit talking them for an hour in district chat. It's sort of like the whole method for proving that witches were guilty of witchcraft in the inquisition by drowning them in a lake, or burning them at the stake, or catapulting them: if they're a witch they'll survive, if not, whoops, sorry! BELIEVE IN JESUS!
edit: I'm usually pretty good at handwaving away the things that can't be helped, like the missions that cannot be won, the lag spikes that can sometimes happen at the worst times, the amount of segfaults that happen at random, etc. What really gets me is when it simply comes down to situations where I had every advantage and still lost inexplicably. I'm just left sputtering: wha? what? how? why? wh-wh-what? Fuckin'- What the fuckin'. Fuck. Who the fuck fucked this fucking... How did you two fucking fucks...
So it's exactly like the first iteration of APB, then?
There is no pay2win. There's pay to skip some grind.
I gave the game another shot last night with the idea that if I couldn't chill out and have fun then I'd stop playing it for a week or so. I honestly don't know what was different but I just enjoyed it more. Even when we ran into an obvious hacker, he had a bounty and was the other team's VIP and he must have gotten 40 kills in that match if you counted the 30 or so people who came to collect the bounty, he'd do things like full auto at one of the people from off mission, and without even letting go of the trigger, spin 90 degrees to kill one of us, then another 45 to kill someone else. 4chair named Leafsfan if anyone cares.
But anyway, the rage seems to have dissipated so I can continue to enjoy it again!
Finally!
The endgame body mods are more or less useless. Clotting Agent 3 lets you take an extra bullet when playing pop-up-shoot cover games at long range from most guns, and Kevlar 1 lets you survive an extra scout shot (which nobody uses) or take 1 more Colby shot to kill (which also very few people use). Clotting Agents are a downgrade if you don't abuse cover, and Kevlar kills you more often than it will save you due to the speed/accel reduction. Reduced falling damage is amazing though.
Hunting Sight and Reflex Sight are the only gun mods that matter and are solid upgrades, but the difference is fairly minor between rank 1 and rank 3.
If the previous iteration hadn't had such rampant hacking, I think the game would be doing better.
Also, because of the 3rd person view, people can literally see around corners which gives the illusion of hacking.
The game would benefit from a line-of-sight system like is present in World of Tanks. If your character can not physically see an enemy around the corner, then you won't be able to see an enemy around the corner either.
If you have a teammate on a rooftop across the street that can see the enemeny around the corner from you, then you will be able to see the enemy around the corner.
It would encourage more tactical play, and would quell some of the cries of hacks.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Easiest way to beat good people is to grab a car from where you spawn, drive directly behind that area (keeping more than 80m away from objectives/etc so you don't show up), and shoot them all in the back. It also throws off teammate spawning to be a bit more random.
In fact, I'm willing to play against anyone with whatever weapons/mods they want, and I'll play them with a brand new character with no mods and the starter car/weapon... and I'm pretty sure I will beat you... or at least give you a run for your money.
Until you've played this game for 100 hours, you won't be able to really assess if mods/cash weapons are gamebreaking.
Right now they aren't. They've come a long way from RTW where mods gave you clear advantages. I easily beat people who are using cash weapons or mods equal or greater to my own.
Once you've gotten to the level of owning a gun with level 2-3 mods in it, you'll understand that mods aren't as big a deal as beginners seem to think. It's just that you're still learning the game, so of course you're going to lose to people who have level 2-3 mods, because they have played this game a lot more than you have.
I think the game is great fun... but it's in desperate need of a few control fixes and some sort of leaderboards. I think the latest patch has finally addressed an exploit issue with your skill rating... so now they really need a top list so that people know where they stand against other players.
But I would definitely recommend this game to anyone... as long as they understand that it takes time to master... and they need to be able to control their temper and learn from losses instead of blaming everything but themselves.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Not the best artist, but here's my ENFORCER OF JUSTICE, TRUTH, AND REAL AMERICA
Edit: I've gotten people who legitimately like Fox News compliment me, god damnit. Time to change it to "We Report, You Obey" or something
1) Throw on some light music. Something to set the tone.
2) Come up with a core concept of somthing new and also fashonable (clothing, symbol, song) You are going to rock the apb fashon world here.
3) Take your time. You are creating! Its fresh, its new, its yours! Tweak everything 3 times.... it must be perfect!
4) Place on auction house and wait!
5) hrm.... none of it sold. Weird.
6) relist... with a better name - "original creations" "Unique look"
7) none of it sold.
8) Fuck it. Slap together whatever is popular (superman S, punisher skull, Bioware N7 hoodie) and undercut whoever else makes the same thing.
9) Mother fucking profit.
I made an N7 hoodie that is literally a charcoal grey hoodie with one white stripe and one red. 2 letters and a triangle for the n7 logo. Made 10 k last night on 4. if you can mimic a logo you will be rich.
However, I still think missions are still where the money is at. You can still make cash fastest by turning in cars then laundering the money with a bounty on your head, but if you're good and get a lot of kills you'll get like 2-4k per mission, not to mention all the upgrades you can unlock and sell on the AH. That is, if you can get opposition.
Comfortable, permanent
Undisputed, every tense
Not a trace of what went left
More equal than the best
Unparalleled success
Everybody, V-impressed
Also I wish they'd start pruning the damn $TEXAS "SEARCH ME FOR EPIC MUSIC" auctions, like 4 pages of those at the top and it's annoying as hell. Luckily none of them have caught on to making $1 "search me" auctions, 'cause I just flip the sorting and avoid that shit.
Finally, just last night I discovered the exact reason for all of the rage I've ever had from this game. After the millionth "zomg wtf I shot that guy 8 times with the joker carbine before he even turned around and he still killed me first" complaint to my clan, someone in my group was like "here, test it out on me" so I did, making sure I was getting hitmarkers on each shot and after 9 shots he finally fell dead (no health affecting mods on him at all) "see, it took 9 fucking shots"
"... that was 5"
so I try it again, slower: 8 shots before he's dead
then I look at my ammo count before I reload: 16/20 in magazine.
WTF.
apparently sometimes it will play the audio, do the animation, show the bloodsplat, AND show the hitmarker, but not actually register the corresponding shot. Generally, the faster I shoot the higher the chance of a dropped shot. To further solidify my theory I coded up a macro on my keyboard to fire at 20ms intervals for as long as I hold the key, and tried to count the amount of animations/sounds. It fired at probably the best possible rate the gun could fire, and I counted at least 35 rounds fired before the magazine actually emptied. I'm going to try again tonight a few times except take videos so I can slow it down later and find an average missed shot ratio for the gun(s). I'll also try it without the macro to see what kind of ratio an "average" player can pull down simply firing it as fast as they can. If I'm feeling ambitious I'll draw up some charts and stuff.
I get the feeling though that if the ratio is sufficiently high while macroing then macroing might not be any more effective than controlled fire. I'm thinking I should conduct this test on the joker carbine, the star, the shaw, and the obir. Any suggestions on other weapons to try it on?
Morally I consider macros in this kind of game as cheating which is why I wouldn't want to use it against opposition, but I'd like to explore the technical operation even if just to be able to eliminate one of the many "I only lost because of X" excuses that I can use.
There's a catch to this, as far as I can tell.
The heavy support weapons (SAW's, and the like.) should be fired as fast as possible. That's their entire purpose, really.
Not only do they have a ridiculous number of bullets per "clip" (Well over 200, if I remember right.), they do ridiculous damage, and can pretty much demolish entire city block's worth of cars.
Also, it chews through that ammo fast, so any lost shots aren't really noticeable. The only downside is the aim is a bit spotty past a certain range, thanks to the increasing spread. Though you can make entire teams duck and cover with it if you're good, even then.
That being said, that explains why I always ended up raging hard whenever I used anything but that type of gun. I always got the feeling there was a bullshit element to the game, and there it is.
4 bad ass cops vs 6-7 ok guys to make it even. oppo all the time. FANTASTIC.
The trick to this game is that mods dont matter. A base new guy is just as deadly when he learns how to play.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
But they really really really need to fix the griefing issues. I mean it's kind of funny right until well until the point at which it's 2 hours later and the same group of people are still going.
Also fuck snipers, yes they have they do have weaknesses but in the hands of some one competent? Yeah the mission just got a whole lot more boring/less fun.