Xianthos, I'm afraid that you've probably disqualified yourself from posting about what is or is not broken and/or imbalanced about APB by admitting that you haven't even played the game. I would have to think that the same applies for your judgement on whether or not APB is or is not a bad shooter. That would also apply to making comments about the driving mechanics, the matchmaking system, the rating system, the upgrade system or pretty much any other aspect of the game. If I went by what I read about this game I probably would not have purchased it either. Despite its problems the most glaring of which is the upgrade system I cannot seem to get enough of playing this game.
I hear a lot of complaining about the matchmaking system being broken but if you take a step back and look at it, that is not the root of the problem. I don't have a problem going up against a player with a 200+ rating with my 94 rating enforcer. The problem that I have is going up against that 200+ rating player when he has a fully upgraded weapon and 3 player mods.
They talked about progression through skill but then place upgrades in the game that stack the deck in the favor of the people who gained their rating by sitting at the clothing designer for hours on end. Thats the real problem. The fastest way to solve any of the "imbalance" issues would be to strip out the upgrades or make them all passive like the mobile supply unit. Then maybe we'd get a sense of who are the really skilled players in the game and who need the crutch these upgrades provide.
Having not played you probably don't realize just how large the districts are. They open up a good bit once you realize you can enter a good number of buildings and other area's, and once you realize that you aren't limited to the ground. You can go up on roof tops in you so desire.
So, considering the Cities in APB are a combination of the wilds and the cities in a traditional MMO. No, there is no persistent world outside of the game areas. Just like there isn't one if you remove the game areas in any other MMO.
I'm not sure what your question was asking though? Clarify for me a bit and I will re-answer.
lol whoops.
Cities = Places where people congregate in large numbers..... not what the landscape looks like. IE: Meetup places, basically.
Having not played you probably don't realize just how large the districts are. They open up a good bit once you realize you can enter a good number of buildings and other area's, and once you realize that you aren't limited to the ground. You can go up on roof tops in you so desire.
So, considering the Cities in APB are a combination of the wilds and the cities in a traditional MMO. No, there is no persistent world outside of the game areas. Just like there isn't one if you remove the game areas in any other MMO.
I'm not sure what your question was asking though? Clarify for me a bit and I will re-answer.
lol whoops.
Cities = Places where people congregate in large numbers..... not what the landscape looks like. IE: Meetup places, basically.
The social district is the meetup place, so yes, if you remove that there is a persistent world still. Waterfront and financial district and both are very large and without the social district they both would still exist.
In any case, in the end I could care less if it's called an MMO, an MOG, or if it's called Crap in a box. All I know is that this is the 3rd MMO purchase I haven't regretted. CO, AoC, EQ2, SWG, PotBS, WoW (I bought the game 3 years ago and played for a week and discovered....... I didn't like it at all lol), etc.
UO - Never regretted and had fun with it for over a decade.
FFXI - Was decent for about 5 years and I met t the sweetest young lady that in the end became my real life wife (After a few years of dating), so not the most fun but was ok and has some deep rooted sentimental feelings associated with it.
And the newest one, APB. Most fun I've had in an MMO since.... well UO.
The only question that matters is, I'm enjoying my MMO of choice are you?
Yeah, no Hatter. The world IS a city, two zone fulls so far. With the third being more like triditional RPG cities that have marktlaces and the editors and such.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
Here's hoping the chaos districts will be more to my liking. I couldn't get over the matchmaking system. It is a neat feature, but splits up the action too much for me. If I wanted small group deathmatches I'd play Modern Warfare. The missions themselves are interesting, but to me they basically limit the huge city maps to a couple square blocks where the action takes place. Not my cup of tea.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I dont get where does it came from that this game was labbeled as MMO?
Besides its simply a bad shooter, even devs admit by saying this game got problems (almost whole game) to be fixed :-P
Actually.... what the devs are doing is lowering the level of skill needed.
Why they are lowering the level of skill needed, well I won't state the obvious and will simply allow you to formulate your own opinion.
I mean what many found broken or poorly done, many found worked just fine. I can navigate the city at top speed with ease I know many others that can. So ..... why would it be changed since it obviously works and seems to be personal skill dependent (Whether you consider a skill to drive in a driving game or not is irrelevant, whether it's a useless skill or not is irrelevant, when some individuals can do something many others can not it is a skill, regardless of how useful or useless it is.)
But yeah......... they are lessening the skill needed to do or complete many tasks in the game to make it more accessible to other players such as reviewers.
Edited to add: I guess I stated the obvious anyways lol.
Skill-
2 a: the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance b: dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks
3: a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability
Here's hoping the chaos districts will be more to my liking. I couldn't get over the matchmaking system. It is a neat feature, but splits up the action too much for me. If I wanted small group deathmatches I'd play Modern Warfare.
That will definitely make completing mission a bit more challenging. For the record though "Chaos" isn't referring to a specific district but rather a ruleset. There have also been talks of Racing, Gambling, and other rulesets including a Zombie ruleset. So what you could get is the Chaos ruleset in Financial, Waterfront and whatever other future districts there might be.
Here's hoping the chaos districts will be more to my liking. I couldn't get over the matchmaking system. It is a neat feature, but splits up the action too much for me. If I wanted small group deathmatches I'd play Modern Warfare.
That will definitely make completing mission a bit more challenging. For the record though "Chaos" isn't referring to a specific district but rather a ruleset. There have also been talks of Racing, Gambling, and other rulesets including a Zombie ruleset. So what you could get is the Chaos ruleset in Financial, Waterfront and whatever other future districts there might be.
I am aware that they are just separate rulesets of the same districts, but TY for clarifying. I am eager to hear whether they will be faction vs faction or FFA. Would be great to have both rulesets in my opinion as I could see enjoying both of those more than the current match making service.
I also heard they were planning to implement either servers or rulesets without weapon or character mods. That sounds pretty cool too.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Here's hoping the chaos districts will be more to my liking. I couldn't get over the matchmaking system. It is a neat feature, but splits up the action too much for me. If I wanted small group deathmatches I'd play Modern Warfare.
That will definitely make completing mission a bit more challenging. For the record though "Chaos" isn't referring to a specific district but rather a ruleset. There have also been talks of Racing, Gambling, and other rulesets including a Zombie ruleset. So what you could get is the Chaos ruleset in Financial, Waterfront and whatever other future districts there might be.
I am aware that they are just separate rulesets of the same districts, but TY for clarifying. I am eager to hear whether they will be faction vs faction or FFA. Would be great to have both rulesets in my opinion as I could see enjoying both of those more than the current match making service.
I also heard they were planning to implement either servers or rulesets without weapon or character mods. That sounds pretty cool too.
I remember also reading something about a "true skill" ruleset so I think you are correct.
Actually.... what the devs are doing is lowering the level of skill needed.
Why they are lowering the level of skill needed, well I won't state the obvious and will simply allow you to formulate your own opinion.
I mean what many found broken or poorly done, many found worked just fine. I can navigate the city at top speed with ease I know many others that can. So ..... why would it be changed since it obviously works and seems to be personal skill dependent (Whether you consider a skill to drive in a driving game or not is irrelevant, whether it's a useless skill or not is irrelevant, when some individuals can do something many others can not it is a skill, regardless of how useful or useless it is.)
Being able to compensate for a poorly implemented system does not magically make it into a "good system". They are changing it because the majority finds it badly designed and unfun.
Being able to compensate for a poorly implemented system does not magically make it into a "good system". They are changing it because the majority finds it badly designed and unfun.
Tighter handling of the vehicles would be nice. I've adapted nicely to what we've been given thus far but I think your comment about adapting to a broken system has merit. Simply because some of us might find it easy to adapt to doesn't give it mass appeal. I mean I found the helicopter flight control system on Desert Combat (and subsequently on Frontlines: Fuel of War) to be a good flight system. Others felt it was horribly flawed and wanted something similar to what you got in BF2 (which I found to be too easy).
They could take a page out of the Need for Speed World playbook as far as the vehicle handling. That feels really well done. Its arcade style but for the most part the handling is crisp and without serious fishtailing. It would be cool if they could add the sensation of speed you get with a blurring effect as well.
I've gotta say despite my problems with the game RTW appears to be taking player feedback into consideration. Driving, matchmaking, camping, etc. all my complaints and those of many others, RTW claims they will be addressing.
I find myself having a tremendous amount of fun. I find it amusing that the OP didn't at all include any of the good features, meaning his post is actually considered baiting and trolling. But, I really don't care enough to report it.
I've played my first 50 hours and I'm still having a ton of fun. I've only seen a few people with grenade launchers and rocket launchers so far and it's been in my last 5 hours of gameplay. I've been able to kill them fairly easily without the same weapons. The matchmaking system works well in my opinion. If you get pitted against multiple apponents, you are allowed to call for backup which will place another player in yoru group to help. I'm almost at a rank of 100 and I can still kill people with over 200 in rank. Sure, they have some better guns and upgrades, but I can still kill them unlike many level based MMO's where you have zero chance of doing any significant damage and get one shotted. You can have a group of 100's and easily beat a group of 200's with good teamwork and skill. I have no idea what the OP's issue is with the prestige system. How is it even a negative? It rewards you for being a good cop/criminal. It doesn't matter if you're in a top clan or not because there aren't any territory control rulesets yet. Again, I'm not sure how this is a problem.
One thing I do agree with is that there is no PvE in the game. There are solo missions, but they are just there to instigate group missions.
Ultimately, i think the OP just didn't like the game and wanted to push people away from it because he/she was butthurt that it wasn't what they expected. If you like GTA, you'll like this game. I haven't really experienced many bugs. A couple crashed in 50 hours of play, that's about it.
Being able to compensate for a poorly implemented system does not magically make it into a "good system". They are changing it because the majority finds it badly designed and unfun.
Tighter handling of the vehicles would be nice. I've adapted nicely to what we've been given thus far but I think your comment about adapting to a broken system has merit. Simply because some of us might find it easy to adapt to doesn't give it mass appeal. I mean I found the helicopter flight control system on Desert Combat (and subsequently on Frontlines: Fuel of War) to be a good flight system. Others felt it was horribly flawed and wanted something similar to what you got in BF2 (which I found to be too easy).
They could take a page out of the Need for Speed World playbook as far as the vehicle handling. That feels really well done. Its arcade style but for the most part the handling is crisp and without serious fishtailing. It would be cool if they could add the sensation of speed you get with a blurring effect as well.
I think people need to look at what the driving system provides. If anyone reading this has played any racing game, they will know exactly what I mean by this. Most good drivers will zoom into the cockpit or front bumper to race. This is done because the TPV always seems floaty or drifty when used to race. I honestly feel that if TRW allows players to zoom into a more familiar view, that's where we could really see how the driving will be. Honestly, we are complaining about something that has never really been good in any game. That's the issue in itself.
I'm really loving APB but still there is plenty more RTW can do to improve the game and now seeing them addressing issues and things they need to work on I'm happy. I also love that you can make stuff, sell it, then trade the game cash to RTW points, and then pay for more play time. Its really great. I've made enough to easily pay for the next two months, something I'd have a to work my ass off to do in EVE. Of all the other mmos the progression and money making is not at all a chore, its really fun. All of it.
Comments
Xianthos, I'm afraid that you've probably disqualified yourself from posting about what is or is not broken and/or imbalanced about APB by admitting that you haven't even played the game. I would have to think that the same applies for your judgement on whether or not APB is or is not a bad shooter. That would also apply to making comments about the driving mechanics, the matchmaking system, the rating system, the upgrade system or pretty much any other aspect of the game. If I went by what I read about this game I probably would not have purchased it either. Despite its problems the most glaring of which is the upgrade system I cannot seem to get enough of playing this game.
I hear a lot of complaining about the matchmaking system being broken but if you take a step back and look at it, that is not the root of the problem. I don't have a problem going up against a player with a 200+ rating with my 94 rating enforcer. The problem that I have is going up against that 200+ rating player when he has a fully upgraded weapon and 3 player mods.
They talked about progression through skill but then place upgrades in the game that stack the deck in the favor of the people who gained their rating by sitting at the clothing designer for hours on end. Thats the real problem. The fastest way to solve any of the "imbalance" issues would be to strip out the upgrades or make them all passive like the mobile supply unit. Then maybe we'd get a sense of who are the really skilled players in the game and who need the crutch these upgrades provide.
lol whoops.
Cities = Places where people congregate in large numbers..... not what the landscape looks like.
IE: Meetup places, basically.
Like Trading Card Games? Click Here.
The social district is the meetup place, so yes, if you remove that there is a persistent world still. Waterfront and financial district and both are very large and without the social district they both would still exist.
In any case, in the end I could care less if it's called an MMO, an MOG, or if it's called Crap in a box. All I know is that this is the 3rd MMO purchase I haven't regretted. CO, AoC, EQ2, SWG, PotBS, WoW (I bought the game 3 years ago and played for a week and discovered....... I didn't like it at all lol), etc.
UO - Never regretted and had fun with it for over a decade.
FFXI - Was decent for about 5 years and I met t the sweetest young lady that in the end became my real life wife (After a few years of dating), so not the most fun but was ok and has some deep rooted sentimental feelings associated with it.
And the newest one, APB. Most fun I've had in an MMO since.... well UO.
The only question that matters is, I'm enjoying my MMO of choice are you?
Yeah, no Hatter. The world IS a city, two zone fulls so far. With the third being more like triditional RPG cities that have marktlaces and the editors and such.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Here's hoping the chaos districts will be more to my liking. I couldn't get over the matchmaking system. It is a neat feature, but splits up the action too much for me. If I wanted small group deathmatches I'd play Modern Warfare. The missions themselves are interesting, but to me they basically limit the huge city maps to a couple square blocks where the action takes place. Not my cup of tea.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Actually.... what the devs are doing is lowering the level of skill needed.
Why they are lowering the level of skill needed, well I won't state the obvious and will simply allow you to formulate your own opinion.
I mean what many found broken or poorly done, many found worked just fine. I can navigate the city at top speed with ease
I know many others that can. So ..... why would it be changed since it obviously works and seems to be personal skill dependent (Whether you consider a skill to drive in a driving game or not is irrelevant, whether it's a useless skill or not is irrelevant, when some individuals can do something many others can not it is a skill, regardless of how useful or useless it is.)
But yeah......... they are lessening the skill needed to do or complete many tasks in the game to make it more accessible to other players such as reviewers.
Edited to add: I guess I stated the obvious anyways lol.
Skill-
2 a : the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance b : dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks
3 : a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability
That will definitely make completing mission a bit more challenging. For the record though "Chaos" isn't referring to a specific district but rather a ruleset. There have also been talks of Racing, Gambling, and other rulesets including a Zombie ruleset. So what you could get is the Chaos ruleset in Financial, Waterfront and whatever other future districts there might be.
I am aware that they are just separate rulesets of the same districts, but TY for clarifying. I am eager to hear whether they will be faction vs faction or FFA. Would be great to have both rulesets in my opinion as I could see enjoying both of those more than the current match making service.
I also heard they were planning to implement either servers or rulesets without weapon or character mods. That sounds pretty cool too.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I remember also reading something about a "true skill" ruleset so I think you are correct.
Being able to compensate for a poorly implemented system does not magically make it into a "good system". They are changing it because the majority finds it badly designed and unfun.
Tighter handling of the vehicles would be nice. I've adapted nicely to what we've been given thus far but I think your comment about adapting to a broken system has merit. Simply because some of us might find it easy to adapt to doesn't give it mass appeal. I mean I found the helicopter flight control system on Desert Combat (and subsequently on Frontlines: Fuel of War) to be a good flight system. Others felt it was horribly flawed and wanted something similar to what you got in BF2 (which I found to be too easy).
They could take a page out of the Need for Speed World playbook as far as the vehicle handling. That feels really well done. Its arcade style but for the most part the handling is crisp and without serious fishtailing. It would be cool if they could add the sensation of speed you get with a blurring effect as well.
I've gotta say despite my problems with the game RTW appears to be taking player feedback into consideration. Driving, matchmaking, camping, etc. all my complaints and those of many others, RTW claims they will be addressing.
http://na.apb.com/en/news/announcements/2010/07/12/apb-the-road-ahead
http://na.apb.com/en/news/2010/07/13/matchmaking
Steam: Neph
I find myself having a tremendous amount of fun. I find it amusing that the OP didn't at all include any of the good features, meaning his post is actually considered baiting and trolling. But, I really don't care enough to report it.
I've played my first 50 hours and I'm still having a ton of fun. I've only seen a few people with grenade launchers and rocket launchers so far and it's been in my last 5 hours of gameplay. I've been able to kill them fairly easily without the same weapons. The matchmaking system works well in my opinion. If you get pitted against multiple apponents, you are allowed to call for backup which will place another player in yoru group to help. I'm almost at a rank of 100 and I can still kill people with over 200 in rank. Sure, they have some better guns and upgrades, but I can still kill them unlike many level based MMO's where you have zero chance of doing any significant damage and get one shotted. You can have a group of 100's and easily beat a group of 200's with good teamwork and skill. I have no idea what the OP's issue is with the prestige system. How is it even a negative? It rewards you for being a good cop/criminal. It doesn't matter if you're in a top clan or not because there aren't any territory control rulesets yet. Again, I'm not sure how this is a problem.
One thing I do agree with is that there is no PvE in the game. There are solo missions, but they are just there to instigate group missions.
Ultimately, i think the OP just didn't like the game and wanted to push people away from it because he/she was butthurt that it wasn't what they expected. If you like GTA, you'll like this game. I haven't really experienced many bugs. A couple crashed in 50 hours of play, that's about it.
I think people need to look at what the driving system provides. If anyone reading this has played any racing game, they will know exactly what I mean by this. Most good drivers will zoom into the cockpit or front bumper to race. This is done because the TPV always seems floaty or drifty when used to race. I honestly feel that if TRW allows players to zoom into a more familiar view, that's where we could really see how the driving will be. Honestly, we are complaining about something that has never really been good in any game. That's the issue in itself.
I'm really loving APB but still there is plenty more RTW can do to improve the game and now seeing them addressing issues and things they need to work on I'm happy. I also love that you can make stuff, sell it, then trade the game cash to RTW points, and then pay for more play time. Its really great. I've made enough to easily pay for the next two months, something I'd have a to work my ass off to do in EVE. Of all the other mmos the progression and money making is not at all a chore, its really fun. All of it.