Should YOU play this game? -vet. player taking your questions too!

[NotlimTheGreat]

I played APB(the original) for a few months after release. It had some horrible things wrong with it. Excited for a re-release when G1 bought the game I signed up for the beta. Since near the end of closed beta I've played somewhat regularly. I've played as a terrible player going one pug at a time, and I've played in a vent group as an exceptional asset to a team. Regardless of whether I'm winning or losing, this game can be INCREDIBLY fun and I've yet to find another game that sates the spot that this game fills.

This game is not for everyone. It has the uncanny ability to instill more rage into more people than you usually see in videogames, and even if you don't let it get to you it can become annoying because of other peoples reactions. If you can't handle frustration while playing games, don't play this. Aside from that here are some major things that should be noted:

-the balance in this game while not perfect, it is rather exceptional. If you are a good player and decide to start a new character you will still be winning about as much as you were with a 'leveled' up payed-for-with-real-money character. I'm personally an exceptionally skilled player that plays with assets that anyone can unlock and pay for within two or three hours of gameplay(aside from maybe my vehicles, but thats because I LOVE buying vehicles). This isn't a Pay 2 Win game. If you want specifics on this I'd be happy to explain, but not in the topic post of this.

-Utilise the new players section on the official forums( http://forums.gamersfirst.com/forum/635-new-players/ ). i used to post a lot more there but it is invaluable to ask for help there because this game has an incredibly stupid learning curve(that I'm not really sure why). So much in this game seems stupid, exploited, or totally hidden at first glance but with some help you can eliminate hours of ignorance to some things in the game.

-Try to find a _good_ player that DOESN'T rage every other match that will actually help you learn the game(and not just carry you through missions). A good way to do this is ask around in global chat and hope for the best, or looking in the aforementioned new players forum.

-Yes, there are hackers in this game. No, they aren't as common as it would seem. Theres a dozen ways to make it look like your 'snapping' and other sort of things like that. Against a skilled and veteran player it will seem as if they are wallhacking and 100% of the time know exactly where you are, when really your just being amazingly predictable. On top of this is that the guns have a very low time to kill(TTK) and 99% of the time even old players don't understand how easy it can be to take someone down. As an example a large portion of the guns have between .65 to .8 second TTKs. Problem is that from your perspective of having emptied two clips into someone over 10 seconds, then them taking you out in 7 bullets in under a second, things get harry.

-Sometimes your dealt a ♥♥♥♥ hand. Some missions it would take your entire enemy team having a heart attack for you to have a chance at a given mission. Make a mental note and the next time you're given an amazingly easy mission don't take a ♥♥♥♥ on the enemy and gloat about it.

-Don't argue in global chat, don't accuse people of cheating in global chat, and for the love of god don't ♥♥♥♥♥ about the game in global chat. Go to the new players forum, explain everything that happened, and ask what the ♥♥♥♥. You'll get plenty of people agreeing and disagreeing with you, and hopefully you'll be able to find out if its you or the game that's being crap.

-This game gives many people the ability to be absolute ♥♥♥♥♥ to other players. Don't be one of these people, and don't affiliate yourself with these people. Know that many(not all) of the more "popular" or known clans are only really known because they are a group of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s with big mouths. Tread lightly when finding a clan of your own, and ask for advice in(you guessed it) the official forums.


I play on the US West server(Colby) as Shifter(my criminal) and DrKABOOM(my enforcer). Feel free to contact me in-game through mail/whisper, in this forum/thread, or on the official forums( http://forums.gamersfirst.com/user/397385-notlimthegreat/ ). I'm always willing to play with new(or old) players as long as you're not sitting there cussing and whining at the screen.

TL;DR use the new players forum, prepare for frustration, game isn't for everyone, P2W and hackers isn't really that big of deal/existing, hit me up for any questions/someone to play with.

[oldbrokenlink]

the game has pb so the hackers will reign and then leave or be eventually removed...

[Freyar]

There's a few mentoring projects that are going on.

http://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/175922-sticky-mentoring-project/

[NotlimTheGreat]

the game has pb so the hackers will reign and then leave or be eventually removed...

Funny story-imagine they were using something other than pb. Guess what would change? Nothing, at all. pb works perfectly fine for what it advertises-its just people like you don't know what its purpose is. Those people using hacks? Those hacks are yet to be detected/filed in(they are new). When G1/PB updates punkbuster to detect those hacks, the people earning six figures a year illegally making hacking software pump out a new version as fast as possible, giving pb/g1 another hack to find a way to detect. This is of course a very simplified version, but hopefully its simple enough for you to understand.

Please, if your going to act like someone that knows their ♥♥♥♥ at least have a basic understanding of what it is rather than bandwagon.

*edit* Hey, I'm even on that list freyar posted! Forgot all about that thread.

[PwettyPony]

the game has pb so the hackers will reign and then leave or be eventually removed...

Sadly I dont have screenshots of it anymore.
But everytime a big banwave occurs, the QQ on all the main cheating sites was big.

Not only did the accounts get banned ppl cheated on, but also their clean accounts.

[The_wind]

Awesome Thread, thx alot <3

[Cha0s_St0rm]

Youve convinced me to try it - which is no easy feat, Congratulations! If i dont like it i can always un-install.

[trent]

I've played APB on and off since RTW closed beta, though launch, through G1 beta, etc, etc.

If you've never played APB before, here is what you'll see: Once you get in it will seem like an awesome game. The music, customization, etc is great. But once the novelty of being able to create an awesome character wears off, all you have left is the action district mechanics which after awhile will make you feel like you're repeatedly banging your head against a wall.

G1 pretends to listen to player feedback, but they never fix the things the community as a whole wants, they only change things no one is asking for.

I'm really trying to keep this post short, but essentially anyone who is just starting out playing APB this week will NOT be playing it 3 months from now.

G1 is awesome at making you think their product is awesome at first so that you drop money on in-game items, but then suddenly you'll get to the point where you hate this game, hate the other players of it, and hate the developers of it.

[Duttebayo]

I havent seen one hacker, and i have a good lot of hours in game..

Most hardcore players go to patriot(EU) But theres less-good people ( i guess) on Obeya. Maybe hackers go for Patriot

[trent]

You really can't say *most* when typically only EU players play on the EU servers.

[BloodyRose]

I fully agree with the OP. I've been around since the closed beta period and I still enjoy the game. It's one of my favorite games and is definitely the best MMO game to date.

[trent]

is definitely the best MMO game to date.


L O L.

[PwettyPony]

L O L.

waddup, its true.

[Serret]

if you're not gold your advice is meaningless ^^

[BGH122]

the people earning six figures a year illegally making hacking software

[citation needed]

Regardless of hackers, the game just wasn't very fun for the couple of hours I played it; most everything seemed locked behind a paywall, and the gameplay - whilst nowhere near as hard as some people claim - was basically just a cruddy version of Battlefield 3.

[TentacleMayor]

OK I'm giving the game a try, here's some questions:

- Is the game known to be laggy (car rubberbanding, bullet lag), is it during busy hours, or just my connection? Which playstyles suffer least from big lag?

- In unbalanced situations like 1 players vs. 4 on a mission, what's the right way to behave on either side? Should I really go after the objective and just feed the enemy team kills? This system is novel to me and not always working well.

- Are there OP and UP weapons, mods and such? What's a fair and fun loadout?

- How to talk to randomly formed groups? Tells me I'm not in a group.

Would appreciate input from a veteran.

[Wertoret]

OK I'm giving the game a try, here's some questions:

- Is the game known to be laggy (car rubberbanding, bullet lag), is it during busy hours, or just my connection? Which playstyles suffer least from big lag?

- In unbalanced situations like 1 players vs. 4 on a mission, what's the right way to behave on either side? Should I really go after the objective and just feed the enemy team kills? This system is novel to me and not always working well.

- Are there OP and UP weapons, mods and such? What's a fair and fun loadout?

- How to talk to randomly formed groups? Tells me I'm not in a group.

Would appreciate input from a veteran.

the servers can handle the amount of players at anytime, so any lag will probably be at the user's end. Always type /fps after ingame to check for ping and other performance stats.

Outnumbered situations are frequent with this matchmaking system where 1 "gold player" is worth at least 3 "bronze players" (the color of their symbol indicates their skill level) So according to the game, if you are a gold player, you'll get outnumbered very easily, so you're supposed to be able to take several players on at the same time.

as a newbie you won't see this pretty often, but if you're alone against the enemies since your teammates are far away, the best is to either wait for them or scout the area, never take people more than 1v1

Yes there are, despite general opinion, but weapons won't dictate the result of a mission, since every single one of them have a weakness. My advice? look for the weapon you like most, buy the stock one, start practicing with it, through roles you'll unlock the versions with mod slots (they're a lot more expensive and they last the same, 10 days) mods are fairly straight forward, check the apb reloaded wiki for a general consensus on mods ratings for weapons.

/t to talk to a team, team is what is formed to do a mission, and can be up to 12 players, group is the social one and can only be up to 4 players.

[maneaterhp]

Wertoret,

Im also having lag issues, and my Internet this end is fine.
Also constant crashes saying 'out of memory', I have 4gb.

Any solutions?

[trent]

[citation needed]

Regardless of hackers, the game just wasn't very fun for the couple of hours I played it; most everything seemed locked behind a paywall, and the gameplay - whilst nowhere near as hard as some people claim - was basically just a cruddy version of Battlefield 3.

Vetern player here. I rip on G1 HARDCORE a lot of the time however sometimes they're right. You Can play the game just fine without having to pay for a thing, and having premium while leveling contacts is nice, but not required. Don't feel like you have to go purchase items to play or be competitive in the game. You don't. So paywall isn't a good excuse to not play. YOu don't need to pay jack.

Also, the Fight Club portion of the game, what I'm assuming you're playing when you refer to Battlefield is a steaming pile. Fight Club is a joke and I don't even consider it part of the game. They just slapped it on there in the last patch.

[trent]

Wertoret,

Im also having lag issues, and my Internet this end is fine.
Also constant crashes saying 'out of memory', I have 4gb.

Any solutions?

Out of memory: Run windows 7 64-bit. That's about it. G1 has proven that they don't care and aren't going to fix it, but Win7 does lessen and nearly eliminate the impact of that specific crash.

[Noc3]

how can you say this is not pay to win when premium players get 90% more exp and 125% more cash?

I've played other f2p MMOs but CoH seemed to have the biggest gap betwen free and premium until I saw this.

I havn't played this yet, but can you tell me how these gaps betwen free and premium wont break it into pay to win?

[maneaterhp]

Out of memory: Run windows 7 64-bit. That's about it. G1 has proven that they don't care and aren't going to fix it, but Win7 does lessen and nearly eliminate the impact of that specific crash.

Im on 32bit and have enabled full use of all 4gb. There should be no problem now.

[BagofSnakes]

Don't bother playing this game unless you play with friends. The average player is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (as is the case with most games). If you play alone prepared to be matched up 3 on 1 against you.

Find a group to play with otherwise the only thing you'll end up doing is driving the dump truck around ramming people.


edit: Just to add; the game itself is fine, I never get any lag in the NA servers. The match-making in this game is the problem. Which is why I say again, play with competent friends and you'll have an awesome time.

[PwettyPony]

how can you say this is not pay to win when premium players get 90% more exp and 125% more cash?

I've played other f2p MMOs but CoH seemed to have the biggest gap betwen free and premium until I saw this.

I havn't played this yet, but can you tell me how these gaps betwen free and premium wont break it into pay to win?

You dont learn skills as you lvl up, the only thing you get is access to more pre-made weapons. Weapons with already vacant slots.

As for money, what exactly do you need it for?
I dont need it at all. I have multiple millions sittin around on 2 different characters and I just dont use/need it.

The only "pay2win" thing is the Colby CSG Shotgun, its a little OP compared to the JG.
However most other weapons are obtainable ingame too via unlocks or aren't op.

Inb4 "OMG OMG WHISPER SO STRONG!"
Its not, its a niche version of the OCA that has its best use at 20-30meters.

[NotlimTheGreat]

To the tard that exclaimed my information is useless unless I'm gold. I've held my gold status while LTLing VS clan teams, playing FBW pistol only, or running around with a trainee loadout. That aside, i've seen low silver players give fantastic advice I wouldn't have thought up.

- Is the game known to be laggy (car rubberbanding, bullet lag), is it during busy hours, or just my connection? Which playstyles suffer least from big lag?
Its not during business hours, and its often due to connection. The official support forum while slow is probably your best route. Look for any threads on route tracing and do that as well. While it may not be G1's OR your fault, they can sometimes fix a problem with route tracing. The game used to be laggy a LOT, but if you're getting a lot of lag now there is a problem. Also note cars are server side and people are kind of client side, so there will be strange clashing between the two every now and then.

- In unbalanced situations like 1 players vs. 4 on a mission, what's the right way to behave on either side? Should I really go after the objective and just feed the enemy team kills? This system is novel to me and not always working well.
If the single player is new, try to talk them into calling backup. Otherwise in this situation there isn't much you can do. If your in the group of four if you want you can hang back outside of the mission and hope your enemy gets more people. If your group of four is people you know you can try to let him win the first couple stages waiting for backup. Otherwise just don't give him the win. Giving people wins makes the system think that person CAN take on four people, thus repeating the cycle. If your the "one" try to call backup and I suggest, until your good at the game, just trying to pick them off one by one. You won't be able to take them all out and get the objective(probably) but at least your doing something fun.
- Are there OP and UP weapons, mods and such? What's a fair and fun loadout?

- How to talk to randomly formed groups? Tells me I'm not in a group.

Randomly formed = team( type /t or /team to get into it. light blue text)
Groups you purposefully are invited/invite to is a group. Groups can split up into different districts/missions(if someone is afk while others are not the afk groupmember won't be put in a mission). Also note you can talk to your group while your dead-you can't in teams(another perk to finding 1-3 other people to play with, even if its just that play session).


how can you say this is not pay to win when premium players get 90% more exp and 125% more cash?

Because you don't need any of that to win. As I said before I often run with a loadout that takes less than 7k to buy(excluding cars) every 10 days-if you play an hour a day you have that covered EASILY with some in the bank for clothes, new guns to try out, or saving up for vehicles. If you plan it out you can within a few hours get all the guns I usually use extremely quickly.

I've played other f2p MMOs but CoH seemed to have the biggest gap betwen free and premium until I saw this.

I know it does seem like a huge gap. At first I was vehemently opposed to such a huge gap but they changed it slightly(for awhile the non-premiums money was a bit worse than now). On the plus side also is that if you find a helpful clan(and YOU contribute too) you may end up with free vehicles(the most expensive stuff in the game), free mods, free outfits(very common) etc. All you really need to succeed as the best player in the game in terms of bought stuff is 10k in guns and 40k in vehicles, and possibly 40k in mods. Everything else either gives no leg up or its so minuscule that its really the persons choice.

I havn't played this yet, but can you tell me how these gaps betwen free and premium wont break it into pay to win?

Thats what I tried to explain above but I will also say this-the 'gold'(payed for) guns are not overpowered. Most of them are actually weaker than upgraded counterparts, with the only ones that seem a little OP even in their stock form are soon to be nerfed.

Don't bother playing this game unless you play with friends. The average player is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (as is the case with most games). If you play alone prepared to be matched up 3 on 1 against you.

Find a group to play with otherwise the only thing you'll end up doing is driving the dump truck around ramming people.


edit: Just to add; the game itself is fine, I never get any lag in the NA servers. The match-making in this game is the problem. Which is why I say again, play with competent friends and you'll have an awesome time.

I'll agree somewhat with this person. I'm exceptional at not raging at this game, but sometimes you become dumbfounded and peoples stupidity, new players aside. I've seen 'veteran' players just go off the handle at me because i chose one route to the objective instead of another, and proceed to (try to) murder me for the rest of the game. I've seen new players claim they've been playing for months yet not understand whats going on, etc. If your new you get a free pass as long as your trying to learn.

Remember peoples I put my characters in the OP, so if your in Colby hit me up. Throw your character/faction here if you want also. I very often run in a team of random newer players.

[xxredmaxx]

I've played APB on and off since RTW closed beta, though launch, through G1 beta, etc, etc.

If you've never played APB before, here is what you'll see: Once you get in it will seem like an awesome game. The music, customization, etc is great. But once the novelty of being able to create an awesome character wears off, all you have left is the action district mechanics which after awhile will make you feel like you're repeatedly banging your head against a wall.

G1 pretends to listen to player feedback, but they never fix the things the community as a whole wants, they only change things no one is asking for.

I'm really trying to keep this post short, but essentially anyone who is just starting out playing APB this week will NOT be playing it 3 months from now.

G1 is awesome at making you think their product is awesome at first so that you drop money on in-game items, but then suddenly you'll get to the point where you hate this game, hate the other players of it, and hate the developers of it.

This happened to me :/
I played it G1 before steam launch, (4-5 months ago.) then I gave up...and started again when it launched on steam. Now I;m back to Starcraft 2 and Battlefield 3

[bakageta]

how can you say this is not pay to win when premium players get 90% more exp and 125% more cash?

I've played other f2p MMOs but CoH seemed to have the biggest gap betwen free and premium until I saw this.

I havn't played this yet, but can you tell me how these gaps betwen free and premium wont break it into pay to win?

It's actually up to 90% exp bonus, which is only on the boss contacts. Each lower tier of contacts you get less of an exp boost, and with only a couple of hours of non-premium gameplay you can get the two tier 2 contacts needed to unlock additional character mod slots. With all 3 mod slots unlocked, you're pretty much set. Higher contacts unlock clothing, cars, and mods, but the guns you'll really want to use, with empty slots, are unlocked purely through killing and earned at the same rate whether or not you're premium. As a free player, you can still earn enough money to get by just fine, and you can purchase the mods you need on the marketplace.

This game isn't like WoW, where if you're not at the level cap you're not at all viable. Even low rank characters can be competitive. You don't gain more health or dish out more damage as you level, and my max rank character has been killed by tons of low-rank players. While paying for premium will level you up faster, there's no paywall preventing you from maxing out your character. It's far less of a gap than many F2P games. I'd say give it a try.