APB: catch all

I heard that there has been a noted increase in hacks recently. Seems like someone found a new loophole or a new suite of cheat programs got released. Devs are trying to lock it down while working on the next patch (1.5.2).

I've slowed down my playtime while waiting for that to drop, this just sounds like more incentive to keep waiting.

I think I cursed myself by posting on here that I'd gotten better. I ran maybe 4 missions last night before quitting. I didn't win a single mission and had maybe 4 or 5 kills total with probably 30 deaths. It was nasty. I even shelved the LMG for 2 missions and swapped over to a NTEC. Yeah, did even worse. Shoulda' stuck with the weapon I was more familiar with.

One question, what personal modifications are you guys running with? I equipped the kevlar implant II last night for the 20% health bonus with a pretty significant reduction in speed. So now I'm plodding along like a draft horse but still, seemingly, getting gunned down just as easily from single burst from a submachine gun or assault rifle. I have a feeling that making myself an easier target by slowly ambling from point to point far outweighs any possible benefit I may be getting from a health boost.

I run Clotting Agent 1; as an SMG guy I don't want the speed reduction that Kevlar has.

Yeah. I personally can't see using the kevlar (well, okay, maybe level 1 kevlar), just because mobility is so very very important to the way I play. I've heard that clotting agent 3 is pretty powerful, and I'm working my way up in that direction.

I actually switched back from my OCA to my STAR the other day: I decided that I wasn't playing well—partially due to being too ready to storm in from playing with an OCA in a group. So I figured using the STAR would make me play more patiently and get me back into the groove of winning by smarts instead of trying to rely purely on reaction time.

Hypatian wrote:

So I figured using the STAR would make me play more patiently and get me back into the groove of winning by smarts instead of trying to rely purely on reaction time.

I rely on blowing cars up and scaring people with the sound of a big gun shooting at them when they're not expecting it. That's about the only reason I like being able to hear enemy players voice chat when I'm near them. I've had a couple scream like little girls when they come running past me without seeing me and I open up on them.

Also had a really odd enemy player last night. Every time he would kill someone (which I got to experience twice) he would walk up to you and say in the most... special way "I like turls." And then walk off. And his name was... Iliketurls. Some guys are just memorable like that.

Hah! Nice.

The hearing enemy voice chat feature can be a laugh riot, I remember sneaking up on two guys doing what sounded like their version of the "Do we say 3 then go or go on 3 itself?" skit. I was trying so hard not to laugh that I sprang my ambush too late and only managed to kill one of them before the other got me back (he went on 3 itself).

On the other hand, my crim is a female toon and during a 1v1 match up I had to face an enforcer who used nothing but non-lethal weaponry and always seemed to get the drop on me. Ended getting cuffed throughout the match and each time he would make disparaging remarks :/ nothing strong enough worth reporting him for though.

We need to set up GWJ night, to run some missions together. I'm not necessarily talking about a weekly deal or anything, but the only Goodjer I've played with was karmajay on my first day in. Some of us obviously play semi-frequently, so why don't we roll together.

I've got both factions rolled on the East Coast server.
Enforcer = Dierahnne
Criminal = Dierean

Edit: Could we get a current list of character names? I went back through the last few pages and only found 2-3.

I'm currently playing on the west coast server with a friend semi-regularly, but I also have an enforcer on the east coast server. I would be happy to cruise around with folks on east on an arranged night. Hypatia (enforcer, east and west), Sonataya (criminal, west).

Hamidon - Enforcer, East
MissAlot - Criminal, East

Junzt, enforcer east

I log in every so often, but I haven't played regularly for a few weeks.

Karmajay - enforcer

I'm out of town in Columbus for the next 2 months without my desktop though :

Quick word of advice. When someone is blazing away on full automatic with a smg, don't step in front of them please.
On a mission last night we'd managed to take back a briefcase from the enemy about 100 meters from their drop point. It was a brutal slog to get it but we did. I grabbed a car and our TL gold 2 guy grabs the case, tosses it in the trunk and jumps in with me. We go racing to our drop point which is about 500 meters away. I go sliding up to the door we're going to have to kick in to get to our drop point and 2 of the opposition are jumping out of their cars right next to us to stop us. I hop out and start firing away with my smg (first time using that kind of weapon). My teammate then jumps out of the seat behind me and steps directly in front of me to shoot at the same target. He goes down before I can even take my finger off the button because he was getting slammed by my bullets and the enemy. I get the team killer message and then the other guy kills me while I'd stopped firing. They grab the case back and turn it in to win the game.
My teammate then just says in group chat, "Great. Because you killed me, we lost." and then dropped group. I messaged back and forth with him for a bit and we were cool. He was just worried he was going to lose one of his TLs and since he didn't it was all good. We just chalked it up to a sh*t happens moment and went about our business. Oh, and we had 3 other members on the team as well and I have no clue what they were doing. No matter what was going on they always seemed to be a couple hundred meters away from the action. I really do think they kept getting lost. Of course the one guy who was driving the other team members around was using his custom van that had plastered on the side "Everyone in here loves d*cks, d*cks, d*cks" and had, well, d*cks on the back of the van. So really, I didn't expect much from him.

I've had that happen from the opposite side. Been engaged in a firefight with somebody, and as I fall back about to get into cover to reload and recover, a teammate pops out from around the corner and I'm forced back into the fight because I can't get past them. :X

Kehama wrote:

He was just worried he was going to lose one of his TLs

I... do not understand this. Do people really not understand that threat levels are purely a ranking system used for matchmaking? Why should anyone care about "losing a TL"? *ponder* The normal behavior of such a system *ought* to involve people occasionally moving up and down through no real action on their own, as the mapping between actual rating system score and the bronze/silver/gold + number will need to be changed based on the population's actual score distribution.

Kehama wrote:

Oh, and we had 3 other members on the team as well and I have no clue what they were doing.

Was in a mission the other day where we got three idlers as backup, one after another. "It's [redacted] again, boot him.", *boot*, call for backup, "Oh dammit, it's [redacted2] now." *boot*, call for backup, "... *sob*" I think we changed instances after that, because we just kept getting them over and over again.

Oh--anybody checked things out since the patch? I'm hoping they left some things out. Things like "Decreased Charge Mikro's acceleration when carrying a VIP or a 'hold' mission item."

Hypatian wrote:

Do people really not understand that threat levels are purely a ranking system used for matchmaking? Why should anyone care about "losing a TL"?
....
Was in a mission the other day where we got three idlers as backup, one after another.
...
I'm hoping they left some things out. Things like "Decreased Charge Mikro's acceleration when carrying a VIP or a 'hold' mission item."

It seems like for most people the Threat Level is used as their visible e-peen. If you read district chat *shudder* you'll see people constantly talking about how they made it to gold by rank 20 and how soooo many people suck because they're "only silvers". Purely bragging rights. For myself, I think I've been at silver 5 or 6 for a few weeks now. While my playing and kill/death ratio have gotten much better I'm still winning and losing about as much as always.

And talk about slacker teammates? Grouped with one guy the other night who just kept spamming us during the mission begging us to come sit in his car with him and listen to a new playlist he'd put together. When we told him to stfu and shoot he started griefing all of us trying to ram us while we were in firefights. He even chased us around after we'd booted him and the mission ended. Some people I just can't understand. Why join a group?

I hadn't looked at the patch notes. Had no idea they were going to make the micro like a "normal" vehicle for VIP missions. That stinks. It's the main reason I liked the thing. Enforcer's have the jeep, it was balanced. Right?

Kehama wrote:

I hadn't looked at the patch notes. Had no idea they were going to make the micro like a "normal" vehicle for VIP missions. That stinks. It's the main reason I liked the thing. Enforcer's have the jeep, it was balanced. Right?

The Vaquero doesn't work the same way, as I understand it (I haven't unlocked mine yet)—only the Mikro. So, no, not balanced, since if the criminals get to a Mikro they can run run run while the enforcers always have to deal with the slowdown and eventually stand and fight.

(If I'm wrong and the Vaquero does work the same, I take it back—but I haven't seen one criminal player say "lol, just use the jeep you noob" when the Mikro comes up on the APB forums. At best, the argument they make is that the enforcer "tank" vehicle (the Nulander Pioneer SUV) is better than the criminal "tank" vehicle (the Seiyo Espacio minivan), and the enforcer response is "take it and the jeep and even the Patriot Jericho, if we can have the Mikro.")

The changes they made to the matchmaking system with the new patch seem to be a bit off. I was in a group with 2 trainees and a bronze 1 and they put us up against 2 golds and 2 high silvers. I've been in similar matches most of last night and this morning. I dare say my win-loss ratio is taking a beating. Oh, and I think I say this every time I'm in game but I hate that gold whisper. I don't know how many times I've been killed by people with that gun. It's one of those situations where I don't know if the weapon is slightly op or if the people who are willing to blow 50 real dollars on an in-game gun are just that devoted to the game and that good.

What is it that makes people willing to berate, belittle and personally insult people on their team? Dude. I have a gun. I can TK you. I will TK you, and laugh. So, please, go ahead and cut loose with that verbal assault.

My little friend will be making my rebuttal.

I drive all the way across the city to help a guy getting kicked around in a 1v1 (he called for backup). As I drive up, looking the terrain over and trying to spot the enemy, my teammate starts screaming at me. Profanity filled and generally lacking in information. Something about get him, he's up there, get him. Only add in about another paragraph of profanity, some generalized, but most of it directed at me.

Well, I didn't magically gather enough information out of the profane tirade in time to save him, so he starts screaming another such, and gets rather personal. I just laugh.

And TK him.

At which point he goes ballistic (hard to imagine, but ya, he turned it up to 11.) He kills me. And it went downhill from there.

I was just trying out my brand new LMG, second mission with it (my reaction the first mission, when I opened up for the first time, and blew up the two enforcers in that truck? Right out of Robocop: 'I LIKE IT!'.) Mr Profane, he was using an LMG as well. In close quarters, he was as good as I. At range? Pfft. I ended up explaining that short controlled bursts were the way to use this gun. He tries to kill me at range, fails, runs, I kill the enforcer that was busy doing the objectives at long range, and go 'see? like that'. He wasn't amused.

Funny how its the horrid teammates that make the most amusing stories. The guy I teamed with for 7 or 8 missions, that never said a word (neither did I), and we kicked some ass? Almost boring, doesn't make for an entertaining story when telling the other half how my evening went.

For the most part, I'm enjoying this game. Far more so than I thought. As usual in Pay2Win games, I don't. Instead, I take an extra perverse enjoyment out of winning against people with guns and gear and vehicles bought with real money. And when I lose (not if), eh, I'm a noob, my TL is poor and my guns are trash. That's okay, flanking a good team, slipping in close and taking out one or two with an autoshot never gets old. It makes up for all the other deaths. And when I get in on a good team, that sticks together, supports, gives and uses cover fire well, driving through the city in a hot car with three of us hanging out the windows waving guns? That's reason to play the game, that's the magic.

I'm on Joker (East server), crim is KaMako, enforcer is Harvenes, both very noobish. I think I like the criminal side better. Enforcer, its way too common to have a civilian wander into the line of fire, or ignore the horn&siren and get run over, there by ruining my mission payout.

Last night I was accused of hacking. Twice. By two *different* people.

O_O

Kind of amusing, given how unbelievably bad my aim is.

Also, I was unaware that there was a hack for shredding somebody with an N-FA from a few feet away while they don't move.

Loving this game but have horrible aim and sh*tty fps. I should buy more RAM.

On Joker (East) as Bootyjuice (Enforcer).

I found a recent dev blog that stated they estimate the actual percentage of hackers as being 1.3% of the player base. Of course they also state that this 1.3% is extremely active so you'll likely see them in game far more often than you would another player which makes it seem like more people are hacking than really are.

I was accused of having an aimbot in one match last night. In that match I had 1 single kill. I was horrible. I just thought, if I'd paid for an aimbot program and this was what I got, I'd be asking for my money back. Apparently some people still don't know that you can have the camera looking behind you, be aiming at someone and then just pull the trigger to get your guy to snap around and fire off a round.

I think this game might be reaching a point of maturity where I'll either have to join a guild or just stop playing. I'm still mainly in true PUGs but a lot of the competition now ends up being guild groups. The amount of coordination they can put together versus a PUG where there's usually very little talk at all is usually a mission killer. I especially hate it when the enemy is really entrenched with cover fire from every direction and I see my teammates running straight at them one by one as soon as they respawn only to be cut down again. During one mission this weekend it was 8 of us versus 4 of them (lots of trainees on our side, couple of golds on theirs) and I ended up with the most kills. 2. Yes, 2. Over a long mission I had 2 kills, one other guy had 1 and everyone else on our side had 0. In comparison, everyone on the other side was in double digits with their highest guy hitting 17 kills. It was nasty.

Whenever I see a group with at least a couple of gold Whispers and they're all wearing coordinating outfits I just cringe and get ready to take my beating.

Kehama wrote:

... Of course the one guy who was driving the other team members around was using his custom van that had plastered on the side "Everyone in here loves d*cks, d*cks, d*cks" and had, well, d*cks on the back of the van. So really, I didn't expect much from him. :)

I wanted to add (sure it was mentioned some pages back) that the customization is one of the elements that make this game pretty fun because you do see stuff like this.

The other night we were fighting a squad who had a member named Hamburlar1 and he was dressed just like him with the bandit mask, hat and stripped outfit. Was pretty funny.

From what I am reading from others above, this game has some hard core players but there are also those on the other end of the spectrum where you don't have to worry about being competitive either.

I recently, yesterday and the day before, started on this.
I must say, wOW, FUN

I may not be all that and a baggachips but you know what? I like this. It's a lot of action, it's like GTA but with real people.

I know, I'm rehashing what everyone has already said in here but I never gave this game a thought until now.

The PUG system is great, even if you run into quiet people. I was in a group with 2 guys with mics (for some stupid reason mine was not working) and it was a great help for a newb. We added each other as friends so I will hunt him down again.

I can see how having a guild with everyone on mics would be much better. being able to coordinate verbally is soooo much faster than typing. (really?)

I'm not paying for a sub, yet, but as it is still in beta, and they are having some issues with cheats, i'll stay this way until they iron that out. They are using Punkbuster as thier security...not working so I hear.

Anyways, if anyone is thinking of starting a gang, let me know. i might be interested in hanging out.

can lowbies group with higher levels?

Oh are you guys playing Enforcer or Criminal? I started out as Criminal. I like to Kill people (virtually, i felt the need to clarify that, for my own morality).

Poyzon - Criminal East

I also just picked this up. Pretty fun except it seems that if I buy a weapon it only lasts for 10 days. That's kinda crappy-- although understandable from a F2P model. So, is there any way to actually earn/keep better weapons without paying extra cash for them?

PS. I'm WipEout, a Criminal, on the NA East server (Joker, I think?)

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08...

Cheat patch coming, and permanent weapons.

WipEout wrote:

I also just picked this up. Pretty fun except it seems that if I buy a weapon it only lasts for 10 days. That's kinda crappy-- although understandable from a F2P model. So, is there any way to actually earn/keep better weapons without paying extra cash for them?

Nope. But that is essentially the *only* thing there is to pay in-game money for long-term. Customizable vehicles are expensive, but permanent. Even though I'm premium, I mostly use the "stock" weapons, which are incredibly cheap. (i.e. no mods at all, not the pre-set slotted ones) Also don't forget that mission payout ratchets up as you progress higher in faction.

groan: I read the mention of "permanent weapons" in that as "we're going to have more permanent weapons for sale on the Armas shop", rather than "we're adding permanent weapons to the game via some method other than the Armas shop".

Edit: Or perhaps I'm wrong. Permanent weapons on the tier 5 contacts? Hrm. I guess people who've played that long are already pretty devoted players. Dunno.

The car kits only on the Armas shop annoys me more. Although I'd consider going for it if they did a cross-car themed thing like "enforcer lights and sirens pack" or "more rims than you can shake a stick at pack" instead of a pack for each car model.

Well been playing for a week or so now and you know what, still loving it.
I paid for the month. Worth it to get the extra cash. Renting weapons is a non issue. you get the gun for 10 days for x-dollars.
example, rent this light machine gun for $3000.
Seems like a lot but last night I played for a little over an hour and made $10000 in missions/chop shops.
Money can be had quickly, even if you suck like me.

Pick up groups are mostly cool. once in a while you get a douche in the group but he only lasts for the time you are there. if you find a group on the server that you cant stand, switch to a different instance. easy.

Poyzon/East Joker Criminal
Look me up

APB is "live" again, and available on Steam. Some significantish changes in the latest patch that I haven't played with yet.

I still play this game pretty regularly as Hypatia (enforcer) on Colby (NA West), along with my friend Fehdman (aka SirDodger on Steam).