I’ve almost run out of my first batch of game time in APB that you get for buying the game, and I’ve spent enough time on both Enforcers and Crims side to make some judgments I think.
To understand some of my points, you have to understand APB’s manner of rating a player. There’s your actual rank, which is increased by literally doing ANYTHING in the game. You can never enter an Action District and reach level 50 rank just by maxing out your Fashionista and Tuner achievements. The higher your rank the more things you have access to, like weapons, upgrades, etc. The Threat Rating is kind of new to me in an MMO. It’s more like actual MMO levels I think, however it CAN decrease. It’s like the “RealSkill” matchmaking system many XBox Live games use now, I guess. There is also the Star Ranks, which for Enforcers is called Prestige and for Crims Notoriety. This ranking is a “by play session” rank. You start out low (2.5 for Enforcers, 0 for Crims), and doing actions either increases or decreases this star rating. When you reach 5 stars a bounty is on you. For an Enforcer that means you can kill every Criminal, but they can all also kill you. For a Crim EVERYONE can kill you, and you can kill everyone. Crims star rating increases at a faster rate, which is why they start lower, but also decreases over time if they’re not committing crimes. Enforcers decreases for doing bad things (running people over, crashing into road signs, etc), but increases for pretty much anything “good.” Higher the rank, the higher your rewards.
- Matchmaking is OFFENSIVELY broken. The match making system is either taking too much into consideration or not nearly enough. I feel like I’m constantly being put against groups that are far superior to me, either in gear, in skill, or both. The problem I THINK is that since it sees that my character rises in threat/star rating quickly, that I’m a skilled player (arguable mechanic there). What it’ll do in response to this is put me against opponents of a higher rank. The problem is if I’m low enough rank I don’t have access to certain guns or upgrades, let alone would I be able to afford them, but my opponents might, and usually do, have these things. The game is effectively attempting to say “you’re good enough to fight these guys with better shit.” The problem is, you do two missions like that and all the sudden you’re shithoused right back down a peg because the guns and upgrades instantly make your opponent overpowered compared. Sure, I’ve killed the people with better stuff, but it’s far rarer then getting railroaded.
- Looking For Group isn’t remotely intelligent. The actual mechanic of the LFG interface placing you in a group is a failure. Of the 50 hours I’ve spent in the game so far (including pre-release time), I’ve spent about 5-10 of those hours playing on a team with 1-2 people of my skill level or better. The vast majority of others are far under my level. It also fails to take into consideration the AFKers who leave themselves in LFG (which stack the numbers of your group) but aren’t active, there in placing you against groups of higher numbers/skill. I’ve noticed a lot of the time this last week that if there’s an AFK player making us a 3 person team we only are fighting 2 people, but I think that’s more to do with “Call for Backups” not working right either. If I’m in a group with two other people, that are of equal rank/skill, but my rank/skill is rated at twice theirs, I’m an outlier that is effectively placing us against higher ranked teams. If they’re both bad players, I’m carrying the team and losing further progression in rank/rating because they’re keeping/slowing me down. In the same effect, I know I’ve held back other people I was grouped with far better than me.
- Matchmaking fail + LFG fail = RAGEQUIT. If I’m in a bad group against a good group, I’m gonna rage quit. Plan and simple. I hate dealing with the frustration of slamming my head against a wall. Far too often I’ve been in a randomized group against a clan group, and it just pisses me the fuck off. Every MMO that has PvP, after a certain amount of time, has to admit that PUG’s can’t fight clan/guild groups. Many clan groups in games like this play more than just one game together, so they’ve spent a lot of time together learning each others moves and habits, and have developed a lingo between themselves. Even if the match is 4v4, and the PUG is all good players of equal skill, the clan group will win the vast majority of the time due to how well meshed they should be. I say should because I’m sure there’s just as many clans of “WANNA JOIN MY GUILD?!” people…
- Poorly planned out missions make for a failure. There are more than a few missions that are simply poorly laid out. Too often it’s excessively easy to camp a point, or too easy to body camp. There are a number of buildings and clusters that create excessively difficult defensive or attack maneuvers for small teams. I’ve been in a few large matches (8v8) and these kinds of problems evaporated quickly because of the sheer number of angles you can take at once, but in smaller matches like 4v4, 3v3, 2v2, many of the places where mission objectives are in have limited entry points or odd angles for sniper perches where it really is just a matter of which side gets to the point first. This is acceptable in SOME situations, but over half the missions I’m in feel like the objectives are an uphill battle. I don’t just mean for me, I’ve been on the side that can just ROFLPWNT a ladder to fuck the other team up and I’m easily aware of how imbalanced it is.
- The Unreal Engine, no matter how pretty it is, was a HORRIBLE choice. Unreal Engine games are beautiful, no argument. This was still a horrible, horrible decision. I have a Core 2 Quad Q8400, 8GB’s of DDR2-800, the fastest harddrive available before 10,000RPM drives and SSD’s, and a GTS 250. My system is pretty beast for an Unreal game. However, APB still runs like SHIT. Why? It’s an MMO with DISGUSTINGLY HUGE ENVIRONMENTS. There’s just TOO MUCH SHIT going on on screen. I have to set it at the lowest settings just to hold 24-35FPS, and if I find a nice little spot where there’s 5 matches all fighting at once in the same place, you better believe that shit drops to 10FPS or lower. It’s very pretty, even with the settings so low, but it’s not worth the shitty framerates. On more than a few occasions while driving I’ll run into something simply because it hadn’t drawn in game yet because Unreal Engine’s loading mechanic is poor.
Even after all that shit, I still LIKE the game, it’s just not worth picking up yet unless you’re a SERIOUS fan of the game type. When I do find a group that I mesh well with, and we’re up against opponents of our gear/skill level so it’s challenging, but not in a baby-punching way, the game is SO much fun. Problem is I spend FAR more time being angry at the little problems then I do having fun now.
