The "fun" in this game is in the competitive spirit. As an Enforcer, you'll be primarily taking missions to stop criminals from completing their objectives. One on one this game is marginal fun. The real beauty of APB comes from the way it pits Enforcers against Criminals in an elegant mission based PvP system. This brings players into conflict with each other organically rather than most of the artificial forms of PvP present in todays massive online games. Sure, ultimately it all boils down to objective based kill, defend or take missions but it's pretty thick with theme.
Criminals steal cars, raid other criminal locations, spray graffiti, mug civilians, set bombs etc. Enforcers tend to repair graffiti, return stolen cars, investigate criminal activity, hunt criminals with high notoriety and transport key evidence to secure locations. At any time during any of these missions an "enemy" could be assigned to stop you, and by "enemy" I mean another player.
You can auto assign to groups and its super easy to find your group members. The game encourages cooperative play, and there are several missions where coordinated team tactics works. Many missions have multiple simultaneous objectives, the faster you complete them the sooner you move on to the next objective and keep your opponents guessing as to what's next. Dying is only marginally annoying, losing a mission means fewer cash rewards and thats about it. You still get advancement though in smaller amounts, if you lose.
In terms of world flavor, criminals can mug random civilians for cash, rob stores for jewelry and steal cars. Turning in the stolen goods nets cash rewards and XP so even if they don't have a mission they can create random chaos. If they get spotted doing criminal activities their notoriety goes up. The higher their notoriety, the more likely an enforcer will be assigned to hunt you down. After a certain point, ALL enforcers can hunt you down and know where you are. You can pay to reduce notoriety or lay cool for awhile and it will go away.
On the flip side, enforcers earn prestige for being generally good at their job. The more criminals they stop, and missions they complete them ore prestige they earn. Like criminals, if they reach a certain prestige level, they become hunted by criminals. Killing civilians, or taking their cars, reduces your prestige.
Now in either case why would you want more prestige or notoriety? The higher either gets, the more rewards you get, more cash, more XP, faster you advance etc.
Keep in mind some of the charm in this game comes from the vehicles and vehicle fights. Cars have passengers and passengers can hang out the windows while you're driving and lay down fire on targets. Chase missions tend to cover the whole city with mass chaos ensuing if multiple group members are participating. Enforcers trying to catch criminals while avoiding running over pedestrians, or destroying civilian targets. Crims care a little less, except that if they are too wanton in their destruction their notoriety will peg and soon the whole city will be after them.
Is the game perfect? No. It's controls take a bit of getting used to. There is insane weapon imbalance. They followed the model of most shooter/mmo's and decided that progression comes through better guns. "Better" guns do more damage, have higher range, carry more ammo etc. Though what many people th ink is insane imbalance is just different weapons. Noobies can choose to spend their first $500 (easily obtained int he tutorial) on a rifle like weapon (single shot, long range, high damage), or a sub-machine gun, high rate of fire, lower damage per bullet, way better at close range. Getting pasted at 200 yds? Someone was using the rifle. Getting destroyed running around a corner? Someone was using the SMG. Death comes fast in APB, it can be annoying, but once you get over it, it's alright.
Graphically the game shines in player customization. What it may lack in environment perfection it makes up for in shear diversity of vehcile and player looks. However it takes real time to get good at making a unique character. Fortunately superb creations can be sold on the open market.
There are other neat touches that lack polish, like enofrcers earn more prestige for making arrests rather than killing a crook. Arrests require use of stun weapons (bean bag shotguns, tazers, etc) to stun the criminal then arrest them. Arrested crims can be freed by their friends so its not instant. But it is embarassing. And as a crim the first time you're stunned you're going to cry "Holy hell thats not fair!". Just realize one simple fact, if they got close enough to stun you, they would've killed you anyway. What's most annoying about being stunned is that control is taken away from you, thats why people bitch about it so much. If they just went straight to the respawn screen, I doubt they'd care how they were killed.
Crims can get stun weapons to, but they are rare and don't do much for them.
Beyond that, there's not much to the game. I t really is just a focused way to create conflict in a distinct pvp environment. It is %70 skill based and %30 equipment based. Opponents with better guns can be over come by superior tactics and group coordination. But this is not a traditional MMO, it's a massive Third-Person-Shooter with theme and context. Depending on how that makes you feel, will control whether you like the game or not.
Id have to say more like 60%weapon 40%skill.And some one with skill,with a upgraded weapon=major pane . The reason it needs the gun balance,New players/consumers-down the road. If some one picks this up in say 1-3 months everyones going to be running around with the Better guns,and its not going to be fun to JUST get killed over and over,til you can get one.
Id have to say more like 60%weapon 40%skill.And some one with skill,with a upgraded weapon=major pane . The reason it needs the gun balance,New players/consumers-down the road. If some one picks this up in say 1-3 months everyones going to be running around with the Better guns,and its not going to be fun to JUST get killed over and over,til you can get one.
The truth is the encounters are always unpredictable not to mention chaotic.
I must confess I have no skill at shooting, I've played mostly RPG's and strategy games. However, I get my fair share of kills.
Seems I do better at killing people with cars than with guns
The "fun" in this game is in the competitive spirit.
I think that must be why some people love the game, while others hate it. If you just look at the gameplay, minus that "competitive spirit" its rather mediocre and pointless. But if you enjoy the raw element of competition enough, that is the point, and that changes everything. I guess. I dunno, because "competitive spirit" doesn't do much for me personally. To such an extent that I completely overlook it when judging a game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
APB andi ts makers are buch of asses. wtf was the point of a "5 hours" test. I did it ofc come to find out somehting went wrong in the installaiton or patching becuase I wasnt able to customize the characters, details or anyhting. one of the buttons worked. and with 5 hours your forum acct isnt even active. so theres none you can tell or ASK wtf is going on. BTW paying per minute plan is bull*** for other games 1 payment of $9-$14 garuntees oyu the month. this thing wants money by the hours.. nice if you intented to i dunno. Never play it. but to pay out $50 and then have to pay pere minute. lol nah
On the mechanics side of things yep game was fun. but asinine pay methods and halfassed beta introduction left it in the dust.
? you could and can post on the forums, I have been since the kttc event.
The payment plan is pay $7 for 20 hours that don't expire and that time is only used when in the Action Districts, Social District is free OR you can pay $10 for 30 days of unlimited play time.
As far as creating your toon.... there was an advanced button you had to click at the bottom which opened up the menu to do so.
So.................................... I think your main issue was that you simply didn't read ANYTHING about the game lol.
The insane amount of fun it has. Where you have to find fun in other MMG titles. They got fun right first.
However, if you are not a shooter fan, you will not like this title, it has progression, but this is not an RPG in the traditional sense. Giant shoulder pads will not improve your skill with this game. Playing solo is also not advised.
Game is about PvP and the hilarity that comes with it, if you need quests and constant direction, this isn't a game for you, its not about the missions (though that one of the many ways to unlock things) its about what happens between point A and B.
I know that if you accustomed to bland gameplay that the point of is the reward (Wack a foozle), this will be a paradigm shift for you. Because the game isn't about the rewards, but the game play.
this game is about the gameplay??? what gameplay? you mean running around shooting with an aiming system from 1999? as for the "insane amount of fun" yes, for the first ten minutes... then it's just repeating the same actions over and over. Pretty great looking game, too bad they didn't create content for it. Yeah I'm on the side that won't be playing
To me the game should be more geared towards user created content. They have a great start on that already and having players as your enemy and not some asinine AI that bugs out all the time and simply can not provide much or a challenge or entertainment and becomes beyond predictable very quickly helps a ton.
Clan Warfare and an FFA district are supposed to be in soon which will just add to the game.
In any case, it's just pretty sweet that even with the game being instanced it has a lot more sandbox features than any other MMO out currently with very few exceptions. User made content is what I hope to see the most.
Yeah I agree that the focus on user created content has potential, but the game has to provide the necessary tools to make this content interesting and diverse, as it stands now APB does not. As a beta tester since the beggining i asked for more content, like gang warfare, street racing and FFA... didn't seem get much of a response at the time but I'm glad they are implementing these ideas now.
Comments
The "fun" in this game is in the competitive spirit. As an Enforcer, you'll be primarily taking missions to stop criminals from completing their objectives. One on one this game is marginal fun. The real beauty of APB comes from the way it pits Enforcers against Criminals in an elegant mission based PvP system. This brings players into conflict with each other organically rather than most of the artificial forms of PvP present in todays massive online games. Sure, ultimately it all boils down to objective based kill, defend or take missions but it's pretty thick with theme.
Criminals steal cars, raid other criminal locations, spray graffiti, mug civilians, set bombs etc. Enforcers tend to repair graffiti, return stolen cars, investigate criminal activity, hunt criminals with high notoriety and transport key evidence to secure locations. At any time during any of these missions an "enemy" could be assigned to stop you, and by "enemy" I mean another player.
You can auto assign to groups and its super easy to find your group members. The game encourages cooperative play, and there are several missions where coordinated team tactics works. Many missions have multiple simultaneous objectives, the faster you complete them the sooner you move on to the next objective and keep your opponents guessing as to what's next. Dying is only marginally annoying, losing a mission means fewer cash rewards and thats about it. You still get advancement though in smaller amounts, if you lose.
In terms of world flavor, criminals can mug random civilians for cash, rob stores for jewelry and steal cars. Turning in the stolen goods nets cash rewards and XP so even if they don't have a mission they can create random chaos. If they get spotted doing criminal activities their notoriety goes up. The higher their notoriety, the more likely an enforcer will be assigned to hunt you down. After a certain point, ALL enforcers can hunt you down and know where you are. You can pay to reduce notoriety or lay cool for awhile and it will go away.
On the flip side, enforcers earn prestige for being generally good at their job. The more criminals they stop, and missions they complete them ore prestige they earn. Like criminals, if they reach a certain prestige level, they become hunted by criminals. Killing civilians, or taking their cars, reduces your prestige.
Now in either case why would you want more prestige or notoriety? The higher either gets, the more rewards you get, more cash, more XP, faster you advance etc.
Keep in mind some of the charm in this game comes from the vehicles and vehicle fights. Cars have passengers and passengers can hang out the windows while you're driving and lay down fire on targets. Chase missions tend to cover the whole city with mass chaos ensuing if multiple group members are participating. Enforcers trying to catch criminals while avoiding running over pedestrians, or destroying civilian targets. Crims care a little less, except that if they are too wanton in their destruction their notoriety will peg and soon the whole city will be after them.
Is the game perfect? No. It's controls take a bit of getting used to. There is insane weapon imbalance. They followed the model of most shooter/mmo's and decided that progression comes through better guns. "Better" guns do more damage, have higher range, carry more ammo etc. Though what many people th ink is insane imbalance is just different weapons. Noobies can choose to spend their first $500 (easily obtained int he tutorial) on a rifle like weapon (single shot, long range, high damage), or a sub-machine gun, high rate of fire, lower damage per bullet, way better at close range. Getting pasted at 200 yds? Someone was using the rifle. Getting destroyed running around a corner? Someone was using the SMG. Death comes fast in APB, it can be annoying, but once you get over it, it's alright.
Graphically the game shines in player customization. What it may lack in environment perfection it makes up for in shear diversity of vehcile and player looks. However it takes real time to get good at making a unique character. Fortunately superb creations can be sold on the open market.
There are other neat touches that lack polish, like enofrcers earn more prestige for making arrests rather than killing a crook. Arrests require use of stun weapons (bean bag shotguns, tazers, etc) to stun the criminal then arrest them. Arrested crims can be freed by their friends so its not instant. But it is embarassing. And as a crim the first time you're stunned you're going to cry "Holy hell thats not fair!". Just realize one simple fact, if they got close enough to stun you, they would've killed you anyway. What's most annoying about being stunned is that control is taken away from you, thats why people bitch about it so much. If they just went straight to the respawn screen, I doubt they'd care how they were killed.
Crims can get stun weapons to, but they are rare and don't do much for them.
Beyond that, there's not much to the game. I t really is just a focused way to create conflict in a distinct pvp environment. It is %70 skill based and %30 equipment based. Opponents with better guns can be over come by superior tactics and group coordination. But this is not a traditional MMO, it's a massive Third-Person-Shooter with theme and context. Depending on how that makes you feel, will control whether you like the game or not.
Id have to say more like 60%weapon 40%skill.And some one with skill,with a upgraded weapon=major pane
. The reason it needs the gun balance,New players/consumers-down the road. If some one picks this up in say 1-3 months everyones going to be running around with the Better guns,and its not going to be fun to JUST get killed over and over,til you can get one.
The truth is the encounters are always unpredictable not to mention chaotic.
I must confess I have no skill at shooting, I've played mostly RPG's and strategy games. However, I get my fair share of kills.
Seems I do better at killing people with cars than with guns
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I think that must be why some people love the game, while others hate it. If you just look at the gameplay, minus that "competitive spirit" its rather mediocre and pointless. But if you enjoy the raw element of competition enough, that is the point, and that changes everything. I guess. I dunno, because "competitive spirit" doesn't do much for me personally. To such an extent that I completely overlook it when judging a game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
? you could and can post on the forums, I have been since the kttc event.
The payment plan is pay $7 for 20 hours that don't expire and that time is only used when in the Action Districts, Social District is free OR you can pay $10 for 30 days of unlimited play time.
As far as creating your toon.... there was an advanced button you had to click at the bottom which opened up the menu to do so.
So.................................... I think your main issue was that you simply didn't read ANYTHING about the game lol.
Yeah I agree that the focus on user created content has potential, but the game has to provide the necessary tools to make this content interesting and diverse, as it stands now APB does not. As a beta tester since the beggining i asked for more content, like gang warfare, street racing and FFA... didn't seem get much of a response at the time but I'm glad they are implementing these ideas now.