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OTW MATCHMAKING TEST 05/23

3:29am

Attention APB:Reloaded players!

Join us on OTW tomorrow, 05/23/2024, at 6 PM UTC for a crucial matchmaking test that will last for one hour. We need your participation to test our new matchmaking code and help identify any instability issues. The more players we have, the more effective our testing will be. Your involvement is essential, and we greatly appreciate your support in logging in and assisting us during this critical phase.

For this test please create a Character on OTW’s “NA Test” World!

Your participation makes a difference! Let's make this test a success together! Here are the notes for Matchmaking Improvement:

With this build, we have deployed new code based on the existing matchmaking functionality on Live.
Matchmaking has been moved from the World server to operate on its own dedicated Matchmaking server.
Matchmaking will only function in the same district - at least for now.
Backup is once again offered in cases in which the Matchmaker has to create an uneven Match and will add one player to each team trying to increase the overall Match quality to make it more even.
In evenly matched missions both Team Leaders are now offered the option to “Escalate” the mission. If both Team leaders put in a request to escalate players will be added to both teams up to a maximum of 20 players per side. Team leaders will need to agree to Escalate the mission further each time new players are added to the mission.
Fixed an issue related to Backup/Escalation calls that caused the matchmaker to be bottlenecked during the playtest on Sun. May 19.

If you haven't yet! Make sure to grab the OTW client[apb.patch.ot.gamersfirst.com] and download it ahead of time so that you can participate.

APB Reloaded

OTW MATCHMAKING TEST 05/19

May 18

Hello everyone!

Join us on OTW tomorrow, 05/19/2024, at 6 PM UTC for a crucial matchmaking test that will last for one hour. We need your participation to test our new matchmaking code and help identify any instability issues. The more players we have, the more effective our testing will be. Your involvement is essential, and we greatly appreciate your support in logging in and assisting us during this critical phase.

For this test, please create a Character on OTW’s “NA Test” World!

Your participation makes a difference! Let's make this test a success together! Here are the notes for Matchmaking Improvement:

With this build, we have deployed new code based on the existing matchmaking functionality on Live.
Matchmaking has been moved from the World server to operate on its own dedicated Matchmaking server.
Matchmaking will only function in the same district - at least for now.
Backup is once again offered in cases in which the Matchmaker has to create an uneven Match and will add one player to each team trying to increase the overall Match quality to make it more even.
In evenly matched missions both Team Leaders are now offered the option to “Escalate” the mission. If both Team leaders put in a request to escalate players will be added to both teams up to a maximum of 20 players per side. Team leaders will need to agree to Escalate the mission further each time new players are added to the mission.

If you haven't yet! Make sure to grab the OTW client[apb.patch.ot.gamersfirst.com] and download it ahead of time so that you can participate.

See you there!

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AMA recap

May 5

Where has Matt been?

Matt has been engaged with a special Fallen Earth project funded by a 3rd party investor. Unfortunately, the project was way behind in its deliverables due to technical implementation issues, and has spent the last 4 months course correcting the project.
Soon, Matt aims to lower his development involvement on this project so he can get back to working on other games such as APB and Unsung Story.

Fallen Earth Update:

The back-end rewrite is close to being done.
The servers are running on an Operating system that is no longer supported and has problems that make the servers slow down over time.
There is a core issue which is requiring the servers to be manually restarted which needs to be addressed.

Decline in the Gaming Industry:

The gaming industry is experiencing a decline. As such, many companies are being forced to reduce staff and Little Orbit is in the same situation.
Little Orbit has shifted resources to move a previous APB Engineer back on APB. Currently, there are 3 dedicated resources with 3 other support staff.

APB

Easy Anti-Cheat:

The game has had various Anti-cheats solutions in the past, Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat has previously worked the best.
LIttleOrbit worked with Epic as a beta partner to help them improve Easy Anti-Cheat which unfortunately led to multiple issues including false-positive bans.
The Easy Anti-Cheat ban-appeal user experience was bad due to the lack of communication between Easy Anti-Cheat and the Players, leading players to think the system was broken.
There will be an unban-wave to address the false-positive bans. (More details on what the unban-wave is going to look like sooner to when it happens)
We’re looking into other solutions to move away from Easy Anti-Cheat but are still investigating our options.

Mirage:

Matt did a majority of the work on Mirage. He is aware of the issues, which are not difficult to fix, and will return to the project once he is able.

Matchmaking:

Matt considers Matchmaking as one of the biggest issues APB faces and therefore puts it at the highest possible priority.
Matt is proud of the system when it works but there are issues in its current state. When the system works, the overall match quality is better than the previous system, however, it needs improvements.
Running matches on the World Server rather than on each individual District server was needed for future improvements such as Cross-district matchmaking. However, this has introduced instability to the World server which isn’t ideal.
Since the release of Matchmaking the development efforts were shifted to move the code from running on the World server to its own, exclusive Matchmaking server. This effort is close to being done and the goal is to test it on OTW in the coming weeks.
There are edge cases in the algorithm when players fail to match.
After the initial stability issues of Phase 1 of the new Matchmaking system were worked out, we collected a lot of good feedback regarding backup and we are addressing these issues. We know the Backup UI is confusing and has some bugs.
Matt does not want to get rid of the Faction system for Mission districts, there are better solutions to fixing Matchmaking issues related to lower population.
Matchmaking has always struggled to match high MMR players, especially now that asymmetrical missions are no longer a thing, we are looking into ways of solving this.

Server Merge:

The merge was tested internally and it had a lot of issues.
There is not going to be a server merge, instead, we pivoted to the Cross-district matchmaking solution which will enable players from different worlds to play in any district regardless of region.
Conflicting names between servers are an issue and we plan on having a Discord-like solution that will let players with duplicate names from different servers be easily identified.
We still plan on releasing inactive names, however, doing so now would cause issues in the future so we are waiting on the right time to release all of the inactive names.

Content:

The new contacts are still being itemized, Matt was not happy with the previous plans for them.
Some content may be added to previous contacts retroactively.
The Joker Store is an ongoing project and we are committed to adding more things to the Joker Store when we can.
Internally, we’ve had great discussions regarding balance, focusing on buffs to very underutilized weapons that nobody plays.
Players get frustrated when the game is facing issues such as Matchmaking not working and our focus is on Balance passes so we are looking for the right time to do them.
New guns are a cool idea but we would like to make many of the existing guns more compelling first.

First-Time User Experience:

The tutorial tells you how the basic mechanics work, but does not tell you how APB works which is a massive issue. It is a high priority to look at and fix but not as high on the list as Matchmaking.
Getting PvE into APB is a mess but it would be amazing to have as a way to teach new players.
We are considering a mode for newer players that lets them shoot any weapon in the game in a shooting range while also providing them with more information such as damage numbers while they are within that district.

Consoles:

Microsoft and Sony do not allow games to be transferred from one publisher to another which has led Little Orbit and Plaion to mutually agree to shut down the console versions.
Once the console versions are fully shut down in September, we have full control over the console versions.
Console ports of the PC versions are likely what is going to be submitted to Microsoft and Sony when we are ready to publish the game on consoles again.
Resubmitting the current console versions is not going to work.
Controller support is being looked at.
Previously Little Orbit had to submit builds to Koch Media which ended up never submitting those builds to Microsoft/Sony due to QA reasons.

VOIP:

Reloaded had a contract with Vivox that expired some time ago which prompted Vivox to shut down the servers.
VOIP is important for a game like APB and made Console APB special.
We want to bring back VOIP, however, doing so requires a new version of Vivox to be implemented which is time-consuming.

APB Priorities: Marketing:

Marketing is still on our Radar, however, there are key points that need to be addressed first such as Matchmaking, Anti-Cheat, and new Content such as the new Contacts.

Misc:

APB can’t be upgraded to Unreal 4/5 though PBR (Physically based rendering) may be possible in the future as well as improvements to APB’s post-processing effects such as some of the original shaders.
Adding more developers to a project doesn’t mean it’ll speed up development, especially when working on complex things such as Matchmaking.
Griefing is still on our list of things to look at and fix.
Translations are heavily outdated - We are considering running our English translations through systems to generate European and Russian translations for players to use - The Russian translation is still supported but outdated.
The Trade-lock system should be better at telling players what they were Trade-locked for.
Most players that are permanently Trade-locked did something and are Trade-locked for a reason such as credit card fraud.
Improvements to the Inventory need to happen.
There’s a lot of documentation on how to make Waterfront a better district.
The Clan system needs an overhaul.
There should be a colorblind mode, however, messing with APB’s colors could introduce new issues.
A way to officially support arranged matches between players is something we would like to support in the future.
The bug that causes characters to slide at high FPS is still on our radar to fix.

Unsung Story

Matt hasn’t given up on the game.
Unsung has a huge upgrade to what is offered internally, about 80% of what was shared publicly is implemented.
Unsung remains a priority on our roadmap.

Customer Support:

LittleOrbit moved away from Zendesk on April 25, 2024 to Zoho which provides more features & flexibility for our current needs.
APB Reloaded customer support has to work with 14-year-old tools which can lead to easier tasks taking more time than usual to resolve.
Recently response times have gone up, we are sorry about this. However, we are committed to solving player issues.

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CHAT WITH MATT! APRIL 16TH 6PM UTC

Apr 13

We are thrilled to announce that our CEO, Matt Scott, will be hosting an AMA session on April 16th at 6 PM UTC on https://www.twitch.tv/littleorbit! This is a fantastic opportunity to ask Matt anything about anything you are you're curious about.

Make sure to mark your calendars and join us for this exciting event. We can't wait to see you there!

If you have any questions you'd like to submit in advance, please feel free to post them in this thread. We'll also be taking live questions during the AMA.

See you on the 16th!

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UNVALENTINE PATCH ANNOUNCEMENT

Feb 27

Hello everyone,

A new patch is going up onto the Live servers. This patch will be happening on Wednesday 2/28/2024. The patch is scheduled to start at 9 AM UTC[dateful.com] and will last up to 10 hours.

PC CHANGES/FIXES

The Valentines day event has come to an end.
Fixed a bug with backup permutation creation creating far less amounts of combinations than it should.
Slightly optimized standard permutation creation by removing the shuffle of available players, since this may be causing erratic wait times for players during same-district matching.
Added an experimental "Low population mode" that activates once the world server of a region is below a certain amount of players and should allow players to get opposition after waiting for a certain period of time regardless of match quality.
Fixed a potential district server crash.
Fixed an issue that caused the OBIR JT3 to disappear from the JT store and reward mails.

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APB Reloaded Console Sunset

Jan 16

Dear APB Reloaded Console Community,

After careful consideration and evaluation of various factors, Little Orbit and PLAION have decided to sunset APB Reloaded on console platforms. This decision was not made lightly, and we understand that it may come as disappointing news to our dedicated console players who have waited patiently for upgrades and fixes to the game.

The decision to discontinue APB Reloaded on consoles was driven by a combination of technical challenges, resource constraints, and the evolving landscape of gaming. We want to ensure that our players have the best possible gaming experience, and unfortunately, sustaining the game on console platforms has proven increasingly challenging.

For Xbox players, we previously experienced issues preventing players from making any purchases, but we were able to keep the servers online. Unfortunately, you will have noticed that APB Xbox is currently experiencing technical issues, and the game is currently offline. Unfortunately, we are now unable to bring the game back online.
For PlayStation 4 players, we will begin the sunset phase starting February 1st through August 2nd. As of February 1st, we will be disabling all monetization for these players. This wasn't an easy decision, and we understand the impact it has on our gaming community, but it was unavoidable.

As a small consolation, we have created the ability for console players to migrate their characters to PC. APB Reloaded will continue to be available and supported on the PC platform. We encourage console players who wish to continue their APB Reloaded experience to consider joining the PC community.

For Xbox players, you can start migrating your characters to APB Reloaded on PC immediately at https://gamersfirst.com/apb/news/2024/1/2/xbox-console-2024
For PlayStation 4 players, the migration page is not ready yet, but on February 1 you will also be able to start migrating your characters to APB Reloaded on PC. Instructions will be at https://gamersfirst.com/apb/news/2024/1/2/ps4-console-2024

We want to express our sincere gratitude to the APB Reloaded console community for the creativity, dedication, and support you have shown over the years. We are here to support you through this transition, and our customer service team is available for any questions or concerns you might have.

You can reach support at: https://support.gamersfirst.com or can email support@gamersfirst.com

Thank you for being a part of the APB Reloaded community. We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we navigate these changes.

Sincerely,

Matthew Scott CEO

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Holiday Event and Sale - Exciting Updates from Little Orbit!

Dec 19, 2023

Holiday Event & The Beacon Returns

Mark your calendars! Our exciting holiday events and exclusive offers begin on December 21st at 5 PM UTC and will run until January 10th at 5 PM UTC.

We're thrilled to announce the return of The Beacon and its 3 iconic Holiday events (starting December 20th)! This festive season, you have the opportunity to earn a plethora of Joker Tickets and new Titles. Prepare for some festive fun and competitive spirit with these exciting events:

Holiday Event Titles:

Thundersnow
Winter Storm
Stargazer

Plus, our GMs will be joining in over the Holidays at random times with the Hohohopgl Minigame in Financial/Waterfront for added enjoyment!

Vehicle Changes:

Charge Cisco Buffs:

We've significantly upgraded the Charge Cisco, enhancing its base health and weight for improved pushing power and resilience.
Base Health: Increased from 980 to 1150.
Weight: Now 140% heavier, adding to its sturdiness.

Weapon Changes:

Norseman Balance Changes:

We've fine-tuned the Norseman series weapons, aligning their stats with SMG standards and reducing the delay between shots so their modifications can ramp-up faster.

Base Norseman Buffs:

Base Accuracy: Improved from 34 to 33.
Fire Interval: Reduced from 0.079s to 0.074s.
Recovery per Second: Enhanced from 6.33 to 7.1.
Equip Time: Decreased from 1.2s to 0.9s

Norseman Modification Changes:

Tyr Special: No longer increases base recoil. Now also decreases equip time by 39% on top of its existing benefit of decreasing recoil per shot.
Minor Tyr Special: No longer increases base recoil. Now also decreases equip time by 26% on top of its existing benefit of decreasing recoil per shot.
Hoenir Specials: No longer increase base reload time. Modifications descriptions updated.
Hel Specials: No longer decrease base accuracy. Modifications descriptions updated.

Massive Sale on Armas

Don't miss out on the massive sale on Armas (starting 21 Dec), featuring discounts on Weapon skins, Character services, Joker Tickets, Packs, and individual weapons in the discounted packs! Look for these special discounted items marked with a unique icon on the ARMAS Marketplace!

Items Discounted for 15% Include:

Joker Tickets
Key to the City
Character service: Character name change, Additional character slot
Exciting packs: Army of Fr0G’s Bundle, Water & Air Bundle, Valhalla’s Chosen, Pack of Revelations Pass, Juggernaut Strike Pack, Enforcer and Criminal Firehawk Kit + Vehicle, Schoolgirl Pack
Weapons: FR0G ‘Kokoe’, FR0G ‘Rocket’, FR0G ‘Thumbnail’, SWARM ‘Killer Bee’, Joker CR-5, N-HVR 762 ‘DVAH’, OCA-626 ‘Whisper’ PR2
Skins: Kabuki Skin Collection, Rainbow Skin Pack, Red Casino Skins Pack, Black Casino Skins Pack, Casino Skin Collection, Surprise and Venom Set, Gold Weapon Skin

Happy Holidays from Little Orbit

We are ending 2023 with a bang! We hope these updates enhance your gameplay experience and bring balance to the game. As we celebrate this festive season, we extend our warmest wishes. Enjoy the new content, improvements, and the happy gaming.

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OTW TESTING TODAY!

Nov 28, 2023

This will be a short notice! We would like to invite you all to join us today on OTW for another match making test, starting at 7PM UTC and lasting for an hour.

As we are looking into the instability issue with the new match making code, the more players that can get on the better will the testing go. So we ask of all of you if possible to log on to help us with this testing!

Here are the notes for Matchmaking Improvement:

With this build, we have deployed new code based on the existing matchmaking functionality on Live. We have changed the way data is interpreted, used, and calculated with multiple players, but the underlying individual skill rating formulas are the same.
Matchmaking has been moved from District to World.
Matchmaking will only function in the same district - at least for now. We plan on expanding matchmaking to function cross-district within the next coming weeks.
Attempting to ready up cross-district will fail without any errors. This is a known issue and we are tracking it.
Threat is visible for testing purposes, but may disappear in the future once we are certain the build works as intended and we have proper analytics to ensure our players are always getting the highest quality matches.
Backup is disabled for this build and will not function. This will be added in a future deployment.
Unopposed missions are no longer present in this build, and all missions are instantly opposed.
Team alliance is non-functional and will be re-implemented.
The matchmaker will no longer attempt to make matches that are unequal in size. You will be matched exactly according to initial mission sizes - 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4.
Fight Club, Social and Minigame Districts will be unaffected by these changes and are outside the scope of our testing. However, they may be present.

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Friday test on OTW!

Nov 14, 2023

Hello everyone!

Last week we had Open Test World open to everyone. And with such short notice, we thank everyone that participated and reported the issues to us! It has helped us tremendously.

Our developer has been very hard at work and has fixed all of the issues that our community has reported and so, this Friday once again starting ay 7PM GMT, we would like to invite you all again to join us in testing matchmaking!

If you have not yet, make sure to grab the OTW client and download it ahead of time so that you can participate: http://apb.patch.ot.gamersfirst.com/APB_OTW_Installer.exe

If you were not part of last week here are the notes that are part of the testing:
Matchmaking Improvements:

With this build, we have deployed new code based on the existing matchmaking functionality on Live. We have changed the way data is interpreted, used, and calculated with multiple players, but the underlying individual skill rating formulas are the same.
Matchmaking has been moved from District to World.
Matchmaking will only function in the same district - at least for now. We plan on expanding matchmaking to function cross-district within the next coming weeks.
Attempting to ready up cross-district will fail without any errors. This is a known issue and we are tracking it.
Threat is visible for testing purposes, but may disappear in the future once we are certain the build works as intended and we have proper analytics to ensure our players are always getting the highest quality matches.
Backup is disabled for this build and will not function. This will be added in a future deployment.
Unopposed missions are no longer present in this build, and all missions are instantly opposed.
Team alliance is non-functional and will be re-implemented.
The matchmaker will no longer attempt to make matches that are unequal in size. You will be matched exactly according to initial mission sizes - 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4.
Fight Club, Social and Minigame Districts will be unaffected by these changes and are outside the scope of our testing. However, they may be present.

See you all there!

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OTW testing! Everyone is invited!

Nov 9, 2023

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the short notice, however...

We'd like to invite you all to a test on our Open Test World (OTW) tomorrow, at 4pm GMT to test a significant update to how matchmaking is handled in APB: Reloaded.

This test will last about 8 to 12 hours.

OTW Download link: http://apb.patch.ot.gamersfirst.com/APB_OTW_Installer.exe

We know that the upcoming matchmaking functionality in our roadmap is needed, and for the last several months, the changes to matchmaking have been our top priority.

So, we'd like to invite folks to our Open Test World to ensure the upcoming build works as intended before we deploy it to live.

Below are a brief list of changes that will be present in the matchmaking build:

Matchmaking Improvements:

With this build, we have deployed new code based on the existing matchmaking functionality on Live. We have changed the way data is interpreted, used, and calculated with multiple players, but the underlying individual skill rating formulas are the same.
Matchmaking has been moved from District to World.
Matchmaking will only function in the same district - at least for now. We plan on expanding matchmaking to function cross-district within the next coming weeks.
Attempting to ready up cross-district will fail for the time being.
Threat is visible for testing purposes, but may disappear in the future once we are certain the build works as intended and we have proper analytics to ensure our players are always getting the highest quality matches.
Backup is disabled for this build and will not function. This will be added in a future deployment.
Unopposed missions are no longer present in this build, and all missions are instantly opposed.
Team alliance is non-functional and will be re-implemented.
The matchmaker will no longer attempt to make matches that are unequal in size. You will be matched exactly according to initial mission sizes - 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4.
Fight Club, Social and Minigame Districts will be unaffected by these changes and are outside the scope of our testing. However, they may be present.

We hope to see you there!

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