[TourGuide]

Upgrades in APB are a really contentious issue. We see plenty of criticism from you guys in the community that they really unbalance the game. Some people think they should be removed entirely and others think the system is okay as it is and players should “just out-skill them”. We think we can come up with a few critical additions that change the nature of upgrades in the game so they are less overpowered and at the same time more useful.


The Problem
Upgrades and in particular combinations of Upgrades significantly alter weapon balance. The key culprits seem to be:

• ‘Savage’ and ‘Spray and Pray’ on the weapons.
• ‘Monolith’ and ‘Survivor’ on the characters.

Almost all characters that can, run with these Upgrades equipped. Not only does it create balance issues it also means some of the other Upgrades tend not to get a look in.

The Beta players will also remember the old values for Upgrades. They were much more powerful! We made them considerably weaker for launch and this has had a positive effect in retaining more game balance. It’s not solved the problem though as the feedback has shown. We need to do more. So what will we do about it?


The Proposed Solution
We are currently discussing grouping Upgrades together into several categories as well as adding in a more Upgrades to increase player choice.

Upgrade categories will prevent less desirable choices being made. You will have to choose between ‘Savage’ or ‘Spray and Pray’ but cannot equip both. This effectively lowers the advantage that can be gained through statistical increases. It also means players will get to choose Upgrades from the other categories which should promote a more nuanced, less power-hungry approach to Upgrade selection. The exact design of this system is still being decided upon although it’s likely we’ll include a couple of specialist categories and allow you to equip a number of generic Upgrades.

We are also coming up with a range of new Upgrades to add into the game. Our primary focus is to give our community new tactical tools rather than straight statistical benefits. These will fit into the group categories so that player choice will be more interesting still. Will you take the added power of ‘Savage’ or an Upgrade that enables you and your team to get the drop on your opponent? On top of this we’re looking at new Upgrades to deal with some common complaints around LTL weapons and new Upgrades for our jazzed up Combat experience.

We’ll continue to expand the range of available Upgrades in the future to allow players to further refine their tactical toolbox.


Other Concerns
What do we do with old weapons? At the moment we are considering a few options. Preset weapons will be automatically adjusted but the community have a large number of custom weapons already. Our current thoughts are along the lines of:

• Grandfather them in so there will always be a pool of increasingly rare ‘uber’-guns available. This is obviously unfair to players without these guns but is the smallest change we could possibly make.
• Pop out the upgrades back into the players’ inventory and let them rebuild those weapons. There are a number of technical issues with the Locker size that make this a tricky proposition and it might be a headache for you to do.
• Remove all Upgrades from your customised weapons and give you the cash equivalent. This lets you re-buy the Upgrades that you actually need as well as purchase a few new ones. It also stops you being left out of pocket or forced into lots of fiddling about selling old Upgrades and buying new ones