APB Info part One: Threat Level

**DamionRayne** · 06-28-2011, 11:00 PM

Greetings boys and girls playing APB, this is part one in an information update that goes over threat level and how it works in matchmaking, below will also be the images for each threat level.

So Question one is what is Threat Level? Simply put "Threat level" is your "skill" based on Wins vs Losses on missions and missions only. Anything outside a mission will not affect your threat level. There are 3 tiers of threat for both Enforcers and Criminals, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each tier has 10 ranks and one must advance to rank 10 with in each threat treat to progress to the following tree. Each rank with in each tree represents that the player has a higher skill level, thus a Bronze 8 is not as good as a Silver 2. How does the game use the matchmaking system introduced by G1 in regards to Threat level?

The answer is this, the game uses your current "prestige/notoriety" , "Threat Level" and number of people in your group to "attempt" to match you against a team of people that is roughly equal to you in skill, p/n levels and size. It's not always possible as population of players with in a district can affect this as well. If a team is obviously out-matched, say 4 bronze crims vs 4 silver Enforcers, the game automatically compensates by allowing the crims and only the crims to call in back up. Now this can get out of hand, as the game will let the crims call in back up, then determine the enforcers are outmatched and allow them to do the same. Now a "backup Request" doesn't factor in with the matchmaking system as much as a normal match, as the game will "seek" for any "ready" players and call them in as backup regardless of N/P and Threat Level. It does attempt to find people of equal skill, but if it can't it ignores these rules and just pulls in anyone it can get.

Below is the Enforcer Threat Level Icon List

Below is the Criminal Threat Level Icon List,

Use this to help you see what level of skill your enemies are and react accordingly.

-DR

**Zenchi** · 07-02-2011, 06:45 PM

Only the crims can call in backup? I seem to recall the opposing side can also call for it. I don't know where you got that info. Below is info directly from a APB Dev.

Originally Posted by Devblog

Matchmaking and Threat:

APB doesn't use your traditional gaming matchmaking mechanics. The closest comparison I can come to is actually the handicap system in Golf. Generally the system is attempting to make you win 50% of the time, regardless of your skill level, to give each side of the match a fun experience. If you are very good at the game, it tries to match you with equally skilled players, and if it can't find them, it matches you against larger numbers of lower skilled players or lesser numbers of higher skilled players (or calls in backup for you if you are over-matched). When explained like this, you can see why determining your skill level based on mission win percentage becomes a little bit silly. In addition to this, the entire idea of determining skill based on win percentage is pretty mental. If you are at the skill level that we call Threat 13 for instance, you should be winning about half your missions against other Threat 13 opponents. But 50% win ratio is what the current system thinks Threat 6 is, so it'll lower you Threat. This leads to players bouncing around a bit too much, and is something we need to sort out. There is currently quite a bit of internal debate about this issue. One camp favors using the Chess-algorithm analogues (ie you move in rank a lot early on, but as you approach your true skill level the swings moderate considerably). Alternatively we are looking at using a non-historical system that determines your mission score (something we actually calculate at the moment, but is not shown to players, more on this later), and using this in comparison to other members of the mission to determine any changes to heat level. It's a fairly complex change, so something that will need tested extensively once it's in.

**DamionRayne** · 07-02-2011, 07:10 PM

I should have cleared this up a bit more, I was using the Crims as an Example during a single match, the system can "slide" letting both sides call in back up. as it attempts to even the field out.