APB Reloaded to use unique skill assessment system

Gamersfirst has lifted the lid on some of the difficulties of balancing shooter gameplay with MMO mechanics in APB Reloaded, including how to assess players' skill and threat level.

The latest post on the APB Reloaded blog reports the new development team's shock at discovering the original All Points Bulletin contained virtually no skill assessment, despite relying heavily on matchmaking.

Instead, the game used a threat system to rank players by win streaks - regardless of the ranking of their opponents.

To counter this, Gamersfirst intend to introduce a new assessment process combining aspects of the Chess Rating, Xbox TrueSkill and Glicko systems.

Once grouped by skill level, players will be able to choose to visit higher-ranked districts to take on more challenging opponents, but will otherwise be corralled with similar-levelled players.

APB Reloaded is Gamersfirst's revamp of Realtime Worlds' failed MMO, All Points Bulletin. It's currently in a highly popular US closed beta and expected to go into open testing in the next quarter.

Thanks, Big Download.