Hey NotDMB, I see you've put quite some time and effort in writing this down, so i'll try my best to give a proper reply back, giving my own input in this whole matter. I won't necessarily discuss the points you made, I'm just giving my own input. I'm not gonna give input on all the characters, some are too unnoteworthy, and others i'm not experienced enough in to judge.
100 credits infantry: (TL;DR: there is a price disrepancy here but most of the units *use, not price*, are justified for several niche purposes)
GDI home guard/Nod red tide rifleman: I friggen love this beast of a unit. has a very situational rocket launcher. great splash, respectable damage vs. everything but heavy armour, has *five* sticky bombs, and can throw them far enough to avoid mines in some cases to hit the MCT, of which it needs only 4 to kill a building! did I say it has a sweet ass carbine too?
GDI/Nod officer: it has a hitscan chaingun... I mean, the fact that it's hitscan makes it worth something, right...? mweh..
GDI/Nod grenadier... well... yeah it's too cheap. huge mag size, does too much against even higher class infantry. *ahem* NERF INCENDIARY GRENADES kthnx.
GDI/Nod base crew... you know what, I would make this guy run faster than the default rifleman, as it's completely useless everywhere outside a tank. at least let it navigate the map quickly with the pea shooter of a pistol and single timed C4 it has.
200-300 credits infantry: (TL;DR: this is such a mixed bag of troopers/infantry, it's honestly quite weird how all of these cost 200...)
GDI/Nod rocket soldier: Remember how the secondary fire used to home to infantry.... hey, it's fair that this is nerfed. But wait... the range has been massively nerfed on top of that too...? ...Why? This literally leaves GDI with *no* longrange anti-tank measures for infantry, barring gunner's highly inaccurate rocket launcher. What the hell?
GDI designated grenadier: I should be fucking paid to use this diahorrea spurt of a weapon. It has *no* impact damage, only explosive damage. I tested this thing, got a direct hit on the rear of an M113 APC 4 times, dealing 9 damage... I had to hit the weakspot of a flame tower twice to even gain a single point... What. The. Fuck???
GDI delta force soldier/Nod Red tide firetrooper: Uh. Hello powercreep.
Nod Anti Tank rifleman: This thing has a scope and honestly without it, this thing would be a lot less useful. Sniping the viewport of a turret is such a bitch and it's the only way to deal a considerable amount of damage to most defences, and that's what I mainly use it for. Sniping weakpoints of weak targets is too difficult unless you have a safe vantage point to fire from.
Nod flame trooper: I'll be honest, this thing is stronger than the 300 credit, backpack variant. Such a short range weapon forces you to get close and this thing is significantly faster than the other. that alone makes it worth it, but not necessarily powerful. I haven't properly tested yet how well it fares against different kinds of armour so I won't mention that.
Nod fanatics: fuck off... "Oh no, an enemy is outgunning me and I can't kill him with normal weapons! OH no, an infantry rush is coming from the tunnels? FUCK YOU, HAHAHAHAHA"
400-600 credits infantry:
Snipers: their firing range, especially when upgraded, is *biiiiiiig*. And the only one I would ever use is the ballistic sniper because it's the only one that can realistically kill sentries/gun emplacements without being spotted as it leaves no tracers. Anti-materiel snipers in this game are so irrelevant... and you know what, that's fine by me because I hate snipers anyhow.
Black hand troopers: The melta soldier should *actually* be unable to drive a tank, and have its gun buffed as a compromise. The old melta trooper was fine if it wasn't able to drive tanks imo. The laser chaingunner, I guess it's fine? I don't care too much about this thing. The armour is pretty sweet but imo that makes the field engineer quite powerful considering the price. The elite (and patch) has a kickass rifle and has two timed C4, I love this thing! Honestly I think their pricing is fair throughout. SBH should not be able to pick up weapons however...
Gunner: Same with the melta soldier, it should not be able to drive tanks... but if that's the case, I would give it a little bit more armour in return.
1k credits infantry:
Ramjets: I don't see a problem here tbh. it costs 1000 credits to get one and should be rather decent in return.
Personal Ion cannon: It has a scope, is hitscan and is 100% accurate, heck yes! I can actually snipe weakspots with this!
Railgun: But this thing can't snipe weakspots aswell because of a lack of a scope... but the alternate fire's grenade launcher has a massive range, the projectile is almost impossible to spot and deals kickass damage, I loooove this thing! It's a pocket Carl Gustav, does more need to be said??
Mobius suits: Is it fair that a unit like this makes sydney/mobious such a great allrounder, and has improved armour aswell? It should be able to do everything, you know... I like one of the ideas Kaskins talked about today with me, that it should start with no armour but have it rapidly regenerate. EMPing would reduce the armour to 0. Personally I would make it so it has less armour, has it regenerate when it's not taking damage, and have EMP grenades damage the armour too, not flatout bringing it to 0.
Sappers/pioneers: Uhh... Sometimes they're far too powerful, at other times they just waste a lot of money. It all depends on how open the map is. I don't agree with the notion that tanks blow up emplacements easily, because you need to get to the emplacements first, and that's the hard part. Usually they're placed for defensive measures, if a pioneer decides to build some in the field, he's just being silly. Sentries and emplacements in corridors just don't work... Maybe a railgun emplacement works because it provides burst damage. Or a goliath just drives into a tunnel and blows everything up...
Here's my suggestion, and I've forwarded this to kaskins already. Sentries and emplacements should be able to run out of ammo. By placing an ammo crate nearby, that you have to pay for to resupply with ammo, all the emplacements and sentries will be automatically refilled with ammo up to a certain point. By paying, let's say 500, you could refill the ammo crate by X amount which allows for X amount of magazines' worth in refilling. Now, sentries and emplacements can run out of ammo and need proper maintenance to remain effective. Too many times people place a couple of sentries near a ladder, making it absolutely pointless to climb it. That's broken.
That's infantry and sappers for now. I don't even wanna discuss tanks because fucking hell, this game is such a shitfest when it comes to them, and some of the horrible map design only exacerbates their issues. You know what this server needs? A 20 player limit. Anything above that and I want to hit my head on a desk, repeatedly.
Either way, let's give it a try:
MBT's are so. fucking. boring. What happened to the slow shell speed? Dodging shells is impossible now. Remember fighting a medium in a light tank in vanilla renegade? That's the gameplay I yearn for. Reading the opponent, careful angling to maneuver properly, keeping distance or getting close, counting their reload time and see if they jerk their turret just before they fire, so you can adjust properly... Man that was the real deal. All you do now is shoot... get hit... the most expensive MBT wins... oh wait I'm wrong actually, you are supposed to die I guess because of some guided missiles, banshee, infrared tank, neverending machinegun fire from a high flying chopper, or other broken unit or mechanic...
The peony and 36 inch mammoth should be treated as a superweapon and there should only be a purchase limit of 1 for them. Screw ruining other's fun by not being able to drive them, I want a playable game. in return I would make the 36 incher's gun slightly more accurate.
Can someone please design a plugin that permanently bans artillery players that damage buildings, from their own hill that is fucking 3 millimeters beyond their own base so it's not considered B2B? the person who thinks that is fine should shove a peony's barrel up their ass and play with it during the entire game because that's how it feels to get camped by a salmonella turd of an arty player. But you know what, I shouldn't complain because it's just the bad map design that allows for this, right? Yeahhhhh, let's just screw everyone else's fun by designing maps to prevent b2b, because a few individuals decide it's fun to cum all over the enemy with their ridicilous splash damage. Thanks for further limiting our map design options!
Tanks that I would, according to my own opinion, remove entirely from the game:
Gap generator
Goliath
Tanks that i would, according to my own opinion, rework significantly:
The M270 MRLS needs its faster deploy time back, but also give it weaker missiles in return, so the reload time can be reduced to keep the DPM the same. now the deploy mechanic can't be abused to reload faster.
Strykers need a faster reverse speed. A tank that can get destroyed by a single salvo of plasma beams from a banshee should at least be able to get out of the enemy line of fire quickly, especially considering its price, don't you think? the ATGM's missile arc also needs to be improved, the thing should be able to shoot aircraft but they would still screw you over because your missiles don't curve enough. Same with a load of guided missiles honestly.
the SIDAM should get its accurate gun back considering how pricey it is now.
the Infrared stealth tank should have a charge time on its 'big beam' so it can't screw unsuspecting tanks over so ridicilously easy.
please give either the M113 HMVS or the hover MLRS a longer firing range.... please?
the AMX 13 90 and FV4005 needs an improved suspension, currently it's almost impossible to aim on the move, and you're usually forced to turn your tank constantly in a gun fight.
The FV4005 needs either an improved sandbag armour, or a faster deploy time. In its current state it's laughable...
The GCT 155mm should have an abysmal turret rotation speed considering how not only armoured it is, but also for simply having a turret at all... I mean... does the hellcat ring a bell?
Can the Daimler be made slightly smaller? Or if that isn't acceptable, at least a bit faster? Nod infiltrators and goliaths have it so easy in comparison to drive in tunnels, simply because they either have tracks or are smaller... having wheels on that thing is such a massive drawback for maneuvering tight spaces...
Well... that's all for now from me. there's more to discuss but i'd rather keep it at this.
