The importance of newb weapons

[Raptor29aa]

Please hear me out before you hit reply and pillory me with insults. 

 

I was thinking about IA and it’s balance, and something occurred to me. Newbie weapons are important. Here’s what I mean, everybody looks for the biggest firepower granted in every match (their BFG). Newbie weapons are BFGs at little to no skill. And 90% of players complain about no skill BFGs.

But without these no skill BFGs the server would be a tiny group of skilled players and would never grow in number.

Let me explain with an example: John a new player joins the game and all the weapons are high skill BFGs. John a new player will die repeatedly and not enjoy the experience, nor take the time to gain the skill to use the high skill BFGs. Now, imagine if all the weapons are no skill BFGs, then John a new player will get bored, feeling he’s mastered the game.

Thus there should be some no skill BFGs, but with more high skilled BFGs.

 

I will use my experience as an example: The M202 Flash (delta force flamethrower weapon) was awesome, it became my BFG. Best newbie anti-infantry gun ever. I even killed a few very skilled players a few times (mostly just by suiciding). Yet once I gained more skill I leaned toward the FN 2000 from Patch or the Auto-Assault-12 from Logan. I have yet to gain enough skill to use Havoc or Sydney’s quick draw headshot. But if I didn’t have that newbie weapon that no skill BFG, I might’ve skipped over Interrim Apex completely.

Same goes for tanks! I was at first drawn to the mammoths (especially the 36inch), but now I am trying to master the Mirage tank or ADATS. Skill should not equal power at all the times. Instead I think combat is balanced when some weapons/tanks are no skill BFGs while others take 5% extra skill for 15% extra power.

And No I didn’t forget Nod; my first BFG was the Blackhand minigunner. Slowly I enjoyed Petrova / blackhand trooper, the Nod fanatic (wink wink), and as my skill goes up the soon the shock trooper, ravashaw, and Sakura’s headshot power. 

Same with Nod tanks! When I first started it was all about the Stealth tanks (especially the Ezekiel wheel tank) and as of recent I’ve started using the Stingray, Ontos, and the Tunguska.

 

Therefore: Low skill BFGs (Newb weapons) can also lead to fair imbalance. I say fair because for every character (A) that excels (and everyone then spams/uses) there will be a character (B) that will dethrone/excel against character (A). Then character (C) will out perform character (B) and so on. Eventually someone will realize Character (A) crushes character (Z) and the cycle will continue. Thus No character/tank is skilled at everything, and the game becomes unendingly interesting. If fair imbalance is done right everyone will complain and say “character A should get nerfed” until discovering character B will crush character A, and thus keeping a rolling cycle and strategy game alive.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited August 29, 2020 by Raptor29aa

[Dixman]

---RU---
также я хочу добавить то что у всего должно быть (counter pick) ну например у мамонта всех уровней это быстрые небольшие танки и пехотинец с metla gun 

---EN--google translate---
I also want to add something that everything should have (counter pick), for example, a mammoth of all levels has fast small tanks and an infantryman with a metla gun

[Threve]

14 hours ago, Raptor29aa said:

Any thoughts?

Everything you're saying is true and what IA is and makes it great.

What ends up happening is someone complains about X unit and instead of it getting a slight nerf or minor speed decrease it gets nerf'd into oblivion despite me answering said person on how to deal with the vehicle/character or a !poll being conducted to see what the whole entire server thinks.

Fair imbalance is what makes a game fun. The disappearance of fair imbalance in my belief results in an over reliance on teamwork and diminished strategies other than "We have to mass rush with teamwork, so that we have a overwhelming amount of units against enemies". This just makes you (or me) feel like a placeholder and leads to very boring gameplay.

[danpaul88]

Just FYI, white text on white background is rather hard to read 😏

[Guard55]

1 hour ago, Threve said:

What ends up happening is someone complains about X unit and instead of it getting a slight nerf or minor speed decrease it gets nerf'd into oblivion despite me answering said person on how to deal with the vehicle/character or a !poll being conducted to see what the whole entire server thinks.

The complaints typically roll in when they encounter a player with exceptional skill, or encounter an entire team of these guys. Somewhat like no one noticing the misses, but only noticing the hits. I've noticed that some players have a hard time distinguishing between the strength of the weapon vs the skill of the player. A good player can make anything seem OP. A below-average player can make the most OP weapons look mediocre. I never really had a problem with stealth Comanches when I found out how easy it was to kill them. In fact, it's criminally easy to destroy them that quickly.

 

I think part of the issue here is knowledge. If you aren't aware of weakspots, you won't take advantage of them.

[Raptor29aa]

1 hour ago, danpaul88 said:

Just FYI, white text on white background is rather hard to read 😏

Sorry about that, I originally posted in black, but then with my APB theme I could barely read it. Is there a setting best for all themes?

I also fully agree with Guard55

”I think part of the issue here is knowledge. If you aren't aware of weakspots, you won't take advantage of them”

Edited August 29, 2020 by Raptor29aa

[danpaul88]

If you don't set a font colour at all the forum picks a suitable one for each theme 👍