Balance

[Netphreak]

yes. the myth of absolute balance makes any game boring and bland, where everything is essentially the same with a different skin. that's why different mechanics are much more important. some things just can't be properly balanced. they need to be taken into consideration when looking at the current meta game. you can't easily balance a claw of bear vs. a silent hunter. it's not the solution to up the damage of the claw of the bear to the point where it basically one shots you.

we need a lot more options for people to experiment and find superior setups. the more options we have the higher the possibility for FUN and if everyone jumps on the bandwagon of some op combination this combination gets brought in line with other options. we need different beams have different effects. laser and plasma shouldn't be simply two forms of energy (even though they are on a very basic level). for example plasma could lower certain resists while applied continuously within a few seconds, while laser could set you on fire. poison reduces the durability of your armor and so on. you get idea.

Some interesting points there.

And I agree, balance definitely does not make boring. It's all about trade offs.
Let's take a PE as an example. I should be able to have multiple setup options.
E.g. High defenses using a lower TL weapon such as a Termi or Pain Easer or sacrifice some defence to go for higher offense with something like a Reaper or Desparado.

Ideally both should stand an equal chance, one is able to mitigate more damage, whereas the other is aimed around doing more up front damage.

Hope that makes sense.

[SynC_187]

yes. the myth of absolute balance makes any game boring and bland, where everything is essentially the same with a different skin. that's why different mechanics are much more important. some things just can't be properly balanced. they need to be taken into consideration when looking at the current meta game. you can't easily balance a claw of bear vs. a silent hunter. it's not the solution to up the damage of the claw of the bear to the point where it basically one shots you.

we need a lot more options for people to experiment and find superior setups. the more options we have the higher the possibility for FUN and if everyone jumps on the bandwagon of some op combination this combination gets brought in line with other options. we need different beams have different effects. laser and plasma shouldn't be simply two forms of energy (even though they are on a very basic level). for example plasma could lower certain resists while applied continuously within a few seconds, while laser could set you on fire. poison reduces the durability of your armor and so on. you get idea.

That was what I am talking about. Removing mods doesn't remove variety. It means that rather than everyone using 1 weapon with
a number of ammo mods in it, you are forced to use different weapons to do different damage. If a certain weapon becomes flavour of the month and everyone specs resists against it, you are forced to vary the weapon you use.

Thats not removing options. Its forcing people to think more about setup as it is a moving target.

I do however like some of the other ideas, which are very well thought out.

P.S. I'm a spy/monk.