Hello Courier, I think you still lack perspective to see the big picture.
http://fonline-aop.net/forum/index.php?topic=2327.msg18790#msg18790
I would say if each weapon class has at least 1 good weapon then weapon balancing is in a pretty good shape.
Right now, what do we have ?
- Pistol : deagle
- Shotgun : pancor
- Sniper : m1c
- Sneak : needler
...
dude deagle is op as fock with moozambique , i have already stated my opinion on that on irc , look at the traits and perks in combination with the playerperk , i can describe the whole evolution of that gun since sept 2014 :
but first the actual version , to let you noobs see what i mean
Traits : Critical Strike (aka Djibouty Spam) , Moving Reload , Double Tap , Knockback
Perks : Knockback , BroF , HtG , Better Criticals , Bonus Damage
= 40% chance to knock a target back , Torso shots with this weapon uses aim crit chance , AP Regen+ doesnt pause during firing the gun ( animation) , can be reloaded while u move for additional 20% ap which results in a reload cost of 36 ap , 5% less ap required to shoot the weapon , 10% DT and DR reduction which is equivalent of 2x DR and 5x DT from the toughness perk , +1 to critical power which means critical strength rolls will get +1 automatically ... strenght rolls needed to determine the effects of a crit (bypass, weapon drop, winded and so on) , 5% more damage ...
now combine that with 400 ms unaimed shots 80% bleed from whole dmg and moozambique which gives a great chance on every 3rd shot to knockout someone plus blinding him (thx to blinding someone with headshots from any direction , like original devs hadnt anything in mind while putting blinds only as an eyeshoot straight direction mechanic ,changelog) in addition to all that stuff u see above ...
from my point of view that gun was introduced as some knockout , knockback weapon back when the server launched in sept 2014 , it dealt good knockouts and knockbacks for some low ap cost .... when u aimed at the eyez or the head with some great damage , after the great crit dmg multiplyer nerf the gun was forgotten because of its low damage , still the effects werent bad ... with moozambique introduction and changing it only as a pistol exclusive we come to that what we have now ...
plus i have to disagree with marxman , aop guns werent about spamming in the first place from what i have seen , to me some good balance is reached when u got multiply weapons in each class that serve for different purposes , e.g. a deagle for knockbacks , and high bleed dmg ... 14mm for knockouts and high dmg , the colt pistol for good damage and spamming while some target is standing under an critical effect that can be casued by spamming it on some target or from some other source , revolver for criteffects like disarming and crippling ... thats what i call a good balance not trying to force all guns with some ridiclous player perk to become spamming shit while it wasnt designed for that , thats the major reason why we have such imbalanced stuff in the first way i believe ... and thats why i suggested to reintroduce it as a weapon trait on pistols were it makes sense or which u want to be designed for spamming , needler is perfect in that case but it could also work on the colt or plasma pistol ... you could even separate it to be only on the regular plasma pistol which wouldnt make it op due to the magazine capacity , many things are possible if you think about what you do before u do it , on other guns which arent designed for spamming it would cause what we see now...
its eazy to rebalance weapon perks and traits , stats , and ammo mods while it isnt easy to rebalance when some playerperk kicks in that is forcing the player to use unaimed shots / spamming on a whole weapon class ...
ofcourse spamming should have its place within all the other purposes but then design just one gun to be some kind of spamming gun instead of what i have explained , the colt is pretty much the spamming category of the sg pistols from what i see... if u dont understand that then rest in pepperoni ...
whole AoP mechanics to me are seeming to changed in the last time in the favor of boring one way gameplay , why is that so ? hell , i dont know ... but i pray that it was just for testing purposes or out of lazyness or because someone thought "yes , we can"... or cirn maybe played too many bad games