What are you referring to exactly? And why do you make it sound like im using CSG? I never used it, just like I've never seen anyone using it.
Bottom line is though that it's about a game and about fun. The important thing for me is that the game works, and pvp does work very well. Even if you could prove to me that there are grave discrepancies in the weapon balance, and I wouldnt be surprised if that was the case, then you would still have to explain why nobody seems to be exploiting these. As long as I don't see anything like that happening, I'm good. Back on 2238 there were strict rules in some gangs about NOT doing any energy build period. Now on aop, you can make every weapon class work.
Another thing is that the philosophy also changed, as cirn pointed out earlier. For over a year now or evne longer, I have completely ignored most weapons and the only goal was to have one well functioning weapon representative of each class, and I think there's no denying that that's the case right now.
Also, you keep just stating opinions and making bad arguments while accusing me of denial, clever move. Still waiting for that proof that balance is bad. Maybe before that, what do you define as a "bad balance"? It seems we've got a different definition here. Thing is though that I as a game designer set the bar. If you measure my work by your standards, then it really just boils down to taste, which is subjective and doesn't matter in such a discussion, as in, if you want a racing game you cant criticize the call of duty devs for making a shooter. You could only criticize them for making bad shooters. If you really want to criticize me or the game, then do it by pointing out where the game failed to deliver on its promises. And I think that's exactly the point. If you have different expectations of the game, then not meeting those expectations is also not an issue of the game.
But in any case, if the balance is so bad, then surely you can point out in what exact way it is affecting your gameplay experience negatively. Is it that youre being forced to run the same OP builds, to be forced to use the same OP weapons? Is it that the enemies keep winning or that there's too little or too much skill involved?
I mean if you try to make the point that CSG > Pancor and thus balance is bad, but at the same time ther eis no CSG to be seen, how would that affect your experience negatively? Wouldnt you rejoice for being the only guy to have found the holy grail of shotguns, ready and able to abuse it?
Anyway, I guess bottom line you just thought that every weapon that's called "tier2" is as good as any other tier 2 weapon, which, I admit, was a design goal in 2014, but that has changed because we realized that it wasn't the best concept. If you wonder why all those weapons werent taken out of the game then that's a different thing, which cirn partly answered. There was no need to put effort into removing any of that, after all, the players would figure out the way to go.