Open vs closed weapons?
After playing both versions of conquest, I believe the closed weapons is the better of the two. I've seen a lot more variety of choice in weapons picked, I have an actual reason to play another class...
Forum Discussion
First and foremost: Don't split the player base and opt for a single system.
During the first beta weekend, I played more in open weapons mode because it gave me more freedom to explore the game. In itself, I don't think it's a bad system (even though it differs greatly from previous BF games). However, I would like to make a few recommendations to balance it more out:
- Provide even more incentives to use the preferred weapon.
- Introduce disincentives / penalties if they dont use the signature weapon class.
- Limit how many players can choose a particular weapon from another classes.
A soldier is trained to work with a specific weapons. This leads me to believe that we can justify why they should receive additional bonuses for choosing the signature weapon class and penalties if they choose a different. This can nudge players towards the right weapons without losing there flexibility to choose a other weapon
I was just having this same discussion with a friend last night. We are closed weapons advocates however if EA/DICE decide to go open then they need to do change and improve the advantages of using a signature weapon and maybe introduce light penalties for using an all class weapon and heavier penalties for using another classes signature weapon.
Perhaps also if you are using a weapon that is not your signature weapon you only have 75 points to spend on attachments instead of 100.
These sorts of things.
I like your idea of using the attachments as penalty but EA/Dice needs to exaggerate the current sway, recoil, bullet drop...... of the weapons cause the way it is now its not noticeable enough to make a difference.
Would also like see movement and interaction of your unit affected by weapon's handling stat
I agree and also think the closed weapons mechanism is the way to go.
We need to strongly urge them to choose one system so not to divide the player base. But if they decide to go ahead with the open system. I hope they implement some of our recommendations. In particular, certain weapons should be restricted to a specific soldier class, or at least be limited for other classes. Stronger incentives for using the right weapon and disincentives for all others would nudge players to prefer the signature weapons more. I like your idea of using the attachment points for that, seems feasible to implement.
* Without changes at the open weapon system, I also don't see any point of tweaking the soldier classes like described in a blog post. For example they plan to remove the Spawn Beacon for Recon and add a renamed Spawn Beacon (Deploy Beacon) for Assault. What would prevent players to choose the Assault class with a sniper rifle? Besides the Deploy Beacon they also get a extra weapon besides the pistol for QCB situations for funsies...the extra primary was said to be something they are removing.
