We acknowledge that balancing these different variables is a massive task but something that we think we can achieve with the help of the community, Echo and constant development.
As for not being P2W, we will always stick by these pillars:
[ul]
[li]Everything gameplay affecting must be unlockable without paying money[/li][li]Anything unlockable must be balanced equally against what’s freely available [/li][/ul]
I’ve played plenty of games where guns can be customised without unduly affecting balance. A barrel attachment that reduces recoil but at the cost of reducing damage, or increases damage at the cost of increasing recoil etc., would give you 3 variants of 1 gun none of which are any better / worse than another, just different. People didn’t gravitate towards the CARB-9 in Brink because of it’s attachments, they used it because it was better, period. That was due to the underlying imbalance of the weaponry with or without attachments.
SD need to make money from this game and weapon attachments are probably the No.1 thing people will pay money for. The game needs them, and SD need to make them work. I suggest we help. 
The issue is that you tried this with Brink and you failed. The balance between weapons was appalling, and therefore you lost your community and the ability for constant development within a very short period of time because of this (as well as other contributory factors)… how much can Echo really help with weapon balance?.. How will an unbalanced weapon variation at launch affect Xt’s long term player populations? … you really can’t afford to mess up at launch with this game, as people will flee very quickly after seeing similar ‘negative’ experiences with Brink at launch. My issue is that the factors you mentioned to help balance them will only be available between now and open beta… as soon as the mass are able to access this game these systems need to be perfect.
The main issues we had with Brink that contributed to poor balance, were:
[ol]
[li]Not having any form of pre-launch testing on PC (and very little on consoles)[/li][li]Being unable to fully support the product after it went live[/li][li]Not being able to gather usable gameplay balance statistics[/li][/ol]
These have been resolved so the situation is much improved for XT and we still have a long time before we open up the game to the general public.
[QUOTE=Kendle;475622]I’ve played plenty of games where guns can be customised without unduly affecting balance. A barrel attachment that reduces recoil but at the cost of reducing damage, or increases damage at the cost of increasing recoil etc., would give you 3 variants of 1 gun none of which are any better / worse than another, just different. People didn’t gravitate towards the CARB-9 in Brink because of it’s attachments, they used it because it was better, period. That was due to the underlying imbalance of the weaponry with or without attachments.
SD need to make money from this game and weapon attachments are probably the No.1 thing people will pay money for. The game needs them, and SD need to make them work. I suggest we help. :)[/QUOTE]
league of legends is the big thing and they make the most money by selling skins.(people are paying 10 euro for a skin).dota2 havegive the full championpool to all not because they want to be nice persons,its because the money is done with skins and stuff like that.
apple could took 10000 euro for an iphone and people would still buy it.
the people want only to show other people that they have smth cool which at best is that expensive that nobody else have it.
humans are stupid and egoistisch.
as soon you have to unlock perks like in tribes you can put the game to grave.
it maybe works in other games but there you have not to pay for it.
go back to basic like quakelive did.
around 10 unique weapon and an amzing balance.
im not totally up to date but have CS perks?i dont think so.
all good competitve games dont use it or ever have.
[QUOTE=Smooth;475624]The main issues we had with Brink that contributed to poor balance, were:
[LIST=1]
[li]Being unable to support the product after it went live[/li][/QUOTE]
its not only that the game was bugged ,i still remember the no sound bug.
and the competitve website which was so much advertised was avi after the game was already death.
[QUOTE=attack;475627]its not only that the game was bugged ,i still remember the no sound bug.
and the competitve website which was so much advertised was avi after the game was already death.[/QUOTE]
How are those two related to weapon balance?
well it shows that there was no support ,the increase of the overall accurary came month after launch.
also im today overall in rage
It’s almost like we might have learnt from that experience how not to get it wrong again 
As some of the other alpha testers have stated, these systems aren’t inherently bad, it’s just a case of how they are implemented.
Possibility to have some invitations for mates to jump in the Closed Beta ?
its like in LOL there are rune thing, basicly some1 with runes stronger than some1 who just started to played and without it, so if the gameplay is fun ppl will ignore the gap
in LoL you cant play ranked until lvl 30 , you should have some runesites completet at this point.
[QUOTE=Smooth;475620]We acknowledge that balancing these different variables is a massive task but something that we think we can achieve with the help of the community, Echo and constant development.
As for not being P2W, we will always stick by these pillars:
[ul]
[li]Everything gameplay affecting must be unlockable without paying money
[/li][li]Anything unlockable must be balanced equally against what’s freely available
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Anti;475636]It’s almost like we might have learnt from that experience how not to get it wrong again
As some of the other alpha testers have stated, these systems aren’t inherently bad, it’s just a case of how they are implemented.[/QUOTE]
I hope so because your maps say otherwise. =P At least you’re past the stalemate mark, now you just have to make them enjoyable!<333
The current situation looks like it’s going down the credits system, that is you can always choose the next thing you want to unlock rather than unlocks having a fixed order to them. IMO this alleviates any issues of other players having perceived better gear.
I feel that adding an extra level of micromanagement to a jump in, jump out game will only frustrate people. I hated having to leave, then tweak every variable in Brink and I felt it got in the way of picking my class and jumping in (and the body size thing was another cluster)@% altogether). Even if its simpler, if I have to tweak a gun mid game or out of game in response to someone’s gun selection, I am going to constantly think “Micro-manage BS”. Rune Pages and Masteries in League are fine because everyone can save loadouts that can be applied to multiple characters but in XT, I don’t see how you will implement gun tweaks without having to tweak each individual gun (Assault Rifle, Minigun, Grenade Launcher) for each character. If I had to tweak League masteries in mid game, I’d get annoyed.
I think dedicating resources to making the characters more unique, having 2 active abilities and a passive with detailed statistics will be much more rewarding to the FPS model.
*Imagine if league had different mastery pages for each of its 100+ champs, each of which you had to manually tweak… That would suck. Since every character seems to have a different gun type (shotgun, grenade, machine, pistol,semi, etc.), I don’t see how gun tweaking will work without an individual micro manage hell system.
[QUOTE=Leinahtan;475682]
*Imagine if league had different mastery pages for each of its 100+ champs, each of which you had to manually tweak… That would suck. Since every character seems to have a different gun type (shotgun, grenade, machine, pistol,semi, etc.), I don’t see how gun tweaking will work without an individual micro manage hell system.[/QUOTE]
agreee
i have 10 rune pages and are fine with it,and i play rly everythink.sometimes even heimerdinger. 
-1 to weapon customizations imo.
Don’t really want to see customizable sights that are going to make people run around and use IS constantly, game doesn’t need it =/
[QUOTE=bishy;475824]-1 to weapon customizations imo.
Don’t really want to see customizable sights that are going to make people run around and use IS constantly, game doesn’t need it =/[/QUOTE]
What if some players prefer to use ADS?