Hm, CPMA Not Team Fortress ?
Not perfectly balanced, but it works very well.

The problem is that if you have classes, you need an objective. That works for flag based modes, because having a strong class won't make you cap.
But on a frag only based mode, I don't think it works well.

So, in my opinion, before to think about classes, think about the gamemodes and their goals.

As long as each team has the same options, no problem! As for whether it would be fun, who knows. For me the whole point of CA is combat with a full inventory of weapons. Adding something like a flamethrower doesn't sound very fun either.

TF2 isnt necessarily balanced because the classes are balanced (although they did a good job), but because you have identical bases or have teams switch attacking/defending. This makes it balanced.

Having the same things in both team won't tottaly balance the game. Classes must be balanced between them, they all must be useful or players will play with just a few.

And this is not because, per example, each team has a class with RL doing instant frag, that the gameplay will be balanced. It would be just too much powerful and boring.

Balance is not just about having the same for everyone, it is keeping all options interesting and challenging.

That is a perfect point about the two teams having the same options.

I'm looking into doing something with a wider weapon set selection, and weapon balance is way more complex than I originally thought. I think it will be doable long term, but it will require quiet a bit of work to figure out the "formula."

Nerfing and buffing works with a small weapon set, but I think at a certain point that becomes unmanageable if you don't have some sort of formal formula.

I love Q3A, QL & CPMA, but if there is another clone I might throw up. I think we all need something familiar, but new. Like that chick who is like your old girlfriend, but has bigger cans.

What I can advice is to draw yourself the current Q3 weapons rules and try to understand why they are quite balanced (except RG maybe), and what weapon counter the other.

Considering ammo initial amount, ammo box amount, number of spots on the map, reload time, range, damage/splash damage, accuracy, missile velocity.

And look at other games to have more inspiration, PK, UT etc.

And, and there is no precise formula, just maybe a circle with A > B > C > A, per example. But everything depends on how the players use them. Thus, if a weapon apears to be weak compared to another, if the player use it wisely, that can compensate the drawback of the weapon.

I actually did a write out of the q3a (actually did warsow, but basically the same) weapons and the RG IS balanced if you look at the parameters. The difference is that I don't think id ever thought people would become so skilled at the game. So RG could be balanced better by tier I would say.

Wonder if QL is done that way?

Hmm, RG can beat brain and skill.
Look at k1llsen...
If you manage to keep RG ammo and to be far from you opponent, you can actually compensate the lack of control. And if you have control, you just tottaly rape. (cf a match between rapha and strenx, rapha has control + ~80% RG, strenx ragequited).

Imo, hitbox for RG should be smaller.

And that's even worst on CPMA since weapon reload is shorter (and weapon switch faster).
I know that some CPMA players are bored of RG.
But here, RG can be beaten with fast movement, so you can't hide that much.

As long as everything has a counter, then yes. Also, the amount of counters to something should be as equal as possible across the board. If it's not, it's not balanced.

So yes, but it can be very difficult to figure out (player skill can make things imbalanced too, which makes it that much more difficult to balance)

counter based balance is awful

nop

Time to go back to sc school!

Starcraft School?

I was making a comment on balance. It can be done, and starcraft is the example.

as in broodwar?

Does DoD's weapon system thang count as a class system? I thought that was quite balanced.

Yep. Light / Heavy / Rail.

All of them had weaknesses and qualities, and you could be an awesome player with every one of them in different styles.

I miss me some anzio :<

yes

enemy terrortrees

Rock, Paper, Scissors is pretty balanced I heard

rock/paper op because you could always switch to one of those in the last milliseconds if you watch your opponent carefully

t1e exposed

weapon/ class balance means nothing without the context of maps.

What i really like about non-class games is that you are the super class. super speed and super dmg. In Quake, playing classes would modify this somehow, and make me feel lame.

classes are the reasons why games like RTCW:ET are better team-based games while quake is better for 1v1