As for why the SWAT should have the Tommy Boom? Simple to handle fleshpounds and quarterpounds since it would both be the highest damage per shot weapon they'll have and the explosion part would pack a extra punch to quarterpounds and fleshpounds.
Leaving aside that the SWAT already has the HRG Nailgun for that, since Fleshpounds have
far less resistance to piercing damage than SMG damage...
Despite the fact that the TB is pretty bad on Demo despite it being a hitscan, it would be brainlessly useful on SWAT. It might not be
the best at FP/QP spam just because of the fire rate alone, but having a 48-shot mag size with a weapon that shoots explosive hitscans means you could have Firebug's crowd-killing capabilities at any distance on top of the up-to-21-seconds-of-infinite-ammo from Rapid Assault. And you could carry that with other guns because all of SWAT's options are lightweight. And you wouldn't have to aim it, which as far as I'm concerned is a non-starter for SWAT.
As Yoshiro said in the second post on this thread: there's a reason they won't crossperk HRGs.
1) It's never said anywhere that classes should have the same amount of weapons, but there is something called balance. That concept still exist on this board right?
Sure, but not in the sense of "perks should have equal numbers of weapons." The few people left actively posting on this board are discussing balance in terms of, roughly speaking, "easy-to-play classes should have less of a payoff in harder difficulties, harder-to-play classes should have more of a payoff in harder difficulties, and
nobody should have weapons that turn the game into easy mode."
Obviously that hasn't been the most stringent design philosophy the devs have stuck to in practice, but we're here to remind them of that nonetheless, because making more weapons for the simple sake of having more weapons often results in one of two primary scenarios: 1) the game ends up with tons of clutter with a few legitimately good options, or 2) the game has tons of unfair options that cheapen the skill curve.
KF2 in its current state has both issues simultaneously, amazingly enough.
2) It's called options. Don't like a weapon? Don't use it. I never use the M99, but I wouldn't suggest to get rid of it just because I find the gun heavily impractical under most circumstances.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. "Just make the thing and if someone doesn't like it, they don't have to use it" is a bad design philosophy for a number of reasons. Partially because of the bits I just mentioned above, but something that is even more prominent yet always gets left out is how it affects teammates and teams in a team-based game.
Let's take the options that are infamous for being overpowered, like the Locust or pre-nerf Reducto Ray. (Really, this also applies to perks as well, but it's easier to pick on the weapons.)
When TWI introduces weapons that are so good they completely redefine perk metas, the players who have already learned how to play the game well sit up and pay attention, because almost without fail every time a weapon like that is introduced, it's a weapon that is very easy to use compared to its counterparts on the same perk.
Pub players in the vast majority of cases will pick options that kill things effectively and easily because it makes them feel powerful to stomp even the hardest difficulties, and if they don't have to put in the work to do it, that's all the better to them. Weapons that make that task easy, like the Locust, become
extremely prevalent and popular as a result. Thus it's not uncommon for multiple players to pick the easiest option they can, because it works, and the game certainly isn't going to punish them for doing so. (Bonus points if, like the Locust, the weapon actually gets better
when multiple players stack it.)
When people who enjoy the game for the challenge it offers face a scenario where they cannot play without at least one or more players running broken options, that sucks the fun out of the game for them. Partially because it feels disenfranchising to see fresh installs beating the game by throwing Locust missiles at the floor while they have to actually aim and land headshots. Partially because it's extremely boring to see the game trivialized by just reducing the hardest difficulties to "spamming chokepoints with explosions and such" (usually that is
one or two people actually playing the game while the rest get to sit on their thumbs). Partially because the vast majority of weapons and tactics that revolve around raising the game's skill floor--that is, how effective something is with minimal effort--almost always step on the toes of the players who play more challenging perks; it's not an exaggeration to say that fire, explosives, and panic make playing as a precision perk miserable while both enabling and encouraging more spam to counter the panic flailing and such).
Now, it's all well and good to say "well, don't use [weapon X] if you think it's OP," but
you can't stop the other five players on the team from doing so. And the only reason they have not to do so is personal preference, or basically an honor system, so guess what? You can't count on that.
The same logic applies to underpowered junk weapons. If a weapon is so bad that it prevents the user, other teammates, or the team as a whole from doing their respective jobs, then all it takes is one idiot to run the problematic weapon in question and problems arise. At best case you are down one teammate but others can deal, like a Commando running the FAMAS or a Gunslinger running Dual Spitfires + Dual Winterbites (yes, I have seen that happen). In the worst case scenarios, you have Demos running the Gravity Imploder that can ruin games for
literally everyone, including themselves, or stupid Medics taking combinations like Hemoclobber + HRG Medic Missile that rob them of Medic's primary strengths (healing darts) and effectively put the team down on the expected healer role the Medic
should be doing. It should be obvious why this is bad for a game based around players working together as a team.
The "don't like it, don't use it" logic only applies to a team game if the team can collectively force an agreement not to do the thing in question. And Killing Floor is not that kind of game, for better or worse. The sole exception is gathering an entire premade team on a Controlled Difficulty server who agree to not use broken perks and weapon options, but that is a completely unrealistic expectation for a game with a small and fractured fanbase like this one. Better to just not make broken stuff in the first place.
3) Tommy Boom is a SMG last I checked. Also Tripwire doesn't need to come up with any creative designs here. They just have to take a already existing weapon and make it a crossperk. That would take what? 10 minutes? If the community wants to use a explosive weapon with that SWAT (that still follows the SMG theme), let them.
Again, the "it's an SMG so it obviously belongs on the SMG class" logic falls apart when you look at the preexisting (bad) ideas they've crossperked before.
The Spitfire is
technically a revolver but absolutely doesn't belong on the Gunslinger or Sharpshooter on a mechanical basis, because it runs completely counter to the designs of those perks (medium-to-long-range hitscan specialists, not inaccurate short-ranged fire spammers). The Pulverizer is technically an explosive weapon, but it's one that Demo has absolutely no reason to use whatsoever past meme'ing in Normal difficulty because it's objectively terrible with regards to Demo's kit.
The only crossperks that really made sense are the 101/201/301/401/501 Medic weapons and the weapons shared by perks that have similar roles (Mac-10 for Firebug/SWAT, Tommy Gun for SWAT/Commando). Anything beyond that is stretching perk definitions.
I really don't get why Tripwire decided that every perk should be able to deal with every zeds. Most class-based shooters have counters for a reason.
They did it because easier wins makes for happier pubs, and happier pubs = more engagement and more money.
You can do generalists in a specialist game right, but you have to actually skill index them, which is where the ball got dropped. Gunslinger and M14 Sharp are fine
mostly fine as generalists that can handle a lot of things (I do think slinger's combination of movespeed + burst is too much but that's for another topic) since you have to freaking
earn the right to be that good: both require you to be on your A-game with aiming and such as, and mistakes are punished heavily on both perks.
Making perks that don't need nearly as much skill or effort into generalists, however, was a
huge mistake. No skill indexing required = easy wins, easy wins = bad.
The counter thing sort of comes into play but it's gotten less and less relevant over time due to all the changes and dumbing down of the skill requirements.
Well they did and I much prefer it this way. Sick of playing games with randoms only to have my moronic teammates run off on their own trying to be Rambo (that's what solo play is for you idiots) and staying away from their teammates like they're are the enemy.
It's not unreasonable for the team to lose if the team can't play well together.
