So far several members of the community have simply shrugged and said, "Why get worked up about a few unlocks? You'll have what you want eventually, so just grin and bear it."
All I have to say in reply is that I feel the greatest sympathy towards you if that's what the mainstream gaming industry has led you to feel about unlocks.
Unlocking a common peice of equipment such as a drum mag or bayonet, regardless of whether it occurs after ten or five hundred kills, simply doesn't add anything truly unique to the game. If I only need ten kills to obtain that bayonet, what satisfaction do I feel after obtaining it? Do I feel a particularly good sense of achievement? Am I a superior player? Will others be impressed at the bayonet I unlocked? Clearly not. In that case it would be better to just issue the bayonet from the start.
And if the bayonet is only obtainable after fifty kills or more, will I feel statisfied then after grinding my way to the unlock? Again, I will not--I will feel frustrated that I had to go to such lengths in order to be able to use something I should have had from the very beginning. At kill 19, 30, or 48, when I am shot seconds before picking off a crawling German with the PPSh, I will sit back in my chair and exhale in vexation that the hour when I can finally use a standard-issue drum mag is that much farther away.
And when I can finally slot that bayonet onto the muzzle of my K98, I will not feel pride or satisfaction but instead a dull feeling of belated vindication.
Recently I had to submit some medical records to my university to be declared eligible for a program. The university lost those records twice, and each time I resubmitted them until, days before the deadline, they confirmed that my records were complete. Upon opening that email, I sighed and muttered, "Finally." That is what I will feel upon unlocking the bayonet in RO2.
But, had the bayonet unlock for the SVT-40 instead been sights hand-painted black to reduce glare, I would indeed have felt a sense of satisfaction upon obtaining that fiftieth kill. That is because that simple modification is something extra, something special that my soldier obtained through hard-won experience. Six firefights in a burning apartment block had taught Strelok Vassilinovitch that dulling the sights of his rifle would allow him to more precisely align his sights on the enemy. THAT is something I would support whole-heartedly, joyfully.
Is that logic realy "rediculous," bazookatooth? Childish? Is it really the rambling of a self-declared "hardcore" RO player?
No--my opinion is not realism-fervor, or criticism for the sake of criticism, but rather concern over a feature that will alter the core gameplay of Red Orchestra. If I miss my hipshot at a submachine gunner in close quarters, what do I do now? Bolt my rifle and be cut down? Or charge swinging the butt end of my rifle, which, even disregarding the 20 rounds remaining in his magazine, is now evenly matched in power by the submachine gun's own buttstock?
If I have infiltrated an enemy-held building, do I give away my presence with the report of a gunshot, or do I take the chance that my buttswing will not fatally injure my oblivious enemy?
That is my opinion on why implementing common equipment as unlocks is objectionable--it adds nothing truly substantial to the gaming experience.
I have no objection to weapon upgrades done right.
Nor do I have an objection to enemy weapons being fielded by one particular side.
All I am suggesting is that many players won't feel better about unlocking a bayonet that they would have been issued even if the quartermasters were scraping the last loose cartridges out of the bottom of the last ammunition crates.
My criticism is meant to be wholly constructive. I give Tripwire my full support. Weeks earlier, I was tempted to post in the thread "Bayonets are unlocks?" and zealously defend Tripwire to the death.
"Trust them," I was itching to say, "Do you really think they would make such an essential peice of gear an unlock?" I stand by or can understand and accept almost everything new that RO2 offers--FOV zoom in iron sights, in-game languages etc... but this new peice of information has shaken me.
Without exaggeration, I would have unhesitatingly bet my chance to ever own the game that bayonets would never be an unlock.
Call it a mountain out of a molehill if you wish, but I believe that unlike using the mouse to control the tank turret, or the speed of weapon switching, this alters the very spirit of Red Orchestra.