It became pretty obvious to me at the beginning that submachine guns are op in comparison to all other weapons - their damage v ammo capacity is much higher than the other weapons
Here's an excel spreadsheet with all the damage numbers:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/175212805/wpmod.xlsx
I think you may find that if you multiply the average damage by the total number of rounds held for guns, and don't even consider penetration, the SMGs aren't really all that grand. The SMGs with the highest damage are the .45 caliber Thompson and Kriss, which do not penetrate. Assault Rifles, by comparison, all penetrate relatively well and all do at least 50% more damage than even a .45 SMG. Rifles do at least twice the damage of an SMG per shot, and tend to have excellent penetration. All in all, total possible damage output from an AK47 (90 total rounds), including penetration, is at least four times that of a Kriss Vector (120 total rounds) in non-ideal circumstances, and boasts a much, much higher DPS which makes it capable of handling more situations than an SMG can. In ideal circumstances, it can reach up to 8 times the damage output.
You may want to try experimenting more with assault rifles! They're really strong!
I tend to find myself erring towards having an SMG, Pistol, and a "Primary" weapon like a Shotgun, Rifle, or Assault Rifle when playing most perks... and the SMG is mostly a strong backup. I'd carry two assault rifles, but practically no one has that kind of weight capacity besides the beefcake who sucks so bad at reloading and moves so slowly that I generally just give him an MG or the M99.
I've found that SMG-reliant perks, such as the Gangster and Exterminator (who both get EVEN MORE ammo for SMGs), really hurt for firepower in later waves. Others, like the Conventional Soldier or Storm Trooper, can handle more, bigger enemies much better.
Jewish Bankster - If you pickup someone else's weapons by mistake, you can't give them back. This can cause a lot of problems...
He also sucks up loose dosh on the ground. Yeah, he's supposed to be the "burnout" class for selfish people, so I think his "not being able to drop anything" helps a bit with that. The Bankster is kind of special in his role as far as balance goes. He doesn't get any bonuses, he's just there as a fallback if you keep dying and/or suck... or just want to be really selfish. He's supposed to be an asshole though, so I'd have to say the problems caused by him grabbing other people's guns is intentional.
Whenever I play it with friends and some one goes bankster, everyone just moans and tries to avoid him, and yells at him if he gets near any guns they dropped. Heh, I like it. Though I can understand the frustration. I may fiddle with him some to make him less of a prick, like removing his ability to pickup dropped weapons.
Heavy Weapons Expert - This class is the big culprit in the "spam to win" problem. He can kill anything. Maybe you could have him take down ghosts that aren't in mid jump? That would give him a key feature and could justify nerfing him to be more of a trash killer.
This perk is definitely the one I've got my eye on for changing, removing, or replacing. I'd love to hear any further suggestions you could offer with it. I keep telling people when I play "Heavy Weapons is probably OP and makes the game boring, play it and tell me what you think". Most people keep concluding that he's super powerful while his ammo holds out, but with such limited ammo he just can't sustain himself through a full wave... so they prefer to reserve judgment. Plus, I've yet to see a Heavy Weapons guy carry a team to victory by himself, or really contribute much more than anyone else.
Nonetheless, I have to say I'm not happy with this perk. Killing ghosts when they're invisible is a good idea to help him in the trash-killer department, but I don't think it's enough, alone, to change the perk significantly enough to make that his primary role.
I'll really have to consider what to do with him. Right now, he's an "everything killer" with limited ammo, and I'm not certain it's the best route.
Exterminator - This class actually could have the ghost killer. That would give it some usefulness
Perhaps. Have you tried his poison grenades? They're incredibly strong, and this perk kind of centers around them. They don't do all that much damage, but it buys a lot of time to regroup and coordinate when you drop one. I'm scared to really give him any more strong bonuses on top of this one, which is why he's a specialist with poison and crawler-killing (which also works on Big Green, and Arachnas) since he can kill them all in a single dart from his XMk5, or just let them attack him.
Handyman - I was mislead by the name when I chose this class. Maybe a turret or something would suit him? Melee weapons don't fit a "software designer".
Software designer? Huh? He's a handyman. Works with tools, chainsaws and stuff. I MAY do some turret perk in the future, it's definitely on a short list of ideas for more perks... but I honestly thought the handyman was pretty unique! Especially with all the nailbombs and stuff. He's one of those perks that's supposed to excel in specific situations rather than against specific specimens. Of other tester feedback I've gotten so far, this perk is by far the fan favorite.
Highlander - Why are there two melee guys? o.o Highlander seems to be the proper berserker class. But some parts of the description are odd/hard to understand. "Cannot be healed by normal means"?.
I can clarify the description a bit more. He's kind of weird and complicated. Basically, he can ONLY be healed by lopping off heads of enemies. Healing darts/syringes do nothing to him. The Highlander is definitely more of an analogue to the Berserker than the Beefcake ever could be, but he's also a bit more reliant on finesse than Berserkers since he can jump high enough to avoid Fleshpound attacks if he's powered up enough. That's kind of his main strength, jump-dodging attacks and healing from kills. He's gone through about 6 different balancing iterations so far, but I wouldn't mind considering more. From other playtesters, I've frequently heard that he provides a great deal of diversity for melee classes since his playstyle is so wildly different... but most of the time they complain he's too weak in early waves, and it is thus too difficult to get him powered up. For those who get him into the 400-range for soul strength, they say he's a ton of fun.
That's really all I was able to see in-game. I haven't tried the other classes so I can't say much about them.
As I thought, Scrakes being flinch locked by the assault rifles makes the M14 look like a joke and gives the M14 no reason to exist (refer to dominant strategy).
That kind of makes me feel sad, since I use the M14 a lot (it's my favorite weapon on the conventional soldier). I must be missing out on this dominant strategy. I should confess, though, that I've really considered turning the M14 into a full-auto weapon, since its real life counterpart is just an M14 in an EBR chassis. Having a laser dot on a full-auto weapon might be fun, too. I may actually do this... the more I think about it, the more I like it.
Your dissection of this Spam To Win dominant strategy theory is the first such critique I've received in this department, so I'm very interested in it. You make a good point and, provided this truly is my mod's dominant strategy, I will be focusing a great deal of effort on addressing it. So more discussion and analysis would be very much appreciated, and I'll be considering it greatly with further balance changes and perk changes/additions.
Any attempts to change perks doesn't work - even though it says you will swap on death.
Mmm, I'll look into this. I recently added this functionality and it hasn't been tested much. I've seen people switch perks when they're dead, but they probably do so while already dead. I'll look into making that work correctly, probably just some silly error I made.
The weapon lists in the trader are awkward at best... Maybe have them a little bit more listed per-class?
I could do this, I suppose, but one of the primary goals of this mod is to remove class-specific weapons for the most part. So I intentionally categorized them by weapon type, rather than perk, to break the notion of a "weapon for my perk" when looking at the trader. I'd be willing to hear ideas, though.
That's it for now. All in all my reaction to this mod is somewhat positive, despite all my criticism >.>
I greatly appreciate the feedback, it's very, very helpful. When you have anything further to add, I'm eager to hear it! Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss this. I love talking balance. As I said, beta is all about balance (and bug fixing), so having your commentary is just about the best thing I could hope for. Thanks again!
Is the Uploaded source the latest version?
Yes.