But rejecting something based on your personal assumption won't help either.
It's not an assumption, there is hard data behind what I've said - there was a fair number of updates the devs backtracked on, ergo they were failed. If there was a large number of failed updates, pointing out flawed mechanics isn't easy, or at least you weren't there to point the devs in the right direction. Oh wait, you actually were, but it still happened.
This is also just an opinion. I would say unintentional activity is always caused by failed or lacking features.
No, this is a fact. Basic design by definition is basic, ie. determining how the details look like. 2238 is a game designed around extremely specialized characters, so basically it forces players to have numerous alts to be effective. If you remove alting and dual logs, the rest of the game stops being playable. I mean yeah, you could argue that this "stops being playable" part is an opinion, but then again the nature of players has proven me right when they dual logged and fast relogged en masse back when it was punishable by ban.
I think this is because from the early beginning players who used to do this (years ago) didn't recognize how serious matter it is to fastrelog and dual log and kept doing it without reporting... I mean whining. So no chances to hinder the benefits were made. Of course it's too late now to do much without total overhauls.
And I bet when the issue was raised, if it was, it was suppressed as whining.
The issue was raised numerous times and the devs always got the same reply - it's the most effective way of playing the game for a player who wants to win (ie. survive longer than other players, especially in confrontational scenarios). The devs chose to manhandle players creating a rather arbitrary set of rules enforced by GMs instead of altering the game design to facilitate other styles of play. Personally, I think that allowing FR/DL is their way of saying that they were sort of wrong back then.
Ye I don't like them. But there's a reason based on mechanics and balance behind this dislike. Trollcharacters are effective without gear, npc assistance takes a lot of time to prepare and is doomed to revolve around dual/fastrelog due to slow regear time. You don't just buy or enslave a pack of npcs in 2 minutes after death, like you regear a pvp char.
That's likely because of using trollchars is free and fun, but wasteland is supposed to be harsh you remember. Free and fun isn't harsh.
Npc assistance gives victories, who wouldn't like that?
So yeah, shit probably requires some balancing. But hey, no balancing is possible because everything is changing on a monthly basis because the devs are making twitch changes to cater to hysterical player outbursts. Going at it one thing at a time would be a good start, instead we've got an angry mob screaming about FR, DL, critchance, AC trolls etc. Guess what happens when they try to tackle all this stuff at once? Yeah, another clusterfuck.
Oh no. No more troll characters and mercpacks. Would it be a big impact if those never appeared again?
Plus think about how many players would start to play and participate when they didn't have to deal with those builds.
If you believe these builds are so strong, why don't you play them exclusively yourself?
Nope. And that's because playing these kind of builds is considered cheap by many. Even though it's effective, many players refuse to do it. It's about being ready to do what it takes for victory no matter the methods. There are many things that are doable and help to win but players simply don't want to do them and can only complain if someone else does and wins because of that. What would you do if some other team simply used ten packs of mercs per fight and had endless amount of fastrelogs and bombers? Would you try to outfarm them or simply state that "This is isn't worth it"?
Wait, so you're saying that in a highly competitive community people aren't playing with what they consider maximum effectiveness because of some unwritten code of chivalry? That's quite a stretch there given how assholish people can get in their choice of tactics here. The fact is nobody plays exclusively merc commanders, while back when militia was OP everyone was exploiting the militia system. That's the key difference between a broken mechanic and a mechanic that requires some fine-tuning perhaps. Otherwise you're just talking about your personal preferences.
Players have expectations based on previous experiences and refuse to adapt or do it involuntarily. Others adapt to the changes fluently and community splits in terms of opinions.
So you're saying farming is the core evil? Remember that leveling alts, building bases, maintaining logistics and buying mercs is farming too. Guess all this should be faster then. But what's there to live for if nothing has a price?
I think that this issue is beyond the scope of this discussion. Do note the key difference between farming for gear and farming for alts, bases and cars. Bases, alts and cars stay and striving to get them is part of the early/mid game during every session - you get your setup, you focus on endgame - ie. the town control, roleplay or whatever else it is you seek. Meanwhile, farming for gear is a constant - you have to get your gear first to do anything else, creating an unhealthy (yeah, that's an opinion, albeit a common one) ratio of work:fun in game that is by definition supposed to be fun.
Your talking like you can measure likeness, i know for a fact that some players just quit because of these stupid AC trolls, it's my word against yours.
Current AC never should have been implemented in the first place, players said from the very beginning that it is a bad idea of the consequences not that their personal preference would be not to play them (it's been discussed so many times that these gearless players are no good for general gameplay and balance, a character witch doesn't have to loose anything, but cause problem to everyone else), if someone will quit because he leveled some character witch is unreasonable, OP etc. etc. it's his choice, i never did level up a sneaker SD burster/nader, you don't have to be a genius to put together two simple things that those features are just not worth it for a character to become useless mid session.
You, sir, fail at reading comprehension. If you look hard enough at what I posted you'll find a reason why your reply is completely redundant.
