Intro:
I will be comparing at some moments to a diffrent game called Forgotten Hope that is a Battlefield 1942 mod. (its a WW2 first-person shooter)
As a start, we should figure out what are the key elements to a victory, whatever it is, modern battle, medieval duel or simple street fight, the key elements are still the same. No matter of size of the army. Few i dig up are, perception (see the enemy before he sees you), knowlage (knowing enemies options) and finally decision making (where, how and when). Now, in TB Fonline combat, none of those are base to victory, very seldom and mostly by the enemies complete lack of those rather then ones superiority one can make use of those 3. In RT combat (TC) those come to use, however, could be on bigger scale?
Something a nerd can call experience;
I can tell from Battlefield game and realism. So, in battlefield 1942 players had a lot HP (like in Fonline), and most guns were weak (like in Fonline, majority of guns are weak). Only head shot was one shot kills (like eye shots/critticals in Fonline). If you shot a whole magazine in ones torso, he would not die (like Fonline). So, the battlefield 1942 was a lot about, reflexes, quick button pressing and joysticks (insert aimbots)(mean, which players were favorized by the game to win). Now, Forgotten Hope is a mod that tried to make the game more realistic, players were given a lot less HP and weapons did more damage, a torso one bullet shot most often ended in player elimination (meaning, totally the opposite way). Now that players were so easly killed, they had to think, exacly those; where is the enemy? What does he see/do? what weapon does he have? how do i kill him without getting killed, or should i risk? My main point with this is, the mod made the game a lot more about those 3 key elements then luck, and gave this feeling (which i think is good) that you play the game rather then the game plays you.
Personal Protection and anti-Protection
The JHP and AP bullets, i wonder if those are really needed. The only thing that differs is the price of buying and making them. They help to split the game into two, one is the players with BAs and other is with players with LJ, like two diffrent game worlds in one. You take JHP bullets to the battle and oops, the enemy has CA, you take AP bullets and oops, player has Metal armor. Whats the point? Why not making the bullets a bit more effective on all kinds of armor, making them more simillar on all in terms of damage and leave the AP only for perfectionist rather then having them as a must. About armors protection, maybe a better way is to split the DR into two, and make half of it work against critical hits, like lets say you got 50% DR then 25% is damage reduction and 25% is less critical chance (maybe to much though this calculation though, 35% DR and 12,5% less Critical ratio maybe better). Why not lower the CAs overally? or at least some of its values, why not give LJ a lot more AC then CA (making the AC get lower and lower with better armor not otherway around), and maybe making them visible from farer distance, Metal easier to spot then LA and CA easier to spot then Metal. Like i said before, this game is a lot about items right now, world of warcraft is about items too. Maybe setting all weapons from lowest to highest to be able to kill a player in highest armor in between 5 to 1 shot would be a good idea, starting with 10mm pistol (5 shots) and ending on a Avenger (1 shot).
There has been a lot of good user posts on weapons, where an ideas are showed how to turn this Single player weapons into multiplayer ones and skip the cliff between them. I like that you the devs have highered damage on many weapons, i think it could go even higher (at least for the lowest weapons, exept the bb-gun). If not, then why not try to implement a "Energy" bar ripped of from JA2. That way if you have CA you would be protected as you are now from the damage to HP but each 10mm JHP shot would hurt still (as it should) reducing energy instead and if you get enough much of those shots you drop down becouse of energy loss (maybe for exemple if energy was at 0 then you would get knocked down with every shot, if your energy was 100 then never knocked down, well, it opens a whole book of options). An energy bar could acually solve a lot, lot of things and give many new options for gameplay, and room to build on.
