common sense tells you the unlockables are easy to get within 10 hours of playtime
Really? Most classes have three unlockable weapons/belt items and each one costs 42,000 XP to unlock. On top of that, you have a whole bunch of perks to unlock (18,000 XP each) and various upgrades for weapons, belt items, armor, packs and belt items. Oh, and you also have to unlock 6 out of 9 classes.
So, you can unlock all those things in 10 hours? Good luck with that.
So you start TA for the first time, spend a few days learning the ropes and having fun, and without spending a single penny you've unlocked most of the alternative weapons and upgrades and are competitive with anything in the game.
See above response. It takes more than a few days to unlock most of the unlockables in the game.
However you spend the next year sucking ass because people spent 15 years playing online shooters and are slightly better than you at actually moving and hitting a target.
And now these people have the added advantage of more energy, more ammo, more health, more belt items, larger radii for belt items, more damage against armored targets, more mass (for defenders) and less mass (for cappers), larger flag grab radius, etc.
Let's look at the Pathfinder class and the various benefits it offers when fully upgraded (and this is without unlocking perks or alternate weapons/items):
+10 Light Spinfusor ammo
+20% Light Spinfusor damage against armored targets
+20 Shotgun ammo
+1 Shotgun clip size
+2 Impact Nitron grenades
+10% Impact Nitron grenade radius
+18% Energy recharge rate
-25% Health Regen delay
+10% Energy
+25% Health Regen Rate
+100 Health
-10% Mass
Yeah, I'm sure those things don't offer any advantages whatsoever.
Are you sure you are not cherry picking? What about all the other uprgrades that are not pathfinder? You do have a point with the pathfinder.
The inherent imbalance of unlockables applies to all classes. I primarily play Soldier and I have a pretty significant advantage against other Soldiers who don't have upgrades. I have more health, more ammo, more energy, more grenades, more damage, shorter health regen delays and faster health regen rates.
As I mentioned before, if one player sucks and the other one is good, unlockables are not going to change the outcome of their fight. However, they will make things easier for whoever has them and that's why unlockables are inherently unbalanced.
This comment was edited on Feb 6, 2012, 01:40.