As the videos I've posted in this topic have shown, their idea of "realistic" is extremely limited compared to what is reasonably capable and proven (even by amateurs on youtube) by what well disciplined and lifelong trained-warriors can handle; such as those who would exist on such battlefields as those we wage war on.
Although I think realism has very little to do with a matter like developing cRPG (or balance questions in general), but I don't think that spinning and jumping were common techniques on the battlefields. So if the goal is to make the game look more realistic, I have to say: mission accomplished!
A fat Chinaman wildly swinging a toy spear around without wearing armour or the intention to pierce some armour with his weapon doesn't make spin jumps realistic.
Removing individual capability to "force" desired styles of teamplay is an extremely slippery slope that leads nowhere but down.
That's plainly and simply wrong. Limitations and weaknesses are one of the most basic game design elements at all.
Also, no offense to the balance team, but I am 100% sure that is not what they were trying to do. Instead I believe they were creating another mess for themselves to have to clean up; inspired by completely unreasonable demands on what constitutes as "realistic" in a game that is already rather limited in terms of what moves can be performed.
While I agree on the limitations the game puts on realism, I have to say the first part is nowhere near to being taken seriously. You really want to imply that the developers deliberately break their game to fix it afterwards to... eermm... well... not being forced to say one day: "Mod finished"? Really?
This same slippery slope argument could apply to further unreasonable nerfs that would also serve to remove excitement and instill strict limitations, proven unrealistic, on players.
Yes, it could apply to further nerfs. And just to put things right: you haven't proven that spinning with long, heavy weapons (not a 1,7m bamboo mini spear) is well doable, nor is excitement something objectively measurable. To me cooperation with other players is excitement. I play a BF2 mod which is called "Project Reality". If you stand still for a few seconds, you weapon hits where it is aiming at, and one or two bullets lready kill. When moving, you can't hit the broad side of a barn. If you encounter two or more enemies on your own, chances are almost 100% you will die. You need to work with your teammates, listen to the suqad leader and team commander, and communitcate constantly. There is no "skill" like aiming and reflexes involved at all. The game is tremendous fun.
The only question left is: do the developers want a Counter Strike game, or rather something like I just described? If it is latter, you have bad luck, as you can't do anything about it. It's the wrong game for you. But most likely they want something in between, which means both of us can get satisfied with the game, but none of us will be 100% conent. We both have to deal with it.
Also, why should ground combatants have to make such drastic sacrifices while cavalry and ranged are free to continue roaming however they'd like uninhibited.
The sacrifice isn't that drastic, and archers and cavalry have suffered a lot of nerfs before. Really a lot.
Ground combat is the core of the game. It should be the most robust, exciting, and versatile if it is to stay that way.
The new spin nerf has taken a rather gigantic leap toward eroding that.
I guess it's not to stay that way.
We can't exactly crouch or crawl either
But I think the main point here is that we sacrifice some ability in certain areas to perhaps have more ability in other areas.
The total argument I've seen for realism in this topic has relied solely off the idea of spinning with one completely specific weapon: the pike.
If we're going to remove an entire game mechanic because it may not be entirely 100% realistic and copacetic with one extremely specific weapon, then you have a sure-fire recipe for destroying this mod in no-time at all.
It isn't entirely realistic for a horse to hit a tree head-first, riding 30 mph, and take no damage, does that mean we should remove horses from the game because it doesn't gel with how we feel the game should realistically play? I'll tell you right now that is a lot more unrealistic than this pike spinning people are using to crucify vertical spinning.
There comes a point when you just have to say "okay I'm playing a game and it's not worth ruining just because everything might not be 100% realistic in my eyes."
As I said, I don't like realism arguments either. But on the other hand it doesn't hurt to make it a bit more realistic where it's possible.
And many people, me included, think that spin stabs and overheads are a lame mechanic. People are not supposed to turn their back towards the enemy, stabbing is supposed to work in a straight line, not in a circle, same for overheads, and that's it. Yes, you got less possibilities than before. Just accept the fact that you actually never have been supposed to have those possibilities. Because all of YOUR arguments would also apply on a bug where everyone was able to jump 20m, with all the other gameplay impacts this would bring like maulers airstriking into the enemy cluster, knocking an archer down and jumping away before the rest realizes what just happened.