Why FAS Is Great

Naota has posted a good piece of propaganda in the FAS Input Forum describing some key differences between CSS and FAS and why FAS is better because of these differences. Instead of butchering his prose the entire post can be found here.

The reason that everyone uses [the M4, AK47, Desert Eagle and AWM] in CSS isn't that they're popular, but rather that CSS popularized them by making them plainly the best all-purpose weapons in the game by a large margin. They're used so often because the weapon balance is quite terrible and you have guns like this which are clearly superior to mostly everything else in their category, and their incredibly silly money/equipment system does little to nothing to restrict you from using them every time or getting creative. For example, why would you ever pick the CSS Steyr Scout over the AWM aside from willingly handicapping yourself? They're nearly the same in every respect, only one will always kill you no matter where it hits while the other does pathetic damage unless it's a headshot. Compare this to the M82 and M24 in FAS - one is heavy, can't scope while moving, restricts you to maybe a pistol as a sidearm and no armour whatsoever, does much better when bipodded, and can kill players incredibly easily on semi-automatic, while the other is light, bolt-action, mobile, highly damaging but not fatal, and is easy enough on the credits to allow you to use a SMG or even a cheap rifle as your backup. Each rifle has its own set of circumstances where it excels and neither is made redundant by the other, so you see both used all the time.

Because there's no clear distinction of absolute superiority and every gun fills its own little role in the overall gameplay, you won't get hundreds upon hundreds of players flocking to the newest weapon. The weapon balance lets everyone find guns that are their own personal favourite and compete with them without being overshadowed by the baseline AK-47/M4A1. In fact, the AK and M4 are actually some of the least popular weapons in FA because they're so tired and overused (and other ARs do far more interesting things). The only thing that might draw players to a new weapon besides the novelty factor is that it could fill an empty gap in their personal style of play, in which case we're doing our job wonderfully. It's as simple as that.

It puts a smile on my face to think that some day soon, a semi-hardcore CSS junkie is going to give FAS a try, like what he sees, then run out there with Full Medium (no bandages), a glock, and an AK thinking he's going to be king of the world just like in the days of Counter-yore... only to have an enemy sprint-jump over a sandbag he's inching out from and render him a veritable humanoid imitation of swiss cheese with the FAMAS, plant a claymore on his head, heal with medic, then prone off lobbing M79 shells and constantly battlecrying. It will be akin to pitching a denizen of the 1700's thrashing and wailing into this present day as things beyond the scope of his rational perception flood all about in a nightmarish future-hellscape of wondrous complexity and depth.