MC-War's broken system and how it could be fixed

This is going to be a little long, but I wanted to post this anyways (and I've wanted to post this for a while). It may be a little obvious, but I want to go into detail and be very specific (including CoD itself), as well as offer potential solutions. I'm assuming that no stats has changed since I last played in December, because the wiki states that nothing really has changed. Everything has been placed in spoilers because it's freaking long. Enjoy.

What's wrong with the current system?

Spoiler

The current system has players level up by playing the game, in order to unlock more equipment. Additionally, by "donating" to the server, you can receive exclusive donor-exclusive weapons (really, you're just paying to purchase the weapons, but whatever). Sounds alright, yeah? In Battlefield, for instance, you play the game and rank up to unlock different weapons. By buying one of the content pack DLCs, you receive exclusive stuff like weapons, gadgets, camos, and dog tags. By buying Premium, you even receive kit shortcuts (BF3 only).

But the system in MC-War simply doesn't work.
At first, it seems pretty obvious. You play more, you rank up, you unlock new shiny weapons that are improvements over your old weapons.

That doesn't work in a multiplayer game like this. It's already rewarding enough to be able to destroy everyone with newly acquired skills; we don't need our hands to be held with blatantly better weapons. It has already happened in MC-War - there's a large group of elitists who have the best weapons and use those 24/7. It is no fun to be killed repeatedly by the same weapons over and over again. I guarantee you, almost anyone with access to the Skullcrusher/Isolator/Model and Python (ignoring donor weapons) will use those weapons exclusively. The system of having intentionally unbalanced weapons in a multiplayer game almost never works (Counter-Strike being one of the one exceptions). Battlefield Hardline experimented with a similar system, with the M16A3 being more expensive to purchase but being better. (sounds like War, huh?) Within weeks, people were almost exclusively using the M16A3 and HK416. There's no reason to use any other weapon, you're putting yourself and your team at a disadvantage. It's the same thing here - if you aren't using one weapon from each class, you're putting your K/D and ability to have fun at risk. It's not much fun for newer players either. The M16 has a clear disadvantage. There's no reason to use the M16 over the FAMAS at all, as the FAMAS is statistically superior in all ways. And then we get to the Skullcrusher. Same with all other weapons except for the SMGs (I'll get to those really soon). You're at a disadvantage if you're not using the Isolator, MSR, or Disassembler. There's no reason to use a shotgun that isn't the Model or Typhoid, and you're at a significant disadvantage if you're using anything other than the Python/DEagle (or Executioner in OITC).

At the point MC-War is at, it is extremely difficult to fix this issue due to the regulars,, pros, and the elitists who play a lot and are accustomed to it. Plus, you can't fix the game just by making everything do a similar amount of damage or nerfing something to hell.

Failed solutions

Spoiler

There is obviously a way to fix this. CoD has (partially) done this, Battlefield has done this, other shooter games have done this. All weapons (or at least almost all weapons) should be viable.
There are three major things that the admins have done to attempt to fix (some) issues. The staff here do a very good job, but the changes in MC-War weren't really too good.

First, the LAW.
Ever since I went to play a lot of Battlefield, I found some things related to this, all in Battlefield 3.

Spoiler: Brief BF3 History

The FAMAS assault rifle was introduced in the Back to Karkand expansion pack for Battlefield 3. Upon its release, it was insanely broken. It had mild horizontal recoil, especially with a suppressor and foregrip. Its 1000 RPM firerate along with its usage of 5.56mm rounds gave it the fastest TTK in the game (it still keeps this now, technically). DICE eventually patched it by giving it UNCONTROLLABLE recoil, to make it absolutely useless at anything but close range. Battlefield is all about the big maps, so the FAMAS became totally useless.

The IRNV sight allows players to see enemy players easily through smoke and in dark conditions. However, prepatch, this displayed players out to 150m, making it the best optic. You were in a bad spot if you didn't have it and your enemies did.

Yeah, DICE nerfed it to oblivion. You cannot see your surroundings past 20-35m when using it, and it could only spot infantry up to like 10m away. Very useless.

The same thing happened to the LAW. Yes, it was broken. Yes, it needed a nerf. But it didn't need to be nerfed to oblivion. There are alternate nerfs that could have been pursued to keep it viable. Nerfing something to uselessness is not the way to go.
Similar to this, the minigun wasn't too good at first. Eventually it was buffed, and became one of the "pro" weapons, making all SMGs pretty useless. This is similar to the Uzi in Hardline. With its minimum damage increase, it makes the UMP-45 and most other low RPM PDWs useless.

And now, we get to the SMGs.
I commend chickenputty's attempt to make the SMGs balanced unlike the other weapons. And yes, he succeeded in a way. But....
They're too similar.
There's nothing that really sets them apart except for the capacity and damage. This makes the UMP-45 and the PP90M1 the only viable SMGs stat-wise (and really, you aren't getting a huge advantage with them).
The MP7 is one of my favorite PDWs. With its unique 4.6mm round, I was hoping it would have something unique to it. But it only gets slightly less recoil and a 20 round magazine. It even has pretty low damage. Even then, the other SMGs are pretty similar either way. Weapons shouldn't solely be balanced around their damage and capacity.

Well, are there any solutions then?

Spoiler

Never fear, there is always a solution!
However....

It requires a whole revamp.
People are going to hate it. Especially those people like @MafiaFerret (idk who still plays lol) who spent hundreds of hours mastering their skills, only to have everything change on them. But really, it's the only way to deliver an authentic experience, balance everything, and make the server 10x more fun.

All weapons need to be balanced. Even if one weapon is a little worse or a little better and the admins tried their best to balance it, that's alright. After all, is it really possible to balance this many weapons. I legitimately applaud you if you can perfectly balance every weapon.

There are many stats that can make or break a weapon that really aren't used. Seriously, there are things like range and muzzle velocity that are simply ignored. Heck, even localized vs. nonlocalized gun sounds can make a certain weapon viable.
I spent a bit of time finding this, but here are possible options for weapons from SwornGuns (PvPGunPlus is rather similar, but with updated content, so it should be pretty close) that are not used a lot in MC-War AFAIK.

Spoiler: Types of variation

• Muzzle velocity
• Effective range
• Reload time
• Maximum range
• Smoke trail
• Knockback (not sure if this works or not)

While weapons need to feel balanced, they also need to feel unique. By featuring default, non optional attachments, weapons can be made more viable. Plus, by using the weapons in CoD or Battlefield as a reference, you can (somewhat) accurately portray the weapons.

Spoiler: Example

- The assault rifles
The M16 could have a less noticable delay between bursts and low hipfire, but could have high aimed accuracy and the fastest reload as well as average damage (25?)
The M4A1 could have the firerate of the Lamentation (it makes more sense) and higher hip accuracy (since it's the only carbine) in exchange for low damage (20?), low aimed accuracy, and a longer reload than the M16.
The AK-47 could have higher damage (35?) in exchange for higher recoil and spread.
The FAMAS could do more damage (30?) and have better hip accuracy than the M16, but also have a 25 round magazine, a longer reload, and a more noticable delay between bursts.
The Lamentation could have the 50 round magazine, higher accuracy, and the same firerate, in exchange for less damage than the M4 (15?).
The Skullcrusher could have the lowest capacity (20) and a somewhat long reload, but in return could do high damage and have almost no delay between its burst.

This is just an example, it probably won't work on the first try. I also haven't considered many of the unused traits like range or knockback, so

Better yet, use a formula. In BF4, prior to the spring patch, the AEK-971 and ACE 23 were SMGs, assault rifles, and sniper rifles all in one. DICE used a formula (based around spread, which isn't portrayed well in MC-War tbh), and made low RoF weapons like the SAR-21 and AK-12, bad weapons post-patch, good weapons.
Focus on unique parts of weapons, and use a formula to balance after. An example might be using DPS (damage per second) and balancing around that. Looking at guns realistically can help too (the FAMAS F1 has a 25 round box magazine, so that could be used to make it unique).

Conclusion:
It's not fun to play in a game where a few weapons reign dominant, like the ACR in MW2/3 or the M16A3 in BF3/BFH. But it's even less fun when those weapons are clearly superior. It is no fun for newbies, and I believe newbies should have a chance to enjoy the server the way it was meant to be played. Staff of Brawl, I hope you consider this thread if you ever release Half-Life 3 MC-War 2.0. As for anyone who reads through this whole thing, I hope it was an interesting read and that it really makes you think about the server and more ideas to improve it. If you read the whole thing, you can have this special free internet cookie.

I didn't actually too much time on this surprisingly.

 

As I stated before, the ACR and UMP had an advantage, and underslung grenade launchers were broken, but at least they tried to have something balanced. It is possible to kill an ACR user with say, the FAMAS or something, and it isnt as difficult as a matchup between the M16 and the Skullcrusher. While it's clear that this server was designed to be imbalanced, they made an attempt to fix stuff (pre patch akimbo 1887's). IMO CoD4 had much better balance and was a better game overall, but we're all entitled to our opinions.
Either way that would be infinitely better than what the current system is.

No, I don't. There's really no reason not to fix this server, since it was supposed to be the CoD experience in Minecraft.