Thanks for great game. I started to play it with friends from Czech Republic and it is really fun. We enjoy the western atmosphere, the game is easy to start to play even for people like me who do not play FPS (ok, I played Doom 2 and Blood long time ago;) and same time more I get into more I found it enjoyable and well balanced. Just pity on public serves is mostly played deathmatch, I love bank robbery mode.
I have few ideas, not sure if they have much value but just in case;)
1) Weapons are really great, just it seems to me that pistols (especially Peacemaker) and rifles (Winchester and Colt) are too similar in use. You can shoot at loooong distances with Peacekeeper about as good as with rifles and same time use rifles fast moving in close combat. Winchester rifle seems to me pretty useless, but otherwise I found weapons well balanced. But what about make more difference between them? Like make pistols harder to use at long distances and rifles harder to use when you run? I would also lower (dis)assembly time of Gatling a bit to make it more usable and make Winchester a bit better like make it a bit faster shooting (but still slower than Colt rifle) and reload faster than Colt rifle.
But I know weapon changes are very sensitive and also maybe what seems to me unbalanced or good idea now can be not so when I get deeper into game.
2) For mode without instant respawn (bank robbery) it would be great to give weak players one or two free respawns. That way even weak players can enjoy the game with more advanced ones (and same time learn it) instead of spending most of game waiting dead. We can call this something like "greenhorn mode" and lets give possibility to set up server the way that players can freely choose to enter greenhorn mode (for example at join team menu have possibility "join as greenhorn"). This would make bank robbery IMHO much more playable at public servers. And it would be clearly visible at player list who is greenhorn so I hope shame would keep good players from using it.
This is why I play bank robbery with friends selfishly at private server now. We tried public server but killers like Kari can alone kill whole team alone just with knives. Greenhorn mode would not change this but would make it less frustrating for newbies.
3) Last idea would need a lot more work (best be done on special map), but just as an idea:
respawn bonus can be used to make asymetry scenario similar to bank robbery something like "defend the forth". One smaller and better equipped team would hold position. Bigger and poorly equipped team would be attacking and have advantage of unlimited respawn back in their base. The defending team wins if keeps forth for some defined time, attackers must...not sure what now - get N of X forth flags? Destroy something with dynamite? Burn something? Something like this.
BTW first idea was make the attackers Indians equipped with knives (or tomahawks but same functionality), bows (medium fire speed low damage) and old rifles (slow at least as much as sharps) and stolen weapons. But this is even more complicated and I saw at forums there are people against adding Indians into game. In case of Indians I thought about special ability "war cry" - you can start to cry for short time and while crying all damage would be halved, maybe even faster movement a bit.
Thanks once more, see you soon (preferably through scope;)
Stepan the Turtleman