Well I find that what is considered "skill" by one person is not nessicarly "skill" to another.
When it comes to games I feel one of the problems is that developers rarely put much thought into multiplayer game balance. Even when they do, they like usually get a thousand hard core beta players and then MAYBE act based on their feedback depending on how much work it would take to implement. Having been a beta tester for MMORPGs I've sat there and literally watched testers (including me) sounding off on how borked something is, only to have it ignored because fixing it in the required context would be too much work.
One of the issues is also the fact that if something is balanced around a single player game and pretty much needed to play that mode, "fixing" it for multiplayer would also involve a lot of retroactive coding to adjust things in other parts of the game around it, in order to keep everything consistant. Since these guys are usually using a pre-made engine to begin with chances are they are just plugging a gun into a specific slot, and they can't like make two sets of stats for the same thing for multiplayer and singleplayer very easily. One of the problems with how a lot of games are developed.
In some games a certain weapon is needed to deal with the more epic moments of a campaign (the super enemies, or the final base that needs to be assaulted) and when the odds aren't that outrageous that same weapon becomes a problem person vs. person.
Also I've found that game designers are really bad at balancing "ease of use" in overall power equasions. When looking at fighting games, like say Street Fighter IV, characters like Sagat or Ryu don't seem all that overpowered by the numbers when you compare what they have compared to other characters. But then when you consider the ease at which their special moves and such can be performed and linked into differant strategies, the low learning curve involves a lot of people using them, and due to faster learning staying ahead of those who tend not to use them. The ease of say Ryu doing his fireball is incredible, compared to say Zangief doing one of his uber-piledrivers with their huge damage that balance him overall.
I don't play shooters competitively, but it seems very similar. Person vs. Person you wind up in close quarters a disproportionate amount of the time, and very quick killing at that range with chainsaws and shotguns is needed to have the game remain playable in a single player campaign (Close Quarters Combat), yet in a deathmatch or whatever a one hit fight ender like that rapidly becomes overpowering.
Truthfully with all the cr@p games like Doom got for it's multiplayer over Rocket Launchers in PVP one would think they would have learned to think ahead to balance weapons a bit better. Not that I much care given my play choices.
>>>----Therumancer--->
