Snub PvP; A deep dive complaint

[Karst]

I'm about ten years past my pvp prime and quite honestly just not in the current meta enough to comment on most of the finer aspects, but there's a general observation here that I share:

There is too much unnecessary complexity and hurdles being added to a dated game that is supposed to be simple which most people simply enjoy out of nostalgia.

Now its hard to understand and hard to master. Not a combination I'm a fan of.

I've been concerned for some time now about the general rise in complexity, the number of operations the player must familiarize themselves with in order not to be completely useless in a fight. Like I'm glad that the previously stupidly simple gunboats got useful forward guns and mine droppers, mechanics which fit comfortably into their operation and feel rewarding to use.

However. This approach of adding layers of complexity to every class, every matchup type, is going too far. The best example of this is shield drain/shield toggle, at least on snubs (arguably all classes, but we're talking about snubs here).
This feels as a mechanic like a pure "punishment for failure" setup, rather than "reward for success". What I mean is that, say, landing a Mini Razor hit grants a sense of achievement for using this tricky mechanic right, while effectively using shield toggle just feels "normal", while leaving a sense of frustration if you feel like you didn't use the function optimally.

That....isn't fun. This is an added layer of functionality that when utilized properly, adds nothing, and when not, diminishes enjoyment. I don't WANT to set up yet another keybind that I have to micro in order to perform competitively. The addition of this mechanic is just stressful and confusing to me, a veteran player who at least at one time was pretty decent at pvp. I can only imagine what it's like to a new player.

So yeah. I can only echo those sentiments about rising complexity, and I hope that any future added balance layers undergo scrutiny as to if they actually make fights more enjoyable, and if they are really worth further building up the already massive entry barrier into combat. And that some of the existing ones, like said shield toggling, are reviewed as well (other things come to mind like the inscrutable variety of bomber weapons, but that's going off into side topics.)

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