Before you read this throw out any sort of thoughts of rose tinted glasses because I went through the trouble of setting up a server running BYOND 507 and a client package for it. I gave it to a bunch of friends who don't play anymore and hosted a server on a REAL old paracode build on it. ZAS, red hit marks when attacked. You know, the actual good old days.
We had so much fun even though we were totally directionless and almost played it like traitor deathmatch! You know why? Because the systems in place back then was made to make it hard to survive. Dangerous things was actually dangerous and bombs were king, now they're a super minor inconvenience that any civilian with floortiles and metal on them can fix
Balance for the sake of M/HRP has changed Para for the worse and forced "parity" with other code bases was pointless to begin with. Now I can go on any other server and have an old-school fun paratime instead of the unique gameplay of balanced RP that we used to have.