One of the ways to help a casual gamer take out a more expereances player is to have more 'random' weapons, and more of an element of luck. with card game sthe deck is shuffled, and its what you do with what you get that sepeates the veterans from the inexperianced. with bord games there are often dice, for the same reason. but computer games can't
just randomly award players frags, so stuff like the ripper and the relics (from UT GOTY) are used to helpeven things out. UT 2004 had nothing like this, and is seen as more n00b-unfriendly. Stuff like adredalin makes things worse, because adredalin gives extra bonuses to the winners.
Pickups like the redeemer help, but not when the veterans can time respawns and always be there when it reappers.