10 characters instead of 16 now?

(CapnHowdy21) #61

As it’s been we really don’t know what all the skills will be like. We do know there is 58 skills. Judging by the skill screenshots, there are 10 per category. (Universal/Medic/Soldier/Operative/Engineer). That leaves 2 base skills per class. The 2 base skills should be enough to complete objectives if necessary.

Now we also know you get 3 active skills. I also believe the load out of what active skill you mapped changes with each class.

So now if you wanted to max your soldier, you would take all 10 soldier skills and all 10 general skills. (We don’t even know if thats possible.) However what is the likely of you taking, and being able to use all 10 skills from your class an general. There is a good chance that some won’t be useful to you.

If what I said above is true, its very probably you will skip some powers from both. Its also very probably that many of the general skills you want for one class would be the same if not similar to another class. If this is the case you should at the very least be at 100% effeciancy for one class and 80% in another class.

It is also very possible that you would be able to make your optimal load out for 2 different classes. This will greatly lower the need for extra character slots.

(SockDog) #62

Either abilities are useful or not, seems we like to have them as both depending on what is convinient at the time.

In ETQW people wouldn’t change class because they just wanted to be a certain class or because they were chasing some class specific goal. The abilities just adds substantial weight to their argument to stick right where they are.

Lets not forget this game will be played as people perceive it NOT necessarily how it was designed and damn anyone to hell who’ll get between bobby and his barbie.

[quote=Mad Hatter;273962]That’s the player’s fault though, not the game’s. The game will even make switching to a certain class a mission and reward you with XP for doing it, if the AI notices that your team could really use that class.

And by the time you reach level 20 you /should/ be pretty proficient with at least 2 classes, so the odds of you being completely unneeded are extremely, extremely slim.[/quote]

What about all the other players on the server? You’re going to be happy bouncing around a ton of classes because everyone else wants to stick with their favorite class and build.

And XP rewards, yeah, here’s 10XP to swap teams, worked like a charm that one. What XP do you need to award someone for losing 5-10 class specific abilities?

(Mad Hatter) #63

You say “losing” like they’re gone forever and you can’t easily get them back by switching back to that class when you’re done taking care of business. I’m fairly certain that once people start getting their butts handed to them, they’ll start doing whatever it takes to turn that around. They might not want to change classes, but I’ll bet they don’t want to lose the match even more.

Will there be noobs who just refuse to change at all and are detrimental to the team? Of course. There are noobs in every game. It’s inevitable. The ability to, and the willingness to, switch classes when and where needed will be a good indicator of who the good players are.

(SockDog) #64

[quote=Mad Hatter;273982]They might not want to change classes, but I’ll bet they don’t want to lose the match even more.

The ability to, and the willingness to, switch classes when and where needed will be a good indicator of who the good players are.[/quote]

My point is that this introduces more opportunities for the game to play badly. Surely the goal should be to make it so that people build a character they want AND play a class based shooter, as it stands these two things seem to be conflicting goals.

As I said, simply allowing assignment of class specific abilities for all classes would solve this without comprising the whole character building aspect.

(Weeohhweeohh) #65

[QUOTE=SockDog;273986]My point is that this introduces more opportunities for the game to play badly. Surely the goal should be to make it so that people build a character they want AND play a class based shooter, as it stands these two things seem to be conflicting goals.

As I said, simply allowing assignment of class specific abilities for all classes would solve this without comprising the whole character building aspect.[/QUOTE]

  1. It is up the the players to decide if they want to switch or not. They make the decision, not the game. If no one plants the bomb and the team gets smashed, it isn’t the games fault that no one on that team took the initiative to do that objective.

  2. Why even have classes then?

(SockDog) #66

The game shouldn’t discourage a positive behavior which is exactly what it’s doing if your character becomes weaker for doing the right thing.

  1. Why even have classes then?

The question is, why have classes if you’re going to give people the ability to build characters for one specific class? Giving people the ability to make one character but kit it with abilities for each class group means you build on the class system not penalise people for changing classes.

(Mad Hatter) #67

But like they’ve already said, you /can/ give your character abilities in multiple classes. Since you can only activate 5 abilities per class anyway, you sort of /are/ encouraged to use some of your skill points on other classes. You get 20 of them, after all. If you spent every single skill point on one class + universal abilities you would only be able to use half of them at a time anyway (5 + 5 = 10).

(Weeohhweeohh) #68

You act like you are completely stuck playing an unspecced class for the rest of the match. 1-2 minute investment in a class that is needed to win the round gets you bonus xp and that more closer to victory. So fracking what if I can’t throw someone extra ammo because I didn’t invest skill points in that ability. I still got the same weapons i would have had in my preferred class and they still fire bullets. In my opinion, bullets will trump abilities. Once the objective is complete, switch back to your kitted out class.

Edit: OR jack of all trades your character.

You are still putting too much emphasis on abilities. Sure there are going to be people that only play class, but if they find themselves getting smashed all the time, they will hopefully change their play style.

(SockDog) #69

[quote=Weeohhweeohh;274014]You act like you are completely stuck playing an unspecced class for the rest of the match. 1-2 minute investment in a class that is needed to win the round gets you bonus xp and that more closer to victory. So fracking what if I can’t throw someone extra ammo because I didn’t invest skill points in that ability. I still got the same weapons i would have had in my preferred class and they still fire bullets. In my opinion, bullets will trump abilities. Once the objective is complete, switch back to your kitted out class.
Edit: OR jack of all trades your character.[/quote]
So if there are 4 medics on your team and you join as a character with strong medic abilities. 1-2 minutes?
Likewise you join and there are no medics on your team and your character is a strong spec-ops class. 1-2 minutes?

See my point is that the game should entirely revolve around jumping between classes, continually balancing the team around the objective and the enemy’s tactics. Problem is the character design says you’ll be penalised every time you do that unless you luckily picked the right class before joining a server and never need to change. You don’t think that matters but maybe you and me will be the ones grabbing the ****ty end of the Brink stick while everyone plays barbie dolls. From my very real experience play ETQW became tiring when people refused to balance teams or switch classes to support their teams and there was a lot less to deter them.

You are still putting too much emphasis on abilities. Sure there are going to be people that only play class, but if they find themselves getting smashed all the time, they will hopefully change their play style.

Hey it not my emphasis. I didn’t put XP, levelling, character building and abilities on top of a class based shooter. Seems other people, a lot of them, loooovvveee all that stuff and to hell with the 15 other people who get in their way. Note the very subject of this thread. If the abilities weren’t important why have 10 different characters.

As I’ve said, this just seems very contradictory.

(Weeohhweeohh) #70

[QUOTE=SockDog;274088]So if there are 4 medics on your team and you join as a character with strong medic abilities. 1-2 minutes?
Likewise you join and there are no medics on your team and your character is a strong spec-ops class. 1-2 minutes?

See my point is that the game should entirely revolve around jumping between classes, continually balancing the team around the objective and the enemy’s tactics. Problem is the character design says you’ll be penalised every time you do that unless you luckily picked the right class before joining a server and never need to change. You don’t think that matters but maybe you and me will be the ones grabbing the ****ty end of the Brink stick while everyone plays barbie dolls. From my very real experience play ETQW became tiring when people refused to balance teams or switch classes to support their teams and there was a lot less to deter them.[/QUOTE]

Just because you have a team full of medics doesn’t mean you are going to get smashed. You will get smashed if no one on your team wants to switch to cap an objective. Switching to a class that is needed, doing the objective, then switch back. You are back to having a team full of medics again, but are one step closer to victory. Just because a team has all one class and not anything else does not mean that objectives can’t be complete.

You seem to think classes cannot be effective if they aren’t invested in. This is, in my opinion, not so. I don’t have the abilities to throw out candy to my teammates, but I can still shoot my gun. I don’t intend on spending a lot of time in X class, so I didn’t invest in it. I will spend SOME time in that class if needed, but only enough to get the objective done then switch back.

[QUOTE=SockDog;274088]Hey it not my emphasis. I didn’t put XP, levelling, character building and abilities on top of a class based shooter. Seems other people, a lot of them, loooovvveee all that stuff and to hell with the 15 other people who get in their way. Note the very subject of this thread. If the abilities weren’t important why have 10 different characters.

As I’ve said, this just seems very contradictory.[/QUOTE]

Flavor. The ability to tweet your character how you see fit. Are you planning on playing as an engineer 80% of the time? Kit that mofo out. Snap, your ENTIRE team doesn’t want to blow up a key blockade that would put you one step closer to winning? You take care of if real quick and get some xp, then switch back.

(SockDog) #71

Not to go off on a tangent but have you ever even played an SD game? It’s my very real experience that simply being the right class doesn’t mean the objective immediately falls. You’re also ignoring that 50% of the players on a server will be defending an objective. Also that a Team needs to be comprised of a certain balance of classes to be effective.

@Mad Hatter. Sorry missed your reply there. I can’t say I totally grasp what you’re explaining there but I think it at least partially answers what I feel is a very obvious flaw to the system as it’s been explained so far.

(Mad Hatter) #72

That’s ok. Might not seem like it all the time, but I’m just chillin’ out max and relaxin’ all cool back here.

What I was saying is that since you can only bring along 5 skills per class, I predict that people will kit their characters out to be good at at least 2 classes. That way, the odds of a team being wildly unbalanced are really low, since everyone /should/ have multiple classes they can play proficiently as.

(SockDog) #73

I guess that shows that some people could make some versatile characters. But my core concern is that you’ll be compelled to do so as a good team player because of what I fear will be a large proportion of gungho fantasists who’ll use some beefed up class character to “pwn” the server in their mind but in reality just make more work (and so less fun) for others.

In short I just see the whole thing causing issues for better players and the worse ones won’t care or even know the difference.

Anyway, enough time on this speculation. We’ll see how it all works in a month or so and then can decide how we like it or not. :slight_smile:

(Mad Hatter) #74

Yeah, in the end I guess it just comes down to how much faith you have in the community to make smart decisions. I’ve got my doubts as well, when it comes down to it, but I don’t think Brink will be any worse than any other FPS out there when it comes to the ratio between good players and morons. Hopefully better, since it’s supposed to be so intuitive and streamlined.

(Nail) #75

medium, AR w/drum, problems solved imho

(CVIChEK) #76

The new video again says 16 characters

(Weeohhweeohh) #77

It was from Gametrailers.com so there might be some misinformation.

(H0RSE) #78

lol, you’ve been promoting this AR w/drum for a long time. I can picture the evil grin that you will get wen you finally get to use it in the game.

(Nail) #79

harvesting lights

:smiley:

(Wraith) #80

[QUOTE=Nail;274470]harvesting lights

:D[/QUOTE]

Or like chasing lights.