There’s been quite a bit of discussion here on personal skill; both when it comes to tactical aspects, as well as to aim. I figured I’d throw in my two cents. Mind you, this is oriented towards PC players. If you want to chip in as a console player, by all means do, but mechanics can be different.
I’ll kick it off with the dreaded comparison to other games; but not in terms of mechanics. Rather, I’d like to take a closer look at the common complaints seen in gaming communities. One may argue that that’s a very subjective topic, but I’ll try to pick out the complaints that you’ll read about the moment you start playing, be it through server messages, fellow players or community forums.
We’ll start with a very well-known one: Camping. Common in a fair number of popular games, but for this example, we’ll use Counterstrike, seeing as pretty much everyone knows the game. The amount of people having trouble with this, has reached a point where popular server-side admin mods have automated anti-camping systems. Why do people dislike camping so much? Because it’s too easy. It takes no skill, and players don’t like putting in effort moving towards their goal if their opponent is barely even touching the WASD keys.
Moving along, we come to Call of Duty. I’m sure many of you are familiar with this game, and in particular, with the noobtube (or rifle-mounted grenade launcher). This weapon is banned from use on an excessively high number of servers, and why? Because players don’t want to put in effort trying to take down their opponent, when their opponent only needs to shoot once in their general direction.
I could go on about this for a fairly long time, with things such as ET’s panzerfaust, ETQW’s flying vehicles, Battlefield’s flyers, Bad Company 2’s M60, Day Of Defeat’s assault spray… Thing is, there’s a lot of games where players have had trouble with elements in the game. The general consensus to these things, is that players tend to dislike it when other players have to put in significantly less effort than they do in order to beat them. From the past, though, we can also see that through server rules and mods, these items are moderated; either through being outright banned, or from being restricted in number/power/etc.
How does this apply to Brink, you ask? It relates to the relatively low skill ceiling this game currently has. All the aforementioned problems come from players feeling that despite the effort they put in, they’re getting beaten by people who aren’t trying: their individual skill is not rewarded. Brink does the same thing; no matter how well you aim, how well you move; the outcome of a duel is still heavily dependant on whether or not you happen to randomly hit a head.
Of course, Brink has a heavy tactical aspect, but does this rule out the need for individual skill? When I look at games with similar aspects, such as Enemy Territory and its sequel, Quake Wars, there’s a distinct flow to the game, where individual skill was needed to perform smooth team-based action - or disrupt it. With this style, individual performace is rewarded, and teamwork still essential. All in all, it’s a much more gratifying mix for the player; it’s part of that mix that makes a game ‘fun’.
