Abilities and upgrades

(H0RSE) #61

[QUOTE=Jamieson;231055]How is using the kill command an exploit? The devs put it in the game lol, how else are you supposed to use the kill command?

So is respawning to prepare for the next objective an exploit?[/QUOTE]
using /kill because you picked the wrong class, or want to change kits is one thing. Using it when you are under fire or in the heat of battle, practically baiting enemy players is another. Also, I know that the devs put it in the game, that’s the whole point of exploiting, using something that exists in a way it isn’t intended, in this case, using it to gain an advantage over a situation.

(INF3RN0) #62

WHERE IS THE ADVANTAGE? Seriously please do explain…

(Jamieson) #63

Killing somebody is only the first component to winning the match, the second is forcing them to stay dead and wait in the respawn quque.

Therefore the real punishement for death is not being able to act i.e you are taken out of the game. Professional players who understand the games mechanics know that dying isn’t inherently bad, its when you die when there is alot of time on the respawn clock when it becomes bad. Therefore if you respawn on 0 seconds during a firefight to ensure you wil instantly respawn will full HP and ammo + grenades, then thats just playing tactically as it benefits your team much more, continuing a fight in which you might die and be out of the game for 20seconds is selfish not the other way around.

(MILFandCookies) #64

Unless the /kill command’s intended use is stated in print with the game, players will use it according to the way THEY perceive it to be useful. And in my opinion, the positive aspects of the command, completely outweigh the one negative aspect. If you cant deal with the fact, some kid opted to respawn when you thought you had him cold, refer to your brilliant “I am left handed” analogy.

(MILFandCookies) #65

I concur. The only advantage I could come up with, is getting someone rattled.

(LyndonL) #66

Inf3rno, you need to change your signature… The Tbagging no longer begins Fall 2010 :frowning:

(INF3RN0) #67

ROFL yea… thanks for the heads up :tongue:.

(jazevec) #68

I’m surprised to say I agree with H0RSE. He made the point quite well. As for /kill in particular, it belongs in the same category as god mode, noclip, and other debug tools. /kill exists, because sometimes players/testers get stuck in map geometry. It’s for situations which can’t be escaped. It’s a much easier fix than to try to fix every single map or provide an escape tool for each special case.

I’m looking forward to try the new system, and I hope you can only change class at command posts, and not even by just dying. Funny that someone brings “pro” players into the discussion - they’re the most conservative and likely to bitch. Arrogant know-it-alls who tell others how things should be done or work.

(Ragoo) #69

In general Jamieson and INF3RNO are completely right. The /kill command is a very useful and sensible tool in a objective based shooter with a spawn timer because it’s not that much about killing and dying, but more about the tactics and the team. And so /kill is the perfect way to join your team at the spawn, so you push together.
It also was explained that you are often in a situation where you die anyway and would rather want to die when the spawn timer hits 0 and not right after. If BRINK doesn’t have /kill you’ll have to suicide and the only difference is that your enemy gains XP (which is pretty meaningless for the match itself).
I guess you weren’t allowed to /kill during a fight in ET:QW because you denied the enemy the XP that were used IN the match, so you denied him extra life or another nade. That’s not a problem at all in BRINK, where you use your XP OUTSIDE of the match to buy stuff.
Furthermore it’s right that you can use /kill to change class. This may be used when you have to do a new main obj or want to change strategy (for example: you defend as a soldier but if they plant you change to engi), but can also lead to some really neat strategies like making a spawn host as the obj is clear and then respawn as a soldier and plant or something like that.

Now I have to say, despite all the very good reasons for /kill I don’t mind if it is not enabled on the standard server, as I don’t mind that Friendly Fire or Voice Chat is not enabled.
As long as /kill is a server option!!
It is only used to it’s full potential by the ‘hardcore’ community anyways and pub-crybabies will cry all day because someone denied them XP :wink:

The only thing I’m concerned about is the revive problem. If you see someone cooking a nade for your incapacitated body, or if you see some people only waiting for the medic to come by, you better /kill asap or tell your medic buddy via voice. But as far as we know that won’t be possible in BRINK and that is a problem (even though it might be minor for the casual community).

edit: As with most things we discuss here, I would love to hear the opinion of the devs about it. Was /kill used as intended in competitive play? Or do you view it as an exploit and are not getting rid of it?

(DarkangelUK) #70

Kill was never intended to deny the enemy the XP they deserve for killing you… are you saying this is not true?

A point ‘for’ kill in Brink how ever that relates to the above is the fact that the kill before death tactic will no longer deny XP since XP is per hit now and not per death (the much loved XP petals). If killing yourself how ever denies the enemy the ability to interrogate, then I say no to it… as this would just render interrogation pointless as most would just tap out when they see someone getting close. As was suggested, sure have the ‘cyanide pill’ type perk if equipped for such things, but it shouldn’t be universal.

What H0RSE said sums up the intended us of Kill just fine, hell i’d even add using it to regroup at spawn for a planned group attack, and also on the occasions where you just couldn’t get ammo… but again that has been resolved in Brink with command posts for ammo.

So really, all you want kill for now at this point is because you think a situation is hopeless and just want to go back to full health, ammo and the safety of your own spawn instead of actually having to ‘tactically’ deal with the situation.

EDIT: I think I suggested a while ago that we have a kill option in the sense of ‘join next respawn’ and when the counter hits 0 you then die and spawn as normal (if you’re dead you cant spawn till the timer hits any way). This means you’re not denying the interrogation in the cheap manner, and it adds an negative side to an option that only has positives for you and negatives to the enemy.

A question I do have how ever is, if you die and are being interrogated while the spawn timer hits 0, do you skip the spawn and have to wait till the next one or do you still spawn while the enemy complete their interrogation?

(tokamak) #71

Agreed. Selfkillers should wait another respawn round for all I care.

Brink no longer has any valid reason to kill yourself.

(darthmob) #72

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;231085]I think I suggested a while ago that we have a kill option in the sense of ‘join next respawn’ and when the counter hits 0 you then die and spawn as normal (if you’re dead you cant spawn till the timer hits any way). This means you’re not denying the interrogation in the cheap manner, and it adds an negative side to an option that only has positives for you and negatives to the enemy.[/QUOTE]This option seems to be already in it. I attached a screenshot from the video. What I didn’t see before is that it shows if a medic has a mission to revive you - I really like that! I just hope that if you choose not to wait for a medic he can see that you do not want to be revived or can’t revive you (in addition to not generating a mission for it).

I’m not sure if you are implying that but the player should have the choice to tap out and watch his own teammates or stay with his downed body. I do not really want to be lying there for a full spawn possibly looking at an empty room just because an enemy might want to interrogate me. It shouldn’t matter what you are viewing as long as your body stays where you got shot in a state in which it can be interrogated.

(tokamak) #73

I think the possibility of having to lie in an empty room for a while is a sufficient penalty of dying.

(DarkangelUK) #74

Well i was more referring to having that option when you’re alive rather than downed waiting for a medic, a compromise to the /kill option.

(tokamak) #75

I’d like that as well.

Don’t want that either. If you want to change something about your gear you’ll just have to move to a command post. This mechanic will also put a lot of importance on the command posts around the map as then they really do give a team more flexibility that can’t be gotten in any other way.

(Ragoo) #76

[QUOTE=tokamak;231087]Agreed. Selfkillers should wait another respawn round for all I care.
[/QUOTE]

Wow , you completely neglect all the tactical choices /kill gave players in W:ET and ET:QW and just say they should be punished if they use it.
Wtf is wrong with you. You already hated so much on players who accidentally tk someone with a nade or something, and called possible servers with character change enabled “Indecisive pussy” servers, you think tk revive is cheap and stupid… wtf , you’re talking about tactical depth all day, but when we talk about things that top-level players did in W:ET and enjoyed about the game you are like ‘NO THIS IS ****ING STUPID I DON’T WANT THAT IN MY GAME’
Seems to me that if someone has a different play style you just think he’s cheap. Does /kill harm you in any way? Do you cry if someone just taps out and you can’t kill him for the xp or what?
The /kill command was (is) a inherent part of the Enemy Territory games and has (as far as I can see) no real downsides to it (other than denying XP which was a little game changing, but is now completely negligible).
Or do you just not like the idea of self killing being advantageous as you didn’t like the idea of tk reviving? It’s just a game, get over it. You have to sacrifice realism for better gameplay.

If there’s something wrong with /kill in the game, please give me good reasons. I’m really curious why it shouldn’t be in (and please not this “you are in a ****ty situation, now you have to deal with it” crap. I could just go ahead and suicide, but I don’t think that makes the game any better , if I exchange /kill for suicide missions).

edit: If the devs had the same attitude towards the community of their old games that you have, I would have left this forum long ago. Fortunately SD is listening to the community and tries to make a good game for both the casual players AND the old ‘hardcore’ community (consisting mostly of W:ET gamers).

(Zhou Yu) #77

Tokamak has a point here, we can see the emphasis that has been placed on command posts in some of the video footage we have been shown, where they are objects that can be hacked, attacked and defended (and hopefully, booby-trapped?). Many of the objections and solutions raised to the traditional spawn-wave model have not only been based on the ET:QW/W:ET model, but also fail to recognise elements of what we have learnt about game-mechanics in the current build.

The fact that a command-post can be hacked by the enemy team emphasises its importance in the game mechanics. If we can simply change classes while in respawn-limbo, the command-post becomes pointless. Likewise, because of changes such as interrogation, where a downed player becomes a potential asset to both the enemy team and his own, the use of /kill will likely have to change, according to the new gameplay mechanics we have seen in videos. Simply put, if a player can /kill to deny an interrogation or change classes while in respawn limbo, the importance that we have seen the devs place in interrogation and command-posts becomes almost entirely negated.

Personally, in terms of /kill, I have never much liked its implementation in previous SD games. Used in order to join a new spawn wave it becomes a useful and accordingly justifiable shortcut, especially in competitive games. It can be tactical, and is therefore used as such to ensure more competitive players can restock as they like, and time spawn-waves, but like any shortcut/exploit it bypasses game design to benefit the player.

Its never going to be an issue that everyone is pleased about, but personally I feel that the drive to be more competitive, or at least as competitive as everyone else, can starve a game like Brink of its breadth of experience, and of the freedom to play it the way I like, rather than the way that is most competitive. This results ultimately in a shallower experience, to my mind at least. I’d rather that the need to /kill was designed around, rather than shortcut through, which is the path I believe SD are taking anyway.

(Ragoo) #78

I guess that you will spawn next to a command-post anyway, and you will always be able to change class on this command-post, so that is not the issue.

You are right about the interrogation problem though but I think that DarkangelUK’s suggestion of a /kill that waits until the spawn timer hits 0 would be just fine.
I wonder if SD will handle the interrogation thing like that though. Wouldn’t it be very hard, if you could only interrogate players who haven’t respawned yet?

edit: Just thought it’s necessary for me to point out once more: I don’t think that this must be enabled on the vanilla servers but there should definitely be a server option “allow /kill” for ‘hardcore’ servers and organized gaming. If there is not, the W:ET community will put it in via mod later anyway, since it’s just useful to have. But imo SD can do the work, won’t be too hard :wink:

(tokamak) #79

Ah yes, yes I certainly do. I’ve always thought of it as a degradation of the gameplay and I’m glad there’s finally a superior alternative.

Sure, comp players should have all the means to rape the game in any fashion they like, I totally support that.

(INF3RN0) #80

So what if I tk myself instead guys? Eh Eh Eh? Let’s get rid of that too perhaps. The only semi-valid reasoning is the denying of XP, but you also get XP from defending objectives where in a guy killing out at a bad time is going to make it that much easier for you (enjoy your precious XP). If there was no XP involved then what? Funny that slash killing gets linked to comp players again, as in oooh some people can actually determine what is broken and what is whine fest. It won’t matter in Brink of course, before anyone else says it, but it is a perfectly good game element that makes this less of a TDM and more of an objective based shooter. But I am sure that some people just can’t handle losing that well earned kill in that certain situation, in exchange for an overall win… its dam silly these discussions.