BRINK 2, what are your hopes for the future?.

(felismenari) #21

I enjoyed the other aspects of the game, especially the objective gameplay and class types. But the horrid gun handling (due to extreme artificial bullet spread) made it impossible for me to enjoy playing the game after a while. So yeah, that’s where I feel the devs messed up more than anything, and why ultimately the game died.

(Mustang) #22

Although these two are not necessarily connected.

(felismenari) #23

Who else put ABS into the game? Someone not part of the dev team, somewhere, somehow? Ahem…ABS had a major negative impact on gameplay, and ABS was put into the game by the dev team (well, the part of the team heading the design of the combat system, anyways). So it would seem the two things you say are not correllated, in fact are.

Now if you’re trying to say that the reason why I feel the game failed is incorrect, then you may have something worth discussing. You know why I feel the game crashed and burned. The game plain and simply wasn’t enjoyable once the fresh 'n new feel of the game wore off and I realized that I had standards. I could no longer tolerate the ABS in Brink, and so I abandoned the game.

(Mustang) #24

I’m saying it wasn’t the devs that chose to make bullet spread extreme, they certainly put it into the game in, and probably even chose to do so, but I doubt they wished for it to be as gamebreaking as you believe it was.

In short, devs != publishers

It could well be a factor, but not the major one. By which I mean fixing this alone would not have saved the game.

My opinion is that it was more a general issue of lack of on-going support for the game from the publishers, lack of bug fixes, lack of balance patches, lack of love.

The game does not belong to the devs, if they get told there aren’t going to be any more patches then there’s not a lot they can do about it.

(felismenari) #25

[QUOTE=Mustang;476189]I’m saying it wasn’t the devs that chose to make bullet spread extreme, they certainly put it into the game in, and probably even chose to do so, but I doubt they wished for it to be as gamebreaking as you believe it was.

In short, devs != publishers

It could well be a factor, but not the major one. By which I mean fixing this alone would not have saved the game.

My opinion is that it was more a general issue of lack of on-going support for the game from the publishers, lack of bug fixes, lack of balance patches, lack of love.

The game does not belong to the devs, if they get told there aren’t going to be any more patches then there’s not a lot they can do about it.[/QUOTE]

It’s been too long since I played the game to remember much else aside from what had driven me away from the game. But, you are right that publisher influence could have been a factor.

(SK7109) #26

They just bit off way more than they could chew. Bottom line they did NOT deliver.Should have just stayed with the basics of gun play just like it is in every other game, and worked on the unique things the game had going for it,like the movement system ,that should have been more like UT2004 IMO + the map design that would have accommodated that.

(quake1) #27

to be honest i never got to play Brink but i seen gamplay and the game is freakin great !!

(obliviondoll) #28

As someone who still occasionally picks up and enjoys the game, you can’t really say that without having played it.

It LOOKS great, but there are some pretty major problems holding it back from actually BEING a great game.

Is it fun? Definitely. Does it have some great content? Of course. Does it let you do a bunch of really epic-looking stuff? Yep. Is that all that matters? Unfortunately, not quite. On release, there were some seriously game-breaking flaws. Combined with a lack of competent advertising, and major delays in releasing any form of patch for the most important issues, the community died out before the worst of the release-day problems were properly addressed.

What little advertising there had been was focused on the game as a competitive multiplayer experience, and they pushed the teamwork angle pretty hard. When the game first released, it was literally required to start a mission BEFORE inviting your friends. On consoles, this was particularly painful, but it was problematic even on the PC version. if you wanted to bring a coordinated team into a public match, it was blind luck whether you’d all be able to get onto the same team or not because a random joining could fill a slot you wanted to save for a friend (nope, no private slots) and there was no option to squad up in the lobby beforehand (because no lobbies is “innovation”).

Add in the serious issues with bots effectively using aim hacks on even medium difficulty (Shotguns are particularly nasty), and the allied AI being severely gimped when the human players on your team outnumber the enemy, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Some of the problems never got fixed, at least not on the PS3 version. When I turn the difficulty down to Easy, my AI teammates will only pay attention to the currrent primary objective at the last second, and will not merely ignore it, but actively AVOID being any use towards it until it’s almost too late, and if I don’t play on Easy, the AI shotgunners will one-shot me with every pellet landing as a headshot at a range where my own shotgun will be lucky to even land one pellet anywhere on their body. I’m basically forced to play the game solo when I decide to pick it up, because there are no other people playing, and certainly nobody on my friend list, so I don’t have the luxury of someone to coordinate with to mitigate the unfair advantages given to the opposing team, or to JOIN the opposing team and balance out whatever variety of broken-ness the game is throwing around.

…

All that said, I hope Brink 2 has legitimately competent AI instead of a choice between complete morons and complete morons with hacked weapons. I hope they advertise it properly this time around. I hope they remember how stupid it was to “innovate” in a team-based shooter by removing the ability to put together a team of your choosing. I hope they keep the excellent customisation features, both for characters and weapons. I hope SMART gets refined. I hope they add the ONE thing that was missing from control customisation - the ability to either disable the automatic SMART function, or separate it from the sprint toggle.

And finally, I hope they realise that while Brink may have failed as a standalone product, it inspired features which are becoming more popular within the genre now, and in spite of the missteps, it did a lot of things VERY right. I hope they make Brink 2.

(njezic) #29

[QUOTE=obliviondoll;487143]As someone who still occasionally picks up and enjoys the game, you can’t really say that without having played it.

It LOOKS great, but there are some pretty major problems holding it back from actually BEING a great game.

Is it fun? Definitely. Does it have some great content? Of course. Does it let you do a bunch of really epic-looking stuff? Yep. Is that all that matters? Unfortunately, not quite. On release, there were some seriously game-breaking flaws. Combined with a lack of competent advertising, and major delays in releasing any form of patch for the most important issues, the community died out before the worst of the release-day problems were properly addressed.

What little advertising there had been was focused on the game as a competitive multiplayer experience, and they pushed the teamwork angle pretty hard. When the game first released, it was literally required to start a mission BEFORE inviting your friends. On consoles, this was particularly painful, but it was problematic even on the PC version. if you wanted to bring a coordinated team into a public match, it was blind luck whether you’d all be able to get onto the same team or not because a random joining could fill a slot you wanted to save for a friend (nope, no private slots) and there was no option to squad up in the lobby beforehand (because no lobbies is “innovation”).

Add in the serious issues with bots effectively using aim hacks on even medium difficulty (Shotguns are particularly nasty), and the allied AI being severely gimped when the human players on your team outnumber the enemy, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Some of the problems never got fixed, at least not on the PS3 version. When I turn the difficulty down to Easy, my AI teammates will only pay attention to the currrent primary objective at the last second, and will not merely ignore it, but actively AVOID being any use towards it until it’s almost too late, and if I don’t play on Easy, the AI shotgunners will one-shot me with every pellet landing as a headshot at a range where my own shotgun will be lucky to even land one pellet anywhere on their body. I’m basically forced to play the game solo when I decide to pick it up, because there are no other people playing, and certainly nobody on my friend list, so I don’t have the luxury of someone to coordinate with to mitigate the unfair advantages given to the opposing team, or to JOIN the opposing team and balance out whatever variety of broken-ness the game is throwing around.
.[/QUOTE]

The problem with ATI cards at the beginning was a terrible disaster. I even had to buy a Nvidia card that I could play Brink.

Later it corrected and all other graphical problems is solved. Most skilled Brink PC players over time raising the FOV parameters to 110 which extremely accelerated play and movement. Standard FOV is far too small and a lot of time the game slowed. Also, we need to set all advanced graphics options off - to make more accelerated movement (FPS) which is very important in multiplayer matches.

Over time we added also some color modes which also raised the atmosphere of playing and added another dimension. Also we started to use fast chating using binding on almost all the keys. You can see it in many Brink video materials from me or PaPPe (NeVeN’s - Brink videos, PaPPe’s - Brink videos)

In this state the Brink is technically great polished, just asking for skilled players and good teamwork… :slight_smile:

On PC (Steam) Brink have several active groups and about 300 skilled players, the last two weeks was not possible to play Brink online on servers becaouse of errors for which blame steam developers but now everything is corrected. All who are interested in playing at the highest level Brink let us join and not just complain…

The average number of hours that we have is about 1000 hours in Brink, and some skilled players have even over 5000 hours…

For me, have over 950 hours in Brink, Brink requires only small corrections the rest is perfectly and uniquely done… Clearly Brink 2 is welcome!

(.FROST.) #30

[QUOTE=njezic;487921]The problem with ATI cards at the beginning was a terrible disaster. I even had to buy a Nvidia card that I could play Brink.

Later it corrected and all other graphical problems is solved. Most skilled Brink PC players over time raising the FOV parameters to 110 which extremely accelerated play and movement. Standard FOV is far too small and a lot of time the game slowed. Also, we need to set all advanced graphics options off - to make more accelerated movement (FPS) which is very important in multiplayer matches.

Over time we added also some color modes which also raised the atmosphere of playing and added another dimension. Also we started to use fast chating using binding on almost all the keys. You can see it in many Brink video materials from me or PaPPe (NeVeN’s - Brink videos, PaPPe’s - Brink videos)

In this state the Brink is technically great polished, just asking for skilled players and good teamwork… :slight_smile:

On PC (Steam) Brink have several active groups and about 300 skilled players, the last two weeks was not possible to play Brink online on servers becaouse of errors for which blame steam developers but now everything is corrected. All who are interested in playing at the highest level Brink let us join and not just complain…

The average number of hours that we have is about 1000 hours in Brink, and some skilled players have even over 5000 hours…

For me, have over 950 hours in Brink, Brink requires only small corrections the rest is perfectly and uniquely done… Clearly Brink 2 is welcome![/QUOTE]

Lol, you were playing with PaPPe? I have him on my friends list on Steam; he’s probably the most devote Brink player I’ve ever encountered. There are also some russian(I think) guys wich are still very strong into that game, but PaPPe easily beats them all. Maybe I should fire up Brink once again and play some matches with him, just like in the good ol’ days:D

PS: My hour-count must be around 1200-1300hrs ingame, or something like that. If Brink would’ve turned out as popular as I hoped it would, I’d probably be at 3times that number by now.

(.FROST.) #31

[QUOTE=obliviondoll;487143]

…

All that said, I hope Brink 2 has legitimately competent AI instead of a choice between complete morons and complete morons with hacked weapons. I hope they advertise it properly this time around. I hope they remember how stupid it was to “innovate” in a team-based shooter by removing the ability to put together a team of your choosing. I hope they keep the excellent customisation features, both for characters and weapons. I hope SMART gets refined. I hope they add the ONE thing that was missing from control customisation - the ability to either disable the automatic SMART function, or separate it from the sprint toggle.

And finally, I hope they realise that while Brink may have failed as a standalone product, it inspired features which are becoming more popular within the genre now, and in spite of the missteps, it did a lot of things VERY right. I hope they make Brink 2.[/QUOTE]

+1 for still playing Brink. I also love that game, I doubt though, that it will get a successor, anywhere in the near future. But if so, then it would most certainly not be from SD since they are working on their own F2P title, called Extraction* Aside from that, Brink isn’t and never was SD’s property. If someone could bring Brink 2 on the way, it would be Bethesda, but I kinda doubt, that they have anything planned in this regard; maybe they even sold the rights of this IP already.

*http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=extraction+gameplay&page=&utm_source=opensearch

(njezic) #32

[QUOTE=.FROST.;487924]Lol, you were playing with PaPPe? I have him on my friends list on Steam; he’s probably the most devote Brink player I’ve ever encountered. There are also some russian(I think) guys wich are still very strong into that game, but PaPPe easily beats them all. Maybe I should fire up Brink once again and play some matches with him, just like in the good ol’ days:D

PS: My hour-count must be around 1200-1300hrs ingame, or something like that. If Brink would’ve turned out as popular as I hoped it would, I’d probably be at 3times that number by now.[/QUOTE]

I do not know if you’ve already seen, we maintain one nice list for Brink players:
► List of active Brink players

PaPPe is on top, but you’re a also very high-ranking…:slight_smile:
Yes, a lot of the Russians in the upper part of the list.

PaPPe is a excellent trained jumper that extracts the maximum from the light body type!

(.FROST.) #33

[QUOTE=njezic;487927]I do not know if you’ve already seen, we maintain one nice list for Brink players:
► List of active Brink players

PaPPe is on top, but you’re a also very high-ranking…:slight_smile:
Yes, a lot of the Russians in the upper part of the list.

PaPPe is a excellent trained jumper that extracts the maximum from the light body type![/QUOTE]

Wow, that’s so great, I didn’t know such a list even existed :eek: Nice to see all those names again, brings a little tear in the corner of my eye :’(

(obliviondoll) #34

Awesome to hear that the PC version at least got some much-needed attention, but that doesn’t negate the point that the console versions are still in a pretty lacklustre state.

The playerbase isn’t large enough to be sustainable on a console, and the AI is problematic at the best of times and can’t be used as an effective substitute for players.

Part of the problem is that the bots don’t have a turn speed limit on console, so you can ambush them and instantly take a lethal headshot that cancels out your flanking action. On PC, this is reasonable, because players can turn near-instantly without losing accuracy as well, so the high-end AI simply looks like a good player. On console, it looks like cheating, because with analogue sticks for turning, there’s a limit on how fast you can turn based on your sensitivity setting, and unless you’re REALLY good with the controller, that extra turn speed comes at a significant cost in accuracy.

For console FPS games, positioning is crucial - getting behind an opponent doesn’t guarantee the win, but it gives you an edge. Against Brink’s AI, that edge disappears the instant your intended victim takes fire or hears a shot/footstep behind them. If they have a comm hack, you get insta-headshotted by everyone in line of sight.

Combined with the fact that any difficulty higher than Easy also allows enemies to negate the kick and spread on all weapons - INCLUDING SHOTGUNS - and you have game-breaking issues when trying to deal with AI enemies. Headshot at max range with every pellet from a Shotgun is a bad thing. On PC, you have enough active players to consistently avoid the AI and therefore the problems - on console, it’s not that easy. You also get the option of mods, FOV adjustments, etc. which aren’t an option on console. There are a few games which include FOV sliders in the options menu, but those are very rare, and Brink isn’t one of them.

Other than the forced dual bind of sprint and SMART functions, the controller remapping is great, and something I wish more console games did appropriately.

(benkerman) #35

Team stacking has a far greater detrimental impact on the enjoyment of a game, in stopwatch than it does in campaign mode.
In stopwatch mode theres no where to hide (skill wise) because the mode requires low player counts for it to work. In campaign mode or objective mode - teams can still beat stacks with sheer numbers at the objective. They can also spam their way through the objective, which is generally hard to do with stopwatch rules and low player numbers.

(wauweli) #36

Couple Brink videos. First is pretty new and second a bit older.

Brink is great game with polishing problems. Its clumsy, HUD is horrible… but its fun and visually very interesting (maps / overall look), and it has great map design. Sadly not the best from ‘Splash’ but still A+ compared to maps we have these days on online shooters. Classes are underplayed compared to stunning ‘Wolf ET’, but still the worst thing they did do (game design wise) was not to put it on ‘‘3rd person mode’’.

I like it in first, but i can easily see how much better this game could have been on third on consoles. And even without third this would be great game for F2P, but sadly Bethesamara (?) wont hop on board ( why would they).

(njezic) #37

[QUOTE=wauweli;489625]Couple Brink videos. First is pretty new and second a bit older.

Brink is great game with polishing problems. Its clumsy, HUD is horrible… but its fun and visually very interesting (maps / overall look), and it has great map design. Sadly not the best from ‘Splash’ but still A+ compared to maps we have these days on online shooters. Classes are underplayed compared to stunning ‘Wolf ET’, but still the worst thing they did do (game design wise) was not to put it on ‘‘3rd person mode’’.

I like it in first, but i can easily see how much better this game could have been on third on consoles. And even without third this would be great game for F2P, but sadly Bethesamara (?) wont hop on board ( why would they).[/QUOTE]
Nice video editing! :slight_smile:
We know each other from the group Brink - Croatia… :>)

Which program you use to record? PlayClaw gives by far the best results!
By the way HUD is great, but it requires great experience playing Brink that it could be well used or understood and what the developers wanted to make with it.

Here is also my last capture before some days, also inserted some interesting video processing… :wink:

You mentioned ‘Third person mode’… :slight_smile:

(Illegible_) #38

Brink 2, sounds like a splendid idea, especially from the reasons you have mentioned. The only thing I would like to add to your list to implement in Brink 2 would possibly be Vehicle uses, not to be like BOF but allowing us to use some sort of vehicles to get to places quicker and faster. Of course with this being done the maps will need to be much bigger and detailed as well. Other than this I think Brink 2 could be a very good game. If it gets the markets attraction. Also, I’d have a lot more console support, so that the LAG is less on PS3/4 or Xbox 360/1.

(twt_thunder) #39

BAAADMAN!!! ITS A BOT:eek: I HATE BOTS!!! GET RID OF IT!!!

(wauweli) #40

I would like to see more of the same. Only big thing would be more vertical maps, and more focus back to ‘‘class goals’’ on map. ‘’ Disable gun controls’’ style, or the greatest thing ever, that back door game (sounds dirty) in that great Vanilla ET map where objective was to blow up that navarro gun (Best map ever).

This is where Brink is now. New shiny video: