Brink Game Play: Speculation, Deduction and Update

(Otto) #1

I realize this may be rehashing what has been talked about on other threads, and I apologize if that is on welcome.
Goal
At this time I thought it would be prudent to start fresh in-light of we now have more real game play videos and testers that can help analyze this to a more accurate state. To take what we have talked about and observed, and brake it down to a purer form then we have seen before.
Speculation
Talking to my friend tonight, the more and more he sees more about brink the more he is becoming indifferent to it, where once before he was just as excited as I am.
Him and I are both big long term TF2 players, for all it’s faults, it still manages to encourage team work. The window of current content he and I have observed is giving the impression that this isn’t what Brink is going to offer per-say. I would like to state now NETHER of us are looking for a TF2 clone by any means. Him and I both agree that its the essence of TF2 style encourage teamwork coordination would be highly welcomed in Brink not the entire game.
Observation
What we are lead to believe by what we have seen thus far is this; a team has to all work toward goals unique to the roll in which we are playing, and tho we fight together on the same map to while attempting accomplish said goals, it presents itself as if a bunch people are running around from place to place on a map, randomly bumping into each other while trying to push switches unique to each player.
Comparison
A similar effect can happen in TF2 play but not always as drastic.
Examples:
Pro-teamwork
A medic working with the players in tf2 works best when communicating with the person they are helping in order to push a head, or ready the team they are about to uber and offer a greater offense. A spy may run a head to disable sentries and be in communication with the team to come in range and open fire upon the engineer’s equipment when he starts this process to insure a greater chance of success to overtake the area. Three players go into the enemy base to capture the flag, defending each other on the way to win the flag with much higher success rate then a lone player.
Anti-teamwork
The opposite of this game play can of course also occur; players will run around and single out specific targets to conquer; A spy will go out by himself and destroy the engineer and his sentry, tho helpful to the team, if no one knows its safe to move in, a precious opportunity is wasted. Similar result comes from a lone medic+1 uber when it comes to overtaking an objective.
A single player runs in to the enemy base to capture the flag, if poorly defended he may get away with it, if not he may fail many times trying to over power a team by himself, it ends up being a constant gamble he may get lucky and hit things perfectly and his skill will do the rest, he may not. If he were to coordinating with a couple team mates his odds improve greatly.
Summary
Brink seems to show that it favors a version of the Anti-teamwork game style. The difference is that brink game play seems to be based around this style and even encourage this with greater EXP. Your team has a great chance of succeeding if the players keep to there own specific goals rather then coordinating to accomplish more common ones. More about working independently, rather then directly assisting each other.
Conclusion
I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with this type of game play by any means, it may even have more depth to it then my simplified inexperienced views of it. People like my friend, our gaming community and I would like to see this form of coordinated team work come from brink and would like to have more understanding about what we might expect from the style of game play.
Goal of this thread
At this time I would like to hear more from the rest of the community that has been keenly watching and even playing to give more insight from what we can speculate and know to try and come and reach the most accurate description of Brink’s game play.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to your comments.

(TinMan) #2

Each map is a chain of objectives 4-5, only one primary objective is operational at one time.

Best analogy to TF2 is CP maps, except if only one side can cap/no recaps. Or maybe payload, except when the current objective isn’t an escort(bot or npc) the frontline jumps are more discreate like CP.

(most) objectives can only be done by one class type, and players are vulnerable while doing the action - weapon down, and in a known spot, so they must be supported by the team.

While there are a couple of side objectives at one time, they are either to open/close more routes to the objective, or (command posts) to give the whole team a bonus to give them an extra edge, in many cases they’ll be on an outer flanking route to the objective anyway.

If the attackers do not complete the current primary objective in time they lose.

If the defenders fail to defend the current objective (or put in other term, the attackers succeed) it will move on to the next objective.

If all main objectives are completed the attackers win.

Like TF2, in order to make decent headway you have to attack/push the enemy past the point you need, back towards their spawn (this is true of defense as well as attack).
And like TF2 a communicating/coordinating team attacking will do much better in overcoming an area the enemy is defending than one that isn’t.

(Apoc) #3

facepalm111.jpg750x600

This is not TF2. This is a separate game. You have not played the game or if you have it has been for 20 minutes while trying to get the hang of it. You cannot possibly come to a conclusion that brink favours the Anti-teamwork style. I mean…if we can come to any conclusion it would be that brink is very Pro-teamwork…i mean every team member is encouraged to do a task or objective that either directly or indirectly benefits the team and makes it easier to do the objective. Just the fact that medics can revive is enough to make this more pro teamwork that TF2 ever will be.

(JeP) #4

Just the fact that random players trying the game for no more than 30 minutes are already buffing and reviving each other is a good hint, I think, on the amount of teamwork it will push players to…

(Otto) #5

[QUOTE=Apoc;269592]
This is not TF2. This is a separate game. You have not played the game or if you have it has been for 20 minutes while trying to get the hang of it.[/QUOTE] Yes I know and the majority of the comunity is in the same boat as me, and probably you in that matter. I implied many times that I am speculating on what we have been allowed to observe. I also stated in bold, I am not looking for tf2, i use tf2 as my example references because I am so well acquainted with it.

[QUOTE=Apoc;269592]
You cannot possibly come to a conclusion that brink favors the Anti-teamwork style. I mean…if we can come to any conclusion it would be that brink is very Pro-teamwork…i mean every team member is encouraged to do a task or objective that either directly or indirectly benefits the team and makes it easier to do the objective. Just the fact that medics can revive is enough to make this more pro teamwork that TF2 ever will be.[/QUOTE]

You are proving my point for me, and perhaps it is my fault that I didn’t make my point clear enough. Each member is encouraged to do an individual objectives unique to that player, accomplishing that task helps the team indirectly.
I have been referring to how in TF2 objective style game play it encourages team combat coordination “pro-teamwork” to over come the enemy and win the mission. Observations of Brink can be interpenetrated as showing to encourage each individual to engage in combat with minimal coordination with the team in order to accomplish that individual’s specific task.

Game play Examples:

Brink implied game play
8 players have to press 8 buttons, each button is intended to be pressed by 1 unique player. When teammates cross each others paths some times one may throw a med pack his or her way, or help engage an enemy they happen to encounter at the same team, then split off again to do there own unique job.

TF2 game play
A team of 8 players have to overcome an enemy team defended area in order to progress and win the mission, they all fight together to force the enemy away from the common objective.

Real world examples:

Individual team work
A race car pit crew works together to repair the car to get the car back on track, this is there objective. each member of the crew only has 1 job to do, some change tires, some clean windows, some replenish the cars fluids. If say the crew member in charge of the refueling the car postpones his task to do the job of the crew member in charge of replacing the wheels, by trying to unbolt the same wheel at the same time, they are going to waste time and possibly even get in each others ways, they are encouraged to work on each task individually. When the car is put back together they have accomplished there goal.
Multiple Unique objectives 1 goal

Coordinated team work
A Monster Truck needs it’s wheels changed, there are 4 crew members assigned to this objective. The shear size and weight of the wheels is far more then any one Individual crew member can handle safely. If they were to brake off and try and do each will own there own, there is a good chance some one is going to injure themselves and end up taking longer then the time they are getting paid to complete their objected. The physics of the situation calls for Coordinated team work to obtain the most efficent results, to over come each wheel one at a time.
Single Common Objective 1 goal

And this is what i was referring to by pro and anti team work, my choice of words could have been better.

Using both real world examples, It is plain to see both crews are encouraged to do what is best for their corresponding objectives even tho they work in different ways as a team, and there is of course nothing wrong with that. What I personally would like to see come from brink is a mix of this say 35% Individual encouraged team work 65$% Coordinated encouraged team work.

What I am trying to accomplish with this thread is to put our collective minds together as a community to come to the most accurate definition we can at this time of what Brink’s game play is about. (a discussion not an argument)

(JFarrell) #6

The difference lies in that in TF2 a specific setup is not needed, a team can be composed of only a single class and still win. Then you have the fact that a lone very skilled player can take down complete teams by themselves and win the match by themselves.

And then we have Brink, which doesn’t necessarily force you to rely on your team to advance through the map but without them you won’t last long, even if you are skilled. Teamwork, such as having your gun buffed by an Engineer or receiving ammo from a fellow Soldier, is crucial in Brink and teams that cannot or won’t work together will more than likely fail.

(Apoc) #7

[quote=Otto;269731]
You are proving my point for me, and perhaps it is my fault that I didn’t make my point clear enough. Each member is encouraged to do an individual objectives unique to that player, accomplishing that task helps the team indirectly.
I have been referring to how in TF2 objective style game play it encourages team combat coordination “pro-teamwork” to over come the enemy and win the mission. Observations of Brink can be interpenetrated as showing to encourage each individual to engage in combat with minimal coordination with the team in order to accomplish that individual’s specific task.

Examples:
Brink implied game play
8 players have to press 8 buttons, each button is intended to be pressed by 1 unique player. When team mates cross each others paths some times one may throw a med pack his or her way, or help engage an enemy they happen to encounter at the same team, then split off again to do there own unique job.

TF2 game play
A team of 8 players have to overcome an enemy team defended area in order to progress and win the mission, they all fight together to force the enemy away from the common objective.[/quote]

I think you have overlooked something. This is a team game, made by pretty much the best team based objective game development squad around.

You would expect…well i would anyway, that at least 60% of players who buy this, will be aware that this is a team based shooter, they will be aware that pretty much all of brinks marketing has been on the importance of teamwork. Because of this most players will work as a team anyway, just as tf2 is just a fps, which has encouraged teamplay through the way that it is easier to win if the team works together, i think we can expect this basic ingredient to team based games to be present in brink.

The individual objective thing that we hear alot about and you are refering to, is to stop selfish players, i have played tf2 for about 200 hours so not tons but a fair bit, and in every public team there are at least 2 or 3 players playing for themselves, either ramboing, or camping back at base making a turret for a cap point that isnt going to be active till the end of the game or whatever. Brink is trying to counter this, as it is all too present in games, this individual objective thing, is a way to make selfish players who are only playing for themselves and to get to the top of the leaderboard…do that…its what they enjoy afterall, only they make it so that the tasks they have to do to get to the top, on their own inadvertantly help the team.

This feature isnt what the whole team should be doing, its for those looking to explore or rambo or not stick with the main portion of the team doing the primary objective. Its a way to make the useless player usefull.

I can see how you would missinterpret this, as it has been marketed as a main feature of brink. However this is just because it is new and unseen. No other fps games use a system like this, and therefor it should be marketed as a unique selling point, just as the SMART movement and in depth customisation are being.

(TinMan) #8

Did you read my post at all? :confused:
It’s more like:
A team of 8 players have to overcome an enemy team of 8 players defending an objective - in order to progress one of four classes must do a unique action at the objective, while the rest must protect them.
If they succeed they must overcome the next objective and complete a new objective where a different class must complete an action.

If the team completes the whole series of objectives they win.
If the defending team prevents the attacking team from completing an objective they win.

Ah but wait, you might say, what about sub-objectives? Those are usually achievable quickly and mostly on the way from spawn to objective anyway.

(Cankor) #9

@OP: You are wrong, even though I understand why you feel how you do. You can’t get any sense of the teamwork from watching these vids any more than you can from watching 60 second vids from any other game. Download W:ET (it’s free) and try it out. Don’t let the 10 year old graphics bother you, just play it and see how the teamwork works.

In re: to your examples from TF2, you gave no reasons why TF2 encourages the type of play you described, all you did was say that people do it. Why do they do it?

The reasons you gave for why they wouldn’t do it any less in Brink make no sense. Just because someone gets XP for buffing his team mate doesn’t mean they are going to foget about coordinating. If anything, they have more time to coordinate because it’s easier/more intuitive for them to help each other.

(Otto) #10

[QUOTE=Cankor;269743]@OP:
In re: to your examples from TF2, you gave no reasons why TF2 encourages the type of play you described, all you did was say that people do it. Why do they do it?
.[/QUOTE]

I was implying the reason in my examples; TF2 makes people focus on getting together into one area /objective and gives people more opportunity to fight side by side. From what I have seen from brink, It looks more like people are encouraged to spread out on a mission to compete their objectives for the best result, which would make it harder for teams to group up in a coordinated combat sense.

[QUOTE=TinMan;269737]Did you read my post at all? :confused:
It’s more like:
A team of 8 players have to overcome an enemy team of 8 players defending an objective - in order to progress one of four classes must do a unique action at the objective, while the rest must protect them.
If they succeed they must overcome the next objective and complete a new objective where a different class must complete an action.
[/QUOTE]

This sounds promising, closer to what i was wishing for in my imagination. Do we have any more input and or confirmation as to how accurate this description is?

(Apoc) #11

[quote=Otto;269760]

This sounds promising, closer to what i was wishing for in my imagination. Do we have any more input and or confirmation as to how accurate this description is?[/quote]

Being serious? How can you make a post sumarising what we know when you lack even the basic concept of the game?

I made the mistake in my posts of assuming you were aware of what brink gameplay was made up of.

But yea. This is how it is, this is how the last 2 sd games have been like, its their speciality and trademark if you will. Progressible objectives.

Usually a map consists of 3 or 4 main objectives, which may for instance be. Blow a hole in the fortified fence. Escort prisoner through fence to location. Hack terminal. Or something like that, which makes sense.

In the last two sd games you havent been able to progress to the next objective without completing the first etc…And you lost if you didnt complete the final objective before the map time ran out. In which case the defending team won.

Im not sure with brink, but i have a feeling i read somewhere that each objective will have a time limit, of for example (random) 7 minutes, and if that objective isnt done by then, then the defending team gains a point, and they move on to the next obj (which may be altered due to lack of completion of the first). This may be completely incorrect, but i have a feeling i read it somewhere. It was to stop the issue that sometimes came up in etqw, where if one team was stronger than the other and defending, then the attacking team could be stuck on the first objective for the whole 20 minute map, often leading to ragequits.

(aimology) #12

What does someone look like or do for a living to even take the time out of his life to start a thread like this? LOL -

gonna go out “speculation” and suggest its a room full of the above

(Striker92) #13

look up any other SD game, particularly the enemy territories titles.They have been the best team-based games i have ever played. Coming from ETQW, TF2 seemed to have no teamplay value for me…maybe it was jst me though

(Otto) #14

[QUOTE=aimology;269765]What does someone look like or do for a living to even take the time out of his life to start a thread like this? LOL -

gonna go out “speculation” and suggest its a room full of the above[/QUOTE]

If you must know I was in a Motorcycle accident 2 years ago, a truck and trailer entered and intersection and i hit the side of his trailer like hitting a wall.
I used to be a 3rd year plumber apprentice, I enjoyed amateur power lifter, swimming in the lake and ride motorcycles. I wasn’t suppose to live from the crash, I woke up from my coma 3 weeks later, no realizing whats going on due to morphine in me a week after that, unable to move my body or even feel many important parts of it. Every muscle i had wasted away to the point it couldn’t lift its own wait of skin and bone. after six months of surgeries, physio, and pain killers, I left the hospital in a wheel chair. I then spent the next 6 months teaching my self to “walk” again with the help of my therapist. I haven’t been able to walk more then a few hundred feet with out tripping over my dead foot in over 2 years, I don’t even remember how to run or jump any more. I am unable to get more then a couple hours of sleep due to pain and medical treatments i have to apply to my self in order to remain as stable as i am.
I Would I like to leave my house and feel like a normal person again, play foot ball, go to the beach, even go to the store with out feeling like every one is watching me, and wishing i could be them enjoying a normal life. I never had many friends even before my life changed that day, the ones i did married each other and moved away, dropped contact with me simply because its difficult being friends with some one as disabled as myself.
I do not feel sorry for myself, there are those far worse of then me who seem to cope with it, i envy them, but it’s early in this chapter in my life, I may get more used to it and learn how to do things more like i used to, but that will only come in time. For now I keep my self playing games with an online community of friends, its not the real thing i miss so much, but it helps.

"What does someone look like or do for a living to even take the time out of his life to start a thread like this? "

I look like a 24year old man who is covered in scars an limp limbs, with a cane in hand, and a lopsided left leg, who limps at .5 kmph. I make a living by living off of what little medical supplement money I am awarded and what I saved when I was a promising young plumber just starting his carrier.

I hope that answers your question.

(LyndonL) #15

I bet you feel like a douche aimology…

(Cankor) #16

[QUOTE=Otto;269760] I was implying the reason in my examples; TF2 makes people focus on getting together into one area /objective and gives people more opportunity to fight side by side.
[/QUOTE]

Really, why? What do they do specifcially to make people do that? Or hey, maybe they just do it on their own because it helps them to win?

Read more about it before generalizing. As I said, you can’t tell anything about teamwork in any 30 second video from any game on the market, TF2 included. What you can do is dig deeper into how the game plays. There’s some in depth info on how the 'enemy territory" objective system works and how it contributes to teamwork, along with the spawn mechanics in my signature. You might enjoy it, and it might lesson your fears about teamwork.

One thing that people who have played SD’s previous games are not worried about is teamwork.

(crazyfoolish) #17

[QUOTE=aimology;269765]What does someone look like or do for a living to even take the time out of his life to start a thread like this? LOL -

gonna go out “speculation” and suggest its a room full of the above[/QUOTE]

Why so personal?

(Apoc) #18

What has this thread turned into? Personal attacks and biographies…

Otto i think your question has been answered sufficiently?

(Otto) #19

[QUOTE=Apoc;269822]What has this thread turned into? Personal attacks and biographies…

Otto i think your question has been answered sufficiently?[/QUOTE]

perhaps from now i feel we have shead some light to some of my personal preconseptions, some things i suspected from the game seem to be true others misconseptions.

The more feed back that comes from this the more we can take common themes from each comment to come to a more accurate truth, so i welcome any further input or discussion. Especially from those who have had the rare chance to attended PAX or CSE and have experienced it first hand.

(Apples) #20

I suggest you to not answer to aimology anyway… here his history :

  • being an ass
  • getting banned
  • coming back after the ban, then being an ass randomly on whatever thread he choose
  • getting banned
  • rinse and repeat

And yeah Brink will be teamplay oriented, maybe moar than you ever saw :wink: You simply cant win an objective game all by yourself (well it happens, but you have to be extremely good at the game), so you have to stick with your mates, setup crossfire, cover them while they do the objective, etc etc.

Peace