Bugs and annoyances I've stumbled upon

(Djean) #1

Good day SD,

I’ve stumbled upon some bugs and annoyances that I hadn’t heard of before, so I decided to post them.

Here is a list of bugs:

  • When I try to join my brothers campaign (over LAN) the game tells me my rank is too high for his server even though he explicitly allowed this in the settings.
  • From time to time I experience a flash of my desktop while playing the game (both in the menu and ingame). Sometimes this is preceded by a short screen freeze (sound goes on fine).
  • Brink doesn’t seem to like being ignored. Leaving the game open in the menu for a while sometimes crashes the game whether it’s fullscreen or minimized. (Ah, there it goes again.)
  • When disguising as someone on the ground while standing, the icon that shows my characters pose can’t choose whether I’m standing or kneeling and spastically flips between them.

A list of annoyances (menu):

  • In the menus, I can’t always click every button. For some reason passwords need to be confirmed with an <enter> first and second level menu options (like the colours) need to be ignored with an <esc> or “back” before I can click the first level menu again.
  • Also when in the Head-section of Appearance, there is no “back” button, which results in accidentally clicking the “done”-button (which is there instead, probably because the “back”-button is associated with a left-hand menu). When this happens, you have to enter Appearance again, so this doesn’t work really intuitively
  • The Character Selection menu is missing an “exit”-button

List of annoyances (ingame):

  • When accidentally hitting T in battle, a simple <enter> won’t suffice. First I have to type some characters before it accepts my <enter> and lets me play again, making me shout rubbish from time to time.
  • When standing in front of “F-able objects” you really have to wait for “F” to show before pressing it. Otherwise you’ll have to release and press <F> again. Sometimes I need to move a little to make the “F” show up. This doesn’t feel very smooth.
  • Hitting someone on the ground only seems to work when standing exactly on their chest. While this could be a design choice, I often see myself and others trying from just a little further (for example standing at the feet) which doesn’t work. This forces you to stop and take the time to aim, and hit the chest, while I 'd personally rather be able to do this on the fly.

And then there is the fact that I can’t play online due to time outs and yada yada yada. But I know you’re working on these things.

I hope this can be of any help.

If anyone plans on fixing the menus, just let some new players use them and watch what goes wrong, because everyone I’ve seen using the menus stumbled upon the same counterintuitive problems I mentioned above.

I’m enjoying myself very much with Brink, so thank you for the game and the support.

(minus) #2

[QUOTE=Djean;306462]

  • From time to time I experience a flash of my desktop while playing the game (both in the menu and ingame). Sometimes this is preceded by a short screen freeze (sound goes on fine).[/QUOTE]

I’ve noticed that on my laptop, but only in menus. In game it works fine and my desktop remains un affected.

By chance are you running on an Nvidia card?

(Djean) #3

[QUOTE=minus;306466]I’ve noticed that on my laptop, but only in menus. In game it works fine and my desktop remains un affected.

By chance are you running on an Nvidia card?[/QUOTE]

Yes, my laptop has a GeForce GT540M.
But with me I’m pretty positive it even sometimes interrupts my gameplay too, although I can’t remember that being preceded by a short freeze.
I’ll mention it, might that happen in the future.

(minus) #4

Ah ok, I’ve a GTX460M. This must be happening because we’re using mobile cards, even though both of our cards are designed with gaming in mind. At least it helps narrow down the issue.

(Djean) #5

Indeed. Good reply.
I hope this will help fixing the problem.

(Djean) #6

I’d like to add another annoyance: when standing in front of something to repair, a hackbox, or whatever, I sometimes have to wait for F to appear before pressing F actually does something.

In the midst of a fight this can sometimes be a bit frustrating, because when I run up to something and press F, I first have to realize the F in the circle isn’t there yet, wait for it to show up (maybe move a little), release F and then press it again.
So it doesn’t work that smooth.

I’ll add the annoyance to the top list.

(Djean) #7

I found another annoyance in the menus. Or actually, I finally understand what’s happening when the menu goes back two steps.
When in Appearance > Head, there is no button to go “back” to the whole body. There only is a button “done”. This probably is because the “back” button only appears when there is an actual menu on the left side, but from a players point of view I must say this is rather annoying. Some of my friends testing the game at my place didn’t get it either: “Why do I have to click Appearance again when I’m done with the head?!”.
I think the “done” button should be replaced with or at least accompanied by a “back” button in the Head-section.
(I’ll update my first post.)

(FireWorks) #8

Same for me.

(MaTaX) #9

Well other than these is the broken binding I see, when I try to bind my melee to the scroll up it does not work, I know a few people have achieved this but not I

(Djean) #10

I get that on both my laptop (i7, nVidia) and my desktop (core2duo, ATI). What do you run it on?

(Djean) #11

Really? I didn’t expect Brink to have such problems. Even though I don’t get why you would like to scroll someone to the ground, I suppose that’s rather annoying.

(Djean) #12

I found a new annoyance concerning the menu: where is the “exit”-button at the Character Selection menu?

(sh4d3Z) #13

[QUOTE=Djean;313041]
When in Appearance > Head, there is no button to go “back” to the whole body. There only is a button “done”. This probably is because the “back” button only appears when there is an actual menu on the left side, but from a players point of view I must say this is rather annoying. Some of my friends testing the game at my place didn’t get it either: “Why do I have to click Appearance again when I’m done with the head?!”.
I think the “done” button should be replaced with or at least accompanied by a “back” button in the Head-section.
(I’ll update my first post.)[/QUOTE]

You can go back to the full-body appearance by hitting escape when you’re done editing your head. Although I agree, done should be replaced with back and it actually go back to your body. It annoyed the hell out of me until I figured out hitting escape worked.

[QUOTE=Djean;306462]

  • When I try to join my brothers campaign (over LAN) the game tells me my rank is too high for his server even though he explicitly allowed this in the settings.[/quote]

My friend and I figured this one out, the “My Rank or Higher” setting is only a search option for joining games from what we can tell. When he was R4 and I was R3, I had to join his games as opposed to him joining mine. We thought it was their way of keeping higher-ranked players from “ruining” the experience of lower-ranked players. It doesn’t make much sense when you’re wanting help from your higher-ranked friend though… just makes it a minor annoyance.

(FireWorks) #14

i5 2500k, NV 560Ti

(Beeblebrox) #15

Some annoyances/bugs I encountered yesterday (sorry if this has been reported elsewhere):

  • Menu text and mission countdown is scrambled (more or less since day 1 patch)
  • Mission debrief is skipped in multiplayer campaign play, booting me straight into the next random mission (no idea whether I got any XP or not for the previous game)
  • Some enemies are invisible (which I’ve been told is a bug, might be a class feature I’ve never encountered before)
  • Extreme lag
  • Getting kicked from the game (unable to verify server)
  • The sound bug (extremely muted or no sound at all, both in pre-mission movies and actual games, sometimes happens mid-fight, sometimes from the start - like scrambled text, this has been going on a while)

Apart from scrambled text and sound bugs, I haven’t experienced any real problems until everything happened at once, yesterday, making the game pretty much unplayable. Haven’t got my home PC stats from where I’m sending this, but on an older graphics card, an upgrade from ATI Crossfire.

(Djean) #16

@sh4d3Z
I found out about pressing <escape> too, but like you said: there should be a graphical way to go back.
About the “My Rank or Higher”: I suppose you’re right. Which means I misunderstood the feature. I think I’ll leave it there though, because it’s annoying when your friend with the lowest level always has to pick a game first. Luckily leveling stops at 20.

@Beeblebrox
Those all sound quite familiar to me, and I experienced most of them myself, but they are all already listed elsewhere.

(Djean) #17

I noticed something else.
At first I noted it, because the latest patch seemed to have fixed it, but now for some reason it’s back and grabs my attention.
During intros taking place in a boat, the boat stutters up and down like mad. When I played Brink yesterday after the patch this seemed to be gone, but now it’s back.
The same goes for buffing someone with <F> and automatically running after them. At first this was very stuttery (with the screen moving up and down fast), but after the patch this went very smooth (which was very nice). Now however, it’s stuttery again.
Also SMART suddenly doesn’t seem to work as smooth as first any more. It constantly seems to think there are object that in fact aren’t there (which makes walking a bumpy ride) and “helping” it by jumping for myself now only seems to confuse it, making it jump sideways and all kinds of directions, while I just want to get over a wall.