Eum… self-kill to restore supply is perfectly fine and not understanding it’s importance and science in all past sd games is a bit ignorant. You sacrifice your position on the map to re-gain supply. Now this is extremely risky and a very clear trade off situation. For example a medic who respawns will have to travel back to his teammates to revive them, same with any other class action, as there is now a measurable distance between them. In that time your teammates may be dead and gibbed. It is entirely a tactical decision that in fact does have very negative results at times. The advantage of this mechanic however, is that it allows players to be much more offensive in their game play and potentially gain a push advantage. Being able to take advantage of downtime to quickly resupply is perfectly fine. Brink had command posts for this, which in fact allowed a fast resupply mid-map, but a full respawn would set you back at your spawn. Geez that seems to make good mathematical sense I think?
Respawning promotes team play, simple as pie. Of all the things that SD cut, they never seemed to realize that not being able to respawn on command severely punishes both the player and their team in a very non-team play oriented manner. Firstly, players are much more inclined to play less self-preservantly when they know they have some moderate control over the timing of their death. You focus purely on the objectives, and not for your own life on the battlefield. Secondly, yes poor positioning is a great reason to suicide and re-group with your team on the fly. There is absolutely nothing added by removing the feature in this situation except pure frustration on both your own and your teams side. It is so much easier to re-organize your team with the push of a button, and again it is entirely focused on what these games were designed for. Lastly, and in relation to the first point, the fact that each individual player has a spawn timer and control over the timing of their death means that they have no reason not to be more team focused. It’s the biggest cookie in the team-play coaxing arsenal. If the game is about winning objectives and nothing to do with kills, then a player should be able to understand that the respawn key is their best friend. You can maximize your time on the battlefield simply by paying attention to the spawn timer, and judging the situation your in. You won’t see nearly as much camping, but instead more overall activity from your team. The goal should not be personal survival, but instead maximum output of efficiency. Do your damage, judge the situation, and respawn if you think it’s the most beneficial decision for your team. Support classes are there to directly fuel the frontline, but respawning is the primordial soup of the whole spawn timer mechanic. The situations where your support teammates cannot resupply you or are out of position is also a perfectly sensible reason to respawn, and again you sacrifice your positioning for supplies.
The only reason why anyone should argue against this mechanic is if you don’t understand it’s function, your all about realism (though suicide is real…), or have some diluted concept that it will be more tactical to punish people with 30 second spawns. Topics like these are what made Brink what it is… people suggest so many awful ideas to SD and then they listen. There’s so many examples in Brink that were results of a similar outlook on game play mechanics like this one. The tunnel vision analysis of so many important game-play mechanics from past games simply prevails on this forum…
