Confused about selecting character

(tokamak) #61

Or rather because of their bodytypes.

(Yeti94) #62

yes. “because” is the antonym to “regardless.”

do you have something to say to back that up or are you just blowing smoke?

(H0RSE) #63

You don’t seem to be getting it…Yes, choosing Medium or Light over heavy for those classes, will grant you the advantages you listed, but you are totally disregarding the advantages a Heavy would bring to those classes (and others) as well.

A Heavy medic:

  1. Has the most health, which means they can stay alive longer and distribute more buffs/heals before they die as a result.
  2. Has the largest ability bar, which results in more overall buffs/revives than any other bodytype.
  3. More firepower, to better protect wounded players and teammates in general, while being able to heal himself and others.

Heavies excel in groups, which is the complete opposite of Lights. Lights are the lone wolf bodytype while Heavies travel with teammates, using “strength in numbers” to counter effect their low speed and mobility - A Heavy alone in the open, is a dead Heavy, so you see, choosing a Heavy medic is just as viable as selecting a Light or Medium Medic, since heavies in general, will likely be sticking close to teammates, so they (medics) won’t need speed or have to travel far to revive and heal teammates.

You also seem to forget that players can build a character to cater to their playstyle. I plan on making a Heavy medic and focusing more on buffs than strictly reviving as quickly as possible.

A Heavy Operative:

  1. Has the most health, allowing him to stay alive longer while he hacks.
  2. Has more firepower, allowing him to use a “brute force” approach to playing the class, rather than using subterfuge.

Just because the Operative can be sneaky, doesn’t mean he has to be. All the Operative really needs to do, is complete the objective, which Heavies (and any other body type) are fully capable of.

Again, players can build a class to their liking. Playing a specific bodytype, is going to involve choosing different abilities to compliment them - A Light would be ideal for disguising, whereas a Heavy would get much less use out of it.

(Senethro) #64

You still haven’t made a case for why a single blind pick with no fixes is preferable. It has all of the faults that you’re ascribing to TF2 but you can’t undo a mistake.

And I’d disagree with your description of TF2. Soldier and Demoman have no counters while Scout/Heavy have very good matchups. Its not so much R/P/S as is a third Soldier better than a first Engineer which is a more interesting question.

(H0RSE) #65

You still haven’t made a case for why a single blind pick with no fixes is preferable.

Since the game is not out, and we have not been able to play any proper games, you can’t say that locking bodytypes is “bad” or a poor design choice, or whatever else, since we don’t know if any body type truly has an advantage over others to the point where selecting the “wrong” bodytype, is the difference between victory and failure.

In defense of Tok, it isn’t a “blind” choice, like you keep trying to make it out as. If people are playing a game where they know a choice cannot be undone or changed in-game (in this case, body types) then it makes the most sense that players are either going to A) choose which body type the excel at, or B) choose Medium just to be “safe.” Even in instances where selections can changed (liked classes) many p[layers opt for the class they either like playing the most and/or are the class they are the strongest with.

There is nothing “blind” about making a choice based on personal preference and/or skill, regardless of what the competition may have in store, because as has been mentioned multiple times, 1) player skill is the main factor here, not simply what body type they choose and 2) maps will not be “body type exclusive.”

(BioSnark) #66

blind is regarding your first point but including bodytypes and character builds.

(tokamak) #67

The scout counters a demo man easily, a soldier to a less extend, then again, the soldier is also the most mediocre class in the game.

What the hell am I even discussing, you picked the two medium choices in the game. Brink also has a medium bodytype and is likely to be very common if I can trust the polls around here.

You still haven’t made a case for why a single blind pick with no fixes is preferable. It has all of the faults that you’re ascribing to TF2 but you can’t undo a mistake.

It’s not a blind pick. A blind pick would be a random bodytype (an interesting option by itself). You know your own bodytype and customisation, the moment your game fires up, it’s up to you and your team to figure out the best way to relate to each other, where you can cover the weakness and where you can augment each other’s strengths. It’s this variety that will lead to endless replayabillity.

(H0RSE) #68

If people are that concerned about not being able to change bodytypes in-game, I suggest you make at least 3 characters (1 for each body) and if your game gets so out of control that changing body types is a must, log out, change body type and rejoin.

You also have to account for teammates as well, meaning no matter what body type you choose or even if you were able to change it on the fly, with poor teammates, none if it really matters, so it not only makes your choice more strategic, but teams as whole will need to choose their best overall bodytypes. The whole dynamic really adds replayability to the game.

It essentially is a game of rock, paper scissors, except instead of scissors only beating paper or rock only beating scissor, every choice (body type) can beat and be beaten by every other choice, since player skill is the ultimate deciding factor, not an arbitrary set of rules. Certain body types are not “better” than other ones, just different.

(tokamak) #69

…to simply stick with medium, you’re not forced to specialise if you don’t want to.

Also, there’s an ability to set up your team’s body combination beforehand, just group up with 7 friends. If it really gives an advantage then I see nothing wrong with giving an incentive for people to band up.

(H0RSE) #70

…to simply stick with medium, you’re not forced to specialise if you don’t want to.

But tat may only be the “safest” choice, not the most optimum. Those who are arguing against not be able to change body type, seem to due so because they want the option to always have the “best” choice - to have the biggest advantage - not simply a safe or adequate one.

(tokamak) #71

But they’ll then operate in an environment where everyone has the optimum bodytype, negating the entire thing altogether.

(Senethro) #72

Not easily, its just the Demo’s least favorite matchup. While the Scout has the edge at close, a single hit on the Scout will do about 80% damage making the most favourable range unreliable. Theres also the issue of getting to close range involving passing through the air detonation spam range of stickies.

a soldier to a less extend, then again, the soldier is also the most mediocre class in the game.

You’re betraying a lack of understanding of TF2 here, Soldiers are the frag workhorses of the game and not in the least bit mediocre. Scout and Soldier are going to go even or stalemate on flat ground but heavily in the Soldier’s favour as soon as he has control of high ground like the stacks around Granary mid.

What the hell am I even discussing, you picked the two medium choices in the game. Brink also has a medium bodytype and is likely to be very common if I can trust the polls around here.

Except they’re not the medium choices. They’re in the top 3 classes for health, mobility and probably the top 2 for weapons. All the other classes are inflexible range specialists or support that has to hide behind meatshields. I suspect it’ll be impossible for a single build in Brink to excel in this way unless there is poor weapon balancing and some kind of mobility perk.

It’s not a blind pick. A blind pick would be a random bodytype (an interesting option by itself). You know your own bodytype and customisation, the moment your game fires up, it’s up to you and your team to figure out the best way to relate to each other, where you can cover the weakness and where you can augment each other’s strengths. It’s this variety that will lead to endless replayabillity.

Its blind because its made in the absence of knowledge of what your teammates or your opponents will pick.

(tokamak) #73

Except they’re not the medium choices. They’re in the top 3 classes for health, mobility and probably the top 2 for weapons. All the other classes are inflexible range specialists or support that has to hide behind meatshields. I suspect it’ll be impossible for a single build in Brink to excel in this way unless there is poor weapon balancing and some kind of mobility perk.

They’re the non-specialists. It’s that easy.

(Senethro) #74

There will never be a single optimum unless there is some very poor balancing (OMA tuber, M60 Medic conga lines). Its like that TF2 example I gave asking if the 3rd Soldier is more useful than the 1st Engineer.

Every team needs frag workhorses as its centre. If you can’t make kills then the game is lost. But if you go all frag workhorses then whats likely to happen is the combat area becomes overcrowded which suddenly shifts a new optimum to an splash damage build. You can prevent this by some players going buffing classes which increases the quality of the fraggers instead of their quantity. Or they can go sniper and shoot over the heads of the workhorses. As long as the fragger line holds then the supporters won’t get slaughtered leading to a total collapse.

The problem is what do you do when the entire team are support/snipers perk specializations or a team of heavies with a long walk to the objective?

(tokamak) #75

Then frankly I don’t understand your problem.

The problem is what do you do when the entire team are support/snipers perk specializations or a team of heavies with a long walk to the objective?

That’s not how Brink works, the only fixed point is the three bodies, next to that players have 4 sets to pick between. But suppose that was the case, I would have a lot of fun with such a specialised force, those will be the truly interesting moments in the game. The opponent would probably freak out as well.

(Atavax) #76

tf2 is nothing about picking the right class… you must of been horrible at the game if you thought so. I main as scout, and in any pub or any competitive setting, i can play a scout and never feel the need to switch. infact, every good player can play whatever his favorite class is and never feel the need to switch. there are very few real counters in the game.

[QUOTE=tokamak;250370]
There’s a reason everyone will start out as a medium guy. It’s a point I haven’t raised much either; if you’re afraid of finding yourself in a disadvantage at some point in the game, then why not take the medium bodytype? Just play safe! You won’t find yourself in major disadvantages neither will you find yourself in major advantages. It seems to be exactly what you want.[/QUOTE]

its simple… if i want to play one bodytype, and then i feel like playing another, why do i need to leave the server? there is nothing that removing the ability to change bodytypes inside the server adds to the game other then a game of chance that your team’s composition is going to be so bad that you will almost definitely lose.

(SebaSOFT) #77

[QUOTE=Atavax;250504]…
its simple… if i want to play one bodytype, and then i feel like playing another, why do i need to leave the server? there is nothing that removing the ability to change bodytypes inside the server adds to the game other then a game of chance that your team’s composition is going to be so bad that you will almost definitely lose.[/QUOTE]

That’s intresting to talk with the SD dev team. I remember back in the day that ETQW had a lot of quitters in auto-assigned teams and stacking in the self-assigned games. Should we now start sthinking about “in team” stacking of bodytypes?
:eek:

(tokamak) #78

If you can’t stick with one character for one match then there’s pills for ADHD.

(.Chris.) #79

We will see how this pans out next year I guess, I think it’s a bit hard to guess either way how its going to work without having played the game for a while, it will either work brilliantly or fail miserably though I reckon.

Good luck getting this to happen in your average public server :slight_smile: (hurray for favorite server lists!)

(tokamak) #80

You can say that about any skill set in the game. And it’s a good thing, it’s yet another point in which competent players can be rewarded.