Edge Online Looks at Balancing Brink

(Cankor) #121

[QUOTE=tokamak;279617]They don’t. A level 3 turret costs more than an individual ability.
[/QUOTE]

You have to look at what you are buying, you aren’t buying a level 3 turret, you are buying the delta from a level 2 turret to a level 3 turret. If you didn’t spend that level credit you would still have a level 2 turret, so you aren’t buying the whole turret, only the difference. the difference is 1 level credit. The difference is what you compare to other abilities to see if it is worth it, to you.

Again, what is important to one person may not be important to another. Value is determined by what you want to do and how you want to play, not necessarily because a dev liked doing something one way and therefore valued a particular ability higher than another.

If something ends up being more cost effective it’s either too powerful (in which case it can be tweaked), or it’s just perception because it matches your style and you really like that particular ability.

Also, they are trying to keep things simple. 1 level = 1 ability. Simple.

(tokamak) #122

The moment you buy the third turret, then that becomes your turret, the other two no longer have an effect and are therefore a cost. So you’re not buying the difference, you’re paying three coins for one ability.

(Herandar) #123

Did you eve read the article referred to in the initial post?

I guess not everyone is going to realize that they are stating speculation as fact today… If you haven’t played the game (and furthermore, have already stated publically that you aren’t going to), you can not say for sure that you can’t have all three turrets selected as your chosen active abilities.

(tokamak) #124

Apparently this subject is hazy enough for people to keep shifting the goalpost.

The point still stands when some abilities are better than others, yet all abilities cost the same, then some abilities are more cost-effective which in turn become no-brainers which severly reduces the diversity in builds.

(Herandar) #125

I take it back. We do know how much each ability costs:

So that neatly answers your argument. Each actual ability costs one actual credit. No need to add inferred costs to the “improved” abilities.

Yes. Thank you for conceding that the abilities don’t have to have different costs in the most veiled of manners.

And now you are assuming that everyone builds a character based solely on the cost-effectiveness of abilities. Must be the competitive mindset. Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll only have a few allowed builds in the PC comp mods. :cool:

(tokamak) #126

I’m saying that cost-effectiveness shouldn’t ever be a factor in the first place. That’s the whole point of balancing the abilities, then the decision comes down on taste and synergy. You don’t want abilities that are objectively better than others and offer them at the same price.

(Herandar) #127

[QUOTE=tokamak;279266]The rest remains, you need to pay the lower tiers before getting the higher tiers. You have 25 slots to fill (4 classes, one generic), having them all filled is not possible, if you want 20 filled you cannot have anything above tier 1. If you want 4 tier 5 abillities then you have spent 4x5=20 coins on 4 abilities that fill 4 slots.

Bottomline is, specialising costs resources, as it should be. There’s a balance between width and depth here.[/QUOTE]

And you accuse me of “moving the goalposts”.

I’ve been arguing with you from the start that there are 20 credits and therefore you can have up to 20 abilities unlocked. The “cost-effectiveness” is your most recent argument, and you haven’t shown the good graces to admit that I was correct when I belatedly showed tangible proof and you were entirely wrong with your initial position.

If you are going to continually shift your points as I or the other posters outwit you, there is no point in continuing this. And yes, I was incorrect to confuse “tier” for “rank”, as Wee pointed out; but dropping my reputation for mentioning that there are no “ability trees” in Brink was sleazy. I wasn’t trying to shift the conversation into a discussion of semantics.

If all the abilites were entirely equal, they wouldn’t be very fun. How exactly do you propose to make a “perfect” neutral cost ability system? Balancing isn’t determined solely by the cost of the abili, it is also in how it functions, and cool-down timers, etc.

(Nail) #128

"you can not say for sure that you can’t have all three turrets selected as your chosen active abilities. "

engineers can only drop 1 turret at a time, as you upgrade your turret changes, you don’t get multiple types

(H0RSE) #129

[QUOTE=Nail;279657]"you can not say for sure that you can’t have all three turrets selected as your chosen active abilities. "

engineers can only drop 1 turret at a time, as you upgrade your turret changes, you don’t get multiple types[/QUOTE]

Like Nail said - every upgraded turret replaces the one prior, so you only ever have 1.

(Weeohhweeohh) #130

To play the devil"s advocate, I don’t remember ever seeing anything regarding a engineer having 3 different turrets active at the same time.

things to know

  1. I’m a little tipsy
  2. I haven’t seen any info about having multi turrets on the board
  3. 3 turrets hanging around is sweet

Most likely they all share the same cool down. Also, most likely the most current turret laid down over rides what every iteration was laid down before hand. Just saying I haven’t heard either way.

I’m banking on only 1 turret at a time, but like I said,…3 turrets at a time…sign me up.

(LyndonL) #131

That would be ridiculously overpowered imo. I doubt SD would allow that.

(tokamak) #132

all those quotes are coherent.

I’ve been arguing with you from the start that there are 20 credits and therefore you can have up to 20 abilities unlocked. The “cost-effectiveness” is your most recent argument, and you haven’t shown the good graces to admit that I was correct when I belatedly showed tangible proof and you were entirely wrong with your initial position.

I never said I agreed with what SD is doing here. They way you put it sounds like they’re messing up the balance.

If all the abilites were entirely equal, they wouldn’t be very fun.

That’s my point. They don’t need to be equal if the better ones simply cost more. Like the turret does. That only means there will be more diverse niches players can specialise in which makes the entire game a lot more interesting.

How exactly do you propose to make a “perfect” neutral cost ability system? Balancing isn’t determined solely by the cost of the abili, it is also in how it functions, and cool-down timers, etc.

Why would you want to tweak it’s cool-down timers and how it functions? What? No! Are you saying abilities ought to be equal?

but dropping my reputation for mentioning that there are no “ability trees” in Brink was sleazy.

Now let’s not get butthurt here over pointlessly dropping reputation here. There’s a whole lot more where that came from.

(Linsolv) #133

Are you saying that they should be able to fairly implement a “random” button?

(tokamak) #134

Random builds wouldn’t work as some abilities work synergistic with each other and some may cancel each other out in effectiveness. A cortex bomb combined with shooting while down may not be the smartest combo.

(Herandar) #135

I apologize. I have carefully re-read the entire thread, and I see that you used the word ‘tier’ almost exclusively, and I read that as ‘rank’ in most posts, even after it was specifically pointed out by Weeohh. The meaning of the words is identical in most regards in English, but you meant something different than the unlock rank, which I failed to pick up.

In retrospect, I certainly agree with most of your points.

(tokamak) #136

The English language simply falls short when it comes to discussing abstract game design.

(Whydmer) #137

Exedore mentioned/confirmed in the interview posted today that for levels 1-4 only universal skills are available. Class specific skills are not available until you are rank 2 or level 5.

(tokamak) #138

Yeah but once again, the process isn’t really that interesting as time is not a factor anymore. In a game like ETQW and W:ET it would, but not in Brink. In Brink it’s only interesting to discuss the end-game.

(Whydmer) #139

Only not interesting to you, oh great one who has stated he will not buy the game… :wink:

But seriously the way it affects the end game is that it appears that you will either be required to have at least 4 universal abilities at end game. Or the theory that once you can respec your character you can choose any ability of any rank lower than yours, is a correct one and then it doesn’t really matter. :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #140

Oh now I see what you mean. Yeah that would be rubbish. Why limit the amount of possible combinations?

And it’s not a wild thing to say is it? I mean, you’re not shelving the game the moment you reach level 20? I think for the most dedicated fans that’s when the real game starts.