Gameradar hands-on preview

(darthmob) #81

I really like the mission system so far! Sounds like it got some useful improvements over the way it worked in ETQW.

Some related questions:
Can a medic see his fallen teammates through walls? Does the mission system work in that situation (pressing the mission button on the revive icon activates the mission)? Does the view of a downed player pan on the medic if he is visible like in ET / ETQW? In my experience it’s often not necessary to tell someone you are going to revive him if he is in plain sight. It would be a lot more useful if you are in a different room or behind cover and want to notify him of an impending revive. Do other teammates in the vicinity get notified if a medic chooses to revive someone near them? Eg. there are 3 downed teammates and you select the mission to revive one of them. The two other guys might respawn because they didn’t know a medic was about to come by.

Is there still a manual way to activate the voicechats? From what I’ve heard Bad Company 2 relies completely on context bindings. So if you want to call for ammo you have to point at someone who can provide it. If you want to be healed you have to point at a medic. At least on the PC version it seems kind of stupid to me.

:slight_smile:

(INF3RN0) #82

@Class System

I am almost a bit curious if SD considered allowing a single class, ie a soldier, to be able to receive more substantial XP simply through killing. This would limit those focusing on kills to use a less special ability/team dependent oriented class and decrease their chances of experiencing abuse. Basically medics, engineers, and operatives are your normal grunt with special abilities. I would agree that it is only fair to trade something in return, but I would think that the soldier (aka killemall/blowemup) class to gain a majority of its XP from killing enemies more so than handing out ammo. All I keep hearing about is how other classes are being prevented from being used as selfish killing machines, but what about the class that is centered around being the brute force on the battlefield? Furthermore this meets the concerns of both sides in the focus on what allows for a more fun game. Allow those who want less challenging roles in the area of aim/movement to play an equally important role as a medic, engineer, operative, while keeping one class more mainstream shooter oriented. All aspects would come into play at certain points of course, but players would be allowed to pick a class that they could play more efficiently than another. I just feel that the current lopsided views are straying from something that would easily satisfy both sides.

@XP system/Unlocks/Abilities

I can understand the popularity of the unlock system in online games. One thing we have to remember is that this does not have the prestige of the long running battlefield or call of duty franchise, meaning you won’t have the guarantee of a massive community off the bat; if such a system was to give a substantial advantage to higher ranking players, it might potentially be a games ruin. It seems like you understand the potential problems that may pose, and I think that making the most substantial unlocks available in the first levels is a good way to make this work. The remaining unlocks should definitely only allow for slight variations or trade-offs without adding significant advantage; I am hoping that the majority of these will be aesthetic unlocks. As to abilities, we still haven’t been able to see the whole picture of what these will be and how they will effect the game play. I really am more skeptical about these. I felt that the system in QW worked well in this area, as it was based off of your performance over the course of a campaign and then would reset (referring to full health revive type of stuff). So essentially my 2 cents is that the persistent weapons/mods unlocks could have a good chance if kept balanced, but special ability unlocks might reduce risk by keeping them the way they are in previous games. My overall concern is to keep a realistic view of the size of the projected community and how well such systems will mesh with a player base holding interest.

(tokamak) #83

[QUOTE=INF3RN0;211609]selfish killing machines, but what about the class that is centered around being the brute force on the battlefield?
[/QUOTE]

The brute force on the battle field are the heavy body types, not the soldiers. The soldiers are certainly there to keep the fight going and will be shooting more (for they have the ammo after all), but it might be better to view them as demolition experts for now.

(INF3RN0) #84

This is why I think it is really important for SD to give a full explanation of how the technical stuff is going to work asap. I don’t think we really have enough information quite yet to know how any of this is going to play out. It would clear up a lot of issues for me personally, and others as well I would think. I mean it appears like they are allowed to tell us something without breaking some weird contracted rules. I am just assuming that it is far enough along in development that they have a pretty solid idea of how these will work. Throw me a cookie I is hungry plz :/.

(MILFandCookies) #85

Each individual auto-pip can self heal, but to get a full heal of your entire meter, you need to rely on medics.

Explains exedore’s ambiguous response, regarding the pips regen lol.
I still like the pips idea though, regardless of my rambo medic tendencies.

(Rahdo) #86

[QUOTE=darthmob;211570]
Can a medic see his fallen teammates through walls? Does the mission system work in that situation (pressing the mission button on the revive icon activates the mission)? Does the view of a downed player pan on the medic if he is visible like in ET / ETQW? In my experience it’s often not necessary to tell someone you are going to revive him if he is in plain sight. It would be a lot more useful if you are in a different room or behind cover and want to notify him of an impending revive. Do other teammates in the vicinity get notified if a medic chooses to revive someone near them? Eg. there are 3 downed teammates and you select the mission to revive one of them. The two other guys might respawn because they didn’t know a medic was about to come by.[/quote]
good questions. we might do the ‘can look at guys through walls and have shortcuts to mission’ thing, but the danger is that players will accidentally target guys and promise a revive that they didn’t intend to deliver because you happened to be looking at a guy half way across the level. still looking into that, because i do like the idea in theory, but it might be that if the guy is in a completely different room, you might have to select him manually on the wheel.

good point about the other two guys not hearing about the medic. one main thing that helps with this is that when you’re incapped, it’s VERY easy to spot where all the medics are, how far away they are, etc. and at any time, you can always look at the team list and see what every teammate has set as a current mission, so if you’re waiting on a revive, you can scan the list to see if any medics are doing their job.

Is there still a manual way to activate the voicechats? From what I’ve heard Bad Company 2 relies completely on context bindings. So if you want to call for ammo you have to point at someone who can provide it. If you want to be healed you have to point at a medic. At least on the PC version it seems kind of stupid to me.

:slight_smile:

another anti-social behaviour we’re trying to shield new players from is spam from their teammates. of course, it’s usually legitimate, but it can be a real jerk maneuver to just spam some dialog at someone else over and over and over and over for no reason. so all the requests for ammo and whatnot are basically done automatically on behalf of the player.

and again, i expect players who want stronger communication than that can always open their own comm channels or play on a team voip active server…

(Rahdo) #87

We don’t do that exactly, but we do something similar. basically, kills don’t pay well in XP. but, getting kills at or around the current core objective get a multiplier on them. also, getting kills when you’re travelling in packs with other players get multipliers. so, getting kills while standing your ground at a core objective and fighting alongside your teammates can pay fairly well.

So if players do want to earn most of their XP through shooting, they’re best off doing it where they’re most needed, fighting on the front lines, helping keep their other teammates alive.

I think that making the most substantial unlocks available in the first levels is a good way to make this work. The remaining unlocks should definitely only allow for slight variations or trade-offs without adding significant advantage

Yup, that’s the plan. It’s actually very counter intuitive for a designer to do… decades of RPGs say give small abilities at first, and save the big stuff for much later in the game. but as a multiplayer game, we have to reverse this philosophy, basically. :slight_smile:

(Rahdo) #88

Believe me, i wish i could say more! but PR works in specific ways… if I go into detail about how all our in-game abilities work, for instance, posting the details here online, then Bethesda has lost the chance to get a magazine cover tied to an exclusive world-wide reveal of Brinks ability system. hence we can generally only talk here about stuff that’s already been covered in press :frowning:

I try to stretch that rule as far as I can (and in fact, sometimes i get censored for it! :slight_smile: ) but this is the way things work. i’m not always crazy about it, but i do understand. got to give PR the chance to work their magic with the press…

(_milla) #89

perfect topic!

(brbrbr) #90

[QUOTE=MILFandCookies;211616]Explains exedore’s ambiguous response, regarding the pips regen lol.
I still like the pips idea though, regardless of my rambo medic tendencies.[/QUOTE]

wonder what exlse can be in unlocks/perks trees …
and how they may/might be organized[like BF trees and stalker weapon upgrades or something new and less strict].
there are other “must have” pips[aside self-revive(i guess thats automatic med-pack)] ?
like ammo regen(for snipers), position reinforcement perk, wall-percing shots, slow-mo[on moderate degree], higher speed movement and/or evasion/jumping, aqualings, termoscopic visions and etc and etc.

p.s.

how are SD desicions about daytime ?
there are day/night cycle ingame ?

(Rahdo) #91

the storyline in brink spread over about a week and a half, and during that time, there’ll be day time and night time missions. but you’re never on any one mission long enough for the sun to set or rise… :slight_smile:

(darthmob) #92

[QUOTE=Rahdo;211654]good questions. we might do the ‘can look at guys through walls and have shortcuts to mission’ thing, but the danger is that players will accidentally target guys and promise a revive that they didn’t intend to deliver because you happened to be looking at a guy half way across the level. still looking into that, because i do like the idea in theory, but it might be that if the guy is in a completely different room, you might have to select him manually on the wheel.

good point about the other two guys not hearing about the medic. one main thing that helps with this is that when you’re incapped, it’s VERY easy to spot where all the medics are, how far away they are, etc. and at any time, you can always look at the team list and see what every teammate has set as a current mission, so if you’re waiting on a revive, you can scan the list to see if any medics are doing their job.[/quote]I see your point with accidentally clicking it. But then depending on how you implement it the icons wouldn’t be very big (didn’t find a picture of a medic mission but here is a screenshot showing construct objectives left of the crosshair). I could imagine viewing additional information when hovering over those icons like distance, name and class of the player and maybe the current mission. It may even be less an issue of accidentally hitting and more an issue of managing to focus it with a controller. Like I said in my experience it rarely happens that you have a direct line of sight to the person you are reviving. You try to stay behind cover for most of the time and just quickly dart out of it to revive whoever is lying around the corner.

I’m definitely looking forward to see how you manage to show all that information about missions and distances to medics without overwhelming the player or cluttering the hud. Seems like quite a difficult task to me! :slight_smile:

[QUOTE=Rahdo;211654]
another anti-social behaviour we’re trying to shield new players from is spam from their teammates. of course, it’s usually legitimate, but it can be a real jerk maneuver to just spam some dialog at someone else over and over and over and over for no reason. so all the requests for ammo and whatnot are basically done automatically on behalf of the player.

and again, i expect players who want stronger communication than that can always open their own comm channels or play on a team voip active server…[/QUOTE]
Ok. Spamming was an issue in both ET and ETQW (I usually turned the voice messages off if it got too wild).

What about nonspecific voicechats? There are so many humorous taunts in ETQW and I would like to see something like that in Brink. Especially when they are voiced by voice actors from different countries. They can be exploited and spammed but I would much prefer having a cooldown and mute option than not having them at all.

(Senethro) #93
(Qhullu) #94

[QUOTE=Rahdo;211656]We don’t do that exactly, but we do something similar. basically, kills don’t pay well in XP. but, getting kills at or around the current core objective get a multiplier on them. also, getting kills when you’re travelling in packs with other players get multipliers. so, getting kills while standing your ground at a core objective and fighting alongside your teammates can pay fairly well.

So if players do want to earn most of their XP through shooting, they’re best off doing it where they’re most needed, fighting on the front lines, helping keep their other teammates alive.
[/QUOTE]
what about the people who actually make the front line move forward? in my experience with enemy territory pubs, in a 22 player server there are usually only 2-3 people on the attacking side who always push the front line further (evidenced by their damage received stats being consistently 2-3 times higher than the rest of the team at the end), if there aren’t people like that clearing the way and absorbing the bullets, the people who actually do care about their stats would be happy just camping halfway to the objective for the duration of the game. i know i exaggerate a little but only to make the point clearer.

what i mean to say is, putting too much emphasis on playing as a coordinated team at the expense of the “weight” of an individual can make the game play “lame” especially in pubs that are by definition uncoordinated. in my opinion.

(tokamak) #95

You mean lemmings, no I rather see them extinct for good.

(brbrbr) #96

so mission-related enviroment[including daytime]just switch each time, while mission start ?
its okay.
initially i fear that ALL mission be Day-only or Night-Only.

p.s.
but we seen no sunsets ?
until/if SDK released. so i fingercrossing, about SDK release fate too.
i wounder how[wounderful] can be look sunshine in upgraded Tech4 engine.
always returns to wounderful times inside Island[NS-made ?], Canyon, Valley maps of ETQW.

(Qhullu) #97

the thing is though, with the “lemmings” gone, the “sand spiders” would have to absorb all those extra bullets. and since the “lemmings” are usually at the top of the damage given stats too, the “sand spiders” would actually need to shoot at people who are able to shoot back, making them effectively “lemmings”. it’s a vicious cycle :slight_smile:

(ap4thy) #98

Good read. Still very interested in the game, but a little worried about some of the choices they seem to have made regarding experience. Sure, it’s good to promote teamwork, but it seems kills will be a rather week way to earn xp. I mean, it’s a shooter, so shooting should be rewarded, right? I see why they do it, I just hope they don’t overdo it.

(3Suns) #99

[QUOTE=Rahdo;211656]…basically, kills don’t pay well in XP. but, getting kills at or around the current core objective get a multiplier on them. also, getting kills when you’re travelling in packs with other players get multipliers. so, getting kills while standing your ground at a core objective and fighting alongside your teammates can pay fairly well.

So if players do want to earn most of their XP through shooting, they’re best off doing it where they’re most needed, fighting on the front lines, helping keep their other teammates alive. …
[/QUOTE]

ap4thy, I bolded the text that answers your question. Going Lone Wolf isn’t rewarded in this game. However, that doesn’t mean that “slayer” gamers won’t be rewarded for doing what they do and like best. They will, but they just have to do it for the team, not just for themselves.

I am with these design choices 100%.
:stroggtapir:

(tokamak) #100

It would lead to an overall increase of more cautious players and better gameplay.