Hello Splash Damage. I was really excited for your game Brink. I preordered the game and instantly regretted it. Then a few hours before release I stopped regretting it. Then, upon playing the game, I regretted it again. After having gotten into the game I regretted it less. I see a pretty fun game in here but it’s buried beneath plenty of issues, most of which are technical issues that you are already aware of.
However, I also felt that you went back on some of your pre-release promises. If I remember right, it was stated that the only instant kill would be a headshot on a light with a buffed rifle. However, and maybe it’s just lag and I’m getting shot more than once, I don’t know, but I’ve been playing as a heavy with multiple health buffs, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve been getting instantly killed by rifles.
Speaking of rifles, they simply do not function properly when fired from the hip. They cannot shoot straight at all. This is quite contradictory to your promises that hipfire users would not be at a disadvantage against iron sight users. It’s not just rifles either; there is a very noticeable drop in accuracy when firing from the hip.
Another thing with a notable drop in accuracy is the minigun. I love miniguns. They are so cool. But the minigun in Brink, unless I’m just using it horribly wrong, is simply not a good gun. The damage it does simply does not make up for the spin up time, low accuracy, and fast spread increase (what kind of minigun demands burst fire?). What it is is a close-range weapon that takes several seconds to start firing, and even when you do get it spun up and start firing at close range it doesn’t do amazing damage.
What does to amazing damage is getting nailed by a firing squad upon leaving my spawn. Some spawns are in seriously bad positions; on one, I think it was a security spawn in container city but I’m not sure, there was only one way out, and it was down a hallway which the resistance could easily shoot and throw grenades down. Even if you do make it out, you’re pretty much stepping into a firing range.
Also a problem is the gun customization. It was hyped up to be really amazing, but it’s pretty much the same thing with every gun. A lot of the customizations are simply reskins.
Character customization is problematic too. My main problem is that I can’t change archetype, skin color, voice, tattoos, etc. Makes sense from a logical perspective, but from a gameplay perspective, it’s really quite awful. If I spend several hours on that character and get him several levels, then grow tired of his voice, why shouldn’t I be able to change it?
Brink is definitely a diamond in the rough. I only hope that you can get that diamond out before people lose interest.
Also, release the SDK as soon as possible.