Is Brink competition ready?

(Aza) #21

I myself am also interested in how the competitive scene for brink will play out. If SD does their homework with the balancing there should be very little need to tweak anything to any extremes for competitive play.

If you’re looking at it objectively at paring anything down from the ‘vanilla’ game what could you possibly do that would affect the core gameplay? I would already assume there will probably be imposed limits on body types/classes and unless they force some awful restriction to very specific weps that are allowed to be used I can’t really imagine a comp mod destroying the heart of it.

That being said I do agree with diablo and darkangel in the need to keep the core as close to the original for the sake of keeping a steady flow of competitive gamers. Quake 3 I think is a good example of a game that had a too high an initial learning curve that turned off any potential new players into the scene.

(hobodefcon) #22

I think how popular comp scene will be will depend on how vanilla the game will be played. But how vanilla the game will be played depends on how large the team sizes will be (5v5 will play different than 8v8, may need a different rule set). How big the teams will be depends on the community. Some people wanting 5v5 so it’s easier to have people on for matches. I myself would like at least one 8v8 league just for comparison. 8v8 may be viable, depending on how willing people are to merging teams. Or I could be wrong and some company host tournaments with big money, therefore dictating the rules and team sizes.

(.Chris.) #23

Urgh, I made a long reply while at work, almost finished it and got distracted by work then closed web browser >:(

Anyway I have to agree with the sentiment in the past few replies, really can’t be bothered typing the proper reply again but yeah, be nice if there wasn’t drastic changes between the play styles and it would be nice if folk tried the game first properly before deciding things need changing if at all, that’s why I half hope any possible SDK comes out a short while after release so it’s not butchered but at the same time I want my mapping tools! :slight_smile:

(INF3RN0) #24

Let’s give the game a chance to be released first, before we delve into the topic imo. All that I can hope for now is a special competition mode that provides more in-depth match settings in the least. It will take some time for us to actually break the game before we start fixing it folks :wink:.

(SockDog) #25

Having the comp tools (ref, pause, autodemo etc) in place on release would be good though. If they’re missing then you have more people pushing for a mod for those features which can then also smuggle in other gameplay changes.

(BMXer) #26

I think Inferno just about nailed it… Though I certainly don’t think play styles should be altered for comp. Stuff like weapon and class/ability limits are all i would ideally like to see. I personally don’t want to see the guns or movement altered. It all depends on how the game plays out though. We don’t really know how much skillless spam this game will have. Skillless spam weapons and abilities might very well need to be limited for comp. Only time will tell.

(Bullveyr) #27

I really hope some restrictions will be enough to make the game comp ready ant that “we” don’t have to change things like shooting or movement.

For comp it’s maybe a good idea to be able to change body size during a round.

(Apples) #28

The thing is that games nowadays are also more complex, thus harder to balance, didnt really played comp in Q3 but there wasnt that much changes IIRC because well, grab your rocket launcher , strafe jump and pewpew!

Now in Brink you have permanent abilities, 3 bodytypes, lots of different objectives, etc etc, if you dont do some restrictions (mostly because of the comp team format / size, as its usually hard to fill a 8 men’s team), you can end up with unstoppable teams with unique combination of abilities / weapon / bodytype. Well its never really unstoppable, but 4 rocket launcher or 4 hyperblasters etc in a 4v4 on qw indoor can be pretty much devastating (assuming both team = skills), and its not really fun because there is almost nothing you can do against it.

The point is to “rebalance” the game as it’ll probably be played with less player than the pub games, its not about cutting everything comp players dont like, its about reducing luck (hear spam) to a minimum so the most dominant factors are the teamplay (coordination) / the strategies / the players individual skills (in that order if possible).

Well thats my 2 cents, peace

(Ragoo) #29

I agree with Apples. It’s just about removing luck factor aka spam and removing or restricting stuff that is overpowered when used in 5v5 which will most likely be the standard for competition. I don’t see why there is anything wrong with this.

SC2 comparison: SC2 is balanced for 1v1, you don’t expect it to be balanced in 3v3. So I don’t expect BRINK to be balanced right away for 5v5, when it’s made for 8v8 :wink:

Also, some stuff can be fun on the casual pub servers but get really imbalanced in competition. Again SC2 comparison (cause I don’t have much other experience with esports): Last summer 5rax reaper TvZ was totally imbalanced, but it was only a problem for high level players because it was to micro intensive to be viable for the casual bronze-platinum player.
I can totally imagine some weapons or abilities that only gets really imbalanced when a pro player uses it. Or team combinations that are only imbalanced when used by a coordinated pro team.

(DarkangelUK) #30

@Apples: I’m seriously not meaning any offence by this, but what you’ve said sounds like that, while games are evolving and becoming more complex, the comp scene isn’t, and would rather simplify the games and de-evolve them as it were. This can be construed as laziness, stubbornness or just not worth the effort. I’m guessing it’s not worth the effort as there’s far too many variables to adjust to keep it balanced, but still fun to watch. With simplicity you get fast paced, straight forward games rather than constant full holds or even just general confusion over rules and restrictions.

(Apples) #31

Well I dont really think its being stubborn, its just that as the games keep getting more complex, its harder and harder to keep them balanced for a competitive use, look at the real sports for exemple, the rules almost never change, they adjust a little because the training techniques evolve, but the rules stay the same. I see this like that for the e-sports, if its too confusing or open its hard for the teams to get good and prepared for all the kind of situations they can face, thus making the games less fun / enjoyable for them and the viewers (if any). It can also be fun to make huuuge clanwars with no restriction at all, but I think it worth the sacrifice for the competition, as the games need to be intense, and not a random win because team A spammed an ultimate random nade which killed the engeneer defusing.

Another point is that with this in mind, i clearly dont see why people keep yelling about comp being too hard, as it clearly reduces the amount of choices (ie : the number of stuffs you have to master) you have. But yes as said, I rather see the teamplay / skills rewarded than the guys with the unstoppable abilities combo (because there is allways one :wink: SD can’t think about everything some distorted geek’s mind can come up with).

And no I didnt take it as offensive, as I’m not really in the comp scene, I try to stay inbetween, arranging some little fun cup from time to time, and speaking to both worlds :smiley:

Peace

(DarkangelUK) #32

I can see where you’re coming from with your sport analogy, but I think it’s slightly off the mark somewhat. Using a single sport as the analysis, you’d also have to use a single game as well… W:ET comp also hasn’t changed much over the years either. A new game has to be treated like a new sport, there will be differences, new additions and new complexities. Personally i’d rather time was spent tweaking this for comp play so we get a different experience, rather than conforming to old values and really just giving us a similar experience but with hats.

In the early days, even as a pub player I was still exposed to the clan and comp scene as it was very popular, it seems to be going a little stale these days, and I think a new injection of freshness and excitement is needed rather than delivering the same old experience we’ve seen from other games.

(Apples) #33

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;269879]I can see where you’re coming from with your sport analogy, but I think it’s slightly off the mark somewhat. Using a single sport as the analysis, you’d also have to use a single game as well… W:ET comp also hasn’t changed much over the years either. A new game has to be treated like a new sport, there will be differences, new additions and new complexities. Personally i’d rather time was spent tweaking this for comp play so we get a different experience, rather than conforming to old values and really just giving us a similar experience but with hats.

In the early days, even as a pub player I was still exposed to the clan and comp scene as it was very popular, it seems to be going a little stale these days, and I think a new injection of freshness and excitement is needed rather than delivering the same old experience we’ve seen from other games.[/QUOTE]

Thats why I’m not at all for a total reconstruction of the game, but I never been fan of “the bigger / moar the better”, I rather have an interesting game with a few restriction than a spamfest without. And yeah I think a new videogame is not really a new sport, its somewhere inbetween a new sport and the same old duck hunt we all played, thats why it needs innovation, but blended with a strong background in order to be exciting, I think we almost agree here, but you may want a strong innovation, blended in a bit of background :wink:

And the fact that we were more exposed with clan and stuffs before may come from what I said earlier, the fact that games were simpler thus no need for tweak therefore pro = pub, by this way more clan / more comp / easier step to go from one to another.

If Brink was totally made for comp I dont think people would need to tweak it at all, but how can we achieve that with the permanent upgrade in the first place? I just dont see how it is possible, maybe it is, but in the end all will be summarized by “I haz a bigger gun so I win”, and thats why I think some restrictions are needed, not to tweak the core gameplay (ie : moving, shooting, objectives), but just some class / weapons limitations to avoid the spam, and maybe spawntimers if some maps are really undoable (again, is this word even exists? I try to master my english in the meantime :wink:)

Peace

(Ragoo) #34

Also something to consider is that games that are simple and accessible are easier to market as esport. If you never played CS or Quake you can still understand what the game is about when you watch a professional game. I don’t play these games and still like to watch some games from time to time.

WoW on the other hand was so complex that everyone who didn’t play it hated it as an esport because you could never understand anything.

I hope BRINK with all the different abilities, weapons, weapon attachments and complex maps will still be understandable for someone who doesn’t play it (or at least only plays very casually).

Yeah, that is assuming BRINK will have any success in esport at all, which is totally not a given. I’d even say I don’t expect very much success at all cause the core esport scene seems really stale and doesn’t allow anything new to become popular. Quake is Quake for years, CS is CS for years, CS:S and CoD are just CS as well, Fifa is Fifa for years and SC/WC3/SC2 are Blizzard RTS games. Really hard to establish something new. I guess the last really big thing was DotA games?!

(Beermachine) #35

Modern mainstream FPS are designed so that luck plays a significant factor in combat, so that someone who has just started playing has a chance against someone whose been playing for years.

Luck playing any factor is a big negative in any competitive sport in the world, with the rules designed to limit it as much as possible, so the best man / team always wins, hence the need for competitive / pro mods to remove as much of it as possible.

RtCW / W:ET had a pretty low luck factor right out of the box (or rather download for ET, many thanks SD!), with a high skill ceiling, which created a large number of people who got so good at it pubbing moving into clan matches and promods was a logical step.

I did read that SD were hoping to include an advanced mode, and hopefully encourage people to try it out and move into competitive gaming, as normally the only people who download player made pro mods are the people who are already into competitive gaming already, so very little new blood.

(Bridger) #36

Why is everybody suggesting 6v6 or 8v8, why isn’t 7v7 a good compromise?

(Ragoo) #37

Just cause it’s harder to have a team of 7 people constantly training and playing together. Today’s standard is 5v5.

Also with more people it gets more confusing for the spectator. It’s hard enough to follow a game of CS 5v5 but 8v8 or 7v7 is even more confusing and it’s hard to follow the right player and understand what’s happening at various places at the same time (much more so when the game is more complicated itself).

(INF3RN0) #38

If this game is immensely popular, I see nothing wrong with having anything from 5v5 to 8v8. 8v8 isn’t like going from ETQW 6v6 to 12v12 lol and finding 2 more people to add to a team should not be that difficult either. I would say it’s highly possible that the game will be playable in any size format, but it will all depend on what the majority wants.

(Joe999) #39

this is what bongoboy has to say about competition:

(BMXer) #40

anything more than 6v6 would be a nightmare at a LAN. Tournament organizers trying to round up that many players would be a pain not to mention all the PCs needed.
…and before anyone says something… no legit teams are going to want to play 8v8 comp year round online if big LAN tourneys are 5v5 or 6v6.

There can always be niche leagues and tourneys but the mainstream competitive team size should be whatever is played at LAN events IMO. If that happens to be 8v8, cool, I just dont see that being realistic. 5v5 or 6v6 seems reasonable for LAN IMO.