Knowing is Half the Battle (Class Recognition)

[nephandys]

Ok, I get why people want to be readily able to identify an enemy class on sight. This allows focused targetting of the Obj class in particular, etc. etc. However, why is this absolutely necessary? Isn’t this just dumbing the game down? Oh look it’s a medic let me shoot him instead of oh look there’s a guy, gotta figure out what class he is, etc. How is the game any worse for not having it?

I saw most arguments basically saying that it would make the game easier. Some said it strips away a layer of depth, but I think it actually adds one because otherwise it’s like “Duh…shoot dat guy who can heel.” I thought that’s the opposite of what all the comp people would want?

Why wouldn’t this just be considered an alternative to the easily identifiable idea, where you might have to take time to identify someone’s class? Similar to on a real battlefield you don’t always know what every person’s job is at first glance (not trying to get into a Brink/Game/Realism argument here).

I can see the remnants of where SD tried to make the game so that people were easily identifiable in the first place, but it’s also clear they scrapped that idea even if they didn’t remove all remnants of its existance.

I also have to throw in that I really don’t have a preference one way or the other. With the current system I don’t struggle to identify people’s classes ever. I find it’s readily apparent based on behavior, ability use, and of course my crosshair on top of them. With the suggestion to make classes easier to identify I’d be in the same boat.

*I think one way to address this problem if they wanted to might be to put enemy class symbols on your radar rather than the current red dots. Maybe classes are only revealed with Coms hack or maybe this could be a new universal ability. I’d actually prefer if tactical scanner worked something like that rather than the current implementation.

[thesuzukimethod]

pork chop sandwiches!

[BioSnark]

Class identification exists. It was not removed as a design choice. If it was not intended to be there, it would have been removed several patches ago. It’s simply a mediocre form of implementation. There’s a lot of information presented in the UI that could have been better executed.

Read post 41 to answer your second question.

[quote=AmishWarMachine;370444]The backpack thing would only help if the enemy was facing away from the viewer. The arm-band would only help if it was on both arms, otherwise you’d once again have a blind spot to the class-defining graphic.

I don’t think that class-recognizable and customization can effectively co-exist, and it appears that SD came to that same conclusion… which meant they had to choose one. For the casual player, they chose correctly. For the competitive, they did not.[/quote]
Nonsense. Backpacks already exist whether you like it or not. They simply don’t have the intended purpose, or any that I’ve noticed. Colored arm bands, head and hat bands, coat stripes or whatever wouldn’t damage customization to any degree except as an excuse for the current configuration. It’s as obvious that they can co-exist as it is that character customization can exist as a feature with limited preset skins and in the absence of color and face model sliders. This is as silly as Jimmy James questioning why there’s character customization if he can’t take off his backpack.

[Thundermuffin]

To all of you who say this brings the game down, how would you feel about a command like “cg_foceenemymodel bright/classspecific” which makes each model a bright model (go look at QL and see their bright green models) and have 1 customized set up for each class?

You get to keep your pretty (which is subjective, by the way) clothes and we get to play this game the way we’ve all played games since the 90s.

[MrFoxer]

I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult at all to remove the backpacks altogether. There’s no good reason they’re still in the game, we don’t need a way of telling who’s on this or that side because enemies always have this red tint to them.

[Jimmy_James]

This is why games are so screwed up; you accept this and other lackluster design screw ups as amazing design decisions, but they just aren’t.

[QUOTE=V1cK_dB;369805]
You can keep making crap up and making excuses for bad decisions. All of your fluff can’t cover it up and you can’t fool people.[/QUOTE]

I like how you make digs at competitive players and assume we suck at this game. We don’t suck at it, we just don’t like it. I played during that stupid free weekend and the only times I would actually die was because of poor design decisions.

[QUOTE=.Chris.;369945]
He like the more vocal members of the Hardcore Club see no fault in this game, it’s beyond me, nothing will convince them otherwise that they are problems, even when the developers have said so.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=.Chris.;369997]
Sadly some folk wont stop coming into these threads telling us it’s our fault the game is bad and we need to adapt or that it’s meant to be like that or some bollocks. Quite frankly it’s getting tiring having to put up with this when trying to help out the developers.

See the recent map design topic for a prime example of an interesting discussion get derailed by the Brink Hardcore Club.[/QUOTE]

There are many more people that feel the way you do. The “there is nothing wrong with the game” crowd is just casual. They are casual players who never even played an SD game before. They would be happy with the game even if there were only 1 server left and they had to get together every night all 8 of them just to get a match going. The funniest part is that they would all be on the same team playing against bots and playing their hearts out lmfao.

@Spendlove:

I can’t help but notice your cardboard/straw man argument accusations are particularly one-sided.

I’m disappointed that it took 50 posts to follow up the obvious G.I. Joe reference in the subject line.

I can’t believe it took that long for someone to comment on the G.I. Joe reference in the thread title either.

Anyway, BACK ON TOPIC:

Here are how a few ways Operatives have gotten the drop on me. The thing about Brink is that a teammate running in the direction of a command post (ie the opposite direction that the rest of the team is going) isn’t suspicious behavior.

• I was lagging a bit behind my team after taking the time to buff them at the spawn when a “friendly” came running in the opposite direction. I figured he was just heading toward our command post when he suddenly knocked me to the ground with a melee attack then drilled me with his gun. Then he Disguised himself as me and my team was totally oblivious to what happened. (VOIP FTW!)

• I was capturing a command post while a teammate provided cover. A enemy in disguise shows up. We both assumed he was there to lend a hand. We both got backstabbed.

• My team was defending an objective (hack or HE, I forget) and a disguised enemy hunkered down near us and didn’t make any aggressive moves until the rest of his team organized a coordinated frontal assault.

Just a few examples of how sly disguised Operatives can be if they behave correctly.

-JJ

[thesuzukimethod]

I can’t believe it took that long for someone to comment on the G.I. Joe reference in the thread title either.

sometimes i avoid the GI Joe refs lest i let my nerd cred (age?) slip. but for old times sake: “pork chop sandwiches!” (nsfw, lang)

[BioSnark]

I can’t help but notice your cardboard/straw man argument accusations are particularly one-sided.

Why don’t you be my guest and explain?

[Thundermuffin]

[QUOTE=Jimmy James;370516]I can’t help but notice your cardboard/straw man argument accusations are particularly one-sided.
[/QUOTE]

The thing is, though, we can back our arguments up with previous games’ map designs, gameplay, playerbase, etc. What do you all have to back up your arguments? A player base of 800 people, a game that had 2 money tournaments (one of which wasn’t even announced until the teams sat down to play), and a lot of new people who have never played an ET/SD/pre-CoD era FPS on a PC. Is that last thing always bad? Not really, until you realize these people are arguing points that they don’t fully grasp.

We also aren’t as one sided as you seem to think. I like some things casual games have done to the genre and things included in it (CoD4’s crash is a great map, and I still remember the layout almost exactly). I’m sure all of us have something we like that a casual game has brought to the table.

Chris, myself, and everyone else you have quoted or would include have played tons and tons of MP games. I bet between all the “haters” here we’ve played pretty much every big title and tons of smaller titles like ET:QW, so it isn’t like we’re only well versed in ET:QW or W:ET.

[Jimmy_James]

Why don’t you be my guest and explain?

I believe the quotes are self-explanitory.

[QUOTE=Thundermuffin;370529]The thing is, though, we can back our arguments up with previous games’ map designs, gameplay, playerbase, etc. What do you all have to back up your arguments? A player base of 800 people, a game that had 2 money tournaments (one of which wasn’t even announced until the teams sat down to play), and a lot of new people who have never played an ET/SD/pre-CoD era FPS on a PC. Is that last thing always bad? Not really, until you realize these people are arguing points that they don’t fully grasp.

We also aren’t as one sided as you seem to think. I like some things casual games have done to the genre and things included in it (CoD4’s crash is a great map, and I still remember the layout almost exactly). I’m sure all of us have something we like that a casual game has brought to the table.

Chris, myself, and everyone else you have quoted or would include have played tons and tons of MP games. I bet between all the “haters” here we’ve played pretty much every big title and tons of smaller titles like ET:QW, so it isn’t like we’re only well versed in ET:QW or W:ET.[/QUOTE]
So, by your logic, if I were to post all the FPS games I have played that would make my opinion of Brink more relevant than yours if it was a longer list?

I also think it’s interesting that people throw around labels like “casual” and “competitive” when, in all probability, the casual gamers actually have more experience than the competitive gamers.

Irony is my favorite form of humor.

-JJ

[Thundermuffin]

No, it doesn’t matter what games you all played or how long the list is, but everyone keeps saying we only know the ET series, which just is not true. I wanted to make sure people actually realized that we’re not some gamers who have spent the last 10 years only playing RtCW, W:ET, and ET:QW and never venturing outside of those games. We understand the genre, we’re pretty knowledgeable when it comes to whatever it is we like to do in these games (like Chris is a pretty good mapper, DarkAngel is great at writing things up and talking about the game, etc).

The casuals/weekend warriors/couch commandos/mouse-keteers/whatever you want to call them may have more experience in their favorite game, but if someone who was serious and liked to game started to play that game they would be better than them pretty easily one would assume. More experience doesn’t always make you a better player.

An example of this is I played with you the other day on BRINK during the DLC weekend on a random server. Don’t remember the name or anything, but I had only joined because you always seem as if you have these really “hardcore” matches. I hadn’t played BRINK in probably at least 3 weeks, but I had no problem running circles around everyone on your team and I even switched teams after one map and ran circles on my own team. So shouldn’t your team have destroyed me since obviously they should have more experience than me (and they probably did have lots more hours than me as I put in maybe 75ish)?

[V1cK_dB]

[QUOTE=Jimmy James;370591]I believe the quotes are self-explanitory.

So, by your logic, if I were to post all the FPS games I have played that would make my opinion of Brink more relevant than yours if it was a longer list?

I also think it’s interesting that people throw around labels like “casual” and “competitive” when, in all probability, the casual gamers actually have more experience than the competitive gamers.

Irony is my favorite form of humor.

-JJ[/QUOTE]

No but if you have played previous SD games like W:ET then you know how much being able to identify classes adds to the game. We already EXPERIENCED it in an SD game. People who are defending Brink as is have ZERO experience with previous SD games and therefore haven’t even experienced the benefits of being able to distinguish the classes making their opinions less valuable imo.

If I were new to SD games I would at least be more open to the old timers telling me how much things like being able to identify classes add to the game especially since I didn’t even experience it. But no…all you kids just act as if Brink is this perfect game that can never be adjusted even with proven things that have worked in SD games in the past. Somehow Brink is untouchable because it’s so perfect.

[Jimmy_James]

No, it doesn’t matter what games you all played or how long the list is, but everyone keeps saying we only know the ET series, which just is not true.

[QUOTE=V1cK_dB;370599]People who are defending Brink as is have ZERO experience with previous SD games and therefore haven’t even experienced the benefits of being able to distinguish the classes making their opinions less valuable imo.

If I were new to SD games I would at least be more open to the old timers telling me how much things like being able to identify classes add to the game especially since I didn’t even experience it. But no…all you kids just act as if Brink is this perfect game that can never be adjusted even with proven things that have worked in SD games in the past. Somehow Brink is untouchable because it’s so perfect.[/QUOTE]
Thank you both for contributing more examples to BioSnark’s “cardboard extreme” list.

I need to stop reading this forum for a bit, the constant laughing is making my side hurt.

Cheers,
JJ

[AmishWarMachine]

If I were new to SD games I would at least be more open to the old timers telling me how much things like being able to identify classes add to the game especially since I didn’t even experience it. But no…all you kids just act as if Brink is this perfect game that can never be adjusted even with proven things that have worked in SD games in the past. Somehow Brink is untouchable because it’s so perfect.

What I understand:
~You’ve played other/previous SD games.
~You prefer what those previous games brought to the table.
~You feel that being able to quickly (immediately) identify player class adds to the game

What I DON’T understand:
~My not having played previous SD games makes my opinion of what makes a good game invalid
~How NOT being able to instantly identify player class couldn’t possibly add to the game, but only take from*.

In my estimation, without classes being immediately identifiable, it takes more brainpower to do so and therefor adds to the game by forcing people to use more of their gray matter. It’s contradictory that many Comp people often refer to wanting to be rewarded for their skill, then argue against a game mechanic that actually takes more skill… because identifying a medic in BC2… doesn’t take any skill, all it takes is optic nerves and a semi-functioning brain.

Which, of course, was the entire point of Throbblefoot’s posting of this thread… to see how others identified the enemy’s class, through observation.

[V1cK_dB]

[QUOTE=AmishWarMachine;370602]What I understand:
~You’ve played other/previous SD games.
~You prefer what those previous games brought to the table.
~You feel that being able to quickly (immediately) identify player class adds to the game

What I DON’T understand:
~My not having played previous SD games makes my opinion of what makes a good game invalid
~How NOT being able to instantly identify player class couldn’t possibly add to the game, but only take from*.

In my estimation, without classes being immediately identifiable, it takes more brainpower to do so and therefor adds to the game by forcing people to use more of their gray matter. It’s contradictory that many Comp people often refer to wanting to be rewarded for their skill, then argue against a game mechanic that actually takes more skill… because identifying a medic in BC2… doesn’t take any skill, all it takes is optic nerves and a semi-functioning brain.

Which, of course, was the entire point of Throbblefoot’s posting of this thread… to see how others identified the enemy’s class, through observation.[/QUOTE]

You can’t use other games as an example. W:ET plays NOTHING like BF. You would know this had you played it. I can play either way…I do quite well in Brink as is. What I do know is that there was quite a bit more strategy involved with classes that are identifiable in W:ET vs Brink. I’ve played both.

It’s my opinion if you haven’t experienced W:ET what you have to say doesn’t count as much because you don’t know what you’re missing. Therefore you don’t know what you are talking about. After playing Brink and W:ET my opinion is that the way W:ET did it is better. Some people argue that it’s not but they never even experienced it. Help me understand that.

Let’s not forget that the Brink was based on W:ET as a starting point. How they missed some of the things that made that game great are beyond me. The small community of the game should be a giveaway to you that people were expecting these types of things but didn’t get them so they moved on. Brink sold well to people who had played W:ET, ETQW but then they left disappointed when they compared previous SD games to Brink. Disappointed with things like weapon spread, bad online structure, spawn timers, no 1st person spectator mode, movement and yes things like not being able to tell what class is what. All things that W:ET a game more than 10 years old had! That is what made previous SD games great and much better than Brink.

Even in your statement you say “in my estimation” which tells me you are guessing. You don’t know. You are assuming. Your opinion is based on an assumption. Mine is based on experience.

[V1cK_dB]

[QUOTE=Jimmy James;370516]I can’t help but notice your cardboard/straw man argument accusations are particularly one-sided.

I can’t believe it took that long for someone to comment on the G.I. Joe reference in the thread title either.

Anyway, BACK ON TOPIC:

Here are how a few ways Operatives have gotten the drop on me. The thing about Brink is that a teammate running in the direction of a command post (ie the opposite direction that the rest of the team is going) isn’t suspicious behavior.

• I was lagging a bit behind my team after taking the time to buff them at the spawn when a “friendly” came running in the opposite direction. I figured he was just heading toward our command post when he suddenly knocked me to the ground with a melee attack then drilled me with his gun. Then he Disguised himself as me and my team was totally oblivious to what happened. (VOIP FTW!)

• I was capturing a command post while a teammate provided cover. A enemy in disguise shows up. We both assumed he was there to lend a hand. We both got backstabbed.

• My team was defending an objective (hack or HE, I forget) and a disguised enemy hunkered down near us and didn’t make any aggressive moves until the rest of his team organized a coordinated frontal assault.

Just a few examples of how sly disguised Operatives can be if they behave correctly.

-JJ[/QUOTE]

I can quote all of the hilarious crap posted by the Brink “hardcore” club but it would take FOREVER! Just Wolfnemesis ridiculous crap would take about 300 quotes of garbage.

[BioSnark]

I believe the quotes are self-explanitory.

Fine, let me. The obvious difference is when one side is trying to debate with some actual facts and experience and the other has to repeat a strawman because they have none to call upon. When they there’s just name calling flying like casual and troll, there’s little difference.

[AmishWarMachine]

[QUOTE=V1cK_dB;370603]You can’t use other games as an example. W:ET plays NOTHING like BF. You would know this had you played it. I can play either way…I do quite well in Brink as is. What I do know is that there was quite a bit more strategy involved with classes that are identifiable in W:ET vs Brink. I’ve played both.[/QUOTE]That’s all well and good… but we’re not talking about (this thread isn’t about) what you do with the gained information regarding a player’s class. We’re talking about the act of gaining that information. In Brink, you still have to strategize how you’re going to deal with the various players and classes in the game, but before you can do that, you have to identify them. You have to do the homework. Again, I just don’t understand how that is not adding to the game, or taking from it.

Re: My mentioning of BC2. I only used BC2 as it is a game many have played where the models are class-based in their look… which is how W:ET/QW:ET have been described. The purpose was to establish a more widely recognized parallel. My point with which still holds, is that it takes 0 brain power for me to identify a Medic vs an Engineer vs a Recon vs an Assault in BC2 because their class-specific looks make them plain as day.

Even in your statement you say “in my estimation” which tells me you are guessing. You don’t know. You are assuming. Your opinion is based on an assumption. Mine is based on experience.

estimation (ˌɛstɪˈmeɪʃən) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]

— n

1. a considered opinion; judgment: what is your estimation of the situation?

What I have done is exactly what you have done… taken my experience, and my brain, and formed an opinion or judgement. Nowhere in the definition of “estimation” do the words “guessing”, “assuming”, or “ignorance” exist.

I am more than willing to concede that I don’t know how the other SD games work… but to completely disregard the experiences, conclusions, and/or opinions of others by this arbitrary line in the sand that you’ve drawn… how exactly does that make for good faith debate?

Unless you’re not here to debate?

[H0RSE]

My point with which still holds, is that it takes 0 brain power for me to identify a Medic vs an Engineer vs a Recon vs an Assault in BC2 because their class-specific looks make them plain as day.

I have been killed numerous times in BC2, because I have mistaken enemies for teammates. The models in BC2, at least for me and some of my friends, are not very distinct when it comes to friend vs foe recognition.

[AmishWarMachine]

I can see that… as Strogg vs GDF would be a ton easier to identify than the US vs Russia of BC2…

…but now we’re talking faction, not class.