The system isn’t restrictive. People restrict themselves in the system. A restrictive system would have you pick 1 class and only spend skill points there. I will provide you a reason why the system should stay the same…That’s how it was programed. SD has invested their time and their money on THEIR game. Next time maybe they will consult you first.
You don’t always get what you want. Think about like this. From an immersion stand point, does it seem plausible that, me, the character can be a big’old, chaingun toten brink house one minute, but the next be a skinny guy running around with an smg? No. You are building a persistent character. That is one of the main things in Brink. You want all power to change what every you want, when ever you want…its not going to happen. It isn’t coded like that. Why? Because that’s not how SD wanted it.
[QUOTE=Nail;273997]“but the game forces us to sacrifice to do this, instead of rewarding such team play.”
game rewards you with higher xp for switching to a needed class, where’s the sacrifice ?
that’s rewarding teamplay, you want your individual play to be rewarded[/QUOTE]
OK, so the game rewards you AND punishes you. “I could change to medic to help the team and get some XP, but then I’d be less effective as an individual.”
I’d take the hit, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for the game. Why should this be prevented? Why has nobody brought forward a benefit to being restrictive in this game design? What beneficial effects does this design have on play?
If you cannot argue in favor of your own preferred design, you are not providing a complete argument. It just makes you look like a fanboy for defending the status-quo.
I just want to win games and be an effective player + I want the game to be even so both teams have same chances. If I don’t have any good medic abilities but we need a medic, it’s just reeaally frustrating if I have to change to medic and get punished because before the game started I randomly chose to use a character with less good medic abilities.
Especially if I’m level 20 and XP doesn’t do anything now that you can’t share XP with other characters you have.
Actually… why did we stop talking about grinding XP, that’s even more frustrating.
Stop mincing words. This system is MORE restrictive than a system that would let you change character/perks mid game. I would even be happy if perks were locked (with the -1 level to change them) but we could switch out to pre-made characters mid-game in order to change our style.
You have still dodged providing any argument in favor of your (more restrictive) design. This is an excellent way to concede the point. If you cannot provide it in your next post I will accept your concession.
You don’t always get what you want.
This is meaningless in the context of game design and has no purpose in this discussion.
From an immersion stand point…
You’re arguing Immersion? In a game which requires half a clip to the head to kill someone? Where you can toss someone a magical healing syringe and suddenly their grievous bullet wounds close and they back to fighting shape?
You are building a persistent character. That is one of the main things in Brink.
Yes I KNOW. But why is this desirable??? Please! Just list the benefits to persistent characters in brink! I’m listening! I want to know them! Lets really talk about this! I’ve attempted to list all the benefits to a flexible character system, and all you’ve done is deny that brink is at all restrictive. Tell me why your way is better.
You want all power to change what every you want, when ever you want…its not going to happen. It isn’t coded like that. Why? Because that’s not how SD wanted it.
This is, again, completely irrlevent. We’re talking about what would be better game design. What SD ultimately decides is completely besides the point here. Here’s how the conversation has gone so far
Me: “Hmm, why does the game have to prevent me from doing this? Here is reason X, Y, and Z why it would be better”
You: “I deny that the game is preventing you from doing that! You are preventing you from doing that!”
Me: “Why is the current way better than my suggestion?”
You: “You just need to adapt!”
Me: “Why is the current way better than my suggestion?”
You: “That’s just the way SD is doing it.”
In a discussion you are not allowed to just ignore questions asked of you. I’m going to call you out on it. It makes you look like you cannot actually answer. So do us both a favor and just explain to me what benefits the current (more restrictive) system has over my proposed (change character mid-game) system.
If I don’t have any good medic abilities but we need a medic, it’s just reeaally frustrating if I have to change to medic and get punished because before the game started I randomly chose to use a character with less good medic abilities.
Especially if I’m level 20 and XP doesn’t do anything now that you can’t share XP with other characters you have.
But that frustration would be no one’s fault but your own. You were fully able to build a character that has abilities spread out over all the classes. In stead, you chose to play with a character with less Medic skills - it was you choice.
Me: “Hmm, why does the game have to prevent me from doing this? Here is reason X, Y, and Z why it would be better”
You are aware that “better” is an opinion word, right? Making a suggestion that you think is better, doesn’t mean it actually is.
Okay, here’s the thing. In Brink, the concept that they’re aiming for is very similar to the concept in MMOs. You are building a character with which you associate yourself. It’s not necessarily a recreation of you, but it IS representing you in the game world in a way that Call of Duty simply does not.
If I spend time in the army working on being a marksman, I win the contests in rifle marksmanship, and I’m the best marksman in our squad, the sergeant’s not going to pick me out as the guy to hold the Squad Assault weapon, he’s going to assign me as the designated marksman. However, if we’re expected to be in tight corridors, I’m not going to be using my M-21 any more, they’re going to give me an M-4 and expect me to act as someone who’s not specialized.
Is it the optimum use of my abilities? No. Is it punishing me for learning to shoot a rifle instead of, say, doing extra PT so that I can sprint out ahead to scout ahead, since now my specialization is useless and the scout is still faster than me? No. It’s just me being specialized for something that is not needed right now.
Indeed. There are plenty of reasons to keep the system as it is. We forum folk don’t know all of them, since we haven’t worked on or worked with the game, but I can name a few obvious ones off the top of my head.
Again, persistent, unique characters. Each player has their own unique role that they fulfill, instead of everybody being able to perfectly match each and every situation. Keeps things interesting.
It encourages teamwork. If you aren’t well-suited to a task, odds are someone else on your team is, or can be. You can’t do everything yourself, so you’d might as well support your teammates to the best of your ability.
It adds replay value and extends the life of the game. Ok, you’ve played a few matches like this, now you can play them like this and it will be a fresh, new experience. This ties in to #1 up there with the unique roles thing.
It keeps the game from becoming an oversized game of rock, paper, scissors. You don’t trump your opponents, you overcome them. You outsmart, outgun, and outrun them, without having to worry about being the round peg to match their round hole. (sounds dirty)
I understand the concept of associating with a character. I have suggested the ability to switch out to characters with ‘locked in’ abilities. I wouldn’t mind terrible having multiple characters specialized in different ways that I could choose between when we need different things. I could handle leveling up characters for different purposes (as long as it doesn’t take a month or more to get to level 20). All this is fine, as long as I can swap out to my other characters to respond to the in-game situation.
It’s not entirely like having alts in WoW, where if the raid needs a healer you jump on your priest, etc. But FPS gameplay moves a lot faster than WoW, and I would argue that conditions in the game (the game, the team composition, the opponent’s tactics) can change the kind of style you want to play.
It encourages teamwork. If you aren’t well-suited to a task, odds are someone else on your team is, or can be. You can’t do everything yourself, so you’d might as well support your teammates to the best of your ability.
I agree that you shouldn’t be able to do everything yourself. You always have only 1 class and only 1 set of perks. I’m not arguing for people to have everything always, I’m asking for people to be able to switch to what the team needs easily. After you switch, you still can’t do everything, you can now do a different thing. So the concept that “if allowed to switch you wouldn’t need a team!” is fallacious. In fact, making it easier to switch to what the team needs encourages teamplay a lot more than being locked into a single style of play without disconnecting.
So that’s that.
It adds replay value and extends the life of the game. Ok, you’ve played a few matches like this, now you can play them like this and it will be a fresh, new experience. This ties in to #1 up there with the unique roles thing.
So you’re arguing that playing multiple different types of roles improves the life of the game. I agree! I just want to perform those different roles whenever I want, instead of being locked into a single choice each match. That won’t change the life of the game, because I will likely still spend the same amount of time in each role, they will just be broken up within the match based on what our team needs.
So that’s that.
It keeps the game from becoming an oversized game of rock, paper, scissors. You don’t trump your opponents, you overcome them. You outsmart, outgun, and outrun them, without having to worry about being the round peg to match their round hole. (sounds dirty)
This actually proves my point. My argument has always been that I don’t want to get stuck on a team which is randomly paper to the enemy team’s scissors without the ability to change. You seem to think that if we were able to switch, teams would keep going from one extreme (all heavy medics!) to another in order to out-do each other. I would say, rather, that they would change to fill holes in their own team, or to balance out a particularly powerful enemy tactic at any given moment. That adaptation is important to maintain game balance, and rarely jumps from one extreme to another.
Even if the sides did switch a lot to try and RPS the other team, that’s adapting to a dynamic environment. That’s what your side has been stressing all along (adapt!). So aparently you are in favor of that?
[QUOTE=Bridger;274053]I understand the concept of associating with a character. I have suggested the ability to switch out to characters with ‘locked in’ abilities. I wouldn’t mind terrible having multiple characters specialized in different ways that I could choose between when we need different things. I could handle leveling up characters for different purposes (as long as it doesn’t take a month or more to get to level 20).
All this is fine, as long as I can swap out to my other characters to respond to the in-game situation.[/QUOTE]
But you are still thinking in terms of FPS games. Think in terms of WoW. Back when I played, if I got on my Death Knight, and someone said “Hey Lin, wanna come tank?” Well I need to change to my Paladin. Ok, this is modelled in Brink. If someone on PSN messages me, I’m gonna know what they play, and I can choose my character accordingly.
However, if I’m in the middle of an instance on my Paladin, and a DPS drops out, I’m not going to offer to switch to my DK, since my main was a highly specialized tank with a few points in healing. That would be patently absurd.
On the other hand, if I were in a group healing for a Druid tank, I might offer to take over tanking if the druid had points in DPS.
[QUOTE=Bridger;274037]Stop mincing words. This system is MORE restrictive than a system that would let you change character/perks mid game. I would even be happy if perks were locked (with the -1 level to change them) but we could switch out to pre-made characters mid-game in order to change our style.
You have still dodged providing any argument in favor of your (more restrictive) design. This is an excellent way to concede the point. If you cannot provide it in your next post I will accept your concession.[/QUOTE]
I will concede the fact that your willy nilly have and change everything whenever you want system is less restrictive then the one in place now. Saying the one in place now is restrictive depends on how you use it. Persistent character development is something I’m all about. I think it’s the bee’s knees to be honest.
The system has been described as MMO caliber character building (right up my ally). I actually have to invest my time and thought on how to build him that best suits my play style. If I, on a whim, decide to totally change him mid match would destroy the investment into him. He just becomes a load out. Just another tool used to get from point A to point B. He has no personality and there isn’t anything that ties him to me. Just some pixels. Watering down game design by giving everyone everything they want seems to me to be a cop out.
I would rather play a game I’m invested in then a game where I just mindlessly kill stuff. That’s just my opinion.
I would support having access to more then 1 character during a match. Tag in Tag out style…of course then we would have people crying about having to level up more then one character.
Sure. All of our posts (yours and mine) on this topic are meaningless because the game is about to be shipped. No more time to revamp the game design.
The Brink universe takes place in the future. Maybe life on the Ark has made everyone more resilient. Maybe that magical healing syringe contains little robots that knit flesh back together.
Hopefully I have covered this up top. If not I will further clarify.
[QUOTE=Bridger;274037]This is, again, completely irrlevent. We’re talking about what would be better game design. What SD ultimately decides is completely besides the point here. Here’s how the conversation has gone so far
Me: “Hmm, why does the game have to prevent me from doing this? Here is reason X, Y, and Z why it would be better”
You: “I deny that the game is preventing you from doing that! You are preventing you from doing that!”
Me: “Why is the current way better than my suggestion?”
You: “You just need to adapt!”
Me: “Why is the current way better than my suggestion?”
You: “That’s just the way SD is doing it.”
In a discussion you are not allowed to just ignore questions asked of you. I’m going to call you out on it. It makes you look like you cannot actually answer. So do us both a favor and just explain to me what benefits the current (more restrictive) system has over my proposed (change character mid-game) system.[/QUOTE]
Hopefully I have covered this up top. I will further clarify if needed.
[QUOTE=Linsolv;274056]But you are still thinking in terms of FPS games. Think in terms of WoW. Back when I played, if I got on my Death Knight, and someone said “Hey Lin, wanna come tank?” Well I need to change to my Paladin. Ok, this is modelled in Brink. If someone on PSN messages me, I’m gonna know what they play, and I can choose my character accordingly.
However, if I’m in the middle of an instance on my Paladin, and a DPS drops out, I’m not going to offer to switch to my DK, since my main was a highly specialized tank with a few points in healing. That would be patently absurd.
On the other hand, if I were in a group healing for a Druid tank, I might offer to take over tanking if the druid had points in DPS.[/QUOTE]
OK, but I’m not sure I see what advantages this kind of rigid role-selection has over a more flexible system. I’m not sure I understand what the WoW example was trying to get across?
If medic is not your specialized player, regardless if you can transfer abilities in match or not… you’re still going to be ineffective in that role as you don’t know have experience or skill in it. Are you expecting that abilities are going to help you play better as a person? The class abilities are designed to help cater to your play style, if you don’t play medic, then there’s nothing to cater to. Will you even know how to make good use of those abilities and apply them effectively if you don’t know the role to begin with?
I do, however, see your argument. How can anyone get used to playing that role when the situation will deter them from switching, “well I don’t know the role, and I don’t even have abilities to even help me a little… bollocks to it, i’ll stay engi”. I still think it’s up to the player in the end however. Regardless of my preferred class in ETQW, if the objective required a different class then I switched, even if I had already maxed out the class I started with. When trying to win the match, I go with necessity instead of preference.
That’s mighty rich, given that you’ve ignored all of my questions in my posts that were directly posted in response to your statements. Might want to call yourself out first, chief,
Fortunately for you, I don’t ignore questions that I know are asked of me.
The reason that the game is limited in this manner is because of…
Yes, I am quoting myself now. Since you can only reply to one tiny portion of my post, and don’t seem to be capable of putting together multiple responses, I will do it for you.[/ASIDE]
It has nothing to do with being better or worse than the system in another game. The “benefit” is that your persistent character functions logically within this restriction and grows as you play with him. Now answer one of my questions: Why do you continue to feel that this restriction is so game-breaking, that you keep posting repeatedly on the game developer’s website that they are poor game designers?
In other current FPS’s, you need to die in order to switch classes. You have accepted that restriction. You should be able to switch everything on the fly, without having to suicide. How is that restriction okay with you? That is not flexible, that’s restrictive. I’m now asking what benefits to gameplay this provides. And don’t tell me it is acceptable just because that is the way it has been.
