Musings on basic character development issues

(tokamak) #101

Ha tell me about it.

(Mad Hatter) #102

Negative or not, it comes down to the same thing. People not choosing what they want carefully or just not being able to make up their mind on what they want. Curiosity is one thing, but if you re-spec away ten levels then you’ve obviously got commitment issues. :stuck_out_tongue:

(Weeohhweeohh) #103

…Or playing while inebriated and miss clicking. I foresee this causing me to re-spec a few times hahahaha.

(DarkangelUK) #104

Seems to me like this suggestion is trying to appeal to fans of a completely different game genre, which isn’t the intended audience. It will put the common OCD fps player off if you need the dedication of an MMO player to experience what should be standard, every day aspects of the game. Bad decision IMO.

Did you see the whine because you can’t change bodytype during a match? Now try telling them they can’t change something like that during 20 matches.

(tokamak) #105

Yeah, indeed, while SD is at it they might as well go all the way and bring the game down to the masses. Their money is as good as that of the game-snobs who like refined games with depth.

(Senethro) #106

Wait, which side are you arguing for? You usually argue for the latter but here appear to be making a sensible financial arguement for the former. Game snobs is negative but refined games with depth is positive. They’ve talked previously about making the game accessible, so mass appeal is not at all an odd thing to suggest to appeal to.

(tokamak) #107

Yeah I know, it’s playing the victim card, but it’s completely in line with my acceptance that what I want is not what SD wants, and what SD wants doesn’t necessarily result in a better game.

(Senethro) #108

H3Y W330HHW33UGHH
1S TH1S YOU

YOU AR3 TH3 P3RF3CT 1RONY N1NJ4 BRO

(Weeohhweeohh) #109

[QUOTE=Senethro;273163]H3Y W330HHW33UGHH
1S TH1S YOU

YOU AR3 TH3 P3RF3CT 1RONY N1NJ4 BRO[/QUOTE]

edit: I’m guessing the red thing is a sword, which is sweet, but I will need some clarification what the white stuff is. I’m loving the shades, though a bit mainstream…

HAHAHA Nice! That is pretty close! I just want to let the record show that I hate hipsters probably more then most. Not hating hipsters is so mainstream. Also, you never answered two of my questions:

a) What is your address? I still want to send you a fruit basket.
b) How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

(DarkangelUK) #110

Doesn’t necessarily result in a worse game either. Stuff like that requires small steps, and you’re expecting a massive leap for an original IP… it makes sense to play the safe card 1st to get established. SD has already been criticized for taking ‘massive risks’ apparently… maybe your suggestion is better aimed at a game like Firefall, that seems to fit the category a lot more than Brink ever did.

(Weeohhweeohh) #111

I would have gone with this.

sooowh30ugh2.0.jpg610×618 19 KB

(Mad Hatter) #112

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;273152]Seems to me like this suggestion is trying to appeal to fans of a completely different game genre, which isn’t the intended audience. It will put the common OCD fps player off if you need the dedication of an MMO player to experience what should be standard, every day aspects of the game. Bad decision IMO.

Did you see the whine because you can’t change bodytype during a match? Now try telling them they can’t change something like that during 20 matches.[/QUOTE]

I really don’t see how this is going to turn people off. Pretty much every game I can think of that had a good degree of character building also had some sort of re-spec cost, if they allowed you to re-spec at all. With Borderlands it was money (a rather small and insignificant cost, but a cost nonetheless), with MAG it was re-spec points, which you earned like experience, and I can’t remember any other games with good character building that I’ve played recently. Well, Fallout 3, but you can’t re-spec at all in that game, to my knowledge.

And again, the penalty is a single level. It isn’t going to take Herculean levels of patience and dedication to overcome that nominal fee.

Aaaaaaaand, please keep in mind that I harbor no ill will or bad feelings here. I enjoy a good back 'n forth, as long as there are points being made.

(Weeohhweeohh) #113

In my opinion, SD is taking a huge risk indeed. Instead of taking a linear path of just adding onto a usual FPS (via adding new types of guns, better graphics, adding one extra slid bar, ect ect), they are trying to switch things up.

An obvious change is S.M.A.R.T., but they didn’t stop there. Different and change can be scary, but that is how things evolve, FPS included. How did we come from old school wolfenstein to Borderlands? For one technology but also from developers risk. If the Brink formula doesn’t work, then they patch it or it will be a flop (Zeus forbid!!!).

SD has chosen their path. Lets see how it works. If it is good, they deserve acclaim. If not, they spend a crap ton on money and time on a venture that will go down in history as a failure. Trying grab the largest market with same old same old is why Halo and CoD are utter crap. GROWTH IN THE FPS GENRE PLEASE.

(LyndonL) #114

As long as going from level 19 to 20 doesn’t take more than an hour or 2 of play I don’t care about the respec cost… PROVIDED that all abilities are listed from the start so that I know which path I’m going to take.

(Weeohhweeohh) #115

Totally agree. As long as there isn’t any ambiguity or misleading information.

(DarkangelUK) #116

[QUOTE=Mad Hatter;273181]I really don’t see how this is going to turn people off. Pretty much every game I can think of that had a good degree of character building also had some sort of re-spec cost, if they allowed you to re-spec at all. With Borderlands it was money (a rather small and insignificant cost, but a cost nonetheless), with MAG it was re-spec points, which you earned like experience, and I can’t remember any other games with good character building that I’ve played recently. Well, Fallout 3, but you can’t re-spec at all in that game, to my knowledge.

And again, the penalty is a single level. It isn’t going to take Herculean levels of patience and dedication to overcome that nominal fee.

Aaaaaaaand, please keep in mind that I harbor no ill will or bad feelings here. I enjoy a good back 'n forth, as long as there are points being made.[/QUOTE]

Both Fallout and Borderlands were marketed this way and neither of these games are team based shooters, Brink is primarily a shooter with the XP and customisation, you can’t just add that sort of stuff this far into development. As I said, small steps… it’s something I could maybe see for future releases, not this one… and even then it’d be another ‘risk’ coughHuxleycough

And I also think you’re underestimating the whine of the average OCD fps gamer, they want to progress with each game… not take steps back just to use some of the stuff they already played to unlock. It just seems counter-productive. “Wow you unlocked some cool abilities! Unfortunately you need to drop a level to use them…”. Can you name a team based, or even standard DM shooter that incorporates such a system?

(LyndonL) #117

One thing of conern to me… A level 20 noobpwner3000 player decides to respec all 20 of their abilties… Do they then become level 0 and play with all the new players and decimate them?

I don’t entirely understand the “drop a level” thing here. It seems like it goes against the whole “making it noob friendly” paradigm.

(Humate) #118

^^ You can do that by creating a new character anyway?

(LyndonL) #119

…Good point :o

(Apples) #120

We dont even know if the perks will be that important… I mean yeah you’ll get buff and maybe some extraspeed, but werent many of you criticising me when I doubted about the weapon balance or the game balance in general? Same can be applied here, if the perks are balanced then you wont have that much of an advantage using one perk or another, yeah it’ll change the way you play and interact with other players, but if the core game is still the main concern of SD, it’ll all resume in “Shoot da boiz in the face” anyway.

By loosing a level (assuming you are at max), you go from 20 to 19… is that really that big of a deal? I dont really care about these aspects anyway, I think I’ll just use the speed boost / accuracy perks if there as some.

Peace