PC Game Balancing and 10 Reasons I'm frustrated

(howie) #21

Fair enough. I’m all for that. Buff the other smgs. Reduce the assault rifles cof so they’re more effective at close range hip firing. Buff the shotgun.

(Rhadamant) #22

Clearly there is a lot of balance that needs to occur, I think we can all agree with that.

(peteXnasty) #23

I think its funny the super pro pc players have no idea how to actually aim with the AR’s and demand that brink’s aiming mechanic be more like other games’ aiming mechanics

Yet lambast console players who want changes that make the gameplay more like other games’ gameplay

You’re all silly. AR’s do beast damage up close but you can’t be running around like a spaz if you expect to kill faster than a carb. How about teamwork, cover, tactics, and choosing firefighrs, over playing like its quake?

I say all the SMG’s should fire blanks. See how many people quit rather than try and tame a new gun.

That said I agree with most of those points.

(playa) #24

enemy territory was the best thing splash damage will and ever do. they might as well just make a second one

(SphereCow) #25

Assault rifles are really good at range fights. Aim for the head, and if you hit just one shot, you’re very likely to take the guy down with body shots. This game isn’t about always firing from the hips, or always using sights. It’s about intelligently making a decision based on range. I have had a good amount of kills using ARs on players, personally.

Why should they be? They’re not. People are complaining that ARs are useless because they’re using them in the wrong scenarios.

(Zylw) #26

Only agreeing to #3 and little bit to #5 and #8.

#3 Some maps like container city has multiple objectives and take nice amount of time to complete but then again there are too many single objective missions that are too small for my liking.

#5 Turrets only need slight adjustment. But thank god they are nothing like TF2 turrets.

#8 This is mostly caused by reason #3 and maps where defenders almost always win with even teams.

(DazTroyer) #27

[QUOTE=sirius89;323454]This x1000.

I actually don’t quite get why some developers make this into their own game.It’s THE WORST things to make for weapons in a shootergame.

Random Bullet Deviation SUCKS i can’t even say how much its sucks in any word.This “feature” takes pretty much EVERY skill away from a kill in a shooter.

That’s why BC2 kills have nothing to do with skill for me.
It’s just luck.Do i hit or not?Thats the big question.And in Bc2 it wasn’t even that crazy.Ever played BF2?Ridiculous amount of random deviation.

Quake 3 Arena kills have something to do with real skill or CS 1.6 but in Brink it’s atm just luck.[/QUOTE]

So all my kills are just luck, jeez I should Defo do the friggin lottery this weekend. :tongue:

(neg0ne) #28

Disagree in all ponts.
(besides, some minor balancing tweaks have always to be done in the beginning of a game.)

The Game is a typical SD Team-Objective-Shooter.
Don´t Try to make it another game … better play another game if you are into RPG, COD-like, Deathmatch, or anything.

The point where you can see that the Threadstarter is not referring to brink but to another game he has in mind, is the wish for K/D Ratio and the complaining about medic-XPs.

K/D Ratio ist the most useless thing in a game like brink… and its very good and intended that there is no K/D Ratio.

XPs do mean nothing. It is not about the XP, its about Teamplay. A player with very poor XP can win the game for his team either with good support or some very smart and good-timing moves.

(sirius89) #29

Correct sir.

What’s the point of killing the one dude with 1 bullet in the head when the other one needs 4-5 cause the bullets start deviating like crazy while aiming on the exact same part “The head”.

Don’t get me wrong,RECOIL should be there but random deviation is just BLEH!

(Smokeskin) #30

I wish they would drop XP scoreboard too. I can’t help checking it, even though I can’t be bothered to play to maximize it. I feel a bit cheated when I do some boring, low XP job like guarding the flank that was instrumental to winning, and then end up below average score.

Maybe if they tracked out all-time win/loss ratio and displayed that? Would probably only work with stopwatch, as otherwise people would dodge playing the least favored side on each map. And you get the whole disconnect-to-avoid loss issue, or you have to penalize players who drop out of games for legitimate reasons.

I guess human pride just sucks.

(adrian783) #31

agree with 8, sorta agree with 9 and 9.5, and disagree with the rest

(Rhadamant) #32

Assault rifles are really good at range fights. Aim for the head, and if you hit just one shot, you’re very likely to take the guy down with body shots. This game isn’t about always firing from the hips, or always using sights. It’s about intelligently making a decision based on range. I have had a good amount of kills using ARs on players, personally.

This is only partially true. Yes, they are much better than SMGs at range, but they kick like a mule and there is only really 1 AR worth using. Oh, and I almost forgot, there is only 1 map out of 8 where you actually can fight a ‘range fight’ so you’ll most likely be putting that AR away 7/8th of the time.

(Moonlighter) #33

You might be able to pick up the top skills, but I wouldn’t call that a well-rounded class. Engineers should really also have the improved weapon upgrade and second mine, kevlar’s also always excellent to have, as is steady nerves. Medics should really have improved health buff, increased supplies, and improved supply regen, with increased metabolism a great plus. Similar things for the other classes. It’s a trade off. You can chose to grab just a few skills from each class, including their tier 5, but you’ll never be as versatile in the role as someone who’s only split up their points between two classes.

I kinda agree with this. But turrets can be lethal in certain situations. They are excellent at suppressing fire in tight spaces. Multiple turrets in a smaller area work even better. And when used in conjunction with mines and having the engineer remain nearby to support the turret it all adds up to excellent coverage when defending an area. If they could lock on to a target slightly faster or more reliably, that’d be a plus, but I don’t think they’re quite as bad as some people might think.

Soldiers do quite well with the underslung grenade launcher as it benefits from their class grenade abilities. Drum mags decrease your maximum total ammo at the benefit of holding more in your magazine. Speed slings are very handy if you’ve got a weapon with addons that reduce equip time. It could make the difference between life and death if you’ve just been revived and are under fire. Or run out of ammo on one weapon and are able to more quickly switch your other weapon. So there are certainly good reasons to use other weapon mods. I greatly prefer the taped mags over the drum. One quick reload with no penalty to max ammo.

I like this decision. Invariably, if you show K/D ratio on the scoreboard you’ll wind up with people who could care less about winning and who will focus solely on their ratio. In a team/objective based FPS I want the people on my team concerned only with cooperating with other team members and pushing towards the goal. Not altering their play styles to maintain some K/D ratio.

The rest of the stuff, I’m either indifferent on or agree with you.

(Rhadamant) #34

True, but on my level 20 character I have everything I possibly want on my medic, everything I possibly want on my soldier and about 3/4 of what I want on my engineer (I don’t use turrets for the obvious reason, so there is 3 points sparred) Basically I can play just as well as any other player on those 3 classes, and on Operative I have EMP and … something else, not recalling at the moment. As you can see I didn’t have to ‘specialize’ in one class as I thought I would have to prior to release. It is somewhat disappointing that I can be a jack of all trades and a master of 3/4.

I’m not saying the addons are 100% worthless, I’m saying that there is not enough of a tradeoff for the addons. Drum Barrels should slow reload speed and pull out speed a lot more. Going vanilla clip should be way faster to reload and pull out. This just simply is not the case. Speed grips make maybe 1/5 of a second difference on most weapons. In 98% of scenarios that 1/5 of a second won’t make any difference.

Some people will treat Brink as a team game (I certainly do) and some will not. I’ve seen games where people 100% ignore the main objective and just have a good ol’fashioned firefight. The game displays most kills at the end of the round, but doesn’t display how many, or ratios, or any helpful data. I know they plan to include tracking of statistics, but some players (like myself) like to see how well I am doing on the scoreboard when I play, not just some aggregated number that has absolutely no meaning (which is the current method)

I know I make some hard arguments here, and I know not everyone will agree, but it reminds me of a quote I once heard “You know a game is fairly balanced when everyone is complaining equally” well… I think most people are complaining about the same things, the forums are filled with “please balance” “maps are too few” type posts, so I do hope that Splash Damage is receptive to this feedback, regardless of how unproductive the feedback may seem.

(Kalbuth) #35

Speaking of weapons, the way I feel it, and how I would see it useful, is having AR really medium range kings, which would require tightened CoF/recoil. They should have a disadvantage, damage wise, over SMG at close range. Close range is for SMG (meaning, everyone would need a SMG). The bane of SMG should be damage drop off. And you should be as precise with AR medium range than you are precise with SMG close range. which would make AR take over SMG once you pass a certain range of fight.

For both types of weapon, let’s have 1 weapon being precise on hip firing, but nothing really special with iron-sight, and another which is more precise than the other when iron-sighted, but less when hip firing. That would leave 2 play-styles possible
From there, make variations on magazine sizes, equipment speed, reload time, etc… to have the correct number of available weapons
You’d have front Lights, speeding up, some twitcher moving and hip firing, some less twitchy using iron-sight, up to their preference, supported by AR guys back up a bit.

Heavies also could do with buffed heavy weapons

(wolfnemesis75) #36

[QUOTE=Rhadamant;323419]The game platform is great, save for some design problems, but I want to address what could be done with the necvars and balancing the game out.

#1
SMG’s are too stable.
You can run around hip blasting people with relative ease with dual SMGs that both have drum barrels attached to the bottom and front grips in front. This is a “Spray and Pray” gamer’s wet dream. You rarely run out of ammo (with drum barrels), don’t miss (with front grips) and usually put so many bullets into your enemy so quickly that you win most firefights with very little skill involved.

Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this, it just doesn’t require skill.

#2
One Shot Kills
The game was not supposed to have any, and yet an un-buffed and un-upgraded character on medium body type can get 1 shot in the head, and light body types can get 1 shot in the head and chest … given that the enemy is using the right rifle and add ons.

#3
There are not enough objectives.
On most maps there is 1 primary objective and 1 or 2 secondary objectives. There is not much need for different classes when there are so few objectives to do. Most games become a Team Deathmatch firefight really quickly with complete disregard for the secondary objectives.

#4
The skill tree is … not a tree
On the engineer you have the two smaller turrets as pre-requisites for the Gatling turret. No other skills have pre-requisites. Therefore for 8 skill points you can have the rank 5 skill for each class and have 12 points left over. This makes it way to easy to ‘specialize’ in all 4 classes. In most skill trees about half of the skills are nearly or completely useless anyway. A rank 5 skill should require at least 4 or 5 points spent in the tree to unlock, otherwise I can run around as an Operative with EMP Grenades and still have 19 points left over.

#5
Turrets are a joke
Due to their super slow target acquisition time any half-decent player can out maneuver a turret. They cannot be repaired when damaged, they are fast to hack and really don’t pose a thread to anything but a mindless bot.

#6
Assault rifles are not worth using
See #1. Due to the fact that SMGs fire faster and are more stable and accurate there is no purpose to using Assault Rifles. Assault Rifles should be more effective than SMGs at a distance and should not be so unstable when firing in bursts with ACOG/RedDot

#7
Body Size Types
The advantage of a light body size doesn’t really seem to play a role. There is very little you can parkour around that other body types can’t. Being a light body type might save you 5 seconds to get to the front of the firefight, but because of your health penalty, you’ll die 10 seconds faster. Counter to this, being a heavy doesn’t give you enough bonus life to be worth running like the world’s slowest marathoner.

And on the flip side of this problem … if your team has the engineer upgraded health command post and you have the upgraded medic 2 pip health buff with upgraded kevlar … you could be a light body type blitzing around the map and have more health and damage resistance than the enemys’ heavies.

#8
Déjà vu
There are so few maps to play on… you feel like you are doing the same thing over and over and over and over … you see the point. I know they plan on the first DLC to be adding in maps but until them … this gets tedious.

#9
Gun Balance
Most of the weapons are not well balanced. Most players gravitate towards two weapons for the most part, Carb9 and Euston. I was looking forward to weapons having trade-offs like more magazine for longer reload, slower fire rate for more damage, unstable for high rate of fire, short range for damage, long range but slow, etc. Instead of using different weapons for different situations (like Grenade Launcher for clusters of players) you can just use your cookie cutter Carb9 that works in all situations. Too bad, because with 24 weapons only 3 or 4 gets used.

#9.5
& Gun Addons
Speaking of gun balance … I don’t really see the disadvantage to drum barrels. There seems to be no reason not to equip a drum barrel. So with that in mind, any gun that can handle a drum barrel will have a drum barrel. I don’t see any reason not to use front grips, so with that in mind every gun that can handle front grips will have them. Why give us a variety of add ons when only 2 of the add ons are ever worth using?

#10
MEDIC SCOREBOARD LEET HAX WINS
Playing an aggressive medic that actively revives, heals and kills causes the medic class to climb REALLY QUICKLY to the top of the scoreboard of any/every game. Medics gain way too many points for team actions. Revives are worth 175 points while arming a secondary objective is worth 100 or potentially 200. It takes a second to gain 175 points as a medic, but takes 45 seconds to gain 200 as a soldier. The same applies to hacking, repairing, etc.

Also … why don’t you show kill/death ratios on the scoreboard?

~==---------------------------------------------------==~
I was really looking forward to Brink and despite it being a great platform, it falls short on many fronts as a PC game. Maybe you designed, geared and catered to consoles a bit too much, but the PC game is rather flat, boring, unbalanced and un-re-playable. Also, as mentioned many times, I don’t see how it can ever become a competition game with the way it is now. #10 is This Post because I deeply regret ever having to write a post in the first place.

And with that said feel free to agree/disagree with me.

-Ben[/QUOTE]
Your frustration seems to stem from struggling to win or getting beat a lot. Go to the helpful tips section of the forum and practice to improve rather than wish for the game to be made easier for you. There is a helpful tips section in the Dosier game menu along with challenges that will improve your basic skills in Brink. You should be able to complete all of the 3 Star challenges with a 20 level character is the goal. Practice your parkour. A good measuring stick: If you are able to do the Parkour this challenge in under 45 seconds, it shows you have a good grasp of the SMART movement system. Ask questions when playing Brink with other people to learn what style will work best for you and some advanced strategies. You are probably use to owning fools in killstreak friendly games, and are now struggling with how different Brink is. Learn how to get better at Brink not wish for it to be another easy lonewolf campfest run and gunner. :penguin:

(legend123) #37

Well seeing that most top clans use Light and it certainly makes sense its the best option (sure medium can be picked too and for sure the heavy is almost useless).

I agree that this game is too slow (I was hoping for faster paced like W:ET for example).
Thats why I play light also (it just feels more smooth).
I wish the light body type was the default.

Thats essentially a main concern for me:
1)Game too slow (unless you are light)
2)Guns feel weird (its not W:ET)

(Je T´aime) #38

I kinda agree with the majority of those points, and I would add the unbalanced teams and maps in pub gameplay it gets really frustrating when your team gets respw camped not just in container city that happens in a lot of maps. That just makes me rage quit.

(Rhadamant) #39

Its ironic that Splash Damage tried to do away with ‘one shot kills’ in order to avoid rage quitting and griefing and yet a lot of their maps spawn kills. Those uber spawn turrets should cover you a bit better, shouldn’t they?

[QUOTE=legend123;324728]Well seeing that most top clans use Light and it certainly makes sense its the best option (sure medium can be picked too and for sure the heavy is almost useless).

I agree that this game is too slow (I was hoping for faster paced like W:ET for example).
Thats why I play light also (it just feels more smooth).
I wish the light body type was the default.
[/QUOTE]

In most public games Medium is the most used, but for speed and accuracy reasons Light will be the most used for clan matches, which leaves the poor heavy to do nothing but eat more pork rinds and tub cheese. Poor poor heavy. I sort of forgot to mention how bad the heavy weapons were, but that goes without saying I assume.

(Rhadamant) #40

Oh no, this isn’t the case at all. Almost all of my games I am #1 on the scoreboard (due to the fact I primarily play a medic and get most kills about 75% of the time). I used to compete in CAL, CPL, TWL and TGL, so I am used to analyzing a game in order to determine if it could be played competitively. I even played a little Quake Wars: ET competitively. I’ve never been spawn camped, I haven’t ever rage quit out of a game for any reason and I don’t struggle with the SMART system, in fact I wish they disabled Auto SMART. It isn’t that I lack the skill, it is that I find the game simply too easy. I don’t like how I can just spray and pray running 20 miles an hour and bounding over objects and still get headshots as if they were stationary barn-sized targets. A game should never be that easy to master.

So in conclusion I think you totally missed the point of my post or at least interpreted it completely wrong, but thank you for your input.