Q&A for Brink - Questions Needed

(Mustang) #121

Just checking, what with the maps being smaller again :smiley:

(EnderWiggin.DA.) #122

Will it be easy to add custom maps?
God knows the BC2 patch system is pretty darn unforgiving and having servers upload megatextures in ETQW was fraught with problems at least until I quit playing. So, will it be easy to add new maps?

(Crytiqal) #123

I think custom maps will work the same as in ETQW, thus reloading the game when a custom map is loaded.

(Therefor I hope an “official map pack” could be formed from community made maps which would let all players load these regular maps inside the memory upon start of the game, instead of having to restart)

(Mustang) #124

IIRC the restarting thing was just a workaround to save time figuring out how to do it nicely
So I may well be sorted by now

(Crytiqal) #125

As far as I know, when the game started it looked for what files (MD5 hashes) where needed and it loaded those in it’s memory.

When a custom map then was loaded on a server it had to flush it’s existing memory and load everything up again + the additional file.

Creating a list of all required custom maps in 1 file (a list of all them MD5 hashes) would make the server load up all these additional maps in it’s memory on loadup, instead of having to load every custom map seperatly thus requiring memory flush and memory load.

When a client connected, he would only need to restart his game ONCE to load up all of them maps in one go, because the server would give out the list of ALL NECCESARY MAPS at once, instead to have them load up at every map change when there were not pre-loaded in the servers memory.

I think this is an engine question, and I don’t think it’s easy to change that.
Mostly because there was also a maximum of additional memory you could use to load up all these custom maps. (This was because every custom map had his own predefined cvars or whatever, instead of using globaly decided tokens, and they all had to be loaded at server start).

SO to overcome this issue, would be pretty difficult and I am not sure they managed that.
Would be nice to ask tho :slight_smile:

Also, since it is a floating island in the middle of who knows where, how many additional maps would make sense? The island is only that big and I think most of the space is used in official maps anyway.

(Yes you could make maps that do not fit within the Ark storyline, like for example a mamut tanker that has been captured by the Resistance to search for solid land, and the Security wanting to prevent this or something. (Ok it might fit within the storyline, but it’s located outside of the existing island, if you get my drift))

(Cankor) #126

Question regarding balncing win/loss ratios on assymetrical (objective style) maps. Some time back one of the devs agreed that one of the best ways to do this would be by tweaking the available times to complete objectives. Unlike on ETQW where each map is 20 minutes long, some objectives would be say 7 minutes while others might be 9 or 10 minutes (this is akin to setting the map time for Quarry shorter and the map time for slip gate longer to help balance wins/losses).

My question is has this been implemented in a dynamic fashion where there’s a collection site somewhere for map win/loss records such that objective completion times can be tweaked (either by beings set manually in the server config, via patches, or even automatically where the servers download the most recent “official” objective times from the web)?

(tokamak) #127

They already answered that somehre. It will be manually adjusted.

Which I think is great because with a dynamically adjusted limit you’re fighting over the average, which is rather lame.

(Crytiqal) #128

I think he means that, if the time limit needs to be tweaked (officialy), if every server has to change it’s config, or will this config be adjusted by downloading it from some kind of master server where the map time adjustment has been done by the devs?

(tokamak) #129

Ah right misunderstood that. It’s not really the time limit alone is it? It goes for any patch changing the balance in the game.

It depends on whether there’s such a thing as a ‘pure’ setting for the game. Which the devs have been pretty ambiguous on so far.

(Crytiqal) #130

Yes I suppose so, but tweaking time limits could be done on a daily basis in the first few weeks (I dunno) and it would be a hassle to let ppl download ‘patches’ every time then.

I think this is the original questioners “concern”? :wink:

(tokamak) #131

I don’t think they will tweak balance in the first few weeks, that’s not the normal procedure. Hotfixing bugs that make the game unplayable perhaps, but apart from that developpers tend to wait out how the metagame settles. It’s impossible to judge the balance of the game as played by hordes of new players in the first few games, some easy tricks may seem overpowered but turn out to be easily counterable with a bit more experience a month later.

And of course, as you said, it’s annoying to have to install updates regularly, you rather want the content delivered in proper substantial chunks.

(Cankor) #132

[QUOTE=Crytiqal;246240]Yes I suppose so, but tweaking time limits could be done on a daily basis in the first few weeks (I dunno) and it would be a hassle to let ppl download ‘patches’ every time then.

I think this is the original questioners “concern”? ;)[/QUOTE]

Something like that. Ceartainly not dailly, you need a large statistical base. Monthly would be fine. One of the reasons to do it dynamically would be as other balancing tweaks are made in patches those would effect win/loss as welll. So the concept is, a balancing patch comes out, a whole crapload of games are played, and then map times are tweaked.

[QUOTE=tokamak;246231]They already answered that somehre. It will be manually adjusted.

Which I think is great because with a dynamically adjusted limit you’re fighting over the average, which is rather lame.[/QUOTE]

I don’t get what you’re saying about fighting over the average (probably it would be the mean but close enough) being lame. The whole point is to equalize win/losses between factions so there’s no bias towards either defending or attacking. Unclear on what part of that you think is lame. Should be more of a challenge for one side or the other (like always going GDF on quarry for the challenge) or …?

(Crytiqal) #133

I think he means that, if a map gets played a lot by good players on the attacking point, the map time limit average gets lowered, and by the time some “noob” team wants a go they need to beat the clock of a fast time.

(Cankor) #134

ahh, OK, I see. I don’t see a danger in that, it’s just as likley that the map times would increase as decrease. Most of the matches will be played by pub teams and it’s ana average of all matches, not just the fast ones.

(tokamak) #135

Take Quarry for example, this map often (most of the time) gets rushed by the attackers. I personally think that this is because of the steeper learning curve of the map and that the map is perfectly holdable for 20 minutes if players are able to make that ‘click’. However, if the median duration of the map lands at say, 7 minutes because of all rushes, I wouldn’t want to see the time limit shift to 7 minutes because of that.

I want to win on the conditions that the developers set to win the match, not just because I beat the average (or median).

(Cankor) #136

[QUOTE=tokamak;246407]Take Quarry for example, this map often (most of the time) gets rushed by the attackers. I personally think that this is because of the steeper learning curve of the map and that the map is perfectly holdable for 20 minutes if players are able to make that ‘click’. However, if the median duration of the map lands at say, 7 minutes because of all rushes, I wouldn’t want to see the time limit shift to 7 minutes because of that.

I want to win on the conditions that the developers set to win the match, not just because I beat the average (or median).[/QUOTE]

Possibly you’re looking at it from just one side. The example on Quarry is it feels good to hold the thing for the full 20, but on the other hand it’s not exactly a great vicory when you win it, it’s just feels like, meh, that map is done. If you were only able to win half the time on average instead of 85% of the time the win as attacker would have more meaning even though the win as defender has less. So yeah I get that, but the whole idea on a good map design is to make it so it’s just as easy to win when playing either side.

On a related note, I think SD has possibly made it even harder to balance by breaking the phases up such that they each have their own time limit. This should make it easier for defenders to win, because now you effectivly get 3 (or how ever many objectives trhere are) chances to stop them to win the map. Each phase now needs a (pretty strong) offensive bias in order for the atackers to achieve parity, and I predict even more wins for the defenders because of this if that’s not taken into consideration.

That mechanic also takes away some of the biggest thrills in winning a map: getting held at the first objective for 12 minutes only to finally have your team come together and eek out a win in the last 30 seconds. Or getting pasted as defenders on the first two objectives but hanging on desperatly for the rest of the map on the 3rd. Those are meanginful victories that we will no longer see just so we can eliminate one side of the other extreme (getting full held for the entire map at the first objective). the other side of the extreme, steamrolling the defense, will still be there, but at least it’s over fast I guess.

I’m not sure how the separate time limits for each objective play out, but unless each one is easier for attacker than defender* there’s going to be a whole lot more maps won by defnder than attacker, and how better to figure that out than to track the completion times for each objective and adjust them accordingly?

  • not a statiistician here so I’m guessing it would need to be more than a 2/3 chance to win each objective on a 3 objective map to give the attackers a 50% over all win percentage, i.e. if defenders win 1/3 objectives on average they will win the majority of the maps because it only takes one win on an objective to win the map.

…went off on a tangent there but it’s something to thing about.

(Crytiqal) #137

Seriously, when can I expect my questions to be answered? :smiley:

#138

I’m going to be sending them soon but I don’t know what date I’ll be getting them back. No more questions now guys.

Thanks for all who contributed :slight_smile:

(Crytiqal) #139

Do you have a finished list of the questions who made the cut? :stuck_out_tongue:

And thank you for letting the people who don’t have a chance of meeting the devs have a chance to ask a question directly to them :slight_smile:

#140

You’ll have to wait and see :slight_smile: