Quick and Simple Fixes


(Apoc) #1

Hey, i know brink has some large issues, and everyone is aware of them, especially SD, so theres no need repeating them in threads.

However there are many little things that could be really easily changed that i feel would greatly improve the game and make it much more enjoyable.

I will list the ideas by number then put their explanations underneath under the same number, so you can just skip to the explanations of ideas your interested in instead of reading the wall of text :slight_smile:

Would love feedback from all of you, especially any sd staff if they have any time.

Quick fixes

[ol]
[li]Add a spawntimer in the hud, just a small countdown to next respawn somewhere.[/li][li]Make the gib annimation much quicker with primary weapon.[/li][li]Decrease spawn protection time on certain maps and increase it in others (see explanation for specifics)[/li][li]Make the +10 sec respawn for defense universal for all game modes[/li][li]Greatly increase grenade recharge time or make them finite.[/li][li]Further reduce dehacking speed.[/li][li]Fix reload bug[/li][li]Increase downed fire spread.[/li][li]Allow scoped sensitivity with sniper to be adjusted by client.[/li][li]Fix sticky grenade bug[/li][li]Increase cortex bomb activation by a second or add a second delay before it can be used.[/li][/ol]

Explanations

[ol]
[li]Spawntimers are incredibly useful for timing pushes and knowing if you should sit back and wait for your team to back you up, or to run in as youll spawn straight away anyway. When they are hidden, it puts it down to chance, yes you can work it out, and most comp teams do, but no one on pub servers do, and its removing a level of tactical depth and not giving them access to an aspect that can decide matches (also would make it less hastle for comp teams to make spawn time scripts).[/li][li]At the moment it takes nearly 2 seconds to gib with your primary, this is far far far too slow, discouraging players from doing a process vital to victory. Its quicker to switch to pistol and use your knife to gib. But mediums and heavys dont have pistols and so have to have the incredibly slow animation play out. This leaves them vulnerable and wastes time. In pre game interviews about the knock down mechanic, SD talked about how if you knocked a player down then you had to make the choice to either follow up with a lethal melee strike or to keep shooting which would take longer. As it is, if you knock someone down, it is impossible to mellee attack them before they can get up. And its so slow that if they stay down they will always shoot you to death first.[/li][li]Terminal 1st and 2nd obj for defence have huge spawn protection, you can run from your spawn, down the shaft, down the corridor, and run into the hacking room before it runs out. This is ridiculous, and makes defending hackers near impossible as defending team can just run from spawn and get to the hackers unharmed. Second obj they can also run nearly into the obj room, definately enough to thrown a grenade at the obj without being killed before. Resort has the oposite problem, it has pretty much no spawn protection for defenders. On the last objective, its possible for defenders to be grenaded and sniped before they get out of their own spawn.[/li][li]The +10 second respawn for defense on all maps in stopwatch mode recently implemented is great. It puts an end to dual full holds, livens up the game, adds more tactics, and is what the game needed. However limiting it to stopwatch servers doesnt make sense. Its a great change, but not everyone likes playing stopwatch, and are left being full held on maps that could be far more enjoyable with the change. Also maps like refuel, Security tower and Container city would be balanced, and far more enjoyable for everyone to play.[/li][li]Grenades are overused in this game due to grenade shooting. Grenade shooting is overpowered, but also a very fun, unique feature. The problem is, grenades recharge so fast, that defenders can use them against every spawn of attack, and attackers can even use them twice in one attack. Also the fact they recharge so fast means people use them for everything and anything. And its making the majority of fights start with grenade shooting. I propose to either make players have a set number of grenades, therefor having to prioritise their use and not use them in every situation. Or increase their recharge so they dont get over spammed.[/li][li]Dehacking is not fair on account that the maps are defense based, and defenders are meant to hold the room, and attackers try to break in and stop the hold. Dehacking is unfair as the defenders are in controll of a room 85% of the time. Its the 15% when the attack make a great push at the right time and kill everyone and get to plant/hack/build, before the defense who spawn close to the objective and with natural advantages try to take it back (usually successfully). Dehacking should be removed. But it wont be, so it needs to be reduced further. So its used to take off a few percent to stop players trying to lemming rush objectives, but it cant be used to demolish the 10 minutes of hard work an attacking team has done, in 1 minute.[/li][li]Weapons often say they have reloaded and complete the reload animation, but then often shoot 5 bullets then have to reload as the reload didnt actually happen. Happens with early reloads (where you have more than 0 bullets left in clip). Needs fixing for obvious reasons.[/li][li]Downed fire is not a feauture i agree with, i personally dont think it has a place in brink and should be removed. However others enjoy the feature. Nonetheless it is undoubtably overpowered as it is. The spread is such that a downed player can often kill more players than they did before they got incapacitated. Weapon spread is still small enough for people at close range to be killed extreamly fast, and people at range to die fairly quickly. It shouldnt be this powerful. Its a novelty ability, thats dominating pub servers.[/li][li]The 2 sniper weapons (2 long range rifles, barnett and dragnov i think) when scoped, switch to a much lower sensitivity. This makes it very uncomfortable to aim with for players used to a set sensitivity. Also players with very low sense (my brother an example, uses over 30 cm for a 360) find the sniper even harder to move as they have to move nearly a metre with their mouse irl to do a 360. I dont see why the setting is locked, its not like it could be exploited, it just makes the rifles less useful.[/li][li]When players with spawn protection run over sticky grenades, the sticky sticks to them like usual, but the circling indicator dot does not appear. Meaning players run from spawn, run over a sticky grenade, have no idea its on them and then die from sticky a few seconds later when their spawn prot is off without even knowing and therefor trying to get it removed.[/li][li]As it is, if you kill an operative, it is impossible to gib with mellee before they blow up and kill you. This shouldnt be the case, the cortex bomb should be used to kill players forgetting to gib, or other enemies running past. Not to be an instant revenge kill if anyone kills you. As it is, if you kill an operative and dont immediately sprint in the oposite direction, you die. So if you face an operative and another enemy, you die. If you face an operative in a closed room, you die. If you added a 1 second delay before they could activate the bomb, then it wouldnt be such an op insta revenge weapon, it would mean it was still effective, but if you killed someone, and were smart enough to gib instantly after killing, an act which should be rewarded, you dont get blown up. It would mean slower gibbers still died, and it was still effective. Just that you couldnt just instantly explode after death, killing the player that just skillfully killed you.[/li][/ol]
Thanks for reading,
:stroggtapir::stroggtapir::stroggtapir: :armadillochase:


(R_Shackelford) #2

Well, at least one of those is being addressed. Dehacking is being reduced 33% in upcoming patch. To be honest, I don’t think it’s that bad right now. It was really bad at launch, but they already did slow it down a bit.


(tangoliber) #3

I don’t understand how someone can say downed fire is overpowered… It hurts you more than it helps. It might do some damage in pubs, but in a competitive match, I can’t see it getting a single kill.

I love it when my opponents have downed fire. Means I can gib them with fewer bullets. A team full of downed fire players means that no one is getting revived.
So few decent players use it now, that it might surprise me at the start of a match, when I’m not expecting it… But once I see it, I remember the guy, and instinctively gib him for the rest of the match. Plus you can recognize the animation before they even get the chance to fire.

Downed Fire and Cortex Bomb are two abilities that are basically useless against good players.

Trying to melee an operative is a mistake… Gibbing is smart, but you also have to check before you melee gib someone. It takes less than a second to check the first time, and then you will recognize the operative for the rest of the objective. Cortex bombs don’t punish players who gib…they punish players who aren’t alert.
Being able to associate skins with their classes for an objective…and being able to quickly identify 1) Downed Fire, 2) Medic, 3) Operatives is part of becoming a good player in Brink. If we can just melee gib every player, then that removes an element of depth from the game…it simplifies it.
Right now, I think the Downed fire, cortex bomb, self-revive mechanics are very elegant. Extremely elegant… They force the players to remain alert, but they hardly ever lead to unavoidable deaths.


(Kurushi) #4

Points you make important to me:

2 - Make gibbing more reliable but make sure there’s still some risk factor there.

4 - Spawn timers really need to be across all modes. I’ve yet to try the new timers because hardly any pub servers are playing Stopwatch, so not much has changed. Full holds still happening on pubs. Not fun. I’m still worried about 10 seconds though, sounds quite high for a pub game.

8 - Downed fire is a little bit too effective at accuracy. Reduced spread would make sense, but don’t nerf it too much because it’s your own fault if you don’t gib/keep an eye on a fallen enemy, it’s not like you don’t get enough time to deal with them before they can fire.

9 - Custom sniper sens - Definitely not…unless they nerf the insta kills with the engy buff. I’m all for making the snipers more of a combat/rail gun type gun, though, only if they reduce the damage. Right now it’s way too standy… doesn’t suit the game


(Apoc) #5

[quote=tangoliber;359746]I don’t understand how someone can say downed fire is overpowered… It hurts you more than it helps. It might do some damage in pubs, but in a competitive match, I can’t see it getting a single kill.

I love it when my opponents have downed fire. Means I can gib them with fewer bullets. A team full of downed fire players means that no one is getting revived.
So few decent players use it now, that it might surprise me at the start of a match, when I’m not expecting it… But once I see it, I remember the guy, and instinctively gib him for the rest of the match. Plus you can recognize the animation before they even get the chance to fire.

Downed Fire and Cortex Bomb are two abilities that are basically useless against good players.

Trying to melee an operative is a mistake… Gibbing is smart, but you also have to check before you melee gib someone. It takes less than a second to check the first time, and then you will recognize the operative for the rest of the objective. Cortex bombs don’t punish players who gib…they punish players who aren’t alert.
Being able to associate skins with their classes for an objective…and being able to quickly identify 1) Downed Fire, 2) Medic, 3) Operatives is part of becoming a good player in Brink. If we can just melee gib every player, then that removes an element of depth from the game…it simplifies it.
Right now, I think the Downed fire, cortex bomb, self-revive mechanics are very elegant. Extremely elegant… They force the players to remain alert, but they hardly ever lead to unavoidable deaths.[/quote]

Firstly in comp matches downed fire and cortex bombs are banned, because they are lame and annoying. So this is only adressed to the pub scene on this issue. The problem is, if you happen to kill 2 players, or even 3. Which happens very often. If more than one of them has downed fire. You cant gib them all before they kill you. I just think its ridiculous you work hard for a kill. Then their unconcious body can take you down.

Also its not a question of staying alert. It minimises your options to a ridiculous extent. If your low on ammo, your screwed essentially.

Iv played my fair share of pub and comp matches, and the thing that most annoys me in pubs, is downed fire and cortex bombs. I was playing an operative yesterday, everytime we met in close combat i would kill him, then he would instantly explode before i could get away. The only thing that worked was continuing fire all the way down so i gibbed him almost instantly. This however poses a problem as if im low on ammo, or if there is another enemy that needs my attention, then i die. Simple as that. And thats ridiculous. Downed fire with players headshotting with richies and heavys using grenade launchers is just stupid also. Yes its quicker to gib, but if someone on your team doesnt gib in a crouded room, then it means the entire team gets mowwed down by the unconcious medium on the ground holding a carb 9. Its a novelty ability and shouldnt be so powerful.


(tangoliber) #6

I understand banning them because they are “lame” or for purity sake.

I just disagree that it is difficult to deal with those abilities, even when there are two guys on the ground with downed fire. If there are multiple guys, you may have to reposition yourself to get out of fire of one of them, but their spread is so huge that you have a lot of time.
I would say, just don’t consider them to be dead when they are down. Don’t think of it as “getting the kill” when you get somebody down…you’ve only completed the first part… (And there are plenty of times, in chaos, when its good to know when not to bother with gibbing.)
If you accept it as part of the game (in a match where it is turned on), then it really isn’t a problem. If you accept cortex bombs as part of the game, and learn to keep your distance even before the operative is killed…then it really isn’t a problem. Its one of the more elegant parts of Brink actually…its elegant because it is so manageable if you are alert…and its one of the ways where the developers succeeded in their goal to eliminate cheap deaths.
But if you just view it from the perspective of a different game…a game where you think that you complete and deserve your kill when someone drops the ground…then you might see it as something cheap…but really it is just two stages of life.

There isn’t a lot of gun skill in Brink. In pubs there isn’t a lot of coordination. In my opinion, there are two major areas where individual skill does matter in Brink.

  1. Reading the radar, being able to construct a mental idea of where everyone is as you fight (including teammates)…and being able to navigate that…
  2. Being able to read the situation. When there is a lot of chaos, the better player is the one who makes better decisions about whether to gib, to revive, to perform an objective, or to just kill someone. You get bodies, downed and alive all over the place…and maybe an escort that needs to move…and the right order of actions (gib, kill, revive, escort… kill, revive, escort, gib…etc.) is what really determines the outcome of a situation.

(BomBaKlaK) #7
  • 100 for the apok points !

and very important for me and i’m sure for lot of peoples :

crosshair custom (this pulsing white circle make me mad since 3 month !)
cvar unlock (cause we need to adapt the game to the player)
tighten spread (skill needed !)
Body type change ingame (needed to balance game in pub)
Abilities distribution (stuck to one profile noob syndrôme)


(Apoc) #8

[quote=BomBaKlaK;359847]+ 100 for the apok points !

and very important for me and i’m sure for lot of peoples :

crosshair custom (this pulsing white circle make me mad since 3 month !)
cvar unlock (cause we need to adapt the game to the player)
tighten spread (skill needed !)
Body type change ingame (needed to balance game in pub)
Abilities distribution (stuck to one profile noob syndrôme)[/quote]

:slight_smile: idd, these were a few of the large issues i was refering to at the start as everyone knows these changes are needed. Also most of those are large and time consuming from what the devs have been saying about them.


(Apoc) #9

@Tango i agree it is vaguely managable, but i think there are a fair few situations where you get punished regardless of your actions for killing an operative or one or 2 downed fired players in tricky positions or situations.
Disagree on how SD have eliminated cheap deaths by adding 2 new types of cheap deaths. I mean cortex bombs are one of the only things in game able to one hit kill a medium. I consider it cheap to be doing my job then randomly explode as you didnt see the operative underneath the mass of bodies on the floor.


(Stormchild) #10

Even if cortex bomb is useless in a duel against a decent player, if it’s in the middle of an assault, you don’t have time to gib the first to fall because you have to take care of the others, and that’s when the Op can cortex bomb at the right moment to help his teammates. Same with downed fire : in the confusion, it can be very useful and confusing.


(AmishWarMachine) #11

[QUOTE=Apoc;359852]@Tango i agree it is vaguely managable, but i think there are a fair few situations where you get punished regardless of your actions for killing an operative or one or 2 downed fired players in tricky positions or situations.
Disagree on how SD have eliminated cheap deaths by adding 2 new types of cheap deaths. I mean cortex bombs are one of the only things in game able to one hit kill a medium. I consider it cheap to be doing my job then randomly explode as you didnt see the operative underneath the mass of bodies on the floor.[/QUOTE]
Correct me if I’m wrong, Apoc, but that scenerio actually has a couple of potential negatives for the Cortex’ing operative as well:

  1. His Cortex Bomb will gib any and all downed teammates in the blast radius
  2. His Cortex Bomb can possibly kill/down any upright teammates in the blast radius

Unless, by some strange occurrence, Cortex Bomb doesn’t not qualify for FF.

I do agree with the observation that the accuracy of a person with downed fire is too high.


(ZionDelhamorte) #12

I truely dont think they should get rid of downed fire or cortex…Maybe they can drop damage on cortex but seriously… They would have to take abilities from every class then. Each class has something cheap or messed up about them but the game is meant to be fun and just that a game. I understand comp play but its still meant to be fun.

back on topic think of it this way, Ops cant buff anyone for points like any other class which kinda leaves them behind on points for team players but with Cortex bomb it helps them out because most ops(atleast the good ones) Are behind enemy lines alone capturing command post and such which has them running into groups of players and most ops are light. My main is a light op and we get downed so easy. Don’t look at Cortex as being punished for killing an op.

hell you can shoot him a few more times or just walk away because you have to be pretty close for cortex to affect you. Hell i have played games where the second i am visible to the enemies they all just rush me which sucks because i never get to use downed or cortex because they just unload everything on ops. Hell we got it hard enough as is lol But dieing is part of the game which i do alot lmao

But what i do think really needs a fixing is how do us ops get sticky nades that are 1 hit kills but soldier who have to put points in 2 abilities just to get decent nade damage but they say soldiers specialize in nades…That just confounds me so…

But they really need to just go back and look at how some of the mechanics work and just redo some of the abilities to just shut us all up lmao


(thesuzukimethod) #13

excellent points all around.

re: downed fire, i would argue that the damage is more the issue than the spread/accuracy, mainly because the instances where DF appears to be particularly “unfair” (unsporting?) are those where either the close quarters facilitate the use of an SMG to mow down the (un)suspecting (where an increased spread would be unlikely to change damage levels much since you’re so close), or longer distances where the pistol headshot is plausible. a few suggestions:

  1. eliminate/reduce the headshot modifier bonus in downed fire (or create a separate downed fire “modifier” that reduces damage - looking at whatever is easier to code) - this is equitable between smg/pistol
  2. eliminate/limit the ability to reload in downed fire (or at least slow down the reload)
    or
  3. ensure that a downed fire player shows up on radar (persistently perhaps, whether firing or not) (maybe they already do) - perhaps with a unique icon so there is a way to know where that fire is coming from.

This is from the perspective of someone who uses downed fire, but at times (and especially with the Kross), it does feel over powered. With the spread (lack of) of the Kross plus it’s ammo capacity, it’s an absolute beast if you have a full stock of ammo. I’m not sure increasing spread would change this much. I’ve communicated over the mic “i’m in the room and I’m down, but i’ve got downed fire, and I’ll try and hold them till you guys respawn” and was able to, especially since the location where i fell, i was obscured until they came up the stairs and into my sights (head first, unfortunately for them)

any combination of 1-3 above would limit DF w/o excessively nerfing it.


(Apoc) #14

@suzuki idd, some nice suggestions, im not really sure what they should do with downed fire, i just feel that as it is, it is a little overpowered, regardless of if its lame or cheap, that can be excused as a fun feature, but the core mechanics are op imo

@all with the cortex bomb, i wasnt suggesting it be removed, i merely suggested a 1 second extra delay before you can use it. Or to extend the activation time by a second. Preferably the first, as it would just mean that the second you died, you couldnt just activate it, you had to wait one second then it would be as normal. Its just to stop the instant revenge type scenarios where it takes far more effort for the attacker to avoid the death, than the op to just press a button to achieve the kill. It would be the same, just would allow the person who killed you, an extra second to get away (useful for heavys and mediums who dont move so fast)


(thesuzukimethod) #15

yeah i agree - as an (ab)user. I think they should do something, and if mostly what you see are lights, increasing the spread (lotto) of DF will cover it (simply missing more, i suspect), but for the mediums rocking SMG as secondary, (esp the Kross), the close quarters rooms will still be a deathtrap (until you figure out where it’s coming from)…


(Apoc) #16

^ remove headshots and limit to say 2 clips could work


(coolstory) #17

[QUOTE=Apoc;359734]
[li]Allow scoped sensitivity with sniper to be adjusted by client.
[/li][/QUOTE]

Good post agree with everything but I REALLY WANT THIS ASAP!!


(thesuzukimethod) #18

Yeah - i like this…i took inspiration from your comments about making grenades finite (or at least more limited)… i think in moderation they make the game more complex, (incl. cortex and DF), the trick is how to scale it back w/o changing core dynamics/functionality (i think most all of your suggestions navigate this balance nicely)


(Singh400) #19

Jesus quit posting long boring ass threads. Reported for spammage :smiley: :stuck_out_tongue:


(Terminator514) #20

Personally I think grenades are fine the way they are, maybe a tiny increase in regeneration, but nothing substantial might be good.