But how much is your reputation worth? SD obviously has a price and judging by Rahdos words, that price was met. 99% of SD feels like they made a game that enough people bought so that they can pay the rent. Mission accomplished. Rent paid.
SD is in the business of making mediocre, high-concept games which can be hyped by the parent company enough that X hundred thousand console users are duped into buying. This is how mid-sized studios stay alive in todays gaming market. PC gaming is dead to SD. I am slowly getting over it and suggest anyone else coming here more than playing the game do so as well.
[QUOTE=ScumBag;358286]But how much is your reputation worth? SD obviously has a price and judging by Rahdos words, that price was met. 99% of SD feels like they made a game that enough people bought so that they can pay the rent. Mission accomplished. Rent paid.
SD is in the business of making mediocre, high-concept games which can be hyped by the parent company enough that X hundred thousand console users are duped into buying. This is how mid-sized studios stay alive in todays gaming market. PC gaming is dead to SD. I am slowly getting over it and suggest anyone else coming here more than playing the game do so as well.[/QUOTE]
A helpful addition to this, though I don’t know how problematic it would be to code, would be that in the lobby it would show next to the players’ names the class symbols for their loaded character’s most-speced class, so if they put the most ability points into Soldier, it would show the Soldier icon, etc. If they had two classes equally speced, it could show both symbols. It would even be nice if this were just implemented into the in-game list of friends that are playing.
Considering the limitations of the UI-design resources, though, I’m sure this is a pipe dream.
I appreciate the response and I apologize to everyone for bringing up console issues, but I do have to point put battlefield has a squad lobby system where you can form a squad before searching for a game, complete with voice chat. Brink is the only sport in recent memory that had lacked such a crucial feature and I am shocked you assumed no one would notice.
And yes I will tell him to shove it because he derails every thread that tries to have mature constructive discussion with his deranged way of thinking. a few pages of this one went wonderfully of topic sure to him and this is the best thread this board had seen since launch. Last thing anyone needs is rampant fanboyism but it seems sadly you have also fallen into his line of thinking; that the game isn’t flawed, its just not being played right. Nope, sorry, won’t fly. NONE OF US WANT THE GAME TO FAIL. we dont want it to be another game. But brink as it is just doesn’t work and the vast majority of players will agree. All platforms. The player numbers on PC are clear; lets see numbers from psn and xbl now.
But this is my point about selling games on the PC. It’s become a long haul market, if you approach it in the short term you’ll get nowhere.
Strategy for PC.
Release Beta around the same time as Console release. While PC gamers may feel annoyed at not getting the full game, issues that have come up now and pretty much killed the game off would instead have been objects of fixation for gamers. Negatives would be opportunities, pressure to fix would be more proactive rather than reactive.
Get an SDK out ASAP. Forget DLC on the PC, push the retail game out there and plan on selling it for the next two years. Nurture the mod and map makers and publicise their efforts.
Don’t be afraid to make a different game to that of the consoles. It’s a different platform, play to its strengths, expectations and the market. You know EXACTLY like you do to the console market.
After some time lower the entry point of Brink to make the game a no brainer pick up and play. Push push push via Steam etc keep those player counts up.
[QUOTE=Tandem;358270]Deleted my input.
I realize it doesn’t matter.
PC[/QUOTE]
I was just coming back to rep you on the post! You may feel it’s pointless but view it as a eulogy for SD’s PC development. It’s more for us than them.
well perhaps you can harass someone who could answer that question :P?
since theres been no information released by you guys or by ATI on when its going to be fixed
its more than likely ATI just does not care
Well, thanks for the response, but I find it unreasonable that you cherry picked a few of the things I said and then labeled “a lot” of what I said as for the hardcore. I don’t see how not having one button do everything, not forcing me to put my mine here, not forcing me to always have to plant here, not forcing me into major chokepoints, not forcing me to utilize more of the map for strategies and certainly, not having vsays is something labeled, for the hardcore.
Frankly, this excuse that “we need to stay in business” is getting stale. If your claim had any merit, then SD should have went out of business with ET:QW, but clearly, they did not, even though ET:QW is a vastly superior, more indepth, complex game. It’s really that simple. I also think it’s a sad state of affairs when you say Brink cost “many many many many millions more to make than W:ET or even ETQW.” when ET:QW is a vastly superior game in every category, except customization. Heck, it even had more maps and medic crates that you will now charge for in a DLC. How did you burn so much money on something not nearly as good as something, many, many, many, many millions of dollars cheaper?
Well, here’s to the current state of Brink and hope you don’t compromise so much on your next title.
:stroggtapir:
Yes, I’m a pissed off consumer, nothing personal, thanks again for the comments.
[QUOTE=Tandem;358270]Deleted my input.
I realize it doesn’t matter.
PC[/QUOTE]
Tandem, I thought you had some good comments, but the artistic part I feel just the opposite about. I also started with the Arcades -> Atari 2600 -> Atari 5200 -> Commodore 64 -> PC and I was just reading a review the other day about the new Boulderdash game and the reviewer gave it a negative because he felt it was too frustrating.
I found that quite humorous, because I remember the original Boulderdash game and thinking it was fun, because you actually had to think on how to progress through the levels.
Gaming has clearly changed. The original console game, Pong, was about competing with your friends. I think games used to be like a sport, where you mainly played a sport to compete with your friends and not awe at how good the court and basketball looked. And I think that sense of competition, challenge to save the damsal from Donkey Kong, keep Pac-man from being eaten by ghosts and trying to beat your friends is fading away into more of an artistic wonderment. Games are being dumbed down to reduce the competition, reduce the challenge, to become a mindless entertainment, like watching a movie, instead of what games were originally intended to be.
I do think this trajectory will eventually fail as more and more mindless games hit the market, people will want something new again, and that new thing will be, a challenge.
Sadly, I should face accepting that too. I definitely come here more than play Brink.
[QUOTE=Rahdo;358175]
I strafe and fire SMGs all the time, it’s one of the things, I think, that makes us feel very different than most modern shooters, that you can still have viable hipfire (depending on the gun and attachments). [/quote]
If you watch people playing on youtube, 95% of shooting happens in sights mode. Even with weapons which get marginal benefit from it in terms of spread reduction (Tampa, CARB-9), or none (Lobster).
I’m not saying these people are right. But it’s certain the game doesn’t communicate properly that - at least for some weapons - sights are not the default to go to. When using hipfire, even crouching, the size of your crosshair and its growth tells you how big the spread is. Sights just don’t do that and may give people false impression they will be hitting where they shoot.
Emphasis mine. And that differs from console footage how exactly ? You are missing the point by a mile, or pretending to. People wanted PC footage not just as a proof the game runs on PC. They mostly wanted to see how it plays on PC ! How the interface adapts to mouse and keyboard. It’s not even possible to play on PC using a 360 controller anymore, there was a thread a while ago.
I’d like to pick on this point. In relation to the part I’ve highlighted I think you’re wrong.
There are 2 distinct elements at play here.
How hard / easy is it to understand the game?
How hard / easy is it to play the game?
You’ve confused / combined the 2.
The objective wheel is a “good idea”. Putting directions up on screen so the player knows where to go to carry out the objective he’s chosen is a “good idea”. Highlighting team-mates who need attention is a “good idea”. The multi-purpose command post is a “good idea”. Being able to change class at a command post rather than having to die / respawn is a “good idea”.
The game is full of good ideas, and they all help Joe Newb get into the game, they all make the game accessible, they all give it a wide appeal, they’ve all helped you turn a profit.
However, NONE of them has anything to do with the “level of basic skill to be able to compete”. You don’t need good aim to understand a command post. You don’t need lightning reflexes to operate the objective wheel. Buffing team-mates and choosing objectives require tactical decisions not hand / eye co-ordination.
The tragic thing is if you’d understood the distinction between these 2 elements you could’ve succeeded at both. You could’ve had an easy to understand (yet complex in structure) objective game for the masses, and sold gazillions of copies and made a fortune AND you could’ve produced a game that has a sufficiently high skill ceiling to ensure it’s longevity and continuing appeal to the more “serious” gamer.
Making the game easy to understand has helped you shift copies. Well done.
Making the game easy to play has killed replayability, which is why most people (on PC) have already stopped playing.
We would’ve liked to allow it, but then you can look back across the entire airfield and over the fence that hides The Void. It also kills framerate as you’re drawing so much.
[QUOTE=DeeTwo;358001]When the decision was made to put most vital functions on one key, did anyone at any point put their hand up and go, “Hay I’ve played BC2(PC), it was so massively frustrating that at points I wanted to smash my keyboard. Maybe we should rethink it?”
…and if they did and they were ignored, why? I fear I may have read the ‘why’ answer already in another thread, but what the hell.[/QUOTE]
It’s been brought up before, but again, there are three main reasons:
[ol]
[li]UI. Not necessarily in the HUD sense, but the system as it is reduces a set of potential inputs/outputs and the need to effectively communicate those. Take for example, a repair interaction. If you can switch to your torch ahead of time, we then need to visually display that you’re at a valid interaction distance when repairing by putting some sort of effect on the object. It’s not acceptable to not let the torch actually light until the distance is valid, because that’s giving different output to the same input.
[/li][li]Accessibility. To most on this forum that’ll read as “dumbed down”, but to the rest of the masses it’s better than standing there confused, then giving up entirely.
[/li][li]The anathema of platform-specific gamers: platform parity. It’s a fundamental system, and the production concept of platform parity (to release 3 simultaneous SKUs) meant that we had to use the same system on PC.
[/li][/ol]
I will say though: if we were doing it over again from scratch, I’d be looking for a different solution.
do you intend to “un-bundle” the actions currently assigned to the single key, i.e. put buff / action / use CP etc. on separate keys?
note: I’m not asking for 2 keys per action, 1 to select a tool and a 2nd to use the tool (as was the case in ET / ET:QW etc.), that’s not the issue here. The issue is the key to use a torch (for example) is the same as the key to buff a team-mate, and the same as the key to use a CP. PC players for the most part seem to want those actions on separate keys.
[QUOTE=Exedore;358395]It’s been brought up before, but again, there are three main reasons:
[ol]
[li]UI. Not necessarily in the HUD sense
[/li][li]Accessibility
[/li][li]The anathema of platform-specific gamers: platform parity
[/li][/ol]
[/QUOTE]
Actually Ex, the replies don’t really address the actual question being asked. For example (1) is related to switching to “tools” ahead of time - that wasn’t the question being asked, and has no bearing on having individual binds for each ability. (2) assumes that abilities are forced onto a single key/button, which doesn’t have to be the case - people are asking for this to be optional, with the default being “one key does all”. (3) - seriously? In an area like control bindings, where the controls already differ between platforms, it isn’t possible to allow 2 extra key binds and wire the interaction events to those instead of F? We both know that isn’t the case.
As I’ve said before, I am no John Carmack. But I do have quite a bit of experience playing around with game engines, and I am a programmer by trade. While I’m not a mind-reader regarding Brink source code, I cannot really accept that allowing this “split binding” option would have been particularly hard work. They’re just binds, and the actions performed when they’re activated do not change. The auto-targetting does not change, although in it’s current state it does still need attention. You’re pressing the one key, or you’re pressing one of three keys - aside from only activating one action if multiple keys are pressed, I don’t see extra coding work aside from the Controls/Bindings screen itself.
Even if you kept the current “selection system”, allowing people to remap this multi-bind choice would improve the game no end. Between it and the auto-selection code, it really does mess up with a surprising frequency. I cannot explain in words how frustrating this is for someone who’s used to rebinding keys - forcing this system onto PC users really was a step too far I’m afraid. This should have been towards the top of your list of “things to absolutely not infect the PC version with”.
I can see the reasoning behind the one button for all but in reality it just doesn’t work as intended, on paper it sounds great but in reality it can get confused, buffing team mates when you actually wanted to use a command post and vice versa is a prime example and often frustrates.
They were warning signs in Wolfenstein (I know you didn’t develop it) where players would perform one action while trying to do another. I can see how you eliminated that specific problem found in Wolf’ as you can’t throw health/ammo packs (buffs) onto ground anymore so when you’re facing an objective there is no chance you will accidentally do so however this is only true when there are no other players in your close vicinity which has become the new problem.
(In Wolf pressing ‘use’ either threw health and ammo if not facing an object of interest or completed an objective or action when facing an object of interest)
In changing the way the these support actions are done you have shifted the problem elsewhere unfortunately, I’m not sure what can be done to alleviate the problem whilst keeping the system in.
An option for performing actions independently of each other would be welcome though but that doesn’t fix your desire for the accessibility side of things. I’m sure you guys can come up with something though. .
tbh all I want SD to say is whether they intend to change the current system or not.
If the one key does all feature is here to stay and there will never be an alternative I’ll leave right now because I’ll never play Brink in the long term unless it’s changed, it’s just too frustrating as a PC player being hamstrung in this way.
If they intend to un-bundle the functions currently on that one key I’ll stick around in the hope they address the other issues that are bugging us.
Ditto - if the one button was turned into 3 separate binds, I’d try playing again too. On it’s own it doesn’t alleviate the other problem, which is poor/laggy auto-selection of targets - but it’d be a big step forward for me. As it stands, just this one problem is enough to keep my out of the game, and to keep me repeating my bafflement at a (seeming) lack of this occurring during internal testing.
I don’t have much hope that this change will happen, unfortunately. All replies hint at “working as intended”, which is pretty confusing really.
The videos all showed people playing incredibly slowly with a console controller.
We continually asked for someone playing the game properly with a mouse&KB. We were denied. Just saying.
Wait, let me be sure this is clear: Are you saying that an SDK is not currently in development?
If that’s true, then that might be game over right there.
Brink needs a serious re-think. The gunplay needs an overhaul, the movement needs an overhaul, the controls need an overhaul, the customisation needs to be dialed wwwaaayyyy back, the UI needs work, the dynamic sound stuff needs to die in a fire, there need to be better maps. If the resources to do all of that aren’t there, and the resources to provide an SDK to allow it aren’t there, then I don’t see any future for Brink.
The Steam stats suggest that of the ~100k that bought PC Brink, a couple of thousand at most still bother with it. Play figures are peaking at ~600 at any one time.
I don’t know who’s assigning the priorities, but they really should be aware of this.
I think the problem is this:
You say that hipfire is viable. I’m guessing you say it because the hipfire is relatively accurate compared to ironsights.
The ironsights, however, still suck. I mean in concept it’s great that you recognise that hipfiring while on the move is good. The blanket spread issues have sabotaged it in practice, though, because whilst hipfire is relatively viable compared to ironsights, they’re pretty much non-viable all over.
There was an amazing post by Teoh (I think) that showed this in detail. I can try to look it out if you haven’t seen it already.
I kinda just want to say this: Reviews are terrible.
If almost all reviews are by people who have no idea how to play FPS games (and most are), then of course none of them are going to notice that the customisation destroys the tactical options generated by class awareness.
It’s like reviews are designed specifically for people for whom the quality of a game isn’t the determining factor in whether it’s worth playing. This seems to be the MO for console games and reviews these days, and I can’t even begin to fathom how or why it works.
So there was the backpack idea. That wasn’t perfect, but was a noble attempt to save class-awareness once you realised that the customisation was killing it (as I understand). But it was difficult and expensive and late in the day, so it was jettisoned. I keep hearing this story over and over with Brink, and I also keep hearing about how you tried to make that a game that would appeal to the casual players but was actually good. I’m having trouble reconciling these two things.
Okay, I get it. You need to sell to console gamers. That means there are some hoops that you need to jump through, and those hoops are incredibly stupid. Please, for the love of Doomguy, can you make it a priority from the very start to try to find ways for those hoops not to destroy the things that make your games great?
The thing that kills me is that you almost did this with Brink! You posted about the customisation, and people told you that it would destroy class recognition. It was too late to do anything about it. Do that, but early enough that you can do something about it. If you manage this, you’ll get a game that appeals to whatever silly hoops the console market needs you to jump through, but with that core game that appeals for a duration.
That was, after all, your goal with Brink, wasn’t it? Port that amazing ET gameplay to consoles, because they’ve never seen it before?
How can this possibly add depth?
If there was some new mechanism that involved class awareness, say some operative thing, then maybe, yes, it could add depth. It’d be another system to be balanced by players, another avenue to be interacted with. This isn’t though. It’s a blanket removal.
[QUOTE=Rahdo;358175]See, that’s just not cool. Sure, wolf is saying stuff you don’t agree with, but he’s not telling you to shut up. I dunno, I guess I’m just too sensitive, but when I’m posting online, I always try to imagine I’m having a conversation with a person in real life, and I would NEVER tell someone to out and out SHUT UP! It’s just so rude. If they’re being rude, I’d just walk away instead. Shouting at someone who’s shouting at you just leads to more shouting. Talking calmly and in a friendly manner generally (but not always) calms the other person down, and then you guys can actually talk about something value and maybe, if youre lucky, work through your differences a little bit.
I’ll get off my soapbox now :)[/quote]
If someone followed you around for over a month, continually butting into all of the pleasant ‘SHUT UP!’-less conversations with incredibly stupid inane trolling, you’d get angry too.
Sauce for the goose, and all that.
I think most of us recognise this. At least personally, I’m more worried that you’re spending your limited resources on things that aren’t going to solve the problem. So I argue and argue and rip stuff you say to bits, in an attempt to show you why the stuff that won’t help won’t help, why the stuff that broke things broke things, etc.
It’s not ‘Make me a game that designed for me’. It’s an attempt to help you see where you can most effectively target those resources to get the most of the 97k PC players who’ve quit Brink back.
I don’t understand why developers think that there has to be a single blanket skill ceiling in their games. ETQWpro had multiple settings so the game could be configured to the tastes of those playing.
Can’t you build in configuration to cater to different levels of player from the very start? Make it a fundamental core of your game? Wasn’t this what you said you were trying to do from the start? Wasn’t that what the ‘hardcore mode’ was supposed to be? If anything was worth holding onto in spite of limited resources, it was this. Incredibly disappointed that it wasn’t.
Steam suggests that this isn’t the case on PC. Others have said this though, so ignore me here D:
