I already posted my basic suggestion and some reasons for it on this other thread. But in case it was not seen by some people, specially the devs 
, and also to expand on my reasoning for the change, I decided to open this topic.
Now, from threads such as the previous one and conversations with other people I think it is pretty much a general impression that silencers donât offer much comparing to what they take. Weapon damage is a very valuable stat in Brink, since only engineer buffs can increase it, all other attachments and effects only reduce it. I think that is why I donât see players using weapons with silencers often on the game and when other people use them, even themselves say that it is only for cosmetic reasons.
I think this is a big missed opportunity since silencers apart from just âbeing coolâ could be an interesting choice for game play.
Objections
As most of you know the silencer attachment reduces damage but makes you to not become visible on the radar due to the fire of your weapon. Now, in order for this to be helpful it is required that you approach one or more enemies that havenât seen you yet (since that would also make you appear on the radar) and killing them before they see you. If you are not going to shoot there is no advantage gained, and if you are going to shoot at them, you would have to hit and hide before they see you, or shoot and kill them all in order to not appear on the radar for other enemies on the map. This has several complications:
1.To be able to take advantage of the silencerâs bonus you need to have the silent running ability, since otherwise you will already be spotted on the radar when you approach them even if the enemy canât see you or if you havenât fired your weapon.
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If your targeted player has combat intuition he will get the warning as soon as you aim at him (since the point of using silencers is that your enemy doesnât see you on the radar so you would always trigger combat intuition), and since the indication is dynamic when you move and pinpoints exactly where and roughly how far you are for a second or so, he could very well turn around quickly and see you, thus making you appear on the radar. Now if you think that this wonât matter since you can finish him before he can react remember that the silencer is reducing your damage, so it will always take more bullets to kill an enemy with it, making it more possible for him to react and spot you.
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If the targeted enemy is present with other companions you would have to take him out without the others either not noticing the attacked, or killing them all before any of them see you, something that can be hard to achieve in this game, specially with reduced damage.
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Looking at the radar is something you have to train yourself to do, I know that personally at first I was not paying much attention to it, and even if players are used to looking at it regularly you wouldnât do it every second, so the chances of being discovered just because you appear on the radar are not certain. Most people will just move and look around when being shot at instead of immediately looking at the radar, since positioning on the radar is relative (there are no map landmarks represented), and then you would have to âtranslate itâ to your view. So if you would rather not equip the silencer and take the chance that even though you will appear on the radar when firing, other near enemies wonât notice you every time, not having the silencer would make you more efficient in killing your targets since you would cause full damage.
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If, even momentarily, you cared more for not triggering combat intuition, the silencer would actually make you less stealthy!, since what you can do to not trigger combat intuition with a normal weapon is to start shooting at a player near him but not on him and then move your sights to him, this would make you appear on the radar after your first shot, but because of that you wouldnât trigger combat intuition on your successive ones. If you had the silencer you wouldnât have a choice of revealing yourself on the radar without the enemy seeing you.
And with all this, even if you think it would still be useful for and encounter that met all these requirements, is that very special case worth having the damage reduced for ALL the encounters on the match for that weapon? I think not. The silencerâs use is too situational as it is right now.
So my proposition is that it should offer something else, maybe on top of its current bonus, but something more.
Premise
The expected benefit for a silencer would always be to be able to fight in a more âstealthyâ way. Stealthy by definition is an action taken with care to avoid detection, so letâs look at all the ways you can get detected in Brink, and study possible benefits that the silencer could provide for each.
Ways of being detected
Visual
Character model
Obviously your character can be detected when a player sees his model. Now, it would be strange if the silencer could make your model more stealthy somehow (darker, transparent), and in any case this seems to be a decision that goes strongly against the intention of the developers since all enemy characters are seen not with their customized outfits, but with generic and red tinted clothes, supposedly to make the enemy always visually distinguishable.
Weaponâs fire
An enemy could detect you by seeing the bullets that come out of your weapon. The silencer could theoretically âhideâ any trace of your bullets as a bonus but this would be a very marginal difference since this is not one of the main ways players get normally spotted. It is true that it would be more useful for bullets coming from the longer ranger rifles since they all leave smoke trails when fired, but even so that would mean that silencers would be more useful only for people using the light rifles.
Auditive
Players can detect there is an enemy firing in their vicinity when they hear weaponâs fire. Silencers already reduce somewhat the noise weapons make, but it still is quite audible, so silencers could theoretically just make the weapon not make any sounds at all (at least audible by the enemy) but even so, even with the full noise it would only indicate there is an enemy shooting nearby not really where he is exactly, besides it could always just be an ally shooting too, so again it wouldnât be that much of an advantage for using the silencer.
Damage indicator
By this I mean the bloodied bars that indicate when you are receiving damage and roughly from where. Silencers could eliminate the directional pointing but obviously not the indication that you are being damaged, and this would disorientate the victim a bit more, thus potentially giving the shooter more time to finish the target before being discovered, but if combat intuition is triggered, the target would still have a very clear indication from where the damage is coming from.
Radar
Being spotted on the radar is another way enemies can know your approximate position, and this is the method of detection that the silencers currently help you avoid, but as stated on the first paragraphs, the situation has to be quite specific. Besides, maps in this game are not as big as in some other online shooters, think for example if you had the possibility of not being spotted in a game such as Battlefield, in that game radar avoidance would be much more helpful because 1. All players have access to a radar that is superimposed on top of a map (thus revealing the geographical positions much more clearly) and 2. as said, the maps are much bigger so there is a higher chance of not being confronted by too many enemies at the same time depending on your routes, thus having a higher chance of completely eliminating a group without being seem by other players. So though radar avoidance could have its uses, I think it is not enough, specially when any enemy that looks your way will immediately spot you on the radar even if the player didnât actually see you (and in this game movement is very prevalent), you need silent running to pull it off, and also considering you have to reduce your weaponâs damage.
Combat Intuition
Combat Intuition has been a controversial ability since the launch of the game. I have personally never seen another game that had something like it, and at first it felt almost like cheating (specially considering you can acquire it since level 1). But now, I love the inclusion of this ability, since I think it gives the game a feeling that the characters fighting in it are experienced combatants that, like action heroes in movies, seem to have a sixth sense for danger. It also makes the players be more wary of shooting opponents since they can quickly turn around and fight back, and this reduces the advantage of camping and increases tension before gunfights. So this ability is easily one of the most useful ones, but so much that many people think it somewhat removes the tactical skill difference between players, that is why itâs apparently banned on the competition rules.
Proposition
So my suggestion is, in order to make silencers a real useful choice, and also to give people that are against the over-reliance on combat intuition an alternative, to change silencers to do the following:
When you aim at someone with a weapon equipped with a silencer, they donât get a combat intuition warning.
This might sound like a big advantage, specially considering that it seems the developers wanted combat intuition to be a widely used ability, and people will probably think that this effect from silencers would increase camping and sniping in a game clearly designed to avoid both, but remember that silencers would and should still reduce damage and/or other stats of the weapon.
As it is now when someone is sniping (without silencer), they can deal shots with high damage, sometimes even killing with one hit, but with combat intuition you would still get a warning before the shot, thus making it possible to be able to react before the damage is done.
So even though you wouldnât get the warning if the sniper was using a silencer, this would balance itself out with the fact that since damage is reduced, the sniper would never deal a one shot kill, and you would still be able to react and tell where he was shooting from judging from the bullet trail, damage indicator, visually, etc.
So I think it wouldnât necessarily increase the prevalence of snipers, but it would give a balanced choice between play styles: power or stealth. Do I want to deal as much damage as possible but give the enemy the benefit of an early warning? Or do I want to surprise them but having less power thus having to be more target selective?
Besides itâs not like combat intuition is absolutely necessary and prevents you always from dying, it also needs certain circumstances to work, so itâs not like this new bonus for the silencer would give an immense advantage to everybody.
This would also make silencers very useful for the most fitting role: the operative. It would just be a matter to balance this new effect with a sufficient decrease of weapon stats.
Those are my reasons and suggestions, and sorry for the lengthy post but I wanted to be as concise as I could. Thanks.