'Skill' in Brink

(Humate) #241

It depends on your definition of skateboard.
The skateboard in ET/ ETQW/Quake is basic movement.
Forward back left and right. Thats your skateboard.
In Brink the skateboard is the above plus Smart.
However the gap b/w basic usage and manual is minimal - insignificant even.
To use your skateboard metaphor, there arent many useful tricks.

(RabidAnubis) #242

Okay. So then here comes the constructive part. Do you think it is possible to have a ‘perfect FPS’ where Individual skill and tactical skill both are the highest of every game, the individual skill being simple though (As explained by verticus), but tactical and individual being of even importance? That’s what we are asking out of Brink. It is impossible. So the question is, should it be a tactical focused game or an individual skill game? Which one do you think is more competitive?

(DarkangelUK) #243

Can’t you have both? Quake 3 had a thriving 1v1, TDM and tricking scene. RtCW and W:ET had a thriving comp scene and tricking scene. Frag movies from all of those concentrated on team as well as the individual skills.

(RabidAnubis) #244

Oh. 1 more requirement.

It is good for watching also.

XD

THAT is hard.

(Humate) #245

[QUOTE=RabidAnubis;372794]Okay. So then here comes the constructive part. Do you think it is possible to have a ‘perfect FPS’ where Individual skill and tactical skill both are the highest of every game, the individual skill being simple though (As explained by verticus), but tactical and individual being of even importance?

So the question is, should it be a tactical focused game or an individual skill game? Which one do you think is more competitive?[/QUOTE]

Tactics and individual skill are equally important in ETQW but at different experience levels.
IMO, you can influence games easier with great tactics over great aim, at lower levels.
Even more so when the tactics are co-ordinated. Pub clans love this sort of stuff.

At higher levels, everyone more or less uses the same sort of tactics, so it has less of an influence.
Its also less about planning, and more about responding to whatever is thrown at you. You only really plan how each objective is defended and sometimes you’ll plan slightly differently for a particular team, due to their style. Other than that, aim and awareness is king at competitive levels.

(Nexolate) #246

Holy cow that looks hard. I haven’t had the pleasure of playing early SD games, but even I can tell that that looks insanely difficult.
I am familiar with the concept of in-game acceleration though. Not good at it, but familiar.

Can’t really think of anything like that in Brink. You can increase slide speed by jumping onto ramps, but that’s not particularly difficult by any stretch of the word.

Regards,
Nexo

(gooey79) #247

[QUOTE=RabidAnubis;372805]Oh. 1 more requirement.

It is good for watching also.

XD

THAT is hard.[/QUOTE]

It can be. Here’s a trick jumping video and a Quakecon 2010 video from Quake III Arena. Both (in my opinion) are entertaining for different reasons and both have very different elements of teamwork and skill levels.

//youtu.be/b2t38FLYZC0

//youtu.be/zd0fx43AD5o

(I just car crashed your conversation btw, apologies!)

(montheponies) #248

absolutely. I’ve still got rtcw installed :slight_smile:

on the trickjumping side of things, completely agree I played rtcw solidly for around 5yrs (still play now and again) and could never master strafe jumping to the level of some of the lads in the clan - it certainly took practice and would be considered a skill. that said as you know it was a quirk of the idtech3 engine, so not something i think the developers (Nerve) ever intended for us to have/use as a core game mechanic. but coupled with the freedom to, for example, plant dyno in a zone meant you could have plants placed in awkward or just surprising locations all of which aided the feeling that the game rewarded skill - as opposed to press F and the game will make you stand like a tit, at the same spot, in the full view of everyone while you punch numbers onto a keypad…

(.Chris.) #249

Trick jumpers ruin my maps :frowning:

Should be outlawed (kidding).

Would you also argue no one has done the same to prove Brink doesn’t lack teamwork in comparison?

It’s all anecdotal on either side of the argument, of course we can’t measure it, all we can do is draw comparisons from similar experiences (Past SD games) and post our thoughts.

However here’s the difference between the two sides, some folk posting here haven’t got anything similar to compare to and this is were some of the conflict has arisen.

For those who haven’t played this style of game before Brink is quite a great game, they had no expectations and no preconceived ideas of what it should be like. The only remotely similar experience they may have had is TDM or CTF, of course this game is going to appear way more skillful then those gamemodes (I would say CTF is almost equal but that’s for another topic). It’s new, its exciting, who are we to tell them it’s a ‘dumbed down’ experience eh?

On the flip side they are those who’ve been playing this style of game since 2001, they know what makes this gamemode great and expect a lot when a new iteration of that gamemode comes along. By that I don’t mean they expect a re-skin (Some do but that’s for another topic). They want a well rounded game that promotes teamwork and still leave room for individual skill. Past games had plenty of hero moments there’s that infamous panzer shot on Frostbite in ET for example that saved the match, that shot was skill:

You just don’t get moments like this in Brink.

(shirosae) #250

It’s not impossible. ETQWpro with custom maps got pretty damn close, as did WET once it was modded, and RTCW before that.

What you had there were games where the individual skill ceiling was so high that players had to be skilled in order to make tactical play work. The ability to shoot straight, for example, allowed an individual to become a valid threat long enough to act as a distraction to pull enemy attention away from a crucial approach long enough for a coordinated push to hit the flank, rather than head on.

In Brink, that sort of thing doesn’t happen, because it’s entirely about the number of people firing and the number of buffs they have stacked. In ETQWpro a single player could be dangerous, and that was enough to open up a whole range of tactics that required a single player breaking off in a strategic manner (for example, not all the tactics involved one person going rambo). In Brink you just spam buffs at spawn and try to get as many people shooting at the same target at the same time.

Are you starting to see why Brink was such a disappointment? Not only did the low skill ceiling destroy the ability of the individual to shine, it also destroyed the effectiveness of so much tactical play.

Re: Trickjumping. You’ve already been answered, but I thought I’d give it a go.

In these games, it’s possible to bend the rules of physics by careful motion. If you run forwards whilst strafing to the left, and turn left as you do it, your speed temporarily breaks the maximum allowed speed a player can move at; you gain acceleration from that motion. These additional modifications to movement are available everywhere, at any time, regardless of whether it was intended or not.

The videos you’re seeing aren’t in lower gravity than normal (the gravity hasn’t been turned down, though some clips are in slow motion so you can see what’s going on), people just manage to get so much momentum that they fly that fast. Games typically run on gravity a bit lower than our 9.8m/s/s, and the speed of the movement typically makes that much more apparent.

Some people used these (in mods like Quake3’s defrag) to do all sorts of parkour like stuff, like DAUK shows you above. Some others (like me) tried to integrate them into their play, so they’re be useful in combat situations. Lots of people would chain the quarter circle jumps I mention above to get to objectives quicker than just sprinting (this is what people often incorrectly call ‘bunny hopping’). I used to play the distraction player often in matches, trying to pull the enemy out of position, redirect their attention, or just be as annoying as possible. I’d use trickjumps to approach from unusual angles/positions, and use trickjumping to escape by repeatedly QCJing around corners through cover long enough to heal/reload and continue being annoying. There’s one situation I think I mentioned in the SMART thread, where I literally jumped over a player coming up a stairwell, so I landed behind him, immediately after he’d checked that it was clear (Hi, Salp).

So you had this extra back of tricks you could use at any time, but using them required you to aim in particular locations, not neccessarily where you would to cover the angles. The whole thing was just another layer of movement to be balanced.

All of this stuff is gone. Replaced by a system that attempted to provide something similar to casual players. I can see that it seems to have been an attempt to recreate the stuff that DAUK has been showing you, though I’m not sure what the point of that is if most of the jumps are on autopilot and don’t really offer you any advantage. The in-combat functionality is gone.

Brink feels incredibly empty and soulless compared to these games. It’s the reason people keep bringing them up: after the community came in and fixed stuff, they were nigh on being perfect. And all through development SD kept saying they understood, when it seems obvious in retrospect that they didn’t. So now we have a game where roughly +99% of players who bought it have stopped playing, and SD are talking about a Brink 2.

So, us people who’ve been here for a while (and loads have been here far longer than me, I’m not including myself in this) are trying to help SD get this game fixed up to get as many of those people back as possible, by explaining why things do/don’t work. SD can’t afford to have games flop like Brink has, so we’re trying to help them save as much of Brink as possible, and then help their next game be the game that they have the potential to make.

Is any of this making sense?

P.S Notice how suddenly you’re getting reasonable responses from pretty much everyone? It’s because you’re actually conversing with people, rather than just spamming nonsense over and over. Some others could learn from this, though I know they won’t.

[QUOTE=.Chris.;372863]Trick jumpers ruin my maps :frowning:

Should be outlawed (kidding).[/QUOTE]

I hope you’re not referring to me, beans. Running along the side of a building to camp above the east doorway on Actifail is a perfectly valid tactic.

(Ruben0s) #251

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;372759]

Here’s mine from W:ET… anyone care to do that jump themselves? It’s a simple ramp, so should be easy… right?[/QUOTE]

that one is kinda easy compared to this.

//youtu.be/ArtCbbskO0Q

this is what I call skill

//youtu.be/Ugoz28AG0sg

(RabidAnubis) #252

[QUOTE=Humate;372812]Tactics and individual skill are equally important in ETQW but at different experience levels.
IMO, you can influence games easier with great tactics over great aim, at lower levels.
Even more so when the tactics are co-ordinated. Pub clans love this sort of stuff.

At higher levels, everyone more or less uses the same sort of tactics, so it has less of an influence.
Its also less about planning, and more about responding to whatever is thrown at you. You only really plan how each objective is defended and sometimes you’ll plan slightly differently for a particular team, due to their style. Other than that, aim and awareness is king at competitive levels.[/QUOTE]

But see, the tactics sort of fall out later because individual skill overshadows it.

The thing I described is basically a double negative.

In other words, if it was possible in MAG for a single person to be so good he could hold his own side (A platoon spot) that would sort of ruin tactics, meaning those 31 other players could go help in other parts in the battle. But you can’t (No. Seriously it is impossible. Not just improbable. The bunkers are so far away from eachother that you couldn’t reach them both in time to defuse the bombs.)

Socom takes a degree of individual skill, but truly is a tactical game. There is no way you could (Barring people from Atalanta…) most humans could get anywhere close to taking out the other team. Socom is the reverse of ETQW then. Rather than relying more on individual skill later on, it relies more on the tactical skill. To me it seems you’d rather have it be the ETQW style rather than the Socom style. But then again the console has a lower ind. Skill ceiling meaning it reinforces tactics.

Which sort of perplexes me on what type of players they were trying to attract to Brink. If they were trying to attract fans of either tactical or ind. skill or just casual confuses me. They simply marketed incorrectly, advertising to all three of them which made them redo the game almost. Really, I think that means it was Bethesda’s fault since they do most of the advertising -.- Perhaps we should just get rid of publishers altogether for the gaming industry?

Below is a rant that is only semi-related to the topic.

Rant
[spoiler]

I mean. They take up way too much of the cash.

Actually, if we cut out the publisher and gave the developer half of that share, budgets on games would be higher.

And we could cut out the retailer by DLC rather than discs.

So really it should be split like this-

Developer- $18
Console- $18 (Goes to the developer if it is PC) (Or a part to the online store you buy it from)
Paying for the marketing- $9

Total game cost- $45

The way it is set up right now, the developer for MW2, the second best selling game of all time made… Drumroll

$130 million dollars. Compared to the movie industry that is NOTHING.[/spoiler]

(Verticae) #253

[QUOTE=RabidAnubis;372893]But see, the tactics sort of fall out later because individual skill overshadows it.
[/QUOTE]

Err, not quite. The tactics at high-level ET(QW) are deep and complex, and are the decisive factor in most matches. See it as speed-chess. Everyone knows the common tactics and anticipates them. However, executing them flawlessly is nearly impossible. That’s where the skill comes in. It’s how you deal with failed tactics that defines how successful your team will be.

(Crytiqal) #254

You got to remember that the other team also has skilled players, so going head on isn’t as effective as using said tactics

(Thundermuffin) #255

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned comparing team to team or something of the sort. Does anyone have videos of say dignitas or hubris playing BRINK and then playing ETQW/ET/RtCW? It would easily let everyone see the massive lack of skill required for BRINK, but I don’t think anyone recorded any types of competitive frags, lol.

(H0RSE) #256

“lack of skill” and “no skill” are not the same thing. As I’ve mentioned before, just because a game doesn’t require as much skill to master as another, doesn’t mean it requires no skill at all.

(.Chris.) #257

I don’t think anyone is really saying that though. To claim there is zero skill in Brink is silly.

(H0RSE) #258

The vibe I got from this thread is that games like W:ET and ETQW take a greater deal of skill to get good at or master, and since Brink requires a less amount of skill or focuses on being skilled in different areas/ways, that its just shrugged off. Basically, a good portion of the thread has been “Brink vs past ET games.”

(Thundermuffin) #259

I didn’t say no skill in my post as there is a basic, basic level of skill it requires, but it is no where near the amount any other ET or competitive shooter takes. I really wish some of you console players had computers capable of running BRINK, so we could show you exactly what we mean about lack of skill.

Yes this thread has been a lot about BRINK vs past ET games as there isn’t really another game to try to compare it to. Had we compared it to Battlefield, CoD, or Medal of Honor, someone would have cried foul and say, yet again, that we don’t “get” the game. Rahdo said it’s ET3 and everyone will forever look at it as such as it is the most valid comparison for the players to make.

The comparisons are valid as this game is, at its core, an ET game but it got completely derailed somewhere in development to become what it is today. One can look at the aiming in ET or BRINK and see the massive drop in skill required to be considered “good.” If you look at the drop in skill from ET to ET:QW, it isn’t anywhere as massive as it is for BRINK. I’m sure we can all admit that there were skill drops in ET:QW, but they didn’t completely take away things like they did in BRINK. If you viewed a new player in ET:QW vs a seasoned veteran, you’d notice the difference in movement, shooting, aiming, teamplay, awareness, predicition etc. In BRINK the only major difference you will see is the veteran will be using 1 body type, 1 gun, and just grenade shooting, while the new player will be switching on and off of all these weapons.

That isn’t how games are suppose to be, or at least that isn’t how previous SD games have been. There was always something that separated new players from old players, but it wasn’t that the game gave you power ups or something. It was the fact the veterans had battle sense and were able to move more fluidly or shoot more accurate, because they taught themselves how to do it. It didn’t make the game less fun for the new player, it made them want to get better and learn to beat that guy.

(Crytiqal) #260

ET:QW might have dropped some of the aim skill from the previous W:ET title, but at least it returned a lot with new features (vehicles/deployables) aswell used in comp (spawnhosts (switching classes at the right time by respawning in one to finish of a plant), placement of medcrates, use of violator beacon and deployable placement etc)).

In BRINK, I don’t see any value added?