He maybe crazy…but this game could also change the genre forever. Granted, the first time I saw the first Red Faction’s destructible environment system I almost crapped myself. I ran around the house screaming and weeping tears of joy…but alas, nothing really came of it. It did not change the world of gaming.
…here’s hoping Brink does
Not true, because I also highlighted picking avatars out of the background (not strictly friend from foe). I feel this is just as trivial as friend vs. foe. I don’t feel challenged by it (unless it’s a dark game where that is by design, like L4D for example). Do you guys ever feel challenged or thrilled when you manage to pick out somebody from the background in broad daylight in a game? “Oh man! I almost missed him! Good thing I spotted him in time!” I know I don’t ever have that reaction, and I would propose that’s because we all do this automatically now.
We don’t need to think about it. We’ve got this. We can’t get any better at it. The skill of identifying what’s on your screen has a very low ceiling (compared to movement/aiming/judgement of what to do and when).
So why do you care if Splammage artificially helps newer players up to the same level as everyone else?*
*If there are darker maps in Brink that allow the Identification skill to have a higher ceiling, then that changes my thoughts on the isuse, but I don’t think I’ve seen any dark maps.
It seems to me that this thread only exists because the amazing enemy glowing thread was locked.
It seems to me that this thread only exists because the amazing enemy glowing thread was locked. (Before I even got to read it…)
The men with the strait-jackets are keeping tabs on you as well. 
I do, extremely pessimistically though, share in the hope that this game is a revolutionary step forward, and recognized by all and adulated forever and eternity. I think that ‘Game of the Year’ and game that I personally play for a long long long time are much more likely and realistic goals.
Indeed.
On topic: It would be unfortunate if the highlighting of enemies/teammates in this game drives hardcore gamers not to purchase it (or pout while they play).
Lets look at it from a different standpoint. What if, for some reason, the melting of the north and south ice caps caused small prehistoric bacteria to be injected into the air. These airborne bacteria then found their way into peoples eye balls and created a symbiotic bond with their host. The northern ice cap bacteria found a home inside the security eye balls and the southern ice cap bacteria found a home inside the resistance eye balls. If you know anything about prehistoric bacteria, you know they are racist. The northern bacteria hate the southern bacteria and the opposite is true. This hatred is manifested by enhancing the hosts sight to distinguish friendly hosts from enemy hosts.
While you’re saying, “Bro, this totally ruins my immersion!”, they are saying, “Bro, this is totally my real life.” Just sayen…
I do, extremely pessimistically though, share in the hope that this game is a revolutionary step forward, and recognized by all and adulated forever and eternity. I think that ‘Game of the Year’ and game that I personally play for a long long long time are much more likely and realistic goals.
I don’t see Brink as “revolutionary,” since a lot of its features are derived from other games, but I do see it as an attempt to get the FPS genre back on the right track, before games like Modern Warfare totally changed the landscape, giving a new generation of gamers a sense that “this is how things are and have to be in shooters.”
Anyone who has been gaming for at least 10 or so years can tell you that FPS games have changed a lot, in terms of what players like, and what they offer. Brink will hopefully show those players who aren’t familiar with “older titles,” that there was a greatness abo9ut them that you don’t seem to find anymore, and that change is not necessarily a bad thing.
Games should be balanced around the competitive community. The group of players that play the game correctly and at high skilled. This is how DOTA is balanced and it is a game played today at the highest level for high cash prizes
Balanced, yes. Targeted, no.
Competitive players will whine about it, but they’ll play games marketed to casuals, as long as the game itself is good. Casual gamers, on the other hand, will (mostly) not buy a game based only the competitive scene.
Play the game correctly? Does this include “changing rules” and modding the game when it feels “necessary?”
You also assume that players who do not play competitively cannot be highly skilled, and that those who do are.
Playing competitively (to me at least) simply means concentrating your efforts on mastering the game with the exclusive goal of winning more often. This process reveals any and all of a game’s broken functions (overpowered or underpowered weapons/tactics/abilities/factions/etc.). A broken game can be enjoyed by someone who plays casually. They will not know that the M60 (in hypothetical game X) is better in nearly every situation, they’ll use whatever gun they think seems cool. There’s nothing wrong with this.
They live in blissful ignorance. Sometimes I feel that going to a game’s forum tends to spoil it for me, as I participate and discuss the meta-game and we break it down I find so many games that I am very fond of are not as deep as I had hoped. Casual gamers will not know this, and will enjoy using the entirety of the game that’s available (but will not understand why they keep losing to the M60 unless they start to track it’s accuracy compared to the other guns, for example, but that starts making them more of a competitive gamer :P).
So if a game is made with the competitive community in mind, and balance tested thoroughly with post-launch support to fix issues not found before release, it can be enjoyed by all for a long time. If it is instead thrown out the door in november because it’s the holiday season, it will be bought and played by the casual players, and when they try to advance further down the depth of the game, they will discover the broken features and become disillusioned.
This is why it’s better to try to break the game before it is released. That is essentially what the hardcore competitive types want. They want a game that has been beaten on by other competitive players and fixed to make sure there’s enough effective strategy/options in the gameplay. Nobody wants a game that’s easy to solve.
[QUOTE=H0RSE;271361]Play the game correctly? Does this include “changing rules” and modding the game when it feels “necessary?”
You also assume that players who do not play competitively cannot be highly skilled, and that those who do are.[/QUOTE]
The above is why competitive communities need to change the rules and mod the game. If they did not change/mod the game, every single match would use the same or extremely similar strategies revolving around a single/few broken characters/factions/abilities/weapons. All of the other awesome stuff in the game never gets a chance to be awesome, because it is objectively not as effective (defined by how often you can win using such underpowered equipment/factions/etc.).
Being skilled is not enough to make you competitive. You must also strive to master the game. Some people think they are trying to master a game, but they don’t ever evaluate it like the competitive players do. They will avoid tactics they think are “cheap” (which may, in fact, be broken) and thus stall their progress to getting better at the game.
@Bridger: you can master the skills within the game without ever caring about wins. Being the most skilled and having the highest win percentage do not mean the same thing.
The thing that gets me about the competitive community, is how they are so gung-ho on at taking on a challenge and master the game - yet they will mod it/change it if they thing it makes it better as a whole.
Learning to master something with only the tools it gives you, takes more skill and is a much harder challenge than simply changing or getting rid of features about it that you don’t like, and then mastering it.
They’re not really concentrated on mastering a game - they are concentrating on mastering techniques and skills that are used in games.
[QUOTE=H0RSE;271402]The thing that gets me about the competitive community, is how they are so gung-ho on at taking on a challenge and master the game - yet they will mod it/change it if they thing it makes it better as a whole.
Learning to master something with only the tools it gives you, takes more skill and is a much harder challenge than simply changing or getting rid of features about it that you don’t like, and then mastering it.
They’re not really concentrated on mastering a game - they are concentrating on mastering techniques and skills that are used in games.[/QUOTE]
The argument is that they are “fixing” the game, because anything that simplifies the game strategy is “broken”. The way they use the word “broken” shows what you are trying to point out. I tend to see it your way. I would say countering strong tactics and improving my own skill is where I get enjoyment from.
I have played low level competition before, and the first thing I notice is the huge number of complaints and excuses that people make when they die or lose. Competition seems, at least to me, to be populated with people who only call winning fun. I would rather call the game itself fun.
Competition seems, at least to me, to be populated with people who only call winning fun. I would rather call the game itself fun.
Cant speak for anyone else, but a slight adjustment to what you’ve said is… the enjoyment of the process of winning. That entails the game itself and the people you do it with . If the game itself, is garbage - no amount of time or energy would be put into it.
[QUOTE=H0RSE;271402]The thing that gets me about the competitive community, is how they are so gung-ho on at taking on a challenge and master the game - yet they will mod it/change it if they thing it makes it better as a whole.
Learning to master something with only the tools it gives you, takes more skill and is a much harder challenge than simply changing or getting rid of features about it that you don’t like, and then mastering it.[/quote]
Then you misunderstand what is happening. They are not getting rid of features they don’t like. Can provide an example of what you are talking about? The only changes I’ve seen in competitive mods is the addition of match mode and the fixing of broken sections of the game. Broken sections of the game, by definition, reduce the game space by being too effective/ineffective compared to the rest of the game.
Let’s look at some examples of things that are taken out of promods:
CoD4: Sniper idle sway, stun grenades, particle effects, optics, Perk 3 (Most useless perk slot ever. Almost don’t even care about this.) grenades, with set Perk 1 and Perk 2.
BC2: Medpacks, ammo packs, revives, perks…
I think we can fairly say that "promod"s don’t just always make minor changes
[QUOTE=Linsolv;271423]Let’s look at some examples of things that are taken out of promods:
CoD4: Sniper idle sway, stun grenades, particle effects, optics, Perk 3 (Most useless perk slot ever. Almost don’t even care about this.) grenades, with set Perk 1 and Perk 2.
BC2: Medpacks, ammo packs, revives, perks…
I think we can fairly say that "promod"s don’t just always make minor changes[/QUOTE]
I don’t know anything about those, mostly because I never considered them good games for competition. That’s probably why they had to make so many changes. I don’t agree with every pro-mod, but certainly in many games something has to be done to fix things the devs don’t fix.
CS:S just seems to have a “promod” to make it into CS 1.6, so the only “pro” FPS I could think of did just get minor (if entirely nostalgia-driven) changes.
Bridger : the things is, what we fear is THAT sort of promod, that is cutting every specifity of a game to make it feel like CS:S. With examples like this, we can anticipate a Brink Promod allowing only Medium Body Type, only the Soldier Class with life really reduce, no perk and instant death (no possibility to be revive), etc.
Fear is not really the good emotion, as I’m not interested in promods in general, but still they seem to always make crap out of a game, so if competition=that sort of promod, I don’t see the point.