What do you want to see in the next game?

(DarkangelUK) #61

"You have earned 1,000 XP. You can now unlock the Fit Square Peg Into Round Hole ability! Next Unlock: Triangle Peg Into Round Hole = 2,000 XP’

(.FROST.) #62

I just jumped in here, so forgive me if somene else allready suggested, what I’m going to suggest.

In my (past)opinion and in the opinion of many other players* the “class problem” isn’t so much a problem of not being able to build up a medic-, soldier-, operative- or engineer-class as you desire, since you obviously can do that, the “problem” is that you don’t have access to them ingame. Make them accessable with complete weapon loadouts and maybe even individual attachements for one and the same weapon, regarding wich class/character you are playing right now. Meaning, not only would every char have its own weapon loadout, but his individual weapon attachements as well. For example, If you’d spawn your heavy soldier it would spawn with a carb-9 with drum mag and if you’d switch to your light body-type operative you’d spawn with your extended clip carb-9(assuming you have chosen that before, otherwise both would spawn with the same weapons and attachements). That would be nice.
BUT there’s also a certain virtue when people “have to” to stick with their classes, at least during matches; and that would be that people are forced to get as individual in their playing style as they are in their appearance; wich imho is core in Brink. I really learned to appreciate that variety and now I love it. I wouldn’t change the class chosing mechanic, but if you feel like you have to, then just make all the chars accessable during the matches and the “problem” would be solved. But again, that wouldn’t encourage people to go all individiual and to choose their very own play style. It totally makes sense, that you have your class, but if there is an urgent need for a certain class you can also give a helping hand there. It’s like in a real platoon/squad. Everyone has his own specific role, but also random skills in the other classes, though he wouldn’t be as good as someone who has invested years in his class specific skills; makes perfect sense to me.

I mean I definitely wouldn’t play a heavy in MP to save my life, yet it’s really fun, when you got two “cross-buffing” heavies, of wich, one is a solier and the other one is a medic and they had set up shop in one corner of the objective area. And you just can’t get past them. I’d get crazy to sit there in that particular corner through the whole match, but those guys love it and they are really contributing to their team’s win. And you might say; well, that’s body-type specific, and I’d say; well, it’s both. I mean think about a heavy operative; most of the time such a combination of class and body-type wouldn’t make much sense. And a light medic makes more sense than a heavy medic for example, but then again, a heavy medic has his own virtues as well, especially, because he can revive himself and hasn’t to start at the spawn every time he dies(it can be a looong and dangerous way back to the objective when you are a heavy). The very individual combination of body-type, abilities, weapons and weapon-attachements make Brink what it is and beeing able to change to every built you have in stock would derive from the idea of really individual gameplay; but of course, every good thing has also a flip side, though it’s only bad, when it gets constantly annoying. Wich I think isn’t the case in Brink at least not concerning the whole class thing. For me the only two constantly annoying things are the ofense/defense bias and the lack of game-modes.

*(especially Brink players; since I haven’t played any of the Enemy Territory games, so I can’t talk about them)

PS: I’d really vote for character specific attachements.

(tokamak) #63

The game doesn’t put enough emphasis on winning the match. Players get a lot more out of doing whatever they want regardless of the contribution the outcome. Once the outcome has significant weight to their own score and resources a player will start to work harder at winning and waste less time in doing cute stuff.

(.FROST.) #64

This^. Actually Brink isn’t class based enough. You can have 7 soldiers and one objective class. If the soldiers are experienced players they’ll win. Also side objectives aren’t allways as important as the bridge in Shipyard or the shop door in Resort.

(tokamak) #65

Yeah that´s another thing. In general the game leans towards a balanced approach, especially Brink because of all the class buffs. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that the only thing you really need is one player with the objective class. Everything else is at your discretion.

That permanent baseline thing gives an incentive to stick to your choices rather than constantly reverting back to standard set up. It doesn’t mean you can’t try to get the team balanced again, it’s just that there’s a reward if you manage to work yourself around a more awkward set up and think differently about the cards you’ve been dealt.

(DarkangelUK) #66

Something’s broken = It’s all part of the challenge
Something’s challenging = Let’s break it and say it was broken to begin with

(tokamak) #67

Indeed, so lets stick to the status quo and keep releasing games that already exist.

(DarkangelUK) #68

Certainly a better choice than the farce that’s being put on the table. It’s thinking like that the led to quick time events ¬_¬ Don’t ACTUALLY do something, let the game do it with a single button press and feel good that you accomplished something every single person can!

(tokamak) #69

Yeah I’m just not a ‘if it’s broken, drop it’ kind of guy. It quells creativity.

(SockDog) #70

No you’re a, put square wheels on a car because you think driving well isn’t challenging enough. kind of guy. You think this is being creative.

(montheponies) #71

Personally I’d do away with any/all temporary and permanent unlocks - the game should be the reward. If you need artificial enticements to play then the game is broken.

(tokamak) #72

It’s not enticement, it’s opportunity cost and resource management. I fully agree that there’s no point in collecting golden stars for the sake of golden stars, that’s just filler. But having a currency in place and having to handle it intelligently makes a shooter so much more than just dragging a cross-hair over targets.

(SockDog) #73

Yup shooters are clearly “just dragging a cross-hair over targets” this is why you want to carve out elements of that “simplicity” and lock them behind some algorithm. Don’t give players freedom to learn, practice and show excellence. Replace all that with grinding limitations. What a fun game that is, bashing into invisible walls.

As we’ve said in the past, two exceedingly popular games (DayZ and Minecraft) have shown that emergent gameplay allows for absolutely massive amounts of depth. It’s like saying, go to India and have an adventure or go to India and have a guided tour. The tour might have all the sights, maybe even some staged excitement but ultimately there are no surprises, no discovery and really no actual worth.

(DarkangelUK) #74

lol, all you did was take the word ‘enticement’ and phrase it as a sentence… nice :smiley: “If you do this enough then you will get this” That’s enticement and shallow gameplay epitome.

(tokamak) #75

I can’t believe I still have to bridge this for you. Actually I don’t believe I have to, this is just wilful misrepresentation, anyway:

Scouring every level for little tokens that give you bonus content is enticement, a dangling carrot to lure people into doing nonsense to extend gameplay way over it’s actual lifespan.

A score that directly ties into your power-potential however, is completely different. It’s an actual resource in your game. You can accumulate it in several ways at different rates and you can spent in several ways, that means making actual short therm and long therm choices based on the in-game scenario.

Those are open world survival games! A completely different genre entirely. “Who likes soccer anyway, they don’t even play it in a swimming pool”

(DarkangelUK) #76

I think you’re focusing on the wrong part and missing the point dude.

(SockDog) #77

And you’re not trying to jam in a totally different genre into a shooter?

Regardless of this the point what you are missing (ignoring) is that the worlds have few rules and artificial limitations and so allow much more freedom for the players to develop their own skills. I’d have used Quake 3 as an example but again you’re determined to believe that is a simple means of clicking on targets.

To use your example, “Who likes soccer anyway, they don’t even play it in a swimming pool”. Let’s try it your way.
“Who likes soccer anyway, you can’t do a long pass unless you’ve unlocked it and a defender is unable to score goals by virtue of their role.”

(YouAreGood) #78

Good, playable, VOIP on by default(mutatis mutandis reason I haven’t bought the Brink) game.

Strongly tactical, team-based(like the ET and ETQW were, but you could push it a bit forward). Realistic graphics with nice quality engine(Source(2?)?).

Finally - more maps, maybe with some random factor involved, so they will not be all the same over time - the recon role will become somehow useful, and communication in teams would have to be clear on that(another place one team can win, not only how good you shoot, but also the communication of information as a problem - so real-life! :)).

There are plenty of ways you could improve the base idea of ET and ETQW!

Have a good day!

(Humate) #79

A score that directly ties into your power-potential however, is completely different. It’s an actual resource in your game. You can accumulate it in several ways at different rates and you can spent in several ways, that means making actual short therm and long therm choices based on the in-game scenario.

Any choice you make as it stands currently, will become redundant the moment you meet a higher/lower skilled player.
Each upgrade or unlock, would either need to be ridiculously powerful or the skill ceiling would need to be lowered to mitigate that. Does that sound familiar? Sounds like Brink to me.

(tokamak) #80

Agreed!
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Crafting/Items

That’s a humongous list of limitations and rules. It’s large, and a lot is possible, sure, but anything you want to make has to happen within the confines of the paths already set out by the developer.

There’s no flexibility here at all, you can’t invent anything yourself. Same with DayZ, tons of rules and items and way things ought to be used.

Only once you tread in the infinitely large gaming world you get to have some freedom. That’s a luxury Tactical team shooters don’t have because when they start offering a quantity of possibilities rather than a qualities of possiblities, things start to diverge and the game loses focus.