Why Brink for PC failed-

(ScumBag) #41

[QUOTE=Cep;356501]
No openness, no allowance for player inspiration, choke points galore and almost always two or 3 routes to an objective. Bad, bad, bad.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Which brings me back to a point I’ve made before which is that one of the things that hinders Brink is also one of it’s main design choices, namely the parkour aspect of movement. The maps are congested corridors with waist high obstacles scattered about so as to force the player into using SMART. SMART is cool, but Brink isn’t an obstacle course racing game, it’s a shooter.

In order for a team shooter to work, you need to be able to flank your enemy. This means open terrain, where you can sneak around when nobody is paying attention, or more than 2/3 routes. I’m guessing SD went with the claustrophobic map design because nobody was using SMART on more open maps. Now we have constant choke points with no way to SMART around the landmines/turrets/campers.

My kingdom for an Icarus!

(Englander) #42

I actually thought one of the plus points I have found is the ease in which you can get round the back of a bunch of defending players, granted it’s not on all maps but most you can quicky flank in certain areas and tear players up from the back. The biggest problem what I see with the maps is how some objectives flow directly under the enemies spawn no idea why they didn’t see that as being silly.

(tokamak) #43

You definitely didn’t play any other ET did you?

(Englander) #44

LOL check my join date on these forums you newb :stuck_out_tongue: I played ET on the first day the beta was released, the one with the different sound pack :wink: Only played all of them for thousands of hours :slight_smile:

(Petrolbomb_Tom) #45

What eye candy? lol

(Je T´aime) #46

I would also add the lack of communication between the developers and players, I just see devs replyng here in the general discussion with random stuff that have nothing to do with the game and no one gives awnsers to the legit player questions.

(.Chris.) #47

The only objectives that were near an enemy spawn in ET were those where the spawn was capturable, hence you could make the defense spawn back giving you a chance to do the objective, this isn’t the case in Brink, combined with a short respawn timer you have recipe for disaster. How they missed this during the game’s development I’ll never know. Strange seeing as they are a ‘studio team with a hefty budget’ and all.

In ET:QW I can’t think of any spawns that are really near an objective.

[QUOTE=Kendle;72677]Routes to Objective

Multiple entry points, no good having a tight balanced map if the defending team can simply camp a single passage-way to lock out the attacking team. Use tunnels, alternate routes, whatever, to allow attacking team to get to the objective a number of different ways. Also, if it’s an “objective run” map, make sure there are several ways in and out of wherever the objective is situated, otherwise the defending team will simply camp the objective. However, don’t go overboard. Too many corridors encourage full defences close to the objectives, too few create choke points. So keep it open as this allows teams to give their crossfires a good workout.

Spawn Rule

If the time taken for Defenders to get to the objective from spawn PLUS the difference in spawn cycle is LESS than the time taken for Attackers to get to the objective from their spawn, then it’s a DEFENSIVE map. If it’s MORE then it’s OFFENSIVE.

i.e. If a player from each team both die near the objective, which one is more likely to get back there first?

Here’s a couple of examples to clarify:-

Radar - Axis spawn is 10 seconds slower than Allied. However, it takes almost 10 seconds to get to East Radar from Axis spawn and only about 15 from the command post. Difference in travel time (5s) is less than difference in spawn cycle (10s) - Offensive map.

FuelDump - Axis spawn again 10 seconds slower than Allied but it takes Axis about 10 seconds to get to the FuelDepot whereas it takes Allies about 30. Difference in travel time (20s) is greater than difference in spawn cycle (10s) - Defensive map.[/QUOTE]

Was wrote 7 years ago, sound advice.

(BomBaKlaK) #48

yep your totaly right mister chris !
if they dont respect the working mechanics it can’t work ! that’s all

(Verticae) #49

Refinery and Valley; defenders spawn directly next to the MCP landing. It’s no coincidence that the MCP objective is often what makes or breaks the attack on those maps… In fact, to the point where hannes added es_skipMCP to ETQWpro, and it made both those maps playable again.

(BomBaKlaK) #50

yes but in ETQW there is no major bug about the spawn time, all the maps are balanced. (execpt quarry)

(dazman76) #51

It can still be difficult to deploy the MCP, when the defence is skilled and organised. Not only do they spawn right next to it (Valley), but there are several deployable spots in really evil places :slight_smile: On top of an organised attack, a bit of luck is often required :slight_smile: heh

(Mustang) #52

Thread is making me want to play ETQW right about now

(.Chris.) #53

Yeah forgot about the MCP business. As you pointed out though, having the spawn so close to an area of importance spoiled the whole map.

I was confident that SD would have learned what does and doesn’t work from ET and ET:QW. However it seems like they ignored these past gems with Brink and tried to reinvent the wheel rather that build upon what made the past games awesome to play while trying to route out the problems of those past games. They were also warnings from Wolf '09 that would have indicated what can happen with certain things like the F business.

I’m going to give Brink another chance with the DLC though as I suspect there will be a big update along side it, could be one possible reason for the lack of updates recently and the general hush hush approach of late.

(Rex) #54

I am still searching the guy who invented skipMCP for Refinery. Makes no sense for me.
Attack is about 4mins if you are slow, because GDF got an advantage on this stage.
On Valley skipMCP is needed of course!

(Kendle) #55

To be fair those are not my rules, I just posted them here all those years ago in a thread about designing maps for competition for ET, but they are still perfectly valid and it beggers belief SD chose to ignore that advice.

What’s more, they don’t just apply to competition maps, an offensively biased map is just as playable on pub servers as a defensively biased map because pub teams are never particularly well organised anyway.

In fact I question whether anyone involved in map design in Brink ever worked on ET / ET:QW or has ever played an objective game before, some of their design decisions are just too bizarre.

(DarkangelUK) #56

CC is the one that gets me:

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k159/BomBaKlaK/ETQW/ContainerCityMap.jpg (link as its too big to post as an image and I cba resizing)

The bot goes right past the Resistance spawn, while increasing distance and travel time for Security, I feel another route could have been chosen that doesn’t favour the defense so much, but still keep the objectives goal intact… having the Resistance have barely a few secs travel time compared to the haul the Security have to make, and purposely choosing to have it go towards and right along a symmetrical line with the enemy spawn, which also has 2 exist top and bottom to make it easy to get to the bot at either end just seems bizarre to me.

(burawura) #57

Corporate laziness and greed ruin another promising pc fps ip. I’m another consumer who will never buy a Splash Damage product again.

(rushzone.com) #58

Pretty much as above, don’t know if they will attempt Brink 2 but it will be pretty shameful if they considering when they did on the first version.

(burawura) #59

I may be skipping out on Rage and Skyrim as well due to this.

(Sandman77) #60

To me this game is great, show some support and wait for the patches etc.