Will class requirements to complete missions come back to haunt us?

(Grimhound) #1

Will the requirement of Engineers and Medics to complete mission objectives end up biting us in the long run? If we have a flood of certain classes and they don’t happen to be Engineer or Medic, the entire game grinds to a halt and everyone is SOL.

(Mustang) #2

Oh Em Gee, you’re right!!!
Why didn’t anyone else think of this until one day before launch?

(ClickClickBOOM) #3

Or you could say that in the long run, every class is balanced.

Thats why Brink is a team based objective shooter, everybody has its tasks.

(Grimhound) #4

[QUOTE=ClickClickBOOM;293809]Or you could say that in the long run, every class is balanced.

Thats why Brink is a team based objective shooter, everybody has its tasks.[/QUOTE]

Yeah. But most objective-based team shooters I’ve played have it where classes play more of a passive role as far as the ultimate outcome, with all players able to contribute to given objectives. There’s more the, “Everyone here can contribute, but certain classes would probably excel in aiding the team.” attitude and less the “Only this class can contribute in this map. Everyone else just support these guys.”

(gee666) #5

God yeah in the ET games it all fell apart when class specific objectives came up, just lots of soldiers standing around looking at a mining laser…fail games…

(dazman76) #6

I guess this is one of those “what will be, will be” scenarios :slight_smile: If all 8 players on a team flat refuse to change class, or simply don’t realise they need to - well, this isn’t constructive, but they don’t really deserve to win the game anyhow :slight_smile: Everything is in place to suggest and convince players to do the right thing at the right time - I’m afraid if that has no effect on people, there’s little more you can do to help them :slight_smile:

I know this might seem harsh, given the situation where you have 16 brand new players on a server together. But seriously, someone out of the 8 on a team has to realise something is up - I don’t think that’s asking too much of our potential player-base, really.

I see it like this: allowing all classes to complete an objective isn’t adding to the game, or indeed a positive move. It makes sense that only engineers can fix a broken device, or that it’s most likely that a soldier would have the explosives to destroy an objective. So allowing all classes to do this is actually “dumbing down” the objectives - and while this opens up the game to countless people who otherwise might not play it, I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing in the long run :slight_smile:

Brink seems to tackle this “OI, change class maybe?” better than ET:QW - I think (hope) we’ll be OK :slight_smile:

(DoHo) #7

And in those games classes are almost trivial.

I personally think Brink is heading in the right direction. Forcing someone to go a class to win forces people to act as a team. Need a soldier, and no one is willing to go soldier? Well you deserve to lose. A well balanced team will have at least one of every class anyway, with the other members of the team acting as support.

When you have games where classes are tacked on or inconsequential you end up with teams that don’t give a **** about what classes are being played, only who’s getting kills and standing in the right place at the right time. Even TF2 with it’s unique classes suffers from a case of the “right place right time” as a team of snipers could (hypothetically) win a game when ideally you’d be using a full range of classes.

(dazman76) #8

Also, there’s the hope that it makes that player think about the problem ahead of time, when they’re up against it next :slight_smile: Splash Damage - improving the general state of FPS gaming, one player at a time :slight_smile:

(Grimhound) #9

[QUOTE=DoHo;293847]And in those games classes are almost trivial.

I personally think Brink is heading in the right direction. Forcing someone to go a class to win forces people to act as a team. Need a soldier, and no one is willing to go soldier? Well you deserve to lose. A well balanced team will have at least one of every class anyway, with the other members of the team acting as support.

When you have games where classes are tacked on or inconsequential you end up with teams that don’t give a **** about what classes are being played, only who’s getting kills and standing in the right place at the right time. Even TF2 with it’s unique classes suffers from a case of the “right place right time” as a team of snipers could (hypothetically) win a game when ideally you’d be using a full range of classes.[/QUOTE]

A team of snipers would never win a game. Ever. Not unless the map was poorly designed to just be a large, open field.

The beauty of TF2 is that every class now has something which allows them their own play styles while still making them stronger working together. I can just as easily gut you with a Medic as I can a Soldier or a Heavy, and I can be gaining power to better serve my team as I do it. Everyone can contribute directly to the goal of ultimate victory in Payload maps. Times come up when classes become situational, but most classes now have so many alternate play styles that with a momentary change in load-out an Engineer can go from being hard defense to offensive support.

I can play any map in TF2 as any class and tweak my load-out to reflect what is needed of me at that time. I’m never left feeling useless.

(BioSnark) #10

Yes. If the defenders are smart, they’ll be taking out the medics and objective class, first.

(system) #11

Are you for real?

(Grimhound) #12

It happened in QWET more often than I care to remember. We dominate the entire team and secure the objective. But oop, no “insert class here.” Enemy team respawns and kills us all.

(ThePilgrim101) #13

I imagine average players will realize that the objective marker is telling them to become an Engineer or medic.

It’s only the really special people who have fried their brains on zombie movies and Call of Duty that you need to worry about.

(Grimhound) #14

[QUOTE=ThePilgrim101;293902]I imagine average players will realize that the objective marker is telling them to become an Engineer or medic.

It’s only the really special people who have fried their brains on zombie movies and Call of Duty that you need to worry about.[/QUOTE]

That will be the first thing people turn off.

(system) #15

All I can say is "what a bunch of retards’. And it never happened where I played.

(DoHo) #16

[QUOTE=Grimhound;293877]A team of snipers would never win a game. Ever. Not unless the map was poorly designed to just be a large, open field.

The beauty of TF2 is that every class now has something which allows them their own play styles while still making them stronger working together. I can just as easily gut you with a Medic as I can a Soldier or a Heavy, and I can be gaining power to better serve my team as I do it. Everyone can contribute directly to the goal of ultimate victory in Payload maps. Times come up when classes become situational, but most classes now have so many alternate play styles that with a momentary change in load-out an Engineer can go from being hard defense to offensive support.

I can play any map in TF2 as any class and tweak my load-out to reflect what is needed of me at that time. I’m never left feeling useless.[/QUOTE]

It’s not about how likely it is to happen, it’s that they CAN; hypothetically, a team of snipers COULD win a game because it’s about standing on a Control Point, or pushing the Payload. Objectives don’t play to or against any of the class abilities - so the classes are only effective (as you’ve said youself) at “gutting” people - i.e. chasing after kills in a bid to soften up the otherside in order for a push to complete the objective. The real beauty of TF2 is that the classes can do things that so wildly varied from each other. Recent updates have sort of messed up this fine balance, but for the most part that’s where TF2 really shines: extremely unique classes.

In Battlefield and other similar games the idea of “classes” is almost negligible; in a general sense this almost applies to Brink - EXCEPT that objectives can only be completed by specific classes. To me this not only enhances the diversity of the classes but also highly emphasises the need for diversty/balance of team make up … And that was my point. In TF2, Battlefield, whatever, you can HYPOTHETICALLY win a game with a highly unbalanced team because in those games it basically just comes down to which team is getting the most kills and softening the otherside up, not which team is using classes most effectively to support the team. And sure, yeah, I’m sure there are plenty of times in any game with classes where they have been used effectively to support the “gutting” of the other team and to make that easier, but the fact that this sort of team work is BUILT IN to Brinks gameplay is what appeals to me in the first place.

(ThePilgrim101) #17

[QUOTE=DoHo;293913]I

In Battlefield and other similar games the idea of “classes” is almost negligible;[/QUOTE]

Not to get off topic, but the classes in Battlefield are necessary…

…Now, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the other hand…

(BioSnark) #18

If people are competent enough to turn it off you’d think they’d be competent enough to play a map.

(DoHo) #19

[QUOTE=ThePilgrim101;293915]Not to get off topic, but the classes in Battlefield are necessary…

…Now, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the other hand…[/QUOTE]I’m not too familiar with the Battlefield games (I haven’t played for many years) could you elaborate?

(ThePilgrim101) #20

The Battlefield Franchise has always had classes that emphasize particular roles in combat (medics, engineers, anti-tanks, Support gunners, etc.). The PC series (aka “True Battlefield”) has always made sure that classes are balanced between themselves and the vehicles to make sure that, in most cases, diversity is better than unanimity.

However, Bad Company 2 broke many class boundaries and allowed different classes to have weapons and abilities previously restricted to other classes, which gave Recon soldiers C4 and an SMG, basically turning them into another class. It works overall, but the lines are so blurred that, for those that just go out and kill, everything is so similar.