worries

(SockDog) #61

Of course it had a scoring system otherwise you couldn’t say which team won. What I’m saying is that I learned to play CTF without an XP system rewarding me every step of the way. Likewise for L4D (campaign), the game design taught me the world rules and actual, real, player experience showed me what worked best in different situations.

That last part IMO is the crux of issue with XP systems, they only reward behaviour that can be recognised.

Nope. I mean rambo medics running past downed allies, people bombing their own objectives and killing their team, mountain hiking. A currency system is a gimmick to take a bunch of random people who have no preexisting relationship or interest in each other and getting them to work together for self interested reasons. It’s just like L4D specials.

But they clearly have no investment in the currency system at all, they’re not even playing within the game’s rules so why think they’d adhere to an XP system? That would bring me back to my lovely persistent player ranking system. :stroggbanana:

This however isn’t what I mean by unpredictable humans. By which I mean players doing things outside of the XP model (but within the game rules) to benefit their team. I gave examples of this in previous posts.

(BioSnark) #62

[quote=SockDog;238519]Of course it had a scoring system otherwise you couldn’t say which team won.[/quote]For the individuals. Not the team.

But they clearly have no investment in the currency system at all, they’re not even playing within the game’s rules so why think they’d adhere to an XP system?
People are usually idiots when they don’t know any better. People off in the mountains to snipe / arty are trying to kill stuff without dying. Blind rambo medics try to keep themselves alive. A currency system tells people the basics of what needs to be done and gives them a reason to do it.

By which I mean players doing things outside of the XP model (but within the game rules) to benefit their team. I gave examples of this in previous posts.
if I recall them correctly,
1 Causing player damage gives experience. Does it give more experience to cause more damage in an ambush or less at the objective? No idea. Same for which action is going to keep the objective secure the longest.
2 The turret owner is also motivated to move his turret to the front line.

(Apples) #63

There is also another point i’d like to highlight, its that non all of us play for the win… By that I mean that I rather a fair / closed game which lead to a loss, than a freakin rollover which end to a win. And thats where xp can be good as you usually get more xp in a longest, balanced game than in a rollover.

XP isnt necessarily evil, rewards such as medals etc are cuz they make whore going for the cheap win just to build X obj faster than anyone.

Keep the xp system if you like it, to buy perks and stuffs… but do not encourage people to get X obj done, just make it a way that reward objectives by a bigger amount on xp, not too big to avoid the aforementionned problem, but big enough to keep the noodles occupied while we’ll clear the path ala rambo medic :smiley:

Well even scratching my head constently I can’t find any good solution to resolve this statpadder problem… medals or not, xp or not, they are gonna go for the cheap win no matter what, its a problem of mentality nowadays IMO, some people are soooo loosy IRL that they dont want to be fair ingame :smiley:

Peace

(Voxie) #64

After scrimming through the thread, I’ll sidestep the discussion about XP and jump right to listing my worries.

Regarding the PC version, I’m concerned that client-side customization will be limited; several multi-platform games today have encrypted ini and config files. I hope that Brink will be more transparent while at the same time ensuring proper file consistency.

But mostly I’m worried about post-release support. I really dislike the whole premium DLC trend that’s emerged due to Xbox Live and PSN, and I hope that Bethesda won’t make the same decision as Activision, et al when it comes to separating the playerbase in multiplayer titles.
Bethesda have jumped on (or even started) this whole milk-your-game-through-DLC bandwagon – I’m looking at you, horse armor – and I sincerely hope that if they release paid content, buyers and non-buyers will still get to play together. And if I’m allowed to have some wishful thinking, I’d prefer PC owners to get a delayed albeit free release, similar to the method used for CoD: WaW.

(coolstory) #65

“Entirely possible” but it rarely happens in pubs, hence why the community sucks. In versus, people just run around mindlessly spamming as survivors and on infected they go in 1 by 1.

The only way the l4d system works is when you play with friends who are good at the game, against/scrim another group of 4 friends who are good. But the vanilla version of the game is so flawed and imbalanced that the competitive community had to make a mod called Confogl. Which made the game lot more fun. But split the competitive and the pub community.

My biggest worry in this game is difference between the pub/vanilla and comp. communities version of the game.

SD wants to make the single player and multilayer experience the same. The only difference between campaign and versus would be that versus will have better opponents (no offence to the bots :slight_smile: ). Just like that the pub/vanilla and a scrim experience should be the same. The only difference would be more team work and better opponents (no offence to pub players).

Competitive players are the pillars of any game. If you make the game around them, you’ll make a game that lasts for a long time (quake/cs). This doesn’t mean the game needs super fast movements or you have to press a million buttons to do anything. This just means that the vanilla version of the game should be balanced, competitive, based on time, a high enough learning curve and reward smart play.

tl;dr Dont force the competitive community to mod a game such that its version is much different from the vanilla version. Cause your only gonna kill the game.

(LyndonL) #66

Sorry mate, I agree with you. But in this day and age… why would a company want to make a game that lasts for ages when they can make something then make a sequel… it’s the current trend.

If you make something that pub players are meh iffy about but comp players love, then you will get (let’s say) half the purchases, and no further money from your game being played for years to come. Whereas if you make a really popular pub game, you will get heaps of purchases and get to double/triple that when the sequel comes out 1-3 years later.

It’s just the current trend for games. I think/hope SD aren’t like that, but they do still have a business to run.

(coolstory) #67

CS and quake sold very well. Like I mentioned just make the game balanced and fit for competitive play in vanilla.

Also brink will sell very well. FPS with customizations and parkour ? It’ll be a best seller no doubt.

(BioSnark) #68

If you’re a certain individual at activision you’re also considering the subscription model for non-mmo’s

Not something I’m worried or care about but I don’t doubt client-side customization files will be hacked whether or not they’re encrypted unless singleplayer requires an internet connection.

(Voxie) #69

What I want is the ability to use custom HUD elements, change cvars, et cetera without having to circumvent file encryption or risk a VAC ban. Activision is infamous for VAC banning MW2 users changing the number of ping bars in the scoreboard. I’m not worried that SD/Bethesda will be even near that level of draconianism though.

(SockDog) #70

[quote=BioSnark;238535]For the individuals. Not the team.

People are usually idiots when they don’t know any better. People off in the mountains to snipe / arty are trying to kill stuff without dying. Blind rambo medics try to keep themselves alive. A currency system tells people the basics of what needs to be done and gives them a reason to do it.

if I recall them correctly,
1 Causing player damage gives experience. Does it give more experience to cause more damage in an ambush or less at the objective? No idea. Same for which action is going to keep the objective secure the longest.
2 The turret owner is also motivated to move his turret to the front line.[/quote]

Maybe we’ve dragged this on too long, weekend is over and I can’t drink and argue till the early hours. :slight_smile: I’ll just say ETQW had XP and mission systems and all the stuff, yet you still saw the problems or dumb ass players and also farming and hunting. I’m just not entirely sure the XP system is the messianic feature people bill it to be, I think it has some pretty ***ty effects on actual gameplay and personally I think it’s there to drip feed people who aren’t actually all that interested in playing the game in the first place. For me I’d rather those people played farmville or pssed off back to WoW.

My point with L4D (campaign) is that it teachs you the basics as you play but makes you rely upon your team mates for the rest. Fail to do this and the game itself punishes you. No XP, no bribes. Play nice, play the goal or you’ll get hurt or dead.

As for the friends thing, it’s unfortunate but you just have to find the wood in a forrest of dicks. I have a solid friendlist composed of players I’ve met online and had good gaming experiences with. Until we hold people accountable for stupid anti-social behaviour it’ll always be the bane of online gaming.

(Nail) #71

one of the main reasons I mostly play LAN with my actual buddies

(BioSnark) #72

Certainly I don’t think it’s perfect. I don’t like upgrades in pvp mp and I don’t like special infected in L4D. Just saying they may be useful gimmicks in public games.

(SockDog) #73

But you shouldn’t have to and wouldn’t have to if people couldn’t hide behind anonymity and self entitlement.

We’ll see what Brink brings. I might just try and catalogue douche behaviour related to XP/Upgrades when Brink comes out to see if I’m blowing this out of proportion or not.

(_Megabyte) #74

Brink is doomed, @the same day is sheduled release Barbie and her pony, again marketing fail :frowning:

(LyndonL) #75

Wow… why do you know that? :stuck_out_tongue:

(amazinglarry) #76

I’m not too concerned about the XP system or anything like that - my worries are more aesthetic related.

After watching the developer diaries countless times I’ve been very impressed with the look of the game, but so far the sound hasn’t fully convinced me yet. I mentioned this in another thread, but I’m fully aware the game is not completed and it won’t be released until next year. I’m really hoping that some of the voices and dialog are placeholders and will be improved. I hate to sound so critical of it but I hold SD to a high standard of quality especially when it comes to these areas.

In keeping with the ‘sound’ theme, I noticed that it sounds like everyone kind of has the same ‘walking’ noise. That is, they all sound like they’re carrying 500 pounds of equipment and even short movements, like a step forward and turn, has kind of a jarring effect. There’s just too much going on.

Also, I’m in a bit of agreement with other commenters on the latest video diary where the animation in some scenes seems a bit off. One moment reminded me all too much of Modern Warfare where a guy was standing still shooting another, and he ran in at like Mach 10 and melee’d.

Just little nit-picky things at the moment, as I haven’t played the game for myself (although I can’t wait to), but as a fan of SD for many years I wish the best for them while holding them at a higher standard than most other studios.

Again, I’ll reiterate that I understand it’s still somewhat early and there’s plenty of time for polish etc - but those are my ‘worries’. :slight_smile:

(V1s0r) #77

My worries for Brink are:

That this game will not be the fast paced 60 fps action game. But that the PC version will be a dumbed down version of the console versions.

I hope the engine can now handle to run full 60 fps and this also for the animations. Not like ET:QW where the movement was lacking in speed because of the lower frames in the animation. 60/60 power :smiley:

(DouglasDanger) #78

I can undesrtand a game running in at 30 fps on a ps2 or xbox1, but I don’t really buy the pc crowd saying that about this generation.

(_Megabyte) #79

“tinky winky corporation” has trojans in splash damage computers & will release Barbie exactly the same day as Brink.

(asmo) #80

i worry that there will be no linux port