So I got some extra abilities for my Medic: Adrenaline Boost and Field Regen Unit. The only problem is that now I can’t use the abilities I had before like Metabolism and Transfer Suplies, since the UI can only hold items for 3 keys.
And don’t tell me it’s because the limited buttons on a console (I am using PC) since you could devise an alternative control scheme, where one button acces your inventory and additional buttons pressed afterwards activates the item.
It was made that way for within-class specialization and it wasn’t because of consoles >_>
Then it should either produce a warning that tells you that it voids your previous points spent or free up the point from the upgrade it voids. Or better yet: let you choose which upgrade you want to void and get the point back. Or even better: don’t put a limit on specialization.
Welcome to Brink. This issue has been covered already and previously only the Medic ever encountered it due to having more than 3 active skills. Thanks to Agents of Change, now every class has at least 4 active abilities so all of them must choose which 3 they want to use at any given time. This helps to create diversity among the classes so that they are each unique in some manner.
I still fail to see why having a keyboard and extra buttons means that you should be able to use more than 3 active skills since this is a balance aspect and not a feature that is being ‘dumbed down’ for the consoles as SD could have easily added a quick-wheel to allow for more than 3 active abilities even for them.
EDIT: Brink allows you to reset all of your skill points at any time. Don’t like your current Medic? Reset him and start over. Problem solved!
You can rebind those skills in the ability menu if you want to switch back to old abilities. Click on the left corner of the old ability to rebind it.
And you are right, the UI is poorly designed there. I also still havent found a command to change it with the console to overcome issues with the ESL config.
Heres a thread were ability sacrifices were discussed recently:
http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30103
Thanks for pointing that out, FW. (But I still think you should be able to change stuff like that on-server, not in the main menu.)
I could be wrong but going by your original post, the solution isn’t that hard to figure out. You can still go to he skills menu and set different skills to different buttons, even though when you buy a new skill with 3 equipped, it always equips over one you previously had equipped. You can also reset your skill points for the cost of 1 level.
You put a limit on specialization by making all the options available lol. Remember with more options = less specialization.
But anyways you can always RESPEC and get your points back. Although you will lose a level, you will gain most of your skill points back to re-specialize.
Also you can choose which skills you want to use if you have more than 3, by simply mapping on skills you want to use and removing skills you don’t need.
… it’s all there…
and if you don’t know how to do any of the things I mentioned above… look at ability screen and it will tell you how… or read the manual…
I stopped doing that stuff about 15 years back 
around when we leaved the 16bit era.
[QUOTE=Glyph;365848]Welcome to Brink. This issue has been covered already and previously only the Medic ever encountered it due to having more than 3 active skills. Thanks to Agents of Change, now every class has at least 4 active abilities so all of them must choose which 3 they want to use at any given time. This helps to create diversity among the classes so that they are each unique in some manner.
I still fail to see why having a keyboard and extra buttons means that you should be able to use more than 3 active skills since this is a balance aspect and not a feature that is being ‘dumbed down’ for the consoles as SD could have easily added a quick-wheel to allow for more than 3 active abilities even for them.
EDIT: Brink allows you to reset all of your skill points at any time. Don’t like your current Medic? Reset him and start over. Problem solved![/QUOTE]
A quickwheel would interrupt a fluent gameplay.
Its convenient to say, its for balancing, while its a design trick in the first place. This is the point where I tip my hat for making a good control scheme on the consoles and think that brink must be a master piece for the consoles. But as PC player I was used to more complex controls and had no trouble with it. I talk FPS here, not even RPG, hell I dont know how many buttons I used in WoW. It is definitly “dumbed down” from an average PC players view and thats why my personal opinion is, that they should have opted for a separate PC version.
Absolutly!!! Im all on your side, the concept is poor and the UI implementation far from intuitive or well explained.
[QUOTE=FireWorks;365864]A quickwheel would interrupt a fluent gameplay.
Its convenient to say, its for balancing, while its a design trick in the first place. This is the point where I tip my hat for making a good control scheme on the consoles and think that brink must be a master piece for the consoles. But as PC player I was used to more complex controls and had no trouble with it. I talk FPS here, not even RPG, hell I dont know how many buttons I used in WoW. It is definitly “dumbed down” from an average PC players view and thats why my personal opinion is, that they should have opted for a separate PC version.[/QUOTE]
Why would a quick wheel interrupt the fluidity of the game? Heck, the skills are already assigned using the d-pad on the consoles so this is not even fluid currently.
Changing your abilityset on the fly on the server makes absoluitely no sense … concerning what this is about.
If we could do that,than theres no need for specialisation at all.
BUT this is a big part of this game. Coose wisely and equipp your character with the abilities that suite to your playstyle.
So there are maybe 3 Meds on the field but each one may be a littel different, playstyle, equippment and skillwise.
I have just 2 Chars that have been changed many times. Now, after maybe 170 hours i see wich of the nice and useful abilities i leave in the closet, cos they are no that useful in my hands like others.
BTW, theres an easy way to level up your Char. by the way while doing the wshing up, some paperwork or whatever useful may be to do at home.
Glyph, another menu comming up would be even more time consuming. You can relativly easily move your thumb for the tenth of a second for a button and then go on. A pop up menu would be taking a larger amount of time, considering some abilities should be used in actual combat, too long.
neg0ne, some servers force abilities to you and you have no way to switch them to mimic your usual control scheme. Great when tossing a nade on downed team mates and the buffing speed on the low teammate! Gotta love those situations. In a perfect world the laza would have revived your guys and you would have save your other team mate. But there you would have gibbed your mates, your other mate would fall and you are lying beside him in the next seconds.
[QUOTE=lakersforce;365833]So I got some extra abilities for my Medic: Adrenaline Boost and Field Regen Unit. The only problem is that now I can’t use the abilities I had before like Metabolism and Transfer Suplies, since the UI can only hold items for 3 keys.
And don’t tell me it’s because the limited buttons on a console (I am using PC) since you could devise an alternative control scheme, where one button acces your inventory and additional buttons pressed afterwards activates the item.[/QUOTE]
Let me save you some room, transfer supplies is useless because the class that needs their pips most is the medic… you would never want to give some of yours away in almost every situation.
Laz nade and FRU are pretty indispensable. Metabolism is ok but it doesn’t increase the time it takes to start regening HP I think, it just increases the speed from damaged to unbuffed hp level. It can go well with field regen unit or if your team uses at least 50% medics (as most should/do). Adrenaline boost is ok, but a quick health buff when underfire will keep a guy up long enough to finish their plant most of the time so it’s IMO not as great as people think.
IMHO none of the non laz nade or FRU abilities are worth a point. If you felt compelled to use some of them I’d choose one taht goes with your weight class. A light medic would get run speed so that his partner could keep up or spearhead and they would make a heck of a duo for transport tasks. A medium would just choose one of the 3, there’s really no best choice just personal pref. A heavy should get metabolism because his size makes it harder to get to the people he wants to heal quickly, put it on the guy you want to stay alive until you get to him.
And yet games like Shadowrun had a quick wheel that worked so easily you could literally throw a grenade using it. It was easily better than the current system where you have to check to see if the skill is toggled on/off since another button executes it. What’s funny is that Brink already has a quick wheel as part of the game and the only reason players waste time with it is because there is no consistency as to where the objectives are located on the wheel other than the primary being up. Anyway, Shadowrun’s quickwheel allowed you to use hotkeys and remap them at any time for every skill in the game and this would have been ideal for Brink for more than 3 active skills. Better to overwrite old skills with new skills without any warning? I think not.
Hence why most will no doubt want to Respec at Level 24 like I am gonna do for all my dudes. But this time, you don’t lose a Rank, just one teeny, weenie ability point. No reason not to for this reason. Cheers. 
So you would set your abilities any time and could only execute 3 of them in the heat like now? Not perfect, but surely better then what we got now. I am fully on your side that the overwritting is a bad solution.
Yup. If you choose mine, pyro mine, and turret you can’t also have Kevlar mapped. Its like that for Medic too once you choose the must-have Lazarous Nade.
Side note: Best new ability has got to be the Health Regen Unit. Right? Medic gets all the love in this game!