Is Brink competition ready?


(Rex) #1

Does anyone have any information about a competition mod from the beginning on made by SD?
Or do we have to wait 6 months for a third party mod (which was awesome in ET:QW) to get it ready for competition?

I really worry about Brink being just a game for some casual fun players on a Xbox :frowning:


(Kn1ghT) #2

I am very much interested in this as well. I would love to see what we can and cant do. I would give my left arm for a server config.


(coolstory) #3

Not much use for left armsā€¦now if it was the right hand.


(Apples) #4

I dont really care as I wont buy the game on the spot, and as usual Iā€™ll start 6 monthes too late to get a decent comp level ASAP, but well, monies isnt infinite and travel + beer come first!


(Diablo85) #5

There are supposed to be alot of things you can customize serverside, or so Iā€™ve heard.

So I hope there wonā€™t be a need for a competitive mod at start.

At least I hope there wonā€™t be a promod that restricts and disables almost everything. That will just seperate competitive gaming and public gaming and kills competitive gaming in the long run, since it will be harder for public players to cross over. Iā€™ve seen that happen in ETQW and in TF 2.


(system) #6

This is what I love about starcraft. Blizzard takes care of balancing it so there is no need for a competition mode.
Sure, you can have different maps, but the core is there, unmodified as everyone who plays the game would expect.


(DarkangelUK) #7

What I like about the Starcraft community is they donā€™t whine because SC2 isnā€™t a carbon copy of SC, and complain about everything thatā€™s different.

Q3, RtCW, W:ET, CSā€¦ the core gameplay was the same on pub as it was for comp, the mods (OSP/ETPro) were to add comp functions such as spec-lock, automatic demo recording, pause match etc, and made very little, to no gameplay changesā€¦ the ā€˜compā€™ in comp play came from organized teams, matches and ladders. For some reason, suddenly everything has to be changed and Iā€™ve got no idea where this has came from. Comp has changed to being its own mythical mode that for some reason games need to turn into to be classed as ā€˜competitiveā€™? Who came up with this? Why do games suddenly have to conform to previous games? This never happened before, you got into competition because you liked the game and the core gameplay itself, and wanted to play that game in a more organized and competitive manor.

The ones screaming for this change, seem to be ET ā€˜comp sceneā€™ players who only have ET under their belt, and want all others games to replicate ET. Some people have a bizarre definition of ā€˜competitive playā€™ā€¦ youā€™d be as well calling it an ET Mod. As mentioned above, the attraction that brought new meat to clans, ladders and leagues were the pub players that liked what they were experiencing, and wanted something more organized and pureā€¦ changing to this mythical comp mode is essentially creating a completely different core gameplay experience to almost resemble another game. Restrictions were in place for obvious reasons (itā€™s not fun watching 6 panzers vs 6 panzers), but those were common sense restrictions. ETQW comp had no reflection on the standard ETQW gameplay, with so many things removed, banned and disabledā€¦ all under the guise of ā€˜competitionā€™.


(Crytiqal) #8

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;269504]What I like about the Starcraft community is they donā€™t whine because SC2 isnā€™t a carbon copy of SC, and complain about everything thatā€™s different.

Q3, RtCW, W:ET, CSā€¦ the core gameplay was the same on pub as it was for comp, the mods (OSP/ETPro) were to add comp functions such as spec-lock, automatic demo recording, pause match etc, and made very little, to no gameplay changesā€¦ the ā€˜compā€™ in comp play came from organized teams, matches and ladders. For some reason, suddenly everything has to be changed and Iā€™ve got no idea where this has came from. Comp has changed to being its own mythical mode that for some reason games need to turn into to be classed as ā€˜competitiveā€™? Who came up with this? Why do games suddenly have to conform to previous games? This never happened before, you got into competition because you liked the game and the core gameplay itself, and wanted to play that game in a more organized and competitive manor.

The ones screaming for this change, seem to be ET ā€˜comp sceneā€™ players who only have ET under their belt, and want all others games to replicate ET. Some people have a bizarre definition of ā€˜competitive playā€™ā€¦ youā€™d be as well calling it an ET Mod. As mentioned above, the attraction that brought new meat to clans, ladders and leagues were the pub players that liked what they were experiencing, and wanted something more organized and pureā€¦ changing to this mythical comp mode is essentially creating a completely different core gameplay experience to almost resemble another game. Restrictions were in place for obvious reasons (itā€™s not fun watching 6 panzers vs 6 panzers), but those were common sense restrictions. ETQW comp had no reflection on the standard ETQW gameplay, with so many things removed, banned and disabledā€¦ all under the guise of ā€˜competitionā€™.[/QUOTE]

Itā€™s no fun to watch 6 hammers vs 6 dark matter canons either, or having an anansi in a 4v4 match.
The restrictions in etqwpro were well balanced imo.

Besides, the restrictions are made up of actuall experience BY players, for players.


(Killgar) #9

The big difference between ETQW and previous games was that it was made specifically for 12 vs 12 or even 16 vs 16, not 6 vs 6 or 5 vs 5. Essentially it was just a matter of infantry play vs infantry/vehicle/deployable play.

What if SC2 had been made for 12 vs 12 matches and had highly synergistic teamplay features as a major selling point of the game?


(DarkangelUK) #10

@Crytiqal: Youā€™re just backing up my statement here, the game was turned into infantry combat with objectivesā€¦ in other words = ET. Restrictions I can understand, complete removal of inherent features that made the game what it was, means itā€™s not ETQW anymore so you shouldā€™ve stuck to ET if thatā€™s the gameplay you wanted.

@HunterD88: Thereā€™s no point in mixing hypotheticals in with this discussion, if SC2 had 12v12 then you wouldnā€™t even be aware of what itā€™s actual format is now and would have nothing to compare to.

Brink doesnā€™t have vehicles or large deployables which were a bone of contention for ETQW comp play, but still thereā€™s talk of butchery and comp mods before any of you have even experienced the core gameplay. Again I got into comp play with the previously mentioned games because I liked how they played on a standard level, and wanted more. I can understand enjoying the comp style of play, organisation, communication, strats developed for the game. But rather than adjusting to the game, you want the game to adjust to you and what youā€™re used to from other games, which just bamboozles me.


(.Chris.) #11

ET competition has a reduced amount of mines, a limited number of heavy weapons, some of which are banned altogether (MG and mortar) amongst other things, why? Because without them changes matches werenā€™t as fun as they could be, no one wants to play matches that result in endless double full holds that were present in the game early on, measures were taken to try and reduce this, some individual choices may have been questionable but on the whole the changes are there for a reason.

Skip to ET:QW, as stated before it was designed for 12v12, this presented a whole load of problems when trying to play the game with half the amount of players and maintain some sense of balance. As before matches werenā€™t as fun as they could be and something had to be done. Early on in the gameā€™s life the top clans got together and came up with ways to try and improve the game, these ideas were tested in matches and over time became part of the rule sets that were used for competition purposes, leagues, cups and LANs.

There was a tonne of whine about ET:QW from the ET comp crowd, they wanted ET2 but believe it or not, this had little to none influence on the changes made to ET:QW, the clans mentioned before were from a selection of games and each had useful insight, while there was quite a bit of bickering at times eventually something all could agree on was finalised over time.

As for ā€œso many things removed, banned and disabledā€ lets make a list:

Radar/third eye radar
Flying vehicles
Heavy Vehicles on last stage.
Unsuitable maps

I may have missed something there but the list of things ā€˜removed, banned and disabledā€™ outright are quite small. Either way, ET:QW competition was better for the changes, whilst it perhaps lost some the feeling of the core game it still maintained the overall mechanics of the game and wasnā€™t butchered as much as some folk seem to think to simply resemble ET.

I would have mention Wolfenstein also but itā€™s competition community lasted only for 48 hours or soā€¦

(Really need that ā€˜someone has made a post while you was typingā€™ thing!)


(Rex) #12

This was always seperated :rolleyes:

Wrong, I am from the ET:QW comp scene :smiley: so, I donā€™t want a ET2 mod

Your sentence tells me that you are a pub player who has never played a 6on6 match.
But for your information: 6on6 has vehicles.


(Crytiqal) #13

Game play is still different as the classes in ET:QW play out different then in ET


(DarkangelUK) #14

As I said, I understand the need for some restrictions. From your breakdown of ETQW as well, I can also to a degree understand the need restrict many of the things you listed, but in my eyes a lot of things were cut which did affect the core gameplay from its recognizable form. This is why I think itā€™s competitive shelf life wasnā€™t very long. Clans are built from pub players that want to play a version of the game with a little more grunt, sure the elements of the core gameplay were intact, but I think it was too different for them to make that natural leap over to competitive play.

Of the games I listed, the pub play is just a less organized version of the comp play with no real team communication or stratsā€¦ you play those games pub and you get a taste of what comp play will be like.

As you said, ETQW was different in the fact it was 12v12, had a lot more going on and there was no choice but to make changes. The part I liked most about your write-up however was the fact that they tried ETQW 1st, then attempted to see what needed adjusting. From Brinks announcement (and even the OP in this thread), thereā€™s been talk of a mod, adjustments and changes to something they have no idea aboutā€¦ like thereā€™s some mythical rule set games have to adhere to, to be competition compliant. Brink doesnā€™t have any of the barriers that ETQW had, so why treat it like it has?


(Kinjal) #15

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;269562]
The part I liked most about your write-up however was the fact that they tried ETQW 1st, then attempted to see what needed adjusting. From Brinks announcement (and even the OP in this thread), thereā€™s been talk of a mod, adjustments and changes to something they have no idea aboutā€¦ like thereā€™s some mythical rule set games have to adhere to, to be competition compliant. Brink doesnā€™t have any of the barriers that ETQW had, so why treat it like it has?[/QUOTE]

Your points are good in theory but in practice there are 90% chance what game need improvments for competition play, just like most other games. First of all becouse of consoles things.

Example -
1)we need an opportunity to import hitsounds.
2) Hit points look - numbers not a line
3) Glow on/off

its just a basic thing, that needed for comp play.


(coolstory) #16

I hope not many changes are necessary to make the game balanced for comp. play, and we get brinkTV and mod tools soon after release.


(Humate) #17

Any specific rules in a ruleset thats based on balancing, ofcourse youā€™re going to want to play the game beforehand. In saying that, that does not mean one cannot foresee other rules that are predicated on convenience, or predicated on encouraging good comms within teams.


(Diablo85) #18

Let me rephrase, the seperation of the two communities will be too big, resulting in no new fresh blood for the competitive scene, which means the competitive scene is smaller and dies faster.


(DarkangelUK) #19

Indeed, thatā€™s partly my pointā€¦ if the divide is too great then people wonā€™t make the leap from pub to comp.


(Shadowcat) #20

Without playing the game, can you really say that there NEED to be changes anyway? Seems like just adding restrictions to the strategies that take away from competition would be enough. Just rules like preventing an all heavy team, or something like that.

I have yet to see a game that has had as long of a beta as Brink has, so the game should be fairly balanced from day one.

Removing the minimap is often discussed, but that would ruin the effectiveness of many abilities, such as the operatives interrogation (which is one of the classā€™s main uses). I dont see how the minimap takes away from the game though, it just gives the player access to more information. The absolute extreme would be a game with perfect information, such as chess, and it obviously takes a ton of skill.