Competitive changes

[NeoRussia]

After playing the game for 3 days and scrimming some I started to think of things that are holding the game back from being the best comp game it could be. Aside from bugs, I suggest the following changes.

Weapon spread needs to be tweaked. There is a good amount of having to burst fire to hit long range, but even with some SMGs (especially with the carb-9) it’s still effective to spray medium range and hope the bullets hit, no aiming required, and yet there’s still a good chance that the enemy will get downed in under the time it would take him to aim accurately at you with a stronger weapon even. Of course close range is a spray fest past the first few bullets. If all the spread of automatic weapons was HALVED this would cease to be a problem for sure. (of course range of smgs would need to be tweaked)

objective imbalances. The map design is REALLY good. THANK YOU SO MUCH for 8 amazing maps that will be infinitely interesting. The problem though is the timing on some of the objectives. It’s hard to say atm what is unbalanced or not, but I have a good feeling that certain objectives are fairly imbalanced. Hacking is VERY hard to do and the hackbox can be taken off really fast. This is probably my biggest gripe with any objective. Seriously please nerf the time it takes to be taken off or something, or experiment with spawn timings.

Adrenaline. A good ability, if balanced. You can literally keep an invincible player on a planting or defusing objective and he will only die once he is finished with it. My proposal for this ability is that the time is reduced below that it takes to plant and if he takes more than his health in damage while under invul he will be gibbed at the end of the invul, preventing a Adren-train of sorts.

more server CVARs - some things need to be unlocked/locked and comp play will benefit. There needs to be a way to allow all abilities, remove radar, add on /kill command, and have the spawn timer displayed somewhere on your hud.

Any more ideas and devs listening in are highly appreciated.

[Necro1]

i’m curious can you interrupt adrenaline with like a slide or a grenade?

i’m also worried about if lights will be useless in competitions.

[Brendover]

I’m wondering if the EMP affects people on objectives while under adrenaline influence. I feel the EMP would help counter the Adrenaline strat., but I haven’t unlocked the EMP yet.

[Ragoo]

I agree with all of this. I was going to make a thread myself in a couple of days but these are actually things I would have said as well.

Hacking is actually super horrible. It takes forever, running around with the hack devices is not viable at all since it has such low range + it will only take even longer and the engi just destroys all your hard work in a matter of seconds. The Engi can even disarm the thing way way faster than you can hack. Plus the fact that Operative has no buffs or anything useful like turrets/mines when trying to achieve the objective so your team only gets weaker if you get more Operatives.

Escort objectives are also broken cause you can’t repair the thing when it’s not totally destroyed meaning defenders can just time it so that they take it down to like 1HP and then they shoot at it once when it’s in the most horrible position.

Also Container City in its current version is totally not viable for competitive gaming. First of all spawn camping the attackers at the first objective seems way to easy and that makes for full holds all the time, so that needs some little fix (spawn times or map fix) and then the map overall just takes forever so you have to take out parts of the map and/or speed up the escort thing significantly.

I also agree about /kill and spawn timers.

We definitely need ways to restrict abilities and weapons so yeah more server side control.

Also the spectator mode… what can I say… I think it’s pretty terrible.
It’s nice that there is one in the game and it also has freecam but no 1st person view? No objective status in the upper right? Flashbangs blinding the observer? : D All the names are white and that makes distinguishing between teams nearly impossible I think.
And there is like no stats whatsoever. Only stat you can see is XP. No kills, no accuracy, not what guns they have and not which abilities they have no nothing. I don’t say that everything is 100% needed and must be there but after watching mainly SC2 and a little bit of Quake Live in the past couple of months I’m used to way better spectator standards.

I also dislike that you can’t see health+process of the escort objectives like in ET:QW.

Oh and another thing real quick before I send this: As soon as someone starts to build the barricade in Shipyard first objective there is no way you can see through the white outline. Needs to be removed asap, it’s like a sight blocker and not intended to be, I’m quite sure^^

edit: I wonder if the Clans & Competition forum gets read as regularly as the General forum by devs?! hm

[Necro1]

i don’t think the hacking is the problem, it’s more that the engineer disarms too quickly.

generally from what i’ve seen on brink.tv they’ve been pretty spot on

[BMXer]

The game needs demo support asap.

[Rahabib]

[QUOTE=Necro-;301712]i don’t think the hacking is the problem, it’s more that the engineer disarms too quickly.
generally from what i’ve seen on brink.tv they’ve been pretty spot on[/QUOTE]
agreed needs to be around 25-50% longer.

The game needs demo support asap.

record should be priority one!!!

[Necro1]

im kinda worried about operatives though, from what i saw in the brink videos there wasnt a single one, and even if they were gonna be used it seems like it’s be a reluctant thing like for when you need a hackbox but otherwise ignored :\

[v1D]

[QUOTE=Necro-;301712]i don’t think the hacking is the problem, it’s more that the engineer disarms too quickly.

generally from what i’ve seen on brink.tv they’ve been pretty spot on[/QUOTE]

I think just removing the engineer’s ability to ‘dehack’ an objective would be a huge step on some of these maps.

Also, spawntimes need to be fixed. This is arguably the item that will have the most successful impact on all maps. Defense needs to have atleast +5 secs more respawn time than the offense. It seems as though most objectives on all the maps the defense spawns relatively near that objective and the defense spawns quite a bit further.

My 2 cents.

[Kendle]

In general, and in short :-

Modifications required for competition :-

• take out anything that gives the defending team an advantage over the attacking team other than core game mechanics, i.e. the XP system.

• demo recording

• ready up system

• 1st person spectator view

• lockable teams

Modifications that are not only not required for competition but must NEVER be done by any kind of comp mod :-

• change weapon damage / spread / recoil / rate of fire etc.

Competition settings should ONLY be those that are required to make the game WORK, they must not be those that in someone’s opinion make the game better, because we all have opinions, and they’re rarely the same.

[Necro1]

i don’t see a real problme with the dmg and the like.

afaik a sort of ready system is already in place?

as for the lockable teams that can be easily worked around imho.

[Kn1ghT]

Ready Up is already in place.

My main issue with Escort is yo are restricted to a single path. In any other objective type, is there a single path that you must follow. I would prefer it be a ‘drive’ or ‘carry’, similar to the MCP from ETQW. Yes, you had to get from Point A to Point B, but (Valley for example), you could take the Off-Road MCP Route next to the mountain…as long as you didnt go too far.

Demos, obviously.

Numeric Ping instead of Color Code

Ability to list all Client SteamIDs

I am curious to see how Abilities/Unlocks will factor into competition. I have not come across any CVAR that can restrict these. Having them all allowed, IMO, is bad for competition. It gives an advantage from the start of the match to a player who has played the game more than another. You could have a team of all lvl 18 players against a team with all lvl 5 players. The team of 18s will have a huge advantage over the 5s.

[BMXer]

[QUOTE=Kn1ghT;303164]…
I am curious to see how Abilities/Unlocks will factor into competition. I have not come across any CVAR that can restrict these. Having them all allowed, IMO, is bad for competition. It gives an advantage from the start of the match to a player who has played the game more than another. You could have a team of all lvl 18 players against a team with all lvl 5 players. The team of 18s will have a huge advantage over the 5s.[/QUOTE]

I agree. I think some cvars to restrict abilities and unlocks is going to be required.
Some may not like this approach, but after looking at all the abilities, I personally dont think any of them really have a place in competition. I think some cvars are going to be required to make everyone lvl1 with no abilities for competition.

[Kn1ghT]

Ugh, barebones.

[Necro1]

i think a better option would be to do the opposite, and give everyone rank 5 and then fix whatever abilities are op

[Nail]

by the time anyone really starts playing competitively, everyone will be level 20

[Kutar_FOX]

For hacking, it would be a good idea to allow operatives to restart signaling from distance by aiming at the hackbox as long as it remains installed.

[Takanasi]

[QUOTE=Kendle;303067]Modifications that are not only not required for competition but must NEVER be done by any kind of comp mod :-

• change weapon damage / spread / recoil / rate of fire etc.

Competition settings should ONLY be those that are required to make the game WORK, they must not be those that in someone’s opinion make the game better, because we all have opinions, and they’re rarely the same.[/QUOTE]
I absolutely disagree. A high spread in weapons in competitive games is a huge no. A high spread system adds randomness to fire fights that should never exist in a competitive game. The result of a firefight needs to be determined by the aim of the players, not a random number generator.

The spread of the automatic weapons definitely needs to be lowered, at least by 50% if not more. Just make all the weapons really accurate, except maybe the heavy cannons, and just add some damage drop off after a certain distance for SMG:s. It works very well in ET and it will work in Brink as well.

I feel like slamming my face in on the desk when my aim is directly at the enemy’s head and only 1 in 5 bullets hit, if that.

Also, are the iron sights supposed to lower the spread, because it doesn’t seem like it with SMG:s at least. With Assault Rifles I think it does.

Suggestions
Lower the spread of SMG’s by 80% or 90% and AR’s by 50%. Add damage fall off for SMG’s after a certain distance so you can’t “snipe” with them from too far away.

That way the SMG:s will be somewhat like a small version thompson/m40 from ET and the Assault Rifles could be a bigger version where the ADS would give you better control over the spread and recoil.

Without reducing the spread of the weapons by A LOT this game will be horrible in competitive play.

[v1D]

Just scrimmed resort disallowing engineers from ‘de-hacking’ the last objective and it is so much more doable. Spawn time adjustment for defense (+5 secs) would make that make great for competition.

[Mattc0m]

Just scrimmed resort disallowing engineers from ‘de-hacking’ the last objective and it is so much more doable. Spawn time adjustment for defense (+5 secs) would make that make great for competition.

+1, definitely agree

[QUOTE=Takanasi;304597]I absolutely disagree. A high spread in weapons in competitive games is a huge no. A high spread system adds randomness to fire fights that should never exist in a competitive game. The result of a firefight needs to be determined by the aim of the players, not a random number generator.

The spread of the automatic weapons definitely needs to be lowered, at least by 50% if not more. Just make all the weapons really accurate, except maybe the heavy cannons, and just add some damage drop off after a certain distance for SMG:s. It works very well in ET and it will work in Brink as well.

I feel like slamming my face in on the desk when my aim is directly at the enemy’s head and only 1 in 5 bullets hit, if that.

Also, are the iron sights supposed to lower the spread, because it doesn’t seem like it with SMG:s at least. With Assault Rifles I think it does.

Suggestions
Lower the spread of SMG’s by 80% or 90% and AR’s by 50%. Add damage fall off for SMG’s after a certain distance so you can’t “snipe” with them from too far away.

That way the SMG:s will be somewhat like a small version thompson/m40 from ET and the Assault Rifles could be a bigger version where the ADS would give you better control over the spread and recoil.

Without reducing the spread of the weapons by A LOT this game will be horrible in competitive play.[/QUOTE]

I don’t see the spread being as high as you’re saying. In fact, with the style of the movement system and playing around with some of the guns, accuracy seems fine. I’ve seen teams be able to wipe out entire pushes in a matter of one or two seconds.

I’ve seen calls for more accurate guns / less random behavior before (ETQW, BF2, BF2142, and even Call of Duty). Whilst legitimate to a certain point, it’s certainly not game-changing nor as important as many “doom sayers” say it is. Comes down to the better teams always end up winning, and it’s got to do with more than just pure aim. In the end, Brink isn’t as “precise” as a shooter as a few other competitive shooters, yes, but this is fairly in line with being an objective-based, class-focused shooters.

What is more detrimental is creating a game that’s fundamentally different than the “vanilla” Brink, creating the divide between pro and casual players. This divide is far more detrimental to the long-term hopes of a competitive community than slightly inaccurate guns.