Brink Presentation Review.

[MasterOfNone]

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/10/...session-brink/


was the review of this presentation.

[appleseed]

no image of the game sadly....

[anthonyda]

Whoa, I can't stop myself laughing after hearing his jokes !

[Random Generator]

"bribing" with XP to play co-op? I smell farmspot :P hopefully they have learnt from ETQW.

[LighT_Sh4v0r]

the PC version will feature dedicated servers (take that Modern Warfare 2!).

yey
Not much new stuff in there, but it's good to hear people are liking what they see when they get to see it

[Rahdo]

Originally Posted by Random Generator

"bribing" with XP to play co-op? I smell farmspot :P hopefully they have learnt from ETQW.

Well, I wasn't at SD for ETQW or immediately after, so I'd love hear specifics about what problems came about becuase of XP...

[Cankor]

Originally Posted by Rahdo

Well, I wasn't at SD for ETQW or immediately after, so I'd love hear specifics about what problems came about becuase of XP...

People too busy farming XP for their stats instead of playing the game to help their team. Hundreds of examples on the forums.

Nothing wrong with XP and unlocks, especially the way it's done in ET games (unlocks re-set at campaign finish). Fans of ET games consider that a huge plus, vets don't have an inherent weapons advantage over newbies. It's the addition of tracking the stats globally in a site which is accessible to everyone that changes people's motivations and effect's how they play the game.

[anthonyda]

Originally Posted by Rahdo

Well, I wasn't at SD for ETQW or immediately after, so I'd love hear specifics about what problems came about becuase of XP...

ETQW : Official stats avi only for trusted server proviser, no support of custom content (for stats), having to pay dozen of dollars to rant a serv each month, players are too busy xp farming instead of concentrating on objectif (paradox ? yeah but still, farming with copter is much funnier than doing obj).

ET: No official stats. Custom contents fully supported then, anybody can pop a server which won't have any difference between official ranked/not ranked. If you pick a list of ET servers, a big majority of them aren't running base mode. (atm there is 1etmain for 10etpro, not even talking about others mods but there is a lot of servers too), this explain why ET has more than 10times QW servers after so many years.

Imo having player only playing ranked server (for stat shit) killed the game since there is no support for new content, gameplay never been renewed and the community left after few month only, mainly because of the lack of custom server (ie: new map, promod).

I think everybody here doesn't want to see the stat system of QW ported to BRINK as it is actually, even worst now that we know that there is going to be permanent upgrades, you are hoping to give more choice to player instead of more power/advantages to others but imo this won't work, player are going to find the magical upgrades to make them way more powerfull.

Well nevermind, let's hope that I'm wrong...

[Szakalot]

just let those unlocks be easy to get.
those that wanna statwhore will do say in a day or two, and we can go back to the normal gameplay.

customization : +++++++
permanent unlocks for random repeated actions : statwhoring.

[TAW_Feanor]

Hey since SD seems to be responding to the forums again here's the million dollar question for ya (literally):

Why is there still a charge for ranked server fees if the stats site has been broken since July? How long will the fees keep going without providing a working stats site? Can we get a refund all those months of fees back to the GSPs and have them refund it back to us, the server renters?

[Szakalot]

i seriously doubt its being handled by SD, the GSP ranked i mean ( ?? )

[langley]

The stats site is owned and operated by Activision.

Registrant:
Mary Tuck
Activision Publishing, Inc
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.
Santa Monica CA 90405
US
domains@activision.com +1.3102552000 Fax: +1.3102552152

Domain Name: enemyterritory.com

Try contacting Mary Tuck and asking her for your money back.

[Cankor]

Originally Posted by langley

Try contacting Mary Tuck and asking her for your money back.

I've heard the account has been taken over by Hellen Wate, so If you want your money back you can go to Hellen Wate.

[PSG_MuD]

Originally Posted by Rahdo

Well, I wasn't at SD for ETQW or immediately after, so I'd love hear specifics about what problems came about becuase of XP...

EXP systems can be fine, however, most typical EXP systems are NOT fine. The only thing a typical XP systems bring to the table that is beneficial is progressive personal fun. Now, that is fine an dandy but has a critical problem that it changes the true objective of gameplay. That objective is to win, the new objective is to gain exp and this conflicts with what I call "natural gameplay; winning, balanced teams, being beneficial to ones team, stuff that comes natural etc."

ETQW had the right idea with somethings, but they just didn't hit. Maybe alittle tweaking.

Balanced teams:

ETQW has it where if teams are unbalanced you can be rewarded 10exp for joining the other team. This doesn't work very well, probably because it doesn't really balance the teams and it is not enough incentive.

I win way to much at the moment, even when switching teams non stop to try and promote balanced play. I win around 80-85% of my games now. Which is ok, but proves that the functionality of balanced teams is non existent. In most solo RTS games I can pull around 80% win ratio as well. In Random team RTS games I can pull about 60-65% win ratio... and that is with just one guy extra on my team. With the ranking system in RTS games applied to a team with 10 or more players the win ratio of 95% of players should be 1 or 50%.

Have the server calculate the players win ratios and add them up to have a team total win ratio and compare it to the other team, possibly have a team rank. Its important to get rid of the highest and lowest of the win ratios for players, this is common in statistics to ensure a more accurate reading. If a team is to "stacked' there would be little to no reward for exp, for the stackers. For players who beat a stacked team, maybe they get an achievement, or extra exp for winning a hard. It would also be interesting to have negative achievements to discourage stacking.

Have matches auto balance teams at start, and allow players to move between teams if they want during warmup. In ETQW players join one by one, which doesn't work very well because it gives alot of time for people to be biased towards one team. In ETQW most new players join GDF because they don't understand how the strogg work. Throwing onto a balanced team creates more diversity.

Winning:

Its not everyones interest to win, sometimes people want to goof around. So, there needs to be a fall system to a EXP system some might take seriously. Its quite simple, have an option to turn off statistic recording for that player. All actions of that player will not be recorded, and cannot get "ranked" achievements. Very specifically have achievements that require statistics turned on, and others that don't require statistics turned on.

This also gives new players a better feeling of learning instead of trying to live up to sometimes impossible expectations. In ETQW new players can be easily overwhelmed and discouraged when facing off a team of vets. This happens ALOT, and they don't come back to play ETQW again most times.

Possibly, after x amount of wins have an achievement to allow players access to enabling stat recording.

Teamplay:

In ETQW stats can detract from teamplay. I believe it would be a really great idea to incorporated a reputation system into the EXP system. Possibly after the match is over, allow players to award or scorn other team players for their efforts in a quick and easy way. Like most reputation systems on forums, you cannot rep someone more than once a day to avoid exploitation, and or one can only rep a person so many times. Have it highly rewarding overtime and people will be overly aggressive to please their teammates and not do stupid things like have a TK fest.

If the game incorporates an EXP system it must not deter from the true gameplay of the game. Games in which the EXP system is not very difficult to attain the end result, like COD4, EXP will only ruin a few matches. In games like ETQW with a smaller community and higher standards of gameplay with a much more difficult EXP system it causes problems at some points of play. If the EXP system does not effect the points above then its not a threat to gameplay.

[Szakalot]

good points Mud

one things added to the rep system: require a line of text to be added to any rep (like 10chars), it not only makes people realize what they do well (or wrong, if you add a negative rep too), but prevents retarded rep spamming, when people just rep everybody (+ or -).

[jRAD]

Originally Posted by anthonyda

... this explain why ET has more than 10times QW servers after so many years.

ET was free...

[Rahdo]

Ah, leaderboards. Yeah, I know how they can truly screw things up (same with poor achievements on 360). About the only leaderboard I can imagine that wouldn't encourage bad behavior would be one for "most matches played", since even "most matches won" would encourage people to jump out early.

Can anyone think of any leaderboard tallies that wouldn't directly contribute to this problem, because it is nice to have a few. Were any of ETQW's "fine"? Also, I'd love to hear specific examples of bad behaviors that came about because of them.

I assume then that XP wasn't a problem in ETQW, since the rewards were reset after a few rounds? In spite of that, were there any "bad" XP rewards, in your guy's opinion?

[Rahdo]

Also, Mud, thanks for the excellent post

[Azuvector]

Originally Posted by Rahdo

I assume then that XP wasn't a problem in ETQW, since the rewards were reset after a few rounds? In spite of that, were there any "bad" XP rewards, in your guy's opinion?

XP and XP rewards ingame were and are not a problem in ETQW.
Persistent public stats(Locally-tallied stats don't matter, it's the bragging rights publicness that hurts things.)/leaderboards are.
Ranked servers also are, as they've severely hampered ETQW's moddability, including things as simple as user-made maps, by making being "ranked" a desirable thing for people to statgrind on, which turns them off to unranked play, as well as turning servers off to unranked status because the statgrinders would rather populate servers where they gain rank, and no one wants to play alone.
BaseETQW is functionally stuck in a rut of the same 12 maps being played again and again, and alternative populated servers being few and far between, for availability.
That's the lesson you guys at SD should take away from ETQW, more than anything else: Ranked servers suck. A lot.

As for the XP-awards scoreboard summary screen after each map, I wouldn't say anything on there is particularly "bad". Although "newbie of the battle" is fairly useless and pointless...
One XP award I think would do well, is some 'jack of all trades' award, given to a player who's constantly changing class, so their per-class XP is spread out amongst multiple classes. Since if you play like that, you're not going to get a class-specific XP award on the scoreboard, unless you also end up with the most XP on the server in some non-class-related category. It doesn't really reflect the contribution a player who's working their ass off going for objectives/meeting the current needs of the team, has made to their team in that map.

As for the campaign rewards, the actual items/abilities you get ingame... I've heard self-heal is pretty weak/useless, although I rarely get level 4 XP rewards, so I haven't had much experience with using it in a lively game, myself.
Most of the campaign rewards are good stuff. My only gripes tend to be:
1: The XP-unlocked weapons. Just let me pick the thing from the get-go?
2: Faster/Improved-<insert activity here>. I'm not usually a real big fan of plain old stat-boosting stuff. Sure, some if it's useful(Faster lockons, improved stroyent), but some of it's not(better decoys springs to mind, although the flare-spam looks cool). In any case, they're never anything to get excited over, just efficiency-boosters.

[Szakalot]

Originally Posted by jRAD

ET was free...

That only affects the amount of people that are going to give the game a try. While certainly helpful, i do not think it explains the amount of people continuining to play the game, quite the contrary - since when you pay for the game, your willing to give it a go a few more times, just to get the value for the money.

QW certainly suffered from lack of proper marketing, and bad timing (Cod), but that does not explain a massive retreat of the playerbase in the first year. W:ET after the first year was only getting bigger and bigger.

Originally Posted by Rahdo

Can anyone think of any leaderboard tallies that wouldn't directly contribute to this problem, because it is nice to have a few. Were any of ETQW's "fine"? Also, I'd love to hear specific examples of bad behaviors that came about because of them.

The only way to prevent that, that i can think of, is making stats private. That is, you can see your own, and your friends, but there is no massive 'your 175th in the assualt rifle' leaderboard.
Specific examples? People disconnecting to prevent loss, stacking teams, without the willingness to balance, to ensure a win.
People having a trip into the mountains to whore a supply crate, or people hijacking servers to get a massive xp from repairing + disabling mcp.

I assume then that XP wasn't a problem in ETQW, since the rewards were reset after a few rounds? In spite of that, were there any "bad" XP rewards, in your guy's opinion?

Yup, self-regeneration was pretty much useless. 3 HP every 10 seconds or so? Maybe even less, i do not recall.
Faster decoys resulted in flyers being really powerful, until the 1.2 nerf. No unlock so far is bad in principle, its more about interactive balance, rather than something being game-breaking on its own. So we will wait till you guys give us Beta to feedback on

Since the rewards are going to be permanent in Brink, i would go for customization, rather than boosters. With time you have more options to chose from, but each has their own drawbacks, kind of like chosing a class in QW.

In-campaign boosters are fine, as long as they do not break the game; for example, faster sprint + stroydown in vanilla QW make a good strogg player almost invulnerable to small arms fire, if they just want to run through a hostile area. Constructing a mining laser is the matter of running through and keeping the objective bar up.
Especially since the enemy, to catch up, has to sprint as well, preventing them from firing.

Depending on the size of the locations in Brink, i would consider going back to the sprint-o-meter (or allow shooting while sprinting, with a significant debuff to accuracy).

[Bud_Spencer]

Originally Posted by jRAD

ET was free...

You really think that this is the reason?!

I started playing ET in 2003 and play it until today besides ETQW and a few more casual shooters. If I really need fun & hard fights, i play one of the ET games. W:ET is still popular because you can choose from a huge pile of servers running CUSTOM content. Sure the original Maps are still awesome and can still be fun at times, but if you're getting bored of the standard maps, you're free to move on.


I bought ETQW on the day of its release for €50 and I had spent money on W:ET if it wasn't free. I don't regret a penny, BUT something that drives me mad is this:

1)
You guys created the most awesome shooter of all times after W:ET and let it die a pretty fast death. How that? By offering "ranked play". People all have the option "show ranked only" instead of "max bots = 0" enabled in their server browser and therefore can't see the servers with custom content. Which leads to the fact that only very few connect to unranked servers. It takes appointments in the forum like "ICE custom map nirvana" to get a server running custom maps populated.

2)
Your games are the only games providing objective based gameplay together with a pretty fast paced gameplay which offers years of motivation and fun (up to now I almost never played GDF so I could change that and have another two years of fun - if there are still servers in two years). Now ranked play leads to people playing for private stat related objectives and achievements instead of playing for the real objectives. Thats contraproductive and destroys the game experience for players playing the game right. It was ET's biggest advantage over games like BF2 - Objective based fast gameplay, no persistent stats & XP reset after campaign + non persistent upgrades. In ETQW, you lost that advantage.


Hope you take that into account for BRINK!





RANKED PLAY SUCKS



// EDIT
LOL, he said "... and I repeat: DEDICATED server" - a slap in the face of Activision/Infinity Ward ! Good one!!

[asmo]

if i understand good what you all wrote, the XP system in ETQW was bad idea and SD realized that, thinking how to avoid this problem in BRINK.... but please fix http://stats.enemyterritory.com/ as i want to enjoy this game little longer - no stats, no fun.

and for BRINK
- most time played
- most footsteps made (if you're camper you won't be in the TOP)
- most jumps

something like that, it is still some statistics but not worth enough to change gameplay for it (switch teams, xp whoring, vehicle whoring, TK for objs, etc.). probably it's more or less what you want...

[DrFunkenstein]

Excellent posts in general.

If I may add something, I don't really care about the overall stats boards and I don't think they detract from the game or make people play that differently. I do dislike the rank/award system though. There's no fun having 3 coverts on your team who insist on using silenced machine pistol all the time because they feel they NEED to get that stupid award.

Individual incentives may work for people selling vacuum cleaners from door to door, but they kinda defeat the idea behind a team based game.

Dr. Funkenstein

[Party]

Originally Posted by Rahdo

Ah, leaderboards. Yeah, I know how they can truly screw things up (same with poor achievements on 360). About the only leaderboard I can imagine that wouldn't encourage bad behavior would be one for "most matches played", since even "most matches won" would encourage people to jump out early.

Can anyone think of any leaderboard tallies that wouldn't directly contribute to this problem, because it is nice to have a few. Were any of ETQW's "fine"? Also, I'd love to hear specific examples of bad behaviors that came about because of them.

I assume then that XP wasn't a problem in ETQW, since the rewards were reset after a few rounds? In spite of that, were there any "bad" XP rewards, in your guy's opinion?

The XP system is great. It worked fine in the 5 years I played Wolf ET. Get rid of the ranked server gaming system. GSPs might get you guys some royalties, but can't you sell more copies of the game with more servers leading to increased game popularity? I would think that there would be more servers if people could host their own servers w/o having to pay the royalties to be a GSP (running an unranked game will yeild no-low traffic results) Also, I'm sure it costs money to host the stat servers which apparently barely function after two years for ETQW. The ranked system keeps the majority of players playing in ranked games rather than custom/unranked games b/c most people will leave the ranked filter on. I do because that's where i find active players. This hinders custom maps and mods that help to further the life of your game. Most importantly, because of player ranks, WE HAVE HUGE PROBLEMS WITH UNEVEN GAMES AND ADDITIONALLY PEOPLE PLAYING THE WRONG PLAYER CLASSES. If you can tell how good a complete stranger gamer is then all the high ranked players will stack the teams on offense. On refinery, GDF is stacked a majority of the time b/c the first MCP objective and 2nd hack objective require little teamwork to win. A one man army can do the objective by himself, and all the good players know that joining offense will probably result in a win (with stats W/L ratio is a big issue for some self-centered Jerks that don't like even games), GDF on the refinery map will likely win. So all the players who are new or fair players (usually the ones who feel bad or don't know any better) then get raped by the veteran, skilled players who all waited to play on the same team.
I have to combat this! I work really hard to keep clan members in my clan that keep an eye on the teams, and actively help the defensive team or are willing to switch teams. In this way, ulike other servers, my server provides patrons with a more balanced game when possible. I find that with a ton of work between admining, clan selection, and training clan members/admins. I am able to combat the ranking system to try to provide a balanced game expereince. This is what I believe got me to the #6 server. My server is Party's Paradise Trip-bute to }FLOYD{. People play the wrong player classes because of the ranked system too. People loved ET not just becaust it was free, but because it was awesome, way better than Counterstrike in my opinion. ET didn't have badges which encourages people to play the wrong classes. Offense doesn't need a field-op working on his field op badge instead of playing the objective class or playing rocket launcher to take out vehicles or enemy turrets.

[langley]

Originally Posted by Cankor

I've heard the account has been taken over by Hellen Wate, so If you want your money back you can go to Hellen Wate.

lols

As for Brink. I think the biggest thing you have to worry about is balance. You did a pretty good job trying to balance Quake Wars but there is still a very clear advantage to playing Strogg. Because of that you will see many people who will only play Strogg just to get more wins, kills, and better stats.

There will always be people whoring stats and xp no matter what you do, though. I've been in many games lately where most of the skilled players stack up on the offensive side and do everything they can to stretch the round out and make it last the entire 20 minutes so that they can get every last kill and every bit of xp possible.

If you try to complete an objective to quickly they vote you off the server. Build and MCP deploy objectives are usually ok. But try to hack the shield generator too soon and they vote you off. Plant explosives and finish the round too soon and they vote you off. They want the defensive side to think that they are doing ok so the unskilled sheep don't all rage quit and ruin their fun. But they are so confident that they will win, and they usually do, that they stretch it out just for the stats.

I could go on with many more examples of how stats have ruined this game but I don't even care anymore. It's like a turd full of peanuts that swirls round and round the bowl but you just can't get it to go down.