Why do you think they have spent months balancing it?

I understand that they have been working on this for months but do you really think that Infinity Ward did not test Commando in MW2? It was only when latency was added that the perk became a problem. Again, I understand that the concept will be balanced in a local server environment but once latency is being added from all over the world you have another issue entirely.

For all the discussion about OHKOs not being in Brink, I am surprised to see such a feature included at all. Personally I would be fine with a melee attack killing an incapacitated character but having it also incapacitate a downed character is what worries me. Heck, being knocked down should be enough of a disadvantage. Having to worry about being incapacitated by a melee attack when downed seems problematic at best.

To take out anything cheap like Halo's infamous double punch.......

Meh... no backstabs, Gizmo's none to fussed, 'You gotta shoot 'em in the head!'

No I don't think Infinity Ward or any makers of COD care that much about balance since its never been a strong point of those games.

Yeah Cod is one of the least imbalanced games i've ever played, MW was fine, but you could tell some of the balancing in MW2 was rushed. I put that more down to Activison than IW though

I thankfully disagree as any developer that neglects balance will lose more fans than they will gain. You may not approve of the playing style of CoD but it certainly has made changes to account for balance issues.

I will not fault SD for attempting to try something new and am eagerly awaiting Brink but no developer gets it 100% balanced the first time a game is released. Shadowrun was perhaps the most balanced game I had played at launch and even it had certain issues that needed adjusting. Anyway, I believe your statement on Infinity Ward is heavily influenced by your biased experience. I am not a fan of the CoD franchise but even I would have to admit that it has changed the way shooters are made forever.

Back on topic is that if a Light can knock down a Heavy with a slide attack and then follow up with a melee to incapacitate, even a small amount of latency in bullet hit detection will cause this issue to become a major problem. It is the exact same formula as the 'knife lunge' issue from CoD as the bullets simply do not register as the latency is causing your view of the events to appear as though the other player magically jumped 10 feet forward when in fact they were already much closer. In a low latency room the 'knife lunge' is not an issue at all; the same cannot be said of high latency conditions. My only concern is that Brink will suffer from latency and the movement speed combined with slide attacks will mimic the current issue that CoD's gameplay is facing. Yes, it is a very valid concern.

Actually I can only state my previous opinion for MW2. Besides COD has the brand recog it hardly needs any more fans. As far as the latency I can't possibly comment because I have not played the game. I know the melee issue has always been one of concern for most gamers and the devs have mentioned several times problems they have had trying to balance melees and slide tackles.

That isn't necessarily a good thing...

"What's new isn't necessarily improved"

The underlying point that everyone seems to forget is that to topple the giant you need to use an unexpected, dare I say innovative, tactic; David didn't defeat Goliath by fighting him directly. Having a juggernaut in the industry forces innovation because you simply cannot do the same thing and expect to win (sadly too many still try). Heck, CoD didn't evolve until Modern Warfare and what an innovative step that was. For the same reason you hate CoD now you loved it back when MW was first released. Sadly at this point Activision is riding the if it ain't broke, don't fix it motto to the bank every year and Kotick is not an appropriate subject for a monitored forum.

Again, I dislike CoD's yearly installments but MW was a heck of a game. I don't play Halo any more either but I purchased an Xbox just to play it. If Brink turns into a successful franchise you might be thinking the exact same thing about it by the third or fourth sequel as you do about CoD currently. Don't forget that complacency breeds mediocrity and having an established franchise makes it really hard to risk losing your fans over some innovative changes.

No, I hated t back then too. COD died for me, the moment I heard it went modern.


If Brink was essentially the same thing 3 or 4 times in a row, it would still be 3 or 4 games that are better than anything COD could hope to achieve.

Something you are not factoring in is community. Die-hard fans of games like COD and die-hard fans of games like Brink, are 2 completely different audiences, looking for completely different things in their games.
Also, who said anything about "toppling giants?" Brink can't really compete with COD because although it's an FPS, it's a completely different game.

Great. One-hit melee kills are a cancer upon the multiplayer FPS genre.

Which is a perfectly fine opinion but then by your own logic you must have enjoyed World at War and that included features from Modern Warfare. If you didn't enjoy WaW then your statement is proven false.



Entirely unfounded speculation but well within your right to make. If you used actual facts to make this claim it would be hard to beat CoD's awards and sales figures for being 'better'.



Both audiences are fans of first-person shooters and both can appreciate similar qualities in their games. For me, I am a hardcoe mech gamer but the non-Japanese market is quite limited in this regard so I have made changes to my gaming palette. Also, by your own admission only the die-hard fans will be as rigid as yourself and this accounts for an insignificant (<1%), yet extremely vocal, portion of the total audience. I can see your opinions are 100% biased at this point so I'm sorry for making neutral claims that appear as though I am defending CoD. I am looking forward to Brink and only hope that it can deliver on the majority of its potential.
__________

Back on topic, I really hope that the knockdown melee attack that incapacitates in a single hit cannot be abused in Brink. It is good to know that backstabs are not a part of the game but I could see this easily replacing it.

I didn't enjoy WaW - Like I said, it died for me when it went Modern - WaW came along after it went modern.


Sales and awards =/= "good game." Same applies to movies and music - Just because it makes tons of money or wins awards, doesn't mean it;s any good.

Anyone who is familiar with Splash Damage or has played any of their games, can tell you that their skills at making games and just as a studio in general, they far surpass anything IW or Treyarch has done.


I admitted nothing, I only stated an example. "Die-hard fans as rigid as me?" I think not, since roughly 90% of the posters in the forum are against adding gamemodes like TDM, and CTF, or any sort of feature from COD, and many of them have never played a Splash Damage game before, or even heard of them before Brink.

The bottom line is, that COD is not this spectacular game you make it out to be. It is hated just as much as it is loved.

Its very sad to see that instead of having fun. Players rather exploit things and abuse stuff just to gain more points or stats or exp , video games are more of a competion then fun.

Treyarch also developed CoD3. Anyway, WaW wasn't modern but I guess based upon your arbitrary timeline you feel justified in disliking the series even though the same developer that made CoD3 made WaW. It's your opinion and you are entitled to it.



General consensus is the standard by which all things are judged. I understand that your personal opinion is more important to, well, you but that does not invalidate it's success.



You really like stating the same opinion over and over again. Again, it is your right but these statements have no factual basis. You might as well say that SD can beat up IW and Treyarch; it'is just as ludicrous.



This is exactly my point as it's not simply black and white but mostly gray. Most gamers want to play the best game that is currently available. They don't avoid games simply because the playing styles are different. Sure they may enjoy one playing style over another but that does not exclude them from playing something different. Only die-hard fans have such rigid guidelines and they account for only a tiny portion of the total sales of any game. "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." Most gamers want to play with their friends and if a game is played by everyone then they want to jump on that band wagon too. Also, do you honestly think that most of the posters on the game's forums are not biased towards Brink? If so you might as well go to a Republican convention and try to recruit Democrats. I am simply here because I am excited for the release of the game and wanted more information.



Where did I say that CoD was a spectacular game? Again, I am simply making neutral comments regarding the quality of CoD and recognizing their accomplishments. I have stated multiple times that I dislike the franchise but I have no factual basis to claim that the series is bad in any way. If I wanted to state my opinion blindly I easily could but that would prove nothing. The only reason I even mentioned CoD was due to the rampant 'knife lunging' issue which I compared to slide tackling and melee attacks that can incapacitate a downed enemy possibly being overpowered in games with latency.

I don't know where this "most gamers" came from, because most if not all of my friends, play games they like,. regardless if it is the "best currently available."


I know plenty of people who do this. Typically, if an FPS does not offer objective based gameplay, my friends and I won't play it. The only exception I make for playing CTF and such, is Quake 3 and UT.


Isn't it the die-hard fans that make a game prosperous? Like all the COD and Halo [censored], that buy anything and everything related to the game?


Again, doesn't apply to me or my friends. We like to play with each other, but jumping on band wagons? Not quite. We play games because we enjoy them, regardless who plays it. We would actually prefer playing only with each other, since most of the general gaming public on XBL, are idiots and make for bad teammates.


Why would they be? I'm sure they play other games and probably belong to other game forums as well. Besides, like you said -

"Most gamers want to play the best game that is currently available. They don't avoid games simply because the playing styles are different. Sure they may enjoy one playing style over another but that does not exclude them from playing something different."


If I can use my friends and I to counter most of your points, how many other people do you think can? I don't think I'm the only person.

I'd quote reply again but you are missing the entire point and staying off-topic. Anyway, focus on how slide tackling to knock down an opponent and then meleeing that opponent to incapacitate them could be overpowered.

EDIT: Even I am not so arrogant as to think that I can speak for my friends despite knowing many of them for 15+ years. I can only speak for myself so to claim that you have countered me by stating your personal opinion just demonstrates how badly you are missing the point.

I'd rather focus on what they are doing to make it not overpowered. For instance, sliding involves sprinting - sprinting too close to an enemy will give away your position on the map, so players will be able to detect nearby enemies.
Also, players can still be damaged while they are sliding, so unless you are sneaking up on someone or attacking a player who is away from his team, you're probably just going to get yourself killed. They are also vulnerable regardless, because they are lying on the ground, and if you chain slides together, they get shorter and shorter since you are losing momentum.


Maybe I just know my friends better than you know yours? At least their gaming preferences. Also, knowing them for 15+ years, doesn't really mean you know a lot about them. The people in my close circle friends, I have known all of them for 10+ years - I don't know any of their birthdays, yet I trust them all with my life.

There is an ability to prevent your footsteps from making any noise or having you appear on the map. Add in latency, the reason for the CoD comparison, and shooting a target may not actually register properly. Lastly, if a melee attack while a player is knocked down guarantees an incapacitation then when you factor in latency issues you again have a potential problem just like the 'knife lunge' issue from CoD. The only difference is that Brink involes one extra step, that being the initial slide tackle.



Eventually you will realize that your opinion does not include more than yourself.

Yes, and players have to purchase it and equip for it to work. Will all players have this? No.


Speculation. How about we talk about things we know are in the game.


More speculation.

Players had to equip Commando too but it was still a huge issue, thus the comparison. The compounding factor in Brink is that every player can slide tackle and melee incap, whereas in CoD not every player could 'knife lunge.'



Every multiplayer game has latency issues due to peer-to-peer connections. Even dedicated servers have connection rate problems that can cause latency among individual players. It is not speculation but fact. Sure, some games may have limited problems but latency is always a factor unless you are playing on a local server. I can't believe you would ever claim otherwise.



Yes but entirely founded speculation based upon the facts which is why it is a potential problem.

Regardless if every game has latency, it still doesn't mean that said latency will make slide tackles OP - that's where you are speculating.

I really don't see any need for concern, whatsoever.

1. Splash Damage has been testing, polishing and tweaking the game for months. Do you honestly believe something as profound as slide tackling knockdowns and melee "finishing moves," 2 of the games new features, magically slipped through their fingers? When devs post things like this,

"Slides do knockdown and nothing else (since they have the best range of the melees). Most other knockdowns do some damage."
"Shotguns don't do knockdown, though we toyed with the idea (bean bag rounds etc)."
"The grenade shooting ability actually only lets you shoot your own frag grenades. We experimented with other options, but they made the ability far too powerful. "
"We experimented with slide fatalities (we never called them that, I'm just saying it now because it sounds cool), but it made it too easy to finish somebody off, while making yourself a low profile target at the same time. "

you know things are being tested and changed.


2. Even if it did, it will be addressed with a patch.

Either you are trolling me or you simply do not understand how P2P works. Latency can never be fixed but merely corrected for and that is what causes the problem.

If you slide tackle me, and we are connected poorly then when I get knocked down you are actually already moving towards me to melee me. When I fire at you I can unload an entire magazine but in reality I have fired only a portion of those bullets so although you took some damage it is not nearly enough to incapacitate you. In this time you have closed the distance and melee incapacitated me while to me you seemingly walked through my field of fire. Same problem, different game and all because of varying internet connections throughout the world, something that SD has no means to fix. I can only hope that this issue is balanced in some other manner but being able to melee incapacitate a downed opponent has the potential to be quite game breaking.

EDIt: I appreciate the information you added in your edit but it states nothing regarding the melee incapacitation on a knocked down foe, merely how a slide tackle causes no damage which is not my concern.