I want to like Brink. I really do. The guys at Splash Damage clearly spent a lot of time thinking about balance and design.

They might have made a game that was supremely balanced, at one point--on paper. Then they started making the game, and one compromise at a time, one extra idea added (or scratched) at a time, they undermined it so fundamentally that a few moments of gameplay are all it takes to see how painfully bad it got.

Let me make this as simple as possible. Maybe that will engender even MORE argument, since my point is (at heart) a superlative, but here goes:

The worst part of objective-based online multiplayer games is starting at A, running to B (or worse, past B all the way to C) only to die almost instantly.

Brink, through a combination of design choices, does it's best (inexplicably) to HIGHLIGHT that element and force it in every mission.

Which elements? Sorry, no easy explanation here. It's a combination of weapon damage / player health / regeneration / weapon fire spread / accuracy zoomed / accuracy no-scope, and a dozen other factors. The linear, all-chokepoint levels certainly don't help.

You can't temporarily "hold" or occupy territory in this game the way you can in, say, Bad Company 2 (which has, purely by coincidence, roughly similar weapon accuracies / damage, but level design, squad-spawn and healing mechanics that allow this "occupation"), leaving you to reach your objective and fail as a result of pure inevitability due to the defenders' advantages in spawn distance (and that ALONE is all they need with teams otherwise at parity).

Don't believe me? Be honest: how many online games make it past the first objective? Almost none - the defenders sit and slaughter the attackers. If attackers ever advance, it is because they are overwhelmingly better than the defenders. Parity teams (even a moderate attacker advantage) of real human players will always result in incredibly boring rounds.

In Bad Company 2, a "close" round was an attacker failure on the last set of objectives. In Black Ops, a close game involves a few objectives destroyed. In BRINK, "a few objectives completed" (despite the technical loss) is actually a HUGE win for the attackers.

I'd say, all in all, "Be More Objective" is a perfect storm of everything about the game that's laughably bad: useless AI but mission objectives that NEED more than one coherent attacker. And, to wit, mission objectives that require you to run, run, die, repeat, until you quit and play a better game.

I came here to post this, one single message. If anyone at Splash Damage reads this, please consider these things for your next game, because I know you're moving enough units of this title to develop again. Design your game to MINIMIZE the run-run-run-die-repeat grind of online FPS, not encourage it.

i agree with most of your points, but i think you're blaming a bit too much on bad teamwork / players just running in and killing as opposed to doing objectives. the flipside, however, is that i do empathize a bit as those players are likely frustrated at getting slaughtered on offense, so they just do their own thing instead.

every now and then, i'll play a smooth and ideal game where there is a tug of war style effect, pushing, defending, etc, and attacking is challenging but fun. however, i would say 19/20 games I play are as you described, partially because of an unorganized team, but that in itself, like i said is definitely because of failing fundamental mechanic.

It feels like ti resembles Star Wars Battlefront in more ways than one. But the one thing it had that Brink didn't was the ability to spawn at CURRENTLY CONTROLLED COMMAND POSTS. I understand the added bonus of acquiring them, but with a spawning incentive as well, you would really make it a mission to take and hold them while attack, or even while on defense. I can see why it wouldn't work as well, SWB used them as a spawning requirement. Always something to think about however.

I think people should stop labelling opinion and personal preference as physically researched fact. Most of the things I read in your post are things I haven't experienced mainly by properly communicating with my team. Even when playing with AI (I always play the campaigns offline first to get some skill points, before throwing myself into the online battlefield that is Brink multiplayer) I hardly notice any of this.

In matches where either or both teams simply go to the objective as individuals and play alone on a team then I would say yes, the OP is correct about one team getting to the objective and just shooting oncoming enemies resulting in a huge advantage for the defenders. But when the element of good teamwork and communication are added in on both sides, the game is very competitive. One thing that's happening so far is that there is very little teamwork or communication. It's a new game and that's to be expected. One thing I've learned with games like this that are highly dependent on the teamwork aspect is, it gets better with time!

This will not be the same game in 6 months as it is now...I guarantee that! Once the players who can't grasp the concept of teamwork leave and others learn to work well together and great clans are formed and everyone more understands how to work each character type to it's maximum benefit for the team, this game's full potential will be realized and will finally be what it was meant to be. So far I have just seen most people playing this game the same way every other cookie cutter FPS is played and it's just not designed to be played that way. Once more people realize this and get out of the lone soldier play style it's really gonna pick up.

Just wait it out and watch Brink evolve. It's really not the game that has so many flaws, it's the players at this point in time....but that will change!