Most of us want this game to be really really well balanced. That being said we don't know most of the abilities that this game has to offer. I want to discuss any abilities that you think would be overpowered.

Please remember that abilities come in 5 flavors: Engineer, Medic, Operative, Soldier, and General (anyone can use it).

Now the two that come to my mind are the operatives backstab and the medic's self revive and possibly the Lazarus grenade;

Backstab: Please note this has not been confirmed as a OHK, however if it is I can see a group of people who would think it is overpowered. I for one want it to be OHK.

Self Revive: I understand the Medic's need to keep healing the troops but this is pretty powerful. I think it will have a long cooldown.

Laz grenade: Similar problem as above, best way to balance is decent blast radius and long cooldown. It would be bogus to cut down the entire enemy team and then one grenade undoes all your work.

Feel free to add more and not I am not sure if these are even overpowered since we don't have the game. Also please don't flame each other and I am sure (hopefully) that we can have a civil discussion about an interesting topic.

I figure the main thing that would keep the Laz grenade from being over powered would be the fact that in an 8v8 game, no more than two or three downed players would be in one area at a time. If backstab is in, it would make the most sense for it too be OHK. Otherwise, it would make more sense to shoot the guy in the back of the head.

basically the best outcome is that for what ever there is a ability or gun of sometype there is something to counter that

thats the best method where instead of everything being on a even feild which is boring there is something that can counter something else so if you are in the battle and someone is tearing you up with this ability you should be able to get an ability that can counter it

out of the 3 mentioned i think that the self revive would be the most overpowered. backstabs could be annoying but it would actually put that player at a disadvantage becasue they can only have 2 other abilities. backstabs are only good for a few extra kills. in an objective based game, that means nothing. laz grenades will be balanced. it will either be a very small blast radius, long cooldown or even both. also i dont think it will revive them to full health anyway

If backstab functions the same as it did in ET and QW, I can vouche that it will be a OHK and it will not be overpowered. It's not like it could function much differently - it's a backstab...it's pretty self explanitory.

Self Res doesn't sound all that bad.

1. it's a Medic only skill, not general.
2. it's a "skill" - Medic's don't have it by default, so not all Medic's will have it.
3. A fair cooldown is all that is needed to balance this skill out.

The Laz Grenade is the only thing that could potentially be overpowered, but even still, the correct cooldown time is all that's really needed to balance it out. Maybe make it a 1 time per spawn use skill.

on the Laz grenade, you can shoot a grenade into the middle of a group of downed enemies to kill them, and if they do use the grenade you have a second to kill the downed enemy before the grenade detonates. Also I don't think the grenade would be too much of a problem as if the area is a killing ground, enemies which here downed first would almost certainly die in the cross fire. Also does the grenade rez to full health? if it does them it may be OP but otherwise it would need some really good shot into a place crowded with down but not dead enemies for it to be a real headache, im thinking its mostly gonna be used to revive 2-3 people or people in places which are hard to reach (a heavy medic who couldn't otherwise reach the light dying on the roof). Well we'll have to see when the game comes out...

The devs did say the self revive has a pretty long cool down to discourage solo combat medics and encourage more team play

And back stab just takes caution and a bit of luck. If some one is suspiciously following you keep an eye out. Operatives should have an ability to mark other operatives (operatives can see disguised operatives right?) so they are revealed to the whole team for a short duration.

What ever happens we won't know what is actually OP until the game is released, or a beta comes out

I hope not... at least not to a buffed player.


Does the grenade revive fallen teammates or does it only heal ones that are on their feet?


You won't say that when you are a split second from hacking a terminal, then I OHK you with a backstab.
Side note... Op on Op violence gets my full approval.:goodjob:

Back stab seems to be considered the most over powered ability. But I think that is only because people here are putting so much emphasis on it. I seriously doubt that it is gonna be so handy as everyone says it is. I can see the situation where Im busy doing an objective and an operative comes up and stabs me in the back. Now what I am hoping for is that the devs also see this situation coming up often and doing something to counter it because if this is to be an objective based game like they want it to be than they need to provide a way for people to actually wanna do objectives without having to worry about being 90% done hacking a terminal just to get stabbed in the back and all that work go down the drain. If that happens then it is gonna turn into a kill-fest game, and no one want that. I know what you're thinking, "Well thats where team work comes into play." I would agree with you and hopefully they make the guarding a teammate (medic objective?) a priority objective that gains lots of xp. People won't wanna just stand there if they get no benefit from it. There are just way to many lone wolf gamers out there thinking they can take out the entire enemy team single handedly

i would, it helps the team and i might get to kill a guy.
if i have the ability i would even meatshield the guy just in case

Ok guys - SD's previous games, QW and ET, follow the same team based, objective gameplay formula as Brink and BOTH had backstab. It was not overpowered at all, and it was a OHK skill. Look at TF2. The spy has a backstab, it is also not overpowered. I don't understand why so many people are up in arms about backstab being OP'd. Maybe it's the whole mentality of today's FPS games putting such a high emphasis on kills and K/D ratio.

As long as I don't see half of all Brink players going Light Operative and trying to backstab everyone all the time, then I'm fine with it being a OHK. If someone can get that close to you from behind, then most likely you're dead meat anyway.

Its a revive grenade. Not a heal grenade.

Remember how they talked about how players have "pips" that they can use for their abilities? I think the self-revive should take all of them, so if the medic revives himself, he has to suffer by not being able to revive others for a good period of time.

I wasn't saying it was gonna be over powered, I was in fact going along the same lines as your post in saying too many people think it will be over powered. I see it as a situational ability, nothing more

So my question the back stab is a skill you can buy right? Not just any operative has it?

I would say the same about the laz grenade.

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this universal skill Sense Of Perspective - Sense Of Perspective snaps your view to 3rd person perspective while you complete objectives, allowing you to watch your own back. which kinda does balance the back stab skill a bit IMO. :goodjob:

I was under the impression that, when disguised, an Operative can not fire his weapon or he loses the disguise. It would make sense that the same theory could apply to Backstabbing. If you do, in truth, lose your disguise after a Backstab, then yes, a Backstab will take down one player, but since Brink is a team-based objective game, the odds are that the victim's seven friends aren't far away. I see it as kind of a high-risk, high-return sort of skill, in which a OHK would be acceptable, since you likely won't get away with it too often. I can see Backstabbing playing a key tactical role in some battles, but I doubt it will get out of hand.

On a side note, I do hope that all the Rambo/Lone Wolf players who stray from the group get mercilessly ganked from behind by Operatives until they learn their lesson.

Don't know about back stab being just a one shot skill as a disguised operative. I kinda liked the idea i read some where that said that for the ability back stab if the operative used it while disguised but not in anyone else's view they keep the disguise but lose it if they where in someone's view.

Thank's Wraith...
In that case, I wouldn't say it will be overpowered. It can't have too large of an area of effect if its a grenade (hopefully). It will probably just be for reviving people you yourself cannot reach safely. If three team members just happen to be downed right on top of one another, then that is just one lucky medic. That would be one hell of an xp overdose.

Getting stabbed in the back by an operative (or any person, plant, mineral, thing) svcks alot but it hurts psychologically a lot more than tactically. You second guess teammates walking behind you, following you, you take a few extra seconds before hacking the objective to check that you're either alone, or that none of your team is showing the slightest interest in how stabbable you are right now.

I doubt very much that a backstab ability that is OHK would imbalance anything tactically. You've killed a guy great, now meet his seven friends and their lead shooting mistresses. It may stop you from capping that objective or hacking that crucial terminal but i mean would you prefer he simply shot you in the head? I doubt he'd miss at the range of standing right next to you. TBH Its hard sneaking up behind people, stealing identities, getting in postition for the perfect stab, way harder than simply shooting a guy in a gunfight. I mean really why go to all that trouble when you can just fire a thumper from across the street and blow the hacker guy up and two of his close freinds.

My problem is not with backstab but with the sticky mines.

- Operatives get several unique death-dealing weapons, such as sticky bombs, which only Operatives can see. If they attach one to an enemy player, after 5 seconds, if they can’t find a teammate to remove it, it detonates and kills them.

So wait can operatives only see them even when they are attatched to people? So will you know you've been booby trapped? Will you have friendly operatives chasing you around trying to defuse a bomb on yourself you cant see and have no clue is about to explode you? I mean stuff worrying about having some guy knife you from behind, what if he mingles in amongst you all and then starts flinging sticky mines on peoples backs? Yeah he'll decloak and probably die, doesnt change the fact half the team is now a walking bomb. Thats god damned crazy.

'Whew glad we got that operative before he stabbed anyone, whats thats beeping noise?'

If you play with voice chat people, you'd know if anyone died/where they are going.
Good team communication could entirely compromise operatives.

Chat can be turned off since most people don't use chat like responsible advlts. Good communication will hinder but not be able to shut down operatives.

"Operative could play dead or disguise themselves as the enemy"

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/levelup/a266256/gamescom-hands-on-brink.html

Playing dead is in. Not necessarily OP, because it turns the game into a temporary 7v8, the only way I can see it being OP is if you get third person from Sense of Perspective.

It will probably be nice if the place is swarming with players though. Also, I think a lot of people will put in ninja montages with this "play dead" are very similar to ninja defuses in CoD4, probably with backstabs as well.

Playing dead just means that you really need to be good with timing. If anyone sees you get up, you'll be very dead, very quickly.