Lag is a technical issue that should be resolved in the upcoming patches. Even so, technical issues should have no effect upon balance and gameplay issues. It would be like saying that the Engineer's weapon buff should be removed because of a graphics card issue. Yes, lag is annoying and yes, your gameplay will probably suffer in a game with excessive lag but that should have no effect upon how the game is balanced.

Ummm... No.

i mean the intermittent kind of lag it's impossible to remove short of building a better internet.

When you make that happen worldwide, then you can expect game devs to stop including code that accounts for the impossibility of 100% eliminating it.

Haha, so now every multiplayer game should be 'softer' on players since every game suffers from the same worldwide epidemic of a flawed internet? Sure, I get frustrated when I die to a player that shoots me before they come around the corner in other games but I leanred to adapt and get better. Sure, hosts have huge advantages in most cases as even those few miliseconds they get over every other player can provide extra time for them to react but they are not unkillable. I guess falling is too much for Brink to handle though.

For the record, I have had very few lag issues of late in Brink. Every now and again I find a game where a host tries to use standby (happened last night against bots no less), or when players join a game it stalls for a few seconds, etc., but that is minor in the overall scheme of things. You can't balance a game for the exceptions to the rules though; you balance it for what happens when everything works as intended. How do you balance a game for intemittent lag? Should the aim assist fire bullets for me when I am suffering from lag? Should my character be immune to damage temporarily when I am unable to react due to lag? Should my character be frozen in time inside of a bubble so that no harm can occur when random lag hits? You do realize how poor of a defense intermittent lag is when discussing the balance of a game, right?

Again with you missing my point COMPLETELY.

Not saying the game should be softer, saying the game shouldn't instant-kill you over things you can't control. If you lag at an inopportune time, and a PLAYER kills you, fine. If a BOT kills you when you're laggy, fine.

If you lag at the wrong time and the ENVIRONMENT kills you, though, THAT's where things are messed up. if the controls include something where you have to watch and time it precisely, failure shouldn't be an instant death, or the game is badly designed, because it's IMPOSSIBLE for current-gen technology to 100% eliminate lag.

Even if we had a worldwide fibre network, US players connecting to EU hosts (and vice versa) will still see lag measured in HUNDREDS of milliseconds - a tenth of a second alteration in your timing can break the system - and that's assuming everyone's internet is running LITERALLY at light-speed on the most direct routes available.

Does it make sense yet?

So you are arguing that since something can happen it should be factored as always happening?

The point is that at most a fall costs a player 60 health, and that is being quite generous. That is 50% of the Light's health and almost never happens in Brink. Even when I tested it and was trying to fall I would accidently clip a wall and my fall damage was negated entirely on a few attempts. Most falls in Brink incur zero damage in fact. My point is that a fall, short or long, should damage the player, even if it only causes minor damage. The reason is that this would stop health regeneration and reset its recharge timer. Does a fall need to kill a player every single time? No. Should a fall be capable of killing a player? Definitely. What's worse is that you can always be revived by another player so even the harshest penalty of falling is entirely negated. If you fall and lose all of your health in Brink you are not even dead yet. How's that for softer gameplay?

Are you even reading what I'm typing any more?

LAG IS ALWAYS PRESENT WHEN YOU'RE ONLINE (Do I need to emphasise this point more for you?)

So YES, they SHOULD treat something that IS always happening like it's always happening. BECAUSE IT IS!!!!!!

If you have a ping greater than 0 (here's a tip: if you're connection is to something other than the same PC/console you're playing on, YOU DO), then you have lag. THAT'S WHAT LAG IS. When people complaing about "lag" it's actually "lag spikes" where the lag isn't consistent. Which, if you're connecting to a decentralised worldwide network (another tip: PSN, XBox Live, Steam, and THE INTERNET all fit this description), it's IMPOSSIBLE to eliminate lag spikes. it's part of the nature of the technology. Either you deal with it and code in elements of your games that account for lag being a factor, or you create games that are unplayable in 90% of places in the world.

I'm going to sleep now, but if there's anything I haven't already answered, I'll be back. If you want to keep digging your hole deeper, I'm not helping any more.

The damage you take from falling is significant from the perspective of already being in battle. If you flee and take that mis step, or get blown off the wall, the resulting connection to the ground can be very bad news.

I don't agree that lights "dominate" Brink. There's a lot of heavy hate around here because people think heavies should be something they clearly are not, but what they are has a great deal of effect on the game's outcome if played properly. And lights suffer a great deal if they do their moves at a poorly chosen time. They become very vulnerable to attack while climbing for even the slightest bit of time.

At this point you are so gung-ho about proving that lag is a major issue you have ignored what I am suggesting. Let me repeat it for you...

Every player should take fall damage unless they slide just before impact. This damage need not been fatal every single time but it should be enough to prevent a player from jumping off ledges and taking absolutely zero damage unless they slide. What this would do is delay the health recharge timer and force a player that is trying to escape to do so skillfully, otherwise they risk leaving themselves even more vulnerable. Fall damage should be applied when falling more than a story and increase the farther you fall. If everyone is happy leaving fall damage at an insignificant level then leave it that way, but at the very least it should cause ~10 points of damage per story you fall.

Also, every gamer experiences lag in every multiplayer game they have every played online. Dial-up connections are a thing of the past at this point and just about every player manages a sub 50ms ping. Sure, you can infrequently experience a bad connection to a host that is streaming content or has a limited bandwidth but you make it sound like lag makes parkour in Brink impossible. If I was unable to wall hop or setup a line and found myself having to try the same route many times over through no fault of my own then I would agree with you. At this point I have not experienced any excessive lag like you keep mentioning. Perhaps your experiences are different than my own and if so I honestly cannot understand where you are coming from since the limited lag I experience is easily handled. Claiming that Brink is unplayable for 90% of the world seems a bit extreme to me though and even if this is the case again you are talking about a technical issue and not a balance one since Brink an also be played offline (with zero latency).

Have you ever died from a fall? To the best of my knowledge with four level 20 characters already I cannot recall a time where I died from a fall, not a single one.

The Light versus Heavy is a debate for another topic though.

I've taken fall damage from jumping off the stairs in aquarium. I think it works fine.

Yes, or at least it did enough damage that it ended my existance.

But in a game where part of the design concept was creating something accessible to all, why would you expect to die from a simple mis step on a regular basis anyways? It's an arcade style shooter where bullets don't kill immediately and you can throw grenades to magically revive your entire team if need be, what about that would suggest a realistic punishment for taking a route designed into the map?

Shadowrun was a great example of a game that penalized players for making mistakes and it was exceptionally balanced. Also, I'm not saying that every misstep needs to be fatal, only that you should take some damage when you fall. If you fall often enough or from high enough then it should be fatal. Again, every player can negate fall damage by simply sliding before impact. It is not like I am suggesting something that cannot be countered 100% of the time. If you take a dangeous parkour route and fail, you get penalized and either try again or take a safer route next time. Why is this such a foreign concept? Most of the parkour routes lack any significant fall below so it's not like this would matter in most cases anyway.

THis part is where you make your point appropriately. I'll be less friendly to the rest of your post, because it shows that you still have no idea what I'm talking about. I disagree, because the game is about making you feel like you're GOOD at this stuff. I can make a landing without a roll from higher than that and do no noticeable damage to myself. The height where you take damage in Brink is pretty reasonable in that context. But I can see where you're coming from and what you're suggesting now, so I'm not as annoyed about it. Until I read the next pit, of course... (I'll reply to that separately in a PM, though, to avoid derailing the thread further)

No you didn't. I just tested it and could not find a single spot in Aquarium that dealt my character any fall damage.

If anyone can find a single place in Aquarium where you take fall damage, let me know. I spent 10 minutes jumping off of every ledge that I could think of (including the vent jump) and didn't find a single one.

The only suggestion I would have for fall damage would be to knock the player down if they failed to Slide before impact.
This would be a bit more realistic than just losing some health when they hit the ground.

So here is my problem, I just ran through a few of the maps trying to take fall damage and you know what? I had a hard time finding anywhere that dealt me any. Even when I did take fall damage it was always the same amount which is entirely the problem. Even jumping from the top of the Security Tower causes zero damage unless you manage to jump into the drainage area, without hitting the angled wall towards the bottom of course. For the record, there were only three places on Secutiry Tower that caused any fall damage.

So why include fall damage if it is not incremental? Instead you either take fall damage for a fixed amount or you receive none at all. Shouldn't you take more or less damage depending upon the height of the fall? This is the only reason why fall damage in Brink is pointless since you apparently have to fall four stories or more in order to take any damage at all. Even making fall damage cause 10-15 damage per story would make more sense. The best part is that all fall damage is 100% avoidable by sliding. Sliding doesn't simply reduce the damage, it negates it entirely.

If anyone wants to compile a list of all the places that incur fall damage then let me know. It will be a very short list.

you know what would be better and even more dangerous than fall damage in that situation especially? character suspension/recuperation after a fall. so when they make a large fall/jump they add an animation showing that they are technically stunned and having to stand after a said jump! or a stumble, recovery animation only lasting a second though. they may be super human but they still have a human muscle suspension system to cushion the shock of a fall!

voted yes , but as a server option , so it can be lets say on custom or old skool .

there could be an anti damage routine , like rolling the body falling around animation and take none to little damage.

i doubt that could be implemented on near months cause it might take lots of programming. designing and adjusting.

so most likely it will stay the same or some damage might be adgusted with no extra animation.

If they increase fall damage, there should be a commando pro ability. For light classes only.

Seriously, just slide before impact and you take absolutely no damage every time. Also, what's a Light class and since when do they have abilities?