I have seen several topics about wich side people are going to play, and I think this might be a mistake. I games like counter strike you don't pick swat every game, you click the auto assign button to make teams even unless you are trying to play on the same team with a friend. I am hoping people do the same for this game, and not just stack teams because they like that side.

That actually raises an interesting issue. Since the multiplayer and singleplayer are blended together presumably you won't be switching sides between missions - so what happens when one group is much better or much larger than the other?

I don't know.

Well this won't be a problem. There aren't any specific pros or cons to playing either side. If you like playing one side simply play campaign where you have to play one side. Besides if these bots are as good as they say I would rather have them for support than most people I end up playing FPS's with.

I heard Rahdo say the game has auto balance, so if there are 8 humans on one side and 2 on the other, the empty slots would simply be filled in with bots. Of course, there is probably an option to disable this feature. Also, I don't think players can join the team with more human players.

Well as I recall hearing the bots that trick actual human beings into thinking their fighting other human beings but instead their bots AI will fill in slots for open spots. Other than that though I recall hearing that people of a particular side can join in the fight at any moment. So if a match is started does not mean it is set in stone. Not to mention the fact your playing through a campaign in the multiplayer, it isn't some deathmatch. So lets say for sake of example your about 6 or 7 levels deep in the online campaign and suddenly you get forced from the resistance to the security. Do you know how angry people would get? Here they are trying to play the story from one perspective and suddenly they get thrown to the other. Just sounds like a bad choice to me. If it was any other game I'd go, okay maybe. However Brink is not your typical fps.

Why would you get forced to the other team? That doesn't even make sense. If you play the Campaign, there is no team swapping, so whatever team you start as, you will finish as. Freeplay is the mode that has team swapping.

If a match is already started when a player joins, there will be one of 2 options.

1. If it is Campaign, he will join whichever side of the Campaign he is playing.
2. If it's Freeplay, he will choose a team to join (assuming you can join any team, regardless how many players are on it)

Ah freeplay. I keep hearing about that around here on the forums but I never really saw anything on it. I guess I missed something.

Freeplay is standard FPS matches, like you are used to playing online - no story, pick your map, team swapping enabled, etc.

They can say the AI is great and all, but theres no way it would have the unpredictability of an actual human, or cordination with one another like humans. It may be a good AI, but no AI I have ever played is as fun as playing other people. I would hate to be stuck in games with 8 players on my side with 2 on the other with 6 bots, that does not sound fun what so ever. They also said that you can pick where you are at in the campaign, you dont have to follow it chapter by chapter. I just don't want to see more people worried about what side they are going to play on then having good balanced gameplay.

I love bot matches - A lot of times, more than playing against humans. It is another big reason why I am buying Brink.

Ok, i can understand if someone is trying to learn the game against bots or is lesser skilled then most people online or w/e, but what about the people who dont want to play against bots when they are online? If there is an option to turn that off for the server, then great. I must have missed that being said somewhere, but that goes back to the main issue. If that option is off and people want to just play there side no matter if the game is balanced or not, then thats an issue. My only point is that i just dont think people should get all devoted to one side or the other to the point it ruins game balance.

In one of the videos on the site, and i quote! "The security is seeing the resistance as terrorists and the resistance is seeing the security as oppressors"
"It gives everyone a good reason to fight"
"we didnt want to make it evil terrorists against good cops because thats boring. We didnt want to make it Heroic freedom fighters against evil oppressors because thats also, boring."
"No one goes, Yep! im evil, i oppress, thats pretty much all i do"

They have made it VERY obvious that theres no benefits to fighting for one side, and that there should, more or less, be an even number of people on each side. You have the badass, shirtless "i dont give a damn" resistance and the sleek, cool and awesome security. Not the awesome super mega ultra badass cops against the lame pink flower unicorns.

A big reason people choose one side over the other has nothing to do with morals and beliefs, but simply because they like the outfits more, which is pretty pointless, since every character has an outfit for each faction. It's not like if you only play one side, you get double the customization options for that faction.

I remember reading that you can't disable the bots, unless you are in private matches. So you likely won't be able to gain xp for your character in those matches either.

As for switching sides mid campaign, that would just be terrible, unless there was a point where the security was doing "bad things" and the player was given the option to defect.... or same for the resistance. I doubt they will do something like that though in the actual campaign mode.... that would be something more likely to happen in freeplay.

Obviously playing with bots is not going to be the SAME experience as playing with human teammates, but it does have its advantages. A bot is predictable.... they will consistently make similar decisions, and as such, they will be much easier to play with as teammates... but, that will also make them easier to play against. At the same time though, human players are perfectly capable of being terrible players and completely unaware of what is happening around them. Not to mention, there are many a time where I get online to play, and I am stuck with a team that has no mic's at all. So that would be very similar to playing with a bot. At least in BRINK, the mic-less players will have objectives to complete, which will hopefully do a decent job of keeping them close to their teammates and not running off trying to play lone-wolf super-spy.

To be more accurate, poorly scripted bots are predictable. The AI in Brink, on more than one occasion, has done things that even surprised Wedgwood, and I have read in multiple articles, that players had no idea their teammates were bots until they were told so - that's how well they were blending in.


You're point? A lot of people seem to forget, that voice chat is an OPTIONAL feature. It is not needed to play and/or win games. Those players who you are "stuck" with who don't use mics (like me) can be some of the best players you will meet online. Also, with Brinks auto-pvssyr function, and the fact that global voice chat is off by default, the emphasis on mic's in this game is even less than normal.

the only real difference I can see between having bots as teammates and having humans as teammates is that the bots will always be objectively focused where as humans are prone to looking out for numbero uno the majority of the time. Now the only question is will the bots stick to the main objective or will they break off on occasion and do class specific objectives?

I will play through both campaigns to see what happens to both sides. Then I will have characters on both sides. Which side I play prolly will depend on which side my friends are on, not because I favor one over the other.

Then the empty slots will be filled with bots that even the teams in number and are skilled enough to hold their own against human players.

I wonder at that....

I've never seen realistic AI to date.

I've seen inept AI... this is most common. some are better then others, but when you get used to how they work, you never die

and "terminator" AI.... it sees you through walls, hunts you mercilessly, and doesn't miss, will head shot you across the map with a pistol.

On PC, this was dealt with by shuffling teams.

What do you mean?

I think Console must as well...

if you are playing campaign, and you're side loses, then... you need to do that mish over right? but the other team would continue on....

so what happens?

I'm a bit confused how that is gonna work out

Team shuffling was a admin command on servers. Usually, either when the teams have had the same players for awhile, or teams were uneven in either actual numbers or skill, the admins would be able to shuffle the teams, which just placed everyone randomly and evened the teams out. A lot of times they would call a vote before hand, to see if it was really wanted/needed. It's a mechanic I always thought was cool and should have made it's way to console by now.

Oh, that... no, they never made that on console.

Some games have allowed for team swapping (BF2:MC for example) while others you can hack a team swap (BFBC2, at least, you can "join session" using the Xbox menu of a player on the other team)

Some games also had a vote to kick system (BF2:MC again) though that often got abused by clans who would use it to take over servers as their own.

What you describe wouldn't work for Brink MP in campaign mode though.... I thought you were referring to a system that shuffles players across multiple servers, keeping them on the same team, and placing them into a game according to their mission progress, availability, and skill

Oh, on console there IS autobalancing though. Halo, and CoD ustilize it. Between matches it splits the players up based on recent points/kills per match. It keeps friends together, so if the 3 best players are in 1 locked "squad" then the next 5 best will be on the other team

It would be disabled for Campaign mode, just like how separate time limits for each object are disabled in Stopwatch mode.