We've seen the beauty of character customization, and speculated about it greatly. But I feel that weapon customization hasn't been given its deserved notice.

There are (so far as we've seen) eight attributes to each gun, which are listed in the polls, and each attachment or modification to that gun changes those statistics.

http://www.brinkaddict.com/images/brink9weapons.jpg

Want a high ammo capacity? Sure. Just put a tommy gun magazine on. Oh, just one thing though, those are a bit hard to handle, so it'll take a while to reload.
Looking for something you can rip off its holster at a moment's notice? Go right ahead. Just take off all those pesky grips that would've made it more stable.
Need a hard-hitting rifle that's as close to OHK as you can get it? That's fine. But how many of those high-caliber shells can you really carry around?
Or maybe you want to hit something a mile away, every single time. Well, that barrel will take some of your stopping power away, but I'm sure it's worth it.

All of these are valid enough possibilities of the sacrifices we'll all be making. The same way real-world weapon designers need to make compromises.

So vote, tell us what is most important to you, what you couldn't care less about, and why you've made those choices.

Interesting question, I like it

I answered the poll a bit differently than I would for other games I play. In a game with 1-shot headshots, I would prefer Accuracy over anything else, but for Brink I think I will go for damage to make every headshot count. The least important to me is rate of fire, because I've never been a fan of firing more than a few shots at a time, and when bursting, high RoF tends to make recoil much more noticeable.

In response to the last option for both questions, I would actually go for the opposite. I am not personally interested in balenced weapons. If I'm going for power, i want the gun that can do the most damage in the shortest time, even if it kicks like a mule. If I'm going for accuracy, thats going to be the main consideration and the rest can take a back seat if that's what it takes. So I would prefer to improve a guns strengths first, to be the best at what it does already.

seems like i'm the only one who took stability ^^
don't like a gun that keeps shooting higher than i want

As long as the recoil is predictable, I don't mind having to manually correct it, it eventually becomes second nature. Random recoil is the worst though, always seems to dance around the target.

In Crossfire, the AK shoots 4 shots straight up, then moves side to side, and spraying headshots is pretty easy, even with the huge muzzle kick. Free game, but its a good example of where predictable recoil is a big help.

Obviously, it'll depend on the weapon in question and how I plan on using it. I mean, equip speed doesn't matter on your main weapon, but on a secondary? Yeah, it's important. Things like accuracy are important (obviously), but at a certain point, there's diminishing returns. The only thing more annoying that missing an opponent because of horrid accuracy is hitting one and not doing enough damage to bring it down.

I gotta say i would upgrade accuracy. Damage doesn't matter to me if I know I can rely on my gun to constantly score headshots.

I would sacrifice equip speed unless it was a pistol, which you need to pull fast if your main is out of bullets and your in a pinch. In the case of a pistol I would sacrifice range, for although I love pistols for the beauty of being able to fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, in a game like BRINK I would want to just rely upon it in close situations in which the pistol is your last resort.

I figured I'd throw my own two cents in. I know it depends a lot on what weapon you're using, and its base stats, but I was just saying in general, on your main class/bodyweight build, what would you be looking for in a gun?

So, my vote went to reload speed for what would always need improvement, and I said I'd be willing to sacrifice equip speed for it. There's nothing more annoying than getting struck down while in the process of trying to get more rounds into your weapon, and if you can get that reload time fast enough, it'd have a similar effect to extending your magazine. As for equip speed, I've never really seen a gun that takes a long time to take out, so any changes would be microscopic, and not worth whatever sacrifices were made.

Another thing to consider is that just because an item (say an underslung grenade launcher, for example) doesn't show that it gives any minuses, doesn't mean you're not making sacrifices. There could be a front grip, or a laser sight in that location, so a trade off has been made, just between two different advantages.

Just another way of thinking about it.

I can't really choose, since I plan on playing around with different builds all the time. Therefore, I voted based on what I plan to use with my Soldier, first thing. Super fast fire rate, since I can restock my own ammo. I thought about choosing ammo capacity as my least needed thing, but in the end I went with equip speed instead, since I won't likely be switching in the middle of a firefight too often, hopefully.

When you have lots of fire rate and power and a huge ammo clip, you don't need any accuracy.

Stability up, Equip speed down.

When i can empty an entire clip with a spread of 3 inches, why would i need to switch weapons?

The weapon's weakest stat and sacrifice equip speed.

accuracy. always want more of it. damage. dont really care as long as it doesnt svck. i use rifles and smgs mostly so i could always use more accuracy. rifles are kinda duh on that. smgs because if you can empty a round into some guy's head with out missing AND doing it quickly, thats good. i dont really care about daage. im a patient guy. just get outta there when my health is low, get a medic and comeback

I hope this game gives people a good reason not to buff damage over everything else. It's just stupid, that in most games the damage-buff is always the most useful.

From one of the interviews, it seemed like each type of upgrade will be a bit of a balancing act, with each type only being able to affect certain gun stats. With clips for example, there's a spectrum of reload speed vs clip size, with the larger ones affecting equip speed. I imagine most of the other upgrades are similar, having to choose if you want to go in one direction or the other. "Damage, damage, damage" is an easy choice to make, but "Damage at the cost of recoil and accuracy" not so much.

I dont see weak guns being a problem, with proper balancing it shouldnt be that difficult to kill a guy even with the weaker guns, and with engineers buffing and soldiers handing out enhanced ammo, i dont see it being a problem. i like quick reloading and swapping fast because it means im always ready for someone to come and challenge me. But also i want to be able to hit whatever/whoever i am shooting at so then their comes stability and accuracy, so im pretty torn at the first question, i guess i will go with accuracy.

Cut your quote off a little there, but I only needed the first sentence. Anyway,

The Devs have said a couple times that they're trying not to make any "weak" guns. Or weak abilities for that matter, but that's a different discussion. The idea is that one gun isn't stronger or weaker than anyone else's, it's just different. Now, that claim takes a LOT of balancing to deliver on, so a couple months or even weeks of the game's release, someone might make what is unquestionably the greatest gun out there, and we'd all be stuck either using it or losing. That comes from playin games like Guild Wars where if you don't make your warrior in one of the five builds everyone else does, you're toast. But I digress. Hopefully no super weapon will emerge, and everyone will have equal-but-specialized guns to fit their playing style.

"This is my rifle. There are none like it, because this one is mine."

I have played games with gun customization that didn't have 6 months of balancing, and there was never just one gun that was "best". FPS relies far more on player skill to decide the outcome than most MMORPGs do. RPGs tend to be more akin to rock-paper-scissors with judgment and micro skills tipping the balance. In an FPS, a skilled player can win a game with nothing but pistol headshots if the difference in personal ability is great enough.

Peoples play styles are far too different for any one gun to work for everyone. In past games, I often find that whatever gun is the easiest to use effectively is the most common weapon, but that its an entirely different weapon from the guns that are the best when used effectively. I, personally, like to use uncommon guns in most games, for the sake of variety.

Would pick perks that increase accuracy .

Would sacrifice rate of fire . I see a lot of ppl voted for equipment speed , but imho that isn't a the best option . Think about it : you're running towards the action and all of a sudden you meet the enemy , you'd rather want to switch fast from your pistol to your main gun !

I prefer specialized weapons to general ones but it's always good to have something flexible as your 'standard' when running around. I prefer something that has nice stopping power but doesn't have to be terribly accurate - I don't want to be spraying bullets all over the place but it doesn't need to be a precision tool. In a tight map I'll probably spend most of my time running around with a shotgun or similar scatter weapon - if the map is more open I'll probably look for a machine gun that emphasizes damage. Either way I don't want a weapon with a slow rate of fire, at least not for my general firearm.

Stability or accuracy was the most difficult to choose between when it came to increasing stats. Went for accuracy. Range doesn't matter because I will play medium to short combat most of the time.

I agree, anyway i dont think very many people will be able to pull of ranged gameplay in Brink, truely using a (traditional) ranged combat strategy in Brink is like trying to knife in ghost recon sniper, possible but unlikely

You would be suprised what great accuracy + low game recoil can do over range

imo if you can pull off ranged combat you would be untouchable people would be so used to being close to their enemies they wouldn't know what to do,


P.S. just dont be a traditional quickscoping sniper, then you would svck.

i picked accuracy because i want to get a mini gun so id like some accuracy on that. Lol

:| i think i've decided i don't like you.... rofl