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[Danne-Danger]

So two questions for those interested in competitive play:

1. What needs to be done to make the Operative useful outside of hacking objectives?
2. What needs to be done to make Heavies actually useful? Is it just more health, or do the heavy weapons need a buff, or what?

For the operative, he needs some kind of buff. Spotting mines is a good ability but it's not enough on its own. Maybe give him the speed boost or something, though I don't think that'd be enough. Disguise is pretty much useless in comp, as are most of his perks. The other classes just add so much more to the team, he can't compete as it is.

As for the heavy, I think they should just buff his health A LOT (on PC), like double it up or something. Since no one is even using mediums buffing heavies seems to be the way to go, they can't have movement so give them health. Having the two extremes could make matches more interesting.

I'm also in the camp that wants more recoil on the SMGs (and less spread), or really on all the guns, more like the way CS handles it. Spray control > bullet hose, both for fun (for me!) and skill ceiling. That'd probably make ARs a bit more viable, which would make heavies better. I mean at the very least you'd probably want to have one walking with the hostage/bot.

 

[Concept17]

I've got the same card as you do, did you try the latest drivers + the latest hotfix posted here? Was posted on Guru3d.

Yup. I get great fps. But the stuttering comes in after a few minutes, and continues to get worse the longer I play.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Holy shit. Disabling hbao gave me 50 frames. Is that normal?

 

[Danne-Danger]

Holy shit. Disabling hbao gave me 50 frames. Is that normal?

Yep, Deano has said that it wasn't supposed to be in there at release, it's horribly unoptimized. Last patch made sure it wasn't on by default.

 

[PedroLumpy]

This was probably posted at some point, but for those of you who've had your characters deleted, there's an exploit where you can get a new level 1 character back up to level 20 in about three hours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjUGokJCKu4

Nice! Stupid grind is meaningless anyway....

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I swear, I'm going to murder somebody if I keep trying to finish Be Objective III...

 

[Teknoman]

I swear, I'm going to murder somebody if I keep trying to finish Be Objective III...

Light Body, pull a Sonic and speed through everything.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Light Body, pull a Sonic and speed through everything.

...

That actually worked.

I don't know why I didn't try that before; that's how I did Be Objective II; I just assumed I'd need the health.

But now I'm horribly stuck on the escort and tower defense 3-star challenges. They are the worst kind of unfair; it's like I'm made of paper and they're made of rock (and not in the rock-paper-scissors sort of way). Any super secret tips for those challenges?

 

[Papercuts]

...

That actually worked.

I don't know why I didn't try that before; that's how I did Be Objective II; I just assumed I'd need the health.

But now I'm horribly stuck on the escort and tower defense 3-star challenges. They are the worst kind of unfair; it's like I'm made of paper and they're made of rock (and not in the rock-paper-scissors sort of way). Any super secret tips for those challenges?

You really should just make a new character and do them from level 1, and delevel yourself before 5 so they can never use any "advanced" stuff. The third tower defense is nearly impossible once you're at that level, because if you die once they'll build turrets and shit, completely stopping you from coming back. I couldn't even do the escort with someone else online, let alone solo, until I went back to level 1. They were spawn camping me with turrets and throwing molotvs.

 

[TheFuryMGS3]

Holy Shit is this game a laggy piece of trash. Any news on a patch that brings the most important feature up ONLINE, from its seemingly 1998 netcode?

 

[Teknoman]

Holy Shit is this game a laggy piece of trash. Any news on a patch that brings the most important feature up ONLINE, from its seemingly 1998 netcode?

What version?

 

[zlatko]

What version?

Obviously console lol. PC players don't mention lag, because of dedicated servers.

Both PS3 and 360 versions suffer equally from lag.

 

[Grayman]

I had some good games tonight. Were netvars changed for resort? I almost saw a resistance win on that.

Hacking should probably be made non removable or left as is but sped up a whole bunch.

Obviously console lol. PC players don't mention lag, because of dedicated servers.

Both PS3 and 360 versions suffer equally from lag.

I have had some rubber banding on the PC version.

 

[samus4ever]

Obviously console lol. PC players don't mention lag, because of dedicated servers.

Both PS3 and 360 versions suffer equally from lag.

I wouldn't call it lag. More like a slideshow presentation of what Brink could of been.

 

[Dina]

After the initial launch I'm still a bit let down. Server filtering is awful and I get fps hovering around the 20-40, dipping under 30 when fights start. I've configured everything I know of and my E8400 + HD5850 still ain't enough. Witcher 2 runs better then this shit.

 

[Phife Dawg]

After the initial launch I'm still a bit let down. Server filtering is awful and I get fps hovering around the 20-40, dipping under 30 when fights start. I've configured everything I know of and my E8400 + HD5850 still ain't enough. Witcher 2 runs better then this shit.

Performance on ATI is definitely lackluster but that sounds a bit low. I use this:

seta r_useMotionBlur "0"
seta r_useHBAO "0"
seta r_softParticles "0"
seta r_useHighQualityPostProcess "0"
seta r_usePortals "0"
seta s_useOcclusion "0"
seta g_skipViewEffects "1"
seta r_skipParticles "1"
seta r_skipbump "1"
seta r_skippostprocess "1"
seta r_shadows "0"
seta r_useAntiAliasing "0"
seta r_useThreadedRenderer "2"
seta image_filter "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST"
seta g_decals "0"

It's not a rock-solid 60+ or anything like it should be but with the newest hotfix it is playable.

 

[Dina]

Performance on ATI is definitely lackluster but that sounds a bit low. I use this:

seta r_useMotionBlur "0"
seta r_useHBAO "0"
seta r_softParticles "0"
seta r_useHighQualityPostProcess "0"
seta r_usePortals "0"
seta s_useOcclusion "0"
seta g_skipViewEffects "1"
seta r_skipParticles "1"
seta r_skipbump "1"
seta r_skippostprocess "1"
seta r_shadows "0"
seta r_useAntiAliasing "0"
seta r_useThreadedRenderer "2"
seta image_filter "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST"
seta g_decals "0"

It's not a rock-solid 60+ or anything like it should be but with the newest hotfix it is playable.

That's the thing, the newest hotfix makes me crash to desktop without an error. Brink just suddenly stops working. And thanks for the cvars, I got most of them but not all. These I just added:

seta r_usePortals "0"
seta s_useOcclusion "0"
seta g_skipViewEffects "1"
seta r_skipbump "1"
seta r_skippostprocess "1"

 

[Phife Dawg]

That's the thing, the newest hotfix makes me crash to desktop without an error. Brink just suddenly stops working. And thanks for the cvars, I got most of them but not all. These I just added:

Yeah me too. There are two problems for me: Playing videos crashes me to desktop (so no starting a campaign) and if I quit any server it will crash to desktop once I fiddle around with the server browser or try to connect to another server. Then I have just the odd crash to desktop with no apparent reason. I still prefer them over any other driver, which made firefights pretty much unplayable.

I'm also disappointed in the state the game was released and still is after the first patch but it's really fun so I keep going back to it .

 

[Danne-Danger]

That's the thing, the newest hotfix makes me crash to desktop without an error. Brink just suddenly stops working. And thanks for the cvars, I got most of them but not all. These I just added:

seta r_usePortals "0"
seta s_useOcclusion "0"
seta g_skipViewEffects "1"
seta r_skipbump "1"
seta r_skippostprocess "1"

Those three will only work in menus and maybe in SP/challanges (where you can't get over 30 anyways), they'll change back as soon as you join MP and there they'll be locked in the console. I'm guessing vieweffects and postprocess could be seen as cheats if they have anything to do with the vision blur you get when shot/flashed (I don't know), but I don't see why skipbump shouldn't be allowed, I hope SD will review some of these cvars.

Though since they work in menus maybe they let the game load faster or something, I still have them in there. I also haven't seen any crashes with them so they might help to stabilize things.

 

[Dina]

Right. And you get C2D's too, Phife Dawg? Good to hear that I'm not the only one, let's hope there are a lot of others and SD is working to fix it.

 

[Phife Dawg]

Those three will only work in menus and maybe in SP/challanges (where you can't get over 30 anyways), they'll change back as soon as you join MP and there they'll be locked in the console. I'm guessing vieweffects and postprocess could be seen as cheats if they have anything to do with the vision blur you get when shot/flashed (I don't know), but I don't see why skipbump shouldn't be allowed, I hope SD will review some of these cvars.

Though since they work in menus maybe they let the game load faster or something, I still have them in there. I also haven't seen any crashes with them so they might help to stabilize things.

Thanks for the clarification. I have not looked into the possibilities as much as I should have I guess - I still have fond memories of fiddling around extensively with my Q3 autoexec .

Right. And you get C2D's too, Phife Dawg? Good to hear that I'm not the only one, let's hope there are a lot of others and SD is working to fix it.

We can only hope. But I trust SD on this one for post-launch support. Maybe a big patch and the free DLC they promised will give the game something like a re-launch.

 

[Danne-Danger]

Thanks for the clarification. I have not looked into the possibilities as much as I should have I guess - I still have fond memories of fiddling around extensively with my Q3 autoexec .

Yeah I did the same thing! It is misleading since it all works in the menus where you're likely to try it.

I want to make the game look like proper shit dammit! Though I have faith that Deano and the boys will twiddle some knobs and make it all right.

 

[Firebrand]

Obviously console lol. PC players don't mention lag, because of dedicated servers.

PC version could use some improvements to its network code as well. It's certainly very playable, but there's little stuff like violently shaking when trying to grab a disguise off someone, screen shakes when climbing around as a light, people looking like they're tripping every few steps when running etc. Just doesn't feel quite as solid as, say, TF2.

 

[Phife Dawg]

Yeah I did the same thing! It is misleading since it all works in the menus where you're likely to try it.

I want to make the game look like proper shit dammit! Though I have faith that Deano and the boys will twiddle some knobs and make it all right.

You were one of the lego quakers too? At first everyone was mocking me but soon they accepted the awesomeness that is pure condensed crap - for competitive play anyway.

 

[carbonbased]

Those three will only work in menus and maybe in SP/challanges (where you can't get over 30 anyways), they'll change back as soon as you join MP and there they'll be locked in the console. I'm guessing vieweffects and postprocess could be seen as cheats if they have anything to do with the vision blur you get when shot/flashed (I don't know), but I don't see why skipbump shouldn't be allowed, I hope SD will review some of these cvars.

the view effects setting in those config programs definitely works. makes it much easier to get your bearings under fire, although you have to pay more attention to your health bar as only the red directional splotches appear when taking damage.

 

[Danne-Danger]

You were one of the lego quakers too? At first everyone was mocking me but soon they accepted the awesomeness that is pure condensed crap - for competitive play anyway.

Oh yes, lego ET:QW as well! Lego everything online really. I actually kinda prefer a nice clean look, turn those fancy textures off, add some resolution/AF/AA and I'll say a game looks pretty good still! Sexy, almost. There's just something about clean naked geometry.

the view effects setting in those config programs definitely works. makes it much easier to get your bearings under fire, although you have to pay more attention to your health bar as only the red directional splotches appear when taking damage.

Not for me, not in MP. I have them all in my autoexec, type them into the console during a multiplayer match and the value will be 0.

Unless the programs make it work somehow?

 

[KiKaL]

Obviously console lol. PC players don't mention lag, because of dedicated servers.

Both PS3 and 360 versions suffer equally from lag.

I have the PC version and it's still unplayable for me due to latency : /.

 

[Mr. B Natural]

I have the PC version and it's still unplayable for me due to latency : /.

It's unplayable on pc for me too, but because it's a disjointed, not a well thought out game.

 

[Teknoman]

It's unplayable on pc for me too, but because it's a disjointed, not a well thought out game.

How is it disjointed?

 

[carbonbased]

Not for me, not in MP. I have them all in my autoexec, type them into the console during a multiplayer match and the value will be 0.

Unless the programs make it work somehow?

must be. i know for sure that i don't get any camera shake or blurry vision when hit in multiplayer.

 

[derFeef]

Patch coming next week.

Xbox 360

Completed modifications to improve network performance.
Fix an isolated freezing issue reported by some German players who should no longer experience that problem once the update has been installed.

PC

The cause of sound dropping out on certain maps when playing networked games for a prolonged amount of time has been identified. This will no longer occur.
Graphical performance has been improved, especially when using Ambient Occlusion. Closely worked with both AMD and NVIDIA, folks should see performance and stability improvements in future driver revisions from both parties.
The server browser is tweaked in this update, as well; among other things, a new filter allows you to display only servers with a certain number of players on them, and full servers will no longer be filtered out completely.
There are some smaller fixes for minor issues including your character’s voice occasionally resetting when deleting another character, and a memory leak when alt-tabbing out of the game.
The dedicated server is set to get an update at the same time as the main game, which will result in improved CPU performance. Certain cvars are protected that previously allowed server admins to accidentally break objectives involving NPCs.
The full changelog will be released alongside the update.

PS3

With PSN back online, multiplayer testing will resume. Changes in the upcoming Xbox 360 title update will be applied to the PS3 version quickly.

http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/20/brink-–-an-update-on-updates/

 

[Shoogoo]

Patch coming next week.


http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/20/brink-–-an-update-on-updates/

Wow thanks! If this doesn't fix it, I'll probably lend my copy to a friend, forever.

 

[Lince]

so basically they're admitting they shipped an unfinished game, hope those "completed modifications" include performance enhancements for console versions as well.

 

[mxgt]

Anyone get openGL crashes all the time?

Seems like a big issue on the SD forums, makes the game almost unplayable when it keeps crashing every 15 mins.

 

[samus4ever]

so basically they're admitting they shipped an unfinished game, hope those "completed modifications" include performance enhancements for console versions as well.

It was a full priced Beta release. Why did they move the game up a week when they knew it wasn't finished? They should of delayed Brink at least a month or maybe should of released a online demo a month ago to iron the issues out.

 

[Sanic]

The game had probably gone gold before they decided to move the release up a week, so I don't think that was the issue.

 

[Lince]

since singleplayer (PC) seems to be locked at 30 fps no matter what hardware you're running the game on I'm using this free utility to cap the framerate at 30 fps giving an ample margin for enabling advanced gfx options, add more AA/AF for "free"... no more overworking your GPU/CPU to run the game at 300 fps when you're getting 30 instead, just give it a try.

the utility is called FPS_Limiter, start it clicking on FPS_Limiter_GUI.jar (need to have Java installed) and for Brink you have to select "OpenGL", 31 FPS and the route to the Brink.exe file, the utility will create a .bat executable to launch the game at the desired framerate. This will even save you from wasted watts and your PC will gain a lot of idle cycles to spend on background apps like encoding media or whatever.

Link (hosting it myself, no ads or waiting queues):

www.telefonica.net/web2/dgu/FPS_Limiter_0.2.rar

 

[Ken]

Wow thanks! If this doesn't fix it, I'll probably lend my copy to a friend, forever.

Same. The game on 360 isn't worth all the effort needed joining and quitting games until I can find a decent host.

 

[Stripper13]

Same. The game on 360 isn't worth all the effort needed joining and quitting games until I can find a decent host.

Couldn't disagree more. Besides the fact that I'm having alot more luck finding perfectly playable games (some occasional stutter in some games) - the game is amazing when you get into one, so I find myself caring less and less as I rotate a few maps/lobbies.

Good news on the Patch - I kind of wish they had went into more detail on the fixes or future updates. I'm interested to know how they will handle the party system (if at all), and a patch note that says 'improved network performance' or something similar, means very little given how terrible the network performance was. That said, I hope it fixes everything and the upcoming DLC is good because the game has me hooked.

 

[AgentOtaku]

since singleplayer (PC) seems to be locked at 30 fps no matter what hardware you're running the game on I'm using this free utility to cap the framerate at 30 fps giving an ample margin for enabling advanced gfx options, add more AA/AF for "free"... no more overworking your GPU/CPU to run the game at 300 fps when you're getting 30 instead, just give it a try.

the utility is called FPS_Limiter, start it clicking on FPS_Limiter_GUI.jar (need to have Java installed) and for Brink you have to select "OpenGL", 31 FPS and the route to the Brink.exe file, the utility will create a .bat executable to launch the game at the desired framerate. This will even save you from wasted watts and your PC will gain a lot of idle cycles to spend on background apps like encoding media or whatever.

Link (hosting it myself, no ads or waiting queues):

www.telefonica.net/web2/dgu/FPS_Limiter_0.2.rar

Thanks for this. Was looking for it to try on Witcher 2

 

[FLEABttn]

Patch coming next week.


http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/20/brink-–-an-update-on-updates/

No mention of 8v8 with no bots as an option or some way to better find games with honest to god people in them. Trading in today was indeed a wise choice.

Listen, guys, if you're going to ship a title with a significant MP portion, ffs, make sure you have that locked down. Homefront didn't, Medal of Honor didn't, and both paid the price for it. Now Brink can be added to that list.

 

[carbonbased]

fuck zenimax so hard for rushing such a fun game to market. i had no doubts that Splash Damage was on top of these issues, but others without past ET experience can't be expected to be as patient.

 

[Sanic]

Now that things have calmed down a bit i'll talk about keeping the server up and running.

As I said when the game came out, i'm unable to financially support the server beyond the first month, and so to keep it going we'll need to rely on donations. My server host, gameservers.com, has a feature called clanpay in which I can simply give out a link, and someone can pay directly towards a specific server through paypal and gameservers.com

The server runs $20.75 a month, so it would only require a few people to donate a couple dollars each month. The group hasn't been very active the past few days, so I have no idea if this will fly or not, and if it doesn't than the server will shut down on June 8th and we can all reminisce on the good times we had

So with that said, if anyone is interested in donating, send me a PM and i'll give you the link. I'm not sure it's a great idea (or even allowed) to have it public. And I apologize if this post is inappropriate or otherwise not allowed.

 

[derFeef]

I am helping you out Pandora of course (and the EU server admin as well), lets get together on Steam sometime. I have not had much time the last week due to sickness and character loss, but will come back for sure.

 

[Broadbandito]

No mention of 8v8 with no bots as an option or some way to better find games with honest to god people in them. Trading in today was indeed a wise choice.

Listen, guys, if you're going to ship a title with a significant MP portion, ffs, make sure you have that locked down. Homefront didn't, Medal of Honor didn't, and both paid the price for it. Now Brink can be added to that list.

I think that Homefront was so much better thought out. the game had its problems the first 3 days but the game had parties/dedicated servers/ and pretty good gunplay. It was not the prettiest looking game but I felt that it was WORLDS better than Brink. The fact that I can't play a smooth game of brink on 360 is fucking sad. I am definitely trading this in on Monday when gstop has their extra 40% trade

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

Patch coming next week.


http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/05/20/brink-–-an-update-on-updates/

I'm excited. As a 360 player I've had more fun in the few lagless games I'm able to find than I've had with any other game on the system.

Defending a command point/choke point on a map solo with a hacked turret, caltrops, your smg and leaning is an unbeatable experience.

 

[TheFuryMGS3]

Couldn't disagree more. Besides the fact that I'm having alot more luck finding perfectly playable games (some occasional stutter in some games) - the game is amazing when you get into one, so I find myself caring less and less as I rotate a few maps/lobbies.

How can you get into games! I've been trying since launch and all I get are unplayable lag fests. If this patch does not fix it, I am out.

 

[InternHertz]

What the? My level 20 character, while I got the appearence I want, now has stuff locked.

"The G" and "The Unit" are not selectable even though I'm level max...and I know they were unlocked before, so they just...re-locked themselves.

 

[Stripper13]

How can you get into games! I've been trying since launch and all I get are unplayable lag fests. If this patch does not fix it, I am out.

Not sure. If it helps I tend to only play Standard Rules. If I enter a slideshow game or the game turns to shit over time I exit out and then rejoin standard rules but this time I choose a map (any map but the one I was just playing). This ensures I do not get placed in the same lobby.

Doing this I'm in a lag free game within 2-3 minutes and I hang with the new lobby as long as I can. If I need to customize or change abilities I get a player in the lobby to invite me to their fire team.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

So I finally managed to get the "King of the World" achievement (complete all 3-star challenges). I was able to get Be Objective done on my high-level character, but I couldn't finish Escort or Tower Defense without making a low-level character. Those challenges are infuriatingly difficult - and now I never have to do them again!

Spoiler

Until I get the PC version after my new desktop comes in!