By the Power of Netvars – Brink Gets Balance Tweaks

In addition to our on-going game updates for Brink, we’ve also been working on an initial bundle of balance tweaks based on the feedback we’ve had now that the game is out in the wild.

These tweaks are coming to all three versions of Brink and are being rolled out via our netvars. If netvars sound entirely foreign for you, they’re part of a system we developed for Brink to allow us to tweak various aspects of the game without requiring you to download a full game update.

Let’s have a look at what we’ve got in store, shall we?

Objectives

Hackboxes are getting a significant tweak across the board to help out attacking teams. We have drastically increased the time it takes Engineers to “de-hack”, making it easier for the attackers to actually get the hack done.

In addition to the Hackbox change, we’ve got several other objective tweaks coming, as well. For starters, we’re doubling the XP received for completing Primary Objectives in the game, so if you tackle one of them, your reward will be much greater from now on.

In addition, we’ve made the following map-specific adjustments:

• Aquarium: Elevator generator construction time decreased
• Container City: Robot health increased
• Reactor: Terminal hack time slightly increased to balance new hacking mechanic
• Resort: Gate hack time slightly increased to balance new hacking mechanic
• Security Tower: Passcode return time increased
• Security Tower: Passcode transmit time decreased

Abilities

Somewhat unsurprisingly, we’ve also been unable to keep our hands off Brink’s player abilities. There’s a single tweak coming your way here, with the Medic’s Adrenaline ability now having a shorter duration, which’ll make timing the ability right even more important.

When Will I Get These?

These changes are already live in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Brink. If you’re on the PC, you’ll be getting the entire batch of balance changes alongside the next game update.