That said, and understanding that we're still in a closed beta, I want to talk about the optimizations. Specifically, what the current problems with them are, why they need to be fixed, and my suggestions for possible fixes. I'm also going to be talking about stats as a general concept, because it applies to things such as internals as well and weapons and items, so it's all interrelated. With that, let's begin

The Problems
Talent trees are nothing new to games - they allow for customization between like characters. Nothing new, and Hawken has fairly standard fare as far as the system goes. You invest points, get more specialized play, and life is great.
However, in Hawken, my biggest critique is that the talent trees are unnecessary. This first and biggest reason for this is based on how little they affect game play overall. The offense tree is an excellent example of this:
If I invest as many points into the offense tree as possible, for the sake of increasing the damage of my Grenadier's Rev-GL, I will have a damage percentage increase of 2.5% rounded up. We'll ignore my increased rate of fire for now. If I give my Grenadier explosive munitions, which alone gives me twice as much damage per shot, then I get a 7.5% increase. In the end, every shot of my Rev-GL now will do 75.25 damage instead of just 70.
The Rev's firing speed is 1.2 shots per second. The increase in firing speed from the offense tree is 1% or an additional .012 attacks per second. If we multiply out the before and after effects of the weapon specializations, we get the following:
DPS with zero bonuses - 84
DPS with all possible bonuses - 90.3 (rounded)
Total difference = 6.3 points of damage
So, if you trust me to do my math correctly, here's a fun table for you to look at showing you how much the dps is increased per weapon in a full offense build:
TOW DPS difference: ~4.1dps
Submachine DPS difference: ~6.5dps
Assault DPS difference: ~7.5dps
Grenade L. DPS difference: ~3.3dps
HEAT DPS difference: ~6dps
Mini Flak DPS difference: ~12dps
Flak DPS difference: ~11.7dps
Sabot DPS difference: ~9.4dps
Hakwens DPS difference: ~10.3dps
Slug DPS difference: ~5.6dps
Hellfire DPS difference: ~3.2dps
Vulcan DPS difference: ~7.5dps
Seeker DPS difference: ~6.1dps
EOC DPS difference: ~3.9dps
Rev DPS difference: ~6.3dps
(Note that these are DPS values, not per shot damage values. Because you're shooting individual projectiles, damage comes in spikes rather than a constant stream. In other words, these are averages over time)
These increases take into account everything - every possible way you could increase damage will give you these results. The effect is that your target is more liable to die from falling off a six foot ledge, splash damage from their own weapon, or the turrets on a ship than from the extra damage increase. Only one in every 100-150 kills, those times when you escaped with literally less than 15 health, would the extra damage have made any noticeable difference.
So, as far as damage goes, a mech with full offense and a mech with zero offense have a nearly identical chance to take out any given target. If you look at armor, the same results appear. Weapon cooling. Fuel regen. Damage reduction. Physical mech movement is the ONLY specialization that has any practical effect on real combat situations. Things such as dodge cool down reduction and increased thrust speed can be invaluable, but alas that's not the sole goal behind a spec system.
Conclusion: Optimizations and internals affect your mech in ways so small that if they were completely removed from the game, hardly anything would change.
So, the question is this - why have them in the first place? If they do next to nothing, why have methods of customizing a mech with different optimizations and internals?
Because it's fun to play with, and that's why we're here

The Solutions
Like I said, the point of customization is to make your mech feel different and unique. That's fun, and I feel Hawken is a game that benefits from that. So, on my own and with help from the Black Steel Brotherhood clan, we've been able to come up with some ideas for fixing the problem. Enjoy:
- Potency: There isn't anything wrong with increasing some of the values in the current system. Each spec is divided into five tiers - give the first, third, and final tiers some progressively hefty optimizations that make investing in them worth the effort.
- Dependencies: There are certain optimizations that have prerequisites, which is fine. It would be interesting to make some lengthy, well-thought-out chains of prerequisites that result in major optimizations. An example would be, in the movement tree, by investing in fuel regen you can then invest in larger fuel tanks, then make dodges cost less fuel, and finally increase flying speed.
- Internals only: First, give mechs the ability to have around seven or eight internals; second, make them only purchasable with hawken points; finally, scrap the optimizations altogether. This way, in a realistic fashion, players could buy a wealth of different interchangeable parts for their mechs.
- Stat-independent: Take away the stats idea and make optimizations and internals into single, situational effects. That is, make optimizations that increase your max altitude, the number of turrets you can carry, or give you the ability to auto-spot enemies you see rather than increases in dps, health, or other 'stats'.
- Class-unique: In theory A, B, and C class mechs attract different kinds of players - so give each mech class it's own type of optimization tree. C classes should not be dashing around the map like sonic, nor would I want to if I was that large. Instead, give my C class a dedicated tree where I could choose to invest in my siege mode abilities, health amounts, or damage prevention. Same for other classes.
- Body Shop: As it stands, changing out the chassis of your mech is purely cosmetic, but it could have an effect on which optimizations and internals are available to you. The bonus of this is that it also affects readability, so that when you see some A class mech running around you can know just by its body type if it has the potential to be a major threat or not.
- In-game: Make optimizations an in-game only aspect that resets every game, akin to League of Legends. Because roles and team composition matter in a game like this, additional optimization/item slots could be unlocked on a time based standard to make up for those who are playing objectives rather than getting kills and xp. It would also increase the dynamism of games in real time.
I would love to see some working of the Hawken optimization system that has never been done before because, and this is why I love this game, the Hawken concept has never been done quite this this before either
 
					
					Edited by Psylo, November 23 2012 - 07:38 AM.

 

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