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E-Sports and Hawken for spectators


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#1 Beemann

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Posted November 18 2012 - 03:37 AM

(The MG thread started getting a little off topic in terms of my discussion with Darkpulse, so I'm pulling it over here because it needs to be discussed if the devs have any interest in making Hawken a lasting E Sports title)

So I've noticed a lot of really odd suggestions cropping up here and there concerning esports. I know people get very enthusiastic when it comes to a new game announcing esport interest, but it's important to stop and analyze what makes a good esport (and it's also important that those players who aren't interested so much in esports realize that it's not going to ruin the game (See: the Firefall forums) :P)

To do this, what we need to try to do is think about this game from two different perspectives, and try to make those meet up as amicably as possible, while ultimately favouring one over the other
First off, the game needs to be something worth competing in. Player skill needs to determine output, and while it's good to have a reasonably accessible game, it should be expansive enough that even the best players have room to grow
This isn't exactly easy, and many games succeed through sheer dumb luck (read: bugs that make the game amazing) but it's important for developers to be conscious of what makes their game different, special, and competitive (and I think Hawken's devs have done a good job of this so far)

You shouldn't just have a game dependent on aiming skill. There should be other ways in which players can grow. Movement skill is extremely important, whether it boils down to timing and positioning or agility and speed
Similarly, map control should be emphasized. Having a game in which the maps have no real objectives means that players have no reason to engage on anything but the best terms. Firefall currently suffers from this. Since TDM is currently the closest-to-comp gamemode, teams play against each other in that mode, on surprisingly open maps, with powerups that aren't very important. Both teams clump up on either side of the map (often around a health powerup, because why not?) and fling bullets at each other until one side is weak enough for a push
It's slow and boring. It takes ages for anyone to actually do anything remotely skillful and/or exciting

The OTHER thing that an E Sport needs (and this is the priority thing) is entertaining for spectators
I'm somewhat worried about Hawken in this regard, though I think to an extent the current maximum mobility values, as well as some more comp-centric maps, could solve this somewhat

The game should be easy to follow. Many tournaments actually include commentators explaining the game to newcomers (about one or two lines to explain the gamemode, and maybe a few points about the most important details)
Not only that, but it needs to be easy to follow the action. 1v1's work well for this, and the previously mentioned map centralization mechanics also assist in making it easier for a spectator to follow a match.

The game should also make it clear just how skilled the participants are. Tribes: Ascend failed somewhat in this regard when it failed to properly convey speed, and the effort put into gaining it. The viewer shouldn't feel as though what they're watching is something they could easily pull off themselves. The players in the match should be capable of tremendous feats of skill and "hero moments"
In a 1v1 these are your sudden comebacks, your quick and brutal fights and the like
In a team game, these are your killstreaks, aces and clutch saves


Now, to tie in the previous thread's deviation with this thread's subject, I'm going to use Quake as an example of how this works in action. Before anyone goes on about how SC and LoL have more players, I'd like to point out that
1. I'm using an FPS to illustrate FPS Esports in action. I'm also much more familiar with Quake than I am with CS
2. SC's status is ultimately the ideal, but I don't think it's something you can just build up. LoL hasn't really lasted very long, so I can't speak to the longevity of its model. Quake 3/Live lasted until 2010 in E Sports circuits. which is pretty good for a 1999 title :P
I'm also not really here to argue which is the E-Sportiest E-Sport. It's all about what works and what doesn't

In terms of skill:
Quake puts the onus on the player when it comes to performance. The LG, Plasma, Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, GL and Rail are all completely 100% consistent. Any deviation from pixel perfect straight line aim is up to the player to mitigate. The only weapon with any sort of COF is the CG

Quake has a robust movement system based on what was previously a physics bug. Quake Live and CPM further embrace this system of movement, which works with aiming skill to create a much higher skill ceiling, while having its own fairly intimidating learning curve

Quake centralizes conflict. Players are encouraged to fight over the Red Armour and Mega Health powerups in order to gain a distinct advantage in any fights that occur shortly after obtaining either. Players in control of those powerups are encouraged to harass their opponent and force them away from later drops, as well as keep them from building a stack off of lesser powerups. Weapon drops and limited ammo force extra movement to keep combat versatility, and in the case of some weapons, a good amount of area denial and harassment


In terms of spectating:
While Quake is not the most accessible game for players, comp Quake is easy to follow. All the weapons are very simple and obvious in their implementation

Comp Quake is played in 1v1 duels. It's easy to follow the action because there's only 2 sources of conflict to follow. Following either player guarantees that you see every fight
In addition, the powerups on the map almost guarantee fights at regular intervals. Sometimes players will decide against fighting over one to grab the other, but most of the time someone will try to gain control of the map and push for both

It's also very clear to the viewer that the players involved are highly skilled. Strafe jumping looks impressive, as does rocket jumping
In addition, the almost machine-like precision with which players shoot each other, and blast explosives into various hallways to keep their opponent trapped shows the hours of practice that the participants put into getting to the point they're at

Agree? Disagree? Have your own concerns? How do you feel Hawken measures up from a spectator's standpoint? Do you feel like the skill ceiling is high enough, and that there's enough areas to improve in?
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#2 Subdivision

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Posted November 18 2012 - 04:02 AM

I'm waiting to see what kinds of spectator functionality the dev's are bringing to the game. After watching the Valencia Esports congress and the coverage of hawken there (capture the flag!), I was pretty happy with what was covered and said. I hope along side a hyper competitive, high skill ceiling gameplay, there can still be the more casual gameplay for other people who wish to play less competitively tho. The SC community has been pretty vocal about the lack of this the past few months on reddit and I feel its a real shame.

I feel the team based modes are going to be giving the best Esports content opposed to the deathmatch type game modes. I also think the Esports side will need some time to build up momentum and get going as the game develops and adopting the mechanics in the best way to suit a viable, watch-able Esport. As you have said Beemann, there are two vital components for a good Esport, competitive play (player side) and spectator entertainment (spectator side). Currently, until I get to see some high level players play each other and get spectator functionality, I couldn't really comment on either.

Above all I'm hoping the game gets some real longevity to it and manages to sustain itself more than anything else. I just feel these days, games come and go and I have so much fun with Hawken and get a really nice feeling playing it, I hope it can grow in a healthy manner which might not necessarily be a great big explosion of success that dies off shortly after.

Concerning the current skill ceiling, I think it can go a lot higher and its hard to push it without clusters of strong players, pushing each other on a regular basis. The mechanics reward better play very successfully I feel and it will depend on what teams form in my mind, as to how the boundaries will get pushed. I also believe the proposed balance changes to mech customisation and levelling will aid varied play styles and opportunities to do things differently which also helps give more excitement to watch. Getting the kind of variance in a game such as Dota or LoL if you will, I feel suits the current Esports market as that is what people are enjoying most. Seeing players play particular roles and functions to different strengths really helps the scene generate characters for people to follow which is another key component I feel to the success of an Esport. Who knows, we might be talking about Beemann, the legendary Hawken player in ten years time! Anything at this stage is possible which excites me tremendously. But still, mechanics and balance and all the niggly issues need ironing out before we should be putting all the focus on the hyper competitive play.

In the dev's, I trust!

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#3 NotKjell

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Posted November 18 2012 - 05:25 AM

Up at 5 from watching the BWC. Sad to see such promise from idra only for Rain to wreck him. The gracket was not enough. Also wtf stephano, and sucked that scarlett and suppy got taken down so fast out of groups.

There are a lot of points to mention, but one thing that does somewhat concern me is the skill cap. Position is very important, teamwork and the environment are important but all these are just naturally occurring within an FPS. Aim can only be so good with mech speed as it is, having 'perfect' aim won't be hard to achieve. Dodging, team composition, item and ability use are the most uniquely skillful parts of hawken, and ability/item use barely qualifies and team comp is not that huge of a deal. These things are also not too impressive to watch and really appreciate that a pro is needed to pull this off (like say rain's 5 prong attack against idra, and then idra managing to defend it all).

Dodging is great however, and adds a large amount of skill. However it just feels like there should be more to...abuse? Stuff that with a large amount of skill you can squeeze extra versatility out of? Kind of like the healing 3rd person cam or something. I've tried looking for some glitches, like seeing if dodging, quickly going into repair mode and back  could reset the dodge cooldown and allow faster dodging. Didn't work, nor other things I tried. More 'microable' abilities would be nice for this, aside from press F to cool down, or have 10% more damage. Hell to look at SC2 micro, an infiltrator with blink or an assault with stim packs could even be really cool. Maybe even if items could do cool fuzzy bunny like this, strange but useful effects that might even be refillable instead of just a bonus grenade/EMP 1 time.

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#4 DarkPulse

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Posted November 18 2012 - 07:07 AM

Well, the thing with Hawken is that it's really a game where a concept of Map Control is fundamentally different from most FPS games. There are no Red Armors/Shieldbelts or Megahealth/Kegs of Health to protect, no powerups to mentally keep track of respawn times for; in Hawken, you have on you what you have on you. Even health and ammo are out of the question since you have infinite ammo (albeit limited to two weapons per spawn, only one of which is changeable) and can heal at theoretically any time.

Therefore, 1v1 in this game isn't going to work unless there's some kind of specific mode that disables healing and instead you heal only from the orb your enemy drops. Otherwise it'd be too easy for someone to just heal after winning. I think that, as a result, the onus will actually be on team game modes as opposed to raw fragging skills - it does mean it's more for commentators to keep track of or whatever, but if one wants a game where it's about raw player skill, there's tons of games for that. I think Hawken would fit better in a niche where it isn't "This guy can control the map down to a science" and "he has ungodly aim." Killing skill helps but it's not the end-all, be-all in Hawken.

Also, the game does need features like demo recording and spectator modes to make the most out of it. Nobody likes recording a match "live" since unless you have a dedicated PVR, there is no way you can record without sacrificing framerate yet maintain an HD resolution. I'd be a lot happier if I could record demos of my matches, play them back later, and record video footage of that, as opposed to having to do it live and halve my FPS. :P
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#5 Tezkat

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Posted November 18 2012 - 08:33 AM

I sacrificed sleep this morning to watch a little Korean nerd win $100000 with crazy unit micro and immortal all-ins. It's not unreasonable to wonder if watching top nerds play Hawken could ever capture that experience.


View PostSubdivision, on November 18 2012 - 04:02 AM, said:

I'm waiting to see what kinds of spectator functionality the dev's are bringing to the game. After watching the Valencia Esports congress and the coverage of hawken there (capture the flag!), I was pretty happy with what was covered and said. I hope along side a hyper competitive, high skill ceiling gameplay, there can still be the more casual gameplay for other people who wish to play less competitively tho. The SC community has been pretty vocal about the lack of this the past few months on reddit and I feel its a real shame.

A lot of the whining in the SC2 community regarding accessibility to casuals has actually centered not around gameplay but a lack of features that could make SC2 (and Battle.net in general) a more enjoyable place to hang out. The Hawken devs are aware of that problem (as well as how significantly it contributes to the success or failure of a free-to-play game), but it's not an easy thing to address. Or at least, it's not a cheap thing to address. Not only do they have to produce a great FPS game, they have to pretty much build an entire social platform to support it. Just having a friends list doesn't cut it anymore...


View PostBeemann, on November 18 2012 - 03:37 AM, said:

The game should be easy to follow. Many tournaments actually include commentators explaining the game to newcomers (about one or two lines to explain the gamemode, and maybe a few points about the most important details)
Not only that, but it needs to be easy to follow the action. 1v1's work well for this, and the previously mentioned map centralization mechanics also assist in making it easier for a spectator to follow a match.

In this day and age, I think any tournament with reach outside the enthusiast player base will have casters/commentators. It's become an expected element of the eSports ecosystem surrounding a game. The ones that don't (small online cups and the like) cater mostly to a hardcore audience that can appreciate what they're seeing anyway. And even most of those feature up and coming casters these days.


One thing that a good spectator view should do is let the action speak for itself. I think that's actually a large part of the eSports appeal of games like StarCraft 2, where you can see the armies clashing right in front of you and a production tab up in the corner. That frees the commentators to discuss not merely what's happening, but what it means.

That's something that's largely impossible in team-based console games like Halo or Call of Duty, because you can only watch one player at a time. So the commentator has to waste a lot of time reporting what's going on in the parts of the game you're not seeing.


I don't think concentrating the action should be too much of a problem in team modes. Most of the higher level TDM games in which I participated during the last beta involved mobile pack hunting (especially on Andromeda) and protracted positional sieges (more on Sahara and Alleys). The latter might be as annoying to watch as it was to play, but the former should make for a pretty entertaining spectacle. The two objective game modes both have very clear conflict-focusing locations. Either way, competent teams tend to stick together.

Granted, we haven't really had the chance to see what organized teams with planned strategies look like when they clash (largely because the features to create such encounters don't exist yet). The suspense and tension surrounding the execution of coordinated maneuvers is a big part of the spectator appeal of team games.


I'm afraid don't really play enough FPS games to be a very good judge of where the skill cap in Hawken lies. Certainly, when I watch videos of players I consider much more skilled than myself, I can recognize the distance between us, though most of the time I notice enough of the things that they're doing differently to feel like I could close the gap with more practice. I suspect that nobody here has played enough Hawken to be even close to the skill cap yet, though.

Displays of skill alone are not enough to make a really exciting and accessible eSport, though. Counter-Strike has a pretty high skill cap, for instance. Pros pull off stunts that most normal people can't do. However, watching top level CS, rounds tend to consist of teams jockying for position, and then there's an engagement or two where everyone pretty much dies instantly. If you're lucky, the observer caught the action. That rather limits the mainstream spectator appeal, because the action is easy to miss.

Hawken, I think, has the right mix of movement and action. Mechs can still die fairly quickly, but you usually have enough time to savour those kills. Much of the skill component relates not only to aim but things like dodge timings and map awareness, so battles have a bit more of that dueling feel to them. Or alternately, coordinated strikes that could look great if you pull back from the action a little. Who doesn't enjoy watching giant robots rocketing around and exploding? ^_^
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#6 Deu

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Posted November 18 2012 - 10:05 AM

My first interest above all else when I first wanted to start playing Hawken was comp team play. So I hope with all my heart this comes true. As long as this streak of 'bunny down the other classes and buff my class' post dies down comp team play could be very versatile and fun. Don't understand how Hawken wouldn't be a better game if performance was entirely based on skill in all areas. I wouldn't mind seeing a Hawken match from a UT3 style spectator mode.

Edited by Deu, November 18 2012 - 10:10 AM.

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#7 Etan

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Posted November 18 2012 - 10:40 AM

For Hawken to reach comp play it has to be a objective mode i feel. The only question i have is what format/ team size would it be. I think that you need a decent amount of players to demonstrate what hawken is about. I guess its up to the devs to figure out what ranked play is going to be like being as that  will probably set the stage for comp play.
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#8 BuDeKai

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Posted November 18 2012 - 11:14 AM

While you clearly cant compare hawken to quake i think if it even has half the skill ceiling as quake it has some potential. Ive gotten a chance to play with and against some of the best hawken players in a siege format and it reminds me a lot of league of legends 5v5. When i say that i refer to the importance of a good team mates. 1 very good player cannot carry against 3 mediocre ones working together in siege and i think this is a very very good sign. I think with some tweaks the siege game mode has some real potential for an esport. and because the fight are normally pretty close i think it could even be fun to watch. There are some serious balance issues (which have already been discussed at length) but they are not worth bringing up since they are still changing the game. I think the real problem they are going to run into is finding a good balance for the game while not alienating players of lesser skill and keeping the high skill cap to support a competitive scene. there definitely has to be some segregation between players of skill and new ones or more casual gamers. if everyone who tries the game sees someone running around 30-0  in whatever class they are using they will never return to the game because they have never encountered that kind of domination before and if they have it was probably hacks. The new bread of fps players are spoiled and broken by easy to play games that reward aim and unlocks. This happened quite a lot in tribes ascend. I got a lot of my more casual friends to try tribes only to hear from them its too hard or their favorite class is too weak. I even had one guy say the sniper class in tribes is un-useable, which in fact was the polar opposite of the reality that it was the most powerful slaying class in the game.  so its these kinds of things that they need to avoid. how they are gonna do it i have no idea but a more refined match making system paring more skilled players up with one another would be a good place to start.

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#9 Eis9_M0th

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Posted November 18 2012 - 01:36 PM

I think this thread asks a lot of the right questions concerning Hawken and e-sports. Good to see it.

I think from a spectator perspective, Hawken needs to aim to be more like LoL/Starcraft than FPS games. These are the most succesful spectator e-sports. Going by viewership on Twitch, RTS/MMOB games generally dominate traditional FPS games, and it's not hard to see why when comparing what the games look like for watching. I sat through some Counter-Strike 1.6 matches while waiting for the BWC last night, and I do not want gamecasts of Hawken to work that way. The view is much too close, and it's difficult to get a good feel for how the teams are working together.

Because Hawken's skill cap is not super-high, it's real strengths are the importance of teamwork and positioning. I'm actually not worried about the relatively low skill cap--this formula seems to work very well for LoL. To take advantage of its strengths, Hawken spectator mode needs to be zoomed out to a similar scale to SC or LoL so viewers can get a good sense of the tactics and positioning teams attempt to use, You can't get a good sense of that when viewing mode is stuck in first person or tight 3rd person views. Of course, you'd have to have the ability to zoom in closer and switch to 1st person as well for changes of pace, but you should be able to see a good chunk of the battlefield in the default view.

On game modes:I do not think pure DM style matches will cut it from an entertainment perspective. Objective based game modes will be much more interesting for the reasons already stated. I'm not sure either siege or missile modes will be the eventual answer for what the optimal type of game for spectating will be, but they're both miles better than even team DM. I would like to a mode with opposing bases defended by powerful defensive turrets (no battleship bits involved).

The other thing games like LoL or SC have that make them fun to watch are the big flashy visual abilities, like (since I'm more familiar with SC) templar storms or nukes or force fields. I'm not even sure if similar effects are viable in FPS games, but the point is that the great artwork in Hawken might not be enough to make the game fun to watch; there should be flashy visual cues to help the spectators know when the players are doing awesome/powerful things (this also really helps new viewers unfamiliar with the game follow the action).

I feel like the last point is comparatively minor though. An engaging competitive game mode and the right spectator view to be able to appreciate it are the big things.

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#10 Beemann

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Posted November 18 2012 - 03:25 PM

concerning the comp gamemode itself
I think we should go for CTF, to be honest
Whether that means a round based mode, or normal CTF is up to the devs
I also think the item system may need a rework. The way it works now I forsee suicides to gain more items. If we move to a single spawn system to try to mitigate this we'll just see more spam
Something like a VERY long cooldown, or areas of the map where a SINGLE item can be regained

View PostNotKjell, on November 18 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

There are a lot of points to mention, but one thing that does somewhat concern me is the skill cap. Position is very important, teamwork and the environment are important but all these are just naturally occurring within an FPS. Aim can only be so good with mech speed as it is, having 'perfect' aim won't be hard to achieve. Dodging, team composition, item and ability use are the most uniquely skillful parts of hawken, and ability/item use barely qualifies and team comp is not that huge of a deal. These things are also not too impressive to watch and really appreciate that a pro is needed to pull this off (like say rain's 5 prong attack against idra, and then idra managing to defend it all).

Dodging is great however, and adds a large amount of skill. However it just feels like there should be more to...abuse? Stuff that with a large amount of skill you can squeeze extra versatility out of? Kind of like the healing 3rd person cam or something. I've tried looking for some glitches, like seeing if dodging, quickly going into repair mode and back  could reset the dodge cooldown and allow faster dodging. Didn't work, nor other things I tried. More 'microable' abilities would be nice for this, aside from press F to cool down, or have 10% more damage. Hell to look at SC2 micro, an infiltrator with blink or an assault with stim packs could even be really cool. Maybe even if items could do cool fuzzy bunny like this, strange but useful effects that might even be refillable instead of just a bonus grenade/EMP 1 time.
@The first part
I agree that the aiming skill ceiling is rather low. Honestly I think they could fix it by making the weapons a little more complex when it comes to maximum output. The hitscan autos are decently fun to use, and very accessible, but ultimately it doesn't take a whole lot to use them optimally once you've got tracking figured out. Sure you wont want to just hold LMB til you overheat, but I feel as though the lack of "other stuff" on them has the potential to hurt high-end depth

I also worry about the watchability of Hawken. I think part of it is due to stuff like that (honestly, watching a HEAT and GL Infil is already more entertaining than watching SMG+TOW kills)

@the second part
I think dodging just needs to be chained with other movement options ultimately
I almost want to say though that mobility should be at the high optimization end

View PostTezkat, on November 18 2012 - 08:33 AM, said:

In this day and age, I think any tournament with reach outside the enthusiast player base will have casters/commentators. It's become an expected element of the eSports ecosystem surrounding a game. The ones that don't (small online cups and the like) cater mostly to a hardcore audience that can appreciate what they're seeing anyway. And even most of those feature up and coming casters these days.

One thing that a good spectator view should do is let the action speak for itself. I think that's actually a large part of the eSports appeal of games like StarCraft 2, where you can see the armies clashing right in front of you and a production tab up in the corner. That frees the commentators to discuss not merely what's happening, but what it means.

That's something that's largely impossible in team-based console games like Halo or Call of Duty, because you can only watch one player at a time. So the commentator has to waste a lot of time reporting what's going on in the parts of the game you're not seeing.

I don't think concentrating the action should be too much of a problem in team modes. Most of the higher level TDM games in which I participated during the last beta involved mobile pack hunting (especially on Andromeda) and protracted positional sieges (more on Sahara and Alleys). The latter might be as annoying to watch as it was to play, but the former should make for a pretty entertaining spectacle. The two objective game modes both have very clear conflict-focusing locations. Either way, competent teams tend to stick together.

I'm afraid don't really play enough FPS games to be a very good judge of where the skill cap in Hawken lies. Certainly, when I watch videos of players I consider much more skilled than myself, I can recognize the distance between us, though most of the time I notice enough of the things that they're doing differently to feel like I could close the gap with more practice. I suspect that nobody here has played enough Hawken to be even close to the skill cap yet, though.

Displays of skill alone are not enough to make a really exciting and accessible eSport, though. Counter-Strike has a pretty high skill cap, for instance. Pros pull off stunts that most normal people can't do. However, watching top level CS, rounds tend to consist of teams jockying for position, and then there's an engagement or two where everyone pretty much dies instantly. If you're lucky, the observer caught the action. That rather limits the mainstream spectator appeal, because the action is easy to miss.
I actually think that first bit is immensely important. Viewership outside of your playerbase is what has, for a long time, separated Starcraft from a large portion of the competition. I don't think we'll ever get Brood War levels of recognition, but that's a fairly unique case
Good commentary is immensely important as well. I can't tell you how many matches I've almost closed because I just hear deadpan voices going on about how awesome both players are doing

While I agree that it's more difficult to follow a team, I think this can be fixed somewhat by making the objective simple and obvious. When you follow a CTF match, you follow the Flag Carrier for a large portion of said match
Hawken also has mechanics that draw out fights long enough to swap to the interesting bits

My comment concerning centralizing conflict had more to do with the need for an objective that promotes fighting. Currently I don't feel that Siege does a good job of this. It's too easy to just sit on either side of the map and only engage when the Battleship gains too much health to be shot down by the players
You shouldn't be able to complete objectives without outplaying the opposition, and I don't feel that Siege allows that

Pub matches are their own thing ultimately. Nobody really worries about unnecessary risk or sub-optimal weapons in pubs. Only when you get to a competitive level do those things truly count, and they mean a lot.
Nobody's going to make a push unless they're confident that they'll win the resulting teamfight, and nobody's going to pick anything but the least risky and most rewarding weapons and items if they're determined to win

As far as CS goes I think the main draw in comp is just the intensity of the match. Things get really tense when you're down to a couple of players left on the map, and because players can die so fast there's always the chance that a 1v5 can become an extremely clutch Ace and join the highlight reel
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#11 Sparkard

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Posted November 18 2012 - 05:53 PM

I'd say, first lets make hawken fun to play and i mean in longer run. Then we can think about e-sport.
CTF is easier to follow and more pleasant to watch and that's why people prefer it in e-sports?
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#12 NotKjell

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Posted November 18 2012 - 07:04 PM

I think everyone pretty much agrees that to succeed there will need to be strong spectating features and a strong TEAM objective-based game type. My confidence is with the developers to create this.

My concern is still mostly on skill cap still though. I honestly feel that with a private training server and a smooth not-10fps-and-lower framerate (mostly this) I'll be able to reach the mechanical skillcap within a week. Most any good FPS player will be able to do the same. The rest will just be intangibles - teamwork, positioning and map awareness.

My issue is essentially about having things that are very impressive to watch in addition to increasing the skill ceiling. Dodging is a great tool in this way, it's obviously very visual to see someone cleverly using dodge or getting out of the way of a rocket by 1 foot. It's got lots of skillful, creative uses. And yes, infitrators w/ HEAT thus far have been the most entertaining to watch in large part due to the abuse of dodging. Powerful non-hitscan weapons used in creative ways in combination with dodging is much nicer to see than hold them in my sights until dead. Dodging however is the only thing like this in the game.

Abilities are all just static press 'F', get bonus. Use once every minute. None of these require much skill to sue, and none can be skillfully abused. They're not even visual for a spectator outside of invisibility. Strangely  the ability based around not being seen is the only ability you can see. There is one batch of abilities that is different though - the C-Class turret mode. It's not on a cooldown, it can be toggled between whenever and makes very drastic changes to gameplay. It does however, suck balls. It's too slow to be ever used. It's kinda like the thors strike cannon from SC2. And with that, I'm going to post this video from a sc2 pro gamer QXC. Yes this video is largely specific to SC2, but he makes points that relate to e-sports in general.



The tl;dr to take from him is static abilities are kinda boring, and giving more for the player to do means the player can do more impressive things. Selecting all your broodlords and attack-moving your opponents base isn't cool to watch over and over. Blink stalkers, marine splitting, dropship pickups however are all great to watch and very impressive. Also slowing things is an overused debuff, as it generally removes versatility and micro-ability.

What I think I'd like to see is abilities and maybe internals be more than stat boosts. Some spitballing examples I thought of -

Berserker - Beserk/Overdrive
  • Mech gets pushed to the limit. Begins to overheat.
  • Fuel regeneration, Dodge cooldown and Firing rate all get buffed.
  • Has a cool, unique and noticeable visual effect applied to the mech when active. You know when you're fighting it, and can appreciate it being abused as an observer.
  • Can be toggled on or off at will. Automatically gets turned off if the mech overheats.
Infiltrator - Blink
  • Pretty much blink from SC2. Short range teleport wherever you're looking. A dodge forward essentially.
  • Allowing you to blink through objects would likely be too much work to make sure you can't glitch into the environment. Would be cool if feasible though.
  • Has a relatively short cooldown, 10 seconds or less.
Infiltrator - Just improved invisibility
  • Make invisibility ACTUALLY invisible. Can't see someones boost trail or any hint of them on any graphics settings. Still appear when hovered over, but only then and only to that player.
  • Potentially takes you off radar.
  • Give it a fuel gauge and allow it to be toggled on and off. Faster regen too.
Sharpshooter - Tactical calldown
  • Calls down a missile strike where designated after a few seconds.
  • Designations are placed by looking somewhere and pressing 'F'. Or, while holding 'F', the scroll wheel can be used to move the designation closer or farther away from where you are looking.
  • Have maximum 3 missiles available at any time. Missiles regenerate slowly one at a time.
  • Missiles have low damage, but large splash radius.
Assault - Smoke
  • Holding down 'F' drains fuel while spewing out smoke.
  • All non-assault classes lose the red targeting reticle on enemies obscured by smoke.
  • Thematically very appropriate, crude smoke screens can be generated by putting oil on a hot engine. This seems reasonable within the patched-together world of hawken.
Brawler - Shield position/dump
  • Lets the brawler cycle between multiple positions of it's large shields.
  • Getting shot in the shields reduces damage.
  • Shields can cycle between positions very quickly.
  • Default shield position is above head. Mobility is normal.
  • Deployed in front, movement speed is retained but turning speed is lowered.
  • Deployed in back, turning speed is retained but movement speed is lowered.
  • Can hold down 'F' to permanently drop shields but gain a speed boost.
Rocketeer - Turret mode
  • Drastically increased firing rate while in turret mode.
  • Static healing while in turret mode.
  • Much much faster animation dropping into and out of turret mode.
  • Higher heat generation.
  • Less damage reduction than now, same movement speed though. Normal turning speed.
  • Normal HUD. Maybe have the shields visible in front of you, slightly obscuring peripheral vision.
Don't it sound like a pro game between people abusing these abilities to their fullest would be more interesting? Skill cap would be largely raised, letting pros do really impressive stuff. All abilities are very visual too, a spectator could really get grips on everything the players are doing. No-one knows a sharpshooter won the fight because of a smart call to use +10% damage, but you're damn right they'll know if they won with a clutch missile strike, hitting someone behind cover.

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#13 Shotgun_Samurai

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Posted November 19 2012 - 08:59 AM

^ I like those ideas
Only changes would be invisibility: if it's a toggle function it would be possible to better manage your stealth but you would need gear to counter a "true invisibility" such as thermal vision or some such to balance that out incase someone discovers a perma invisible management method.

with the arty strike for the sniper mech, just switch mech control to a mouse cursor and have the call down at cursor. That way it would require some thought and positioning from the player in order to protect themselves while vulnerable but the hurt they bring down would be worth the risk

overall I love the ideas.

#14 D20Face

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Posted November 19 2012 - 09:22 AM

I don't think Hawken has what it takes to be an e-sport within the next two or so years.

Mechanically there's a lot more depth than people realize, but you won't be seeing matches revolving around high end play for at least another year, more likely two.

As I've said in other threads, it's my belief that Hawken high end play will revolve strongly around secondary weapons and consumables with primary weapons only serving as a limiter on the time an engagement will last with no real impact on engagement winners. The system right now is perfect for that, as dying in most team modes takes you far away from your team and makes you useless even as a capture point speed-upper.

#15 BuDeKai

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Posted November 19 2012 - 09:52 AM

View PostD20Face, on November 19 2012 - 09:22 AM, said:

Mechanically there's a lot more depth than people realize, but you won't be seeing matches revolving around high end play for at least another year, more likely two.

Why do you think it will take a year for high end play to begin. There is a slew of fps gamers with competitive experience waiting for a new fps to play, myself included. I think by the end of january we will start to have an idea of how the game modes operate at a high end level.

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#16 D20Face

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Posted November 19 2012 - 10:30 AM

View PostBuDeKai, on November 19 2012 - 09:52 AM, said:

Why do you think it will take a year for high end play to begin. There is a slew of fps gamers with competitive experience waiting for a new fps to play, myself included. I think by the end of january we will start to have an idea of how the game modes operate at a high end level.
All the other competitive games have been around in one form or another for years. CS, Tribes, UT, Quake, SC, DotA. All around for ages.

It takes time to build real high end tactics. By January we'll have a basic understanding of what high end play can look like. We'll have a handful of players, tops, able to play that way. Not nearly enough for an e-sport scene. You'd need at least 10 good teams for that. I'm expecting we'll have about 15-25 actual good players dispersed amongst a number of teams, several of which will be only interested in pubstomping and not legitimate comp.

So by that time we'll have individual good play and most matches will be carried by one or two people with competent support. Real team tactics beyond grouping and shielding won't emerge for another couple months at least.

After that point you'll need to build up enough teams to hold actual tourneys, as well as a large enough open player pool for PUGs.

Right now we're doing exploratory scrims to further advance quality play by pushing our limits. And you still haven't given me times man. Our match will likely be this Sunday and I need to advertise the streams still.

Edited by D20Face, November 19 2012 - 10:30 AM.


#17 BuDeKai

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Posted November 19 2012 - 10:37 AM

ya im working on it. its hard to get commitments from some of the people and there are a lot of new faces so i dont want to say we will be there unless im 100 percent sure we will. im currently talking with the dirtnap gaming guys to see if we can put a hodge pog team together (essentially a pug team) I will continue to work on it but dont let me hold you up if u have other teams that can give u solid commitments right now.

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also be sure to tune into The COCKPIT Hawken show! ---> http://community.pla...astshow-121212/

#18 D20Face

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Posted November 19 2012 - 10:39 AM

View PostBuDeKai, on November 19 2012 - 10:37 AM, said:

ya im working on it. its hard to get commitments from some of the people and there are a lot of new faces so i dont want to say we will be there unless im 100 percent sure we will. im currently talking with the dirtnap gaming guys to see if we can put a hodge pog team together (essentially a pug team) I will continue to work on it but dont let me hold you up if u have other teams that can give u solid commitments right now.
Get whoever you can. Nobody else responded.

I was planning on recruiting about 6 people from the merc clan as fill ins anyways. Even if people can be there I'm sure there'll be some who can't last the whole time.

EDIT: If all goes well I'll see if I can get some weekly stuff going to attract more people.

EDIT EDIT: And see if DP, AJK, or Bee want in. I'm sure they'd love killing me.

Edited by D20Face, November 19 2012 - 10:48 AM.


#19 BuDeKai

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Posted November 19 2012 - 11:31 AM

as would i

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also be sure to tune into The COCKPIT Hawken show! ---> http://community.pla...astshow-121212/

#20 CaliberMengsk

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Posted November 19 2012 - 11:33 AM

The biggest thing is that the spectating and finding a way to show off the players without having the players or levels get in the way. Things like making the objects next to the camera transparent, or smoothly changing from a normal wasd movement to following a player are simple things, but make it easier to watch.

I propose a simple movement with wasd and extremely basic controls to start with. Such as left clicking will start to make the spectator view orbit around the closest player to where the cursor would have hit, and a right click will orbit around the location where the cursor would hit (with wasd letting you pan around on a 2d plane to follow players around), and then just clicking left or right again to go back to normal wasd movement. It's simple, fairly easy to implement, and will make viewing much easier.

For the most part, at the moment at least, I've only really seen wasd movement mixed with following random people in 3rd person, which I think limits the ability to watch the entire field of play, thus not very entertaining. The plus of games like starcraft and league of legends is that they are pretty much on a 2d plane (slight 3d variation, but not much) so spectating is just as easy. As long as you can find the action (on the minimap) then you can generally spectate a match very very easily. Hawken though is obviously a very 3d game. Most prevalent on Titan as it's got both the horizontal and vertical play.

O-o I think I may be starting to ramble at this point. Anyway, I personally think siege mode will be the most interesting to watch from an outside perspective. I also think that rethinking the spectator view past a simple 3rd person or wasd movement will make it much easier to view and enjoy.

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