Hawken's leveling and upgrade progression system is one of the worst i've seen in any game
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, i'm not venting heat. I've played other F2P games. I have nothing against them as a form of business strategy.
But i truly believe hawken's progression is so poorly implemented that it drags the entire game down with it. I've stuck with it through CB1 and CB2 (and i can't talk about the fightclub) and it is killing the game for me.
But let me justify my ranting:
Hawken, like most online games, specially F2P, are based around progression. You need to keep people coming back over and over to populate your servers and buy stuff, and what better way to do so but to have locked content that is unlocked via gameplay achievements, currency and time. It's a core principle of online games and it works.
In hawken, progression comes in the form of mech level, internal components, usable items, weapons and mechs.
However, Hawken's progression system has some big problems
- Mech Customization is boring and uninspired:
It feels like leveling up in lamer version of Diablo II, where you don't get to pick a magic skill o ability, just some attribute points to scatter around your character page.
There's no speciallization, no tradeoff. There really isn't a reason NOT to buy an internal, other than monetary restrictions.
- Weapon and ability levels are totally redundant and unnecessary:
If i wanted to tweak my weapons, i would have done so in the tech tree, or bought an internal. It's funny because you can't even choose which weapon levels up, so in case you are fond of the Slug rifle, when your sharp levels up the SA Hawkins, you gained NOTHING useful on that level.
All weapon levels really do is further increase the gap between low level mechs and high level mechs, which brings me to...
- High level mechs have too many advantages over low level ones:
This creates the (for a lack of a better word) 'unfair' scenario where a newly bought Brawler facing a High level Brawler knows he's going to have a hard time and that to all intent's and purposes, his opponent is strictly better in every conceivable way (bar skills) just because he has bought his mech weeks ago.
And keep in mind, even with all the dashing, high mobility and twich movement's those mech's are capable of, Hawken usually revolve around DPS vs Armor. You can't "head shot" a high level mech with a crappy low level weapon and win like in most other leveling games like the above mentioned. And when the DPS fight comes, you WILL lose (unless your skill is way better than your opponent).
This will raise the "Pay2Win" alarm for many, as grinding levels and currency while getting blasted away by fully stocked and leveled 'Meteor Players' will get on a lot of peoples nervs.
As far as i can tell, it's currently not possible to know a player's level. I think you should be able to.
- You can't buy weapons, you have to buy an entire mech
- HP awarded for playing, not for actual performance. Encourages idling, griefing and doesn't encourage being credit to team.
EDIT: i don't have the numbers for EXP, just HP
lame...
- No renting system
Also, no renting turns the game into a boring grind because. The longer it takes the player to earn the currency to buy game changing items and mechs, the less variety in the game, making the game boring and stale.
Not to mention fresh mechs are butt naked, which leads me to ...
- Hawken progression design discourages buying new mechs without boosters
- Has lvl 0 on all weapons
 
- Has 0 tech points
 
- Has no internals
 
- Has only the default item
Items are not interchangeable between mechs, tech points and weapon levels are property of each specific mech.
You are forced to grind your way into those 9200 HP for the naked mech, 1550 HP x3 for the internals and probably 1550 HP x1 or x2 for components.
That's 16950 HP points for a LVL 0 mech with internals. And you are still behind in Tech points and weapon levels, which you can't buy.
[BTW, in case you are wondering, at 80 HP per average full DeathMatch round, that 211 full deathmatches, clocking at about 53 hours of non-stop gameplay, just for 1 lvl 0 mech with internals and items]
Currently the game is all fun and games because we where given a ton of MP and HP to play with. But when the game goes live, it will get boring and stale very VERY fast.
That's how i see the game after playing hours and hours of Beta. I feel the game is starting o get repetitive and boring and it's in no small part due to it's progression system.
It's too late to see any major changes and as such it probably wont hold my attention once it goes live.
But that's just me..
Edited by Hipnox, November 13 2012 - 04:45 PM.

 

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