cubicDevourer, on November 24 2012 - 04:02 AM, said:
500 HP per match is outrageous. I was thinking along the lines of 180, maybe 200, or having some mechs be less expensive than others, or implementing a daily first win bonus. I agree there should be some grind, yes, but not so much as to turn a player off to the game which, in it's current state, Hawken does. Like mike pointed out, for the casual player playing an hour a day every day, it would take them a month, give or take, to unlock a new mech.
If a game is good, I'll spend money on it. I've done so with League of Legends. I've done so with TF2. I've done so with Hawken. I'm sure many people will do the same, but not if they get the first impression that Hawken is going to make it's money by being a grind.
Well, that's about how much I tend to pull in per game... though I'll admit I'm one of the better players, and someone who is lower-skilled can have a tough time.
It's kind of hard to put yourself in someone's shoes like that...
Nukerock, on November 24 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:
500 HP for a match using a booster seems like a good idea, thanks. 10 hours for someone who payed to be able to buy a mech doesn't seem outrageous.
No, that's less than ideal because then you won't buy the mechs - just the boosters, and a 14-day booster costs only 750 MP or so.
mikelat, on November 24 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:
Hawken of course feels fine to all of you because you're already on their forum and invested into their game. I'm invested into it to, my entire point is there are games out there that give new unlocks right during first match you start playing. When I say "things take too long to unlock" I am not speaking about myself, as if this is a game I'm invested in I will probably spend time and money into it. The issue is getting other people invested into it, and as it stands I think 12/12/12 is going to roll around, a lot of people are going to try it, feel as if they accomplished absolutely nothing, see a bunch of locked mechs that other people are playing taunting them, get frustrated and never come back. That first impression is everything, games often don't "recover" from that.
Well, the new mechs do have to cost in some way. If the player wants it quickly and immediately, they'll pay with money to buy MP. If they want it, but not immediately, they'll likely be content with grinding it out (although a booster to HP and XP helps too). But they can't just get something for nothing, or the devs won't have much of a chance of making profit.
Test drives help alleviate this somewhat, but perhaps have an offline VR Testing Range or something, where the player can pick any class against bots. They obviously don't get HP or XP for this (or if they do, it should be at rates equivalent to the bot skill levels), but it lets them test any mech they want before they plunk down money on it. I know that with my MP, I bought at least one or two classes I'm not really fond of using, and since Open Beta will have me using my real money, I'm going to make sure I'm a lot more careful with which mechs I buy (I think I've got it down to four or so - of course, I'll actually bother to paint them and the like as well).
mikelat, on November 24 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:
The reason people like that are important is because they dictate how many new maps, new weapons, or new mechs we get. If people are paying and playing, this game grows. If people are getting turned off by a crappy unlock system, they don't even get the chance to be a customer, let alone even if they weren't going to pay anyway they likely would have brought in somebody who would have. Yes, you guys like the game, that's great, but the population of this forum is not even close to what is going to be needed to make this game successful.
That much is true, and no doubt during Open Beta we'll have a lot more voices and a lot more feedback.
The devs, obviously, have to walk a line between it being a grind and it being too easy to max out. Some very dedicated players here already have L20s. I, myself, have a couple mechs in the Mid-Teens and a few others ranging from 4-8. Of course, those of us who are seasoned testers have already no doubt bought the boosters (because we can't just buy MP to get our way out of limited purchases yet).
mikelat, on November 24 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:
You can't compare this to Korean MMOs because clearly that is not their gamer demographic. They're probably looking more toward the North American twitch shooter and/or mech crowd for a game like this, and they're not going to catch on with those gamers at all at this rate.
Sure, but again, how much easier can you make it before it's "too easy_" The rate already got boosted twice, actually (Fight Club > CB1, then CB1 > CB2), but if you make it so that the average player racks 200-300 HP per match, that means that someone with a booster will get 400-600, and if they're really good in terms of skill, they could potentially scrape that 700-800 range.
Balancing that system is never easy, but on the whole, it's probably better for it to be a little hard than a little easy, as if it's easy, people won't bother with the boosts for the most part, reducing a potential revenue stream.
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