109 replies to this topic

[AsianJoyKiller]

Immie, on November 28 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

I meant a no respawn mode with a short time limit and simple objective, like a bomb, ala counter-strike. It's a mouthful so I shortened it.


Also, you absolutely have to kill enemies to play CTF. A smart team won't leave their flag undefended... enemies moving in for the flag must either kill the defenders to take the flag, or be killed and try again. Once one team has its flag taken, it could even pull back its offense to intercept/chase down the enemy with their flag and kill them. Offense players from both teams may engage before even reaching the flag to lessen the task of their defenders. CTF is strategic, and action packed, perfect for esports.

As was pointed out to me the other day, the problem with a no respawn mode being part of the highly visible esports scene, is that most casuals don't like limited respawns or single life sort of deals. So you potentially lose people there, because they may start thinking the game is more hardcore than they would like to bother with. I thought this was an interesting concept, certainly something I never considered before.

That said, I'm not totally against a 1 life per round sort of thing. I'd just have to see how it fits in with Hawken. The same goes with CTF. Love the mode, but at the moment, without seeing any CTF maps, it's a little hard to tell how well it would work.

[3Jane]

Siege as it stands would be so freaking boring to watch.

Honestly I fall asleep at the EU points half the time and can't be bothered to boost back to my base when I wake up.
So much down time with the same really boring actions happening again and again.. a fight is interesting, a flag run/route is interesting but siege as a whole is just a really static mode.

[NotKjell]

Beemann, on November 28 2012 - 03:03 PM, said:

~draaaaama~

Did you know that Shootmania is making its way into the ESports scene_
That right there pretty much guarantees that Hawken can be mechanically complex/difficult enough to figure out

Play nice beemann and ReachH, keep this topic on point. Keep your discussion to PM's if you want to continue. You guys make some points, but if you want to please re-post them without the bickering.

Funnily enough, I did see some shootmania a while back. It also felt like I was watching the ESPN2 of E-sports. Such a strange game.

On the topic of 'single objective' gametypes (single meaning the focus is on one Flag, bomb or control point). Respawn enabled or not, I have some concerns about them not for in-game balance actually, but for being a spectator sport. And that is how mech mobility, fuel, map design and RADAR will play into this. Essentially I fear that within the constraints of Hawken map design, players will not be able to abuse maps very well. Mechs are slow, must manage fuel if they are boosting since getting caught with no fuel while re-positioning would be an instant death. And with radar, you couldn't safely boost much anyways, forcing more walking and the game to be even slower.

With rapid positioning, flank attacks etc. against a single point being difficult, I worry that teams would just bunch up and headbutt through the same way every time. This, and that maps would essentially be corridors, not large and interesting. As it stands now, I know after a month of siege everyone would know what to expect when say sahara is getting loaded up. Or any map, there's no variety within the mode. If the goal is more than a competitive scene (which can happen with any game, spectators are not needed) then I see no issue. If the goal is a successful E-sport however, watch-ability must be kept in mind as well as balance.

THAT SAID, I'm not opposed to the idea, some clever form of these gamemodes might translate very well to hawken.

As far as no respawning, my concerns are once again not for in-game balance. It's for audience relation and watch-ability. The harder the punishment is for death, the less you want to die (pretty simple). With lower penalty for death, more strategies become viable as the upsides can match the downsides. Namely, aggressive strategies, the ones that are fun to watch. Worst case scenario, no one would want to watch TDM with perma-death. I'm certain you'll just see teams hole up somewhere on the map, taking pop-shots at each other as they could.

[Nukerock]

NotKjell, on November 28 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

As far as no respawning, my concerns are once again not for in-game balance. It's for audience relation and watch-ability. The harder the punishment is for death, the less you want to die (pretty simple).

But on the other hand the more you want to kill an enemy, take for example dota vs lol, dota has harder punishment for death so players want to die less but it encourages enemy teams to want to kill players more and it has still resulted in games with more kills.
CS has been an eSports for a really long time, and teams almost always engage.

NotKjell, on November 28 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

Worst case scenario, no one would want to watch TDM with perma-death. I'm certain you'll just see teams hole up somewhere on the map, taking pop-shots at each other as they could.

You don't really see any of this happen in CS the key is in having a well thought out objective, I've seen games come up with some even better than CS bombing objective

ReachH, on November 28 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

Common Beeman, I know you watch Quake matches like I do, and you know that Hawken cannot be competetive on a mechanical level. So why make that the focus_

I don't see how the mechanical skill of Hawken is lower than CS for example (if we scrap healing guns and locking weapons) only thing that was really harder was bhopping. I see quake having more mechanical skills yes. Don't see it having less skills than LoL either, yes LoL has a more strategic side, but it is the most watched game yet its not particularly high skilled when compared to starcraft in neither mechanical skills, decision making nor strategy.

Edited by Nukerock, November 28 2012 - 06:25 PM.

[ReachH]

NotKjell, on November 28 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

On the topic of 'single objective' gametypes (single meaning the focus is on one Flag, bomb or control point). Respawn enabled or not, I have some concerns about them not for in-game balance actually, but for being a spectator sport. And that is how mech mobility, fuel, map design and RADAR will play into this. Essentially I fear that within the constraints of Hawken map design, players will not be able to abuse maps very well. Mechs are slow, must manage fuel if they are boosting since getting caught with no fuel while re-positioning would be an instant death. And with radar, you couldn't safely boost much anyways, forcing more walking and the game to be even slower.

THANK YOU. The SS was the only class who could fully abuse a map to its potential in CB1. And even that had its limits. If the devs wanted they could drastically increase the mobility for all mechs and have a style closer to Armored Core 4. THEN we could start thinking about mechanics and open, dynamic map designs. Also imagine if you could vary the distance of the boost by holding down shift. Simple mechanical changes like that open the path for entirely new levels of skill.

Nukerock, on November 28 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

I don't see how the mechanical skill of Hawken is lower than CS for example (if we scrap healing guns and locking weapons) only thing that was really harder was bhopping. I see quake having more mechanical skills yes. Don't see it having less skills than LoL either, yes LoL has a more strategic side, but it is the most watched game yet its not particularly high skilled when compared to starcraft in neither mechanical skills, decision making nor strategy.

Good point. This comes back to what I said earlier about the best part of Hawken is not its weapons or mechanics but its strategy and the interaction between the different classes. That is what they can sell Hawken to an audience with. A predictive rocket shot means nothing in a game with fixed distance dodging, radar on shot/boost, and lumbering mechs with a massive hitbox. There are some fancy things you can do with the boosting, and there are some little tricks you can use in CQBs like boosting underneath an enemy who jumps (because max upwards aim angle is more than downwards.), but that's about it.

Nukerock, on November 28 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

NotKjell, on November 28 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

Worst case scenario, no one would want to watch TDM with perma-death. I'm certain you'll just see teams hole up somewhere on the map, taking pop-shots at each other as they could.

You don't really see any of this happen in CS the key is in having a well thought out objective, I've seen games come up with some even better than CS bombing objective

You have to consider that CS doesn't have repair or healing, I'm not sure whether this would make games more aggressive or more conservative, or what_

I also saw some demos of shootmania. Basically instagib ctf/tdm/dm/dom and some weird 1v3rockets game mode. Pure mechanics and 0 anything else, dunno what to make of it :/ Maps look pretty though, although any quake player would gawk at that and wonder why they cant reduce the entire level to lightmap lol

Edited by ReachH, November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM.

[Sparkard]

So.. i'm somewhat on the side of hestoned...
You're talking about equally skilled team to defend your strategy but i'm not sure if you truly though about how it may cripple your strategy.
If Team A is equally skilled as Team B then it can't really push the B team... well if in every game everyone was equally skilled then every esport game would end with a draw .

Now to the point:
'one players hoards energy and the rest pushes enemy because they're better'... (well, it can't be done because you can't collect energy at that time, but that's not the point)
and so you answer that if team B is defending and has 6 ppl and team A has only 5 then in comp game team a will get wrecked...
Ok.
And a little bit later you say that ' 2 scouts or whatever shoots the ship and the rest defend the base...'
So that's my first wtf.

'If team A will engage near team B base then it'll just give team B more EU for their ships'
My concern here is that you seem to forget that this game is about pushing your ship through and not about collecting EU. If team A manages to distract team B enough to deliver their ship to B team's base then good luck collecting EU.

Third thing is that when you played and tested this strategy i'm pretty sure you've played against lower skilled enemies.
That might have made you forget the fact that ships have turrets, cause it was so easy for you to shoot them down when enemy could really respond to it fast enough. That turrets are actually pretty strong, they'll neglect mechs ability to reapair at all, with repair rate booster, and if you have repair rate booster and repair rate boost from defensive tree it'll still take you forever to repair.

There are many tweaks that can be done here, reverting the changes close to CBE2 state; giving ships more turrets, giving those turrets more hp or even making them undestroyable.

If you have already came up with answers to the points i made above i'd like to hear them

Meaby tommorow when i won't be so sleepy and exhausted i'll say something on why i think siege might be more interesting for viewers to watch than you think it is (not).

That's pretty interesting that you can collect enough energy from enemy's ship's remains to launch your own again.

[ReachH]

Sparkard, on November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

'If team A will engage near team B base then it'll just give team B more EU for their ships'
My concern here is that you seem to forget that this game is about pushing your ship through and not about collecting EU. If team A manages to distract team B enough to deliver their ship to B team's base then good luck collecting EU.

You've inspired my genius solution:

|x|

Team A Base   

Team A Battleship goal <------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Team A Battleship Start

AA Battery                                            EU

EU                                               AA Battery
Team B Battleship start/goal<---------------------------------------------------------------------------->Team B Battleship Start/Goal

Team B Base

|x|

You can also stick the EU collection outside the base, and have the base as more of a concealed spawn point than a fortress. Hell, stick up multiple AA sites along the paths. I haven't decided whether it'll be best for the ships to travel in the same direction or not, I guess it largely depends on whether you want to involve JUMP PADS ^^

Note that both the AA batteries can shoot both lanes.

I'll be just like the minecart run in TF2 except with 2 carts simultaneously and a lot of skirmishes. Maybe an excuse for those 32 player servers again :] So could this work for new maps_

Edited by ReachH, November 28 2012 - 07:32 PM.

[Beemann]

Sparkard, on November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

So.. i'm somewhat on the side of hestoned...
You're talking about equally skilled team to defend your strategy but i'm not sure if you truly though about how it may cripple your strategy.
If Team A is equally skilled as Team B then it can't really push the B team... well if in every game everyone was equally skilled then every esport game would end with a draw .

No comp team is going to fight 5v6 unless they have to. The problem with Siege is that in both CB2 and CB3 iterations of it, you don't have to fight the other team until 30+ minutes in. It's simply unnecessary
You don't move any closer to victory through killing members of the other team because in order to kill them you're sending an equal or greater number of players (compared to the number of downed enemies) to get demolished, or at least to not collect EU with the team. What's more, you risk a wipe if one portion of your now-split team loses
You never assume that you're going to win a shorthanded fight in a tourney match. That's what loses matches
Heck, Rapha lost a match because he got cocky while he had a healthy lead

Sparkard, on November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

Now to the point:
'one players hoards energy and the rest pushes enemy because they're better'... (well, it can't be done because you can't collect energy at that time, but that's not the point)
and so you answer that if team B is defending and has 6 ppl and team A has only 5 then in comp game team a will get wrecked...
Ok.
And a little bit later you say that ' 2 scouts or whatever shoots the ship and the rest defend the base...'
So that's my first wtf.

er... what_
Both teams are roughly even in threat level. Team A hordes energy between ship launches (in CB3 this occurs if your ship is destroyed by the AA or the other team while on your end of the map. If it doesn't work, then you have to go back to node-based collecting and try to get as much as you can without the enemy collecting enough of it to gain a bigger stack), which are used to deny energy collection to the other team as much as possible. The two scouts are only technically separated from the team. As you can see in the video, everyone stuck to their end of the map unless it was absolutely necessary to venture out (or, in the video's specific trial case, whenever they got bored... not that it made a huge difference )
The scouts and everyone else are all at/around the base, and they shoot at the ship and try to keep it in the air for as long as possible

Sparkard, on November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

'If team A will engage near team B base then it'll just give team B more EU for their ships'
My concern here is that you seem to forget that this game is about pushing your ship through and not about collecting EU. If team A manages to distract team B enough to deliver their ship to B team's base then good luck collecting EU.

During a battleship launch, the team in spawn has the numbers advantage AND a firepower advantage (invincible base turrets) and doesn't need to actually leave spawn to destroy the ship. Once it is destroyed they can force the other team back, possibly get a pick or two and wipe that team out

Sparkard, on November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

Third thing is that when you played and tested this strategy i'm pretty sure you've played against lower skilled enemies.
That might have made you forget the fact that ships have turrets, cause it was so easy for you to shoot them down when enemy could really respond to it fast enough. That turrets are actually pretty strong, they'll neglect mechs ability to reapair at all, with repair rate booster, and if you have repair rate booster and repair rate boost from defensive tree it'll still take you forever to repair.

We've offered to test this strat out against people who don;t believe it will work. Our offer hasn't been accepted by anyone
Also, turrets don't work all the way across the map, nor will they wipe 6 mechs out
Heck, you could have one "tank" mech whose job is to just repair  when the ship focuses them so everyone else can fire on it indefinitely

Sparkard, on November 28 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

There are many tweaks that can be done here, reverting the changes close to CBE2 state; giving ships more turrets, giving those turrets more hp or even making them undestroyable.

CBE2 had pretty much the same fundamental issues, and adding more turrets to the ships doesn't make a difference if they can't hit across the whole map and magically phase through cover
Making the ships invincible would stop a team from shooting it down, but wouldn't hurt the viability of building an EU stack and just spamming ships to "level" your battleship

@ReachH
Forcing a team out of spawn only works if they A: can't still hit the ship from at/near spawn and B: there's a reason to attack the enemy's side of the map

Siege suffers from the same issues as RA3 and Firefall's current version of TDM. There's just not enough incentive to engage or be agressive

[SamSlade]

particle, on November 27 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

Huh I didn't know Siege mode was their "premier esports" mode.

It's not... see nest reply

Analysis, on November 27 2012 - 08:30 PM, said:

Siege will never be a competitive game mode.

Hawken has little to no esports appeal... too many 'easy mode' buttons.  There are no real tactics and the skill curve is like a freeway in the desert.

Immie, on November 28 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

As was pointed out to me the other day, the problem with a no respawn mode being part of the highly visible esports scene, is that most casuals don't like limited respawns or single life sort of deals.

Counterstrike: one of the 'greatest' FPS esports ever, says no. (before you argue, it has a limited respawn...limited!)

[PlagueDoctor]

SamSlade, on November 28 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

Counterstrike: one of the 'greatest' FPS esports ever, says no. (before you argue, it has a limited respawn...limited!)

Compared to TF2, which has unlimited respawning. Much more popular!

also I'm not sure what you mean by the Skill curve part. Its literally impossible to tell if there is a skill curve right now, the game is still pre-release. Hell. LoL didn't have pros until like 2 years after its release.

[z121231211]

PlagueDoctor, on November 28 2012 - 10:40 PM, said:

Compared to TF2, which has unlimited respawning. Much more popular!

I don't know what you're trying to argue, but I don't like it.

[PlagueDoctor]

z121231211, on November 28 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

I don't know what you're trying to argue, but I don't like it.

TF2 was popular before hats, when it was all standard weapons. People are going to watch what they play. There is a reason SC2's spectator community is atrophying, while LoL's is flourishing.

[Beemann]

SamSlade, on November 28 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

Counterstrike: one of the 'greatest' FPS esports ever, says no. (before you argue, it has a limited respawn...limited!)

How many pub players play like that, compared to say... however many play zombie mode (and other silly mods), cashless rounds and respawn-heavy mods (like gungame)

[Titzilla]

SamSlade, on November 28 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

particle, on November 27 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

Huh I didn't know Siege mode was their "premier esports" mode.

It's not... see nest reply

Analysis, on November 27 2012 - 08:30 PM, said:

Siege will never be a competitive game mode.

Hawken has little to no esports appeal... too many 'easy mode' buttons.  There are no real tactics and the skill curve is like a freeway in the desert.

Just because you think it has no esports potential does not mean that it's impossible to turn it into one. As other people have mentioned, we're still in beta testing for a reason. We're here to test and help balance while trying to make the game succeed. The developers have mentioned that Siege was intended to be their main attraction, the mode that Hawken will be remembered for. That is what is meant when it was said that it's their premiere esports mode. After all it would be silly to base your esports off of a secondary mode that most people don't plan on primarily playing (as opposed to the developers' desired Siege result).

[Skylead]

I'm going to stay out of this thread other than to say great job Notkjell for finding a way to break the game and that CTF, if done right, could be a lot of fun in Hawken. However I would prefer an in depth overhaul of Siege to make it reward aggression more and eliminate turtle strats over what I fear might be a tacked on CTF mode. All that being said, Adhesive has done a great job so far so I see no reason to doubt they will have a good fix for our gripes in the next patch.

Edited by Skylead, November 29 2012 - 12:32 PM.

[SunshineSloth]

So I read this whole thread. Siege doesn't live up to it's potential. I believe the energy mechanic is the problem. Why do we have to mule energy back to our base_ The idea is to introduce risk but currently it is just manual labour.

I would suggest we do away with collecting energy.

- You could gain energy from kills
- Battleships could launch automatically thereby making the AA invaluable
- The only energy tree your team can collect from could be in enemy territory
- You could continuously gain energy slowly but loose energy from deaths

Basically something needs to change to make incentivise killing. It needs to be approached economically. What motivates play.

Edited by SunshineSloth, November 29 2012 - 05:41 PM.

[wedo]

i didnt read everyhhing and dont know if it was mentioned, just do the capture the point or tdm, the siege thing like you said has too many bugs, i played in top teams in esports, cod4, dod and dod:s capture points always did better for team strats and pushes instead of siege mechanics imo.

dod was 6v6 capture flags and or points, whoever controlled the most after 40 mins or capped out won, i think this game would work better like that, or even a defend attack format for 6v6. have 2 man caps for certain points and single points, make it so you have to split up 2 v 2 or 1v1 scenario and big fights in a mid areas.

[wedo]

NEXT time you do these scrim tests comp formats let me know please id love to get in on the and suggest and or help out, been around the bush in the comp scene and i would love to see this game do well.

[SamSlade]

Take energy for spawning a mech when you die out of the pool used to launch the Battleship.

Have Mechs drop a measure of the energy used to create them upon death.

Have one enery spawner and two AA sites... nerf the AA power by 50%.

[SunshineSloth]

Quote

Take energy for spawning a mech when you die out of the pool used to launch the Battleship.

Have Mechs drop a measure of the energy used to create them upon death.

It already does this to some extent it's just not worth it. You add 10 EU to the cost when you die and drop the energy you're carrying. I think it needs to hurt more to die and killing be more of a requirement.

I imagine we'll see more maps with 2 AA's and other configurations in open beta.