I've heard it time and time again:
"F2P sounds good, but they always end up being Pay2Win and that's wrong and it sux."
^ This, ladies and germs, is a fallacy. In point of fact, it's a blatant lie. I know that sounds like a bold claim, but let's review why it isn't, shall we_
- Every game - like any other product - requires time, investment, effort and skill in order to develop.
- Developers, at the end of the day, are just like you and I: They want to receive a fair wage for their efforts; they want to be paid for the work they do.
- People who pay money for an item desire for their returns to be worth their investment. This is where the problem begins.
- While some purchasers might be okay with unlocking new skins or paint jobs, most players will not be okay with paying hard-earned cash for what amounts to an image they could easily create for themselves in Gimp - for free.
- It seems like a good idea to charge for new mech parts - and it would be - except for the fact that they must continue to do so for every new mech they use (parts not being transferrable in any way). This leads to players being daunted by the fact they will have to purchase new parts each and every time they add a new mech type to their inventory.
- "Pay2Win" is a negative connotation that is assigned to games that offer new weapons in exchange for real world money. This is particular term was coined by people who don't feel as if they should have to pay for new content. Example: A good example is the Crossbow that's now offered in BF3: It is a one-shot kill if it impacts, period. And the complaining hasn't stopped. Those who complain always conveniently overlook the fact that to equip the crossbow, the player in question must sacrifice their gadget. For Recon, this means no MAV (which is the smallest sacrifice that can be made), For Assault it means no Med kit; for Support it means no explosives and for Engineer they must sacrifice their RPG, SMAW or Javelin. With the exception of the Recon class (which is largely a semi-suicidal all-or-nothing class with a high-skill ceiling to high-power ratio class anyway) the other classes must sacrifice crucial and more beneficial items to gain this weapon. In addition, you can only unlock the weapon by actually meeting the new unlock criterion that also came with the DLC. In short: High skill players will largely ignore this weapon because it's more of a detriment than a benefit to competitive play. It's for this reason you see noobie players using far more often than Veterans, who typically rely on higher skill-sets and better tactics than a single-shot weapon with an incredibly long reload time - the fact it is a one-shot kill can be ignored for this very reason.
What I've noticed about Hawken that has mostly been ignored is that the TOW missle is severely OP - especially on new mechs. It can be - and has been - argued that the reason for putting such a weapon on a class used by every new player is that it balances the skill to power ratio. But what obviously hasn't been considered is that, as long as new players - playing at no cost or investment from themselves - can continue using a weapon that, even by the admission of skilled veterans, has a High Reward/Low Risk ratio (the very definition of "broken" in the gaming community; broken weapons also correctly being labled "OP" or over-powered) why would they ever pay to use anything else_ Why would you_ Why would anyone_ Especially if, like many of us, you only spent a measly $10 or so to purchase other mech types to see if anything had changed since the last Closed Beta, only to find that all other weapons - when compared to the general utility of TOW - are pathetic in comparison. New players will find, much to their disappointment, that only 1 other mech has this weapon. Given that it's also in the lightest class and is the fastest chassis in the game, after purchasing that one mech, why ever play anything else_ It's like the "FOO" Strategy argument; new players will simply whale away until they run into a strategem/combination they can't beat and then quit. The problem with this is the game will quickly become a Ghost Town. Don't believe me_ Go play "Transformers: War for Cybertron". Newbies always end up resorting to using Leader with a Fusion Cannon, Magma Frag launcher and Warcry. These abilities also have a HRwd/LRsk ratio and, as such, are common place. With no balance changes put in place by the developers - after 2 solid years of begging for it - no anti-cheat and this strategem reaching the point of insanity (since Warcry + Rage perk adds +35% ATK and +25% DEF and this is stackable, provided each user has a different - if any - Warcry perk applied) led to entire 5 man teams playing the class in a noob-fest we veterans refer to as "Angry Red Lights".
Right now, Hawken is a noob-fest with the TOW missile. Because the game is still new, most folks are just rolling the the proverbial punches and playing through the insanity. But this won't last. Like War for Cybertron - and its successor, which the devs did something equally stupid with - I forsee Hawken will be a ghost town in very short order. Maybe 6 months; 9 at the outside. But I digress...
The problem with Hawken's model as it currently stands is that because of things like TOW, there is simply no reward for paying into the game. With no mode to play by which the story can be told (the entire point of playing a video game for a large portion of the population), no definitive advantages to paying monies into the game and no balance structure that supports higher-skill level play, this game will likely die a short and miserable death and become like so many other wonderfully created but poorly implemented games like it.
Here's some examples:
AvP(2010): A beautifully designed game with a unique twist on multiplayer, but... For Predator and Alien types, this means the "E" kill Conga-line (stealth killing, which is instant, going back as far as the eye can see; so much so that the first player killed this way would often find themselves the next member in the Conga line right after spawn and consequently, the next member killed immediately thereafter) while those playing Marines simply spam the pulse rifle to death, shredding anything that crosses their paths in mere seconds - thus garnering the highest KD/R's in the game.
War for Cybertron: No anti-cheat, no balance changes, no updates and no map or character packs. This game became a haven for cheese-balls, noobs and hackers alike with the few remaining players being those of us who ground our way through to skill-sets others would consider impossible and/or unattainable.
Fall of Cybertron: Again, no anti-cheat, all paid "DLC" is really just skin unlocks (visual stuff that has little, if any, impact on gameplay) and the developers admitting that the best weapon in the game also requires an incredibly high skill-set just to be effective and impeccable strategem added to said skills in order to be good... and then promptly nerfing it into oblivion and utter uselessness. Meanwhile, the weapons that did need massive changes were largely left unchanged and to this day remained over-powered. Which means it's still the most frequently used. Why try a sniper rifle that takes a full minute to charge when you can use the X-18 which fires 5X faster than every other weapon in the game, has 3/4 the range and can counter nearly any defensive measures. Stack on top of that giving the largest class the ability to run and dash at the same speed and a "shotgun" that revives the user's health while dealing damage to the victim; why would you ever play any other class_
BRINK: Another brilliantly planned and designed game that fell short of the mark. Balance changes the community begged for were dismally slow in being implemented, DLC releases should've been faster as the Single Player, Co-Op and Multi-Player were seamlessly integrated in terms of player progression and maps were poorly balanced in their layout. Gameplay was also heavily reliant on team-play and objective accomplishment based on class. Those who joined a server with a well put together team easily dominated the competition while more casual players found themselves dying every couple of minutes. And there was really only one mode of play.
Crysis: One of the most beautiful games ever designed, this game's multiplayer was incredibly unique... but it completely lacked focus on objectives. Unlike BRINK, which was too focused, Crysis lacked any real focus of anykind. Add that to the fact the the game required hardware that few could afford in order to play it on even high settings and that it premiered at a time when Broadband was still in its adolescence, Crysis was simply doomed to fail.
Crysis 2: More beautiful than it's predecessor - after the DX 11 and texture patches - and having greater focus on game play with clearer and more obtainable objectives, the problem with this game came like it has in nearly all of the others: Poorly and/or slowly implemented updates, little if any anti-cheat and poor choices in balance changes, this game died a quiet and unremarkable death. It also didn't help that the online store was broken and rarely worked. Some complained that the weapons purchased were broken beyond reason, but by the time this had happened, the game was already dead. They had nerfed the suit to being mostly useless, the SCAR was insanely broken (and everyone started with it) upgraded or earned weapons had little if any benefit to their use. Like its predecessor, it now exists solely as a very fun to play SP game used as benchmarking tool.
The thing to be noticed with each of these games is that developers considered that most people who paid just wanted new stuff to look at. They also seemed to think that, because plenty of people initially paid for the game that new people would continue to do so based on merits the game didn't posses and they had no intention of fixing. Most of these games are fine examples of things to not do. Things the developers at Hawken are blatantly ignoring. In fact, so far, Meteor has repeated nearly every one of these mistakes; it has been pointed out by the community and continually ignored, with the developers obviously thinking the status quo will be sufficient to keep the flow going. I've posted this warning more than once and this will be the very last time I do so. I've been gaming since the '80's and have accurately predicted the deaths of each of these games in turn and posted arguments to the developers only to be ignored. Funny how my predictions came true, isn't it_ Disregard at your own risk, Meteor.
Let's review Hawken's problems thus far:
- TOW comes on the starting mechs for every player, both free and paid. TOW is both powerful, has a very low risk behind it's use, requires very little skill to use effectively and it benefits greatly from the perks/skill points that can be unlocked naturally through leveling. This makes it the Swiss Army knife of the game. A giant, explosive, fire and forget, infinite ranged swiss army knife. How can this possibly be good_
- Weapons like Slug Rifle, Sabot Rifle, HEAT Cannon and Grenade launcher in order to be used effectively have a lower Reward/Risk ratio than the initial loadout, making them stupid choices by comparison.
- All paid for content must be paid for more than once if players desire to play more than one class, which currently, there is no need to do other than blind curiosity which will quickly dry up as more players post publicly.
- There's no distinct benefit to paying for any content, ever. The fallacy of all content being unlockable for free suggests that developers don't need money to live. A blatant lie. It also suggests there should be no advantage to paying into a game aside from making your mech visually different - something the paying player would never see outside of the garage.
- There's no cheat protection. As the game grows, this will become a very large problem, very quickly.
- The game isn't friendly to new players as there are more advantages to never paying a dime into the game as opposed to paying into it; but simply grinding away like a madman until you have enough skill points to class out your tree to your play style. While including TOW somewhat alleviates this, it also feeds into the problem: the game gets very boring, very quickly because everyone is using the same exact outfit and tactic.
Suggestions for fixing TOW, pick 2:
- Give it a maximum effective range. Either it auto explodes after X distance or make it clatter harmlessly to the ground.
- Cut the splash damage to 1/3 of its current value.
- Take away the ability to manually detonate it.
- User splash back damage for being too close when it explodes should be doubled. It should punish players for using it like a melee (as is the current most common use).
To put it succinctly: Most people who pay money for a game - while others do not - will
rightfully and correctly desire advantages that free players simply don't or can't have. Doing anything less only serves to alienate the populous who actually can and will pay for the game and its content. This, of course, doesn't mean that paying players should be offered weapons that will dominate the free competition so completely that it drives them away from playing the game. But under no circumstances should free players receive top tier weapon like TOW from the outset of the game either. This is blatantly wrong, short-sighted and stupid and this type of craziness will result in the death of Hawken before it gets to really live. If anything, such a weapon should be an unlockable for paying players. Same goes for the Seeker missile for the Rocketeer.
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LordofNosgoth, on January 02 2013 - 12:06 AM, said:
