215 replies to this topic

[FussyBadger]

Bowmangr - Hey, I apologize if I rubbed you the wrong way. I mean no disrespect; I'm just fussy.

The BF3 comment was along the lines of MWO and Hawken becoming very similar games competing for the same market - like CoD and BF3 do. Medal of Honor would've been a better replacement than BF3, since it's intended as a more direct alternative to CoD, but it blows so... whatever. You understood the point if not the example.

There are Mech games where the machines weren't lumbering monstrosities. Phantom Crash and Armored Core are good examples. If you read the Hawken graphic novel, they talk about the scientific accomplishments that allow for light weight and resulting mobility. It's a good read, I encourage it. Based on what's presented there and gameplay mechanics in place, it seems that Adhesive has a high-mobility vision for their robots.

I totally agree with your MWO experience. I'm giving it another try this weekend, but last time I played, the economy felt totally effed up. However, I wouldn't hold your breath for Hawken to shift to that same gameplay experience based on the above paragraph. My hope for is that both games step up and excel at very different experiences. MWO with huge maps and lumbering mechs while Hawken offers a faster and more intimate experience.

Finally, I wish you found joy in imagining absurdities that could happen to Hawken. Taking pleasure in the small stuff makes for a better day. That's what I tell my wife at least and, heck, she married me.

Edited by FussyBadger, March 29 2013 - 08:55 AM.

[Abkanis]

So once upon a time I saw a trailer for hawken. The really pretty one (I think it was the second gameplay trailer). I fell in love with it and  stalked the project every 3rd day (until I got a job where it turns out I had a Beta invite that I only cashed in on the last day).

Of that said closed beta 3, it was a different experience for sure. But I thought it was great and became incredibally stoked for the final version. Again it is a different experience since then. The CallofDuty analogy is interesting because yeah its appealing to the twitch gamers, because thats where the market is right now (and probably will be until people finally get bored). I'm still having fun with it (I grew up on unreal tournament); even if I don't think its proper for these mechs to fall into pieces so quickly.

I agree that combat needs to be slowed significantly, but I disagree that this is becoming a CoD clone. The massive weight behind these beasts, acceleration-to-run speeds, struggling to mantle a ledge at times, and the thoomp-thoomp of walking around never lets me forget that I am piloting a virtual mech, which is the experience I came for (FYI, yes I did throw money at the developers, so far all I've done with it is get rid of the iconic fred chassis).

Of course I have my own little ideal of what the game should be, It'd involve the TOW being boosted a little (current cooldown seems too much), hellfires being nerfed (theres something scary about that tracking), EOC being nerfed (I get a lot of kills I shouldn't with it), making the rocket turret not useless and turret mode being more than a pointy obstacle to the enemy (I am interested in the suspected tech update to the viability of turret mode).

That said, Hawken still my favourite game currently, and will probably always be on my private list of best games. hopefully it does get slowed down though

[Guiotine]

I don't see why Hawken has to choose between becoming CoD or MWO (to generalize/simplfiy). The whole point of Hawken is that it takes some elements of both. Hawken may be a mech game, but it is not a mech sim. The mechs in Hawken are agile, fast. There is actually a lore reason as to why they are. Videos I have seen in the past have described Hawken as a cross between eastern mecha, and western mechs. That is one reason why this game is great. I only started playing in OB, so I have never experienced any of the faster movements speeds, but any slower would be painful. Too fast though, and it joins the ranks of the twitch army. I think the mechs could do with a bit of an armor buff, movement speed boosts might be okay, but it should certainly not be any slower.

tl:dr:

[curlupanddie]

RedVan, on March 29 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

curlupanddie, on March 28 2013 - 10:36 PM, said:

I find this topic 8 pages later, dividing folks into two (very familiar) parties.

Those that want a strategic, team based game, with all mechs evenly matched 1v1 for equally skilled pilots, allowing for "the beautiful dance".

And those that want burst damage, run and gun twitch play where they can get high kill streaks and be one man armies.

Currently Hawken offers both, but in practice and in the numbers, burst is king right now.

See, here you're making it sound like twitch games don't require just as much tactics and teamwork as your so called "strategic" games. That's simply not true. Tactics will be different, but just as much. And even the different tactics will simply just be a variation of the same thing.

Beemann, on March 28 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

TBH Quake actually allows much longer fights on a 1 to 1 scale than Hawken does, mostly due to the ability to avoid shots through a robust movement system. Hawken's movement is rather predictable and fairly slow

Yeah, hawken really does need more movement. At least back to the beta speed to start, or whenever it was, I can't remember which stage it was.

I agree Hawken needs more movement, I can only see this as a plus. Even when I switch from scout to infil. I feel like i'm in molasses, more so with C classes. The finesse to mobility right now, feels more disjointed than intentional.

What one person calls strategy, I call running around like a chicken with your head cut off. It's this Rambo style, alphastrike, Burst damage gameplay that I'm referring to, where it's basically a non issue to coordinate with the rest of your team. That's not the same type of strategy as what other people want. A lot of the people feel the game needs to make for more coordinated efforts, which I think the Healer bot (despite my not being terribly interested in an mmo class) may help push this game towards.

[curlupanddie]

Guiotine, on March 29 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

I don't see why Hawken has to choose between becoming CoD or MWO (to generalize/simplfiy). The whole point of Hawken is that it takes some elements of both. Hawken may be a mech game, but it is not a mech sim. The mechs in Hawken are agile, fast. There is actually a lore reason as to why they are. Videos I have seen in the past have described Hawken as a cross between eastern mecha, and western mechs. That is one reason why this game is great. I only started playing in OB, so I have never experienced any of the faster movements speeds, but any slower would be painful. Too fast though, and it joins the ranks of the twitch army. I think the mechs could do with a bit of an armor buff, movement speed boosts might be okay, but it should certainly not be any slower.

tl:dr:

I see your point here and agree that it's not a bad idea to support both to an extent; And yes, against a coordinated team, the COD style players shouldn't do as well, but with Matchmaking as it is and PUGs being all but terrible at coordinating, it's more likely that the one skilled COD style player shows up and EOC's through everything indiscriminately to the top of the leader beads, typically carrying that team to victory.

Edited by curlupanddie, March 29 2013 - 09:11 AM.

[RedVan]

curlupanddie, on March 29 2013 - 09:03 AM, said:

RedVan, on March 29 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

curlupanddie, on March 28 2013 - 10:36 PM, said:

I find this topic 8 pages later, dividing folks into two (very familiar) parties.

Those that want a strategic, team based game, with all mechs evenly matched 1v1 for equally skilled pilots, allowing for "the beautiful dance".

And those that want burst damage, run and gun twitch play where they can get high kill streaks and be one man armies.

Currently Hawken offers both, but in practice and in the numbers, burst is king right now.

See, here you're making it sound like twitch games don't require just as much tactics and teamwork as your so called "strategic" games. That's simply not true. Tactics will be different, but just as much. And even the different tactics will simply just be a variation of the same thing.

Beemann, on March 28 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

TBH Quake actually allows much longer fights on a 1 to 1 scale than Hawken does, mostly due to the ability to avoid shots through a robust movement system. Hawken's movement is rather predictable and fairly slow

Yeah, hawken really does need more movement. At least back to the beta speed to start, or whenever it was, I can't remember which stage it was.

I agree Hawken needs more movement, I can only see this as a plus. Even when I switch from scout to infil. I feel like i'm in molasses, more so with C classes. The finesse to mobility right now, feels more disjointed than intentional.

What one person calls strategy, I call running around like a chicken with your head cut off. It's this Rambo style, alphastrike, Burst damage gameplay that I'm referring to, where it's basically a non issue to coordinate with the rest of your team. That's not the same type of strategy as what other people want. A lot of the people feel the game needs to make for more coordinated efforts, which I think the Healer bot (despite my not being terribly interested in an mmo class) may help push this game towards.

I don't think anyone calls that strategy. That's a great way to get yourself killed very very quickly (unless you're up against a bunch of noobs).

You gotta remember, if the mechanics allow quick movements for one team, the same mechanics apply to the other team. If one person runs in to "alpha strike" someone Rambo style, a team using tactics and strategy will quickly decimate them and move along as if nothing has happened. However, it just happens at a faster pace because they are capable of moving faster.

Slow the game play down to a level considered "strategic gameplay", same happens. Speed it up to UT "twitch gameplay" speeds, same thing.

Reference my last post on the previous page for more info

Edited by RedVan, March 29 2013 - 09:25 AM.

[IllustriousFox]

curlupanddie, on March 29 2013 - 09:03 AM, said:

I agree Hawken needs more movement, I can only see this as a plus. Even when I switch from scout to infil. I feel like i'm in molasses, more so with C classes. The finesse to mobility right now, feels more disjointed than intentional.

What one person calls strategy, I call running around like a chicken with your head cut off. It's this Rambo style, alphastrike, Burst damage gameplay that I'm referring to, where it's basically a non issue to coordinate with the rest of your team. That's not the same type of strategy as what other people want. A lot of the people feel the game needs to make for more coordinated efforts, which I think the Healer bot (despite my not being terribly interested in an mmo class) may help push this game towards.

This only sounds like an issue with the Raider.

[Sethendal]

Looking back at my posts in this same thread, I think a lot of what influences my enjoyment is the quality of the team in a match.  However, it's not always apparent to me that is what is at play until I have a few matches with two very balanced and quality teams.

While a lot of conversation is around Twitch vs Strat /Quake vs Rainbox Six (a valid debate) I like to think one of the components affecting enjoyment  currently is the actual multiplayer experience overall.

Hawken's modes (DM even to a degree) are so dependent on the quality of the random pick up group you've joined coupled with a rather bolted-on MMR system that it can sway very drastically from one end of the pendulum to the other relatively quickly.  

For me, the real flaw in Hawken currently is a lack of match hosting (whether dedicated or shared), private / moderated servers with settings, party-join, auto-balance, and the other typical join/start/server FPS features that the market has made standards (TF2, BF3, Quake, etc).  Having to cross your fingers so much with every click of the Join button does become exhausting over time.  Plus, it's something still keeping my core-gaming-friends from trying Hawken due to how hard it is to match with your pals.

Last night, I had the joy of being in several matches with 23 other players that were fun, team-focused, running several different chassis and evenly matched and sadly, it's been a rare sight as of late. That's the Hawken experience I love and what keeps me playing.  Just need to find a way to make it easier to find

Again, something I've heard Hawken is working on.  Yet, last night made me realize that I'm fine with being 1 shot killed if my team is there to make that person regret loosing the beast on me.  Alpha strikes and low TTK for me, are infinitely more annoying when you're playing a single player TDM/Seige/MA match with 11-23 others.

Edited by Sethendal, March 29 2013 - 09:56 AM.

[Abkanis]

It's an issue with any mech capable of holding 2 weapons that can inflict over 100damage each in one firing. Raider and infiltrator just happen to be the best at it because they come out of nowhere.

[ShadowWarg]

Guiotine, on March 29 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

I don't see why Hawken has to choose between becoming CoD or MWO (to generalize/simplfiy). The whole point of Hawken is that it takes some elements of both. Hawken may be a mech game, but it is not a mech sim. The mechs in Hawken are agile, fast. There is actually a lore reason as to why they are. Videos I have seen in the past have described Hawken as a cross between eastern mecha, and western mechs. That is one reason why this game is great. I only started playing in OB, so I have never experienced any of the faster movements speeds, but any slower would be painful. Too fast though, and it joins the ranks of the twitch army. I think the mechs could do with a bit of an armor buff, movement speed boosts might be okay, but it should certainly not be any slower.

tl:dr:

Regardless of what people are saying, that hawken needs to be one or the other, ^^^this right here is exactly what everyone is really asking for. Sorry if it sound like I am putting word in everyone's mouth but most of the player base is asking hawken to return to the time it was at closed beta or the beginning of open beta. That was the time when hawken had a near perfect balance of the two.

ShadowWarg, on March 27 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

I said it once and i'll say it again:

ShadowWarg, on March 18 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

Anyway the real question is: HOW MUCH MECH SIM DO YOU WANT IN YOUR FPS, AND HOW MUCH FPS DO YOU WANT IN YOUR MECH SIM. Hawken right now is like a reese's peanut butter cup, expect with just a little bit more chocolate than peanut butter. The perfect peanut butter cup has the perfect balance of both.

Right now Hawken has too much Chocolate and not enough peanut butter.

Edited by ShadowWarg, March 29 2013 - 09:54 AM.

[Abkanis]

ShadowWarg, on March 29 2013 - 09:50 AM, said:

Regardless of what people are saying, that hawken needs to be one or the other, ^^^this right here is exactly what everyone is really asking for. Sorry if it sound like I am putting word in everyone's mouth but most of the player base is asking hawken to return to the time it was at closed beta or the beginning of open beta. That was the time when hawken had a near perfect balance of the two.

Quick, Everyone like this and make our opinions heard! This sounds like the most ideal!

[Beemann]

Goyo, on March 29 2013 - 02:47 AM, said:

stuff

High speed and high aim requirements increase the importance of tactics/strategy). You not only have to come up with your plan much faster (and generally on the fly as you're dealing with an ever-changing environment) but you have to consider the chance of it failing based on the ease of hitting your target.

Go watch some comp Quake videos with commentary. There's a LOT of thinking that goes into even seemingly insignificant and slow portions of the match

I'll even start you off with one
http://youtu.be/XdkDjsBiO58

A large part of the game is knowing your opponent, your stack, guessing at their position and stack, and remembering the timing of powerups, all while strafe jumping, blocking entrances/exits with spam shots, manoeuvring around the map and hitting some ridiculous shouts that aimbots couldn't pull off

Bowmangr, on March 29 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

See, this is what I'm talking about. Hawken needs to decide what kind of game it is to at least make one of the two crowds happy. You want more speed, I want LESS speed, more armor and more distinct mech roles on the battlefield. Right now noone is happy. THIS is the problem.

Less speed (or mobility) would lead to an even lower skill ceiling. More armour is needed, but so is the capacity to actually evade fire

Also I don't want Hawken to be MWO OR CoD. I want it to be Hawken
Higher TTK than most shooters, more mobility than either of the listed games, heavily team focused but in a way that doesn't involve crippling individual contribution and with weapons that actually take skill to use optimally

Edited by Beemann, March 29 2013 - 10:00 AM.

[SS396]

Guiotine, on March 29 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

Curse you Guiotine,
Now I'm hungry for Taco's.  

[The_Silencer]

You know what_ I'm frakking hungry right now!

P.S. What a beautiful child

[Subwoofer]

The_Silencer, on March 29 2013 - 09:55 PM, said:

You know what_ I'm frakking hungry right now!

P.S. What a beautiful child

shut up and share food!

[The_Silencer]

Subwoofer, on March 29 2013 - 10:08 PM, said:

The_Silencer, on March 29 2013 - 09:55 PM, said:

You know what_ I'm frakking hungry right now!

P.S. What a beautiful child

shut up and share food!

I'm The_Silencer and not you, my dear smurf!

[Bowmangr]

FussyBadger, on March 29 2013 - 08:45 AM, said:

Bowmangr - Hey, I apologize if I rubbed you the wrong way. I mean no disrespect; I'm just fussy.

Hey, don't worry. English is not my first language, so my own comments may sounded angry or whatever. I actually consider this thread very informative with all around excellent opinions, even though some of them may be opposite.
My point is that I don't really think that Hawken can stay longer in this "I don't know what game I want to be" state. My opinion is that the devs must decide sooner rather than later what they want to do and try to keep happy that crowd.

We are now in a state where noone feels right about the gameplay and this is bad for the game. All of us have preferences about what we want Hawken to be and going in one direction will alienate the other "side" of the player base but this is inevitable. Instead of discouraging both gamer crowds they should decide which direction they want to go to and stick to that all the way.


P.S. I also have to agree to the person that mentioned that the lack of private servers and server options/matchmaking in general is hurting the game. I know from personal experience that my 2 online gaming friends don't want to get into Hawken simply because it's so difficult to create {so to speak} a game session to our liking. For example, choosing the arena, the number of players, friend invites, private servers, the works}

[MojoNixon]

Bow don't use lines like "no one feels right about the gameplay"
Had several games yesterday that were neck and neck all the way till the end, lots of dancing, mix of all mechs etc.  I feel people are continuing to have bad match up streaks and blaming the gameplay for it.   Remember the forum is only a small section of the player base, even smaller those that actually post.  

Just dont apply broad generalizations to the entire player base.

Edited by MojoNixon, March 30 2013 - 07:54 AM.

[TheVulong]

Now i'm actually agree with the thread's title: in it's current state with all those EOCs, Alpha strikes, Raiders, Powershots, etc Hawken now is more of a stressing and exhausting than funny and relaxing game - not like it was at the OB start.

P.S. Fuzzy bunnies are OP.

Edited by TheVulong, March 30 2013 - 08:54 AM.

[curlupanddie]

MojoNixon, on March 30 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

Bow don't use lines like "no one feels right about the gameplay"
Had several games yesterday that were neck and neck all the way till the end, lots of dancing, mix of all mechs etc.  I feel people are continuing to have bad match up streaks and blaming the gameplay for it.   Remember the forum is only a small section of the player base, even smaller those that actually post.  

Just dont apply broad generalizations to the entire player base.

^this

When matches are good, they're really good, and I too still have fun playing.

I've found making friends really easy in this game, and once they implement a solid group system, I think well see a shift in balance and quality of matches. Granted there will still be pub stomping, but i think it will be strategic players crushing the unorganized, one man army players, and not the other way around.