122 replies to this topic

[HideyoshiYaoi]

Ker4u, on November 19 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

can someone make a tl;dr with bulletpounts_

Half life 3 confirmed

[WarlordZ]

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 20 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

comic_sans, on November 20 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

OmegaNull, on November 20 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 19 2013 - 10:30 PM, said:

OmegaNull, on November 19 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

Hughes, you know the server browser is not advertising correcting on our end right_

There are still open issues with connectivity that can be seen occasionally when using the Server Browser (if that's what you're referring to).

If you mean the issue where when I try to look for a Death Match on USE and there are none, yet there are 5 on USW, then yes. Or how about if I ask a dev if DM is down, and you guys seem it working fine on your end, however, i cannot see USE DM on the server browser. I spoke to someone (I cannot remember who) and was told it has something to do with the advert system.

Same problem.  More than the two of us crave our east coast DM.

Please use Quick Match if you are having issues with the Server Browser. We've mentioned, unfortunately there are open issues with the browser at the moment.

Quick match isn't a very viable option for many of us because there's a high chance of being put in a server on the wrong coast.  When you don't have access to the best internet service, you need to play locally.  This is why not being able to select the "US East" region anymore is so frustrating.  Until matchmaking can check latency, having those regions back would really be great.

[ropefish]

• ZC i get the felling your ignoring my mini-nukes o-o

[Dackstrus]

While i am force to say knowing is better then not, I would like to comment...

That for US residents, You don't use the quick match option unless you want to be forced onto a server on the opposite coast. Thereby adding 40-100 unnecessary ping.

Sorry but you don't ever assign me based on MMR, because i refuse to constantly lose just due to lag.

[DFTR]

comic_sans, on November 20 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

OmegaNull, on November 20 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 19 2013 - 10:30 PM, said:

OmegaNull, on November 19 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

Hughes, you know the server browser is not advertising correcting on our end right_

There are still open issues with connectivity that can be seen occasionally when using the Server Browser (if that's what you're referring to).

If you mean the issue where when I try to look for a Death Match on USE and there are none, yet there are 5 on USW, then yes. Or how about if I ask a dev if DM is down, and you guys seem it working fine on your end, however, i cannot see USE DM on the server browser. I spoke to someone (I cannot remember who) and was told it has something to do with the advert system.

Same problem.  More than the two of us crave our east coast DM.

I can deal w/ the higher ping on USWest but I swear in the PIlot level 30 population I rarely find anyone willing to jump into West coast DM_  I have gone into a server and no one joins me the whole match whereas on the US East server, I previously got someone to jump in.  Honestly for my level, 40-60 additional ping doesn't make difference in the outcome, but I need the players to play against

Update: Now there's US East DM servers!  Hooray.  Thanks.

Edited by DFTR, November 20 2013 - 08:25 PM.

[mechpilot1111]

Jason Hughes, on November 19 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:

As of now we are still on target to provide our next update to you the first week of December.

So does this mean there's a chance we'll get properly working Oculus Rift support within a year of the date it was originally promised i.e. 12/12/2012_

It baffles me that this support seems to be such a low priority given that so much of the coverage Hawken has received has been due to this one feature alone - and if you don't believe me try comparing a Google search for "Hawken mech" (384,000 results) with one for "Hawken Rift" (403,000 results).

The really frustrating thing is that the Rift support in Hawken is almost brilliant - the feeling of being in the cockpit of a real mech is wonderful and adds immeasurably to the immersion and fun of the game (after halving your IPD in the Oculus Config Utility to compensate for the daft bug in Hawken which effectively doubles the value you set). However this is marred by a HUD riddled with elements drawn at incorrect or inappropriate depths and a menu system which appears to have been adapted for the Rift in under 5 minutes (or designed for some hypothetical future 4K HMD).

Edited by mechpilot1111, November 20 2013 - 09:06 PM.

[Dew]

mechpilot1111, on November 20 2013 - 08:00 PM, said:

Jason Hughes, on November 19 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:

As of now we are still on target to provide our next update to you the first week of December.

So does this mean there's a chance we'll get properly working Oculus Rift support within a year of the date it was originally promised i.e. 12/12/2012_

It baffles me that this support seems to be such a low priority given that so much of the coverage Hawken has received has been due to this one feature alone - and if you don't believe me try comparing a Google search for "Hawken mech" (384,000 results) with one for "Hawken Rift" (403,000 results).

The really frustrating thing is that the Rift support in Hawken is almost brilliant - the feeling of being in the cockpit of a real mech is wonderful and adds immeasurably to the immersion and fun of the game (after halving your IPD in the Oculus Config Utility to compensate for the daft bug in Hawken which effectively doubles the value you set). However this is marred by a HUD riddled with elements drawn at incorrect or inappropriate depths and a menu system which appears to have been adapted for the Rift in under 5 minutes (or designed for some hypothetical future 4K HMD).

Yes, it baffles me too! Why shouldn't ADH prioritize a feature designed for an incredibly small fraction of their player base when the rest of the game is clearly in tip-top shape_ I have no idea.

[Teljaxx]

As others have said, even if quickmatch uses more than just pilot rank to determine what games you can join, the server browser does not. So anyone who uses the server browser is most likely going to throw off the balance of any game they join, and they have no idea what skill level the game is before hand.

They could join a level 30 game, and completely dominate everyone else there. Or they could join a level 25 game, and get decimated by every single other player there.

It is good to know that the team balancing is the result of a bug, though. It is interesting when I go from constantly getting put on the same team as all the less skilled players, or the team that is down a player, to getting put together with all the best players on the server versus the worst.

Ker4u, on November 19 2013 - 10:28 AM, said:

can someone make a tl;dr with bulletpounts_

*Fires Vulcan at Ker4u's mech* Oh look, bullet points!

[burns1124]

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 20 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

comic_sans, on November 20 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

OmegaNull, on November 20 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 19 2013 - 10:30 PM, said:

OmegaNull, on November 19 2013 - 10:15 PM, said:

Hughes, you know the server browser is not advertising correcting on our end right_

There are still open issues with connectivity that can be seen occasionally when using the Server Browser (if that's what you're referring to).

If you mean the issue where when I try to look for a Death Match on USE and there are none, yet there are 5 on USW, then yes. Or how about if I ask a dev if DM is down, and you guys seem it working fine on your end, however, i cannot see USE DM on the server browser. I spoke to someone (I cannot remember who) and was told it has something to do with the advert system.

Same problem.  More than the two of us crave our east coast DM.

Please use Quick Match if you are having issues with the Server Browser. We've mentioned, unfortunately there are open issues with the browser at the moment.

That's the problem, every time I use QM, it dumps me into a running US-W server (pretty much regardless of game-mode).  Since Invasion, I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I've used quick match (because of parties, I'd never, ever use it solo, period) on one hand, because any time I have, I'm always on west.  

I do not want to play on west with 120-150 ping, regardless of the "round trip" way of displaying ping (insinuating that the actual ping is half what is displayed by the client).  It makes things even more laggy and inaccurate than they are with the 2-3 second client freezes occurring because of friend list notifications (I'm glad to hear this is being addressed, but I really don't care who logs in/out, can we just remove this annoying feature_)

There used to be a regional filter for East/West.  Most (if not all) of the people I usually play with are Eastern players, who get pretty significant ping swings on West, making precision play very difficult.  I believe Omeganull and Comic_Sans are referring to these issues.  I'd really like to see the East/West filters for QM/Server browser return, because given a choice I will wait for a East server, rather than spam hellfire's on people on west because my shots don't actually fire until 1-2 seconds after I press the button.

Edited by burns1124, November 22 2013 - 09:05 AM.

[comic_sans]

My argument is mostly anecdotal, so bear with me here.  Please_

burns1124, on November 22 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

Meso-American Quote Ziggurat

What he said.  Basically just askin' for an empty DM server to always exist on the east coast when there are players in another DM server  on the east coast already, and at the least just always having an east coast deathmatch server visible on the server browser; I wouldn't use quickmatch to get me into a deathmatch because it always puts me on west coast servers, just like burns1124 said, and if I see no east coast DMs in the server list, why would I expect quick match to take me to one_  I can understand if it queues up servers from amazon based on players' needs not being satisfied by the quickmatch selecting from existing options, but I'd much much rather have the opportunity to directly join an empty DM server near me, and this issue didn't exist in ascension or prior, to my knowledge.  Most if not all of the players I've enjoyed playing with (admittedly most if not all level 30 or near it) do DM to play against the best, because that's what the best just wanna do to have fun a lot of the time, and they know what they're getting into by directly joining a "level 30" game of DM.

Basically, nobody (who is level 30ish and prevented from joining the one low level DM that is sometimes there) wants to quickmatch a DM.  Nobody!  Anyone who's good enough to want to DM will look at the server list, and either see nobody playing and do whatever else, or see a player or two and a lvl30 icon and join that game right off the bat.  Or they'll ask their friends if they wanna DM, then pick a server and just have each other follow the one player since it's so difficult (at the moment) to get a bunch of players in one place on purpose anyway.

I really have no idea why the invasion update dinked this one aspect of the game!  I do not have a lot of whining to do about Hawken, I am happy or at least content  with almost every aspect and am stupidly grateful for a game that feels tailored to my brain to even exist.  I just like to have a low ping DM, the best gamemode of all things ever, and I really miss it now that it's gone 99% of the time for no easily observable reason.  It's not even something that would take up more than half of my time playing!  It's just my favorite part.

Edited by comic_sans, November 22 2013 - 02:00 PM.

[DFTR]

In past 2 days or so I've gotten into some East coast DM action.  I don't know if it's something they did in response to us asking for DM servers, but I'm glad to see USE-DM back!  Thanks ADH.

[mechpilot1111]

Dew, on November 20 2013 - 11:07 PM, said:

mechpilot1111, on November 20 2013 - 08:00 PM, said:

So does this mean there's a chance we'll get properly working Oculus Rift support within a year of the date it was originally promised i.e. 12/12/2012_

It baffles me that this support seems to be such a low priority given that so much of the coverage Hawken has received has been due to this one feature alone - and if you don't believe me try comparing a Google search for "Hawken mech" (384,000 results) with one for "Hawken Rift" (403,000 results).

The really frustrating thing is that the Rift support in Hawken is almost brilliant - the feeling of being in the cockpit of a real mech is wonderful and adds immeasurably to the immersion and fun of the game (after halving your IPD in the Oculus Config Utility to compensate for the daft bug in Hawken which effectively doubles the value you set). However this is marred by a HUD riddled with elements drawn at incorrect or inappropriate depths and a menu system which appears to have been adapted for the Rift in under 5 minutes (or designed for some hypothetical future 4K HMD).

Yes, it baffles me too! Why shouldn't ADH prioritize a feature designed for an incredibly small fraction of their player base when the rest of the game is clearly in tip-top shape_ I have no idea.

The stat I quoted which shows that the Rift is mentioned in conjunction with Hawken more often than even the word "mech", strongly suggests that a significant proportion (probably even a majority) of the publicity the game has received has been due to excitement about the promised Rift support. (In fact the Rift is also mentioned with Hawken more than twice as often as either "Adhesive" or "Meteor").

Given that this single feature has been so instrumental in generating buzz about the game (and is therefore responsible for many of the community discovering Hawken and any revenue generated from them as a result whether or not those players actually own a Rift yet themselves it seems desirable to ensure that the VR support does at least actually work properly.

N.B. I'm not saying that outstanding issues like team balancing etc aren't important, just that it's entirely possible that 50%+ of the team members working on those other issues might not even still have jobs with Adhesive if it wasn't for the continued interest in the game the promised Rift support has generated and that this is something that it might be worth considering when prioritizing tasks.

[SuicideNeil]

The Devs don't seem to appreciate the real issue with match making, so I'll lay it out in very simple English for them:

Servers are ranked by Pilot level.

To reach Pilot level 30, it only takes a few weeks, maybe a month or so.

This means a player with a very low MMR rating ( ergo, limited experience and generally a poor player compared to Alpha & closed Beta veterans ) can access the top level servers, where only Pros ( and lunatics.. ) should be playing.

As such, a level 30 rookie with an MMR of say, ~1600 can enter a server full of ~2000-2400 rated players, and there is nothing to tell them apart until the game starts, and he turns out to be a liability for the team he is on.

This is the problem with auto balance, you end up with a few good players on one team, and several rookies, but the system considers this balanced; it is not. All the players should be of a similar skill level on both teams by excluding players of much higher & lower skill ( = MMR ) ratings.

As is the way with Hawken lately, precedence has been placed on making the game look better ( woo, you can rank up your pilot! woopie!. ), at the detriment of how the game actually plays.

Pilot level never goes down, it is not an indicator of skill level, only MMR does that, therefore servers should not be ranked by Pilot level, but by MMR level again, like they used to be, so that skilled players can play together, and relative beginners can hone their skills against more suitable opposition, more on their skill level.

It's a simple fix, very simple in fact, but because it would render pilot level kinda worthless/pointless ( other than the unlockable items ), the Devs won't change this system, and we will be forced to play in games with players of wildly varying skill level instead of against equal foes.


TL;DR:

Get rid of Pilot Rank 1-30, replace it with MMR rank ( keep it named Pilot Rank by all means.. ), that way matches will be much more balanced once again as server ranks will represent true skill level, instead of meaningless Pilot ranks.

[Teljaxx]

SuicideNeil, on November 23 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

TL;DR:

Get rid of Pilot Rank 1-30, replace it with MMR rank ( keep it named Pilot Rank by all means.. ), that way matches will be much more balanced once again as server ranks will represent true skill level, instead of meaningless Pilot ranks.

From what Hughes has said before, Quickmatch and team balancing use several different factors for deciding where to put each player. It is just that the only thing that the players can see is pilot rank.

But, this also does not really work all that well because of the server browser only using pilot level for deciding what games a player can join. So you might get a well balanced game going with a group of players that all joined using quickmatch. But then a player joins from the server browser, and even though their pilot level is still even with everyone else in the match, their actual skill is way higher and they throw off the balance. Now the team balancing cannot make things even, because even putting all the best players on the other team from the new player is not enough to outweigh the skill difference.

I am not sure what would work to fix this, though. Adding both player skill and pilot level as criteria for joining through the server browser might work. But I am afraid that it would end up segregating the player base too much, and it would become too hard to use the server browser and find games consistently.

[[HWK]HUGHES]

SuicideNeil, on November 23 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

The Devs don't seem to appreciate the real issue with match making, so I'll lay it out in very simple English for them:

Servers are ranked by Pilot level.

To reach Pilot level 30, it only takes a few weeks, maybe a month or so.

This means a player with a very low MMR rating ( ergo, limited experience and generally a poor player compared to Alpha & closed Beta veterans ) can access the top level servers, where only Pros ( and lunatics.. ) should be playing.

As such, a level 30 rookie with an MMR of say, ~1600 can enter a server full of ~2000-2400 rated players, and there is nothing to tell them apart until the game starts, and he turns out to be a liability for the team he is on.

This is the problem with auto balance, you end up with a few good players on one team, and several rookies, but the system considers this balanced; it is not. All the players should be of a similar skill level on both teams by excluding players of much higher & lower skill ( = MMR ) ratings.

As is the way with Hawken lately, precedence has been placed on making the game look better ( woo, you can rank up your pilot! woopie!. ), at the detriment of how the game actually plays.

Pilot level never goes down, it is not an indicator of skill level, only MMR does that, therefore servers should not be ranked by Pilot level, but by MMR level again, like they used to be, so that skilled players can play together, and relative beginners can hone their skills against more suitable opposition, more on their skill level.

It's a simple fix, very simple in fact, but because it would render pilot level kinda worthless/pointless ( other than the unlockable items ), the Devs won't change this system, and we will be forced to play in games with players of wildly varying skill level instead of against equal foes.


TL;DR:

Get rid of Pilot Rank 1-30, replace it with MMR rank ( keep it named Pilot Rank by all means.. ), that way matches will be much more balanced once again as server ranks will represent true skill level, instead of meaningless Pilot ranks.

You love making giant assumptions about... well lots... Lol.

[h0B0]

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 23 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

You LOVE making giant assumptions about... well lots. Lol.

Responding to a community members post with such a sarcastic and nearly condescending tone is very unprofessional for someone in your position.

Whilst he might be making assumptions its a well known fact that MMR restrictions on the servers are currently nearly non existent. As a 2200+ (pre-ascension) player i have yet to be restricted from joining any server within my level range. Which wasn't the case pre-ascension Even. Umbre, who according to Ashfire's chart is ranked in the top 100 players, is not restricted due to her ranking.

Party system only serves to exacerbate the problem.

But the main issue is that match balance only occurs at the ready screen. Meanwhile most of the imbalance created in a game happens after the ready screen. AFKers, people leaving the game, and obviously people joining mid match. All these factors ruin any and all previous in match balance implementations.

[[HWK]HUGHES]

h0B0, on November 23 2013 - 10:07 PM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 23 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

You LOVE making giant assumptions about... well lots. Lol.

Responding to a community members post with such a sarcastic and nearly condescending tone is very unprofessional for someone in your position.

I stand by what I said and hardly consider it condescending. Sarcastic_ Eh... perhaps borderline I suppose but it doesn't change the truth of my statement that some statements he posted were not accurate, were indeed assumptions and were stated as fact without knowing all the facts. I am a pretty sarcastic person by nature I admit!

(insert a brilliantly and sarcastically toned joke about going to get a slice of pie with some coffee)

[Xacius]

h0B0, on November 23 2013 - 10:07 PM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 23 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

You LOVE making giant assumptions about... well lots. Lol.

Responding to a community members post with such a sarcastic and nearly condescending tone is very unprofessional for someone in your position.

His tone was hardly condescending.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Xacius, on November 23 2013 - 11:48 PM, said:

h0B0, on November 23 2013 - 10:07 PM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 23 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

You LOVE making giant assumptions about... well lots. Lol.

Responding to a community members post with such a sarcastic and nearly condescending tone is very unprofessional for someone in your position.

His tone was hardly condescending.

Depends on who you are.
I thought it was a bit sarcastic (which I'm totally cool with) and not out of line considering the wild assertions that were made.

[Xacius]

AsianJoyKiller, on November 23 2013 - 11:57 PM, said:

Xacius, on November 23 2013 - 11:48 PM, said:

h0B0, on November 23 2013 - 10:07 PM, said:

[HWK]HUGHES, on November 23 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

You LOVE making giant assumptions about... well lots. Lol.

Responding to a community members post with such a sarcastic and nearly condescending tone is very unprofessional for someone in your position.

His tone was hardly condescending.

Depends on who you are.
I thought it was a bit sarcastic (which I'm totally cool with) and not out of line considering the wild assertions that were made.

True.  Agreed.