14 replies to this topic

[erathic]

Thanks for voting !

Also if you write or have written another post about Co-op bot, put the link in the comment with a small description. And of course feel free to comment, hate/like any option in the poll or input your owns !

Edited by erathic, December 13 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[Sylhiri]

Halloween version with wave after wave of Freds

*shakes fist*

[Cannonaire]

I love co-op. As Silk_Sk put it, it's like Killing Floor with mechs.

Current (Alpha) gameplay general feedback - Other
My biggest issue is with it pulling all control away from the players between waves to force the scoreboard up for what feels like way too long. A short reprieve is nice, but I would like to walk around and check the scoreboard on my own if I wish.

[Szei]

Encourage co-op, not competition. Do NOT display kills or points in this mode and make it so all players get equal EU so people aren't fighting each other when they should be working together. These aren't issues when played with people you know, but it does effect public games. If you want to make pub games more fun you should de-emphasize solo play.

Also, boss waves are fun because they can actually present a challenge. Sitting through the filler waves is boring by contrast because they're way too easy. I'd say, decrease the number of filler waves between bosses and make them more challenging.

Edited by Szei, December 16 2013 - 07:34 AM.

[Lucier]

Szei, on December 13 2013 - 07:08 PM, said:

Encourage co-op, not competition. Do NOT display kills or points in this mode and make it so all players get equal EU so people aren't fighting each other when they should be working together. These aren't issues when played with people you know, but it does effect public games. If you want to make pub games more fun you should de-emphasize solo play.

Also, boss waves are fun because they can actually present a challenge. Sitting through the filler waves is boring by contrast because they're way to easy. I'd say, decrease the number of filler waves between bosses and make them more challenging.

All players do get equal EU. When you collect it, it is shared with your teammates.

[Beefsweat]

Lucier, on December 14 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

All players do get equal EU. When you collect it, it is shared with your teammates.

Actually it does not work like this, only a small amount of what teammates collect is transferred to teammates. Collecting EU yourself will always net you way more EU. I've got video testing to prove it somewhere around here. I agree that EU hogging needs to be fixed somehow, it really makes co-op unfun and unnecessarily difficult. EDIT: wanted to say that this is a nice poll, plenty of descriptive options. The main things I want for co-op are more/larger maps, objectives to spice gameplay up aside from just "wait and kill drones" and some balance/upgrade tweaks.

Edited by Beefsweat, December 14 2013 - 01:14 PM.

[craftydus]

I have nothing constructive to contribute on the subject of co-op bot mode.

[Igni5]

I'm loving the 12/15 person COBD matches.

Ain't nothin' but a party, y'all.

[Muffintrumpet]

co-op was fun for a little while, then it wore a tad thin
overall not a bad start at all

[HugeGuts]

Co Op Mode needs even EU collection and less filler waves. Co Op Mode also highlights some imbalances present in PvP. For example, want to make Co Op easy mode_ Get four RPR Technicians with a MKIII Repair Charge, Extractor, and Advanced Repair Kit, and then tank everything!

[Nazgulgnome]

I find the biggest barrier to success is the swarms of tiny drones, especially the bomb drones and emp drones.  a couple waves of those and even my brawler is a smoking wreck.  I would say, then, that fewer drones with more HP are preferable.  More maps are a must.  I am so tired of facility.  Definitely equal sharing of EU would be nice, to encourage cooperation.  The way I see it, the most successful groups put in a tank, two DPS and a healer, stick together and focus fire.  Right now, public games are a crapshoot and I have yet to get past the third boss.

I am enjoying the alternative to pvp, but co-op needs some tweaks to make it work right.

[VinterStorm]

as a returning player from cloused beta, i have to say that coop is a very nice addition to the game.

i admit it, i sux at pvp as it is too fast for me, that is why i quit cbt.
but when i got that email saying coop was added i reinstalled the game.

they way they are going whit it is good, but ofc it needs adjustments. personly i have not passed wave 15 as i never get a full player team, but the lack of maps is very bad.
as it is now i only play 1 battel per day to not get bored as i dont do pvp.
if they could alternate the map release it would be good or use current maps and add the bots spawners.

allso the eu collecting is bad, cuz now it is a race to gather as mutch eu as possible as very little is shared. make the eu 100% shared so it will be more fokus on actual teamplay and not eu farming.
but the eu consept and uppgrades is very nice.

[HugeGuts]

Nazgulgnome, on January 12 2014 - 06:19 PM, said:

The way I see it, the most successful groups put in a tank, two DPS and a healer, stick together and focus fire.

Pretty much. The only winning strategy found so far is to have at least a Brawler and Technician; preferably two more C types; all equipped with MKIII Repair Charge, Extractor, and Advanced Repair Kit, and camp in one of the corners.

Only one viable strategy is something that needs tweaking as well. Hopefully the Counter Measure rework will help with this.

Edited by HugeGuts, January 14 2014 - 03:48 PM.

[fez]

1.  Player lockout is annoying.  Need to be able to join ongoing co-op matches.  If You manage to get 4 people going, in a party or not, and one crashes somewhere along the way, the whole match is a bust.

2.  Being able to play Co-op solo (with the other slots AI filled) would be nice.  Sometimes it's bloody hard to get any games going, and I'd love to PvE and at least get SOME sort of progression, regardless of how slow it's actually going to be.

3.  EU collection is shared, I thought_  Doesn't matter who collects it, everyone gets it_  Correct me if I'm wrong.

4.  More people per co-op match.  4 is an ok number, but by wave 15+, if you don't have a tech and a C class, you ain't going to make it.  Allowing bigger parties would increase the types of mechs you can field.

5.  If you don't allow bigger parties, how about LESS drones with more HP then_  The combined focus fire of some of the later waves is ridiculous, and you don't always have somewhere to retreat to.

6.  Stopped movement to show the scoreboard between waves.  This needs to go.  EU collection can be a trial at times between waves, and having control of our mechs wrested from us between waves is both annoying and un-necessary.

7.  ALSO Blurring the screen and freezing the mech control to flash "Wave # incoming" is also a pain.  Just have it flash on the hud, and let us keep control of the mech.

8.  See number 1.

9.  Random Boss Mechs.  I Thoroughly LOVE the Boss mech intros and the boss mechs looks, and so do everyone I play with.  Give us more, and make them random, so we're not seeing the same bosses at each 5th wave.  Mix it up a little.  Scale their HP or something.

Now obviously not everyone likes Co-op mode, and that's fine.  I happen to like both PvP AND Co-op.  Co-op is a good place to get those new to the game broken in gently without scaring them away, and I currently find that it needs a little fine tuning.  I have a hard enough time trying to wrestle people away from MWO or (insert latest generic shooter here) without them being turned off by Co-op.

Thanks for reading guys.

[SigmaPhase]

Hi, just a few of my thoughts on the bot destruction mode. It's long so pack a lunch.

I like it, it's fun.

that being said, here's some things I found that detract from the experience.

1) Seemingly 'random' losses with full team of 4, decent spread of mechs (heavy, support, attacker)

It seemed random that despite a balanced team with good players who stick together (can hit things, cover eachother) will lose randomly. Why is this_

I only have two suggestions: EU gain is non-uniform. Either the person gathering it gets more, or everyone obtains a random value.

If EU gain is non-uniform: the person with the most is upgrading their mech poorly, and when they die, everyone dies.

If EU gain is uniform: The team is upgrading their mech poorly. they have no excuse and should die.

I don't know which is which for certain. Someone made claim that they've made a video on non-uniform EU gain, that the person picking it up obtains more, but that may have been patches ago, so not sure.

Anyway, this issue is either an EU issue or a skillpoint issue. if the latter, i cover it below.

2) Co-op map size. A cat in a cage.

The two maps we play are small, and suffocating. (nearly making the sniper classes useless unless they enjoy mid and close range sniper battles_ I don't.)

There is no where to retreat, you have to use very limited cover extensively (almost camping or playing ring around the rosy), time dodges and hose down the enemy in order to succeed. Another strategy is spawn camping. lame but effective.

I've recently discovered that if you dodge quickly enough around enough corners, the enemy aggro will switch to a visible target. Bosses do this as well. This is kind of exploitable and not sure if intended.

But generally, if you don't have at least two mechs focusing down one enemy at a time, the chances for being overwhelmed are huge. Since there is very little cover, and if you're so much as caught one thousandth of an inch out of position (maybe if you have a lazy team not helping gather EU, which is extremely frustrating) for a *second*, you're dead. (unless you're 20 ranks into the #5 skill.)

The most useful formations are those where we're camped in a corner. Let one edge equal 0 degrees, the other edge equal 90 degrees.

Two men are facing in the direction of 0 degrees, two men are facing in the direction of 90 degrees.

This standard formation can pretty much win the day till about wave 10. after that, upgrade choices become crucial.

3) Hmm_ 4, 5 or 6_ The #5 build. (Aka: what you need to put points into.)

The EU upgrade options. Of the three options, the only one you need to upgrade to win, is 5. Armor/Health whatever you want to call it. After I've pumped it straight into wave 15-18 ish (depending on how much risk i want), I never have to upgrade anything else to win. especially with an Incinerator or tech on the team.

I have done this with all heavy classes, and almost all of the medium classes, except the ones i haven't purchased. (the ones available with the steam DLC content, those ones.)

I have tested where you upgrade everything evenly. Even these 'balanced' builds, despite having more damage and sustained firing capability, did not have near the survival rate of a #5 build. These tests were conducted with stock mechs, with the stock item. nothing else.

I haven't seen any co-op EU builds anywhere online or in these forums yet. I never ran a search, so sorry if this has been discovered or covered. Im covering it again. my co-op build is as follows:

0/infinity/0

(you press 5 alot, thus #5 build.)

Alternate build:

0/infinity minus 5/5

Yep. That's zero damage, almost all upgrades into armor and if you feel like it, five or so for temp reduction which gives you 25%. if you have a high heat weapon and find you're heating up too quick, take it to 40% no problem. but everything else. EVERYTHING else, into armor. Bosses die by your hand. your team wonders why your kd is so high, and why the three level 25 bosses can't take you down.

Most people suggest you need a C class heavy to win. I just did it as a bruiser, with an assault, a berserker and a sniper (who actually wasn't useless.) Though they were dying alot in the beginning. I suggested they max their 5 skill, and bam. we win effortlessly. true, the teamwork was there, but we weren't losing 75% health in one engagement with bots. And the bosses would close distance to us, but not a single mech died that day.

Why is armor better than everything else, SigmaPhase_

Analysis:

#4 - Damage - Useless because if you're dead, you don't do any damage, even pumping straight damage only, sure you hit like a freight train on the first two or three mechs you shoot, but then they focus you down..cause bots have great aim and because flak guns hit everything.
So damage is useless. Here's why:

The 2% increase in damage per rank may as well be nonexistent.

I was out-killing an assault one time (who wasn't using a #5 build) simply because I never had to hide behind cover because my health was rarely low. The assault didn't have the health pool > had to spend more time repairing, not killing. even with a tech, another medium will go down from focused bot fire way before I ever would.

-Armor beats damage.-


#6 -Cooldown/temp reduction - Mildly Useful, but only after about ten ranks into armor, unless you enjoy being mercilessly slaughtered by bosses.

The times overheated to the times you have to retreat due to low health could be compared more in-depth or time allotted with a stopwatch.

However I noticed after my eh... 3rd match that I was retreating alot more due to low health than due to high heat. And if you do the math, if you retreat due to low health, you're forced to repair (takes even longer), or wait for a tech to heal you (still takes time). whereas the overheat will end after a few seconds behind a wall.

True, the skill gives you longer weapon bursts. But if you're not alive to burst, and are in the enemy's face shooting at it, its useless.

-Armor beats temp reduction.-

And we've reached the end of the skill-tree for co-op. Armor beats everything. (halo reference, lewl.)

So yeah.. having more options for the skill tree, like speed, jet pool, or different weapon choice unlocks or something to that effect would be sweet. But you guys (devs) know what you're doing so Im sure you'll figure it out.

4) The foursome.

Can we pretty please have more and larger teams vs AI_ I mean, if I'm begging for larger maps, then we can have larger teams, right_ If we can have larger teams, skillpoint allocation becomes less crucial, and maybe we can do fun things like field different kinds of mechs.

Because its true, if my teammates all go light mechs and play poorly, you can bet I'm a brawler and all armor, running around ressing them 10 times per wave.

now if there were six, or eight of us.. that just gets fun.

5) players not able to join a match in progress.

This sucks, especially when easilyfrustratedguy joins your match, and leaves when he dies at wave 5, killing your chances to win substantially.

Conclusion: The co-op vs AI is fun, challenging and immersive with some areas for improvement.

Sidenotes: this game is very well put together, and very well worth my time. Excellent graphics, great design. A lot of careful thought and planning went into this game and it shows.

especially during a time where game quality is severely degrading, where any ole person (read: Idiot) thinks they're a developer and just puts out a 'game' which they think is awesome but the rest of the world sees a half-broken piece of sh!t, the developers of hawken are quite diligent and focused, excellent quality control techniques.

Please do continue, it's a real pleasure playing this beauty game of death and destruction on a large scale.

-SigmaPhase

Edited by SigmaPhase, February 20 2014 - 06:14 AM.