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There has been difficulty in defining the nature of benefits that internals should and shouldn’t be providing. Terminology such as “active”, “dynamic”, “passive” and “kill streak” have been thrown around to make this distinction, however, fail to adequately highlight the issues presented by the current selection of internals. “Stat Boosting/modifying” is another term used for undesirable concepts and this too lacks accuracy, as all internals are going to be a manipulation of stats in some manner or another. The point of this segment is to provide specific criteria to define “unwanted” concepts, giving a framework to assist with developing ideas for internals.
When refining concepts for internals the following things should be prioritized:
1. The internal should not reduce any skill required in the game (at the very least, preferably it should open up new possibilities for skillful play). In other words internals should not remove the need for basic evasive tactics or situational awareness.
2. Conditional requirements should not be compensatory (e.g. receive damage or dying) or reward based (e.g. making a kill) in nature. Rather, they should be used to temper advantages to assist with balance. For advantages that impact more commonly used mechanics, a negative counter effect can be used to help balance and increase the skill requirement.
3. The significance of the advantage must be comparable to other internals of the same slot value.
4. The internal does not directly affect weapon stats, items, or other (enemy or allied) mechs.
A note on adding skills by substitution: There is a series of internals which aren’t necessarily compensatory (or skill reducing) in nature, but open up new tactical opportunities by removing a current limiting mechanic (e.g. Shock Coils which remove fall damage and Failsafes (which is discussed further below)). These may add new opportunities but at the expense of a different mechanic that would require skillful management. If the internal’s advantage promotes new maneuvers or tactics which themselves require skill (equal to or more than the initial limiting factor) to utilize effectively, then they can be considered acceptable.
A note on weapon altering internals: Apparently, a new system is being worked on that will allow more customizability for weapon functionality, as such weapon specific internals should be avoided to prevent unnecessary overlap.
A note on item altering internals: Currently the only item altering internals are those for repair charges. I believe the initial intent was to provide an advantage for repair charges dropped upon enemy or allied death (which isn’t linked to an item and in a way does encourage situational awareness and tactical maneuvers to avoid damage whilst staying near the repair orb), however, for some reason it was decided that they would affect items as well. Internals should function separately from items and have no direct impact on them – otherwise we are essentially doubling up on items which won’t actually add variability to the game. I propose combining the repair kit and extractor, changing the slot value and removing its effect on item based repair orbs. As another side note, internals should not have a direct impact on enemy mechs (hence their name “internal”) – items fulfill this role – but focus directly on influencing the player’s own mech in some way.
A note on cosmetic internals: Players also want ways to customize visual and auditory components when on the battlefield (such as explosions on death and horns), however, if they are linked to internals players will have to sacrifice opportunities for varying their play style. As such if these concepts are implemented they should be relegated to the style section so that there is no limitation on gameplay options (just as holo-taunts are separate from items).
Toggle-able internals: These refer to internals which are controlled by a certain button that can be turned on and off at will. By granting very strong advantages, they are often balanced with an adverse counter effect that significantly impedes a widely used mechanic. A potential issue with this is that the disadvantage is so significant in a majority of situations it would outweigh the internal’s beneficial effects. By making it optional it removes the need for a permanent, debilitating effect on gameplay, instead only affecting the player when they choose to use the advantage (Giving the player the benefit of choice and avoiding an overall decrease in effectiveness). An example would be removing your signature from radar but in turn disabling your radar.
A Case Study of Current Internals
Using the above knowledge, this section will perform a case study of some of the newly released internals from the ascension patch. By analyzing these with respect to the factors discussed above, it should help outline why certain concepts were unacceptable in the game and assist with future discussions.
Fuel Converter: The Fuel converter falls under the compensatory category and is the most significant internal of this type that has yet to be nerfed/removed. This internal doesn’t contribute anything when playing but instead encourages wasteful use of fuel and removes the need for any fuel management whilst in battle. A lot of proposed internal concepts use fuel as a balancing factor, making it a precious commodity. This, however, completely negates that and as such should probably be removed.
Composite Armor: Clearly a compensatory internal, giving players who die an armor advantage. Players need to learn to rely on what they have and not be compensated when something adverse happens to them. Internals should not be training wheels to help players around the battlefield, instead they should be adding ways to vary ones play style.
Detonation Device: This internal never saw the light of day, and for good reason – it was the antithesis of skill. Dealing an incredible amount of damage on death to enemies seems to be encouraging all the wrong things.
Failsafe: At present the Failsafe has been met with disapproval because of its effect on play style, with the debate on the impact on skill (it also falls under the compensatory category). By altering the amount of damage done to the user it interferes with the balance between weapons (decreasing hitscan weapon effectiveness relative to explosive weapons in many situations). Some argue that it allows for more tactical play in CQCs (where face-hugging still isn’t viable, as the enemy will inflict serious damage if you are in their face and the damage from your own weapons is still significant) and so in fact is actually adding a skill by substitution (the additional option of maneuvering closer around the enemy). The question is, does the additional “maneuverability” allowed in CQCs outweigh the skill of managing distance when using explosive weaponry_
Air Compressor: Considered the embodiment of all the good aspects that internals should be focused on, air dodge succeeds in opening a new realm of tactical play in the air. Its little brother Air 180, however, has been neglected. As the Air 180 is essentially a 0.5 slot internal the simplest solution would be combining it with the Air Compressor (which is more of a 2 slot internal anyway).
Replenisher: While this internal clearly relies on a reward system (kill or assist), it was less widely used and so complaints were drowned out by those for other internals which were incredibly overpowered at the time. This internal does nothing for adding variability to gameplay and could actually be stated as reducing the skill in having to be careful with your item and mech ability use (something which an internal shouldn’t influence to start with). Moreover, this is rewarding advanced players for doing something that they already are very good at, allowing them to continuously abuse its benefits without any additional skill requirement.
Armor Fusor and Power Surger: Both of these internals are symptomatic of the same problem, they don’t encourage skillful play (in fact they allow a more reckless play style and less situational awareness) and by rewarding players for kills/assists they are easily exploitable by skilled players at no extra cost. Public outcry saw them nerfed to the point of uselessness (presumably a temporary measure) and for good reason.
Evasive Device: Could be classed as a compensatory internal, the main issue is its encouragement of a more reckless play style by removing the consequences associated with a lack of situational awareness. This internal, thankfully, was also nerfed to the point of uselessness due its overpoweredness at the time of release.
Deflectors: One of the more tricky internals as technically it encourages the use of evasive techniques and because of this has received minimal criticism. However, looking at it from another angle it is actually a reward based internal – player boosts/dodges and is rewarded with a damage reduction. People should be doing this anyway so there isn’t anything new or different by including it. The problem with this is internals are not meant to be training wheels for new players but rather add new facets to the gameplay which open new opportunities for skill based mastery. For advanced players who already utilize the methods that would activate the advantage, it is essentially giving away free stat increases for no additional skill requirement.
Reconstructor: People thought this internal would be incredibly overpowered, but after the patch was released the Armor Fusor quickly stole the limelight. In some ways this internal is similar to the Deflectors by operating on a reward base system – players are encouraged to exit the combat scene when at low health and they will be rewarded with a steady stream of hp in return. Repairing is a fundamental aspect of Hawken and as such internals which negate this by allowing passive hp regeneration should be avoided.
In summary, internals that should be removed include: Replenisher, Evasive Device, Composite Armor, both Deflectors, both Reconstructors, both Power Surgers, both Fuel Converters and both Armor Fusors
Internals that should be kept or reworked include: Air Compressor, Air 180, Repair Kit, Extractor, Shock Coil and Failsafe
A Framework for Balancing Internals
There are two ways for balancing internals:
1. Altering the specificity of the conditions by which they operate (E.g. adding a cooldown). See above for more details when deciding on the conditions. These can be considered a neutral balancing option as there is no drawback – useful for advantages that have very few situational benefits but when they are useful still require tempering.
2. Adding a negative side effect to balance out any positive advantages (If the negative effect will have an impact when the advantage is not in use then it should be significantly less severe. However, if it takes effect during or after the advantage is used then it should be 1:1 as the option of using the advantage is an overall benefit). Examples could include a fuel requirement or being more easily detected on radar.
A Compilation of Internal Concepts
Internals listed here are taken from the forums and fulfill the following criteria (from above):
1. The advantage maintains the same level of skill required in the game (or preferably adds extra options)
2. The conditional requirements are not compensatory or reward based in nature.
3. The advantage isn’t too overpowered or underpowered relative to other internals of the same slot value.
4. The internal does not directly affect weapon stats, items, or other mechs.
Real values have been added to better convey how the internals would perform in-game when balanced (however should not be taken as the final values). More suggestions are welcome and will be added to the list if they fit the above criteria.
Movement Based Internals
Spoiler
Visual/Auditory/Radar Based Internals
Spoiler
Miscellaneous Internals (incl. Heat/Repairing/Fuel)
Spoiler
Edited by Luminescent, December 21 2013 - 02:38 AM.
lol
