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My friend and I were talking and came up with what we think would be an awesome addition to the game. If the idea has already been brought up, forgive me; I poked around a bit and didn't find anything like it. There are a lot of awesome groups here, so they may have had similar ideas in the past! I posted on the Reddit for Hawken, but I think here gets more traffic.
Conquest!
Overview: Essentially, it would be similar to a mash up of Clan Wars from World of Tanks and Planetside. In this mode, players would form teams and be placed into an "overworld". A large segmented map containing outposts, bases, mines, factories, and so on. Teams would attempt to capture and defend these sites to provide resources for their teammates, to gain parts, and ultimately to win Conquest by having the most resources and territory by the end of the season. For shorter seasons, the top team(s) would receive Hawken Credits. For longer, higher tier seasons, the rewards might be anything from a newly released Mech part or Meteor Credits.
Method: Teams would be formed at the beginning of a season. A season could be anything as short as a few hours, to a few weeks, to a few months. It would all depend on the tier entered. (You might not always wanna play Conquest on a long-term basis. Getting the hang of it might be easier in smaller intervals!) Players could choose to invite their teammates or be randomly assigned to a team. Once in a team, a world-map of sorts would be generated, each team receiving an equal slice of land. From there, it is up to the team to decide which points to move towards, focus on, or defend. Each player would be allowed to bring in one Mech from their garage. However, players only have access to the current set-up of that mech. Any changing out of parts after the season begins would have to be done by finding or building parts in actual Conquest Mode.
Capturing Points: Each kind of site on the map would be its own game mode, pulled from and/or bastardized from the modes already available. I.E. To capture an Outpost from another team, you'd have to play them in Missile Assault. Something like an empty piece of land would simply be a Deathmatch. Scavenging a factory for its EU would be Siege, and so on.
Resources: During the season, the amount and type of sites you control would determine several facets of your actual matches. For instance, having enough income from factories means your team's mechs heal to full armor before each match/minigame as they normally would. Losing too many means that a percentage of your overall armor(anywhere from 5-15%) will be missing at respawn for anyone on your team. Likewise, losing enough outposts or EU sources will globally increase the cooldowns on your team's items and Abilities respectively. Similarly, having a surplus of a certain site will either inflate your team's armor, or decrease cooldowns even further. This gives weight and consequence to each victory and each loss your team has during the season. It also means making tough choices when it comes to which points to attack or defend. Is getting -5% Cooldown for your team worth the risk of losing that nice +10% Armor factory_ That's up to you and your team to decide.
Sometimes winning a match will randomly generate an item/chassis/weapon for your team. First pick of this item would go to the MVP of the winning team, but assumedly they will work with their teammates to decide who needs the item the most. If your buddy really needs a Vulcan now that he's found his machine gun Fred ain't cutting it, hand it right off to him. Maybe he'll return the favor when you're in need.
Attacking and Defending: Attacks would happen in the overworld on a turn basis. Players would be free to move their mechs a certain number of spaces before attacks are declared. If a team wanted to, they might move all their players to participate in attacking the same space. And so might the other team. At the attack, it would be a regular 5v5 game in whatever mode required. However, A team could be ballsy and opt fight a 4v5 while having that extra member sneak around and attack an unguarded enemy space (a site they own, but have no mechs in). Attacking a space with no enemy mechs in it is handled the same way as moving into a neutral space not yet claimed; instant capture for the mech that is there. Managing who goes where and who defends what becomes a very important part of Conquest.
The length of turns and when attacks begin would be determined by the tier of the Conquest mode. For a very low tier, short Conquest, Turns and Attacks might happen every 20 minutes. Just long enough to play a match and then a few minutes of planning with your team. For longer series, it might be every Tuesday at 7 PM, or whatever interval agreed upon at the start of the season. Higher tier, bigger stakes, more time to strategize with your team.
Goal: Hawken is really an awesome game. And one of the things that makes it so awesome, at least to me, is the backdrop of the game. The history, the grittiness of it, the concept and theme of it. I mean look at this. And this! That's a world right there. Those are stories waiting to be told. And yet, it's really hard to get the true feel of it through the gameplay. I mean, yeah, maybe you'll log on and play a few matches with some guys you know, or if you're lucky enough, your clan, but does any of it really matter once the match is over_ Have you really been in that world shown in all the concept art, or just passed it by_
The truth of it is that Hawken is a first person shooter, not some RPG. And it wouldn't make sense for it to fully present itself as one. However, I could play any number of CoD's, Battlefield's, Halo's, etc if I just wanted a shooter. And in every one of them, I'd be some generic, brown-haired super soldier who has to outgun the badguys to save the day, because 'Murica! And that's cool and everything, but Hawken's story and its style genuinely makes me want to enter its world.
Maybe I'm alone in this. Yet another mech fan playing a shooter's game. But from what I've seen, Hawken has such a cool community but very few things in-game that actually encourage or reinforce that community. Introducing a mode where you rely on that friends, pool your efforts over time towards a common goal, and most importantly have fun getting to those goals together would be nothing but awesome from my perspective.
Anyway, I'll be adding to this as I go. I am very interested in getting player's feedback on something like this. Whether it's on whether you think people would even play a mode like this, or some concrete numbers on the way the game would be handled, it's welcomed. In any case this concept turned partial review has probably gone long enough and I need to get some sleep. Looking forward to hearing what folks have to say.
Sieg Zeon
