3 replies to this topic

[Ezhnoman]

I have been following Hawken since the earliest coverage popped up on G4, I believe. Back then, I did not have a suitable machine, nor internet bandwidth, to play, though I think at the time it was only closed beta anyway. Fortunately, about a year ago the stars aligned and I was able to play Hawken. It was wonderful. Great times with me and my roommate playing in the living room and tearing up enemy teams. And then things changed.

Tuning left the game, and no matter how hard we tried, the spirit of the game, as it was for us, left too. Yes, it is one of these threads. Don't particularly care what anyone thinks either. I'll finish this post and be gone soon enough, and while I may one day return to Hawken, I'm not much for forums. The community I believe in is shooting other members in the middle of a match, nothing more.

Anyway, back on topic, tuning left, making the game little more than a husk in terms of customization. I came to the forums once to discuss my thoughts, made posts on the few twitch feeds I could, commented on Steam about it, and generally made a small, if inconsistent effort to input my opinion as data. To the best I could tell, my opinion was not validated by the devs even in regard to a blanket disagreement. I was disheartened. I held out hope that maybe things would change in a new way to become fun again, but they did not. In fact, that is the reason I am here now. Hawken isn't fun.

So what is my suggestion_ Customization. Not the "customization" that is advertised erroneously, but meaningful statistical customization. Doesn't have to be tuning points. Doesn't have to be guns. Just something that when I roll into battle, my mech is tailored to me, and not to anyone else. Yes, I know the issues with optimal builds and vertical progression and all that BS (personally, as a midlevel player I enjoyed my personal build ripping level-capped players).

As it turns out, this post was barely a suggestion. Much more a big picture kind of idea. Hawken captivated me one year ago, so much so that even though my measly 64 minutes on Steam completely turned me off of playing the game, I want Hawken to succeed. Unfortunately, it isn't. The Steam stats do not lie (http://www.steamcharts.com/app/271290) Hawken is in fact dying. Since joining Steam, it has only had one month of increase, and three months over the initial month player base, which considering no other statistics exist publicly prior to this, I must assume that roughly 1,200 is what Hawken was at before the Steam release, which, for reference, was the release that eliminated meaningful customization(tuning).

So saving Hawken, how does that work_ Counter-intuitively. I'm not really sure why the goal of this game is to be a class based arena shooter with mechanical paint sprayed everywhere, but it isn't working. The community that once thrived, is all but gone, including poor Irish. I don't know that any of them would return, save for me and my roommate, but clearly the attempt to be a formulaic shooter with a mech gimmick is not working! Perhaps financially the market is better for players buying fuzzy bunny, because Lord knows I'd never spend money on an mmo for how temporary that investment is guaranteed to be, especially in beta. Economically, maybe a quick money grab is the best way to go_

Counter-intuition would have it that all these problems that players whine about, like match making and metagaming, isn't that big of an issue. The community was thriving before Steam, and after the initial boom, it is now dying. Matchmaking has remained, from what I gather, more or less the same, but what has changed is the players ability to make their mech their own. TTK is another issue as well, considering tanks shouldn't die nearly as easily as they do. Basically, if the game becomes more fun and strategic, and strategy does include the garage set up, then people will play more games and let the match maker do its thing. If TTK is increased so that players live longer, then metagaming can be broken up by skilled players that know how to handle dogpiles. These things will take care of themselves if these other issues are solved because regardless of how anyone wants to think of it, Hawken is dying. Hawken was thriving for the market it had, and after it was introduced to a larger market it died. The only change being that Steam update.

Anyway, I'm done. Gone. I won't be back to read responses or offer counters. I'm sure people will want to chime in, and that is the way it should be. Maybe mods will flat out delete this. Don't care. I like Hawken. I'd like to have fun playing it again, or at least know that it is successful without me, but it isn't. This is what I think; this is my player opinion data and I hope that it will be noticed and considered, even if not heeded. At the end of the day, I do not think I will ever return to these forums to post while they are alive. At 500 average players a day currently, either the game will be fixed and I play, or it dies before I feel I should return. Well, there are other scenarios, but I digress.

Goodbye Hawken. Say hello again soon.

[Silverfire]

Sooo...goodbye thread_

I guess I won't point out flaws in your farewell letter then. But I'm tempted to.

Edited by Silverfire, September 13 2014 - 08:08 PM.

[Zycon]

Definitely agree there could and should be more customization.

[BurnsHot]

Silverfire, on September 13 2014 - 08:08 PM, said:

Sooo...goodbye thread_

I guess I won't point out flaws in your farewell letter then. But I'm tempted to.

You actually read it_ Giggles...

LOCK THIS NOW!

Edited by BurnsHot, September 13 2014 - 08:10 PM.