27 replies to this topic

[Arcana13]

Coldrew, on October 31 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

The difference between siege's xp payout and TDM/DM is problematic. I'd like to see more evenly distributed xp between game modes.

so true there mate

Coldrew, on October 31 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

Might suggest giving more for assists and kills in killing match types, and less for objectives in objective types. But, I know for me, if I was aware of the difference in payout on game modes, I'd be inclined to play more of the mode that pays out better.
Maybe diversify the reward per gametype to steer people towards different match types depending on their resource needs_ ...now I'm just spitballin'.

The problem with the level grind right now is that it is bound alot to the player's skill level. I believe you get exp based on your own damage output and the task on special modes like siege and missile (it's just my own perception, correct me if I'm wrong). Looking at the looser's team's exp gain and you will notice they got significanty less exp if they were steamrolled on hard. While siege tends to give the winning team like 5k - 10k exp for a 30-50 min match I've seen the loosing team stucking with about 2k at most for the best player. That is the reason while you see people moaning about exp gain and some others saying it's pretty swift already. Another example is in my cbt video below. At the end you can see the guy with kd= 0/7 and 2 assist getting away with 22 exp. THAT'S JUST NUTS.

There needs to be an exp-gain based on time and effort, maybe 70% out of time played + 30% out of ingame combat achievements. Might also add a 5% boost to the winning team to get the competition going aswell. That would also lower the difference between exp gain in different modes a bit.
edit: consider this for the hawken points grind too!!!

I'm not sure if the exp curve is linear but it feels like it is. Might wanna change it to something more exponential to give new players earlier points to spend on upgrades while keeping vets some thing to do.

If things doesn't change some newbs might quit the game really fast. But please devs don't take any bold changes to just please the public (like backward/diagonal dash, melee lolz gundam lightsabers, bleh some other fancy stuff...). I trust you will stay INDIE FOREVER.

edit: don't wanna get arrested by grammar police...

Edited by Arcana13, November 01 2012 - 02:54 AM.

[BernardWiseman]

Stealth_303, on October 30 2012 - 05:22 AM, said:

If you let people level too quickly then they will have everything, frankly that is no good, there should always be something to strive to gain.

This element is so important, the whole thing hangs on the way we pay for the game... Please look at the very important League of Legends example of massive fiscal success.

I strongly disagree with this. The draw of a game should be the game itself, not a tacked-on arbitrary progression. This sort of thing cheapens the game and makes it seem like it can't stand on its own merits. I'm pleased to see that so far Hawken is a lot of fun in its own right, which lessens my concerns, but if the grind is too bad, then it feels like aggressively monetizing the gamespace.

[Coldrew]

Arcana13, on October 31 2012 - 10:39 AM, said:

The problem with the level grind right now is that it is bound alot to the player's skill level.

yes yes yes! this. ^

Arcana13, on October 31 2012 - 10:39 AM, said:

There needs to be an exp-gain based on time and effort, maybe 70% out of time played + 30% out of ingame combat achievements. Might also add a 5% boost to the winning team to get the competition going aswell. That would also lower the difference between exp gain in different modes a bit.

It would be interesting to try having xp get biased based on the individual. The successively worse you do the higher a modifier grows giving fatter xp gains, within some limits of course. And conversely throwing a slight hamper on the gains of someone who's doing well. Dont crush their hopes and dreams, but hedge their progress a litttle, or encourage 'em to take a break after 6+ hours of gattin' fools and racking up xp.

[Arcana13]

@coldrew
I don't like the idea of punishing the good player. I like the idea of rewarding the n00b player even less. There must be some sort of motivation to play at one's best to countermessure fuzzy bunnies strolling around/doing fuzzy bunny in teamplay oriented games ruining the team experience of other players. Like you said I don't want to chase anyone out of the game. Afterall everyone is interessted in a fun game with bigger growing communities. That's why the exp AND hawken point(forgot to mention hawken points in the upper post) earning should be based on playtime and combat achievements, generally favoring the playtime part so the gap between good players/vets and newbs/n00bs don't get too big to seperate the community. Players ranking bad still getting a big chunck of the exp share while the system still encourages them to learn and play better.

[FluxX]

Halfblud, on October 29 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

I agree that the leveling needs to be faster, though leveling out a mech in one sitting might be a bit much. If I sit down and drop a few hours into gameplay like I did on launch night, I'd like to be able to at least gain 1 or 2 levels, even if I'm not very good. That's the point of the early levels, to get familiar with the game. Forcing people to get familiar with the game, while offering little to no reward doesn't make them want to come back.

People are driven by goals and success. Making those goals incredibly hard to obtain will shrink the fan base. I don't want the game overly easy (i.e. anyone who plays 2 games gets a level), but I do think that giving people a taste of success early on will keep them coming back.

Winning a match/playing the game is the only goal you need. If you need shiny shiny as a goal, it's a messed up goal system, because that shiny shiny is a single 32bit int in some instances! Any point system that trades out for items (or stats) is an arbitrary one. It's made up and imaginary, and entirely at the control of the Dev team. It's not like story progression or skill progression which have natural levels of progression. However, when the game is SP or pay per play, the Devs can put in the shiny shiny progression the same for everyone. When its F2P there is a massive incentive and temptation for the Devs to put the shiny shiny in the reach of the paying players only (to drive purchases). I've yet to see if Hawken can hold off from that temptation (see STOL for one that fails so badly it hurts to play PVP).

PS

Saunders, on October 29 2012 - 07:00 PM, said:

Good news - we totally agree!  Right now it's waaay too slow.  But that's part of what this closed beta is for - to test stuff like that.

We'll be rolling out some pretty big updates to the leveling and currency systems between now and open beta.  Definitely let us know what you think

Thanks guys for the heads up. Don't get me wrong, I have seen you are doing some real good hard work and it's paying off. I do however feel that just as the workers for Onlive were powerless to stop a buyout, F2P games can be powerless to prevent marketing/management changes.

Edited by FluxX, November 01 2012 - 05:44 AM.

[EMEUTIER]

Coldrew, on October 31 2012 - 02:11 PM, said:

Arcana13, on October 31 2012 - 10:39 AM, said:

The problem with the level grind right now is that it is bound alot to the player's skill level.

yes yes yes! this. ^

That is a very interesting point of view you make there.

During CBE1 I kept looking at my exp level during each match so I could figure out what was actually earning me the most.
What I noticed was that I could have (during a seige match) a total of 3 kills, 2 deaths and 4 assists (wish I had a screenshot) which was much lower than all my other teammates yet during gameplay I had managed to move the most energy to base and thus I had the highest exp of my team in that match.
Now I dont really see much 'skill' per-say in taking energy from one place to another, but it was giving me leads of exp!
Other teammates during siege matches often times doubled my exp (8000+) by mainly defending the AA point.
And other times I saw the loosing team with much greater exp total.

Now I could have easily misinterpreted what was going on and how exp is gained but it seemed to me that the devs have managed to implement different ways to get ahead depending on your skill-level / play-style.

Feel free to correct me

[Arcana13]

@EMEUTIER
Maybe I shouldn't have used the term skill in the explanation. The exp gain in tdm and dm is based on damage done (and some other fancy achievements like savior/revenge kills, killstreak, killstreak ended blabla...). Siege and Missile exp is based out of the things above AND the fullfillment of objectives (energy harvest, standing in the objective circle while the missile lauches, defend kills, attack kills...). Those are all listed in the earnings tab after the match btw (I don't claim everything I write to be right, but it seems pretty much like it).
I wanted to point out that good players will get ahead by dealing lots of damage/kill AND following the objectives given by specific modes (requires team spirit and a brain). The "skill" term was meant to descibe those players, although I just should have used the good ol' "GOOD" player term to point it out.
Hope it's clear to you now : ). Check out my youtube link in my sig to view the exp gain difference and to confirm it with the earning tab (totally not related to boost the view count).

The cbt1 was obviously(or maybe not) aimed to stresstest the server (first day of it) and improving/testing server codings. Don't worry too much bout balancing and cash shop etc since the next phase will last longer and provide more actuall information where this game is gonna head into (I wanna friggin rant the FUZZY BUNNIES who doesn't get this, but it's just gonna overwhelm me).

PS: poor you being from Australia : P

Edited by Arcana13, November 02 2012 - 01:55 AM.

[EMEUTIER]

@Arcania13
Ok, I understand better what you were meaning now. I hope I didn't offend you.

Yeah, i'm from Australia, my ping was averaging 300+ during the beta :,(