9 replies to this topic

[NIGHTRAV3N]

THANK YOU Adhesive Games and Meteor Entertainment for a great Closed Beta event!!!

Now let us take a look back about the progress of Hawken over the weekend..

I for one will start off to say I'm happy to see the dev team kick it up and get a few patches dished out really quickly when fuzzy bunny hit the fan. I had an AMAZING weekend putting in a decent amount of hours into such a great game.

My gripes: Insignificance of getting a level 20 sharpshooter was disappointing.I was hoping to have gotten a sweet weapon or cool ability due to the point-d vulcan being an unlock. I think the HAWKEN POINT progression should get buffed and give the pilots the credit they deserve. I feel like even with the XP boosts it still was pretty slow for a grind in a shooter especially for not getting anything back. Would like to see what the ability and weapon levels are for as well.

The pros: The visual and audio immersion was GREAT even for a low end machine.I had really no connectivity issues at all aside from the chaos that went on the first couple days of getting the system updated and flushed out.[I'm a West Coast user]. Siege mode is a nice stepping stone to something great. I really dig the frag/objective element it brings to the table. The new maps were SWEET! Alleys has a great atmosphere to it and Titan was a total blast to dominate on.

All-n-all I am pleased to see where this game is going being I have been following it since before the first reveal trailer Was on the servers destroying until the very last second till the 'cord was unplugged'. Feel like I did really well as far as stats/playing ability goes without playing with a coordinated team.

Can't wait to get my hands on CBE2!!

What is your thoughts on the CBE1 weekend_

[CakeBandit]

Gripes time!

1: CBE1 ended

2: While I spent most of my time in deathmatch, I was a little put off at how situational the heavier weight classes seem to be. Speed is definitely the name of the game here and they're missing out on it. I'm pretty pleased with the amount of damage you can soak in turret mode, but maybe it just takes too long to get into it. I understand it's an ability better suited to teamplay, but I just didn't end up using it there.

3: I couldn't transfer paint jobs from one mech to another. While I'm sure that it's very proprietary paint, I'm pretty sure it will work on my other chassis as well.

4: Items in the store were locked in holy matrimony with whatever I purchased them for. This, I  can kinda' understand. I've previously proposed a 1/3 to 1/4 HP cost to transfer the item from one chassis to another, and just wanted to leave this as a reminder.

5: The game doesn't have enough elements that actively teach you how to play the game through feedback. There are no confirming beeps or boops or really badass missile sounds when you capture a missile launcher, nothing that really lets you know how an energy tree works outside of looking at it, kind of. Even then you only get a vague idea. These concepts can be cemented a lot better with some audio cues.

6: Turrets. They just feel dirty. Don't like them. I understand what they're for, but I don't feel like they're a fun element to the game. It's not like you have to actively support them. They just kinda' pop up and are an ambient DPS increase. They also don't show up on radar while firing, making finding them a pain in the ass with the landscapes we have. Also people tend to drop them near spawn points which is absolutely no good.

7: Repair orbs don't stand out very well. They just don't. They need to be a little more substantial. Or maybe red colored or something.

8: Getting shot doesn't really feel like you're getting shot. It's again an issue of player feedback. I feel like we need some scarier metal tearing sounds. Other than that I enjoy the muted soundscape. It's gonna' be hard to find the balance here.

9: The cap on jumpjet height is arbitrary and hard to understand without tracking forum posts down. Something needs to be done here to either indicate to the player what is happening in a more understandable way, or to mitigate the problems you were having without capping your max jump height.

10: HP gain really does feel awfully slow for the amount of Virtu-dollars you have to spend to get a chassis and a bunch of internals. And then if you hate what you purchased you're STUCK.

11: In-Game VOIP needs to show who is speaking when someone speaks. If this isn't fixed by CBE2 I'm going to find some really "Boss encounter" style music to micspam and then kick everyone's ass until they all complain about it on the forums.

12: Disable the console completely if there are no functioning commands. Further, disable the console completely if it's RIGHT NEXT TO MY ITEM QUICK-DEPLOYS.

13: Turrets, again, are literally Hitler.

14: CBE2 isn't here yet.

15: Running from people in an equal sized weight chassis is really hard to do without them just following your radar signal.

Edited by CakeBandit, October 30 2012 - 11:57 PM.

[UncleHo]

CakeBandit, on October 30 2012 - 11:56 PM, said:

(..)

I'm pretty pleased with the amount of damage you can soak in turret mode, but maybe it just takes too long to get into it. I understand it's an ability better suited to teamplay, but I just didn't end up using it there.

(..)

Same here. I tried the turret mode but it was hard for me to find a situation when to use it properly... The few times I engaged a mech who was in fortification mode himself, I took him down sooner or later (at least in 80 percent of the encounters).

[vince]

UncleHo, on October 31 2012 - 12:06 AM, said:

CakeBandit, on October 30 2012 - 11:56 PM, said:

(..)

I'm pretty pleased with the amount of damage you can soak in turret mode, but maybe it just takes too long to get into it. I understand it's an ability better suited to teamplay, but I just didn't end up using it there.

(..)

Same here. I tried the turret mode but it was hard for me to find a situation when to use it properly... The few times I engaged a mech who was in fortification mode himself, I took him down sooner or later (at least in 80 percent of the encounters).

I agree to this too. I think turret mode should be a really fast deployment, but like a slow disengage. Something like that, to make it more viable.

[ItsThatGuy]

I'll add more later.

Gripes:

1. CakeBandit has way better avatar pictures than me. Those crack me up everytime I see them.

2. Alleys. Hawken has a tendency to make moving around difficult and this map does not help. I only got to play it a handful of times but man, it just feels small and cramped.

3. Turrets: I often found myself looking at a turret that's next to a teammate thinking, oh, he just put that there. Then it starts shooting me in the back. I look at it again. Where are these shots coming from_ Oh that little guy right there!

4. Training modes: Even though I've been in alpha and beta now, I just worry about the new people that's all. Getting this up sooner rather than later would be advised.

5. Balanced matchmaking: Also for the new people. Maybe even do a Halo 2 style skill rank based on the number of wins but don't show it to the player. Only use it behind the scenes so you don't get people de-leveling to watch their number go up all over again.

6. Actually I'd just like to really stress training modes again. I recently played a pvp game that had no training and of course I got stomped. It's not a good way for people to develop good feelings about the game.

Edited by ItsThatGuy, November 05 2012 - 10:35 AM.

[Subdivision]

Ok lets see what I can come up with...

1. I really like the direction the maps have taken since the alpha. I think Titan and Alleys are both fantastic multi-layered maps that really utilise height changes to their advantage. They maintain balance between lower and higher levels as to make sure people can't overwatch other levels. However, I feel Sahara was left balanced in team modes. Especially Siege mode. The positioning of the AA just seems to favour the team at the top of the hill to me. On top of this I often found sharpshooters peppering me on the energy collector from the AA.

2. C class abilities need reworking still. Admittedly took me a while to realise I could now move in fortified turret mode. I had a serious WTF!! moment watching a rocketeer slide eerily round a corner. It looks really odd currently. No legs move but it just slides about on a cushion of frictionless air... It isn't that useful still either. It's main utility is in team fight situations. One possibility could be to give it an additional repair ability, so I hunkered down, I hit 'c' and begin repairing while still hunkered down but I can't shoot until I stop like a regular repair. That or maybe a passive repair that is noticeable. Not sure if any of that would work. just some thoughts. Oh and a health bar would be lovely!

3. Training. For all them newbs. Ha, I joke. But seriously something that gives people a really good idea of what everything does and how to use it. Every weapon, item, upgrade and ability needs a detailed explanation ideally. A small database would be cool to access in game. A wiki is nice but isn't a quick in game reference! Also, game mode tuition. Siege is fantastic but nobody has done it before so I feel plenty of people hop in with giving much thought to the descriptive screen.

4. A ranking system for matchmaking purposes. Plenty of games have them so I'm sure its in the pipeline somewhere. Don't worry if you get it wrong, the community will let you know! Hahah

5. Optimisations and upgrades have been commented on many times and I don't feel I can add much to what people are saying. Listen to the people who have done the maths and balance it out. I'm happy with the trees myself, I think they need a little tweak to get them in the right place to have a suitable impact on the mechs.

6. Chat please. I still miss the occasional message and a chat box history would be great. The console is too cumbersome and intrusive to use. Naturally a competitive team will use voice comms but if I want to derp about for a bit on DM or TDM, it would be nice to chat with people. I've seen very little chat in game. Plus if you ask somebody to do something, chances are they just will never see it.

7. I am personally happy with the height restriction for flight. I think you need to implement some for of relative altimeter so people can see they are about to be X m off the ground and can go no further. Although if you raise the cap I do wonder how long it will take people to realise a big slow flying mech is easy picking for snipers...

8. Clans and friends. Looking forward to a fully functional and armed battle sta.... oops, erm where was I.... friends and party system. I hope it gets implemented soon so I can start playing with people regularly. It can be very lone ranger out there sometimes!

That's most of what I can think off. Will add more if I recall anything.

Would like to say Adhesive and Meteor have been doing a terrific job all weekend and the progress on the game so far is fantastic. A massive thank you to everyone involved for letting us play test this game for you! I have far too many positives to list and would probably break the NDA several times in my babbling so I shan't waste anybodies time any more. Keep up the good work and I am definitely looking forward to an early Christmas this year

Peace!

[Lithium03]

NIGHTRAV3N, on October 30 2012 - 11:22 PM, said:

My gripes: Insignificance of getting a level 20 sharpshooter was disappointing.I was hoping to have gotten a sweet weapon or cool ability due to the point-d vulcan being an unlock. I think the HAWKEN POINT progression should get buffed and give the pilots the credit they deserve. I feel like even with the XP boosts it still was pretty slow for a grind in a shooter especially for not getting anything back. Would like to see what the ability and weapon levels are for as well.

It took me what I could play on Friday(server troubles an all) and Saturday, which is around 8 hours with a 2x boost, so a full weekend without, I managed to hit 20. Doesn't seem that slow if you can effectively hit the cap in 1-2 days of play.

[NIGHTRAV3N]

Lithium03, on October 31 2012 - 02:19 AM, said:

NIGHTRAV3N, on October 30 2012 - 11:22 PM, said:

My gripes: Insignificance of getting a level 20 sharpshooter was disappointing.I was hoping to have gotten a sweet weapon or cool ability due to the point-d vulcan being an unlock. I think the HAWKEN POINT progression should get buffed and give the pilots the credit they deserve. I feel like even with the XP boosts it still was pretty slow for a grind in a shooter especially for not getting anything back. Would like to see what the ability and weapon levels are for as well.

It took me what I could play on Friday(server troubles an all) and Saturday, which is around 8 hours with a 2x boost, so a full weekend without, I managed to hit 20. Doesn't seem that slow if you can effectively hit the cap in 1-2 days of play.

haha ya that is very true. Think I was just so eager to get to lvl20 and felt like it took forever with all the progression resets.I got in roughly 9hours of playtime.

[Mal3fic]

Frist...

Wow! The alpha testing really shows how dedicated these guys are to making this game BADASS!

Gripes.

Why can't I tell when I use my special abilty.

Jump booster pads, they can be real fickle, might need to increase the area of the pads.

When you use two or three mechs during a match, and one is LVL 20, at the end of the match the lvl 20 mech is the only progress you see.

Bug

If you use your jump boosters till the run out and then keep them running the boost sound plays and you can glide about, while they recharge.

Thanks again, Can't wait to keep wasting all the nubs!

Mal

[OddaC]

Once again, great work Adhesive and Meteor. Hawken has either met or exceeded my expectations, though there's still room for improvement:

*The pads are much too fickle. I recommend an increase in their hit area.

*We need better hit sounds. It gets surprisingly difficult to tell whether or not you're under attack (unless you're paying attention to the health indicator) because the ambient bullet sounds and 'hit' bullet sounds are pretty much the same. I'd like some 'metal fatigue sounds.'

*I don't wanna get into a weapon balance discussion, as I do not feel I have sufficient knowledge and skill at the game for that, but the freaking turrets! They feel... a bit out of place imo. As an earlier poster mentioned, they're free DPS, and we need MUCH better indications of friendly turrets vs enemy turrets, along with were they are. Nothing is worse than being shot at and not knowing by what. I second having them show up on radar.

*It seems a bit too easy to get stuck on corners or floor obstacles right now, even as an A-class. I'm of the opinion that object collision detection parameters should be tweaked just a bit. Furthermore, on Titan there are points on the map where I can get stuck and cannot move at all unless I literally jump and wiggle the mouse like I have Tourette syndrome.

Everything else I can think of has already been suggested several times over in this and other threads, so I'll end my post here.