80 replies to this topic

[RipperT]

I entered this test with the expectations of getting me arse handed to me. In general terms beta tests usually have very little in the way of information developed to help testers get used to the game/unit dynamics. I am very impressed to find the tutorial videos posted by the developement team in the effort to give some information to the newcomers and this shows a distinct awareness on their part.

All that aside, I have never been able to gain a positive kill ratio in any new game played in a single day of play. It generally takes a mediocre like me a week of play to climb up to a balance of 1 for 1. When I find someone on a server who is making better than average kill ratios, I try to learn from them by switching onto the team they are on, when possible, and attempt to follow them around for a short time. It is a learning experience in most cases and shows me many things I am doing wrong and in several cases has made me change my mind on unit type and use. Specifically the infiltrator; I used to dislike the unit and now it is one of my favorites. I still need to learn how to use the heat cannon effectively.

As far as the tech tree, I am in favor of it as it allows me to tweak my unit  to fit my play style or adjust to my weakness'/strengths.

I get frustrated at times and take a breather from the game when this happens and then come back and try and improve my skills (or lack of). Most of what frustrates me in this game is the lack of  general communication between team players on missle and siege maps. The best matches I have been in, reguardless of player levels/skills, have been the ones where voice communication/coordination have been good. I have played several matches being "cannon fodder" just to try and motivate some of the people who are fighting away from control points instead of on them. I also do not play in many deathmatch games until I get used to a specific unit type and even then prefer a team environment.

In general, I like what I see at this point in this offering and hope that it does nothing but improve. I do not get the same vibes as the OP about the game but would like to see a definite "training" session made available along with detailed mech specs and descriptions posted somewhere in the game engine.

Thank-you for the opportunity to assist in this test.

[Axeman6ft7]

The latest Beta event finds me a bit happier. I'm still getting stomped for the most part, but the Boosts are helping me get my mech up to speed quicker, which I appreciate. Matchmaking is still landing me with mech's VASTLY superior to my own, and I understand the difficulties in that. Sometimes leveling the playing field is difficult, but there is still little fun in getting yer butt handed to you by a Mech 10 levels higher. Still the progress and improvements being made are noticable. Gameplay appears to be much smoother and there are far less "anomolies".

Keep up the good work....it's starting to grow on me. I STILL have some frustrations and reservations. But clearly things are moving in the right direction. It WOULD be nice is those of us who have participated in the closed events could keep our hard work for the open Beta. (HINT HINT)

[Omega22]

Yea , I insanely 101% agree with you. As posted in my previous post the rocketer mech is a utter useless and the countless deaths i had by other mechs at higher level , how do you level up if you are playing in a team with low levels or starting out  and the other team is over powered.

That is why i was asking to have the abilty to equip any guns on the mechs and to dual weild guns

That is why i was asking to take out some mechs to the drawing board and fix issues - it takes like 10 seconds to refire the hellfire missles and leave as side get a lock on - that equates to instant or quick deaths

[Necro]

Did you just call the rocketman useless_

Right now it's being the most discussed as being over-powered. (well the seeker missile really)
Had you not noticed_

Edited by Necro, November 25 2012 - 10:57 PM.

[Omega22]

Call me Dumb but nope i did not notice and hell  yea i will still avoid that mech

[Necro]

Play an A class!

[G4M5T3R]

I hear (well read) alot of complaining about the number of players or the matchmaking. It seem to me some people don't realize this is still a CLOSED beta. Even on 12/12/12 when it goes live, it's still in Beta. Meteor has time to develop upon this already excellent game.

[Axeman6ft7]

I'm still irritated that I'm being matched to level 20 mech's....that's simply not gonna fly after the beta. I'm STILL getting my butt handed to me most of the time, but at least they HAVE added ways for me to scrape and scrounge my way into points. Kudos for the Bonuses. Double XP is a Godsend...THANK YOU for that, it gives me a chance to build up a mech even while gettin bitched slapped around. I have a Lvl 2 Brawler, and I really should NEVER see a lvl 20 mech via matchmaking....it's just not cool. Other than that, as I said, the improvements are noticable, and I am enjoying the battle a bit more than in previous rants on this thread.

Also, anyone noticing issues with Nvidia drivers___ I've had a few instances where my game will dump to desktop, then reappear, notifying me the driver has reset. Using 306.23 WHQL from Nvidia with a pair of GTX 285's in SLI. Only happens occasionally, and card temps are well within spec, fans at 100%

[AsianJoyKiller]

Axeman6ft7, on November 26 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

I'm still irritated that I'm being matched to level 20 mech's....that's simply not gonna fly after the beta. I'm STILL getting my butt handed to me most of the time, but at least they HAVE added ways for me to scrape and scrounge my way into points. Kudos for the Bonuses. Double XP is a Godsend...THANK YOU for that, it gives me a chance to build up a mech even while gettin bitched slapped around. I have a Lvl 2 Brawler, and I really should NEVER see a lvl 20 mech via matchmaking....it's just not cool. Other than that, as I said, the improvements are noticable, and I am enjoying the battle a bit more than in previous rants on this thread.

Tell me, how much of a difference do you think being Lvl. 20 makes_
Do you realize that most of the skills give less than a 1% buff_

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

AsianJoyKiller, on November 26 2012 - 06:04 PM, said:

Tell me, how much of a difference do you think being Lvl. 20 makes_
Do you realize that most of the skills give less than a 1% buff_

But all those added bonusses together, even with the dumbed down internals, along with right use of the tech trees, can make for a formidable Mech.
It doesn't always matter, because as many lvl 20's get wasted either by strength in numbers, or simply playing better, but for someone in a level 0-8 mech, especially if still relatively new to Hawken, it will usually be a VERY daunting task, if not improbable/impossible in a 1on1 situation.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Dread_Lord_Pitr, on November 26 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

AsianJoyKiller, on November 26 2012 - 06:04 PM, said:

Tell me, how much of a difference do you think being Lvl. 20 makes_
Do you realize that most of the skills give less than a 1% buff_

But all those added bonusses together, even with the dumbed down internals, along with right use of the tech trees, can make for a formidable Mech.
It doesn't always matter, because as many lvl 20's get wasted either by strength in numbers, or simply playing better, but for someone in a level 0-8 mech, especially if still relatively new to Hawken, it will usually be a VERY daunting task, if not improbable/impossible in a 1on1 situation.

I'd argue that the only bonuses you get from optimization that make any real difference in combat are the +health from the defensive tree and the +dodge frequency from the mobility tree.
And either one of those can be mitigated by playing better.

[SirCannonFodder]

Axeman6ft7, on November 26 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

I'm still irritated that I'm being matched to level 20 mech's....that's simply not gonna fly after the beta. I'm STILL getting my butt handed to me most of the time, but at least they HAVE added ways for me to scrape and scrounge my way into points. Kudos for the Bonuses. Double XP is a Godsend...THANK YOU for that, it gives me a chance to build up a mech even while gettin bitched slapped around. I have a Lvl 2 Brawler, and I really should NEVER see a lvl 20 mech via matchmaking....it's just not cool. Other than that, as I said, the improvements are noticable, and I am enjoying the battle a bit more than in previous rants on this thread.

Also, anyone noticing issues with Nvidia drivers___ I've had a few instances where my game will dump to desktop, then reappear, notifying me the driver has reset. Using 306.23 WHQL from Nvidia with a pair of GTX 285's in SLI. Only happens occasionally, and card temps are well within spec, fans at 100%

You're not getting your butt kicked because it's a level 20 mech, you're getting your butt kicked because they've been playing long enough to get a mech to level 20. The levels themselves are largely meaningless, only a few optimisations (like the 3% max armour increase) have any actual impact on gameplay.

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

AsianJoyKiller, on November 26 2012 - 06:13 PM, said:

I'd argue that the only bonuses you get from optimization that make any real difference in combat are the +health from the defensive tree and the +dodge frequency from the mobility tree.
And either one of those can be mitigated by playing better.

But the problem is that to get to the level of skill that comes with playing well enough to mitigate them, would mean a lot of frustrating matches for a lot of new players...
And you know how things work these days; game too hard _
Kids move on to COD or BF, less skill required in general.

Hence why the matchmaking needs work.

[Dreizehn]

You new kids better not field Rocketeers against me. Honestly, its stopped being the crutch for new players to use(except against other new players). It just marks you out as a full course meal, ready to devour. I'm too used to being able to close in with low level Rockies and just hammer them with Flak as they spin around helplessly trying to wonder what's going on.

You kids are better off using a B-Class and learning some basic aim and maneuvering I wouldn't recommend A-Class to start off with either cause your moves won't be up to scratch, and that'd just make you frail and easy to hit.

Though I have had new players stick close to me when we were on the same team, follow my advice and learn from example. In the end I watched out for him and he had his share of assists and kills. Even if you do get matched with higher level players - if you have some on your team as well, let them do the heavy lifting. Keep track of the names of the opposing high level players and avoid direct confrontation with them. Threat assessment is a big part of any game that involves blowing each other up.

Ultimately matchmaking needs work. Punishing better players is silly. Coddling new players just leads to them not improving.


Also I don't think levels are cue to just wave the white flag from the get go. I played a game where I found the level 16 player to be relatively easy to take out, like 4/5 of our encounters ends with me winning. Yet that Level 0 Assault was giving me some pretty serious fuzzy bunny. In the end he scored top of his team, 2nd overall.

Also optimizations don't really mean diddly squad. The reason we are slapping you guys around is because we've played longer and are just better, not because we have diddly percentage bonuses.

Edited by Dreizehn, November 26 2012 - 06:59 PM.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Dread_Lord_Pitr, on November 26 2012 - 06:28 PM, said:

AsianJoyKiller, on November 26 2012 - 06:13 PM, said:

I'd argue that the only bonuses you get from optimization that make any real difference in combat are the +health from the defensive tree and the +dodge frequency from the mobility tree.
And either one of those can be mitigated by playing better.

But the problem is that to get to the level of skill that comes with playing well enough to mitigate them, would mean a lot of frustrating matches for a lot of new players...
And you know how things work these days; game too hard _
Kids move on to COD or BF, less skill required in general.

Hence why the matchmaking needs work.

The health bonus give 3.5% extra health. You realize how little that is_
On a 850 health C-Class that is 30, that's right, 30 extra health. That is the equivalent of 3 bullets from a SMC. And even when you stack that with the 5% health internal, the health bonus you get is 72 extra health. That takes less than 1 second of fire to chew off, or just hit them once with a burst weapon.
The dodge cooldown shave only a 1/4 of a second off. That means, they can only dodge 25% sooner than you can.

Are you telling me you need hours of practice to mitigate that_
Because if so, I think you're nuts. Those bonuses are regularly mitigated by pure luck.

[Dread_Lord_Pitr]

It does mean just that, when we are talking about more experienced players like yourself, and (to a much lesser extent) me, who know how to use that tiny bit of extra health to survive, dodge out of sight, repair and then come back in.
Keep in mind, higher levels and a decent K/D ratio will often be perceived (this being the key word) by newbies as either the Mechs being OP, players being super skilled, and/or the game just generally being unfair because of, and we come to it again, bad matchmaking.

That a lot of it is down to skill, and some of it down to just plain old dumb luck (FSM knows i've had my share of that, resulting in being called every name in the book, and being accused of cheating), is something the newbies (often, but not always, fortunately) won't care about; it's all about perception.

[Necro]

we need bots to show the newer player how to play. simple videos don't do it.

Or for like 1 week your locked into noob servers (that you can opt out of)

[5eraph]

Guys....max level mechs are NOT THAT GOOD.  Upgrade trees are virtually useless, and the upgraded weapons only give you around a 10% edge.  Sure, I have a level 16 bruiser that seems OP in public matches, but I took a LEVEL ZERO scout and rocketeer to a game and absolutely steamrolled multiple >lvl18 mechs.

THE ONLY THING THAT MECH LEVEL REALLY INDICATES IS TIME PLAYED ~ FAMILIARITY WITH WEAPONS AND PLAYSTYLE OF A CERTAIN MECH/GAME MODE.

You guys that are complaining about high level mechs being untouchable while playing as a low level mech simply have not played enough of the game to be effective with your mech.  There are many subtleties in gameplay that center around cover mechanics, weapon control, movement control, and among others, that take time to develop.

On another note, don't rush into multiple enemies; use guerrilla warfare fighting techniques - chip away at the enemy from cover, push when the enemy falls back and stalk your weakened prey, ambush from behind, set up distractions (jamming radar, holograms, shielding chokepoints, shielding as you retreat, etc), use proper siege techniques to suffocate your enemies' ability to retaliate and regroup, etc, etc; upgrade only the healing and movement tree as weapon damage and mitigation are useless (some upgrades are as low as 0.18%.....there's something seriously wrong about that).........

I can go on and on....which means that if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're probably the one with a very low k/d ratio and can't seem to rack up any points from doing objectives either.  MECH LEVEL IS NOT TO BLAME.  Just play more and get the hang of the game first, and you will realize level 0 mechs aren't as weak as you think they are.

Edited by 5eraph, November 26 2012 - 11:19 PM.

[OddaC]

This is why I advocate mech levels NOT being shown. All its going to do is encourage stacking and complaints about nonexistant advantages; lull less experienced players into poor mentalities.

[Makina]

OddaC, on November 27 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

This is why I advocate mech levels NOT being shown. All its going to do is encourage stacking and complaints about nonexistant advantages; lull less experienced players into poor mentalities.

yeah I say dont show the mech lvl until the end of the game, the score board, that way new players wont rage quit right away when seeing a lvl 20, and they actually might be able to take him/them down a few times, so he ll know its might not be that difficult.