14 replies to this topic

[Nitris]

Straight off the bat: I'm not typing a TL:DR version. =]

This is going to be a long one, and I want this to be taken not as flat out whining or criticism, but as honest constructive feedback.
I will try to keep things to the point and professionally presented.

• Text sizes and colour choices are still an issue.

I can barely read the tiny text. I have to squint and move my face right up to the screen to be able to do so.
I don't have poor eyesight, its just frigging tiny and hard to read a lot of the time.
Major culprits are: Tooltip text, optimization stats, internal stats (Expecially for colours on the internals stats. Dark green and dark red on a dark grey/black background_ I plain and simple can't make that text out at all.)
Also the newer ingame chatbox is hard to see as well, though with squinting I can make out the white 'all chat' but the dark blue 'team chat' is impossible.
Please can we get a UI scale slider and/or a text size slider in the options menu_ I feel these are important settings for players to be able to customise.

• Changes to Siege mode.

I have had a few games of Siege since the changes, and I saw that even with three mechs sucking up juice from an EU tree at the same time, there was only ver little slowdown. I think it needs to be exagerated, the slowdown must increase.
As it is, these changes mean there is absolutely no reason to fight over control of the EU points, hell there is no point in fighting at all, unless there is a battleship in the air-- Worst of all that is what is happening now. Nobody fights and Siege mode is boring as hell until an AA fight comes up.
However, then we have another issue; Less hp on the bases certainly speeds things up, but from my experience it just makes a lot of people ragequit after they lose the first pip. =(

• Sync errors.

Well this is just plain annoying and I understand this is something you are probably looking at as I type this.
My questions are thus: Why do we have to sync after clicking "launch" at the beginning of a match_ Do we not sync at the end of a match_ Only if we disconnect_ Regardless, after clicking "launch" on the next round I expect the sync to have already occured.
I expect it before/during/after map loading NOT as I am about to get into the fight after sitting there waiting for enough people to finally click ready, sitting through that pointless timer (seriously, just friggin start if enough people are ready), then picking my mech and weapon setup.
Also please remove @ (qwerty keyboards) as the console key bind. I can't log back in to my account from in game because of this. I have to close it completely and then close and reopen the launcher. Maybe set it to the button above Tab and to the left of 1. ( ` or ¬ ) I could probably check and ini or under the options menu to change the keybind there, but why is it set to this by default_ Please change this, because there will be others that run into this that may not know to check keybinding options or ini files.

• Optimisations and internals changes.

Ah, I must have missed that part of the post by Saunders. I will put what I typed in spoilers below, as I still think it is relevant, but not completely.

Spoiler

A friend managed to jot down all the changes so I could go through them and have a think about them.
Firstly, I am not sure on the some of the negative things on internals. Damage vulnerabilities on the +HP internal for instance. Doesn't that just cancel it out, or overall give you less effective HP_ Also only 5% increase_ That is not worth the HP or MP.
The same can be said for 90% of the internals. They just do not change anything enough to make it worth buying them. If they gave larger bonuses, and larger negatives then they would at least be worth risking in some circumstances- but I can see people will cry foul on this.
The changes to optimisations I can understand, but again it seems some were changed too much. Dumping 3 points into a health skill to gain 0.9% boost to your HP_ Are you... I mean these kinds of changes basically remove the point of the optimisations altogether.
About the only worthwhile ones are the repair rate and dash time reduction. The rest provide such a miniscule bonus I really don't see the point.
This is not "Waa make them bigger waaaa!" This is "Why even have the system in the first place when it does so little_"
Just my opinion and I know there are some out there that will want these systems just because it is better than nothing, but again I think it is pretty pointless for the most part, and removing these kinds of "upgrade" systems would go a long way to removing a lot of work regarding balance. This is a topic I could go on and on about but I will stop here, and put my thoughts down in a more focused thread.

• Item changes.

I do not like that we have been restricted to two items, especially as I personally would have prefered to have had Offensive combined with Defensive, rather than Defensive and Support combined- We still have guns for using offensively after all. I think the choice between more firepower or more survivability/utility is more tactical, and more interesting.
The item regen is nifty, and I like it. It removes the "advantage" (I use this word loosely) that respawned mechs have over someone who has burned everything, but really the fact that they are respawning usually means they got killed due to the other pilot being more skilled, not purely due to item spam.
Regardless, I like that if you "redeploy" a turret that it destroys the one placed before. Stops massive "nests" being built up to stupid sizes.
On the note of turrets btw, the Rocket turret seems to have had its health lowered and model changed. It is smaller and closer to the ground, I assume the hitbox has also changed to reflect the new model_
Why was this not in the patch notes_ I want as much in the patch notes as possible please!
It not only pleases people to know everything, it allows us to focus, test and provide accurate and relative feedback on changes.

• Loading screens.

I like them, they look great and most importantly hide the level during loading much better than the last ones did. I don't think the old ones really hid the loading much at all, which kinda defeated the point.
I believe having multiple versions for the same map would be great and keep things from getting stale too fast. Screens should have pictures from different places around the map and have different placements of the text/numbers.

• Bazzar (Sahara) map changes.

I like the changes. Among them: Added more entrypoints to the EU tree that only had one for both teams. This is great for gameplay.
The removal of the cliff at the AA. Losing that height advantage, and therefore the ability to shoot down on top of the AA, while the other team couldn't from such close range is great for map balance and again great for gameplay. Good job on this.

• Other/Misc things:

The small exclamation mark on the optimisations tab when you have unspent points is helpful. Thank you. =D

The Infiltrator's Camo change is a step in the right direction, but still the distortion effect is still pretty eye catching. This defeats the entire point of it.

The Seeker missle launcher is a great weapon and fun to use. I hope to see it on other mechs besides the Rocketeer.

Thanks for fixing the glitch that reset movement speeds and boost restrictions on C class' in turret mode that used jump pads. It was funny for a while, but looked insane when they side dashed. =D (However, another thing not in the patch notes!)

Does hitting level 20 on mechs still unlock the ability to purchase an alt primary weapon_ I am not keen on this. Regardless of the stats of the gun, it should be available from level 0. It keeps everything fair.

Thank you for the team swap option midgame! This was, IMO, a very urgent issue that needed addressing.

New paint jobs are great. My favourite is obviously Checker-Pnk.

I genuinely hope that the server browser being removed is only temporary, and that it will be added back in (with hopefully more features, like sorting the list via server name/players/etc...). I don't think I will have a problem using the matchmaker for now, but I do not want to be stuck with it forever. I know I am not the only one who feels this way.
All answered here.

Fred is win.



I may edit this post or add more replies later on.
My brain is a bit frazzled after typing the above for an hour. (It is now 3am. Whoops.)

Edited by Nitris, November 20 2012 - 09:38 PM.

[Necro]

1.)
Definitely need a toggle-able chat box in the battlefield as well as better fonts and colors. i get the art art style but i want to be able to read.

2.)
I think it should have stayed at 3, don't know why changes were made to this I loved the setup, If time was a restrained change the ships speed and the AA damage or something.
Also I think only one person should ever be able to collect energy at a time.

3.)
For The internals and optimizations numbers see this.

Saunders, on November 14 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

You won’t see all of the above for the next closed beta but you’ll see some of it.  In the short-term we’ll be keeping the Internals numbers pretty small so we can keep testing it, but expect these to gradually get stronger as we roll out the changes to the optimizations and weapons systems.

THREAD

4.)
I'm mixed on the items as it limits player choices but allows for more streamline game-play, i would like to know the reason for the change to help me decide my view.

5.)
Love the changes to Sahara, make it harder to hold up in a place and sit there. Loading screens are nice. and I hate the seeker it owned me and i was confused how a c class killed me xD (good weapon only used it once but i got killed by it so.)

[Nitris]

Ah, thank you for the link and quote. I must have missed or misread that part. I have edited my post.

Edited by Nitris, November 20 2012 - 07:46 PM.

[fwip]

Multiple people at one EU dispenser still slows it down.

[Saunders]

fwip, on November 20 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Multiple people at one EU dispenser still slows it down.

That is correct.  You'll still get more EU if you split your team up.  The new way EU is distributed still gives the same outcome, but is friendlier to new players or solo Mech Cs

[Saunders]

Nitris (and all) -

• Agreed, it's hard to read the fonts.  Expect incremental updates over the next few months, but know that this is a priority for us.  It will get fixed.  
  
• You'll see some additional changes to Siege mode for Open Beta (it should be easier to understand for new players, and be more fun for experienced players), but know that we'll be making some big changes to Siege shortly after Open Beta.  It's gonna be freaking sweet, your minds are going to be blown.
  
• Sync Errors suck   Know that we have some awesome people working around the clock to get this fixed for y'all.  And fixed for us too.  We don't give ourselves any special privileges or anything when we play, so we experience the same frustrations as everyone!  Keep watching the News threads or other places for specific updates on this.
  
• Optimizations & Internals.  Yup - see this thread (half way down) for our plans for this. But I hope we can roll out some updates for you guys soon.
  
• Item Changes.  Let's just say we aren't done rolling out item systems yet ;D  You won't be disappointed

Thanks for all the awesome feedback - love this post!  Glad you noticed (and enjoy!) all the little updates ;D  Expect more, thanks to all the help, feedback, suggestions, and walls of text you guys are giving!

<3 Saunders

[Nitris]

fwip, on November 20 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Multiple people at one EU dispenser still slows it down.

Hm, yes I just went and tested it and you are correct. However, it is a very tiny slowdown, probably why I didn't think there was one. I think it needs to be increased by a large amount. I have edited my post.

EDIT:

Hey no problem Saunders!
I take great pride in knowing that even in some very small way I have helped Hawken become more awesome than it already is.

Thank you for feeding back on my feedback... That sounded better in my head.

Edited by Nitris, November 20 2012 - 09:12 PM.

[Necro]

Nitris, on November 20 2012 - 09:06 PM, said:

Thank you for feeding back on my feedback... That sounded better in my head.

I love feedback on my feedback, makes me feel loved

[JuiceBox]

I have to ask .. what resolution are you guys running that have such hard times to read fonts_ I'm far sighted and run 1920x1200 on a 24" screen and have no issues whatsoever in reading any of the text in this game.

Blurry slightly yes.. but not hard to read.

[Nitris]

I'm running the game at 1280 x 800, according to my optician as of 4 months ago I have no vision issues at all.

[Necro]

http://i.imgur.com/NWXRq.jpg

Just look at this for an example.

[Nitris]

Necro, on November 20 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

http://i.imgur.com/NWXRq.jpg

Just look at this for an example.

Hit the nail on the head.

[fwip]

I think the weapon type text is fine - it only takes a little bit of time before you remember which position which is in, and then the text just gets in the way.

I totally didn't see that rename button, though.

[Nitris]

Could you make out what the text was for the internals_

[fwip]

Yeah, I didn't really have a problem with any of the other text.