unhappy now? wait until the only thrill left is starting another account and grinding it up, Noob Stomping, or else complaining about not getting a decent server.
Most of the people that stayed for that long are permanently gone.
Nearly all (with notable exceptions) of the pre-Ascension crowd are gone, as well. Many of them I genuinely miss seeing here. This game gives the feeling that it really doesn't want players to stay around. I can't explain it, but it has always felt like it was built to repulse the casual player, and infuriate the comp player.
:P
No offense, but oh well. This is the game now, and this is what's chasing players away. People are joining the game in i S current state, and they're going to stick around or leave based on its current state. Not some bygone nonexistent build.
Except that:
A) you didn't pay admission in the first place,
and
B) you're not paying per ride. A more accurate metaphor would be that you're paying a one-time fee to be able to ride that same ride in that park forever (or presumably until the park goes out of business).
It's still not a bad deal. Let's keep it in perspective.
This is sort of another post that I'm going to have to reply with "so?"
The metaphor isn't perfect, it only captures the gist of the legitimate points I made in the same post which were summarily ignored.
Having a fully loaded assault as starter Mech is good, but it's true that "discounts" or lower grinds for the first hours could really help.
After playing 2 or 3 hours every player should have at least one additionnal Mech. This with the more regular double HC/XP week-end would lead to a better early gaming experience.
I can't speak to how the grind feels later. If after fourteen hours in game, a player feels they aren't rewarded by their efforts (inb4 herp derp games don't have to reward you - please understand that I don't give a fuzzy bunny. You're competing for my (read: new players') time and money. If you don't want to get with the times you're going to get left behind.) then who's to say they're going to stick around any longer?
Now if every two or three hours I was unlocking a mech, but only as a new player (need a more objective standard) then yeah, that might help, but overall that feels gimmicky. It doesn't change the fact that on non double xp weekends and outside of your once a day bonus, TDM, what I'm assuming is the most played and simplest to pick up in a somewhat complicated game, is only netting you a max of 200 hc every ten or fifteen minutes, and that's if you do well. Don't tell me "switch teams when possible" don't tell me "play a different game mode." That's silly. Forcing a new player to jump through hoops just to obtain a couple viable builds is dumb.
I don't want gimmicks. New players don't want gimmicks. They want to feel engaged. Gameplay is fine. It's great. I'm sure that for the people here, it keeps you coming back. But who cares? Even if every one of you put in 100 dollars, how long would the game last without more income?
Engagement in the game, even though most players aren't aware of the meaning, often means engagement in the meta. Do you understand that? It means being able to experiment with different tools, and earn those tools consistently.
A new player on their first game might face 10 assaults and 1 scout and be like "hey I want that." So best case scenario, new player does ok, gets a bunch of achievements, wins, even gets a team balancer bonus. End result: 1000 hc. New player thinks "hey that's 12 games and I can get that mech." So they play again, but don't do so hot, but are still earning some new player hc achievements. End result: 250 hc. "Hey wtf? Alright let me play another." Achievements come slower. End result: 150 hc. The player plays a full 12 games, an unlikely session in my opinion, but they do, spending two full hours in game, many more minutes in the server browser, never once buying anything, and realizes at the end of it that he's earned less than 6000 hc. Less than half his way there. So he flips through the garage, but the brawler and the reaper don't appeal to him, so he sees what else he can buy. Not knowing anything he buys a detonator and some random internal in hopes that they'll make him do better and get hc at a faster rate.
But we know that doesn't happen. The player plays one more game, hc trickles in around 100 per game considering he's a new player losing a fair share of matches, and he turns it off. "Maybe I'll do better tomorrow." Except, he looks through his plethora of steam games, and picks something else, every single time, never returning to Hawken, forgetting that it was fun enough for him to put in over two hours in one day, because his last impression of the game was "I wasted all that time."
That is frustrating. That is a new players experience, and a real one too. That is what the grind is telling new people. "I'm wasting my time."
Well. Good luck with that.