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Preface
I would like to preface my ideas about potential routes to increase immersion and replayability with the fact that I am a new player, but have searched and failed to find anything paralleling this style thread in recent history and I am expecting to be wrong or have missed a few details in the process of putting this together.
I am in the process of playing past the initial �honeymoon period� and am trying to find good reason to justify playing Hawken over other games, which was my motivation to hopefully raise a discussion.
I am sure much of the current player base has been around for awhile and they/you most likely have a better opinion on Hawken than I do, so please feel free to comment and criticize. I felt a need to give commentary on my current thought process of what would make me really want to play Hawken over other games as many thread in the suggestion forum do not fall into the category I find most needed.
Tasks of this thread/discussion:
-Find a more rewarding matchmaking system to improve replayability.
-Increase lore usage and create a more �real� Hawken experience from start to finish.
-Find a more unique/drawing matchmaking system within the game that could achieve the two previous goals.
These are three things that are missing from Hawken that if added would make it my and probably a few others' most played game in a heart beat.
I would like to close my introduction by stating that obviously capnjosh and the team behind Hawken have other priorities currently, but voicing suggestions and ideas can only create discussion, which will hopefully improve the developer�s understanding of what the player base want to get out of the game.
Matchmaking
I am aware that the current matchmaking system does include MMR, but hidden MMR does not create replayability within the non-hardcore player base. This is a problem as not having a strong player base risks the entirety of the game�s development.
having a representation of where you stand in comparison to the entire player base is important. It improves replayability because new players with a competitive drive that enjoys the gameplay will instantly have a goal set for them to achieve outside of pure mech progression, which is not for everyone.
I am still playing because I have done my research and wish to play against better, more experienced players, which I am only aware of due to digging through forums, something a first time player is likely to not do.
Ranked systems do breed some toxicity, but it would create a reason for a subsection of players to keep playing for more than just the initial enjoyment. I am not sure about showing pure MMR as that often creates insecurities within players, but either that or system that has a representation of skill level should serve the game well.
Improving Immersion
Hawken�s game play is extremely immersive, on a level that most other games do not offer. The HUD is about immersion, so why then does the immersion stop at the end of the game?
The game has a full fledged comic(which I have purchased and enjoyed thoroughly) and yet there are almost no references in client currently. I know reading Genesis was on CapnJosh�s to do list, so hopefully going forward this is improved, but in the current state of the game it is almost impossible to feel a connection to the game world.
Corporations: We have Prosk and Sentium, if you want more the lore can move forward and contain a Rebel faction or any number of corporations. Factions are almost non-existent in client and having some kind of relevant representation would be cool to see, but they are tricky to work with considering the mercenary style lore and small player base.
Clans: An in-client clan system could be used to flesh out the mercenary feel as clans could align/sign with a corporation and get �contracts�(goals) from said corp. which could reward the group a bonus. The small player base limits what you can do with clan systems as well, but even just having the system would be nice to begin with.
I am sure you see where this is going, but basically just adding small features outside of the game that reference the war or help flush out the game world to players would be nice. Not everything has to be a game play feature, hell I would kill for just having some kind of world map or space image of Illal in the client, immersion is about the small things.
Immersion should be something Hawken can and should deliver on from start to finish.
Immersive Matchmaking
In an attempt to combine my two major issues with Hawken into a single solution I would like to see a more immersive matchmaking system that would incorporate some kind of ranking structure as well as lore to enhance the Hawken experience.
The basic idea would revolve around the war currently taking place on Illal between Prosk and Sentium. Obviously if players were to take part in a virtual war it would need to be persistent, a mech staple at this point.
Each war could be on a schedule and its end would mark a soft reset of the rankings. (Think LoL seasons, god help us) Each war could have top leaderboards to make certain mercenaries(players) �famous�. This is only one example.
Each game would represent a �battle� in the war, the winning corporation taking some kind of resource lead/geographical territory. If a corporation took over the market share or conquered Illal the war could end early, something along those lines.
Even if the player base is too small to truly divide it at the moment, I still hold firm on the war actually taking place being a good thing. Even if you don't get to pick your sides stats could be tracked for both factions and there could be some interesting features put in to make it interesting. Immersion and the future possibilities would be worth it even if slightly shallower than it should be at first.
Players would rank up from victories, obviously. Hopefully their rank can be aligned with the lore as well.
Perhaps the lowest player ranks could be named after having no battle experience or fame, the highest would be the opposite. Or you could use some other lore based reference, there is a huge resource available for the small details.
Eventually the aim for the �war� mode could be clans/players signing to a corporation and taking part of clan/solo matchmaking only competing for their chosen corporation, but that would require a larger player base.
Perhaps winning the war would unlock a cool skin or picture, or anything. Maybe the top/most active players/clans from each corporation also get something, who knows. Any addition of something similar would be really cool to see and would add a lot to Hawken.
Postface
My opinion is that additional customization content is nice to have, but it lacks the draw needed to retain new players as they are looking for a reason to play outside of grinding for items or spending money. At a bare minimum a visible ranking system is a must from my perspective. Hopefully the dev team can work on tying the lore into more aspects of the game as well as simply giving people more reasons to play.
If you have read this far I thank you dearly, if you would like to play with me or any suggestions or anything you can add me @SoSoSpooky in-game. I hope this creates some kind of profitable discussion that helps the game at some point in the future, regardless of whether people agree with my ideas here or not.
If you have your own idea about what could be improved upon in terms of out of game features that could help new and old player get more attached to Hawken I would love to hear them. Thank you.
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