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Now that the prices of mechs, weapons, and internals are at a sane amount. We can now talk about progression and hc income. This is important because Hawken is a competitive shooter going for a hardcore audience. Most hardcore players don't have fun when they lose. We are already aware of the reality that is the poor new player experience of losing 3/4 of their games. They also don't have fun when they have to grind a lot while losing. There is also a lot of games competing for hardcore fps players attention these days. So it is important that players feel like they are making a difference in their progression each game in order to keep them hooked on Hawken.
HC gain in hawken compared to what things cost is pretty low. Even with the new prices. I understand that the devs want to drive the demand of the hc boosts. But being able to watch yourself make tangible progress means a lot to players. Especially new ones who don't have a lot of content unlocked. If a player feels like they aren't making progress towards their goal fast enough in relation to how much fun they are having vs this same relation in another game, then they will just go play another game.
The goal in free to play games is to increase the life cycle of new players so they are in the game longer and are exposed more often to payable alternatives to grinding as well as cosmetics. Tangible progress, fun, and cosmetics/aesthetics is what makes people keep coming back. If the payable alternative or grind is to much players will give up and decide they will have more fun making progress in another one of the many many f2p games out there.
Capnjosh just nailed it on reducing prices across the board. As we all know prices in Hawken have been ludicrous for so long. Driving a lot of players out of the game early in the life cycle because the grind is too much for only winning 1 out of 4 games on average. The other half of this is hc income. It is very very low.
I propose a increase to hc income from matches in order to make the grind become more palatable to new players. Players will unlock more stuff more often. Which some could see as a bad thing. However the change I feel would be enough to make players feel like they are actually making tangible progress towards their next mech. Also considering what dm30 said, TLDR "unlocking a mech is fine and all but it really isn't usable until internals/items are on it. Something new players know and hate." this would make players able to kit out their mechs more easily. Something that would make the pay 2 win feeling diminish more as players would be able to see how players are able to gain these internals/items after a few games for each internal/item. On top of that if the player got an HC boost then they would be getting a new internal/item after every game or two.
Everyone loves unlocking new things in f2p games. When you unlock something you want to play with it, test it, show it off, etc. At its core f2p games are all about unlocking new things and balancing the paid alternative against that in a way that it is a reasonable option for those with disposable income. With the market so saturated, hardcore fps players attention so split, and Hawkens new player experience problems. I think the devs should go a little farther than just reducing prices of mechs/internals. They should be a little more liberal with the hc gains in order to give new players an incentive to stay with Hawken.
Gamers love progress. In fact they are addicted to it. That addiction has limits though. They know the difference between climbing a hill and climbing a wall. Hawken needs to be a hill worth climbing rather than a daunting wall sitting next to nice looking hills (other f2p games). No one likes a wall that while climbing you get whipped by sun glasses wearing veterans in jet packs all yelling "learn to play fuzzy bunny". Looking at our steam charts....I think most gamers who have tried Hawken know this as well. So lets make progression a bit easier in Hawken. Mech/weapon/internal pricing is only half the battle.
Edited by CounterlogicMan, 10 June 2015 - 01:09 PM.
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