60 replies to this topic

[(P:B)Augmentia]

Aye Aye, Cap'n! I had the pleasure of asking questions to Josh and listening to him respond. This should clear up a large majority of the questions posed to me in the earlier thread where the interview date was supposed to be on October 15th.

 

Edited by -vR.Augmentia, 27 October 2015 - 12:40 PM.

[JackVandal]

We definitely need a way to mark good suggestions/idea threads, otherwise who gets stuck with wading through the suggestions/discussion section for good topics.

[eth0]

I jotted most of the answers down as I listened along. Same as the youtube comment:

Spoiler

5:00 - Community art in the game 

6:00 - Timelines are still fuzzy, expect big announcement including big partners by end of year

7:00 - TTK will depend on mech concepts already in works #siegetank

9:00 - daily missions will require more backend work 

11:00 - josh wants more exploration and discussion of gameplay mechanics but isn't sure how to flag remarkable threads. does anybody use the star votes in the forum?

13:40 - clan support? could be soon with the right "bolt-on solution", if internal to the game

15:30 - yes, major changes to gameplay are coming

16:00 - 1v1 mode maybe "flex the matchmaker to do that" #opentoit

16:50 - map fixes are coming... timelines... x64 client?

18:30 - t shirt contest! working with the artist

19:20 - some unreleased camos are left, expand paintable chassis areas coming?

20:00 - #wettshirtjosh

20:20 - "baby don't hurt me"

20:55 - bug and fix list exists and is growing, no confirmation for inf fuel :(

23:00 - eta on client patch? see 6:00

24:00 - atlantic region? plans for including region in matchmaker

25:30 - gameplay/generalist profile: 10-15 yrs , loves gameplay/UI work, deployment systems, automation

27:00 - new maps whiteboxed or released in 6 months!!! #praisebabaji

27:45 - marvin is hopefully coming back for winter

28:00 - interdictor plz?

29:20 - accessible and casual hawken? broadening available playstyles is a goal

30:55 - siege mech? "I've got some concept art", "you'll dig it" #giveustheDclass

31:50 - region based matchmaking? see 24:00. LA peering sucks confirmed

34:10 - new devs want more community streams

34:30 - ingame mech intro videos? waiting on ingame browser to help UI

35:55 - Khang Le? he has a mobile game that's coming out soon... hmm?hmm??!?!?!?! #khangisback

36:50 - player retention? they want to broaden gameplay depth and mech styles

38:20 - big change? ascension again? yes

39:00 - chassis paints have to come with client patch but they're open to "dynamic" skin downloads

40:20 - what do I spend all my HC on? something something player retention, decreasing grind didnt help

42:40 - voip? vivox is dead. curse voice?

44:40 - 3v3, 4v4 servers? "we could try it" 

46:10 - changing current mech abilities? New turret mode makes rocky fly??!!?

Edited by eth0, 26 October 2015 - 07:57 PM.

[TheButtSatisfier]

19:50 "Another question on the thread says when..."

 

WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY MY NAME

Edited by TheButtSatisfier, 27 October 2015 - 01:00 PM.

[nepacaka]

no subtitles (T_T)

 

11:00 - josh wants more exploration and discussion of gameplay mechanics but isn't sure how to flag remarkable threads. does anybody use the star votes in the forum?

 

use it extremely rare

Edited by nepacaka, 26 October 2015 - 10:33 PM.

[6ixxer]

eth0, on 27 Oct 2015 - 2:56 PM, said:eth0, on 27 Oct 2015 - 2:56 PM, said:

 

I jotted most of the answers down as I listened along. Same as the youtube comment:

 

24:00 - atlantic region? plans for including region in matchmaker

 

I asked about Oceanic.

Atlantic closed, Oceanic lives for now.

 

Josh is investigating 'Region expansion' on matchmaking when your region is empty for your MMR range.

 

Perhaps we will see some more Asia players brought downunder and not just sending us to Tokyo (Singapore I can handle, but not  Land of the rising ping)

Edited by 6ixxer, 26 October 2015 - 10:47 PM.

[Dr_Freeze001]

 

I jotted most of the answers down as I listened along. Same as the youtube comment:

 

34:10 - new devs want more community streams

 

 

 

How about joining UVW or WW? Get them streamed and voil�! Everybody wins.

[dorobo]

I broke my promise to not play until content lands - played one game last night. The Wait recommences! Have to be stronk!

[LaurenEmily]

20:15 was the best part

Edited by (KDR) LaurenEmily, 27 October 2015 - 03:29 AM.

[Aregon]

20:15 was the best part

Just perfect.

[Bergwein]

To clarify: The inderdictor is not a weapon, but a mech concept by jjm1.

Its secondary weapon is called Penetrator or something like that.

 

You can find the concept here: https://community.pl...on-interdictor/

[thedark20]

Should have complemented my question with a "will classic dodge mechanic come back? (dodge cost fuel)"

But close enough, i'm glad TTK is gonna be increased again, i miss old Alpha days.

[devotion]

TTK is gonna be increased again

is this confirmed? new players gonna get rolled harder than ever

[Pleasure_Mortar]

longer TTK? ugh. not liking this one. 

[eth0]

I'm betting the increase in TTK is a nod towards the heavy-heavy class siege tank mech. Of course TTK will increase, but not necessarily buffing mech health across the board(?)

[SparkyJJC]

I can't believe he answered my question.
#longlivecapnjosh

[Sylhiri]

I'm betting the increase in TTK is a nod towards the heavy-heavy class siege tank mech.

 

That's what this game needs, another class with even more health.

 

>.>

[Nept]

I've used eth0's rough transcript as a guide for figuring out questions and answers that are relevant to the game's competitive community.  What follows are Josh's answers (and the preceding questions), verbatim.  Josh, apologies for not editing your audio interview into prettier replies, but I figured the exact answers might be important.

 

Honestly, I was pretty happy with his replies. (For whatever that's worth)

 

 

Q: What are the plans with dates/timeframes for Hawken's future with events, such as balancing passes, major bug fixes, or maybe new content?

A:

Spoiler

The timeline is . . . it's not solidified. We have a couple milestones we're wrapping up, or pushing toward right now. Once we get to that, we have a few partners that are going to step in and they have some timelines that they are very good at setting and doing. You will see a number of interesting announcements coming definitely before the end of this year, both from us and from partners. They're pretty exciting. I can't say much more beyond that, but it's a good time. These few milestones we have right now, once we hit them and find out what the support is in few of the directions, it's all fast, and hot and moving [ew].

 

Q: Do you have plans to change the TTK? If so, what do you have planned to do with it?

A:

Spoiler

 Let's see . . . It's gonna . . . I'm very reluctant to change . . It's a good question. TTK . . . it's going to take a lot of playtesting once we have new mechs that we can add in. I don't really want to significantly alter existing mechs because they are really well balanced. There's a compact game that's there, and it's not necessary to really change it. It would really be with additional new mechs that we would want to add mechs that have a longer time to kill. But the goal is to not just create the overpowered mech that has a long time to kill and massive guns or something, but how do we work this in so that it fits naturally. It's made to expand and broaden the available playstyles as well. We've got a bunch of older survey results and focus groups and stuff on the sharedrive, and that's kinda what the previous dev team had ultimately concluded as well. It's confirming, or reassuring, that, yeah, there's another group of people who had seen the same kinda thing as well, and they're thinking that to make Hawken really thrive, it doesn't need to change the gameplay fundamentally, it doesn't need to fundamentally alter the game, it just needs to sorta . . .complete it. And I know there's a lot of survey responses where it's like, �Heeey, uhh, yeah, I'm a new player but there wasn't a whole lot more to do than this type of play, and I'm not good at that, so . . .�

 

Q: Is there anything we, as a community, can help you with?

A:

Spoiler

 Actually, yeah, commentary on the weapons and things like weapon balance and mech balance. What I'd like to really see is stretching really far, almost like stretched to the absurd and say, �Hey, imagine Hawken had this or that mechanic or system or type of a mech or something that's significantly different than anything that's in there, and kinda in the subjunctive think through it, almost like, hey there's a hypothesis, let's test it, sorta just step through . . . would this be interesting or would this be fun. Partly because you guys think of all kinds of crazy and cool stuff, and partly because you guys know this game inside and out, there's a passion for it, and reading stuff that's been written by people you may not agree with, but kinda go with, there are some really neat concepts that come out, and I find that really refreshing and interesting.

 

The other part is . .. we need like a way to identify certain threads that the community considers to be exceptionally salient about describing or addressing whatever issues there, and I'm not sure how to best do them, or how to best flag these things . . .maybe we should create a post and edit it on occasion and say, here are some really great threads you can read through.

 

So now is the time that we can really start collecting this stuff, and everybody's sorta been thinking through it . . . I know we've had a lot of conversations about it, and wrestling, and fighting about it, and that stuff, but now it's time to really distill it down to what we really think is good.

 

Q: I really need to know about clan support.

A:

Spoiler

Clan support . . . man, that's going to be fun. I've actually resurrected a really old project that we had clanging around back in the day. It was conceptually . . . it was built for warrock . . . Warrock clan system. It was built back in 2007, 2008, 2009, or something like that. And conceptually, it's the same situation as what we've got . . . there's a number of services that are available, you have players that can log in and sit in a lobby, and then they connect to a game server, and this clan system in its own independent way sets up the clans and groups them there, totally apart from the core game systems themselves. Which I mean is a service-based architecture, so it kinda works fine. And it's old as crud, but kinda reading through some of the code and some of the older experiences, it logically had things down pretty well. Obviously the web front end is looking archaic, but we're not actually going to launch it because there are some bad bugs which would just persist into some of the original architecture decisions . . . but I've reached out to a few people over time to see what they thought and how it could be built. I've been trying to find services and companies that just do this, but they never . . . there's not really a bolt-on solution that I've found. This is something that we really really want because it's just fun.

 

Q: Will there be any major changes in the gameplay in the near future. Should we [brace?] for major changes to the game. Just answer yes or no.

A:

Spoiler

Hmm, yeah. Mmhmm. I think they're good ones, so I don't really feel like it's bastardizing anything about the game, so that's good [evil laugh]

 

Q: Have you folks been compiling a list of changes/fixes requested by the community that will eventually be on the platter for the first notable game update when the team is finally hired and working.

A:

Spoiler

Yeah, we have a backlog we've been putting together. I've been personally focusing most on the deeper systemic changes. We have a guy who's going to be taking over the lead design stuff when he moves out here from the UK who has done a lot of stuff from medal of honor to . . . a whole bunch of things. He's been around for like fifteen years in video games. I've been talking a lot with him about when you're ready to start putting together the specific list of the tunes and tweaks, that's what we'll do. Kinda like what you're saying, �Hey guys, we want to fix some bugs, now let's really distill them down to the very specific bug that you know is there, to the very specific imbalance that you know is there, then it's actual game time�. That's loosely how I've been approaching it.

 

[Nobody cares about your infiltrator, Tj]

 

Q: When can we expect new maps? Half a year? Or more?

A:

Spoiler

They're six months out. I have sorta scheduled in that new maps would either be available then, or at least at the point where they're whiteboxed, and we'll be getting direct player feedback by about April-ish.

 

Q: Many of the weapons and mechs in Hawken have a steep learning curve and are punishing if you don't land all your shots or are using your ability correctly, leading to defeat and frustration before players get it figured out. What are you planning on doing in regards to new mechs and weapons to make Hawken more accessible to new players and to players who play casually?

A:

Spoiler

The general approach is try to just broaden the available playstyles and . . .we'll have to identify the ones that just have the best percentage of new players sorta sticking with them. We'll get a lot of feedback and a lot of playtime, a lot of testing . . . the goal is to . . . you want to candycoat the first few minutes in any new game for any new player because, I mean, you have no idea what's going on, you're completely overwhelmed, you don't even know what to look at. I remember just dying and being like, �What happened? I got killed? How? What shot me?� So, a slower time to kill, or a much more clever newbie buff, or something along those lines, or a combination of all those sorta things. That's the initial things to try.

 

Q: Have you, or are you discussing the problems that Hawken has dealt with in the past with older players so that such problems don't repeat, such as Ascension?

A:

Spoiler

Ascension was a big change. I keep finding pre- and post-Ascension stuff in, like, older confluence things . . . and yes, yes we are. When we get to the point of solidifying any design decisions, that's when we'll really start balancing things out, and it'll start ramping up.

Edited by Nept: Ultra Lord of the God-Kings, 27 October 2015 - 08:18 AM.

[1uster]

Sorry I missed that but what's wrong with Tj's inf? Was this the one with cloak breaking on hits?

[Nept]

lol nah, just teasing tj.  He hates the new cloak mechanic (whereby it takes fuel) and wants it switched back.

[Pleasure_Mortar]

Thanks for all the work and clearing things up Nept.

[HugeGuts]

I'm betting the increase in TTK is a nod towards the heavy-heavy class siege tank mech. Of course TTK will increase, but not necessarily buffing mech health across the board(?)

 

Works for me. I hope "Increasing the TTK through new classes" means a new weight class - i.e. Super Heavy - instead of just one or a few C's with the highest health. However, Reloaded would also need to make that weight type easily available to new players. Maybe it's time to increase the number of starter mechs new players get from the Assault to one from each weight class?

 

Though I think a fourth weight type might also mean A's and B's will eventually need a feature pass. As in, C's have a global unique feature with Turret Mode. D's will probably have a global unique feature also. But A's and B's don't have a global unique feature. Maybe Reloaded could bring back fuel consumption on dodge, but have A's retain the current no-fuel dodge? B's would still have no feature, but that might be okay since they're intended to be all-around generalist classes. If B's needed one though, then I would vote for increasing item slots. Having more gadgets to play with fits in with the B's all-around generalist playstyle theme, I think.

Edited by HugeGuts, 27 October 2015 - 09:41 AM.

[Dedhed]

 

I jotted most of the answers down as I listened along. Same as the youtube comment:

Spoiler

5:00 - Community art in the game 

6:00 - Timelines are still fuzzy, expect big announcement including big partners by end of year

7:00 - TTK will depend on mech concepts already in works #siegetank

9:00 - daily missions will require more backend work 

11:00 - josh wants more exploration and discussion of gameplay mechanics but isn't sure how to flag remarkable threads. does anybody use the star votes in the forum?

13:40 - clan support? could be soon with the right "bolt-on solution", if internal to the game

15:30 - yes, major changes to gameplay are coming

16:00 - 1v1 mode maybe "flex the matchmaker to do that" #opentoit

16:50 - map fixes are coming... timelines... x64 client?

18:30 - t shirt contest! working with the artist

19:20 - some unreleased camos are left, expand paintable chassis areas coming?

20:00 - #wettshirtjosh

20:20 - "baby don't hurt me"

20:55 - bug and fix list exists and is growing, no confirmation for inf fuel :(

23:00 - eta on client patch? see 6:00

24:00 - atlantic region? plans for including region in matchmaker

25:30 - gameplay/generalist profile: 10-15 yrs , loves gameplay/UI work, deployment systems, automation

27:00 - new maps whiteboxed or released in 6 months!!! #praisebabaji

27:45 - marvin is hopefully coming back for winter

28:00 - interdictor plz?

29:20 - accessible and casual hawken? broadening available playstyles is a goal

30:55 - siege mech? "I've got some concept art", "you'll dig it" #giveustheDclass

31:50 - region based matchmaking? see 24:00. LA peering sucks confirmed

34:10 - new devs want more community streams

34:30 - ingame mech intro videos? waiting on ingame browser to help UI

35:55 - Khang Le? he has a mobile game that's coming out soon... hmm?hmm??!?!?!?! #khangisback

36:50 - player retention? they want to broaden gameplay depth and mech styles

38:20 - big change? ascension again? yes

39:00 - chassis paints have to come with client patch but they're open to "dynamic" skin downloads

40:20 - what do I spend all my HC on? something something player retention, decreasing grind didnt help

42:40 - voip? vivox is dead. curse voice?

44:40 - 3v3, 4v4 servers? "we could try it" 

46:10 - changing current mech abilities? New turret mode makes rocky fly??!!?

 

 

Thanks a ton. I've started posting #wettshirtjosh on twitter. We need to make this a reality 

[Nicksiren]

Thanks for the interview, it was nice to listen to! However, I'm surprised you didn't begin with any introductions or end with thanking them for their time :P

 

Thanks to eth0 for listing the times for the questions!

Edited by Nicksiren, 27 October 2015 - 09:56 AM.

[nepacaka]

Super-Heavy mech will be a super stupid with current map. C-class suffer in almost every game mode except Siege, because they slow. For example, MA on losteco. More heavier mech (and even more slow) will be a not very good. It can be a super bored, and have a tonnes of problem with movement. In the same time, his high HP not give him an advantage, because 3-4 enemies can kill him in a 2-3 second and slowest mech can't runaway, hide, or do something else. I'm totally disagree with this idea. It also can be a problem with tech, and can be a even more problem in siege, if enemy team have 4-5 D-class mech + tech.
D-class have a chance to be in game, but not with conception "slowest and fattest" mech, or "walking-bunker". It will be a mistake implement something like this in game. Maybe only if devs totally rework all TTK, mech HP and all weapon damage and dodge system.

Edited by nepacaka, 27 October 2015 - 10:34 AM.

[(P:B)Augmentia]

Oh wow. I was going to time stamp the video for each question, but you guys beat me to it. Thanks for the time stamps in the comments as well, eth0!

 

Edit: Also, I want to throw out for my masculinity, that I was indeed doing the interview and playing at the same time. I generally play a tad better when I am not trying to look at two screens at once and listen to someone speaking to something.

 

Also, nepacaka how do you pronounce your name phonetically?

Edited by -vR.Augmentia, 27 October 2015 - 05:00 PM.

[DeeRax]

Super-Heavy mech will be a super stupid with current map. C-class suffer in almost every game mode except Siege, because they slow. For example, MA on losteco. More heavier mech (and even more slow) will be a not very good. It can be a super bored, and have a tonnes of problem with movement. In the same time, his high HP not give him an advantage, because 3-4 enemies can kill him in a 2-3 second and slowest mech can't runaway, hide, or do something else. I'm totally disagree with this idea. It also can be a problem with tech, and can be a even more problem in siege, if enemy team have 4-5 D-class mech + tech.
D-class have a chance to be in game, but not with conception "slowest and fattest" mech, or "walking-bunker". It will be a mistake implement something like this in game. Maybe only if devs totally rework all TTK, mech HP and all weapon damage and dodge system.

You are assuming the devs are not also going to add new maps and new game modes, etc., which they obviously are going to.
I'm sure they will balance the new class, you can't assume it will just be a bigger, slower c-class. It'll prolly be totally different from anything we've seen so far.

[nepacaka]

Also, nepacaka how do you pronounce your name phonetically?

It is probably hard to explain, because it is a transliteration of not existing word.
In video you say "nepaka", you miss "c" and "a". In English language "c" pronounce like "si" or "k", but in my word it is - "?", this letter does not exist in english.
Several variants which you can try:

Ne-pa-tsa-ka, or Nie-pa-tsa-ka, or Ne-pa-tza-ka.

It probably more close to original word. If you interested, you also can try to use online-services which may pronounced words on different languages. Select Lang as Russian, select voice, and type/copy "????????", and listen. It may help.

P.s. Probably more easier way just call me "nepa" :?

Edited by nepacaka, 27 October 2015 - 01:11 PM.

[DerMax]

Also, nepacaka how do you pronounce your name phonetically?

neh-pah-tsa-kah

[nepacaka]

Lol. dis is impossibru! :?

[nepacaka]

I'm sure they will balance the new class, you can't assume it will just be a bigger, slower c-class. It'll prolly be totally different from anything we've seen so far.

Well, it will be very good if they create not just a "bigger mech". But i personally preffer to rebalanced some of current mechs.

[GreyFa1con]

Well, it will be very good if they create not just a "bigger mech". But i personally preffer to rebalanced some of current mechs.

I.e. Take the existing stuff that is a weaker competitive option, and make it a true competitive option.

Since more viable competitive options > more options

[HugeGuts]

Out of the whole interview, the most important thing is the implication of a new class(es) meant to increase the TTK and be more newbie friendly. Because the last time we got a class meant to increase the TTK and be more newbie friendly, we got the Technician. And everyone knows how well the Technician went and continues to go!

[nepacaka]

Because the last time we got a class meant to increase the TTK and be more newbie friendly, we got the Technician.

 

no, we got ascension and useless Brawler with 1k HP, and extremely bored, defensive gameplay,

called "runaway-simulator-3000"... it never been fun :D

(tech actually exist before ascension ;D)

Edited by nepacaka, 27 October 2015 - 10:11 PM.

[Dawn_of_Ash]

Would it be possible to make Night of the Living Fred a legitimate and supported game-mode? It would be an amazing gamemode to release with a "Hawken is Back" event.

Edited by Dawn_of_Ash, 27 October 2015 - 10:23 PM.

[HugeGuts]

Well, it will be very good if they create not just a "bigger mech". But i personally preffer to rebalanced some of current mechs.

 

My speculation about the new class(es):

 

o Tanky Heavies around Brawler levels of health and speed.

o They will either give passive buffs to nearby teammates, or have a super weapon ability.

     - For passive buffs, I know about how well that currently works with the Incinerator. However, that's a problem with the Heat Leech mechanic being a legal infinite ammo cheat, and not passive buffs in general. If the mechanic isn't too powerful and the numbers are right, then passive buffs shouldn't be nigh auto-wins against teams without a buffer.

     - For super weapons, they would be easy to aim and difficult to hit, but still be devastating enough to become at least a concerning distraction for the enemy team. For example, the Siege Tank could have a deploy mode that turns it into an artillery cannon that can attack from anywhere on the level by pulling up a map and clicking on a location to automatically aim and fire, while aiming so as to avoid any terrain obstacles. However, the projectile is obvious and can be shot out of the sky.

 

My reason for the new class(es):

o Devs say new players have the hardest time learning movement, a critical skill you must master before you can compete in even mid-tier matches.

o Devs say they won't make anymore huge changes to movement.

o Between point one and two, it makes sense for new-player friendly classes to be damage sponges.

o "Newbie friendly" in video game speak means "Useful even if you can't hit anything and die quickly." And so this the reason for having passive buffs and/or super weapons.

Edited by HugeGuts, 29 October 2015 - 12:51 PM.

[nepacaka]

My speculation about the new class(es):
 
o They will either give passive buffs to nearby teammates, or have a super weapon ability.

You probably not see how actually bad idea which you suggest.
Do you really want play every match against 5 different heavy mech in one team, with 5 unique auras, which buffed each other?

[HugeGuts]

I don't see there being any more than three buffing heavies. One for offense, defense, and movement. You could also make it so the passive buffs only activate in Turret Mode. However, all movement speed penalties would need removal from Turret Mode so players can keep up with teammates.

Edited by HugeGuts, 29 October 2015 - 01:16 PM.

[nepacaka]

I know, video is old (gren have a turret mode yet), but you probably underestimate the turret mode. In some situations it can be effective. Now imagine that team full of C's, have regen, armor, and even 3 auras.

https://m.youtube.co...h?v=SQETqYz_8iw

I can guarantee you, that your idea can finally destroy the balance xD

[HugeGuts]

Then don't have health regeneration as one of the auras, adjust damage reduction, and don't have auras affect the originating player.

Edited by HugeGuts, 29 October 2015 - 02:06 PM.