Dave brought this idea up first on the Hawken subreddit a couple months ago, but I’d been considering writing something similar for a long time prior to seeing his post. I don’t have as much experience as he does in anything but DM and (pub) TDM and especially don’t have team-oriented advice to give that applies to competitive play, but I think a lot of our suggestions to individual players are probably pretty similar. Most of this applies to all game modes, but it’s written with TDM and DM in mind.
Since his guide apparently didn’t pan out, here’s my attempt at delineating some techniques and thought processes that I use which are necessary to learn if you want to improve past a certain point. I’m going to assume that anyone reading this is already playing at at least an intermediate level with a decent grasp of all basic mechanics and knows common terminology—if you’re completely new to Hawken, I’d suggest reading other guides and just going out and playing to develop a solid foundation that will let you effectively use what I outline here.
Many people have the idea that they’ll never be able to get past an arbitrary skill level (e.g. 2k MMR) because they don’t have fantastic aim or have a minor ping handicap, but this is entirely untrue and they’re only limiting themselves with that line of thought. What separates the best players from everyone else is primarily mental, and while, yes, aim is very important, there’s a reason aimbots get stomped in 2600 MMR matches. It’s entirely possible to wipe the floor with someone who has superior aim and reaction time if you can control the flow of the fights by dominating the other player mentally, moving more efficiently than them, and positioning yourself more advantageously. I don’t think it’s worth being more specific than that regarding different areas you can get better at, so I’m just going to divide this guide into the following broad sections: mental analysis, various mechanics, and positioning.
Mental Analysis
Spoiler
If you can't think effectively under pressure, you aren’t going to be able to compete with people who can. Someone who’s constantly a step or two ahead of you and is able to accurately predict your moves is going to have a distinct advantage the majority of the time even if you work on your raw aim enough to outshoot them. It’s vital to always be analyzing what’s happening on the battlefield the entire time you’re playing—draw information from your radar and surroundings and combine it with preexisting knowledge of the map, common tactics, mech playstyles, and your enemies’ skill levels to make informed calls about what’s going to happen next. This can be mentally exhausting if you aren’t used to it and can distract you from the rest of your gameplay, but after a while it becomes second nature and you don’t have to process everything consciously.
When I tryhard in a server, especially one with skilled players in it, I instinctively take the following (and probably more that isn't immediately coming to mind) into consideration when deciding whether or not to fight someone and how to do it if I decide to engage:
Their individual skill level and the skill level of people near them
How many enemies are around them
If I have backup from (competent) teammates
My armor
Whether or not they’re already distracted fighting someone else
The amount of armor they and the enemies around them have
Their positioning and the cover near them
If I have a way to retreat if I decide it’s better to break off the fight
The mechs both of us are in and the optimal distances they fight at
Whether or not they probably know where I am and can predict my approach
If there are orbs nearby
The time left
In DM, both our scores, and in TDM, the team scores
The number of players in the server
In DM, if I can lure other people to them and trap them between me and the new enemy
Whether I still have items available to use
There’s a rough hierarchy to those things that should become obvious after you get used to doing all that processing naturally—for example, if the other person is 1600 MMR and alone, I can swoop in for a clean kill without even caring about the other factors. If they’re 2800 MMR and alone, sometimes it’s better to just walk away and kill easier opponents instead of getting caught up in a lengthy fight that I have no guarantee of even winning. Being able to make the last decision is especially important in close DMs when at least one other good player besides the person I’m considering attacking has a score close to mine. Wasting a minute on possibly getting one kill and likely getting vulched by another strong player is a much worse idea than killing multiple easier people in the same time span or mopping up skilled players after they’re weak from a fight. People tend to get tunnel vision when fighting players significantly above their level, so it’s worth remembering that everyone gives the same number of points regardless of how good they are.
When making predictions regarding high-tier players, know that they often are aware of the first conclusion you’ll come to and can bait you into making a move they can easily exploit. Assume that’s true and try to think of how you’ll respond to a counter before it happens—even if it turns out that they didn’t know you were coming, it’s better to be prepared so you don’t have to scramble to get something together when your initial plan is foiled. You don’t want to walk around a corner thinking a low-health Scout is repairing only to find that they saw you moving towards them in their peripheral and are sucking an orb down instead so they can jump you and get off a free primary+secondary volley.
Learn maps and the common things people do on them in particular situations. One of the first map-specific things that comes to mind is a mid-skill player low on armor boosting through the narrow Facility tunnel, dropping down, and then briefly appearing on radar traveling toward the jump pad. Very frequently, they’ve dropped down under the small bridge to repair and can be killed with little effort since you know exactly where they are and what they’re doing. Similarly, people who are almost dead who boost down one of the ramps that lead out of Facility’s lower area tend to walk to the back of the ramp and repair there. High-tier players are much more unpredictable, but coming up with rules of thumb like that will help immensely in normal pubs.
Movement, Aim, and General Tactics
Spoiler
This is where a lot of people run into issues, and unfortunately a decent bit here is talent. You can certainly improve significantly, but realistically, you’ll likely hit a cap below what top players are capable of regardless of how much time you put in. That’s nothing to be ashamed of though, and you’ll still be able to compete with almost anyone if you practice and don’t get frustrated. General tips:
Aim with your movement and dodges as well as with your mouse
Conserve fuel when boosting. I usually hop in A-Classes unless I’m trying to get somewhere far away quickly, in which case I’ll hop+dodge. What’s best with B-Classes tends to vary based on the particular mech, and dodging+boosting works best with C-Classes.
Don’t dodge or move in a way that’s easy to predict
Turn your sensitivity down. I use 400 DPI/11 in-game sens for a 360 of roughly 20 inches, but that’s pretty low for most people. 360s of just a couple inches impair your aim and there are only a few people here capable of playing well with those settings
Get a mouse that’s comfortable and fits your grip well, and buy a nice mousepad too for more consistent tracking and a better glide. It takes a decent amount of research to find the best mouse, but the Steelseries QcK series are high quality and relatively cheap mousepads that most people tend to like.
Get familiar with all aspects of your favorite weapons, especially if they aren’t sustained hitscan. You still need to be able to approximate spread and falloff at particular distances and heat gen per kill with those, though
Don’t rush your shots. Wait until you have something lined up for sure unless you’re laying down suppressive fire
Punish predictable movement. If you can get someone to dodge consistently before you fire your secondary, you can usually hit them almost every time with it. People moving in straight lines are trivially easy to hit repeatedly
Learn to manage heat and determine when it’s worth overheating to get one last secondary in for a kill
It takes a little while to get up to full running speed from a standstill, so keep moving if you’re fighting someone even if you’re behind cover
Listen for movement and repair drone sounds to get an idea of where people are and what they’re doing, especially if you’re in a 1v1
Start trying to break the turn cap and get out of the LOS of your enemy at close range
Even if you specialize in a particular mech, play all the rest at least occasionally so you get an idea of their capabilities and how to counter them
Be very aware of your radar presence. However, contrary to what most other guides say (granted, they’re generally aimed at new players), it’s not always best to stay off of it, especially if you’re in a server with players who are worse than you. I intentionally show up on it fairly often so that I can ambush people who move toward my last visible position. Baiting people like that is especially useful in DM, but it’s also possible to use well in TDM. Just be cognizant of when, where, and why you’re appearing on radar
While I can give advice in this category, simply reading what I say isn’t nearly as important as playing to build skill naturally. Knowing those tips in theory and being able to use them well in an actual match are two different things entirely.
Positioning
Spoiler
One of the most important aspects of the game is being able to position yourself well. Take all this into consideration when planning your movements:
Your mech choice—what works for a Slug SS probably isn’t going to work for a Flak Scout
The skill of your enemies. Your positioning in a 2400 MMR match is going to have to be much more thought out and less sloppy than your positioning in a 1600 MMR match if you want to keep alive and get kills
The map. Map knowledge is one of the key factors to being proficient, so learn every corner of each one
The mech choices of both teams and the ideal distances for teams as a whole to fight at
Whether or not your team is competent and can help you out if you need to retreat
The score and time left. If you need one last kill in DM with 15 seconds left to take first, it’s probably worth being far more aggressive and less precise than normal to try to get it
Ping and server performance
The position of enemies based on radar and your own best guesses
The location and number of orbs
Your items and internals
Keeping those things in mind when coming up with positioning options will help you avoid most easily-preventable deaths against players of similar skill. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but your odds are much better if you plan intelligently.
There’s no magic way to instantly get better, but the tips in this guide should give you some insight if you’re struggling to grasp how high-tier players play like they do. Hopefully having everything in a curated and relatively condensed form will help some of you out.
Mods please lock this thread. This clearly does not belong in General Discussions as it's neither general nor a discussion. This is an affront to the obvious effort you put into organizing our threads into the correct areas of the forum, and I am furious that someone had the callousness to ignore your wisdom and create this thread in the wrong subforum just so more people would see it. Leaving this thread in general discussions will mislead our newbies who will never play Hawken again because of this abomination.
Lock it for them. Lock it for the future of our community. LET NO THREAD GO UNSPARED! RAIN DOWN HOLY JUDGMENT ON ALL HERETICAL THREADS! BURN ALL THE THREADS! BURN THEM!
Edited by TheButtSatisfier, 30 October 2015 - 09:25 AM.
Nice thread and post. I have the same thoughts when I see really good players: are they alone and unawares? Are they distracted while fighting somebody else? Can I get the drop on them without that ******* Scout seeing me and turning me into paste?
Nice thread and post. I have the same thoughts when I see really good players: are they alone and unawares? Are they distracted while fighting somebody else? Can I get the drop on them without that ******* Scout seeing me and turning me into paste?
Most of the times the answer is no.
Because most teams I'm on suck.
I don't know why.
I need help.
Please.
Tbh you have to learn to either accept this or improve to the point that you can carry everyone else a majority of the time. If you need your team to pull their weight to have fun, TPG or some other form of organized play will probably be more enjoyable for you.
Tbh you have to learn to either accept this or improve to the point that you can carry everyone else a majority of the time. If you need your team to pull their weight to have fun, TPG or some other form of organized play will probably be more enjoyable for you.
Agreed. And people wonder why good players play good mechs in low level lobbies.
You have to alter your thought process a bit with some people. They are not sucky or horrible players who cannot contribute. They are sucky or horrible players that can contribute by being bait, a potential human shield or a free health orb.
Tbh you have to learn to either accept this or improve to the point that you can carry everyone else a majority of the time. If you need your team to pull their weight to have fun, TPG or some other form of organized play will probably be more enjoyable for you.
Jeff are you saying that if you need a competent team to enjoy matches that you should go to TPG, where there are competent teams?
OR are you bagging on TPG?
Please settle this debate I have with someone who can't post on the forums. (heh).
But seriously, I'm sure there is some usefull intel on the OP. You should probably read it if you need help taking down people or cooperating with your team.
Hold on to the things you care about most, even if others see it as insignificant..If you can't be true to yourself, are you really living?
Has anyone seen any threads with team comp and strategy discussions?
I don't think there's been a dedicated thread for it, but basic effective team comp, or at least TPG-compliant effective team comp, is a fairly uncontroversial subject. Assault, Brawler, SS, and Zerker are solid on every map and in all game modes, and the other two mechs are mostly down to personal preference excluding obviously bad choices like G2A. There are cheesy map-specific comps like 6x Slug SS on Bunker, but those don't really deserve much discussion.
Might be a good idea to also post this and other like topics on the STEAM forums for Hawken. Seems a lot of new players gravitate over there first to see what's happening and don't realize there is much more in depth info and help to be found if they go to the official forums.
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KarlSchlag, JackVandal and WmMoneyFrmMissouri like this
Just Relax....and take life one game at a time....
Might be a good idea to also post this and other like topics on the STEAM forums for Hawken. Seems a lot of new players gravitate over there first to see what's happening and don't realize there is much more in depth info and help to be found if they go to the official forums.
*+
I considered crossposting to them like I did with the Hawken subreddit, but they're mostly terrible and I don't really want to get involved in discussions there. Someone else can do it though
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