110 replies to this topic

[6ixxer]

In addition to the pure numbers for damage potential, there is also the other less measurable metric; hit potential.
Consider the EOC and heat, etc against a flying target. You have to have really good aim to land your hits.

 

The potential to hit your target needs playtime to work out. New players and experienced players have very different hit potential.

[Hyginos]

In addition to the pure numbers for damage potential, there is also the other less measurable metric; hit potential.
Consider the EOC and heat, etc against a flying target. You have to have really good aim to land your hits.

 

The potential to hit your target needs playtime to work out. New players and experienced players have very different hit potential.

 

Its extremely measurable right now that especially since had the same balance patch for so long. Accuracy is a recorded game stat, as are hours played, so it would be pretty easy to, for example, just plot hours played vs EOC accuracy and start making a pretty good guess as to the actual expected damage values for an EOC user.

[Sylhiri]

Its extremely measurable right now that especially since had the same balance patch for so long. Accuracy is a recorded game stat, as are hours played, so it would be pretty easy to, for example, just plot hours played vs EOC accuracy and start making a pretty good guess as to the actual expected damage values for an EOC user.

 

Does it record direct hits only or all damage? Also EOC is a different beast as you can use it as a deterrent or trap so you fire it at the ground a lot.

[Hyginos]

Does it record direct hits only or all damage? Also EOC is a different beast as you can use it as a deterrent or trap so you fire it at the ground a lot.

 

I'm not sure honestly. I always assumed it just checked the number of projectiles fired vs the number of projectiles that did damage, but have not confirmed it to be the case.

 

You could look at things like win rate, damage ratio, or K/D in addition to accuracy if you wanted to paint a more detailed picture and not just look at damage potential.

[MomOw]

Hyginos is true. Buy 3 raiders and check the K/D, accuracy etc....

 

http://hawken.heroku.../Monsterofmyown

 

 

That's what smurfs are made for, ain't they ?

Edited by (KDR) MomOw, 29 March 2016 - 10:42 AM.

[Darktim300]

Personally I get get comments like, "Dark's here, now the balance is f'ed." This is a decent amount of the games. I feel that there just isn't a large enough sample size of people to separate the upper end of players out of the mix. I mean, it does feel a little bit nicer that I can "random" into some games now instead of just having to smurf to find one.  Unless I just mess around it feels like the balance skews too much instantly. 

Edited by Darktim300, 29 March 2016 - 04:05 PM.

[SS396]

Personally I get get comments like, "Dark's here, now the balance is f'ed." 

 

That comment is true no matter who joins a match thats already in progress.  Late joins always unbalance the work that the balancer attempted at the beginning of a match.

 

I feel that there just isn't a large enough sample size of people to separate the upper end of players out of the mix.

 

If high tier players always played on their mains instead of smurfing, there'd be more players in the upper MMR regions for everyone to play against.  The fix is simple, and the players in question know the solution to solve it.  Yet it isn't done, how ironic.

 

Unless I just mess around it feels like the balance skews too much instantly. 

 

The game has always suffered from that problem.  One decent player can easily carry their team to victory.

 

 

Come on Josh this failed experiment has gone on for way too long, #NOMORE1000MMRSPREAD

[ATX22]

 

The game has always suffered from that problem.  One decent player can easily carry their team to victory.

 

 

Come on Josh this failed experiment has gone on for way too long, #NOMORE1000MMRSPREAD

 

Too bad that'd bring with it the return of constant smurfing so people in a certain MMR range could "just play the game"... If the system isn't completely broken it gets the daylights abused out of it.

Edited by ATX22, 29 March 2016 - 08:10 PM.

[crockrocket]

 

 

Come on Josh this failed experiment has gone on for way too long, #NOMORE1000MMRSPREAD

 

 

Here's a thought that might help. Maybe get rid of the fuzzy bunnyng mmr lock.

 

 

Of course, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what system you have in place if you don't have the population to support it, and we do not have the population!

[CraftyDus]

Ranked matchmaking is bad for games.
It keeps bad players bad and new players new, way past where they'd develope otherwise.
It attempts to coddle the millennial gamer in an unreality and keep them from being exposed to better players who might readily demonstrate how they are not special in any way.
At its best ranked matchmaking arrests a players development, at its worst it perpetrates a delusion of competence in an artificial caste by keeping a developing player separate from what are normal, healthy smart cow encounters.
When you allow people to believe they aren't as bad as they are, you end up with a community of players who think their opinions on specific balance issues aren't terrible.
We would do well without ranked matchmaking, it promotes delusional competence.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

^ Y'all'd have a field day if I posted that :)

 

 

Not sure if bordering on Crafty-humor or completely serious, but whatever it is, it's right on the money.

[ATX22]

Ranked matchmaking is bad for games.
It keeps bad players bad and new players new, way past where they'd develope otherwise.
It attempts to coddle the millennial gamer in an unreality and keep them from being exposed to better players who might readily demonstrate how they are not special in any way.
At its best ranked matchmaking arrests a players development, at its worst it perpetrates a delusion of competence in an artificial caste by keeping a developing player separate from what are normal, healthy smart cow encounters.
When you allow people to believe they aren't as bad as they are, you end up with a community of players who think their opinions on specific balance issues aren't terrible.
We would do well without ranked matchmaking, it promotes delusional competence.

Would be nice, but it would be worlds better if Reloaded dropped Adh's crappy cloud server design and used the old community hosted server option. With the current official servers only setup, where you have almost NO communities centered around servers, match making is all but expected. With the hawken population being what it is.. getting rid of any match making could drive off what is left of your new player population if it doesn't work.

I agree with what you're saying about the affects of match making, but hawken is F2P, keeping people happy over time and willing to pay for make-believe stuff trumps actual personal progression and player competence.

Edited by ATX22, 30 March 2016 - 06:41 AM.

[CraftyDus]

Would be nice, but it would be worlds better if Reloaded dropped Adh's crappy cloud server design and used the old community hosted server option. With the current official servers only setup, where you have almost NO communities centered around servers, match making is all but expected. With the hawken population being what it is.. getting rid of any match making could drive off what is left of your new player population if it doesn't work.

I agree with what you're saying about the affects of match making, but hawken is F2P, keeping people happy over time and willing to pay for make-believe stuff trumps actual personal progression and player competence.

 

The fact that ranked match making is bad for games aside.

Allow me to address the f2p model, which is also bad for games.

 

It creates an impediment for the new player to the assets that complete the game in the way of Items and internals in order to promote the compulsion to spend money, rather than delivering all of the games assets at the outset for a onetime fee.

 

While I think cosmetics are handled well by the f2p model, keeping the assets people need access to in order to play in a fair contest of skill within a game's system, as market items, is bad for organizing and promoting the game as a fair contest of skill to all potential new players.

 

It's effect on the reputation of a game is corrosive. But that's not my chief criticism.

 

As a seperator of

1).new people trying to play their way into earning new internals and items in order to find out how they work together in the game's system, and

2). established players who have aquired them all and learned what is effective already,

it exacerbates the inequity of the new player and the established player.

 

Further widening a defacto gap in skill disparity already present in the difference between a new player and a practiced player even without the games asset availability being skewed by the f2p model.

 

Now listen.

There's a learning curve in any game for the new player.

But Hawken's f2p model promotes a huge widening of disparity and unecessarily confuses the game as a fair contest of skill.

Further frustrating balance issues, past what would exist if all game mechanic assets were available for a one time/initial fee.

[DieselCat]

^^^^Crafty...I agree with what you're saying. But on your opinion that Hawken should not be a f2p game, what are you suggesting ? Should it have been a single game purchase with possible DLC added or something else ?

 

The bottom line for any developer is making money off their investment of hard work. Curious as to what people might think would have been a better option that would help retain a stronger player base.

[ATX22]

The fact that ranked match making is bad for games aside.

Allow me to address the f2p model, which is also bad for games.

 

It creates an impediment for the new player to the assets that complete the game in the way of Items and internals in order to promote the compulsion to spend money, rather than delivering all of the games assets at the outset for a onetime fee.

 

While I think cosmetics are handled well by the f2p model, keeping the assets people need access to in order to play in a fair contest of skill within a game's system, as market items, is bad for organizing and promoting the game as a fair contest of skill to all potential new players.

 

It's effect on the reputation of a game is corrosive. But that's not my chief criticism.

 

As a seperator of

1).new people trying to play their way into earning new internals and items in order to find out how they work together in the game's system, and

2). established players who have aquired them all and learned what is effective already,

it exacerbates the inequity of the new player and the established player.

 

Further widening a defacto gap in skill disparity already present in the difference between a new player and a practiced player even without the games asset availability being skewed by the f2p model.

 

Now listen.

There's a learning curve in any game for the new player.

But Hawken's f2p model promotes a huge widening of disparity and unecessarily confuses the game as a fair contest of skill.

Further frustrating balance issues, past what would exist if all game mechanic assets were available for a one time/initial fee.

 

Not going to argue against any of the points you've made about F2P.. frankly, I hate the F2P model and wish it'd die a quick death in the gaming industry.  Just remember that under the old-school system, gamers still weren't forced to learn/grow when it came to skill.  They simply had the ability to pick and choose which servers and corresponding communities of gamers that played there that they'd frequent and play on (and connected gamers weren't constantly "passing through" like they are now).  Today, in Hawken, less skilled gamers are lumped into a given server as high skill players slowly filter in until newer players are pretty much guaranteed to be in over their heads if the server doesn't empty out after a few matches and those new player(s) stay connected.  That wasn't something that was guaranteed to happen in the old days.

 

But what you've been wanting is something that ADH/meteor should've done from day one rather than setting up the system we have now and effectively institutionalizing Hawken gamers with a system of hand-holding where the MM tries (and fails) to keep everyone on a "level playing field", skill and all.  But whatever the Reloaded team does.. if they're smart, it's going to be based on what will make them money and help them make money over time.  They may or may not have the appetite for ripping major components out of this game and then waiting to see if it drives what few players are left away or draws new ones in because a game with no gamers isn't going to make them any money.

[SS396]

Too bad that'd bring with it the return of constant smurfing so people in a certain MMR range could "just play the game"... If the system isn't completely broken it gets the daylights abused out of it.

 

Those people still smurf NOW, so what would be different about it?

 

 

I'm not talking about returning to the locking the high tiers out of games, I'm talking about the matchmaker just throwing its hands in the air and disregarding the huge MMR difference it allows in the first place.  If those players that were well outside the limits were placed into other games with similar players, it'd be better for everyone involved.

[ATX22]

Those people still smurf NOW, so what would be different about it?

 

 

I'm not talking about returning to the locking the high tiers out of games, I'm talking about the matchmaker just throwing its hands in the air and disregarding the huge MMR difference it allows in the first place.  If those players that were well outside the limits were placed into other games with similar players, it'd be better for everyone involved.

 

It just gives people who are willing to effectively troll the very players this game needs to stay alive an excuse to smurf or smurf more than they already do (assuming the current system has reduced smuring.. even if just a little).  Attempting to force them to seed empty servers isn't going to work and wait times nearing / exceeding 30 seconds apparently would be asking to much of some players.

 

Besides, I thought people being stuck in MM hell or timing out is what brought about this craptastic decision to allow the thing to panic in the first place.  While Hawken tries to be an old-school FPS with F2P bits glued on, it doesn't need a MM, it needs server browser that has a server ping column where you can filter out empty servers and sort by ping.

Edited by ATX22, 30 March 2016 - 09:52 PM.

[Hyginos]

Ahhh, the inevitable derailment into a matchamking complaint thread in which the same people say the same things and no progress is made other than to further convince themselves that everyone else is deluded.

 

Fact is, when there are are about 200 players spread across all queues, all servers, and in all regions (and some of them are simply in their garage not queued at all) You will end up working with a small enough number of players to choose from that a 1000 mmr spread may legitimately be the best match the system can make. Forcing players to re-queue after every match might help a bit, but again, with such a small number of players to choose from it is garbage in garbage out.

 

Anyway, I think we were talking about how to look at high skill/ accuracy dependent weapons before Darktim simultaneously hit the buttons for "derail thread", "open can-o-worms", and "begin rant season".

[PoopSlinger]

Anyway, I think we were talking about how to look at high skill/ accuracy dependent weapons before Darktim simultaneously hit the buttons for "derail thread", "open can-o-worms", and "begin rant season".

 

Yeah fuzzy bunny Darktime.  Its all the sustain peasants fault.

[Pelanthoris]

I would like to see the name of this thread changed to "Quite many painfully long, sometimes biased and/or egocentric (and/or derailed) posts on balance"

I don't even want to discuss about the topic. I have just been watching the number of replys increasing, willing to say something, but not really with this atmosphere.

[ATX22]

Ahhh, the inevitable derailment into a matchamking complaint thread in which the same people say the same things and no progress is made other than to further convince themselves that everyone else is deluded.

Fact is, when there are are about 200 players spread across all queues, all servers, and in all regions (and some of them are simply in their garage not queued at all) You will end up working with a small enough number of players to choose from that a 1000 mmr spread may legitimately be the best match the system can make. Forcing players to re-queue after every match might help a bit, but again, with such a small number of players to choose from it is garbage in garbage out.

Anyway, I think we were talking about how to look at high skill/ accuracy dependent weapons before Darktim simultaneously hit the buttons for "derail thread", "open can-o-worms", and "begin rant season".

Hawken is how many years stale now? It's not like the game itself has been changing and by extension changing the conversation (much). :p

Edited by ATX22, 31 March 2016 - 06:02 AM.

[DallasCreeper]

Hawken is how many years stale now? It's not like the game itself has been changing and by extension changing the conversation (much). :p

Well, around 2 years and the Reloaded team has added a few camos, a new B-class chassis, and some server updates, and maybe some other stuff I missed. 

[TheButtSatisfier]

^^^^Crafty...I agree with what you're saying. But on your opinion that Hawken should not be a f2p game, what are you suggesting ? Should it have been a single game purchase with possible DLC added or something else ?

 

The bottom line for any developer is making money off their investment of hard work. Curious as to what people might think would have been a better option that would help retain a stronger player base.

 

Crafty can correct me, but I think he's saying that the payment portion of the F2P model should be restricted to paying for cosmetics. It also sounds like he's not in favor of having to grind to obtain all game assets like mechs, internals, items, etc. as that puts new players at a disadvantage against experienced players who already know what assets to keep in their loadouts.

 

I agree with Crafty on those points. I already pay for cosmetics. If there were cosmetic options for weapons - especially weapon projectiles - then I would happily pay for those too. AND I WOULD PAY SO MUCH FOR TIGHT SOUND EFFECTS

 

Example: I want a heat cannon skin / sound pack that turns it into a rubber chicken launcher. The charge would sound like "BAAaaaaa..." and the launch would go "KAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW". The rubber chicken would leave a trail of feathers as it twirled through the air, and detonations would look like explosive feather plumes with a "BOK" sound.

 

I also want to see the rubber chicken being stretched in the launcher as I charge it up.

Edited by TheButtSatisfier, 31 March 2016 - 08:18 AM.

[Hyginos]

I need a charge bugle to play when I activate blitz.

[The_Silencer]

Team balancing is what, imho (in my humble opinion), matters the most right now

 

For instance -observe the hulk..:

 

[ATX22]

Well, around 2 years and the Reloaded team has added a few camos, a new B-class chassis, and some server updates, and maybe some other stuff I missed.

Right, so the game itself is overall pretty much the same game from 2 years ago.. With a couple tweaks and some crap that was already in it switched on.

[SS396]

Besides, I thought people being stuck in MM hell or timing out is what brought about this craptastic decision to allow the thing to panic in the first place.

 

Not really, prior to Josh opening up the floodgates thinking it would eliminate the need for smurfing, he changed server settings to ignore mmr restrictions so that anyone could join any private server manually through server browser.   The standard server matches were still restricted.  That was a much better solution than the current one, as it didn't impact as many players.

 

Right, so the game itself is overall pretty much the same game from 2 years ago.. With a couple tweaks and some crap that was already in it switched on.

 

Its even worse than that, theres still more things in the game that they haven't switched on, and what I wonder is why its taking them so long to basically repeat what they've already done.  For example, unlocked and made Hon buyable with MC, why haven't they done the same thing for Jobs, Kerby, or Falum.

[DieselCat]

Ok...we can all exhale when the patch hits tomorrow..... ....oh wait ! That's April Fools days. 

[DallasCreeper]

Right, so the game itself is overall pretty much the same game from 2 years ago.. With a couple tweaks and some crap that was already in it switched on.

I'm highlighting the stale-ness of this game. We haven't seen a real major client patch since what... Invasion?

[coldform]

I'm highlighting the stale-ness of this game. We haven't seen a real major client patch since what... Invasion?

Last bug fix was august 2014. Last major patch was... ? Incinerator/bunker, or g2r? I forget...

[ATX22]

I'm highlighting the stale-ness of this game. We haven't seen a real major client patch since what... Invasion?

Was agreeing. :p