6 replies to this topic

[Darkemporor15]

Back in the earlier days of hawken leveling up a mech earned it an upgrade point which allowed u to increase a specific star by a certain amount such as armor fuel heatsink dodge speed etc. I loved the customization it brought to the game and hope that upgrade points could someday return

[JackVandal]

The consensus has largely been that the tuning system was broken with a few optimal builds, which was why it was removed, i wouldn't mind a return so long as those issues were addressed, though i feel such a drastic change is not something that would benefit hawken.

[asipo]

i wish we can have all the feature back and of course make sure its balance

[bacon_avenger]

I still believe that the ascension 'tuning' systems' fatal flaw was that it was all bonus with no downside.  If it took something away from another aspect of the mech when increasing something else, it would have been less of a mess.

 

I also didn't like how each mech had different aspects that could be changed.  I would have rather seen the mechs all have the same adjustments with the base values being the thing that makes each mech different in it's role on the battlefield.

[StubbornPuppet]

Back in the earlier days of hawken leveling up a mech earned it an upgrade point which allowed u to increase a specific star by a certain amount such as armor fuel heatsink dodge speed etc. I loved the customization it brought to the game and hope that upgrade points could someday return

 

I liked having the tuning point system there when I started playing Hawken.  It gave me a sense of personal ownership of the mech and of my play style.

 

After getting several more months into the game and becoming involved enough in these forums and the dedicated player base, it kept becoming more and more clear that there were only 1 or 2 ways to tune each mech... unless you wanted to just keep losing. I often felt like I could reject that and would strive to find a better build, but every mech kept coming back around to the known best setup.

 

Compounding that evidence was how one could clearly witness how players who were "in the know" were practically untouchable by those who didn't spend time on the forums or Reddit reading others conclusions and trying them out themselves.  There was no denying it, if you didn't use the right tuning configs, you were at a disadvantage.

 

The phenomenon came to the point where the game began to be labeled as "Pay-to-win" because one could pay to avoid the grind to build up mechs.  It wasn't really true, because you didn't have to pay to rank up the mechs, but most people don't recognize the line between "Pay-to-win" and "pay-not-to-grind".  And those who didn't pay, were being overtaken by those who did - at least in the short-term... and led to players calling the game P2W and uninstalling before they ever played long enough to get the full view of the shape of the games skill curve.

 

The ideal expectation for balance in games like Hawken is that if two players pick the exact same mech, the best player will usually prevail.  But, with the old tuning system, the player who had either sunk more time or more money into that mech had a clearly noticeable advantage.  At the high end of the player skill curve, the tuning points didn't make much difference - because everyone had almost the same.  At every other skill level below that, the player with more time, experience and money always had the edge - and everyone could tell.

 

So, I came around to realize that, even though I loved having and using the tuning points, they were bad for balance, bad for first impressions and, ultimately, bad for the longevity of Hawken.  The game is just better off without them.

 

If it helps, the tuning point system is actually still in the game and you can see what they're set at.  But, they are set on the developer end - we can't adjust them anymore.  So, the devs can still tune the mechs using the same system, but Adhesive found a pretty solid place for them and locked them down.  I'm not sure that I've seen a conversation about whether they are optimal for balance currently in a very long time.

[JackVandal]

 

Where can we see what the tuning is set to currently?

[StubbornPuppet]

Where can we see what the tuning is set to currently?

 

It's been a while... I'll have to look at it later to see where that is.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with selecting one of the mechs and viewing the different menus - if I remember correctly, it's one of the menus which opens off to the right, next to the one that shows you which items, internals, weapons are selected.