112 replies to this topic

[IareDave]

Successful games that feature player-versus-player content are balanced with the input of the highest skilled players, while also taking into consideration the experience of new players and more importantly the direction the developers want to take there game. Now, before you mutter to yourself 'elitist scum!' and disregard everything I'm about to say I encourage you to hear me out.

Let's take a step back and look at two very popular mainstream games:LoL & CS (League of Legends & Counter Strike). Both games are simple enough so casual players can hop in from time to time and have fun without feeling overwhelmed, and yet they are complex enough so that hardcore players can feel motivated to climb up the rankings and compete with other highly skilled players. Do you think these highly competitive games are going to balance themselves based on the opinions of new or lesser skilled players? Mind you, these are games that have tournaments where players face off against each other for thousands of dollars. The answer is no, simply because higher skilled players are able to use the in-game content to its highest potential, and thus, they have a better understanding of the game meta and the strengths and weaknesses of said content. I say this not to belittle the opinions of newer players. In fact, there opinions are just as important because developers need to take a careful eye as to the experience fresh players have with their game if they want it to be successful and inviting. Josh has already started to make the experience of new players better by giving them game content which gives them more survivability(can't link the thread with mobile) to help them learn the game at a more satisfying rate.

To give you some examples, take a look around the forum and you'll notice a lot of concerns over the scout (if you were a member of old forum you know what I'm talking about). Many players consider it to be OP because it's 'too' fast, deals too much damage etc. what is the General consensus of the competitive community? It's a solid mech, but it is very squishy, has a very low fuel tank, and it's weaponry requires you to have a very good understanding of positioning and movement if you want to compete with it against mechs such as the assault piloted by players who miss much less often than newer players. Thus, the skill level needed to pilot it is much higher when faced against better players so it is only used by a select few( if you participated in TPG you know very few people ran scout). Another mech that I've seen people talk about on here is the Brawler, and how underpowered it is. An individual even claimed that during his absence from hawken he or she noticed the brawler recieved a 'nerfhammer', and is far too slow to be viable. What do the competitive players believe? It's one of the strongest mechs in the game, and it was very uncommon for players not to have a brawler on there team for the first season of TPG.

Ultimately, balance is a very fragile thing. I encourage the developers to play the game, and reach a high level of skill so that you understand the game and the strengths and weaknesses of the in-game content. I'm not asking you to compete with the highest level players, but right now you are at a crossroads between two opposing sides who feel different ways about the game balance and I believe that once you develop a good understanding of the game you will know the right decision.

[CrimsonKaim]

The problem might not be the lack of balancing (though the matchmaker could REALLY need some improvements) but more the lack of players. If you have 1,000,000 players, you probably will have 12 players for a good balanced 1800 MMR match. If you have 1,000 palyers, then you might have to add a 2100 MMR player to the 1800 MMR game.

Edited by FakeName, 15 July 2015 - 08:34 AM.

[talon70]

Wrote that on your mobile? The top comp players should have the greatest input into balance as they use the classes to their fullest.

 

Attracting and keeping large numbers of new players is a different problem although a good balance helps of course.

[Mergaz]

An accessible gameplay that ensures good gaming experience early is the key to success for any F2P. I personally am more WoT fan to serve as a parameter for Hawken. An arcade game, full of more complex elements, but at the beginning has a very inviting gameplay. The problem is that Hawken always prized by benefit vets, but forgot that whoever keeps the game alive are casual and new players.

First they should think about winning as many players as possible and then there are enough players to worry about balance PVP at a high level, as do the reverse did not work, ending with high MMR players chasing away noob players.

After this game has enough players is that it should spend time to make a competitive scene. The most important is to reformulate the gameplay because this current very displeasing more players for sure.

Edited by Mergaz, 29 March 2015 - 11:10 AM.

[Elite_is_salty]

I strongly think that capnjosh and company can benefit from participating in TPG level games. I think that that can give them a good perspective of how things look.

 

It's too damn true that veteran player's opinion isn't necessarily oriented towards high level of play and its atmosphere, but they just have such a deep understanding of things that they can see way further than newcomers, with no lack of respect to them.

 

Balance concerns are to be approached very very slowly. I strongly believe in that. Sudden major changes have such bad effects. Even if eventually those changes will make up for a better balance, doing things quickly is just bad and it's hard for new players at least to keep up with too much change.

 

Best thing is to start doing the obvious things, there are changes that almost everyone can agree with or at least understand to a certain degree (i.e incin nerf), and those will be a fine enough of a change for the short future until the development process starts to flourish and hopefully we see numbers rising.

 

Balancing things with a low playerbase is always a bit of a blurry situation. The more players you have, the more effective the balance algorithms/change turn out to be.

 

 

But the priorities remain:

- Nerfing incin

- limiting the grind's intensity

[Elite_is_salty]

 

The most important is to reformulate the gameplay because this current very displeasing more players for sure.

 

 

Changes to core gameplay would be undoubtedly, unquestionably, 100%, completely SUICIDAL.  HAWKEN is all about skill intensive gameplay, and screwing that up and keeping moving into the direction of simple human shooters will be the END of the game. Balance changes in favor of newbies, or at least providing them with as much resources and tips as possible to succeed is absolutely welcomed, but making the game easier/less-skill-requiring, is UNACCEPTABLE.

 

No gameplay changes, only balance tweaking. And THAT is not even debatable.

[CrimsonKaim]

Changes to core gameplay would be undoubtedly, unquestionably, 100%, completely SUICIDAL.  HAWKEN is all about skill intensive gameplay, and screwing that up and keeping moving into the direction of simple human shooters will be the END of the game. Balance changes in favor of newbies, or at least providing them with as much resources and tips as possible to succeed is absolutely welcomed, but making the game easier/less-skill-requiring, is UNACCEPTABLE.

 

No gameplay changes, only balance tweaking. And THAT is not even debatable.

 

That's like someone would want to remove the dodge mechanic, how terrible! D:

[Mergaz]

Changes to core gameplay would be undoubtedly, unquestionably, 100%, completely SUICIDAL.  HAWKEN is all about skill intensive gameplay, and screwing that up and keeping moving into the direction of simple human shooters will be the END of the game. Balance changes in favor of newbies, or at least providing them with as much resources and tips as possible to succeed is absolutely welcomed, but making the game easier/less-skill-requiring, is UNACCEPTABLE.

 

No gameplay changes, only balance tweaking. And THAT is not even debatable.

Basically this is a topic to say: Hey DEVs, will play with tops and forget casuals, after all they do not know what is good for the game, and learn to like the current metagame  and not change it for anything else different just to make money.

PS: I think it will not work want to influence them, because they clearly have a mission to make this game a blockbuster, a mission that was not met by the old staff that did exactly what the OP suggested in this topic and worried at first balance the game at the highest level and forgot to make it attractive on the lower level.

Edited by Mergaz, 29 March 2015 - 12:14 PM.

[Broham78]

Hawken will never be viable as long as high level scout pilots are allowed to wipe out entire servers on a regular basis. I`ve seen it more times than I can count, and for every one of theses matches I guarantee someone uninstalls this game and never comes back. They most likely tell thier friends not to bother as well. The majority of people play games for fun, and playing with these people is not fun.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Hawken will never be viable as long as high level scout pilots are allowed to wipe out entire servers on a regular basis. I`ve seen it more times than I can count, and for every one of theses matches I guarantee someone uninstalls this game and never comes back. They most likely tell thier friends not to bother as well. The majority of people play games for fun, and playing with these people is not fun.

What a silly argument. High level players can wipe the floor of a casual game using pretty much any mech. I've wandered into 1500 matches and come out on top using the G2 Assault by a large margin. This happens in all sorts of games. I regularly see it in SMITE. People using low-damage guardians to jungle. Squishy melee assassins in the ADC role. Things that wouldn't work in high level gameplay.

Also, you guarantee someone uninstalls everytime? Okay. Prove it.

[FRX23]

From my point view (a low skilled veteran) , the players (very high mmr) that kick my ass the painfull way , are more than often those who excel in only a certain mech or maybe a class.

I doubt they are regular on others mechs and so their opinion can be biased.

 

I use to have a deep respect to every pilot that succeed in multiple roles and IMHO they are not many and they are the ones whose opinion counts.

[crockrocket]

Hawken will never be viable as long as high level scout pilots are allowed to wipe out entire servers on a regular basis. I`ve seen it more times than I can count, and for every one of theses matches I guarantee someone uninstalls this game and never comes back. They most likely tell thier friends not to bother as well. The majority of people play games for fun, and playing with these people is not fun.

I'm only an 1800 level player, and I could wipe the floor with a CRT on sub 1500 MMR servers. Scout isn't the problem. What we need is a better tutorial. Seriously, player retention is less a factor of balance as it is better education and matchmaking. Improve those two factors and you're golden.

[Broham78]

What a silly argument. High level players can wipe the floor of a casual game using pretty much any mech. I've wandered into 1500 matches and come out on top using the G2 Assault by a large margin. This happens in all sorts of games. I regularly see it in SMITE. People using low-damage guardians to jungle. Squishy melee assassins in the ADC role. Things that wouldn't work in high level gameplay.

Also, you guarantee someone uninstalls everytime? Okay. Prove it.  

Relevant username.

 

Why so defensive? I have my doubts that you just "wandered" into low tier matches.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Relevant username.

 

Why so defensive? I have my doubts that you just "wandered" into low tier matches.

Really, you doubt it with the games low population? It literally happens all the time in normal matches, not to mention Mayhem servers ignore MMR.

Anyways, are you going to prove your guarantee, or were you just lying?

Edited by AsianJoyKiller, 29 March 2015 - 12:39 PM.

[DerMax]

I don't think such a controversy exists. The balance definitely should be helped by more experienced players, as they have a fuller picture of the game's ins and outs.

 

HOWEVER

 

These very players should not single-handedly make design decisions without keeping in mind low-mmr players. Design decisions ? balance decisions.

[IareDave]

I don't think such a controversy exists. The balance definitely should be helped by more experienced players, as they have a fuller picture of the game's ins and outs.

 

HOWEVER

 

These very players should not single-handedly make design decisions without keeping in mind low-mmr players. Design decisions ? balance decisions.

Hence why I said the developers need to build an understanding of the game and improve their own skill so they can make an accurate final call as to how the balancing should go. 

[CaliberMengsk]

Something that should also be kept in mind when talking about balance (on both ends on the skill spectrum) is that even if you match 100% mmr for teams, balance can be changed simply by team experience. Even if balanced by MMR, a team that adapts to each other can do better then a team that doesn't. I'll give an example. A match I literally just played, the other team had 3 players acting as support. One as a predator shooting into the aa with it's pucks to try to get 1 shot kills, a SharpShooter trying to do damage, and a tech in the back healing them and other mechs returning. Playing support is fine, but when half your team is doing that, there's no way to push the aa. Even if all 3 supporting mechs were in amazing positions, they just didn't have the numbers on the AA. My team (which was down a player pretty much the entire match) had it pretty easy for taking the aa back, cause we all pushed and supported at the right times.

 

My key point is, new players can only base their opinions on the mechs as individual mechs, cause they just haven't experienced the proper form of teamwork for this game. CS and LoL are very different games, so it's hard to draw the comparison. CS is very balanced, cause everyone starts literally the same. LoL is hard to compare cause dying is much more detrimental. While you may loose a position in hawken, you are only dead for 10 seconds, where as in late game LoL, it can take over a minute to respawn. They are all very different games where team play is very different as well.

 

As well, as stated above, there is a much much smaller player base in hawken. Hawken currently (according to steamcharts.com) has an average of just under 400 concurrent players, where as counter strike global offensive has an almost 270,000 concurrent player average. That means that finding people of similar skill is much easier, so even on the mmr front, it's much harder for hawken to actually match things up on that end.

 

As an old player, and only being mid-high range skill (2100 mmr roughly at the moment), I say that for the most part, the mechs themselves and all of the internals are fairly well balanced. Much better then most games. If they weren't, there'd be an abundance of the same mech and internals in the very high end play. While competitive players don't like things to be stale, they like to not loose more, so they will play the same builds if it means they will win. And since the high end has a ton of variances as far as the builds, it goes to show that things are balanced fairly well, and it more comes down to player skill then it does what they put into their mech.

[M4st0d0n]

Successful F2Ps had at least a decent intial balancing with professional QA testers. For now Hawken's balancing has been a suite of radical meta changes revealing only the incapacity ADH had to extract decent feedback or gamedata out of the game. In the next month there will be plenty of controversy about balance changes. Everyone should bear in mind it's their OPINIONS and not try to backup those as ARGUMENTS pondered with arguably dysfonctionnal stats.

 

For example, I think Hawken should be balanced around siege mode, because its the only original objective based gamemode this game has, with a mix of point defence scenario and attack. Other skilled players could object and say pure deathmatch is the true hardcore Hawken experience. Good luck solving that with e-peen measuring.

[Broham78]

Really, you doubt it with the games low population? It literally happens all the time in normal matches, not to mention Mayhem servers ignore MMR.

Anyways, are you going to prove your guarantee, or were you just lying?

I haven't seen an open mayhem server in ages and I don't have to prove anything to you. The fact that that this game has been basically on life support is enough imo. People rage about it in chat and voice it on the forums. It's not implausible in the least to assume people quit over it too. I have 300 hrs in this game and money as well. I want this game to succeed and I want to have a good time. The scout has a bad reputation for a reason and high mmr players need to stop running everyone off.

[TheVulong]

Anyways, are you going to prove your guarantee, or were you just lying?

Are logical conclusions and common sense not a thing anymore?

[AsianJoyKiller]

I haven't seen an open mayhem server in ages and I don't have to prove anything to you. The fact that that this game has been basically on life support is enough imo. People rage about it in chat and voice it on the forums. It's not implausible in the least to assume people quit over it too. I have 300 hrs in this game and money as well. I want this game to succeed and I want to have a good time. The scout has a bad reputation for a reason and high mmr players need to stop running everyone off.

Okay. Got it. You'll just claim that certain things happen 100% of the time with nothing to back it up. So here's my counterargument to your earlier claim.

Everytime someone gets beaten by a high level player in a Scout, they get pissed, scream about it, and then decided to learn how to get better and counter it. I guarantee it.

And since I don't have to prove that claim, my argument carries just as much weight as yours.

 

Are logical conclusions and common sense not a thing anymore?

I'm sorry, but it's not logical, nor even common sense, to believe that 100% the time a person gets beat by a better player in a Scout they quit and tell all their friends. The notion is so ridiculous that it literally makes me laugh out loud.

Edited by AsianJoyKiller, 29 March 2015 - 01:26 PM.

[TheVulong]

I'm sorry, but it's not logical, nor even common sense, to believe that 100% the time a person gets beat by a better player in a Scout they quit and tell all their friends. The notion is so ridiculous that it literally makes me laugh out loud.

The fact that you took his statement literally makes me do the same. Go read his post again, it has words "someone" and "most likely" that indicate that the statement is not concrete. 

Edited by TheVulong, 29 March 2015 - 01:37 PM.

[Broham78]

Okay. Got it. You'll just claim that certain things happen 100% of the time with nothing to back it up. So here's my counterargument to your earlier claim.

Everytime someone gets beaten by a high level player in a Scout, they get pissed, scream about it, and then decided to learn how to get better and counter it. I guarantee it.

And since I don't have to prove that claim, my argument carries just as much weight as yours.

 

I'm sorry, but it's not logical, nor even common sense, to believe that 100% the time a person gets beat by a better player in a Scout they quit and tell all their friends. The notion is so ridiculous that it literally makes me laugh out loud.

Player numbers do not reflect this scenario.

[AsianJoyKiller]

The fact that you took his statement literally makes me do the same. Go read his post again, it has words "someone" and "most likely" that indicate that the statement is not concrete.

 

"I`ve seen it more times than I can count, and for every one of theses matches I guarantee someone uninstalls this game and never comes back."

 

To guarantee something means to promise with certainty. Usage of "someone" does nothing to diminish whether or not the statement is concrete. All it means is that there is at least 1 person, and the specific identity of that person is not important.

 

Player numbers do not reflect this scenario.

 

Not any more than they do the reflect yours.

The majority of population loss in Hawken has occured after major balance changes. On the other hand, since the last major balance change, Hawken's population remained relatively stable despite issues with lower level players and Scouts.

If what you were saying was true, or even likely, Hawken would have a player population in the dozens.

[TheVulong]

"I`ve seen it more times than I can count, and for every one of theses matches I guarantee someone uninstalls this game and never comes back."

 

To guarantee something means to promise with certainty. Usage of "someone" does nothing to diminish whether or not the statement is concrete. All it means is that there is at least 1 person, and the specific identity of that person is not important.

So once again, what's the problem? Statistically, his statement is not incorrect. If you'll look at the overall time this game has been around - that's about 2 years(correct me on that, i dare you) - how can you, on the other hand, prove that the situation he described never happened? 

[MomOw]

Interresting topic. How make the game appealing to new players and fun for top players ?

Here some examples that IMHO could help newcomers get into Hawken and should be easy to implement

- give the newcomers the opportunity to drive other mech than the assault/ct-recruit. When I started the test drive weren't enough as the grind was very high to get enough HC to buy one.

- change the base primary to be an easier loadout for some mechs (rpr reaper, vulcan brawler are some example)

- change the server "star ranking" to reflect the average mmr of the server

- make the match maker count players with mmr way higher than average count for two players slot

- add links to community tutorials while launching the game. And add links to videos made during tgp league.

[AsianJoyKiller]

So once again, what's the problem? Statistically, his statement is not incorrect. If you'll look at the overall time this game has been around - that's about 2 years(correct me on that, i dare you) - how can you, on the other hand, prove that the situation he described never happened? 

I didn't say it never happened. Unless you're refering to my, "Everytime someone gets beaten by a high level player in a Scout, they get pissed, scream about it, and then decided to learn how to get better and counter it. I guarantee it." argument, which wasn't serious, but made as example of why his logic was so flawed.

And statistically, his statement is ridiculous. From what I've seen of how often higher level players stomp people with Scouts, we would have dozens of players quitting everyday to that alone. If his statement was statistically correct, Hawken shouldn't have as many players as it does.

 

Hell, if it was true, then I could theoretically kill the game by myself by playing a bunch of matches each day as a Scout against lower MMR players. If I played all day, I could, by his logic, get 1000 people to quit in the space of a month.

Does that not seem the least bit unbelievable to you?

Edited by AsianJoyKiller, 29 March 2015 - 02:13 PM.

[XPloyt]

I feel like there's big-time issues with hit-detection; they aren't always prevalent, but they will certainly skew one's perception of balance.

 

About a week ago I was so on-point using the Raider it was unbelievable - my aim, being conscious of the elements of radar detection, well-timed flanks using Blitz, constantly using the weapon utility predictably to put myself in an advantageous position - I was even using the "target enemy" function alot as well as the "assistance requested", and the team felt really responsive, which was kind of unreal to me.

 

Maybe that day for the few hours I played, everything was in line; I was feeling good, team synergy, server performance, having the right players with the right mechs..... the next day I played, it was very much the opposite experience. I saw plenty of shots go through players where it needed to count, and it was maddening considering how much I felt like I tried to play differently(even when thinking I needed to "put my head into the game" more, or be more aggressive) to yield different results, but it was always the same.

 

My point is, regardless of what people feel for the balance changes, I feel like when a person is putting in their all and doing the right things to try to make things work, it should translate in the game. I feel salty playing against really good players in an uphill battle and trying to seize a moment only to virtually have no impact on the outcome - even if it's all the way down to taking a chunk of someone's health and it fails, because that can honestly change the outcome of a game.

[Broham78]

 

From what I've seen of how often higher level players stomp people with Scouts, we would have dozens of players quitting everyday to that alone.

 

And there it is.

[defekt]

- change the server "star ranking" to reflect the average mmr of the server
 

This one stands out from the background noise and deserves some consideration.  Not only for server MMR averages but also demystifying the numbers for everything else in the game (e.g., mech stats, weapons stats, etc).

 

ADH were weirdly cagey about releasing any numbers and even after promising to be a bit more open about such things we still only ended up with odd pictorial representations of numbers that didn't help anyone make an informed choice, least of all new players.  I remember at the time they said that they wanted players to 'feel' their way for how effective a 'thing' was rather than make value judgements from the numbers alone.  ...Or something along those lines anyway.  The thing is, all this ended up accomplishing was making new players' lives harder rather than providing useful stats about a 'thing' from the off and lessening the learning curve a little.

[Hyginos]

And there it is.

 

Show me the data.

 

Actually, Imma show you the data:

 

http://tools.ashfire908.com/hwkcharts/

 

Even if you are correct, there appears to be close to 100% replacement on those players.

Edited by Hyginos, 29 March 2015 - 02:25 PM.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

I feel like there's big-time issues with hit-detection; they aren't always prevalent, but they will certainly skew one's perception of balance.

 

XPloyt,

 

I think this isn't Hawken so much as your ISP's interface with Amazon Web Services and the EC2 cloud.

 

I happen to have the ability to enter AWS from many different cities domestically, using Charter's nodes as 'home'.  Doing so can result in wildly-different pings (further than speed-of-light); it DEFINITELY removes much teleportation, rubberbanding, and hit misregistration that my 'native' Verizon Dallas connection suffers from.

 

I think this is a different issue we should discuss in a different thread, or perhaps with CapnJosh on TS some enchanted evening.  Ash and LadyTiggs, if I could ask you to note this datapoint, too, for later discussion?

[Broham78]

Show me the data.

 

Actually, Imma show you the data:

 

http://tools.ashfire908.com/hwkcharts/

 

Even if you are correct, there appears to be close to 100% replacement on those players.

Yes yes, let's keep the same amount of players at a high turnover rate.

[TheVulong]

And statistically, his statement is ridiculous. From what I've seen of how often higher level players stomp people with Scouts, we would have dozens of players quitting everyday to that alone. If his statement was statistically correct, Hawken shouldn't have as many players as it does.

 

Hell, if it was true, then I could theoretically kill the game by myself by playing a bunch of matches each day as a Scout against lower MMR players. If I played all day, I could, by his logic, get 1000 people to quit in the space of a month.

Does that not seem the least bit unbelievable to you?

I think you focus too much - either deliberately or because of your inobservance - on things that don't matter. Let's go back to his original post and check what his actual point was: "Hawken will never be viable as long as high level scout pilots are allowed to wipe out entire servers on a regular basis. The majority of people play games for fun, and playing with these people is not fun." In other words, he doesn't enjoy getting stomped by players of higher level, regardless of what they pilot.

[AsianJoyKiller]

I think you focus too much - either deliberately or because of your inobservance - on things that don't matter. Let's go back to his original post and check what his actual point was: "Hawken will never be viable as long as high level scout pilots are allowed to wipe out entire servers on a regular basis. The majority of people play games for fun, and playing with these people is not fun." In other words, he doesn't enjoy getting stomped by players of higher level, regardless of what they pilot.

Regardless of what they pilot? Are you blind?

He specifies Scout players, and then again in the sentence you've underlined, he again references Scout players specifically. Then as we continue to argue, we talk about Scouts, specifically.

Please stop. You are just flat out wrong, and become more wrong with every post you make.

[Nept]

http://www.twitch.tv...awken/c/4094063

[TheVulong]

Regardless of what they pilot? Are you blind?

He specifies Scout players, and then again in the sentence you've underlined, he again references Scout players specifically. Then as we continue to argue, we talk about Scouts, specifically.

Stop talking about Scouts. Aside from them his point was: "i don't enjoy getting stomped by the players of higher level. It's not fun". Focus on that.

[crockrocket]

How did this become a discussion about scout? We already have a scout thread that goes into op or not, and given that this is a thread about how to go about balance, not what is or isn't balanced... Yeah not really germane.

[TheVulong]

How did this become a discussion about scout? We already have a scout thread that goes into op or not, and given that this is a thread about how to go about balance, not what is or isn't balanced... Yeah not really germane.

Yeah, sorry.

[AsianJoyKiller]

Stop talking about Scouts. Aside from them his point was: "i don't enjoy getting stomped by the players of higher level. It's not fun". Focus on that.

Because then you aren't even talking about his point. If you remove the "in scouts" part, you're talking about something other than what he was talking about.