220 replies to this topic

[dorobo]

I think Hawken's PC GUI is leagues ahead of this GUI for consoles. What it could use is better mech access.

..and previous pc gui is better too. I guess consoles are getting a new gui then so it's all on the same page right? Consoles got porting the same way we should be able to pick gui. That's just fair 

Edited by dorobo, 02 March 2017 - 06:14 AM.

[CZeroFive]

Actually what I was wondering was if we would have to redownload the game or is it gonna be like a patch?  I want to make this clear, I really love this game and I am gonna keep lovin' it no matter what. Because I respect evolutions. Although like I asked, when it's relaunched, is it gonna be a patch or are gonna have to redownload it. I would be glad if the technical team clears that. Thanks.

 

It will likely be a patch - but in terms of bandwidth, it may be like downloading the game over again.

 

Regarding the UI:

 

What our current UI guy is doing is basically ripping apart the UI and rebuilding it, piece by piece, so we can do more with it. That's a massive undertaking to do in a short period of time. We've worked around that UI for the time being, but obviously for when the time it matters to change things - IE; the PC relaunch, where we know the console UI doesn't make sense - it makes sense to tackle it then.

 

Right now, if we even touch a small portion of the Hawken UI, it breaks in several different other ways than the way we changed - for example, when we added the new tips to the UI, it broke the minimap. When we added new containers to the featured screen, they broke the emblems picker, the Mech grid icons, and the staging select icons. That's unacceptable, and it also makes revamping the color scheme, the size of literally anything, and other such improvements harder than anticipated.

 

His job is to make sure we can actually re-do the UI right now so we don't end up having to launch with what we have, and that we can revamp the UI smoothly and with no issues now or in the future.

 

We do agree it needs some backend work and some fresh artwork. We wish we could just flip a magic switch and make everything better. But we're not magicians. We need to do things right, and doing things right takes time for those that are not inclined to pull elements from other planes of existence.

Edited by CZeroFive, 02 March 2017 - 09:51 AM.

[DallasCreeper]

It will likely be a patch - but in terms of bandwidth, it may be like downloading the game over again.

 

Regarding the UI:

 

What our current UI guy is doing is basically ripping apart the UI and rebuilding it, piece by piece, so we can do more with it. That's a massive undertaking to do in a short period of time. We've worked around that UI for the time being, but obviously for when the time it matters to change things - IE; the PC relaunch, where we know the console UI doesn't make sense - it makes sense to tackle it then.

 

Right now, if we even touch a small portion of the Hawken UI, it breaks in several different other ways than the way we changed - for example, when we added the new tips to the UI, it broke the minimap. When we added new containers to the featured screen, they broke the emblems picker, the Mech grid icons, and the staging select icons. That's unacceptable, and it also makes revamping the color scheme, the size of literally anything, and other such improvements harder than anticipated.

 

His job is to make sure we can actually re-do the UI right now so we don't end up having to launch with what we have, and that we can revamp the UI smoothly and with no issues now or in the future.

 

We do agree it needs some backend work and some fresh artwork. We wish we could just flip a magic switch and make everything better. But we're not magicians. We need to do things right, and doing things right takes time for those that are not inclined to pull elements from other planes of existence.

I just hope it is more akin to the PC UI than Console.

[6ixxer]

Right now, if we even touch a small portion of the Hawken UI, it breaks in several different other ways than the way we changed - for example, when we added the new tips to the UI, it broke the minimap. When we added new containers to the featured screen, they broke the emblems picker, the Mech grid icons, and the staging select icons. That's unacceptable, and it also makes revamping the color scheme, the size of literally anything, and other such improvements harder than anticipated.

 

His job is to make sure we can actually re-do the UI right now so we don't end up having to launch with what we have, and that we can revamp the UI smoothly and with no issues now or in the future.

 

We do agree it needs some backend work and some fresh artwork. We wish we could just flip a magic switch and make everything better. But we're not magicians. We need to do things right, and doing things right takes time for those that are not inclined to pull elements from other planes of existence.

 

Thank you for going beyond the phrase 'technical debt' and explaining it with examples so people get a proper feel for why the PC update is taking as long as it is.

 

They are understandably impatient, but its because it hasn't been explained so that they understand.

[comic_sans]

This all actually seems pretty great.  I just have a few requests, from a simple man who is probably talking out of his ass but feels like he isn't.  I'm sorry if this has been said in the thread already but I'm excited so deal.

 

Please do yourselves a huge favor and SPEND SOME MONEY ON ADVERTISING WHEN YOU RELAUNCH.  ADH DID A TERRIBLE JOB OF THIS AND LOOK HOW THAT WORKED OUT.  I don't think that I'm exaggerating much when I say that in the age of e-sports viable CS:GO, Overwatch, and others, as well as an ever-growing plethora of other great F2P games, almost nobody knows anything about Hawken and the few that do (whom I've encountered) all refer to it as that game nobody plays.  Hawken never really got out there after the initial E3 hubbub, probably as a result of ADH's bungling of their fortunes on 100 concurrent impossible things that were related to but not the game.  Make an effort to sell the game as a confident improved thing to dispel any negativity hanging around the minds of those who have looked but not stayed or heard negative things.  Have good servers for them to arrive on.  

 

Forgive me if this seems way too obvious and patronizing; this is not my intent.  However, I also thought it would've been obvious stuff back when ADH ran the ship, so I'd rather say something instead of nothing, especially while there's still someone to listen.

 

I want this thing to come back so bad.  I compare the feeling of every FPS I've played since to this and been disappointed.  This update genuinely seems like a big step in the right direction, and the PC relaunch's place in the timeline being confirmed gives me the happy knowledge that I will one day soon hop in my scout again and get ruined by people who got way better than me since I left.

Edited by comic_sans, 02 March 2017 - 01:26 PM.

[ThatDamnedBoedy]

Hello, Pilots!
 
It’s been a great couple of weeks thus far - many of you have noticed that we have pushed some things live, and we have some information to share with you from all fronts of development.
 
First, I’d like to mention that we have completed the third Hawken content update slated for consoles. We’ve been working hard on this and it contains a number of elements that should keep you interested in the game and add some dynamics to the game that were not previously. We’ll explore those in more detail in this post.
 
In addition to finalizing the third content update for consoles, we have also started full development on the next content update, which will include the relaunch of Hawken for PC on Steam. While there is no date set in stone for the relaunch itself, we are working hard on ensuring the relaunch goes smoothly for all of our Steam players.
 
We have started revisiting the PC platform’s backend systems again in preparation for the PC relaunch.
 
The first thing I would like to announce is that we’ve fixed up the parties system in Hawken - you should be once again able to create a party on PC. I would like to share with you a little insight on what exactly broke there, and for those not technically savvy, this may be a bit confusing:
 
Our backend services run on the popular ejabberd XML communications platform. This was a design decision prior to our development team, and unfortunately for us, nothing really was documented. When you log into Hawken, our backend services provide you with the means to actually communicate with other players. When Hawken was first acquired, this system was working flawlessly. The instance of the machine that we were using was reprovisioned sometime during console launch, and ultimately the Debian Linux installation had different packages of two aptitude packages that were required to set up this instance. We investigated and the backend module responsible for parties was actually crashing when any player joined a party. This is due to incompatibilities in Erlang compilers. The simple solution, you’d think, is to just rebuild the module in question. Unfortunately, that appeared to not be the case as a newly compiled version of the module in question did not seem to matter.
 
Ultimately, what we ended up doing is re-building the ejabberd platform using the latest ejabberd server (17.02) and we re-made the custom extensions that Meteor had made to this version of ejabberd. We then deployed and spent probably close to 6 hours actually converting the huge amount of data that Hawken actually has for this backend service. Due to the efforts that the ejabberd team had made, we actually were able to scale down the resource requirements needed to run the ejabberd instance as well
 
What you’re seeing now on the Steam PC game is the work of a research, development, and implementation over a very short period of time. And more importantly, party functionality is once again active on the PC platform.
 
Over the past few months, we’ve heard your complaints about missing Mechs, items, persistent stat values, and related complaints about missing things. To be completely blunt, we had a database failure with a third party provider over the course of 2 years. Unfortunately, a lot of the data that is lost is lost forever. However, some of the data exists in a form that we were able to repair.
 
Last week, we deployed a change that would apply ‘fixup’ code to Mechs that were affected by this database failure. All Mechs we applied the fixup code to were unable to spawn in-game, providing you with a misleading error of “Test Drive Failed”. What was actually happening is that the Mechs were missing a key component of their loadout, which in turn would disable them from spawning. This includes the following items:

• Primary Weapons
• Secondary Weapons
• B/C Class Arms
• Mids
• Uppers
• Lowers
• Abilities - while you could spawn without them, it’d be unfair to the end user.

Our fixup code automatically detects that these are missing and re-delivers them to the Mech that is missing these items.
 
As for the rest of the items that are missing - unfortunately, we have to admit that we have no way of repairing them. For those of you that are missing purchases, we feel that is completely unacceptable. We sincerely apologize for the troubles, and will be working on compensating affected players systematically and through customer support.
 
Lastly, I would like to share with you some of the improvements that will be going live in Content Update 3, which will be going live very soon.
 
I would like to first mention that Content Update 3 should see a slight improvement to framerate on killing another player’s mech. This should help framerate spiking significantly on both platforms.
 
Additionally, Content Update 3 contains a ton of server join process cleanup which should make joining servers less frustrating. The game client’s server browser should be more reliable as a result of these efforts, especially with the display of servers that should be available.
 
Let’s talk about some features, though, shall we?
 
Introducing the daily calendar - a system that rewards you for just playing every day! Consecutive logins over the period of a month will result in greater rewards.
 
The rewards from the daily calendar will be the first thing that you see when you log into Hawken under Content Update 4. The goal with this is to encourage you to log in and check the game out - plus get sweet rewards for doing so!
 

 
Our in-game leaderboard has gotten a facelift. It now shows the player emblem, and functionality in general has been improved. You might even see a few more leaderboards! As part of Content Update 3, we will be resetting the leaderboards. This is due to an unintended bug where Co-Op Bots TDM kills were counting as PvP kills. Now you can *really* see who’s on top.
 

 
We’ve added a system named ‘Assignments’ - what are assignments, you ask? Well, they’re basically ‘quests’ that you can complete every day to get rewards. These are automatically generated when you log in for the first time each day, and stay for 24 hours from the time you log in. This is so they can be completed at your leisure. In the event that you do not complete one in the given amount of time, the assignment will reset after a 24 hour period.
 
Assignments are also flexible enough that we can add special event assignments without pushing out a client update. Holiday assignments anyone?
 
With the addition of the assignments system, we have removed the old daily bonus system which required you to complete one game of each type per day to earn HC. We feel that this system is an adequate replacement for the daily bonus system, and we hope you feel that way too.
 
Here’s some screenshots of the system in action:




 
We have added two new systems that we hope will help enrich our new user experience and get players engaged more quickly than ever before.
 
First, we have a new system we have dubbed ‘Pro-Tips’ - this adds new functionality aimed at new users. The system will provide ‘tips’ dynamically based on what you are doing (or rather, what you aren’t doing!) on-screen to help ease players into  learning Hawken. After some time, Pro-Tips will automatically turn itself off based on the number of hints displayed. Don’t worry, Laila is still there in VR Training if you like being told what to do immediately. Additionally, this functionality can be turned off entirely via the options menu.
 
Secondly we’ve changed how the Bots in BotsTDM operate. Bots will now prioritize targets based on a player’s in game performance. Additionally Bot difficulty now scales throughout the match, rather than being fixed based on the initial skill rating of the server. These changes make BotsTDM games more contested than they were before and should make for a better gameplay experience for both old and new users.
 
We have a few new internals launching in this update. First up, the Repair Field Generator - a Technician-specific 1-slot internal.
 
 
 
Secondly, we have the Enhanced Servos - a 3-slot internal.
 

 
Third, we have the Afterburner, a 1-slot internal:
 

 
And lastly, Thrust Vectoring - a 3-slot internal.
 
 
 
Finally, we’d like to close this developer post out on a good note. We’re really, really, really excited about doing the PC relaunch - more than you guys will ever know. We’ve been going the extra mile trying to polish and improve the game. We look forward to providing both Content Update 3 and Content Update 4 in early 2017.

Lastly, get a good, quick look at this guy. You’ll be acquainted with him in the coming weeks :)
 

 
 
 
Until next time,
CZeroFive

 

So well...this looks like its gonna be one annoying mech :p

[6ixxer]

Holy quote batman!

Can you snip most of the textwall, etc out if you just want to make a small point?
 
Why does the troll part of me wish that I had quoted your quote?

Edited by 6ixxer, 03 March 2017 - 12:11 AM.

[Arkhaun]

Witty banter ONLY here son...

Edited by Arkhaun, 03 March 2017 - 02:21 PM.

[Flifang]

Where the heck is my dual hellfire a class mech?

[Nov8tr]

Where the heck is my dual hellfire a class mech?

Some ISIS terrrorist stole it and have it on the darkweb for sale currently...........sorry

[Onstrava]

I see where turning in term papers early this year. I don't know if I can compete with such grand essays.

[Pathogen]

Time to get brushed up on stompy robots again.

[hhung]

Every time I try to get into a game with my fully ranked Vanguard mech, it's still throwing the "Mech Sync Failure", "Test Drive is no longer active" issue.  Is there anything I can do to fix this?

[Pathogen]

I will say that I've been able to get into matches quite a bit faster than I remembered this week. Good omen.

[TangledMantis]

Yeah, gonna need some explanation on this. Does this increase the turn cap, make it faster or just the turn rate up to the cap. 

 

Because if you're providing a way to move past the cap... you're gonna have some problems.

 

Faster turns and faster dodging on a Brawler..  

 

ooo boy...

[Miscellaneous]

Every time I try to get into a game with my fully ranked Vanguard mech, it's still throwing the "Mech Sync Failure", "Test Drive is no longer active" issue.  Is there anything I can do to fix this?

 

Make a support ticket:

 

https://hawken.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

[SS396]

Make a support ticket:

 

https://hawken.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

 

Theres no point.  CZeroFive has already responded to this a few times in other recent threads.  

 

https://community.pl...ew/#entry110720

https://community.pl...icket/?p=112629

 

The only thing he can do is wait like everyone else since they don't seem to be repairing individual accounts in the time between now and relaunch.

[WmMoneyFrmMissouri]

There is no repair for this issue they have said. I'm dying to see what comes of this as I'm missing a bunch of stuff still.

[TangledMantis]

There is no repair for this issue they have said. I'm dying to see what comes of this as I'm missing a bunch of stuff still.

 

You must have.. what.. 500k HC by now? Just buy the stuff back? Or was it stuff from the MC custom shop?

[WmMoneyFrmMissouri]

I'm missing a bunch of my purchased parts. I've reaccesorized where needed... calf spoilers and such, but I'd still like the parts I paid real money for back. Sometimes, weather permitting, arm spoilers make raider go fast.

[SS396]

I'm missing a bunch of my purchased parts. I've reaccesorized where needed... calf spoilers and such, but I'd still like the parts I paid real money for back. Sometimes, weather permitting, arm spoilers make raider go fast.

 

Yeah that seems to be a completely different problem than the mech launch failure issue and I don't think they will be able to magically fix it by the suggested implementation that I've seen discussed for repairing the mech launch failure.  See in your particular case the mech is considered "acceptable" and still launchable so no fix would ever be applied, and even if this was a different mech and it did throw an error, the launch failure fix is going to assign a default chassis part or weapon, its not going to magically pick a part that costs MC to replace whatever is missing and causing the problem in the first place.

 

The only way to detect your missing parts that you paid MC for is to either compare your account in a backup database with the account in the current database or parse a log of all your account purchases and I'm not convinced they have either of those things, because if they did then a script to flag the missing items would be really easy to create and the problem already addressed.

[Cytor]

honestly what probably happened is that reloaded had to find a publisher - this publisher they found probably wanted Hawken on consoles as a number one priority.

 

I think it's a safe bet, that in Reloaded's desperate search, they had to settle for a PC relaunch freeze in exchange. either that, or the publisher gave Reloaded a larger team to work with, but only for consoles.

 

what I can't figure out yet is why we don't see Hawken anywhere on Reloaded's developer website.

[Luaq]

I don't have details because to be quite honest, I am not sure of what the UI changes are that we're going to make. I am a programmer and in this case the messenger, don't shoot me.

LOL I get your point but in times of war, the best way of saying how angry one group is and does not agree at all and want to send their thoughts is to send back the horse to his camp with the knight riding it with no head (head in a bag attached to horse)... metaphorically speaking... :P

anyways...


I already fear a "day one patch" or a "first day game temporarily unavailable" but I do know you have no choice but to make it work "in the end"...

Once "everything is right"

you should all work on the competitive side of hawken:

1 In-game clan feature
(clan vs clan games, custom tool kit for patterns and emblems that we can create from a bank of patterns and colors)

2 In-game voip, for "competitive" fun and "fun" in pubs.




(Oh and balance the drones so that they can be used in multiplayer since they're already "programmed" and fonctional but are locked to a game mode... make it an ability or something for a support mech... just make it happen somehow in a way or in siege as a defense mechanism when AA is hold whatever....)

Edited by Luaq, 14 March 2017 - 02:04 PM.

[Arkhaun]

I want a:
1. revamped siege
2. Grappling hook mech
3.hopefully a chivalry-esque romp gametype that ends in the greatness that is "kill the king", complete with the match's mvp being king mech or he gets to spawn as a boss mech to toss the jazz outta belair

[CZeroFive]

Just because I like shattering dreams:

 

LOL I get your point but in times of war, the best way of saying how angry one group is and does not agree at all and want to send their thoughts is to send back the horse to his camp with the knight riding it with no head (head in a bag attached to horse)... metaphorically speaking... :P

anyways...


I already fear a "day one patch" or a "first day game temporarily unavailable" but I do know you have no choice but to make it work "in the end"...

Once "everything is right"

you should all work on the competitive side of hawken:

1 In-game clan feature
(clan vs clan games, custom tool kit for patterns and emblems that we can create from a bank of patterns and colors)

2 In-game voip, for "competitive" fun and "fun" in pubs.




(Oh and balance the drones so that they can be used in multiplayer since they're already "programmed" and fonctional but are locked to a game mode... make it an ability or something for a support mech... just make it happen somehow in a way or in siege as a defense mechanism when AA is hold whatever....)

 

1) Competitive PvP is on the roadmap.

2) In-game VOIP is already coming back in the relaunch.

3) Drones are technically not set up for every map - they require navigation paths to be set up on all the maps we'd want them to be in. It'd be rather cool, but are technically a lot of work.

 

 

 

I want a:
1. revamped siege
2. Grappling hook mech
3.hopefully a chivalry-esque romp gametype that ends in the greatness that is "kill the king", complete with the match's mvp being king mech or he gets to spawn as a boss mech to toss the jazz outta belair

 

1) Siege just needs a refresh to make things more obvious as to what is going on around you. Unfortunately none of that work can start until the UI revamp is complete.

2) Yeah, because we need more ways to get out of the map!

3) I feel like this gamemode is lackluster and generally rewards being selected by RNG as the king. Probably not something we'd do.

Edited by CZeroFive, 17 March 2017 - 09:03 PM.

[crockrocket]

Just because I like shattering dreams:

 

 

1) Competitive PvP is on the roadmap.

2) In-game VOIP is already coming back in the relaunch.

 

 

3) I feel like this gamemode is lackluster and generally rewards being selected by RNG as the king. Probably not something we'd do.

 

Well, regarding 1 & 2 

 

 

As to number 3 on siege I have to disagree. Unless by rng you mean matchmaking (yeah I'll take a drink for that). The fact is siege is kind of unbalanced. If a team is a good bit better at dm they will probably win by a long shot because there is only one point to fight on. There's a reason MA is the competitive game mode over both siege and tdm.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love siege even in its current state; it was the first game mode I fell in love with. But it does need a rework.

[DieselCat]

^^^I agree..........Love Archer, hope they come back with a season 8 

[ReversusRex]

His RNG complaint was about the "kill the king" game-mode not siege.

Edited by ReversusRex, 18 March 2017 - 06:18 AM.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

NM, sent in PM.

Edited by Call_Me_Ishmael, 18 March 2017 - 01:59 PM.

[Arkhaun]

good to know siege isnt as backburner as i feared, but i still feel grappling hook or a scorpion harpoon (at least) would could keep things lively in a fun and interesting way. 

 

as for the King kill at the end, maybe just have it not be rng but instead chooses either the mvp or lvp of the team depending on how crazy good that playtests...

but its definitely not a priorty as much PLEASE JEEBUS MOAR MAPS

[Nilithium]

So, on the eve of the first month for the announcement of the hailed Soon™ update, is there any news for us?

[Draco3]

CZeroFive any further news yet on when the relaunch date is?  We are into 2nd quarter in less than a week.  

 

Numbers are dwindling and for the areas I play (due to ping differences), its harder to get matches and I sometimes don't bother as there is no-one to play.  Patiently waiting for the relaunch which should drive more players.

Edited by Draco3, 24 March 2017 - 06:29 PM.

[hestoned]

didnt feel like starting a new thread on this but i want to talk about the leader board now that its out. its a complete joke. every player ive asked about it agrees. everyone on console recognizes that its meaningless since its just who ever plays more stays at the top. total number of kills is not a good metric to rank people and its the most boring. why do you guys hate the idea of a mmr leader board? besides mmr you could have gone with k/d ratio, assists, average score over time, accuracy and mech specific stats. which player has the best score with predator or sharpshooter? that would be pretty interesting to know and would give people more incentive to perform well in game. i can honestly say that had you put more effort into the leader board i would be playing every night. instead ive played maybe 3 hours these last 2 weeks. admittedly thats mostly because ive been nolifeing the new zelda game.  

[WmMoneyFrmMissouri]

The rankings of the leaderboard should be factored using the following metrics:

Holotaunts dropped
Dances performed
Near death experiences survived
Number of times called a hacker ... when not
EOC pucks thrown
Hours in a G2R

You can't deny whoever is at the top of the heap in those categories is a baaaaaad dude.

[DieselCat]

The rankings of the leaderboard should be factored using the following metrics:

Holotaunts dropped
Dances performed
Near death experiences survived
Number of times called a hacker ... when not
EOC pucks thrown
Hours in a G2R

 

+ HRS in a Vanguard Initiative Cupcake  

You can't deny whoever is at the top of the heap in those categories is a baaaaaad dude.

 

FIFY ..... 

[WmMoneyFrmMissouri]

You elitist dogg....

[Onstrava]

The rankings of the leaderboard should be factored using the following metrics:
Holotaunts dropped
Dances performed
Near death experiences survived
Number of times called a hacker ... when not
EOC pucks thrown
Hours in a G2R
You can't deny whoever is at the top of the heap in those categories is a baaaaaad dude.

Yeah lets have a mech specific leader board so we can end the discussion of who's best with what currently. I want to know who's the best G2R in the US so I can put them last place...where they belong. There really should be a catagory.

[Amidatelion]

Holotaunts dropped: Incitatus, I believe, by virtue that Poop has smurfs
Dances performed: Some bored-ass clan member
Near death experiences survived: No clue but I submit my name to the pool
Number of times called a hacker ... when not: Probably Luna for sheer number of smurfs and regularity of interaction with noobs
EOC pucks thrown: TJ
Hours in a G2R: Jelooboi how is this even a category

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

You'd think I would handle it better by now.

[WmMoneyFrmMissouri]

Hours in a G2R: Jelooboi how is this even a category

It shows deep perseverance and a commitment to see your enemies driven before you. Both of which are hallmarks of a great pilot.