70 replies to this topic

[1uster]

Smurfs sticking with scouts are IMHO fine. It's a nice training - even when I fail hard. Feels way better then Meraple beating everything with an assault. Yes it's boring as hell Meraple.

 

One fact not mentioned: All the smurfs now destroy a community feeling because most of them are incognito. But yeah - that can't be solved with that low population.

[EM1O]

 

But by identyfying them and responding fast with IP bans their amount would be greatly reduced. Not everyone's IP is dynamically assigned, so side-stepping that would be hard for them. I doubt they'd buy VPN service just to smurf. IP bans don't need to be permanent, of course - we don't want these people smurfing, but removing them entirely would reduce already small population further...

i don't think many/most PC gamers have a static address,  and with easily obtained freeware that spoofs the MAC address of the PC and immediately forces the ISP to assign a new IP address, this won't work with dynamic addresses.  the dedicated "pro" gamer who invests cash into hi performance equipment and goes the static IPA route to get a fat pipe generally won't  be a pub stomping fuzzy bunny (although there are some well known glaring exceptions to this).  they just wanted to have fun.

not a good idea

[Bergwein]

Hey Ezodev,

good to see you on the forums. :)

 

Yes to everyone who has a point (which a lot of you have).

No to everyone who is misleaded.

 

As for JungleBoy1, I am inclined to think that he is not a smurf account.

I encountered him in his early days, he did not do well, but learned quickly and is now a force to be reckoned with.

[Meraple]

...Meraple beating everything with an assault. Yes it's boring as hell Meraple.

You talk as if I still play a lot of Assault.

The past few months I've primarily been playing Sharpy, with a bit of Brawler and Gren, and rarely Salt/Scout/G2A.

 

Anyway, I can't say I really care which mechs the average pubby enjoys playing against.

I'll play any mech I feel like regardless of your feelings on the matter.

[CraftyDus]

Im in it for the amusing names.

All my accounts were leveled to max years ago.
All were stabilized mmr years ago.
All have substantial cosmetic purchases.
None of them are secret.
All are, or have been well and truly known as me, myself.
A fair few have aided me in capturing excellent footage of indisputable cheaters in pubs.

Any idiot can make a new account and run around drunk on underdog bonus, which is exactly what some of these people who think they are cute smurfaholics are doing.

It'd only take a few minutes to create 30ish smurf accounts in hawken and pretend hur dur, Im such a smurfer.



I have half a dozen steam accounts older than hawken itself. I have half a dozen alpha minecraft accounts (one even named "smurfyouUp", pretty meta for 2010 tyvm).
I had 3 WON ID's and 2 irl surnames.

I was born into smurfdomhood, molded by it.

You don't compare.

I rarely play my smurfs anymore. These phillistines have cheapened the enterprise.


I am anti public matchmaking. I am anti level progression.
I am anti item and internal progression.
It slows the development of players.
In hawken in particular it mutates cognitive bias regarding personal aptitude for one's skill level into little alternate realities.
Much less so with a small population dwindling in it's twilight.

But with several hundreds only playing others in their immediate mmr neighborhood in pubs, a community develops a significant delusional minority over time.
See Steel Killers. Active in the pinnacle of such a period in hawken history.


I am anti f2p.
It gets in the way and interferes with the full realization of an otherwise good game.
Public matchmaking and progression are necessary to the function of the f2p economy.
SAD!

Make Hawken Great Again.

Sell it for $ 20.00 and let us host community servers.

[6ixxer]

Bonus in what? XP or ingame-currency would be useless. After something like 30-50h of playtime you have everything you need, probably on a few mechs. And most of the mechs. After that, you don't even look at the money/xp anymore. Paid currency bonus? Even small, it would probably be a disaster for the game's profitability. It's a miracle that game is somehow profitable enough with so small playerbase. I doubt newbies buy any skins. Maybe few exceptions. How many active vets are there overall? I guess something like 50 people in the EU. Rotation is small. How many of them buy skins?

HC. I don't think RLD should give away MC.
The suggestions are geared towards newer pilots who don't have so much excess HC.

I also don't have any illusions that Hawken is profitable right now.
I really want RLD to do the relaunch and ongoing development properly with sustainability in mind.
First it needs to retain new players, much more than it needs to cater to top tier.
That may annoy the High Tier Cabal for some time, but i think they need to consider the whole community, rather than the top 5%

[6ixxer]

Sell it for $ 20.00 and let us host community servers.

I can see the arguments both ways. But I don't rage about the F2P grind and P2W fuzz.
I'm can't claim to know how to run a profitable game company, but game developers gotta pay the mortgage too, so the prices need to be fair on them as well as players.

Perhaps it might be viable if:
They have a trial version that only has the one mech with standard loadout (provides a way for people to try out the gameplay without risk).
Then they can sell the remainder of the mechs as a package with progression/weapons/internals unlocked for $20-30.
On top they could sell chassis/emote packs for $5-10 that get you all the chassis for one mech class.
Additionally reticule/paint/thruster packs that apply to any class mech.
This could mean the whole game costs between 40-100 for ALL the options, which is not so far from other full release games.
Minimum of 20 if you don't want any cosmetics and should shut down some P2W perception.
I'd be Ok with a cost for ability to register/host a private server too; perhaps a nominal subscription of single digit $/mo.

Its all academic though, as RLD is probably too locked in to change the way it monetizes.

[CZeroFive]

 

About 2), 3) and 4): isn't smurfing a problem which results from a SMURF having DEFLATED mmr rating?  What you describe seems like a problem when new player joins to a match where there are many good players. But smurfs, because they have mmr which is much below their 'real' skill level/mmr, cause additional problems - because game thinks they are worse than they are, it assigns them with stronger teammates than it normally would. Which results in a extremely one-sided match.

 

The problem right now is a player is gravitated to 1500 MMR regardless of the outcome of their first 10 matches. Win or lose, they go up, which generally is bad in a glicko based system.

 

Smurfs never get the opportunity to go up because everyone ends up hovering around 1500. Very few players on PC are 1300 and below, this is due to the duration of how long the game's been running without an MMR reset or change coupled with the fact that 1500 is pretty darn close to 1850, which is the 'can join any server equal or above' setting for PC right now.

 

After the craziness today with the PS4/XB1 downtime, a blog will be coming. Hopefully you'll understand more of what direction we are going towards then :)

[Ezodev]

Well, I guess we'll see if the problem will be alleviated after the update. Thanks for the reply, btw. It's nice that developers read about players concerns and respond to them.

[wischatesjesus]

The problem right now is a player is gravitated to 1500 MMR regardless of the outcome of their first 10 matches. Win or lose, they go up, which generally is bad in a glicko based system.

 

Smurfs never get the opportunity to go up because everyone ends up hovering around 1500. Very few players on PC are 1300 and below, this is due to the duration of how long the game's been running without an MMR reset or change coupled with the fact that 1500 is pretty darn close to 1850, which is the 'can join any server equal or above' setting for PC right now.

 

After the craziness today with the PS4/XB1 downtime, a blog will be coming. Hopefully you'll understand more of what direction we are going towards then :)

 

I'm still not clear on why players gravitate to 1500 for those matches. Is this something that is mathematically enforced by the MMR system or is it simply a phenomenon you have observed? Underdog bonus again?

 

I also seem to recall that the starting MMR was 1500 for a long while, and the average MMR was something like 1450 last time I looked at a histogram of MMRs.

 

Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be just to make the starting MMR 1500 (or something, depending on why players gravitate towards this number) then count on a full MMR reset to enforce that as an average.

[Silverfire]

I'm still not clear on why players gravitate to 1500 for those matches. Is this something that is mathematically enforced by the MMR system or is it simply a phenomenon you have observed? Underdog bonus again?

 

I also seem to recall that the starting MMR was 1500 for a long while, and the average MMR was something like 1450 last time I looked at a histogram of MMRs.

 

Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be just to make the starting MMR 1500 (or something, depending on why players gravitate towards this number) then count on a full MMR reset to enforce that as an average.

 

If I remember correctly, the starting MMR is 1250, which is, in my opinion, way too low. 1500 used to be the starting MMR and it should return there imo. It's a better middle ground.

[GalaxyRadio]

The problem right now is a player is gravitated to 1500 MMR regardless of the outcome of their first 10 matches. Win or lose, they go up, which generally is bad in a glicko based system.

 

Smurfs never get the opportunity to go up because everyone ends up hovering around 1500. Very few players on PC are 1300 and below, this is due to the duration of how long the game's been running without an MMR reset or change coupled with the fact that 1500 is pretty darn close to 1850, which is the 'can join any server equal or above' setting for PC right now.

 

After the craziness today with the PS4/XB1 downtime, a blog will be coming. Hopefully you'll understand more of what direction we are going towards then :)

 

I hope you put in PC relaunch some Anti/Cheat Effort into the game. What i would like to have is a software that installs automatically with hawken together, every single Gamer have to let it run in the background while you play hawken to completly shut off every attempt in cheating you might try to use, and who dosn't want that can't play hawken anymore.

 

Every user, i belive has to accept that first, before he can play hawken, because such software is, if i read that right in the past, deep integrated in the pc hardware or every user to be effective. Only such solution can stop smurf and cheatingproblem forever. 

 

Galaxy Radio

[(Xbox)CosmicCasey59]

I hope you put in PC relaunch some Anti/Cheat Effort into the game. What i would like to have is a software that installs automatically with hawken together, every single Gamer have to let it run in the background while you play hawken to completly shut off every attempt in cheating you might try to use, and who dosn't want that can't play hawken anymore.

Every user, i belive has to accept that first, before he can play hawken, because such software is, if i read that right in the past, deep integrated in the pc hardware or every user to be effective. Only such solution can stop smurf and cheatingproblem forever.


This is not what is needed , more big brother, I don't think so. There will always be cheaters for what ever reason no matter what you put in place people will try to get around it. Why punish the fair and honest player. These people do need to be taken care of I'm just not sure how

[(Xbox)CosmicCasey59]

Sorry I quoted galaxy radio my reply is at bottom

[Ezodev]

I don't see how anti-cheat software is punishing non-cheating players. Only time sth like that annoyed me was when I had Cheat Engine installed, for messing with single-player games, and then some game refused to launch until I UNINSTALL it from the system. It didn't even have to run.

 

That said, I don't believe in the effectiveness of such systems. The same way every game is, in principle at least, crackable, any system can be modified to remove such systems. If it executes on machine owned by you, it's impossible to stop you from doing anything with it. Only way to stop cheaters is to not trust any data coming from the clients.

 

Hawken already does that - that's why it's impossible to cheat by increasing your damage, or adding yourself points - despite what some idiot hackusers may say.

 

Only issue is aimbotting - but that's not easily solvable. Theoretically, server could look for implausible accuarcy, or frequent-enough snapping. But that would probably produce some false positives.

 

 

 

Hey Ezodev,

good to see you on the forums. 

 

 

Hi Bergwein! :D

Edited by Ezodev, 16 May 2017 - 08:02 AM.

[MoH_Megatron]

Most smurfs are trash. They just eliminate new, potential players who can increase the population and probably are a waste of space in the files. As someone said here, there's no reason to smurf anymore. Just delete smurfs accounts that are below rank 25 and have some kdr that doesn't correspond to how a true newcomer gameplay should be. That'll be better for both the community and the developers.

Edited by MoH_Megatron, 16 May 2017 - 01:25 PM.

[6ixxer]

Just delete smurfs accounts that are below rank 25 and have some kdr that doesn't correspond to how a true newcomer gameplay should be. That'll be better for both the community and the developers.

No.
Many of us have ALT accounts that we have payed real cash into pimping. You can't just go deleting accounts.
I've had that done to me by another game, and now I will never play that game again.

[TheButtSatisfier]

"I started playing this game Hawken, and I wrecking shitters for a few hours but then my account got deleted for reason: 'your KDR is too good'."

 

"Rofl are you serious?"

 

"Lol yea, I mean, who does that?"

 

 Just delete smurfs accounts that are below rank 25 and have some kdr that doesn't correspond to how a true newcomer gameplay should be.

Edited by TheButtSatisfier, 16 May 2017 - 06:34 PM.

[wischatesjesus]

If you link accounts to a steam login and use the steam display name (which can, of course, be changed), then you get to cross "novelty names" off the list of reasons why people smurf.

 

With that said, it would also eliminate the need for CraftyDus to create and invest in new smurfs, which is a primary source of revenue for reloaded.

[CraftyDus]

He's right you know

[Nov8tr]

[M4st0d0n]

Every other game out there sends strong signals to cheaters and smurfs, by banning them, implementing anticheats. Even if rare, the consensus is to punish and blame this attitude. Thank god, Hawken's consanguine population is exempt of this nonsense. Smurfing obviously does not exist, but if it does, it's for your own good.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

Every other game out there sends strong signals to cheaters and smurfs, by banning them, implementing anticheats. Even if rare, the consensus is to punish and blame this attitude. Thank god, Hawken's consanguine population is exempt of this nonsense. Smurfing obviously does not exist, but if it does, it's for your own good.

 

Cheats in Hawken existed mostly because a rushed Adhesive dev team published with debug symbols left in the image.  It's been a while since someone was in a position to release a new image without debug symbols or to address other mechanisms for frustrating cheaters.

 

I think you know this.  Your indictment is inactionable; nonetheless, it will soon be moot.  Stop beating the horse and direct your anger to something useful.

[Mawnkey]

Old player (2013ish) popping back in because I'm bored:

 

The MMR system will only work with a large population, and even then you still need the ability to step down a level or players will quit. For instance, when I stepped in to the 2000+ MMR bracket the skill jump was so huge I stopped enjoying the game. I lost every single match by a large margin and quit playing because losing 100% of the time is just as boring (and far more frustrating) than winning 100% of the time. The MMR system needs to just die in a fire until the unlikely event that the game's population increases, and even then you still need to allow stepping down a bracket every once in a while so players don't feel like "Screw this, losing all the time sucks I'm horrible at this game I should go play something else"

 

But as is Hawken tradition, advice like mine will be ignored by the devs. Honestly MMR should be ditched altogether. It's a dumb system, and nobody enjoys it.

[Silverfire]

Old player (2013ish) popping back in because I'm bored:

The MMR system will only work with a large population, and even then you still need the ability to step down a level or players will quit. For instance, when I stepped in to the 2000+ MMR bracket the skill jump was so huge I stopped enjoying the game. I lost every single match by a large margin and quit playing because losing 100% of the time is just as boring (and far more frustrating) than winning 100% of the time. The MMR system needs to just die in a fire until the unlikely event that the game's population increases, and even then you still need to allow stepping down a bracket every once in a while so players don't feel like "Screw this, losing all the time sucks I'm horrible at this game I should go play something else"

But as is Hawken tradition, advice like mine will be ignored by the devs. Honestly MMR should be ditched altogether. It's a dumb system, and nobody enjoys it.

I enjoy it. What would be in place of the MMR system if it disappeared?

[Hirmuolio]

I enjoy it. What would be in place of the MMR system if it disappeared?

 

Unless the game gets enough players there is no thing to put there.

 

Last week I looked at the game after long break and there were 1-4 TDM matches and sometimes 1 siege/missile assault. One evening there was no games running at all when I looked. Maybe I checked at bad timezone but still any kind of matchmaking can't do anything with this low player count.

[StubbornPuppet]

If ReLoaded would put in a longer, more robust and helpful tutorial (that CANNOT be skipped) that all new accounts must play all the way through successfully before being able to move into the "online match" menu, it would deter a decent percentage of smurf accounts.

 

If they would also make a separate, task and goal based, tutorial for each of the online game modes (or at least Siege and Missile Assault), which a player must complete all the way and win the tutorial match, this would be a huge benefit to everyone.  A: New player might actually be able to figure out what they're supposed to be doing in the objective based games (instead of it taking 20 matches of experienced players yelling at them).  B: Experienced players would be less frustrated and angry every time a new player joins and can't figure out the objectives.  C: Smurf accounts would have yet one more hurdle that makes them give further consideration to whether creating another account is worth the trouble.

 

I also hope they've linked the login process for PC to Steam and Steam User accounts.  This is just one more step that helps the game in multiple ways:  A. more exposure as friends see friends playing and decide to try it out and B: yet another obstacle for folks intending to create smurf accounts.

Edited by StubbornPuppet, 20 May 2017 - 12:18 PM.

[Silverfire]

If ReLoaded would put in a longer, more robust and helpful tutorial (that CANNOT be skipped) that all new accounts must play all the way through successfully before being able to move into the "online match" menu, it would deter a decent percentage of smurf accounts.

If they would also make a separate, task and goal based, tutorial for each of the online game modes (or at least Siege and Missile Assault), which a player must complete all the way and win the tutorial match, this would be a huge benefit to everyone. A: New player might actually be able to figure out what they're supposed to be doing in the objective based games (instead of it taking 20 matches of experienced players yelling at them). B: Experienced players would be less frustrated and angry every time a new player joins and can't figure out the objectives. C: Smurf accounts would have yet one more hurdle that makes them give further consideration to whether creating another account is worth the trouble.

I also hope they've linked the login process for PC to Steam and Steam User accounts. This is just one more step that helps the game in multiple ways: A. more exposure as friends see friends playing and decide to try it out and B: yet another obstacle for folks intending to create smurf accounts.

Steam account linking will already be a thing. I'm pretty sure that was visible during the test stream, and has been mentioned before. Pay attention much?

And like I've said, the new player experience is better. The tutorial likely isn't changing but there are other ways to improve the new player experience than just tweaking the VR tutorial.

Also none of your suggestions are obstacles to me in regards to making another Hawken account. I'd be willing to wade through all of that because it's honestly not that much at all. I'd make a few steam accounts to prep anyway. I don't want to lose a few accounts.

Edited by Silverfire, 21 May 2017 - 06:25 PM.

[CraftyDus]

I have spent some on every account in hawken, its a lotta work but I'll just make sure each is covered by a corresponding steam account.
Noticed one got its level zero'd , I assume from migration. I don't want to bother support with it, but I also don't want to underdog and ruin matchmaking getting it back to 30.
What would you do.
Make a support ticket or play it back up.

[StubbornPuppet]

Steam account linking will already be a thing. I'm pretty sure that was visible during the test stream, and has been mentioned before. Pay attention much?

 

I don't ever watch streams or read Facebook.  Sorry, I just don't put that much weight on gaming to give it that kind of time.  I come here, read what I can and say what I think based on what I've read.  I know that sometimes makes me "an uninformed opinion"... and I'm okay with that and with being corrected.

 

I hope that whatever it is that has been done improves both the new player experience and the smurfing - I look forward to it.

[talon70]

They should leave the current iteration of the game on steam as is with only very minimal servers. Then launch the howken version as 'HWK1.9' or 'Hawken Reloaded'  and charge $20. That alone will cause some buzz about  the game. Do some marketing and it might make a couple $. The best thing for hwk is to get away from the f2p format.