Welcome to the forums and to Hawken Ruar!
Let me see what I can say in responses to you here...
I've played about 4 total hours now and wanted to provide some feedback.
Feedback from new players is always great. First impressions mean a lot. My only counter-point is that I guarantee a lot of your impressions of Hawken will change with more hours. Some of that stuff that seems awkward, frustrating or confusing up front... becomes a huge part of what is right with the game and what you like about it in the long-run. I promise.
I play PC and loaded from Steam. I was pushed straight into a match with no idea about what was going on. I'd much prefer some kind of training ground so I can get used to the movements and weapons some. At the least knowing it was just a match against computer bots would have helped. Eventually I figured out what was going on, but that's not how I like to start a new FPS game.
I don't know what went wrong there. I haven't started a new account in... well, ever, so it's been years since I played the tutorial. But, there's supposed to be a tutorial/VR training that you have to go through before you can even get to the garage. Don't know how you got around it - glitch maybe?
But, I most certainly think that Hawken could use even more detailed and mandatory training for new accounts... especially where the objective based game modes are concerned. But, you'll catch on and keep learning best-practices and strategies.
For some reason everytime I start the game it wants me to insert a smart card. I have to click off the popup box three times before it stops asking me. The bottom right corner of the main screen a lot of time says I'm not connected even though I can play matches.
That's baffling. I'd take some screenshots and get in touch with 505 Games support. I've never heard of that one.
Getting in the game it's actually quite fun. I enjoy the mobility of the mechs and jumping feels smooth. The explosive weapons aren't very fun to use though.
That's exactly the things you're going to learn to love about Hawken... except you'll get the hang of the explosive and burst weapons over time and will come to appreciate them even more than the sustain you are having fun with now. The burst and explosive stuff just takes a lot of practice and time to learn to use right (and you'll understand why that's important after you've been wrecked by players who have it down-pat).
I was able to try out the Recruit, Vanguard, and Assault mechs with the Assault being my favorite. I like the assault rifle and vulcan cannon mix. I wish I could just have two assault rifles and I'm not really sure why one weapon is customizable and the other isn't.
The reason that only one weapon is customizable and that you can't pick any weapon in the game is two-fold. First: if you could swap both weapons, there would be "meta-builds" that are Over-Powered and mess up the balance of one mech over the other. Second: the weapons that cannot be changed are geared towards what makes a specific mech so unique. If we could swap around everything, which mech you choose would become pointless and they would all feel too similar. It's been tested and refined for years... the reasoning is sound.
Heat, abilities, and deployables all felt ok. I'd like a training area where I can try different loadouts with worrying about getting shot or using up charges.
The abilities and deployables are subtle by design. You can spend time going against the bots in "Bots TDM" and "Coop Bots" modes to get a hang for timing and ideas for usage... but you're going to learn a lot more about them from PvP matches where you watch how better players use them... and, more important, how they avoid your attempts to use them. Those subtleties become really profound at a higher level of play.
All in all the game play felt good and enjoyable.
For all it's problems, Hawken will become one of your obsessions. It's really deep, game-play wise, and there is no skill ceiling - you will always, always keep getting better and better and better.
Now, on to the big problems.
Making credits is horrible. Either I'm not in the right game modes or there is just a tiny amount of credits handed out. I was using the play any option so maybe that's the problem. I hope there are game modes that do reward some credits because there's not much point in playing the game when you get 100 credits per match and the mechs and weapons cost 4k+. That's a LOT of matches. Like more matches than I'll ever play because it's just not worth the grind.
The grind has become pretty "grindy" since the new build of Hawken came out - the build was meant to bring PC Hawken into parity with the console versions. The new(ish) developers really need some returns on their investment for this game, so I expect that they've tried to do a lot to incentivize cash purchases. I'm not much of a micro-transaction guy myself, so I've spent very little compared to most Hawken players. But, the benefit of the long grind that I've found is that it really does take a very long time to learn to properly play each mech to it's potential - about the time you've finally played one mech long enough to earn enough to buy a new mech and fully equip it... is about the exact amount of time needed to call yourself "proficient". So, think of it that way ,"You are learning while you're earning."
Tried two PVP matches and it's not much fun. Everything is so much faster than fighting bots. TTK really needs to be slowed down so you don't just get surprised and die.
On the TTK and how fast it plays... eh, sort of agree with you. The game used to have a slightly longer TTK and play a little bit slower, but I'd say that the faster TTK and faster movement (though honestly slight) provided as many improvements as it did detractions. I liked it a bit longer and slower myself - but the majority of people who were calling for those changes and who now approve of them have strong points about how it made things better. It's a tough call...
There is a solid core of a game here, but it needs some work.
Yes. This is a solid core game that needs work still. And, the new(ish) developers ARE working on it. While it feels like Hawken is in it's sunset... I am still hopeful for big updates and a swing in popularity.
Sign In
Create Account
Back to top
