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Starhawk (Closed) Beta Testing thread of impressions and questions.

monocromo said:
No, Im not corporate friendly nor do I work for Lightbox. And I do not proudly call myself a "consumer".

But maybe you can say that Im dev friendly and I understand the situations that they have to deal with.
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There is no situation to deal with. Monitoring relevant internet forums is part of the daily work in every fucking PR department. There is nothing special about it nor is it "childish" or "spoiled" to expect that Lightbox behave like professionals. They don't seem to have a problem with it either so where is yours? Godamn, sometimes...

I dont agree that you arent trash talking (calling some aspects of the game literally shit) but yes, I agree we are a little OT. If you think its necessary we can go on via PM.

And Im not going to be OT until I get a code :(
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Wait - you didn't even play the game but you blame me for trashtalking? The fuck? I'm really not trashtalking at all FROM MY VIEW obviously. What I played so far seems to be like a D grade game. And I KNOW it's a beta but obviously Lightbox is confident enough to show it in this state to tenthousands of people, so I will actually judge it like that. Starhawk in it's current form is pretty much unplayable to me just because of the framerate alone, all other flaws not considered. Yeah, the framerate is THAT bad. Maybe you'll see it for yourself one day. -.-
 
alr1ghtstart said:
You can get a feel for the major changes (maps, build and battle) with the beta and you can decide if you like it or not. Weapon spotting and damage and other little small things should all be correctly tweaked come final.

Playing the Killzone 3 beta, I knew the final would be shit, and it was.
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So is this going to be another Killzone 3 kinda f*k up where they listened to the wrong feedback and screwed up the game for the ones who put 100s of hours in KZ2 and in the end no group was really satisfied? From all the negative feedback looks like they have diverted too much from what Warhawk made so good. I still have hope that is not the case because I have more faith in Lightbox then GG.

*looking for extra code*
 
Well that was quick:

PLYMCO_PILGRIM wrote:


LBI_Dylan wrote:
We have been working on a new Knife behavior and will deploy it to all of you to test at some point during the BETA. The team and I are not happy with the replacement behavior yet, but once we are, we will schedule it for deployment.

Stay tuned!
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sounds good....shorten the "pause" pretty please...i'd rather not deal with knife spam but the pause is .5 seconds too long!

What tends to bug me is the fact that if you're sneaking up on someone, the "Press R3 to melee" message comes up and Poof! no more surprise attack!
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Hopefully they get rid of both the range and 1-hit kill on some machines.
 
Jack Scofield said:
Dammit, I still haven't gotten a code. I don't feel entitled to one, but reading how people who played Warhawk for one hour are receiving codes and yet I haven't perturbs me greatly. At least a lot of OG Warhawk clan members have gotten theirs, so I can feel good about that.

Is this the way to treat the best Warhawk player on GAF? :p
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I obviously shouldve came in here to give the code away to someone who really got into the first one. I'm really not sure why I was emailed a code. Besides I still can't connect to a game anyways.
 
Ok guys gonna quickly play Warhawk and do some back-and-forth comparisons on possible tweaks... One thing that was mentioned, the motion blur and the sketchy nature of fighting in a Hawk needs to be tuned.

Oh BTW
LBI_Ron @ Dec 6 said:
We have a lot of flight changes coming in with a larger Beta Patch that will make Warhawk pilots very happy. Some changes can't be made with the smaller updates we do during maintenance so we have to push it out with a larger patch.


We are listening, some things just take time.
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Read the Starhawk forums, people. These guys have posted and responded to 70% of the threads I've read in there. If you want to be heard, give your feedback!
 
- Autoturret damage needs to be reduced.
- Beamturret damage needs to be reduced.
- 4-wheeler and Mech need armor boost vs assault rifle.
- The time to recapture flags needs to be greatly reduced.
- The mini-map needs to better show building types.
- There needs to be a lot more weapon pickups and ammo cache around the map.
- The missile lock on needs to be shortened when targeting Starhawks.
- The knife needs to change to 2-hit kill.
- The AR needs boost vs on foot troops.
- The time to switch weapons needs to be shortened.
 
weekend_warrior said:
- Autoturret damage needs to be reduced.
- Beamturret damage needs to be reduced.
- 4-wheeler and Mech need armor boost vs assault rifle.
- The time to recapture flags needs to be greatly reduced.
- The mini-map needs to better show building types.
- There needs to be a lot more weapon pickups and ammo cache around the map.
- The missile lock on needs to be shortened when targeting Starhawks.
- The knife needs to change to 2-hit kill.
- The AR needs boost vs on foot troops.
- The time to switch weapons needs to be shortened.
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dude, post in the beta forums, they are very active there
 
So CTF is get ahead by one and then set up 7000 indestructible auto turrets at the base and camp the rest of the match.
 
Ok that's it for me. Three hosts of servers for over 2 hours each... Yikes.


carlos said:
wait what? what did I do, I haven't been playing since this afternoon!
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Wait who is white_Shadow00 then? Thought he was you!
I mean what is the benefit to leveling up?
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.. good point. It's reminiscent of UC series in multiplayer, but Warhawk never used that model. Honestly don't know if it's for Trophies or what.
 
weekend_warrior said:
Me.
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jr1.jpg

awwwww son of a bitch!
 
Does this game have contextual musical queues like in Warhawk? I adored that aspect of the game. It's such a small feature but it provides an amazing sense of feedback.

As a matter of fact, the soundtrack to Warhawk is the only video game soundtrack I've ever purchased, and I have absolutely no shame in admitting that. The music in Warhawk is absolutely fantastic and puts most movies to shame.
 
The Frankman said:
BTW a fantastic thread opened up over on the site:

An Open Letter to Lightbox Interactive on Behalf of the Warhawk Community
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Don't quite agree with all his points, but a good message overall...I don't see how they are going to manage to change/fix all that needs to be done.

And flying is broken, the missles don't follow targets, the machine gun doesn't hit even when well aimed...I don't know if the problem exists because they are not dedicated servers anymore or what... I'm shooting homing missles right next to people a la warhawk and they are not going anywhere near the other person. Still don't have an A2A kill.

And apparently jumping lets you avoid knife attacks? a couple people did that to me today, again, don't know if it was lag related or what.

Had a few great games focusing on the ground, but I don't think I'll be buying this unless flying gets better...I understand how people can be ground specialists, but that would be like only having half a game available
 
carlos said:
Don't quite agree with all his points, but a good message overall...I don't see how they are going to manage to change/fix all that needs to be done.

And flying is broken, the missles don't follow targets, the machine gun doesn't hit even when well aimed...I don't know if the problem exists because they are not dedicated servers anymore or what... I'm shooting homing missles right next to people a la warhawk and they are not going anywhere near the other person. Still don't have an A2A kill.
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Breaking a lock is too easy. Besides Chaff, people are switching to Mech Mode in midair to break locks, then going right back to Hawk mode. Missiles don't hone on Mechs if they were fired on Hawks initially.
And apparently jumping lets you avoid knife attacks? a couple people did that to me today, again, don't know if it was lag related or what.
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The knife (though broken) can only be swung standing still. Lightbox is fixing the Knife in the next update.
Had a few great games focusing on the ground, but I don't think I'll be buying this unless flying gets better...I understand how people can be ground specialists, but that would be like only having half a game available
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They said the next big update they have (1.1.10?) will make pilots "very happy".
 
Dec 7, 2011 9:54 PM

An Open Letter to Lightbox Interactive on Behalf of the Warhawk Community

The signers of this letter would like to formally and respectfully voice our concerns about Starhawk by bringing the most critical issues to your attention.


In the past several years, the video game industry has become extremely stagnant, especially in the shooter genre. But one game stood out from the rest: Warhawk. Warhawk dared to be different; dared to color outside the lines. Warhawk showed the world that you don’t have to conform to be great. Warhawk built a large, tight-knit community that is still active over four years later. These dedicated fans trusted you, Lightbox Interactive, to deliver a sequel that maintained the addictive and entertaining qualities that Warhawk first brought to the market while introducing new gameplay elements and features that build onto these qualities. However, fans have been woefully disappointed by your readiness to implement the very features and gameplay mechanics that Warhawk had stood up against. Starhawk, in its current form, is a direct contributor to the static nature of modern games and has been taken as a revilement to the Warhawk Community.

As you read this letter, please keep our intentions in mind. We are not here to insult what you’ve spent years creating; we are here to help you make Starhawk the best it can be. Without further ado, we would like to present an inexhaustive list of necessary changes on behalf of the Warhawk Community, in no specific order:


1. Add aim-assist: One of the major gameplay mechanics that made Warhawk unique was the fast-paced combat. By using the auto-aim, players could focus more on the strategy of combat, and less on aiming. While this did make ground combat easier, it did not make it easy by any stretch of the imagination. The reason this feature is so often blasted is because other games focus solely on the skill of aiming well. However, the gameplay of Warhawk was so much deeper than aiming a gun. To be a successful shooter in Warhawk, there was a very complex strategy which took hundreds of hours to master. You were running, jumping, dodging, throwing grenades, and switching weapons. By removing the auto-aim in Starhawk, you have forced players to focus on aim, and have effectively eliminated the strategy of ground combat. When you see an enemy, you simply scope in and shoot. The winner of every battle is the one who can aim better. Combat is dreadfully slow and doesn’t allow any sort of “running-and-gunning” because players are restricted to crawling duels.


2. Improve the grenade: Warhawk’s combat was so quick in part due to the grenade. They were plentiful, powerful and fast, but they still required quite a bit of skill to be used correctly and effectively. The biggest flaw in Starhawk’s implementation of the grenade is the delay between pressing L2 and throwing the grenade. This slows down combat and makes the grenade only a minor threat. Another problem is the detonation conditions. Grenades don’t explode on contact, which makes even the most accurate of throws powerless against an enemy.


3. Add visible health bar, remove health regeneration: As we’ve already illustrated, Warhawk’s ground combat was multi-dimensional. Every decision you made was based around things like your location, objective locations, bases, weapons, health, etc. Any seasoned Warhawk players knew the importance of knowing what your health level was and could make critical decisions based on that information. By making health so unimportant that it doesn’t even have its own indicator and by allowing players to regain health by doing nothing, you’ve make ground combat even less exciting and fun.


4. Reduce importance of kills, increase importance of objectives: If we’ve learned anything from modern shooter games, it should be that making kills and individual statistics important decreases team-based play and teamwork exponentially. In Warhawk, the most rewarding in-game accomplishment was capturing a flag, worth 25 points, while kills are worth only one point. This system encourages players to complete tasks that benefit the entire team instead of playing for themselves. In terms of XP, Starhawk offers little reward for capturing a flag, little reward for building helpful structures, and therefore encourages players to play for themselves and their kill-death ratio. This leads to practices such as camping, and further simplifies ground combat by encouraging players to do whatever it takes to stay alive – even if it hurts the entire team.


5. Fix flight: Perhaps the most atrocious changes in the eyes of Warhawk fans are those to Starhawk’s flight. Like every element in Warhawk, flight was an art: there was not a single person who truly mastered it. No matter how long you had played, there was always more strategy to learn; more skills to improve. However, the Hawks in Starhawk throw away the fluidness and intuitiveness of the Warhawk. Hawks are clumsy and their implementation feels forced. They’ve been weighted down with unnecessary changes and unnatural motion. They are no longer the dynamic force they were. Of course, this is not to say Warhawks were perfect. Warhawks were overpowered and riddled with bugs. But there were just that: balancing problems and bugs. The fundamental mechanics of the Warhawk were fantastic and intensely fun. They simply needed some new paint, not a total makeover.


6. Don’t add perks: “Perks” are yet another way you have sculpted Starhawk to be like every other shooter on the market. As players spend more time in the game, they acquire skill and strategy that make them better players. Allowing them to use different equipment or have different skills than everyone else is unfair and only serves to make the talented players more “talented”.


In addition, we do not condone the approach you have taken to conducting Starhawk’s private beta. You have shown no respect to the loyal supporters and veterans of Warhawk who know better than anyone how to make Starhawk successful. After all, we were and are your customers. We were and are the ones who pay your salary. Josh Stuphin himself said, “The Warhawk multiplayer community did a lot of things for us.” Don’t we deserve (and wouldn’t it be in your best interest) to be heard and respected above anyone else? And yet, you have disregarded us and have instead recruited your beta testers through social media. The majority of your beta testers are the ones who have driven the stagnation of this industry and continue to promote the same gameplay that has kept games from evolving. You have treated this critically important private beta as a demo and as a public relations stunt. The true criticisms of Starhawk that deserve and require your attention have been muffled by the roar of those unfamiliar with the Warhawk franchise. Do not let them ruin this game.


Beyond these glaring problems there is a gem of a game. If these issues can be worked out, then Starhawk will become a true sequel to Warhawk. The addictiveness and the fun are there; it’s just hidden under a desire to please everyone and to conform to the standard shooter game.


We would like to request a public, official, and direct response from you, Lightbox Interactive, as to what you will be modifying to address our concerns.


Thank you for your time and consideration.

Signed,
Sonic42 & ButteredScones
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I don't really agree with alot of what he said (and the posters in the thread feel the same way), but he makes a point to list a bunch of reasons he feels Starhawk can be fixed. I'll answer then myself anyway though.

1. Auto-Aim is the Devil. In Warhawk once two people started shooting with M16's it became a dance/jump festival to see to would survive. It gives lazy players the freedom to be lazy in ground combat. No Auto-Aim makes Starhawk's ground combat feel more realistic in line with today's shooters and less arcadey. If they want to make it a toggle option whatever, but I sure as Hell won't miss it.

2. This one is tough because they're making the game more realistic: whipping out a grenade should take a second, and unless you cook a grenade perfectly it's not exploding on contact. This goes back to the whole "Realism vs. Arcade" feel people talked about. it's actually nice since it does prevent grenade spam, but why not split the difference: speed up the time it takes to use a grenade and slightly speed up the detonation time.

3. I fully agree, I HATE regenerating health because it breaks combat. They did the same with Bioshock Infinite and it drove me nuts. They need to completely shelve that and go back to health pickups... but the problem is in a Build-And-Battle situation how do you implement that? You can't have a structure hand out health packs... and random pickups would encourage territory camping even more.

4. That can't really be determined in a beta. Hell stats don't even collect correctly now and I can't see Lightbox changing that aspect.

5. Flight is the biggest gripe in the game. Missiles don't seems to hit all the time, breaking Air-to-Air locks is easier/broken/etc. It's not Warhawk, that's for sure. But keep in mind Warhawk's flight was broken as hell too, just in a way that people didn't mind. But as it's been said in a bigger update (next week) a fix for the pilots is coming.

6. Dunno how to even answer this because I don't know how Starhawk is like "every other shooter" now.

The rest the guy kinda comes off as a dick, but he later apologizes for sounding harsh.
 
Add the auto aim back and remove regen. health and I would love this game more.

Havnt really played it that much to comment on the other parts of the quote.
 
The Frankman said:
I don't really agree with alot of what he said (and the posters in the thread feel the same way), but he makes a point to list a bunch of reasons he feels Starhawk can be fixed. I'll answer then myself anyway though.

1. Auto-Aim is the Devil. In Warhawk once two people started shooting with M16's it became a dance/jump festival to see to would survive. It gives lazy players the freedom to be lazy in ground combat. No Auto-Aim makes Starhawk's ground combat feel more realistic in line with today's shooters and less arcadey. If they want to make it a toggle option whatever, but I sure as Hell won't miss it.
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Boo!!! That was very fun actually. Always felt like time stops except for the 2 guys shooting each other till their duel ends! I will miss those gunfights.
 
I agree with most of those points. It really doesn't feel like Warhawk anymore. It's kinda weird how they were able to break things which were perfect in Warhawk (like the flying).

However, the most important thing wasn't mentioned: The Framerate. The game will never be fun to play if it doesn't maintain 30FPS at least 90% of the time. In it's current state every sense of competitveness is lost somewhere between controll lag, engine lag and internet lag. It's the biggest flaw imo. And if you think about how smooth and perfect Warhawk run most of the time (except some DLC maps) it's mind boggling how they came from something like that to the current state of the beta.
 
The Frankman said:
1. Auto-Aim is the Devil. In Warhawk once two people started shooting with M16's it became a dance/jump festival to see to would survive. It gives lazy players the freedom to be lazy in ground combat. No Auto-Aim makes Starhawk's ground combat feel more realistic in line with today's shooters and less arcadey. If they want to make it a toggle option whatever, but I sure as Hell won't miss it.

2. This one is tough because they're making the game more realistic: whipping out a grenade should take a second, and unless you cook a grenade perfectly it's not exploding on contact. This goes back to the whole "Realism vs. Arcade" feel people talked about. it's actually nice since it does prevent grenade spam, but why not split the difference: speed up the time it takes to use a grenade and slightly speed up the detonation time.
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well big difference with Warhawk vs other shooters was that it was arcadey and less like Battefields of its time. It was all about quick fun, reminded me a lot of Q3 in that way.

So how the fuck can I get a key?
 
I had no idea what I was doing in the couple of games that I played, but I'm willing to learn before I judge the gameplay changes. What I'm not willing to do is accept this framerate. Fix this shit, Guerrilla.
 
revolverjgw said:
I had no idea what I was doing in the couple of games that I played, but I'm willing to learn before I judge the gameplay changes. What I'm not willing to do is accept this framerate. Fix this shit, Guerrilla.
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This, only this. I needed like 30 seconds to notice that I won't have fun that way. Obviously I tested several games on both maps, but it was always the same. :(
 
Starting to see a few posts like this
Last night I might have admitted that all the hawk nerfs were a bit too much. However after playing SH for several hours tonight, I have realized that we shouldn't underestimate the ability of the players to adapt.


Bottom line is, the hawk nerfs are nearly perfect in terms of overall balance. Despite the handicaps to the hawks unleashed with 1.0.8, I have encountered many hawk players tonight who have still dominated just fine, as if the changes were never made. While the swarms volley count have been reduced, all it takes is a single hit to take out a ground troop, that plus the hawks machine gun = havoc in the right hands. Reduced volley count only means players have to learn how to aim instead of spray-and-praying with the swarms like in 1.0.7.

I am now 100% convinced the nerfs on the hawk are perfect the way they are now (and that is not withstanding the potential new weapons the hawk will eventually get). Any half-decent hawk player should still be able to do utter and total ownage if they are true hawk experts (or even half-experts), and I have personally seen this tonight so I know it is possible.

As it stands now, just like in WH, you have to be skilled in order to own with the hawk. And that is how it should be. LB should absolutely keep the adjustments they made, as it works unbelievably well in balancing the overall gameplay.
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And that's before the upcoming big patch to improve the Hawks... :P People evolve, I liked seeing vets like Pyrros in the NeoGAF server yesterday rucking fules and owning people just like in Warhawk.

BTW NeoGAF server will be up 3 PM-ish.
 
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