Support NeoGAF

[CyanideFuse]

I haven't played since February and getting back into the game is not proving to be fun. I took a rather long break because my gaming time is limited; I was playing the game too much in the time I did have; I got bored of it.

I am using UK servers and there isn't much choice (at least not when I tried) of servers or match type. Server choice is limited due to my player ranking; perhaps it was the wrong time of day to try. Although I am a level 28 from way back when, I am not playing like one due to an extreme lack of practice so it is proving to be very frustrating.

What with Bf 4 out next week I have a feeling my time away from Hawken could be near permanent.

 

[Reese-015]

Thus far Hawken has been this absolutely gorgeous game of which I adore the visual style and in-game graphics so every now and then I download it, try it out for a bit and uninstall it shortly after. Something about the animations and sound design just feels unpolished to me.

But with the recent overhaul, I feel it has gotten quite a bit better. Animations still seem stuttery and weirdly overly dependent on the netcode or something and sound design could still be more detailed and visceral rather than simply bassy but... I'm starting to dig it.

Spending some time with it and I can see this becoming my go-to multiplayer fps. It's insane how little this game gets played imo.

 

[Terrible Majesty]

I thought this game was renamed Titanfall. What sets this apart from Titanfall? Couldn't Sony just moneyhat this as an exclusive i.e. not for Xbone?

 

[Reese-015]

I thought this game was renamed Titanfall. What sets this apart from Titanfall? Couldn't Sony just moneyhat this as an exclusive i.e. not for Xbone?

Haha. Well it would look good on Sony's free to play lineup along with Planetside and Warframe. Man I'm digging Hawken... Aside from some wonky animations when things are laggy and the sound design lacking detail, this game is almost perfect to me. It has become my go-to multiplayer fps for the moment. Level 7 atm.

 

[Reese-015]

Level 12 now, think I maxed out my Berserker in terms of ranks. Goddamn this game is excellent. Felt I had to bump the thread cause I'm enjoying it so much. The recent overhaul patches helped a ton, highly recommend checking it out.

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

I've had most success with the Bruiser, but the Berserker is great. I think I'm just more used to the Bruiser 'cos it's the first one I played a lot.

 

[Reese-015]

I'm applying sort of a weird playstyle to the Berserker. I'm only tuning up Armor and I'm optimizing everything for a tanky playstyle where I just head straight into people unloading everything I've got on them to take em down without being careful or taking cover and then after the kills just quickly flee to go and repair. It works well and is so much fun.

 

[HelloMeow]

Uhh.. Hello?

I really like this game, but it seems almost too easy to win (or lose), depending on teamwork.
Most games end with scores like 20-40, or more skewed. I think this game would be more enjoyable, if teamwork was just a tiny bit less effective.
Don't get me wrong, I like the teamwork, but the contrast between the winning team and the losing team is huge, most of the time.

It can be a lot of fun when two teams are well matched, but that's pretty rare.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Where'd all the interest in this game go?! I played it right at the start of the alpha, and went "Oh neat, it's like Counter-Strike with mechs!" and then never picked it up again.

I just started playing it again last night and I've been having a blast! It seems like they slowed down the general speed a lot, so the game has a more mech-like, while still keeping boosts and stuff for super-fast combat.

I've also been rank 1 on my team most of the time, but that might just be because I have lots of experience with other FPS games and grokked it fast than other lower-ranked players.

I don't think that most matches I've been in have had that huge of a score difference between the two teams. At the worst I have seen 40 - 20 scores, but I think most matches finish around to 40-32 or closer, or they time out at a really close score. I've played 2 or 3 games today where the match finished with a team up by just 1 or 2 kills, and everyone frantically trying to protect their lead/steal it. Super chaotic fun!

Also, some of the game modes they have are really great! I like their Siege mode, where teams race to collect energy and launch a ship. The team that launches first needs to then capture the AA turrets to protect their ship, and the other team needs to capture the turrets before the ship gets to their base and starts destroying it. I've only played 2 rounds of it so far, but it was a lot of fun!

I was kinda wanting to play BF4 or COD but don't want to buy them new, but I think I actually prefer this game to either of those.

Any other gaffers enjoying this game, or is my opinion way out of the norm?

 

[HelloMeow]

Wow, a new post!

The team balancing can be really broken. I don't know if it's very noticeable in servers where the average level is lower than 10.
I think about half of the games I play end with 20-40, or worse, which isn't as fun as it could be, for both teams.

I'm slowly getting used to the crappy team balancing though.

Oh, don't buy BF4 anytime soon. It's quite broken/unfinished atm. I got into Hawken again, because BF4 was so disappointing and I am really enjoying it.

Also, why is this thread in Community?

 

[SecretMoblin]

Wow, a new post!

The team balancing can be really broken. I don't know if it's very noticeable in servers where the average level is lower than 10.
I think about half of the games I play end with 20-40, or worse, which isn't as fun as it could be, for both teams.

I'm slowly getting used to the crappy team balancing though.

I agree with everything here. I'll probably jump back in at some point this week, when I get tired of Planetside 2.

When I last played before the new patch, all I really did was Siege.

Also, why is this thread in Community?

It happens to every game OT older than a month, regardless of how slow-moving the thread is. :/

 

[Atomski]

Played this randomly today and was surprised at all the changes. Menus look nice and such.

Hope they get this on Steam some time.. feels like it could use some more attention.

 

[yggdrasill]

Anybody using SweetFX 1.5? I put the files in the folder with the game's executable but the game will not launch.

 

[Reese-015]

I still play this game every day. Everyone who likes arena shooters should give this a go, seriously. It has been my go-to multiplayer fps for months now.

 

[CyanideFuse]

Some interesting news. Hawken is coming to Steam: https://community.playhawken.com/news/_/game-info/hawken-on-steam-a-new-battlefield-awaits-r330

I long since gave up on the game due to the server issues and lack of decent matches and player numbers. Perhaps this move will help; I will definitely give it a go once I get my key.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

Good to know. I'll pick it up again when I have the chance.

 

[CyanideFuse]

Good to know. I'll pick it up again when I have the chance.

You should be getting a key directly. They are sending out keys between 4th to 11th.

I hope more people play this as the game suffered too much from a lack of players. It felt like a ghost town and the last time I played, I was limited to only be able to play in high level matches.

They seemed to have stopped low levels playing high level players. Seeing as I was out-of-practice, it made it a nightmare to find a game and to then feel competitive.

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

I'm interested to see this happen, particularly to solve server and population problems. Maybe the move to Steam will put pressure on them to improve their controller support. I found it very rough and incomplete when I tried it on controller a couple of months ago. (With a mouse the heavy, slow movement of the mechs gets rather tiring for me so it would be nice.)

 

[CyanideFuse]

I'm interested to see this happen, particularly to solve server and population problems. Maybe the move to Steam will put pressure on them to improve their controller support. I found it very rough and incomplete when I tried it on controller a couple of months ago. (With a mouse the heavy, slow movement of the mechs gets rather tiring for me so it would be nice.)

Absolutely. It killed the game for me. I had put in a lot of time across the alpha and betas but when it went to open beta, it seemed to fall further off the level it had been.

I have been reading the Steam Hawken forum and it doesn't read well for some of the changes. It seems like mechs have been weakened and are easily killed now.

It just seems like things are being meddled with all the time and seemingly to the detriment of the game. I hope my key arrives soon as I am keen to give it maybe one last go.

 

[HelloMeow]

I wonder if this solves some of the issues that come with a small player base. I stopped playing, because it became very frustrating to get into a good game.

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

Absolutely. It killed the game for me. I had put in a lot of time across the alpha and betas but when it went to open beta, it seemed to fall further off the level it had been.

I'm just not very good so being competitive isn't that much of an issue, but yeah, the server problems were upsetting and empty games are never fun.

I have been reading the Steam Hawken forum and it doesn't read well for some of the changes. It seems like mechs have been weakened and are easily killed now.

It just seems like things are being meddled with all the time and seemingly to the detriment of the game. I hope my key arrives soon as I am keen to give it maybe one last go.

Yeah, seems every time I come back to it something has changed for the weird. I don't play the game enough to really know, but to me it seems as though they're not giving changes enough time to play out before changing again.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

Keys have been sent out to those who had an account.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

I have played one match today. My current assault currently feels inadequate. The test assault feels nice though.

And finally, this game finally runs buttery smooth on my AMD system of a few years old.

I have to play it some more to see if it can capture me again.

 

[CyanideFuse]

I have played one match today. My current assault currently feels inadequate. The test assault feels nice though.

And finally, this game finally runs buttery smooth on my AMD system of a few years old.

I have to play it some more to see if it can capture me again.

It is good to hear that the game seems to be running better.

Has your friends list been emptied? I don't have any friends listed. I assume these got wiped on the changeover to Steam

Spoiler

(or people just hate me now).

 

[PjotrStroganov]

Nah, it also has been erased for me. I'll have to see when I pick it up again. I'm kind of daunted by the list of upgrades and abilities.

 

[Unhandled Exception]

If anyone needs a steam key for this still I have an unused second. You'll need to have an existing Hawken account I'm pretty sure.

 

[Mesoian]

Steam keys for existing players are going out. Just got mine.

 

[Atomski]

Needs to hurry up and go public on Steam. I cant find a full match for the life of me at the moment.

 

[Deputy Dangle]

Just booted this up for a couple minutes after getting my key. Wow, this game has really changed since last played it close to a year ago. The menu UI is completely different! Haven't been able to dive into the changes yet, but word of Tuning Points being removed and attempted moving away from the common mech builds of the open beta when it launched sound good to me.

I'll have to try this out soon to see how it fares. It sure has been a while.

 

[CyanideFuse]

Yes a lot has changed with the UI but sadly not the matchmaking and empty servers.

I hope the numbers pick up (and more importantly stay) when Hawken goes fully live to all Steam players.

I played for about an hour yesterday - I got back into it quite well but the same old issues (the reason I stopped playing a whole year ago) still seem far too prevalent. There is a small and vocal fan base who have been with the game from day one but I am a UK player and the player numbers have never been all that high.

Edit: Seems like Hawken is an Early Access game now, or at last requires a bundle to be purchased: http://steamcommunity.com/app/271290/discussions/0/558747921889428961/

I want more players on board and more importantly want those numbers to stay on to create a decent player base. Not sure if this will help, or not...

 

[Deputy Dangle]

I'm pretty sure their plan for steam is to stagger the initial release with current players switching over and potentially old account owners coming back in mind. Then once Adhesive feels comfortable with the first two as well as any new players that paid their way in, they'll open it up as free to play again with an official release date.

I'm positive the playerbase will be way more populated going by Loadout's recent explosion in popularity when it released to the public on steam. It's really the exposure this game has needed for a long while.

 

[phantomspiker]

I'd forgotten all about this game until the Steam key showed up in my email. The game never quite grabbed me during the beta, but I only played a couple of rounds.

I really enjoyed playing it today though, and I'll probably stick with it for a while.

 

[CyanideFuse]

Played a bit more today and I have to say that I am enjoying it. When the matches are full it does play pretty well.

I have hope that the Steam integration might help keep the game ticking over.

 

[phantomspiker]

New update just went live. Doesn't look like the Nemesis bundle is up for purchase yet though.

 

[Lavalamp1138]

New update just went live. Doesn't look like the Nemesis bundle is up for purchase yet though.

According to their site the Nemesis Bundle is up on Steam now.

 

[grosvenor_92]

How is the game now compared to the alpha when it first came out ? I got a key emailed to me and just wanna know if it's worth getting back into

 

[remist]

Have the developers said anything about when this will become free to play? I hadn't heard about this until it hit steam, and it looks pretty cool, but I can't decide if I should impulse buy the bundle or wait for the actual release. Also any thoughts on what kind of value you're getting with the bundle, is it a good deal?

 

[Davidion]

Oh dear, just did training and first shot at a real match went to level 15 with a bunch of strangers.

This game is kinda stupidly fun.

 

[Levito]

So would you guys say it's worth jumping into the game in it's current state?


I played it at PAX 2012 and loved it, then forgot about it completely.

 

[Atomski]

I can't believe they are charging 30 dollars for steam users to get access now..

I was gona try and get some friends into it but the price tag seemed to scared everyone off.. rightly so.

Confused why the developers did this.

 

[jediyoshi]

I can't believe they are charging 30 dollars for steam users to get access now..

I was gona try and get some friends into it but the price tag seemed to scared everyone off.. rightly so.

Confused why the developers did this.

It's a steam mandate for early access f2p games to be paywalled.

They'll probably just wait until nemesis bundle sales die down, the game is obviously still f2p.

 

[Frologic]

I can't believe they are charging 30 dollars for steam users to get access now..

I was gona try and get some friends into it but the price tag seemed to scared everyone off.. rightly so.

Confused why the developers did this.

Devs claim it's to avoid the servers from being overloaded. Seeing the steam forum, it seems like everyone is crying to play so it might have been a good choice. Either way, you should have got your friends to play earlier.

 

[todahawk]

So it's no longer F2P?
There are some links on their site that say F2P but keep directing me to Steam and the only option is a $30 purchase?

 

[manfestival]

It's a steam mandate for early access f2p games to be paywalled.

They'll probably just wait until nemesis bundle sales die down, the game is obviously still f2p.

yeah the early access for planetary annihilation was a huge paywall of like 89.99.... which the final version I think was stated to be 14.99 but I think its current state is 29.99 for early access

 

[Unicorn]

Oh, didn't realize it has turned into Early Access. I've been playing for a while now, so I got it for free. I'm just bummed because my buddy wanted to get into it once it was on Steam. While I'm glad they are continuing to work on it and refine features and balance, I also wish that there was a smaller price of admission for newcomers. Granted, you get some goodies with the 30$, but eh.

Also, my Technician needs that crab skin, but I don't want to pump any money into this game right now (unemployed).

 

[BattleMonkey]

Started this up, having a great time. Even as a newbie, don't feel like i'm getting mowed down. Got sick of waiting on MWO to clean up it's act, this seems fun.

 

[remist]

They just put up a $19.99 bundle that's on sale for $10 till the 28th. I think I'm gonna jump in at that price.

 

[CyanideFuse]

Started this up, having a great time. Even as a newbie, don't feel like i'm getting mowed down. Got sick of waiting on MWO to clean up it's act, this seems fun.

My callsign is CyanideFuse if you want to add me. I have to start playing it a bit more; Castlevania LoS has taken over my limited gaming time recently.

It is a very fun game that was only ever let down by low player numbers; something that is hopefully getting better with its inclusion on Steam.

 

[Hurf]

Game owns.

F2P grind does not.

 

[PROGRAM_IX]

Finally came back to this on Steam and it feels considerably more solid now. Continuing to enjoy the Reaper for that sustained damage, but might give others a try again, considering the fairly massive changes to health since I last played.