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I did not play any until a day ago so these are virgin first impressions. Overall I don't like it much but I'm going to play a bit more and see if that changes. I think over time they could improve it and fix things up but ultimately I fear they just have made decisions they'll stand by which I disagree with.
I like the maps and graphics, they are quite detailed and performance is OK. The UI is packed full of info but sort of confusing to navigate. There also seems to be a lack of numbers and instead a use of bars which makes it hard to decide about various equipment. Thankfully the wikis have hard numbers. I love FFA deathmatch and Hawken has that mode, so that's a big plus. That's where I've probably spent 60% of my Quake playing time. It also has a few other varied team modes which is good. It's also F2P but the grind is so horrible I feel like it's P2W. Even with both 2x boosters (which cost a minimum of $20 a month!) for Hawken Points (the in game F2P money) and XP (to upgrade mechs) I think it'd feel like an epic grind. Without them it's even worse. However since I love FFA so much I can see myself playing it some. Overall the prices are insanely expensive. I have not seen one item I'd consider fair value to buy. So even if I do keep playing it I'll likely never spend money as it's currently set up which is not a good sign.
Now the bad parts. I attribute some of this stuff to being a new open beta but it still needs to get fixed up. I typically ping 40-60ms to North American East servers but in Hawken I get 150ms! Lovely! The netcode is passable but not the greatest yet few games are great at 150ms. I notice explosive shots disappearing or not firing and it's hard to get feedback other than watching enemy HP bars go down. Perhaps with lower ping it'll be better but since the lowest ping I've gotten is around 100ms I can't say. This seems to be improving but I've tried to play about 40 matches and maybe only gotten into 10. They all seem to fail for weird reasons and I've had one crash so far. I've also been put into a giant map with just me and another person (who I killed twice then he quit) and no else came for about 5 minutes so I disconnected. The match maker has issues to say the least. It'll put high level players in with day zero newbies and while it's hard to dominate due to the relative balance it's still not a good thing.
Speaking about balance I don't like how the game works overall. It doesn't have a duel mode but given the relative slowness of movement and the large maps most fights are duels in FFA. After you win a fight you should move into a corner and repair (which is unlimited!). So if you can win most 1v1 engagements you will dominate, assuming you can hide and repair after. I'm not a big fan of that. I much prefer in Quake where you can move faster and disengage or take on multiple targets and win. In Hawken this is possible but it seems very hard indeed given how the game is designed and balanced. For the most part any two mechs beat any one mech. Even winning back to back duels without repair is very tough. The maps in Hawken are also very open and the game has radar as well so hiding after a kill to repair can be hard. Movement across the map takes a much longer time than in Quake and the movement system is somewhat clunky (to simulate a mech I assume).
The one thing I absolutely hate is how the mouse movement works. Again to simulate a mech it's got some kind of limit on how you can move your mouse. It feels like negative acceleration but I don't think that's what it is. I'd describe it as dragging the mouse through clay littered with big rocks. It's clunky and inconsistent. The non-smooth feeling is a major negative for me. If you don't move your mouse much you won't notice it but any faster or sweeping movement seem discouraged and penalized. So while Hawken seems like a twitch shooter it actually isn't. there also seems to be fairly low limits on how high/low you can aim. Until you try it yourself it's hard to get across the bad feeling this has in comparison to many other smooth FPS mouse inputs out there.
The maps are decent but a bit weird. They are overly complex and seem made out of boxes. You can fly in Hawken but often you'll reach an artificial limit on how high you can go which is annoying. You can sprint or dodge (like UT) which takes up fuel (also used for flying). It auto-regenerates. Lots of clutter and graphical noise is in the maps. I think they went a bit too far on detail as I'd prefer larger and more consistent textures. Reminds a bit of the clutter in Deus Ex Human Revolution where there was garbage strewn everywhere and the game had to implement a highlight system so you could actually find gameplay items. Hawken maps just have a lot of visual distraction going on and mechs are relatively hard to see. There is also a blue creativity wall on most maps so it'll often look like you can go somewhere but you actually can't. They should have done a better job putting up natural barriers than relying on a blue shield wall to stop players.
Given it's fairly expensive to customize your mech look using real money I don't see why anyone would do so as it'd make you an even easier target to see. Buying a pink checker pattern is about $20 and the most expensive cosmetic I saw. All the cosmetics seem wildly over priced but Hawken in general is expensive. It is F2P in that you can grind out everything you need without paying (except cosmetics) but the grind seems especially steep (and likely to get worse as the current starter mech is bugged with 200% XP bonus which is supposed to be 20% only!). For me there is a point when the grind is so bad that a game becomes P2W. Sure you can get it all for free but who wants to spend hundreds or thousands of hours to do so? The grind is also non-linear on XP so it gets slower the higher up you go on a mech level. This is not a good thing. Hawken Points, the in game F2P currency, are fairly slow to obtain as well and it'll likely take people 40-100? matches to be able to buy a new mech or gun. I think the sheer slowness of the grind will turn off most players.
Overall it has potential to be fun but I'm not sure it has a good future in it's current state. I'll keep playing it for a while because I like FFA and can play that alone. I can't see myself getting into the team modes as I can't take Hawken seriously as it is. There is also no spectating or demos so competitive play doesn't interest me either. Anyone else playing? Thoughts?
TLDR - Weird mouse movement, low skill ceiling, iffy map design, various issues and F2P/P2W bullshit likely will limit Hawken from being more than a niche game.
I like the maps and graphics, they are quite detailed and performance is OK. The UI is packed full of info but sort of confusing to navigate. There also seems to be a lack of numbers and instead a use of bars which makes it hard to decide about various equipment. Thankfully the wikis have hard numbers. I love FFA deathmatch and Hawken has that mode, so that's a big plus. That's where I've probably spent 60% of my Quake playing time. It also has a few other varied team modes which is good. It's also F2P but the grind is so horrible I feel like it's P2W. Even with both 2x boosters (which cost a minimum of $20 a month!) for Hawken Points (the in game F2P money) and XP (to upgrade mechs) I think it'd feel like an epic grind. Without them it's even worse. However since I love FFA so much I can see myself playing it some. Overall the prices are insanely expensive. I have not seen one item I'd consider fair value to buy. So even if I do keep playing it I'll likely never spend money as it's currently set up which is not a good sign.
Now the bad parts. I attribute some of this stuff to being a new open beta but it still needs to get fixed up. I typically ping 40-60ms to North American East servers but in Hawken I get 150ms! Lovely! The netcode is passable but not the greatest yet few games are great at 150ms. I notice explosive shots disappearing or not firing and it's hard to get feedback other than watching enemy HP bars go down. Perhaps with lower ping it'll be better but since the lowest ping I've gotten is around 100ms I can't say. This seems to be improving but I've tried to play about 40 matches and maybe only gotten into 10. They all seem to fail for weird reasons and I've had one crash so far. I've also been put into a giant map with just me and another person (who I killed twice then he quit) and no else came for about 5 minutes so I disconnected. The match maker has issues to say the least. It'll put high level players in with day zero newbies and while it's hard to dominate due to the relative balance it's still not a good thing.
Speaking about balance I don't like how the game works overall. It doesn't have a duel mode but given the relative slowness of movement and the large maps most fights are duels in FFA. After you win a fight you should move into a corner and repair (which is unlimited!). So if you can win most 1v1 engagements you will dominate, assuming you can hide and repair after. I'm not a big fan of that. I much prefer in Quake where you can move faster and disengage or take on multiple targets and win. In Hawken this is possible but it seems very hard indeed given how the game is designed and balanced. For the most part any two mechs beat any one mech. Even winning back to back duels without repair is very tough. The maps in Hawken are also very open and the game has radar as well so hiding after a kill to repair can be hard. Movement across the map takes a much longer time than in Quake and the movement system is somewhat clunky (to simulate a mech I assume).
The one thing I absolutely hate is how the mouse movement works. Again to simulate a mech it's got some kind of limit on how you can move your mouse. It feels like negative acceleration but I don't think that's what it is. I'd describe it as dragging the mouse through clay littered with big rocks. It's clunky and inconsistent. The non-smooth feeling is a major negative for me. If you don't move your mouse much you won't notice it but any faster or sweeping movement seem discouraged and penalized. So while Hawken seems like a twitch shooter it actually isn't. there also seems to be fairly low limits on how high/low you can aim. Until you try it yourself it's hard to get across the bad feeling this has in comparison to many other smooth FPS mouse inputs out there.
The maps are decent but a bit weird. They are overly complex and seem made out of boxes. You can fly in Hawken but often you'll reach an artificial limit on how high you can go which is annoying. You can sprint or dodge (like UT) which takes up fuel (also used for flying). It auto-regenerates. Lots of clutter and graphical noise is in the maps. I think they went a bit too far on detail as I'd prefer larger and more consistent textures. Reminds a bit of the clutter in Deus Ex Human Revolution where there was garbage strewn everywhere and the game had to implement a highlight system so you could actually find gameplay items. Hawken maps just have a lot of visual distraction going on and mechs are relatively hard to see. There is also a blue creativity wall on most maps so it'll often look like you can go somewhere but you actually can't. They should have done a better job putting up natural barriers than relying on a blue shield wall to stop players.
Given it's fairly expensive to customize your mech look using real money I don't see why anyone would do so as it'd make you an even easier target to see. Buying a pink checker pattern is about $20 and the most expensive cosmetic I saw. All the cosmetics seem wildly over priced but Hawken in general is expensive. It is F2P in that you can grind out everything you need without paying (except cosmetics) but the grind seems especially steep (and likely to get worse as the current starter mech is bugged with 200% XP bonus which is supposed to be 20% only!). For me there is a point when the grind is so bad that a game becomes P2W. Sure you can get it all for free but who wants to spend hundreds or thousands of hours to do so? The grind is also non-linear on XP so it gets slower the higher up you go on a mech level. This is not a good thing. Hawken Points, the in game F2P currency, are fairly slow to obtain as well and it'll likely take people 40-100? matches to be able to buy a new mech or gun. I think the sheer slowness of the grind will turn off most players.
Overall it has potential to be fun but I'm not sure it has a good future in it's current state. I'll keep playing it for a while because I like FFA and can play that alone. I can't see myself getting into the team modes as I can't take Hawken seriously as it is. There is also no spectating or demos so competitive play doesn't interest me either. Anyone else playing? Thoughts?
TLDR - Weird mouse movement, low skill ceiling, iffy map design, various issues and F2P/P2W bullshit likely will limit Hawken from being more than a niche game.
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