Hrono is host, unmarked questions are by him

Why did Hawken fail?
Josh:
Meteor had high risk, high reward approach → expensive
game couldn't cope with expenses
capnjosh will try to make a postmortem

Can you be more specific?
Josh:
too many projects, worked themselves too thin, possibly bad office politics
only speculation though, hasn't talked with too many people

How do you plan on keeping Hawken alive? What about monetization?
Josh:
old base for monetization is ok, want to expand on it
will stay f2p, hates p2w
wants to have a talk with community about how to go forward
DerMax: people left negative reviews on steam, saying it “seemed” to be p2w and promptly left game, josh agrees
josh: “Air Compressor is different playstyle, not better” → massive groaning in TS ensues

G2 is poorly designed, low quality content, are you going to leave them in?
Josh: will try to tweak
Houruck: artists prepared a lot of chasses, tried (rushed) to push mechs too fast

josh: Hawken has beautiful lore, will try to integrate it into the game → mech design will be based on that (as long as it doesn't impede the gameplay)

DerMax: Campaign would be very good for new players
josh: DLC campaign would be good, would be a “clean”. New product

A lot of players get frustrated too easily, why does this happen?
Hrono: bad tutorial, no info on radar (when does it go on or not?), campaign could resolve that
josh: had a hard time digesting what the radar was indicating, would colors/zoom improve it?
Josh: new players can't compete, have to buy stuff
Hrono/Houruck/Rasti: new players had access to CRT with good internals, good for learning, but was removed, no reason given → josh: had no idea
josh: takes a lot of time to earn HC
Vulong: easier HC access would make players try/buy new mechs more, keep them in the game → josh agrees, josh: backend is mostly working, will focus on ? (derail)

A lot of people have wrong expectations, expect a mech sim (MWO)
josh: definitely, will still try to
josh: what are your thoughts on tuning?
Rasti: everyone took movement/health, so they removed it; Gookywun: too cookie cutter
→ i.e. an ok system, but poorly implemented
Houruck: illusion of choice

Start with CRT, can only select between two weapons, no variety
josh: was looking at stats, barely any retention after steam launch

Let's talk about Ascention: a lot of bad choices, questionable HUD change (hp bar) to adapt it to Oculus
josh: can't even use Oculus atm, would need to switch to new SDK
Rasti: old HUD was allegedly broken, took to many resources, was not expansible, etc
Houruck: doesn't feel like I'm in a mech anymore, cursor is useless when boosting
josh: agree with cursors
josh: had problem with cooldown timers
Houruck: old HUD had better cooldown indicator as well
- Fantus Longhorn: changing the look of bullets/ammunition was cool
Vulong: barely any weapon choice, x types of shotties; Houruck: they had trouble balancing new weapons/mechs, weapons shared across multiple mechs (flak on scout/brawler) was bad
josh: allowing all mechs to equip all weapons is a no-no
Houruck: tech op, incinerator op;

Ascention: Air speed increased, fuel consumption reduced, air compressor introduced
new meta became: press space to win (cuz of mobility), before ASC: could jump, but no dodge → i.e. risk; with air compressor: no disadvantage any more
Vulong: air speed is higher than walking speed in some cases
summary: it's fun to fly around, but it's not fun to play against
josh: So you have to have an Air Compressor to compete? (Yes!)
multiple people: and it's behind a grindwall
josh: actually trying to play without giving himself extra xp, to get a feel for the progression
josh: usually, to balance, give it some disadvantage
Houruck: too many options to heal

Being so mobile makes you feel like you're not in a mech
josh: heard that old game felt more immersive, would like to experience it
josh: could backtrack commit history, but not sure if could reimplement easily

Oversimplified heat management:
there was a time when you had to aim and manage heat, now you just wait a few secs to cool down
Houruck: it was a resource to manag, kind of equivalent to ammo
josh: heat is interesting, can balance weapons around it

Fantus Longhorn: new mechs lame (incin sucks heat out of you, tech has sticky beam → health/repair has to be nerfed), Houruck: really frustrating to play against
josh: do you think tech, etc could work if balanced right?
Tim: no, broken by design
tech doesn't make sense lore-wise
DerMax: before tech, had to pick place+time to heal
Fantus_Longhorn: pls no back boost (can reverse out of engagements you picked poorly)

Every new patch simplified game, but never brought in new players but scared old ones away
josh heard that as well
they had problems with patch cycles; brought out big changes after long whiles of silence

Horuck: We heard that forums will be english-only, could we have language specific sections in forum?
josh: what would be better, have a section in the forum or support other-language fansites?
Off-siting other languages would segregate people
Tiggs: would have mods for each language section; really difficult
josh: was going for the most parctical approach (english only), but this should be an ongoing discussion

Really happy you're reaching out to us and took the time, with old devs, Europeans felt like second class citizens
test servers, mayhem, private servers are US only
Tiggs: we'll try to make ourselves more accessible, very sensitive about other countries, will do our best to include everyone

Josh: how much should be integrate tourney stuff into the game?
Houruck: good spectator mode would be good enough to narrate

Hotdog: timeframe! Patches, changes, etc?
big advances finished, ash fixed some bugs
next up: customer support
after that: get the server build system up etc
client builds very difficult, poorly documented, was done by someone else
will TRY to do the above within 3-4 months, investors would be happy with sub-6

Josh: long haul project, try not to throw too much money at it
if in the next 4-5 weeks Hawken shows promise (revenue-wise), we will hire more devs
Houruck: (jokingly) so we have to buy those skins now, huh
josh: avoiding high risk, high reward
Hrono: a lot pessimism in the russian community, will have to prove that things will change