Hello, I'm here to discuss some concept issues with the new Hawkeye blocks.
Hawkeye Fortress Set
That new set of blocks was shown as a new way of building large and sturdy bases for a variety of purposes, and stretching the concept a bit into the realm of creativity we can also imagine slow moving tanks and fortress hover skyships.
These blocks would be the ultimate go-to for creating imposing monoliths, goliaths that the enemy must think twice before trying to breach the thick hull, but also immobile or so slow one can easily avoid it and better plan hit'n'run attacks.
Now, regardless of the size and shape of the Fortress blocks, we can safely assume they should be dense both in mass and health, just like Hawkeye blocks already are. That is the golden standard of Hawkeye blocks, they are all heavy and tanky, with the stats scaling accordingly with their size.
Now, let me share some useful data on the new Fortress blocks:
Pay attention to the density values for both mass and health, what do you see?
Both decrease as the block gets larger, reaching ridiculously low values.
Well, one can argue the values get dampened so as to prevent too much health and weight being concentrated on a single large block; but even then, notice that most start already low and then it only goes downhill.
Check the original Hawkeye golden standard for reference:
Hawkeye One Block
Mass: 1.5
Health: 450
See how dense it is? And those values increase linearly with each increase in Hawkeye block size, with the Two Block having 3 mass and 900 health, and so on. There is no density decay.
For original Hawkeye blocks you know when you get a larger block that the values have scaled as well, you know what you're getting. Your Tech will be heavy and tanky, regardless of the block sizes used.
The Fortress set should follow the well stablished Hawkeye standards, they shouldn't be so ridiculously light and low health, you're giving the wrong impression to the player that they're more protected when investing on those blocks. And their low weight densities mean they will feel much like paper when being handled around, including being a better block for light and fast techs even than venture blocks!
Fortresses are not supposed to zoom around at 150mph, they're not supposed to be so frail either (I lack the chart here but these blocks have higher than average chances of falling-off when damaged).
Fortresses stay put and tank hits.
That's what they do. That's what any player expects.
Fortress blocks need to be very heavy and very tanky to honour their concept, this can be done by simply using the Hawkeye Standard and not much else.
All this post was made so that I hope Payload can give the player what the player expects and wants from fortress blocks.
This feedback comes from me and some friends, from those of us in the community who can actually see these stats and care enough about them to speak out when needed. Most players can't or don't bother going after that data, they blindly trust Payload to do it right in every release, they expect the studio to follow the corps standards the studio itself made, not only visually but also stats-wise.
Lastly I'd like to compliment the constant high quality in the 3D models provided over every update; Rob, Oliver, Anton, Jason and the other artists are a guiding light for me to follow.
QA also does a good job but I would recommend having someone to review new blocks stats at least once, so that any values inconsistent with the corporations trends or other intuitive player expectations are notified to the Game Designer for an extra check before release. This will greatly reduce a lot of recent complaints of inconsistency such as the health of the big GC vtol rotors (which got an undocumented fix).
That's all, thanks for reading!
Hawkeye Fortress Set
That new set of blocks was shown as a new way of building large and sturdy bases for a variety of purposes, and stretching the concept a bit into the realm of creativity we can also imagine slow moving tanks and fortress hover skyships.
These blocks would be the ultimate go-to for creating imposing monoliths, goliaths that the enemy must think twice before trying to breach the thick hull, but also immobile or so slow one can easily avoid it and better plan hit'n'run attacks.
Now, regardless of the size and shape of the Fortress blocks, we can safely assume they should be dense both in mass and health, just like Hawkeye blocks already are. That is the golden standard of Hawkeye blocks, they are all heavy and tanky, with the stats scaling accordingly with their size.
Now, let me share some useful data on the new Fortress blocks:
Pay attention to the density values for both mass and health, what do you see?
Both decrease as the block gets larger, reaching ridiculously low values.
Well, one can argue the values get dampened so as to prevent too much health and weight being concentrated on a single large block; but even then, notice that most start already low and then it only goes downhill.
Check the original Hawkeye golden standard for reference:
Hawkeye One Block
Mass: 1.5
Health: 450
See how dense it is? And those values increase linearly with each increase in Hawkeye block size, with the Two Block having 3 mass and 900 health, and so on. There is no density decay.
For original Hawkeye blocks you know when you get a larger block that the values have scaled as well, you know what you're getting. Your Tech will be heavy and tanky, regardless of the block sizes used.
The Fortress set should follow the well stablished Hawkeye standards, they shouldn't be so ridiculously light and low health, you're giving the wrong impression to the player that they're more protected when investing on those blocks. And their low weight densities mean they will feel much like paper when being handled around, including being a better block for light and fast techs even than venture blocks!
Fortresses are not supposed to zoom around at 150mph, they're not supposed to be so frail either (I lack the chart here but these blocks have higher than average chances of falling-off when damaged).
Fortresses stay put and tank hits.
That's what they do. That's what any player expects.
Fortress blocks need to be very heavy and very tanky to honour their concept, this can be done by simply using the Hawkeye Standard and not much else.
All this post was made so that I hope Payload can give the player what the player expects and wants from fortress blocks.
This feedback comes from me and some friends, from those of us in the community who can actually see these stats and care enough about them to speak out when needed. Most players can't or don't bother going after that data, they blindly trust Payload to do it right in every release, they expect the studio to follow the corps standards the studio itself made, not only visually but also stats-wise.
Lastly I'd like to compliment the constant high quality in the 3D models provided over every update; Rob, Oliver, Anton, Jason and the other artists are a guiding light for me to follow.
QA also does a good job but I would recommend having someone to review new blocks stats at least once, so that any values inconsistent with the corporations trends or other intuitive player expectations are notified to the Game Designer for an extra check before release. This will greatly reduce a lot of recent complaints of inconsistency such as the health of the big GC vtol rotors (which got an undocumented fix).
That's all, thanks for reading!
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