Hawken, Pay to Win?

[Thoff09]

Ive recently had my Xbox stolen, so to supplement my incecent need for gaming I downloaded Hawken for PC. I was surprised to see that it was free to download and free to play, however I was not surprised to see that they're was a system to buy in game points.

After playing a while Ive seen that it isn't too hard to unlock new items and earn in game points, but its seems as though there are players who are ridiculously over-powered. So my question to you my fellow Escapists is, am I still just a noob to this game, or is this game a little more pay-to-win than I previously thought?

 

[Jdb]

It's not pay to win. The starting mech is arguably the best mech in the game. But there are a lot of balance and content issues. Enough for me to decide to stop playing until they're fixed.

You see, the individual skill ceiling in Hawken is low due to the game's slow speed and simple map features. To compensate, the developers want to make a large list of equipment and items you can use to tactically manipulate situations. However, due to the current amount of content and balance fixes, there is only one good build for every class in the game. Also, out of the ten classes currently available, only four feel unique. The other six are slight variations of each other or the starting class.

January is supposed to be a big month for updates though, so we'll see if things get better soon.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Yeah, what Jdb said mostly. The starting mech is amazing, even at lower levels, with both of it's starting weapons being two of the best in the game (Assault Rifle/TOW Launcher). Even the additional levels/equipment you get only add boosts of 0.15-5% (With .15-ish ones being level up bonuses and 2-5% being a single piece of equipment, of which you can only set one of each category, and there are three total).

So yeah, not really pay to win at all.