Gameplay Analytics So Far...

Here at LightBox Interactive we are recording a massive amount of data to help the team tune and balance the gameplay experience in Starhawk. We know that balancing a game as deep as Starhawk is a complex challenge but it's incredibly exciting too!

We wanted to give you all an example of some of the data we are collecting so here are just few of the graphs from our analytics. Now please keep in mind that this data only represents Starhawk games played from November 15th through November 18th. In fact, it doesn't even represent all of the data from today (the 18th). Furthermore, these graphs represent a very small amount of gameplay activity since the Starhawk Private BETA has only been open to Friends & Family of LightBox Interactive and our colleagues from Sony Computer Entertainment have only recently have started joining the games.

But even with that small group of players, we can allready see some items that need to be tuned and we'll be making updates to the Starhawk Private BETA to correct those balance issues.

So you can see from the graph above that Grenade kills are *WAY* lower than they should be. Oddly, there are almost exactly as many Proximity Mine kills as Grenade kills. Also very interesting to see that there are very few Homing Missile Kills and we're very interested to see if that statistic holds over the weekend once we've had more players log hours with the Starhawk Private BETA.

Here's what the pick-up graph looks like. The top 4 weapons are not surprising since they are such critical troop weapons. It is interesting to see that the Repair Tool is being collected more than the Proximity Mines. We will also start tracking the Ammo Box that is placed in the Supply Bunker and the Hawk's Air Mines.

The Auto-Turrets are very popular in Build & Battle which is not surprising give how effective they are *and* how little Rift Energy they cost. Its also interesting to see Walls so high in the list -- they do seem to help teams control key locations on the map which is very good to see. The Energy Shield is very rarely placed however it does cost a lot of Rift Energy to deploy.

One of the most interesting stats in the lower than expected number out Outposts. These structures are so key to advanced tactics in Starhawk. We will probably see that number increase over the weekend as players become more familiar with the game.

We'll be posting more graphs and data from our gameplay analytics throughout the Starhawk Private BETA so we can see how the balance updates we're making are effecting the game.