President of Lightbox Interactive, Dylan Jobe discusses big changes coming to the knifing system and other materials that will be covered in a very big update.

Many players in the Starhawk beta have been reporting that the current knifing system feels a bit awkward and at times stiff. Some would even say it’s broken considering how it’s a downgrade from the previous system found in Warhawk. In a recent tweet, Dylan states that the whole knifing system will be seeing an overhaul in the near future.

During the Live Starhawk Radio show, Dylan stated that he feels unhappy with it, and that they probably shouldn’t have even included this system in the Beta. Currently, the studio is working on a new system that will feel much more fluid then the current system. Also, one of the biggest changes is that drama kills will be added to the knifing system. It will be very similar to Halo Reach’s knife kills, where players will do a small animation after they have successfully executed one of these kills. The whole mechanics of the knifing system has been redone and will be included in an upcoming big patch.  Currently, there is no date on when this patch will be available.

Also coming in the patch is a new and final map for the Beta  along with new Hawk weapons.  The new map will be much larger then the other two maps, and will show off just some of the many color spectrums in Starhawk. Along with a few new features and maps, players can expect some changes to the auto aim system. Lightbox Interactive’s goal is to make it in the “between” spot, meaning that they want it to assist the player enough, yet not enough to exploit it where they can just snap to every player and get instant kills.

Some beta testers have been asking for full button customization. Sadly, this may not make it in the final game as the team is heavily focused on other issues. Dylan stressed that this was something that is very challenging to do and a lot of work needs to be put into it. If it doesn’t make it into the final game, then it’s very likely to be included in a free update after launch. Speaking of controls, Lightbox is going to patch Turbo Controllers abuse. If you’re not familiar with these controllers, they allow players to assign actions to certain buttons and the response time will be significantly increased. For example, a pistol that would normally shoot a whole clip at say 10-20 seconds, the turbo controller makes it possible to shoot this whole clip in just under a few seconds. The solution is by adjusting the accuracy so that it will decreased as soon as another load is shot from the weapon in Starhawk, making it difficult to aim.

Pacing will continue to be adjusted throughout the beta. In later updates, more weapon pickups will be placed; this was decided based on whether or not players should have to waste resources just to get a certain weapon. Further, Naked Bases are being looked into to increase start-up speeds. At the moment, bases are completely naked and players are tasked to build structures. The reason why many have been complaining about this is because at times some teams decide to build all out and attack, while the other team has nothing to defend themselves because everyone is busy building non defensive structures. Later on they will test out maps with pre-made structures to see how it goes.