47 replies to this topic

[Zero Neutral]

pesco, on 09 March 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

Out of idle curiosity, I made myself a second account the other day and started from the very bottom. No founder, no MC, no premium.

It is a nightmare.

I have been playing the game since closed beta, so I'm fairly confident in saying I'm not a bad player. I don't even want to imagine what it is like for someone who is an actual noob, not just dressed like one.

The stock trial Mechs are an absolute joke, as people have been saying forever. Slow, undergunned, underarmored, prone to overheat, everyone's favorite targets to pick off.

In these things I'm not helping my team no matter how decent I play, I'm actively hurting its performance. Add to that that half my team consists of other (actual) noobs who can't tell their thumbs apart.

A few frustrating losses later and I'm pretty sure Elo has put me in a swamp of absolute *******. Suddenly not half my team consists of idiots, my entire team consists of idiots.

The only consolation is that the cadet bonus has filled my C-Bill balance pretty quickly so I could buy a real Mech. Unfortunately, my experience with the trials has not helped me judge at all which Mech I like. I performed horribly in all of them.

What is the purpose of the trial Mechs? Why are they in the game? Playing a few frustrating games just so you can buy a different Mech you know nothing about? That can't be it, can it?

Dude, seriously? Trial mech is just a tutorial time period, after which you buy a mech with your c-bills from cadet bonus and stop being a noob.

Go into any competitive game and try being a noob... it's rough.

Edited by Zero Neutral, 09 March 2013 - 10:49 AM.

[Znail]

The game could deffinitly use a tutorial for the totally new to a mechwarrior type game. But anyone who have past experience should be fine. I started out before the Cadet bonus were around and it wasn't that hard to get your own mech. I found the trial time pretty valuable in letting your try out different mech sizes to see wich type suited you.

There is the training grounds area too, it just needs to be made more obvious for a new player.

[BigJim]

Panzerman03, on 09 March 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

Cadet bonus isn't a multiplier. It's flat.

Don't argue with that guy. Big text man, big text.

[MadPanda]

Warskull, on 09 March 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

No, they go in and think "my mech doesn't do any damage, this game is stupid and imbalanced", then they quit. An experience player knows the stock are terrible and they know why. A new player just knows their mech sucks, they'll assume the game is pay to win because everyone else has a way better mech or that the game is terribly balanced and a waste of their time. They won't go in and think "oh its so much fun getting stomped into the ground."

The solution is simply, give them proper starter mechs. Instead of giving them stock mechs, let the playerbase design some mechs and rotate them. They don't have to be optimized or competitive level, just workable.

Obviously we are talking about two different kind of people here. You are thinking the new player is a ******** kid with attention problems and when he plays the game first time and doesn't completely wreck his opponents, he thinks the game must suck balls. While I'm thinking about a regular sane person who goes in without much expectations and when he gets his butt handed to him, he thinks "I just got wrecked, but what the others were doing looked like fun, I should probably learn more about this game". So we are both right, but I don't feel one bit sorry about losing the types of players you are thinking about.

[James DeGriz]

MadPanda, on 09 March 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

Obviously we are talking about two different kind of people here. You are thinking the new player is a ******** kid with attention problems and when he plays the game first time and doesn't completely wreck his opponents, he thinks the game must suck balls. While I'm thinking about a regular sane person who goes in without much expectations and when he gets his butt handed to him, he thinks "I just got wrecked, but what the others were doing looked like fun, I should probably learn more about this game". So we are both right, but I don't feel one bit sorry about losing the types of players you are thinking about.

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 March 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

It's funny, saw someone in a trial Mech the other day top the scorecard with the most kills and most damage, obviously those things are totally worthless...in the hands of people who can't use them properly.

This is a MechWarrior title, a game series that has never been easy for the total newcomer to just jump in and master in a few minutes of play like they can with CoD or BF games because there's more to it then point and click while jumping around like a jumping bean that's been soaked in liquid ******* for the past week.

The previous titles usually had tutorial/training missions that you could use to learn how Mechs move, get used to facing 1 direction while walking in another and so on. And I recall quite vividly all the people who used to totally ignore ALL of the single player experience for the previous MW games and just jump right online and get all sorts of discouraged because they didn't have a clue.

Know what the biggest and most important piece of advice we used to give new players to the MW series? Play the single player campaign through to the very end before you even think of jumping into online play. Know how often it listened to? About as often as people listen to their parents telling them to not do whatever..

Tutorials would help, but the fact is, most of the people playing online games don't bother with tutorials, they jump straight into the action and sink or swim and are either happy with the results OR they complain about stupid hard the game is. The people who complain never once stop to consider that if they'd used the tutorial that it might not be so hard...because that would be making THEM responsible and the gods know that ain't gonna happen, it's NEVER the player's fault that they didn't bother to learn about the game they want to play, it should be stupid simple like CoD or BF!

Me, I whip out a trial Mech every so often for fun. They aren't great, but they aren't horrible either, they are functional. They teach newcomers that you need to watch your heat and ammo and that your armor isn't unlimited.

Oh, and if you can't see the Training Grounds blurb and links to how to get there on the Front End of the game...I've said this before...I was not aware there were so many BLIND sods playing video games.

^ Both of these.

I also find it interesting that a lot of the complaining about the new player experience has come from people that aren't new players. Of the new players that have posted, the feedback has been positive and seems to be "yes it's tough, but it's fun and I want to get better by playing more". These are surely the types of players that we want to encourage?

From my own perspective, even though I'm a fan of the original games, whenever I enter a match I expect there to be players better than me, and I expect to get my backside handed to me if I don't play intelligently. I've also noticed that more recently games are often extremely close going right down to the last couple of players, or the last 25 resource points. Sure, I have evenings where I'm the fly rather than the windscreen, but that's the nature of online PVP. I'm sure new players are just as as aware of that as I am.

[vrok]

MadPanda, on 09 March 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

Obviously we are talking about two different kind of people here. You are thinking the new player is a ******** kid with attention problems and when he plays the game first time and doesn't completely wreck his opponents, he thinks the game must suck balls. While I'm thinking about a regular sane person who goes in without much expectations and when he gets his butt handed to him, he thinks "I just got wrecked, but what the others were doing looked like fun, I should probably learn more about this game". So we are both right, but I don't feel one bit sorry about losing the types of players you are thinking about.

More delusion. This is exactly like people white knighting the whole pay2win thing. People generalizing and marginalizing legitimate criticism to defend their game at any cost, flaws be damned. No, it doesn't have to be a kid with ADD to come to that conclusion, that's just you bullsh*tting and apparently thinking that people that can stand this game are somehow superior. People just don't want to waste their time. This game has to prove to them that it's worth playing, not the other way around.

You can celebrate over losing players all you want, though that seems unnecessarily antagonistic to wanting this game to succeed as it is supposedly a F2P game and having a large player base is the entire point of the model. Just don't complain when this game becomes more and more of a blatant cash grab in the future in order to survive off the meager existing player base just because they couldn't be assed or even realize that they needed to fix tutorials, some basic bots, in-game help screens, get more newbie friendly trial mechs up and running, and having trial mechs actually facing other trial mechs. How about a stock mech only mode where they don't actually have to buy the mechs so they can try any mech they want? Or even CW to provide that carrot everyone loves in the mean time? Nope, no sign of that either. Fixing heat? LOL.

People love to mention training grounds, but they don't actually help you train or learn the game at all in their current state. You can't even try out mechs and equipment there before you actually buy it so it's pretty much useless currently. Hell, you can't even pick maps. And how many months did it take to even get this?

That stuff like this isn't a top priority, but designing and implementing cash grab consumables and hero mechs is, is rather tragic really.

Just answer me this, how would the game suffer if it made the new player experience on par with a game like say, Starcraft 2, that has an abundance of tutorials, in-game help screens, practice games, small challenges and on and on and on to help new players cope with what is a rather hard and complicated game. How would this game suffer from being easier for new players to get into and ultimately growing its player base?

If it wouldn't, you shouldn't be arguing against players that think it's too hard on new players at all, you should be coming up with ideas to help them no matter what. People have been complaining about this since forever, yet almost nothing has changed in over 6 months. Cadet bonus is merely an emergency band-aid, and a really bad and lazy one at that.

Edited by vrok, 09 March 2013 - 01:59 PM.

[DarkDevilDancer]

As some one who's relativity new i can confirm the first week was rough and i did little but die until i got the money together to buy a dragon and things improved alot.

ELO isnt working properly yet thats pretty clear you either have 1 side or another winning out right without a casualty or its pretty close but there is nothing in between those two extremes.

And having a brand new player on your team becomes a big disadvantage i know i used to be that guy.

New players in trial mechs should face other newbs in trial mechs, and when you buy your first mech you graduate into the big leagues with at least some idea how to play.

[Ialti]

Alright, I'm fairly settled. I'll start up a new account and see for myself.

[Solidussnake]

Something to fix this issue would obviously be tiered battles similar to world of tanks. Assuming this game becomes popular enough you could easily have cadets put into a "stock mech only" tier of battles. That way it would be a better leveled playing field.

Now this wouldn't solve balance completely but it would defiantly give those cadets a huge "buff" so to say because they wouldn't be going against mechs like mine. (But lets be honest there are some stock mechs that are just better then others)

Other thing to do would be in this stock tier. Would be to completely remove grouping. That way there would be no groups on either side with 4 mans. It would eliminate the whole "we are a premade roll with us and support us". And level that playing field as well. Because new players are not hoping into team speak going omg I'm new help me pug stomp to.

Speaking from a casual perspective premades kill this game for me. I log in and when I hit launch I'm lucky if there are no premades on either side.

After getting pug stomped a few times or 7 times out of 10 the only person on my team who does any real damage or kill anything. I'm done playing. I mean sure I can log into TS and go pug stomping like everyone else. But thats not fun. Its... boring. Just like this game currently is.

Edited by Solidussnake, 09 March 2013 - 01:39 PM.

[Felbombling]

If a player leaves, good or bad, they take their wallet with them. Any way you slice it, PGI and IGP could have done a much better job of game introduction to the general public. I remember my initial grind out of the Trial Mech phase and it was indeed a challenge. I think I did the most work in the Trial Awesome, because the LRMs were generating the most damage for end of round. As a closed beta player from the very early going, I kept thinking how lost I'd be were I new to the franchise.

[Raso]

I think 2 things to help the new player experience would be an integrated chat lobby in the mech lab and a fully voiced, in game tutorial teaching the basics of mech combat as well as mech customization.

The in game lobby will make it easier to form groups with out needing 3rd party software such as TS or vent. Something non-puggers take for granted is the fact that almost our entire community exists entirely OUTSIDE of the game's software. A new player starts off not only ignorant but also alone. With no encouragement or advice from other players and no ability to make friends there is no way for them to become invested in the game. The in game community tools need some serious work, too, as there is no way to form a team or add friends in or after a game when you actually find a team you enjoy playing with.

An in game tutorial is, of course, self explanatory. Along with teach the combat basics it should also explain more in depth concepts such as spreading damage, the pros and cons of beam vs ballistic weapons and other concepts. An in game encyclopedia could also be very beneficial.

On an aside note. It may also be very much worth while to start making trial mechs something more competitive I'm not saying that they should be super, pimped out machines but the stock builds should not be the only options. Piloting a trial mech should never feel like a punishment but it should also never be your best option. At the very least each trial mech should come with a brief description explaining how best to utilize it's abilities. It should include tips like the PPC and LRM's minimum range, if the cooling makes it better at mid range or hit and run attacks rather than as a brawler and so on.

[Thirdstar]

I'm amazed that are still people who defend the new player experience.

"Oh we don't want players like that" What an arrogant load of crock.

"Of the new players that have posted, the feedback has been positive" Ahhahahahahahahahahahhhhahh

[Noobzorz]

pesco, on 09 March 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

Out of idle curiosity, I made myself a second account the other day and started from the very bottom. No founder, no MC, no premium.

It is a nightmare.

I have been playing the game since closed beta, so I'm fairly confident in saying I'm not a bad player. I don't even want to imagine what it is like for someone who is an actual noob, not just dressed like one.

The stock trial Mechs are an absolute joke, as people have been saying forever. Slow, undergunned, underarmored, prone to overheat, everyone's favorite targets to pick off.

In these things I'm not helping my team no matter how decent I play, I'm actively hurting its performance. Add to that that half my team consists of other (actual) noobs who can't tell their thumbs apart.

A few frustrating losses later and I'm pretty sure Elo has put me in a swamp of absolute *******. Suddenly not half my team consists of idiots, my entire team consists of idiots.

The only consolation is that the cadet bonus has filled my C-Bill balance pretty quickly so I could buy a real Mech. Unfortunately, my experience with the trials has not helped me judge at all which Mech I like. I performed horribly in all of them.

What is the purpose of the trial Mechs? Why are they in the game? Playing a few frustrating games just so you can buy a different Mech you know nothing about? That can't be it, can it?

I honestly love the trial commando on right now. I just assign the flamer to 6 and select it when I'm out of ammo

Other than that, I agree. Don't particularly love those mechs.

[Alltimefail]

pesco, on 09 March 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

Out of idle curiosity, I made myself a second account the other day and started from the very bottom. No founder, no MC, no premium.

It is a nightmare.

I have been playing the game since closed beta, so I'm fairly confident in saying I'm not a bad player. I don't even want to imagine what it is like for someone who is an actual noob, not just dressed like one.

The stock trial Mechs are an absolute joke, as people have been saying forever. Slow, undergunned, underarmored, prone to overheat, everyone's favorite targets to pick off.

In these things I'm not helping my team no matter how decent I play, I'm actively hurting its performance. Add to that that half my team consists of other (actual) noobs who can't tell their thumbs apart.

A few frustrating losses later and I'm pretty sure Elo has put me in a swamp of absolute *******. Suddenly not half my team consists of idiots, my entire team consists of idiots.

The only consolation is that the cadet bonus has filled my C-Bill balance pretty quickly so I could buy a real Mech. Unfortunately, my experience with the trials has not helped me judge at all which Mech I like. I performed horribly in all of them.

What is the purpose of the trial Mechs? Why are they in the game? Playing a few frustrating games just so you can buy a different Mech you know nothing about? That can't be it, can it?

This was not my experience at all. I just started yesterday, completely new to the game all it's mechanics and everything. I picked the medium trial mech and played a few rounds, got my *** kicked. I realized right off that I had no idea even how to control the mech. I read some guides and figured out the training grounds.

Once I got an understanding of how to control the mech, I followed around a bit with the light but went back to the med. It was then that I figured out CB. I bought a Treb and outfitted it a bit completely incorrectly. I got a few kills and realized the build I wanted would fit better on a hunchback after realizing what hardpoints were.

Bought a hunchback with money cuz I wanted to get working faster and started playing it.

The whole time tho, I was having a crap ton of fun cuz I was learning how these things work. I had no frustrations about losing or grinding right now. Dont push these projections onto all new players. Im having a lot of fun right now. If I become disillusioned later, thats veteran territory.

[WarGruf]

When I started in Trial mechs I thought ok theses guy are good, I didn't poke my head out, I helped from the seccond row.
I watched, I learnt, I progressed.

Like my old man said I'll show you once, seccond time you should learn, third time I'll box your ears because you should know...

Whats happend over the years... ?

Ok so now Im a Vet!? Im still learning...

Edited by WarGruf, 09 March 2013 - 06:47 PM.

[Alltimefail]

WarGruf, on 09 March 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

When I started in Trial mechs I thought ok theses guy are good, I didn't poke my head out, I helped from the seccond row.
I watched, I learnt, I progressed.

Like my old man said I'll show you once, seccond time you should learn, third time I'll box your ears because you should know...

Whats happend over the years... ?

Ok so now Im a Vet!? Im still learning...

Yeah I don't think this will score me points but I'll risk it for my third post on the forums. The trial mechs did in fact teach me that ramboing is a dumb*** tactic. "Do not do that" was what I learned after too many short lives. I learned to vulture off the big groups 9and who can blame a newb for doing that? And while I was frankly bottom feeding, I was able to notice different tactics used by different players. Woah, some robots use lasers only and some shoot rockets. Some stay back and snipe. This game is sick. Sadly, I had wasted half my cadet bonus learning...but I think that's why it's there. To buffer you while you eff up.

[Alltimefail]

Raso, on 09 March 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

I think 2 things to help the new player experience would be an integrated chat lobby in the mech lab and a fully voiced, in game tutorial teaching the basics of mech combat as well as mech customization.

The in game lobby will make it easier to form groups with out needing 3rd party software such as TS or vent. Something non-puggers take for granted is the fact that almost our entire community exists entirely OUTSIDE of the game's software. A new player starts off not only ignorant but also alone. With no encouragement or advice from other players and no ability to make friends there is no way for them to become invested in the game. The in game community tools need some serious work, too, as there is no way to form a team or add friends in or after a game when you actually find a team you enjoy playing with.

An in game tutorial is, of course, self explanatory. Along with teach the combat basics it should also explain more in depth concepts such as spreading damage, the pros and cons of beam vs ballistic weapons and other concepts. An in game encyclopedia could also be very beneficial.

On an aside note. It may also be very much worth while to start making trial mechs something more competitive I'm not saying that they should be super, pimped out machines but the stock builds should not be the only options. Piloting a trial mech should never feel like a punishment but it should also never be your best option. At the very least each trial mech should come with a brief description explaining how best to utilize it's abilities. It should include tips like the PPC and LRM's minimum range, if the cooling makes it better at mid range or hit and run attacks rather than as a brawler and so on.

I do have to say, I really would Like some more explanation on a lot of what this stuff does (like you said.) I've had to scrounge around the internet to figure out what part does what and why when it shouldn't be so hard. The customization is cool, but the info isn't so easy to get it (at least for parts). And what? There's a secret chat?

[Void2258]

vrok, on 09 March 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

Every player that isn't already a founder that I have introduced to the game has done this. Every single one. Doesn't even matter if I tell them that the game gets a lot better when you can fully customize your own mech later on. They can't be certain that it will be good enough even then, and it doesn't make up for the hours of pain they're going through right now.

Same here. All of my friends I have introduced to the game have left, promising to come back later "once they fix it" and "once their is an in-game tutorial". The game actively scares away new players. At the very least, Cadets should only play Cadets (if they want to bring friends to help learn, the friends should have to pick trial mechs too).

[KingCobra]

The OP is right in the fact the new player experiance is SO/SO a teamates son playes he is 13 his first reaction was WOW this is so cool i watched him play his first match.Me and his dad were having a beer.He started out good trying to learn the controls and boom he was dead 45 seconds.So i said try it again he did he moved around a bit tried to shoot a few players boom dead 1 min 15 sec.The thing is this kid really wants to play but the odds he quits the game is 90% becouse he does not have the time to learn anything before he is killed.A new player needs a trial Vs trial only que for maybe 24-72 hours to learn the basics then he can start in custom matches with mechs he has earned Cbills for.PGI is like the sink or swim method of Mechwarrior it dont work well with a 80-90% drop out rate.

Edited by KingCobra, 09 March 2013 - 07:34 PM.

[Side Step]

MadPanda, on 09 March 2013 - 05:43 AM, said:

You did not get the "new player" experience by just making a new account. A truly new player doesn't know what's good and what's bad. He isn't going to go into a game with a trial mech and be like "oh this is soo bad, I need doubleheatsinks and this ERLL should be a PPC instead and I need a bigger engine", No, not a single thought like that goes in their mind. All they see is the action and make a decision based on that if they want to continue. The big bank from cadet bonus will probably keep most playing the 25 games if their initial experience was good enough (to their standards, not to yours as a veteran). They will also be less concerned about winning or losing because they acknowledge that this is a new game to them and they are still learning. Taking a 0-5 is not gonna bother them as much as it bothers you.

This is actually very much like how it was for me in the beginning. I was blown away by the awesome mech combat. I lost most of my games, but they were much more exhilarating than any of the games I play now that the initial newbie shock has passed.

Being able to sit in the same mech used by veterans, after only the first few days were a quite unexpected but pleasant surprise. No "you have to play against higher tier tanks you cannot even damage for months and months" bs here.

The only thing I missed from the new guy experience was a training ground to test my mech before going into combat (has been added), and knowledge of normal income per game, so I wouldn't have bought FF armor and the biggest XL engine I could afford for my little jenner, just because I saw a lot of money coming in at the beginning.

After the cadet bonus ran out, the true new guy experience started for me. It was kind of slow, but I was already hooked, so it wasn't too bad.