47 replies to this topic

[Agmar Strick]

The first few matches are pretty rough. The first match I had was river city night, I fell down into the carpark thing, then wandered out into the water and was promptly annihilated by who knows what.

Now, I even figured it was going to be hard, I watched the youtube training vids, had the controls jpeg up on the other screen, and it was still terrible. But I persevered because mechwarrior is awesome.

Those first kills you get are pretty awesome though, feels like hard work paying off.

MWO is never going to appeal to the twitch shooter crowd. Either you're happy working your way through a complex game, or you aren't. The training ground / intro stuff, simply needs to ensure that new players get a fair understand of what the game is actually like and the tips and tricks are accessible and easily enough found.

[Pale Horseman]

Alltimefail, on 09 March 2013 - 07:01 PM, said:

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?

You could try the teamspeak servers in the following link (I think the EU server isn't that active though), there should be veterans you can ask info from in the training channels. (It's also where you can form or join groups for matches.)
http://mwomercs.com/...ucation-center/

[Arioch Q]

New player here.

F*ck this game.

I would rather slam my **** between two bricks for an hour.

Edited by Arioch Q, 09 March 2013 - 08:22 PM.

[FupDup]

Arioch Q, on 09 March 2013 - 08:22 PM, said:

I would rather slam my **** between two bricks for an hour.

Want to put your money where your mouth is?


Serious reply: Yes, this game really does need to be much more nub-friendly than it is currently (this is agreed upon almost universally). For one thing, stock mechs (and therefore trials) really ought to be modified so that they still capture the original "mojo" of the TT designs but also modified just enough so that they aren't garbage (for instance, an energy-oriented mech like the K2 should seriously come with DHS by default!).

The gameplay's good, you just gotta be patient until you're able to buy a mech that doesn't suck eggs. Once you learn the core skills the game pretty much plays like an FPS except with throttled-movement, heat, and 2 reticules.

Edited by FupDup, 09 March 2013 - 08:38 PM.

[anonymous175]

[Raso]

FupDup, on 09 March 2013 - 08:31 PM, said:

Serious reply: Yes, this game really does need to be much more nub-friendly than it is currently (this is agreed upon almost universally). For one thing, stock mechs (and therefore trials) really ought to be modified so that they still capture the original "mojo" of the TT designs but also modified just enough so that they aren't garbage (for instance, an energy-oriented mech like the K2 should seriously come with DHS by default!).

The gameplay's good, you just gotta be patient until you're able to buy a mech that doesn't suck eggs. Once you learn the core skills the game pretty much plays like an FPS except with throttled-movement, heat, and 2 reticules.

Personally I think they should stop using stock mechs for the trial mechs. Maybe hand crafted mechs where each is made to fit a specific role. Nothing ground breaking, or even overly desirable, just useful. Each mech should also come with a description explaining how to use them (complete with tips on weapon use).

[Noobzorz]

What they should really do is give you a no-******** tutorial and then start you off with several million CBills right off the bat. I'd argue that you should provide enough to buy a cheapie Atlas right out the get go, but suppose you get enough to buy and totally outfit a treb or something comparable.

Start this with "Mechwarrior Online is not like other first person shooters. We strongly recommend that you play the tutorial first.

No. Really. I know what you're thinking, but we actually mean it."

Then go through the painstaking process of explaining that the player needs to be aware of everywhere on the screen. This was a HUGE learning adjustment for me. The idea that I needed to be focused on anything but my map and my ammo was kind of crazy. Here you MUST be paying attention to your heat, your targeting, your health, and your map. Essentially you need to know what's going on in three corners of the screen and two major things in the bottom middle. That's three or four more than in other games.

Then let them try the mechs against some AIs or something.

Ok. I think I got sidetracked.

One of the key things to remember here is that a lot of the trial mechs suck because they feature equipment that is not good. Small lasers, for example, are not good. Machine guns and flamers are embarrassingly bad. Once (if?) these things are resolved, the trial mechs are likely to look a lot less crappy.

[Fieldmarshal]

I would guess mwo probably retains about 20-30% of new players, not much more. Buffing trial mechs is a non issue, the real problem is there are too much game mechanics to learn and too little learning aid. These newbs are thrown to the wolves in the first match, where they are forced to learn from dying..over and over and over. psychologically speaking, this form of learning is frustrating and when there are other options for multiplayer gaming out there, most of them just say screw it and play something else.

Edited by Fieldmarshal, 09 March 2013 - 09:19 PM.