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Bluten, on 27 March 2013 - 08:04 PM, said:
This. He typed this big HUGE wall just to pull crap out of his a$$. Grow some patience and come back later.
I can sort of agree. But you 'liked' yourself. And he has good ideas.
Protection, on 27 March 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:
Mechwarrior: Online is actually a very good game - there's depth, there's customization, there can be strategy and surprise, and there is potential to grow in many different directions. Yes, there's glitches, balance issues, mechanics changes, etc that all need to be looked at, but the core gameplay is actually really well done.
But how the hell you have gone into open beta, and on for almost six months, without so much as a new player tutorial is truly mind boggling!
And no, the Training Grounds are not a sufficient supplement for a proper tutorial.
THIS is what a proper tutorial looks like (3:30):
A spunky commander, played by a talented voice actor, giving step by step, play by play instructions as you learn the game, and all of its mechanics, piece by piece.
Now I understand that not all of the game mechanics are in place, and that some big things are still probably going to change for MW:O, but even a half assed attempt at a tutorial like the above would be infinitely better than 'training grounds,' a barren empty lifeless map where static, lifeless mech statues sit with no explanation or interaction.
And after 'testing grounds' (assuming a new player is even wise enough to begin there) the new player experience doesn't get much better. You get forced into a choice of one of four heat-death-traps designed to kill new players, and not at all suited the gameplay of Mechwarrior: Online. These inefficient, under-optimized machines mean that you are forced to manage your heat much more than any other player that customized their own mech, use inferior weapon loadouts (rarely are trial mechs lucky enough to be boating multiple identical weapons), and most builds (especially the 3025 designs) have none of the expected features of those custom mechs - like Endo Steel, Gauss Rifles, and Double Heatsinks.
Stock mechs really don't have a place in MWO at the moment. No one is running a stock mech (or anything even remotely close, except maybe the 4SP Hunchback) in competitive play or top-ELO games. Almost none of the stock designs work well, and even bad customized designs are almost always vastly superior (obvious example - the Goon Dragon about to win the Trial Mech contest - is a bad design, yet it still blows most of the trial mechs away).
I realize that "stock mechs are supposed to be common and abundant" and "they were the norm in the Inner-Sphere" and other lore and tabletop arguments - but that is best solved with a lobby system - which would allow players to RP or play with 3025 tech or stock mechs only (and solve a dozen other issues as well). As for the Mechwarrior: Online Inner Sphere - the Atlas is the most common of all mechs, the Catapult is a front line brawler, and the Raven is a dominating, speedy Light-hunter-killer. The average mechwarrior has between four and twenty mechs to his name, and there are only six different planets in the galaxy. The lore has been devastated by the game mechanics already, it's time to let it go. Time to take new players out of - and away from - Stock Mechs forever.
Basically, you are taking the newest players with no experience or preparation and then giving them the absolute worst possible equipment (in a PVP only game!) and then wondering why they don't feel like committing ten long tedious hours to the game to get their first customized and well-built mech. Especially with a hundred other free to play games on the market (many with the same poor player retention, wondering why clueless new players are not sticking with their tutorial-less, grindy game that forces you to use terrible equipment for many hours before fun can be achieved).
New players get little feedback or communication either. "Hey, remember that guy in the last game who told me how to me how to assign weapon groups and when to use LRMs?" No, of course you dont, because the friends list is so obtrusive and chatting using it is appalling. There's no out-of-game chat, no place to see who you recently played with, no place to ask about what happened in that last game while you were lost in the cave -- there's nothing in the game for human interaction. The only place to go for that sort of thing is the MW:O forums, a wretched hive of scum and villainy that most new players will never check out before giving up on the game forever.
ELO doesn't really address a lot of these issues either. Because MW:O doesn't have a huge concurrent playerbase the way that, say Dota2 or LoL (other ELO using games) do - this means that rather than having a game with 16 low ELO players, you get paired off to each team, so you might get 6 low ELO players, 8 mid ELO players, and 2 high ELO players, an then put 3, 4, and 1 on each team respectively. And all this does is make 3 players on each team useless prey to be devoured and eaten by the five on the other team. Not being able to (often) really contribute to a match because of vastly inferior equipment (coupled with the hurdles to overcome of being a new player) really seems like it would be a totally justified turn off for a new player trying to approach this game.
And as I mentioned before -- a lobby system would do so much to alleviate this. Newbie only games, teaching sessions, practice matches (with no stats tracked), choosing maps, choosing opponents, choosing settings -- would all be a huge benefit for new players (as well as absolutely everyone else playing) since they could have some control over their matches, rather than leaving it to PGI's best equations to forcibly choose their opponents for them each time.
It pretty much sucks terribly to be a new player in MW:O.
Which is why many new players don't stick around. Which is bad for the game - both it's life expectancy and it's content releases, so policy ought be changed to retain new players. And this is where the horrid idea of 3rd person comes in. But 3rd person is very much the wrong response. This is the result of listening to a (bad, overpaid) focus group with a bunch of people who have never played Mechwarrior and never ever wanted to until they were paid to for a focus group having bad ideas because the only two other games they ever played were Halo and Gears of War. I'm sure some marketing blockhead is saying "but look at the popularity of those games" -- this blockhead knows nothing about game marketing or commercial game success and should be fired on the spot. Games, especially games with limited or smaller budgets and resources, cannot steal from larger fanbases by imitating those games. So many other MMOs fail, because they try to imitate World of Warcraft - rather than doing their own thing. This is one of the reasons EVE is still around and still thriving - because it decided not to be WoW in space, but a richer, deeper, more complex game.
So in conclusion (TL;DR):
But how the hell you have gone into open beta, and on for almost six months, without so much as a new player tutorial is truly mind boggling!
And no, the Training Grounds are not a sufficient supplement for a proper tutorial.
THIS is what a proper tutorial looks like (3:30):
A spunky commander, played by a talented voice actor, giving step by step, play by play instructions as you learn the game, and all of its mechanics, piece by piece.
Now I understand that not all of the game mechanics are in place, and that some big things are still probably going to change for MW:O, but even a half assed attempt at a tutorial like the above would be infinitely better than 'training grounds,' a barren empty lifeless map where static, lifeless mech statues sit with no explanation or interaction.
And after 'testing grounds' (assuming a new player is even wise enough to begin there) the new player experience doesn't get much better. You get forced into a choice of one of four heat-death-traps designed to kill new players, and not at all suited the gameplay of Mechwarrior: Online. These inefficient, under-optimized machines mean that you are forced to manage your heat much more than any other player that customized their own mech, use inferior weapon loadouts (rarely are trial mechs lucky enough to be boating multiple identical weapons), and most builds (especially the 3025 designs) have none of the expected features of those custom mechs - like Endo Steel, Gauss Rifles, and Double Heatsinks.
Stock mechs really don't have a place in MWO at the moment. No one is running a stock mech (or anything even remotely close, except maybe the 4SP Hunchback) in competitive play or top-ELO games. Almost none of the stock designs work well, and even bad customized designs are almost always vastly superior (obvious example - the Goon Dragon about to win the Trial Mech contest - is a bad design, yet it still blows most of the trial mechs away).
I realize that "stock mechs are supposed to be common and abundant" and "they were the norm in the Inner-Sphere" and other lore and tabletop arguments - but that is best solved with a lobby system - which would allow players to RP or play with 3025 tech or stock mechs only (and solve a dozen other issues as well). As for the Mechwarrior: Online Inner Sphere - the Atlas is the most common of all mechs, the Catapult is a front line brawler, and the Raven is a dominating, speedy Light-hunter-killer. The average mechwarrior has between four and twenty mechs to his name, and there are only six different planets in the galaxy. The lore has been devastated by the game mechanics already, it's time to let it go. Time to take new players out of - and away from - Stock Mechs forever.
Basically, you are taking the newest players with no experience or preparation and then giving them the absolute worst possible equipment (in a PVP only game!) and then wondering why they don't feel like committing ten long tedious hours to the game to get their first customized and well-built mech. Especially with a hundred other free to play games on the market (many with the same poor player retention, wondering why clueless new players are not sticking with their tutorial-less, grindy game that forces you to use terrible equipment for many hours before fun can be achieved).
New players get little feedback or communication either. "Hey, remember that guy in the last game who told me how to me how to assign weapon groups and when to use LRMs?" No, of course you dont, because the friends list is so obtrusive and chatting using it is appalling. There's no out-of-game chat, no place to see who you recently played with, no place to ask about what happened in that last game while you were lost in the cave -- there's nothing in the game for human interaction. The only place to go for that sort of thing is the MW:O forums, a wretched hive of scum and villainy that most new players will never check out before giving up on the game forever.
ELO doesn't really address a lot of these issues either. Because MW:O doesn't have a huge concurrent playerbase the way that, say Dota2 or LoL (other ELO using games) do - this means that rather than having a game with 16 low ELO players, you get paired off to each team, so you might get 6 low ELO players, 8 mid ELO players, and 2 high ELO players, an then put 3, 4, and 1 on each team respectively. And all this does is make 3 players on each team useless prey to be devoured and eaten by the five on the other team. Not being able to (often) really contribute to a match because of vastly inferior equipment (coupled with the hurdles to overcome of being a new player) really seems like it would be a totally justified turn off for a new player trying to approach this game.
And as I mentioned before -- a lobby system would do so much to alleviate this. Newbie only games, teaching sessions, practice matches (with no stats tracked), choosing maps, choosing opponents, choosing settings -- would all be a huge benefit for new players (as well as absolutely everyone else playing) since they could have some control over their matches, rather than leaving it to PGI's best equations to forcibly choose their opponents for them each time.
It pretty much sucks terribly to be a new player in MW:O.
Which is why many new players don't stick around. Which is bad for the game - both it's life expectancy and it's content releases, so policy ought be changed to retain new players. And this is where the horrid idea of 3rd person comes in. But 3rd person is very much the wrong response. This is the result of listening to a (bad, overpaid) focus group with a bunch of people who have never played Mechwarrior and never ever wanted to until they were paid to for a focus group having bad ideas because the only two other games they ever played were Halo and Gears of War. I'm sure some marketing blockhead is saying "but look at the popularity of those games" -- this blockhead knows nothing about game marketing or commercial game success and should be fired on the spot. Games, especially games with limited or smaller budgets and resources, cannot steal from larger fanbases by imitating those games. So many other MMOs fail, because they try to imitate World of Warcraft - rather than doing their own thing. This is one of the reasons EVE is still around and still thriving - because it decided not to be WoW in space, but a richer, deeper, more complex game.
So in conclusion (TL;DR):
- Tresting grounds suck. Make a real tutorial.
- Stock mechs are terrible and only become an even bigger handicap for the players who are already most lacking in experience and game understanding
- Instead give players a wide selection of well optimized mechs that are built to function in a specific role (eg/ brawler, sniper, scout, LRM-boat)
- Lobby system. Lobby System. LOBBY SYSTEM. ASAP.
- Coupled with the lobby system - an out-of-game open chat, like those you find on pretty much every multiplayer online gave ever to exist
- ELO isn't really a solution - it's not even a bandaid. It has its place, but it's not a cure to the issues.
- 3rd person isn't the cure either - it's a bad idea put forward by a focus group of non-gamers, and really needs to be kept away from any even remotely serious play.
- "I had a great game in a trial mech. Look at my scoreboard." -- Good for you. You don't know what anecdotal evidence is.
- "Grrrr, don't give new player better mechs. I had to grind through a hundred games in a Stock Dragon 1-N just to get my first Commando. You young kids don't know how to work for things." -- This isn't boot camp, this is pretend-robot fun time, and it's player-versus-player only. The weakest, newest players deserve, at the least, equal footing with the rest of us.
- "But I learned the game without a tutorial. If I can learn it without a tutorial then so can everyone else." -- Everyone else is bombarded by a dozen different free to play titles, all of which take hours to learn without a proper tutorial. Enough playtime across enough games, means you are going to lose players to sheer market over-saturation, and this is only amplified if there isn't a convenient system for figuring everything out in a short amount of time.
Here're a couple of answers you didn't preempt:
-If PGI's supposed to be branching out and doing it's own thing, so as not to try and be other games (see your post's section on 3rd person), then why should it implement a lobby in order to be like "pretty much every multiplayer online gave ever to exist?"
-Beta. A lot of this stuff might very well be incoming.
-Numbers?
