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[Dawnstealer]

[edit - posted this in another section a week or so ago, but realized it made more sense over here]

On Tuesday, I dropped with a mixed group of experienced players and relative newbies. We were all on teamspeak and they wanted to try out 8-man drops.

Having done 8-mans before, I know that the groups that run 8-mans tend to be fairly well-organized and have played together a few times. It's very rare a group drops that has a similar make-up to our own. We dropped and were handedly obliterated five times in a row, with people getting frustrated very quickly.

One thing that would be useful would be to have a version of Training Grounds where you could pull in another player or a small group of players (12v12 would be awesome, but even 4v4 would be useful) to just practice; where the stats don't matter, where there's not a timer counting down, where you have a lot more control over the situation.

You could control who was on which team, who was on which lance, what map you played on, how many players, and so on.

With this option, you could bring in one new player who's having trouble and practice one-on-one and actually...train...them, without having people scream "NOOB!!!!" at them during a game while they're still trying to figure out the controls.

If you could select the specific map, that would be even better. Sometimes you have this great plan in mind, but when you can only test it out during a "live-fire" game, you have a lot less chance of succeeding or even being able to pull it off (teammates will tend to do what's worked in the past).

It would also be good for teams and training in the larger sense (think of it as a military exercise whereas the non-training ground is the "real" thing). If you want to train your scouts against a team of eight (or twelve, I guess, now) DDC Atlases, learning how to use TAG without getting spotted or obliterated, that would be MASSIVELY useful as a training tool

Right now, the Training Grounds are a good place to learn where hit locations are on specific mechs, kind of learn your way around a map, test out weapon groups, and so on, but it's impossible to actually learn or train for the actual game in that situation beyond the very basic controls and interactions.

I would love the option to grab a new player (or players, or teammates), take them into the Training Grounds on a 1-on-1 situation, and then show them how to handle different situations or just to practice with specific scenarios or on specific maps.

The random aspects of this game are great, but for actual new players and PUGs, it's an added challenge that might drive away people just looking for a quick fix: the learning curve on MW:O is much higher than, say, Halo or Call of Duty. Having a Training Grounds that considered that would be a great addition to a great game.