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[YueFei]

The new player experience in crappy Trial Mechs being dropped hot into matches against other human players is just bloody awful. I truly believe PGI is driving away at least 50% of their potential customers by doing this. My buddies and I have introduced a bunch of other people to the game, and the only one sticking around is the one I literally sat with for his first 25 drops.

They ought to make a set of single-player PvE missions that new players can hop into, each one paying C-bills the first time you play it (or make it so you can try it again and again until you win the mission, and upon winning it pays out C-bills the first time). That way people can get gradually acclimated to piloting a mech, maneuvering up hills (LOL), use of jump-jets, grouping weapons, managing heat, and learning to use the various category of weapons (lasers, missiles, ballistics, and PPCs).

Ideally, this set of PvE missions should follow a logical progression in introduction of concepts:
1.) How to maneuver, and move torso separately from legs. How arms can aim separately from the torso. How to climb hills that are steeper than 45 degrees. Basic laser shooting at some moving targets (maybe a convoy of trucks haha). How to read the minimap and use it to grasp the orientation of your legs and your torso.
2.) Targeting an opponent, reading the paper doll, and making use of guided missiles (LRMs and SSRMs). Maneuvering in and out of cover to avoid the enemy-launched LRMs. Grouping weapons (LRMs grouped separately from SSRMs). Reading your own paper doll for damage.
3.) Use of unguided missiles and lasers. Teaching players to focus their laser fire into a single component of a moving enemy target, while rolling their own torso to spread the damage.
4.) Use of jump jets and TAG beam to act as a spotter for friendly LRMs.
5.) Teamwork. Reading icons showing teammates, on the minimap and the battlegrid, knowing when an icon denotes that a teammate is being jammed by enemy ECM. Which icon shows a teammate is being targetted, has missiles being launched at him, etc. Show orders being received on the battlegrid and have the player follow these orders.
6.) Leadership. Have the player take control of friendly units and direct them by giving orders on the battlegrid.

Then, upon completion of the full set of single-player PvE missions, a new player will have earned enough C-bills to purchase their first mech. They'll have the basic skills *and* they'll have an actually functional mech to use in their first matches against human players. They'll have some idea what all the friggin icons all over the HUD actually mean.

And they'll actually stick around to play the game in the future and spend money on it.