52 replies to this topic

[Zurakci]

So I have noticed that this game is not beginner friendly. Its actually "Have Skill or git rekt." and I personally have nothing against it since I have played Mechwarrior games before. But... I have tried to get over 10 people to play this. All with same results. Its either have Skill from before, or get wrecked, and to be honest, the tutorial is not really a good help, and the training grounds would be good if you could play with people. Having a person host instead of running on your (Oh so pricey) Servers could be a thing to train with a lance and such.

Its just... I see games building their way to make it all good for the new players so they can learn and like the game. Warframe is a perfect example of this. Their next update will feature more new player friendliness and more new player fun.
Planetside 2 is trying to go more and more for the new players. They are not good, cause their DEV team is a cluster in my opinion, but they are giving us a little by little.

I just wish to play with my friends in this game. I wish to give you guys more gamers, but I cant do that if the game cannot welcome the players with open arms.. Or with mechs that are ready to spread some serious Dakka.

All in all.. Moar new player friendliness. Please.

Edited by Zurakci, 29 June 2014 - 03:05 PM.

[wanderer]

It's pretty simple. MWO throws newbies into the meat grinder.

Sink or swim, mostly sinking. There is no "cadet only" queue, and I've seen newbies fresh out of their first 25 chucked into matches with people who regularly stomp entire 12-man group tournaments.

It is a nagging and constant flaw in the game, and honestly...there aren't good tutorials because the devs are mediocre players, have no good players on staff, and worst of all no idea how to TEACH pilot skills or essentials.

[Green Mamba]

UI 2.0 Definitely Did not Help. Its enough to make New players quit before ever dropping in a match

[TLBFestus]

About the only cure you have for this at the moment is buying premium time and hosting a private match for your friends where you can walk them through the basics and do a little scrimmaging.

PGI doesn't give new players any love at all, and people have been asking for a better tutorial since Closed Beta. Despite the fact that attracting new players and giving them a good experience and an opportunity to go through the learning curve without getting waxed by veteran players, which shoud increase the player base and by association INCREASE THEIR REVENUE STREAM, they ignore this.

Paradoxically I think they don't see it as profitable.

So, if you want your friends to learn the game Im afraid they have to take the very hard road, or you need to buy a months premium time and be PGIS Walmart Greeter.

Edited by TLBFestus, 29 June 2014 - 03:35 PM.

[Kompost]

Green Mamba, on 29 June 2014 - 03:32 PM, said:

UI 2.0 Definitely Did not Help. Its enough to make New players quit before ever dropping in a match

My thought exactly
Seriously, starting way back in open beta was already a painful experience. Now with several "must have" modules, dhs required on every mech and powerful clan mechs behind a paywall things are ugly for new players to say the least.

[RockmachinE]

I like it that way, I'm sick and tired of games wrapping people in cotton, care-baring and sugarcoating things. It's a SLIGHTLY more complex game. You want to play it, you stick with it and learn it. To hard for you? Go play simpler things like TF2. Games are too dumbed down as it is, we don't need more of that. It literally takes less then 1 week to feel comfortable in MWO, maybe twice longer to figure out the details of weapons and loadouts, but that's about it.

And in all honesty MWO is NOT a hard game to play or figure out. If your buddies can't cope with it they're not the right players for this game.

Edited by Louis Brofist, 29 June 2014 - 03:58 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Well, at least new players aren't forced to drop in one of 4 stock mechs. Not even Champions, full on stock mechs, with SHS and often only 2 tons of ammo.

There's even a selection of 12 Champions now, which gives them options. A Ghost Heat indicator....but it still doesn't tell you enough info unfortunately.

[FupDup]

Mcgral18, on 29 June 2014 - 03:56 PM, said:

Well, at least new players aren't forced to drop in one of 4 stock mechs. Not even Champions, full on stock mechs, with SHS and often only 2 tons of ammo.

There's even a selection of 12 Champions now, which gives them options. A Ghost Heat indicator....but it still doesn't tell you enough info unfortunately.

Just imagine how pathetically low new player retention would be if the stock Urbanmech was the only trial mech available. The game would pretty much die in a month or two.

[Pjwned]

It isn't just "have skill or git rekt" either, it's also "suffer through a painful grind to get optimal equipment or pay money immediately" because if you don't have the proper engine, structure upgrades, and even modules in some cases you will get owned repeatedly. That's also ignoring the horrible, worthless grind to get elite efficiencies unlocked on your favored mech(s) so that you don't overheat frequently and have controls better than a tractor.

The two worst things I can point out are that the VAST majority of stock mech builds are HORRIBLE and if you go into a match with one you're going to find it's a deathtrap, especially on a hot map like Terra Therma. The other problem is that new players get thrown in with people that have far superior mechs because they have the right equipment and grinded out the mech tree, so even if they do manage to pilot their deathtrap reasonably well they'll still get destroyed in an even fight against enemy mechs that have huge advantages.

Louis Brofist, on 29 June 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

I like it that way, I'm sick and tired of games wrapping people in cotton, care-baring and sugarcoating things. It's a SLIGHTLY more complex game. You want to play it, you stick with it and learn it. To hard for you? Go play simpler things like TF2. Games are too dumbed down as it is, we don't need more of that. It literally takes less then 1 week to feel comfortable in MWO, maybe twice longer to figure out the details of weapons and loadouts, but that's about it.

And in all honesty MWO is NOT a hard game to play or figure out. If your buddies can't cope with it they're not the right players for this game.

This is a really bad attitude to have considering how much crap is stacked against a new player, I almost stopped playing forever several times for exactly that reason but I managed to persevere through a soul crushing grindfest, and since then I manage to find some fun matches and make some fun mech builds with a bit of effort.

Edited by Pjwned, 29 June 2014 - 04:16 PM.

[Mcgral18]

FupDup, on 29 June 2014 - 03:57 PM, said:

Just imagine how pathetically low new player retention would be if the stock Urbanmech was the only trial mech available. The game would pretty much die in a month or two.

Hm...1 ton of ammo, but only 2 JJs.

It wouldn't have heat issues, and couldn't kill itself easily with JJs, unlike the stock spiders which can leg themselves in 4 jumps on the PTS.

I feel it's safe to say the UM-R60 isn't the worst stock mech in existance. Nearly max armor on top of that.

Edited by Mcgral18, 29 June 2014 - 04:06 PM.

[FupDup]

Mcgral18, on 29 June 2014 - 04:06 PM, said:

Hm...1 ton of ammo, but only 2 JJs.

It wouldn't have heat issues, and couldn't kill itself easily with JJs, unlike the stock spiders which can leg themselves in 4 jumps on the PTS.

I feel it's safe to say the UM-R60 isn't the worst stock mech in existance. Nearly max armor on top of that.

The speed is the real killer. A poor nubcake would waddle out into the open and die from alpha strikes long before he could waddle his way to cover. He'd be running at a whopping 32.4 kph.

[YueFei]

Mcgral18, on 29 June 2014 - 04:06 PM, said:

It wouldn't have heat issues, and couldn't kill itself easily with JJs, unlike the stock spiders which can leg themselves in 4 jumps on the PTS.

Oh god, it's that bad?!

We told them, didn't we?

[Mcgral18]

YueFei, on 29 June 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

Oh god, it's that bad?!

We told them, didn't we?

Well, "stock" spider with stock 12 Leg armor and 12 JJs, going to the max and then free falling without feathering.

Although I did notice something funny. A full 12 JJs only got you ~45M, while on the current live servers it would give you 70M.

It was cut severely in all mechs, 16.xM for the Nova instead of ~27.


That affects things a fair bit.

Edited by Mcgral18, 29 June 2014 - 06:14 PM.

[YueFei]

Mcgral18, on 29 June 2014 - 06:14 PM, said:

Well, "stock" spider with stock 12 Leg armor and 12 JJs, going to the max and then free falling without feathering.

Although I did notice something funny. A full 12 JJs only got you ~45M, while on the current live servers it would give you 70M.

It was cut severely in all mechs, 16.xM for the Nova instead of ~27.


That affects things a fair bit.

So..... they made jump jets less useful for actual leaps and maneuvering? The Nova can't even jump over an Atlas's head if it starts at level ground?

What is this? No fun allowed?

The only thing you'll be able to do effectively with jump jets with this kind of nerf is to poptart!

=/

[StandingInFire]

The game is very hard for people who have never played a mech or tank game before.

For example one of my friends I tried to get to play the game (he pretty much quit after 4 games) is quite good at most video games: plays shooters, mmos, and is high plat/low diamond rank in LoL (~top 2%). He had a very hard time learning to control all the body parts independently (this should be a bit easier now that arm-lock and third person are in but haven't tried to get more people in recently). So he was getting absolutely smashed in game even with me trying to help him.

What they could do to make teaching people the game a lot better would be add a referral system like LoL has. You give people a special sign-up link that auto-adds them to your friends list, if they complete the full cadet bonus the account that was used for referring them gets a bonus (say c-bills and something special at various numbers). Then allow the referrer and referred account to make special private "training" lobbies (only those 2 people allowed) while he still has the cadet bonus available where the refer could for example spectate the refereed and visa versa to show them the ropes.

Something like that should provide incentive for people to recruit their friends to MWO and make it easier to get them to learn the ropes of the game while not making it easy to exploit.

Edited by StandingInFire, 29 June 2014 - 06:33 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

more newbie friendly?

but but but 3rd person view was like a totally success only a week after implementation. we don't do tutorials cause we're changing the weapons mechanics... some time and we can't make tutes if they need to be changed balanced mindlessly year after year when it's right for the playerbase.

we have a nerfed earnings marvilous economy which means you can have your first dud mistake mech free purchase within 24 deaths matches and then you can grind away play against fully mastered metas other people in are wonderfull matchmaker.

gees the things you guys want from a free game

sincerely ~ dev gods

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 29 June 2014 - 06:37 PM.

[Dago Red]

In addition to the somewhat unusual controls and meat grinder effect of throwing everyone in the deep end there's also the mechlab. Firstly you have the general it just being a cluster that we all know about but you also have to factor in the relative dearth of relevant information it gives someone new to the setting.

Don't know the difference between a regular, ultra and LBX too bad. Don't know what BAP does? Too bad.

That problem is made even worse with how tight most people's cbill budget is during the purchase and outfitting of their first mech. If they screw up and waste money buying things they're not going to end up using the grind combined with not having a proper mech is likely to break them. Better than it was back before the trials were champions but still not good.

[Karamarka]

Louis Brofist, on 29 June 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

I like it that way, I'm sick and tired of games wrapping people in cotton, care-baring and sugarcoating things. It's a SLIGHTLY more complex game. You want to play it, you stick with it and learn it. To hard for you? Go play simpler things like TF2. Games are too dumbed down as it is, we don't need more of that. It literally takes less then 1 week to feel comfortable in MWO, maybe twice longer to figure out the details of weapons and loadouts, but that's about it.

And in all honesty MWO is NOT a hard game to play or figure out. If your buddies can't cope with it they're not the right players for this game.

Uhh the problem is more like, you play quite a bit and all these trial mechs are on your team and you suffer for it.

[mogs01gt]

Louis Brofist, on 29 June 2014 - 03:54 PM, said:

I like it that way, I'm sick and tired of games wrapping people in cotton, care-baring and sugarcoating things. It's a SLIGHTLY more complex game. You want to play it, you stick with it and learn it. To hard for you? Go play simpler things like TF2. Games are too dumbed down as it is, we don't need more of that. It literally takes less then 1 week to feel comfortable in MWO, maybe twice longer to figure out the details of weapons and loadouts, but that's about it.

And in all honesty MWO is NOT a hard game to play or figure out. If your buddies can't cope with it they're not the right players for this game.

Are you serious? Do you ever know of the issue the OP is talking about? Im not even sure its worth explaining things to this type of person...


New players need to play against each other, bottom line!! Most game already have this but again MWO probably doesnt have the player pool to do it.

[Latorque]

He; we almost got a 12-man together just from guys we know and hang out with from time to time. Me and a friend dragged them through the whole process; and all of them were completely unfamiliar with the BT-Universe or old MW-titles. Believe me; it's not beginner friendly; and those guys were pretty quick on the uptake.

Heat management, LRM5/10/15/20, AC 2/5/10/20, LB-10-X, JJs, PPC, energy slot, ballistic slot, SSRM / SRM, target lock, XL/STD engine, weight/power ratio, LoS and so on ad nauseam - these things mean nothing to them. Unconventional controls, mediocre mechs for starters (mediocre now. Back then the trials were the godawful SHS-equipped standard variants. I have honestly no idea how or why we played through those to our first owned mechs). Seriously; for the first 30-50 matches it's kind of explaning how to operate a dock crane to a native amazon tribesman. While the dock crane is being bombed by enemy planes and burning. And when you're done with that; you take him back into the garage and demonstrate how to build the crane from scratch.

Unfortunately; a lot of those 12 guys were driven off with the LRM changes; some permanently - it had me on hiatus too. They had just gotten the hang of the controls and started having fun for maybe a month when X-TREME lurming began. We could lure some back with the RDM-promise.

The combat mechanics are one thing; but the mechlab damn well needs a tutorial, and a good glossary on top. Hell, WoTs Tutorial is about 10 times better just by existing; and the game works with mechanics most people are far more familiar with.