270 replies to this topic

[Lhaim]

General/Helpchat in the Mechlab.

[Nightmare1]

Skimming through the responses, I did not see this listed, so please forgive me if it is a double post.

I have experience as a Mentor in real life with an organization for Chemical Engineering students. The way we do it, is there is a cyclical time period (for us it is one semester). This time period could be one CW cycle. At the beginning of each time period, players could Opt-in to the Mentoring program similarly to how the tourneys are held (like Worthy Adversaries). Upon Opt-in, players would be prompted with a short questionnaire to determine their skill levels, areas of expertise, times available, and why they want to be in the program (Mentor versus Mentee).

This could all be out-putted to something like Google Calendar or the Enjin Calendar. These are examples; I recognize that PGI wishes to avoid third-party materials. Mentees could look at the calendar to find available Mentors that fit with their own needs and time constraints, and then message them for a teaching session. It would be up to the Mentor to determine how many pilots he/she wishes to take under their wing per session.

Now, Mentors should be eligible, I think, for some in-game rewards like the Premium Time Nikolai has already mentioned. However, to make sure that players aren't just signing up and cashing in, Mentors would be required to spend a certain amount of time online and available to Mentees. It can't be too much time because it can't interfere with RL. Perhaps two hours a week would suffice - that gives one thirty-minute session per day for four days. Scheduling could be flexible so that the Mentor can plan it around RL activities. If PGI could develop a tracker, then the easiest way to do this may be to simply track the amount of time a Mentor spends logged in and helping Mentees (who would need to log in as well to verify that the Mentor is actually helping someone and not just logged in to cash in), and then convert this to an approximate number of Premium Time days at the end of the time period. For example, if CW periods are used at three months per period, then at the end of three periods, the time a Mentor spent logged in would be tallied and rounded to the nearest whole day. This would then be meted back out as Premium Time to the Mentor.

Because it requires two pilots with Premium Time to initiate a Private Match with full customization, there will need to be a system for enabling Mentors to take Mentees out into the Training Grounds for live-fire and Mech piloting drills (if this is in the scope of PGI's objective). There are two possible ways to do this, I think. One would be to enable a feature such that anyone with a Mentor tag can initiate a Private Match and fully customize it without the presence of a second Premium Player. The second method, would be to give the Mentors some kind of ability to gift a day of Premium Time to one of the Mentees. The latter method is a bit tricky though, since there is room for abuse.

As for the forums, it may be best to simply create a tag similar to the one used by Moderators. This would identify key pilots as Mentors and would help Mentees know to whom they should listen the most. There are a lot of forum trolls that do little to help new players and, in some cases, actively seek to mislead them. The scheduling system could still be used so that Mentees could discuss (via TeamSpeak, forums, or Messaging) questions and learn from Mentors in real time.

Ultimately, I see a system like this as being the best version at this time:

1) Mentor/Mentee sign-ups
2) Mentor Badges
3) Mentor Scheduling Tools
4) Mentor/Mentee Training Ground or Private Match Tools
5) Mentor Requirements to prevent abuse; i.e. - Minimum number of hours dedicated or posts made for MWO each week
6) Mentee Feedback System (forum, ticket, etc) to help identify good/bad Mentors
7) Mentoring Time Cycle
8) Mentor Rewards System (Premium Time, MC, Cockpit Items, etc.)

I will be the first to admit that I lack knowledge of programming and such, so some of what I suggest may be more complicated to code than I realize. If anyone has ideas for improvement, feel free to suggest them!

Edit: Here is my Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv...tmarejk/profile
I have a lot of Highlights there showing gameplay and Mech mechanics. I have only created one vid for the expressed purpose of teaching someone something, but it is my intention to build upon that and made a short series of how-to vids. I will link them here or perhaps in a Mentor/Mentee forum later.

Edited by Nightmare1, 13 October 2014 - 04:00 PM.

[Hoax415]

So many insanely complex mentor systems.

Guys, something simple, with minimal amounts of coding required. Stop with these insane entirely new system proposals.

Niko,

Here is a thread on the subject from awhile back, as you can see the #1 problem facing newbies is where to go to find information. You need to fix that by getting all the info they need in one place and pointing that place out to them somehow.

http://mwomercs.com/...he-new-players/

The #2 problem is, nobody wants to teach his new buddy the ropes by playing with the newbie because that puts them into group queue and the group queue just doesn't have the type of matches that allow for a new player to figure things out.

[Andi Nagasia]

personally, i think allowing a private match to start with 1 player on each side,
this currently requires both players to have premium time, a problem i think,

allowing 1vs1 if you will will first off allow people to Duel,
which would make people happy, and second allow for 1on1 mentoring system,
how to stop abuse, and farming, no rewards or achievements are awarded in 1vs1,


if we where allowed free use of 1vs1 matches, we could train in a controlled environment,
a new player could take what he want to better learn, and his friends could take trials,
this would allow the new player to experiment with their mech against a living player,

its hard to introduce some one to MWO when you have them join you in a Group(2),
and you get dropped with 1(6) 1(4) vs 1(8) 1(4), often recruits die early match,
and its hard for them to wait 8+ minutes to jump into another match,

i feel this 1vs1 would be a easy and simplest solution at this time,
allowing new inexperienced players to get a good feel for the game,
learning about speed, heat, & tactics, be for being thrown to the wolves,


Personally, i feel this will allow Players to more easily bring in their friends to play,
letting us teach them the ropes of MechWarrior before they head off on their own,

we could also have NGNG set aside some Training lobby's and Training rooms,
so new players can jump in with others and talk and train in private sessions,


Edit- Personally

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 13 October 2014 - 04:49 PM.

[Redshift2k5]

A key stumbling block for mentorship is the barriers in place preventing players from providing one-on-one or small-scale private matches to new players who may be hesitant to invest in premium time

If new players could join in on mentored one-on-one private matches without premium time it would allow a safe environment for new players to work on basic skills with another player while not requiring them to have already made an investment of premium time (since players who barely know how to play are probably not buying very much premium time)

An opt-in list of units open to bringing in brand new players, posted in a visible area of the forum, would help a lot to get people in touch with groups who can provide training, advice, and a friendly environment to learn to be a better player.

As for nominations, Spike Brave's series of video tutorials are excellent.

[Dock Steward]

1) Enable a "Helper" tag
2) Make it so we can add friends at the end of match screen. Remembering names after the fact is hard sometimes.

3-100) The other great ideas being thrown out here.

[InspectorG]

FIRST!!!!!!
***GET A LIVE PRACTICE MAP***

Take the time limit off and if a mech dies it respawns with full armor/ammo in 10 seconds. Target mechs respawn the same way.

This way new pilots can be coached with no pressure and new-ish players can test new loadouts without worry.

Second, have an opt-in to be a mentor/coach. With a forum thread/profile so new players can find a coach in their timezone/ time of play. Language preference, etc.

Let the new players rank the coach, on skill, communication, fun, etc.

Coaches that put X amount of time in get some kind of reward. Day of premium per 8 hours coaching, whatever. Free cockpit items, exclusive items, etc.

I would separate coaches from Factions affiliation during time spent live coaching until CW gets into a good rhythm and a better system can be implemented.
Once CW is rolling, Factions can have Faction coaches...there are possibilities there.

[N0MAD]

Here you want us to help out new players yet you wont give us the most basic of community tools.
A new player turns up has no idea about the most simple of things, could be the UI, weapons, mechs, so he thinks i need to ask someone, looks for a general chat, nope cant do no general chat, no help.
New player comes on wants to find people with similar interests, gaming times etc, nope cant do no way to communicate with the community..
You want to grow a community? give the community some where to meet and get to know others and no 3rd party sites are not good enough..

[Mawai]

1) Global help chat channel in the Mechlab front end. Allow mentors and players with less than 30 days in the game to use it. (Add a general chat channel for everyone else as well). You could also add house/merc corp/clan chat channels as well. This is also the first step needed to allowing folks to organize into groups in-game.

2) Add links from the in-game client to the help section of the forums ... maybe add a tab in the mechlab for the "New Player Experience" including links to help articles and the training grounds. A scripted learning scenario would be useful ... even World of Tanks has this ... which would include movement, jump jets, weapons fire, weapon grouping and heat. There are a number of important basic concepts to play MWO which could be better presented.

[p4r4g0n]

This seems like a very limited solution to a big problem.

What exactly are PGI's plans to improve the NPE post-CW Phase 2? Rather than numerous redundant posts about stuff that you may already be planning to put in place, having some framework or idea of what PGI is thinking of doing will help us help PGI develop a better NPE.

If there is no current plan or framework in place, there have been tons of ideas posted over the years you could cull from to develop one.

Personally, as I've said way back in the beginning of OB, the NPE needed and still needs a lot of work to enhance NP retention. Since Russ mentioned in a Town Hall that one idea is to work on a single player game post-CW Phase 2, perhaps developing a single player campaign that can function as a tutorial for NPs would be a good start on that project and you'd need such a tutorial in any case for a single player game.

If said NP single player campaign could be tied into the multi-player 25 cadet bonus matches in some way e.g. Objective: lock on and identify an enemy mech, cap a resource point, etc that would enhance immersiveness and serve as a gradual introduction to the multi-player game element.

Anyway, IMO the best short term fix you could put into the game is a simple global text chat lobby that allows anyone to talk to anyone else right from the get go ..... incidentally, does anyone else find it incredibly silly that you have to add your unit members to your friends' list to group up with them?

[Kiiyor]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 13 October 2014 - 01:18 AM, said:

Hey all,

I wanted to take the opportunity to raise a suggestions thread for a Mentorship system based around the game. I have often found that, since we are a team-based game: The guidance of a veteran player has frequently provided more of a direct benefit to new players than other systems, such as our tutorials and training grounds.

Try to keep in mind that some ideas may be easier to accomplish than others.
The more an idea may require of an engineer, designer, artist or other developers to accomplish and put into action, the more time it may invariably take to accomplish.

As such, any ideas which are readily achieved through tools already at our disposal such as the forums, account manager, and in-game with the present features would be equally if not more valuable here!

The first thing I can think of is dropping some bonus premium time to some of those who have stood as paragons of mentorship thus far in the New Player Help forum. Koniving and Redshift2k5 are the first on my list, feel free to nominate others for me to review.

My suggestion (and it does involve engineering):

• An established player (100+ matches?) selects a new player (0-50/100 matches?) to mentor.
  
  • There will be a graphical option for this in the friends list.
• The two players can then form a team, but they drop in the solo queue only.
  
  • Games cannot have more than one mentor/mentee team per side.
• The Mentor will receive normal match rewards, plus half those earned by the mentee (some say teaching is it's own reward, but I PREFER COLD, HARD CASH).
  
• The mentee earns double normal match rewards, but only for kills, damage and assists. Yep, in addition to any potential cadet bonus. The only extra rewards are those for participation.
  
• The relationship is limited to a set number of matches (25 or so) and no player can be mentored more than once.
  
  • Mentors, however, can mentor as many times as they want.
    
  • There needs to be some sort of checksum involved to prevent mentors from bailing on perceived under performers, but at the same time protecting mentors from being saddled with someone who plays one game then quits.
• At the end of the relationship, if the mentee breaks a certain kill or damage threshold, both they and their intrepid mentor are awarded a special cockpit item and an extra cash bonus. I suggest star stickers of varying quality.
  
• The mentor system will be advertised to new starters on the splash page in the game client. A stickied forum link could describe the process, and mentors could advertise their services there.

Dropping in the solo queue only is the biggest selling point here - the dynamic duo won't be as likely to experience the brutal, dispassionate and pitiless annihilation that can be handed out by larger coordinated teams. You learn nothing if you are cored before you know what hit you, and the team queue is one of the least friendly ways to introduce another player to the game, unless said player is a part of a larger competitive team themselves.


This method rewards everyone involved. At the end, the mentee should be in an even better place to afford a decent mech, and the mentor will likely have seen enough of the new player to suggest something that suits their playstyle, and isn't a lemon that the mentee will regret purchasing.

I guess it could be open to abuse by established players rolling new accounts, but I really think that would be rare. It would avoid suicide farming, as the only rewards are for participation.

For the mentor to receive any additional rewards, the mentee has to perform. I guess this could also lead to situations where the mentor tries to force loadouts down the mentee's throat, but decent mentors would hopefully be above that.

Units could roster their own instructors, and it could serve as a nice recruiting ground.

Edit:

I should have actually read through prior responses. Looks like many great minds think alike.

Edited by Kiiyor, 13 October 2014 - 07:44 PM.

[Sky Hawk]

OK.. Hmm.. Mentor + Newbie?

What, about that: Mentors and New Players (example, max. 30 days after or the first IN-GAME LOG-IN) can use the Public Test Server freely, with the latest Patches.. I think something like: one weekend day weekly, but REGULARY on EVERY WEEKEND (so about 4-5 times pro players)...

Newbies become there a bunch of PTS- GXP, CB, MC... So they can build, level, buy whatever they just want...

If you think, that some players will abuse this, then you could implement a "Mentor Password System" too..

So: The new player talk with the mentor... And if the mentor have time.. he give the players a limited time password or such...

(I have some changes to improve the kadett-bonus system too.. but, I think it is not the thread for it...)

Edited by Sky Hawk, 14 October 2014 - 02:15 AM.

[Reno Blade]

If it is player-based:
- a weekly meeting with 1-2h time to talk about and analyze games that got submitted the week before.
This would require a recording of the game, or (even better) an ingame spectator render/recording similar to the tournament we had a while ago.

possible result would be in detail analysis and case-by-case details of what went wrong/good.


If it's more technical/ingame code related:
- a strategy replay of the battle that can be saved.
top-down view of the map (zoomable) with the position of every mech/UAV/artillery and maybe sightlines.
required tracking coordinates + time of mechs/UAV and strikes (and maybe sightlines).
does not neccessarily require every weaponfire movement or cockpit view in the first version.

possible result could be visible strategic mistakes, impact of positioning of both teams for the overall outcome.

[kailii]

Lord forgive me, i could not resist...

[990Dreams]

Shar Wolf posts frequently.

Catalina Steiner offers many fun games and invaluable advice for light Much pilots.

Egomane moderates us all, and God knows how hard that is

IraqiWalker posts lots of great and varied tips for rookie pilots.

Spike Brave has many great guides for maps and the UI.

Regarding helping new players, most of what I can think of is allowing new players to try a variety of Mechs so they can get a feel for many different chassis. Maybe something like public test, but not quite the same. That'd help them get a feel for their builds.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 15 October 2014 - 05:10 AM.

[DevDeathRay]

I like the idea of adding mentoring to the game. It will be nice for new players and it fits the lore really well. But many people in the thread have raised some good concerns. Here is my suggestion:

• The system should be opt-in by both trainees and mentors
  
• To opt in as a trainee, you need to have played fewer than X games or have fewer than X experience (we really should have a ranking system in the game as well, which I've suggested elsewhere)
  
• To opt in as a mentor, you need to have purchased or been rewarded X amount of premium time at any point in the past
  
• All opted in trainees are put into a single trainee pool
  
• All mentors are put into a single mentor pool
  
• The system will match trainees to mentors (this will prevent the system from being abused)
  
• Any time a mentor and his or her trainee are logged on together, the matchmaker should prioritize them into the same lance
  
• Upon successful completion of a match, mentor and trainee are awarded XP and Cbills for having dropped together
  
• The system will have to support some means of giving the mentor more information about his or her trainee than is normally available. Being able to see the trainee's loadout, special color indicators on the battlemap, the ability to chat directly to the trainee (and only the trainee), maybe even an in-screen view of the trainee's cockpit.
  
• Alternatively, the mentor could also be allowed to auto-spectate his trainee instead of dropping in a mech themselves. This way the mentor could be watching how the trainee plays real-time and be available to give tips and advice. The mentor would share the post-match rewards of the trainee, plus the bonus for being opted into the program.

I should also add that helping out the community by way of tutorials, videos, forum posts, knowledge dumps, etc... should be considered its own reward (as most community based games have this behavior) and should not be rewarded with in-game currency. This will create a toxic environment in which the game designers become responsible for decided whose contributions are or are not worthy of reward. It will create inevitably toxic discussions of fairness which are always deep rabbit holes or pandora's boxes. We can already see the beginnings of such rumblings in this thread.

Edited by DevDeathRay, 14 October 2014 - 06:57 PM.

[Red Scorpion]

Delete it if you want. (Or edit it properly with a box I am unkept on newer forum function commands)

Here's a key setup I have and use, that still evolves because it was meant for MW4Mercs+Mektek and the like. Preferences aside, here it is as it stands now. Copy+Pasting it here:


It centers around resting your hand and preventing you from WASD claw-operating the keybord. Working up to 36 keys without moving the wrist. At rest you are using no muscles and not putting pressure enough on any keys to hold them down. A relaxed state for the hand and wrist, and with certain keybords you can just rest your whole arm while playing.

AW4T(spacebar) is how your left hand will rest. Pinky=A, Ring=W, Middle=4, Index=T and Thumb on Spacebar.

You can easily mirror this setup for left handed mouse users (or goofy hand/ambidex preferences).
Alternately, for mouse I use mousewheel click for next enemy, left and right click for weapon groups 1 and 2. Arms left and right for perspective players like myself.

Keys are as follows; remember apart from the spacebar, W, T, 3 and 5 the rest are up to you. This is my setup:

Left Control: Push to Talk (TS) hit by inside pinkey knuckle.

W: Turn Left
T: Turn Right
Spacebar: Toggle Forward/Reverse
3: Full Stop
5: 100% Throttle
6: 50% Throttle
A: Arm Un-Lock Hold Down (Stalker player sorry)
E: Advanced Zoom
R: Stock Zoom (set to 2x and normal)
1&2: Consumables
D: ECM Toggle
Q: Jump Jets

Left Click: Weapon Group 1
Right Click: Weapon Group 2
4: Weapon Group 3
Y: Weapon Group 4 (Usually LRM's)
Z: Weapon Group 6

Keys to play with: S, F, G, B(if you have a low keyboard to hit with thumb like me)

Most keys you can hit with just raising or lowering the fingertip to hit them. Mostly depends on hand type though.

Do whatever feels comfortable and have a layout on paper written up for visual reference to get used to it.

Have fun!

---
Additional notes
B: Map
N: Night Vision
7: Friendlies status pop-up
~: UAV
Y: Remapped to Cool Shot
D/F/G: remapped weapon group 4 and 5 for mis-hitting keys mid-fight
"KL;" are my chat keys
Backspace, right control etc left alone and any near-keys that I could accidentally hit were remapped with a common key that was out of the way so they were left blank in the end.

I am a hill sniper and my forward/reverse toggle comes from the days it was brought around in mechwarrior 4 vengeance. I turned decaying throttle off, and locked arms for my playstyle, I felt it worked best. Light players may be unnerved by the key setup because of the agility of controlling your throttle. So I don't believe this setup is for everyone. It's a set up for someone who wants every weapon group, and mech function with a stock mouse.

Hopefully it helps. Not doing this for the reward btw, I just posted it on the ACES forum and forgot to post it here.
If you remember this setup from a while back; yeah I'm the same Red Scorpion from 2000-2007 MW4/MW4Mercs.

Edited by Red Scorpion, 15 October 2014 - 12:42 AM.

[mad kat]

I'd vote for anyone that runs a 'unit' and actively seeks out members say through the hiring hall and faction's etc.

I've recently joined the Kell hounds and all the guys there that i've spoken to have been friendly inviting and open minded. They deserve a shout out as much as all the other players that responded to my 'CV' lol.

Also i like the players that are transparent and are not afraid to speak their mind are useful to learn stuff off. Maybe not necessarily for new players but once they have garnered the basic's these folks know the in's and out's of the game and are a valuable resource to be leeched off in terms of builds, tips and tricks and do's and do not's

What this game really lacks is a live fire training zone with ai enemy mechs for beginners or maybe just a beginer matchmaker which gives no rewards except XP for new players to master the basic's of mech control, weapons and moving in and out of cover.

One thing that would be nice is a new player get's their first four mechs (in line with the mech bays) already fully basic skill levelled as lets face it even most of us experience players hate playing fresh mechs, too a rookie the mechs will feel dopey and outclassed and pretty quick put off. That was one thing flagged up by my brother when i tried to get him into it.

Edited by mad kat, 15 October 2014 - 01:29 AM.

[bane]

I think in parts this is being viewed incorrectly. I don't think you need to actually offer incentives to people, i.e. MC, et al, but that you can incorporate what they already want to do into a way to help reward them in the end.

Back in the ancient days of MPBTech, new players got deposited into a faction lobby. They had to choose their faction the first time they joined the game. Waiting in those lobbies were players in that faction waiting for new players to assist. They would explain to them the basics and help direct them to joining a unit. This way, both the new player gained insight into the game and the "trainer" could help to populate their unit with fresh players.

Now, to accomplish this, you do need a few things which are not insurmountable to create (and frankly are needed anyhow).

• In game chat system, could be limited to faction\force but is required to provide a sense of community for a side and to encourage a greater sense of immersion that you are part of something larger then the few people you drop into a match with.
  
• A means in game to change your faction, along with a check that if you haven't previously chosen a faction that you must do it the first time your account logs into the game. Forcing this to be tied to going to your board profile has been stupid since day one, it is not intuitive to players (why should my in-game experience require me to have to leave the game to make simple choices).
  
• Allow players a way when in a new player chat lobby to form a group without forcing you to add the person to your friends list. A new player isn't going to find the current means intuitive, they may find they don't like the guy hanging around trying to swoop them up into their unit and it simplifies the new player experience. Party invites should really be a pop-up window or an option that comes up within the UI that does not require you to goto the Social Tab, then Notifications. Streamline it, use some of the HUGE space on the right side of the UI that goes unused and make it more new user friendly.
  
• Implement cannon force units. This is something that would need to go along side the CW implementation, but new players have no clue what your plans for the game are and aren't likely to go scour the forums to figure it out. By having them get added to a unit in the faction they choose coming in, they start to get immersed into the larger meta game that is intended since they will want to play with their new unit (if they don't join the trainer's unit, both should be an option). This also gives them a sense of unit pride since they feel they are part of something more then simple deathmatches.
  
• You don't need to add additional incentives for units to want to have trainers, since getting new blood into their units is its own reward. This will be more important to lots of units once CW is actually implemented (so long as they aren't really, really penalized for being a larger unit and the bodies actually become cost prohibitive for CW drops). Part of how this was handled in MPBTech was that lance leaders received a small amount of xp for each mission ran by their lance mates. This trickled right up the chain all the way to House Leader. That helped people to achieve ranks, which in and of itself was a carrot for people. Since we have no actual rank structure in this game, I'd recommend a minor C-bill reward at most.
  
• In the new player lobbies, allow for a grouped training grounds session, where the instructor can go along with the new player and can concentrate on explaining what to do and advancing from there, while the new player can destroy the stationary mechs and feel they are doing something. While I wouldn't mind private sessions, I don't expect that to be recoded to allow for this at any time in the near future (although it would be a good thing).

Improving the NPE is all about making them feel they are coming into something that is larger then they think\comprehend. In most MMO's, this is accomplished by sending the new player through some basic "quests\missions" that teach them about skills, abilities and the game itself. Slowly expanding that world by opening up larger portions to them. For our game, that is going to be the feeling of being part of a larger struggle against opposing sides and giving a sense of faction loyalty. The hate between the FedRats and the Snakes was legendary, although some took it too far. This is part of what you really need to capture, which helps to motivate people to keep coming back to the meta-game, even though at that point you're not having to do much to it, the players keep the lines moving and giving people a reason to keep playing.

[BloodspatterGaming]

I think a great many of the ideas here would be great...but... As a very recent "new player" (I no longer consider myself such) I can tell you when I wanted help on the something the forums were LAST on my list of places to look. If i needed to know something I asked my drop mates, plain and simple, as they were the resource thats was most available. Some were douchebags, some were not. I'm not offering a specific suggestion or solution. but i think if you want to offer some sort of incentive, its needs to be handled through the client since the thats the predominant point of contact for nearly all helper/helpee interaction.