270 replies to this topic

[kailii]

Let me quote myself from here

EDIT: I should have mentioned that in the linked Thread, most people already agreed that VoIP, (Video) Tutorials and Forum Guides would not "cut" it for several reasons.

Quote

New suggestion, helping not only new players:

1) Text based chat lobby within the game client (several channels), new players start in the "Freshman" channel automatically.
2) Multiplayer Training Grounds without scoring or restrictions. Respawning should be possible.
3) Vets can flag themselves as "Tutors" or "Teachers", and have access to the lobby even when in Multiplayer Training.

Some rules would have to be added, so for example meanies cannot mass murder innocent cadets.

Of course this goes someway against PGI's milking policy (private matches), but let's ignore this argument for now...

As for the idea of rewarding Mentors, award points for the Mentor based on the time spent in the lobby and the Training Grounds. Those points can be spent on cosmetic items only as this system is highly abuseble - maybe even don't bother with it...

If Mentors could grind an Urbie however... ***runs away***

Edited by kailii, 13 October 2014 - 11:16 AM.

[Sadist Cain]

I Really have to ask it again.

Why do we need people to Flag themselves as a mentor or a tutor?

We Have a Squad based system half integrated! finish it and we're a helluva lot closer to harmony

Nothing says "mentor" More than a commander who actually know wtf they're doing.

Of course most people who try to command fail miserably, thats only because they're so new they haven't used it enough to see how broken it is in it's current form.

Mentors = Leaders

Edited by Sadist Cain, 13 October 2014 - 12:52 PM.

[Aeromaxout]

First something about dealing with noobs. Give all players under a certain criteria (not my fight) a "Getting Started" tab which includes:

1 ) Officail tutorials

2 ) Community tutorials

3 ) The mentoring featuer as previsually discussed,

4 ) List of active units and their feeling towards noobs.

Something about Mentoring:

1) Mentors SHOULD NOT be able to pick the number of students

2) Mentors SHOULD be monitored by two anonymous mentors.

3) The monitoring players should NOT be able to know who they are monitoring

4) Penalize any mentor/monitor who quits a session (with the exception of a system crash and log files to prove it). Could drain banked Prem Time, remove a tire 1 mech from their roster, or lock account for a month or more.

Ovion, on 13 October 2014 - 10:46 AM, said:

To me, logically, the 'easiest' way would be the option for a 'Cadet Lance' with a Mentor 'captain' (who is someone with 100+ games under their belt) that can take lead, and 1-3 'Cadets' (say, 100 games or less? maybe more for this cap).

Ideally, built in voice comms would be ideal, but I don't know where you are with that.

Mentors can either join a 'mentors queue' and automatically receive 3 cadets (new starters), or create a group and select 'Mentor Lance' or something.

The incentive for Mentors to participate and do their job is that they gain 50% of the C-Bills earnt by their cadets, but only half c-bills for their own endevours.
(i.e. - Mentor gets half c-bills for all kills, assists, damage, etc, but also gains an amount equal to half the base C-Bills all their Cadets earn while under their guidance).

Additionally, you could earn 'Mentor Credits' which can be exchanged for MC or something.
(Something like earn 1-5MC every match you Mentor? Can only redeem 150+ MC?)

Your idea is also a good one.

Can't wait to see what PGI does here. But it looks like the community idea is leaning toward a mentoring program, which I like and would participate in whether or not rewards for doing so are available.

[Hoax415]

Guys why do we need to worry about overly complex mentor systems with rewards and special rules and ****?

Right now, people can't even train a friend because in order to play together they are forced into group queue. Group queue with low average elo in a 2-man is apparently the worst way to experience group queue. This is a big problem or so many threads and replies in said threads have suggested.

Fix that first. If this thread is a serious request for ideas its simple and quick to implement ideas that might actually do something right now.

They aren't going to do anything that requires a bunch of ui overhauls and new systems...

Edited by Hoax415, 13 October 2014 - 11:46 AM.

[Aeromaxout]

If you do go for the feature, please put the button on the same row as the "Home", "MechLab", "Skills", "Faction" and the "Store" buttons. Maybe make it a throbbing (slow and fading flashes) button for pilots who still have cadet bonus matches left.

[poopenshire]

in a thread, this:

http://mwomercs.com/...05#entry3557605

It would help view and watch trainees. It seems since your tournament where the Devs were using it, that its already in place. We just need a version for teams.

[Aeromaxout]

Sorry, ADHD/Aspergers demands I make another post.

Regarding the idea of making a list of guilds/clans/mwo groups, you could put the list on the website under Game->Factions. The exact layout I leave to your capable web designers.

Also, give each guild a forum under the faction they identify with and a generic merc corps for those that don't affiliate with the houses/clans specifically.

All this is to make joining a TS community much easier. I understand that the In-Game chat system has had an abundance of problems, so I'm not pushing that angel right now.

[Pjwned]

I would rather see some real progress made towards not having such a terrible experience for new players with already existing systems.

[Anarcho]

I didnt read all the topic, maybe someone already brought this idea but, how about if we got some rewards in-game for Commander/lance leader and pilots regarding orders?

The commander assign an order, everyone in the area got a 5xp or something for following that order. The commander can receive something too.

A time limit or something else should be implemented to avoid abuse. I found its very helpful the orders icon on the map for new players. A little push in the team chat to orient the new players towards the objective would help then to get familiar with order icons and map.

Regarding leadership, to avoid a total new player grab the leader slot, why note a vote system? I choose to be the leader, a quick pool opens up with yes or no. Since we have to wait for a minute on the lobby anyways.

[Asrrin]

I also vote for holding a contest to create new community made tutorials to include along with the current (very outdated) tutorial in the client.

I also think something as simple as a 2-man training ground would be absolutely huge. If it wasn't too hard to implement that would go miles as a first step for allowing people to mentor their friends without shoving them into a full-on match.

Once a multi-player training ground is implemented you can slowly build a mentoring program around that, pairing mentors with students and having a matchmaker pair them together to go visit the training ground or group queue.

[Winter Frostfire]

Dual cockpits!!!

..
..
..
Guys..?

[Degalus]

DarthRevis, on 13 October 2014 - 07:26 AM, said:

I for one dont think this is necessary, also its something that Playstation does and yes Playstation does use the footage for bug reports and to see issues in maps, glitches, etc. But there are already a bunch of ways to stream/capture your games from a computer. Just get some capture software and install it. Don't need MWO to supply this....that's what Shadowplay and Twitch is/are for.

Yea.. i barly run MWO on 30fps. Sooo nope cant record...and also if i could record.. what does that help me? I would still dont know how the Players in the Match played.
I want interactiv render replays, where i can jump into every cockpit or see everything from any view i want.
I can learn much more from a render replay where i can analysing every step from every player in the Match then from a video of 1 random "veteran" player

It would also help to identify why someone died. Cant count anymore how often Members of my Clan rage about " WTF?? Why im Dead??? There is nothing behind me and im behind a building!! CHEATERS! Also my armor was yellow its impossible to kill ne in oneshot!! Bugy game! " I would love to have a replay to check and say to him "Look in your replay of the last match. At timeframe x:xx there was a Ac40 Jager behind the building next to you. He hit and run killed you with an Alpha through your back. Next time better check that side too" Currently the only thing i can say to the rager "um.. maybe there was someone?"

Edited by Degalus, 13 October 2014 - 02:38 PM.

[kailii]

Winter Frostfire, on 13 October 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

Dual cockpits!!!

Great idea... MechWarriors, back to driving school!

Seriously - give the Mentor a "Take/Release Mech Control" button, and have a small utility routine display every keypress somewhere on the screen. Done

[Felio]

I would suggest asking your artists if any ideas come to mind for an in-game badge that says to people, "I'm available to answer your questions." I really don't know if it can be done on something that small, but they would know for sure.

A forum badge would be another possibility but not as useful. It would be more of a reward/recognition type of thing.

[Orbit Rain]

Hey Niko,

Random thoughts

I like the idea for video contests...pick a theme every few weeks, archive the top five in the forum somewhere. Also make an HTML/text/forum category.

wiki hosted/managed by NGNG or PGI

If you want actual mentors. Pick an evening/time to gather people together town hall style who are interested in being a mentor. Pick some vetting process to decide who *should* be a mentor. Create a sub-forum where mentors post *a* thread with their availability, and in that thread mentees can post feedback on their mentor.

Have NGNG create an "available to mentor" channel somewhere near the public dropships for visibility to those pour souls looking to group up with someone. Certified instructors can get tagged by NGNG. The mentors can put a ghost in there when they're available for mentoring, at that point they could drag them to a dropship, their own channel or own TS/wherever, hold court, or whatever works for them and their mentees.

Once someone has enough feedback, have proven themselves, they can get an in-game "instructor" badge...and after that a "master" badge...]

So far everything I've typed is pretty low-tech.

If we can find a way to get new people into the wading pool mode known as stock mech mode, they'll live a lot longer and figure more out than swimming with the sharks and surviving three minutes...Just putting that checkbox int he private match mode would help with getting new people into stock mechs they wouldn't have to pay to convert back and forth. At that point we can hold new player events, get the mentors to show up and take a lance, separate ourselves into lance dropships, mentors can still whisper to each other, but then the mentors time would be a little more efficient than doing one on one...thinking out loud....

I'm definitely open to using Stock Mech Monday as a learnign tool for new players (and if you're new and reading this, go play SMM, you'll live longer) Currently they're really not "geared" for training new people, but the way stock mech matches play would/could be useful. If you guys have ideas from your end, talk to me Tyger Carl or someone.

As far as *who* should be a mentor, that's an interesting question. I think mastering three variants of three chassis in each of the four weight classes might be the floor. Maybe ten thousand matches if you're a weight specialist...that might be more of a "Mastery" minimum. I've mastered at least three of every IS chassis, so my perspective is definitely different.

To the rest of you reading this, someone made a post in the New Player forum, and I essentially offered some mentoring/answering-questions/game-progression/help/advice. if you're new and would like to ask questions, I'll keep an alt/ghost on NGNG...poke me if you've want to get together to talk some mechwarrior. The cost you pay is figuring out how to find me and your time.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

I'd be happy to have a Training Queue, or something similar.

Have a pop-up, similar to the one asking if people want to launch the tutorial, so that new players are aware that the feature exists.

When a player clicks the Training Queue button, the system sends a ping to all online players who have qualified as Trainers. The first Trainer who accepts the invitation will launch with the Trainee into a River City Snow map populated with a dozen hostiles, like the Testing Grounds. A prompt will appear on the Trainee's screen, very big and obvious and requiring a click-through to close, pointing to the chat and telling the player to use Team or Lance Chat to talk with the Trainer, and to watch the chat area for the Trainer's messages. The Training Match chat settings will override the user chat settings to ensure that a mistake doesn't prevent the Trainer and Trainee from communicating.

Failure to receive a Trainer response within 3 minutes will return a Failed to Find Trainer message, allowing the player to try again, or to do something else.

The Training Matches will be intended to allow a Trainee to ask the Trainer questions, so that the Trainer can give targeted responses, as well as demonstrations. Both players would drop in the same mech, kitted out to feature a variety of weapons as well as jump jets. At least one of the target dummies will be an ECM mech, and its ECM will be active. This will maximize the ability of both Trainer and Trainee to use as many features of the game as possible.

At the conclusion of a Training Match, a dialog will appear for the Trainee. It will ask if the Trainer was helpful. A Yes response nets the Trainer 25 MC, while a No response will provide nothing.

Trainers will be a mixture of volunteers and invitees to whom PGI has vetted by running them through a series of model encounters to ensure that they both know what they are talking about and are able to behave in a patient, polite, and helpful manner.

The vetting process will require PGI's time, but once a critical mass of Trainers has been vetted the cost should drop considerably while the impact of the system grows significantly. A broad distribution of Trainers across languages and time zones would be ideal, and both common play times and language competencies should be part of the vetting process.

Once an integrated VOIP option is available, Trainer/Trainee interaction can move to voice comms.

Alterantively, simply make an Advanced Movement tutorial and both Basic Combat and Advanced Combat tutorials, and grant a 1.5 million c-bill bonus for the first completion of each, per account. Including the current Basic Movement tutorial, the total earnings would be 6 million, which when combined with the Cadet Bonus should allow a player to purchase either 2 small-medium mechs or a single much larger one, depending on preference.

As for the mech lab, the first time a player enters the mechlab a pop-up should ask if they'd like to run the Mechlab Tutorial, which would be an integrated video tutorial that goes through the entire process of finding, buying, upgrading, customizing, and painting a mech. Successfully completing this tutorial would earn the player a Basic White color, which would be a dull off-white similar in style to the c-bill Basic colors.

[SweetJackal]

Ingame tools are strongly needed. Take a look at DOTA2's coaching system for a good place to start. What would be needed is in client VOIP supported by PGI, means of players finding other players they do not know within the game client and a means of joining a group or game as a spectator.

Also, a contest for players to create single player content in the form of tutorials would help as well, have the winning tutorials meshed into the game and have rewards offered for their first completion (not always in the form of CBills, cosmetics and XP are also strong incentives.)

Reality is that a vast amount of new players will never head for the forum. The means of providing assistance and the game explaining it's own mechanics have to be within the game itself in order to make it accessible.

[Asmudius Heng]

The issue to me Niko is not about the resources for new players. It is about how to funnel players TO the resources easily.

We have lots of resources
- Tutorials on youtube
- Articles on community sites
- New player help forums
- Amazing community members with more time and patience than me!

However how does the average player get there?

Lets imagine this scenario.

MWO launches on steam and LOTs of players download it and give it a try. The only thing they see currently is the single tutorial on how to move etc which is thrust in front of them. Some look at it some do not. They launch and play and get DESTROYED.

OK, first time most will take that as par for the course but suddenly realise this is complex. they might start l;ooking for options, what button to pross, rebinding controls etc ... then come the questions. What is UAV? How do i get that artillery strike? How do i use an arty strike? What is the difference between that and the other one? Why is this mech better than others? what is its purpose.

Lets hope the IDEA of MWO has grabbed them even though we have no flavour text, no explanation to anything at all in the game. Lets assume at the very least we have enough new players who love giant stompy robots enough after all of this to be wanting more information and help.

The only avenue to find it now is google. They go for a search, they come up with OLD videos that show OUTDATED mechanics. Google is not curating your content for you, new players are now confused. The hope is that they find the new player section in the forums ... and there they actually WILL get good help.

Now lets look at the new player losses through this period.

1. Setup - is this user friendly?
2. Initial user flow - would this put people off?
3. First match - how offputting is this? where do they get help is it easy to find?
4. Searching for information - Is this a good experience?
5. Finding relevant help - is this a good experience?

How many new players just decide it is not worth it and leave because they have a dozen other F2P games on steam they might try that FEEL better as soon as they launch.

I know that most of this is well beyond the scope of this thread Niko but quite frankly the entire new user flow needs to be redesigned.

You can still crowd source new user help which is ovbviously what you are trying to do and it is cheaper than changing a tutorial every time you change a mechanic in the game - that is fair enough and you have a great user base willing to help.

However directing new users to the right content is essential. Making it EASY through the systems themselves to quickly locate the best places top find curated NPE content is going to help more than just rewarding people who are already doing good work.

Let the community be your NPE help, but PGI needs to create the systematic ways new users flow through the learning sequence to find this help, and also introduce them more gently into the game itself.

At the very least ... at the very, very least put a HUGE glowing button in the game that flashes and screams at a player when in the cadet bonus that links them directly to the New player help forums and automatically logs them in under their account so they can immediately ask questions. then create sticky threads to relevant articles and youtube videos and have it curated properly to only have current or relevant information.

[Karenai]

People on the friendslist should have a different colour ingame, than teammates (toggable).
Especially if you are in a group with them, before joining a game. (the iff colours are terribad right now anyway)

Beeing able to find your teammate in the game, after the system splits your group in different squads is annoyingly difficult.

Also consider letting two man groups into solo que, if they chose to. Yes, people will abuse it and drop together, but two man do not make a premade and it is almost impossible to teach new players anything if they are getting stomped before they know what is what. Solo que games have way slower pace and can take a while before the first people get into position.

Edited by Karenai, 13 October 2014 - 03:19 PM.

[zolop]

NextGame, on 13 October 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

in game wiki. If you aren't going to document certain mechanics properly for players let the players do it, but it is best presented in game some way (in game browser window) in order to have the greatest accessibility/visibility/immediacy for new players.

ability to form a mentorship group that does the following:

• Group size limit is 2
  
• Group leader is the mentor
  
• UI mechanic to prevent mentorship group leader from inviting ineligible players to the group.
  
• Group trainee must have played fewer than x games
  
• Group disbands when trainee reaches x games
  
• Group drops in Rambo queue, with the matchmakers preference to put as many mentored groups as possible in one game.
  
• Trainee runs a duplicate of the mentor's mech, (including unlocks/excluding consumables)
  
• Mentor gets mentor badge cockpit item for mentoring a player for the full x games
  
• Trainee gets a certificate of competence hanging item upon completing their x matches, with an optional 10% mc/cbills off the mech variant they learned the most in (offer expires after 24hours)

It will need some adjusting but I think this is the best step forward for mentoring.