270 replies to this topic

[oldradagast]

One quick thing that would be nice: An easy way to flag people you saw in a match as people you'd like on your friends list that does not involve having to spell out their names.

This allows for a few things:

1) Experienced players can more easily friend new players who seem interested in learning and working as a team.

2) New players can more easily friend experienced ones who help them out.

3) Gets around the aggravation of taking screenshots of matches to get the user names right or trying to remember that "SkreamingM0nkeyw!ithguns" is a great guy to play with, even though he clearly can't spell.

Thanks.

Edited by oldradagast, 21 November 2014 - 08:35 AM.

[oldradagast]

Also, a bit more low-hanging fruit:

1) Add all key aspects to weapons and items in game. For example, the Gauss rifle currently is nice enough to tell me that it is a nickel-iron slug that it's firing. It does not, however, mention the charge-up mechanic anywhere. The UAC5 tells me that it has a faster rate of fire with a "chance" to jam... how about listing the chance to jam.

2) Clean up and correct the "tips of the day" that show up before the matches. I have no way of looking over them, but I'm sure some of them are no longer accurate and others were needlessly vague last I checked.

3) Add in a link to the forum in at least one logical place in game. Maybe it's a throbbing / blinking light for new users. Maybe the link appears at the bottom of every "tip of the day" before each match - for more information and helpful tips, visit the MWO forum at mwomercs.com

You get the idea - these are small changes, but ones that can be done VERY quickly and cheaply that would help a bit.

[InspectorG]

This idea would be viable if there was a Live practice map, with respawns and re-arms. Die and a 10 sec cooldown you respawn.
This way a coach could team with 1-3 others and teach them the ways of mech-fu.
Lances and teams could practice and experiment.

No rewards to discourage farmers but ALL mechs should be available for practice*cough* entice to buy*cough*
Coaches should be compensated for time and perhaps for reputation/ quality of students.

[oldradagast]

InspectorG, on 21 November 2014 - 06:21 PM, said:

This idea would be viable if there was a Live practice map, with respawns and re-arms. Die and a 10 sec cooldown you respawn.
This way a coach could team with 1-3 others and teach them the ways of mech-fu.
Lances and teams could practice and experiment.

No rewards to discourage farmers but ALL mechs should be available for practice*cough* entice to buy*cough*
Coaches should be compensated for time and perhaps for reputation/ quality of students.

Another good idea.

To this day, I have no idea why one cannot take every single mech into the training grounds just to walk around with them.

[Star Capt Stefan Jorgensson]

Also many PLAYERS would be pleased when you make a patch for the menu to choose the map you want to play. I play the River City Night not very likely but I wouldnt deactivate it. But PLEEAASSSEEEEE!!!!!!!
DEACTIVATE THE NEW JUNGLE MAP AND ALPINE PEAKS!!!!!
Or just make a patch to choose a map you want to play. Like in the menu bar the option for private and public matches.
I have also deactivated the CAPTURE RESOURCES OPTION.

It would be great if you would make an option to choose the maps you want to play.
In any other game you can choose which map you want to play.

Thank you.

Greetings from Germany

Best regards
Stefan

[Tim East]

Hoax415, on 13 October 2014 - 11:45 AM, said:

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...

This guy hit the nail on the head. I ran about a dozen matches with my roommate a couple days ago, and every one of them was a ridiculous roll. Not a great way to introduce the game to newer players. I doubt he'll even come back. I know we don't have enough players for 12 mans to play each other in short order and all that, but putting a slightly above average player and a total newbie on a team likely of similar composition and expecting them to compete against an organized 12 man team likely with full voip support is extremely unrealistic. Hell, even I found the difficulty to be way harder than I was used to and accomplished almost nothing; how do you think it worked for him?

Basically, I think it's a bad idea to use your newer players as fodder for your competitive ones. It might make the guys who don't like challenges happy, but you'll have a hell of a time getting newer people to play the game that way, and truly competitive people will get bored just easy-mode rolling newb teams all the time.

*goes back to the solo queue with tail between legs*

[Nightmare1]

Star Capt Stefan Jorgensson, on 23 November 2014 - 01:55 AM, said:

Also many PLAYERS would be pleased when you make a patch for the menu to choose the map you want to play. I play the River City Night not very likely but I wouldnt deactivate it. But PLEEAASSSEEEEE!!!!!!!
DEACTIVATE THE NEW JUNGLE MAP AND ALPINE PEAKS!!!!!
Or just make a patch to choose a map you want to play. Like in the menu bar the option for private and public matches.
I have also deactivated the CAPTURE RESOURCES OPTION.

It would be great if you would make an option to choose the maps you want to play.
In any other game you can choose which map you want to play.

Thank you.

Greetings from Germany

Best regards
Stefan

You know that this isn't the thread for that discussion, right? This is for discussing the Mentorship Systems, not map removals. There are other threads for that. Please keep the discussion on target.

Tim East, on 23 November 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

This guy hit the nail on the head. I ran about a dozen matches with my roommate a couple days ago, and every one of them was a ridiculous roll. Not a great way to introduce the game to newer players. I doubt he'll even come back. I know we don't have enough players for 12 mans to play each other in short order and all that, but putting a slightly above average player and a total newbie on a team likely of similar composition and expecting them to compete against an organized 12 man team likely with full voip support is extremely unrealistic. Hell, even I found the difficulty to be way harder than I was used to and accomplished almost nothing; how do you think it worked for him?

Basically, I think it's a bad idea to use your newer players as fodder for your competitive ones. It might make the guys who don't like challenges happy, but you'll have a hell of a time getting newer people to play the game that way, and truly competitive people will get bored just easy-mode rolling newb teams all the time.

*goes back to the solo queue with tail between legs*

Your elo pulled your friend up into a nastier queue. Also, if you are typically a solo pugger, you may not be accustomed to the group queues and their dynamics. While I do not believe that sequestering maps is the answer to the problem of rolls, I do believe that new pilots should be able to drop with seasoned pilots on Training Missions.

Perhaps an additional Match Queue would solve the issue. Pilots who PGI has classified as "Mentors" could have a Third Match Mode in addition to the Public and Private Queues called "Mentor Queue." This would be a group-only queue for Mentors and their Mentees to drop against other Mentors and Mentees. It would be a fairly level playing field since both teams would be largely comprised of new, inexperienced pilots with one or two seasoned ones. Rolls would still occur from time to time, but at least they would lack the finality of a roll from veteran pilots.

Basically, it would provide new pilots with a friendlier environment in which to learn the ropes of the game and sharpen their skills against other pilots who find themselves in the same situation. A pilot's eligibility for Mentoring could be determined by their elo. If it climbs past a certain mark, then they are no longer eligible for the program. If it falls below that mark, then they will again become eligible. Only Mentors can form Mentor Drop Groups or select that Queue though, to help prevent farming and unfair use.

[p4r4g0n]

Variation on earlier suggestions:

People who want to mentor are required to create a second account that has its Elo permanently set new player levels or is programmed to match the Elo level of the player they are dropping with.

Pairs consisting of a mentor and mentee are allowed to drop in solo queue or group queue depending on option selected by mentor. Mentor accounts cannot drop with players who do not meet the criteria for a mentee (number of drops or some other similar metric) or to drop solo.

In other words, the account is purely for training others only.

Reward for using this system is that mentor's main account is credited with the C-Bills earned using the mentor account (subject to cap to discourage farming) and the XP earned is transferred as GXP. The mentor account itself accrues nothing as there is little point in doing so.

Other possible conditions to prevent abuse are time in match, limitation to number of concurrent mentees on a daily basis, number of drops per hour, etc.

[Syrkres]

Question: Why have a mentorship?
Answer: to allow the one player to show the other player how to play, practice good skills, and to allow the new player to have a more enjoyable experience.
- This can only be done is some type of either solo match (between the two) or a group.

Couple thoughts, WOW has a similar system (Recruit a friend) in place where you group with a player and they receive extra XP and can summon the other to play with them. They get rewards and such, and while MWO is NOT WOW, WOW does have one of the biggest player bases, and keeps getting more people to join, so they must be doing something right.

Requirements:

• Account one must be new account
  
  • Either under so many days/weeks old or X number of drops

• Account two is a veteran account
  
  • Someone with at least Y number of drops.
• Does the other player have to invite the recruit to join (like wow)
  
  • I think this would be too much to try to implement, but you may want to add a new invite Recruit tag?

Benefits (these are some ideas and does NOT need to be cumulative):

• Bonus XP/GXP for Account one (New player)
  
  • Since they just got a bonus from first 25 drops, don't really need more C-Bills (but you could reward them as well).
• Bonus C-Bills for account two(veteran) who assisted
  
• Achievement?
  
• Title?
  
• Allow a recruit to use veteran players mechs.
  
  • Trial mechs suck, plain and simple (why veteran players don't use them).
    
  • By allowing recruit to use veteran player's mech, the recruit will more likely have a better mech.

Implementation Thoughts:

• Grouped (max 2 players and must meet above requirements)
  
• When drop, put into Solo queue (under newbie ELO - or ELO with -adjustment).
  
  • A newbie in solo queue will often get pwnd so having a friend in same match should help.
• Should be in similar mechs (how can I show you what to do when your in a Light and Im in an assault - so maybe just weight class)?

The idea is that a newbie + veteran would average out if in a group, You would have to limit it an account with so many drops otherwise other players will take advantage of this. They drop and the veteran can lead/show the newbie what to do. Now this would be much easier of they were in some kind of VoiceChat between themselves.




PROS:
Allows for grouping in solo queue with a new player and veteran player.
Gets friends together without having to drop in over matched grouped queue.


CONS:
If number of drops played for recruit account is too high you may get too many players taking advantage of this and killing solo queue.
May get even veteran players creating temp accounts to drop together. By being a new account, this would limit the OP by the mechs available to new user (unless you implement use a vet's mech - in which case this could become a problem).

Just some thoughts.

Edited by Syrkres, 24 November 2014 - 11:10 AM.

[Syrkres]

Some more thoughts on this...

Again comparing to WOW and "Recruit a Friend".

For Blizzard, Recruit a Friend means that the "friend" gets a free client (MWO is free anyway) but after 60 days of paid subscription, the Veteran who recruited the friend gets a Free Mount. So for approximately $30 (2 months at $14.95) the Veteran gets a mount, which if they were to purchase at the Blizzard store would cost $25.00.

So to apply something similar to MWO.

The gift shop (released yesterday) adds a nice way to work with this as well, though I would add Mech Bundles to the gift shop as well.

Recruit a friend
- A new account
- An account which has been inactive for more than 6-9 months
--- Blizzard allows Recruit a friend to re-invigorate old players.
(In both cases the recruited person is "Friend" - and person who recruits is "Veteran").

• The players get to group together (but drop in solo queue).
  
  • This guarantees that the "friend" and "veteran" are on same side for teaching, playing together
• Purchases
  
  • ​Any purchase of Mech Bundle by "friend" gets Veteran player premium time.
    
  • Any Gift from Veteran player to "friend" gets Veteran player premium time.
    
    • ​Premium time could be swapped for partial MC value.

By having the "friend" make purchases you are more likely to "retain" this player as they are putting a commitment forward. Also if you reward the Veteran anything for "free" recruit a friend, it is likely to be abused.

This gives the "friend" a good experience while rewarding the "veteran" along with making money for PGI.

The above would get new (or old) players into the game and likely spending money. Which is I sure what PGI wants. Just having a "free" playing account and never spending money really isn't good for PGI.

Edited by Syrkres, 25 November 2014 - 05:06 AM.

[Leopardao]

Syrkres, on 24 November 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

• Allow a recruit to use veteran players mechs.
  
  • Trial mechs suck, plain and simple (why veteran players don't use them).
    
  • By allowing recruit to use veteran player's mech, the recruit will more likely have a better mech.

To stop abuse as it was put earlier this would be a better idea, when you mentor another player that player drops in a carbon copy of the same mech the mentor is using. Also for the DW example maybe mentoring should be limited to mechs that are CURRENTLY available for c-bills, no heros, champions or pre-release MC mechs.

Original idea would still be good for a mentor within your company concept, keeping the above c-bill only mech limit in place.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

After reading most comments from the topic, I must say implementing a Mentorship system will only hurt the game, newcomers, and veterans alike.
Just write a manual.

[TheKuniva]

I love to pilot light mechs, but I noticed that, even tho PGI has made a big effort to provide different rewards for tactial minds, like, lance formation rewards, flanking, scouting, etc... Still the lights can do so much for a team that goes unrewards or even unnoticed.

These are some examples of those tactics.

A light mech can attract the fire of several enemies for their team to fire safely after. (it would be great to have a rewards for attracting fire from several mechs).

A light mech can scramble the lines of the enemie just to turn their attention of simply their backs for the team to take them out
(so it wold be great to have a reward for turning enemies backs to my team).

a light mech can chase down a cored mech even within the enemy lines.
(it would be nice to have a bonus for such a risky kill)

a light mech (and sniping mechs) can do so much, not by dealing the finishing blow, but by wearing down an enemie alone, by poking or chasing down their backs.

A light mech can change priority really quickly to support various scenarions in the battle. Support another mech in a solo fight, spotting for LRMs when the cover is hard to beat, report the vulnerable sides of the enamy lines, lure enemies to a particular area, a flanking attack by distracting enemies lines while team passes unspoted. distract 3 or more mechs while your team takes out the rest.

These are only some ideas from my experience. I would love to see these ideas taken in cosideration, light pilots do not ride these mechs to get bummed when the raw damage makes a lot of difference in rewards.

I love this game, keep up the good work!

[Nightmare1]

lunticasylum, on 25 November 2014 - 07:24 PM, said:

After reading most comments from the topic, I must say implementing a Mentorship system will only hurt the game, newcomers, and veterans alike.
Just write a manual.

On what basis?

Wild, general statements without supporting evidence or argument are nothing more than troll posts. Go back to the other threads if that is all you intend to do here.

TheKuniva, on 25 November 2014 - 10:10 PM, said:

I love to pilot light mechs, but I noticed that, even tho PGI has made a big effort to provide different rewards for tactial minds, like, lance formation rewards, flanking, scouting, etc... Still the lights can do so much for a team that goes unrewards or even unnoticed.

These are some examples of those tactics.

A light mech can attract the fire of several enemies for their team to fire safely after. (it would be great to have a rewards for attracting fire from several mechs).

A light mech can scramble the lines of the enemie just to turn their attention of simply their backs for the team to take them out
(so it wold be great to have a reward for turning enemies backs to my team).

a light mech can chase down a cored mech even within the enemy lines.
(it would be nice to have a bonus for such a risky kill)

a light mech (and sniping mechs) can do so much, not by dealing the finishing blow, but by wearing down an enemie alone, by poking or chasing down their backs.

A light mech can change priority really quickly to support various scenarions in the battle. Support another mech in a solo fight, spotting for LRMs when the cover is hard to beat, report the vulnerable sides of the enamy lines, lure enemies to a particular area, a flanking attack by distracting enemies lines while team passes unspoted. distract 3 or more mechs while your team takes out the rest.

These are only some ideas from my experience. I would love to see these ideas taken in cosideration, light pilots do not ride these mechs to get bummed when the raw damage makes a lot of difference in rewards.

I love this game, keep up the good work!

This sounds like you're suggesting role warfare or in-game C-Bill and XP rewards for Light Mech tactics. This is the wrong thread for that; we're discussing how to develop and implement a Mentorship System for new pilots here. Your suggestion would be better suited to General Discussion. Please keep your posts on topic in this thread.

[jackswift]

This has already been said I'm sure but allowing 1 v 1 in Private matches without premium would help. If they have the ability, maybe set up perpetual matches where everyone is on the same team, folks can drop with their mentors, and training grounds dummy mechs litters the area on a map such as Alpine (huge maps). Maybe make it like a shooting range or something.

Another idea is to have a no reward style, perpetual, respawn skirmish mode that you can drop in and out of at will with said mentor. No stat tracking, no ELO matching, no one ever wins. Just a never ending match that new players don't feel bad about dying in. This would require all sorts of MM restrictions to be lifted (ELO, differing number of players, 3x4, etc). Don't know if PGI has the capability to put a match like this one together though. Seems deceptively simple since I have no programming experience.

These ideas would also take up servers required for standard matches but I think it would be worth the sacrifice.

Edited by jackswift, 01 December 2014 - 12:12 PM.

[Beo Vulf]

Nightmare1, on 19 November 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

Dude, this isn't a new player thread. This is a thread for veteran players to discuss ways to create a Mentorship System to help new players learn the game. No need to state the obvious here.

Really are we on the same planet, you have to repeatedly state the obvious or it gets ignored by the community.

[Nightmare1]

Beo Vulf, on 03 December 2014 - 06:07 PM, said:

Really are we on the same planet, you have to repeatedly state the obvious or it gets ignored by the community.

Perhaps, but this remains the Mentorship Systems thread. Your post, though good, was off-topic. I was just trying to point this out before the thread devolved into a "New Player Advice" type. Everyone posting here should be considerably above that level of gameplay and advice by now.

I take this thread quite seriously. The ideas set forth here could be instrumental in making the game friendlier to both veteran players and newbies. Let's keep it on topic please.

[Noesis]

The Dark Born have an integral orientation program that intentionally introduces new players to the MWO community with a list of concepts and ideas that they can then practically apply and feedback their interpretation of these ideas as part of a Mentoring process. This with someone reviewing their performance and understanding of the presented ideas to prepare them in readiness for MWO and Teamwork needs to play in 12 mans.

Whilst I recognise that this can all be interpretative and subjective, the idea of demonstrating capability in various concepts then helps to understand that they are then building up a syntax of understanding needed to apply themselves as a pilot. The orientation process then designed not as a driving test or to distinguish skill but as a preperation with the understanding of ideas and terms.

I would be willing to release to PGI the documentation the Dark Born use to help relay various concepts then perceived as helpful to newer players and these foundational layers of understanding seen as helpful to explain to them. This then might help to put into context the types of things that units or pilots would need to cover in preparing them as a pilot in MWO.

Edited by Noesis, 03 December 2014 - 08:32 PM.

[Nightmare1]

Nice Noesis!

[William Slayer]

I think the key is the Training Grounds. As it is set up now, it does little to help a new player understand some of the basic tactics and "life saving" skills needed to both survive and thrive in this game. Those things can really be best taught by a Mentor, and therefor the Training Grounds should be opened up to MORE THAN ONE PERSON IN THE SAME TRAINING GROUNDS. This would allow the Mentor to demonstrate and coach the New Player outside of the chaos of battle. Techniques such as torso twisting to spread damage, circle fighting, and defense against Light mechs. These just can't be practiced very effectively with out a "Sparing Partner" in the Training Grounds with you. I have great respect for those who write out the Training Guides we see in the New Player area, and I have learned a lot from watching demonstration videos on Youtube, but the third element of hands on training is needed by many players BEFORE they drop into the mad furball of a match. As for Mentors, they could be given the "key" to enter the Training Ground with a Rookie, and after training a few such new players could qualify for Premium Time, and a Badge such as many folks have already in the Forum area.