270 replies to this topic

[ShooterMcGavin80]

ShooterMcGavin80, on 29 July 2018 - 08:31 AM, said:

Here's my idea for a mentorship program:

Tier 1 players can have an option to join lower tier quickplay as a 'captain'. That tier 1 player is identified as so in the lobby, so everybody knows who he/she is. Maximum 1 captain per team.

Captain is locked in as the company command, and has all the standard command features. It is the responsibility of the captain to, you know, be an excellent captain. Talk to the lower tier players, group them into lances based on their builds, tell them where to go on the map, call the game.

Alternately, to avoid having the tier 1 player in actual combat, the captain could be in observer mode. This would relegate them to strictly tactical/strategic advice.

[Cichol Balor]

letting people drop as a spectator would be a big help with this and easy to do. It really sucks when i want to help a newer player that the best way to do that is to suicide so i can see how he is doing putting the team at 11v12 from the get go

[KursedVixen]

Scurry, on 13 October 2014 - 01:58 AM, said:

This game really needs a repository of information that is not available in-game.

For example: Ghost heat multiplier, heat ceiling, hitbox locations (seriously, it's kinda ridiculous that we have to find this out ourselves), ammo consumption order, crit mechanics, Gauss rifle mechanics, Ultra-AC5 jamming, minimum range, Lock-on mechanics.

A set of videos explaining the basics of the game would help massively as well, perhaps linked through the launcher.

Also, you know those tips that appear while the match is loading? It would be nice to have them consolidated and displayed in a single location.

In the long term, it would be nice to see some tools to better enable mentors to train newbies. For example, allowing a 'mentor' account a minimum number of days old to begin private matches with a limited number of designated 'apprentice' accounts a few days old, so that one can actually teach new players without premium time. Sort of like being able to enter Testing Grounds as a group.

A DPS calculator would help too espcially among lasers of the same weight because on the clan side we have 3 choices of laser at 1 ton.

[Galahad2030]

Kyle Polulak, 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.

I call this a Referral Program. plain and simple. If you bring in people to play, you get rewarded and so do the players that you bring in. You are designated a mentor by default since you brought them into the game.

[Disinterest]

This game has been broken down already. The content exists, a lot of it on this very forum (hitbox locations, etc). Stickies would help. Consolidating it and placing it into the game sounds like you're expanding the training sim, which is long overdue (especially since you never build anything in the sim, which is part of why you see people running 4 weapon systems on a chasis with perks for only one of those systems).

Then it sounds like you're asking live players for QA testing and offering rewards.

You're asking for veteran players, but you don't always want veteran players. You want players that do the best, and build the best rigs; not ye old garbage bucket pilot preying on mechdads and claiming their corsair is viable. You also want QA players who will TELL you about busted stuff, instead of keeping it to themselves (i.e. there is a still a certain mech that can facehug and not be hit).

All in all, it is a great idea to communicate with your playerbase. However, that's not enough. You're going to have to monitor the playerbase... the streams, the guides, the excel sheets, and just all of it. You're going to have to be up on this stuff as much as they are. Once you've done that, you might actually address some of the problems in this game (like how the amount of mechs has become redundant with most being garbage buckets).

Bottomline: I don't think advertising rewards is going to do anything other than have the mechdads crawling over each other for those sweet sweet cbills (that we have an almost infinite supply of because... business secrets). No, it just isn't going to be that simple. It will get you feedback, but you folks had better get in the game and figure out how to stack weapons on the right chasis and do 600+ dmg per game if you want a mildly valid opinion.

[Sasuga]

Any system that focuses on new-accounts is going to create a bunch of alt-accounts, and probably not a whole lot more.

So, what I suggest rewarding people who play together as a group. Players will come and go, but people will want to refill their ranks when old players leave or move on or whatever, with new players, because they'll be rewarded for playing as a group better than playing alone.

=-=-=-=

Bonus C-Bills and XP for dropping as a group!
The larger your group, the more C-Bills and XP bonus everyone in the group gets. Something like 1% per person in the group more. So a 12 person group would get 12% extra XP and C-Bills, while a four man group would be getting 4% more XP and C-Bills.

Now, now, I already hear people crying, "But I want to drop alone!"
- No one's stopping you!

=-=-=-=

To go along with the group thing, MMR (Match-Making-Rank/Tier) based on groups not individuals. Every group (and yeah, it could be a lot of data) has it's own MMR/Tier. If I play with my buddy Joe, then he and I have an MMR of our own together. If I play with my other buddy Ben, then now Ben and I have a different MMR.

WHY? Why would you do this? You might ask?

Multiple reasons:
1. When older players play with newer inexperienced players, they're more likely to lose (in theory) because the new player doesn't know what they're doing (having trouble controlling legs, firing small lasers and overheating when 1000m+ away from the target, etc.) And, players who work really hard on getting their tier higher (or lower as it may be) don't want to drop with newbies and loose that hard earned Tier 1 or whatever.

EDIT: Add: 2. Also, dropping a Tier 1 and Tier 5 together often takes FOREVER to find a match, which discourages the Tier 1 and Tier 5 from dropping together. No one likes waiting half an hour (or longer!) to find a match. If they're treated as a single MMR/Tier TOGETHER, then I suspect it'll be easier on the match-making matching.

3. It would encourage players to keep playing together as a group (thus, mentoring each other) to improve their collective tier.

4. It could maybe improve match making (speed) by matching tiers of groups together, instead of trying to match a Tier 1 with another Tier 1 in a group with Tier 4s and Tier 5s, etc.

Players in a group might perform better or worse than alone, or when in other groups. Maybe I play really well with Ben, but horribly with Joe. Maybe Joe and Ben play well together without me. Maybe the three of us together are awesome, or we suck, as a trio, but again Ben and I rock together. Instead of trying to figure out a 'fair match' based on a bunch of individuals, we as a group get matched against other groups of similar MMR/Tier (when possible) [Or against whoever is online when, The Internet forbid, there's not enough to make a decent match otherwise or whatever].

I've been in matches against what looked like 10 or 12 player teams, where my team looked as best I could tell to be a bunch of rando-pubs, and we steamrolled the pre-arranged team. It happens a lot in other games, but it's happened here on MWO often enough as well.

My point? A bunch of randos whooped what looked like a pre-arranged team, and if it was a pre-arranged team, we whooped 'em. Their team Tier/MMR was not very good...

I see on the forums people are terrified of getting put against pre-arranged teams, terrified of being steam rolled by a bunch of organized pros. Well, I think the community is currently game-aged enough that I get some really good games with people actually leading in pub games now, and good cooperation (though not always)...

And if that 12 person team is judged by it's 12 person MMR/Tier, then good 12 mans can be paired against other good 12 mans, or good players, while not as good 12 mans can be paired against not as good players, and the random pub groups that aren't 12 men, can be at least assured that either A) The 12 man isn't that great at playing together (yet), or they'll move on and up to higher tiers where the rondos who aren't that good won't have to face them again in the future.

Tier per group has the advantage of taking into account players tactics together without knowing what their tactics are. Maybe a lance of light mechs are really awesome at sweeping through enemy lines together, and they win a lot of matches that way! Great! They should be a high tier together! Now, as individuals, they don't have their buddies to work with them, and they get killed early in the match because they don't have the same tactic. Maybe my new buddy isn't as good at the tactic as my other buddies are with it.

Per-Group-Tier has a lot of advantages. Yes, yes, it's more data in the database, so you'll have to figure out a clever way to store it and access it without killing your database, but considering all the stuff databases deal with, I suspect you guys are up for the task.

=-=-=-=

Provide incentives in your events like this Lucky Charms, or the previous Hunt the Huntsman thing, for dropping in groups.

=-=-=-=

Encourage group-play, and mentorships will follow.

Edited by Sasuga, 17 March 2021 - 04:39 PM.

[Falls Galloway]

I'd Like to be able to see the builds of teammates so I can better determine who to group up with to compliment weapon systems.

[Carbon Guardian]

In training ground make an AI team of similar role mechs to form a lance of of 3 or 4 / star of 5 with player and AI. The basic AI then moves to the most effective location on a setup battle field and give tips when player is too close to front line, exposed, too far away, stopping too much, firing too fast, or out of position (you know who you are hiders and walk around map assaults) for said role.

It's up to players to remember their role position in a 12 vs 12.

[Carbon Guardian]

Cichol Balor, on 13 December 2018 - 02:36 PM, said:

letting people drop as a spectator would be a big help with this and easy to do. It really sucks when i want to help a newer player that the best way to do that is to suicide so i can see how he is doing putting the team at 11v12 from the get go

Like making command console mechs useful in this game of information warfare? I like it sign me up!

[Nevermore223]

I agree with a lot of what yall are saying about helping the newer group along. I believe that if the pilot has the intrest and initiative, they will eventually get over the learning curve and start to shine in game. Adding things like damage calculators POV cameras might seem like it's helping, but I believe those resourses could be spent more wisely. You already have a test bed in the lab to check your load out, and get an idea of how much damage your going to do, and at what range. The damage #s in the lab, do not coincide with actual damage delt...(a diffrent chassis and armor plays a role in that too). This throws a lot of new players off, because they see the damage potential, but don't test it to see how well it works...then get rick rolled over and over again, and cant figure out why right away. With no one to point this out...they get discouraged and move on to something else. League play could solve a lot of these issues, if it weren't so damn brutal...but I digress...the ole timers gotta play too. League play requires time and dedication and a willingness to "know your enemy"...."know yourself"...and ultimately, know the outcome of the battle. My 1 major gripe here, was the policing of the league play when it first started up. I know for a fact that there was cheating going on in those days, and a lot of my teamates who no longer play this game did too. I am not going to name and shame here, but PGI eventually got wise to it and perma banned some folks. That did damage to the trust of the community and as one might speculate, was why the league thing never really did very well after that imo. Can the trust be restored?....I dunno...I guess thats up to PGI and the fng's. I would like to think so....I realize there is a lot of work in keeping everything in check with online gaming and I am not throwing anybody under the bus here at PGI....10 years is a long run...I hope we see 10 more....QUOTH THE RAVEN....