43 replies to this topic

[Protection]

Mechwarrior: Online is actually a very good game - there's depth, there's customization, there can be strategy and surprise, and there is potential to grow in many different directions. Yes, there's glitches, balance issues, mechanics changes, etc that all need to be looked at, but the core gameplay is actually really well done.

But how the hell you have gone into open beta, and on for almost six months, without so much as a new player tutorial is truly mind boggling!

And no, the Training Grounds are not a sufficient supplement for a proper tutorial.

THIS is what a proper tutorial looks like (3:30):



A spunky commander, played by a talented voice actor, giving step by step, play by play instructions as you learn the game, and all of its mechanics, piece by piece.

Now I understand that not all of the game mechanics are in place, and that some big things are still probably going to change for MW:O, but even a half assed attempt at a tutorial like the above would be infinitely better than 'training grounds,' a barren empty lifeless map where static, lifeless mech statues sit with no explanation or interaction.


And after 'testing grounds' (assuming a new player is even wise enough to begin there) the new player experience doesn't get much better. You get forced into a choice of one of four heat-death-traps designed to kill new players, and not at all suited the gameplay of Mechwarrior: Online. These inefficient, under-optimized machines mean that you are forced to manage your heat much more than any other player that customized their own mech, use inferior weapon loadouts (rarely are trial mechs lucky enough to be boating multiple identical weapons), and most builds (especially the 3025 designs) have none of the expected features of those custom mechs - like Endo Steel, Gauss Rifles, and Double Heatsinks.

Stock mechs really don't have a place in MWO at the moment. No one is running a stock mech (or anything even remotely close, except maybe the 4SP Hunchback) in competitive play or top-ELO games. Almost none of the stock designs work well, and even bad customized designs are almost always vastly superior (obvious example - the Goon Dragon about to win the Trial Mech contest - is a bad design, yet it still blows most of the trial mechs away).

I realize that "stock mechs are supposed to be common and abundant" and "they were the norm in the Inner-Sphere" and other lore and tabletop arguments - but that is best solved with a lobby system - which would allow players to RP or play with 3025 tech or stock mechs only (and solve a dozen other issues as well). As for the Mechwarrior: Online Inner Sphere - the Atlas is the most common of all mechs, the Catapult is a front line brawler, and the Raven is a dominating, speedy Light-hunter-killer. The average mechwarrior has between four and twenty mechs to his name, and there are only six different planets in the galaxy. The lore has been devastated by the game mechanics already, it's time to let it go. Time to take new players out of - and away from - Stock Mechs forever.

Basically, you are taking the newest players with no experience or preparation and then giving them the absolute worst possible equipment (in a PVP only game!) and then wondering why they don't feel like committing ten long tedious hours to the game to get their first customized and well-built mech. Especially with a hundred other free to play games on the market (many with the same poor player retention, wondering why clueless new players are not sticking with their tutorial-less, grindy game that forces you to use terrible equipment for many hours before fun can be achieved).

New players get little feedback or communication either. "Hey, remember that guy in the last game who told me how to me how to assign weapon groups and when to use LRMs?" No, of course you dont, because the friends list is so obtrusive and chatting using it is appalling. There's no out-of-game chat, no place to see who you recently played with, no place to ask about what happened in that last game while you were lost in the cave -- there's nothing in the game for human interaction. The only place to go for that sort of thing is the MW:O forums, a wretched hive of scum and villainy that most new players will never check out before giving up on the game forever.

ELO doesn't really address a lot of these issues either. Because MW:O doesn't have a huge concurrent playerbase the way that, say Dota2 or LoL (other ELO using games) do - this means that rather than having a game with 16 low ELO players, you get paired off to each team, so you might get 6 low ELO players, 8 mid ELO players, and 2 high ELO players, an then put 3, 4, and 1 on each team respectively. And all this does is make 3 players on each team useless prey to be devoured and eaten by the five on the other team. Not being able to (often) really contribute to a match because of vastly inferior equipment (coupled with the hurdles to overcome of being a new player) really seems like it would be a totally justified turn off for a new player trying to approach this game.

And as I mentioned before -- a lobby system would do so much to alleviate this. Newbie only games, teaching sessions, practice matches (with no stats tracked), choosing maps, choosing opponents, choosing settings -- would all be a huge benefit for new players (as well as absolutely everyone else playing) since they could have some control over their matches, rather than leaving it to PGI's best equations to forcibly choose their opponents for them each time.

It pretty much sucks terribly to be a new player in MW:O.

Which is why many new players don't stick around. Which is bad for the game - both it's life expectancy and it's content releases, so policy ought be changed to retain new players. And this is where the horrid idea of 3rd person comes in. But 3rd person is very much the wrong response. This is the result of listening to a (bad, overpaid) focus group with a bunch of people who have never played Mechwarrior and never ever wanted to until they were paid to for a focus group having bad ideas because the only two other games they ever played were Halo and Gears of War. I'm sure some marketing blockhead is saying "but look at the popularity of those games" -- this blockhead knows nothing about game marketing or commercial game success and should be fired on the spot. Games, especially games with limited or smaller budgets and resources, cannot steal from larger fanbases by imitating those games. So many other MMOs fail, because they try to imitate World of Warcraft - rather than doing their own thing. This is one of the reasons EVE is still around and still thriving - because it decided not to be WoW in space, but a richer, deeper, more complex game.

So in conclusion (TL;DR):

• Tresting grounds suck. Make a real tutorial.
  
• Stock mechs are terrible and only become an even bigger handicap for the players who are already most lacking in experience and game understanding
  
• Instead give players a wide selection of well optimized mechs that are built to function in a specific role (eg/ brawler, sniper, scout, LRM-boat)
  
• Lobby system. Lobby System. LOBBY SYSTEM. ASAP.
  
• Coupled with the lobby system - an out-of-game open chat, like those you find on pretty much every multiplayer online gave ever to exist
  
• ELO isn't really a solution - it's not even a bandaid. It has its place, but it's not a cure to the issues.
  
• 3rd person isn't the cure either - it's a bad idea put forward by a focus group of non-gamers, and really needs to be kept away from any even remotely serious play.

Also, last but not least, some preemptive rebuttals to some incoming terrible (and flawed) arguments:

• "I had a great game in a trial mech. Look at my scoreboard." -- Good for you. You don't know what anecdotal evidence is.
  
• "Grrrr, don't give new player better mechs. I had to grind through a hundred games in a Stock Dragon 1-N just to get my first Commando. You young kids don't know how to work for things." -- This isn't boot camp, this is pretend-robot fun time, and it's player-versus-player only. The weakest, newest players deserve, at the least, equal footing with the rest of us.
  
• "But I learned the game without a tutorial. If I can learn it without a tutorial then so can everyone else." -- Everyone else is bombarded by a dozen different free to play titles, all of which take hours to learn without a proper tutorial. Enough playtime across enough games, means you are going to lose players to sheer market over-saturation, and this is only amplified if there isn't a convenient system for figuring everything out in a short amount of time.

Okay, all done.

[MischiefSC]

I'm curious - where did you get access to PGIs player churn metrics, F2P/MC purchase conversion per subscriber rates and the like? I wasn't aware they were public. I'm seeing tons of new players and a lot of people again and again. Are you sure your 'low player retention' metric isn't anecdotal?

Not that I disagree that a new tutorial is a great idea and a lobby isn't a terrible one but obviously CW comes first.

[Stone Profit]

Protection, on 27 March 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

Mechwarrior: Online is actually a very good game - there's depth, there's customization, there can be strategy and surprise, and there is potential to grow in many different directions. Yes, there's glitches, balance issues, mechanics changes, etc that all need to be looked at, but the core gameplay is actually really well done.

But how the hell you have gone into open beta, and on for almost six months, without so much as a new player tutorial is truly mind boggling!

And no, the Training Grounds are not a sufficient supplement for a proper tutorial.

THIS is what a proper tutorial looks like (3:30):



A spunky commander, played by a talented voice actor, giving step by step, play by play instructions as you learn the game, and all of its mechanics, piece by piece.

Now I understand that not all of the game mechanics are in place, and that some big things are still probably going to change for MW:O, but even a half assed attempt at a tutorial like the above would be infinitely better than 'training grounds,' a barren empty lifeless map where static, lifeless mech statues sit with no explanation or interaction.


And after 'testing grounds' (assuming a new player is even wise enough to begin there) the new player experience doesn't get much better. You get forced into a choice of one of four heat-death-traps designed to kill new players, and not at all suited the gameplay of Mechwarrior: Online. These inefficient, under-optimized machines mean that you are forced to manage your heat much more than any other player that customized their own mech, use inferior weapon loadouts (rarely are trial mechs lucky enough to be boating multiple identical weapons), and most builds (especially the 3025 designs) have none of the expected features of those custom mechs - like Endo Steel, Gauss Rifles, and Double Heatsinks.

Stock mechs really don't have a place in MWO at the moment. No one is running a stock mech (or anything even remotely close, except maybe the 4SP Hunchback) in competitive play or top-ELO games. Almost none of the stock designs work well, and even bad customized designs are almost always vastly superior (obvious example - the Goon Dragon about to win the Trial Mech contest - is a bad design, yet it still blows most of the trial mechs away).

I realize that "stock mechs are supposed to be common and abundant" and "they were the norm in the Inner-Sphere" and other lore and tabletop arguments - but that is best solved with a lobby system - which would allow players to RP or play with 3025 tech or stock mechs only (and solve a dozen other issues as well). As for the Mechwarrior: Online Inner Sphere - the Atlas is the most common of all mechs, the Catapult is a front line brawler, and the Raven is a dominating, speedy Light-hunter-killer. The average mechwarrior has between four and twenty mechs to his name, and there are only six different planets in the galaxy. The lore has been devastated by the game mechanics already, it's time to let it go. Time to take new players out of - and away from - Stock Mechs forever.

Basically, you are taking the newest players with no experience or preparation and then giving them the absolute worst possible equipment (in a PVP only game!) and then wondering why they don't feel like committing ten long tedious hours to the game to get their first customized and well-built mech. Especially with a hundred other free to play games on the market (many with the same poor player retention, wondering why clueless new players are not sticking with their tutorial-less, grindy game that forces you to use terrible equipment for many hours before fun can be achieved).

New players get little feedback or communication either. "Hey, remember that guy in the last game who told me how to me how to assign weapon groups and when to use LRMs?" No, of course you dont, because the friends list is so obtrusive and chatting using it is appalling. There's no out-of-game chat, no place to see who you recently played with, no place to ask about what happened in that last game while you were lost in the cave -- there's nothing in the game for human interaction. The only place to go for that sort of thing is the MW:O forums, a wretched hive of scum and villainy that most new players will never check out before giving up on the game forever.

ELO doesn't really address a lot of these issues either. Because MW:O doesn't have a huge concurrent playerbase the way that, say Dota2 or LoL (other ELO using games) do - this means that rather than having a game with 16 low ELO players, you get paired off to each team, so you might get 6 low ELO players, 8 mid ELO players, and 2 high ELO players, an then put 3, 4, and 1 on each team respectively. And all this does is make 3 players on each team useless prey to be devoured and eaten by the five on the other team. Not being able to (often) really contribute to a match because of vastly inferior equipment (coupled with the hurdles to overcome of being a new player) really seems like it would be a totally justified turn off for a new player trying to approach this game.

And as I mentioned before -- a lobby system would do so much to alleviate this. Newbie only games, teaching sessions, practice matches (with no stats tracked), choosing maps, choosing opponents, choosing settings -- would all be a huge benefit for new players (as well as absolutely everyone else playing) since they could have some control over their matches, rather than leaving it to PGI's best equations to forcibly choose their opponents for them each time.

It pretty much sucks terribly to be a new player in MW:O.

Which is why many new players don't stick around. Which is bad for the game - both it's life expectancy and it's content releases, so policy ought be changed to retain new players. And this is where the horrid idea of 3rd person comes in. But 3rd person is very much the wrong response. This is the result of listening to a (bad, overpaid) focus group with a bunch of people who have never played Mechwarrior and never ever wanted to until they were paid to for a focus group having bad ideas because the only two other games they ever played were Halo and Gears of War. I'm sure some marketing blockhead is saying "but look at the popularity of those games" -- this blockhead knows nothing about game marketing or commercial game success and should be fired on the spot. Games, especially games with limited or smaller budgets and resources, cannot steal from larger fanbases by imitating those games. So many other MMOs fail, because they try to imitate World of Warcraft - rather than doing their own thing. This is one of the reasons EVE is still around and still thriving - because it decided not to be WoW in space, but a richer, deeper, more complex game.

So in conclusion (TL;DR):

• Tresting grounds suck. Make a real tutorial.
  
• Stock mechs are terrible and only become an even bigger handicap for the players who are already most lacking in experience and game understanding
  
• Instead give players a wide selection of well optimized mechs that are built to function in a specific role (eg/ brawler, sniper, scout, LRM-boat)
  
• Lobby system. Lobby System. LOBBY SYSTEM. ASAP.
  
• Coupled with the lobby system - an out-of-game open chat, like those you find on pretty much every multiplayer online gave ever to exist
  
• ELO isn't really a solution - it's not even a bandaid. It has its place, but it's not a cure to the issues.
  
• 3rd person isn't the cure either - it's a bad idea put forward by a focus group of non-gamers, and really needs to be kept away from any even remotely serious play.

Also, last but not least, some preemptive rebuttals to some incoming terrible (and flawed) arguments:

• "I had a great game in a trial mech. Look at my scoreboard." -- Good for you. You don't know what anecdotal evidence is.
  
• "Grrrr, don't give new player better mechs. I had to grind through a hundred games in a Stock Dragon 1-N just to get my first Commando. You young kids don't know how to work for things." -- This isn't boot camp, this is pretend-robot fun time, and it's player-versus-player only. The weakest, newest players deserve, at the least, equal footing with the rest of us.
  
• "But I learned the game without a tutorial. If I can learn it without a tutorial then so can everyone else." -- Everyone else is bombarded by a dozen different free to play titles, all of which take hours to learn without a proper tutorial. Enough playtime across enough games, means you are going to lose players to sheer market over-saturation, and this is only amplified if there isn't a convenient system for figuring everything out in a short amount of time.

Okay, all done.

Low player retention? I think they know about player retention far more than you do, since they have the data. But feel free to keep acting like you know all about it

[Tennex]

they know. they are workign on a tutorial.

next up matchmaking need to match only newbies togethr

Edited by Tennex, 27 March 2013 - 06:52 PM.

[Dracol]

IMHO, if the figures coming in at PGI we indicating that new player retention was abismal, they would reprioritize their priorities.

Considering PGI continues to add base content, expand game play, and tackle major flaws/weak spots, I would hazard a guess that new player retention is within projected numbers. Also I would guess that they are getting game play as close to final status before making a final, high end newplayer experience so that it can be done and completed once.

Had they made said turotial experience prior to consumables, they'd have to go back in and edit the turtorial or leave it lacking.

[Ichijo]

The trial mechs should be better than those deathtrap "stock" variants, and trial mechs should only face trial mechs.

But limited to X number of times you can use them before having to purchase one.

If I wasn't an old BT/MW fan I would have dropped this game like a bad girlfriend.

Edited by Ichijo, 27 March 2013 - 06:58 PM.

[Pater Mors]

Yeah, when you can show me PGI's official numbers on player retention that proves the claim in this threads title then I'll read your post.

[Butane9000]

I agree the new user experience needs work. Hopefully they take note of user designs from the build a trial competitions and use them instead of the stock trial mechs.

[syngyne]

MischiefSC, on 27 March 2013 - 06:48 PM, said:

I'm curious - where did you get access to PGIs player churn metrics, F2P/MC purchase conversion per subscriber rates and the like? I wasn't aware they were public. I'm seeing tons of new players and a lot of people again and again. Are you sure your 'low player retention' metric isn't anecdotal?

Not that I disagree that a new tutorial is a great idea and a lobby isn't a terrible one but obviously CW comes first.

Well, it was one of the justifications being given for implementing a 3rd person camera.

Bryan Ekman, on 21 March 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

We did an analysis of our data and found that players in general were having a hard time learning how to control their BattleMechs. We spent time studying their behaviours, observing, and then formulated a series of improvements. You have already seen some of them (new user controls). We did some market research, looked at the target demographic that we engaged initially but did not retain (played a few matches and left), and found that many players were not able to easily grasp the concepts of their `Mech, especially movement. 3rd person will help solve some of these issues, along with a new UI, training and testing grounds, and other features coming down the pipeline.

Hope that answers your question.

Nothing disastrous sounding, but it sounds like the retention isn't as high as they'd like.

[Zordicron]

I do not know about player retention, I know I recognize names here and there from previous matches, but there are plenty new ones too like every match, or at least so it appears.

So far as tutorial, learning the ropes-
I know when I found this game, all i was doing was a google search because looking at my MW3 Pirates Moon CD on my shelf on the desk made me think "hgmm, wonder how that MW reboot thing is going lately". So i search, and "WTF MW online open beta!!"

Download!

So, to me, part of "new player" whatver, man it doesnt apply. I know ll the mechs, the weapons, the gameplay stuff from previous games. Sure, the new MW online has it's own tricks, but so did MW4 compared to 3, compared to 2.
So when I got into this game, meh, I could give a rip about some tutorial, I wouldnt have used it except out of curiosity just to try it.

And I think a lot of players feel like that. i think some of the PGI developement staff is like that.

But...

As gamers go, we old school MW PC guys(and gals) are old. I mean not like nursing home old, but compared to some kiddo's in high school, heh, they were what like 2 when the last MW title was released? they dont even know what it is. We do, we have been lurking and waiting, and kept our logitec wingman joystick polished up and ready for action for a decade so we could hot drop in and stompy robot war on someone.

And MW online doesnt have links to a lore page, links to mech stats or weapon stats, links to books, anything. And while a sizable group of CoD meatheads will ignore those links, a lot of new players would read that stuff and get hooked, and get a lot of background on the universe.

As far as a tutorial, yeah there should be one, even a text based one where you drop in and are given instructions on how to get the data available on the HUD, how to open the map, how to weapon group, how to set chainfire. All you need is to drop in, have a paragraph talking about some aspect, and then a "next" button in huge print under it. o it describes moving. Player moves, tries the directions, says yeahok! and then hits next to try the next thing.

Even if we old farts didnt need it, the kiddo's might, and it should be part of a game like this. it's funny, the PGI guys that are supposed to be tabletop guys, MW PC guys, whatever, you would think they would look at that stuff and copy what worked. IMO, we spent so much time lately on weapon balance, man I always think "why dont they just go play MW3 and copy a bunch of crap from there? Weapon balance and mechanics were great in that one." But thats another thread I guess...

Anyway, TLDR, need tutorial, even a text one added to training grounds explaining controls and HUD at the least. "MW gurus" at PGI apparently know better then 3 decades of literature and previous PC titles for weapon balance and function. I agree with others above- DONT COPY WoW!(and by that i mean, CoD or any other "popular" game) they do it better, already, so there is no reason for a new player to come here to play CoD or WoW with robots, those games did it already. Look back at what was awesome about MW2, 3, 4 tabletop and copy that into the new stuff. There is a reason there are decade(s) old fans like me around to play this game, looking for it on google search randomly while reminiscing.

[Odins Fist]

Protection, on 27 March 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

Pgi - The Low Player Retention Is The Result Of A Disastrous Player Experience

Waiters gonna wait, "BUT" for how long..??

Time is ticking down for MWO, and that is the reality of the situation, and anyone that says or thinks anything differently is obviously in denial or ignorant.. "PERIOD".

Edited by Odins Fist, 27 March 2013 - 07:39 PM.

[Chavette]

They know that.

[yashmack]

no way am I reading all that... lol

[Pan]

Hmm not my experience. Yes the new player tutorial is a pain point but it has not stopped any of my gamer friends. The lack of things to do is worse than a good tutorial in my opinion.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Pater Mors, on 27 March 2013 - 06:59 PM, said:

Yeah, when you can show me PGI's official numbers on player retention that proves the claim in this threads title then I'll read your post.

This. He typed this big HUGE wall just to pull crap out of his a$$. Grow some patience and come back later.

[Gaan Cathal]

MischiefSC, on 27 March 2013 - 06:48 PM, said:

Not that I disagree that a new tutorial is a great idea and a lobby isn't a terrible one but obviously CW comes first.

If you mean before lobby, sure. If you mean before tutorial, that will kill this game.

Pan, on 27 March 2013 - 07:57 PM, said:

Hmm not my experience. Yes the new player tutorial is a pain point but it has not stopped any of my gamer friends. The lack of things to do is worse than a good tutorial in my opinion.

How much of a percentage of the playing, paying public are your friends? Proper tutorials have been proven time and time again to increase player uptake and retention. "Your friends" are not substantive counter-evidence.

[SirLANsalot]

Listen to NGNG lobby is a part of CW, plus there will be a new "testing grounds" that is going on top of it that has a tutorial (called Training Grounds)

Edited by SirLANsalot, 27 March 2013 - 08:15 PM.

[Roadbeer]

More shocking...

The sun will rise in the east tomorrow.




That is a very well written post, and I appreciate the thought you put into it, but...

Edited by Roadbeer, 27 March 2013 - 08:18 PM.

[rollermint]

I agree with the OP.

PGI needs to dedicate alot more effort into introducing the new players into MWO and retaining them.

[Utilyan]

I love the Mechwarrior 2 trainer's put-downs.

"Feel free to approach the targets if you find them difficult to hit. Your secret is safe with me. I will not tell a soul of your incompetence. Trust me..."

".....nice work.........for a freebirth."


Toad, Scrub, Fleshy-headed mutant, Wet-nose.


"Do not panic, Wet-nose the drone is shut down"