Can we talk about the upcoming tutorial revamp?
2cough
Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
Rocky Mountain High Join Date: 2013-03-14 Member: 183952Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
Hello all. So I've been curious for a while, but in speccing some rooks last night, a few things came back to me that I wanted to bring up. Can we get a little more info on what's going to be included in the upcoming tutorial revamp?
I know nobody's asking, but I'm going to share some thoughts about what I hope to see included. Maybe it's too late if much work had already been done, so perhaps this is pointless, but feel free to chime in. Here goes.
The biggest thing I noticed last night was that neither team knew what to do to progress the game. Nobody had a clear thought on objectives, just engagements here and there. I saw 3 exos run into an undefended hive, shoot it down to 40%, then just stand around for 2 min before leaving and finally dying a few min later, hive still up - no alien response.
I asked after the round if the tutorial mentioned anything about objectives or progress (I've never played it) and was told that it did not. Imo, understanding game flow and objectives should be the number one idea taught beyond basic movement mechanics. 'Destroy the enemy hive/command chair' does not suffice. This is why the games I watched last night ended the same - a long grind with the game over 30 minutes before the winning team realizes they have the means to end it. They just stagnate.
Swalk has an article over on the ensl page that I think could be very helpful in explaining game flow. I am drafting from phone now, so I'll try to link later. The point is please, please explain to new players that while the ultimate goal is to destroy enemy hive/chair, there are steps to getting there - early, mid, and late game objectives should be at least advised.
*EDIT - here it is. http://www.ensl.org/articles/907 it says guide for competitive, but I think it's actually just as useful for brand newbs.
The second big thing is obviously movement and gameplay mechanics. Personally, I'd love to see a very step-by-step and hand-holding tutorial for this. Perhaps forced scenarios could address both of these issues. For marines, maybe start player at a tp of maybe just a small quadrant of map (maybe just a tp and 1 natural), player must then complete prompts to progress: log in to chair, drop armory, drop rt, prompt to log out. Build armory, buy welder. Prompt to move to and build rt. Before entering room, prompt warns about skulk ambush and to check corners/cielings. Room is clear, player constructs rt. As rt finished, triggers bot skulks to start entering room as well as prompt showing how to strafe jump. First 1 skulk then 2 together. Prompt player to strafe jump and kill targets... I dunno I think you get the idea of where I'm going with that.
For aliens, maybe something similar wherein player has to jump in hive, drop cysts to natural rt, build drifter, drop rt, hop out to defend. Then maybe this time the mechanic is wall jumping and the player must chain at least 2 jumps from wall to floor to trigger team of 2 bot rines coming to attack just built harvestor. Prompt player before rines enter the room that they're approaching, tip on audio cues and their importance maybe, then advise player to team up with other just spawned in skulks to ambush the marines add they finally enter.
Maybe this could be expanded into a whole series of tutorials, with only the 2 basic ones above being required to play servers, the rest optional, but still informative enough to be worth completing. Maybe tutorial for lerk and fade basics, energy management, not being a static target, knowing when not to engage, etc. One for gorge tactics, being escorted, WHERE and WHY to build structures (like discouraging tunnels from one room to the next in proximity - useless), sliding, etc. Onos tips about doing structure dmg and letting higher lifeforms focus marines, that kind of thing. Arc biling, gate grinding - little things that can make big differences that rookies wouldn't immediately just know to do.
Similar things for marines as well like exp training, jp training, map watching, shotgun vs lmg tracking, ammo management (not reloading after 2 bullets kind of thing).
I guess really these could be more considered drills, if there was like an ai difficulty setting, maybe drills could then be useful for vets to practice scenarios or warm up too. The idea however would be to try to bridge the gap between having practical game knowledge and actually applying this knowledge in a place where your mistakes won't be punished so that you can execute things in a real game when needed. You just respawn and try again.
So I know I got a little text happy, but hope I got point across. Again, I don't know how far along the revamp is or if any of this is even possible in a vanilla build (extra entities mod required? I won't pretend to know), but personally I think a system similar to what I've proposed would be a very helpful tool, and again want to emphasize how important I think it is that game flow and progression is included in the revamp.
Ideas? Hate? Love? I'm knocking on your door now, @BeigeAlert since I think you're working on it. Can you reveal any of what is going into it? Am I far off? Is it already way better than what I've suggested? Really I just wanna get a conversation started here because I can remember being hopeful for previous tutorial updates before being thoroughly let down. I have faith, but doesnt hurt to talk about.
Sorry in advance for any strange auto-corrections.
I know nobody's asking, but I'm going to share some thoughts about what I hope to see included. Maybe it's too late if much work had already been done, so perhaps this is pointless, but feel free to chime in. Here goes.
The biggest thing I noticed last night was that neither team knew what to do to progress the game. Nobody had a clear thought on objectives, just engagements here and there. I saw 3 exos run into an undefended hive, shoot it down to 40%, then just stand around for 2 min before leaving and finally dying a few min later, hive still up - no alien response.
I asked after the round if the tutorial mentioned anything about objectives or progress (I've never played it) and was told that it did not. Imo, understanding game flow and objectives should be the number one idea taught beyond basic movement mechanics. 'Destroy the enemy hive/command chair' does not suffice. This is why the games I watched last night ended the same - a long grind with the game over 30 minutes before the winning team realizes they have the means to end it. They just stagnate.
Swalk has an article over on the ensl page that I think could be very helpful in explaining game flow. I am drafting from phone now, so I'll try to link later. The point is please, please explain to new players that while the ultimate goal is to destroy enemy hive/chair, there are steps to getting there - early, mid, and late game objectives should be at least advised.
*EDIT - here it is. http://www.ensl.org/articles/907 it says guide for competitive, but I think it's actually just as useful for brand newbs.
The second big thing is obviously movement and gameplay mechanics. Personally, I'd love to see a very step-by-step and hand-holding tutorial for this. Perhaps forced scenarios could address both of these issues. For marines, maybe start player at a tp of maybe just a small quadrant of map (maybe just a tp and 1 natural), player must then complete prompts to progress: log in to chair, drop armory, drop rt, prompt to log out. Build armory, buy welder. Prompt to move to and build rt. Before entering room, prompt warns about skulk ambush and to check corners/cielings. Room is clear, player constructs rt. As rt finished, triggers bot skulks to start entering room as well as prompt showing how to strafe jump. First 1 skulk then 2 together. Prompt player to strafe jump and kill targets... I dunno I think you get the idea of where I'm going with that.
For aliens, maybe something similar wherein player has to jump in hive, drop cysts to natural rt, build drifter, drop rt, hop out to defend. Then maybe this time the mechanic is wall jumping and the player must chain at least 2 jumps from wall to floor to trigger team of 2 bot rines coming to attack just built harvestor. Prompt player before rines enter the room that they're approaching, tip on audio cues and their importance maybe, then advise player to team up with other just spawned in skulks to ambush the marines add they finally enter.
Maybe this could be expanded into a whole series of tutorials, with only the 2 basic ones above being required to play servers, the rest optional, but still informative enough to be worth completing. Maybe tutorial for lerk and fade basics, energy management, not being a static target, knowing when not to engage, etc. One for gorge tactics, being escorted, WHERE and WHY to build structures (like discouraging tunnels from one room to the next in proximity - useless), sliding, etc. Onos tips about doing structure dmg and letting higher lifeforms focus marines, that kind of thing. Arc biling, gate grinding - little things that can make big differences that rookies wouldn't immediately just know to do.
Similar things for marines as well like exp training, jp training, map watching, shotgun vs lmg tracking, ammo management (not reloading after 2 bullets kind of thing).
I guess really these could be more considered drills, if there was like an ai difficulty setting, maybe drills could then be useful for vets to practice scenarios or warm up too. The idea however would be to try to bridge the gap between having practical game knowledge and actually applying this knowledge in a place where your mistakes won't be punished so that you can execute things in a real game when needed. You just respawn and try again.
So I know I got a little text happy, but hope I got point across. Again, I don't know how far along the revamp is or if any of this is even possible in a vanilla build (extra entities mod required? I won't pretend to know), but personally I think a system similar to what I've proposed would be a very helpful tool, and again want to emphasize how important I think it is that game flow and progression is included in the revamp.
Ideas? Hate? Love? I'm knocking on your door now, @BeigeAlert since I think you're working on it. Can you reveal any of what is going into it? Am I far off? Is it already way better than what I've suggested? Really I just wanna get a conversation started here because I can remember being hopeful for previous tutorial updates before being thoroughly let down. I have faith, but doesnt hurt to talk about.
Sorry in advance for any strange auto-corrections.
Comments
The single, mandatory tutorial that is in the game now will be removed. Replacing it will be two team-specific tutorials designed to give the broad strokes of the gameplay for marines and aliens. Each one takes about 7-9 minutes to run through (6 if you already know what you're doing and can blaze right on through it). In them, we work on the basics like shooting, moving, wallwalking, and some more game-specific stuff like what an observatory does, what powernodes do, why you should use vents and flank the enemy instead of attacking head-on, and how to evolve. Basic stuff like that.
Then, once both these basic (and yes, mandatory) tutorials are completed, more advanced (and entirely optional) tutorials unlock. These contain lifeform-specific tutorials, eg "intro to lerk", "intro to fade", "advanced marine". These tutorials will cover the more nuanced and complex aspects of ns2, like lane blocking, wall-jumping, and the fade blink-hop thing.
In addition to all of the above "tutorials", we're planning on including some small single-player "challenge modes". These are focused on being less instructional, and more hands on. For example, for fade practice, we have one called "Defend the Hive", where a single fade is tasked with defending a hive against ever-increasingly difficult waves of bot marines. That will provide a good place for rookies to practice fading, as well as veterans to see how high they can score. We've also got a skulk-time-trial idea in mind, but nothing too concrete yet. Basically run around a map as fast as you can, and try to beat your previous record. We're sketchier on the details here because we're working to get the actual tutorials done first, then worry about these new modes.
We won't be rolling all this out at once, but like I hinted at above, we'll be rolling it out in stages. First we'll get the mandatory tutorials done, the bare minimum, you know? Then we'll probably roll out the individual lifeform/advanced-marine tutorials as they come.
I can't awesome you enough.
I especially like the single-player challenge idea that lets people hone their skills in a pressured no-pressure environment. Even if it's against single-minded bots, the accuracies and motor memory will be built up.
Time-trials as skulk/fade/jetpack across map segments (See TGNS's pre-game thing). Some form of target practice for marines.
Something else of import is how to end the game. It's not really something we can just blanket say (always rush the power node/obs/phasegate/chair) but certainly making it clear how crucial the power in main base is is a good idea. Mayhaps something in the marine tutorial where after saving the natural, the main base power will come under attack and you have to hustle back to save it.
Good stuff Beige. Can't wait!
The intro to marine tutorial ends with you destroying a hive, and the intro to gorge tutorial ends with a gorge rush on marine power node, then the chair.
Give them a hidden achievement if they kill the hive with a welder, and kill the power with a babbler.
It's in TODO, not Doing.
Dates / targets ?
No concrete dates as of now, but you know we're working our asses off to get stuff done before our 3 months are up. Hopefully we get 3 more.
wooo
Is walljumping as skulk included? It doesn't have to be any longer than 15 seconds of a voice saying "You can chain jumps along walls as skulk to gain speed!" on top of a video example, it's such a simple mechanic that as soon as they're aware of its existence, they will be able to pick it up.
Yea it'll get mentioned in the more advanced skulk tutorial. The first two tutorials are meant to give a more broad description of the two sides, what their strengths and weaknesses are, not so much "here's the key combination you press to perform a super chomp!" etc etc.