At this point, the game needs a very serious overhaul and huge publicity stating it is brand new or it needs to lower its price point even further / have tons of sales or just go free to play.
I think the biggest thing that stands out to me with player retention is the tutorial system and the lack of matchmaking / someway for people to slowly climb the ranks like in CS:GO or DOTA.
I've said this before, this game needs some sort of matchmaking, but in order for matchmaking to work, you need more players. To get more players you need to do my first point above; It's basic game development for arena based games.
You guys are already working on a tutorial revamp, which is great. Be wary however of the ROOKIE ONLY servers. Learn from Planetside 2 Koltyr, Koltyr in Planetside is a Rookie only continent and it fell flat on it's face. The reason Kooltyr fell flat is because you NEED experienced players leading the inexperienced or else the quality of the game declines significantly.
You guys have a very tricky situation to figure out, I personally hope after you complete the tutorial revamp you either lower the price of the game or go free to play, however you will have to sacrifice profits for the short term.
Also, if you decide to put ranks in the game, please, please take note of CS:GO... (In CS:GO the ranking system is not XP based, it's how good you are compared to everyone else. Meaning a Global elite is in the top 90% of the player base)
This isn't the only thing that needs to be done but it's the most important at this time, especially with how little time you guys have.
At this point, the game needs a very serious overhaul and huge publicity stating it is brand new or it needs to lower its price point even further / have tons of sales or just go free to play.
I think the biggest thing that stands out to me with player retention is the tutorial system and the lack of matchmaking / someway for people to slowly climb the ranks like in CS:GO or DOTA.
I've said this before, this game needs some sort of matchmaking, but in order for matchmaking to work, you need more players. To get more players you need to do my first point above; It's basic game development for arena based games.
You guys are already working on a tutorial revamp, which is great. Be wary however of the ROOKIE ONLY servers. Learn from Planetside 2 Koltyr, Koltyr in Planetside is a Rookie only continent and it fell flat on it's face. The reason Kooltyr fell flat is because you NEED experienced players leading the inexperienced or else the quality of the game declines significantly.
You guys have a very tricky situation to figure out, I personally hope after you complete the tutorial revamp you either lower the price of the game or go free to play, however you will have to sacrifice profits for the short term.
Also, if you decide to put ranks in the game, please, please take note of CS:GO... (In CS:GO the ranking system is not XP based, it's how good you are compared to everyone else. Meaning a Global elite is in the top 90% of the player base)
This isn't the only thing that needs to be done but it's the most important at this time, especially with how little time you guys have.
/rant
How's this for getting experienced players on rookie-only servers, but without the risk of stomping? https://trello.com/c/6Dc0crMU
^Beige - It's a good idea what you're working on, but why not allow a coach to talk to the entire team. He or she would either be a commander for the team or only be able to talk to the team as a coach. The scoreboard would show the coach on the team so the players can get an understanding who the person is. They can vote to kick the coach if they want, but I think limiting it to 1 on 1 communication is too focused and might not work well unless you're a friend with the person. I like the idea of one person helping the team as a whole and guiding them through the process.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
While I like the idea, the issues as I see it are :
If you're going to do a 1 on 1 coaching session, you may as well use steam's voice call feature or some other TS3 equivalent while spectating them.
If you want to coach the whole team you are going to speak over the commander and other important comms.
Might just want to allow coaching from commanders, as you can reasonably do so from their perspective and it ensures Rookies Only servers get decent comms occasionally.
Since you'd be "coaching"; you would have almost none of the keys binded to anything useful, so having 2 mic key wouldn't be a problem; you could even perma-write on the screen the keyshortcut initially (i.e. "e" for all-team vocal chat, while "v" would be for the player being coached), then allow to disable in the options. Writing those on screen would be a bit ugly but it really wouldn't be a problem as a coach... well is a coach (like most newcomers, as well as default players wouldn't use this feature); his resolution could even be forced in 800x600 (please don't) ; as long as he has a good idea of what the player he is coaching is doing.
It isn't a required feature, but a very nice one to teach the game.
I support this as very recently I said I told someone I wanted to show him the game, thought it had deep mechanic that required coaching / experience.
BeigeAlertTexasJoin Date: 2013-08-08Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
Good points. The only problem with allowing them to command the entire team is that, like IronHorse said, they'll be talking over the commander, unless they ARE the commander... but that opens up an exploit where a veteran player joins, goes commander, hops out, and just goes and plays on the ground. Would have to figure out a way to protect against this. Maybe don't even allow them to jump out of the chair. But then we don't want them to be able to kick rookies out of the chair, or completely block them either. Hmmm...
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
edited January 2016
How about, allowing only 1 non rookie on each team and locking them in the command chair?
if its made clear that, that is what will happen if you're a non rookie and you join a rookie server I'm sure people like myself and others would join those servers specifically to help.
Also an idea was brought up a while ago (can't remember where) that basically asked for the ability to spec only 1 team, to help with coaching... maybe if you could spec that 1 team, and type to that 1 team (no voice chat) coaching would be possible... like was said above, if you want to talk, go on TS... but at least this way you can spec, help out and be added/add people on steam to help them out more.
How's this for getting experienced players on rookie-only servers, but without the risk of stomping? https://trello.com/c/6Dc0crMU
So, if you take a look at TF2, they did something similar to this. In theory it sounds great! However the problem is it is too varying across the board and too little people actually do it. Say you have several thousand players trying to learn the game in "Rookie only" Servers, your amount of coaches will be extremely small and some people may learn a lot about the game while others get bitched out by their coach. You need something that can teach EVERYONE the same thing.
I remember when I started to get into CS:GO as a newbie what I did to learn the game was I played against bots, you guys have that in your trello already, which might just work.... However you gotta overhaul your bots because ATM the bots are, well, bad. Once I fought against bots in CS:GO I entered the unranked matchmaking and then after a while the ranked matchmaking.
What I am trying to say with that specific point is if you make a lake of green it will become a lake of red. At the same time though you need consistency.
How about, allowing only 1 non rookie on each team and locking them in the command chair?
if its made clear that, that is what will happen if you're a non rookie and you join a rookie server I'm sure people like myself and others would join those servers specifically to help.
Also an idea was brought up a while ago (can't remember where) that basically asked for the ability to spec only 1 team, to help with coaching... maybe if you could spec that 1 team, and type to that 1 team (no voice chat) coaching would be possible... like was said above, if you want to talk, go on TS... but at least this way you can spec, help out and be added/add people on steam to help them out more.
How about, allowing only 1 non rookie on each team and locking them in the command chair?
if its made clear that, that is what will happen if you're a non rookie and you join a rookie server I'm sure people like myself and others would join those servers specifically to help.
Also an idea was brought up a while ago (can't remember where) that basically asked for the ability to spec only 1 team, to help with coaching... maybe if you could spec that 1 team, and type to that 1 team (no voice chat) coaching would be possible... like was said above, if you want to talk, go on TS... but at least this way you can spec, help out and be added/add people on steam to help them out more.
Inzo and I took a team each and consistently made it hard for ourselves on purpose. The game took 65 minutes. @Nordic showed up and called me a mean name (ban him hes an asshole)
This was massively boring for the both of us and I wouldn't do it again for a very long time. We both had to physically manufacture the hame by throwing back and forth. I started with pistol, slowed to knife, then used a lmg after some 20 mins etc. and he did similar for aliens.
It was extremely boring and we both stopped playing after.
Every rookie stuck arpund becausr of how retartedly dynamic we made the game.
I don't get it, why would you limit such a feature to rookie only servers? Why not attach the feature to the rookies themselves and let vets choose to adopt them through the tab menu or something?
Maybe have it open a steam voice chat conversation to keep load off the server.
Maybe have the feature available to non greenies so we could have a buddy system as it were.
Maybe make it so that the commander can pick said buddies/control groups.
Maybe make it so the commander could speak directly to a control group by holding their number at the same time as the voice key.
Just spit balling some feature creep, don't mind me.
edit
Actually, thinking on it. Why the hell do we even have rookie only servers? Are we really that mean to rookies?
I think coaching would have incredibly low returns on retention for the amount of development time it would need to be done even half way. Various coaching or mentor programs have been tried before without much success. No they did not have the official UWE seal, but it was tried. Planetside 2 has a community group who coaches/mentors and it has had little success to my knowledge.
Rookies don't need coaches. The world cup rookie tournament showed that well enough. I just wish I could find the link to the video.
Coaching/mentiong would be unwanted by the majority of rookies. I know this because it already is. Go on any pub server with any amount of rookies and you will have a hard time finding even one that is willing to actually listen to you. These players only play the game for 2 hours and quit forever regardless of any training. The tutorial and other new retention features have a better chance at doing anything compared to coaching.
The people who would benefit the most from coaching are more intermediate players who are willing to seek it out already.
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
@Nordic is right. To retain players you have to make the experience better for people who aren't even reading everything that's immediately on their screen. The goal should be to reduce the amount of information needed to have fun, or to introduce information more naturally and intuitively, not to provide more information.
Maybe it should be the opposite.. veteran servers only let one rookie on at a time.
You know....that actually makes more sense to me.
Maybe not the way you meant it, but allowing Rookies to join vet servers as "Students" would be a better method of training than rookie only with the vet-as-comm-loophole bonanza.
Think of Rookies watching experienced players, hearing the way they communicate and watching how they play the game while allowing them to ask questions (via text) to one team.
I've seen a few "captains" and "High Hour" servers that were generally populated easily, and these servers generally have higher-quality games.
It may very well be easier to populate "high hour" servers than "rookie-only" servers, and letting rookies watch and interact with higher-skill players means that those rookies are willing to learn, and will take that knowledge to non High-Skill servers.
It also gives new players a goal that they must keep playing to achieve. It High-Hour servers were to be made official, a Playtime or Hive-Skill badge dependent badge (with multiple levels) could be used to further encourage players to keep playing (it would also let newer players know who has more "skill").
This approach solves a few problems with mentoring rookies:
Rookie-only servers teach rookies bad habits (rookies teaching rookies)
Allowing rookies to learn of vets without room for exploits
Rookies don't get angry at being coached, even though they never asked for it.
Vets teaching rookies while not sacrificing their own fun
edit
Actually, thinking on it. Why the hell do we even have rookie only servers? Are we really that mean to rookies?
Not so much a matter of being Mean (which undoubtedly we are sometimes), as much as just having a "safe" place to learn the team dynamics of the game. A server with one ENSL level player (of any division really) quickly turns that on its head in real world.
Rookies don't need coaches. The world cup rookie tournament showed that well enough. I just wish I could find the link to the video.
Here ya go. (edit: oh man Blind caster is best caster...the memories.)
I agree, thinking about it more. When first joining the game, a lot of people just want a safe place to look around and get the feel of things, before being thrust into being expected to perform at all.
Having several tiers of server would be ideal (aka matchmaking), so people slowly progress to a more streamlined and perfected game. But that's hopeful at best.
Maybe it should be the opposite.. veteran servers only let one rookie on at a time.
This is an interesting idea. The main problem is that most of the veterans go to the veteran servers to get away from the "green tide". Its the equivalent of a rookie only server to them. A "safe" place to go and complain about the rest of the NS2 players. I'm not sure I'd want to show rookies that.
Allowing one (possibly pre-approved) veteran to join a rookie server with the assumption that they'll be helping a lot is a lot better than letting a rookie play on a veteran server (or observe for that matter, but who joins a game for the first time to just sit there and watch it?).
Overall, I think that barring a matchmaking option, allowing veterans to join the rookie servers and selectively spectate one team, with communication options (if limited) is a good solution. Veterans who don't want to deal with rookies don't have to. Trolls should be weeded out or declawed via specialized communication options. And all in all the option remains entirely optional.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2016
Please get away from "we must teach new players".
It just doesnt work.
Just help them with some better ingame tutorial stuff but please get rid of these short videos wich trys to explain things.
Im sure they annoy new players more than help. https://youtube.com/watch?v=xahU0hpdzLs&feature=youtu.be&t=725
Just let the rookies explore the game, maps and mechanics by there own a few hrs in an stomp free environment.
This includes to ban possible smurf accounts on these servers btw. Im sure you can do this easy by tracking accuracy and KDR.
And dont care about "they learning bad habbits" there cause most casual players dont play games more than 20hrs anyway these days.
So all the teaching is only waste of time.
The polaris video and the video from Copenhagen Games are good examples that people can find out stuff by themself without a mentor nonstop talking to them.
And btw. there is an extra thread about that, dont know why we discuss this here again.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2016
Those videos are too dry and serious imho, sure they are well done and definitely informative. However they also give that feel of an unintended condescending tone (clippy style)
I would've gone the slightly comedy "trolling" route instead (starship troopers style or just random trolling about how "bad" they are), in combination with more serious. A good combo of funny and serious vids. You know, that sarcastic "clippy/claptrap" style to give them a bit more character. Something you love to hate instead of simply get annoyed by. They should make you smile instead of "hey you need to do it like xyz"
Tongue in Cheek Style^
But yeah I've seen peeps (youtube peeps) play NS2 and complain about the tipvids "stop telling me how to play the damn game", "I'm not an idiot, stop talking to me"
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
Okay, how about this... why not make a thread on here (the NSw forums) where people can link their steam profiles and give a little detail about what they can teach people etc.
Then in game, link directly to that thread under a heading "Do you want a coach to learn NS2 faster? Click here: *insert link here*"
That way people wanting to coach and people that enjoy teaching this game can opt in for being a teacher of sorts.
Check the trello bud, tutorials are already being done, and they are going to work way better by the sounds of them... so what you keep saying is the solution is already being done... can you stop now?
We are going over OTHER things that can help, we are all aware that tutorials will be a good thing, but there are other things that can be done to welcome people into the community and give them a helping hand.
I hated tutorials when I started, I just learned from peoples calls and my own mistakes... it took a long time to learn that way, but it was my prefered method, videos didn't help me, I wanted to talk to people discuss "why" things worked that way, so I understood the mechanics of it instead of just what I had to do.
videos with better information will undoubtedly help, in game tutorials with objectives will undoubtedly help... but don't say that coaching doesn't help at all, because thats an outright lie... I've coached numerous people that said they were going to quit because the game was "obviously full of cheaters" I convinced them to keep playing and taught them what I could... 2 hours later people are thanking me and now understand why people are high skilled... coaching works, tutorials work, youtube videos work, forum/steam posts work... they all just work to different, varying degrees depending on the person.
Can we bring this thread back to what it was initially intended to do which was to ask what exactly is UWE doing and when will we see any of this in game. Trello has been mostly idle for some days now.
@Calego, do you really think an official mentor program would be worth the development time?
Nah.
Those of us who care, will find a way to help people who want help. I would be totally fine with RookieOnly servers that were exactly that, islands of calm (chaos) untouched by those of us who know better.
Better things to put time into:
- Tutorial (already underway) for ns2 main gamemode.
- Other (more or less official) Simpler Gamemodes that will keep players playing even if they decide that the normal game is too complicated for them for now.
- Matchmaking
EDIT:
With the introduction of official Rookie Only servers, pretty please destroy "Rookie Friendly" as a thing. It'll just confuse them.
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2016
I didnt rant about anything.
Its just sad that people cant learn from mistakes made in the past.
"Hey, 4 mentor programs failed in the past, but im sure the 5th going to be an epic success"
NOT
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
@Nordic tbh, I've only really helped out about 10 - 12 people (not including people that joined the TAW community) but out of all of those I still see them all log in on the odd occasion, they aren't playing daily, but I see them all jump in at least once a week.
Its just sad that people cant learn from mistakes made in the past.
"Hey, 4 mentor programs failed in the past, but im sure the 5th going to be an epic success"
NOT
I used to help mentor players. I had some really good games doing this. I have had people thank me for taking the time to help them learn. Mentoring is not useless, but it is not worth the development cost that UWE could put into it.
I have not had the same experience as you @Kasharic. Nearly every player I have ever tried to mentor quit the game shortly after. These are players that thanked me and had good games. I have asked these players why they don't play anymore. I was often told that the game was good, but they would just rather play something else. That is what I say about Depth and Rocket league except Ns2 is the game I would rather play.
It takes a lot of time and effort to mentor players. Most players don't want mentoring to begin with. That is the primary reason why it is not worth the development cost. Very few players want a mentor, and of those players who do, very few will stay.
I challenge anyone to find a successful mentoring program from any game.
To top it off, the rookie tournament video above and the polaris videos both show rookies do not need a mentor to learn the game. They will figure it out and have fun doing it. When they choose to come to regular (not rookie only) servers they can learn the same way the rest of us did. They will just have a better starting point.
Also so painful to see him use the shotty like a long range weapon
You say that like you can't. I can not count the number of times some ace shot sniped my lerk from across the map with a shotgun.
Oh that is indeed possible, that 21damage per shot can still kill a heavily damage lork. But in all seriousness, it's kinda wasting ammo. Also he did it vs structures as well
And that video kinda is your garden variety of "newbie fades can't be killed by newbie marines unless they seriously screw up"
-> I can't kill anything [on marines and aliens alike]
I used to help mentor players. I had some really good games doing this. I have had people thank me for taking the time to help them learn. Mentoring is not useless, but it is not worth the development cost that UWE could put into it.
I have not had the same experience as you @Kasharic. Nearly every player I have ever tried to mentor quit the game shortly after. These are players that thanked me and had good games. I have asked these players why they don't play anymore. I was often told that the game was good, but they would just rather play something else. That is what I say about Depth and Rocket league except Ns2 is the game I would rather play.
It takes a lot of time and effort to mentor players. Most players don't want mentoring to begin with. That is the primary reason why it is not worth the development cost. Very few players want a mentor, and of those players who do, very few will stay.
I challenge anyone to find a successful mentoring program from any game.
To top it off, the rookie tournament video above and the polaris videos both show rookies do not need a mentor to learn the game. They will figure it out and have fun doing it. When they choose to come to regular (not rookie only) servers they can learn the same way the rest of us did. They will just have a better starting point.
Also so painful to see him use the shotty like a long range weapon
You say that like you can't. I can not count the number of times some ace shot sniped my lerk from across the map with a shotgun.
Along this line, the very fact that this game could almost "need" a mentoring program to help people get to the point where they want to keep playing is one of those problem areas. But that's the nature of the game (at least in its main gamemode).
That's why I like the idea of featuring several additional gamemodes. Even if it "fractures" the playerbase. If it lets newer people play a mode that's simpler, I'm all for it.
Comments
I think the biggest thing that stands out to me with player retention is the tutorial system and the lack of matchmaking / someway for people to slowly climb the ranks like in CS:GO or DOTA.
I've said this before, this game needs some sort of matchmaking, but in order for matchmaking to work, you need more players. To get more players you need to do my first point above; It's basic game development for arena based games.
You guys are already working on a tutorial revamp, which is great. Be wary however of the ROOKIE ONLY servers. Learn from Planetside 2 Koltyr, Koltyr in Planetside is a Rookie only continent and it fell flat on it's face. The reason Kooltyr fell flat is because you NEED experienced players leading the inexperienced or else the quality of the game declines significantly.
You guys have a very tricky situation to figure out, I personally hope after you complete the tutorial revamp you either lower the price of the game or go free to play, however you will have to sacrifice profits for the short term.
Also, if you decide to put ranks in the game, please, please take note of CS:GO... (In CS:GO the ranking system is not XP based, it's how good you are compared to everyone else. Meaning a Global elite is in the top 90% of the player base)
This isn't the only thing that needs to be done but it's the most important at this time, especially with how little time you guys have.
/rant
How's this for getting experienced players on rookie-only servers, but without the risk of stomping? https://trello.com/c/6Dc0crMU
If you're going to do a 1 on 1 coaching session, you may as well use steam's voice call feature or some other TS3 equivalent while spectating them.
If you want to coach the whole team you are going to speak over the commander and other important comms.
Might just want to allow coaching from commanders, as you can reasonably do so from their perspective and it ensures Rookies Only servers get decent comms occasionally.
It isn't a required feature, but a very nice one to teach the game.
I support this as very recently I said I told someone I wanted to show him the game, thought it had deep mechanic that required coaching / experience.
if its made clear that, that is what will happen if you're a non rookie and you join a rookie server I'm sure people like myself and others would join those servers specifically to help.
Also an idea was brought up a while ago (can't remember where) that basically asked for the ability to spec only 1 team, to help with coaching... maybe if you could spec that 1 team, and type to that 1 team (no voice chat) coaching would be possible... like was said above, if you want to talk, go on TS... but at least this way you can spec, help out and be added/add people on steam to help them out more.
So, if you take a look at TF2, they did something similar to this. In theory it sounds great! However the problem is it is too varying across the board and too little people actually do it. Say you have several thousand players trying to learn the game in "Rookie only" Servers, your amount of coaches will be extremely small and some people may learn a lot about the game while others get bitched out by their coach. You need something that can teach EVERYONE the same thing.
I remember when I started to get into CS:GO as a newbie what I did to learn the game was I played against bots, you guys have that in your trello already, which might just work.... However you gotta overhaul your bots because ATM the bots are, well, bad. Once I fought against bots in CS:GO I entered the unranked matchmaking and then after a while the ranked matchmaking.
What I am trying to say with that specific point is if you make a lake of green it will become a lake of red. At the same time though you need consistency.
Inzo and I took a team each and consistently made it hard for ourselves on purpose. The game took 65 minutes. @Nordic showed up and called me a mean name (ban him hes an asshole)
This was massively boring for the both of us and I wouldn't do it again for a very long time. We both had to physically manufacture the hame by throwing back and forth. I started with pistol, slowed to knife, then used a lmg after some 20 mins etc. and he did similar for aliens.
It was extremely boring and we both stopped playing after.
Every rookie stuck arpund becausr of how retartedly dynamic we made the game.
It's too bad the game isnt actualy that good
Maybe have it open a steam voice chat conversation to keep load off the server.
Maybe have the feature available to non greenies so we could have a buddy system as it were.
Maybe make it so that the commander can pick said buddies/control groups.
Maybe make it so the commander could speak directly to a control group by holding their number at the same time as the voice key.
Just spit balling some feature creep, don't mind me.
edit
Actually, thinking on it. Why the hell do we even have rookie only servers? Are we really that mean to rookies?
Rookies don't need coaches. The world cup rookie tournament showed that well enough. I just wish I could find the link to the video.
Coaching/mentiong would be unwanted by the majority of rookies. I know this because it already is. Go on any pub server with any amount of rookies and you will have a hard time finding even one that is willing to actually listen to you. These players only play the game for 2 hours and quit forever regardless of any training. The tutorial and other new retention features have a better chance at doing anything compared to coaching.
The people who would benefit the most from coaching are more intermediate players who are willing to seek it out already.
You know....that actually makes more sense to me.
Maybe not the way you meant it, but allowing Rookies to join vet servers as "Students" would be a better method of training than rookie only with the vet-as-comm-loophole bonanza.
Think of Rookies watching experienced players, hearing the way they communicate and watching how they play the game while allowing them to ask questions (via text) to one team.
I've seen a few "captains" and "High Hour" servers that were generally populated easily, and these servers generally have higher-quality games.
It may very well be easier to populate "high hour" servers than "rookie-only" servers, and letting rookies watch and interact with higher-skill players means that those rookies are willing to learn, and will take that knowledge to non High-Skill servers.
It also gives new players a goal that they must keep playing to achieve. It High-Hour servers were to be made official, a Playtime or Hive-Skill badge dependent badge (with multiple levels) could be used to further encourage players to keep playing (it would also let newer players know who has more "skill").
This approach solves a few problems with mentoring rookies:
Rookie-only servers teach rookies bad habits (rookies teaching rookies)
Allowing rookies to learn of vets without room for exploits
Rookies don't get angry at being coached, even though they never asked for it.
Vets teaching rookies while not sacrificing their own fun
Just spitballing
Not so much a matter of being Mean (which undoubtedly we are sometimes), as much as just having a "safe" place to learn the team dynamics of the game. A server with one ENSL level player (of any division really) quickly turns that on its head in real world.
Here ya go. (edit: oh man Blind caster is best caster...the memories.)
I agree, thinking about it more. When first joining the game, a lot of people just want a safe place to look around and get the feel of things, before being thrust into being expected to perform at all.
Having several tiers of server would be ideal (aka matchmaking), so people slowly progress to a more streamlined and perfected game. But that's hopeful at best.
This is an interesting idea. The main problem is that most of the veterans go to the veteran servers to get away from the "green tide". Its the equivalent of a rookie only server to them. A "safe" place to go and complain about the rest of the NS2 players. I'm not sure I'd want to show rookies that.
Allowing one (possibly pre-approved) veteran to join a rookie server with the assumption that they'll be helping a lot is a lot better than letting a rookie play on a veteran server (or observe for that matter, but who joins a game for the first time to just sit there and watch it?).
Overall, I think that barring a matchmaking option, allowing veterans to join the rookie servers and selectively spectate one team, with communication options (if limited) is a good solution. Veterans who don't want to deal with rookies don't have to. Trolls should be weeded out or declawed via specialized communication options. And all in all the option remains entirely optional.
It just doesnt work.
Just help them with some better ingame tutorial stuff but please get rid of these short videos wich trys to explain things.
Im sure they annoy new players more than help.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xahU0hpdzLs&feature=youtu.be&t=725
Just let the rookies explore the game, maps and mechanics by there own a few hrs in an stomp free environment.
This includes to ban possible smurf accounts on these servers btw. Im sure you can do this easy by tracking accuracy and KDR.
And dont care about "they learning bad habbits" there cause most casual players dont play games more than 20hrs anyway these days.
So all the teaching is only waste of time.
If people are willing to learn they asking stuff by themself like in this steam discussion or via mic ingame:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/4920/discussions/0/451850849185371828/
The polaris video and the video from Copenhagen Games are good examples that people can find out stuff by themself without a mentor nonstop talking to them.
And btw. there is an extra thread about that, dont know why we discuss this here again.
I would've gone the slightly comedy "trolling" route instead (starship troopers style or just random trolling about how "bad" they are), in combination with more serious. A good combo of funny and serious vids. You know, that sarcastic "clippy/claptrap" style to give them a bit more character. Something you love to hate instead of simply get annoyed by. They should make you smile instead of "hey you need to do it like xyz"
Tongue in Cheek Style^
But yeah I've seen peeps (youtube peeps) play NS2 and complain about the tipvids "stop telling me how to play the damn game", "I'm not an idiot, stop talking to me"
Then in game, link directly to that thread under a heading "Do you want a coach to learn NS2 faster? Click here: *insert link here*"
That way people wanting to coach and people that enjoy teaching this game can opt in for being a teacher of sorts.
Check the trello bud, tutorials are already being done, and they are going to work way better by the sounds of them... so what you keep saying is the solution is already being done... can you stop now?
We are going over OTHER things that can help, we are all aware that tutorials will be a good thing, but there are other things that can be done to welcome people into the community and give them a helping hand.
I hated tutorials when I started, I just learned from peoples calls and my own mistakes... it took a long time to learn that way, but it was my prefered method, videos didn't help me, I wanted to talk to people discuss "why" things worked that way, so I understood the mechanics of it instead of just what I had to do.
videos with better information will undoubtedly help, in game tutorials with objectives will undoubtedly help... but don't say that coaching doesn't help at all, because thats an outright lie... I've coached numerous people that said they were going to quit because the game was "obviously full of cheaters" I convinced them to keep playing and taught them what I could... 2 hours later people are thanking me and now understand why people are high skilled... coaching works, tutorials work, youtube videos work, forum/steam posts work... they all just work to different, varying degrees depending on the person.
(apologies for the double post)
Nah.
Those of us who care, will find a way to help people who want help. I would be totally fine with RookieOnly servers that were exactly that, islands of calm (chaos) untouched by those of us who know better.
Better things to put time into:
- Tutorial (already underway) for ns2 main gamemode.
- Other (more or less official) Simpler Gamemodes that will keep players playing even if they decide that the normal game is too complicated for them for now.
- Matchmaking
EDIT:
With the introduction of official Rookie Only servers, pretty please destroy "Rookie Friendly" as a thing. It'll just confuse them.
Its just sad that people cant learn from mistakes made in the past.
"Hey, 4 mentor programs failed in the past, but im sure the 5th going to be an epic success"
NOT
Can you imagine that people only want to play a game?
Without getting coached or forced to be "the teacher"?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xahU0hpdzLs&feature=youtu.be&t=725
Also so painful to see him use the shotty like a long range weapon
I have not had the same experience as you @Kasharic. Nearly every player I have ever tried to mentor quit the game shortly after. These are players that thanked me and had good games. I have asked these players why they don't play anymore. I was often told that the game was good, but they would just rather play something else. That is what I say about Depth and Rocket league except Ns2 is the game I would rather play.
It takes a lot of time and effort to mentor players. Most players don't want mentoring to begin with. That is the primary reason why it is not worth the development cost. Very few players want a mentor, and of those players who do, very few will stay.
I challenge anyone to find a successful mentoring program from any game.
To top it off, the rookie tournament video above and the polaris videos both show rookies do not need a mentor to learn the game. They will figure it out and have fun doing it. When they choose to come to regular (not rookie only) servers they can learn the same way the rest of us did. They will just have a better starting point.
You say that like you can't. I can not count the number of times some ace shot sniped my lerk from across the map with a shotgun.
Oh that is indeed possible, that 21damage per shot can still kill a heavily damage lork. But in all seriousness, it's kinda wasting ammo. Also he did it vs structures as well
And that video kinda is your garden variety of "newbie fades can't be killed by newbie marines unless they seriously screw up"
-> I can't kill anything [on marines and aliens alike]
But yeah, what is UWE doing?
Along this line, the very fact that this game could almost "need" a mentoring program to help people get to the point where they want to keep playing is one of those problem areas. But that's the nature of the game (at least in its main gamemode).
That's why I like the idea of featuring several additional gamemodes. Even if it "fractures" the playerbase. If it lets newer people play a mode that's simpler, I'm all for it.