Would a better tutorial make a big difference?
McBerns
Join Date: 2013-08-04 Member: 186563Members
Join Date: 2013-08-04 Member: 186563Members
If new players would look at a tutorial video that is easy to understand, would the learning curve be lowered? I'm trying to come up with video tutorials that is really easy to understand for newcomers, unless that's been done already. (if so, show me the video). I'm also contributing to improving this game.
Comments
People are over estimating the need for tutorials. Theres explore mode and if they have any fps experience positioning and basic thinking isnt the issue.
What most new players dont have, is map knowledge. As in ambush spots, tricky vent positions etc. Theres also general game knowledge like respawn time (how long can i harass this rt before he comes back?) And knowing when to spray your entire clip into a cyst and when not to.
These kind of things take experience and is not aomething you can easily teach people through a tutorial system.
Its like saying "get last hits, buy items and kill stuff" when teaching some one to play dota when there so much more stuff involved.
I think that most people grasp the basics of the game pretty well. The glancing jumps on walls isnt exactly intuitive for some one completely new but thats not exactly important in order to be a somewhat decent skulk either.
Lots of people are afraid to even try and are put off after their first game of floundering around with no idea how anything works. A good tutorial always helps and is very important for just about any game.
Bitey - Team Nexzil, NA Division 1
Elodea - AUSSIE!@!!!
ISE - Informative and Great Production Values
NS2U - Me: NSL Caster and Pubstar. Just one vid so far because of school, but starting Aliens soon.
If anyone knows any others, feel free to add!
In that case, I'm sure some front page links to youtube video tutorials is enough.
We need an interactive tutorial like CoD's Training Course, or Half-Life Hazard Course. Something quick (~5-10 minutes) that teaches the basics of the game so that a new player isn't completely overwhelmed by information and fast moving enemies in their first games.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=163433611&searchtext=
i.e. Start an explore game and join marines,and have an unbuilt building right in base (the auto build order works here), then once that is done, you receive a move order to build an RT, power node and phase gate at the nearest point.
After that, an alien skulk bot is spawned that attacks your main base, which then gives an attack order to the hive (might need to have 2 hive spawned by default).
After the hive is attacked, give another move order to go and enter the chair to check out commander mode.
The popup tooltips for each building would be enough of an explanation for what each building does, and this would cover most scenarios during an average pub game and let the player know what they need to be doing and generally how the game flows.
Aliens are a bit harder since they are mainly based on movement (like telling a player the importance of being on walls and ceilings to ambush as a skulk). Hugh's turorial video in game help, but are often disabled as trying to listen to a video and play a game is distracting.
idk if this is even possible, but it would be a lot less work to use what already exists in explore mode.
A (mandatory) alien tutorial would probably do it, a scripted SP mission where a player goes through all the classes. I don't think players need help with marines and commanding can always be avoided. A more user-friendly commander interface would do wonders too.
You must kill the Marine bot without it seeing you
An obstacle course so to speak possibly specific to each lifeform teaching them proper movement
A quick walkthrough of what the abilities do.
Build the power to 99% and explain why you do this and in what situations. Blink to XYZ location. Kill a Marine as each lifeform and skill, and kill each lieform as a Marine to guage how long it takes to kill them. Just a basic list.
I do think it might have an impact, but the main problem is them not listening, most likely because they are to overwhelmed to think and them mess up leading to them getting yelled at by others for messing up and being a n00b idiot. Maybe there is a way for people to interact with new players to help guide them better than the current system.
Never underestimate the rewards of a good tutorial. Also, the harder it is to make a good tutorial for the game, the more desperately your game needs it.
So as a marine with a bot buddy, you are given a waypoint by the bot commander. Cue cut-scene pause and text to explain this. Press space to continue. Hold
As you approach your destination, another cut-scene interrupts you, and the camera pans to a nearby skulk hidden. Text advises that you make more noise whilst running, and enemies will track you based on sound. Crouch to move quietly. Expect the player to proceed into the hive waypoint either quietly, looking for the skulk, or running and gunning (also looking for the skulk). Cue first combat. Skulk attacks your buddy, and you have to shoot him off his feet. Commander gives an order to weld your buddy who got hit.
Commander gives an order to shoot the hive. When you start shooting the hive, the camera pans to an alien a few rooms away, and the 'our hive is under attack' sound plays with text: "when alien structures are attacked, the alien hive-mind recognises this. Expect an enemy response!"
And so on...
You get the idea. It would be a lot of work, but I think it would be very helpful for new players. A similar tutorial for the aliens would make sense.
I actually don't think that this game needs a seperate tutorial-section. Most people who play NS2 have most likely played shooters, strategy-games and such already and basicially know how to play a videogame. But that is what is covered in most tutorials you see in other games - you're told the basics but honestly, the basics aren't that difficult in NS2. I'm not big fan of tutorials as they often tend to be tedious and most of all, they are seperated from the real gaming-experience. Tutorials are nothing but interactive videos and a lot of people rather like to jump into action instead of playing a video sequence.
Thus, I'd say, what NS2 realldy needs are better in-game tooltips, hints and explanations. If you don't already know what a structure does, you'll never find out - simply, because you don't get any info about the function of the building if you face it. Unless you're told, you won't even find out what the purpose of this game is as there is no brief introductionary sequence, no fade-in text or whatsoever that tells you what this is all about. I think Planetside2 did it quite well; while the game loads you get explained in a few seconds what you're supposed to do - and that's enough! While the game is loading a map - and that takes quite a while - there's enough time to show a short few seconds video that tells players what they're supposed to do in that game. That would help a lot, because most rookies simply don't know how to win the game as the most basic mechanics of the game are well hidden.
Second, as I said, this game needs more tooltips. Tooltips are the means you learn a new game; if I want to play a game, I want to play it and get better while I play. Watching youtube videos and such is hardly any fun and just keeps me away from acutally getting to play. Thus, a good game should do one thing: tell you everything you need to know in-game. A game that needs you to quit, to browse forums, watch tutorials and such is doing something horribly wrong. Tooltips which plop up when you face or hover over an object with the mouse could already do a great job; this way you could get information about buildings, objects like powernodes and such.
I therefore strongly disagree that this game needs a better tutorial, as a tutorial is a thing that hinders you from actually playing the game. The way you usually learn playing a videogame is not by watching videos or getting briefed by a friend, but by actually playing it on the basis of the information that is available in-game and the feedback the game gives you. Sadly, these two points - in-game information and feedback - is what is really lackluster in NS2.
Most tutorials don't tell you anything you won't figure out yourself in a few minutes, unless, the game does a really bad job in terms of feedback, tooltips, in-game hints and such. I mean, heck; I enjoy games like Civilization which are by all means way more complex than NS2 but never felt urged to ever start the tutorial - why? Well, because all information I need is avilable in-game and because the game gives me good feedback on what I'm doing wrong and how I could improve. NS2 however doesn't tell you anything. A tutorial wouldn't solve this issue.
No thanks.. We HAVE a mentor program atm.
This works by adding the mentor tag(s) when you feel like mentoring.
I do not need every rookie I mentor to add me to steam. I dont need a notification about any rookie. And if a mentor is doing this for the badges, he/she is doing it wrong.
Mentoring is not per player but to all greens on one server and max gain is achieved with large green populations. Focussing on one is counterproductive in a teamgame aswel as creates expectations on the 'to be mentored person' disallowing mentors to grant time to other rookies in one go.
I just thought to add a bagde so rookies find the mentor easily at battlefront (didnt even thought that some ppl see bagdes as reward). The Ingame "Find me a mentor" is just so rookies can find mentors , because how many ppl visit a forum before they start playing a game?
Most new user tend to use the Quick Join function, by adding "find a mentor" we would make sure they have someone willing to help them at their first round
You could take what is in explore mode, clean up (and update!) the messages, make the presentation neater then have them set to default appear the first ~3 times someone hovers their cursor over something. Just make sure it can be toggled off. Please.
I just explained why new people should not need a 'find a mentor' option.
They also never need to visit the forum. The mentors need to visit the forum. (well need...., it helps)
But now that I think about it, is NS2 really too harsh for a beginner? Like, you start the game, you probably go marine because you're fairly certain you know what marines do (SHOOT MOVING THINGS) and when you're popped into the game you can do just fine by just following your fellow marines around. And you'll also learn the game that way.
You don't.
You won't have any clue what the goal of each match is, as you haven't been briefed how to win this game. Thus, you'll probably run around, follow your teammates without any clue why they're doing the things they do. Secondly, you basically cannot identify any of the objects that occasionally plop up and stand around in your base - "buildings" - because only the commander has tooltips which indicate the function of each building. I pretty much remember the first time I played NS1 I had no clue what all these buildings where supposed to do - well, I just found it out by the time I was told by other players or read online about it.
NS2 isn't a super complex game. It just does a terrible job at giving you information about its basic functions. Imagine to learn StarCraft2 or DotA2 without any tooltips - good luck with that. Both games aren't that difficult to understand, but when you're not given any sort of feedback or in-game information, you'll have a hard time to learn a game just by playing it because a lot of things will forever remain hidden to you; unless you already know that a certain block is called Armslab and wobbles during research, you have know chance to find that out in-game unless somebody tells you. It's like playing chess without knowing the rules against a CPU that doesn't tell you a damn about how to play, but instead keeps beating you round after round.
If the tooltips you got when you play the explore-mode would also appear in ordinary sessions, unless you deactivate them, that'll be a huge help. Or if the game would simply state during the loading screen that "In order to win as an alien/a marine you have to destroy all Command Stations/all Hives" (with a picture of that thing) it would make things much easier.
You might be right, but we still get large enough spikes on sales and other events that a tutorial might be able to capture some new people even now.
Or TF2's learn the classes training.
UWE has to do something. Based on my rough calculation, the recent string of deeply discounted sales have netted a mere 570 new players or 20% retention rate. The game is losing nearly 80% of new players.
If that isn't a wake up call, nothing is.
http://steamcharts.com/app/4920#All
Or TF2's learn the classes training.
UWE has to do something. Based on my rough calculation, the recent string of deeply discounted sales have netted a mere 570 new players or 20% retention rate. The game is losing nearly 80% of new players.
If that isn't a wake up call, nothing is.
http://steamcharts.com/app/4920#All