Noob Squad Slot

[Cosmical]

The main thing that annoys me the most in MMO’s nowadays is the lack of team work. Games that are specifically played online to interact with other people, and everyone will gladly spend 9 hours running about soloing because it’s the fastest way to level (see Star Wars TOR, two weeks after launch). Things will be different on Planetside 2 to be sure, and none interaction with other players will be impossible, but I still propose this idea.

Each squad has an extra Noob slot that will automatically assign a player to your squad who is between level’s 1 and 10. You’re probably saying, what’s the point, people will automatically get assigned to squads anyway.

The point is that the Noob will be easily recognisable to the squad as a new player, if they ask any questions they will be answered accordingly, and will avoid the in game help bar chat spam. And a new player will not have to spend several days before they get in a squad that actually knows what they’re doing. (I spent 2 years on Planetside 1 not being in a squad that knew what they were doing).

The idea is, the squad gets an experience bonus for having a newbie player in their team, so if they want to level fast it’s better to have a new guy around. And similar exp rewards will be granted to the team for doing support actions on that player, healing them, rezzing them, repairing their tank. (Much like battlefields Squad reward, but doubled for the Noob player).

This works in two ways, the new player is enjoying the game more by getting more positive attention because of their Noob status. And other players are getting more overall experience for what is essentially helping a new player to play.

Those of you that are saying “I don’t want a noob player following us around!” which is the kind of unfriendly attitude that annoys me, but hey. All you have to do is uncheck the Noob slot in your squad leader screen, and your fine. Of course you sacrifice the exp bonus, and an extra man on your team (squad lead skill tree allows you to train that slot with a standard player, or something?)

This may not be necessary with the way the game works, but I think it would go a long way to keeping new players a positive aspect to Planetside 2, whereas in most games they’re considered a hindrance or a waste of space.

[Warborn]

Battle rank only goes up to 10 this time I seem to recall them saying, so I guess you\'d want levels 1 to 5, although even then not really that noob-ish.

I don\'t know whether it would work out well. I think serious, high-speed squads would be operating on a different wavelength and would have little interest in getting the new player involved. That kind of experience could be very unpleasant for new players.

On the other hand, maybe I\'m wrong. Maybe Planetside 2 players would be different. Maybe the community of serious business players would be welcoming, which in other games they tend not to be. I doubt it, but it\'s possible.

At any rate, getting new players involved with other players is a laudable goal. I think taking steps toward making the game very inviting and newbie-friendly is something that should be a priority, in particular because it\'s often the outfit teamwork that really made Planetside 1 worth playing. So something like this would deserve some kind of test run, but certainly I\'d think having just easier access to squads overall and a very clear and easy-to-use mission setting for both automatic mission assignment by the game and individual or squad mission assignment by the squad leader would be good, too.

[Ailos]

I think there is enough of us here to do something like that regardless of whether there is a system for it or not. Over the years, I\'ve played with many outfits, and nearly all will always allow \"greenies\" into the squads. Most outfits are somewhere between total Zerg and total military, so most of them will do this anyway. I know I will.

[Death2All]

If you don\'t want to play with people you shouldn\\\'t have to. It\\\'s your choice.

And placing noobs in squads with more experienced squads would be annoying as hell for the better players.


In plenty of MMOs you can toggle a \\"Newbie helper\\" option. If you want to help noobs you can volunteer for it, you shouldn\\\'t be forced to.

[Death2All]

And whoa, what the hell happened to my post?

[Cosmical]

high-speed squads would be operating on a different wavelength and would have little interest in getting the new player involved.

That\'s why it would ne integral to make it a noticable advantage from launch. People wouldnt even question it later on. Even if the noob just got to lag behind, theyre still learning things.

If you want to help noobs you can volunteer for it, you shouldn\\\\'t be forced to.

I said you wouldnt be forced to, but you will sacifice the benefits if doing so.

The key is to make new players a saught after commodity. You can say that \"there will be a possitive enough atmosphere that we will all chip in\" thats fair enough at the start, maybe even 6 months in. But give it 5 years and the vets will have no tolerence for new players. Atleast this way, mid range players would take it upon themselves to take up the mantel of trainer.

Also, i am yet to find an actual friendly community MMO that wants to help for the sake of helping, without getting something out of it. This is just a mechanic to assure it.

[Trolltaxi]

Training recruits into squaddies requires a lots of effort, but it helps building the community. As we have always ran with a lot of recruits I know what I\'m talking about. You do this volunteer work and sacrifice squad integrity, your playtime, your nerves sometimes, in our case maybe the reputation of the outfit too (even though the core of the outfit proved decent in outfit wars).

If the game rewards it in some way, I\'m glad with it. If it won\'t - hell, I think we will do it anyways.

[Xaine]

For what its worth, i like this idea.

This is odd as normally i dislike the ideas put up here, but if there is a designated slot for new players in squads, as long as the new players asks nicely, i think people will answer.

Maybe give the new player the ability to award a player with something if they helped them or something. Nothing tangible like an upgrade or anything, maybe a commendation to go on your armour like in PS1 - 'Recruiter' or something.

[ringring]

Errr, no.

You're forced to take someone who doesn't know how to play nor to communicate properly on (perhaps) a spec ops? Warning, imminent spec ops failure!

Although training or introducing new players to the game is highly laudable a specific mechanism is not needed, nor wanted at least by me.

When the game kicks off a lot of outfits will be looking for recruits .. if you want into an outfit squad, join the outfit.

[Mastachief]

Yeh as Hillfort says, this would be a big no no for spec ops outfits.

We have had it alot in Planetside where a random joins the squad to see what we are doing. Also the speed at which a well oiled outfit moves is something a newbie couldn't hope to keep up with.

Then there is lack of knowledge of the game, such as shooting spitfire turrets when you are trying to prep a base for a hack.

There are always noob friendly outfits for newbies to join whilst they learn the game they will then seek better outfits. When the reserves were first allowed to play for free we ran a recruitment outfit that served to filter the mass applications we got for the main outfit that had a cap of 80players(main outfit). This recruitment outfit took newbies and those that were willing, able and gelled well got promoted to the main outfit. It worked really really well.

[Neksar]

You guys don't seem to notice that he's made it optional. You needn't have that slot available at all. If you simply uncheck the option, it won' t be there. The idea is to provide a benefit to having that slot open so that people will want to do it, but still allow them to disable it when appropriate.

I like.

[sylphaen]

pro-tip:
in PS1, you could hide your pro-squad to filter out noobs (and other undesirables).

Why discriminate only against noobs ?
:rolleyes:

[Xaine]

You could always add a noob help chat where people can ask questions. It works in Eve Online.

[Fenrys]

It would work well enough for pickup squads, but not when you're trying to do something sneaky. You don't want somebody shooting when they are not supposed to, drawing attention to your movements.

[Mastachief]

pro-tip:
in PS1, you could hide your pro-squad to filter out noobs (and other undesirables).

Why discriminate only against noobs ?
:rolleyes:

/who trx?


Not discrimination just more of a pointer that there are outfits out there that specifically recruit noobs, i just don't see a need for this to take development pre release.

[DviddLeff]

Allow people to set up training squads which new players are placed into if they wish. This could be as simple as putting training in the squad name, or a checkable option.

[UnknownDT]

Noobs do not deserve to recieve my massive amount of BEP!

[sylphaen]

/who trx?


Not discrimination just more of a pointer that there are outfits out there that specifically recruit noobs, i just don't see a need for this to take development pre release.

My point was simply that PS1 had already solved that issue.

If you do not want randoms to join your squad, you can:
- force squad leader approval (so you keep control on who joins)
- hide the squad (so only people you invite can join)
- specify required certs on squad slots (so people you do not know can join your squad once they meet certain criteria)

I disagree with you in that a strong squad management tool should be available at release and development time should be dedicated to it. IMO, choosing who plays with you is very important to have a good experience while playing PS.

_________

I used the word "discriminate" because essentially, that's what is being done when you differentiate between people and I wanted to use a strong word. There is no shame in discriminating (i.e. differentiating between people) if you have a good reason for it. I discriminate and adopt a different behavior between friends, family and people I don't know everyday in my life. There are even options on Facebook to make it easier !

Back to PS, while I understand some people do not want to play with "noobs" and understand they may have reasons to do so, I do not like when people hate beginners for being beginners. We all were beginners at some point and people could at least find a better reason to hate someone.

Selecting squad members because they are "low-level" is, imo, not a great way to select people. Why ? Because they guy who just started PS2 may actually be a good player and a nice person to play with. A high-level player could also be a mindless jerk or a XP leacher...


Edit: mmm.... Just realized I was off-topic. I'm against a "noob-only" slot. You just have to put your squad on "squad leader approval" mode and you're set. You could even accept 2 noobs like that ! Or even 5 !

PS1 had it working fine. No need to fix what works.

[dachlatte]

mandatory noob in every squad? are you high?

the devs should implement something like the first time you log into a game and a big dialog pops up in the middle of the screen. it should say something like "outfits are the essential part of ps2. join today and your gameplay experience will be alot better. play together, learn together and win together!" or whatever.

[basti]

Battle rank only goes up to 10 this time I seem to recall them saying, so I guess you\'d want levels 1 to 5, although even then not really that noob-ish.

I dont remember any of that? U sure?



Anyway, noob slot, no need. Forcing a noob into some squad isnt going to help. What you need is people who are willing to spend their time to help those noobs out. And there are, loads. IN fact, half of the old timers will be such guys. Every serious outfit will have loads of those guys. They are pretty much EVERYWHERE, even in other MMOs. The difference is that in Planetside, everyone can work together, unlike games where you have your level restricting your ability to play with other people.

Getting help really isnt an issue. You just need to ask. :)

[sylphaen]

mandatory noob in every squad? are you high?

the devs should implement something like the first time you log into a game and a big dialog pops up in the middle of the screen. it should say something like "outfits are the essential part of ps2. join today and your gameplay experience will be alot better. play together, learn together and win together!" or whatever.

^^
It would need to pop-up a few more times.
:P

So many people skipped the "optional" training routine on their first character.
:)

More on topic, there was also the "auto-join" or LFS option to make it easier for the noob to join a squad easily. As Basti mentionned, chances were pretty high that he would land with at least one more experienced player --> the squad leader.

[Cosmical]

I still dont see any downside to this, the main argument against it seems to be, it will happen anyway.

But youre all people who will engage in outfits, and have close knit groups you play with everynight.

If i had joined Planetside 1 with this kind of system, i would have felt welcomed, appreciated and quickly been worked into the fold. And probably would have joined an Outfit out of choice.

Without it your likely to sit through a tutorial, and then spend for first two weeks zerging with randomers, until you hear of an Outfit that suits your play style.

[SgtMAD]

so now you want to require every outfit to play with randoms?

this is a joke,right?

then you said even if they were lagging behind they would still learn,I guess we can kick out the outfit guy on vent to make room for the random too.

and you don't see any problem with any of that

[sylphaen]

I still dont see any downside to this, the main argument against it seems to be, it will happen anyway.

But youre all people who will engage in outfits, and have close knit groups you play with everynight.

If i had joined Planetside 1 with this kind of system, i would have felt welcomed, appreciated and quickly been worked into the fold. And probably would have joined an Outfit out of choice.

Without it your likely to sit through a tutorial, and then spend for first two weeks zerging with randomers, until you hear of an Outfit that suits your play style.

When you join PS1 nowadays, you have [Looking for squad] activated by default along with a training session.

A new player cannot appreciate how great playing with an outfit is unless he has played with the zerg. Similarly, someone who only played with an outfit cannot appreciate how fun it is to zerg with the herd once in a while.

I met great guys and some my best gunners while zerging. It was somewhat random.

It takes time to meet and learn to know people. Even more to trust them. No forced mechanic will ever make it work better or work faster.


Play the game. Play with people. Join their outfit or create one with them.

A computer will not force social ties onto someone else. This is another dimension of Planetside: people.


Edit: my point is that as long as there are players in PS, there are people to meet out there. It's your own failure if you do not have the curiosity and drive to move towards them.

--> Planetside is a SOCIAL environment overlaying a FPS game.

[SniperSteve]

Battle rank only goes up to 10??

Why is there even a cap on BR's? Just give the rank some sort of smoothed polynomial/exponential function and let people get as high as they want with no caps.

[Ragefighter]

Remember, Newb's are valuable players and could become a top end player if not ostracized.
Noobs on the other hand can go die in a fire. =p
(See Ctrl+Alt+Del comic =p)

but don't make people run with 1 noob because their group slot is noob/newb only.

Unless they get to wear a Red Star Trek shirt, than it would be pretty funny =p

[sylphaen]

Battle rank only goes up to 10??

Why is there even a cap on BR's? Just give the rank some sort of smoothed polynomial/exponential function and let people get as high as they want with no caps.

What I understand is:

The smoother polynomial/exponential function will be on the skills training (time based a la Eve Online).
Battlerank will likely just limit which skills you have access to for training (experience based).

You can train all the skills given enough time but you must have the required battlerank.

[Ragefighter]

mandatory noob in every squad? are you high?

the devs should implement something like the first time you log into a game and a big dialog pops up in the middle of the screen. it should say something like "outfits are the essential part of ps2. join today and your gameplay experience will be alot better. play together, learn together and win together!" or whatever.

make it so you can recruit in-game for your outfit through an interface that gives options like Play style, timezone, looking for X class, etc. and add some extra text to throw in a URL to forums or contact people.

this is pretty much given in any modern mmo game i think

[SniperSteve]

What I understand is:

The smoother polynomial/exponential function will be on the skills training (time based a la Eve Online).
Battlerank will likely just limit which skills you have access to for training (experience based).

You can train all the skills given enough time but you must have the required battlerank.

Functionally, I think that would be fine. What I am getting at is with that system, I can't brag 'I am Battle Rank 25!'. Instead I have to say: "I have 25 cert tree unlocks!"

Essentially, BR was a quick way to compare a person's approximate time of playing the game, and gave a sort of goal. (IE: "I want to get to BR25/CR5")

It's not a big deal, but getting more BR levels was something that I though was fun when I was a newb in PS1.