How to improve the new player experience

[tshapedvisor]

There has been a lot of talk lately about how to improve the new player experience for PlanetSide 2, but I have heard very few ideas on how to improve it. We know the devs listen to the player base for the game so lets help them and give them some constructive ways to improve this. This can be something highly detailed or something as simple as hey I played this game and the way they taught new players how to play was awesome. I don't want this to be a doom and gloom post about how this game is losing players or new players struggle to learn how to play. I also understand putting out new content helps us veteran players get excited, but SOE can't cater to just it's current player base. Like any sucessful game it has to grow and has to retain it's players. As we all know OMFG slowed new content down but now they are back on schedule and I for one would be willing to wait a bit longer for some new content for more people to enjoy this awesome game with.

[synkrotron]

I'm not sure that any feature of the game can be changed to help the new players so much, to be honest. I was a noob back in September and I certainly struggled at first, not knowing anything about the different classes or all the types of facilities, and the maps were just huge back then.

For me, the soundest advice to any new player is to try and join an Outfit and then learn as much as you can from your new Outfit mates. It's what I did and it improved my game no end.

And of course, there is the tutorial at the start of the game, although, imo, that only scratches the surface.

New players should also be encouraged to use the VR. Not straight away, because it is great fun just diving in there and taking it all in. I remember jumping into the middle of a 48+ vs 48+ fight within my first session and it blew my mind LOL.

But the VR is a great place to get used to some of the guns and practice blowing up vehicles with c-4 and what have you.

just my thoughts :D

[Plaqueis]

I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to hop in as a complete noob nowadays, with huge loads of veterans around mercilessly farming them... i mean imagine spawning in some huge zerg only to die time after time after time, having no chance whatsoever defending yourself.. br1 nubs against loads of br100 dudes in a full certed planes, tanks, maxes etc.

We who joined near release had it easy.

[Rolfski]

Some of these ideas are already being worked-on by the devs:


Mission system with specific new player missions & rewards.
Way more intuitive in-game chat & voice tools to make it easier for new players to interact with other players.
Find-a-teacher tool.
Better feedback why/how you died.
Better sense of beginner progression (achievement system & easier unlocks in the beginning by rewarding more XP or lowering cert prises).
After the tutorial, you spawn as member of a big open platoon vs being insta-gibbed by some erratic instant action button.

[Vashyo]

I'm just waiting for some fresh content like continental lattice and Hossin before I come back for more planetside.

Noob tutorial is fine as is, don't think they should add anything more to it. Sometimes I feel people put way too much focus on this, you're making a game to people not monkeys, they won't quit cause they cant learn the game, they quit cause they are not interested in the game itself to learn it.

Rarely I see people complaining about the game being hard, but more about the game being boring, new content should be the main focus allways.

[Edfishy]

Some of these ideas are already being worked-on by the devs:


Mission system with specific new player missions & rewards.
Way more intuitive in-game chat & voice tools to make it easier for new players to interact with other players.
Find-a-teacher tool.
Better feedback why/how you died.
Better sense of beginner progression (achievement system & easier unlocks in the beginning by rewarding more XP or lowering cert prises).
After the tutorial, you spawn as member of a big open platoon vs being insta-gibbed by some erratic instant action button.



Two uneditable loudouts for each class ala Call of Duty, equipped with the necessaries to contribute. I.e. A light assault preset with C4 leveled up, an engineer class with tank mines, etc. The penalty comes from your not being able to choose the weapon, attachments, etc and having to roll with what you've got.


I can't tell you how many times I'll be telling new friends:

"Quick, go to the terminal and get a Burster max!"

"I can't, its got a timer on it"

"Then just spawn a homing AA and help me take him down."

"Homing what now? I don't have that!"

... :evil:

I'm just waiting for some fresh content like continental lattice and Hossin before I come back for more planetside.

Noob tutorial is fine as is, don't think they should add anything more to it. Sometimes I feel people put way too much focus on this, you're making a game to people not monkeys, they won't quit cause they cant learn the game, they quit cause they are not interested in the game itself to learn it.

Rarely I see people complaining about the game being hard, but more about the game being boring, new content should be the main focus allways.

I hear too many people quitting too early because they "didn't know what they were supposed to do". Part of this is solved by the continental lattice, and the missions & directives are the other half of player retention.

[Vashyo]

I hear too many people quitting too early because they "didn't know what they were supposed to do". Part of this is solved by the continental lattice, and the missions & directives are the other half of player retention.

Biggest reason to quit was likely that it didnt run for people before (OMFG). Now thats fixed...mostly atleast. :rolleyes:

Those people who give up too easily are not worth the effort to retain. Some people are just better of playing CoD or Candy Crush cause of simple straightforward mechanics. No point simplifying the experience for people who allready like your game for being something more.

Some people feel bad about killing newbs, nothing can be done about that unless we penalize people less for dying. But then what is there to win? It allready makes no difference that you keep dying over and over since it won't have much of an effect on winning/losing battle. Just keep throwing your forces at a base until it gets captured is how the game is played now.

[Emperor Newt]

Those people who give up too easily are not worth the effort to retain. Some people are just better of playing CoD or Candy Crush cause of simple straightforward mechanics. No point simplifying the experience for people who allready like your game for being something more.
Let me rephrase Clegg on Reachcast: To give up on this is the fastest way to kill the game.

[KesTro]

I always thought new players should start with a 7day-1month XP/Resource boost, what % exactly would be up to them but I imagine it's something they'd want to be pretty generous about. It would help newer players get into the game quicker and when it ends they'd be more likely to buy another boost since they've already tasted it's magnificence.

[Rahabib]

I do like having "new player missions" This way they get one objective to focus on with a bonus XP. After they do one, they should get a slightly more advanced one.

I think the problem with a lot of the new players (including myself once upon a time), was that there was 50 things you could be doing at any given time. To have that focus to one thing really helps until you get an idea of how they all tie together.

Then of course once players realize the game is really all about leveling up and thats it, they can grind and farm like the rest of us.

[Vashyo]

Let me rephrase Clegg on Reachcast: To give up on this is the fastest way to kill the game.

He's killing the game for me though :lol:

[Rivenshield]

How about:

1) A safe environment -- like a big base, say -- where the new recruit is incentivized to run around and explore all the Mario-Brothers like revolving yellow floaty icons and every time they try something new, DING! Sweet sweet XP! Instant Pavlovian gratification! Learning while you play! And then they could pile in a big shuttle bus -- or hey, even a giant science-fictiony shuttle craft -- and go into battle alongside their comrades.

And they could call it... the TRAINING BASE! Or FIREBASE NOOBLET! Or hey, wait, I know -- the SANCTUARY!!1!!!!

2) Maybe instead of interrupting gameplay and making the newbie run around learning things in a linear fashion, we could, I dunno, have like a little book or .PDF or something that they could download and print out. See that way, uh, instead of having to stop shooting and running and fun stuff and go back to the training base/VR/sanctuary thing, they could have something they could flip open, look for stuff that concerns them right at that moment, and stuff under the corner of their keyboard. Like if they want to know how to get a MAX suit, because you can't get one from the veh term and you can't spawn as one... are there special MAX terminals? Oh, I see. You have to spawn and *then* grab a MAX, because it costs resources. Hm. Okay. Awkward, but I understand now. I was able to look it up in the table of contents of the book-thing.

Or what a cert is. And how you get them. And how you have to equip the stuff you cert, instead of getting all mad because you just BOUGHT that weapon and you spawned and you don't HAVE it. You could look that up too. You could flip your book-thingie open and refer to it in-game without pausing.

And they could call it... the NOOB'S GUIDE TO AURAXIS! Or no, wait, I know.... the USER'S GUIDE!!!1!!!!1!!

/pauses, scratches head

Oh no. Wait. I'm sorry. That's all so 2003. It's far better just to dump people into an unbelievably complex enterprise software app and not tell them ANYTHING. I'm only a senior-level technical writer and process analyst, and a bittervet to boot. Smed and the other grognards at SOE know far better than I. Forget everything I fucking said.

/stomps off in a sullen funk

[Edfishy]

It is 2003, I'm afraid. Few youngin's today would think to open the PDF, let alone print it out. =P

... Without encouragement anyways. Maybe you could put special codes throughout the pages that can unlock free certs?

[synkrotron]

As a recent noob, I found youtube to have a lot more information about gameplay, weapon choice, tanks, aircraft etc.

just sayin...

[Rolfski]

Two uneditable loudouts for each class ala Call of Duty, equipped with the necessaries to contribute. I.e. A light assault preset with C4 leveled up, an engineer class with tank mines, etc. The penalty comes from your not being able to choose the weapon, attachments, etc and having to roll with what you've got.


Good call, forgot to add that one.

[Ghoest9]

The only was to to make the game better for new players is to get rid of the old players.

[Rahabib]

After listening to the Reach Cast show with Archlegger, its apparent what the issue is. Yes the game is complex, but the new player experience really needs to be in place for the PS4. Its on there that they will see the greatest growth of new players (basically everyone) and none of them are going to pull up youtube and watch videos before playing.

However, if we can keep them playing, it will benefit us. They will then sink "new" money into the game which keeps the lights on for the developers that will then roll it out to both PC and PS4 players. Essentially, the console players will bank roll the PC players - a new influx of lots of cash.

Thats why they want new player experience. New PC players come in trickles but its going to be no where near the scale the PS4 will see early on. They need to hit that just right.

Lets face it, PS2 is very different than COD (on the surface) for console players. It will take a while for players to realize that capturing bases etc. doesn't really do anything, so then they will sink money into weapons for the death match mode that is PS2 today.

I hope as soon as they get the new player experience down, they focus on some real depth to the game, not just complexity and new content. New content will wear off fast. Hossin and Amerish will be great, but in 3 months we all know everyone will be back in Indar. Until we can get real strategic value where each territory won and lost can carry over to other territories and continents, people will just play where the farm is and not where it helps the faction.

[Palerion]

I would venture to say part of nailing the new player experience is not throwing them into terrible, one-sided fights where they can't even exit the spawn. Which basically comes down to map design.

I was on Esamir yesterday at some facility, I forget exactly what it was called but I think it was something chemical plant. We were losing pretty bad but the way the facility was laid out we weren't being killed as soon as we exited the spawn. We had a perimeter around the spawn that allowed us to walk out safely. The battleground was mainly outside of our base, where the enemy held the points, we were able to actually go on the offensive instead of being pressed into our spawn. I could circumnavigate as a light assault or go head-on as a heavy assault with no overwhelming deterrents, such as enemies perched above raining fire onto the spawn or vehicles with HE making movement impossible.

So, yeah, we've got the Amerish update coming up. As long as spawns become more defensible and less camp-able I'd say that adds a lot to the new player experience. Being victim to zerg after zerg can be demoralizing and a huge turn off for new players.

[Binkley]

I had the idea today of giving low rank players a kill cam. That idea could be extended in other ways to make new players stronger until they get their sea legs. For example, give players <BR5 more health.

[JohnnyRicardo]

When I kill very low battleranks doing something very wrong I usually give them a tell about how to approach that situation different. It can't be easy joining Planetside these days.