Gameplay: Training in hacking

[Taramafor]

No, not that kind. I'm talking about the hacking infiltrators do. Think about it. You fall down in a drop pod and fight for your life. Straight into the action with no training at all. Ok, so you go to the VR, buuut, there's no training for hacking in there (as far as I know).

This means that newer players are going to be wondering where and how to hack. What's more, there seems to be nothing in the wiki about the act of hacking itself. Result? New infiltrators blunder around wondering how to hack or not making the most of their abilities. It's obvious to hack a console you can easily see, but one in front of a turret on a high ledge is much less obvious (and therefor may remain unknown as hackable).

That means new infiltrators only think about combat, and as much as combat is a part of the game, combat is not the only thing infiltrators do. Medics and engineers already have the tools to play with and test (friendly goes down, revive. Generator blows up, repair) but they can practice outside of possible enemy fire due to being near allies. Infiltrators can't do that (enemy in turret for example) and as a result they desperately need a bit of guidance as to what there whole role is. I can imagine how difficult it must be for someone completely new and someone that's new not knowing what to do is most likely going to switch to another class they know something more about that they have seen with their own eyes (jetpacking, reviving, providing ammo and repairing).

Edit: Guess I should have said that my idea is to add hacking (as well as repairing and reviving now that I think about it) into the VR.

[MrMak]

Now that you mention it. They should probably add additional tutorial levels that you can access after basic training that would discuss the particularities of each class. Maybe even for vehicles.

[Mustarde]

I downloaded the game at launch, never played beta and within minutes learned how to hack a terminal. It's not that complicated... I did take a while to learn that shift held your breath with a sniper rifle lol.

[Taramafor]

Terminals are easy. It's turrets and vehicles that aren't so obvious. Especially if you never played a game with it implemented before (It's kinda easy to figure out after slicing in battlefront). A new gamer could easily overlook it.

And some sort of class tutorial does sound like a good idea. That or in-game video of what they do or some sort of menu database covering it along with the other stuff in the game.

[Noxxia]

They are not done with tutorials. When Malorn was showing off the current new player tutorial he mentioned that they want to add additional voice overs that come up when you're experiencing something for the first time. how high up the list holding shift and hacking are, i don't know. He only mentioned the map and activating the various shield generators.

[Hyncharas]

The real issue with hacking is the hitboxes on terminals are really weird; much in the same way pain fields are set up too far around spawn buildings.

[Taramafor]

Title renamed since I just had a thought.

Here's how I picture training the classes. On the very first time a new character logs on (and ONLY on the first log in) have them spawn into the VR where there's a sort of obstacle course for each class. For hacking, dummies could be placed in turrets/vehicles which respawn (more then one of each course or better yet, dummy might need to be added). I can imagine how training as a medic would work out. Shooting a friendly dummy before reviving them.

Regardless of how training classes works out, I've had a thought to keep the whole drop pod/being thrown into the war zone introduction. Make it so that when new players spawn into the VR, the can't just warp out. They have to use a drop pod on the first go (An in game excuse could be something like the teleporter not recognizing the players presence which will be fixed soon after or something). This way, new players get a chance to test out the controls before being thrown in.

The training class course could still be there in VR when the players come back. And for anyone wanting to skip it the first time, they could just use the drop pod option.

Whew. How's THAT for an idea?