How do absolute newcommers learn the game?

[Dragonlord]

I saw this briefly mentioned in another thread, but instead of hijacking that thread I decided to start a new one.

I talked a friend of mine into trying MWLL, he has no experience with any kind of mech game previously and I got the impression that the concept of the twisting torso had him quite confused as well as a number of other things such as buying assets and how to control them.

We started on an empty server, and I tried to teach him the ropes, after a while others started coming into the game and he eventually left.
Though I never found out why, I suspect it was at least in part out of frustration as the learning curve in this game is rather steep if you have no experience from similar games previously.

I believe that we could loose allot of potential players to just this issue here.
The controls will take time to learn, even as a veteran player I had some problems myself until I got the hang of it, and if they join a live server with others they will be overrun in no time.
These kinds of players will present themselves, however unintentional,  as easy targets to others and will very quickly find that they are the focus of everyones attention.
This in turn will make it feel as if everyone is after them in particular, they will eventually become frustrated and leave the game for greener pastures.
This in turn will leave us with less players on our servers making it harder to find a game to play when we just feel like playing the occasional random game.

Sure these players could join a unit and get help there, but not everyone will want to do that.
Some players just want to have the game there so they can jump into a game when they have a little time to do so or when they feel like it.
I myself dont feel much like league play and prefer to just play the occasional pub game, and I'm sure there are lots of others out there who feel the same way, or simply dont have the time to play in any other way.

So my question is, what can we do to help these unfortunate new players?
Is there any way we can make players who have absolutely no idea as to how the game works, understand how the controls work and have them enjoy the game as much as those of us who are veteran players?
Many of these new players are potential recruits for the units/clans out there and I think that anything we can do to help them would benefit us all.

[~SJ~MausGMR]

The main problem I see is we don't have enough of a player base to run 'newbie' servers, and I think most clan run newbie events would be overlooked and not attended or utilised.

I think our only option is to try to teach new players in game when they ask for help, or look like they need it. MWLL at its heart is a very hard game to pick up, and as such needs a pretty decent skill level to play it, and this requires commitment. If people arent prepared to commit to understanding the game, we may just have to deal with the possibility that this game may not be for them.

[MatthewPryde]

Battletech in itself is a persistant world that takes some time to get into, like D&D or Warhammer

[Dragonlord]

I understand this, my thought however was to at the very least give them a chance to try.
To see if this could actually be something for them.
The devs have done an incredible job making this mod, and it would be nice if we could attract new players to not just the game but the BT universe and the community as a whole.

[~SJ~MausGMR]

The problem is, is what can the community actively do? keep an eye out for mechwarrior and not shoot them? As much as they might be able to get kills this way, it doesn't mean their going to learn the game any better, as they're not being challenged at all to achieve. The game is there to be played, and as much as it's a fairly steep learning curve, it isn't as steep as a lot of simulators are. Controls are still WSAD, driving a mech is quite similar to driving a tank in some FPS's. The main thing that's needed is some kind of tutorial system that newbies can get involved in offline to learn the ropes a little, ie weapon groups, movement, purchasing etc.

Only other thing I can think of is give people money who ask for it, to help them into better assets with higher survivability, but most people do this anyway =/

[xInVicTuSx]

Yeah, much of the time I try to keep in mind that camping isnt the most popular tactic because it is the best, but the easiest.
A play style like mine, grab a Osiris or Thanatos prime and charge the line getting a kill or two before returning with at least two sections in the black(I do this with clockwork regularity many rounds) involves a ton of factors and experience in the MW way of fighting. So when I'm alone in this I try not to yell at my team mates for not charging with me as not only is it a daunting task but not everyone gets great FPS or ping.

Honestly I'm a bit concerned about this to be honest, I don't want this to go the way of Jedi Academy and have no new blood after awhile, though in reality this is much worse off in overall players but that is to be expected being a mod in beta.
On the hopeful side, a game like this plays more like a battlefield type with very large maps and multiple types of units, and less so than something like modern warfare which is much smaller and straightforward. The problem right now is that our gamemodes are more like modern warfare with endless charges into the same ol alleyways and such over and over. I really hope TC mode brings a dynamism to offset the richness of battletech assets and tactics, we will see, but I have hope that with sufficient advertisement we might get a player surge and that will go strong into the 1.0 release.

Honestly it's about fun, tons of people play Modern warfare and Battlefield 2 and completely suck at it and get owned every round, but its still fun to them, the biggest hurdle of getting people to play this is that its ancestors were simulation games, not first person shooters/generic action games, a breed which has been steadily dieing out since 2004.
People will either fall in love with it or yawn and walk away.

Other factors are beyond anyones control, namely cryengine being extraordinarily taxing on hardware slashing down the potential playerbase and of course, this being a mod to an aging game.

[Leeko]

Well... there's this idea. Which I'm still very interested in doing.

[xInVicTuSx]

Yeah, unfortunately this semester has been unprecedentedly difficult for me, I've been taken aback by the amount of work.
But I might be able to work on it some but I really need formats suggested to me, very specific things I should teach.
Perhaps I should just have Basics, Sniping, Brawling, Support classes.

However, my original intent was to get people into advanced tactics, not just simple controls, so trying to find a middle ground between these is why i needed suggestions.

[Bad guy]

Let newbies run around in Battlearmour.
Tell them they can buy weapons like in CS and press M for the map.

Maybe they will switch to Tanks after a while.

[Profane Arbiter]

Let newbies run around in Battlearmour.
Tell them they can buy weapons like in CS and press M for the map.

Maybe they will switch to Tanks after a while.

Though unlike CS, don't "bunny hop" or it'll turn you into a skeet target.

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

I have no idea how you would even get attendance for newbie classes.  You think they are participating on these forums or would leave a game they are currently playing to join another server?  I'm doubtful.

[MatthewPryde]

well back when I could play battletech for more than an hour a week, I would host clan Sibko's and go through training, explaining lore, why clan wolf is the dirtiest bunch of whores this side of strana mechty, and how to not drive like a drunk freebirth. Unfortunately this takes time, which many will not commit to, and I honestly do not have.

[Haunted]

@Dragonlord

I feel your pain. I got a friend of mine to buy crysis for MWLL..... he got very very confused by MWLL. I actually had to smile reading your friends confusion concerning torsor twisting. He bought an osiris

I got him hocked with the following: MW4... no joke... it's free and it has single player... the names of weapons and the basic concept behind them is the same, controls are basically the same. And you get the time to get a feel for the awesomeness of piloting huge warmachines.  And getting him back from MW4 to MWLL was easy.

Oh and that was in the 0.2.0 times... and those were way harder on new players. Now you got time to actually recognize your errors. In 0.2.0 there were times where you could only guess wtf just smoked you.

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

If it's a friend start with The MWLL Basics Guide

Everything they generally need to get started including the keymap.  Now it doesn't have the torso twisting in it but it should have everything else for the starter ground pounder.

I've always tried to join very low pop servers (like with 1 or 2 people) and assumed they're newbies and help them out.  Quite a few of them have stuck around even if they don't post on the forums.

I do agree that MW4 is a better game to teach basics in an off line environment even though it not a total 1 to 1 match to MWLL.  It's also a way to show much more MWLL offer in terms of graphics and varied game play.

[~SJ~ Amarus]

Wow square that guide is pretty sweet, is there a way we could post a link to that in the multiplayer menu...like a server flash saying "New? Go to the MWLL Wiki and type in "The MWLL Basics Guide"" I think something along these lines may help...or if all the servers flashed it every five minutes or so rather than just a welcome to the server kind of message.