Research Myths: I Can't Believe I'm Writing This

I've said this in other threads. Commander is the easiest job in Empires to reach 70/100 level and above..

Yeah, I've played a lot of games and almost every single one of them have "treat-you-like-a-retard" tutorial/hints.
I think we could really use those tutorial/hints.

"How to spawn?" "How to change class?" "How to get into comm view?" ..etc
Those questions are still frequently asked.

 

You are holding an absurdly high standard that no one in this game can regularly perform. Even in highly-competitive scrims.
"you gotta know what players do by just looking at the minimap." This alone, already disqualifies most commanders.
7/10 = 7 out of 10 points, not top quarter. In short, I can trust a 7/10 commander, even though he may not be good.

Also you picked the most worthless thing to discuss from my original reply, the point is that we should make the game easily accessible for newbies.

 

Should start by remaking or fixing the tutorial map. Then think about having a tutorial video styled similar to TF2.

If you want to make a game newb friendly, try to emulate the guides in place by other games that those newbs are probably playing, namely TF2 or L4D.

Commander is the easiest job to learn because it is the easiest to see the direct impact of what you are doing. It is much harder for a lone grenadier or engineer or rifleman or scout to know the true impact of their actions. If you screw up as the commander, you know it, your team knows it, and everyone and their mother will be sure to tell you.

If you screw up as infantry, unless you are a scout, you will probably never know. An engineer without repair upgrade or revive may not realize how much effectiveness they have lost. Grens without ammo upgrade may not realize how much time they spend running back and forth to find ammo. A rifleman without his proper skill for the situation (Rifleman are the most proficient at 90% of early game, only lacking the ability to maintain their own munitions).

It can take months to figure out how to properly lob a mortar, how to build walls to best protect buildings, where on maps turrets are effective, that you should never not have a camera placed, when to use what kinds of grenades, etc etc etc. It takes about 5 seconds to realize that you should probably be building a refinery, or putting down that forwards rax that people are screaming about, or figuring out which research makes you fail the hardest.

Commander has 12-15 people who immediately judge every decision you make. as infantry, you'll be lucky to hear anything constructive.

 

Metal smith got my point, you can just read his reply.

With no dev involved, there's no point in discussing how to make the game more accessible, they probably have their own ideas already.
But since you asked.

We definitely need a compulsive tutorial for newbies who turn on the game for the first time.
I think we all played enough games to know how a tutorial would go.
"How to spawn" "How to get into comm view" These questions really shouldn't be asked in game.

We also need more in-game hints, of course this should be optional.
There are threads about unintuitive things of Empires, those things probably should be fixed.

Last but not least, this community is shit.

 

Being a mediocore comm makes the game a LOT more fun because that kind of shit doesn't happen to you.

 

I understand Sergeant's perspective but think maybe he hasn't played with nub commanders much. Enabling anyone to walk into the COM vehicle will require you to make it a vehicle that self generates all buildings in the right locations, or enables players to drop their own buildings. it would require the research to be already decided and set to go without the COM interacting. That means totally nerfing the com so that no one wants to com and you just have a nub baby sit the vehicle.

I agree training is the next best step - but how many nubs have even done rudementary training. Most don't know how to spawn, or push as anything but Scout.

Flasche and I are in violent agreement. A nub commander will always lose, unless you put another nub commander on the opposing team, or have a team that can win with minimal com intervention. And those games are both fun and frustrating. You wait longer for everything and have to tell him everything. If you have more than one person telling the com anything he is easily confused and frustrated.

How many games have you played where no one got in the COM vehicle for 2 minutes? That time is critical and you will have a tough time if you don't have a better team and excellent com. I have played vs nub commanders on occasion with AllTalk ON to help train them on how to interact with a team. I tell them "Don't feel badly - we will win, but the goal is for you to learn something".

So lets focus on what we can do - we need tutorials and video editing. I made a crappy tutorial that I think had good content, although it has irratating static, two very wrong statements during the game calling an armory a ref, and mistakenly changing players during explanation of an engineer's job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnG1kvmhgdc

I did this because I couldn't find anything like this when I was learning.
I have also posted PUG match's, which would just confuse nubs.

 

LazyBum - Ya - there are plenty of goofs in my video, but I still think somewhat useful.

Why are we training nubs to be COM ?

Any half decent com needs to play a map 50 times before he would know what to do. Also most decent com's develop their own strategy, their own style. I played with Creeper the other night and we had about ten Rax's and all sorts of redundancy - which I think is great and his style. I wouldn't train someone to do that unless that is how they want to use their team or they have nubs who just love to build shit. Some com's go for the kill early, or boom tank.

You can't tell someone how to com, but can help with learning decent research - which changes every couple months. So a tutorial will quickly be outdated. But this thread addresses the current issues with research.

More important we need a tutorial for NEW players and it should be at least a ten minute mandatory training. Some games require you to go through tutorial mode before you can run multiplayer. They walk you into a hallway and have you throw grenades, shoot a mortor, drive a vehicle, build a building, or whatever. That is what this game is lacking.

In absence of that a training video for new players on how to play the game is needed - NOT A COM VIDEO. Shit we'd be FS Spacing every match.

 

Training #1:
Spawn
ML Turret is shooting at you RAX.
What do you do
Do not proceed until you succeed in destroying the turret.

Training #2:
ML and MG turret is shooting at RAX
...

Training #3:
UML and UMG turret is shooting at RAX
...

Training #4:
APC rushes RAX - you must destroy it.
Most nubs will build ML turret.

Training #5:
Medium Tank rushes rax - you must destroy it within X seconds.
X Seconds mandates them to go gren. Timer will run out before ML turret can kill the medium.

Training #6:
Enemy Rax nearby - protected by turrets - destroy rax.

Training #7:
Spawn and a team mate is dead - you must revive him.

Training #8:
Take a vehicle to enemy base and destroy RAX. No weapons are available for any vehicle. This is intended to teach them to get out of main, and attack as an engineer or gren. Use the APC for ammo if gren. This can be split into more training sessions.

If every new player passed all of these tests they would start at a level that they could contribute and they would enjoy the game more.

 

My eyes are literally glazing over as I imagine the complexity of implementing something like that.

 

Training #1 #6 #7 are good and I'd really love to see them in the tutorial.
You'll need A.I. vehicles for #4 #5, which is bad for Candles's health.

The others are really unnecessary.

 

Well I'm not going to argue why baby steps in understanding why ML Turret alone vs ML Turret and MG turret or UML are different tactics. Or why a MG and ML turret emulates a engineer attacking the rax.

Any idea has line item veto from developers and is just silly for anyone on the sidelines to shoot down without understanding why it's proposed. All can be done with turrets and not vehicles although I think vehicles moving have more psychological impact than a turret.

 

func_breakables parented to a prop_dynamic with the apc model parented to a func_tanktrain. Voilá you have an apc that can move without player input.

 

#1 Simple - quick success and get them to continue learning.
#2 - emulate dumb engie taking out rax. Most nubs will lose rax at least once before figuring out how to continue. You could add another with two MG turrets next to each other so they learn that grenades take out turrets effectively - not just jumping on them and using calculator.
#3 is intended to teach you how to reach an object under extreme fire or how to BUILD WALLS. Most will take a long time figuring this out - but we all learn it. Or run the opposite direction as a gren and shoot long distance. Both valuable lessons.
#4 spawn as engineer - change to gren. How long does it take for a nub to learn to become gren to squash a rush? Some will just build an ML turret.
#5 intended to keep them from always building a turret to solve a problem - switch to gren.
#6 Start moving forward - leave the rax and venture out. Learn to drop a wall, ammo and take out turrets and building, or just building.
#7 use revive
#8 get the fuck out of main !

I believe most new players quit before they learn these basics.