MechWarriorOnline
Mech Academy Siege-mode Tutorial
The Problem: MWO has a very steep learning curve for new players. One place where new players are hopelessly overwhelmed is Faction Play where you can see things like:
- Players shooting directly at the Gates because they don't know about the Gate-Generator.
- Players still shooting directly at the Gates because they don't know where the Gate-Generator is or what it looks like.
- Players lingering over the image of their dead mech instead of re-spawning because they don't know how re-spawning works.
- Players leaving the match early after losing their first mech because they don't know they can re-spawn.
- Players not shooting at the 3 Omega-Generators because they don't know that they're important.
- Players shooting the outer-casing of the 3 Omega-Generators because they don't know to shoot thru the small window of the casing.
- Players shooting wildly anywhere on the Orbital Defense Gun because they don't know what Omega is, or where it's located.
More often than not, when those new players attempt Faction Play before they are ready, it ends up being a bad experience (translation: discouraging ROFLstomp).
Furthermore, it can add frustration for the team that he/she is on, which might then be taken out on that new player unconstructively - thereby making a bad situation even worse. That's not an experience that we, as a community, should risk exposing new players to. After all, MWO already has a steep enough learning curve.
Proposal:
Add a Siege-mode tutorial to the Mech Academy that covers all relevant information that can't be learned from Quick Play. Ideally, Faction Play should be locked until a new pilot completes this tutorial.
Hell yeah, this is a great idea and I really would like to see it implemented. Some quick tutorials about the other gamemodes would really be nice also, even if they are just some videos, not ingame.
About locking the players out of FP until they complete this proposed tutorial, while my preference would be to lock them out until they have at least 4 mechs bought, I know that would restrict the number of players on an already low pop gamemode, but at least it should be conditioned to having played a number of games in quickplay (at least 50 would be my minimum choice, but the 25 needed for collecting all cadet bonuses could work also ).
You're forgetting players disconnecting because they lost one mech. Seen that.
A true tutorial would be great. If PGI is unwilling to put in the effort to do this, though, a small step would be to activate the gate generators, Omega generators, and Omega when a siege map is chosen for the Training Grounds. That way people can practice doing what they need to do without the pressure of an actual match or someone yelling at them for being new.
Possibly activate the turrets, too. There's a LOT of targets in the area and even just being able to pick out the appropriate target takes some getting used to.
