I'm glad that there was some tutorial added to GSF so people can learn the basics, you know, hard things hurt, lasers are not your friend kinda thing. But it is not enough, and worse, the nag text that appears does not get people to fly the tutorial it is just clicked away as useless spam*

 

 

1. Make it so you can't join a GSF match without first going though and passing the tutorial (simulator). Revamp the sim to require mastering a few things
   
   1. 
      
   2. Flight through waypoints, around objects, through a super structure of something
      
   3. Targeting, teach what the circles on the screen are for
      
   4. Destroying a stationary target, IE a drone
      
   5. Destroy a moving target, IE another ship
      
   6. Repeat iii & iv with secondary weapons
      
   7. Fight vs. waves of two and three like fighters
      
   8. Flight vs. waves of unlike fighters, learn how to counter other craft types.
      

[*]Offer the Flight vs. waves standalone after the pilot has graduated from the 'flight school' sim as a 'tactics sim' This is very much part of canon. Do not score these sorties, offer statistics.

[*]Create a short 2-4 scored Fight vs. waves 'tatics sim' that each sortie is scored based on use of the systems used and accuacy. At this point without passing scores the pilot is still not allowed to fly actual matches.

 

Once the pilot has passed the simulator missions they may then fly gsf matches. This will help bridge the game between people just trying out GSF and the people that have been flying for months.

 

Here is the real important part.

 

Once they have access to gsf matches they should be allowed to fly any sim vs. waves they choose as many times as they want to get better.

 

This would be like the first 10 levels of the ground toon learning how to walk and talk and chew bubblegum.

 

* I don't know this for sure but the 20 some odd years of award winning UX experience I have under my belt leads me to believe this statement is not only true but easily measurable. Please do so Bioware.

I'm glad that there was some tutorial added to GSF so people can learn the basics, you know, hard things hurt, lasers are not your friend kinda thing. But it is not enough, and worse, the nag text that appears does not get people to fly the tutorial it is just clicked away as useless spam*

 

 

1. Make it so you can't join a GSF match without first going though and passing the tutorial (simulator). Revamp the sim to require mastering a few things
   
   1. 
      
   2. Flight through waypoints, around objects, through a super structure of something
      
   3. Targeting, teach what the circles on the screen are for
      
   4. Destroying a stationary target, IE a drone
      
   5. Destroy a moving target, IE another ship
      
   6. Repeat iii & iv with secondary weapons
      
   7. Fight vs. waves of two and three like fighters
      
   8. Flight vs. waves of unlike fighters, learn how to counter other craft types.
      

[*]Offer the Flight vs. waves standalone after the pilot has graduated from the 'flight school' sim as a 'tactics sim' This is very much part of canon. Do not score these sorties, offer statistics.

[*]Create a short 2-4 scored Fight vs. waves 'tatics sim' that each sortie is scored based on use of the systems used and accuacy. At this point without passing scores the pilot is still not allowed to fly actual matches.

 

Once the pilot has passed the simulator missions they may then fly gsf matches. This will help bridge the game between people just trying out GSF and the people that have been flying for months.

 

Here is the real important part.

 

Once they have access to gsf matches they should be allowed to fly any sim vs. waves they choose as many times as they want to get better.

 

This would be like the first 10 levels of the ground toon learning how to walk and talk and chew bubblegum.

 

* I don't know this for sure but the 20 some odd years of award winning UX experience I have under my belt leads me to believe this statement is not only true but easily measurable. Please do so Bioware.

 

This^

 

Although, I think that part 2 and 3 should be optional, no one wants to take that much time waiting for loading screens and fighting the AI.

 

The tutorial should probably also include basic advice such as how to joust other ships and make the smallest turn arc possible by not constantly holding down W. That you should never run from a fight with another ship while they are focusing on you without applying some sort of debuff, or activating some shield, engine or co-pilot abilities.

 

I think it is also important for new players to know how to combat other types of ships around a satellite, and how to avoid end up locked circling around the sat forever. (Once as a gunship, after capping the satellite by eliminating the former defendant with BLC, I flew out 7km before the reinforcements arrived, and none of them bother to attack me. In which case I just picked them off one by one, with absolutely no response from them in the meantime.)

 

Most importantly, the tutorial needs to teach people how to manage their energy pools the most efficiently, that activating afterburner cause a high initial deduction to your pool, etc. Inform them of game mechanics such as tracking penalties, or what the red color of their hull and the smoke coming out of their cockpits mean.

 

Honestly, there are situations where I won 3 on 1 fights on my flashfire (don't get me started on my gunship) without taking a shot because my oppositions can't fly properly. They make stupid mistakes such as mirroring my turn when I am ahead of them (no idea why), and end up getting blasted to pieces mid-turn because they were still holding full throttle while I am finished with the turn. I don't blame them though, when I first started, the game gave me preciously few information on how to pilot a starfighter.

I dunno - reminds me a lot of the "License" feature Gran Turismo used to have. It's kind of annoying for a subscriber to plunk down some cash only to be told A) how to play and B) when to play.

 

I realize it's frustrating for pilots to have to deal with the inexperienced, but it's not up to the game to teach them how to play. It's up to us, the pilots that came before them, to help 'em out and give 'em pointers.

 

So if you see a lousy pilot, take 'em to the side and help 'em improve. ;-)

I dunno - reminds me a lot of the "License" feature Gran Turismo used to have. It's kind of annoying for a subscriber to plunk down some cash only to be told A) how to play and B) when to play.

 

I realize it's frustrating for pilots to have to deal with the inexperienced, but it's not up to the game to teach them how to play. It's up to us, the pilots that came before them, to help 'em out and give 'em pointers.

 

So if you see a lousy pilot, take 'em to the side and help 'em improve. ;-)

 

That does not cut it. There is no way teaching should be left up to the players. This is the internet no one listens to anyone else, everyone is a snowflake. The only way people will be able to learn at this point is practice, you can't practice in a "live match" beginners will become frustrated quickly and the experienced pilots become bored. Everyone then finds something else to do at that point killing GSF because of disuse.

I realize it's frustrating for pilots to have to deal with the inexperienced, but it's not up to the game to teach them how to play.

 

Yes it is... games come with instruction books, some are electronic these days, but still.

 

In today's world, new players need a well thought out design to "teach them" how to play in a safe environment, for the enjoyment of all. Don't think that is true? Name any of the 4 starter planets, they are pretty well thought out training areas...

 

The problem with no real practice area or learning safe area is that the difficultly of the match is determined by the opposition. In the ground PvP world, imagine (if bolster worked perfectly) that all levels were pitted against each other. A brand new player, "reads the PvP tutorial" and gets in a match against the equivalent of a ranked premade. Is that fun for anyone? Sadistic internet bullies who claim that the TDM turret changes will encourage spawn camping, sure. But anyone else? Even a premade team hates flying against people that don't understand "F3, then space bar to the nearest satellite (barrel roll on CD if you have it)." It is seriously sad that my bomber will beat new guys in a scout to A or C, but they DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER...

 

THAT is what some new pilots get into, because there is not a "Flight School".

If the simulator/flight school/whatever was designed well, it would be a joy not tedium. Right now we have 100's of people trying GSF to only be shot down seconds from joining and farmed for 8 minutes. They don't come back. They frustrate experienced pilots, Bioware has dropped the ball on this.

Yes, they've dropped the ball on tutorials. At least they've been consistent about it, this was mentioned in several posts within a few weeks of early access for subscribers. The ball is still just as dropped now as it was over two months ago.

 

Either they have some strange philosophical objection where they're trying to achieve some sort of, "no handholding," PvP purity, and don't care how many potential players they loose to a crappy initial GSF experience, or (and much more likely) they simply don't have enough staff with the knowledge to create GSF content to be able to do a halfway decent GSF tutorial and create new GSF battlespaces at the same time.

 

They've probably made the wrong choice overall. GSF suffers from lack of population more than it suffers from lack of content at this point. What kind of game design offers a terrible off-putting initial experience? Bad game design.

At least if you have an economic interest in having lots of people playing the game.

 

Because when people ask how to deal with a learning curve that's more like a learning wall they like to be told, "Eh, just run into the wall as fast as you can until you're so numb that you can't feel anything anymore." /sarcasm

 

Probably too late at this point. They should have prioritized having a worthwhile tutorial before preferred early access went live. Now that we're a few weeks into full launch for F2P it's basically too late. The people that might have learned to like GSF and could be spending CCs like crazy in an effort to catch up to well geared subscribers have had time to decide that the initial experience is terrible and that they don't want to play it.

 

The smart thing to do would have been to release a fairly decent tutorial set to a player group before allowing full access. So two weeks before preferred access, they would have had a chance to go into a tutorial level and learn the basic ships. Same for F2P. A well designed PvE tutorial mission, even as rudimentary as the 'on rails' space missions could have really helped people get into GSF. Honestly, even a small PvP space arena where you could duel same faction players to learn from them would have helped.

 

What's sad is that with people who are paid to be experts at content release strategy and with community feedback telling them that they needed to do a better job on the tutorial and initial play experience, Bioware still managed to blow it. Of course, I'm looking back with 20/20 hindsight, but there were enough warning signs that I think paid professionals should have been able to anticipate and do something about it.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Ramalina