Open mmnet-jackal opened 6 years ago
scJazz2
commented
6 years ago My one criticism of this RFE, and it is rather huge in a way, is that this would discourage players from actually going out and buying the Rule Books. If implemented, I would suggest that each hint refer to the Rule Book being referenced with Page Reference, Name, and Catalog number, perhaps even a link? Maybe some combination?
Qwertronix
commented
6 years ago Hmm I think the example hints that have been shown and the overall format suggested are good for making this more about the tactical skills when playing the game in a way that you don't get from just reading the rules.
As @scJazz2 says it's important to not provide a replacement for the books, but providing expertise and experience that players wouldn't get from the reading the books on their own would definitely be helpful and, hopefully, considered non-competitive to the IP.
mmnet-jackal
commented
6 years ago So looks like this issue may already being worked on, but I wanted to mention that if people are concerned about onboarding hints being competitive with the rule books, a simple fix may simply to make the hints less verbose.
For example: Inefficient Move? This unit is about to run/flank 4 hexes. This move will penalize your unit's own attacks more than enemies making attacks against it. Are you sure you want to make this move?
For more on this subject, see:
RFE copied from mekwars.org at request of wildj79.
The Problem: MegaMek is a game with a steep learning curve and has a ton of basic concepts (balancing movement mods, heat management, etc.) that are non-obvious to many new players. This is a serious problem because these 'basic' concepts have huge game impact. A player who does not know how to move, manage heat, etc. tends to get absolutely slaughtered. And if they have no background in BattleTech (which is a larger and large proportion of new players these days), very often they have no idea what's going on, and many, many, many of them quit as a result.
On MMNet, our typical approach to trying to 'onboard' new players is through providing Tutorial matches. But providing tutorials have several problems:
The Suggestion Something that is fairly common in modern computer games are pop-up hints that tell a player about a particular game dynamic right at the moment that it's happening in the game. For example, here are some potential warnings:
OR...
Why The Suggestion Solves The Problem: The advantage of putting these kinds of notifications directly into a game, is that people learn the lesson right at the time they're performing the action. Research shows this 'just in time' knowledge tends to stick a lot better than reading about something beforehand and then trying to apply it much later (or vice versa).
These 'basic' MegaMek skills also have huge game impact. In my 10+ years of observing MegaMek battles, I've noticed that players who know the basics almost always defeat players who don't. And the difference in outcomes between total beginners and average players seems much greater than the difference between average players and advanced players. If we could provide new players with a better way to pick up the basics, more of them would probably be successful and stick with the game.
Feasibility: If you think about it, the MegaMek software already has similar pop-up warnings built-in to the software. For example, you've probably seen the following warnings:
OR...
The MegaMek code already knows the movement modifiers that will result from a particular move. It already knows how much heat weapons fire will generate and what the effects will be. It also already has some warnings built into the system. What this proposal would do is just build on what's already there. While it would take work, it's not a huge leap beyond the existing code.
Potential Problems: I see very little potential downside to this proposal. Yes, these warnings might annoy more veteran players, but they can always be turned off. Another potential issue is some new players might also turn them off prematurely--thereby missing out on the benefit. But I still think the majority of new players would keep these on while they're learning.
It all really comes down to how many warnings there are and how intrusive they are. The current pop-ups are so unintrusive that I keep them on even as a very veteran player. I think we could put in 4-5 more pop-ins (all of which can be turned off individually) without annoying people too much.
Honest Disclosure: Something that has been a constant focus of mine while playing on MMNet is trying to come up with better ways to retain new players. I think this relatively modest RFE could produce huge dividends in doing exactly that.
I realize it would take some work but--for the continued success of this project--I think it would be worth it.