Training mini map for newbies

[foscor77 169]

I think its a bad idea to throw new players to action district without any basic tutorials.

 

You can place new players to a kind of mini map like babylon or asylum and help them get to know the basic mechanism of apb.

 

Like shooting stationary npc with a little more health than normal action district pedestrians with various guns etc.  

[TimmyTheNerd 7]

1. There's already basic tutorials in the game. Ones that give some pretty nice rewards once you complete everything. Free vehicle, free 10 day weapon and free permanent weapon to name a few.

2. Green Districts are suppose to serve this purpose. Maybe after the merger, there will be more than enough people to get a decent pop in them. There's a reason why only Bronze and Green players can get into Green Districts.

3. Playing against NPCs wont help someone learn how to play the game. Even if they're just their for target practice, it wont help at all. Especially if they're stationary. APB is a Player vs Player game. You're playing against other players. NPCs can't replicate how players would react to situations. Stationary NPCs wont help a new player learn how to use a gun since players are almost always constantly moving.

Just saying. Do the tutorials we already have and play matches against other players. If we get lucky, new players will be able to go into Green Districts and learn to get better again.

[Pufty 113]

On 10/8/2019 at 9:52 AM, darok70 said:

You can place new players to a kind of mini map like babylon or asylum and help them get to know the basic mechanism of apb.

Ah yes, the Babylon shipping storage. Dynasties have done well to keep the business afloat for centuries.

And yes, Timmy is right on every point. Nerd...

[foscor77 169]

21 hours ago, TimmyTheNerd said:

1. There's already basic tutorials in the game. Ones that give some pretty nice rewards once you complete everything. Free vehicle, free 10 day weapon and free permanent weapon to name a few.

2. Green Districts are suppose to serve this purpose. Maybe after the merger, there will be more than enough people to get a decent pop in them. There's a reason why only Bronze and Green players can get into Green Districts.

3. Playing against NPCs wont help someone learn how to play the game. Even if they're just their for target practice, it wont help at all. Especially if they're stationary. APB is a Player vs Player game. You're playing against other players. NPCs can't replicate how players would react to situations. Stationary NPCs wont help a new player learn how to use a gun since players are almost always constantly moving.

Just saying. Do the tutorials we already have and play matches against other players. If we get lucky, new players will be able to go into Green Districts and learn to get better again.

 

 

Your third point is wrong. Your assuming that everybody who starts playing apb has previous experience with shooters which is not true. And your also saying target practice wont help? Are you like serious? It helps a TON. It has helped me and a huge majority of players whom i know. Its obvious it wont ever replicate live players but replicating live players is not its purpose anyway.

 

Do you what most of what my friends say when they started out apb and every single of them quit this game. They said this game is a clusterfuck.

 

Somehow to majority of new players everything in this game seems all over the place. Im not saying to remove the tutorials but somehow force the players in a small map to complete as many tutorials as they like how to buy/change/restock guns, summon cars etc. Force them to do target practice with at least the main 4 or 5 guns like sniper, machine guns, rifles on moving targets,also give them rewards on the way BEFORE throwing these new players to the brutal action districts.

 

And i dont know how many shooters youve played but most of the game that i've played had this target practicing thing such as planetside 2, tribes ascend, paladins etc

[TimmyTheNerd 7]

I've played Played Planetside 2. The tutorial did NOTHING to help me when I started out in 2015. I still got slaughtered by other players. I only got better with dedication. Stationary targets DO NOT HELP. Moving AI or shooting range targets that do not fight back, as many other shooters do in their tutorials, DO NOT HELP.

With Green Districts as they are currently, bronze players can go into them and that will help as they are players more skilled than green/trainees. If we stick all the players who are new to the game into the same map, not allowing bronze or higher players to join, guess what we get. A bunch of new players only skilled at fighting new players. So now they think they're Sir McBadass Badasssington the 3rd and when they start fighting more skilled players...you know what happens, they get their patootie kicked. They run into the same difficulty wall current newbies in this game run into. What you are suggesting is making new players feel good about themselves before laughing as they get their asses handed to them by current players. The fact of the matter is this. In a PVP oriented game like Planetside 2, APB: Reloaded and so on, NOTHING will prepare new players for the storm they are about to walk into. You can cuddle them. You can try and make the transition as easy as possible. They're still going to get their asses kicked by more skilled players. They're still going to fuzzy bunny about tryhards and people more skilled about them. If getting their asses kicked by better players will cause them to leave the game, guess what....they're STILL going to leave the game, tutorial map or not.

Let's focus on another aspect here. We take all the new players and put them in a smaller Fight Club sized map. Now they go to Financial Bronze or Waterfront Bronze. Now what? Bigger map. Players with more skills. More open spaces. Hell, all the sniping that is possible in Waterfront. Now, on top of tossing them into a tutorial map that only had them preparing against other new players and AI/NPC targets that don't fight back, we're tossing them into a larger map with greater distances among objectives and more points, on both Financial and Waterfront, to snipe or camp from.

Now, I'm not against helping new players but your suggestion might do more harm than good. I'm bolding this paragraph because I feel it is the most important one in this post. What I believe should be done is a Mentor System. Say we have players that are at least 100 Ranking and Silver or Gold Threat. These players can op in to be Mentors. They will be teamed up with a Green or Bronze threat player of 99 or less ranking. The Mentor gets bonuses for playing with their new apprentice. The better the player being mentored does, the greater the bonuses the Mentor get. It encourages veteran players to help new players out more without overly cuddling the new players. City of Heroes, before NCSoft closed it down, had such a system in place and it did a lot more good for new players than the tutorial system did. Right now, veteran players simply have no reason to teach new players how to play the game. A Mentor System will give them a reason. In the end, this will help a lot more than just making a new player only district, as it helps new players improve their skills by giving them a veteran player to coach them and incentivising skilled players to do so.

[foscor77 169]

Bro im not going to read that wall of text for a thing as small as a freaking small training/target practice tutorials in Apb.

 

You saying they did not helped you? Well guess what, they did HELPED me 

 

Maybe shooters are not your thing?

 

anyway im not going to debate more for such a small implement/improvement for the game.

 

i know training/practicing are not going to make a big difference but to me they seem better than directly throwing new players to action district.

 

case closed for me.

[Kakalaki 65]

4 hours ago, darok70 said:

 

i know training/practicing are not going to make a big difference but to me they seem better than directly throwing new players to action district.

 

case closed for me.

i think it would be nice for new Players to get a Mentor, that can help them and answer questions.

Do missions with them and get rewards for it. Also it's alot more fun for new Players if they are not losing all day and there is someone they can ask things about cars, designer, and so on.

I am always helping new Players where i can. giving them advice about weapons and stuff like that.

 

 

i like the idea of a Training disctrict

[foscor77 169]

2 hours ago, Kakalaki said:

i think it would be nice for new Players to get a Mentor, that can help them and answer questions.

Do missions with them and get rewards for it. Also it's alot more fun for new Players if they are not losing all day and there is someone they can ask things about cars, designer, and so on.

I am always helping new Players where i can. giving them advice about weapons and stuff like that.

 

 

i like the idea of a Training disctrict

 

Ikr.

 

The tutorials in this game are very limited and they somehow don't appear worth doing and don't force the players to complete them and as they don't complete the tutorials, everything to them looks clusterfuck. Not gonna lie, I myself did not completed my tutorials until I reached 2.5k hours in this game and also I only competed them cuz AT THAT POINT I realised that they give 25 JT reward each...

 

Im gonna repeat myself and say training, target practice or a little more appealing tutorials will not make you good at this game but it will also not make you say that the game is a clusterfuck or "hey I don't understand anything".

 

As for the mentor thing, I've seen mmo using this. They recommend mentors to new players and appendices to old players but it does not seems implementable in a shooter like Apb. This needs more research and ideas.

 

Merged.

 

@TimmyTheNerd

 

I finally read your post. 

 

You sound like a classmate I had in grade 4.

 

He told the teacher he don't want to learn maths cuz he don't want to become a mathematician.

 

You get what im trying to say?

 

Like a hunting book won't make you a hunter, you will have to go to the Jungle and experience it yourself but the book will surely give you a glimpse on hunting, like the equipments you need etc.

 

As for mentor system, can you give me examples from other games where this is such a system cuz it seems very unlikely that such a system would be implementable.

Edited October 17, 2019 by foscor77

[HighSociety 148]

On 10/8/2019 at 8:52 AM, darok70 said:

I think its a bad idea to throw new players to action district without any basic tutorials.

 

You can place new players to a kind of mini map like babylon or asylum and help them get to know the basic mechanism of apb.

 

Like shooting stationary npc with a little more health than normal action district pedestrians with various guns etc.  

I think the only problem is that "gamers" nowadays are not willing to put any effort in games anymore... 

How did we start with APB? Did we have a tutorial district? No we really wanted to "git gud" and we are still here aren't we? 

 

So... lack of tutorial district or the gamers themself?

[foscor77 169]

1 hour ago, HighSociety said:

I think the only problem is that "gamers" nowadays are not willing to put any effort in games anymore... 

How did we start with APB? Did we have a tutorial district? No we really wanted to "git gud" and we are still here aren't we? 

 

So... lack of tutorial district or the gamers themself?

To be honest, I don't quite know how this game failed. So I can't answer your question right now. But I will do some research and will surely get back at you on this.

 

I'll go to the very depth.

Edited October 17, 2019 by foscor77

[HighSociety 148]

11 minutes ago, darok70 said:

To be honest, I don't quite know how this game failed. So I can't answer your question right now. But I will do some research and will surely get back at you on this.

 

I'll go to the very depth.

I'm not sayin a tutorial district would be useless... just sayin there are way more important things to do.

 

Ah i can tell u why APB is (or i hope was) failing...

lack of content, lack of proper running servers, lack of anticheat and lack of competence from the reloaded devs...

Everything was "okay" till they talked about the engine upgrade and that we will get it in 2014.

But they decided to bring monetize boxes and not the upgrade... from there it was getting worse

Edited October 17, 2019 by HighSociety

[TimmyTheNerd 7]

@darok70
First, I apologize for the length of some of my posts. I suffer from several mental disabilities and mental disorders, including Asperger's Syndrome, so sometimes it's hard for me to stop when I'm explaining things and I wind up going and going and often over-explain and my original meaning gets lost somewhere as my mind goes into an entirely different tangent. 

Secondly, Dropping the discussion about a tutorial district because it's obvious that's going nowhere, as we're clearly both too stubborn with our own views and want really listen to what the other is trying to say on the matter. In regards to the 'shooters aren't your thing' comment, I played a lot of shooters. Planetside 1 and 2, the Battlefield Franchise (my favorite shooter franchise and I'm still active in Battlefield 3 for PC) and Medal of Honor. In RPG Shooters, I enjoy a lot of Fallout 3, NV and 4 as well as all of the Borderlands games. My issue is I'm use to the more fast pace shooters that I played a crap ton of when I was growing up. Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, Unreal Tournament and so on.

Now for the main portion of this post, the Mentor System I suggested. There aren't any games that do it exactly how I described it.

 

City of Heroes had a Mentor System. It didn't reward veterans for taking in new players. Instead it allowed veteran players to team up with new players. This would increase the new player's stats (but not their level) so they could do higher level content with the veteran, gaining boosted xp while doing so. Since City of Heroes and APB: Reloaded aren't in the same genre of MMO and leveling works differently in APB: Reloaded, the way CoH handled it would be piss poor in APB.

World of Warcraft has the Recruit A Friend system. Give someone your referral code and when they sign up then you both get boosted XP when teaming together. This could kinda work in APB, but remove the referral code maybe. Make it so when a veteran player created a premade team/group with one or more new players, all players get a boost to the cash and contact points. However, I can see this being exploited by someone making a bunch of fake accounts for a friend to help boost their friend or some shit. Then again, systems like these can always be exploited. The City of Heroes one was used to level alts instead of leveling players brand new to the game.

Apparently Destiny 2 rewards veteran players for helping new players, but I haven't given a try. Maybe we can wait and see what Monster Hunter World: Iceborne does? As, according to an article I found, apparently they're going to implement incentives for helping new players catch up to the newest content.

Article link here:
https://www.pcgamer.com/monster-hunter-world-iceborne-will-reward-players-who-help-others-catch-up/

Like I said though, often times people will look for ways to take advantage or exploit such systems.

 

Merged.

 

Making this post separate as it's a different idea I had come up with. Consider this my attempt to compromise.

We can take your tutorial district and tweak it a bit. Turn it into a PvE/Co-Op district. Players vs AI. Maybe even allow both Crims and Enfs to team up with eachother in this district. Of course, we wouldn't limit it to just new players. Another shooter I use to play a lot of, S4 League, did something similar with their Arcade Mode and that was pretty fun and a nice break from the main PvP aspect of the game. This will also allow new players to team up with veterans without being shot at or killed by higher ranking players on the other team.

If you want to keep the target practice thing, maybe make a weapons test area with mobile or stationary targets that will allow players to test all of the weapons in the game. Basically, a shooting range so you can test weapons before deciding if you want to buy them or not. This could be useful for all players, not just new ones.

[foscor77 169]

On 10/17/2019 at 6:55 PM, HighSociety said:

I'm not sayin a tutorial district would be useless... just sayin there are way more important things to do.

 

Ah i can tell u why APB is (or i hope was) failing...

lack of content, lack of proper running servers, lack of anticheat and lack of competence from the reloaded devs...

Everything was "okay" till they talked about the engine upgrade and that we will get it in 2014.

But they decided to bring monetize boxes and not the upgrade... from there it was getting worse

 

i did some research and have drawn to the conclusion that this game failed not cuz the game sucked or cuz of the gameplay problems like you mention but cuz the of the mindless management of the starter company RTW. They acted like those poor people who once somehow gets so much money but dont know what to do with it and ends up wasting it. This reddit thread sums it up perfectly.

 

 

 

"just sayin there are way more important things to do."

 

Just because there are more important things to do does not mean we should ignore the little thing. As someone great has once said "Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

 

Merged.

 

On 10/18/2019 at 2:28 AM, TimmyTheNerd said:

Making this post separate as it's a different idea I had come up with. Consider this my attempt to compromise.

We can take your tutorial district and tweak it a bit. Turn it into a PvE/Co-Op district. Players vs AI. Maybe even allow both Crims and Enfs to team up with eachother in this district. Of course, we wouldn't limit it to just new players. Another shooter I use to play a lot of, S4 League, did something similar with their Arcade Mode and that was pretty fun and a nice break from the main PvP aspect of the game. This will also allow new players to team up with veterans without being shot at or killed by higher ranking players on the other team.

If you want to keep the target practice thing, maybe make a weapons test area with mobile or stationary targets that will allow players to test all of the weapons in the game. Basically, a shooting range so you can test weapons before deciding if you want to buy them or not. This could be useful for all players, not just new ones.

 

 

Thats exactly what im saying. i just didnt described it in detail on my first post. By target practice or training I DO mean using some lowkey AI npc as opponent and doing smallish missions against them. 

 

The AI does not have to be very intelligent at all, it can just follow a few commands like run around and hide or run straight for objective or just shoot randomly at the new player you know? simple stuff.

Edited October 18, 2019 by foscor77

[HighSociety 148]

4 minutes ago, darok70 said:

company RTW

Ah okay u mean the really beginning or APB...

than yea sorry i didn't played back in RTW times because i was not ready to pay monthly for games... 

So if i'm thinking about that... p2play could have killed it back in RTW times.

[TimmyTheNerd 7]

5 hours ago, darok70 said:

 

 

Thats exactly what im saying. i just didnt described it in detail on my first post. By target practice or training I DO mean using some lowkey AI npc as opponent and doing smallish missions against them. 

 

The AI does not have to be very intelligent at all, it can just follow a few commands like run around and hide or run straight for objective or just shoot randomly at the new player you know? simple stuff.

Well, what I liked about the Arcade Mode in S4 League is that you had different grades of AI opponents. They were missions that told a story, more or less. Think of it like doing missions with a friend in Saints Row 2 or 3 Co Op. In Arcade Mode you could solo queue for a mission, join a mission in a premade group or do random matchmaking. The AI would be seperated into two or three categories, Minions (Basic run, jump and shoot type stuff), Lieutenants (A bit more complex tactics, actively going for objectives) and Bosses. The main difference with my idea is instead of it being strictly for new players, it would be something for all players to enjoy. Maybe even finally allow some more exploration of the story of San Paro beyond just 'You're a criminal/enforcer, go out and kill the other faction.'. Most modern shooters have some sort of campaign or story mode these days and open world games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row have decent stories as well. 

Basically, think of it as a co-op district. Maybe with its own contacts. If you want to just do PvE content, you can. You want to do a mix of PvE and PvP, you can. Want to do just PvP, you can. It'll offer more for players to do besides just Fight Club, Waterfront, Financial or loitering in Social. Imagine how interesting it would be to have a district devoted to Saints Row or GTA styled Story Missions with their own rewards and contacts separate from the ones in Financial or Waterfront.

EDIT: Or maybe even have Story District versions of Financial or Waterfront. So players are playing against AI in SR or GTA styled Story Missions and getting use to the Financial and Waterfront maps at the same time. Wouldn't have to make new contacts and rewards, so it would shorten the time needed to make such districts by a small amount. Don't get me wrong, AI stuff is always going be hard. I make my own games as a hobby and I know the difficulties that go into designing AI.

Edited October 18, 2019 by TimmyTheNerd

[Havana 216]

On 10/17/2019 at 10:16 AM, HighSociety said:

I think the only problem is that "gamers" nowadays are not willing to put any effort in games anymore... 

How did we start with APB? Did we have a tutorial district? No we really wanted to "git gud" and we are still here aren't we? 

 

So... lack of tutorial district or the gamers themself?

Why can't people who say this and are the same ones that say low pop for everything be intellectually honest .

You me we also had pop at that time and learned with peers of all skill levels.

Imagine,  I know its hard.

But just think what it must be like for a new person today.

When all there is left is 5 to 8 year vets that play as a team.

That argument is smart  that we all had to learn, it's not even close to the same thing. 

Especially with, car spawners, meteors,  car detonators, shields, bricks, satchels, car surf and on and on and on.......