Mechanics Training Dummy

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At least it used to be.

People would actually learn mechanics in raids because it was necessary to succeed. Now they're just for decoration.

Making reg raids as braindead as they are now was one of the dumbest decisions this game has ever made.

Yes, as long as it was, it could have taught more of the mechanics, though I'm not sure how it could have taught how to play roles. There should probably be a tutorial on that that unlocks when you reach level 10. Or maybe when you reach endgame, since level 10 really isn't going to be effective at non-DPS roles.

Still, the old tutorial was better than just mashing attack buttons for 10 minutes, then leaving the ship.

Bring back the AF2 playbook. Easy, Medium, and Hard, and the. 1 elite raid.

That style kept things so fresh. HoH and Throne were both still challenging and Elite was for players with the biggest balls.

Literally something for everyone.

Oh...it wouldn't have. The 'tutorial' shouldn't be on the ship, it should be between level 12 and 30 (ideally around 30 when all powers are available) after people have some idea how to play the game in general. I mean we have a mission to 'teach' artifacts and a mission to get access to allies. Why not a mission for role use? The little that was on the ship should have sorted out the brain dead, but a true tutorial for the entire game...including roles? Nah, no one should be getting that at level 0. Not sure I would have even made it off the ship if that were the case.

The tutorial is a joke. I was running my alt on a different account through it, and no joke, Lex soloed the first boss by himself while I was doing stuff on my main account. The tutorial has always been easy as it should be, l've done the original original, and the one with B/L/BB, but my guy you could literally beat it blindfold now.

Yes. There's no need for a full Tutorial before you even enter the game, but the Tutorial as it stands misses some core concepts, and levelling to 30 doesn't fill that gap either.

I think one of the issues with teaching and learning in the game is that the top-centre text is used heavily in levelling to give information such as "East End Bowery", "Ring War starts in 5 minutes", etc., and I feel that early in the game players learn to just ignore those messages as being largely irrelevant. Also, unless they are very intrusive - like BIG RED TEXT, they are easily lost in the furore of visual effects on-screen in combat.

If we got a tutorial on basic gameplay and use of roles and missed out on a OW PvP event one, I'd be ok with that. Most people don't seem to care about these until they are working on them for the feats, and in that case, it's not that hard to figure out once you have some interest. Just like PvP...you gotta pick your battles.

On occasion, I've seen players running what it gradually dawned on me were the first 6 powers you get granted as Fire. At that point, I realised that they'd apparently not even learned how to modify their loadout. It's an extreme case, but worth noting that nothing can be taken completely for granted. A ground-up Tutorial would need to account for that, and be a lot of work, but I imagine it would give more Player retention in the long run.

As I said. Having a true 'tutorial' at 30, once you have access to all powers and will likely be running more group content (although you could run it earlier as I recall), and potentially playing a role...would be the best place for it. Ideally as a 'gate' to being able to queue up as role. Not saying you can't run that role if you want, but you shouldn't be able to queue as that role (thus filling a role raid slot) until you have at least fumbled your way through a tutorial. And yeah, it would need to be a 'ground up' new piece of content....just like they made for Artifacts and Allies for 0 reason....but hopefully more useful than either of those runs.

And yeah, I've seen that too. People using powers no one would ever use really....but they are the 'early' powers, so default. For the leveling missions? No big deal. For an alert or raid in Omni...a bit bigger of a deal.

I agree - having the Role granted at Level 10 is now no longer needed (if it ever really was) with the move of all Group Content from Levelling to T1. Grant Roles at 30.

I'd be hesitant of Gating so you can't queue as your Role. It would just encourage people to not bother with their Role, in my opinion - "I can't queue as a Tank, so I won't bother learning to Tank.". It excludes exactly the wrong people - people that are curious about their Role, but not yet invested enough to put in extra effort. There ought to be an encouragement to try Roles, but not an either/or option - but one of the problems is that people do not see the benefit of running as Roles until they see it in action.

We would need a "Show, not Tell" approach, I think? Something that shows you what you can do, how it affects the group, and why you might like to explore further. I had ideas for these kind of pieces of training content years ago on here, but I can't find them now (might even have been on the OLD Forums ). Perhaps it's worth firing up another Thread to discuss - I'll do that later when I'm not up to my eyes in Nth Metal Detection .

See, I assume the opposite. Someone with an interest in running a role will likely jump on the chance to run a tutorial. Anyone who can't be bothered to run a tutorial probably wouldn't bother doing any outside research either...and shouldn't be queuing just to beef up their chances of getting into a run (let's face it, that's why most people queue a role they can't ....or won't...do).

And to me, one of the biggest things you'd need to have in a proper tutorial is YOU have to select your powers. I realize that alternate languages might have an issue with this, as the power description isn't in EVERY language, but rather than telling a Quantum troll to load 'Event Horizon' to have a group shield, I'd rather a mentor says something like "We need a group shield to survive this attack, see if one of your powers will provide a group shield", and you need to load it up before the fight. That's just an example but however it's done, I'd not want to just see, 'Press L2+X now' or 'Press R2+Triangle now'. That's not going to impart any knowledge...just reinforce button smashing.

I think a lot of our issues with role is people really don't know how to pick powers for themselves. They get a loadout from Youtube or a buddy, or just take wild guesses or the default and couldn't tell you what each power they are throwing does.

What you describe is along the lines I was thinking. A little tweak of the Loadout UI to group Powers sanely would go a long way to helping, too. For instance, for the Tank Loadout screen, a box with "Pulls", a box with "Shields", etc., and for the DPS Loadout screen, "Area Of Effect: Ranged", "Area of Effect: Point Blank", "Single Target: Ranged" etc... that sort of thing.

As it is, the thing's just a monolithic mass of icons that hasn't been touched since they dispensed with the "Trees" concept - which, ironically enough, made it easier to select your Powers for synergy and purpose.

As for whether it's encouraging or discouraging, I suppose that would depend on the individual. Removing choice will push some people in one direction, others in another; An important part of game design, though, is not to *make* people do things, or remove options to railroad them. It's almost always better to give a choice, and an incentive for effort - and that incentive has to be worthwhile (and have value for people that end up not going down that path, too). So the rewards for completing the Tutorials would have to be a big enough consideration to entice players to go down a route that a lot of people view as The Dark Side (or, at best, The Weak Side / The Confusing Side), but still be valuable enough to people that don't find it to their taste to at least look at it.

The descriptions could be better, but they are there already and not read today. You can't make someone who is actively avoiding learning...learn something. Which BTW... I'm fine with. If they want to make the pew-pew-pew noise, that's fine. Just don't queue them as heal in my run if that's what they want.

Oh god yes, so much THIS. I'm not sure that they're even in the order they were unlocked, because the order changes when I switch from DPS to [support role]. They're just sort of random. Maybe have tabs for Shield, Heal, AoE, Interrupt, etc., so when you're looking for (for example) a multi-target attack, you can tab over to AoE, rather than trying to decipher a bunch of cryptic icons or having to look at every single power every time you want to swap out a power. Could even have Iconic powers in a separate tab.

Maybe even have an option to sort by SP cost or by duration.

They would have a choice. Run the tutorial or you can't queue as a role. Are you ok with the fact you can't 'choose' to not run the artifacts run before you can buy catalysts? Or run the Allies run before you can buy them from Cyborg? And those are things you HAVE to pretty much have nowadays...as DPS or Role.

And again, I'd say you can ALWAYS go into the role via 'switch role', build an armory, do a 'battle' build...whatever. You just can't queue up in a random raid (or alert where someone has 'role optional' off) run till you do the tutorial. The 'reward' is a more complete character and more ability to add value to the team and get into more runs. I suppose if you want to put some SM or Nth or ally favor at the end of it, a trophy or title...sure. Go ahead. But we aren't talking about something that should add a ton of time unless you are really not understanding what to do...in which case, do you really want those people queueing in as role?

BTW...there is a 230+ page thread on how 'some' options being removed is 'good for the game' and having some choices is a bad thing. I'd say this is also 'good for the game' in the long run, and long overdue.

Sorry, but for me "You can't do this" is not a choice. It's the removal of choice. Similarly, so is "You must do this". I don't want to run the Tutorials you describe more than once for all of my Characters. It's the reason that we have "Skip Tutorial" for new Characters.

There's also nothing to stop people blind-queueing as a Tank if they have completed the Tutorial, but stil have no intention of Tanking when they get in content (and that's what some people would do, if it became a requirement). It's a fix that hopes to fix something, but probably doesn't, whilst blocking people from actually experimenting in content.

You can't control other people. Your best hope is to convince them to do something. Blocking people from queueing is just too arbitrary and draconian, and probably wouldn't work, in my opinion .

No. No tutorial will MAKE anyone run as tank if they queue as tank. You are correct on that. However, I think there are far more people who are green enough to not have any idea, and might not even know that selecting that role means more than likely no other player will fill that role, especially in EEG/Omni where the issue happens the most.

Sorry, but I haven't volunteered to be in anyone else's experiment. Form a group for that stuff. And as I've said several times. I'm not suggesting locking off the abillity to change to the role...just queue it. You can experiment to your hearts content in Solos, duos, alerts(where 'role optional' is off) and OW. Heck you can even do it in a raid...just use 'switch role'...but if your experiment fails, the person who queued as that role can take over.

I'd go for a 0 star feat for each role type that you can unlock if you've run the tutorial on an alt. But if some 'reward' was added as you said before, it would seem that it would be an easy run for someone that already knew what to do. Personally I'd probably run it on every alt and collect the loot...same as I ran it on every alt for Artis and Allies and the HOL tour.

But, as we are at opposing views on this, I'll agree to disagree then. As far as I know, they have no intention of a tutorial, much less one that would be a gate...so sounds like people can keep on experimenting and figuring out they have no idea what they are doing....in everyone else's run. Much success.

I rest my case. People will run it no matter what if the reward is meaningful. And some of the people that do might find something there for them to take further. Some SM and some (salvageable) Role Gear isn't going to break the game or be detrimental if you get to run it once, and everyone can use them in some manner. Hell, it could be repeatable, for practice, if it only granted rewards once.

Anyway, yes - it seems we have similar thoughts, but differing approaches/attitudes. Such is life .