Completely understand why new players quit early

I have a BR 60 TR that I usually play as LA on the EU servers. I decided to create a toon on the US East Coast server as they are 5 hours behind us and I can play during the quiet hours on the EU servers.

Started off as a BR 1 TR LA as I'm confident playing that class. After a few hours, deleted that toon and decided to just play the EU server toons.

Why ?

Lost count of the number of deaths I had, and not a single kill for me. I went down faster than a house brick in water. Can't blame the connection or the ping, had Good connection and a 72 m/s ping which is darned good from EU to US East. Even though I'm used to dying and am great friends with the respawn points, I was getting more and more frustrated. Couldn't hit a barn if I was standing inside it, and even if I thought I'd practically emptied a clip of ammo into the back of an enemy, I wasn't getting the appropriate amount of hit registers and usually the said enemy would turn, kneel, aim, fire and Headshot, usually during my reload. When the death screen came up, I had hardly even touched his shield, let alone his HP.

Even as a relatively experienced TR LA player, I found it so frustrating that after a few hours I just couldn't bear continuing with that toon. Deleted him and logged out in frustration. But, NOW I understand why the game is in decline and hardly any new players are joining, let alone staying.

I thought of my experience as from a new player's perspective and I was not a happy bunny, even knowing what to expect. If we want new players, and more importantly, KEEP them, I think the devs need to take a long, hard look at what is happening.

Just thought I'd post this for information and to show that I really did try for those several hours, I really did, but in the end it just wasn't worth it.

What were you missing on LA that was stopping you from getting kills??

So... you're complaining because you think players can't compete without lots of upgrades? Not judging, just trying to understand your post.

Infantry are already less affected by the cert wall difference and yet many people still find it rather hard to cope with.

Now imagine new players who decide to try MAX or god help them, vehicles.

Fellas, you miss the point. I'm looking at it from a new player's experience, and that experience isn't very good. Even though I had a very good idea how to play the game and the LA class in particular, the first few hours were enough to make me not want to continue, in fact I'm surprised I lasted a few hours.

A new player coming in to the game would go through that experience and eventually think, " wow!, bugger this.." and quit, as I'm sure we all know happens.

The New Player experience of this game is one of continued frustration. It's not about upgrades, it's the game beginnings that eventually put people off as they feel they can't progress and die too often and too easily.

I just wanted to see for myself what it would be like starting anew on a new server, right from the very beginnings, and that experience showed me exactly why new players hardly last long playing the game. Please! try it some time on a new server with a scratch toon and see for yourself, it's not pleasant.

I have no idea what you're talking about.
I have 2 character slots that I delete and remake just for giggles, I give them stupid names play for an hour or two, and delete them. The only thing that trips me up is the lack of medkits, which is always my first purchase, once I have those back I'm just as effective as I am on my Br100 character.

I don't get anything from this post. No specifics of what makes it so hard for new players. Only specific thing mentioned was hit detection which has nothing to do with time played.

This does not make sense. If, as you say, it's not about upgrades and it's also not about experience, then what exactly is the difference between someone that starts playing for the first time and someone that has been playing for a while?

I have started chars from the other factions on a different server and I am doing fine with them. So how is your experience not a simple case of having a bad day?

I did something similar. I have a BR94 and a few others around BR40 on Miller.
Woke up at 4 in the middle of the night and decided to try Emerald as Miller was empty.
My ping was around 140.

After about an hour and a half, i had a KD of 8.4.
(KD is silly, but should give a general impression of how things went)
I had the first two ranks in nanoweave and 1x on the default weapon with no attachments.

New player experience sucks, but not because they dont have things upgraded.
Its more likely they know nothing of the game and get outplayed by people with 100+ hours worth of experience, situational awareness, decision making and knowledge of mechanics.

How do you make it less annoying for new players? No idea.

OP, you need to tell us WHY the new player experience sucks. You can't just say "it's bad, do something".

Being a new player sucks. Being a LA sucks even more because LA sucks in general (imo). You have to invest in jump jets, armour meds, granades, C4 ... There are much better classes to start and harvest certs to start with. Oh, i have 9 char slots on my account, I know about star up on a new faction. I didn't own that many NS weapons.

As a new player allow me to inform you as to why they might quit.

After the first 4 hours or so I was all but ready to quit, and I might have if I wasn't determined to figure out the game and enjoy myself.

My biggest frustration was exactly as the OP said. It seemed like I would empty my clip into a guy (I wasn't killed by him in the first few shots of return fire) without doing any damage. (This with an average of 40 FPS. I can't tell you what my ping was, though on most games it tends to sit around 70-80.

After seeing the cost of weapons, my very SLOWLY increasing certs, I decided the game was completely pay to win with minimal chance of getting ahead without spending the rest of my life trying to grind a new weapon. I understand they are out to make money. But I prefer to enjoy the game, and then spend a little money to enhance the experience as opposed to spending money to make the game a LITTLE enjoyable in the first place.

I can't claim to be very good, but I am a decent FPS player and I found the experience EXTREMELY unpleasant. I am slowly starting to get the flow of the game and playing a little better, but it should take someone over 10 hours to START to enjoy your game.

(As with other games, I am now pursuing the forums in order to learn more about the game and hopefully play better.)

Lord Pirouette

Getting new players has never been the problem its keeping them past BR 8-20 thats the issue.

This is why I generally don't play on my lower level NC and VS alts. I'm BR 90. I have all my stuff tricked out and upgraded. Attempting to play the game without all the little boosts and gadgets I've earned is just an exercise in frustration.

Playing LA? Welp, I don't have C4 or maxed out jump jets. Screw that.
How about Infiltrator? I'm stuck with the default sniper rifles, no SMG, and my cloak burns out in a matter of seconds. No thank you.
Medic maybe? No one wants to be rezzed by a medic that doesn't have a maxed Med tool. And no revive grenades either. Nope.
Engineer must be decent? Again, no maxed out tool. No mines. No AV turret. Blah.
Heavy Assault then? Actually, HA isn't that bad. You get a decent LMG, rockets, and shield right off the bat.

And vehicles? Vehicles are right out. Stock ESF's shouldn't be used for anything other than fast disposable transport. Stock tanks will be utterly annihilated by upgraded tanks with AP turrets, secondaries, and special abilities. Sunderers get slaughtered without blockade armor or the shield and are pointless without ammo or repair upgrades. Stock Harassers and Valkyries should never see the light of day.

So really, every new player should start out as a Heavy Assault if they don't want to be frustrated to the point of quitting.

It's okay. Not everyone can handle Emerald.

Also as a new player your options are very limited. You don't have C4, medkits, or any of the other things that let you adapt to a situation.

I remember a few people suggesting have a few "demo" loadouts. Loadouts that have things unlocked but you can't change them. I think having the locked loadout slots (the ones you unlock with BR) as those and they go away as you gain BRs.

Were these targets heavies? or were they something else?

New players need to understand that a new weapon isn't better than their starter weapons, it's just slightly different.

I have brought a lot of new people into this game over the years. None have stuck around for long. They quit for many reasons. The most common being difficulty in finding good fights that aren't vehicle spammed with cheesy OHK hits on infantry or uber zerged. When you have redeployside at its worst and outfits that actually pride themselves in doing 80% zone pop caps while trash talking in yell chat you end up with a game that just doesn't have much new player retention. They log in a few times and the lack of a single non-vehicle spammed or pop zerged fight just makes them log out and play something else. Not a single one (of over 10 people) quit over C4 being too strong. They quit because an entirely PvP based game failed to deliver any satisfactory PvP.

1, I have entire series of videos about how much Certs new players have to acquire before they will on equal foot with veterans in terms of equipment.
Light Assault.
Engineer
Lightning tank.
New Players experience and instant action.

2. I agree with you.
The new players experience is describe by one word. Frustration.
And only does who are stubborn or have luck to get in to good outfit will stay and play this game. The rest quit, before they reach BR8 according to developers.

They must spend resources addressing this problem. Otherwise all advertising moneys are wasted.