Help us help new players!

In our ongoing quest to help new players not spend their first few hours sobbing quietly as they die frequently and traumatically, we’re working on implementing an instructional message system. This will do things like explain a vehicle’s controls on the first time you enter it, or how to use a lock-on weapon when you equip it, how to switch fire modes, etc. You’ve probably seen similar things in Battlefield, Far Cry, every RTS ever.

We don’t have any concrete details on this system to give you guys yet, but I wanted to open it up to everyone to submit suggestions for messages, since you guys know better than anyone else what a new player needs to know.


What do you wish you knew when you started out? What is something you wish more people knew? What is something you found out a year into playing the game that you really should have known already and it’s kind of embarrassing honestly that you didn’t figure it out sooner?

EDIT: If you prefer to post to reddit, the same thread is set up here.

Does your engine support embedding youtube videos and audio directly into the game environment or UI?


In the training area you can at least have places where if the player chooses they can stop and watch the instructional videos for that topic / area. This is just to add to the idea of UI tooltips and instructional messages.

How to deploy a sundy is probably the most asked question in the game
how to revive and repair should probably be put into the Tutorial
How to hack terminals as Infiltrator
Generators Need better explenations. especially AMP Station because they have so many different shiels that interact with each other. ( i had to explain a BR100 how AMP stations work and what shields deactivate what shield once...)

I concur with Klypto.

(Shameless Wrel Plug.)

• You can hold shift to steady your aim
• Repair tools can repair MAX units
• As a Medic you can revive MAX units and Infantry by holding the right mouse button
• As an Infiltrator you can hack enemy terminals which is better than destroying them
• Players in your squad can enter the driver / pilot seat when you enable the Squad-only mode
• Allied soldiers die when you hit them with your vehicle

As for the tips showing up in game, I'm all for helping new players understand the basics faster but please do make sure to give us ( the experienced players ) an option to turn it off in the settings.

While I appreciate that you (read: the guys responsible for the game's development) want to introduce such systems and want to make the game more new-player-friendly, I seriously do have to wonder as to WHY this didnt happen sooner?

This should have seriously already been implemented at the game's launch and I'm pretty sure some of us hinted at the need for this in beta.


Anyway, I guess together with the rest of forumside we will definitely find what is needed I think there should be more tutorials since the initial tutorial is somewhat lacking. It doesnt tell you how to use the map, where to find the capture points in real bases etc etc. Additionally, there should be some help for using new equipment for the first time. PS1 already had this pop-up notification/message system that always popped up when someone used something or looked at something for the very first time. I guess something like this would be useful.


Furthermore, I think that the weapon descriptions are sometimes lacking. They should tell whether the weapon is e.g. intended for close quarters or rather medium range (especially starting as NC heavy the Gauss SAW is difficult to understand as a medium range weapon at first). The benefits of using certain attachments could also be a bit more clear I think.

A reminder to use tunnels to quickly get around a base when it is being attacked along with an explanation of which tunnels lead where in the base. (Amp Station/Tech Plant)

I think that a basic explanation of the special bases (Biolabs/Amp Stations/Tech Plants) would be useful for new players so that they can get their bearings easier and join the fight. This could be explaining what the generators control and other key spots you should be aware of.

Give each new player 1,000 certs and 500 SC so they can have a taste of Planetside 2.

It has crossed my mind several times that it may be beneficial to have some sort of noob friendly starting area where they just fight each other until they get ready for the big time. It's cool to have instructional pop-ups and all that but that doesn't help with fighting more experienced and "better" geared opponents.

Oh if you want to make the game more new-player friendly:

Teach them how to counter AIR / TANK farmers, how to avoid being farmed etc.

The problem is for someone starting right into the game is that they have no way to counter lolpodders, liberators or tanks.

I don't think this particular system will support that, but it's a good idea and I'll bring it up in our next discussion meeting.

We suggested this a long time ago.... glad to see SOE is finally coming around.

I would make it first and foremost part of the VR training.. a special area for BR1-10, new players.

Instead of them choosing their loadout or vehicle, give them step by step items.
i.e. start them out as a Medic, put a dead infantry in front of them, tell them to "revive your ally"

put them in front of a ground vehicle, show them on screen what buttons to push, get in , fire, steer etc.
could be very interesting for new players to learn how to drive a Magrider.. put a moving cardboad target for them

give a sniper a moving target, show onscreen instructions

each time they "finish" a session, put another up, until they finished at least 3-4, before they are able to actually spawn in game in a warpgate..

However, this is a LOT of programming.. and it will take an awful long time.

Just ask Vrel and others to make short 2 minutes videos.. Show new players what a Warpgate looks like, what it does, where you can get what etc..
Show a 2 min video of a sundy AMS etc. ,
Most of that info is out there already.. there are videos for practically every class and weapon..
SOE could just get a researcher to go online, get permission to use part of an existing video, and put it together.. you could have that up and running in 3 weeks...

There should be a video on how to log into the Forum, (I played for over 6 months before I even found out that there is a forum)
video walk through of the personal stats pages in game, stats pages in website etc.

BRING BACK THE VEHICLE FORUM,.. if you really want to help new players, the existing players can help, but I can't even find vehicle threads anymore.. so I stopped looking for them.. this is certainly NOT helping new players

Even videos that are over a year old still have good stuff in them., even if the DPS or whatever changed since the original video was posted, that doesn't change how you aim with that weapon

There are guides and tutorials, what certs to use for what.. etc..

SOE, don't try to re-invent the wheel.. it will take too long. Use what is already out there, give credit to the people who created the original content.. Just give it a new voice over and edit some videos.. It should not be difficult.

Predetermined load outs would help new players, make them disappear at BR something or until they put X amount of certs into a class.

This would help new players out as you won't be so limited by your options in the start, new players don't have the luxury of C4 or medical kits or mines from the get go and those are vital in the game because it doesn't force you to play HA.

Unfortunately stuff like this comes down to resources. While it is ideal to say "this is important so let's do it now," we have a finite amount of people working on a finite amount of systems with a finite amount of time allotted. Something like this requires design, code, and UI work and it's very rare that all 3 have the bandwidth to work on such a thing at the same time, with the same priority. Something that sounds fairly simple can be a nightmare to work out logistically.

Create some sort of an in-game feature where beginner players can ask veterans or anyone else for advice or even an in-game tutorials/tip logs created by Planetside 2 players so new players can get useful advice 'on the fly'.

I can imagine some sort of "Veteran Tips" section that is incorporated into the main menu so new players can go look at what experienced users would suggest for them to do. Is that possible?

Edit: Marketing/Labeling this game as the "Dark Souls" of FPS games would go great lengths to help give people a good idea of what Planetside 2 is all about.

Edit Numba 2: Make a region on every continent that is only accessible to players who are Levels 1-10.

As much as I'd love to go into tanking topics; most of the stuff is better taught through experience.

With the scale of PS2, I can't imagine that most of the ideas brought up in this thread could be narrowed down to 1 digestable package for new players that encompasses infantry general / infantry classes, ground vehicle / air vehicle. I think there'd be a few core ideas to communicate then tie into seperate categories of infantry classes & A/G vehicles, along the track of what was done with the infantry questionaire.

The two ideas I'd implore that gets communicated to new players regardless if they're starting infantry / or vehicle, solor or squad, is to push the idea of attacking from multiple vectors / directions of a base within the extent that the lattice system / environment allows. And while it's an option to sit at the spawn when the chips are down until the base flips (I.E, getting spawn camped, hoping the cavalrys on its way) it's still not the most engaging gameplay than to redeploy to the nearest friendly base on the lattice and attempt to redirect enemy forces away from the cap point.

Perhaps an option to set up squad "friendly fire" in VR zones to help with training as well?
Somewhere that is not live fire, and have an impact on the world environment/stats

Launch new players out of the tutorial directly into VR training. Explain to them what the room is, what it's function is, how it works, etc. Then make sure they know where the terminal to the actual maps are, make it glow or something. Which would lead them into an explanation on how the world terminal works, brief description of each continent, etc. The VR training area would be a great place to expand the tutorial into, along with a good safe place to explain pulling vehicles, changing loadouts, etc. Planetside 1 had a decent expanded tutorial, it gave you things to do, and small rewards for doing so.

I would also recommend adding in game a sort of "Planetside Encyclopedia" which would contain an explanation of various aspects of the game, like the function of different vehicle weapons, weapon attatchments, common in game terms, etc.


And please add a "disable all tooltips" button into the general settings so that players who don't want to read all of that don't have too.

Honestly, and I'm going to be a bit blunt here.....

but I think it's really not all that complicated.

Seriously, I think gamers are losing IQ points on avg year by year.

That or most of the people have apparently never played an FPS or indeed many games at all before.

And what's with the aversion to checking keybinds in every game you play? I've always taught myself by, I dunno, looking at the actual control mapping?

/rantoff

I swear I'm a nice guy in game, but these are thoughts that go through my mind when people are asking stupid simple questions.

At the beginning i had the most problems with:

- What generators do, why they should be protected. Why are they in some bases, in others not?
- The different kinds of shields (can i fire through this, or not?)
- How to reach certain spots. Where are elevators and teleporters. I remember runnning around as infantry on ground level next to a biolab, seeing all the red dots on the minimap, but no one`s here. I think that happens a lot.
- The fact that some bases just got 1 capture point, others 3 (there should be some explaining, what kind of bases there are overall)

now i know, that you can find those things on the map. But the map is very confusing at the beginning. Some notes during the game might help.