Some thoughts on creating a better new player experience, moving forward. If there's anything that's unclear during the video, or if you have some ideas on areas to improve the game with the "new player" in mind, feel free to leave those thoughts below.
Good stuff, Wrel. The last idea of having ranks of certifications give out sidegrade variants of the general idea rather than having entirely separate lines that need straight-up upgrading is particularly inspired. One thing I'd like to ask for more information on would be how this system affects vehicle weapon cert lines, such as optics, ammo capacity, reload speed, and the like. It can be rather expensive to cert into those things in their entirety, and there's a noticeable utility gap between say, a bone stock M20 Basilisk and one with thermal optics, magazine size and ammo capacity upgrades. As for other areas to improve, most of my ideas there have been contemplating the state of starter weapons. For the most part starter infantry guns seem to be good all-rounders with a few exceptions (coughGaussSAWcough), though that some have pretty awful iron sights has me wondering if there's a potential improvement to be had in default sights, or if we need to start giving out 1x reflex sights. I remember it being a big difference when I started playing and picked up a different optic for my AF-19 Mercenary, but I also found it kind of odd to have to pay for the privilege of seeing where my own bullets were going. More of my thought has been going however, to how a lack of general purpose starter ability in some areas gives new players a very distinct lack of anything they can do against certain threats. I sometimes imagine the reason a lot of new players are drawn to heavy assault is because they're the only non-MAX class to start with any sort of anti-vehicle capability, and even then the dumbfire launchers are pretty useless against all but the most suicidal air threats, leaving base turrets, single-burster MAXs, and bone stock ESFs in skies that seem to spontaneously attract much better, much better-equipped pilots to you in record time as their only anti-air defenses starting out. Engineers, meanwhile, have their AV turrets behind a high cert cost, high station cash cost paywall to gain access to them, and while you could in theory hit a plane with them it kind of depends on them being far away enough to aim that high and standing still. These are just two examples, but they're also examples that I think I have good ideas for alternative starter weapon systems in mind. I've already had a thread on an alternative default rocket launcher, which deals a bit less damage (probably not enough to OHKO infantry short of a headshot. Do rockets even have headshot multipliers?), but has a faster, radar guided projectile which follows your mouse as long as you continue to aim down sights, increasing the range that a new heavy assault can accurately hit vehicles while also giving them some margin of error to stand a chance of hitting approaching aircraft. For engineers, making the starter turret something in the heavy machine gun damage category, with the ability to point up high enough to shoot at aircraft, essentially a Basilisk on a tripod with a shield, would give engineers a bare minimum anti-vehicle capability to start with while also contributing to AA measures.
Yes please! Can't even tell you how aggravating it was to try and keep my friends playing for more than 5 minutes because of the ridiculously horrible lack of help and support for new players to make the experience better.
Instead of making a special spawn tube in the warp gate, just for new players so they can redeploy/instant action, how about we just tell them about the Redeploy and Instant action keyboard buttons. This will inform them how to redeploy/instant action normally and doesn't confuse them by making them think a spawn tube is something you use to redeploy with. I don't agree with the idea of force multipliers being weighed differently for hex population % counts. Only way I would agree with it is if the force multiplier is able to influence the capture point(s), not the entire hex. I guess they could accomplish this by have areas-of-effect around capture points. If the vehicle (force multiplier) is inside that area around the capture point then the population % could show a larger %. Certain capture points could have larger areas, or even certain spots not necessarily connected directly to the capture point, where a vehicle could influence it somehow. Large outfits should have the numbers to be able to send scout planes to determine size of force or spawn a couple players in at the base to scout and report back. I’m all for making abilities more of a progressive thing however I’m confused on why you would limit what are essentially side-grade abilities to a progression system. The way it is now, where a player can pick and choose which one they want as soon as they have the points to get it makes more sense because the abilities are side-grades and more of a choice versus a progression. Oh wow, this is a thread necro... Not by me but the person above me... lol
Go back to the old ways no tutorial right after character customization drop pod them into the biggest battle around, learning on the field is the best way to learn.
