Least Friendly Game To New Players I've Encountered.

Call me crazy or elitist, but I find it very odd that players that don't understand FPS mechanics or vehicle play are even finding out about Planetside 2 in the first place. It's not exactly the biggest name title this year, especially with a release window they have to share with Halo 4, Blops 2, Assassin's Creed 3, etc.

To be honest, though, the new player intro is pretty idiotic. Even for beta players such as myself it's a bit obnoxious given that we're not even allowed the opportunity to tweak controls and settings before someone is shooting at us.

Planetside 1 also had the holographic training range where you could spend some time learning the basics of what various things did. I can understand not wanting to waste budget on this for launch, but it would be advisable to add in a later patch if revenue from SC sales can help justify it.

Steep learning curve? Really?
PS2 is not that hard to understand. The problem is that the game doesn't help you at all with learning it. That is simply bad design.

I honestly don't understand these claims that Planetside 2 has a steep learning curve - and there are many...

I didn't play planetside 1 - so I was a stranger on a strange land in beta when I logged in for the first time on PS2. Now... here's the minimap, ammo count, icons marking friendlies, all standard stuff takes all but 1 second to understand. Press ESC to have a look at keybids - all there okay - now there's these consoles, wonder what they do, oh it says press E to use okay... read what they do, got it. Instant action button!! Cool, lets press it.

Okay there's an A marker in front of me with a red square around it, red usually means bad mmkay, so lets capture that.

There... Isn't it all completely self explanatory and easy to understand?

Except when you are TR, then red means good for markers (but not for players/vehicles).

The intro is really stupid. Your graphic setting are too high, controls are wrong and you only wanted to try it out for a second? WELL **** YOU SOLDIER, NOW LISTEN UP BECAUSE I SHALL SAY THIS ONLY ONCE!

A 5 minute video intro detailing the game's basics would have been a much better intro to the game. After that just throw them at the Warp gate and they will figure the rest by themselves. Throwing clueless people in random hot-zones with unassigned settings is leaving a bad first impression on some.

While it is bad at explaining things, somethings come with just playing other FPS.

Now if you want to talk steep learning curve.....eve online is the worst even with its several hour long tutorial.

This thread again? I am going to be sort of mean, but...
Repost time.

You had every opportunity to prepare.


It's even in the bloody launcher.

Tutorial videos won't fix the fact that all new characters are dropped into a war zone without experience or orientation, and only the vaguest idea of the situation based on what they saw coming down. The base could be experiencing a few harassing cloakers to the only allied presence there is YOU. Maybe the FNG can pull a Master Chief, but most likely not.

That initial impression would do wonders better if the player spawned inside of a tube nearest to the battle they would have otherwise podded into. It's much more subtle, much safer, and gets them into if not close to their first battle. I don't know why instant action doesn't do this to begin with.

I don't think anyone here is asking for an hour of tutorials to be implemented into the start of the game. Just a bit of a better start then being thrown into a hot-spot without so much as the option to configure your keybindings or even choose a class.

Actually aside from complaining about being dropped into a warzone, yes people are complaining about the lack of tutorials ingame and lack of information. But I'm willing to bet majority of the people complaining never once spent time watching tutorial videos and other useful informational videos & posts. How do I know? Because that's how gamers are, once the launcher's done downloading, they want to jump in right away. Tutorial videos are often not used until they get first hand experience themselves.

So man up, have at it, die, kill, just remember this is a MMOFPS game, it's not your standard PvE MMO where you lose exp and levels, or have to get your corpse to get rezzed, etc.. It is OK to die. Stop worrying about your K/D ratio, stop getting mad at dying. Those that rage quit over something so small like being dropped into a warzone will likely rage quit later when they realized they're still going to die a lot even after figuring things out.

People talk about this first impression. First impression is important in PvE MMO's where you may lose the players to other thousands of PvE MMO's out there. But there aren't many MMOFPS games like planetside, and even games like BF3 and CoD don't exactly keep people's interest forever since you unlock things so fast. I would hate to see these folks attempt to play BF3 or CoD, those games are much faster paced and you WILL die before you know what you're doing.

Everything has a learning curve, the only steep learning curve here is the capture/territorial system. Yes they can use a more intuitive system ingame, but it is what it is. This game is free to play already, you aren't losing any money just trying it out, you aren't losing exp or levels, you don't lose gear. The only thing people seem to lose sometimes is their self esteem when they die, and they take it personally like they do in PvE MMO's.

If this is the least friendly PC game you've played, I would say to you: you havnt played many.

Nice distortion. That was the launcher 2 days ago. By now the tutorials don't show up in the feed any more. So its luck if a new player looks at the ad window when the picture of the tutorials are there. Also the tutorials are outdated.

As for some other posts, it is quite amazing for what the "its free so shut up" argument is used. Fanboy much?

Look, I still win.
4:33 CST.

You think PS2 is unfriendly? Try playing DOUBLE DRAGON III then tell come back and tell us how many controllers you've broken.

First of all, as far as steep learning curves go, EVE Online takes the cake a million times over. You can play that game for a year and still not know about half the features.

I agree with the OP of this thread entirely. I'd also like to point out to Tooks that the last thing anyone wants to do is watch an hour of boring *** videos that are painfully drawn out by some ********* narrator. I watched the first 2 minutes of the first video and wanted to gouge my own eyeballs out with dull spoons. That's a terrible solution.

The best solution is also the simplest solution. Lots of FPS games have this, it's not that hard, not that time-consuming, AND is optional:

BOOT CAMP!

Itty bitty little starter map, with a dude saying "this button jumps, this button crouches, this button throws grenade, etc. NOW YOU TRY!"

And maybe just a brief explanation on what those symbols on the HUD mean, objectives, how to cap, etc. It's really not that hard.

MAG was every bit as "complex" as this game (possibly more so with objectives), and yet the tutorial for MAG taught you everything you needed and took less than 5 minutes.

Sometimes I seriously think people get a sick sense of joy at slaughtering poor noobs who don't even know how to work their jetpacks or restock their grenades. That's piss-poor sportsmanship. Wouldn't you rather have a challenge? Wouldn't you rather play against people that take their first steps in this game at least having their keys bound, their kits stocked, and their heads screwed on right? Wouldn't that be more fun? If your answer is "no" then you're the type of person who enjoys beating up on parapalegics. Shame on you.

You don't want anything complex yet you are playing a game with continent wide maps, resources, capture mechanics, capture benefit mechanics, hundreds of loadout combinations for infantry and for vehicles, outfits and squads and platoons working toward common goals of advancing the map forward, flankings, counter-attacks, bombardments, logistics, strategy, and tactics on an ever changing battlefield filled with thousands of players all doing different things, fullfilling different objectives, repariing, reviving, rocketing, shooting, jetpacking, ammo dispensing, deploying, capturing, defending, attacking and ... well you get the point.

What I'm saying is that you don't know what you want. You say chess was taught to you - go teach yourself planetside. There are plenty of videos and if you watch 30 minutes of a pro's gameplay, how they use the map, where they spawn and what classes and vehicles they use when by contemplating on what you've witnessed you will learn the game.

Suggesting that they dumb the game down to make it compatible with those of lower cognitive disabilities is a horrible suggestion and you should feel bad for supporting it.

That's just wrong. First of all, the newbies get dropped into a fight, so the "vets" are hardly looking for them. Second, how exactly do you see if someone's a newbie anyway? Guy drops near you, you aim and shoot. Nothing "slaughtering poor newbs" about that.

That said, I like the Boot Camp idea. Learn the ropes, THEN get dropped into combat. +1.

No, you lose horribly.

What's that? A Getting Started button? Wonder what tab that opens.

As hardly anyone will press that button because it is eclipsed by the play button and because people expect the game to have a tutorial which by now is industry standard it doesn't matter. This is the screen new players see and no one will look for a tutorial in the launcher.