So a common theme for newbies who leave seems to be that they're bombarded with stimuli that they were in no way prepared for. Even just experiencing things vicariously through someone who was apart of my gaming community, but was new to Planetside 2, was painful in and of itself. Because unlike most FPS games, where most mechanics carry over, there is a lot of meta that is unique to Planetside 2 and can easily overwhelm the player. Hell, it's overwhelming trying to explain it while you're actually trying to play yourself. What this game truly needs is a way to bridge this knowledge gap in a graceful way. Integrated tutorials need to be made a priority, access to in-game tutorial videos made available, better tools for squad/platoon leaders, and even a section in these forums purely devoted to Newbie help & discussion(above the announcements section). I make this topic in hopes of starting this discussion again and seeing what ideas come up for how both devs and old players can help newbies. We were all a newbie, at some point.
A very large part of PS2's issues when it comes to a new player experience directly involves the sheer scale of the game, IE the number of people in fights. Even for people who have some FPS background it can be overwhelming, sadly when it comes to this there isn't much that can be done. That said I do think the new player experience needs a bit more work.
There's nothing we can do about the scale, but that's pretty much their main marketing gimmick and it's personally not what I found overwhelming way back in my own newbie days. What got me is being blasted with a lot of information and not knowing what was important. I tried taking it all in instead of focusing. I got frustrated in random battles when they ended, moved, or escalated seemingly at random. It wasn't until I joined my first squad and got lucky with an amazing squad leader that I got focus and found out I could help. How battles flowed, player meta, and what to do. But everyone was still learning when I started. So the atmosphere, the community, was more conducive to learning. Things were also a bit simpler and a lot of new weapons, vehicles, meta, and mechanics developed slowly over time as I played. A fresh newbie on the other hand is being blasted with more information than I was and is dealing with a far more jaded community. One that now has more BR requirements and even some contempt for new players.
