Ran a new player experience experiment tonight; the results!

My Dad is about as casual as a gamer as you could expect, he plays Battlefield 3 almost exclusively and for the most part relies on me to get that going. Driver updating if required or some obscure Battelog update that requires a new server plugin to download I have to handle otherwise he would be stuck and never able to play again.

So with that I decided to run a test.

Could my Dad, someone who possesses just about the bare minimum knowledge to play PC games, get into Planetside 2 and enjoy it as much as he does Battlefield 3?

I would be present through out and would offer absolutely no input to this process other than to intervene if he become completely stuck and unable to play for some reason. With that I'll try and offer a write up of his experience in getting into and playing the game to give a gauge of what a new player comes up against in this game.



Getting in the game
Well to start it was all downloaded via Steam and an account was made, this all went pretty smoothly, he has used Steam before so that part wasn't that much of a mystery to him. The account setup was relatively painless (I did Intervene here and have him create an SoE account and avoid that Pro-Sieben nonsense) and once it was downloaded he logged in and fired up the game.

Here came the first hurdle. He was hit with the 'pick your faction' and a million and one questions emerged to which I kept my mouth completely shut.

Essentially the crux of it was, he had no idea beyond the name and colour what the hell these factions where. It also was quickly apparent that he didn't actual grasp the concept of having a permanent character tied to a faction who's progress would not transfer between any future created characters. None of this was presented to him in any meaningful way.

At this phase of trying to get into Planetside 2 the game essentially seemed to be 'pick your favourite colour'. There was no real breakdown of the differences between factions, the implications of picking one over another or even just communicating that this character is for that faction only, you will have to make a whole new one if you want to play the other two.

Moving on, hurdle #2. The game then presented him with the server list. Which he quickly ascertained was akin to servers in Battlefield 3, however was completely oblivious to how picking one would then tie his character to that server. This also was my first true intervention as he was about to pick Briggs. An Australian server on the recommended list for an EU player.

Again, this could have had further explanation tied to what exactly was going on as he did look pretty hesitant here due to just not really knowing the deal with characters being tied to a server. It's also a very poorly presented list, it is just a list of names, which are each as meaningless as the next only for the recommended to show servers from other continents, which doesn't seem like a good recommendation to me.

I directed him towards the server I was playing on and off he went...



The initial reaction
Once the intro had finished he was thrown into a spawn room. Luckily it wasn't being camped, but it was in a very big battle and dozens of players were streaming out of the tubes every second. As expected when you first fire up a game, you're going to need to change a few settings to begin with, he quickly caught on a few of his accustomed controls from BF3 were not the same, so proceedeed to press ESC and change his keybinds.

Once that was completed hurdle #3 struck. He had zero clue what was going on or where to go. This was noting that he was already placed within an active battle. But there was absolutely nothing giving him clear direction on what anything meant on his UI or what his objectives were. He eventually just followed the stream of people which took him to a pitched battle between the enemy all gathered upon a hill from what to me was obviously an AMS Sunderer parked somewhere behind them.

From his perspective? this game is apparently some kind of campy version of team deathmatch. Now I'd like to say how this battle turned out past the next 2 minutes but quite prompty he was sniped and with that slammed for the first time into the map interface. I've never seen anyone look more confused.

He had never seen the map before, so there was no just a collection of hexagons and colours that he was staring pretty blankly at. Surrounding this was lots of information and strange icons etc to which he hadn't even begun to stare blankly at. It seemed very overwhelming for someone having spent 2 minutes playing the game to now have to spend 5-10 minutes having to get to grips with what is a majorly imporant part of the UI. A learning curve is to be expected sure, but that map really doesn't show clearly at all where exactly you are / you were when you died so for a completely new player is as intimidating as it is meaningless.

Thankfully there is a gigantic green button however so he pressed that and back to the spawn room he went. Running the exact same path as before, because why the hell not, surely enough within a minute he is once again sniped. To which he says he now wants to be a sniper, which is the expected reaction ^^. Hes familiar with Battlefield so after a short time he figures out there is a class selection on the spawn-map interface, picks the snipery looking one and hits the big green button.

Back into the spawn tube he goes, only now the spawn IS being camped. Half a second after leaving the shield he is killed by the HE spam. He now dies a couple of more times in similar fashion before starting to ask what the hell this game is. I keep my mouth shut, as he figures out hes safe so long as he doesn't leave the room but can see him becoming very bored of milling around a tiny area with only certain death awaiting him should he step outside. But not to worry as 5 minutes later the base flips and hes back on the spawn-map.

So that was a pretty overwhelming and confusing introduction of flashy lights and loud noises. From this I am now of the thought that this game could seriously do with some more informative tutorial to how spawning and base captures work. I also don't think throwing in new players in at the deep end helps, there is no ramp up, the learning curve isn't presented step by step you're spawned into a fight. So you either figure out in a few minutes what the hell is going on around you, how the UI works, what the objective is, what you should be doing to support that objective, why any of this is going on -OR- you sit there in a very confused state, almost seemingly knowing even less about what you should be doing just for the sheer overwhelming nature of it all.

As a side note to this to; not only that he was in a squad to begin with went completely unnoticed. What squads/platoons are in this game and the nuances of how they function was never presented. Some people had different coloured tags and there was random numbers floating around the minimap was about as much as was immediately visually presented about this; but he never once brought up the notion of being in a squad or what any of those different colours were so it was all just background noise to him.



The Second Attempt
So I intervened here as the next time he pressed the deploy button he was at a nearby base, but whilst I'm sure that enemy zerg was probably making it's way over I wasn't prepared to spend the next several hours watching him be camped over and over in a slightly different locale. I wanted to see if he could find such a fight again on his own. So I instructed him to choose his warpgate to spawn at and then left it at that.

Straight away it wasn't clear that this was some kind of home base, he could see a lot of his own team running around, vehicles appearing and leaving the odd upside down liberator. He proceeded to spend the next 5 minutes walking around in circles before telling me he was getting bored and wanted to play Battlefield 3. His interest clearly reaching it's limits I decided to start drip feeding him basic information to see if he could piece together the rest on his own.

So I pointed him towards the map. He stared at it as confused as ever, not really knowing the connotations of the different coloured areas nor where he was on that map. The new hotspot system seemed to work however, he did straight away ask if that was a fight happening. This was a double edged success however. He not only had no idea how to get there from where he didn't even know he was to begin with... but those hotspots were showing battles between the other two factions - so even if he did there was a 50/50 chance of him attempting to get to and if he made it turning up to a fight between the two other factions in which he would be completely alone.

His interest was again clearly faltering so I informed him about the instant action which had also gone completely unnoticed. To my horror he picked a Biolab being defended by none other than the NC . I knew then and there as soon as he got inside that complex a couple of times and was instantly annihilated by a scat max he would be calling for Battlefield 3 and that would be the end of Planetside 2... but my fears were misplaced as it become very quickly apparent that he not only had no idea how to get upto the Biolab, but he had no idea he should be up there at all. So that goes straight back there being no explanation of how base captures work, that there are different bases with different mechanics. As far as he was concerned he was once again thrust into a team deathmatch going on around one of the satellites, to which he had no clue was a satellite for the Biolab above.



GG!
After about 15 minutes of him getting killed by various things I asked if he wanted to knock this on the head and get back to Battlefield 3 to which he sighed relief. Not great

So that was the experience of someone completely new to Planetside 2 with limited experience in other FPS games and almost solely plays Battlefield 3. It wasn't pleasant, I'd say of the hour he played he spent maybe 5-10 minutes in combat and came out of that hour as bewildered as when he went in.

Sure there are gamers who are much more savvy when it comes to getting into this, but one thing was very apparent with the current state of Planetside 2: you have to WANT to get into this game for it to even begin to have a chance. If you're just casually trying it out you will almost certainly be turned away very quickly and I guess the battle you first spawn into plays a big role in that to; someone who could potentially have loved Planetside 2 and spent money to support the development of it may have just been thrown into a camped spawn room.



What can be done?
Well I'm sure I could have got him to grips with a lot of this game had I held his hand through just about every click for the first few hours of play. Perhaps jumped in myself and just had him tag along with me so he picks it up gradually as we go.

But that is what this game needs for an introduction/tutorial. An extremely hand held process of what everything means and how to get yourself to a fight to begin with. Perhaps even before you first spawn on a server an option to do exactly that, an offline step by step tutorial that talks you through not only the expected ultra basics of how to move around in an FPS game. But exactly how the spawn-map interface works and how to best use it; exactly what the map is all about; exactly how squads/platoons function and how to get into one; exactly how to go about capturing the different bases; some kind of overview of there being a meta game and different continents. From there a player could just be given the option of time to join the fight or want to go to the VR and practice some more and try things out.

A mentoring system would be nice for new players also, whether it be a squad that has been flagged for new players or individuals who are willing to flag themselves to spend time talking new players through the game.

I wouldn't say there is an insane learning curve to this game, once you have have a few concepts down, should you like what you see and want to continue playing you're good to go. But it's not so much a curve as a brick wall that a new player is hit with, which must turn so many away.



So it was interesting to me to see how a new player copes in this game, shines a light on how poorly presented quite a few things in this game really are - some that I didn't even think about until I seen him nearly make catastrophic mistakes like joining an Australian server.

I know the developers have a lot on their plate with the roadmap, getting the PTR going going, the ever going war of optimization... but I think the sooner the new player experience is brought up to a much higher standard the better it would be for the game in the long term.

TL;DR
Merry Easter Readers.

Very cool feedback.

The game is broken. A tutorial will not fix it, but if he wants to know wtf is happening, he should have watched the tutorial videos...

Great read! THIS is the reason why CoD/BF/Halo haters simply need to shut it!

I grew up playing Half-Life 1, Counter-Strike Beta, Tribes Demo, Quake 3 Arena, UT... playing Planetside 2 and understanding it took maybe 1 hour?

I tried CoD/BF Series/Halo, they were simple games, I hated the simplicity, but fully appreciated their FRIENDLINESS to new players.

Why is CoD the most played FPS game? Does it have a high skill cap? No, but that is what made it attractive to every player.

Planetside 2 as the OP as demonstrated is just too damn confusing for new players to FPS games.

I agree with the OP, this game will die out if it tries to please the "hardcore players." And it will die even faster if you cater it towards the "military simulator players."

Some suggestions to increase PS2's friendliness to new players:

1) The map needs to be revamped to something similar to what Higby posted.

2) Objectives need to be marked with clear and visible waypoints for SOLO players.

3) For crying out loud, make strafing left and right more GAMER friendly.

4) Introduction map, a simple intro map. With 1 outpost, and 1 large base. The player will be guided by a AI, and bots will be spawned to simulate combat whenever needed. This is where everything can be EXPLAINED.

I second what the OP has said, this game will last MUCH longer if it can be more user friendly to new players.

PS2 is in desperate need of a clearly defined, but optional tutorial. If you decide to do the tutorial, it should take you to the VR Training and run you through the basics. If you skip it, then what happens now happens.

I like how even this bigass wall of text only describes the very surface of the huge ball with the name "Problems in PS2". I bet even if your father would get through that surface he would be pushed away by the core of the ball.

Good read. I'm a little surprised how he didn't cotton onto the squads as they have more or less the same visual indicators as BF3, and base capturing could be explained as conquest or sometimes a conquest/rush hybrid.

But to be honest, if someone who played BF3 a lot had difficulties understanding and getting into the game, I'd be pretty worried. I know the first time I started out I chucked it after a coupla hours, it simply wasn't a pleasant experience for me. The only reason I came back is because I didn't have many FPSes of this style on PC, I generally kept shooters to my console and used PC for RTSs and RPGs, etc. I wanted to play BF3 but didn't have it on PC, so I gave this another shot instead, more cautiously this time, and spawning at the WG instead of a random hot drop this time, and I managed to catch on quick enough.

But yeah, if it wasn't for a combination of myself going to uni and my bro getting his own place that cut my PS3 time down to 0, I would have never come back to this game and wouldn't play it today.

EDIT: Uh, that last bit sounds like I'm saying I'd stop playing this game if I had BF3 or something. I wouldn't, I really like this game now, although I'd probably split time between BF3 and this if I had that option.

"NEW TO THE GAME? CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TUTORIAL VIDEOS"

stop being durrr.... OP is an fail for not telling dad to watch the videos, and dad is fail for being "mr i've played fps before, i don't need no stinking video tutorials"

Sorry to be mean, but everything you are asking for is already there.

Ignoring the whole gameplay aspect, I'm baffled at how bad is the character creation screen, you gotta look up in a wiki what each faction is and the server list has no ping indicator.

I'm sorry, but if he has that much experience with BF3 then he should have an idea of how to at least play this game. It's conquest on a much larger scale. And how long ago was this? They changed the beginning spawn to the warpgate awhile ago.

Excellent post!

SOE READ IT.. Learn from it....!

(then again you already should have learned from it in PS1.... )

Even if they had an ingame video talking you through it and nothing more it would be a lot better than what it is now. But it doesn't... also the point of the experiment was to not tell him anything so he experiences it as purely as a new player as possible, I only chirped up when he was completely stuck with something.

But there was no point where he said he should go look on youtube for how to play the game, from his perspective the game was going to be something that grabbed his attention or he was going back to what he already knew. It resulted in the latter.

I also don't think SoE should rely on third parties supplying such vital resources to the game as tutorials; they're always welcome of course and can always be used to explain very specific aspects of the game further but the developers should always give the absolute basics.

I'm not sure, but I don't think they're on the first page of the launcher, I think it's the most recent announcement or whatever instead, tutorials are the 2nd or 3rd slot. Not that hard to miss really.

Also, a game really shouldn't have to rely on YT vids to tell you the most basics concepts of it. That's just stupid, as the only people willing to do something like that will be people who, like OP said, really WANT to get into the game. Not people who are just trying out the game to see what it's like.

Would like to confirm this experience.

I managed to stick through it and learn the game by playing with friends that told me, piecemeal, what the **** was going on. I didn't figure out how to move in and out of biolabs until 3 weeks into the game when I finally figure out, on my own no less, what those up-arrow blinking things were (teleporter control points), and the matching teleporter modules. The game lacks any systematic introduction to the UI or general flow of battle. GU6 added "Facility Objective" to certain things that you can hover over, but they are not helpful to new players, because they do not indicate what the objects DO.

I would say, only after playing about 60 hours of the game did I finally figure out all the base capture mechanics (vehicle shields, vertical and horizontal shields, SCU shields, SCU) and sequencing. And it was with A LOT of help. Luckily, most people are kind and answer your questions. I often take the time to /w new players when they ask questions like this because I know how tough of a time I had figuring it all out.

I started playing shooters back with doom & duke nukem 3d. That's the original doom for younger readers. And I've played probably every shooter since except ps1 which slipped past me. That collective knowledge deffinately helped me get along in this game but even I got confused with my first bio lab.

But I think the free to play model is likely to attract people not like me but more people like the op's dad. Being free people are more likely to give it a go & there needs to be a very heavy handed tutorial so those new players don't get turned off by the game. Luckily I think a tutorial is on the road map.

Hell, I've played over 200 hours of the game now, I've funneled more time into this in a few months than I managed to burn in BF3 in a year, which is pretty scary come to think of it but then again I haven't had my free time divided by PC/PS3/TV/RL, only PC/RL while at uni.

But there's still stuff out there that I don't know clearly, because there's absolutely bugger all information, everything I've learnt is either through myself, or word of mouth, the game barely lifted a finger to help me out, and it still holds onto all its juicy info like a greedy expletive.

The game can be very confusing indeed.

This game is just as complicated as the average MMORPG (or more so).
MMORPGs have an hour or two worth of tutorial built into the game and this has -nothing-

I believe I'm personally responsible for driving off literally hundreds of players with my Liberator in the first month of launch. And that wasn't because the Lib was OP, but because new players weren't equipped (mentally or materially) for a threat from the air.

Excellent post on some of the challenges new players face when trying to get into the game. Good read, I hope the devs see it. I also had a hard time getting into the game but I kept at it through all the confusion. The minimap was one of my biggest challenges, it is so confusing and hard to understand!

As players we can help by for newbies and taking them in shakedown tours.