Its not a lack of a proper tutorial, or vets plastering newbs... its the fact that new players are expecting epic sprawling battles as advertised, but instead begin on a mini continent with 24 players running around clueless with too much space.
In Daybreak's defense. Koltyr is epic sprawling battles on a massive scale.. compared to every other shooter.
However, one could make a fairly convincing argument that if bots are to be implemented into the game in any meaningful way, Koltyr is the best place for Phase 1. They would especially make it possible to expose players to things that would normally be BR locked to players on Koltyr, without exposing them to people exceptionally good at those things. As I've mentioned previously - to make it feel real and not just "Hal9000 killed you", recycle the names of cheaters permabanned for names of the bots.
really... i left this out in my OP... Koltyr was a great idea, no doubt. Just it was implemented too late to reach its potential.
As I've said in another thread that brought up tutorials it wouldn't work. This is a MMOFPS. Players are here to fight other players. Not bots. You got to get off the mindset of 'making new players feel good about themselves'. All you do is set them up for failure. In fact my opinion was that of Koltyr from the get go. You put noobs against noobs and when they 'graduate' they fight a brand new breed of player. That means they have a false impression of what the game will be like. At least when the game used to drop you in the middle of a fight, you didn't get ANY false impressions. Bots would make that experience worse. Imagine fighting bots for 15 BRs and then going to Indar and facing real people. That's going to be a jarring experience. Right now they leave because of going from newbie to vet after Koltyr. 90% leave. If you do bots then vets, it will be 99%.
Basically every MMO has both a starter area and a tutorial of some sort. But they are also mostly PvE based, so this is fine. You will lose people to the learning curve in PS2 no matter what. I think the biggest problems are: 1) Telling friend from foe in the beginning. 2) What are you there to do? This game is still bridging two disparate worlds. There isn't a blueprint for how to warm people up in this game. It's really player-dependent, and that can be an issue at times. So you either try to educate and coddle them in, or you drop them in a disaster area and shock/awe them into the world.
Fighting against bots is kind of a no from me, as well. That doesn't mean bots can't be used, though. In the warp-gate area, we can have bots that demonstrate their class abilities, like how Infiltrators can go nearly invisible, Light Assaults can cruise through the air, engineers repairing things, etc. The commander's voice can also explain the class as the player walk close to these demonstrations.
I personally think its knowing where to go that is the biggest issue. Even a vet has to think and consider it. Its like playing classic Everquest, you're level 10.. where to next? Deeper into Crushbone? Unrest? Blackburrow? You have almost a dozen choices and none of them are really right or wrong. But in EQ that was part of the charm.. could be considered the same with PS2.. by some. The strength of the game is also its main issue. That's the dichotomy of Planetside 2 Here's my take on it. Devs should leave it alone. The new player issue that is. I mean make QoL changes like the healing tool going to 6m for all ranks. That helps both newbs and vets alike. Things that make the vets happier is the key. Our attitude towards the game will rub off on the newbies. It really will. If they hear us in proxy having a grand old time, they're more likely to stay. If they hear us grumbling, they won't. And here's why I take that standpoint. The game is three years old. The number of players waiting at the bits to play the game is.. nilch. Everyone has either played, still playing, or don't want to play. We're not going to get farmville or DoTa players to come in so don't bother with that. Worry about keeping vets, paying vets like me happy. I've got a wad of cash Daybreak.. its yours if you please me. Simple as that. And I am not alone. Next up is revitalize the game (PTS currently looks promising in this direction). That keeps me happy'ish. But it brings back those who have played. That's the key, get the ones who moved on to come back. Daybreak knows how to do this. They do it with progression servers on EQ all the time. They make BANK on those servers. They make a sub fee, along with kronos being bought sold, and traded. And finally, make some freaking money from this game. Seriously.. get the Krono in PS2. Its an item used in EQ1 or 2 that grants a month of premium membership (yes it goes for all games). Allow us to trade these for certs and/or implants. Its actually pretty crazy how much money Daybreak makes off a single person with these. Some people buy enough kronos (or trade for them, either way the krono is only initially created when purchased by someone), to deck out their characters.. some items go for 2, 3, or even 7 kronos each. If you figure someone used 15 kronos to gear up, that's $269 in Daybreak's pocket. Now apply that to PS2. Imagine if the going rate for kronos to certs is about 2500 certs. Someone wants to get 10,000 certs right away for a new character they made. They buy 4 kronos and trade them for the certs. Daybreak just made 72 bucks. And now that player is vested in that character.. maybe likely to buy cosmetics and the like. That can add up big over time. And it has the side effect of getting new players who look into it, a big leg up. Sure they get 1500 for 15 BRs. But imagine if they get that and 5000 or more certs? They're going to have all the tools they need right off the bat. And will be having fun at the same time. For the price of a typical AAA title. Vets with certs laying around can use them to get membership (I'd recommend adding more benefits to it to entice more of this). Newer players can get ahead. And Daybreak gets paid. I've said it before.. win win win situation. Everyone's happy.
