How do we improve the new player experience?

[ZiFFeR]

I ve played about 100 games since the 90s on RU.  Honestly the players on here are just too good for new people and unfortunately not very welcoming. 

I get it people don’t have unlimited time to play and having a new player on your team pretty much ensures you are going to lose. 

It’s almost like you need a surge of new players who can have their own channel and play against each other.  The skill gap Is high on here.  I know the basics and understand the game pretty well and even I find it hard to play on RU. 

Also since you are making updates to the game I have a suggestion  ( might not be possible) is to change the mini map in game.  The complete black fog of war makes it tough for new players.  Also I think having something similar to Starcraft 2’s mini map would encourage more map variety instead of just GOW.   Make it so you can see the map from the start of the game perhaps a lighter shade of grey and once explored it lightens up even more. 

Figured I would share my opinion since I am probably the type of person this post is about.

[~ToRa~]

I would say that if someone is brand new. It’s probably better to just send them to play on Babyshark’s USA server.

RU player base isn’t intrested in playing with new players. Once they gain some measure of skill on the USA server they can come back to RU to challenge their skills to get better.

[Nox]

New players need to reconize wich games they are joining…

The problem is the way players are dealing with this.

News join pro games and we dont wanna boot them because we wanna let them learn.

And sometime its even worst we let them play.

The fact is, it's destroying the games for everyone, pro players and new players..

Those new players who join pro players games should stay on channel untill more newb want to play…

If 4 newbs are in pro players games its 4 newbs less for newbe games.

So a match making would be great but if it's too much work there also another ez option.

Peoples write in there title what type of games it is, NEW, GOOD, PRO….

But most of them dont do it…

So here another option, you guys could make a new folder name (new players maps )in map creation, you can past all the actual maps inside it, and you probably can make a special logo to that folder, so when people create those map, people who join the lobby to see wich game are created can see that logo and know that game are is level.

[Goodfaun]

new players kinda just need to learn the game, the new players have to be willing to improve their own experience

but do try and help them learn the game. have them make replays of their games and watch for their mistakes and see how the pro players play the game. and try to be aware if a new player joins the game and suggest them to watch a game or if you have time teach them some trick/tips. pro players need to tolerate having newbs and newbs need to tolerate getting their ass kicked. and if they lose tell them what they did wrong. didn't wall in when they saw the orge rush in or maybe they turtled up when they should have gone and scouted with footies/grunts. did they get towered rush and just panic instead of trying to build towers and hold off the towers until they got a cat out. maybe they don't have the right build order.

be nice and give nice words of encouragement. its just a game, play and have fun.

[~ToRa~]

new players kinda just need to learn the game, the new players have to be willing to improve their own experience

Yeah that’s the thing isn’t it. If don’t think someone is trying to learn I lose interest in playing with them.

[$hazm]

 It's funny cause I've been testing out my war2 mod on war3 custom games as I go and implement new features and the players there pick it up crazy fast. On time I was 9 and the noob was 11 and I ot'ed him and he defended pretty good. I managed to finish his base off and kill him and thought the game was over, next thing I know he has towered the bottom of 9 and is killing my base. I was not expecting it and luckily had just enough res left over to expand to 11 and lost my base at 9. This was the guys first experience at war2 and he had no idea what he was doing. Pretty much every game I've had the opponent put up a good fight for a noob

If you want more players you should should maybe target your recruitment a little better. Also the idea of making fog of war transparent so you can see the terrain beneath it is not a bad one if you can manage it. It won't help players who know the map, but it will make it way easier for new players to pick it up.

[Harrywangs]

For years, I have played with noobs and offered 1v1s to teach them and spent hours doing it. I even tell them to add me to their /F L and msg me when they are on next. Mikeballs is one of them, who seems to have been playing a bit for the last few months. Chubs or something like that was another but seemed to only last a month. Also, if they make smurfs themselves, that just hurts them. It is also discouraging to spend so much time with them to just have them quit.

Kudos to TK and Burnt for helping new people that I've seen. I'm sure others do too. That, in my opinion, is what an admin should do.

The problem is, and I'm gonna EQ it here, most people are fucking morons. Stubborn and lack common sense. If a brand new player comes on and joins a game, it's pretty simple.

Option 1: If it is a 4v4, put the best 3 players with the noob to balance teams. Most times, not all, this is a viable choice.

Option 2: If it is NOT a 4v4, just play uneven teams. Play 3v4 or 2v3 and let the guy build and do his own thing. Don't destroy him asap if you don't have to. He will most likely not effect the game at all and if he gets to the point where he can, then maybe he can start playing.

Option 3: Have them watch, tell them how, and give them a chance at least. Make sure they are responding. If they aren't, they will probably build.

Common hosts just boot them, which is the problem. The next problem is, and I will relate to the hosts on this, smurfing. People smurf, say they are new, then rape someone, which is another reason smurfs are kicked.

[wHATever]

i have an idea
i shall become a warcraft 2 youtube with a goal for twitch viability
i have spent some time with 2 top tier sc2 streamers who clip and post to youtube
and also been giving my twitch prime to a non meta masters sc2 player
perhaps a future goal, a podcast, start it like the old bizatch (think it was him) who had alot of guys fill out interview question and posted them all, type interviews, perhaps the piolit episode would be a war2 retrospectrive
wouldnt it be cool to also advance to where the podcast had a community and game patches to talk about!
or atleast make videos to the former
i also have other idea for videos, again simple yet needed, again just pasting content format to address war2.
i see im logged on one of my smurfs
i play sc2 on this name i think
who do you think i am?
do you have faith in me?
this is good shit.
do you support this proposal?
do you know what a time sink this could be?
is it viable?
ill tell you who i am whenever i come back to check the thread.
let me ask you, what do you think of the current state of the current game, implimented features good/bad, ive never seen a patch whenever ive logged in myself. with things that have been in new builds of the game download ie music {FUCKKS SAKE FINALLY| , isnt pink hack now standard, hosting issues fixed i think? latency/conflict issues? etc..
gl hf 
here is aclue to who i am
I am a Killer  

[Cel]

To help balancing games around it would also be nice to have a function or a command in lobby to check the current balance of the lobby 

Basically checking every player ELO in the lobby summing them up per team and giving an indice of the current balance in chat basically just a difference would suffice I guess.
That could help players and hosts balance teams and prevent them mad stacks that people end up leaving after 2 3 minutes...

As a host I know I would like having a tool like that in my lobbies to help me make games fair faster because sometimes it is just too hard to keep track of who is who and even when trying to do our best that would be a quicker way to check meaning we can hit that start button faster without having to check the peeps we don't know manually every time.

Also I do believe that is one of the reason people boot new players from their game because they don't want to bother manually checking etc...

That would be helpful not only for new players but for everyone since we do not have a proper match making that would be one way to get games going faster.

Was just thinking about that the other day, many things can still be done to improve yup.

Priority imo  would still be to focus on minimizing the waiting time though but yeah...

There you go another idea for you

[Shotgun]

If you are serious around wanting new people to stay you probably need to give them their own ladder, even fixing the in game ladder as they most likely dont even know about ladder.war2.ru. I think it would really help if people only have one account also. I kick anyone name I don't know out of my matches because I don't want them to build or lag and fuck it up.

[Shotgun]

You can't balance games, playing with people who are new and blow simply isn't fun. Maybe advertise the twitches of good players more so newbies can go and see how they build, it's not a complex game. Also fix war2 tv

[Nox]

[Cel]

You can't balance games, playing with people who are new and blow simply isn't fun.

You would be surprised how fun it can be to play with new players sometimes:

Even decent players make pretty horrible mistakes but man this is still gold to watch
https://www.twitch.tv/trogallart/clip/ResolutePolishedSnailLitFam

Playing with archers because there is a new guy in the enemy team as well as in our team also makes sure we put something on the  map that new players can deal with easily.
https://www.twitch.tv/trogallart/clip/CautiousEnjoyableBananaSoonerLater

Also a good moment to experiment some fun army compositions that would not work against stronger fows
https://www.twitch.tv/trogallart/clip/FlaccidMiniatureWatermelonSaltBae

If we had elo of players in lobby would be much easier to balance smurfs are not a big deal because after like 10 games their elo reflects their level pretty decently anyways especially if people start to take elo into consideration when making teams.

Now if you really do not want new players in your games you can always host private games most of them wont even try to get in and if they do well this is a private lobby it is not like they will expect not to be shown the door

[Nox]

fun for you! Not for pro!

Like sg say newb need to have ther own challenges, there no fun for them to get crush inside of 3-4 minutes and there no fun for us to do that…

They need to have a better experience then just log on and get crush.

[Cel]

People that want to play games very seriously with people their level can always host private games no one forces them to play with new players.

Also no matter how good a new player becomes if you never play with him he will never get to the level you want players in your games to be.
Except he might because less selfish players than you, who actually care about the game like u8 will stream and actually will take on their time to help them improve, even going so far as playing some games with them occasionally.

I have seen many players ask u8 for 1v1 and unless he is busy he will almost always accept even if the guy asking is completely new.

Also stop talking about "Pro" and shitting with your butt higher than your head this is ridiculous no one can earn a living out of this game, war2 has under 500 active players.
There is nothing admirable to being good at a deserted game if you are being a dick about it. If you feel proud about yourself when you win at war2 in 2020 and that is all you have for yourself, I am sorry about you I really am...

See the thing I respect about u8, viet and these guys is yes they are good at war2 but most importantly they have a good time playing it and are polite, nice, and respectful to others no matter who they may be and how good at war2 they may be.

Ah yes sure u8 has edited his MPQ well I still rather have a guy like u8 around that always is nice with people and is having a good time typing fun stuff in chat and laughing when he fails or when his partner fails miserably with his own micro rather than people who run their mouth but never actually have an once of positivity.

I mean why the heck would you still comeback to a game that makes you so freaking salty and unhappy stop hurting yourself war2 is a game not a job there is nothing professional about it...
If you cant laugh at yourself or at your teamates when you or they fail miserably and if all you take out of that is frustration always being mad I do not understand why you would keep playing clearly you are wasting your time imo.