Beginners! Beginners!! Beginners!!!

As we all love Xonotic, do we still know how it feels like when you're new?
Like - completely new? Do we? I think we need to really feel this.

Player joins the match.
*Boom! Headshot!
*Boom! Rocket!
Player respawns.
*Boom! Rocket!
*Boom! Headshot!
Player respawns.
*Boom! Lasers and who-knows-what, he never played this game before so he doesn't know!
Player respawns once more, shoots at a wall and get gibbed by something that just appeared out of freaking nowhere.
Player quits.

Learning curve is rather steep,
When you're among wolves - just a %$#& harmless sheep.

Like Steve Ballmer have been shouting:
Developers! Developers!! Developers!!!
I'll be yelling:
Beginners! Beginners!! Beginners!!!

I think we need to take good care about newcomers to the Xonotic world. There are plenty of people who miss old Quake times, and who can't understand why new games are so dull and slow. Also - there are young people who get excited about this after watching some videos, so they come, download and join a game...

We need to greet them with a cup of tea, not a cup of poison!

I know we have a great and open comunnity, that can show it's care for new players.
Maybe we should take some actions to make learing Xonotic easier for everybody?
So we won't be an all alone, old bunch of oldies sitting here in a few years? If we'll manage to enjoy ourselves enough Really - let's show some love for the new people.

I've played a few games recently after a long break.

I met a few of new players on the DCC's Beginners server - I usually greeted them ("Hi, Player! Are you a beginner?") and tried to be helpful. When I'm on that server (I usually get there to have a nice chillout game, with more chatting than shooting) I always try to keep in my mind, that "this place is a safe house for new players - I can't be mercilessly beating them here, or they'll never learn this game to enjoy it." So I try to be helpful, to see what skill level everyone is at - to not shoot the slow, clumsy ones, to make it more like playing footbal with little children - you don't rush all in to win, but let the kid beat you, so he can enjoy it and learn

I'm not sure if everyone keeps that in mind - sometimes I feel like other players are so hungry for victory, they'd stab a kid just to get a frag! (I'm largely exagerating, but you get the idea).

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with this? What can we do? Should we do it?

Yes!

I blame the capitalist physics and default balance! They too free, they need iron fist!

Now I guess I can call myself an experienced player, given I've been around Nexuiz / Xonotic for what... 7 years now? Sadly, the default balance and physics are so strange that even I don't know when some players might be cheating / hacking. Why so? Well, a match is usually going nicely until a new person suddenly joins. Said player immediately begins making dozens of frags in a row, hitting anyone without ever missing a shot. That happens as they fly around the map at super-sonic speeds, almost never seen traveling at a reasonable velocity during the entire match. When I ask "how does that happen", I'm often told "the person has some super unique skills or was born with a god given talent to play Xonotic". Since I often find it hard to buy that, I disbelieve that especially with a keyboard and mouse (or any gamepad) this is possible without an aim / strafe bot. For this reason, I often avoid playing online to not run into controversies or accuse innocent players of cheating.

Now talk about changing the default settings existed for ages. I'd only be opening up the same old can of worms to say "use a more classic health / armor system", and especially "decrease that air acceleration". Besides... my new Xonotic based mod will have slow classic balance and movement, and shall remove this problem when it will be ready.

If I can recommend something else to help beginners however, I suggest a skill advising system. Quake Live has this, and it makes sure players always fight someone of their own level. What happens is that the performance of each player is recorded, and a skill number is generated based on it. Players can then filter the server list to only list servers containing players close enough to their skill level. We could use the stats server to do this; Have the menu server list compare the wins and losses of players on each server with own wins / losses, in order to recommend that server or suggest avoiding it. Or, optionally allow servers to restrict themselves to certain skill ranges only. Anyone else supports adding this feature?

If I can recommend something else to help beginners however, I suggest a skill advising system. Quake Live has this, and it makes sure players always fight someone of their own level. What happens is that the performance of each player is recorded, and a skill number is generated based on it. Players can then filter the server list to only list servers containing players close enough to their skill level. We could use the stats server to do this; Have the menu server list compare the wins and losses of players on each server with own wins / losses, in order to recommend that server or suggest avoiding it. Or, optionally allow servers to restrict themselves to certain skill ranges only. Anyone else supports adding this feature?

I believe playrs get ELO ratings online - so implementing a feature that would suggest a match to join shoudn't be too far away.

I'm not sure about the balance, but I think your mod is going to be the best way to see and try it. Overkill also has some nice balance changes (despite minstanex for everyone) - the air control is much dampened and might be the way to go.

Once you're mod is playable, we can simple watch if new players prefer to play it that standard Xonotic.

However, such a drastic change can make lots of old players angry. So we might need to do this carefully or slowly grading, with no chocking changes in one update, that makes almost everything they learned useless. Tough aspect.

As we all love Xonotic, do we still know how it feels like when you're new?
Like - completely new? Do we? I think we need to really feel this.

I do, I remember playing nimbuz 30-0 to him conscientiously and actually enjoying it, frustrating and hard but also a *lot* of fun.

Player joins the match.
*Boom! Headshot!
*Boom! Rocket!
Player respawns.
*Boom! Rocket!
*Boom! Headshot!
Player respawns.
*Boom! Lasers and who-knows-what, he never played this game before so he doesn't know!
Player respawns once more, shoots at a wall and get gibbed by something that just appeared out of freaking nowhere.
Player quits.

Presuming this is a public FFA match, yes, public FFA is inherently bad. Yes it works when you play with people in almost same skill level, but that rarely happens. For public play the vanilla modes that works are CTF and CA. Pub CTF is self-proven since it have been very popular in the past, CA is proven by looking at QL, CPMA, Warsow etc. lots of casuals and experienced players in same matches.

Learning curve is rather steep,
When you're among wolves - just a %$#& harmless sheep.

Yes, and this is doesn't have to be a bad thing. Call of Duty has a rather steep leveling curve as well, except here you level skill and not imaginary points.

Like Steve Ballmer have been shouting:
Developers! Developers!! Developers!!!
I'll be yelling:
Beginners! Beginners!! Beginners!!!

I think we need to take good care about newcomers to the Xonotic world. There are plenty of people who miss old Quake times, and who can't understand why new games are so dull and slow. Also - there are young people who get excited about this after watching some videos, so they come, download and join a game...

We need to greet them with a cup of tea, not a cup of poison!

I know we have a great and open comunnity, that can show it's care for new players.
Maybe we should take some actions to make learing Xonotic easier for everybody?
So we won't be an all alone, old bunch of oldies sitting here in a few years? If we'll manage to enjoy ourselves enough Really - let's show some love for the new people.

The problem is, making it easier to learn Xonotic is not possible as long as people don't play Xonotic but mods. Mods like Vehicle and Overkill actually provide some transition from casual FPS (Cod/BF/etc) to the arena shooter genre (although I would prefer these to be pub CTF and CA). The big issue is freaking minsta, yes people enjoy minsta and that's ok, but it becomes problematic when its the default online gameplay for new people.

I've played a few games recently after a long break.

I met a few of new players on the DCC's Beginners server - I usually greeted them ("Hi, Player! Are you a beginner?") and tried to be helpful. When I'm on that server (I usually get there to have a nice chillout game, with more chatting than shooting) I always try to keep in my mind, that "this place is a safe house for new players - I can't be mercilessly beating them here, or they'll never learn this game to enjoy it." So I try to be helpful, to see what skill level everyone is at - to not shoot the slow, clumsy ones, to make it more like playing footbal with little children - you don't rush all in to win, but let the kid beat you, so he can enjoy it and learn

I'm not sure if everyone keeps that in mind - sometimes I feel like other players are so hungry for victory, they'd stab a kid just to get a frag! (I'm largely exagerating, but you get the idea).

Well if someone joins "Beginners"-tagged server and pwns everyone he should be banned, problem solved. When I started get the hang of duels I started teaching (to some extent at least) people I saw most frequently joining public servers. Probably not only because of that but now most of them are well established players and have since then been around for a long time. Unfortunately this is not a realistic solution (e.i. teach all new players by hand), some sort of way to guide them to Halogene's tutorial(s) is needed.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with this? What can we do? Should we do it?

Idk tbh, my ideal dream would be that pretty-easy modes like CTF and CA where you can contribute to your team without being a pro would be more popular, if just 2 servers of each mode had a couple of players instead of yes 2 full mod servers. This would let new players actually play Xonotic when they starting out.

I think that an in-game "path of education" including a stint of step-by-step tutorials on basics of FPS in general and Xonotic-exotic-unique stuff, that the new players could take plus a built-in IRC client with help online (ask us anything!).

Also if a bade system would be accomplished, players could get a "medal" after finishing the training course.

This should by no means be mandatory to just hop in a and frag, but for newcomers it would provide some organized way of getting to know the basic things needed to enjoy the game.
Some people said they hate the "go here" tags in games (some laugh at this in videos like Call of Dooty), but they just don't have to go this way - however some new players could be really happy about that.

I think this always is a way of saying to new players "we care about you, and we want you to enjoy the game". I know others prefer to never read the manual and figure out stuff by trial-and-error.

However when there's no progress and frustration kick in, going through this in-game tutorial could provide some satisfaction - the freedom is highly limited there, but it also makes you hungry for the real thing.

I could help with writing this stuff and recording a quality voice-over track that'll lead the player through.

Maybe we should make a public poll on the main page, to ask newcomers what they need to enjoy the game better?

The only thing that's needed is making use of the elo. Show it in-game and make it available to server admins to setup the server to only allow players within a chosen elo range. The rest will take care of itself automatically - we'll get servers catering to specific skill groups and everyone will be happier. Such systems work well in other games (e.g. Trackmania).

I'm not a beginner, but I'm far from being pro, and despite my love for Quake and UT, I mostly stopped playing Xonotic because of the pro players joining the game and smacking everybody around. This is just not fun. Sometimes it looks as if some people are stalking the server list looking for any game that has players in order to join & make the others miserable.

(Ofc there will be people cheating the elo system to be able to keep "pwning n00bs", but I guess those will be a minority and can be dealt on a per case basis.)

Well, a match is usually going nicely until a new person suddenly joins. Said player immediately begins making dozens of frags in a row, hitting anyone without ever missing a shot. That happens as they fly around the map at super-sonic speeds, almost never seen traveling at a reasonable velocity during the entire match.

Often when I find a public vanilla deathmatch going on and join it, I find myself to be exactly such a player that racks up frags in no time. When I see the skill gap is too big, I usually quit before winning, in order not to ruin the match and not to make other players leave. Very often the skill gap is just so I would win with about 10 points difference to the strongest player and still the weaker player leave the server frustrated - even though I mostly concentrate on the strongest players and more or less run past the weaker ones. To avoid frustrating players, I nowadays tend to spec a bit before joining to evaluate the overall skill level. In most cases I provide gameplay hints if I determine people are really not knowing how to play this. Some times by general chat, some times by "tell" command to address specific players - especially when speccing a duel. If people pick up my hints (80% of the people seem to just ignore my help), I usually offer to show them around in a private tutorial. If they picked up hints before, they are likely to accept that offer.

When I ask "how does that happen", I'm often told "the person has some super unique skills or was born with a god given talent to play Xonotic". Since I often find it hard to buy that, I disbelieve that especially with a keyboard and mouse (or any gamepad) this is possible without an aim / strafe bot.

I consider it really stubborn of you to persistently suspect cheating behind the skill gap. I for one can say honestly that I have never EVER cheated in Xonotic. I wouldn't even know how to do that in the first place, but also it would be totally contradicting my motivation to play the game. So speaking as a player that apparently and sadly empties a public deathmatch server every now and then I can only repeat what I told you before: movement skills can be trained, and aiming skills can be trained as well. If you know the mechanics, you can practice and perfectionize your hand-eye coordination. I found that running on the defrag servers has greatly improved my movement ever since I started running - and I developed from a really terrible runner to a runner that makes it onto the scoreboard some times (lower end but still). Playing some minsta has done my aim some good, but I feel aiming is harder to train than movement.

The key is to know WHAT to train, and I have done lots of live tutorials where the other player really was able to utilize Xonotic gameplay mechanics after I showed them how to do so, while being more or less clueless before. What we need is a proper tutorial campaign or some better form of including tips or a manual into the game, maybe even video tutorials.

I rembember having hard time on the solo campaign of 0.6 and now finding godlike bots too weak.

Before I started being mass-slayed on FFA games online I learnt a lot of tricks on Halogene's newbie corner and some other places. I made a suggestion for the single player campaign here http://forums.xonotic.org/showthread.php?tid=4883 to give some of these tricks in game (not the best way but maybe still better than nothing).

Next I didn't mind being always in the bottom half with 20 to 50 frags below the first as long as I could strugle with the weakest. If the server had 1 super player, 1 strong, 2 good and 4 casuals it was still fun (and that's why I don't like duels, any skill gap kills the fun).

Even if I think showing ELO in game to filter from it is a good idea (Halo2 had that for random games and it was rather effective) I'm against impleminting it for now. There are too few players to add a filter and you can evaluate your oponents in a few minutes to avoid getting too close.

If I was to set casual servers (maybe one day), I would set size limits and add much bots. Like never less than 4 characters for a "best played 4 to 6" (with limit of 8 maybe). Appart from bots, I found myself more than one time fighting almost only with shotgun because there were not enough weapons for the number of players (or not knowing the maps missed a lot of them).

Bots add some rather easy targets to add a bit of mess around there that is found when the server has enough players. From the few "honeypot" sessions I've done a server attracts a lot of people when there are around 4 players, up to 10 and it gets so messy than turn-over is enormous.

So my conclusion to all of that:

• Enhance solo game a bit
  
• Bots!
  
• Pick maps according to number of players

Note: this applies to public casual games. The other are already on private games on pickup.

Late reply, but @Halogene: I'm sorry if it sounds wrong that I still have doubts in this regard. Although it might be more or less of a flaw, there's one thing about me; I tend to disbelieve something that feels much more unlikely than likely while I cannot probe it for myself. I admit I'm frequently a conspiracy theorist due to this too... so yeah.

It doesn't mean I do it whenever I see someone who plays better or something. I understand there are skill differences which can make a big difference. I only get strong doubts when I see someone doing things I virtually couldn't imagine possible with a keyboard / mouse / gamepad. That also doesn't mean I'm correct... just saying I get doubts I can't truly dismiss.

Like I said, I don't play online as much nowadays. Usually with bots so I can listen to music while relaxing in a local match, which I know is a rather uncommon "use" for Xonotic So at least I avoid actual controversy this way for one thing.

Most new players I see at DM or CTF servers don't even know how to guide a rocket, or even how to detonate it.

Hell, most don't even know that weapons have secondary firing modes... kinda tells me that the game is terrible at explaining its players how it works at all... Or maybe it is attracting the wrong audience or something? I don't know.

In-game tips (that can be disabled) showing brief info about the weapon the player is holding would help tremendously though.

For the rocket launcher: "Hold your mouse button and move the mouse to guide your rocket!"

Or: "Fire rockets with left click, detonate them with right click!"

They could appear randomly whenever selecting that weapon for instance, somewhere just below the center of the screen, visibly.

Said tips could be disabled in the options at the appropriate tab to reduce view obstruction, people that don't need them are usually smart/experienced enough to figure out how to use the options screen to tailor the game to their need anyway.

EDIT: Samual seems to have something like the above in mind, but from where he put it on the roadmap, I doubt it will ever make it into 0.8... As long as it is implemented before 1.0 release it should be okay though.

I recall there actually existed tips in load screens, but I guess those got removed since the bg itself were showing outdated weapons and maps.

How about putting creating a "Xonotic Player's Essentials" video/videos?

1. List stuff new players don't know and they should;
2. If stuff won't fit in 1 video, split it into several;
3. Write full script for entire series or one video;
4. Record in-game demos;
5. Render the demos;
6. Record voice over(s);
7. Create the video(s)
8. Upload to YouTube;
9. Show the video/playlist next to download links on the main page

What do you think about this?

These ideas are great and have been discussed before. We just need time to produce some of them. I'm planning on doing little snippet videos that coincide with Halogene's tutorial.