DISCUSS: How to ease beginners into PA

I've begun to notice, from watching newcomers streaming the game, that many aspects of this game are not like normal RTSes.
Thus, they often seem confused as to what they should be building, how the economy works, what different buttons do or don't do, and how to use the UI effectively. This is a Very Bad Thing(TM) when we want people playing the game for the first time to enjoy it and not feel frustrated by the experience, potentially putting them off playing again (or far worse, putting OTHER people off from playing it in the first place).
Obviously, the game isn't finished and it has been acknowledged by the devs that work needs to be done on making everything more clear, but I thought it would be good to have a discussion on what can be done to lower or remove the barrier of entry to the game for beginners.

So, what do we have so far? Well, not much. In fact, to my knowledge, all we have in game is a short tutorial on the main page that gives the general gist of how to do things. While this does help a bit, let's realise that a LOT of new players will totally skip over this tutorial, presumably expecting the game to be intuitive and familiar to other RTSes, which it is NOT.

Therefore, here are some suggestions that I have for helping new players feel less overwhelmed less often. These suggestions are often already present in other games, but I thought it would be good to draw people's attention to some techniques already used to inform players.
1) Loading screen tip / main menu tips - a scrolling or clickable bar on the main menu, or integrated into the load screen that gives basic and/or advanced play tips and reminders.
2) Interactive tutorial - Highlighting UI elements or units in game in a sandbox mode, giving a description to familiarise players with the buttons on screen and what each factory/unit is when they build it. So, a circle would appear over the move order button and just explain what it was etc.
3) Tips as alerts (toggled on or off in menus) - When players do various things in game (like build a fabber) then an alert pops up and the player can click to reveal, or to hide, a tutorial type tip that explains in more detail what they can do (This fabber can be used to build an advanced factory etc.)

Anyway, pretty sure I'm missing ideas that I had when I started this post, but you get the gist.
Feel free to post suggestions as how to improve any of these ideas, or voice your own opinions on tips etc.

I don't like how the enemy comes from every direction. It forces me to build defenses all around the base and when I expland I have to build more outwards. It makes the base a mess. Based on my last post on these forums, a lot of people don't mind messy bases, but I do. There is no fun. You've just got a cluttered mess.

I also don't like how you cannot save your game yet, which I assume is coming in the future.

So far it seems that PA is a multiplayer sport, not designed with single players in mind.

I think large messy bases are a byproduct of encouraging rampant expansion. But, yes, I think there is the possibility of having more options for creating structured bases in future.

You will definitely be able to save your game when the game Is properly released. You may even be able to rewind offline games and replay them from different points.

Well, there are and will be more options for playing against AI, not to mention the randomly generated galactic war which will be a campaign of sorts, with a progression of different battles to fight.
However, it always said that this game will be more about multiplayer than single player, though I think there are enough options for lone players.

Also, I would like to keep this thread on the topic of things like how to integrate tips etc. into the game, but thanks for the input none the less

The enemy coming from everdy direction is kind of the point of the game.
Scout, pick a good start spot

Err.....

The developers repetitively say that their aim is to worry about e-sports second, to worry about making a great game first. Th way they put it, it sounds more to me like they care about singleplayer first, and multiplayer second. Just because the only decent gameplay atm is multiplayer, that doesn't mean that will be the case.


The RTS genre is a mainstay of single-player gamers.



Hmmm... It's tricky.

I think the tutorial needs reworking. Severely. Perhaps an awesome steam guide? Do people read written guides anymore? what about video guides?

I think more tooltips could be helpful. Or unhelpful.

Do you think people would find pop up tips annoying? I think loading screen tips and such are a great way to get across pertinent info without intruding on play, but how intrusive do you think is acceptable, if it helps people get the most from the game?

I think the tutorial is adequate, I'm more interested in the large number of people who instinctively avoid watching or reading guides and videos, and just hop straight into a game. People moan about how games like CoD hold your hand and keep telling you things like "right trigger to shoot" in the game, but I think in a game like PA stuff like that would be more beneficial to new players than it would be annoying to experienced players, if you catch my drift.

actually I think a tutorial video is a good idea ...and the best approach

The skipping part -- Strike Vector handles that very well; by presenting visioning it as a choice all the while making it morally impossible to not watch it by threatening that you'll have a bad time if you do, by soothing that it's very short and by promising in-game points in exchange.

The idea of loading screen tips isn't so bad if it isn't that the whole skipping thing will come in to play again (considering there's possibly an option to turn them off and even then people could just look away), plus the short format turn them into 'Mr Clippy' the paperclip tooltips rather than something that is broad enough to give time for adequate explanation.
The tutorial video does need updating, some of the more nifty tricks (like saving groups or viewpoints, or exchanging main and PIP viewpoints) should be shown.

I really enjoyed the supcom tutorial. Dumped on finn's with the three commanders, no enemies, and some helpful guide videos to get you started. Let's you explore in a safe environment, but without just leaving you completely on your own either. I generally think this is the best form of tutorial, an easy freeform format that helps you only when you need it, and otherwise stays out of your face and lets you play.

TA itself didn't have a tutorial as such but it was also on the right track, the first few story missions gradually eased you into the mechanics, the first level being only selecting and commanding units, next being basic resource extraction and so on. This is more suited for complete beginners than someone already familiar with RTS.

That's not a good assumption either, any game could be someone's first. You gotta have the training missions for that event. Many modern games forgo covering the very basics that past games did.

The very worst kind of tutorial is probably the current one, words words words, is basically noninteractive by either being a video or just forcing your hand. Always endless talking, walls of text etc. Boring and harmful. Everyone skips them, even if they don't know how to play, for a very good reason.
It's a game.
You should learn it by playing around with it.

i REALY love RTS games and also like the scale of this game

the more things you can do and less the limitation the better the game ( for me )

what i REALY hate in this game is that you need to build ALL over the place making a HUGE mess to be effective

even in Supcom Forged Alliance was possible to secure the Mass spots and chocke points with multible big to small basses

here you build EVERYTHING Everywhere thats the most effective way of playing and it feels and looks stupid

thats my only issue with this game..........

Some good points, but all I can imagine when you say this ^ is someone clicking to start the game, seeing the loading tips and putting their hands over their eyes going "LALALALLA I DONT WANT TO LEARN!"

I think an interactive tutorial would be the best way to educate the masses. Demonstrations and video's work for most too, but a hands on approach for learning is always the best option. Indeed you could leave the game with a tutorial video accessible from the main menu and hope that people pick up the rest as they go along, but a sure fire way is to make a tutorial you can take part in.

Man the tutorial vid thats in at the moment makes me cringe, sounds like someone has messed around with the pitch of the voice, very enthusiastic.

Problem with loading screens is that if you load quickly you will never see them, and even so being on a random rotation you cannot expect the right ones to pop up when people need to see them.

The problem with this game is that there are no missions to ease people in with. My personal favourite idea, which you also mentioned, is having a sandbox mode, that people are encouraged to play first, which has tips popping up and pointers on how to play the game. The only problem is that there is so much to learn, people will likely get annoyed with being told so much in one go. Again, because there aren't missions, you can't really have discrete training sections.
I also don't know what sort of budget and time allowance would be required to add some of these more in depth tutorial elements. Although personally, I think it would greatly increase the attachment rate if people knew what they were doing from the start.

Another good way is to have it be a community effort. Having someone easy going to play with who isn't going to steamroll your *** on a 1v1 match can help you out a ton. I know FAF has this sort of thing going, with the noob training matches, and if you want to play a noob game you can just shout out in the chat and have it work out.

An easy AI fills much the same role really, low pressure way to learn what works and what doesn't. But of course an easy AI can't tell you the metagame.

Both Hawken and AI War (just the two at the top of my head) have a sort of "tip of the day" box on the main menu, or lobby, where you can click to cycle through various strategy tips and such. This would be a nice, unintrusive, optional way for people to learn more, say while they were waiting for a lobby to fill up. Agreed on the difficulty of getting the right tips across in the right order, but it's a start.

Aaah, how about a match type, where people can be mentors and students? So one experienced player, if they feel like it, can spectate a new player and give tips in a private chat? I'm sure another game, I think it was an FPS, allowed something similar...

EDIT: well, a quick google search flags up a mentor mode in League of Legends. Anyone had any experience with this, is it useful?

make a half hand holding half let the player experiment tutorial aside from the sandboxmode that is let the player experiment with everything ...... lots of tooltips and/or mouseovers for everything .... .... imho uber shot themselves in the foot for not making a skripted and nonskripted play against ai tutorial in smnc .... yeah i know cost reasons and stuff ... but in that case the more the marrier ...

Civ V pop up tips are pretty acceptable. Also just hearty mouseovers.


I just don't see questions on this forum where I'm immediately struck by the question "did you watch the tutorial video?"

I hated that tutorial.

There wasn't a goal.

I.e. I really had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Instead I jumped into the campaigns. Built units until the unit cap. Then didn't know what ctrl+k was, and looked rather sadly at rows and rows of metal makers and energy plants.