Some way to guide newbies

[ReBoot]

Ok, we've got alot of novice players joining suicidal servers, it's allright (no it isn't, but it still less annoying than the following problem).

People just don't get it! I don't know how hard it is to understand that if your current perk is sharpshooter, it's stupid to use a shotgun (or not to switch to support), but there are people who don't get it. Which is even more annoying on suicidal. Heck, I even met people who don't know why it's good to use the high tier weapons on wave 10 instead of the cheapest and weakest weapon. Some sort of in-game guide would be nice which would tell people those things. And yup, I know that there are descriptions for everything, but some people manage to ignore them all. An in-game guide which is impossible to oversee because it pops up in the middle of the screen might help. Or anything else which makes people not play stupid.

 

[Merin Redplate]

Bah, everyone's like that at the beginning, they'll get over it.

 

[KingJoker]

Its called start being a teammate and telling those novice players tips.

Im not annoyed by a sharpshooter using a ****ing flamethrower but if he doesn't know i'll tell him!

Im only annoyed by people who won't tell other people

 

[ReBoot]

Bah, everyone's like that at the beginning, they'll get over it.

Some people just ignore what you're trying to say and still, suicidal is a bad place for learning the game.

 

[nutterbutter]

If a person is lvl 0 or 1, does it really matter which weapon they use?

 

[Repeller]

meh, im level 6 SS and I still play with a handcannon and Lever action all the way to wave 10, then i'll change to crossbow, or a completely new perk.

 

[Nenjin]

My friend calls newbies and pubbies "brother" on voice chat. It just seems to click with some people and they start following us and, hopefully, learning by observation.

Anyways, just talk to them. Give them pointers. Keep them short. Don't be an ***. Don't be **** about stuff.

Some very simple communication at the start can warm people up to talking back, even if it's just "behind!"

Not everyone plays a ton of KF, and the casuals still don't know a lot. If you think you're blabbing at them too much, you probably are, but don't worry. If they're sick of listening to you, they will probably tell you.

 

[brphoenix]

The OP is right. It is annoying when newcomers join suicidal and have no idea what weapons they should use with their current perk.

IMO, TWI has overlooked this aspect of the game - introduction. Not saying they're a bad company or anything, but I wasn't aware this game had a fully develloped story up until a few weeks ago, where I followed a link to a PDF file containing it.

I know a handful of players who would be happy to write down tips and strategies for new players.

 

[CandleJack]

The OP is right. It is annoying when newcomers join suicidal and have no idea what weapons they should use with their current perk.

IMO, TWI has overlooked this aspect of the game - introduction. Not saying they're a bad company or anything, but I wasn't aware this game had a fully develloped story up until a few weeks ago, where I followed a link to a PDF file containing it.

I know a handful of players who would be happy to write down tips and strategies for new players.

Just go to the tips & tactics section of the forums, copy that, send it to TWI with the message: "add this into the game for newbies plz"

 

[Anemia]

Some people just ignore what you're trying to say and still, suicidal is a bad place for learning the game.

yopp that happens quite a lot, but I must say that I don't believe they ignore the person who's trying to teach them. In many cases they just don't look at the chat, either because they have to much to do or because they are not used to reading gamechats. (I noticed this when I got kf for one of my friends).

But I must agree that suicidal isn't a good place to learn kf, I can imagine that quite some players gets "scared away" (finds it boring) after starting playing suicidal and died every wave.

 

[Entangler]

Let's not forget good old-fashioned human stupidity. Sharpshooters that buy flamethrowers - especially more than once - tend not to be particularly bright people. The game already does plenty to steer them in the right direction by way of the perk description text. If someone doesn't have the attention span to read it - or worse, somehow, incredibly, doesn't even notice that it's there - you most likely have a case of PEBKAC on your hands. By all means try to help such people, but by no means expect to succeed.

If I read the original post correctly, your suggestion is to implement a hinting system of some sort that is simply too obnoxious to be ignored. Though I know you have good intentions, I find I must disagree. While such a feature might indeed help such cases as described above, I don't believe that would compensate for the annoyance it would cause for everyone else. One might then try to find a balance between gain for the stupid versus pain for the capable; if anyone succeeds, then more power to them, but my experience leads me to doubt that there is such a balance to be found.

Since I am sure to be accused of arrogance for this post, let me clarify this: I am all for helping people; I often try to be helpful myself. My flaw is not a holier-than-thou attitude, for I have none, but rather a lack of patience for those who expect to be taught without any will to learn. My stance on the whole issue is really quite simple: "Inexperience is inevitable; incompetence is not." If someone makes an effort to do the right thing, I am glad to assist. If they don't, I just as gladly leave them to fend for themselves. Harsh, perhaps, but fair. Patience in the face of frustration has never been my strong point (stubbornness, perhaps, but not patience), and sadly, that isn't about to change.

 

[brphoenix]

KF already has a "tip" system. But it isn't nearly as visible as it could be, and it doesn't give many game-helping tips (like, what are each perk's strong points). It is possible to disable it currently.

What would be best IMO is to increase these tips' visibility and helpfulness. Giving more information about zeds, for example, would reduce the number of people that go "OMFG SCARKE MUST EMPTY M32" (typo intentional), or people 9mm-ing fleshpounds.

 

[Repeller]

For once, I think killing floor needs to suck it up, and be like "every other game" and create a tutorial. Players shouldn't have to learn by 5 second pop-up messages, and they shouldn't have to learn through trial and error like most of us did.

It would be so much easier to make a tutorial button on the main menu, have it set to West London, and have the the text explain there, because players don't care about learning when they are in a real game, but if they saw a tutorial, they would actually go in to learn. Teaching players how the trader works, and how weapons should be switched out with your perks is essential, but most players don't know that because there isn't any kind of tip, or text saying that.

Since this is probably not going to come any time soon, I will continue to help players who want the help, but I can't do much for the ignorant who were born to grief, and not to play.

 

[Nenjin]

Meh on the tutorial. What's it going to teach you? Throw big flashing signs at you that say "Turn around, you're going to get et!" "Use your pistol to decap clots with a single headshot!" "Run *****, RUN!" Everything you need to know about perks, weapons, ect... is all right there. If people aren't doing it, it's because they don't want to.

I've said it a lot before but, KF has a different learning curve than other FPS. There are not many technical/contrived aspects to game play to learn. There's no "Press crouch while moving to do a combat roll" things. KF is all about a) technique and b) level knowledge. Fire and move, fire and move, fire fire fire DODGE fire fire. This long corridor with ceiling spawns is a bad place to be, ect...You can't teach those things in a tutorial.

And I think having died hundreds of times so they know better is what MAKES a KF player. That's what makes you salty, what teaches you to keep your cool even when everything seems lost.

Plus, KF is a team game, and short of putting in AI bots to simulate working with a team...a tutorial won't cover the majority of what players need to know. "Focus fire" means very little when you're alone.

 

[playmaker_41]

^^^^ i totally agree
tutorial isn't gonna teach you squat, i say the best thing KF can do is set the default difficulty to beginner & easy, that way, no noobs can unintentionally go into suicidal. and a line in the pop ups that say "if you're not lvl5 or above, we recommend you not to go into the suicidal difficulty" would be nice

 

[CandleJack]

^^^^ i totally agree
tutorial isn't gonna teach you squat, i say the best thing KF can do is set the default difficulty to beginner & easy, that way, no noobs can unintentionally go into suicidal. and a line in the pop ups that say "if you're not lvl5 or above, we recommend you not to go into the suicidal difficulty" would be nice

Or we could have a very brief tutorial on how to navigate the internet games.

But yes, default beginner is a must.

 

[nutterbutter]

Just have them show this link in the game http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=42173