Tutorials to teach players how to play effectively

[StrejdaTom]

If the system wasn't forced on people, it wouldn't change anything.
People, who want to improve find ways. It would reach some people who wan't to improve but are unable to find ways to do that, but in my opinion, the impact overall would be small.

[Cynric]

I have to agree with a couple of other voices here. I've never had anyone tell me what to do on my job. I read my skills planned them out, looked at the effects, practiced my rotation on dummies till I had a good grasp of my hotbar placement and changed it up to make it more comfortable and easier to use.

But in all fairness not every player has years of MMO experience and can understand what to do based on just simply reading skills. Some effects aren't fully explained either and the way combo routes are laid out in tooltips isn't the best for a newer player to FF or MMO's in general. Players may not realize that they can hit an OGCD in the middle of the global CD. New players may not even know what a GCD exactly is.

While an experienced or adept player may be able to read something, comprehend mechanics, and put it into practice. The reality is that this isn't something every player can do. The mentor program should help. I'm personally leveling scholar just to meet the requirements for the mentor program to help people out (and maybe get some glamour in the process). Beyond that and the new dummies , I believe it was noted there would also be rotational specific challenges in the beginner hall to teach players how to DPS.

Hopefully with these tools coming together players can self learn and get help from outside sources if they need it.

A tutorial I don't think would be very helpful by itself. You can't exactly have a tutorial to explain how to do a rotation on every single job. But I think putting some things that we believe is common knowledge in the beginners hall such as, DoT,HoT,DPS,DD,tank,Heal,HPS,GCD,OGCD,ASPD,SKSPD,SPSPD,DET,CRIT,etc. the list goes on of things a newer or less experienced player may not ever know or understand without some sort of resource.

When I was new to MMO's I personally learned a lot of terms through research and the terminology section in the back of the FFXI strategy guide. I believe the beginners hall going over these terms is pretty much exactly what this game will need to allow the players to understand and put things into practice a lot better.

I think our issue comes from believing that if a guide shows you the perfect rotation that you should be able to do it directly from the guide. But if you never understand why it's a good or the best rotation, you'll have far less knowledge of the game itself. Knowledge and understanding of the game itself, it's combo system, it's hate system, why buffs and DoTs are important. These are things we don't always explain to new players. Especially in the limited time of a dungeon when we're trying to get our tome or items.

Understanding the why of something is just as important if not more so than understanding how to do something in the first place.

[Andrea]

Most people learned by people yelling at them? I cant take this serious.

I figured most people learned by actually searching the internet and putting in time to look up what they were doing from someone who spent a lot of time figuring out a rotation. Instead of running dungeons hoping someone would tell them.

IDK, maybe im crazy.

[MeridaQ]

This is the first mmo I have ever played and I learned from friends and reading tool tips. Once I had a good grasp of things I offered and have walked through many dungeons with FC mates to help teach them. I had leveled all classes to 50 so I was able to understand the different view points. If people wanted more in depth help on classes I wasn't good at I sent them to friends who had a better grasp. I look forward to the mentor program!

[Kaurie]

Coming from other MMO's, the part I found the most confusing was the use of the word 'potency' on skill tips.

The 2nd biggest confusing thing was how DoTs are worded, Damage over 18 seconds, Potency: 35. Ok.. so it does 2 potency per second, am I missing something? It's very unclear that it means it does 35 potency whenever the server ticks which happens to be every 3 seconds, and is not related to when you apply the dot.

Another major concern is how Astral Fire/Umbral Ice affect your potency's. I think this information should be on the tooltips (Potency: X, Astral Fire I Potency: Y: etc etc.)

[Kosmos992k]

Tutorials of how to play? OK, I think this should be easy. After your class quests and story through about level 20, the basics should be clear - though the level sync on low level dungeons is not strong enough, so players might not have got a good grasp of things due to being rushed or dragged through dungeons by others chasing bonus tomes. Stronger level sync would help greatly since it would return things to something approaching they way it was when the 1st wave of players played this stuff, it was all new and we had to learn together. Level sync initially appeared to be something that would manage that trick, but it's clear as day now that it's not strict enough, especially later on in the level 50 content.

Once the main story get's kicking, and you get to your 1st job quest, you start on the dungeons that ratchet up the learning curve (or at least they used to when we all ran in level appropriate gear...). So, onto that tutorial of how to play your role, job, class etc...

Try the following strictly level sync'd leveling dungeons, specifically Haukke Manor, Brayflox Longstop, Cutters Cry, Sunken Temple of Qarn, Stone Vigil, Dzemael Darkhold and best of all Arum Vale. Throw in strictly Sync'd hard mode Ifrite, Garuda and Titan, plus WP, AK & PS, and you have a complete set that takes you through your job's paces from level 30 through 50. They cover so many aspects of play, role and mechanic.

Unfortunately since 'everyone' over gears everything, new players are carried through all of this content like so much baggage by high level players looking for extra tomes from Duty Roulette. Mechanics are ignored, bosses are burned and primary roles are blended or ignored.

Baically the game through level 50 is a long tutorial, and has been described as such by Yoshi himself. Sadly though the ineffectiveness of level and ilvl sync greatly reduces the tutorial value of this content.

[vp_cmc]

http://imgur.com/x5rfTzf

If people don't do their job quests, how can you expect them to do anything else, no matter how it can improve their gameplay?

[Stupiduglytaru]

Can still see their name

[Lethallin]

I learned by reading my skills, caring about my contribution to the party dynamic, and wanting to do my best.

The mentor system and Newb hall will help those that do really want to do better...

But I feel most of the 'bad' players are those that just don't care, and no amount of tutorials, yelling, or mentoring, will ever make them better.

[Morzy]

I think raiding is the only real tutorial we have.

For instance. I started this game as a White Mage and I wasn't gonna raid, it scared me healing. I picked up Monk with the same stance on raiding and a friend I met pushed me to try raiding, and I thought Monk was fun so I took the plunge. I was SO terrible you have no idea, I did NOT know how to play Monk effectively. Luckily unlike crappy Alexander, the DPS check isn't so much that you give up, we did eventually progress and I'd say I learned enough(pre-HW of course) besides Fracture during Turn 9 to play the class right. And hell, I didn't wanna play Monk right! Those positionals were soo intimidating at first, I literally gave it the finger, but I learned anyway because I was raiding and it was necessary.

Go raid! Put your skills to the test, put yourself in the situation where you MUST get better and seek out advice and watch yourself progress throughout your raid career.