Best Idea: Add Tutorial Maps for Ghosts
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 5:28 pm
After a discussion about game balance someone mentioned to me that one of the worst things about team antags is how badly things go when someone is clueless. We've all been there. My experience is that this game is just flat out better with competent players on both sides of a conflict. It's amazing to watch a veteran nukeop go toe-to-toe with a battle-hardened captain. Likewise, it's frustrating and even depressing watching a battle between a cult and security defined not by each side's successes but by security implanting and releasing the cultists while the cultists are trying to talisman the chaplain and convert the detective.
So it seems like a win-win if we can provide tutorials for ghosts to pass the time while they're dead. The easy part is coming up with the concepts. The hard part is coding the shit. Every mode, security, setting up the engine, and even basics like "hacking" should have a tutorial covering the basic fundamentals but it will require some code magic to make it a smooth, effective experience.
These tutorials would be hands-on. They would be segmented by individual goals that advance knowledge of a specific concept. For example the first phase of a cult tutorial would be using a tome and paper bin to create a stun talisman, you would not be able to leave that "area" until you had stunned an NPC guarding a doorway. In the next area you would have to make a teleport rune to get a key and then teleport back to open the next door. In the next area you might have to sacrifice someone and turn them into a construct. It could move on to advanced tactics that reinforce smart gameplay, like binding a victim and removing their headset before the stun ends. Failure would reset the area for another attempt, success would let them proceed.
It's not hard to imagine how this experience would look for other modes. Nukeops would be able to practice everything from reloading weaponry, to setting the nuke, to detonating the implant. Clock cult would learn to stand silently next to a box in maint for 30 minutes (haha, just kidding?). Security would learn how some of their weapons are affected by EMP's, how long certain stuns last, how flashes function, etc. It seems like a really excellent way to train and retain new players who want to get involved in team roles without fucking over the team they're on. It seems like everyone wins, ghosts have something to do, we get higher quality rounds, new players don't feel so alienated, etc.
I would even go as far as to suggest that new players be required to complete the tutorials before certain roles would unlock for them. Existing players would have all the tutorials flagged as "complete" but any new ckeys would be made aware of the tutorial tab and be advised that they are not eligible for many antagonist roles until they complete them.
So it seems like a win-win if we can provide tutorials for ghosts to pass the time while they're dead. The easy part is coming up with the concepts. The hard part is coding the shit. Every mode, security, setting up the engine, and even basics like "hacking" should have a tutorial covering the basic fundamentals but it will require some code magic to make it a smooth, effective experience.
These tutorials would be hands-on. They would be segmented by individual goals that advance knowledge of a specific concept. For example the first phase of a cult tutorial would be using a tome and paper bin to create a stun talisman, you would not be able to leave that "area" until you had stunned an NPC guarding a doorway. In the next area you would have to make a teleport rune to get a key and then teleport back to open the next door. In the next area you might have to sacrifice someone and turn them into a construct. It could move on to advanced tactics that reinforce smart gameplay, like binding a victim and removing their headset before the stun ends. Failure would reset the area for another attempt, success would let them proceed.
It's not hard to imagine how this experience would look for other modes. Nukeops would be able to practice everything from reloading weaponry, to setting the nuke, to detonating the implant. Clock cult would learn to stand silently next to a box in maint for 30 minutes (haha, just kidding?). Security would learn how some of their weapons are affected by EMP's, how long certain stuns last, how flashes function, etc. It seems like a really excellent way to train and retain new players who want to get involved in team roles without fucking over the team they're on. It seems like everyone wins, ghosts have something to do, we get higher quality rounds, new players don't feel so alienated, etc.
I would even go as far as to suggest that new players be required to complete the tutorials before certain roles would unlock for them. Existing players would have all the tutorials flagged as "complete" but any new ckeys would be made aware of the tutorial tab and be advised that they are not eligible for many antagonist roles until they complete them.