Mandatory Tutorial

[R3C4LL 4 L1F3 0]

People have been rightfully upset with the Xbox community and their inability to play the game the way it was traditionally played. Xbox players lack any will to drive and utilize logistics in the game. They have little to no capacity to identify their targets or their range and often start friendly fire between groups before ever reaching their objectives. They use many weapons and pieces of equipment in improper or the most basic of ways. Ex radios (ch.48 is basically one big Xbox party), and little to nobody on console knows how to properly use the binoculars to determine range from a target. And above all they see no reason to coordinate under any form of leadership because everyone thinks their Rambo and to smart to follow anyone else’s plan. 

I say all these things as a Xbox player myself, and someone who has meet many other console players who feel the same way. 2nd rangers for one is comprised of plenty of console players who attempt to play the game the way it is traditionally played and utilize all reforger has to offer, so I know for a fact the console community is more than capable, and has more than enough people who want to play the game properly. 

They really just don’t know how and are generalized w the casuals who constantly spawn vehicles and drive off alone, team kill, grief official servers, talk in Xbox partys instead of prox/radio’s, and waste supplies. 

Reforgers playerbase at the moment is majority console and that’s because the majority want to play proper but don’t know how. 

I have a solution I have mentioned once before but have now put a little more thought into it and wanted to share it for feedback and see if anyone agree’s. To help mitigate both the issues of A. Console players having such a intense learning curve in play styles, and B. Deter highly casual player’s (likely to grief and uninstall) from playing multiplayer. Everyone should be forced to play a “mini campaign” being really a fleshed out and theatrical tutorial before being allowed into official servers, and community servers should have a option to make this tutorial mandatory for their server to. It shouldn’t be more than 2 hours long and player should still be able to play on private servers if allowed. I have outlined below what information I have found important to helping players understand the game and how it is played. 
 

 

1.Identifying targets

 

2.Zeroing distance + training on finding distance w binoculars and rifle scopes respectively 

 

3.Radio channels/ distance or strength. Ex (teach players to switch their radios to the frequency listed above the point they are assaulting on the map to coordinate with other players. Also emphasize the difference in signal strength between hand held radios and backpacks.) 

 

4.Land nav w compass. Could also teach it’s a good rule of thumb that passengers should Navigate for drivers. 

 

5.Weapons tutorial on proper uses of respective loadout. Ex (AT, lmg, sniper, squad lead, radio man).

 

6.Firing tutorial. Teach players to shoot from cover and never in the open or on the move. Players also need to be aware that their stance affects their weapon sway, and that firing in small bursts can help mitigate it, as well as recoil. 

 

7.Inventory management, many Xbox players are likely used to only ever considering weight or size not both, and never thought to consider them factors on stamina and weapon sway. Ex ( weight + size affects storage, as well as stamina, stamina effects weapon sway. IE players need to be taught, to be an effective marksman, you need to manage your weight and not fill your inventory full of junk.) 

 

8.Radio procedure, such as things you should communicate to other squads depending on radio range. Ex (enemy positions/ direction they are going and coming from, friendly troop movements to mitigate the chances of friendly fire, land mine positions, requesting supplies / ammunition from the proper channels)

 

9.Proper explanation of medical system (however rudimentary it currently is). Teach how blood is considered your max life, and that bandaging simply only stops your blood loss and does not reset your maximum life. 
 

10.Teach usefulness of pulling security and establishing proper defensive positions at captured points. This could help promote players to defend bases until being picked up for transport, instead of each player individually spawning and getting their own vehicle for 100 supplies. 

 

11.Advanced movements tutorial. Ex (teaching how to switch to “high ready”, “low ready”, “lower weapon” and “unequip weapon” explain why each one would be used and when each of these should be used. Teach players the how to utilize adjustable stance combined with free look to gain advantages in position + vision. 

[Grezvany13 64]

As a PC player, and playing Arma for over 15 years, it's not something new and definitely not console specific.
And although I'm all up for some mandatary training in-game (like America's Army has/had), I don't think it's something that should be in the Arma series.

Arma is more of a framework to play it the way you want, instead of forcing people into a specific way of playing. And Reforger is no exception.

Looking at the different types of gamemodes for Arma 3, from serious milsim all up to roleplaying, there's a large amount of players who just want to jump on a server and play the game (KOTH is a good example). While communities (especially the more serious ones) have their own training sessions, Arma itself should just offer the basics so people can understand the game as a whole.
The current Tutorial might be a bit lacking, but it's basically a simple WASD introduction and getting to know the basic features of the game. Nothing more than any other game out there.

Should Reforger (and especially Arma 4) have a more detailed training course? Yes, I do think so.
But it should not be mandatory. At least not for playing on public server or private servers where the admins don't really mind/care about the skillset of their playerbase.

Communities can have their own rules, training and requirements; and that is still possible.

[R3C4LL 4 L1F3 0]

20 minutes ago, Grezvany13 said:

As a PC player, and playing Arma for over 15 years, it's not something new and definitely not console specific.
And although I'm all up for some mandatary training in-game (like America's Army has/had), I don't think it's something that should be in the Arma series.

Arma is more of a framework to play it the way you want, instead of forcing people into a specific way of playing. And Reforger is no exception.

Looking at the different types of gamemodes for Arma 3, from serious milsim all up to roleplaying, there's a large amount of players who just want to jump on a server and play the game (KOTH is a good example). While communities (especially the more serious ones) have their own training sessions, Arma itself should just offer the basics so people can understand the game as a whole.
The current Tutorial might be a bit lacking, but it's basically a simple WASD introduction and getting to know the basic features of the game. Nothing more than any other game out there.

Should Reforger (and especially Arma 4) have a more detailed training course? Yes, I do think so.
But it should not be mandatory. At least not for playing on public server or private servers where the admins don't really mind/care about the skillset of their playerbase.

Communities can have their own rules, training and requirements; and that is still possible.

I definitely understand not wanting anything “mandatory” in a video game. It is definitely a massive turn off for alot of people I suspect. If the community was not in favor of the length of time required I could also understand that, as it’s main purpose was to deter extremely casual players from reaching the public. But we direly need some kind of visual reference/teacher for new players if they are expected to ever properly learn anything about how to play. 
 

If we went the route of a much shorter mandatory tutorial, we could have a entire list of optional tutorials we could play through after completing a quick 30 min general tutorial. We could have tutorials for how to play conflict properly, we could see tutorials on sniping and range finding, we could see tutorials for logistical roles and their importance etc. Optimally community servers could turn completion req for each individual tutorial on or off to help even more w creating and facilitating cooperative and intelegent play styles. 
 

I do also want to say I am in no way proposing for all players to follow some sort of strict mil-sim doctrine taught by the tutorial. What I would like to see out of a tutorial would be to teach players to utilize equipment properly in the game to improve everyone’s experience. Players should know what affects their stamina, and that stamina will in turn affect weapon sway. Players should learn to always pull out their binoculars and identify a target before shooting. I fear the team killing and griefing is doing more to deter the player-base from growing than any “mandatory tutorial” will :/

 

Anyways thank you for the reply! I was genuinely curious how others might have felt about the idea and was looking for someone to discuss it with. Thank you again for your time, have a wonderful night! :)

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

An idea would be to have like seen in some games on screen tool tips that show tips for whatever actions the new player

hasn't done yet as they progress, then set it up to enable/disable it in the options.

Theres also something like done in Arma 3 the VR series, where you basically play a mission and perform all kinds of various tasks,

and each thing you do successfully unlocks the next level.

 

     Along with that you can have an official video series that is an entertaining tutorial on how to do each function in order to learn,

kinda of like what they did for Arma 3. Dyslexi created a series of video overviews going over many various subjects of the game

and they have been established on steam along with the game as an official series you can watch and learn about various aspects of the game

along with the ingame manual that can be expanded showing all your keys for each function.

[HAWK' 8]

Good info Gunter, I will try and work on that as soon as I have time. Right now, my Eden editor is all of a sudden acting up on me. We haven't had an update recently, have we?