Newb Training?

I personaly would call this a good idea, but which good player who calls himself a pro would play against new people without flaming them.

As far as I have seen, it is like this:

Join a game, be flamed to death by so called "pros" so the new guys leave the game and only join those for noobs...

where actually a lot of, lets call them noob-killers join, just to feel good about there far too easy win!

so the new guy loose there confidence and dont have fun anymore at the game...

In my opinion everybody was a noob once, but most gamers seem to forget about the fact, that once they sucked like hell too!

(sry for the bad english)

I think this is a pretty good idea. Not only does it give a place where the newbs can get to know the game, but it also gives a place were other experienced players can try out builds on people and not the silly AI. I wouldn't mind playing on the weaker team if you or someone else puts this together. I mean, I'm no pro but I consider my-self a good player.

I think we need to make a public Vent server and get a community group together to host games to help newbs in the transition. I'd be willing to help all that I can.

Basically what you NEED to do is get thicker skin and just deal with the "pros" and their bitching and you'll actually learn something from them. Here, this guide for SupCom tends to apply with certain things to Demigod as well.

You can ignore the SupCom related stuff but a lot of the general ideas really can apply to any RTS, including Demigod.

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=27171

Thanks for the replies people. Dariyen - that's my main concern: how can I manage to actually get newbie players rather than some sad individual who just wants to smash people. And then the answer came to me that I can't. I'll just have to label the game "Newb Training 2v3" and hope it goes well. That's how life goes.

Proximity - the public vent server sounds good, but I don't know much about how all this works. I just click Internet->Host Game and don't know much more. What I'll do is run a game and I'll post back how it goes. Pishtoff - if you fancy mucking in I'll PM you and let you know. Maybe this thread could be used for some of us to start organizing things.

And like you say, it also gives people of our level (not super-players, but reasonable ones) chances where we can try out different things without as much pressure and even work on our team-playing skills. I know it still takes me far too long to type out "head off down the lane on the right and we'll cut off their regulus and kill him."

In case anyone wants to co-ordinate, I play online as "TNNN" as my name change update STILL hasn't been swapped over in Impulse.

In my experience you can't turn a noob into a pro, your either born a pro or born a noob, or born in the middle somewhere.  You can get better but a noob isn't gonna be playing with the pros no matter what kind of training or how much they play.  I have a friend whose played hundreds of games of dota but he's still noob as hell, its ridiculous.

Funny, it just so happens that I've been running a public Demigod ventrilo server for a while now.

Here's the info:

Hostname: mox.guildvent.net

Port number: 5700

@TiduZ - I don't think anyone ever said anything about making newbs; super-godly-awesome-omgwtfbbq pros. Just a place for them to get to know the online aspect of the game with real people and not AIs.

@NEWB - Like i said before. I wouldn't mind tagging a long, cause spending hours testing with the AI makes me a little pishtoff, if you know what I mean.

As for a vent server. I do have a small 10man vent we could use, if this idea ever gets off the ground.

Yeah, mine's a 100 slot server and hass a bunch of game rooms already made. Just use mine.

Or this could happen.

The biggest problem is that new players don't consider themselves new players. I remember entering a game which said 'average players.' I figured that I was a fairly average player, so I entered that game. It was a 2 on 2 in cataract. I ended up pretty much carrying the entire game. Every other player there was obviously a newbie. Things like reinforcements, flag locks, and other things that should be basic knowledge to any 'average' player were foreign to them.

I suggest the first move we make is to make people know what the separation is from newbie and average.

And therein lies the problem. The only thing I can think of is having a list on the forums of what the "average" player should know and have a link for this page. So the person can get in contact with someone that cares and take it from there.

i think its simple. you are average (or better) if and only if:

1) you know the most effective builds for your Demigod and are using a build that you know how to use

2) you know which items are good and which are crap and what a reasonably efficient order to by them in is

3) you know which citadel upgrades are good and what their relative priorities are at the various stages of the game

4) you are familiar with the maps (not too hard, there are only 8)

thats just the basic knowledge base. anybody who's got that stuff down is at least average. you might still suck as a player because your reaction time is poor or maybe you're stoned and missing things that should be obvious, but you at least know the basics so you're not gonna be just a worthless feeder. 

I would love to host some Noob Training Servers, easy win ftw.

@TiduZ:

You are the kind of gamer I hate more than anything else, nobody is born a pro and noone born a newbie.

cause years ago you maybe didnt even know what an RTS or MMORPG was. and even you had a first time for everything in every game on this planet. sure it gets easyer when you get experience in some games and many games are similar, so you get to know some things or tactics from the start, but you cant exspect a 15 year old to have the same experience like somone who played strategie games over 20 years. and even you werent born a pro, cause there is always someone whos better than you!

but i guess its waste of time to talk to someone like you! cause your kind will never learn anything! and maybe but only maybe some people like your friend play for fun and not to be a pro, ever thought about that?

@all: you cant make a list of things that classify people when they are good or not. thats what i hated about rpg´s the most:

you have to have or you suck, you have to use, you have to skill or we wont take you with us in grp.

i think that everyone has to find there own playstyle and needs to find out how its most fun and to be fair and can loose without flaming others, not how hes the best.

and once you´ve found that out, you´re a good player.

sure everybody needs to know his character and his skills and need to somehow master them, but everybody makes mistakes, even the so called "pro" gamers.

most people seem to forget that this games are about fun and not about challenge in the first place.

coz i dont think you all earn your money with playing games. so think about that sometimes!

so to go back to the topic:

sounds like an nice idea, but like some mentioned before we need to coordinate those battles and the good gamers should help people during the game and after. talking about tactics, skill systems, which items are good and how to use them in the right way and so on.

greez Dariyen

(sry for mistakes again)

your a noob.

you fail to realise that it is just a game, some people dont want to play to be a pro.

a pro would understand this concept, clearly you dont.

I have seen (and participated in) NEWB games where everoyone just sat in the waiting room and talked strats and the new players got to ask questions. It worked out okay.

i agree and i think that  the person who wrote it should take some classes from newb  how to play

because it is ovious that he sucks

Well I tried just hosting a "Newb Training" game in Custom. It was a lot of fun, though not really what I had in mind. There were connection problems in the lobby (never had that happen before! ) so we went to 2v2 just to get the game going. The map was Cataract. Abilities were a bit of a mix. One plenty good Rook, one not bad Sedna but definitely benefiting from her teammate's skill (I say 'her' because it was Sedna - no idea, really) and one TB who struggled a little and was my teammate. Unfortunately my team mate dropped part way through leaving me with a suicidal AI. At the end of the forty minute game everybody was level 19-20 except the AI TB who was level 13! I was Beast, btw.

I chatted a bit more with my teammate than I normally do. That was because I felt more comfortable offering suggestions / instructions to someone I don't know than I usually do. It's hard to convey tone with hurried typing, but I hope everything came across as friendly. My team mate bought Priests very early on which I suggested should have waited until later because of the XP it would give them. We also got a "TY - XP! :D" from the opposing side for it.  I hope no offense was taken. If someone is expecting abuse (and reading these forums it's clear there are some sad individuals who use the game as an excuse to be unpleasant), then it's not easy to make sure everything can't be taken that way. Tried to make comments helpful: "Cap unguarded flags - fastest way to level"

One unfortunate thing was that someone came into the lobby just as someone asked "So it's 2 experts vs. 3 newbs?" and then said: "no thanks!!!" and left while I was still typing my reply. And I don't blame them - that's absolutely not what this was about.

Oh, and we lost, btw! The other two took some glee in beating someone who'd had the temerity to call themselves better than newb! And don't blame them. I made some silly mistakes, mainly against the Rook which was a tougher than normal. Maybe just a lot of Armour.

So lessons learnt:

• I'm not as good as I thought and need to improve.
• We need to be really clear on the aims of what we're doing - maybe establish "Newb Training" as a bit more of a known concept as it's hard to explain in the title of a game.
• Sending instructions to other people is a good thing and not as offensive as I thought. People can always say "no" or give instructions back. I'm going to do it more in regular games.
• The game is more fun when you relax more and aren't worrying about whether you're better or worse than your opponents or if you'll win or lose.
• It would be useful to have a bit more of a chat post-game before everyone leaves.
• People LOVE to beat someone who thinks (or appears to think) that they're better than them.

Anyway, it was a very fun game. I was playing a non-Spit Beast which worked quite well, but I think I need to refine him a little. I'm thinking Bestial Wrath might actually give me a useful edge now that I have so much Mana floating around.

Well NEWB, I say we (being the people that want to do this.) should choose a vent, hop on it and get some things worked out. Like;when we should host the games, who will host them, what to talk about while in there, who will be teaming with who and so on and so forth.

It would be good if you could select online games based on your achievements. That way n00bs can get games with other n00bs, and, as you get better, move up to the next level of game.

For any 'moderate' player its not much fun jumping into the middle of some pro match.

Hmm i think i a big porblem is to know what a newb is....

i mean... some weeks ago a lost almost every game... so i joined only custom newb games and got flamed i would be a newb killer and such.... i would say the best thing to do is, if you find a game with balanced players, ask them ingame if they are interesseted in some kind of newb "clan" for training to help each other. 

And if you play against some better players and don't know what you did wrong, don't be too shy to ask them. Not everbody who is a wannabe pro is an a**hole...  

And something i learned in the last weeks.... communicate with your allies.... every game where was much conversation, i've won, if i remember right. Most times you play with someone who don't want to chat while playing... you can quit... if you win such a game, it was pure luck, cuz there can't be a strategy... 

Communication is the half win.... believe me

sorry for my english, i know it sucks  

Maybe it should be called "New Players Counceling" or something Because if you just call the game "Newb Training", it looks the same as a "Newbs only" game, and people might not be expecting to be pelted with advice

Also it could be nice to make this something like a weekly event, maybe twice a week, once for EU and once for US times.

As I said, my server has 100 slots and a bunch of individual game channels divided into two teams, so, you might as well use mine.

hmm but that would mean having a better ranking system 

you would also have some iddiots who make a new account just to get better stats

@Pishtoff > Why are most your games vs nothing?