Newbie Coaching/Community Improvement?

Okay... so, when are people actually going to stop complaining about newbies that just started playing the game and do something about it? I get that there are a lot of guides and tutorials around here that help newer players understand the game better, but since when has anyone actually taken the time to read any of it before they jump straight into the game?

I know I didn't and I never did to be honest. People nowadays need to be fed their information instead of looking for it themselves. New players aren't that different. People constantly rage and yell at the newbs for not doing anything "useful". Rather than the veterans giving them instructive advice to those newer players that are willing, they simply argue and rage at them instead. That hurts the community growth, people. They will leave and not play again.

Anyone that says they haven't raged or seen the rage towards the true newbies know they are lying. Countless times have I seen the rage from those I rather not name because then people will start calling me out on hating on others or some other weak reason like that. Why can't people just chill for a second and think? If this player that they're teamed up with is an actual newbie, then why not help them out with learning the game? It doesn't help if you SAY NOTHING NOW and then RAGE AT THEM LATER. I mean c'mon... If they choose to not listen despite anything you say, then fine, move on, but don't rage at them either.

I admit it is quite frustrating to deal with teammates that are incompetent which is why I prefer playing FFA. I last a lot longer in FFA than I do in Teams even if I'm being targeted from the start. I don't have to rely on others to achieve a win, but that's getting off topic. When people sit there and say nothing, even if it's for a quick second you could say SOMETHING instead of raging later, you should be blaming yourself rather than blaming others. Being on a team means to COMMUNICATE WITH OTHERS TO WIN. If there is a newbie on the team, then start communicating with the newbie! He/she is not going to learn unless you try to show them the way. It's getting frustrating to see this community die slowly because people choose to go it alone or rather not try to communicate to help them learn.

This game has been dying off earlier than it usually has. I know everyone lives in different time zones and everything, but for me, I used to be able to see this game keep playing until 11pm at least. Now the game is desolate by 6pm or 7pm unless I and about 1-3 person(s) sit and wait for more players. If not, we play FFA anyways. The point is, we seem to be losing more players than we gain and even some of the veterans seem to have left or started playing a lot less than before.

The point is... can't we try to improve our behavior towards the newbies that try to play this game? I mean, trashtalking like we would usually do seems fine til a point where it's just out of hand. It's just friendly banter and taunting. It keeps people interested and gives someone a goal to shut the other person up, but again, can't we just try to make the newbies feel more welcome here? We're already a small enough community as it is and the unnecessary hate and rage is only going to make it miniscule.

The better option would be to start a mentorship program. Setokaiva[IVL] did some of this a month ago, but I haven't seen it get picked up as a regular thing.

quote: What I mean by this before anyone says anything, is that I know who rages constantly and unnecessarily, but I don't have the specific games to show for it.

Everybody knows that certain person KiraYamatoZG :F and other people also do it on certain occasions but in their cases its more understandable (as they dont do it all the time).

But I see the other problem: people in teams room dont help newbs at all. At least from what I have seen. However in the contrary in 1v1 room if a newb wander into there they will be helped. I have done it on many ocasions and I also have seen this from others just coaching teaching the basics etc.

quote: The better option would be to start a mentorship program. USrankDudeSetokaiva[IVL] did some of this a month ago, but I haven't seen it get picked up as a regular thing.

I would say this is a good idea. The thing is that it wont resolve the problem compleatly thus it will only lessen (slightly) the effect of it, because there will be clueless newbs going straight into the game. In my opinion there are only 2 possible ways to 100% avoidance in case of clueless newbs coming to teamgames:
1. Make tutorial obligatory. As it is in DoTA 2 or LoL (sorry but i couldnt find a better comparison)
2. Make team games locked until the newb will play his first game.

Oh and btw KiraYamatoZG if you dont see it being done by someone, it doesnt mean nobody is doing it :)

I thought of doing this at one point, but it hasn't picked up much momentum. I would though be most interested in starting up again.

PS: Obligatory tutorials are silly. Interactive learn as you play is the wave of the future, not boring 9001 page reading or long winded tutorials. I experimented with this on memfis61 by giving a unit to him and just giving a brief overview of use and said go kick ass. I think he was fairly effective at picking it up.

The idea is not to micromanage people, but to just give a very brief one or two sentence "General-Purpose Usage Guide" on the unit and saying go to town. My newbie had fun and learned something. Best place to show/teach newbies is in a cai game. Now buffing cai to use superweapons or rush tactics may be needed to give a wider variety of scenarios.

Example for Krow:

Dgun enemy heavy units or clusters of units; retreat when low health for repairs.

quote: dunno how to do quotes yet

See the thread for Forum formatting.

quote: There was a time long ago when I would sit in a battleroom for an hour just to get a 2v2... Skasi remembers, he did the same.

Yeah it feels like yesterda- oh wait. :'(

quote: We could have a boolean flag that says "I'm open to advice"

It sounds likely that the people who need such flag would be the ones that don't know how to set it.

"Do you speak english?"
"?"

A basic issue with an advice option is that new users tend to not notice or mess with settings. The advice boolean flag would have to take up a lot of screen space to overcome the power of defaults. A large popup as big as the commander selection screen would have to prompt them to say whether they want advice.

Unfortunately, making a thread about the tone of the community doesn't help much. Start with your own attitude (not that I think it's bad); be that person who takes the blame and gives advice to new players in-game. Act like a coach to new players, try to coordinate the team, and act like a decent human being. Language flags and "I want help" flags are nice, but really this falls down to individual people interacting as a community which cannot be solved by Boolean flags. To that end I'd like to give some advice that change starts in small places, to that end I'll try to remember this post when I see you in-game.