As with many first-person shooters, there is a circle around the player’s crosshair, with size representing accuracy of the weapon. This is not appropiate with a two-dimensional game, as accuracy is not in a circle like that, but rather in a triangular/pie shaped figure, as seen in the previously mentioned image. If accuracy is wanted to be shown, this is a great way to show the player roughly how accurate the weapon is. One problem with this is for slower speed projectiles (grenades for example), it does not represent where the projectile will land or travel through, but rather how it is thrown, or just how accurate the throwing is with out much meaning to its shape. This isn’t much of a bad thing, as it still portrays accuracy, but it may be a bit missleading.

Another idea to show accuracy is to color this accuracy circle or lines. If the player is full on health, then the circle or lines will apear normal and while (or whatever); although, the more damaged the player is, the less stable the player is, or in turn the less accurate the shots are going to be, and the more red the circle or lines are. This could also be used to portray how fatigued the player is, or any of the other factors.

There are many options in regards to trying to get first-timers understanding, or getting semi-experienced players to learn the variables that determine accuracy. Other ideas mentioned are great, but here are my thoughts. One way is to simple have various tutorial levels (in which the player actually plays on), each with a 10-20 second video that is played when the map starts, and having it re-playable. The first few tutorials would only use light weapons that are easy to handle, while further tutorials would use heavier or more advanced weapons. But the best way to learn after knowing the basics is actually playing, so it might be best to have small short deathmatches against bots after a few tutorials. Not all the mechanics to the game have to be mentioned, but the major ones should. Even if some concepts may seem intuivitive, they should be mentioned. For example, running and shooting will decrease accuracy.

For minor details unmentioned in the tutorials, in loading screens, text can appear on the bottom stating something. A simple example could be “Attachments affect a weapons steadiness. Even though attachments may aid in certain situations, it may also turn and bit you in the ass in others.”

The game must be playable by first-timers, otherwise they may think to themselves “this game sucks” and never play again. For multi-player, a system could be setup similar to that of Xbox Live with Halo or Call of Duty, where players have their own skill, and play against those with similar skills through a matchmaking service. A problem with this is if an experienced player plays with a new account, he would be stuck with the lower-skilled games at first. I’m not sure what the best method around this is, but it could be an option to not only provide a matchmaking service, but also a lobby of servers which players can join with their choice of what to join.

A suggestion is to exclude any message that display “PLAYER_A kiled PLAYER_B using SOME_WEAPON”, as they give the player an idea of what they did without actually seeing what they did. For example, if a player is by himself against a couple other players, and is spraying bullets all over, if he ends up killing somebody, the fact that he knows may give him an advantage, despite whether or saw himself kill him or not. Another reason is for this is it would be easier to fake your death, and use that as a trap to get your opponent to walk by not knowing you are dead, and sneakily killing him from behind with a knife or something.

Another suggestion is to not display player names (or maybe just enemy names). Knowing who an enemy is without actually needing to recgonize their outfit can give a player extra information, as he may know the player he is against is very difficult or not. A reason against this, though, is not knowing who exactly you like to play against after the game is over. An option is to have the displaying of names server-side optional.

Maybe this could help understand the mechanic but also help aiming?

Note that I’m talking blindly since I haven’t seen this game mech.

Have you played Savage 2 ? They have pretty cool in-game voice tutorials that I really loved listening to even if I had played the game a lot by then ! (it came up later)

You should also play the game because it is team-based and different. It made me think much on mechanics that I’d like or not in my own team game.

We’ll learn to play your new game, don’t worry about it.

Just, please don’t dumb it down for anyone. If you think about it, Tribes is still to date one of the best shooters made because of all the things you could do in it. I still love Tribes. What other game can let you extend your radar range or lay down beacons for your teammates to pick up. Stupid and lazy people didn’t play the game – they wanted their call of duty, halo and other easy shooters. Screw them. If your game is worth it to play and worth mastering the difficulty – then it is totally worth it.

These ideas are ingenious, imo:

@Spkka The idea with the guy saying “damn this weapon is heavy”. Reminds me of the vocals when selecting units in Starcraft. *epic* Hahaha, check out the Thor quotes with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFzQozF5kyU&feature=player_embedded#at=37

@FinDude yeah! The HUDs for the ubermen/mutants should be completely different, high tech vs almost no special info.

@Chutem Making a ladder ranking system would be so epic! One on which you can advance with experience and wins, and on which you always get to play against about-same-level players.