Acclimating to a new map - Ideas

So I've been searching through Battle.net, looking at obscure and interesting maps, and for the most part I think the problem most maps face is simply that people who try to play them don't know how. Obviously, the people hosting and a few of those joining the maps generally know how to play it well. However, even though most maps have info in the quest log about the map, it's extremely hard to do well or most of the time even understand what's going on in a map the first few times it is played. I think the main reason most people seem to be such huge fans of DotA is simply that they're used to it.

So I've been thinking about my own map and ways I can deal with this. Obviously, I'd like my map to do well, maybe not OMG well, but well. I've realized that in order to be a breakaway map, most maps have to either be extremely intuitive (Nothing wrong with that, definitely a good thing in most cases), and if not that, a simple and effective way, besides quest logs (Because those take far too long to read and understand, especially with the more novel or fast-paced a map gets), that will give new players an edge, and actually a chance to have fun with the map.

So now, I have some ideas that I'd like to share with the community, and I'm thinking feedback would be good, in addition to the community sharing ideas of their own, so that maybe all our maps can benefit (Because all in all, we are a team :D)

- Recommended Strategies: One thing I've thought of is some way, either by the Command Card or by text messages, is the ability for new players (Or players new to a Hero, Race, Game Mode, etc.) to see a recommended strategy that the designers or possibly fans have written on how to play it; Something that won't necessarily teach them why to play it that way, or anything like that, but simply a "You might want to learn this ability first and use it like blank a lot", so that a new player won't get smoked while figuring out how they're supposed to play it at all. Instead, they'll be able to survive thoroughly and learn about the game with the basic playstyle described, and eventually get better by learning the nuances that make the player really good, without the strife usually included in learning.

- Pausing: Another thing I've thought of is perhaps pausing the game somehow when a new player wants, or perhaps selects a Hero / Race / Game Mode etc., so that they can read about the game or perhaps also that Hero / Race / Game Mode etc. and figure out what they should do without getting destroyed first. Unlike the Recommended Strategy Idea, Pausing, when not abused and done right may prove more fruitful, however there is much potential for people to abuse it and for it to simply be really annoying for other players.

- Tips: I saw this in a map today, and it and things like it are very useful I think. Similar to how many Console Games display random tips when entering a level or starting a mission, random tips will be displayed throughout the map. These can range from describing Heroes, or interesting Items, to random Events or other miscellaneous information.

- Cinematic: I also saw this in a map today (different one, the first one was good), and although most of the map was like Hell on Battle.net,
the cinematic was very helpful in explaining what the map was about. I would assume the more concise, the better, with perhaps a way for players to vote on whether or not to watch (In case no one needs it), and ideally some Visual Aids (Telling everyone everything without anything visual is teh lamezorz).

- Multiboards: Multiboards that can be opened or closed that contain tips on a map. They could be shown for different players depending on what Hero or Game Mode or whatever they chose, and would have important tips that would be easily accessible. Probably some way to fully get rid of it would be good too, like a chat command.

- Grace Period: The Idea is pretty much a short period at the start of the map where nothing counts. Everything would be reset afterwards and the game would continue as normal. Should be short, 5-10 Minutes max, and should probably have some way to not do it, in case everyone is a veteran (Like a Vote). Lot's of Tips during the period would also be good, and perhaps like a mini-walkthrough. This is a volatile option, however, since it could easily get annoying in a game with only one new person or something.

- Specific Tips: A similar Idea to the above Tips Idea, except instead of a random display of tips every so often, these would show at specific times. Ex: Clicking on an item shop for the first time will display a tip about the Item System. Ex: After Dying frequently, tips will be given in order to help the player do better, such as Hero specific Tips, or possibly tips on how to deal with the Enemies that killed them.

So, anyone have any other ideas, or things to contribute? I'll probably take other major Ideas and slap them in with these, and also edit these and others based on feedback so we can actually get a good sort of community database going... I guess :P

EDIT: Added Cinematic and Tips.
EDIT: Added Multiboards and Grace Period.
EDIT: Added Specific Tips.

random events are nice. for the strategy keep it simple. something like "stay in the back" for a ranged unit and "go tank" for a melee guy. be careful with the pausing. it pisses ppl off when they have to wait 10min for a newbie to figure something out. keep it balanced. one big example is the fucking dryad in xhero. she has ONLY %based auras AND multi target attacking. talk about rigged. i had to actually play as her to see y shes so good. a story helps. personally my favorite wc3 map is notd and it has a lot of the things i mentioned above plus big explosives and zombie pwning. don't put too many heroes either. i think 10-15 is pretty good. dota has to many so its hard to find the "right" one.

I've been trying some new maps recently as well, and there are two I know I will never play again and here's why.

Azeroth Wars: Holy Crap! You start with way to much and so much is going on that I had no time to look over my cities to see what I had. And the camera was zoomed in too far so I really couldn't see what I was doing. Before long my ally was yelling at me because I wasn't helping, but I couldn't figure anything out.

HoSK: I know it's a popular map and I'm sure it's fun, but there are way too may spells to choose from for a new player. I didn't want to take so much time reading all the tooltips so I just sort of picked ones I thought would be good. For a new player, the options are overwhelming. Other AoS's give you a hero and you learn to work with their spells, but HoSK requires knowledge of the game before you even see an enemy.

Couple of thoughts:

Primarily, you want to have a richness of info availble to a new player, but not locked away in the quest log. You want to ahve the info available where it is relevant, in a concise and relevant manner. For example:

- Make tooltips that give actual pertinent gameplay advice rather than just fluff. I always have a small part of my tooltips devoted to a quick description of the ways the skill can be used effectively in gameplay. Synergies, things to watch out for, tricks etc. This is particulary important if quirks in your map make otherwise good decisions sub-par. For example if a hero has Storm Bolt and Brillance Aura most people will take SB at level one. If your map has a quirk that makes brilliance aura first more viable, tell them this in the tooltip!

- If you want you can extend this advice to having units with "Help" or "Info" abilties on their info card, solely for the purpose of giving hints/tips on how to use that ability sucessfully.

- Make use of in game messages to draw attention to facts of vital importance. Often 3 or 4 sentences can give a new player the clues he needs to get going in a new map.

- Unveil things slowly. It's much easier to cope with a new map if you start with a few concepts and then add new ones as time goes on. This is the big advantage of tech trees. This is, in my opinion, where Azeroth Wars fails: you are given an overwhelming level of information to process at the begining. It's why in diplomacy maps i prefer upgradable spawning (as in Ring Wars, Lordaeron Tactics or Conflict for Sereg D'or) ; you often only have 2 or 3 spawns spawning a small number of untis at the start which is easily managable for a new player. THe upgrades allowing ultimately for the variation and scale of armies seen in "build your own" style diplomacy maps.

- Use a short (1 minute) cinematic at the start to go over basic gameplay concepts. As long as it's short and too the point, most people will happily suffer through it.

Yeah, I didn't really like Pausing, it just seemed like an option so I put it down.

I gave this idea to darkwulfv for his Wolf Packs map and he used it for a while (I'm not sure if it's still in use):

- Multiboards: Manually create a whole bunch of different multiboards for you map (say, a multiboard describing each hero in an AoS, or a different multiboard for each game mode a map has) and locally show each player only the ones he needs to see.

So if I pick an Archer hero in a map I might have a little hidden multiboard that says "Ranged Unit Tips" and contains useful tips for ranged units in the map; or maybe I'd get one that says "Archer Tips" and tells specifically about my hero. Or in a map with, say, 3 different game modes to choose from I might have a multiboard that says "Capture the Flag Tips" or "Annihilation Tips".

These are useful because they are able to be specific to a hero or gamestyle (or even the map itself if need-be) and they can be shown or not shown depending on if the player wants to see them. A new player might want to play with the multiboard open in the corner so he can easily refer to the tips. He doesn't have to go searching through numerous quests to find the one that applies to him, nor does he have to move his actions away from the game to read the tips (you can't control your hero whilst looking at a quest log or ability tooltip).

On the other hand, the experienced player can choose to keep the multiboard hidden and not read it all or, if he wishes, maybe he has a chat command to remove the board altogether. This also doesn't detract from space on a command card so if you need 6 abilities on your hero you can have 6 abilities with no fear.

thats a good idea. and you could also add a chat command to make it disappear/appear so its completely out of the way. i no i sometimes find them annoying even when closed. I'm not sure fluff wants to be kicked out of the tooltips.

Like the idea of the multiboard, but it would look a little weird in my opinion.

Pausing or making people sit through a cinematic is a horrible idea. There is nothing I hate more than waiting while people get ready.

Recommend strategies aren't really a great idea because often they won't be accurate to the game.

How about Grace period, give everyone like 5-10 minutes to actually play, but its not the actual thing, you just see how to play, and during the grace period, spam (or not) alot of tips, and you can choose in the beginning if you want go to the Grace period first, that way newbies can see the fundamentals of how to play.

Only problem is you'll need to trigger more, and if it involves destroy trees, gates, creep bases, etc. then it would take some trigger to restart the map back to normal.

But i personally like grace period, I've played a new game with it, dang i got the hang of it so fast....

Edit: Oh and the multiboard would be nice, also just have an extra tip, randomly changing, talking about a good thing to do with the archer.

In terms of most maps, I would say that the quest log is the worst way to show info about a map because not only is it hard to look through but it is a lot harder then just clicking a tutorial button or reading a tooltip.

To solve one newbie-info problem for spells I thought of a simple but painstanking (for the map-maker) to show off spells. Instead of having to read boring and sometimes useless tooltips, I thought to make a series of small programmed mini-movies in game so people get the jist of the hero and the spells. I thought to just have it as an option such that you type something like -[hero name] [spell name/spell #]. But you could also have it as a looped animation that every hero has. So if he has four spells show 4 spells within about 20 -30 secs.

or just make the beginning simple, give them time to figure it out and make it harder as it goes on. then ppl who no how can start playing and other ppl can learn. i don't no about a grace period. you should have some way to skip it or make its so its actually worth something, even if you cant die.

The quest log sucks because you can only read a few lines at a time. And I hate maps that spam you with messages so fast that you can't read them. A brief cinematic seems like one of the best ideas to me. I also tried Mage Wars for the first time last night. It was fun (but laggy on big spells probably due to poor triggering/coding) and I was thrown in without much explanation. The thing that kept me playing was the organization of the spell's tooltips. A lot of maps do this now, but Mage Wars has nicely done tooltips that tell you the spell's damage, effect, and range in an easy to read way.

-Frost Nova
-Damage: 35 (50% slow)
-Range: Medium
-Area of Effect: Medium - Large

Something like that. That's a must for me when playing hero arenas or AoS's. And I don't know if anyone here has played Shogun, but on those unit tooltips it tells what each unit's strengths and weaknesses are.

-Yari Archer
-Strong vs. Infantry, Arquebusiers, Spearmen
-Weak vs. Heavy Cavalry, Light Cavalry

All in pretty colors of course.

Cool, cool, more ideas! I want everyone here to benefit :o

So why don't you contribute rather than asking others to?

I already did at the start, but if I get more ideas I'll certainly put them in.

....Sorry >_>