untold horizon
With the amount of players growing I think it is important to think about the onboarding for new players to this game. Some aspects of the game are quite difficult for beginners to get into at the start without making mistakes.
What if there was an option for those "noob" lobbies, to have a option selected that removes some of these initial complications by tweaking the flow of the game a bit. It could even be a bot-managed server instead of an entire mode.
Some ideas for this :
Introduce only a select map pool with only frontline positions.
- Players get predetermined positions based on ranked from top to bottom. (skipping the choose your position phase, everyone starts locked in place)
- Players get 2 mexes and 1 solar to start off with a more stable eco and to help them understand where their resources come from.
- On these maps, the lanes can be shown using pre-drawn lines ( the ones players can make) Maybe 1 or 2 initial tips in pings telling them to choose a factory first capture mex points and send units to their lane.
People can then play this a couple of times to reduce the complexity, get used to some units, try different factories and get their eco steady.
Maybe in Intermediate mode players pick their positions, but we pre-draw in spectator color some tips about positions in the map.
For instance, indicate what the frontline spots are, give an eco spot and an Air spot. Showing players that there are different roles within a team, and give them the opportunity to just chatter about it before the match starts.
still sonnet