New players, you love them or you hate them. They're cute, do silly things and have no idea what's going on. They mostly don't contribute to your teams victory, because they have no idea how. They just want to be safe: better make more defences to avoid being rushed like last game. They are curious and want to try out every single unit/building/factory they can build.
Researchers have found though that using pro chat skills can turn these sweet noobies into real
LEAN MEAN KILLING MACHINES.
Helping noobies to play like average players will make them perform high above their elo, which will turn the balance in favor of your team.
Sounds easy, nothing new, been doing that for ages? Apperently not for everyone: some high(er) elo players still can't seem to help new players. "replay or gtfo!" you say?
watch this:
http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/187771In this battle our favourite firefighter, sfadboy, and his loyal companion, hower, get teamed up with a very new player, mojoe and a relatively new player, john hunter.
They make some attempts at giving advice: labeling 'porc here' at 2/3 of the map, and telling them to 'make units'.
good advice, but hard to understand for new players, if they've seen the message at all. Another mistake they made is using game slang like 'porc', most new players have no idea what that is, they know nothing.
Also, vague advice like 'make units' won't help "I is making units, i hav liek 6 masons". You'll have to be more specific.
To get a message to a new player you should first
get his attention. A new game is full of new impressions which ask for attention, so you better
start talking to them in the lobby or before the game starts.
Ask if they're new, if they have RTS experience and if they'd like some advice. You could advice them to spectate a game first, or better: spectate a game together with them and explain what's going on and tell them
why players play the way they do. (unit type, RPS, counters, macro/micro,...)
Ingame however, it gets harder, you'll have to play, watch newer players and help them all while the game is running.
Tell them
why map control is important (hint: it's to get mexes, which give metal, which ....), and tell
them how to achieve it (make raiders, take mexes, make radar, build some light defences in the middle,...)
Tell them about the
units and the situations they encounter, and how they can succesfully
counter them.
(raiders incoming, hide yo cons, get ur own raiders and riots over there, make llt or: 'dont attack heavy defences head on, build up some forces first, make arty, go around,...)
Tell them what they should and shouldn't do, what they could (have) do(ne) better and more importantly:
what they did good.
A motivated newbie is worth a bizzillion of resigning trolls!When the game ended, your mentorship doesn't stop: discuss what went well and what didn't, talk about some turning points in the game and what the other team did well/bad. Repeat some important lessons.
When the new player ignores your advice or makes clear he doesn't need/want to be helped,
don't be mad. They just decided to learn the game the hard way. Or not. "U can take a n00b liek, to teh water, but u cant liek, make a n00b drink" -teh pwnerer-
I hope some of you might have learned something and will try to apply these lessons ingame. Appart from winning some games, you might achieve something even better: made friends, convinced a new player Zero-K is
da bomb, made the community into a better place for us all :D
xoxo,
Flipstip
P.S.: plz leave comments, remarks, additions and improvements below
TL;DR: (dont you TL;DR on me, I put my heart into this text! <3 noobies)
treat noobies like you would treat your own kids
