I think the problem is threefold: A, the teamgame community is unwilling to help new players, B, the new players are encouraged to play chickens and CAI games in which they learn the opposite of what works in PvP games, and C, the 1v1 community is helpful but many new players refuse to play it because they are intimidated, or because they assume they will be even more elitist and intolerant than bigteams.
A. This is something which is caused by, largely, the good players on a bigteams game being relied on to carry while the rest of the team does little of use. As a result, nobody who knows what to do is able to help anyone who does not. Also as a result, the good players get resentful about carrying all the time, and start raging at the bad players instead of trying to help. In addition to that, it seems like a lot of players are just dicks.
This can be solved by splitting the games much more aggressively, either by roomsize lowering or by common agreement. The better players could play each other in games with teamwork and strategy, and the worse players could play each other and improve or not without getting raged at. They would have to take responsibility for their own actions if there were no longer a few players holding up the team, and as such hopefully realise the folly of singulo rushes and massing up raiderballs to throw at each other.
Smaller games would also make the game seem less high-system-requirements, less empty, less slowpaced and boring (which it is, for those who aren't in the front), and make there be enough rooms open for people to join one with people they want to play with, not just all the people.
We also need, possibly even more, to crack down (as a community, not just the administration) on people being rude and insulting instead of giving good advice. When somebody is raging at a newbie, we need to, as a group, reject that and tell the subject of the rage what the problem is, not just that they are bad. This would help player retention and skill level.
B. Chickens and CAI considered harmful. They promote lazy playing and a lack of understanding how the game works. I propose that chickens is level-locked at 5 or so, and the "add bot" button is removed from the ZKL - meaning that only those knowlegeable to add it would be able to do so. This would lead to players not doing the mass-porc-fests they tend to be drawn into when PVP seems too intimidating, leading to the aforementioned boredom, lag, and lack of skill.
C. With the rooms split lower, there would hopefully be a lot more people in the 1v1 rooms - no longer would there be one room with 4 or so vets and a few newbies, and most of them just spectating. ALso, we should put up some sort of message on first login, or some sort of blatant "Newbie Guide" which will give good advice, including "go to the 1v1 room to ask for help if needed, they help new players a lot" or something better said than that.
TL;DR split teams way lower, levellock chickens, split teams way lower, socially reject the ragers and the trolls, split teams way lower, and make a good and highly visible new player guide.
Also, we should stop being so generally patronising about them (I'm guilty as anyone, but I can see how it would be disturbing.)
Any new players have input on this?
