Forum topic: New players: what is causing the game to be difficult to understand?

I read it a lot in the chat, forum, etc. The game is hard to get started with. I can also see it in the data. For me everything makes sense, which is just like when you write a book.
So what are some of the things that were not clear when starting the game? Perhaps with some easy fixes the game can become easier to get started with.

As a relatively new player but someone who had help getting started I do think some elements are confusing without support and maybe a new starter checklist (similar to a tutorial) would be useful. Something that means they can do the basic things to get the car on track ASAP even if they don't do well! I know there are forum posts but not sure someone would go and look there straight away.
Things I think are fine: suppliers, sponsors, job market, personnel bits.
Things I think are confusing for a new player: R&D, difference between purchased parts and production, how some of the stats are calculated and the impact some choices do/will have.
R&D - I would not have understood this without a lot of help, though I do now think it all makes sense.
Purchased parts/production - I think this would be solved with the checklist.
Stats calculated and impact - I still don't understand some of them so not sure of a solution
I wouldn't want too much information given as it would spoil the fun of working out how to improve as you go but I think something to stop the very beginning process feeling overwhelming would be useful!
This does all come from someone who doesn't really watch racing so I guess I would be the lowest knowledge level of a new starter!
Hope this helps and if I think of anything more specific I will let you know - I love Pitwall btw!

i quite agree with Loren: a checklist tutorial could help a lot the first time in the game. when i started play the worst things for me were:

- the old user interface that makes informations scattered across too many pages, menus, and tabs. i'm not a web designer but i think this is still a problem for a new player when navigate this site for the first times. You could try to optimize something and make the site more user friendly.

- lack of informations and tutorial: that's why later on i made a guide for beginners, but the new help icon is already something that adress this imho.

i remember that after the first few weeks of play i decided to delete the account and make a new one (this one) because i wasted too many points and i still wasn't able to put a car on track. then i started chatting with Davide and Nello for few weeks asking them every doubts i had in that time and they gave me the basis for the game.

in the last year i talked with many new players trying to help them directly in private messages (a mentorship program could be an idea) but almost everyone leaved the game soon or later, maybe because game like this are slow and long term based and unfortunately people are less interested to this type of game compared to 10-15 years ago.

a little off topic, but if you have the skill and the time to do it, you should consider to make this game multi-platform. i know 2 other games that could be competitors of pitwall that had a lot of new players after that those games were putted on steam, play store and apple store.

For me, returning after not playing since PW1.0, my biggest hurdles were:
- bulk mounting all parts to my cars because I thought it was easier when actually all I needed was to mount (say) a new suspension I'd made - I had assumed it would only mount parts that weren't already on the car. It didn't and remounted all of them. This made me go waaay negative and I therefore could only run one car (Div 3.14, week 13, S42 - what a victory that was). I did the same as Matteo and give up at that point, but on Matteo's very sound advice, just moved team. if I hadn't had Matteo's advice or background in PW1, that would be me done - I would've just stopped playing
- not understanding how to start sponsor negotiations (see separate thread I started, but I wasted A LOT of time and points trying to improve it, only to still have sponsors tell me my commercial manager was no good when I think in reality I just needed to launch my car - something to include in Loren's checklist idea or to do it automatically so sponsors are interested). It seems like not-too-big-an-ask to be able to sign a sponsor (or, maybe, 2) immediately. Maybe not section 5, but it would be something tangible that new players don't have to wait for. Appreciate you had to wait in GPM2, but the next race was only a click-away at that point.
- The job market page confused me. I think 'preferred job' needs to be MUCH more prominent - certainly ahead of Nationality/Age/Gender. I wanted a Designer, so I clicked on the Designer heading. This just gave me a list of Designers, but didn't really help in finding anyone useful. Just clicked on Mechanics and it's page 6 before any 'free' mechanics are available (it doesn't say anywhere that the green tick means they want to talk to you). It would be better to make 'Search' the default, rather than 'Driver'. Unless most other people find staff via the lists?? I would also rename 'team' as 'contract' or 'contract until' and 'degrees' as 'education'.
side note, I've just done it again and the first time I click away from 'search' to any of the headers (e.g. Designer, Mechanic) it just gives a list of the drivers

Also agreed re: multi-platforming. I do strategy etc on my laptop but do most of the day-to-day through my phone - and I expect that this is how most (new) players would spend most of their time accessing it. Another browser game (not f1) I used to play just put the browser version into an app. Worked fine, but was available through playstore so reached more users. No idea how it would be to code though.

Final point that I don't expect much movement on, but 'free' (i.e. non-supporter) press releases (maybe limited to 500 characters or something) would encourage more people to be part of the community.

I now have a better understanding of this and as Gareth has said elsewhere, would be willing to contribute towards the help pages - starting, hopefully, with sponsors.

I agree with the (limited) press releases for non-supporter, it could really help with engagement.

We really need a "Downtime happens, back asap" for when the server falls over - Last season I started thinking it was game over for Pitwall during the major crash.

The game has a *lot* of variables and information, I'd say too much. It's daunting for new players, and even though I've been here a few seasons I still haven't got it all figured out. Some of it is probably lost in translation, but overall there's perhaps a level of information overload. Maybe keep all that in the backend, but simplify the front end?

I'm on season 3 of rejoining, though i played for a few years back in pitwall 1.0 days. I am having an absolutely great time, love the new or changed features, but i'll throw in my experience too;

I played very slowly and carefully in my first few weeks, trying to avoid spending money and points, and so i didn't end up in any of the new player traps thankfully, but i do agree a checklist for just how to get the car on track seems like it would be a good thing for new players. The literal first steps on signing contracts, getting some drivers and staff, designing and building the car and basic garage interaction. I've been helping a new player recently and they were trying to build the car in the development page, which i never did but can see how someone might make this mistake. A guide/checklist with some photos or something could solve these brand new player issue. I'm quite happy to offer to write this and i can organise it over in my "How we can help thread" if wanted?

I also like the idea of a mentorship thing that Matteo suggested and also have that listed over on my other thread.

I don't personally mind how much information there is, in some ways i think that's the "game" in this game. All the complex things, data and difficult decisions are what make it interesting, and if you want to just hire someone based on their reputation ranking, or "overall" statistic, then yeah you won't get the best staff, but they'll be okay and you can play the game fine.

Other than how difficult the first week or two is, the other thing i think is the main problem for new players; Division 3 is kind of boring. Half the new players are in division 3, by themselves, racing against no one and i would even guess that some players who leave are division 2 players who get relegated and don't want to spend 13 weeks racing against no one. The AI teams Frank has been working on would do lots to help this (No new player is going to be sad to join and get a 1-2 against AI, but is sad to get a 1-2 on an empty track). I'm trying to keep time and how easy it would be for Frank in mind, but the other option i can think of is just shrink division 3.

Out of curiosity i just looked and 26 teams have scored in division 3 this season, which includes Junior teams who can't promote. I know you need spaces for new teams to join, but if, for example, it was halved to 8 division 3's, that means each one has over 3 teams in, which isn't loads, but at least it's a bit more fun. You could either have only 2 teams relegated from each division 2 since now only 8 will promote, or still have 16 promote, either would work just fine, and if/when the game becomes busier in the future, it would be easy to expand the division 3 count back up.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. Really insightful to read, and I will try to act on it asap once the last server switch bugs have been resolved. If there's more feedback coming, then I'm happy to still read it.

Just trying to restart the game after a while by taking over an old team. Just can say that since retaking the team some of the old magic is back - can't stop logging in the site

The checklist is a very good idea and is sometimes which might be replicated with the Beginner's Guide. However, having an interactive tutorial would be way better leaving the Help articles to be less about how to do this and that and more about the details (ex. I know how to sign persons, but how do I know they are good?). If possible (but not sure it can be done with the current racescript), it would be very nice to close the checklist with a private testing session (so you would be able to run some laps even if you joined on a Sunday - attention spans are getting shorter)

Having less divisions could be a good idea if it makes them more populated with users rather than AI. The idea of AI teams is better than them staying idle but they should be limited in number and powers (they seem to sign staff and not assign it and then sign more).

When taking over the team had 800 points of each (except scout). May I suggest that 800 (or some number) scout points are also given so that the user can scout some staff on his own rather than wait for it to add up before even testing it.

Maybe (but it needs to be controlled) give some points throughout the first week to help new teams with the ramp up? When points finish, it may get a bit annoying for a beginner to attach to the game without having anything to do.

The Welcome Email would also be nice - presenting the Mailbox feature to the user and could be written in such a way to entice the user to get into the community (like Say Hello in the Chat - or a sticky category in the chat for newbies to post and read from).

Bugs - unfortunately - exist in every software. But an 'Add new bug' form or something where they are collected will take them away from the Chat. It is a pity but if you read the Chat and people just post about bugs it gives a wrong image of the game.

Maybe I need to log off because of posting too much but.... sorry.