The Tutorial Must Go!

So, let's say you are a new Paladins player. You enter the tutorial and are given Viktor, arguably the easiest champion in the game to play, and you learn the very basics of the game. After the game, you start playing Viktor in all your games and due to your, let's say shooter-games, background, you dominate with Viktor. But a few games later, oh no! Someone picked Viktor before you! Now what? You don't know how to play any other champion but hey! This turtle Makoa looks pretty bad-ass, let's go try it. Soon, your entire team is complaining about the "game-throwing Makoa", the "shit tank", and ranting about you, you "blind idiot, uninstall the game". And in their defense, it was pretty frustrating to play with a tank that didn't touch the point, never pushed the payload or shielded an ally, and ulted at full health.

But could it have been different? Could it have gone better?

Of course it could have. And it all starts at the roots.

The current Paladins tutorial is really, really bad. It teaches you little other than very basic things. "This is your health bar, when your health reaches zero, you die" Really now? I didn't see that one coming. Even worse, it teaches you them about one champion only, Viktor. This causes problems.

- As mentioned above, many new players don't know how to play any other champion
- Normally this wouldn't be a problem because any champion can be good if the player uses them right, but it becomes a problem when the team desperately needs a tank or healer and no one switches
- This problem is caused by a lack of understanding that Paladins is a team and objective based game
- This lack of understanding is caused by the tutorial not explaining anything

And those are just the basic, most glaring problems. Here's some more:

- Many new players assume that all champions have a weapon can scope in with RMB.
- After playing another champion and getting wrecked, they assume that Viktor is the most overpowered champion and will always and only play him.

And now some global problems:

- Teaches nothing about loadouts, arguably the most important part of the game
- Teaches nothing about items, something almost equally as important as loadouts
- Because of the lack of understanding of team roles and the objective based gameplay, players buy items only to benefit themselves and not the team (Deft Hands, Veteran, etc)
- Hurts player retention. Many new players after the tutorial believe Paladins is just "another FPS" or "another Overwatch clone" due to Viktor being very generic and boring and the tutorial not showing any of the very unique parts of Paladins

Now that I have outlined the problems in the tutorial, it's time to mention possible solutions. First and foremost, Viktor must be removed as the tutorial champion. I understand he's easy to play and new-player friendly. That doesn't matter because it honestly hurts players in the the run long. And Hi-Rez if you're worried about players leaving due to a hard to play champion in the tutorial, I 100% guarantee you that more players decide not to pick up Paladins because they think it's a boring game rather than quitting because they can't adjust to the skill-curve. Now for that new champion, I suggest Cassie. Here's why:

- She's a relatively easy champion to play. Not as easy as Viktor for sure, but still easy enough to understand and use well
- She has a unique projectile. This makes many former FPS players (like myself) understand that Paladins isn't just like a FPS with heroes, where the majority of weapons are hitscan or slow-moving projectiles
- She has straightforward abilities. Direct. AOE. Knockback. Roll. Reveal. Easy to learn.
- She has a team ultimate. It's not like a Viktor ultimate where the solo aim is to drop bombs onto the enemies. Cassie's ult enforces the fact that Paladins is a team-based game to new players

And some more suggestions, during the pushing phase of the tutorial, add two teammates, a tank (anyone is fine) and Grover (you'll see why in a second). There should be tips on the screen explaining the basic role of the tank (push the payload) and the role of Grover (heal the team). Then, right before it gets pushed, have the enemy Androxus use his ult. Text on screen should explain that Andro ulted and to get near Grover for healing (Then have Grover ult as well). Have the tank die to the ult, then tell the player to retreat and wait for the tank to respawn, with an additional tip dialogue emphasizing the importance of grouping up and not trickling in.

Lastly, there must be additional tutorials for tanking, flanking, healing, and damaging. There also needs to be tutorials for items and loadouts. Now, you might think "What if new players don't play these tutorials?" Well that's easy. Give them rewards. Gold, essence, crystals, chests, maybe a nice skin at the end, these are all possible rewards. Whenever I play a new game and there are tutorials that offer rewards, I will always play them to get the rewards and to learn more about the game. Even better, a great feature in the mobile MOBA Vainglory is the Academy. Basically, you can watch videos of champion abilities, game strategies, item guides, and more. Since Hi-Rez even has a great video producer in Raynday, just add his videos in the Paladins game itself, and offer small rewards for watching them! Changing these problems within the tutorial will make the players of Paladins, new and old, have a much better in-game experience.

(I will be updating this topic in a few days to talk about my suggested tutorials for each role!)