Hi.
When Raiders of the broken planet (RotBP) launched last year, I didn't bought any campaign because I wasn't happy with the game as it was but kept an eye on it because the universe, lore and characters were very nice.
After each update I re-launched it to see, tested the "mission for a week" feature and this kind of stuff.
So, when Spacelords came out, I was already level 6 and had the Alien myth campaign unlocked, so I didn't really know how was the Spacelords' new player experience.
But this WE, I played with a friend whom had never played it ... and it was not good for him.
For new comers who don't know, the beginners experience on RotBP was that you first played a solo mission as Harec to introduce you to the game controls (movement, cover system, shooting) and mechanics (strike / grapple / dodge, munitions, Aleph, Elites).
After this first mission, you played your first multiplayer mission which was (and still is) "Hanging by a thread", which again, was nice because not too hard, mechanics come one at a time (1st zone with just engineers and turrets, 2nd zone show how to organize your group, 3rd and final zone, has Aleph retrieval + shield Elites + engineers + extraction)
This was all for "free" players as you had to pay for campaigns at that time, the first being "Alien Myth", then Umbra, Hades and the last one being the Council one.
It was quite good because you could learn slowly with a solo mission, and then, a multiplayer one but not really hard.
The only problem I see was playing Harec (he's a very good character, but not to begin with) since he's a bit fragile, has a sniper rifle and his power takes time to understand.
Now, in Spacelords.
You must start with a quickplay session to define your first unlocked campaign, so you don't start by the first mission...
Every other menu is locked.
I didn't know that, so we played with my friend "A low blow".
First: this mission is hard, especially when you just start.
You don't know anything about the game, but are thrown in a very aggressive arena with all 3 types of Elites (shield, mortar and snipers), engineers, and timed sections.
Seriously ??
And then, I understood that my friend had unlocked the 3rd campaign this way.
I'm level 60 and so I don't even have all that campaign missions unlocked.
(because, as a weirdo, I unlocked the campaigns in their release order... strange, right ?!)
I find so many things wrong with this system and only understood at that point what a mentor match was.
It's not just with a low level, but someone who just started in quickplay it seems.
I really don't understand why Mercury Steam removed the solo mission, didn't choose to make new players start by the beginning with "Hanging by a thread" and then unlocked the campaign in their release order.
It would have made so much more sense from the story perspective and from the difficulty perspective!
And also a great idea from Mercury Steam: mentor match ... with an antagonist higher than anyone on the team!
Level 1, 8, 32 and 60 with an antag Doldren 71.
Pinned at spawn point and made the level 1 quit within five minutes.
Great job Mercury Steam!
A mentor match should NOT have an antagonist, just for players to get use to game mechanics first would be enough.
By the way: some players argument on this forum for not being able to have multiple times the same character is the "story driven" game.
Well, this argument is not even supported by the devs since you don't start by the 1st mission and then, can unlock the 4th campaign, then the 2nd, then the 3rd then the 1st ...
Yeah, a very "story driven" game indeed...
So, to conclude this very long topic, I would think that MS should really put back the solo mission, but with Hans for instance, as he's more balanced to start with (more life, weapon and power easy to understand, ...)
Then, players should play "Hanging by a thread" that, once completed, would unlock "Alien Myth", then Umbra, ... until Council campaign.
In this case, only "Hanging by a thread" would be a mentor match until it's won once, and without antagonist.
Currently, I will make other people quickplay until they get "In shock" to start closer from the story order, but really hope MS will change this.
Thank you for reading.
Edit: just a small add: I'm currently lvl 62 and around 65 hours of gameplay in Spacelords
