Comment by Gravityloss

Having experience of a distant past competitive multiplayer FPS game.

I started multiplayer mostly with a popular mod. I think the mod was popular for a multitude of reasons, one of them being classes and some classes were easier for the newbies to play (and also easier with bad internet connection, this game is old). You wouldn't need to master everything, some classes were more about just spamming explosives, some about aim, some about movement, some about prediction etc.

Then we got into the base game. It was quite sparse and not so fun as a team game at first. But it turned out, 1on1 was great fun if your opponent was about the same level as you (and with a proper map). Only then after that it started making more sense as a team game.

I think many games would benefit from some newbie-friendly format or mod or what you call it. In an FPS a mode where you are some class and already spawn with some decent weapon etc. So then you can concentrate on that.

In an RTS, don't know what it would be, maybe just have a lot less buildings, units and game mechanisms to choose from for newbies. Like a simplified mod with no air or sea units and no special buildings.