It'll be a balancing act, for sure. I don't have all the answers but it's something I'm trying to plan for.
Luckily this is a competitive multiplayer game, so there's not really any "content" for pros to speed through like in an MMO. But I'll use this as an excuse to post a brain dump.
The goal is to build a game that works for a variety of skill levels. I think Counter-Strike is an example that does it well. Some of the MOBAs too. Most fighting games struggle with this, but Smash Bros is the big exception. I think there's a common misconception that 'accessibility' means dumbing a game down so the gap between a new player and a pro is minimized -- it's basically the idea that you can make a game for casual players OR for hardcore players, but not both. This is a common misconception not only with gamers, but also within the development community and I think competitive game design has suffered because of it.
I think the primary measure of accessibility is the ability for a game to simply be fun at any skill level. The gulf between a newbie and a pro in Smash Bros is colossal. Contrary to popular opinion, Smash is not simple to play -- at a high level, Melee has some of the most absurd execution for a fighting game. A newbie will have zero fun getting bulldozed by a pro. What makes Smash accessible is that newbies still have fun when they play other newbies -- what makes it a successful esport is that despite the fact that newbies can have fun with each other, pros can still have interesting matches with other pros.
In terms of game design, one of the strategies I'll employ is training wheels. Training wheels let anybody ride a bicycle upright -- they can have fun and get around with basically zero experience. As they get more comfortable, they'll eventually learn to ride without training wheels. Without training wheels, they'll be able to ride faster, traverse a wider variety of terrain, and generally have more fun. Even though training wheels make riding easier, you don't see any pros using them because you can obviously ride "better" without them. But without starting on training wheels, they may have never gotten to that point. Most people seem to think a game can only be a bicycle with training wheels or a bicycle without training wheels, but I think a game can be both.
Something that's been hard to communicate so far is that Arms of Telos will eventually have dozens of weapons/equipment to chose from. Unlike a traditional arena FPS with a small set that never changes, AoT will build out a lot of variety like a MOBA to allow many different play styles. There will be weapon/equipment that are designed with new players in mind -- something easy to pick up, but maybe not as effective when played at a high level. Ideally, these weapons will still be viable at a high level but I think it's ok if that's not possible -- if they 'graduate' from a specific weapon and stop using it, that's not necessarily a bad thing -- the benefits of having it be more viable for newer players could very well be worth it. As long as there's enough variety to be fun at all skill levels, it's ok if the specific variety used at a newbie level is different than the variety you'd see at a pro level.
I think another key component is community. Because AoT is an indie game that will almost certainly start off with a tiny online community and grow very slowly over time, we have a unique opportunity to build a strong foundation of people that are more helpful than your typical online game community. I'm going to do what I can to guide this community into actively trying to help new players and help grow the game. I want new players to feel welcome and be able to find the help they need, but I can't do it alone.
