Imho it would go a long way of offline play would have such things being viable. Most players being insecure about playing other people try to use offline play as a form of boot camp, but the genre typical fake difficulties employed by AIs counteract the valuable lessons that should be taught.
Most AI doesn't scout, because it's not penalized by the fog of war. As a new player with little experience, how are you supposed to emulate the behaviour of scouting when the opponents you play against don't use it? Or economy harassment being a waste of precious ressources on your end because the AI can easily replace lost economy infrastructure because it gets more income than you. Or proper rushing, which falls flat because the AI has a larger starting budget and can simply outproduce your rush attempt (in conjuction with whichever forms of AI cheating being present).
Which brings me back to my original point: offline gameplay vs AIs doesn't prepare players at all in most games, because it doesn't operate as a player would. RTS AIs are by far and wide little more than simple cheats. And most of the time, they're pretty stupid too, meaning you can defeat them with strategies that when used against human players fall flat on their ass, so when a player feels confident and ventures into PvP, they get defeated consistently.
I'm aware this is largely a limitation as making a somewat smart AI to play against is incredibly complicated (RTS games aren't exactly the most linear gameplay formulae anyway), but this is what I believe to be the defining issue RTS games have to deal with if they want to expand their audience to more players than the already existing diehard RTS fans. That and the lack of creative spins on the standard RTS formula to create something different than just: build base, build army, crush enemy or be crushed.
I agree, but I'm not sure how a tutorial would help. Ostensibly, the tutorial would have to be against an AI opponent (because no human player is going to just sit there while you read screens). If it can't teach the concepts that work against humans in SP, how would it teach in MP?
There's also a balance to be had as well. Don't hand hold enough and the learning curve is increased and lack of information makes it a more difficult experience for new players. Hand hold too much and you risk either blasting them with too much information, which makes it a chore. Or it feels constricting for the player to have to sit through 20 tutorials just to get a basic concept, and they lose interest.
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