Alpha 7.1 - Feedback: New Tutorial

Loved the new tutorial overall. Yes there are some minor grammatical errors (or rather some ways it could have been said "better") but well done as a whole. Messages (particularly ones with codes for access) could stay on screen longer or easier to find in the PDA, had trouble finding them after they went off screen. Jumping up to heavy armor was nice but too soon for my taste, maybe put it in as the aliens attack instead. Too many weapons that you have to pick up from cargo boxes, but it is nice to have a choice. Too many things happening during the alien attack. Was getting shot while trying to load the blueprint for the SV (maybe realistic, but annoying). Would love to see this as a mission based playthrough with access to that beautiful planet below, maybe with having to search for TITAN after leaving the space station. A copper asteroid or meteorite would have been nice also as some of us would like to continue on our own after leaving the space station. Thanks for the great work!!!

 

Not sure if this has been covered yet, but I'll say it anyway. The info in the PDA that covers the pop-up text portions is limited, and hits a max of text it can hold. I hit a certain point where the new text that is appearing in the pop-up text boxes, like the access codes, won't completely show in the PDA text portion, as the scroll bar has hit it's max, it shows no further than half-way through the text portions for each part.. I had to guess and got stuck for a long time guessing passkey numbers. It was frustrating.

I also noticed that the parts where aliens attacked you, and you had to move fast, were the parts that there was no time to read the text that popped up and told you what to do next. I got kind of lost in that sense. I could not use the keyboard "pause button" shortcut when the text appeared, as somehow the pop-ups would override that.

I apologize that this may have a lot of redundancy, but please hear me out on this one. Other than these things, the tutorial was fine.

 

Provide us with a transcript of all the messages. It'll make it a lot easier for us to correct the mistakes and for you to implement them. Doing it on a screenshot basis is just plain awkward.

The tutorial isn't bad for someone who is familiar with the game, but a new player is going to flake off early on. There's just too much information at times, and the tutorial itself really highlights the bad design decisions with the game. You have us pick up a flashlight and the tutorial even says it's a pointless item, I'm sorry what?

The tutorial doesn't like when you take items out of containers before the message comes up to do so. This is typically the part where it starts going wrong and irritating. You need a better way to keep players out of containers than the wonky pass code system. That's just annoying.

The hangar door is opened by a switch beside it. You need to mention that otherwise players are going to keep trying to opening the hangar door like a regular door. I imagine a bulk will flake off at that point.

The constructor being off, I really don't understand your guys obsession with things needing to be turned on. I would also suggest that you remove all the items from the constructor that aren't required for the tutorial as it's just a distraction.

You are required to make 3 planters but only 2 are required.

The cake doesn't always register when you make it. I had to make 2 for it to register.

The cake part also has you place the cake in a fridge downstairs and then the NPC has you tracking back to it to put it in another fridge. Just have us put it in the fridge upstairs instead.

After you get the weaponry (epic assault rifle) and various other pieces, you're instructed to leave. Leaving the area doesn't trigger the next event and you can even use the teleporter. The teleporter shouldn't be on at this point either so you need to have a look at this.

The last part of the tutorial offers zero guidance on where to go. Just fly into space? Give the player a destination instead or end it when we do.

Overall it's not that bad. I also don't know why you made the bike have a turning circle of an Alfa Romeo.

 

Don't take it so personally Hummel, I'm just giving you my feedback on the tutorial.

I know creating tutorials isn't easy, but you have to remember it's the first thing people see when they play the game and my concern is it's pushing way too much info too fast and a lot of it is getting lost. If the tutorial is frustrating people are going to toss the game aside.

You need to test it with new people and get feedback. I can guarantee you the number one complaint will be the info is whizzing on the screen too fast and they're not keeping up with all the random **** that's with it.

It's my personal opinion that the spelling and grammar are the least of your concerns right now.

 

This tutorial, if anything, is worse than the old one. Whoever develops these tutorials does not appear to have...whatever it is they need to code a tutorial in any other way than "do these things in this exact way in this exact order". If you don't do exactly what it says in exactly the order it tells you to, the whole thing breaks.

The individual task items should not be tracked on this sort of basis. If someone happens to have taken items A, B and C out of the fridge already, before he is told to, the turorial should be able to handle the simple task of realizing that this has already been done and automatically checking the tick box and progressing on to the next step. Easy code..."is there sausage in the fridge? no. Is there sausage in the player's inventory? if yes, OK, skip the step that tells them to get the sausage out of the fridge. If no, is there a sandwich in inventory? Yes. OK, skip the whole get sausage and other materials and making the sandwitch part." Obviously I am simplifying but it's not rocket science.

Also, despite the instructions that say "check back in your PDA for things you may have missed", there is nothing in the PDA tutorial entries OR logs that have the (silly, unnecessary) passwords for machines. If passwords are going to be there (they mostly shouldn't), and they are given in the dialogue (I saw the others but didn't see any passoword given for the food processor, in two attempts of the tutorial), then they should also be included in the log. Otherwise it's not a very useful log now, is it?

Those two things would make the new tutorial 300% better.

Edit: Also, the constant pop-ups that require you to click OK every time interrrupt what the player is doing. This isn't even remotely kosher. Trying to get out of the promethium hole? Nope, not going to happen because the pop-up that tells you to go get pantaxid next happens, and by the time you click OK you're back down at the bottom. Almost made it over that steep hill? Nope, haven't got enough momentum because the pop-up stopped you from maintaining power on the movement control.

 

RIGHT!!

This should be so much easier.
I've already written it, but here again:

Write it additionally to the Check boxes on the right Screen border.

So instead of
[] Go to Fridge
[] Open Fridge
[] Get something

add the password:
[] Go to Fridge
[] Open Fridge (1234)
[] Get something

and whenever you have to approach the Fridge again,
instead of ... eh, I think you got it by now...

so easy, so less of a hassle, so much QoL (quality of live)...

 

Oh, and once you have put the password in for something, you should never have to use it again. Your PDA should have recorded it and automatically enter every subsequent time you access that machine.

 

Sadly technically not possible atm as @Hummel-o-War said, that's why I suggested putting it in the Work list on the right side of the Screen.

 

Sadly you're wrong here.
The point @Hummel-o-War did made Clickable text boxes were, because the text otherwise were too fast gone and many had suggested that these fast scrolling text infos should change into real message boxes (with buttons) instead. Yes, not everybody can be pleased.

 

From the sounds of things then, it seems Hummel needs more tools at his disposal to make the tutorial function how it should. A short term solution though would be editting the transcript so certain things are more clear. When you're tasked with baking a cake, that generally means just the 1.

I think it makes sense for Eleon to invest in this, especially if these tools can be used to enhance the POIs and scenarios.

 

There is too much stuff to take. The inventory is easily full.
After, when it comes to build the ship, some ingredients are missing in qty
So I'm stuck at the ship building part.
I'll try to go back ad search the area and container to find silicum and Ore

 

Those "fast scrolling text lines" are in the log. There are already some text boxes that don't require clicking, so I know that can be done. So, easy solution, put a text block off to the right and have a scroll bar on it. Put all the messages there and have them never fade, just add to the bottom. Include the passwords so you can check them later. All the information is in the PDA log anyway (except, as noted, the passwords, which should be added regardless). I had a boss once who had this great policy. It annoyed the f*** out of all of us, but in the end it worked and that's all that counted: "Don't come to me with problems or excuses, come to me with solutions."

So if the game doesn't support a way to store passwords so a machine you've used before doesn't prompt you for a password again, you take that to the guy who can put that feature in, and get it done. Part of having a dev team is to have a bunch of devs who work together as a team. So when "I" can't do something, "we" can.

 

This actually reminds me of a dev team I ... encountered that was working on a project (not a game). They had all the best tools, including a great trouble ticketing system that was completely integrated into their calendar and time-tracking system. The project was already a year overtime and it didn't look good. After just three days I walked away, because these guys (actually 4 guys, 2 girls) simply could not work together. Totally incapable of functioning as a team in any way. I don't know if it was like that from the beginning, but at the point I was hired it was impossible to get any two of them to work together to solve the simplest of problems. I hope Eleon is not going in this direction.

 

The codes are different so that the player gains access to the resources at the appropriate time.

A better solution would require more scenario scripting capabilities.

Either a different way to uniquely identify/unlock things as needed, or more nuanced tracking of player actions (Player already looted this box? Okay, acknowledge it and move on.).

 

I think I forgot to cross-reference and mention that I wrote up a partial narrative to tie the tutorial and Robinson Protocol together. It's posted in the Suggestions Forum.

 

I agree in that there is too much to pick up. I had that problem near the end, and had to dump some of the stuff I got.