..when you were NEW to the game? What should the game have told you early on? What were game elements you did not understand without asking somewhere or someone?
It's been years since I was new to the game, which has changed a lot. I do recall wondering why I was shot and killed by a building. (The first POI I found.) I recall being assaulted by a plant monster and not knowing how to melee attack it. (You can't.)
I have played many hours without use the personal drone. And than, anyone question me, why i not use the Drone!? i think what Drone? I cant build a Drone, i say? I recive the hint for the Personal Drone and remember that i died twice in a Hole where iam digged in
Well isn't that the adventure in the game? Figuring this out for yourself or asking someone. Making it more convenient will bring the boredom on quicker. Ask yourself why more people play classic WOW and old school runescape. Because it's harder and more of a challenge without all the added modern "make it easier stuff". Personally, I would rather work for something then have it handed to me. Greater satisfaction!
It's not listed anywhere, doesn't appear on the load screen tips and the tutorials have never covered it. Prior to getting light armor with a jetpack (Jetpack also isn't indicated) mining without the drone is a nightmare. It's less of a problem now that the survival tool has unlimited ammo and can mine terrain, because if you ran out of biofuel with the old drill while in a hole you couldn't climb out of... Semi-related: The loading screen tips are also wrong 90% of the time and are more likely to kill new players by listening to them than help them.
I agree with your sentiment in regards to the experience of the adventure but not when it comes to functionality and mechanics. It's especially harder for someone who has never played this type of game. I for one couldn't get my head wrapped around why a block wouldn't fit next to another one not realizing a small item takes up an entire unit of space. Learning how to use auto pilot or cruise control took me awhile to figure out. I had probably played 100s of hours before someone told me you can look at a directly at a light and then go into the menu to change the color instead of scrolling through each one. For early game the drone almost always seems to escape players much less knowing that you can mine with it. I think I have probably played games with new players and streamers 5-6 times now and generally get commented on how they would not have been able to figure it out without help. This game is so ridiculously dense that I understand why people get frustrated but also don't envy the person who has to try to make a comprehensive tutorial. I understand the frustration but I certainly think it was worth it which is why I enjoy helping new players. I just sit back and help with things like how blueprints work but won't tell them what's down in the abandoned mine. Next time I play with someone new I will definitely take note of these details.
Once the game is in full swing, having a tutorial at the start would be helpful. Then again, I wouldn't have the memories of digging myself out of a few holes. Who knew the clothes I crashed in (not armor) had a drone built in!!!! Maybe the drone is something that should be found in game? Or it finds you! The developers gives use the tools to play this game. It's players such as yourself Hector G that brings the game to life. Kudos!
Back when I started I thought the Space Heater/Cooler was broken. I didn't try one again for a long time. Turns out that you not only have to basically hug the darn thing, it has some weird quirks. Like if you're up on a block of wreakage and it's right down in front of you, you quite likely won't get the effect. -- Agree w the self discovery parts. Yet some things you just have to tell folks exist, like the drone, and the keyboard combos for Cruise, etc. And @Demonic was kind enough just a couple days ago to tell me we could rename Cargo Controllers, so long as they're in a Group.
It is clear that for new players it is necessary to include information on the use of the drone. It happened to me that I knew it existed, but I didn't know I could use it with tools! It was by chance that I realized that. Nor did I know that I could enter different sources of power in the generators! It should be placed within the Robinson protocol. Es evidente que para nuevos jugadores es necesario incluir información del uso del dron. Me pasó que yo sabía que existía, pero no sabia que podía usarlo con herramientas! Fue por casualidad que me di cuenta de ello. Tampoco sabía que podía ingresar diferentes fuentes de poder en los generadores! Debería ser puesto dentro del protocolo Robinson.
I agree with this statement. But what if they start the one without the Robinson protocol. I feel it should be in a much easier location to get to. Unless the game forces you to play a tutorial as a first time player there is just no easy place to find out all this information. Even hitting escape then clicking on getting started does nothing. The pda encyclopedia don't really help to say HEY LOOK AT ME for help. Not counting the fact the info can be removed just by putting in your own pda info when making a scenario.
What about putting the drone in your inventory/hot bar with the starter equipment? A drone slot can be added to suits when you get one. Adding mouse over tools tips would probably help.
Maybe leverage the ESC window. Everyone goes through it, and likely most do early on looking for Sound or Video Options, so add TEXT, not an icon, saying something like, "How Things Work", or "Important Info to Know". Have it begin with a note like, "This is the most current info, all shortcuts and mechanics are at least listed here until the Devs have time to update the PDA entries." Then use it as a To-Do List. As new bits are getting worked on then the Devs jot a note here, and then once the PDA entry is created/updated, the basic "Use Shift+WASD for Cruise" remains but with a "see PDA", indicating there may be more info available. Actually maybe all Keyboards Shortcuts just get a section and then a notation, "WiP", if it hasn't got a PDA entry yet. If Eleon wanted to be really nice then a copy could be exposed in the game files as text file, and mentioned so folks would know where to find it; this would allow both reading it without being in-game, so at work, and could search it later on when you kinda remember there was that thing..
This is actually a serious problem with Empyrion and the devs. They substitute words for symbols, which wouldn't be too bad if they didn't absolutely suck at symbology. It's almost as if they've never read a book... or a road sign. They forget that most symbols have multiple meanings and use a symbol whose secondary meaning they want to exemplify, but end up misrepresenting everything because everyone sees the main meaning of the symbol. Examples: A new survival game on the main menu uses a Skull symbol. Not a cartoon skull that would convey a message lightheartedly, a proper skull. What does that mean? Well, obviously it means "Death", but more specifically it's usually used to indicate "This will kill you", which while that is what can happen in Survival it's not the kind of "you will die" that should be conveyed to new players. Another prime example is the "Connect To Container" button used for logistics, mainly in conjunction with Mass & Volume. Which is a portrayed as a standard electrical plug. Which is extremely misleading as it has nothing to do with inventories and all to do with power coupling. Anyone looking at that button without already knowing what it does will immediately think "This turns the power on/off" or something similar. Hell, the player's HUD has a number of symbols that I have no idea what half of them are meant to be indicating to me. One, even after all this time I have no idea what it means. It's ridiculous.
I didn't know about the drone until I read about it in the forum, after probably a hundred hours of gameplay. Even then, my first thought was something like "You mean those things that fly around and attack me when I get close? I can get one of those for myself? I shall name it Scruffles." It took me even longer to find and then sort out how to use the "factory", where you can just dump in all your raw material and wait a bit for a fully-built grid. Really cool functionality. Totally wish I'd known about it sooner.
1. I started playing with an older tutorial where you started on a space station. I got stuck because I could not figure out how to summon the elevator, or make the elevators go down. Did not realize it was a "magic hover elevator". So I skipped the rest of tutorial and just started on the planet, which led to... 2. Did not realize I had a suit light. At night I would frantically switch between a gun and a flashlight. I think there was also a time when the guns had lights on them but that was taken away and I thought the flashlight was the only replacement. I did not know about the suit light for probably 6 months when I noticed someone say something on the forum and I was like, "what suit light?" So I googled it and felt stupid afterwards. 3. Did not realize I needed an ammo box. The first time my base got blown up by a drone, I restarted the game, and quickly built a turret and ammo. I then tried to put the ammo into the gun and didn't understand why I couldn't drop the ammo on the turret to load it. (My base location turned out to be on the other side of the lake from the drone base so time was of the essence). Luckily I took out the drone with a shotgun and saved my base. But that was frustrating at the time. #1 can be fixed if you have more of an auto-tutorial, namely the first time you step in any elevator it should tell you how to go up/down. #2 could be fixed in many ways. Getting rid of the flashlight would be a good idea (why would you ever need it with a suit light?) The very existence of the flashlight made me think I probably needed it. Making a suit light a component you have to build and attach to the suit would have helped too, I would have noticed it as a recipe. #3 can be fixed by having it show a message if you try to drop bullets onto a turret. Or the first time you make ammo, or the first time you make a turret. Lots of places to potentially help people there. All that said, I personally enjoyed "figuring out" the game by just being dropped into it, so I made no effort to read about it or ask people. For me, it was part of the adventure. But some people could find those things frustrating so perhaps they can be better. Not everyone has the patience to play through a tutorial chapter/scenario, some people just want to get going. This is why help text is useful when people do weird things - I have bullets, I try to pick up the bullets and forcibly put them in the turret, the game can say "no you idiot you need to make an AMMO BOX to put them in" and problem solved.
Same here with the drone. Similar to my comment about the suit light, I think that if it was something you had to either build, or get the technology to unlock in the tech tree, that would have actually made it easier to find, because I explored those things, like "cool I can make a laser pistol" but the fact I can't build a suit light or drone made me not even realize I had them already. I zoom out and I see I have a suit, but can't see I have a light, or a drone, so I don't know I have it.
It took a while until I discovered the symmetry and selection mode feature on youtube. It saves a lot of time. A tutorial is needed though as it is not intuitive.
Yes I think the Drone was probably the biggest issue. Took a long time to learn how big of a impact it has on game play and not just learning I have my own drone but eventually finding out all its proposes building, mining scouting... Think I had hundreds of hours in before I even connected the two together and realized I could mine with it. After how many times getting stuck in holes I mined into. I even asked a friend if he knew about it and was like we can!! I explained how we could mine with it to him.
