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New Starting Sequence

Discussion in 'Release 66 Feedback' started by Bedawyn, May 30, 2019.

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  1. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    I've been following the devs' comments about people abandoning the game on the Isle of Storms, and how this release was designed to reduce that number, with great interest -- because I WAS one of those people a couple of months ago who abandoned my character on the Isle of Storms. I didn't abandon the game, though, I just switched to offline mode where there were a lot fewer performance issues and no forced-multiplayer.

    In May, after discovering that the Windows version performed vastly better than the Linux, I've had my abandoned-now-experimental character wandering around online a bit. I've been looking forward to this release because I was waiting for it so I could start again with my real adventurer character. Not on this release -- I was waiting for the release so I could play on the patch behind it. Playing the outskirts in forced-multiplayer has been next to impossible for me (I choose Private Mode for a reason).

    So I should have gotten the message when this turned out to be a forced-update patch. But I'm stubborn and masochistic, or I wouldn't still be here, so I gave it a try anyway.

    The result was too depressing to think about. I've got a whole long list of bugs and other problems I ran into just this afternoon in the Solace Bridge starter scene, but seriously, cataloging everything that's wrong with the game is NOT fun.

    Let's catalogue what's right with it. What are the three things that hooked me on the game right away, enough that I kept playing offline even despite the huge performance issues I was having at the time and the proliferation of other problems?
    1. The fun of experimenting with a flaming staff on Anais' practice dummy, and the intriguing landscape of the Isle of Storms.
    2. The suspense and dangerous atmosphere of the Battle of Highvale, with its burning sky, crackling fires, and sense of immediacy and urgency.
    3. The fantastic landscape in Highvale Outskirts, when I was able to explore it in peace and quiet alone.

    This release? All three of those things are gone, and there's nothing good to replace them with. All there is left is the bugs. If I were a new player starting today? I'd be gone now and would not be back.

    And to top it off? While I'm sitting here typing this with my character at the entrance to Solace Bridge Outskirts, I just watched someone else -- who looks identical to my character -- appear next to me and run off. While I'm in private mode. Since I'm not really new, I know now about forced-multiplayer in the outskirts, but if I were new and in private mode, how confusing do you think that what be?

    So now I'm sitting here wondering why I should even bother continuing. Since I'm not completely new, I know that there IS better content out there in the game somewhere, but with this character, I've seen no evidence of it yet. And since I'm not entirely new, I know I've now got a few hours of boring drudgery to get through before I can get to any of the good content. Either that, or shut down the game and wait for the next patch, so I can try to get back to the more appealing outskirts when they're not crowded with other people.

    I seriously can not think of a better way to lose potential players than forcing them through Solace Bridge and Solace Bridge Outskirts in their current state.
     
  2. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    this is a big thing to note. bedawyn is not the only person i know who deliberately holds back on patching to get around the forced multiplayer thing. please reconsider it.
     
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  3. Mishikal

    Mishikal Avatar

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    Many people have quit because they destroyed SPO. I think they believe they have kept more players because it makes the world look "populated" (forgetting the fact that the game was specifically marketed to allow people to have a "solo" online experience which was a draw to many).
     
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  4. Feeyo

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    I really do not understand you about the Linux part... The GNU/Linux client performs pretty on par with the Windows version. And with -force-vulkan it performs even better.
    For the rest of your post, I dont know. I never had any issues with the starting scene, I mostly do not care a lot about the start of a game. Most of the times it is a boring introduction. This is the case in all games.
     
  5. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    Then all games are doing it wrong. :)

    You have a much better computer than mine. On mine, the Linux version was playable offline after a lot of tweaking, but unplayable online. I was about to give up entirely when I decided out of desperation to try the Windows version instead. I was shocked at how much of a difference there was between the two, even on the same hardware.
     
  6. Feeyo

    Feeyo Avatar

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    Try running it with vulkan, or even steam through proton. :)
    Steam + proton is pretty sweet, it runs the windows client on top of wine tweaked with a vulkan/directx middle layer.
     
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  7. Bedawyn

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    Pessimism and lack of direct dev response aside, it does seem like the devs are reading at least some of these threads (including my incredibly long one from Release 63). So I will maintain hope that someone(s) actually will read this and think about my suggestions. :) Alas, I haven't figured out which dev is which well enough to tag anyone yet.

    The previous starting sequence, from video to scene loading to Isle of Storms to scene loading to Magic Mirror to scene loading to the Isle of Storms again to Anais and back to the rift to scene loading again to the Battle of Wherever.... WAS way too long. But now I think you guys have gone too far in the other direction. You need to find a middle ground, and it's not just a matter of minutes spent. It matters more what they're spent ON.

    The video was interesting but misleading as to the flavor of the game, and I'm glad it's gone. However, I do hope it will be replaced in time by a new video, one that introduces us to the world we're about to enter WITHOUT telling us up front who we are, what our past is, and what our future will be. Those things should be the player's choice. In the meantime, the current transition into character creation is very abrupt; just a couple seconds of special effect might help it feel smoother and more appealing.

    I AM very happy to go directly to character creation instead of going through the Magic Mirror rigmarole. I won't detail the improvements still needed there since I did that in my first NUE thread. But I will remind you that fussing with all those facial sliders takes several minutes that most people would probably rather spend doing something else. If you skip them and end up identical to everybody else... well, having all the new characters sent to the same multiplayer Outskirts just makes the clonishness all the more obvious. Frankly, I'd rather just have 12 premade template faces that we can pick from. That would at least give us more diversity quickly so that we can get on with the game and don't have to waste time trying to figure out the difference between Eye Height and Eye Size (height).

    But if that's not going to happen -- then, please, please, at least:
    * Give us measurement ticks or numbers on the sliders, so if we find an acceptable setting we can jot it down and return to it later if necessary (particularly helpful for people recreating characters).
    *Tone down the white highlights in the blue background of the mirror. The slider effects are already pretty subtle, and the bright white makes it even harder to see the differences on the side of the face.

    As for the Isle of Storms...

    Yes, the length of the railroading bothered me. But it wasn't the LENGTH of the railroading, it was the length of the RAILROADING.

    It wasn't all the reading. It was trying to read text scattered about three different places (chat box, NPC dialogue window, center of screen), none of which were in easily readable fonts.

    I really didn't need a whole section of the trail devoted to picking up a book and dragging it to inventory. But players DO need the New Player Handbook, and now they're not getting it. If they're not getting it on the Isle of Storms, it at least needs to be in default inventory.

    They're also not getting any healing potions or bark bread (which used to come from Anais). Mind you, they don't need them in the Solace Bridge picnic area. But if they're truly new (and hence still learning their combat decks), they probably WILL need them to face Mistress Valdiss.

    Anais' tutorial... the new scene does handle a few things a lot better, like the log-jumping instead of Anais' column-jumping. But the problem with the old tutorial wasn't having it, it was that it was an inconvenient and repetitive sequence of start conversation - end conversation almost immediately - do something simple - start conversation again - end conversation again - do something else simple - start conversation again - end conversation again - try to figure out which of the three paths she wants you to take next - start conversation AGAIN - rinse and repeat. I think Anais' tutorial needs to exist, but I'm happy with it being on the shelf until a better way to do it can be found.

    Until then, tutorial tips interspersed in the starter scene would be fine IF the starter scene weren't annoying and buggy. Which it is.

    I don't mind not meeting Arabella on the Isle, my older characters avoid her as long as possible anyway (that whole railroading/free will thing again). However, not meeting the Oracle right away is a loss for those characters who actually want to be outlanders -- or even natives of Novia, to whom she should be no stranger. Her conversation needed to be improved but the character itself was intriguing.

    I had two problems with the Oracle (and Arabella) on the Isle. The first was the requirement that all characters are outlanders and some sort of destined hero. I'm glad not to have that shoved down my throat right away -- but since all the other NPCs are calling you "outlander" like it was your name and constantly talking about the prophecy, not getting it from the Oracle right away is a temporary reprieve at best.

    The second problem was the Oracle (and Arabella) were clearly established on the Isle as the forces of Big Brother/Domination. Since they are ALSO the Official Voice of the Developers at that point, it leads you to believe that Big Brother/Domination is what the game is holding up as the good guys. This isn't entirely accurate (I think, still haven't finished the main story), but since it's quite a while before a new player will hear any hint otherwise, that definitely made me wonder whether I should bother continuing, in a game about virtues, if the Developers speaking through the Oracle had a completely different idea than I do about what virtuous behavior is and about what we should expect from authority figures worthy of their power.

    That problem is trickier to solve, so I don't mind the Oracle conversation being delayed until it can hopefully be solved. But in the long run, I would like to see that conversation on the Isle of Storms returned, in a new improved form. And I wish delaying its return didn't mean losing the Isle itself, with its intriguing space-island landscape. That landscape alone was a good hook for a new player, and it hasn't been replaced with another hook.
     
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  8. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    I just completely fail to understand why anyone would think it was a good idea to have the world be more populated by annoyed people who don't want to be there! If I had a choice of when to interact, I would play mostly in private mode but would be happy to come out once in a while, for a special event or for roleplaying with a group or to help newer players. Instead, I can't conduct basic business in town without being constantly reminded why I don't play MMOs; being in town becomes a dreadful chore to finish as quickly as possible so I can get out again. I was SO HAPPY when I learned about the patch-behind trick.
     
  9. Mishikal

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    Before this went through, I made several suggestions on ways to improve things w/o destroying SPO, but they were not pursued. :/ Generally, the modes (IMHO should be):

    Multi -> all scenes are multiplayer (except solo/party only scenes)
    Mixed mode -> World map & towns are Multi, adventuring scenes are solo/party. Default mode (essentially what we have now)
    Single Player Online -> Everything is solo/party
     
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  10. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    FYI, Isle of Storms is still there, you can visit from the Lunar Rifts, by jumping into the rift in the scene it is pointing to.

    In other words, if it is pointing to Solace Bridge, and you're in Solace Bridge, and jump in, you go to the Isle of Storms.

    I think this should be the starting movie:

     
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  11. Vladamir Begemot

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    No, not that one, the other one that came out at the same time. I can't find it though.
     
  12. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

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    Yeah, but that doesn't help the new player's first impression of the game.
     
  13. Astirian

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    I liked the Isle of Storms, hated the intro (let's face it, it was pretty cringe). I've campaigned for the Lore Trailer as an intro on multiple other occasions.

    Are they sure it wasn't the janky dialogue box putting new players off? Maybe if they had some ANALYTICS on the dialogue box, hmm? Or, you know, helpful player forum polls clearly showing that there are issues. Chris saying he didn't think there was a problem with the dialogue box in one of his streams has set off HUGE alarm bells for me at this stage.

    Because it seems to me that, for whatever reason, they think the game's UI is fine. Even though UI windows reset every other day and the default position for most of the windows positively screams Alpha.
     
  14. Vladamir Begemot

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    I guess Alpha's fine. Just fine.

    So looking at the poll again, out of the almost 100 people who responded with something other than "I don't care", almost 75% of them Don't Like the Dialog Window!

    But it's Fine, Chris isn't aware of the dialog window being a problem, I guess everyone would have to hate it.

    He won't go more than five minutes into the game as his Bilbo character, probably because of the crap dialog window, but it's totally fine.
     
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  15. Astirian

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    [​IMG]
     
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  16. Bedawyn

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    I'm torn between frustration at the derailment, when I've still got feedback on the new sequence I haven't had time to type up yet, and gratitude that y'all are now having this discussion where I can actually participate :) (still barred from the main forums until I can spend some money at the end of the month).

    I just want to see a simple dialogue pane that takes up the whole right third of the screen. Put the conversation closeup in the other two-thirds, so the dialogue isn't blocking any of the actual visuals, then give us a column of text that's long enough to hold most conversations without scrolling or "continuing" in a font big enough to read. Maybe throw a row of buttons in at the bottom to show other ways to interact with this NPC: Buy, Heal, Attack, Give Quest Items, Goodbye. It seems so simple.
     
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  17. Bedawyn

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    Argh, and now you took it back to the general forum! *bangs ahead against wall* Three more weeks until I have money, just three more weeks... (In the meantime, if anyone wants to quote this in the main thread I can't reply to, you're more than welcome to. :) )

    Ahem. Kerning refers to the spacing between characters, leading to the spacing between lines of text. Two batches of text in the same font and font size can still look very different if the kerning and leading is different.

    I'm not a fan of floating windows for anything important, which is why I'd rather see a fixed pane that's flush against the top, bottom, and right side of the window, with everything else hidden. The training indicators, for instance, you don't really need to see those in the middle of a conversation -- and the more not-immediately relevant things you AREN'T seeing, the more immersive the conversation will feel.

    Everyone has different standards for readability, so it needs a choice of at least three serif and non-serif fonts so people with different visual needs can pick one that works for them. The default font I think is fine now, but the default font size needs to be at least 2 or 3 sizes bigger.

    I'd love to see colored backgrounds, but used sparingly and in ways that emphasize the emotional content of the conversation -- background color as atmosphere setting. That is, ninety percent of the conversations should have a neutral-colored background, but once in a while you'll get one that's colored to match the mood of the person you're talking to. The visual equivalent of background music.

    Underlined keywords need to go. Leave them in for VERY important keywords, the ones you want to make absolutely sure the player doesn't miss. That's fine -- underlining or bolding or italics is an accepted text standard to convey emphasis in spoken speech, and if we could hear the character speak, we'd usually be able to tell which keywords they were emphasizing. But the constant underlining for synonyms of a keyword that they're not even using in its keyword sense... that's got to go.

    And the keyword list at the bottom... I don't really like it, but I haven't yet thought of a better way to keep track of which keywords a player has already used in previous conversations. But please, please, get rid of the spoilers in the keyword list!
     
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  18. Vladamir Begemot

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    I'll link to this, it's very informative, thank you.
     
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