New User Experience (NUX) - Spoon's QA Feedback - Path of Love

So I will keep posting every feedback high and low in this topic.

Scenario:
I will be testing with the mindset of an Explorer as per Bartle's taxonomy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types
I will also assume that I have played at least one of the single player Ultimas and a bit of Ultima Online.

User Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz (8) System RAM: 16297
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU RAM: 4064
SotA.EarlyAccess.Win.64.397.Date.09.22.16

Playing over STEAM beta


Please note
I do these types of reports at work. But there I first talk with the product manager on what type of feedback they want specifically.
Since there is no such dialog here - please note that I will bombard with a LOT of feedback high, low, and in between. If you define what type of feedback that you want you'd get an automatic filter.

 

Don't know if there is a setting somewhere.

But we used to get the video with the guy sitting in front of the alienware computer, which told us that we had searched the signs until we found the rift etc.
Without that starting as a ghost and some of Arabella's starting dialog makes less sense.

 

That is actually not how banks work on earth, instead you correctly say its like safety deposit in the second sentance which is completely different.
Proposed edit is to :
Banks in Shroud of the Avatar act much as safety doposit boxes does on Earth. Adventurers such as yourself use them to store and retrieve tiems they may not want to carry with them. ...
that way we remove the unintended misunderstandings by being more direct.


Also:
Would have been nice if we could actually call them Storage or something instead of Banks, since they don't fill the Bank function of other games. Which means that new users will wrongly associate how they work.
Storage Slots also make more sense, than Bank Slots.


9/24/2016 1:24 PM
Title:
Reproduction Rate:
Blocker?
Details:
Steps to Reproduce:
User Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz (8) System RAM: 16297
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M GPU RAM: 4064
SotA.EarlyAccess.Win.64.397.Date.09.22.16
Area: IsleOfStorms
Loc: (45.2, 17.9, 26.7)

 

Scrolled up a bit


The instruction reads that I can either A) click or B) type questions.
Here it should be much more clear that one can type anything - not just questions.
In fact here it should be encouraged and preferable a chat entry that you can indeed type whatever you want.

 

If the moons were pulled from the sky then they shouldn't still be up there.
The old trailer showed that the moons collided and the debris crashed onto the land.

Also
When asking about New Britannia, shouldn't she mention Novia?

Also
you have two spellings of Britannia and one doesn't trigger the key word
New Britannia vs New Brittannia

Also
Isn't the whole Isle of Storms scene part of the moon debris?

Also
"learned of in all of those stories" requires some preknowledge which if one hasn't seen the old old vid trailer - one has not.

Also
Right now "I find myself" on Isle of Storms, which clearly isn't part of New Britania since I can stand on the edge and look down on it. Its akin to saying that one is on Earth when one is on the moon.

 

This is the first the user has heard of the Compass.
It would be nice if it received some attention to guide the user to what part of the UI you are talking about.
Proposal:
Make the compass get a soft glow - on/off - for 10 sec when that text appears. So the user get that something is happening in the upper part of the UI since they are right now focused on the text - wherever that might be.

 

I find myself questioning the default settings that I have.
For these NUX feedback - it would have been great if we could reset all settings but that it would only affect the QA playthrough.
Right now if I make a change in settings for QA then it remains that way when I switch back to Live.
Which really limits testing feedback like this, since I want to keep my settings in Live.

 

Even though I've already spoken to her and she has sent me onwards -
Arabella still beckons to me to talk to her again, and again.
I've met new users who has talked to her three times and asked me what information they were missing since she continued to beckon to them, ie, since she was they assumed they had missed something.

 

When I explore a bit in ghost form I get the tips
"Wherever you are, this is not Earth" followed by "Am I in outer space? That does not look like Earth."
however as can be seen in screenshots above this one, if I've talked to Arabella, then I know what that is. Whcih would have been great to reinforce.
"Wherever you are, this is not Earth" followed by "Am I in outer space? That does not look like Earth. Is that New Britannia that Arabella talked of?"
Would convey added information.

 

Here we have three types of moving objects that all behave differently.

1
Butterflies
Which is fine, after a while users will see them as part of the scene and not something they can interact with.
2
Watcher
Which has no title hovering above their head - but which when we double click them they show up in the UI with Name etc
3
Rabbit
Which for some strange reason has a "Rabbit" title hovering above their head.
Please, please, please, make all rabbits behave like the watcher in that they shouldn't have a Title hovering above their head.
That would make them much more part of the scene and backdrop. Since they like the watchers don't attack back this would not affect the player negatively.

Also
I'd advice the same for all "friendly" animals, that they don't have a nametag above their head, unless they turn hostile. Like deers and horses.

 

Hovering above the mirror in either reticule nor interact mode - neither produce a tooltip. Where most other objects when getting the green highlight on the cursor/reticule gives one.

 

Here the user expects a "random" button, or some Archetype buttons which can speed up the process.

Also
There should be a big splash somewhere here which states that one can change looks for Crowns later on in the game. The users behavior will be completely different if they know this is their only shot at looks, or if they know that they can go back and redo it.
Opinion:
I think you should add a 1-time-only-redo per avatar. So that fresh users can skip this and head into the game directly - knowing - that they have 1 FREE redo.

Also
you have included clothes for the first time at the same time as you introduce character customization. That gives the user the impression they can affect also the looks of the clothes which leads to unfullfilled expectations. If instead it was directly zoomed to a headshot no such expectations would exist.

Also
I'm not going to go into too detailed feedback on the sliders here.
But they have a limited scale and limited diversity.
For instance try getting really thin lips. Or as a female, not getting soemthing which gives a duckbill feeling.
Or try to replicate a Jackie Chan. Or try for an Oprah.
And one cannot change one of the most important features which is the shape of the skull vs face. Even just three-four basic ones would be good here. The male one for instance has a very wide skull regardless of chin/cheek settings. Which gives a very uncanny look if one try to go for thin facial features.
etc

Let me know if you want full feedback on this.

 

So here we are back again - and now we have a body. Which means that you've also added a lot of stuff to the player.
-However-
None of it is listed, nor hinted at.
Instead the instruction in the chat is still the old one telling me to go to the mirror. AND it specifically tells me not to continue up the path - which would be what you want them to.
So here I'd expect a new user to head back towards Arabella.
-which if we do give the hint but why couldn't we get that right away?

Also
We now have Equipment which would be a golden opportunity to introduce the Paperdoll and Inventory. But the Paperdoll is Disabled and the inventory is not mentioned.

We got a torch in inventory - but it is not put into our hand - why? That would look cool and would give the user added info that one can ready it. It would also give clues to holding stuff in hands etc.

 

So adding pics in this forum format is really tedious. If you want proper bug reports - which we know is very much easier to understand with a pic - then you should rethink this.

 

So I'm the explorer Bartle type - now that I have a body lets explore what I can interact with.

Lets start with a watcher.
I doubleclick and right click. When targeted I can 'chat' to it.
Every time I doubleclick or chat I get a respons which is neat.

But this is a tutorial so I like to try combat. So now I have to turn to the manual or ? help.
Which has so far not been mentioned - shouldn't that be mentioned a couple of times and repeated often?

OK I find the Z command.

It flees - which is cool - but here I have an old setting again - autoattack, I'm assuming the new user wouldn't have that.
So with autoattack I can actually run after the watcher - but instead I ran past a rabbit which is instantly attacked - and killed. Oups.


But here we get objects with different behavior again.

The watcher when dead - goes away into nothing. While the rabbit when dead lies on the ground.
Would be more consistent if they behaved the same even if the watcher had no loot.

But - now I've actually landed my first drawing of weapon, my first kill, etc. One scene too soon.
So maybe you want to disable Z just like you have with Paperdoll, since I expect that you want them to find that out in the next scene.

Also
all watchers should give 1 metal scrap as loot. For immersion.


So I hunted a rabbit to the edge.
Hovering gives "Field Dressing" which is nice, but clicking on it gives the "a tool requered" tip. And since you haven't added the tools until later this isn't working.
So another thing that would be solved if you Disabled Z.

 

except that you CAN go and peer over the edge before talking to arabella, and an explorer is pretty likely to. i look around the whole scene (or at least as much of it as seems safe) before going back and starting conversations. you'd either need tips that apply to both scenarios (that'd be awfully vague) or a whole different set to switch to. invisible quest flag from arabella indicating you not only talked to her, but specfically were told of the planet?

 

The curse of the aquabunnies strikes again.
It often runs into the water and sometimes stays under it for way too long.

 

Exploring



Area: Isle of Storms (IsleOfStorms) Loc: (48.1, 16.9, -53.7)
Invisible blockers all over this cliff on this side. So even though it looks like I can get up there I can't.

 

Exploring



Idea:
One of the cooler features of this scene is the moving rocks. However none of those are reachable.
It would have been such a neat feature if one of the smaller rocks were moving up and down really close to one of the high cliffs we can reach so that one could jump on to it.

 

This is great feedback, @Spoon! I always found it confusing in the beginning scenes not knowing what settings a "real" new player would be playing with. It is also really hard to give feedback from a new user perspective when you are not a new user. I think you did a great job.