R17 New Character Experience (Spoilers)

R17 New Character Experience (Spoilers)

Summary: The new player experience is brutal and dares you to continue playing. Where long time followers of the game may say "thanks for not holding my hand", other more casual players are probably saying "What the hell is going on here?"

Summary conclusion: We need to adapt the starting scene, The Battle of Solace Bridge, to better explain why we're here, what we're doing, and why we should care.

1. A brilliant introduction video goes to waste.

Before we can understand the new player experience, we first need to watch the introduction video.



This video does an excellent job of explaining how you may have discovered this "world". It talks about how you sought out knowledge, found evidence of a new world, and eventually got pulled into that world. From a roleplaying standpoint, that's "believable" and it helps set up the "gaming world" that you're about to enter.

But unfortunately, the world you enter does not match up well with that video. You have no knowledge, you have no evidence, and you're instead looking at another character creation screen like you would in any other game.

Once your character is created (this is probably no going to be "you" any longer) you're going to start playing "the game". The world the video spoke of is but a distant memory.

2. Edvard's Trying To Help!



Edvard may be trying to help, but he doesn't seem to have the right tools to do so. First of all, WHAT is going on?! I just started playing this game and some guy is asking me if I need a sword.

I have so many questions as a roleplayer:

• Who is Edvard? Wandering Bard of some renown is not really cutting it. I just got sucked into a computer and here I am in this new world I'm supposed to know all about from my "research" and yet I'm talking to a non-responsive simpleton in the middle of a war zone.
• What's this guy even doing here? And he doesn't appear to be surprised to see me. I know this is a tutorial, but it's got one foot in the roleplaying world and one foot out of it and I can't tell which foot is which.
• Ok, there are undead around here. That I understand. But what kind of game is this? I thought it was multiplayer! What is going on?
• Why the hell don't I have a sword already? Who makes a game where the first thing someone tells you is "you need a sword" and then I don't have a sword? If you know I need a sword, just hand me the damn thing! Seriously, I just got here. I was in front of a computer screen 30 seconds ago and you're wandering around mumbling about a sword that I need as if I should've known this all along...really?

Back to the question though, Edvard asks me "do you need a sword?" If I say no, he doesn't really seem to respond to that. If I say yes, Edvard doesn't do well with that answer either...


Edvard asked me if I needed a sword and when I said yes he replied "Not now" as if I asked him what his favorite color was. Then Edvard tells me to pick up the sword we don't have time for. He then tells me to meet him beyond the gate to the North.

If I'm following these directions, the next 20 minutes of my life would've never happened, I would've found the sword, walked through the gate to the North, and apparently met Edvard and gotten new instructions. Of course, the game and Edvard ignore that train of thought and tell me to do more stuff before eventually telling me to goto the gate again.

As I turn to look for the sword, I notice that my new friend Edvard has walked away into a fiery crater. I don't feel that his advice should be particularly well valued at this point. But that's because I know fire burns in this game. A new player would probably receive the message, "Fire is harmless, walk right through it just like your good friend Edvard does".

I guess that's what makes Edvard a "wandering bard".

Of course, if I pay attention to Edvard, he's telling me about some sword that is "right behind him" even though he's moving about haphazardly and "behind him" may as well be "somewhere in this world" at this point.

Eventually, I find the sword I'm looking for.

I successfully pick up the sword and put it in my backpack per the tip in the upper right hand part of the screen. But at this point I completely forget that there's more text to read in the tool tip and I simply turn back to find Edvard.

This seems like a simple and common mistake that could be made here, which is significant because without the sword equipped, you can't really continue through the tutorial and no additional help will be given to you. It's a step you simply MUST get right or else you're lost.

It's also interesting that Edvard no longer wants me to meet him anywhere (beyond the North Gate) or that he's not directly acknowledging that I've completed his instructions correctly. He's just saying "go attack that target dummy".

And this is where I start to wonder, who's talking to me and giving me instructions? Edvard or this tool tip thing?

 

I decided to walk into the near by house because just outside of there was some fire that I took damage from (unlike Edvard) and it made me feel like I was on my own anyway. This brings out the explorer in me and I'll bet it has a similar effect on other players too.

Whenever it feels like a "game" people are just going to do whatever they want. When it feels like the NPC's are actually in sync with you, then you try to do your part to follow along.

Anyway, I thought this was a nice touch, the letter from Sir Hobart. It was my first real feeling that something interesting was going on in this "game" and it made me feel like it there might actually be a "world" here afterall.

But then I started to look at some of the books on the shelves and I could only imagine that Sir Hobart was not a very well read man. Everything on his book shelf was a nursery book. Pictures, a few words, a simple parable. It's no wonder this guy is dead. He's probably a corpse in one of these rooms, clutching a book called "My Pet Goat" no doubt.

I know this is a starting area, and we probably don't want to put a huge library of books in here for players to freak out over (should I be reading all this?!), but I think we're missing an opportunity to make Sir Hobart a little more complicated than "I was just sitting here reading my about Fox's and Ox's when the undead attacked, I think I'll write a letter about it!"...ugh, I'm dead.

Oh well, I'm sure sometime soon I'll find more evidence of Sir Hobart! (I did not find more evidence and this was disappointing. Clearly he would be dead or near dead in this situation, and yet it's like he never really existed.)

I thought the top floor of the house was good, but I question why there's a lit candle. Did this place just get attacked? It's not night time. BTW, I was carrying a torch the moment I got into the game and it wasn't night time either.

Ok, here's a cabinet with a letter I can't read. Is it a bug? Is it placeholder? (I know it's placeholder, btw but this is what a new player will wonder) I need to be able to read everything here, EVERYTHING. It should all have a meaning too - maybe the meaning is just to enhance the background, but it needs to be better than this.

Back downstairs I go. I open this closet door and find what appears to be a chamber pot and a barrel that I can smash. Smashing barrels is pointless, it makes this less of a world and more of a game. I recommend taking smashed objects like barrels and crates out of the game entirely until you can find a reasonable purpose for doing it. It's very immerssive breaking.

I'd also like to note that Sir Hobart has not been found anywhere, and it really seems like he would be "here" somewhere...dead or dying depending on the time when this battle occurred.

 

So while I was exploring Sir Hobart's house, Edvard was waiting for me very patiently to whack away at this practice dummy. Now I'm inclined to do so, but I can't because I missed the part about equipping my weapon. Lucky for me the tool tips are still up. What happens if I had X'd them out?

When I finally equip my sword, I get a new tool tip that shows how to use it. I'm now out of range of the Practice Dummy and get an odd message.

I get done whacking away at the practice dummy. It seems I could've hit that thing forever...literally, and the game would've have cared. This is going to make players feel like they're wasting their time. I think most players would at least want a prompt that said "ok great, move along". Of course, trying to find a way to provide that message via Edvard would be much better.

You can also see that the Sword has returned and I think this is confusing for people. It also devalues the importance of what you're doing. I understand that there are probably ways to lose the sword so you don't want players to be stuck there swordless, but there has to be a better way. Just making the sword show up over and over again is like you're screaming at a player "this is a game!"

I would also like to mention that Edvard apparently shut the door of the house on me while I was inside. I don't know why Edvard would be concerned about the door at all, and I assume this is just standard NPC logic (see open door, shut open door) but again this is one of those things that says "Yeah, you're playing a game". Because you and Edvard are supposed to be in a war zone with undead that don't care about conversation. You get the point...

Speaking of which, I don't like the decision to have the starting tutorial in a place where it would seem that time is of the essence. It's really an odd place to bring new people. Welcome to New Britannia...WAR!!!! Btw, where is your sword?

 

I talk to Edvard again, and now he's ready to move. We have to goto the Gate to the North!

• I know there's a compass, but why on earth are there two gates here? For god's sake it's a new person area. Just make one gate, and say "goto the gate".
• Edvard says that skeletons are watching the bridge. Why? Why are skeletons here? Why do I care? What the hell is going on?
• Edvard says, "I'm not that much help in a fight". Ok, great. So the guy that just taught me to fight by mindlessly hitting a practice dummy is using me as bait for the skeletons while he goes out the back door? Are you serious? Welcome to Shroud of the Avatar new person!
• I want an option to just kill Edvard for the worthless bard he is. I want an option to go the back way with Edvard and try to sneak around this mess. I want an option to not fight.

The gate lever doesn't turn a color when I hover over it. This is probably a bug. But it's a small thing that will probably make new players wonder where this lever is located.

A lot going on outside the gate.

• Skeletons are too tough. I almost died to them a number of times just standing around hitting them using auto attack. So I thought I should try using my glyphs and that didn't seem to improve my odds at all. You don't want new people dying to the first skeleton they face. You just never want that unless they're begging for it.
• You can find gold on corpses. It makes a money sound but it doesn't show up in your inventory. Yes it goes into the "gold" counter, but for a new person looking for the physical object in their backpack, it looks like it's a bug or they did something wrong. I think there should be a physical object for "gold" in all players backpacks.
• Does taking gold from a corpse impact virtue? What is virtue? I know there's a tool tip called "actions have consequences", but I don't think this is adequate for new players or old players. Either it has a negative impact or it doesn't....don't be coy here. It's not fair to the players, but it's really not fair to players that just started the game. Ha ha you took the gold 30 seconds into the game, you're a bad person! Ridiculous.
• There's a tool tip that explains that skeletons can be skinned using the skinning knife. How the hell does a skinless skeleton get skinned? This needs work.
• The skill Rend makes skeletons bleeds. Skeletons don't have any blood, so again, needs work.
• If you look at the bridge after your first skeleton encounter, it's reasonable to think "Maybe I can just run around all this mess, that was hard". Which leads one to think about jumping into the water and swimming around. That's a bad idea though and it will get you killed. New players don't know this.

 

There are TWO Edvard's. The one back at the gate and the one standing around waiting for you in the above screen shot. This is lame and takes away from immersion. You're playing a game!

• Why is Edvard staying here? I thought he was a wandering bard. Shouldn't he be wandering?
• Another Undead Army? What?! What kind of game is this? Undead army wars? I thought this game was multiplayer.
• Ok great, I'm going to Soltown for no reason other than it's not here. Couldn't I have just skipped all this?
• What map is Edvard talking about? I don't even see anything added to my inventory? Confusing.

Here's the rowboat that Edvard directs you to. It's not really that easy to find, which is ok. Like Browncoat Jason commented on in another thread, this should take you to shore somewhere, but instead it takes you to the middle of land locked Soltown.

Also, I have no emotional bond or care for Edvard. He didn't help me. He probably used me. His decisions don't make sense. I still don't know how to play this game. I think this was a good scene to put in during the early stages of testing, but it's FAR from where we want to be at launch.

Finally, here's me in Soltown with all my tool tips. It's just too much! And it's really not helping that much either. I would recommend making a Help Button that shows one tip at a time and allows users to change tips using tabs or something. This is really cumbersome.

Now that I'm in Soltown, there are real players, there's a skeleton on the ground of a real player, I'm immediately given three extra tool tips to read, I still have NO IDEA what's going on or why I should care.

Despite this, the world opens up and I see the beauty of this game, I see the potential, but the learning curve is STEEP.

In addition:

• It took me roughly 1 hour to walk through this scene while taking notes. I'm sure it probably takes most players new and old more like 20 minutes. That seems about right to me for a starting scene.
• I don't want to use a sword or armor. I like magic. I need an option at some point when I start out to be on the path of magic and not general purpose sword guy.
• This goes a bit beyond the scope of the starting tutorial but it's an important MACRO reality for Shroud of the Avatar. Why are we here? When I look at a game like Star Citizen, that question is answered quickly and they don't even have a starting tutorial. If you're playing Star Citizen, it's because you're going to be involved in THIS...(see video below)

So in Star Citizen, people are thinking before they ever play the game "I'm going to be a bounty hunter" or "I'm going to be a smuggler" or "I want to be a security escort". And that is driven through the economy (by design) and helps tell people what they're doing in this game world.

In Shroud of the Avatar that doesn't really happen. There's no macro economic design (that we know of) and it's not integrated into the game at this time. So where I would be in Star Citizen from day one saying "I have bought this ship and it's good for moving cargo over long distances" I know that I can look for work where my ship can succeed. But in SOTA I don't have that construct that defines who I am as a character in the game...I don't know what my day to day purpose is, how I fit into the world, or why I'm even here.

When I finish this starting level I basically find myself asking "Why did that have to happen?" Couldn't I have just shown up in Soltown, read the same tool tips and been just as lost? What I'd really like to see is the following:

• The introduction video being tied directly to whatever the starting tutorial is. Maybe this is as simple as Edvard getting more dialog that suggests a strong link between the two things.
• I'd like for there to be a few more choices players can make. Fight your way out, or sneak around with Edvard. Pick a path to magic, combat, or maybe even crafting!
• I'd like there to be a stronger macro economic/political feel to the world from the beginning. This needs to answer WHY ARE WE HERE? Maybe this is where the Gypsy type events will work themselves into the fray?
• Overall, I think SOTA needs to clearly define the Macro Design of the economy, pvp, conquest, sieges, and how they all work together. I think the starting tutorial should pave the way for this thinking so that the new players understand what this game is from the beginning (because honestly I don't have any idea sometimes).

 

So overall this is GREAT feedback and we are already planning on addressing much of this next release.

One reason why there is such a disconnect between the intro video and Solace Bridge is that the initial scene of the game is not implemented. In that you meet one of the major characters of the game, get an explanation of why you (and everyone else) is there, and from there can choose to branch off in one of three directions. One of those branches is Solace Bridge. So yes, there is a pretty big disconnect there and story wise it will have to continue because, well, not done with the game yet.

Another ding is the "game"y nature of the tutorial. We can't avoid a lot of that because it's a tutorial. Yes, it's dumb that swords magically appear and you don't have one, but at the same time we have to demonstrate how inventory works.

 

Can we get 4th branch (unlesss it is one of the 3) to skip tutorial altogether and get only story relevant update in the jurnal?

 

Yeah, good feedback from Drocis here. The intro / new game experience is not brilliant at the moment!

Reminds me a bit of my post for Release 13 "SOTA Combat - unintentionally comical!". Easy to make unfinished game systems and incomplete storylines seem odd and illogical (or even really silly).

All those expecting a polished game at the moment are still met with a "swiss cheese" experience typical of the pre-alpha phase. Even a pre-alpha such as this which is getting rather long-in-the-tooth.

Feedback such as this from Drocis is exactly what is required though - a well illustrated examination of the current state of play. (And a reminder of all the work still yet to be done).

 

I've mentioned this in other threads but I think it makes for a good companion piece to the new player experience shown above. The establishment of why anyone should be listening to the Oracle has not been completed in my mind. When I walk around various parts of the game, some NPC's like the Oracle, others seem indifferent, and others show pure disdain. It's easy enough to say "well you have to make your own mind up about what you think the Oracle is and if you think you should listen to it!" But that misses the point.

The Oracle is obviously a huge part of the "game". So the option to ignore it is going to have to be a strong and well developed one if players are really going to choose it. That's one important part of what's missing. But another equally important part is the idea that the Oracle is "protecting" avatars from fighting other avatars (i.e. pvp). It doesn't appear that the Oracle has any interest in making players pay for this protection. You can still do whatever you want. You can still ignore the Oracle, never visit it, do the opposite of what it tells you, and yet you're still protected. This doesn't seem to follow the way of the world that I'm accustomed to. The world rarely offers protection like this for "free". There's always a catch, there's always another shoe that drops.

My concern is not that the Oracle isn't behaving the way it was designed, or even that there are no plans to make the Oracle test players in some way further in the story line (and as the game is developed). I'm sure RG and Lum are way ahead of me there. My concern is that the price for the Oracles protection will never test if you want to remain protected or not. That's the key! Because we want this to be a consensual pvp game ALWAYS, I think the Oracle granting this protection becomes unimmerssive if that protection is free. There's just no way that the Oracle is going to ALWAYS give this protection to anyone under any circumstance - unless we artificially make it that way.

So what I'd like to see is this:

• The Oracle will only protect those that "deserve it".
• The Oracle will be more established through the lore and the starting story to explain why it's important to listen to. That may mean that it's KNOWN that the Oracle will no longer protect you if you start to cross "the line" in your actions.
• An alternate route to following the Oracle becomes more developed and seemingly viable. As well as a path where "you're on your own" and no one will tell you what to do, but you are looking in from the outside of the Oracle Faction and the alternative faction. (and you're protecting yourself)

When I spoke with the students of Virtue and the student of Chaos, I didn't subscribe to anything they said. In fact, I felt very distant from the dogma of both sides. Having the ability to be "me" and not fall under the umbrella of Virtue or Chaos is going to be very important to my characters development.

 

Great discussion about the Oracle, etc. It gets at the 'why do we care' aspect of the game. From a sandbox perspective, it is ok for me that the game does not define roles. It might even be ok that I don't have a vision of what I want to be when I start. That the game's skill system has the flexibility to enable one to change as they discover that is great. But without a 'hook' to tie that to some caring or purpose attached to the broader game world, something is missing. Creating that 'emotional' why-do-we-care connection to the game world at the start (like a good book does for its story) seems important to give the overarching lore meaning for the player. That hook keeps people attached to the gam and their character. Looking forward to hearing more on this in the future.

 

Excellent take on the beginning scenes.

I always thought the money on the corpses was a badly timed virtue trap. A new player really isn't going to have a real handle on the virtues and returning players know how much of a gold sink this game is from the get go and may just take the gold even if it is a virtue hit. But still it should be defined somewhere what is and isn't virtuous not left for guessing. If it weren't important to the game I wouldn't care but if I'm to live a virtuous or not virtuous life I think it should be made clear what ethics LB is expecting.

 

The virtue hit for looting corpses is very minor. It's nothing that is penalizing in any way.

 

Thus, do we begin our descent into the dark. One little step at a time, unknowingly.

 

I'd love to hear the reason it's a hit on virtue. Aren't they dead? Why do they need the coins? Is taking something that doesn't belong to you always stealing and not virtuous? I'd love to read the parable on that one. I'm kind of assuming that taking something off the skeletons you killed is equally virtuous then. If not, I'd love to hear the reason why.

It's a very interesting thing to ponder. All looting being a form of stealing that would hit your virtue. Somehow I don't think the average MMO player is aware of this.

 

@Lum

I just had an idea I wanted to share. What if the rules of the game worked like this....

1. Items currently in the game, decorations, books, quest items, etc...would always return. Therefore, you can take them all you want but you can never use them to decorate your home or sell. These are persistent items that are effectively "protected" by the Oracle or some other worldly influence.

This is the "story" reason that the virtue books reappear. This is why the throne of bones will always be in the same spot. The world is "for whatever reason" frozen in time. So if you take something that doesn't belong to you, the hit to virtue is small or maybe it doesn't exist at all. Because the items will reappear as surly as the sun rises and sets.

Yes, this means that players could no longer take the Throne of Bones and decorate their home with it. Instead, they would be able to get the recipe for it and make it themselves. But unlike other recipes, you must complete the quest before it works.

2. Player made items do NOT work this way. Player made items can be taken, used, sold, etc... If you loot those, that IS a hit to virtue. Those items are not protected and will not reappear.


Food for thought. I like it because it solves a number of problems where the lore and the technical realities of the game are currently creating a gap. It's also something that would be easily explained early in the game to new players and that seems fairly intuitive.

 

If I may add my experience as noob helper...

Changing the starting scene from Braemar to Soltown was a terrible choice.

Braemar is much more newbie friendly, with easier scenes around it, and with a LOT more things to do, more ironed out quests and generous rewards, and a sequence of events already in place (Braemar > Kingsport > Owl's Head/Nest > Ravenswood) that has meaning and purpose.

There are only two real quests in Soltown, and the second one throws you in Ardoris without any way out of that.

I can understand the need to show off the overland map, but also Hidden Vale is a great map nowadays.

Not a good way to retain people at all.

 

General notes

I read past the snark because there is good feedback behind it. However that is asking a lot. Things like spreading out tooltips to make them look even more overwhelming may score points in a forum thread, but past "there needs to be a better help popup/interface", it's not helpful, it's counterproductive. There were MANY examples of such here. Things like this, again, score points on a forum thread. It convinces few of your argument who have not already been convinced and further alienates others.

Specific notes

"Who is Edvard? Wandering Bard of some renown is not really cutting it. I just got sucked into a computer and here I am in this new world I'm supposed to know all about from my "research" and yet I'm talking to a non-responsive simpleton in the middle of a war zone."

- You don't know who he is. You just got there. As noted prior, this is not the first step into Novia you've taken, but you still are fairly fish-out-of-water.
- Thanks to a bug this release Edvard was more non-responsive than normally, but the first time you see him he still will be non-interactive, because he is also guiding you towards learning-by-doing basic game functionality.

"What's this guy even doing here? And he doesn't appear to be surprised to see me. I know this is a tutorial, but it's got one foot in the roleplaying world and one foot out of it and I can't tell which foot is which."

A tutorial is by necessity somewhat out of character.

"Ok, there are undead around here. That I understand. But what kind of game is this? I thought it was multiplayer! What is going on?"

A brand new player is not going to immediately demand where other players are when first starting the game, I don't think.

"Why the hell don't I have a sword already? Who makes a game where the first thing someone tells you is "you need a sword" and then I don't have a sword? If you know I need a sword, just hand me the damn thing! Seriously, I just got here. I was in front of a computer screen 30 seconds ago and you're wandering around mumbling about a sword that I need as if I should've known this all along...really?"

Because this is a tutorial and this is a good way to demonstrate you understand (a) that you can pick up things in the game world and (b) open and manipulate your inventory. And (c) no, you don't just start with a sword magically and Edvard does magically know that you do need one because again, this is a tutorial.

"Back to the question though, Edvard asks me "do you need a sword?" If I say no, he doesn't really seem to respond to that. If I say yes, Edvard doesn't do well with that answer either..."

Edvard's dialog was fairly broken in R17, was patched about a week after release to improve, and should be much better in R18 (so if you say "Yes" he'll say "well, go pick one up then" and "No", he'll give a dialog that assumes you know what you're doing and instructs you to go meet him outside.

"As I turn to look for the sword, I notice that my new friend Edvard has walked away into a fiery crater. "

We're significantly reducing his roaming radius in R18. Fire bad.

"This seems like a simple and common mistake that could be made here, which is significant because without the sword equipped, you can't really continue through the tutorial and no additional help will be given to you. It's a step you simply MUST get right or else you're lost."

You can't open the castle gate without having the sword, and you do get a tooltip popup to that effect when you approach the gate and a further error message if you try to open the gate without having the sword.

"And this is where I start to wonder, who's talking to me and giving me instructions? Edvard or this tool tip thing?"

You triggered the "OK, smarty, you want to ignore the tutorial, just get out of here" dialog, because his script was bugged. His dialog normally mirrors the tooltip flow, telling you to go take a few swings at the practice dummy to ensure you know which end of the sword points outward, etc.

"Whenever it feels like a "game" people are just going to do whatever they want. When it feels like the NPC's are actually in sync with you, then you try to do your part to follow along."

Ideally, we support both.

"But then I started to look at some of the books on the shelves and I could only imagine that Sir Hobart was not a very well read man. Everything on his book shelf was a nursery book. Pictures, a few words, a simple parable. It's no wonder this guy is dead. "

The books pulled out of the bookcase were random. Once the player-published books start coming online in [REDACTED] this will pull from a far larger pool and hopefully somewhat higher age group. (No promises.)

"Oh well, I'm sure sometime soon I'll find more evidence of Sir Hobart! (I did not find more evidence and this was disappointing. Clearly he would be dead or near dead in this situation, and yet it's like he never really existed.)"

We'll add Sir Hobart's corpse and another note in R18.

"Ok, here's a cabinet with a letter I can't read. Is it a bug? Is it placeholder? (I know it's placeholder, btw but this is what a new player will wonder) I need to be able to read everything here, EVERYTHING. It should all have a meaning too - maybe the meaning is just to enhance the background, but it needs to be better than this."

That's a bug.

"I recommend taking smashed objects like barrels and crates out of the game entirely until you can find a reasonable purpose for doing it. It's very immerssive breaking."

Others disagree, and we're keeping them in.

"Lucky for me the tool tips are still up. What happens if I had X'd them out?"

There's an option to restore tooltips in the Options screen, and Edvard will tell you what step you're currently on (although with the dummy he doesn't check if you swung at it, just if you approached it). The tooltip interface also needs another pass, though that won't happen in R18.

"You can also see that the Sword has returned and I think this is confusing for people. It also devalues the importance of what you're doing. I understand that there are probably ways to lose the sword so you don't want players to be stuck there swordless, but there has to be a better way. Just making the sword show up over and over again is like you're screaming at a player "this is a game!""

You hit on the answer in your comment - it is theoretically possible for the player to destroy the sword in their inventory, and as they need it to progress, we HAVE to make it re-appear. If the choice is between trapping a player and losing verisimilitude, the latter needs to be chosen, especially in a tutorial.

"I would also like to mention that Edvard apparently shut the door of the house on me while I was inside. I don't know why Edvard would be concerned about the door at all, and I assume this is just standard NPC logic (see open door, shut open door) but again this is one of those things that says "Yeah, you're playing a game". Because you and Edvard are supposed to be in a war zone with undead that don't care about conversation. "

Or perhaps he didn't want anything to follow behind you while you were busy looking for loot exploring your surroundings. But yes, this is standard NPC AI. It can be turned off, but some people might think Edvard shutting a door behind you is kind of nifty.

"I know there's a compass, but why on earth are there two gates here? For god's sake it's a new person area. Just make one gate, and say "goto the gate"."

Because this is a trading hub along a bridge, so there are two exits, one of which you are warned about if you approach.

"Edvard says that skeletons are watching the bridge. Why? Why are skeletons here? Why do I care? What the hell is going on?"

Good point, we'll make why more explicit.

"Edvard says, "I'm not that much help in a fight". Ok, great. So the guy that just taught me to fight by mindlessly hitting a practice dummy is using me as bait for the skeletons while he goes out the back door? Are you serious?"

A bard who makes his living from wandering around singing for his supper, sending the new guy on ahead to do all the heavy lifting? Sounds like he's got the right idea to me.

I want an option to just kill Edvard for the worthless bard he is.

Nope. He appears throughout the main story.

I want an option to go the back way with Edvard and try to sneak around this mess.

Then you don't get to learn about combat in the tutorial.

I want an option to not fight.

Prior to this release you could quite easily avoid combat by simply jumping off the bridge and running around the skeletons, which is intentional. We need to figure out what broke this and re-enable the "uh, I'm not marching through a pile of undead" option. Not sure if we can fix that for R18 though.

The gate lever doesn't turn a color when I hover over it. This is probably a bug.

It is, hopefully an easy fix since we need to train new players how to discover interactive objects.

Skeletons are too tough. I almost died to them a number of times just standing around hitting them using auto attack. So I thought I should try using my glyphs and that didn't seem to improve my odds at all. You don't want new people dying to the first skeleton they face. You just never want that unless they're begging for it.

Agreed. They were tuned prior to the "hey let's make all skeletons resurrect themselves" thing (which for the tutorial needs to not happen, at least all the time) and need another difficulty pass. This is a high priority to fix for R18.

You can find gold on corpses. It makes a money sound but it doesn't show up in your inventory. Yes it goes into the "gold" counter, but for a new person looking for the physical object in their backpack, it looks like it's a bug or they did something wrong. I think there should be a physical object for "gold" in all players backpacks.

Unless I'm mistaken the new player does not use bag inventory mode by default, which it sounded like you activated.

Does taking gold from a corpse impact virtue? What is virtue? I know there's a tool tip called "actions have consequences", but I don't think this is adequate for new players or old players. Either it has a negative impact or it doesn't....don't be coy here. It's not fair to the players, but it's really not fair to players that just started the game. Ha ha you took the gold 30 seconds into the game, you're a bad person! Ridiculous.

This is not a game where you have to make the "correct" choice each and every second in a min-maxing frenzy to progress through the story and it's hard to be overly concerned about feedback that complains that you can't do such. You get a subtle reminder when looting a corpse that this may not be the most virtuous thing to do and I think that is appropriate.

There's a tool tip that explains that skeletons can be skinned using the skinning knife. How the hell does a skinless skeleton get skinned? This needs work.

That's a bug. Skeletons should not spawn that tooltip.


If you look at the bridge after your first skeleton encounter, it's reasonable to think "Maybe I can just run around all this mess, that was hard". Which leads one to think about jumping into the water and swimming around. That's a bad idea though and it will get you killed. New players don't know this.

It shouldn't be a bad idea! THAT is a bug.

There are TWO Edvard's. The one back at the gate and the one standing around waiting for you in the above screen shot. This is lame and takes away from immersion. You're playing a game!

Yes, you are playing a game. Sorry. Not only that, a pre-release version where we can't yet despawn an NPC via scripting. Had to make two Edvard instances to make this work.

Here's the rowboat that Edvard directs you to. It's not really that easy to find, which is ok. Like Browncoat Jason commented on in another thread, this should take you to shore somewhere, but instead it takes you to the middle of land locked Soltown.

We are redoing everything from this point for R18.

- The boat will be easier to find.
- The boat will take you to the overworld, not Soltown.
- Edvard at this point will be a fully conversational NPC, who will give you more exposition on the world and an actual reason to go to Soltown.
- Another main story NPC will be added as well (just for flavor/exposition/reward for exploration, not part of the tutorial per se)

We're also adding to Soltown for R18 to more establish what happened at Solace Bridge and give players more structure/story as to what to do next/why, leading eventually into Ardoris and beyond. Hopefully that addresses the part where the tutorial/new player experience really falls down in our opinion - namely

Braemar is much more newbie friendly, with easier scenes around it, and with a LOT more things to do, more ironed out quests and generous rewards, and a sequence of events already in place (Braemar > Kingsport > Owl's Head/Nest > Ravenswood) that has meaning and purpose. There are only two real quests in Soltown, and the second one throws you in Ardoris without any way out of that.

So a big priority this next release is to fix that, and bring it up to at least that standard.

Hopefully this helps some with where we are vis a vis the new player experience going forward!

 

@Lum Thanks for taking the time to respond tit for tat. I know that takes extra time that you don't have.

Also, I'll gladly apologize for any perceived or factual snark. I specifically deleted my character and walked through the tutorial again just so you'd have this feedback. I assure you that I wasn't trying to "score points" with anyone, yourself included. But I also wasn't trying to drive anyone away either - and that's valuable feedback for me if I decide to do something like this in the future (give deep feedback).

As an example, I want to comment specifically on the screen shot I took with all the tool tips spread out over the screen. I debated how best to show this. On the one hand, most people probably would X out each tool tip as they were used. But on the other hand, if you're new you may keep them around just to reference since that's the easiest way to get "answers" in a new system and world. The point I was trying to make wasn't "look at this funny screen shot", it was "look at all the information we're throwing at a new player and they still really don't know what's going on, in my opinion". And that's why I recommended having ONE tool tip window that instead of multiple ones. It's easier to manage.

Wanted to confirm that yes, I did change this. I didn't know what the default was because it doesn't reset when you delete your character. My assumption was actually that we would start people in non-list mode for their inventory. I guess I was wrong. It's funny because I remember specially trying only to comment on what the new player would see or do and in an effort to be accurate it appears that I change out of the default setting for inventory. Can't win sometimes.

Putting all this together, walking through the tutorial (and taking notes), then creating the screen shots and putting them in a readable format, took me about 3 to 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon. I didn't do it to troll. I didn't do it to make people like me. My only motivation was to provide feedback that I thought would be helpful. Again, the snarky part is me thinking out loud more than it's me saying anything about your skills or the game development. I'm sorry I didn't communicate that better. That's something I'll work on in the future.

The hardest part about this medium is that you can't tell the tone the way you might in a video. I didn't want to make a video because it would involve me editing the sound after the fact and that would've been much more than 3 to 4 hours (since I don't know how to do that).

One more thing I want to mention. I never know exactly what you guys will read or appreciate. You guys are working hard, this is your job, this is how you feed your family, but from time to time stuff on these forums may or may not ever get read. As a fan, someone that is here because it's a hobby or past time that I use to NOT think about work...sometimes it just feels like I'm talking to myself. I've compared it to praying before, for anyone that's ever done that.

My point is that being a fan is often very unrewarding. I might have a great idea that I post on forum sites everywhere, and the only response I might get for years is "you're an idiot" or silence. Then one day that idea might become actionable - like Crowfall allowing players to mint their own coins (for example). As a fan, I don't get credit for that. I don't have a line of random internet people telling me "oh yeah, I remember that was YOUR idea!" (because I'm sure I'm not the first person to think about it) It can be lonely being a fan. Sometimes you have to entertain yourself. (I try to make sure that no developers or other forum goers are hurt doing that process)

Anyway, I'm glad you found some positives from this. Thanks for the feedback.

 

@Lum - Suggestion

This is just a thought for the tool tips and maybe not feasible but why not have all the tool-tips in one window and use the title for each tool-tip to scroll through them. For example, have a drop-down of the tips in this area created as they are added to the window so that the player just goes to the title section and selects the hint title that they want to see. Depending on which title they select, the text for that title is displayed.

If "Combat" is selected, the windows displays the text for the "Combat" help. If "Draw Your Sword!" is selected then the text for "Draw Your Sword!" is displayed. As the player is presented with a hint it can be added to the title drop-down and displayed. Then if the player wants to review an older tip, they just use the drop-down to switch back.

Example:

 

I was hoping for tabs above or out to the side...a tab for Combat, that might be triggered by an event. But then the tab would stay there for review.