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Thoughts on a few things

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Martin Greywolf:
Let's get to the point, after playing this game for a short while, I've found that a) I have no intention to stop any time soon and 2) there are a few things that annoy me/would be nice to have.

1) Learning curve
It's rather steep beast at this point. I'm the kind of person who reads a lot of guides before he even starts playing, but for someone who doesn't? Not that fun. There are a few points here, so I'll just go through them in order.

1.1) Tutorials
They... aren't great. One outright mistake is messages that disappear when you just move around - I've found at least one of these. It'd be better if you had to actually do something before they change - dedicated button would be best, but anything other than moving and looking at the pretty airship would work.

Now, engineer and gunner ones are reasonably OK, though I'd like more emphasis on leading your target and projectile drop in gunner - most mainstream games don't have those, so someone who didn't play ARMA or Sniper Elite may have a bit of a problem there. Engineer could introduce the repair circuit, lot of engineers fresh out of novice games just stand near one piece of equipment.

1.2) Piloting and advanced tutorials

Pilot tutorial fails to mention/emphasize/test some pretty important concepts. They aren't exactly basic flight, but still. Maybe implementing advanced tutorials wouldn't be a bad idea - even, say, gunner could benefit from more long-ranged practice, or engineers from using chem spray.

What the piloting one needs is introduction to ship inertia, including things like lag and behavior of motors - no brakes and reverse having a lag isn't something immediately intuitive.

Another important thing is tighter turning curves when going slower. Many beginning pilots don't figure this one out, and I can't really blame them.

Flying through some literal hoops that are impossible to navigate through without using these techniques seems like a good idea to me.

1.3) Social interactions

I admit it, this comes from recent Extra Credits episodes, but still. GoI demand quite a lot of interaction, and easing people into it might not be a bad idea. It can be as simple as disabling voice chat (maybe even text chat?) for players below level X in novice games - as an added bonus, this will force them into using in-game commands, which comes in handy if your voice chat is on the fritz. Maybe even making novice novice games? Honestly, I could just chuckle at someone in novice games calling me a noob, but...

1.4) Social kosherness

At least some guidelines to what is and isn't considered okay could maybe help. Stuff like how captain is in charge, quitting is for losers and so on. Most importantly perhaps, mention that standard crew loadout is gunner/engi/engi. Some new players figure it out on their own, some don't, and I've seen some captains quit at the last seconds before match because they had two gunners. For shame.



2) Practice mode

This one could use some love.

First thing first - add a button to spawn practice targets at long range. If I want to practice, say, hades cannon, I have to jump through some (this time metaphorical) hoops to be able to do it.

Next one - make practice targets actual airships. This way, you have to get people to go with you if you want to, say, train yourself to gauge distance to ships by eye, or to be able to hit the hull of the bloody junker.



3) AI crew

Making an AI capable of piloting ship is not really viable, but at least make the crew listen to in-game commands, specifically to pilot V-button voice messages.



4) Leaving crew formation

There is no way to do it for a while after the match has ended, at least not without quitting the game - you have to wait until you're in the lobby. When you've found a good crew, it's fine. When you're in a toxic one and want to go find a new one, not so much.



5) Brighter colors?

Not much brighter, it'd kinda not fit with steampunk thing, but a little bit? It's rather hard to tell blue and red teams apart from each other.



6) Captain spot

It doesn't work. I don't know if it gets stuck on ship's hitboxes, or has bad range, or needs to be aimed precisely, but it doesn't work properly. Making it a cone that passes through solid things would be best - especially if it only works on spotted ships.

Again, this is not the issue if your voice chat is okay, but mine has a few second lag, and sometimes crashes the game. I'm pretty sure it's a steam issue at this point, but still.






Well, I suppose that's all, then. Fly safe, shoot decidedly not so.

DJ Logicalia:
Woah, hey, a new player with a level head and reasonable ideas. Nice to see that around. 

All of your points are totally valid, and most of them are on the list of things the devs are planning on getting to one of these days. The tutorials are bollocks, and practice mode is minimally helpful.

As to your point about captain's spot, I think you must be doing it wrong. Are you playing in 3rd person? Because it's really hard to line up int 3rd person

Kamoba:
What a great post!

I do agree with you on most of your tutorial points, however one thing which I have observed, and tested, and given the devs feedback to..

The tutorials although not amazing are better than when I started, they are not so bad, the biggest issue (roughly 40% new players big) is that they are purposefully not paying attention or only paying half attention...
One huge issue of late which provides a good example of this, is the volume of new players who take the engineer loadout: Mallet, Buff, Extinguisher... They take ext because "Chem sucks" (newbies...) They take buff because "I'm gunna totes buff this ship!" And, my favourite part... Mallet because "It's the best for fixing shit! The tutorial said so!"

Now after going through the tutorial several times since, I can safely say, it does not say that, it says:

"The mallet has the best repair with hugh cool down time.
But is the slowest too to rebuild with."

And many, oh so painfully many new players only read the top line....

I've been asking into this any time I've come across these loadouts.. Some say they just rushed the tutorial because "dnt giva.shit brah" others say they rushed through to get to the fun games, and others are oblivious to the fact they mis-read it...

Onto other points..
Your idea about teaching the engineer cycle...
Although commendable, in a tutorial environment, how achievable is.this?
Though I will point out! The engineering tutorial, Does take you through the main engineers cycle, it also shows you to look up at the main engine...  Though I loose count how many people go upstairs...

Personally.. I think the problem does not lay with the game, tutorial or learning curve... But the marketing which is still pointed at FPS gamers... With FPS YouTubers...
But that's another beast of its own....

Giving gunners attention? This should be upto pilots... To take ranged weapons... The problem is many... 80% of gunners I have met many... Are so focused on seeing themselves as "mlg 360 no scope cat reflex.bruh!" That they don't realise they're actually bad with the guns... They blame.the guns saying the gun is shit... (again... FPS marketing....) No amount of encouragement will change that frame of mind... The 20% of.gunners I do meet who are good, most of them are.competitive team gunners.


New piloting, something does need to be put in about that, definitely..

One point stands out above the rest:

"It can be as simple as disabling voice chat (maybe even text chat?) for players below level X in novice games"

Oh god yes please!!!
I want this to be a thing more than I want Co-op or adventure mode!

Newbluud:
Some fantastic points, and I will say that the tutorials may do well to better emphasise the importance of particular gameplay elements for players with a short attention span. Perhaps a little less text and a little more kinaesthetic teaching techniques?

Introducing business like repair cycles and advanced tutorials, however... That's a maybe. Despite the annoyance it may cause experienced players, if you front load a game with a daunting pile of necessary tutorials, you are likely to lose many newbies that would have otherwise found a passion after enjoying the game, and sought to learn more about it to improve their play after that. If advanced tutorials are to be a thing, they should be completely optional. I mean, when I first got the game I wanted nothing more than to get in and shoot stuff in my metamidion, but now I have got a fair few hours (compared to a lot of fresher players) sunk in, I'm more interested in the mechanics, the strategies, things like that. If the game had bombarded me with lesson after lesson, without me learning some things through play, I'd likely have been disappointed with what I had.

The fun of improving, getting better, becoming more confident, some of that may be lost when you don't have those eureka moments while you play. I think the novice matchmaker is a good place for a more organic learning experience. My suggestion for that would be to make novice mandatory until you arrive at the certain level and perhaps open up some ship loadout customisation to allow the newbies to experiment a bit more, because I feel the locked loadouts, whilst preventing newer players from complete confusion, are the main reason you get level 1 galleon pilots skipping out of novice.

Perhaps not having every element of play defined to a high level will upset some vets who get a gunner who misleads their shot or whatever, but the game is not tailor made for them. It's made for whoever has an interest in playing it.

No, I'm not getting into the attitude of new players and their willingness to learn. That's a can of worms for another thread.

Just a bit of devil's advocate thrown in, for the sake of open conversation.  8)

Kamoba:
We should totally open that can of worms on another thread.... Maybe the pit would be a good place for it? Because I imagine such a thread  would bring heated opinions.  ??? 8)

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