Required tutorial

[Arturo Sanchez]

Will it seriously hurt that bad to force people to play that short as hell tutorial?

It literally takes less than 4 minutes in most cases.

I've been thinking and thinking and thinking over it. And I can't see any truly objectively bad reasons for making it required to be so bad as to not allow it.

If you know how to play then you'll breeze through. If you're new then you'll learn how to play (as opposed to being a detriment by not knowing anything).

I do know some things need to be taught different like repair priority and rebuild priority. I mean yeah hull is important, ut so many times I see unrebuilt balloon because they just dont get how important it is in a game about FLYING.

Hence AI are taught to memorise repair priority is engines, hull, balloon, guns
while rebuilds are balloon, hull, engines, guns.

But the tutorial doesn't teach this mantra, so you get people that just really cannot understand what a broken component does in terms of effecting the ships ability. I mean you could try teaching it via the piloting tutorial perhaps and really show it as you as a pilot watch your ship dies from no balloon and cant move from no engines?

[Extirminator]

The tutorials might not be super detailed, but I think that's actually a good thing. If you were to shove so much information into the minds of someone who just bought and booted up the game, it is very likely one of the two options will follow:
1. He will be too deterred by the amount of information he has to take, having just bought a game casually to play, he will decide the game is not for him and will quit.
2. He will get annoyed at how long and detailed the tutorial is, and will simply leave the tutorial to get into real matches(which is possible through abandoning the tutorial match with 'esc'.)

I can already tell you that a large majority of the gaming population does not like to do tutorials. This will just further hinder the problem at hand.
In my opinion, the tutorials as they are right now, present a digestible amount of information that is just enough for new players to start up with the basic essentials for playing the game. The rest is up to the player to acquire through experience or through external information sources(shameless wiki promotion).

[nanoduckling]

A good tutorial is going to take a lot of work. What we have is not a good tutorial.

Tutorials are usually pretty boring. When they aren't it is usually because they sell the player on something other than just learning to play the game. A good example would be narrative. Portal for instance, the entire first half of the game is tutorial. But narrative is slowly built up, mystery is created and the player is left wanting to know more about the world they are in.

Halo did a good job along these lines too, slowly introducing you to the mechanics within a clear context. Consider that Master Chief is told the weapon he gets from Keyes isn't loaded. Without having to say it explicitly you know that you should look for and find ammo about in the game world as a mechanic.

Doesn't have to be narrative though. Far Cry: Blood Dragon's tutorial delivered on the humour and the HoI series tutorials are usually awful, but the beginner scenarios serve as a replacement which deliver the feel of the wider game without the complexity of managing a couple of million Soviet troops.

GoI's tutorial assumes you want to play the game and tells you the mechanics virtually devoid of context. There is no narrative or world construction, the player is told to do things with minimal motivation (why should they care if the balloon catches fire? why should they care about guns going down?). It is a partially interactive lecture on how to play GoI, and lectures are a terrible way to teach people things (and yes if you want citations for that I can pull the pedagogy literature). It seems to have been created with the view that the player has bought the game so they obviously want to play it and that humans learn by knowledge transfer from a teaching agent to the student, a model of learning that wasn't even popular when it was stillborn.

Making the tutorials mandatory wont help, because the tutorials are barely there. I'm sure whoever made them did the best job with the time and resources available, but if novice retention and quality are a thing that Muse is concerned with then this is an area where more resources are needed. Those resources need to include someone who is an expert at teaching. It is the same problem Muse had when they gave making the new UI to someone who wasn't a UI expert.

[Richard LeMoon]

I'll copy/paste something I sent the devs a while back. It is long, so hold onto your butts.


email start:

The following contains radical changes to how new players are introduced to this game, new ways vets can play the game, and a ridiculous amount of work to achieve. This would be the introduction to both Skirmish and Co-op. Take or discard what you can.


Deep breath.

The tutorial.... ooooh the tutorial. And forlorn practice, left to the wayside. How players love to ignore thee. Well, lets get right into it.

Proposition 1. Remove the tutorial. Replace it with a tiered 'teaching' introduction system, where tools and mechanics are rewarded for simply playing the game. This is where the bulk (and I mean a LOT of work) would be.  Forewarning: This proposition would require the use of Co-op mechanics, and the creation of new ships.

Dumping a player into a highly social game is daunting. It is easier if they come in with friends, but still quite intimidating. The minimum number of people they will suddenly be dealing with in a highly social situation is 15. So, how do we ease players into the game more fluidly? To start, (here it comes) reduce the number of people they have to deal with from 15 to 7. What does this require? 2v2 matches, simplified maps (minimal clouds), and new ships designed for 2 players and one default AI for a total of 8 players per match. Though, that is actually stage 2. The first stage would be a short set of single or 2 person missions based on co-op mechanics. I propose three new ships with the basic flight styles. Forward assault, broadside, and evade. We will get to that later.

Where to start? Well, I suppose the best way to start is to simply narrate the events of a new player's first day....

During account creation, start with your best foot forward and ask players to do the same. Tell them outright as they are making their name that this is a very vocal game, and names should be proper and easy to verbalize. It would be even better to do in a voiceover. In fact, voiceovers should be prominent at every step.

Character creation would be next. No changes needed other than don't give them any choice of any tools or class. This is misleading as to how the game works. And give them a lot of free hair or hat options. It is very important to have a lot of basic customization options to start. No free workshop items yet, though. Don't let them pick those until they get through the introduction missions with a grand "You have unlocked all free player made workshop items!" notification.

Pushing play for the first time would launch the game into a special mission. Not a tutorial type mission (though that is what it would be), but an epic, shit is going down, grab you by the throat and make you save the day mission. This would rely heavily on co-op mechanics and some epic voiceovers.

You start on the Assault ship, let's call it a Sparrow class. It is small, and easy to navigate. Think of a Pyramidian reduced to a single deck, with only two forward facing guns (perhaps angled slightly outward). The screen starts out black, with the sound of wind and explosions. You hear a muffled voice yelling "Snap out of it, Swabbie! They are coming for another round!" The black fades and you see your ship around you, swathed in a thick cloud. You are not yet able to move anything but your head a few degrees (there is no UI yet). Your vision blurs in and out as you get your bearings. Before you, you see the pilot at the helm, wildly turning the wheel (AI). Another crew member is on a gun to the pilot's left, firing blazing tracers at something you can't see through the thick clouds. You get up (if a rising of camera view is possible) and hear, "I thought we lost you that time, Swabbie. Grab your wrench and fix that engine. Give it a few wacks to knock the soot loose. And keep your head down this time!"

The view rotates to an engine at half repair and a pipe wrench becomes equipped. You gain complete control of yourself and can run to the engine. One hit completely fixes it. The other engine takes major damage. "What are you waiting for? Get it fixed!" You rush over to hit the engine. This time, one hit does not fix it completely. The timeout graphic is there. Of course, the natural impulse is to hit it again. "Let each hit do its job! It isn't going to fix any faster by beating it into submission." The timeout runs down and you complete the repair.  "Well, you remember how to do that. Your head is harder than I thought. If we make it.. BLAST!"

The hull armor goes down to the sound of explosions hitting your ship. The hull armor UI appears, red and broken, as well as the hull health. The hull heath starts dropping. "Get that armor rebuilt or we are done for! Don't stop hitting until I say!" You rush to the hull and spam the pipe wrench until it is rebuilt. "This will do. Finish off the repair. It is time to show them what we are made of."

(Invariably, people will ignore orders and try to go right for the guns. If they do, make sure they are locked out and give a voiceover "Don't use those guns until I give you the order, Swabbie!")

The ship emerges from the cloud to a view of a spectacular sunset. Ships like yours (or the other two intro ships) are outlined against the sky. One is close to your left. Another is forward. "Our first catch of the day. Mark that ship in front of us. That is our ally on the left." Your spyglass shows up on the UI and automatically becomes equipped. You use it and spot the ship. "Check your map for the heading." (I don't see a better way to do this part than large text that pops up and says 'M for Map.") "Allies are blue. enemies are red. We are white."

The pilot swings they ship towards the enemy and barks, "Now we have them. Get on the other gun, Swabbie." You run to the highlighted gun, which is a weaker version of the light flak with no arming time (novice level guns, more on that later). You open fire, not doing much damage. The enemies armor breaks, "Hit them now, Swabbie! You will do more damage to a bare hull." Red hits show that you are doing much more damage, and the ship quickly explodes. Another ship approaches and suffers a similar fate.

The hull takes minor damage, and the other crew member (AI) runs back to repair it once in a while. "Switch to the chaingun, Swabbie. Can't let you have all the fun." You go to the chaingun (novice version of Gatling). Another ships starts towards you. "Shoot first. Break their armor with the chaingun. It doesn't do much to the bare hull. Doesn't hurt the balloon at all."

After destroying the next ship, another comes and stops just out of range. "They are getting smarter. Good thing we brought just the thing. Load in the Lesmok rounds. Less ammo, but much greater range."

(lesmok being one of the first things I would give new players to help with aiming.)

The new ammo shows up in your UI, allowing you to change to it and destroy the next ship. Your gun takes some damage. "Don't let your gun break. Keep fixing it when you reload." The hull armor breaks again. "Leave the guns and get that armor back up. Can't shoot if we are dead."

You kill a few more ships this way, firing whichever gun you like and fixing damage that the pilot calls out. Suddenly, a heavily damaged Galleon drifts out of a cloud (just spawned there). "NO! They should not be here! BRACE!" A full blast of hwatcha hits your ship. Everything breaks. If you happen to keep watching the Galleon, your ally ship collides with it it and both explode. You race around the ship rebuilding and repairing everything. At some point, you will notice there is no one at the helm anymore. A new voice yells, "The Captain fell overboard! Take the helm! Get us out of here!"

A 'goal' marker appears and you go to the helm. You race to the marker as more ships swarm out of the sky. Explosions are everywhere and your ship keeps taking damage. Fires start and are put out by the other crew member.  (If you do not head towards the marker, the other ships will destroy you and you will respawn at the "Take the helm" point.) As you reach the marker, which is a thick bank of clouds, the crew member says with great relief, "We made it... some of us. I guess this is your ship now, Captain."

Victory screen with you and the AI crew member. Load directly into the ship and gun selection screen. Start all new pilots on the Sparrow (assault), with more ships unlocked as they progress. This gives a feeling of achievement while teaching the game. Only the Sparrow would be allowed for selection, with the other two novice ships shown as 'locked'. No standard ships would be shown. The selection of guns would be limited to predefined loadouts, stating in text 'Long range', 'Mid range', and 'Brawling'. Given that there would only be two guns on this ship, the loadouts would be pretty simple. There would be no flechette weapons at this stage.

Clicking save would bring you to the character selection, where you would automatically be a pilot and have some new pilot items to unlock. Some would be clothing options.The main one would be Phoenix Claw. Yes, tools and ammos would be unlocks, not granted. This does two things. It gives players a feeling of progression, as well as teaching them one tool at a time. All players at this stage would have the pipe wrench. No weapons would cause fire, so chem and extinguish would be introduced a little later, along with flechette weapons and balloon tools.

Saving would take you back to the Continue Mission button. Pushing it would ask you if you wanted to invite a friend to the next mission. Clicking yes would guide you through the process of doing so, and place you in a crew form. Otherwise, you would be launched directly into the next mission, automatically as pilot.

The next mission would still have an AI partner ship (courtesy of co-op), who would now talk to you via 'captain chat'. Once on the helm, you would hear "Sparrow captain, do you receive?" [Press C to respond] popup. Pressing C would give a standard message of "Good. I will tell you what I am planning. It is good to talk to fellow pilots. We live or die together in these skies." [press K for Team chat if you don't have a microphone].

The mission would progress as a hunt and kill with you following the other ship around. Some basic instructions would be given by the AI pilot as to the use of Claw. Your AI Crew would yell at you if your engines took too much damage from using it. After a while, one of the other novice ships would spawn in and the other pilot would say, "Let's capture that one. We could use more variety in our fleet." Bringing the hull down to 10% would trigger the match to end, and that ship would be available for the selection. The new ship would be the broadside ship, similar to a junker. Perhaps one gun on the front, and two on the left or right. Slower and more armored. Again, everything on one deck and easy to navigate. Let's call it a Tortuga. Impact bumpers would also be unlocked.

From here, the game would start to play more like standard scrimmage. There would be two options now. The standard 'Play' button, and the 'Continue Mission' button. Pushing play now would put you in the queue (as pilot or crew, no gunner yet) and take you to a 2v2 match with an AI ship on both teams and players drawn from queue. This would make it a total of 4 players. baby steps. Only the two ships would be available.

Going ahead with the the next mission would open up the last ship (Let's call it the Scorpion) as well as kerosene and perhaps a light version of tar barrel. Your AI partner ship would be a Hwatchfish. You would be able to invite two friends on your crew, which would be the max allowed for these three player ships. You can invite people even if they have not done any other missions yet.

Completing this would allow you to go to the next tier of scrimmage, using all three light ships, still with locked loadouts. No AI ships, making it a 2v2 with 8 players (2 players + default AI on each ship). Still no gunners. More ammo types would be open as well.

The next mission would be to crew on a Goldfish or Pyramidian as an engineer with a spanner, mallet, and fire suppression and an AI pilot. Flechette guns would be introduced. I know it sounds like a lot, but these missions would go quite fast.

Pyramidian, Junker, and Goldfish would be unlocked at this point, as would what is now known as standard novice matches. Gunner class would be unlocked, with special (optional) gunner challenge missions opened. Players could join advanced matches as well, but would not be allowed to take the other ships until they unlocked them through missions. Once those missions are done, they will have all game related elements unlocked. Cosmetics would still be available to unlock.

And that is it. They have learned the game, earned some cool stuff, and feel like they have progressed well.

To sum up, there would be several tiers of scrimmage, based on what missions you have done.

Tier 1: Light ships. Sparrow and Tortuga only. 4 players in 2v2 with an AI ship on each team. No gunners.
Tier 2: Light ships. Sparrow, Tortuga, and Scorpion. 8 players. 2v2, no AI ships. No gunners.
Tier 3: Elite ships. Pyramidian, Junker, Goldfish. Locked loadouts. 16 players. 2v2. (what is known as novice now).
Tier 4: All Elite ships (no Light ships), loadouts unlocked, 2v2 to 4v4.

Tier 5: Elite and Heavy ships. 2v2 6 person crew clan ships. Just kidding.

Special modes: Custom games that allow things like 4v4 light ships, 2v4 elite ships vs light ships, etc.

There you have it. A ton of work to move the tutorial into a mission-based reward system. I know you will likely look at this and think I am insane. Perhaps.

Perhaps.

/end email

[Extirminator]

^this sounds like something muse will put "on the list" 

[Daft Loon]

One of the recent 'weekly' updates listed one of the team members as working on new tutorials, for co-op, skirmish or both i don't know but if they took even half of that idea it would be great.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

How noobs view tutorials:

https://youtu.be/dGGfnLBTLdY

How vets view tutorials:

[Hoja Lateralus]

Richard, what you describe sound so vast that even if Muse would be willing to do it, it would be Tutorial DLC availibile around 2020-ish only for 10$ The idea is nice, but looking at amount of resources Muse can put into Skirmnish and Co-Op it's completely delusional, or at least naive.

I mostly agree with nano, as always (it gets boring )

Muse at least admits that tutorials are not-all-shiny-and-perfect, which is a great success, perhaps they will even do something with it. But then again after MM they dropped the novice bar which basically resulted in people getting out of novice in a day, maybe two.

[Dutch Vanya]

Richard, what you describe sound so vast that even if Muse would be willing to do it, it would be Tutorial DLC availibile around 2020-ish only for 10$ The idea is nice, but looking at amount of resources Muse can put into Skirmnish and Co-Op it's completely delusional, or at least naive.

I mostly agree with nano, as always (it gets boring )

Muse at least admits that tutorials are not-all-shiny-and-perfect, which is a great success, perhaps they will even do something with it. But then again after MM they dropped the novice bar which basically resulted in people getting out of novice in a day, maybe two.

Novice matches only exist after sales, we can't act like these are an option for less experienced players to join.

[Arturo Sanchez]

making the current tutorial mandatory would be a good step.
its not the best... but its better than the nothing most people go through.

sales time is basically more meat for grox.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Novice matches only exist after sales, we can't act like these are an option for less experienced players to join.

This is partially due to low novice bar. As I've said, now it takes you like day or two to get out of novice, so obviously nobody is allowed to stay there longer. Also, novice people can join regular matches anyway, so raising novice bar will not harm them and may actually help them.

sales time is basically more meat for grox.

Don't even get me started. How is this shit even legal?

[The Mann]

sales time is basically more meat for grox.

Don't even get me started. How is this shit even legal?

Are you suggesting there should be a limit to clan member numbers? Or limited clan invite requests (Spam prevention)?

[Arturo Sanchez]

sales time is basically more meat for grox.

Don't even get me started. How is this shit even legal?

Are you suggesting there should be a limit to clan member numbers? Or limited clan invite requests (Spam prevention)?

nah grox can have as many as they want.

they just need to fix the bug where people already in clans  can get spammed by invites. especially me A GODDAMN CLAN LEADER.




also muse might get media attention for creating the first tutorial dlc.

[The Mann]

How would they make the free tutorial viable?

Sure you can do the tutorial, what next?

The purpose of a taster is to show people what it is like to play right?

What would they do to give them a taster of the game after the tutorial?

[Richard LeMoon]

Richard, what you describe sound so vast that even if Muse would be willing to do it, it would be Tutorial DLC availibile around 2020-ish only for 10$ The idea is nice, but looking at amount of resources Muse can put into Skirmnish and Co-Op it's completely delusional, or at least naive.

Good games often live or die based on their tutorial. While my overall suggestion is on the dreamer side of feasible, something similar is required.

The ideas I presented would not be just for a new tutorial. Adding in AI scripting and a few new ships and guns would add a great deal to the tools available for new content creation.

Right now, as I see it, the most effort should be put into pipeline and content creation tools, not content creation. The maps in GOIO are pretty simple as far as games go. It should be as easy as terrain deform brushes and drag and drop assets to make a new map in a matter of minutes. I gather it is much more difficult than that.

That was a bit random, but I am still waking up.