2. Black Talon was ridiculously easy as in I beat him before he got a second shot off. He needs to be beefed up, damage maybe a bit more to to provide some challenge. The lack of challenge is one of the issues currently with Champions.
Black Talon is a tutorial boss, the goal is to get out of the tutorial not have challenge.
I really doubt after twenty minutes in an environment that is of the quality of an early X-box game, the tutorial boss challenge rating is going to make any difference in players wanting to stay.
In fact, when they get out of the tutorial and get their heads handed to them by Talos or Poe solo is when they have been quitting in droves.
A long battle with Black Talon can cause knockback that gets players stuck in walls over the sphere sculptures. Don't make the battle any longer than it needs to be.
Might I make a couple suggestions about the new academy?
1) the buildings don't really look that substantial but their location is very much in a prime location, to me this is somewhat jarring. If these new buildings sat were the high school sat it wouldn't seem so strange.
Agreed, completely do not fit in with the Millennium City look at all. Like someone was digging around in unused content, found some Vibora Houses and said "Let's plop this some...where....here!"
Black Talon is a tutorial boss, the goal is to get out of the tutorial not have challenge.
I really doubt after twenty minutes in an environment that is of the quality of an early X-box game, the tutorial boss challenge rating is going to make any difference in players wanting to stay.
In fact, when they get out of the tutorial and get their heads handed to them by Talos or Poe solo is when they have been quitting in droves.
A long battle with Black Talon can cause knockback that gets players stuck in walls over the sphere sculptures. Don't make the battle any longer than it needs to be.
The goal of a tutorial is to teach players, and give them pointers. Not to give them a gold star for breathing. Sorry, but that illustrated post doesn't say anything other than that person finds turnign the power on his console too difficult.
I wouldn't use that person as an example of game difficulty being too high. Especially when you read the responses he received. :rolleyes:
I do agree about the Ravenswood Academy annex being in a weird spot. It doesn't quite fit where it is. It would make much more sense to have it replace the High School on Westside. Also a library that players could enter as a social instance would be very cool!
The sound mix of the voice overs, music and background sirens loop is terrible.
Do some kind of auto fade to the background and music when you initiate the voice overs.
Thing about voice overs is...didn't the voice overs break (and never get fixed) all over the game before?
Poe? Alerts? Somewhere else? I seem to recall that happening.
in other words its either NEVER or ALWAYS. Sorry that isn't acceptable.
There was nothing wrong with having a primary mission be optional. Taking away choices is BAD.
I think the issue is not that it's on, but they will assume it will ALWAYS be on. I had no idea there was a mission arrow because apparently I changed my settings years ago and forgot about it.
The mission arrow is simply an optional setting that defaults to ON. Users can open their Options window via the Champs icon on the map. The first tab "Basic" has 2 settings related to the mission arrow; On/Off and Opacity. Simply turn it off or reduce the opacity to your liking.
Maybe there should be an Options lesson during the tutorial, introducing the Options tabs and letting new players know they can even further customize their playing experience, noting the On/Off for the Mission arrow, on/off for comic-style outline, reset default keys, etc.
I believe this was in the original packaging when there was a manual for the game, but has since been abandoned.
I like the idea that the Foxbat in the simulation is a glitch, perhaps something PLATO extrapolated from known behavior patterns and never mentioned to the meat glaciers outside. Add a little dialog on the topic at the end... :biggrin:
PLATO: "Superhero, who are you talking to? There should be no interactive entity at that location."
Foxbat: [running away, so we can reuse the same animation] "I'm going! I'm going! Don't send the anti-virus after me!"
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Can we get a reason as to why the default interaction key was changed to F? Is picking up still Z? Is picking up and interacting going to be two different things in the Options window? If this is how it is than that is completely fine since that fixes picking up objects when I'm trying to talk to an NPC.
Wasn't the F key defaulted to Follow? What happens to that?
Reason ..because for german players at least the key was Y even if it shows Z ingame ?
More accurately, here's a post which illustrates what someone who's never played an MMO before, and who apparently failed to graduate high school as well unless standards have become even more lax than I've been fearing, experiences. I'm sorry, but if you can't solo missions at level 12, maybe this isn't for you. Maybe Play-Dough would suit your intellectual capacity better.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
More accurately, here's a post which illustrates what someone who's never played an MMO before, and who apparently failed to graduate high school
Yes, exactly Jon Sills, you are learning to see.
That link illustrated who the tutorial should be made for.
This game needs new players, new customers, even the uneducated and MMO naive.
Catering the tutorial for the cu..stomers who have been here for years doesn't help anybody new coming along unless it addresses some point of difficulty players had about the game when they started. Creating extra difficulty where there doesn't need to be any is not helpful.*
We can make Black Talon take longer if we want, aggro all the robots and then take on Talon for instance.
Maybe team up and increase challenge, maybe it increases spawns. I haven't tested that, because it would be brutally cruel to do that to noobs with no gear and no defenses.
If you want to have fun with Black Talon, get yourself a low level team, get into a Black Talon alert, hoorah, good times. Or get a Black Talon stupid suit, give it to a friend, then fight them. Buy one for all your friends.
*However if The Nemesis Machine was in tutorial and hanging around the tutorial mashing monsters caused leveled nemesis minions to spawn so I could get XP forever, that'd be great. I suppose that's Fatal Error, but noobs don't randomly appear every other minute inside Fatal Error to keep me entertained,
Oh! ...Maybe leveled Fatal Error programs could show up in the outer edges/heights of new tutorial to attack leveled characters, that would fit with the whole simulation scenario.
Aha, make Fatal Error the end of the tutorial for those that want a challenge.
Or we could just eliminate the challenge entirely, and provide every new toon with a tier 1 power that causes all enemies on the screen to simultaneously dissolve into puddles of goo when you tap the space bar.
With no cooldown.
Would that be "simple" and "easy" enough to suit?
I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to learn how to use the controls to play a game, there is no way any Tutorial could be made simple enough to suit you.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Or we could just eliminate the challenge entirely, and provide every new toon with a tier 1 power that causes all enemies on the screen to simultaneously dissolve into puddles of goo when you tap the space bar.
With no cooldown.
Would that be "simple" and "easy" enough to suit?
I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to learn how to use the controls to play a game, there is no way any Tutorial could be made simple enough to suit you.
BUG: Glitch on leaving Ravenswood Simulator WHERE IT HAPPENS: Simulator room WHAT HAPPENS: While accepting mission from PLATO to talk to Rowan before leaving, the dialog box suddenly closed, and Rowan vanished. She reappeared a moment later, but as I apparently hadn't formally accepted the mission (I thought I'd clicked on the "Continue" box, but apparently not), it hadn't actually given me the mission, and I had to talk to PLATO again. That might be confusing to a newbie.
BUG: "Slotted Upgrade" mission triggers too soon WHERE IT HAPPENS: While accepting Secondary reward from Kodiak WHAT HAPPENS: While turning in the mission for taking out twelve Purple Gangsters in Westside, Kodiak gives you a choice of Secondary items (I took the Feedback bracers). The game immediately triggered its "upgradeable item" flag, giving me as a primary the mission "Fusion-Powered Modificiations". Now, while that would be a nice little chunk of free XP at such a low level, it turns out the mission can't be completed until I get an upgradeable item to slot the mod into - which won't happen for another seven or eight levels, just about at the end of the Westside arc.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I LOLed at the "What kind of crazy person..." alpha student line, nice voice acting there, too.
Partial Bug? The characters can say their background lines while saying their interaction lines, makes it kinda hard to understand.
Pressing Tab and targeting a pod should move to the next instruction screen. The audio starts after pressing tab and can overlap.
It might be confusing to new players to have Socrates at the beginning on the invasion map. The flavor text is really funny, but I'd at least remove the first Socrates.
Did you guys update the force field city-bubble effect? Looks nice!
J key now opens to the overview tab, so the ""Mission Heading indicator" help text is missing the "select active tab" step.
I think I like the goo-mines version of the blocking tutorial the best. Maybe even add a few more goo-mines.
Got two hive seeds from the open mission, and they are unique, might be confusing to new players as to why they can't pick everything up.
The contact dialog closed while talking to Plato after finishing the mission because another player closed it. Might want to fix that.
I really like the flow from the tutorial straight to the powerhouse to defender at Ren Cen to West Side.
Overall- I really like the revamp. I think some coding needs to be done to mute/lower the volume of background audio voices while talking to contacts.
I really hope that the tutorial and the Plato room gets added to the powerhouse, for players that missed perks or need a refresher after taking a break. Maybe keep it as a separate instance from incoming players, though.
CO was the first MMO I ever played (still the only one I'm interested in). If I could handle the tutorial with absolutely no background in these kind of games I really hope that anyone else can. What actually made it hard for me was the lack of documentation on how powers worked and how they could work together. My Blade AT died countless times on his march to 40 because of my ignorance. I've gotten better since then. :biggrin:
It might be a good time to change up how the beacons are handled. Instead of the players shutting off technology they may not have never known existed, I think it would be better for Defender to do it while we protect him. It could give you another chance to teach players how to block.
Same goes for the door to the main computer, Defender should be opening it not us.
The streamlining is alright, though removing some of the missions seem seemed unnecessary.
I'm gonna take a page from championshewolf and suggest we implement another feature from NW:
If we are to always have a primary mission, allow us to be able to toggle the blue arrow with a keypress instead of going into the options menu. In NW, we have a sparkly trail instead of a floating arrow, and hitting a key will toggle the sparkly trail on or off. I think it might even be the Z key on default... and seeing as we just freed up the Z key here...
I guess cover the Qularr Invasion simulator first.
Spawning Location at the start(At the start of the Qularr Invasion):
It's actually nice and a reasonable distance away from most of the other things going on in the game(to avoid new player Deaths). I liked that fact that you guys DID changed the location of where the new players spawns at. As I felt over in Live when you start the Tutorial it was as if the player was too far away from things(you know that area over by the Red car? I believe that was the location for where the new player originally started with)
To me this kind of thing signifies: "Okay well I am already far back but.. why am so far away from things I'm suppose follow through the Tutorial for yet so close to the action spots?" Yes sure when a new player starting a game they want to be a reasonable distance away from the 'action' so that way they can at least have a grasp of the controls first and aren't getting attack for no reason or w/o at least taking the time to observe their surroundings, read text etc.
Small suggestion is: I'd say hold off on any Level-Up XP until the character is guided to a safe location that way they don't end up getting ganked.
Going onto the 'How-To-Block' thing:
This would probably be more beneficial IF it was displayed after you pick up the 'Mayer's Mementos' quest as this is basically the quest/quest area in-which your character gets ATTACKED from here on in. Would make more sense as the Bug-Keepers, Drones and Firebugs attack you in this area mission(especially on the way) an idea that:
"OH HEY THAT ENEMY IS ATTACKING YOU, DON'T FORGET TO ATTACK BACK... BUT ALSO DON'T FORGET TO BLOCK WHEN THE SITUATION CALLS FOR IT" sort of deal. Also why isn't there any popup message for being 'Rooted' or 'Held'? I'm not if others noticed this but it seems like "Yeah sure I block this and blocked against that but what do I do about being HELD or ROOTED?"
(I.e. the area in-which the mines are to tell you when to block a specific attack)
I'm really surprised at this point that the Tutorial doesn't give you any sort of message to tell you what 'BAM', 'FREEM!' or etc are about(not counting the loading screens). ESPECIALLY after blocking an attack because this is also important to blocking too as well.
Suggestion: Add a small 'YOU'VE BEEN HELD DOWN BY A UNKNOWN ATTACK AND CANNOT MOVE! QUICK USE THE F KEY TO BREAK YOURSELF FREE AND GET BACK IN THE FIGHT!' message. To show that if at some-point a player gets held they won't be busy with other stuff going on. I'm not saying adding a bombarding message, I'm saying that just for the sake of consistency and informing the player just in the case that a enemy decides to SNARE, ROOT, or HOLD them in place they are informed anyways.
Qulaar Tutorial Missions:
Uhh this mission seem very Point A to Point Z tbh. Pretty much as expected. The only issue I have is if those Area Missions that pop up(Like the Drone one when you cross over from Surhoff to get to Silver Age Lady) it might just seem annoying to bother to do that one as well but really you don't have to do NO ONE has to but having it up on your Comp's Window is eeeh.
However it's like I said missions starts from Point A to B and are quick easy with the conclusionary part being the 'Battle of the Ironclad' having you to Defeat X number of Qulaar, Find parts then defend the cannon until the time expires.
Though I'm encouraging laziness when it comes to this Open Area mission, it just feels more like a waiting game for enemies than persay an actual WAVE of inbound enemies.
Suggestion: I'd say make the Qulaar spawns slightly more consistent so that way the player isn't completely bored with scouting the area around then finding out most of the Qulaar are dead or vanished.
Moving on the mission then takes you over to Witchcraft which informs you that Defender needs assistance inside where a bunch of Qularr and Destroids are fighting each other.
Suggestion: Just so the player isn't completely overwhelmed too much, backup the space between reaching Defender and cross the hallways to get to him while avoid the NPCs fighting each other.
The Black Talon fight is pretty simple: Block the Missiles, Step away from the his Orbital Cannon and you win. Though still isn't anything about TEACHING YOU ABOUT THE HOLDS! again I stress this because at the start of the Tutorial even if its's low you still CAN get SNARED, ROOTED, and HELD. This is important especially in the Black Talon fight because even if you were blocking anyways and then stopped holding down the Shift Key you can still get held(relatively minor) but Black Talon does a Hold > Missile Shot follow-up so at least the player has a chance to react.
But with all this out of the way you pretty much just head to the Qulaar Consoles, activate the Launch for Ironclad to destroy the ship and boom. End of the Tutorial.
(Kind of a sloppy summary but this is basically it)
Despite all of the issues and some things not be there or here for that matter the Tutorial missions are simple to follow with some nice outlook so it's a solid choice to support the rest.
Overview Thoughts after the final Mission(the return to the Academy):
PLATO is nice and all but when you are trying to speak to the Headmistress incharge it feels more or less like an over-lapping scheme, makes me put my nose up in a bit. But really I say if you are not focused on PLATO at all then have her VOIP be turned down when you speak to someone else.
Ravenswood(The Physical Location):
Thoughts on the overall structures of the buildings: They are buildings.. nothing more complicated that that. Like what? Were people expecting something from the Avengers? Batman level of hideouts? lol in any case these overall buildings seem somewhat copied/pasted from Vibora Bay.. but without the VB feel of them. Though I like the attention to detail in the spot you choose for it. Fits nicely. It reminds me of a few Academies I saw in Texas with they way the buildings were spread out but not too far from each other.
Small question: The spot over by where you speak to "Teacher - Ravenswood Academy"; Is that giant wooden square to indicate some kind of significance? Secret Entrance? Plausible hideout location? I'm not so sure on this but seeing as most of the students around the area of Ravenswood are level 14, is this a indication that at the point when you reach level 14, you get quests from them or something?
Also one of the NPCS there, appears as if he was holding a cellphone or something this dude, looks as if he's holding nothing but air. It's most likely minor until this is full finished but as per they are other NPCs that do this.
Anyways the stands on the outsides of the entrances to the Academy are fine, I dunno what the statue is here suppose to represent but okay. The students seem all spread out nicely, not cluttered all over the place in some other games that try too hard to represent a school.
I dunno what else to put here so I'll just hold off other critiques for now.
Was there something that explained about putting things in the Device tray?
When Sanchez gives you the device Silverback put together to scan the Qularr things, there's a brief popup on how to use it.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I remember that person. He was on a level 6 Inferno at the time, having failed to keep a master alive, and from the description, he was trying to use the Inferno as a melee.
People were answering his questions and asking what he was doing,he was not answering. He just kept going on about how hard it was, without giving any details, apart from "I keep getting killed."
several people including myself, offered to team with him to find out what he was doing wrong. He never answered.
People were telling him how to block,checking what he was doing, he just insisted on doing what he was doing.
as for the gear, what sort of gear does he expect at low level. His comment on steam about the amount of money he's paid, makes him seem like someone who expects to be able to buy everything.
If he didn't know ingame, what did he do during the Tutorial?
That said,
the Block mission needs to be put back- so people actually get practice
the players need to have a mission with charge, maintain and normal shot powers, so that they actually use them.
The video, even knowing what they are supposed to show, wasn't helpful.
The charge one- was using mostly tap powers.
The gear/stats video was even worse, it uses old character sheet, old stat abilities(ego- for critical hits) and a piece of old GLITCHED gear.
The travel powers, only mentions your first power and has a couple of people wizzing around in the background.
Nothing about what sorts there are- speed, acrobatics, tunnelling, teleport, flight
when you can rank up? 20,40
when you get your second power- 35
How many people have asked those questions in zone?
I think I suggested this a while back, but "simulator" tutorial alert missions for low-levels would be cool. I imagine something where you're forced to use a become device to complete a short mission and Plato tells you about the different types of charged attacks, how the powers work together, synergies and stacks, etc. I imagine it's be like the Warlord alert, only after donning the power suit it talks about all the different powers for that AT and how they work together. It would give silvers a chance to try out ATs and maybe earn a little XP.
Out of curiosity, anyone know the chestpiece that the Ravenswood students wear just before you enter the tutorial?
The Alpha students? I think that's one of the Glow Tights patterns.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
That said,
the Block mission needs to be put back- so people actually get practice
Also a "ranged tactics" tutorial, where it talks about doing things like kiting and line-of-sighting.
Also add in a dialogue option for the player where they can ask "But what if I'm melee? What do I do then? I mean, I can't use range then... and I can't block them to death..." and have the instructor respond by chuckling and then changing the subject.
That link illustrated who the tutorial should be made for.
This game needs new players, new customers, even the uneducated and MMO naive.
I think the main thing I take out of the post is how the game should be a lot easier in the 6-15 levels and the developers should consider providing better free low level gear in the starting inventory.
Kind of hoped the new intro would be something significantly better or more up to date but for the most part the tutorial hasn't really changed except for a pair of bookends and some small changes. Observations (which have been made by everyone so far but maybe I hit something others missed)
- New starting location. No interacting with SOCRATES at game start.
- Z now F for interact key. Though this is a good step, I've gotten so used to Z that I kept trying to Z everything.
-Mayor's quest.... Almost all the rubble inside the building is gone. COnsidering the shape of the building it just looks odd now.
- First escort quest gone? Reggie quest gone? I think I was alone in the zone when I did the tutorial and Reggie's cage and Brianna (guessing; I can't actually recall her name) seemed to be not in their usual places. Foxbat was still in his usual place though.
- Quest alert - The burst graphic on Socrates icon - How will anyone see that? It's a tiny effect in a corner out of the way. Much preferred the popup window! Is this going to happen for Help a Citizen quests too?
- Clayton Griswold - Voice too mumbly. Needs a volume boost on default audio settings.
- Why block up the 'easy' path leading from Surhoff to Silver Avenger? At least you can climb over the rubble (newbies might not figure that out)
- There are invisible objects on path if you go that way anyways, in front of the bench.
- There's no cue audio or otherwise to defend the cannon after getting the 10 parts crates.
- "Over here, we don't have much time" kept repeating during Defender's Black Talon speech.
- "Shut down ALL these beacons!" - since there's only two of them now, that sounds a bit silly. One would think there's three as there's the one the Destroid is typing away at, but that's just a 'weaponizeable' console.
- There's no cue audio or otherwise to defend the cannon after getting the 10 parts crates.
It's exactly what it is in the current tutorial - more of Ironclad's bombastic speechifying. The man gives new meaning to the word "yammer".
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I think the main thing I take out of the post is how the game should be a lot easier in the 6-15 levels and the developers should consider providing better free low level gear in the starting inventory.
I would not mind seeing the level tables (which control hit points, damage, etc) for NPCs adjusted. Currently they're normalized against the power progression that existed in 2009, which means level 6 player vs level 6 mob is kinda hard, level 40 player vs level 40 mob is absurdly easy.
- Quest alert - The burst graphic on Socrates icon - How will anyone see that? It's a tiny effect in a corner out of the way. Much preferred the popup window! Is this going to happen for Help a Citizen quests too?
I had a pop-up and voice over when I got to the spot that makes the mission of the enraged drones selectable. explaining how there might be missions in an area to do.
Other than removing the PvP rooms, I don't see what they could revamp anymore in the powerhouse. Give the powerhouse anything more might as well remove the restriction of being able to PvP or go to an alert because no one will want to leave the powerhouse, and we might as well turn the game into a true lobby.
Hmm.. the new tutorial is ok; however, there are opportunities and much room for improvement. For example, the simulation of the Battle of Detroit should cater to the powers of the fledgling hero. A ranged hero should have more focus on learning how to use ranged attacks as well as basic movement, blocking and attack training. I ran through the new tutorial as a healer and it was a little rough, while running through it as a melee hero was faster and more intuitive. The entire city was affected by the invasion, not just the city center and the Champions' Building.
In my opinion, this is how the tutorial should run:
Heroes that have healing and support powers should be working with other hero NPC's to rescue and protect citizens in variious areas close to the center of the city. Ranged and Power armor heroes should be taking down smaller invasion aircraft and keeping invasion forces at bay at the perimeters and open areas of the city. Melee and close range power heroes can do the tutorial as it is.
Also, if the interaction button is going to change from Z to F then please give players a heads up, as well as have the tutorial reflect the change. I still see pop up hints that still use Z to interact with objects.
I am sure other players have posted similar suggestions before me, but I thought I would just put in my 2 cents. :biggrin:
The Battle of Detroit is not the Qularr Invasion of 2009. The Battle of Detroit is a whole other beast that involved Doctor Destroyer pretty much destroying a huge chunk of the city. Though, if I were to go with simulations, having a Battle of Detroit simulator experience would probably have been 1000% better than the current Qularr bug invasion.
Those buildings look really out of place. Too small for being so close to ren-cen, too old being in the middle of a city that was exploded, too not-art-deco for the buildings around, and too public for a private school that runs a secret training facility. You could get away with that look on the far side of city centre maybe, there is some more unused space near Westside, but right there is weird.
Also, putting it in an out-of-the-way place would make ravenswood more suitable for building a quest line around in the future.
Comments
Black Talon is a tutorial boss, the goal is to get out of the tutorial not have challenge.
I really doubt after twenty minutes in an environment that is of the quality of an early X-box game, the tutorial boss challenge rating is going to make any difference in players wanting to stay.
In fact, when they get out of the tutorial and get their heads handed to them by Talos or Poe solo is when they have been quitting in droves.
A long battle with Black Talon can cause knockback that gets players stuck in walls over the sphere sculptures. Don't make the battle any longer than it needs to be.
Here's a recent post over at Steam which illustrates what a new player(not someone who has played for four years) experiences.
Agreed, completely do not fit in with the Millennium City look at all. Like someone was digging around in unused content, found some Vibora Houses and said "Let's plop this some...where....here!"
The goal of a tutorial is to teach players, and give them pointers. Not to give them a gold star for breathing. Sorry, but that illustrated post doesn't say anything other than that person finds turnign the power on his console too difficult.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I wouldn't use that person as an example of game difficulty being too high. Especially when you read the responses he received. :rolleyes:
I do agree about the Ravenswood Academy annex being in a weird spot. It doesn't quite fit where it is. It would make much more sense to have it replace the High School on Westside. Also a library that players could enter as a social instance would be very cool!
Do some kind of auto fade to the background and music when you initiate the voice overs.
Thing about voice overs is...didn't the voice overs break (and never get fixed) all over the game before?
Poe? Alerts? Somewhere else? I seem to recall that happening.
I got stuck in the wall to the right behind Black Talon when one of his knockbacks sent me into it. He could still damage me, so I died.
I think the issue is not that it's on, but they will assume it will ALWAYS be on. I had no idea there was a mission arrow because apparently I changed my settings years ago and forgot about it.
The mission arrow is simply an optional setting that defaults to ON. Users can open their Options window via the Champs icon on the map. The first tab "Basic" has 2 settings related to the mission arrow; On/Off and Opacity. Simply turn it off or reduce the opacity to your liking.
Maybe there should be an Options lesson during the tutorial, introducing the Options tabs and letting new players know they can even further customize their playing experience, noting the On/Off for the Mission arrow, on/off for comic-style outline, reset default keys, etc.
I believe this was in the original packaging when there was a manual for the game, but has since been abandoned.
PLATO: "Superhero, who are you talking to? There should be no interactive entity at that location."
Foxbat: [running away, so we can reuse the same animation] "I'm going! I'm going! Don't send the anti-virus after me!"
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Reason ..because for german players at least the key was Y even if it shows Z ingame ?
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Yes, exactly Jon Sills, you are learning to see.
That link illustrated who the tutorial should be made for.
This game needs new players, new customers, even the uneducated and MMO naive.
Catering the tutorial for the cu..stomers who have been here for years doesn't help anybody new coming along unless it addresses some point of difficulty players had about the game when they started. Creating extra difficulty where there doesn't need to be any is not helpful.*
We can make Black Talon take longer if we want, aggro all the robots and then take on Talon for instance.
Maybe team up and increase challenge, maybe it increases spawns. I haven't tested that, because it would be brutally cruel to do that to noobs with no gear and no defenses.
If you want to have fun with Black Talon, get yourself a low level team, get into a Black Talon alert, hoorah, good times. Or get a Black Talon stupid suit, give it to a friend, then fight them. Buy one for all your friends.
*However if The Nemesis Machine was in tutorial and hanging around the tutorial mashing monsters caused leveled nemesis minions to spawn so I could get XP forever, that'd be great. I suppose that's Fatal Error, but noobs don't randomly appear every other minute inside Fatal Error to keep me entertained,
Oh! ...Maybe leveled Fatal Error programs could show up in the outer edges/heights of new tutorial to attack leveled characters, that would fit with the whole simulation scenario.
Aha, make Fatal Error the end of the tutorial for those that want a challenge.
With no cooldown.
Would that be "simple" and "easy" enough to suit?
I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to learn how to use the controls to play a game, there is no way any Tutorial could be made simple enough to suit you.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Achievement Unlocked: A Babby is Formed.
BUG: Glitch on leaving Ravenswood Simulator
WHERE IT HAPPENS: Simulator room
WHAT HAPPENS: While accepting mission from PLATO to talk to Rowan before leaving, the dialog box suddenly closed, and Rowan vanished. She reappeared a moment later, but as I apparently hadn't formally accepted the mission (I thought I'd clicked on the "Continue" box, but apparently not), it hadn't actually given me the mission, and I had to talk to PLATO again. That might be confusing to a newbie.
BUG: "Slotted Upgrade" mission triggers too soon
WHERE IT HAPPENS: While accepting Secondary reward from Kodiak
WHAT HAPPENS: While turning in the mission for taking out twelve Purple Gangsters in Westside, Kodiak gives you a choice of Secondary items (I took the Feedback bracers). The game immediately triggered its "upgradeable item" flag, giving me as a primary the mission "Fusion-Powered Modificiations". Now, while that would be a nice little chunk of free XP at such a low level, it turns out the mission can't be completed until I get an upgradeable item to slot the mod into - which won't happen for another seven or eight levels, just about at the end of the Westside arc.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I LOLed at the "What kind of crazy person..." alpha student line, nice voice acting there, too.
Partial Bug? The characters can say their background lines while saying their interaction lines, makes it kinda hard to understand.
Pressing Tab and targeting a pod should move to the next instruction screen. The audio starts after pressing tab and can overlap.
It might be confusing to new players to have Socrates at the beginning on the invasion map. The flavor text is really funny, but I'd at least remove the first Socrates.
Did you guys update the force field city-bubble effect? Looks nice!
J key now opens to the overview tab, so the ""Mission Heading indicator" help text is missing the "select active tab" step.
I think I like the goo-mines version of the blocking tutorial the best. Maybe even add a few more goo-mines.
Got two hive seeds from the open mission, and they are unique, might be confusing to new players as to why they can't pick everything up.
The contact dialog closed while talking to Plato after finishing the mission because another player closed it. Might want to fix that.
I really like the flow from the tutorial straight to the powerhouse to defender at Ren Cen to West Side.
Overall- I really like the revamp. I think some coding needs to be done to mute/lower the volume of background audio voices while talking to contacts.
I really hope that the tutorial and the Plato room gets added to the powerhouse, for players that missed perks or need a refresher after taking a break. Maybe keep it as a separate instance from incoming players, though.
Same goes for the door to the main computer, Defender should be opening it not us.
The streamlining is alright, though removing some of the missions seem seemed unnecessary.
If we are to always have a primary mission, allow us to be able to toggle the blue arrow with a keypress instead of going into the options menu. In NW, we have a sparkly trail instead of a floating arrow, and hitting a key will toggle the sparkly trail on or off. I think it might even be the Z key on default... and seeing as we just freed up the Z key here...
It just makes sense.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Okay so here is some feedback I guess:
I guess cover the Qularr Invasion simulator first.
- Spawning Location at the start(At the start of the Qularr Invasion):
It's actually nice and a reasonable distance away from most of the other things going on in the game(to avoid new player Deaths). I liked that fact that you guys DID changed the location of where the new players spawns at. As I felt over in Live when you start the Tutorial it was as if the player was too far away from things(you know that area over by the Red car? I believe that was the location for where the new player originally started with)To me this kind of thing signifies: "Okay well I am already far back but.. why am so far away from things I'm suppose follow through the Tutorial for yet so close to the action spots?" Yes sure when a new player starting a game they want to be a reasonable distance away from the 'action' so that way they can at least have a grasp of the controls first and aren't getting attack for no reason or w/o at least taking the time to observe their surroundings, read text etc.
Small suggestion is: I'd say hold off on any Level-Up XP until the character is guided to a safe location that way they don't end up getting ganked.
- Going onto the 'How-To-Block' thing:
This would probably be more beneficial IF it was displayed after you pick up the 'Mayer's Mementos' quest as this is basically the quest/quest area in-which your character gets ATTACKED from here on in. Would make more sense as the Bug-Keepers, Drones and Firebugs attack you in this area mission(especially on the way) an idea that:"OH HEY THAT ENEMY IS ATTACKING YOU, DON'T FORGET TO ATTACK BACK... BUT ALSO DON'T FORGET TO BLOCK WHEN THE SITUATION CALLS FOR IT" sort of deal. Also why isn't there any popup message for being 'Rooted' or 'Held'? I'm not if others noticed this but it seems like "Yeah sure I block this and blocked against that but what do I do about being HELD or ROOTED?"
(I.e. the area in-which the mines are to tell you when to block a specific attack)
I'm really surprised at this point that the Tutorial doesn't give you any sort of message to tell you what 'BAM', 'FREEM!' or etc are about(not counting the loading screens). ESPECIALLY after blocking an attack because this is also important to blocking too as well.
Suggestion: Add a small 'YOU'VE BEEN HELD DOWN BY A UNKNOWN ATTACK AND CANNOT MOVE! QUICK USE THE F KEY TO BREAK YOURSELF FREE AND GET BACK IN THE FIGHT!' message. To show that if at some-point a player gets held they won't be busy with other stuff going on. I'm not saying adding a bombarding message, I'm saying that just for the sake of consistency and informing the player just in the case that a enemy decides to SNARE, ROOT, or HOLD them in place they are informed anyways.
- Qulaar Tutorial Missions:
Uhh this mission seem very Point A to Point Z tbh. Pretty much as expected. The only issue I have is if those Area Missions that pop up(Like the Drone one when you cross over from Surhoff to get to Silver Age Lady) it might just seem annoying to bother to do that one as well but really you don't have to do NO ONE has to but having it up on your Comp's Window is eeeh.However it's like I said missions starts from Point A to B and are quick easy with the conclusionary part being the 'Battle of the Ironclad' having you to Defeat X number of Qulaar, Find parts then defend the cannon until the time expires.
Though I'm encouraging laziness when it comes to this Open Area mission, it just feels more like a waiting game for enemies than persay an actual WAVE of inbound enemies.
Suggestion: I'd say make the Qulaar spawns slightly more consistent so that way the player isn't completely bored with scouting the area around then finding out most of the Qulaar are dead or vanished.
Moving on the mission then takes you over to Witchcraft which informs you that Defender needs assistance inside where a bunch of Qularr and Destroids are fighting each other.
Suggestion: Just so the player isn't completely overwhelmed too much, backup the space between reaching Defender and cross the hallways to get to him while avoid the NPCs fighting each other.
The Black Talon fight is pretty simple: Block the Missiles, Step away from the his Orbital Cannon and you win. Though still isn't anything about TEACHING YOU ABOUT THE HOLDS! again I stress this because at the start of the Tutorial even if its's low you still CAN get SNARED, ROOTED, and HELD. This is important especially in the Black Talon fight because even if you were blocking anyways and then stopped holding down the Shift Key you can still get held(relatively minor) but Black Talon does a Hold > Missile Shot follow-up so at least the player has a chance to react.
But with all this out of the way you pretty much just head to the Qulaar Consoles, activate the Launch for Ironclad to destroy the ship and boom. End of the Tutorial.
(Kind of a sloppy summary but this is basically it)
Despite all of the issues and some things not be there or here for that matter the Tutorial missions are simple to follow with some nice outlook so it's a solid choice to support the rest.
- Overview Thoughts after the final Mission(the return to the Academy):
PLATO is nice and all but when you are trying to speak to the Headmistress incharge it feels more or less like an over-lapping scheme, makes me put my nose up in a bit. But really I say if you are not focused on PLATO at all then have her VOIP be turned down when you speak to someone else.- Ravenswood(The Physical Location):
Thoughts on the overall structures of the buildings: They are buildings.. nothing more complicated that that. Like what? Were people expecting something from the Avengers? Batman level of hideouts? lol in any case these overall buildings seem somewhat copied/pasted from Vibora Bay.. but without the VB feel of them. Though I like the attention to detail in the spot you choose for it. Fits nicely. It reminds me of a few Academies I saw in Texas with they way the buildings were spread out but not too far from each other.Small question: The spot over by where you speak to "Teacher - Ravenswood Academy"; Is that giant wooden square to indicate some kind of significance? Secret Entrance? Plausible hideout location? I'm not so sure on this but seeing as most of the students around the area of Ravenswood are level 14, is this a indication that at the point when you reach level 14, you get quests from them or something?
Also one of the NPCS there, appears as if he was holding a cellphone or something this dude, looks as if he's holding nothing but air. It's most likely minor until this is full finished but as per they are other NPCs that do this.
Anyways the stands on the outsides of the entrances to the Academy are fine, I dunno what the statue is here suppose to represent but okay. The students seem all spread out nicely, not cluttered all over the place in some other games that try too hard to represent a school.
I dunno what else to put here so I'll just hold off other critiques for now.
Looks like some pictures I have seen of Parent/Child Elephants - could simply represent relationship between students and teachers.
@Liath | My PRIMUS Page | Altaholics | New Vehicle Models | New Emblems | Flag Tights
Asterelle's Forum Enhancement Extension | Game Side Panel Add-In | Game Server Status Add-In
Something should explain what the red, green, blue and yellow power ups do.
Many of the drones supposedly threatening Silver Avenger are just milling around. Seems like they out to be doing something more than that.
Was there something that explained about putting things in the Device tray?
It's possible to deploy/trigger the drone controller without having to fight Qulaar. Not sure if that's intended.
Can get all the medical supplies form threatened civilians. Don't need to reach an ambulance at all. Is that intended?
IMO the hammering animation looks silly for opening crates. How about the ComputerKneel or ComputerWall instead?
It would be nice if somewhere Emotes were actually explained.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
People were answering his questions and asking what he was doing,he was not answering. He just kept going on about how hard it was, without giving any details, apart from "I keep getting killed."
several people including myself, offered to team with him to find out what he was doing wrong. He never answered.
People were telling him how to block,checking what he was doing, he just insisted on doing what he was doing.
as for the gear, what sort of gear does he expect at low level. His comment on steam about the amount of money he's paid, makes him seem like someone who expects to be able to buy everything.
If he didn't know ingame, what did he do during the Tutorial?
That said,
the Block mission needs to be put back- so people actually get practice
the players need to have a mission with charge, maintain and normal shot powers, so that they actually use them.
The video, even knowing what they are supposed to show, wasn't helpful.
The charge one- was using mostly tap powers.
The gear/stats video was even worse, it uses old character sheet, old stat abilities(ego- for critical hits) and a piece of old GLITCHED gear.
The travel powers, only mentions your first power and has a couple of people wizzing around in the background.
Nothing about what sorts there are- speed, acrobatics, tunnelling, teleport, flight
when you can rank up? 20,40
when you get your second power- 35
How many people have asked those questions in zone?
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My main character is Blackflight
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
My main character is Blackflight
Where can you get this chest? xD
Lifetime?
My main character is Blackflight
Also a "ranged tactics" tutorial, where it talks about doing things like kiting and line-of-sighting.
Also add in a dialogue option for the player where they can ask "But what if I'm melee? What do I do then? I mean, I can't use range then... and I can't block them to death..." and have the instructor respond by chuckling and then changing the subject.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
That's correct.
I think the main thing I take out of the post is how the game should be a lot easier in the 6-15 levels and the developers should consider providing better free low level gear in the starting inventory.
- New starting location. No interacting with SOCRATES at game start.
- Z now F for interact key. Though this is a good step, I've gotten so used to Z that I kept trying to Z everything.
-Mayor's quest.... Almost all the rubble inside the building is gone. COnsidering the shape of the building it just looks odd now.
- First escort quest gone? Reggie quest gone? I think I was alone in the zone when I did the tutorial and Reggie's cage and Brianna (guessing; I can't actually recall her name) seemed to be not in their usual places. Foxbat was still in his usual place though.
- Quest alert - The burst graphic on Socrates icon - How will anyone see that? It's a tiny effect in a corner out of the way. Much preferred the popup window! Is this going to happen for Help a Citizen quests too?
- Clayton Griswold - Voice too mumbly. Needs a volume boost on default audio settings.
- Why block up the 'easy' path leading from Surhoff to Silver Avenger? At least you can climb over the rubble (newbies might not figure that out)
- There are invisible objects on path if you go that way anyways, in front of the bench.
- There's no cue audio or otherwise to defend the cannon after getting the 10 parts crates.
- "Over here, we don't have much time" kept repeating during Defender's Black Talon speech.
- "Shut down ALL these beacons!" - since there's only two of them now, that sounds a bit silly. One would think there's three as there's the one the Destroid is typing away at, but that's just a 'weaponizeable' console.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Yeah, he was very quiet compared to the other voice overs.
The mission window shows objectives and Ironclad has always explained each step of the open mission.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
...
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Other than removing the PvP rooms, I don't see what they could revamp anymore in the powerhouse. Give the powerhouse anything more might as well remove the restriction of being able to PvP or go to an alert because no one will want to leave the powerhouse, and we might as well turn the game into a true lobby.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
In my opinion, this is how the tutorial should run:
Heroes that have healing and support powers should be working with other hero NPC's to rescue and protect citizens in variious areas close to the center of the city. Ranged and Power armor heroes should be taking down smaller invasion aircraft and keeping invasion forces at bay at the perimeters and open areas of the city. Melee and close range power heroes can do the tutorial as it is.
Also, if the interaction button is going to change from Z to F then please give players a heads up, as well as have the tutorial reflect the change. I still see pop up hints that still use Z to interact with objects.
I am sure other players have posted similar suggestions before me, but I thought I would just put in my 2 cents. :biggrin:
The Battle of Detroit is not the Qularr Invasion of 2009. The Battle of Detroit is a whole other beast that involved Doctor Destroyer pretty much destroying a huge chunk of the city. Though, if I were to go with simulations, having a Battle of Detroit simulator experience would probably have been 1000% better than the current Qularr bug invasion.
Silverspar on PRIMUS
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Move Arena to Ravenwood and have students sitting in bleachers watching.
Heroes can be guest instructors showing students how to use powers.
1) Use for Ravenwood.
2) Possible Role Play locations
Also, putting it in an out-of-the-way place would make ravenswood more suitable for building a quest line around in the future.
-Ogre