Topic: New player experience testing - March 2014

The new tutorial outlined in this devblog is now out on the test server.

There are still a few known bugs, but it's about 97.23% complete and you should be able to finish it without serious problems.

The things that have been reconsidered or changed since the blog:
  • Players don't receive extra EP, but upgrading doesn't cost EP during the training. (This is noted in the tutorial.)

  • Your robot is lost when you die, like normally. It would be misleading for new players otherwise, and there is no better place to face death than in a virtual program, without real consequences.

  • There are no completion requirements for leaving the training zone. The starter packs should provide enough incentive to finish the whole tutorial, and we don't want to limit second/third character creation like that when you don't really need the packs anymore.

Testing info:

I don't want to write much about the tutorial itself, because it should be self-explanatory, that's the point of it obviously. Try to look at it with a newbie's eye.

Oh and this should be obvious but: create a new character!

What you should be looking for are bugs and most importantly, exploits.

Here's what we could think of:

  • NIC transfer to and from a character in training is disabled.

  • You can't join or create corporations. This saves us a lot of possible trouble (corp balance, corp hangars, etc.)

  • You should not retain anything (items, non-items, unlocks, etc.) when you exit the training zone. If you find something, shout.

General feedback is of course also welcome: topics that are missing from the tutorial but should be really really included in your opinion, things that are explained in too much detail or are too vague, and general usefulness of the whole thing.

Known bugs:

    Updated: 2014-03-07 15:14 CET

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Down for fixing already, sorry smile

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    So what happened?

    RIP PERPETUUM

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    The test server is up and running now - have fun.

    [14:15:15] <Freya Sabbat> ...Dear god, the Devs are as bad as us

    5 (edited by Doek 2014-03-06 20:55:25)

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    The unknown switch didn't destroy my robot, even though the tutorial said it did big_smile

    edit: Now it did... think I had to be closer.

    6 (edited by Doek 2014-03-06 22:02:18)

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Weird impassable areas:

    http://i.imgur.com/TWzxyKw.jpg

    My impression is that a lot of buildings are missing. Cool animation on the receiver building though.

    7 (edited by Doek 2014-03-06 21:47:22)

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    When artifacting, the red marker (beam) doesn't appear on the ground.

    edit: now they do appear.. weird.
    edit2: they seem to appear intermittent at best

    8 (edited by Doek 2014-03-06 21:46:47)

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    With the reverse engineering checkpoint, I dragged the decoder in before the prototyped item was finished. Now it won't let me complete the task: 'Drag the 'Level 1 decoder' from your private terminal into the Reverse engineering window'.

    edit: Thankfully there are level 1 decoders for sale.. no showstopper here.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    The terrain is still a mess like before, it's nothing how it should look like. We're looking into it.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Fixed the terrain, sorry about that - mild miscommunication there.

    [14:15:15] <Freya Sabbat> ...Dear god, the Devs are as bad as us

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Doek wrote:

    When artifacting, the red marker (beam) doesn't appear on the ground.

    edit: now they do appear.. weird.
    edit2: they seem to appear intermittent at best

    This was probably due to the terrain bug, mixed altitude data and stuff, try again please.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Doek wrote:

    With the reverse engineering checkpoint, I dragged the decoder in before the prototyped item was finished. Now it won't let me complete the task: 'Drag the 'Level 1 decoder' from your private terminal into the Reverse engineering window'.

    edit: Thankfully there are level 1 decoders for sale.. no showstopper here.

    I don't quite understand what went wrong there. You only have to start the prototype process, and don't need to wait for it to finish because you get an extra autocannon after you start it. And if you mess up the order in the RE task, you can drag in the decoder again even if it's already in the slot.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    So looks good, the unknown switch did not blow up my arkhe,  when I got to the part about the Theo Robots, I deployed in the Artermis, pressed the "unknown switch" and boom, no mech. Ok, thats pretty awesome, but how am I able to continue the rookie checklist? I don't even remember what was equipped on the Artermis ...

    Also, please change the name from "unknown switch" to "pull my finger" switch smile

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    I pressed unknown switch and didn't get blown up. Therefore client crashed afterwards when docking in.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    DEV Zoom wrote:
    Doek wrote:

    With the reverse engineering checkpoint, I dragged the decoder in before the prototyped item was finished. Now it won't let me complete the task: 'Drag the 'Level 1 decoder' from your private terminal into the Reverse engineering window'.

    edit: Thankfully there are level 1 decoders for sale.. no showstopper here.

    I don't quite understand what went wrong there. You only have to start the prototype process, and don't need to wait for it to finish because you get an extra autocannon after you start it. And if you mess up the order in the RE task, you can drag in the decoder again even if it's already in the slot.

    To be more concise; I started the RE job before the prototyping was finished (basically using the decoder before I was told I had to use it - drag it in). I was of course rushing through the industrial assignments. It's still good to have everything on the market though.

    Terrain looks good now, all buildings (and coastlines) are there, scanning for artifacts now leaves a marker consistently. One thing that slightly bothers me is the UI indicator (telling me to press a button or such); it's not that prominent and just appears (like it did in the previous version of the tutorial), so it takes a few moment to figure out where it's at. Might be useful to add some kind of animation where it pops in, perhaps with some scaling.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    I fixed the switch problems, will push out a patch in a moment.

    [14:15:15] <Freya Sabbat> ...Dear god, the Devs are as bad as us

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Exit teleport server error also fixed and running - go nuts!

    [14:15:15] <Freya Sabbat> ...Dear god, the Devs are as bad as us

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    as mentioned I blew up the artermis ... I was able to buy a new one on the market, and refit it as needed, but because I did not know the original fittings I had to deploy, see the rookie ask, dock, fit item, deploy, see next task, dock, buy and fit item, deploy, etc, until that module was done.

    I'm all about teaching people the hard way, aka, yes that switch blows up every bot, but maybe give the player a list of what was on the mech supplied and then tell him to buy the items and refit the bot.

    Also, missle launcers on the kain?!?!?! lol ... if thats the case, you should tell the player upon deploy to activate the unknown switch, and when they die tell them to never ever fit missle launchers on the kain, lol., and make them refit.

    My point here being what you give the new player to use, they will take it as gospel that this is how to play the actual game. Missle launcher on Kains, at early EP, is a waste of EP that should go into Kain specific skills first, like turrets or armour. Also, I get you want to get the players a taste of mechs, but giving them Mechs in the tutorial only reinforces the "bigger is better out of the gate, get your noob *** into a mech asap!" attitude that most noobs have when they start this game, you are effectively promoting this and completely negating the light and assault classes ...

    Another example of this is the evasive on the kain.  I understand you want to show different mods, but it should be fitted on a light bot, because it actually makes a difference ....on the kain it makes no difference at all.

    I think the checklist is excellent, and I am only at the Num Robots section ... so if you explain the "whys" instead of the  "how to activate" later on then good, but if not, it may cause some problems for the new player in the real game ....

    The checklist is far and away a great improvement over the current method of starting the game though smile

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Cassius wrote:

    I'm all about teaching people the hard way, aka, yes that switch blows up every bot

    Not anymore.

    [14:15:15] <Freya Sabbat> ...Dear god, the Devs are as bad as us

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    as indusrty you get a sequer with a autocannon fitted. that you can not use because you have no skills in it. not the best choice to give a new player a bot with fittings he cant use.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    I chosed thelodica and got 2 bots. The Prometheus I can not use because the fiting uses more Reaktor then I have.
    And the Baphomet I can not activate I missing some Extantions.

    I think best would be if you give them the bots and the modules seperate.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    I'll recheck the equipment on the starter pack bots, I admit I screwed up a bit because although I used unmodified cpu/reactor capacities, I forgot about optimization extensions which were level 5 when I did the robots.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    I think adding an orange Observer or Rank 5 spawn somewhere on the shore there would be a good idea. Gives something challenging to shoot to those looking for it.

    The island and tutorial look very well made. I went over the checklist twice so far and no noticeable bugs were found.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    after leaving the starter island i still have 1,3m ep. guess thats not intentional.

    Re: New player experience testing - March 2014

    Zortarg Calltar wrote:

    after leaving the starter island i still have 1,3m ep. guess thats not intentional.

    Yes it is. Since EP is account based you're seeing the actual amount during your training too. Extensions don't cost EP there and it won't get reset or anything because nothing happens to the EP pool.