|
|
Post by grävling on Feb 4, 2017 19:02:30 GMT -5
(What a difference a few hours of sleep makes. I should try this more often instead of just playing more ST2). It would have been easy for Cory Trese and fallen to design the game so that you just picked a character class, i.e. Merchant or Smuggler. And then have everybody have the exact same number of skills and attributes to allocate, the exact same amount of cash to spend on a ship, or not, and the exact same number of contacts to allocate. Instead, they opted to give us players something with a whole lot more complexity up front. Note: I am not saying that this was a bad idea, and that simpler would have been better.But presumably there was a reason behind this beyond 'I love complexity for its own sake' and 'doesn't everybody love infinite amounts of customisation?'. And the reason that this was a good design choice is something that needs to come out more in the captain selection and customisation process. I.e 'Contacts: more important for smugglers, pirates, and any one else hoping to live on the shady side of the law. Other people, not so much.' 'Attributes: a high priority for explorers and fighting captains who prefer to close with and board their enemies' 'Skills: Highly trained gunners are the hallmark of fighting captains who kill their enemies with torpedoes from far away' (note - I might be wrong about those texts). But that is the sort of thing I would like as part of captain selection. |
|
|
|
Post by saltin on Feb 4, 2017 21:03:48 GMT -5
If you go to sleep right after playing there is a chance you might dream of ST2 and still continue to help troubleshoot alpha issues during R.E.M sleep.No rest for the wicked..I mean alpha testers 😆
Joking aside,I too love the complexity and the many options and paths available in the game but yeah I am also pretty much also constantly making blind choices ie: not knowing the most effective solution or the better focused choices.
I play casual myself but I imagine this must be pretty frustrating for players testing the higher difficulty levels as this would require min_maxing which in itself if not possible to do without knowing more about the mechanics of the game.
Some sort of additional info in the form of library/tip/[Help button] would be great.
|
|
|
|
Post by grävling on Feb 4, 2017 21:10:46 GMT -5
If you go to sleep right after playing there is a chance you might dream of ST2 and still continue to help troubleshoot alpha issues during R.E.M sleep.No rest for the wicked..I mean alpha testers 😆 What do you mean might  Already Happening!  |
|
|
|
Post by Cory Trese on Feb 5, 2017 0:43:47 GMT -5
I play casual myself but I imagine this must be pretty frustrating for players testing the higher difficulty levels as this would require min_maxing which in itself if not possible to do without knowing more about the mechanics of the game. Some sort of additional info in the form of library/tip/[Help button] would be great. Unfortunately, providing finished documentation before the game is finished is impossible. We cannot have both documentation and alpha testing -- and we cannot make games without alpha testing. So we don't have documentation. Transitive property of business realities or something like that. Hopefully we'll have a more complete guide for P3 and for production release. |
|
|
|
Post by Cory Trese on Feb 5, 2017 1:26:03 GMT -5
The original post, and saltin both make some really good points. I still believe that the template system is right and good for the design. But a simpler system might be better. We could even use the existing logic and just remove the player's ability to re-order ABCDE. First, I think the point that seems to keep coming up is a question about WHY which makes sense. As Saltin points out, we have no documentation. Second, it is still possible that we'll have canned one-click-to-play built in auto-templates. Maybe this customization thing is an elite only feature that only the hardcore players use. This discussion is very important. Thanks for contributing. |
|
|
|
Post by grävling on Feb 5, 2017 1:53:51 GMT -5
Oh, I love to customise to the max --- once I learn what I am doing, that is.
This is the historical difference between designing for newbies, and designing for people who have used the system a lot. We have found that in our accounting system. When you are trying to make a sale, to people who have never seen a bookkeeping system before the message was always the same. BLAH BLAH, Too Complicated. BLAH BLAH Information Overload. Not designed for people like me. Make is simpler, and a whole lot dumber. NO SALE!
So, in an effort to create something we could actually sell to users, we stripped out lots of functionality or at least made it inaccessible. Sold a lot of units. YAY!
And discovered a strange truth. Naive Users have a shelf-life of about 3 weeks (assuming they use the system every day). All the people we sold things to, the very ones who had been complaining about the initial complexity got back to us with feature requests. And all they pretty much wanted were things we had removed that they had complained about earlier. There were very few requests for things we didn't have in the initial design. Suddenly those now-wanted things weren't part of information overload after all.
However, casual users, the sort of people who use an accounting system once a month, for an hour or so to balance the books and then go away for another month -- *never* get to the point of wanting anything more than the very basic system. They never get the basic system internalised and get to the point where they find it confining. They are always at the point where the very most basic functionality of the system is stressing their cognitive limits to the max.
So, our conclusion was that, in order to make sales, we needed 2 (at least 2) skins. There was the 'basic interface' and then there was the 'for power users'. Various other things became plugins that we could charge for separately.
|
|
|
|
Post by xdesperado on Feb 5, 2017 2:00:26 GMT -5
The original post, and saltin both make some really good points. I still believe that the template system is right and good for the design. But a simpler system might be better. We could even use the existing logic and just remove the player's ability to re-order ABCDE. First, I think the point that seems to keep coming up is a question about WHY which makes sense. As Saltin points out, we have no documentation. Second, it is still possible that we'll have canned one-click-to-play built in auto-templates. Maybe this customization thing is an elite only feature that only the hardcore players use. This discussion is very important. Thanks for contributing. Please please don't remove the ability to reorder priorities. If you do that then really no point in having priorities at all as players get locked into whatever you feel are best values for people to use. Part of what is going to make ST2 so much better than ST RPG is this ability for a player to taylor things more towards what they want instead of being given a limited set of choices. RPGs that only allow a few canned archtypes aren't nearly as engaging for me personally as those which give me more freedom of choice and a chance to try near endless variations. I think a small text blurb for each Priority will go a long way towards easing new players into the process. Example: Ship this determines the amount of credits you have available to choose your starting ship and apply any modifications you want prior to game start. The costs of ships and upgrades for this are discounted compared to in play prices. Example: Profession, this determines your Captains Primary and secondary jobs and sets the starting experience levels for Captain and crew. Have these captions come up when a player highlights them and only when a player gives them a valid value and locks the priority selection will the blurb not pop up. |
|
|
|
Post by Cory Trese on Feb 5, 2017 2:04:24 GMT -5
I really think the early experience for the super new player will need to be something like ...
What do you want to look like ->
*** player picks skin and face
do you want to fight / trade / explore? ->
*** player picks one of 3 faction + template combos
what difficulty do you want ->
*** player has to pick this one based on our advice
game starts!
|
|
|
|
Post by xdesperado on Feb 5, 2017 2:06:51 GMT -5
I really think the early experience for the super new player will need to be something like ... What do you want to look like -> *** player picks skin and face do you want to fight / trade / explore? -> *** player picks one of 3 faction + template combos what difficulty do you want -> *** player has to pick this one based on our advice game starts! There's your tutorial now after I play that a few hours give me the real game  |
|
|
|
Post by grävling on Feb 5, 2017 2:10:12 GMT -5
Even when you stop being a super new player, there are times when you only want a certain amount of customisation. I.E. I just made 2 officers who are also doctors, which meant I had to opt for my own customisation. It would be nice if there was another button right now for 'now just fill out the rest with anything the game thinks is reasonable, because I don't care all that much and would like to get off playing now'. Ditto with training crew -- these people I have particular plans for and want to train in a special way. All these others can do whatever they like, I don't care.
|
|
|
|
Post by Cory Trese on Feb 5, 2017 2:11:52 GMT -5
We turned off the "auto-talent everyone else" button before launching the Phase 1 of the alpha.
This button will be back, and work better than it did before. I think that will help the player that has customized enough, and just wants to go back to playing now.
|
|
|
|
Post by John Robinson on Feb 5, 2017 2:14:14 GMT -5
The original post, and saltin both make some really good points. I still believe that the template system is right and good for the design. But a simpler system might be better. We could even use the existing logic and just remove the player's ability to re-order ABCDE. First, I think the point that seems to keep coming up is a question about WHY which makes sense. As Saltin points out, we have no documentation. Second, it is still possible that we'll have canned one-click-to-play built in auto-templates. Maybe this customization thing is an elite only feature that only the hardcore players use. This discussion is very important. Thanks for contributing. If I understand right it's purpose is to make things easier to play, appeal to a bigger fan base, but not like so many other games, bore players once they learn the canned system that always wins. Elite Version: is my first choice/first purchase great choice. Lots of choices preserves the mystery and wonder of the unknowable universe you guys are creating. I prefer games with huge amounts of customization because it makes me feel more involved in my captain's life. Elite would allow for unpredictable enjoyable combinations that no one would see coming. In HoS I ran many experiments just to see what would happen instead of always building teams to win the game. I've already seen too much of ST2, the absence of the Elite version would make it feel dumbed-down. The genie is already out of the bottle. King Solomon's choice: Two women appeared in his court one day each claiming ownership of a baby. Very well ,he said, "fetch a sword each of you shall have half" One woman feel to her knees begging him not to do it, thus he knew who the real mother was, and she went home with her new born son. Instead of trying to accommodate everything in one child, two children (versions would be best). But I want the first born Elite version first |
|
|
|
Post by grävling on Feb 5, 2017 2:14:35 GMT -5
I really think the early experience for the super new player will need to be something like ... What do you want to look like -> *** player picks skin and face do you want to fight / trade / explore? -> *** player picks one of 3 faction + template combos what difficulty do you want -> *** player has to pick this one based on our advice game starts! There's your tutorial now after I play that a few hours give me the real game thinks like me. But remember, we have to get the newbies to fork over the cash so that the TBs can keep giving us more wonderful games. So we mustn't scare them too much so they don't leave negative reviews all over the place with 'blah blah too complicated' remarks. |
|
|
|
Post by grävling on Feb 5, 2017 2:15:48 GMT -5
We turned off the "auto-talent everyone else" button before launching the Phase 1 of the alpha. This button will be back, and work better than it did before. I think that will help the player that has customized enough, and just wants to go back to playing now. And another one for the 'feature being asked for is one we removed for simplicity' bucket! |
|
|
|
Post by xdesperado on Feb 5, 2017 2:21:42 GMT -5
There's your tutorial now after I play that a few hours give me the real game thinks like me. But remember, we have to get the newbies to fork over the cash so that the TBs can keep giving us more wonderful games. So we mustn't scare them too much so they don't leave negative reviews all over the place with 'blah blah too complicated' remarks. I know I said tutorial but perhaps a better idea is that such an extremely cut down version be the "freemium" introduction. Get them hooked with that very restricted free version and hit them with: Now unlock the true potential of the Star Traders universe with the Premium version that allows in depth customization of Captains, Crews, Ships and Maps! |
|
Already Happening! 
