Move More Tutorial Elements to Habashy/Kuzmin, Distill Graves and Twinshot

[Sunsette]

So, I just finished bingeing all of the tutorial arcs and zones back-to-back. Done all of them before, but having them next to each other like that presented some interesting things I hadn't really considered when I just did them individually every once in a while.

 

The Existing Tutorials Are Bad

None of this is controversial, I think, but for the sake of background: it is often noted that Twinshot and Graves are bad arcs and worse tutorials. The thing I've seen most consistently cited in this regard is that they are very easily skippable with their level bands; if you miss one step, you're locked out of all the others, and the level band staggering means that you don't get instructed on some things, like hospitals and enhancements, as early as you probably should -- especially now that TOs have been banished from the game. There's also a lot they simply don't cover in a game that is both less transparent than the standard and has less comprehensive fan support.

 

So the case for moving tutorial parts in Habashy and Kuzmin is already clear I think -- but what about the other half of my title suggestion, 'distill Graves and Twinshot'? Why spend the effort to touch them instead of binning them?

 

Well...

 

Twinshot and Graves Are Good Stories Ruined By Doing Too Much, Too Fast
The casts of both arcs often catch stray shots when these missions are being criticized. I do think characters like Flambeaux¹, Dillo², and Crosscut³ could be tightened up, but I don't think they're terrible or really what's weighing those arcs down. They are simply the most understandable faces of the poor writing. It's not their actual character concepts, dialogues, actions, or your interactions with them that really hurt the stories most.⁴

 

Nah, the big problems with these arcs are that they have relatively huge casts meant to be supported with relatively little writing, and significant portions of the writing are spent shoving you into some of the worst, most confusing attempts at immersive tutorials for a game that I've ever seen. It took me two consecutive runs of the Graves arc to realize that Zephyr's mission where you fight a bunch of Goldbrickers he's powered up was meant to teach players to use enhancements. Dean Yu's interaction with you is good for a laugh a bit, but also kind of frustrating when you can transparently see you're being played for a fool and also you have to go beat up a bunch of higher-level enemies (depending on level you do the arc) for no reason at all. It doesn't feel immersive at all, either. The Shooting Stars don't have as wildly convoluted of excuses for why you're sent places, but instead they have Maelstrom -- increasing the cast size further.

 

Maelstrom appears in the Shooting Stars arc both times we have a huge spike in cameo appearances: he appears right after you've faced the Hearts of Darkness and before you meet Manticore, and again with several companions from Powers Division's Top Dogs at the end of the arc. That is a lot to ask a newbie to take in! Maelstrom is just generally a problem, honestly. Eddie Polstra is woven through three different storylines that occur nearly concurrently: Resistance Wardens, Loyalist Power, and Heroes. He is most important to the last, but he never answers any questions about who he is and never matters to the blue-side experience again unless you count one boss appearance in one incarnate trial where he is not very chatty. That's very weird for a newbie starting on blue side, and I think it's safe to say that's the most popular starting experience. I don't think you can remove him, but you can give the character more closure. Similar could possibly be done in tying up the Dollface Entity with the truncated Snakes plot and giving Redside players a more complete glance at Scirocco, though more would have to be woven wholecloth here. 

 

I think you can efficiently⁵ tighten up the above stuff. If you cut the tutorial parts out of these stories and replace it with more character interaction and some writing polish passes, while still encouraging players to meet these characters early in their careers, you can give new players a great introduction to both Paragon and the Rogue Isles and more investment when they see Shining Stars in tip missions. It would also be a great move to involve them and the Hearts of Darkness in more content going forward. 

 

 

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¹ Bio suggests she's got a scientific background, dialogue writing has her directly reject science in multiple avenues. I think scientist ditz is an interesting combination, as proven by Neuron, and it could be leaned into more.

² I enjoy this character type a lot, I think the dialogue could be cleaned up a bit, but if I'm being honest it's probably not worth the effort and any changes here would likely get more backlash than positive attention.

³ I literally do not understand what the character is even doing at major points, like how he is reasoned to have beaten you in his contest, or anything that was going on with the PA system. I did the arc twice in a row and I still didn't.

⁴ There's an ongoing thread about Redside that has some excellent suggestions from @Chris24601 on how extra dialogue choices could improve interacting with characters in that arc, and I won't rehash those excellent points.

⁵ I have absolutely no idea how technically difficult it would be to alter these missions, mind.

 

 

Edited March 3 by Sunsette