Start new players in Galaxy tutorial

[gameboy1234]

I was just watching an MMO channel on YouTube that I like.  I posted a comment that they should do a video on City of Heroes and they replied back that they already have one in the works!  (The channel is MMOByte if you want to check it out.)

 

Suggestion: have new players start in the Galaxy City tutorial rather than giving them a choice of tutorial or none at all.  If new players show up, the best content and the best early missions are gated along that path, so it would be best to start actual newbies there.  You might want to consider requiring two or three new characters before allowing a choice to skip the tutorial and jump right into the game.

 

[MunkiLord]

Hard pass. Choice is a good.

[Apparition]

Heck no.

 

IMO, the Galaxy City tutorial is bad.  Plus, nothing is gated.  The "best" early missions have no gate.  You can do Outbreak, get to Atlas, and walk right up to Matthew Habashy and he'll talk with you and give you missions.  I've done it four times now.  Same for red side.  Do Jailbreak, get to Mercy, and walk right up to Operative Kuzmin and he'll talk with you and give you missions, (although I still prefer Kalinda).

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, Apparition said:

You can do Outbreak, get to Atlas, and walk right up to Matthew Habashy and he'll talk with you and give you missions.

And... are new players going to know to do that?

[Apparition]

9 minutes ago, Vanden said:

And... are new players going to know to do that?

 

They seem to know to do DFB without anything in the game pointing them that way.  Besides, like I said, the Galaxy City tutorial is bad, especially if there's only one or two or even no other people in it with you.  And, IIRC, it does lock away Kalinda, who IMO is a better red side starting contact.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

They seem to know to do DFB without anything in the game pointing them that way.  Besides, like I said, the Galaxy City tutorial is bad, especially if there's only one or two or even no other people in it with you.  And, IIRC, it does lock away Kalinda, who IMO is a better red side starting contact.

There's people spamming LFG for DFB teams all the time, it's not hard to hear about it. Nobody recruits for Matthew Habashy teams.

 

And doing the Galaxy City tutorial doesn't prevent you from doing missions from Kalinda.

[Rylas]

If by new player you mean a fresh account and it's their first toon... Eh, soft maybe. If you mean every new character, then no thanks. 

[Jeuraud]

My first inclination was No... choice is good, but choice is not always good if your a NewB, so if this

5 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

You might want to consider requiring two or three new characters before allowing a choice to skip the tutorial and jump right into the game.

can be done then I say Yes to the OPs suggestion.

[Haijinx]

the best Tutorial is the Going Rogue one.  Too bad Goldside is so empty though. 

[GM Sijin]

The interface offering the choice could definitely be made better. Galaxy is little more than a pseudotutorial that teaches a player very little, which is what the Shining Stars/Hearts of Darkness arcs are meant to touch on, but they typically wait too long and people end up not knowing how to get around the city/isles before they need to, how enhancements work and other things that are covered in the other tutorials. They are also optional contacts that don't really announce themselves as 'we'll teach you how to play'. You do get a pop-up for them but a player has to opt to go talk to them, which is a little counter-intuitive for a tutorial system.

 

Also, how many characters someone has isn't a good basis to judge how familiar they are with the game, or how familiar they are to the kinds of mechanics CoH has in general. I'd rather see it kept a player choice, not an arbitrary one.

[biostem]

I bet there are some really creative players that could put something together that explains things a whole lot better, using the AE...

[boggo2300]

Galaxy city tutorial is terrible, the legacy ones are much better teaching aides for newbies, I do the Galaxy city one precisely because you can blast through it faster than the others because it is so well, empty...

[Ananke]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

And... are new players going to know to do that?

I skipped the tutorial because it's 2019 and I've played an MMO before. Obviously, I'm not all new players but it's worth mentioning that you don't have to want something on someone else's behalf.

[PaxArcana]

6 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

new players

First, define this term.

 

Do you mean, all new characters ...?  If so, I say "hard pass".

 

Do you mean, only a given player's first character?  If so ... I'm not sure it's a good idea, but I also won't actively oppose it.  Yet.  🙂

[gameboy1234]

15 hours ago, GM Sijin said:

The interface offering the choice could definitely be made better. Galaxy is little more than a pseudotutorial that teaches a player very little, which is what the Shining Stars/Hearts of Darkness arcs are meant to touch on, but they typically wait too long and people end up not knowing how to get around the city/isles before they need to, how enhancements work and other things that are covered in the other tutorials. They are also optional contacts that don't really announce themselves as 'we'll teach you how to play'. You do get a pop-up for them but a player has to opt to go talk to them, which is a little counter-intuitive for a tutorial system.

 

Also, how many characters someone has isn't a good basis to judge how familiar they are with the game, or how familiar they are to the kinds of mechanics CoH has in general. I'd rather see it kept a player choice, not an arbitrary one.

 

These are good comments but I want to clarify something:  I said the Galaxy City tutorial leads to better *content*, not that it was the better tutorial.  Different focus.

 

Regarding the tutorials and the content, is it possible to change a few of the things you mention?  Adjust early quests so that you're told to go talk to Twinshot specifically, not just have her pop up as an available contact?  Maybe add it to the end of Mathew Habashy's arc, or even to Ms. Liberty say around level 5 or so?  I don't know how hard it is to alter the in-game quests, and I don't want to do more than tweak stuff, but it seems like the content does need some tweaks.

 

But yes altering a bit how the early game goes seems like it might be nice for anyone who's truly new.

 

And I agree that the number of characters one has isn't a perfect indicator of how familiar with the game a person is, but neither is it a terrible one.  Forcing returning players through one tutorial wouldn't be too bad, and for players who really are new it would give them a little better start and show them what to focus on.  (I suspect that returning players skip the tutorials, I know I do.)

 

15 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

First, define this term.

 

Do you mean, all new characters ...?  If so, I say "hard pass".

 

Do you mean, only a given player's first character?  If so ... I'm not sure it's a good idea, but I also won't actively oppose it.  Yet.  🙂

 

Again to clarify: new accounts, not all level one characters.  With the number alts I have if the game forced me through Galaxy City every time I think I'd die.  After the first character (or perhaps second or third, though I'm leaning toward just the first) the game should definitely give the player a choice to play the tutorial or not.

 

 

[RikOz]

3 hours ago, gameboy1234 said:

Regarding the tutorials and the content, is it possible to change a few of the things you mention?  Adjust early quests so that you're told to go talk to Twinshot specifically, not just have her pop up as an available contact?

Perhaps simply add an "out of character" comment to the bottom of the Twinshot popup, indicating that her missions will teach game mechanics. This would be similar to the way some missions have differently-colored text after the actual mission text saying things like "This mission is more difficult than normal - you might want to bring some friends."

[GM Sijin]

On 9/1/2019 at 8:52 AM, gameboy1234 said:

These are good comments but I want to clarify something:  I said the Galaxy City tutorial leads to better *content*, not that it was the better tutorial.  Different focus.

If the concern is more what you're introduced to it might be easier to just have the new contacts be the default contacts. AFAIK the restrictions for origins and being introduced has been removed from contacts in general, so if experienced players want to do the old contacts they still can.

On 9/1/2019 at 8:52 AM, gameboy1234 said:

Regarding the tutorials and the content, is it possible to change a few of the things you mention?  Adjust early quests so that you're told to go talk to Twinshot specifically, not just have her pop up as an available contact?  Maybe add it to the end of Mathew Habashy's arc, or even to Ms. Liberty say around level 5 or so?  I don't know how hard it is to alter the in-game quests, and I don't want to do more than tweak stuff, but it seems like the content does need some tweaks.

I'd say it's probably possible, but my understanding is that even changing something that seems as simple as the level range of a single mission can be incredibly tedious, let alone an entire arc.

[Haijinx]

Might be better to go right from the tutorial to Twinshot.

 

Then go to the Hornsby (sp) arc.