So, I actually clicked on the Register button in game today, and wow, it brought me to a tutorial! I went through that and it looked great! There's also a skip button with this tutorial, which I think is another great idea. Only a couple minor details (such as a small story introduction) prevent this from doing the job of Vega 2 in a much better way. Thumbs up!
But that wasn't how I started. I started by registering on the website, and when I did that, I could just log into the game without hitting register in game. Doing that brought me to Vega 2, where there was [another] tutorial. However, my impression of this tutorial was radically different: I felt the Vega 2 experience to be excessively and unecessarily drawn out, excruciatingly boring (no challenge), and repetitive. It also made the game feel cheap and a bit strange that the enemies did not shoot back.
After I started playing, I introduced a friend to the game, and as soon as she hit the scout killing mission in Vega 2, she said "I really hope those scouts shoot back, this is rather boring..". It took a bit of effort to convince her that the real game was in fact not about running around aimlessly shooting way too many things that don't shoot back at you.
Ideas:
Summary:
There definitely needs to be a tutorial before Vega 1. However, i think the tutorial experience in Vega 2 is about 5 times too long, and although I did come out of it with a grasp of basic controls and pod collection and map usage, the first time playing through it felt already twice too many. It would probably be a good idea to give new players more exciting encounters earlier in the game such as just putting them onto vega 1 after they know the basic controls. Also, it would be nice if the tutorial is skippable in case of players that already know the controls, especially given one that long.
Feel free to disagree.
But that wasn't how I started. I started by registering on the website, and when I did that, I could just log into the game without hitting register in game. Doing that brought me to Vega 2, where there was [another] tutorial. However, my impression of this tutorial was radically different: I felt the Vega 2 experience to be excessively and unecessarily drawn out, excruciatingly boring (no challenge), and repetitive. It also made the game feel cheap and a bit strange that the enemies did not shoot back.
After I started playing, I introduced a friend to the game, and as soon as she hit the scout killing mission in Vega 2, she said "I really hope those scouts shoot back, this is rather boring..". It took a bit of effort to convince her that the real game was in fact not about running around aimlessly shooting way too many things that don't shoot back at you.
Ideas:
- Replace Vega 2 with the practice room tutorial, perhaps slightly elaborated, and just put players onto Vega 1 after the tutorial. It'll make the game look much better to new players. While Vega 2 does the job, it seems the practice room tutorial almost does the job as well, and provides a much better early experience, scaring away fewer newcomers. Removing Vega 2 will miss teaching the player how to Orbit, but that tooltip can be easily added somewhere.. the beginning of the story might need a small modification though...
- Or drastically shorten the Vega 2 experience. Shorten the kill scouts mission by 80%. Remove the kill 2 scouts 2 drones missions, they serve no purpose and are confusing because there's no indicator on how many drones and scouts remain.
- Make scouts shoot back. if the player gets low on health, give them some special newbie protector shield or something since they supposedly don't know about starbases yet?
- At the very least, make vega 2 skippable. It's quite excruciating.
- Shorten the time to go from level 1 to 4 (and vega 2..) by at least 50% to hook new players better.
- Player retention.. is always good, isn't it?
Summary:
There definitely needs to be a tutorial before Vega 1. However, i think the tutorial experience in Vega 2 is about 5 times too long, and although I did come out of it with a grasp of basic controls and pod collection and map usage, the first time playing through it felt already twice too many. It would probably be a good idea to give new players more exciting encounters earlier in the game such as just putting them onto vega 1 after they know the basic controls. Also, it would be nice if the tutorial is skippable in case of players that already know the controls, especially given one that long.
Feel free to disagree.