My thoughts... and fears.

[eddieballgame]

ORIGINAL: lloydster4
The external resources required to learn the game already exist, but forcing players to seek out external help will drive away lots of people.

If one truly desires to excel at any game, then shunning 'external help' is not the formula.
You get out of something what you are willing to put into it.
If one wants to be a successful Chess, Go, & even Backgammon player for example, than it is necessary to study & watch the masters of said genres.
You can 'get good' on your own, but good luck with that. [:)]

[DasTactic]

I also agree with the sentiment of the OP that generally Steam users will be a different beast than the community here on the Matrix forums. Even here there have been some threads that have become personal attacks between posters - and that is pretty rare to see where posts tend to be respectful. It speaks volumes about the really interesting dynamic between confusion and passion about the game within our community.

And when it releases on Steam it will require a real effort to keep up the support there to answer questions etc which can be difficult when there is already such a strong community here. Hopefully, some of us will spend time over there as well to act as 'brand heroes'.

I've been involved with a lot of game and product launches and it is getting more and more difficult to cater to all the various learning styles. Essentially there are four methods people have of learning and somehow you need to try and cater for all or most of these.
'Kinesthetic' (touching/doing) is the in-game tutorial approach.
'Reading' is the manual approach but can also be an in-game encyclopedia and these forums.
'Visual' is reference tables, cheat-sheets etc.
and 'Auditory' along with Visual are in-game presentations and online videos.

Personally, I feel the game is too broad to really have a guided tutorial within the game and that only a small percentage of players will actually sit through it. I feel that there should be another simpler difficulty level below beginner (and rename the difficulty levels accordingly) that is much more forgiving to allow new players to break into the game. That way they get bitten by the possibilities the game offers while they stumble around learning the game mechanics. This would satisfy the kinesthetic learning style. Couple that with more relevant tool-tips in-game and the manual and it should help players get a handle on the game.

[Tomn]

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame

ORIGINAL: lloydster4
The external resources required to learn the game already exist, but forcing players to seek out external help will drive away lots of people.

If one truly desires to excel at any game, then shunning 'external help' is not the formula.
You get out of something what you are willing to put into it.
If one wants to be a successful Chess, Go, & even Backgammon player for example, than it is necessary to study & watch the masters of said genres.
You can 'get good' on your own, but good luck with that. [:)]

Games don't exist for the sake of demonstrating the moral worth of the players, though. They're entertainment, and if you need to spend hours in pre-research to understand the basics of the game then as a player you need to seriously consider whether you A: Have that time available, and B: Feel it's worth it. And if you're having trouble understanding the bare basics of the game it can be tricky to make an accurate assessment of whether it's worth it or not, especially when you have a lot of competing forms of entertainment that require much less investment.

To put it another way, I wonder how well Shadow Empire would have done if it had been released when there wasn't a pandemic and corresponding lockdown giving people all the free time they needed to learn?

More importantly, though, from the developer's perspective improving documentation, in-game help and UI-friendliness is possibly the single best financial investment they can make. At the moment the game is fundamentally good but has a pretty high barrier to entry that makes recommending the game to others a bit difficult unless you're really, really sure they'll take to it. Lowering that barrier to entry can directly translate into more sales and more positive word of mouth, which means more money in the dev's pocket, without having to "simplify" or "dumb down" the game in any way. It also, from a non-financial perspective, means that more players can start understanding and engaging with the underlying strategy of the game instead of getting stymied by a basic understanding of the rules.

To put it another way, chess is a lot more fun when somebody takes the time to explain to your opponent how the horsey pieces move. Where's the pleasure in playing against someone who was just given the board and the pieces and firmly told "NO" every time they tried to make an illegal move without telling them what the legal moves actually are?

I say this all, by the way, as someone who didn't watch a single tutorial video (I loathe tutorial videos) and got by to begin with basically solely through in-game experimentation and extensively checking the manual. I survived, but I see no reason why it couldn't be made easier.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: DasTactic

I also agree with the sentiment of the OP that generally Steam users will be a different beast than the community here on the Matrix forums. Even here there have been some threads that have become personal attacks between posters - and that is pretty rare to see where posts tend to be respectful. It speaks volumes about the really interesting dynamic between confusion and passion about the game within our community.

And when it releases on Steam it will require a real effort to keep up the support there to answer questions etc which can be difficult when there is already such a strong community here. Hopefully, some of us will spend time over there as well to act as 'brand heroes'.

I've been involved with a lot of game and product launches and it is getting more and more difficult to cater to all the various learning styles. Essentially there are four methods people have of learning and somehow you need to try and cater for all or most of these.
'Kinesthetic' (touching/doing) is the in-game tutorial approach.
'Reading' is the manual approach but can also be an in-game encyclopedia and these forums.
'Visual' is reference tables, cheat-sheets etc.
and 'Auditory' along with Visual are in-game presentations and online videos.

Personally, I feel the game is too broad to really have a guided tutorial within the game and that only a small percentage of players will actually sit through it. I feel that there should be another simpler difficulty level below beginner (and rename the difficulty levels accordingly) that is much more forgiving to allow new players to break into the game. That way they get bitten by the possibilities the game offers while they stumble around learning the game mechanics. This would satisfy the kinesthetic learning style. Couple that with more relevant tool-tips in-game and the manual and it should help players get a handle on the game.

I like the suggestions. Coming from you they have, well, gravitas.

Your discussion of learning styles is important to how people learn to play games. I'm not sure I've ever seen a discussion about that before.

Learning style theory is really big in education, and I've been a teacher for 27 years following a military career. Now cognitive scientists will tell you that learning style theory as understood in education is not supported by evidence. In education theory, the idea is that everyone has a learning style that best suits them, and teachers have to find the best learning style for each student. It is a theory taught in universities and believed by many if not most teachers. But it isn't backed up by evidence. [For more search Daniel Willingham learning style theory and see articles like this https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10 ... 8315589505]

What is backed up is that presenting new things in a variety of formats as you described them helps students learn, but that what works best for a student is situational. Students -- and adults -- will actually think they learn best in a particular way, but studies show that they actually don't, that again it is situational. So presenting things in a variety of formats will help more students grasp the new material.

So how does that apply to computer games? For complex games especially, having a variety of methods for players to learn the game will be most helpful. And you hit on everything in your suggestion. Have an in-game tutorial, have written instructions (rulebook, written tutorial, etc.) and have videos. There are people who prefer each style and think they learn a game best using that style. But what actually connects with them in a given situation might be something different from their prefered style.

For me, for example, I prefer a written step by step tutorial. Next I prefer just playing the game while skimming the manual and looking at forum posts. Last is videos. I don't like videos. I don't think I learn best through videos. Heh. But to learn this game I watched all the DasTactic tips and tricks video series, maybe the best video tutorial series ever.

I like the suggestion of a level below beginner. But we could call that a tutorial level, and give players a pre-set tutorial planet and then give them tool tips telling them to do certain things in a certain order and it would become an in-game tutorial. Like being challenged by one relatively weak arachnid at the start of the game. The in game tips could also be expanded in general. Also perhaps someone could write a tutorial for starting a game including planet generation and the first things that need to be done.

Beyond that the game is so complex and can branch out in so many ways.

I also think that it needs to be spelled out over and over for Steam release that this is a very complex game that requires a time investment. And it should be remembered that the game is going to be attacked by some on Steam just for the presentation, 2D, hexes, turn based, charts and graphs.

[willgamer]

I like the suggestion of a level below beginner. But we could call that a tutorial level, and give players a pre-set tutorial planet and then give them tool tips telling them to do certain things in a certain order and it would become an in-game tutorial. Like being challenged by one relatively weak arachnid at the start of the game. The in game tips could also be expanded in general. Also perhaps someone could write a tutorial for starting a game including planet generation and the first things that need to be done.

That's the best idea I've seen to date.

It meets the need for a tutorial and is perhaps the easiest way to prepare for a Steam release.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: willgamer

I like the suggestion of a level below beginner. But we could call that a tutorial level, and give players a pre-set tutorial planet and then give them tool tips telling them to do certain things in a certain order and it would become an in-game tutorial. Like being challenged by one relatively weak arachnid at the start of the game. The in game tips could also be expanded in general. Also perhaps someone could write a tutorial for starting a game including planet generation and the first things that need to be done.

That's the best idea I've seen to date.

It meets the need for a tutorial and is perhaps the easiest way to prepare for a Steam release.

Obviously something like that could only cover a small portion of what the game has to offer, but players could be given a series of tasks in every area of the game that makes them look at the different game functions and do a wide variety of tasks. That could probably be done in about 10 scripted turns. I'm thinking a planet artificially reduced to maybe moon size but offering things a moon doesn't, maybe up to everything a Siwa class planet offers.

[Sequitor2000]

As someone who is a long time gamer (I played the original Fantasy General on release), but a recent Matrix gamer, I think Texashawks warning is spot on. We all have to budget our leisure time and the investment in learning has to have a high probability of payoff for most busy people. Shadow Empire does have that payoff, but it took me 15+ hours of investment before I realized it. Why did I stick with it? Stubbornness combined with a conviction that the combination of war game, 4x, and Rogue type will fill a niche I never knew I needed filled. However, at many other points in my life (I'm almost 60 years old), especially when my children were young, I wouldn't have been able to make that investment.

I know a "Tutorial" might be too ambitious to pull off. However, a pre-rolled easy planet would go a long way. This planet could be included on installation. I suggest no raiders/slavers, no hostile majors on your door step, some nearby goody huts, enough resources for early building, etc. After enough of us in the community play it, we can create a consensus script for the first 10 turns, then pointers for the remainder of the game. The discussion of the first 10 turns will be very helpful for learning basic game concepts and becoming comfortable with the UI.

[Malevolence]

I agree with jwarrenw13 that you need a combination of multiple methods for access to knowledge.

The first group of common mistakes are to use techniques for education, where the actual goals are training. Education and training are not simple synonyms.

You train the player to use the interface, identify the rules, etc. The act of playing educates the player, given the combination of setting, design, and simulation--- problem solving, critical thinking, strategy, planning, ethics, etc.

The second group of common mistakes are to allow all the features to the beginner and then dumb down the numbers to easier victories. For example, small planet. Weak enemy units. More powerful player units. That's a naive solution, despite being intuitive to some. This technique can work in sports and sports-like games, however, so it's easily identifiable to many.

If you want to train someone to play Shadow Empire, you give them a subset of the game's features for the purposes of achieving a specific set of victory conditions that correspond to available, flagged features.

Example, capture a neighbor zone with a provided set of forces. Nothing else. No logistics. No raise formation. No 100 reports waiting for you this turn. Training objectives are implied. Read map, identify terrain, move units, attack, etc.

Later, provide logistics to a front of friendly units. You don't get to control the units. Focus. You just train and master logistics to work for one SHQ.

The games progressively integrate more features in a controlled environment---like techniques used in real testing. More deterministic. Less PRNG.

They are essentially stand alone games built using the same code, but offered separately via the game's main interface. The hook for a new player in the lore is that these victories resulted in your ascension to supreme leader, etc.

The experienced player skips them and rolls a planet. Dad just hands you the keys the car.

Some other games try this as a sequential series of tutorial quests that are completed in the early turns of the main game--they turn on the features over a set number of turns. This tends to make experienced players apoplectic after a second game.

Scenario based games sometimes use limited units and directed objectives too. Scenario based games have the advantage of being ready-designed for training. Each scenario is a separate, compartmented game. That's how real training and exercises are conducted.

The correct technique depends on the design, and should be baked in to the code early. Game's with feature flags and with quest systems as a core mini-game have a simpler time with this integration. Imagine the need for conditionals--- If player captures X, then TriggerYEvent.

[demiare]

If Steve is that Steve and creator of awesome Aurora 4X then he know well when complexity of UI is becoming a huge problem.

I can't suggest anything reasonable about tutorial - my last played tutorial was in WC3. And I lost human campaign first mission [:D] Yean, it was so good to be young

But I will suggest to not overdoing on it, especially when game goes Steam. Even in casual games here most of players never complete game on default difficulty. And poorly designed tutorial will do more harm then help (Factorio story - they'd forced to redesign in finally), while good tutorial may require too much coding & design efforts from a single dev.

Let's be honest - game UI is atrocity for average player of GTA5 era and it's impossible to change it. Hell, even Stellaris is too complex for many, many players [X(] despite all Paradox's efforts. Screenshots of game interface will clearly warn everybody that game is ... wargame-like. So most of buyers will be quite hardcore players.

P.S. IMHO another option is to make a good game encyclopedia, something like Paradox's have for their own games. Sure, it's less pretty then good and complex tutorial system, but may require less work for Vic plus some of us may help a little with content for it. Dunno, maybe it's my personal quirks but I'm fine to play game keeping it's wiki open & used a lot.

[Smidlee]

ORIGINAL: DasTactic
I feel that there should be another simpler difficulty level below beginner (and rename the difficulty levels accordingly) that is much more forgiving to allow new players to break into the game. That way they get bitten by the possibilities the game offers while they stumble around learning the game mechanics. This would satisfy the kinesthetic learning style. Couple that with more relevant tool-tips in-game and the manual and it should help players get a handle on the game.

In Beta 7 there is a super easy mode with Robinson Crusoe (no other majors) and Haven of Calm (Majors start out cold or friendly.) Add in a tool tip to use this settings with 2 or 3 zone with one or two armies which would give a beginner a change to learn the game at his own pace.

[Texashawk]

ORIGINAL: demiare

If Steve is that Steve and creator of awesome Aurora 4X then he know well when complexity of UI is becoming a huge problem.

I can't suggest anything reasonable about tutorial - my last played tutorial was in WC3. And I lost human campaign first mission [:D] Yean, it was so good to be young

But I will suggest to not overdoing on it, especially when game goes Steam. Even in casual games here most of players never complete game on default difficulty. And poorly designed tutorial will do more harm then help (Factorio story - they'd forced to redesign in finally), while good tutorial may require too much coding & design efforts from a single dev.

Let's be honest - game UI is atrocity for average player of GTA5 era and it's impossible to change it. Hell, even Stellaris is too complex for many, many players [X(] despite all Paradox's efforts. Screenshots of game interface will clearly warn everybody that game is ... wargame-like. So most of buyers will be quite hardcore players.

P.S. IMHO another option is to make a good game encyclopedia, something like Paradox's have for their own games. Sure, it's less pretty then good and complex tutorial system, but may require less work for Vic plus some of us may help a little with content for it. Dunno, maybe it's my personal quirks but I'm fine to play game keeping it's wiki open & used a lot.

I wish! Aurora is amazing, but I'm actually developing another game with a similar complexity curve to SE. And what testers are telling us loud and clear is they need more direction. We're probably going to do a multi-chapter in-game tutorial, but as I said at the beginning I know it's hard to make a good tutorial. It's especially hard when you're making changes literally after the game is published, but I think people understand at this point that games are living entities and they can and do change over time.

I think you already have the backbone in place for a decent guided tutorial - you already have an advisor giving hints - just chain those together into a small scenario with a RC-like start and I think combined with an expanded Help tab (what's there is good, there's just not a lot of it) and focus on each major axis of the game (exploration, warfare, diplomacy, science, councils, and leader care and feeding) and I think it would go a long way towards easing the curve for most people!

-Steve

[wodin]

This game is one of those that people will either totally love or totally despise. I hope more of the first and less of the later.

Yes when released on Steam it will probably get a vocal minority of haters. However it will also get alot of love and for a certain type of gamer be seen as a classic.

When I see haters it seems to always be a case of them not understanding the game rather than the game be flawed.