Cogmind > General Discussion

Improving the Tutorial for New Players

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DDarkray:
Of all the questions asked by the new players (on Reddit), the most common one is about early game survival. Why do I keep dying by the overwhelmingly large army? Why does it take 10 volleys to take down a robot? Why does stealth never seem to work?

A lot of factors contribute to those early deaths: lack of understanding with the hacking mechanics, bad positioning, use of low-integrity parts, etc. Those problems can be avoided once the players realize their mistakes, but they won't know about it without any external help. Usually they would readjust their plays after reading some tips and strategy guides, but that wouldn't be needed as much if there's a good in-game tutorial.

So I've been wondering: Is there any plan to improve on the tutorial before the game is released on Steam? When the time comes where thousands of players are playing Cogmind for the very first time, I'm sure a lot of people will be having the same difficulty. I'm hoping that the early game can be beaten reasonably often by a player who has never asked for help (after some persistence).

Edit: While making this thread, I've been assuming that the majority of the newcomers are having such problem, but I don't know the number so that was only my guess.

Kyzrati:
These questions from beginners are to be expected because of how different Cogmind's world is from other roguelikes (and games in general), but I don't feel that it's a standard roguelike tutorial's place to teach tactics and strategy, which is where these players are primarily failing. (As you mention, what they need are "tips and strategy guides.") Modern games do tend to hold players' hands and provide that kind of assistance, but I wanted Cogmind to be more about closely observing the world to figure out how to survive.

That said, it's easy to be overwhelmed because there is a lot going on, on multiple levels, so it does seems to take a more dedicated, relatively skilled player to learn quickly enough how to survive the early game, or someone who just goes and reads a list of tips from an outside source, like our beginner's guides here :P

On my list of features under consideration is an in-game tips/strategy help system, but I'm reluctant to add it because it ruins the atmosphere I want to create,
and more or less the same results can be achieved by reading an outside guide. (Note the in-game tutorial is for mechanic purposes only.)

I could also add a basic survive guide as an early section of the manual itself, and suggest players who are having trouble read that (it could even include some spoilers and a spoiler warning). The tutorial messages could mention it as well, after a number of early deaths. This is the first thing I'd try, as it's the least intrusive.

zxc:
We could crowd-source some tutorials or crowd-source a community guide to starting out in Cogmind.

Kyzrati:
Yeah I'm sure eventually on Steam with more players that will be quite effective, as it's what other games do as well. Not everyone guesses (or notices) there are already some decent simple guides here and linked from other places. I'm pretty familiar with the fundamental areas players are having trouble with, so it'll be easy to come up with a quick list for the manual and will start with that next version.

And I believe that once players who do need help internalize a few simple strategies they'll be able to get a lot further by continuing to improve skills on their own. At least that's what we've seen so far...

Kyzrati:
Step 1 is in progress... "Survival Tips"

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