The tutorials of this game are shoddy at best. From the contacts on the righthand side of the screen to the beginner’s tutorials. What I will go through in the following paragraphs are why the current way of teaching beginner’s is horrible and what the developers can do to remedy the sickening state. I will also go over the GUI and it’s problems and how to fix them.
The contacts are the worst way you could possibly give players knowledge. Not only is it overdone in many other games but the contacts are text-based. Players look at the objective and speed through it to get the reward without ever knowing what happens. It doesn’t captivate the interest of the player.
The first contact is designed to be money hungry. The first contact tricks beginners into spending the free GS that they get at the start. The first contact you get does this and simply goes over things like firing a missile or shooting the main weapon.
The faction based contacts hardly get better. They tell you to use an active module a certain amount of times but don’t explain how to use it more effectively.
The contacts should be scrapped altogether. You will still get rewards but I will explain how to get them further in the post.
The first three gameplay tutorials are not accurate but that is the least of the problems. They miss information like about the all-important status bar at the top, below the scores. That alone will greatly increase the effectiveness of new players.
The GUI gives information that is not needed to players at that time
and increases confusion. It sets an almost impassable mountain in front of the beginner. It’s like receiving piles and piles of homework and textbooks. You know it will help you eventually but right now you don’t feel like doing it. In the situation of videogames if the player doesn’t feel like player a game he or she doesn’t have to play that game unlike homework where you will suffer consequences.
So how can the developers fix the above mentioned problems?
Create an accurate and engaging series of gameplay tutorials which will be given to the player when needed. They will include all the information you need but in a nonintimidating way. Upon completion of each tutorial you will receive a reward related to what the tutorial was about. These will not be able to be skipped but will be fun enough that players will not want to skip them.
For example: A new player starts the game. He is given a choice between the three fighters. Each fighter has an extremely brief description about the gameplay use of the ship.
/The gunship can do immense amounts of damage but it is weak/The tackler is used to make enemy ships easier to destroy/The command is a durable ship that can help teammates/
After choosing the ship, the player is immediately launched into the game. Voiceovers explain movement controls with text available. Voiceovers do the same thing with the use status bar and outlines where it would be.
From there they will be entered into a gameplay tutorial according to which ship they chose. It will explain the uses of the basic modules and why they are useful. The player fights an AI with the same ship and sees how fighting against his own ship will be like. He learns from the example of the AI.
After completing the tutorial the player will be allowed to play PvP but only with the ship he has completed the tutorial on.
The player is not allowed to progress to tier 2 until all other roles have been taught. This way the player will know all the symbols on the status bar. He won’t be confused to why he can’t fight when an ECM is attacking.
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Most GUI features should be hidden and would be continually shown as the player progresses. This gives players new information without bombardment.
