Big list of thoughts about Alleg, Steam & noobs.

[Spinoza]

First: this should be moved to development subforum after i got my dose of attention.
Second, this is going to be a messy list of laconically phrased facts, ideas, questions and opinions.
Not well formatted either, I'm typing on a tablet.

The training missions are cancer, kill them.
We need tutorial videos.

The game looks awful without mods. Us vets can't quite see how awful it is.
Look at the vids by sjmuri in the playlist below, compare to base game.

The base UI (yes the modded ui) is aimed at veterans, not noobs.
I can see ways to make the a UI better for noobs.
The base game MUST favour noobs over vets. Vets can mod. noobs need to be catered to as much as possible.

This game is complex, we should not expect people who like simple games to stay, but we need to keep the good ones long enough to pass the critical point of addiction.

Do anything possibly to get new players to join discord immediately.

Can we run a permanent server that has options locked in: two sides, 2 sector map, everything not helpful to a total noob turned off? Make it so noobs have a dead simple sandbox.

VETS LIKE US, ESPECIALLY OLD PEOPLE LIKE ME DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUNG NOOBS.
To solve this, i will try to do what Valve do with games:
Meet noobs in RL, watch and record them play the first 30m without telling them anything. Just encourage them to narrate their experience, ask question even though you can't answer.
See what REAL newbies struggle with.

If you have friends or relatives who are gamers, you too can try this.
Recording game could help but recording audio from player is more important. Just use your phone.

Here is a playlist I'm compiling:
Microsoft Allegiance: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0F...anrS6mi2MW9nTaA


Can't think of anything else right now.

PS
A deep bow to the crazy people who not only keep the game going but actually managed to push it forward!
Eat your heart out Sisyphus!

[dusanc]

+1 on everything

[Spinoza]

I remembered something I forgot to write, promptly forgot again.
I hope this jogs my memory.

[Spinoza]

I remembered!

IDK but I suspect many Alleg vets also play or have played Elite Dangerous.
And like me probably are very salty about it not being what it could be. NVM.

Anyway there was a big player run survey a few months ago. Generated a huge spreadsheet.

The survey shows exploration is something a lot of the players want.

What I'm getting at is don't believe for a second that Allegiance is too slow and boring for modern gamers!
There are a lot of people who are salty about Elite not providing enough gameplay for people who like slow and boring.

Allegiance offers a lot of the things that Elite failed to deliver.
Good PvP.
No grind.
No RNG.
Lots of different roles to fill.
A continuous learning curve.

[Spinoza]

Another thought:
IIRC grid is off by default.
Should be on for the newbies.

We should go over everything that is off that vets turn on and everything on that should be off.

Also: unbind third person camera!
I saw a video of a noob using external camera to fly. Very very bad.
Unbind the key so noobs don't use it unless they're smart enough to use the settings.

[Wasp]

I have somewhere around 700 hours of flight instruction (given) and can tell you that one of the things pilots are most interested in, is learning things that are completely out of their previous experience and applying those new talents to real flight.

Dumbing down Allegiance for the sake of making the game easy, is a bad idea imo. The complexity of the game and the attraction to that complexity, gives us pilots instead of arcade gamers.

[Spinoza]

QUOTE (Wasp @ Oct 4 2017, 08:22 PM) I have somewhere around 700 hours of flight instruction (given) and can tell you that one of the things pilots are most interested in, is learning things that are completely out of their previous experience and applying those new talents to real flight.

Dumbing down Allegiance for the sake of making the game easy, is a bad idea imo. The complexity of the game and the attraction to that complexity, gives us pilots instead of arcade gamers.

No dumbing down on my watch!

But... Newbies should be presented with a UI they can handle.
Alleg is overwhelming even by simulator standards, and without hands on training, people will just run.
Vets like the UI to show a lot of info. A LOT. And all of it impossible to decipher without knowing what to look for.

Newbies need to have everything labeled etc.

[Spinoza]

Comments by newbie LazP on Discord just now, two hours game time, no training missions because he was told they suck. Lucky!
"What a lot of new steam users expect:
- UI Revamp/Updating (Modern or not, not old looking at least cause it's easier for the eyes and easier to understand)
- Training Fix/Revamp/Removal
- Menus should go into Windowed mode (nothing wrong with that) or have the same res as the in-game one.
- Settings should be easier to navegate, same with keymapping.
- Models and High-Res Texture Update (whatever is best and available for the game nowadays)
- No text overlapping on menus and all that (I've noticed some icons and text overlapping others just cause too much info and that's annoying to see."

edit: the word i meant was LUCKY, not any "kucky"... I'm on my tablet and myvtyping sucks as well as my ability to see thebtiny tiny ketters.
Sorry! lazP seems like a realy good guy!

[Bunnywabbit]

QUOTE (Wasp @ Oct 4 2017, 07:22 PM) I have somewhere around 700 hours of flight instruction (given) and can tell you that one of the things pilots are most interested in, is learning things that are completely out of their previous experience and applying those new talents to real flight.

Dumbing down Allegiance for the sake of making the game easy, is a bad idea imo. The complexity of the game and the attraction to that complexity, gives us pilots instead of arcade gamers.

learning new things is great, having to deal with impediments that teach you nothing, is baaaaad.

Grid should be on by default.
Minimap should be expanded by default.
The default keymap is not great and remapping is hard if you don't know the importance of keys.

that is not dumbing down, that is simply providing the options every one of us automatically selects as defaults so people can focus on actually learning the game, rather than learning how to wrestle the ui.

[Wasp]

QUOTE (Spinoza @ Oct 4 2017, 01:33 PM) ...Alleg is overwhelming even by simulator standards

I have to disagree. This is my first charter aircraft (King Air). I received ZERO simulator training for it.

QUOTE (Spinoza @ Oct 4 2017, 01:33 PM) , and without hands on training, people will just run.

THAT is a certainty...which is why we need to take every opportunity to educate them.