[0.95.5.0] Tutorial Feedback

from GalCiv3 Forums

I'm not sure how many people have played this yet, but there is a tutorial out now that you can play.

Here are my thoughts on it:
-The story is nothing fancy, not that a tutorial requires one. Tutorials might be skipped by experienced players, or people who want to jump into the game. Good stories should be saved for something like the campaign. Anyways, the story involves a group of Terrans who after fleeing the Drengin for a time have found some place safe to settle down and rebuild. The Iconians are in the area, so they can be friends if you are not jerks (I haven't tried to play as an jerk yet so I wouldn't know how that would play out).
-The map is setup in such a way that you can play around. I found that the Iconians did not even try to colonize any planets. This left most of the small map open for you to play with. You have the time to go figure things out, as the AI doesn't appear to be capable of much of anything.
-You were given instructions as to things you should do, such as to how to colonize a planet or how to do research. The response you could give these people included stuff like "show me how..." where a new window would pop open which included a video and some text below. It wasn't much of a video, as it was practically a repeating animated image. The video could have been more, such as being longer and/or have the option to pause. The image plays for about 3 to 5 seconds, which is enough time to show you how to do something, but it is far from an instruction video. The bulk of the information is really in the text below the repeating animated image. I found that the fact the image repeats without stop to be a little distracting when trying to read.
-The tutorial does offer objectives that you can do on your own pace, such as take out a nearby pirate base.
-The tutorial does seem to offer enough information, then when you start a proper game, that you can potentially win against AIs of your own skill level. The tutorial did cover colonizing worlds, developing planets, researching techs, building ships at shipyards, fighting battles, and invading planets. I think that covers all the basics you need. It didn't cover things like the United Planets, rally points, and I think it was light on designing your own ships and building starbases. There were many topics that you would do well to know, but they were not covered or covered well in the tutorial.

Some bugs:
-The Iconians talk about open boarders treaty at some point. I was given a job that I needed to complete first... blah blah blah. Long story short, I finished it, had the talk, so I opened the diplomacy screen to set one up, but I couldn't find open boarders as something I could select. I found out later that it was turned on automatically (I don't know when it had happened). I don't think turning it on automatically would help many people to learn to implement it. I think that new players should try to implement it once during the tutorial.
-When the Iconians showed me a planet, I had to look for it. Mind you I was given vision of it so it could spot in unexplored territory. However, if I had already explored that region of space, with lets say auto explore, I might not have noticed it so quickly. Further more, when zoomed in, you could see arrows pointing to the planet, but they never went away, even after colonizing it.

Some ways to improve:
-Some of the content would fit well in an in-game encyclopedia. I'm thinking that there could be a chapter for tutorials where the individual pages could include videos and text. However, that would probably require enough work that it would warrant it being made a DLC or at least held off to be worked on in a later patch.
-Like I said earlier, some topics are either not well covered, or not covered at all. You certainly didn't see anything about rally points, United Planets, or extreme world colonization. These might be topics that some players might be get hung up on.

2,843 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Your post is a useful piece, but I would put a little different emphasis on "ways to improve".    A basic, first time out tutorial has to try to skip advanced topics, or pretty much anything that won't come up in a game for many turns.    In a small game like the tutorial, rally points are a confusion best left for when the gamer has the basics of moving things around and has enough stuff going on that it will be useful.     UP and extreme planets are important topics, but not in the very early going at a starting level.  So my take is that the level of detail is about right.  

Of course this means there needs to be some way for a player to get at the more advanced information when she/he is ready for it.   A completely detailed manual (as opposed to a starter manual that is about getting up and running and where to look for troubleshooting help) I think is not a good solution, not only because of the daunting size the thing would have to be, but  because the game will keep changing rapidly for a  long time after release, which would render it heavily flawed in a short period of time.

A "civilopedia" (galactopedia) approach sounds nice but is probably only practical for a large studio because of the sheer size involved.   I think I want SD focused on bugs, polishing, DLC, and expansions, rather than compilation.  But perhaps they could gradually work things into the game after release.

The  production of a Wiki is a good approach, combining articles on various subjects with lists or tables of data with a heavy commitment by the fan base.   Of course it will take a lot of work, but there is a decent GC community here that I think is up to it, and SD has said they are aiming in that direction and I am sure they will provide as much help as they can.

In a perfect world I would like all of this.   Oh well.

 

 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I tried to put more stuff down, but I couldn't remember all the stuff I had thought of. Plus I was busy, so I had to stop at some point. My main effort was to present stuff as dry facts when I could.

The GalCiv 2 tutorial was a section where you could go watch videos. It was not interactive, but it had more content. Some of that more content included rally points. It was also content that you could consume as you pleased. You did not have to play half a map to learn how to do planet invasions. If you needed to know how to do that, you could go watch the video.

If I were to make a few small changes to the tutorial system, I would make section that had a few maps that you could free play on, and some video tutorials below them. Videos to cover various topics, and maps appropriate to play out some of those topics. For instance, for ship combat and invasions, I might include a map where you already have a developed civilization and are at war with another. You could have fleets ready to fight, troop transports ready to go, and have an industry capable of building more. To practice rally points and starbases, I might have similar map, but one that is at peace where you could fiddle around with stuff at a more relaxed pace.

Galactic Civilizations III