EVE Search - Sticky:New dev blog: Upcoming Tutorial Revisions

CCP Greyscale wrote:

We're very much aware that the way "to hit" works isn't exactly intuitive, but it's not something we're going to solve with a tooltip Smile

Bagehi wrote:

CCP Greyscale wrote:

Jame Jarl Retief wrote:

Lord Helghast wrote:

There is a mission in the carrier mission tutorials that you learn to die and deal with it... but they are talking the absolute earliest tutorial missions, you can't have people that come in and first thing that happens on undock is there popped its a bad experience.

Oh, I know all that. I'm relatively new to the game so I still vividly remember my own beginner experience not too long ago. I also have been trying the game practically every year since release, trying to get into it, but never really managed to make it stick.

I guess my point is that you can't tell people it's a harsh and unforgiving universe, and pit them against an enemy that can't possibly kill them. When a game is ludicrously easy it is just as much a turnoff as getting popped.

Though I guess it's a moot point anyway. Now that I think about it, I don't believe I ever had anyone I tried to get into this game come even close to getting popped in any tutorial. Heck, even L1s could be done in a snore coma with just one eye open. I guess what I'm saying is that it is a fine line between making the experience beginner friendly, and making it too easy and boring so they quit for lack of challenge. Myself personally, I tend to prefer games where the very first enemies make you work for it rather than just keel over from the first swing. It tends to be more engaging this way.

I totally see your the point, but in practical terms I don't think it's an issue in this case as it's only one mission, you're not going to run into the regen balance-point unless you're *really* slow at killing them, and we've not yet explained how shield regen works so it shouldn't be obvious to new players that eventually they'll reach a point where they're not taking any more damage. In 99% of cases players are going to see their shield going down, realize that they're in danger and kill the enemies really quickly, and in the other 1%, they really do need their hands held Smile

It kinda gives new players an overly soft intro to what is billed as a "hard game" - up the difficulty. Most people who get to the point where they are actually in the tutorial are there fully expecting cold and unforgiving.

EVE is already plenty hard at the beginning without actually killing you outright on your first mission, and with the current level of regen, everyone who's not as confused as as Vincent Athena's wife should get the *impression* that they're immediately in danger and never discover that they were safe all along. If they walk away from that mission feeling like they could've died, then our work here is done.