The campaign acts as a tutorial to the game. In the very beginning, we are taught about the passive points, the skills system, and the potion. And we instinctly know how to fight (hold the wooden side, not the blade side). But at no moment the player is taught about defenses.
The campaign lacks a tutorial part for defenses. Not something exhaustive, but at least the role of armour and defenses. And this could be done either as information text (as it’s done for potions, for example), or better as a system of mini-quests, of tasks to accomplish, maybe with small rewards.
This would be a way to be sure players have at least all the basic necessary information. Campaign may not be the right moment to learn about ward or endurance (which can be discussed), but at least armour and defenses. There are multiple NPCs that can help characters!
Experimented players know the campaign well, they know how to prepare. Most of us have strong (or capped) cold, physical and lightning resistances before reaching Lagon, for example. A new player know nothing about this, about the different eras and areas, and the associated damage types. The game does not have to spoil everything, but at least prepare them a bit.
Like the idea, but not sure there’s a good way to implement it without it turning into a giant wall of text with a lot of caveats.
And I know you said we know not to hold the pointy end, but if it weren’t for the forums, I sure wouldn’t know the difference between a more multiplier and an increased multiplier.
I suggested something in this direction a long time ago.
I think a introduction to every major baseline defense would be great.
EHG could combine this with n general overhaul of the quest and reward system.
Maybe giving the players some resistance affix shard before each chapter.
Like getting a few void resistance shards when leaving the councils chamber the first time or necrotic resistance when entering the Outcast Camp.
Later in the story some quests could give a few endurance or Armour shards and explain a few of their unique traits.
This would serve as a good introduction and guaranteed rewards, which comes in handy for Solo characters.
This is actually explained in the game guide, very well so too.
I think the game guide needs to be emphasized a lot more.
Because the game guide is great, but many people are not even aware of it or they do not even try to research information in-game, because a lot of people were teaches from previous other games, that in game resources suck and that you need to rely on external sources.
Some players won’t read the guide, while all players will play the campaign.
The information should be in the guide, but the campaign should have an introduction.
As @Heavy suggested, we can receive some shards. At the beginning, Gaspard gives us two idols. He can also give shards, the Outcast Queen can give some more, same for Yulia. All like “you may need this”.
I agree with llama. The game guide should motivate players to look up if they do not understand something or are interested in learning certain mechanics.
A short info box for example once you reach the first big town in C2 (Council Chambers) ‘‘if you wanna learn more about the game, press G for the ingame Game Guide’’ should be enough.
You can also add an info box at the beginning when you take dmg for the first time ‘‘ouch…that hurts, if you wanna learn more about defenses press G’’.
I don’t know if i wanna get a message like this all the time:
‘‘You reached Chapter 2, be careful, there is alot of void dmg, so maybe add some void resistance on your gear’’?
I will see that by fighting the monsters. I think the game doesn’t have to tell me everything, learning by doing is a better approach imo.
Defenses are very complex and can’t be presented in one little information box. I also don’t want to get an info box every 2 minutes explaining me what this mechanic is all about.
They probably need to extend chapter 1 for that if you really want to have a proper tutorial on game mechanics.
If they will add it later, thats good for new players for sure. But please add a ‘‘Skip Tutorial’’ option, because after your first playthrough you don’t want to see the information anymore.
I totally agree with that. And rather disagree with the rest.
I can see in the chat that new players are lost. They don’t know the basis of how to protect a character. Some have reflexes given by another game, some have nothing. The game must give at least a small basis.
I disabled the chat because it made my gaming experience worse reading certain stuff, so i can’t really give feedback on how many people struggle with the game.
Do you know whats their main background of this genre? First aprg, coming from diablo, poe etc.?
I agree, but as i said before. The whole defense system is complex. So it can’t be explained by just mentioning Armour, Dodge & Ward. Don’t get me wrong i completely understand you and also the point of new players asking for help.
But there are so many mechanics working with each other that its hard to explain in one info box. I would have no clue how and when to proper introduce health, armour, dodge, ward, resistances, endurance, CA, health regen, stun, glancing blow…you know what i mean? It’s just too much. A whole story overhaul teaching the players step by step certain mechanics will probably also take alot of time again.
I mean, if the game should teach you about defenses then it should also teach you about offensive stats.
And i think the character sheet (which is not final yet, so probably there we will get a better overview of certain mechanics) where you can hover the mouse over a mechanic to learn more about it and the game guide are already doing a decent job. Sometimes i have to look up in the Game Guide or on Andrews’ Guide here, but i immediately get the answer and understand it.
I like the idea of dropping some defensive shards from a completed quest. That sort of thing could be used to introduce several concepts in the game, and the dialogue could give some hints as well, but outside of that, I agree with the general sentiment here that any additional information in the tutorial would probably be too much.
Yes i agree. I think we had a similar discussion during C9 testing where we suggested gear reward after completed quests with certain affixes preparing you for the upcoming challenge. Choosing between 3 different armour slot types with a random tier suffix of poison resistance after completing first quest in chapter 9 for example.
Counter-point: The campaign right now tells you in gigantic letters with an unskippable dialog box that you cannot change your Mastery once chosen, but people still ask how to do it all the time.
This happens in every game, and it’s not for lack of good design and tutorials. The aggravating reality is that many, many people have this bizarre rebellious, offended attitude towards anything that smells like “Read the Manual” to them. Everything they need to know could be in game, in front of them, presented in the most easily digestible way possible and they will still ask in chat because they think information typed by a human being in real time is somehow better than the same information in a game guide or tutorial.
Putting details into the Game Guide is already a big step forward from many other games. Just writing it out and making sure all the necessary info is there, easily accessed, and that people know it exists is pretty low effort, all things considered.
But the real problem isn’t a lack of information or lack of access to information - it’s an active disinterest from some players in getting information from sources other than a simulacrum of human interaction. And what you’re talking about is trying to teach those players - not just inform them - through playing the game, about complex interplay of defensive mechanics. That’s a much, much, much bigger investment of time and effort, not the least of which is figuring out how to do it to begin with, let alone the actual implementation and iteration/refinement cycles. The reality of the attitude problem is, the return on investing that time/effort is going to be small at best, and not even guaranteed.
Or, put more succinctly, it would take a ton of time and effort but not actually solve the problem it’s trying to solve.
Guys, I agree with all what you say. All.
But I still think there must be some basic defense tutorial in the game.
We propose, we give our thoughts, EHG will decide.
This sounds like waay too much handholding. There’s no real death penalty in the Campaign, so I don’t know why the idea is so risk-averse of figuring out “the purple enemies probably do Void damage” without the quest literally giving you Void protections. People can figure it out with a death or two (assuming their chosen skills aren’t trash early-game, which is a dev balancing problem more than a player problem).
Here’s my personal wishlist of what I’d like to see:
If a player dies, instead of listing the last hit on the screen, display what was the biggest hit to the player in the last 5 seconds, complete with the damage number. Saying, “player was critically hit by big Void slam for 800 Void damage” is a lot more helpful for players to understand the concept of either get more resistances or avoid the hit altogether.
The merchants in each of the story arcs feel like a waste of space. I’m a level 50 character in Chapter 8, I don’t want to buy your stupid level 12 ring with only a T2 Health Regeneration prefix. At the very least, have the merchants emphasize resistance equipment so that you can search for something with better resistances, especially on a Solo character.
For the love that is holy, do not introduce 90% item fracturing when you’re a Level 15 character trying to up your resistances. Early loot is pretty abominable - you can easily go from character creation to Chapters 6-8 and not find a single item with something like Fire or Lightning resistance (and yes, I start all new characters with no item filter), so don’t punish players for using the forge and trying to use resistance shards they’ve saved up from other characters.
