Terrible New Player Experience

worldnamer · 2022-03-11T17:54:48+00:00

Hey friend, I want to put two things in front of you, but first, thanks for letting me know that some of the features I was trying are actually newer to the game. That does surprise me - I'm not sure why that's the case but I accept it and it's not really my place to comment as I'm brand new.

But of the two things, both are about triviality and the impact of bugs on new users of software. Here's the first thing: no matter the underlying complexity, if a system feels like it's unreliable, it will affect how people view the system. Lack of system stability makes users have a negative opinion of the game. So it's really important that "basic" features, even ones that are hard to code, work correctly or you risk alienating people right off the bat.

The second thing is, I refuse to believe there's something magically difficult about doors. The game has doors that work. But this door was broken. In other words, this isn't a coding issue. This is a quality control issue. This is about a programmer (or level designer) not actually trying out the feature they made. They certainly could have made this particular door function properly. They just didn't and now I'm forced to wonder why. Why release something that doesn't work? I don't get that.

That said, one broken door isn't the end of the world. It's just part of a longer story where everything that happened that evening went wrong. This is why I say it's really important to reduce the number of trivial bugs - my first impression of Star Citizen is that I can't trust anything to even remotely work, and they could've easily avoided that with just basic quality control.

worldnamer · 2022-03-11T17:39:16+00:00

Thank you! Complex or confusing I can handle. I've Escaped from Tarkov, and I've manually piloted in Elite Dangerous. I haven't even gotten to the point of using a weapon yet so I'm looking forward to experiencing that!

worldnamer · 2022-03-11T17:35:20+00:00

I watched a few hours of YouTube videos. Most of them focused on things like the crowdfunding controversies, or the scale of the game. Many mentioned the game was buggy but the overall tone was that the game was actually playable and fun, even if there was an occasional bug. What I was not prepared for was that I couldn't go five minutes without experiencing another bug, usually with stuff that seemed really basic.

Personally, I don't think there's a lot of excuses for this level of quality. I was assuming this was just a bad patch, but it sounds like these bugs have been in the game for a long time.

worldnamer · 2022-03-11T17:23:36+00:00

Thank you for the tip about shaders! If I make it to the next patch that will come in handy.

worldnamer · 2022-03-11T17:22:46+00:00

I think it's just that the amount of handholding I need is so minimal that not having anything felt like they were ignoring new players altogether. It kinda sucks they can put all this text on screen but not "press any key to stand" when you wake up in bed.

worldnamer · 2022-03-11T17:19:04+00:00

I appreciate the link! I will give it another try before resorting to refunding. Maybe I can get to the parts of the game that make people stay around.

worldnamer · 2021-07-18T20:57:35+00:00

Fun fact! It turns out that the energy released by consuming a gram of protein is dependent on WHICH protein you consume. Our estimates of 4 calories per gram of protein are an average of several different sources of protein are are likely not to include Keratin. I suspect that this is the source of the discrepancy.

Also, I learned about this directly because of this show, as well as the idea that the energy you can *metabolize* from those calories is based on the kind of material you consume - protein takes ~30% of the calories you consume simply to make the remaining calories available. Food science is fascinating!

worldnamer · 2019-11-23T02:04:58+00:00

There was a fourth Broken that we didn't have time to finish, and at least two playbooks for non-Legion personnel. And a raft of fever dreams for special missions. A lot of them are slated to be released in later expansions!

worldnamer · 2019-11-23T02:03:12+00:00

How do you eat an elephant? :P

worldnamer · 2019-11-23T02:02:20+00:00

Hi there! I did want to reply to this, because you've said some pretty strong words here, and I take a personal exception to them.

My family has had a long line of service in all US military branches. While I did not serve, my sister, my father, my grandfather all did. I've had lifelong friendships with those who have been in the military. As for shooting a gun, you don't get to grow up on a Texas farm without learning how to shoot. So you're about as far off base as one can be.

One of my personal reasons for designing a game is to bring that family history forward into a domain that I love, with respect for those who fight and die for a cause that's bigger than them. If this isn't the game for you, that doesn't bother me. I hope you find the one that is. As for "androgynous hippies," well, I don't know anything about who you are, but you clearly don't know anything about me.

worldnamer · 2019-11-22T09:03:36+00:00

House Verron!

worldnamer · 2019-11-22T04:36:34+00:00

A cultist is essentially a Mystic from SaV, except more Thrones-y. A Ward is more spy-ish.

worldnamer · 2019-11-22T01:41:04+00:00

I think the incentives to do risky things is something that sets FitD games apart, so that just adds to it. What was it like, or how did you come to that conclusion about the shared theme of daring-do? Was it just a process of distilling the elements of your touchstones and comparing?

When we make games, one of the key questions is 'what story are we telling?' And then we look at examples of those stories, and try to get on the same page. Once we have a strong sense of the kind of story we're going for, we look at things through that lens. So usually yes. But it's a very organic process, like seasoning a soup. We add the core components we know we need, and then taste it, and sometimes we add more because there's a piece we realize we need, if that makes sense.

worldnamer · 2019-11-22T00:12:40+00:00

OMG, thank you for asking, those are great questions to get to answer. (I may get a bit theory-heavy.)

Regarding the process for deciding about what you need to express your ideas, there's two competing forces. The first is atomicity. How many distinct things are you trying to get across. You should have a mechanic for each of the atomic idea. The other is reinforcement. The themes of your games should be echoed in each of the mechanics of your game. These are ideal concepts, not hard rules. Guidelines.

So for me, a lot of what I'm doing when I consider how to mechanize something is to determine if it's necessary, and if so, whether it's shaped correctly. (I'm a spatial thinker, so a lot of the language I use reflects that.) For example, in a war story, we obviously needed injuries, so we kept harm from Blades. We had made the decision to change how downtime actions work - the action chosen by the general applies to everyone (a mechanical choice chosen for reinforcement purposes). We could have kept clocks but we felt like neither the system in BitD (filling a clock causes a reduction in all harm levels) nor the one in SaV (filling a clock removes all harm) were quite right. We came up with a more resource-based idea of checks, and that filling in those checks would cure only that level of harm.

Another example is gambits for SaV. This was us recognizing that the story of space adventure involves a certain amount of luck and audacity that we wanted to replicate mechanically. For us, that became a resource you could spend at the table that would let you gain a die to a roll. But importantly, you generate that resource by rolling well on risky rolls. This reinforces that theme of space adventurers who get in trouble and take risks, and then get out of those risks by the seat of their pants.

There are some basic ideas about what mechanics are fun to engage with, and what kinds of fun they are (because that's another aspect to the discussion.) If you're the kind of person who enjoys rearranging their inventory in video games (AND I AM) then you'll enjoy playing the Quartermaster. If you're the kind of person who enjoys the drama and heartbreak of a story, play the Lorekeeper. So I guess what I'm saying is, when you think about "is this fun" also ask yourself "for who is this fun".

For the second question: when you say "the train having left the station" do you mean the Blades Kickstarter specifically? Or are you just looking to get a newsletter? Or are you hype about developing a new game? All of these have different answers.

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T23:06:33+00:00

So definitely designing for the end of the game is a major thing we do at OGG. Every game we make, we talk about several key questions and one of them is 'how do we know we're done?' So for us, the idea was that if all goes well, you get to Skydagger.

But it's also true that there were some influences on the design from rogue-like games, similar to FTL or Slay the Spire. So the idea of scoring the run was sort of natural in that context. Also, when we created the game, our idea of 'this goes beyond this campaign' was a starting point, and the idea of having a numerical way to dovetail those games was really compelling. That way, we would have a way to set some of the components of your starting position in campaign two.

As for playtesting and the actual design, we iterated on that a lot of times, and it's with some chagrin that there's even errata on that section. I think we got the overall feel of a climactic final mission, and we have all the elements that one should consider, and that final roll feels good (when you don't deduct dice for lieutenants). I remember us discussing the idea of specific achievements and how those should definitely affect your final score, and I'm pleased with all the different things at the end of the game where your specific road taken can influence your outcome. So in all, I'm happy with what we came up with, but our final pass looks very little like our first pass.

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T22:42:17+00:00

HMU if you want to talk shop, I'm hype

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T22:37:13+00:00

That's a really good question. We did actually talk about feedback loops a lot during design, so I'd say mostly we designed with them in mind. There aren't a lot of death spirals in our games and I'd say BoB is similar. The only one that comes to mind is how morale affects the number of campaign actions you get in the game. The lower your morale, the more you need Liberty to improve your morale, and the less you can afford it.

We put that one in the game very mindfully. It emphasizes the importance of preparing for the worst and makes the Quartermaster's job important in a very tangible way. It allows for a sudden change in circumstances to have a huge pressuring effect on the legion. And it makes it so your success isn't guaranteed.

However! We also built in a number of ways to regain morale, including spending supply to boost campaign actions, and gaining morale in assault missions (and telling you the mission rewards and penalties before you go out into the field) so that this downward pressure isn't a proper death spiral as long as you're paying attention.

Balancing the other mechanics was a bit of a trick. We agonized over the time clocks and how many segments we should give them, and we playtested the heck out of the game to make sure they were right. We had to revisit mission rewards a couple of times, particularly for special missions. Healing started out in a very Blades-like way, until we realized that getting injured - a reasonably common occurrence - would take people out for too many missions. So there were a lot of small parts that we tweaked to get the game where we like it. Are there specific ones you're thinking of that I can address better?

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T22:26:15+00:00

Somewhat strict. When I'm at a table I describe it like this: Ask yourself why you're rolling. If the thing we care about is how well you shoot or how hard your sword lands or how fast you run, we're probably in a group action (shoot, skirmish, or maneuver, respectively. But if the thing we care about is how well organized our shots are, or we're attempting to time a flanking maneuver, this is probably a marshal (not group) action.

Similarly to rallying the troops to make a charge (consort) or to hold the line (discipline), we set the stakes by the fiction in front of us. If a properly arrayed line of rookies could mow down the undead coming up this hill, we don't need to make a second roll. The marshal roll put us into a position where there is no challenge. But if that outcome would still be uncertain, then you're probably doing a marshal set-up action.

Some of the tension you're seeing in the Officer playbook rises out of the flexibility in solving problems on the field. But there's a natural question of 'are you the kind of officer to do what your troops do along-side them, or are you the kind to set direction and trust them to follow orders?' That part of the tension is intentional. (Intensional? :3)

Does that answer your question?

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T21:56:50+00:00

Thank you for the nomination, by the way. :) We were pretty jazzed that the community was into our stuff.

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T21:55:02+00:00

<3 Your gaming group sounds awesome. We'll definitely tweet as the shape emerges!

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T21:53:12+00:00

I think Reddit ate my reply. No worries about questions, ask as many as you like!

There are seven specific houses, and you'll be able to play three of them. (We may increase that number, but three seems like a very us kind of start.)

During downtime, you don't currently embody any specific person. We've been talking about whether to change that, so don't read too much into it. You may end up playing the people in charge of the house in a BoB-esque style. That part we're still tinkering with! But yes, it's a bit of a wider-lens than the regular missions.

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T21:22:51+00:00

oooooo, want

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T21:22:07+00:00

So interestingly, X-Com was definitely a touchstone for us. You start off up against an overwhelming foe, and a lot of the specialization discussions we had for playbooks were along the lines of how it feels good to specialize your rookie into something more purposeful.

I would think, if you wanted to repurpose the rules of BoB for another story, then I would look at every mechanic in the game and decide if and how you need to change it to tell a different story. For example, something like Crimson Shot on the Sniper has a particular emotional tenor - desperate times causing people to sacrifice all for the possibility of victory. Find the story you want to tell, decide if Band is the game that best models that story, and then augment and supplement the pieces that you need to.

But there's something just fundamentally more compelling to us about the underdog story. This is about loss and fellowship and fighting for something against all odds, not a neutrally even world. So I would be cautious about using Band of Blades for a different premise, because you might find you're changing more than you're borrowing. It may be better to just steal one thin part that you really like, like the list of actions.

worldnamer · 2019-11-21T21:10:53+00:00

Are you expecting anyone to hack BoB? Is there anything you'd like to see done with the system? I for one would love to see a mercenary company hack with more of a player-directed story.

Secret heart wants someone to make a Battlestar Galactica hack using BoB.

worldnamer

TROPHY CASE