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[Matrim_Cauthon]

Yeah, but you do need to strike a balance between noob friendliness and wanted difficulty.

Ideally we'd have a solid enough framework for guidance that players feel they have agency and can easily understand the basic mechanics without getting lost in the arcane, but with enough openness and mystery that it doesn't pigeon hole players or avoid too many of the surprises.
 
 

[Shonai_Dweller]

Half of the fun of the game is trying stuff out. Yes, tell people what things are in the default embark, obviously. Especially during the tutorial. But the more you hand-hold with suggested builds for every situation, the less fun people are actually going to have exploring the game.

And a lot of people quit early, frustrated, before even getting there, hence the "saving the noobs" thread existing at all.

The thing is, though, this statistic applies to every game.
Some people are just dumb, you know?

I thought this was the "save the noobs" thread, not the "noobs are dumb and should go away" thread.

And that's kind of the point. Noobs generally aren't dumb. Especially ones who decide they want to invest in the time it takes to learn a game with a reputation for being difficult (now that it has graphics). But, theoretically, some people will actual be stupid enough to pay money for the free, pixel-art, complicated looking Indie management game and get upset because that's exactly what it is.

That's the kind of noob games developed by large committees end up catering too. In that respect, yes, time would be better off not being spent on trying to please those people.

[ror6ax]

Yeah, but you do need to strike a balance between noob friendliness and wanted difficulty.
/quote]

Difficulty of the game has nothing to do with noob friendliness. Difficulty of the gameplay and difficulty of "win" is an artistic choice the game has to make. Making UI unreadable is not difficulty, it's just poor design.

[Maximum Spin]

Difficulty of the game has nothing to do with noob friendliness. Difficulty of the gameplay and difficulty of "win" is an artistic choice the game has to make. Making UI unreadable is not difficulty, it's just poor design.

That might be true if "readability" were universal. What's unreadable to some is perfectly reasonable to others.

[FantasticDorf]

Nobody is born perfectly capable of playing DF, there is the possibility that players will refund the product through steam soon after a frustrating 20 - 30 minute experience, without ever knowing about the free DF classic version or the differences between them for a 'dry run' of the game. A link to the classic version should be properly signposted somewhere on the steam-page.

That's the kind of noob games developed by large committees end up catering too. In that respect, yes, time would be better off not being spent on trying to please those people.

Its worth keeping in mind the existance of chronic idiots is a known phenomenon (I've met one or two in my real experience within my lifetime), set apart from players who are fresh and inexperienced but have the capacity and patience to learn, or those who might percieve the gameplay through the lens of a disability like ADHD or epilepsy (given there are some alternating flashing things); there will be plenty of challenges to make it accessible.

If you want a case study of target audiences being foolhardy to the extreme, the Family Guy MMO lives in infamy for having the most incompetent user-base which lead to its imminent commercial failure (the show itself was unaffected) and the creator Seth MacFarlane briefly falling into depression because a large majority of players couldn't go through a door to end the tutorial (this was a bit earlier on the internet than most) for no technical fault on the developers side, they were just totally perplexed that their target audience were probably really young, lacked the intuition and mostly ran around the tutorial hub shouting show-quotes with their characters.

In a similar vein, while i hold the opinion that DF premium players are highly unlikely to be that difficult, any sort of tutorial should be revistable and well talked through either ingame or outside it through community help.

That might be true if "readability" were universal. What's unreadable to some is perfectly reasonable to others.

This is the other distinction which actually much of the DF community has been jostled about across time, reading ascii is a learned skill and the purpose of developing 3rd party applications like the LNP preloaded with graphics took into account already get around most new player problems, the steam version takes that to a new dimension.

[clinodev]

Nobody is born perfectly capable of playing DF, there is the possibility that players will refund the product through steam soon after a frustrating 20 - 30 minute experience, without ever knowing about the free DF classic version or the differences between them for a 'dry run' of the game. A link to the classic version should be properly signposted somewhere on the steam-page.

This came up recently elsewhere, and apparently a recent addition to the Steam Community FAQs says:

"Q: Can I use the Steam community to let customers know of non-Steam versions of my game?
A: In the game you ship via Steam, and in communications on Steam, you may only promote the Steam version and its availability via Steam, and not other distribution outlets. This applies both to full versions of your game and to content patches that change the existing version."

so Bay 12 and Kitfox are probably constrained. Steam probably had Epic in mind when they made that rule, but . . . that's not what they say.

As far as community members go, my personal Steam account was banned for "spam" in July when DFFD was up and down, because I was providing links to such invidious material as Starter Packs, forum posts like this one, so on. It was restored and I actually got a nice apology note, but I had Tarn Adams and Tanya X. Short (Kitfox head,) personally calling Steam on my behalf to get that to happen. YMMV.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Nobody is born perfectly capable of playing DF, there is the possibility that players will refund the product through steam soon after a frustrating 20 - 30 minute experience, without ever knowing about the free DF classic version or the differences between them for a 'dry run' of the game. A link to the classic version should be properly signposted somewhere on the steam-page.

This came up recently elsewhere, and apparently a recent addition to the Steam Community FAQs says:

"Q: Can I use the Steam community to let customers know of non-Steam versions of my game?
A: In the game you ship via Steam, and in communications on Steam, you may only promote the Steam version and its availability via Steam, and not other distribution outlets. This applies both to full versions of your game and to content patches that change the existing version."

so Bay 12 and Kitfox are probably constrained. Steam probably had Epic in mind when they made that rule, but . . . that's not what they say.

As far as community members go, my personal Steam account was banned for "spam" in July when DFFD was up and down, because I was providing links to such invidious material as Starter Packs, forum posts like this one, so on. It was restored and I actually got a nice apology note, but I had Tarn Adams and Tanya X. Short (Kitfox head,) personally calling Steam on my behalf to get that to happen. YMMV.

Unreal World has a link to the free version in the description. It's the exact same model. With actually less incentive to purchase (support the Devs, receive faster, automatic upgrades, but only by a few weeks).

[Bumber]

Unreal World has a link to the free version in the description. It's the exact same model. With actually less incentive to purchase (support the Devs, receive faster, automatic upgrades, but only by a few weeks).

I assume that's been there since before the rule.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Unreal World has a link to the free version in the description. It's the exact same model. With actually less incentive to purchase (support the Devs, receive faster, automatic upgrades, but only by a few weeks).

I assume that's been there since before the rule.

Unreal World hit Steam in 2016. Is this a fairly new rule then?

(Incidentally, in an interview someplace, Toady says that as far as he's learned, Steam mostly have a problem with links to other places which sell the game. So free download at Bay12 is probably alright).

[clinodev]

Unreal World has a link to the free version in the description. It's the exact same model. With actually less incentive to purchase (support the Devs, receive faster, automatic upgrades, but only by a few weeks).

I assume that's been there since before the rule.

Unreal World hit Steam in 2016. Is this a fairly new rule then?

(Incidentally, in an interview someplace, Toady says that as far as he's learned, Steam mostly have a problem with links to other places which sell the game. So free download at Bay12 is probably alright).

Yes, the words "apparently a recent addition" in my post, which you quoted above, were meant to be understood similarly to the words "fairly new". The direct quote from Kitfox staff reads: "apparently a new addition".

Here's the Steam Partner FAQ it's from, at the bottom of the page.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Unreal World has a link to the free version in the description. It's the exact same model. With actually less incentive to purchase (support the Devs, receive faster, automatic upgrades, but only by a few weeks).

I assume that's been there since before the rule.

Unreal World hit Steam in 2016. Is this a fairly new rule then?

(Incidentally, in an interview someplace, Toady says that as far as he's learned, Steam mostly have a problem with links to other places which sell the game. So free download at Bay12 is probably alright).

Yes, the words "apparently a recent addition" in my post, which you quoted above, were meant to be understood similarly to the words "fairly new". The direct quote from Kitfox staff reads: "apparently a new addition".

Here's the Steam Partner FAQ it's from, at the bottom of the page.

Yes. Is this a recent rule then?
That they've added it to their faq recently suggests they're thinking about enforcing it more than they used to. I assume they have an actual legal list of rules they send developers beyond this though, right?

[ror6ax]

Just curious, was there any indication that this thread has been used as an input for UX decisions?

[PatrikLundell]

Just curious, was there any indication that this thread has been used as an input for UX decisions?

Neither Threetoe nor Toady has provided any direct indication, but on the other hand development hasn't reached the stage where any effects would be ready do be shown. Since Threetoe started the thread, we can be fairly sure its contents is read and considered by at least Threetoe, and probably both of them.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Just curious, was there any indication that this thread has been used as an input for UX decisions?

Why would you start a thread asking for input on a new design you're making if you're not going to use it as input on the new design you're making?
You think they just started it for lols?

I mean, yes, after reading the whole thing they can decide everybody is wrong of course, it's their game. But I doubt they'd have started the thread if they were going ignore everything.

[Matrim_Cauthon]

Difficulty of the game has nothing to do with noob friendliness. Difficulty of the gameplay and difficulty of "win" is an artistic choice the game has to make. Making UI unreadable is not difficulty, it's just poor design.

Er, not really sure how "readability" got into my comment, readability is good and should be a high priority in the UI rework.

My point was more on two things:

1) Tutorials should give a player the information needed to understand the basic concept and workflows of a task, but not specifically cover the advanced use cases. That should be left to the player to figure out, building on the basic knowledge given by the tutorial. This keeps the tutorial useful(aka it teaches something important without overloading the player with information) while encouraging experimentation and creativity.

2) Actual mechanics could use some streamlining, but should stay relatively complex. The depth of options is an important part of DF, and this shouldn't be lost in an attempt to make it friendlier to new players. Ideally you want a chess scenario, where the concepts are easy to pick up and use, but implementation remains complex and varied with plenty to learn.