Test Server Feedback

Cleared the first site (to get the mats for building), Did not update at the "Secure location" after destroying all the rats. I am fairly sure I used the radial menu (ugh) for approach, lock, orbit, shoot, in that order on all of the rats, even the ones at 2000m from me

After needing to log out due to Market issue, I was unable to locate the BP I needed to buy. The description was Vague and the name of the BP was mentioned once.
It would be impossible for a new player to follow through such a task after having logged off if there isn't more permanent description of the task... like the Vanilla Mission Window found in the Journal.

and btw... what IS the name of this BP... I'm still stuck lol

-When the drifters warp in it would be a good idea to have them added the players overview by default.
It took me pretty long to notice they had even landed on grid because i had the camera pretty zoomed in and it also didnt help that they where white and not red like 100% of all the hostile rats in the game.

-After getting to station the game didnt ask me to hand him the survivors that where so important 2 seconds ago. So i took them for a joy ride to fly into toxic gas and kill pirates

Just ran through the tutorial up to the 'Secure the site' phase, at which point I got stuck because it wouldn't update after everything was killed.

However, couple of notes for stuff up until that point.

• When the Drifters first warp in I acted like a rebelious newbie and started shooting them. They promptly blew me up. This is great, because it isn't just some set piece that does nothing until you follow instructions. However it did cause the tutorial to break completely. I received no new instructions on what to do now that I was in a pod and no instructions on how to reset to a checkpoint (which didn't work even when I tried it). Newbies ARE going to shoot the Drifters and they WILL get podded. Something needs to be in place to catch that sort of behavior so it doesn't break the flow of the tutorial.
• One of the first tasks is to locate the warp disruption generator on the overview. But it doesn't actually show up on the overview and no newbie in the world is going to find the settings to enable them. Everything you want a newbie to interact with needs to be on the overview by default or they WILL quit before completing it.
• Promoting the radial menu as the standard method of interacting is good, but it would be nice if basic functions like the F keys and CTRL + click for targeting could be mentioned somewhere. Especially during the pirate shooting it becomes a pretty big click fest.

Sadly haven't been able to test anything else. Hope it will get fixed soon so I can continue. Anyway, what I saw so far, above points aside, was really good. It was engaging, it made me feel like I was doing something useful and it did a great job at introducing new mechanics slowly and gradually enough to understand. Just work out the kinks and make sure this is completely working the day it goes live.

Please notify us of any fixes for certain bugs as they go live so we can stress test it even more. Newbies do the craziest things to break stuff like this.

OK, I made two more steps today, not more because today industry is broken. Someone mentioned difficulty finding the blueprint. This is true and I find the process could use a little more robustness in general. There's plenty ways of opening your cargo and even newbies will figure them out, but you have to do exactly like Aura tells you or the whole thing gets stuck.

OK how the hell do i turn aura OFF! she's so annoying!

Alright was able to buy the required BPO and moved on.

Got the same issue when Aura told me to open my cargo. It has to be opened exactly as she says or else the tutorial gets stuck until you follow what she says perfectly. It's a bit limiting in what the players can do, especially in a game that's supposed to be a sandbox and is supposed to reward players for finding their own ways of playing the game.

So once i passed this, i was ready to start manufacturing. However, i found out the industry system isn't working on SISI. So yeah, gonna have to wait until this is back up so that i can test further, sadly.

I tried this last night as well. Professor whatsit and the other survivors sadly perished in the resulting explosion, but when I went to dock at the station to get a new ship the tutorial continued as if nothing happened. The fleet commander thanked me for "rescuing" the survivors and gave me a bonus!

It would be very amusing if the fleet commander at least called us out on this, or something like this could occur:



When I tried this on my alt account with (as far as I know) default overview settings it seemed to work fine?

I also got stuck on the "Secure the Location" stage for the Rogue Cloning Site (Gallente).

I agree with some of the other posters that alternate methods of completing tasks should be mentioned in addition to using the radial menu. I used the radial menu as Aura instructed, but it would be nice if a new player was told about right click menu and hotkeys. I didn't test if these alternate methods would break the tutorial or not.

One thing that seemed like it could be confusing is shield vs. armor reps. If I'm a new player, flying through the gas cloud in my Gallente ship with an armor repper, I will start the reps when Aura tells me to. Then, nothing is getting repaired as my shields go down, and I hear the alarm for low shields. Now I'm panicking because I have alarm bells going off and nothing is being repaired... until I start losing armor.

After fitting the repper and undocking, I feel like there should be a quick explanation of shield/armor/hull hitpoints and repairing.

And as many others have said before, it's kind of odd that you take survivors and a scientist along to go shoot pirates, lol.

From the limited amount that I've seen so far, I am enjoying the tutorial. It seems like it will be great when all the little kinks get worked out.

Two significant issues from a usability perspective.

One, the audio tells the pilot to turn on the repair module when they start taking damage, but doesn't indicate what taking damage looks like. (Or if it did, I've forgotten in between sessions.)

But the visual cues tell you to start it immediately where it will have no apparent effect which will be confusing.

Also, more significantly, for armor tanked ships the module appears to do nothing until the shields are gone. But it's not 100% clear to new players that hit points are 3 stacked bars and not just one. You're probably going to have some panicking people as they start to hear alarms and everything is, in fact, fine. Not a good first impression.

In general, the NPE still isn't introducing core concepts where those concepts deviate significantly from other games. Most games don't have multiple health bars in the same style as EVE. Multiple, yes, but the tend to have clues built in to show that they're different and operate differently.

Have you ever considered actually making different visual effects for the three health bars? Something that would be closer to what they're expecting? A visual update for the console is long overdue anyways.

So far concepts that still haven't been introduced this far into the NPE (second combat portion):

• Multiple types of hit points -- again, this seems especially important to mention to armor-tanked pilots.
• Traversal and chance to hit -- you really need something that shows chances to hit visually.
• Targeting multiple enemies.
• Max target range -- the button (via radial) is disabled, and because the button is only visible on player action it can be confusing as to why they can't lock on. There's nothing blatantly obvious in the UI what the max targeting of your ship is. Perhaps have them explore some ship details while they're doing the fitting.
• Any mention of shortcut keys -- F1 would be nice.
• Damage and resistance types -- this can likely wait until further instruction.

EVE's learning curve is mostly to do with the fact that is so different conceptually from other games and that is presents that information very differently. That's fine, but then it needs to explain things. The only reason I stuck with EVE as long as I did in the beginning was that it was the only space MMO available and my friend walked me through it step-by-step. EVE isn't the only space MMO anymore, though it's competition is still weak. But it would be nice if it actually explained those concepts that are unique or very different in EVE.

Bugs:

I, too, had the issue with clearing the space (and multiple targets) not moving onto the next step. I looted the can. I hope I can continue from there.