Test Server Feedback

I've submitted a few bug reports for this, but one thing that keeps happening to me is the Operation objectives simply refuse to update. The latest one was Aura telling me to "set destination" for the career agents. So I opened the Career Agents "funnel" and set destination. The objective didn't update until I undocked, and then Aura went through telling me to undock and head off to the career agent system.

The Operations system seems to be extremely fragile.

I wonder if it might be worth changing it (yes, even at this late hour) so that it's not a series of steps that must be completed in order, but a bunch of objectives that must be completed, along with a set of NPC interactions (i.e.: Aura tips, messages from the faction leader and the SOE scientist).

So you'd end up with one "box" containing two lists. The top part of this list is the NPC interactions as they are triggered, with a "play" icon to allow the message to be replayed (because sometimes we don't get all the information dump in the first listen through), the second list is the objectives that must be completed:

• Aura Tip
• Fleet commander message 1
• SOE Scientist message 1
• Fleet commander message 2
• ... etc in chronological order

1. Set course to «system»
2. Warp to «location name»
3. Activate acceleration gate
4. … etc, with objectives being added as the plot unfolds

This way if a pilot skips a step (such as "Open Industry Window" and then the hidden step "wait for Aura to tell you about delivering a finished job" and then "Click 'Deliver'"), it will still be possible to complete the mission.

1. Open Industry window (marked as completed when the Industry window has been opened)
2. Click "Deliver" (marked as completed when a) there are no jobs and b) item of required type is present in inventory)
3. … etc

Noting that the objectives are "level" triggered, not "edge" triggered. That is, an objective will be marked as completed once some state has been reached. Then the objective will remain "completed" until the operation is over.

Relying on "edges" (i.e.: waiting for a specific button to be pressed) means you can miss events due to the objective step loading after the action has already been done, or the user completing the operation in some other way (e.g.: you're waiting for them to use the radial menu but they used the selected item window instead).

Sorry for trying to tell you how to do your jobs. No doubt you have a dozen reasons why this method won't work. I just needed to get it out of my head.

The intro story is pretty cool, and I especially like that the character is killed right at the beginning so that the player doesn't get all emotionally bound to their cute little pile of original flesh :D

I feel that this NPE is like a condensed superhero story which leaves the new player abandoned after a peak PVE experience.

"You are awesome" stories might work well in traditional RPGs and MMOs where everyone gets to be The One that saves the world from The Evil.

Rsther than blowing up this massive structure, why not have the entire fleet be wiped out by the Drifters? It is a clandestine operation, so nobody is talking about it, and you are promoted to capsuleer status while all record of the encounter is sealed and you are no longer recognised by Fleet Command, etc, we were never here, this never happened.

Then start work on other PVE experiences and lore/news to lure the player through the story?

The emphasis at the end of the disastrous final operation should be, "Drifters are too strong for us alone, find friends, build your strength, join us Soon™ for another fight against the Drifters…"

I mean, the current NPE currently dumps you off at the end of a completed story with closure.

Yay! Beat the drifters! Now what?

Feedback.

- The intro movie does not work for me. All I see is earth and I hear the audio but the movie does not advance.

- Aura and the other characters really need to be an animated character with lip synch. This is 2016. heck even when i played mech commander 10 years ago it had a animated character.

- The operations menu and floating boxes should have some transparency applied. Similar level to Aura.

- In first mission erebus wreck should be a actual wreck not a LCO. that would confuse me if i was a new player because aura tells you to look for a wreck. I see the other ships wrecks on my overview but not the erebus.

- not really keen on how the dialog boxes that indicate wrecks zoom around everywhere as you rotate your camera. the line can move but the dialog box should stay in the corner of the screen or something. It also really ruins the immersion when you have the box so close to the wreck (and moving about)

- you should be able to go back in the dialog tree. Some times the dialog is fast and its not easy to remember what is said. Also there needs to be a way to pause. So much information is given that most new players will not remember it.

- Will new accounts have a set overview with all the necessary things enabled ? because the overview i started with (new character) doesn't show the warp disruption generator or LCOs or Drifters.


In Station
- You finally fixed the bug with the CQ main screen freezing at the ship . YAY !

- the merge items and ships into station panel should be enabled by default. Will make it much easier for new players to find stuff.

- its telling me to find my character sheet. How do i do that ? (pretending to be new) If i click on open your character sheet in operations menu nothing happens. (character sheet on neocom wasn't highlighted)

- It says a acceleration skill book and armor repairer has been issued to me. nothing in my hanger or ship.. Oh wait after I find my character sheet then it tells me they will be in redeem queue. that would really frustrate me... cause i would have spent ages trying to find the afterburner and armor repairer not knowing i had to continue with the dialog before stuff would actually get issued.

- tells me to start the skill training queue by dragging the skill to the top of the training queue. where is my training queue.. (new player probably closed down his character sheet already) should tell them to open up character sheet. (also what if i pressed inject skill.. then i would have no skill book to drag)

- tells me that the fitting window would be highlighted. (it wasn't)

2nd combat area.

- the floating npc "approach, lock, shoot" boxes are really annoying. Just keep them in one place and let the lines indicate where the hostiles are.

- after killing the pirate and pressing dock at station I received following error 12:07:05 Info Failed to resolve keeper, reason='You must be located in a solar system to use this service' but i was still able to dock and proceed.

Undocking and being sent to neighboring system

Which system should i go to ?. oh i was supposed to click on the operations panel and click travel to neighboring system. Would be much better to teach them how to use the route planner. to search for a specific system and then manually travel there. Using the autopilot is a bad idea. Although i can see you wanted them to have the visual of approaching a stargate (which is a worthy visual)

- for warp to destination commands in the operations info panel. You should make them right click and set destination. Just clicking and it auto warps you .... this is not how it works in the rest of Eve.

Sisters of Eve deadspace pocket

- you need to reduce some of the load on the gpu in some of these combat /deadspace environments. to many gas clouds.. my fps is getting halved.

- its telling me there is a sisters of eve outpost in this deadspace pocket. is that the info shard ?

Preparation for fleet battle against drifters.

- I liked the citadel and fleet showcase.

- the section where you get a new frigate and fit weapons is well done. easy to understand an clear instructions on how switch ships and fit the new weapons. Would have been nice to suggest a market purchase to further enhance the new ship.. Perhaps t1 weapons with ammo. Cause the early tutorial runs through the market very quickly and would be nice to have a 2nd run though.

Will update as I progress through.

Doing a Minmatar pilot this time. Alpha clone and 90% scale client.

New window close is need but some windows are not working perfectly.

The Aura manual piloting window has text over lap inside the window.

When opening the text box for the mentor speech before exploring the wreckage there is text out the bottom of the box. It shows unlike one earlier that seemed truncated.

Aura messages have the text overlapping the symbols a lot from here on out. There was no issues with this before the last two patches.

Professor Tannen also has text outside the window when opened.

Fleet commander Vadari also has this issue a lot.

If I get killed by the drifter battle ships. The lost ship sequence is nice might want to wait to give the full fit until the tutorial gives you the items.

After fitting the new ship the tutrial restarted the escape to HQ Station ( Should be training school to match the name of the station) HQ in a training academy seems wrong.

Had to undock and redock to clear the step.

Good job bringing up the fact it is a training academy.

The delay on clicking use blue print to putting the blue print in the industry window still causes me to do a double take.

If I die with professor Tannen in my cargo hold why is she talking to me later

Still having issues doing the industry task if I leave the window open. And still can't produce 2 analyzers with the items provided in the can. Fitting the analyzer got the industry window unstuck.

Lock target on the info shard balloon indicator was directly over the info shard graphic had to use the overview to lock.

Aura finishes twice one before the career agents and then a final turn off after the first mission is accepted. Could be cleaner.

When destroying the hive, my ship is destroyed before it explodes and then my pod is destroyed when it explodes. After appearing back in the station and receiving replacement objects, the tutorial replays the section about the hive exploding and then stops without giving any further instructions.

I ran through amarr NPE tonight and here's the list of my notes:

Items are already checked when you're asked to click on the items when learning to redeem items

No indication of WHERE the training queue is

the clue to search can be cut off by opening the market when looking for the civilian data analyzer. This is confusing, possibly a point where a player can get stuck.

got stuck on the delivery portion because I never closed the industry pane, I was never instructed to do so. Recovered by closing industry pane and restarting.

The approach to the info shard is just wayyy too long.

Explain the additional stuff on the radial menu, 'look at' is not easily visible, and a new player may not know that the + sign indicates additional options.

Manual piloting is BROKEN- I go into twitchy dolphin dives whenever I press arrow keys and need to double click in space to recover.

No indication of search field in character sheet.

No indication of where the active ship is, even that its green in color.

They don't tell you to fit guns to your new ship LULZ would then ensue as you attempt to complete final mission without any weapon systems.

Startet a Gallente Char, set /alpha.

Got through to the first carrer mission in industrie in one session with no problems.

Only one minor hickup, the first mission does not recognize the ore hangar of a venture (I got at the end of the tutorial) and issues a warning.

I just broke the first Hacking site by locking and hacking the site BEFORE auroa told me to!
Now aura wants me to hack the already hacked site and i cant progress any further.

the same just happened with the skill lerning...

learned the skill before aura told me to (dont even know how that happened) and now i am stuck again

The fix for the warp bubble death at the first site works( allowing the pod to warp out) but it plays the fleet commanders message for after the first warp bubble destroyed in the station before you undock. When you warp back to the site you have to kill the warp bubble again which would not be smooth for a pilot who just lost their first ship.

Issues with the industry window with alpha turned on still happening, But with attachments broke in the bug reporting system its hard to show proof to the bug hunters. CCP Habakuk found something in the logs so I hope that it gets fixed soon.

Still loosing the scientist and or taking her on my pirate raid still might make some one pause.

Redeeming the updated ship early now works cleanly but using the mini skill injector early still locks up the NPE.

Did the Caldari NPE, here are my comments:

This is a great addition to EVE. I love the voice acting and popup help. Should make a much easier intro to the game than the current opportunities. Love the new explosions.

BUGS

Exploring the Wreckage - wreck icons show loot in them even after being looted. Yes, a nitpick.

Redeem Items - when neocom is aligned right, popup to neocom menu points left.

Escape - Drifter battleships are shown in space, but not on overview. Also, they are Large Collidable Objects?

Aura won't continue if she tells you to open inventory if it is already opened. must close and reopen.

Travelling to the Hive - Undock popup stays on screen after undock, disappears after a minute or so.

SUGGESTIONS:
Character Creation - add a big red warning that your name can not be changed.

Would like to see some sort of cut-sceen cinema that shows the battle before the npe starts.

Add text to looting popup that says within 2500 meters

Should explain shield/armor/structure. Doesn't look like repair module does anything at first, gets kind of exciting as shields melt and alarms go off. Maybe the point i guess.

Nowhere in the NPE is the selected item window mentioned as another way to interact with objects.

Circadian Seekers should probably be renamed something else or the newbros will be in for an eye opener when they try to kill a real one;.

Would prefer the tutorial show the main way to fit ships is through the fitting window, not rclick and fit.

Put skill groups in alphabetical order.

Might mention that more than one target can be locked a time.

Autopilot popup points down, all others point horizontally. A bit hard to see and not consistent.

Teach manual warping instead of autopilot, especially for more than one jump. Way boring and a bad habit.

127km to info shard is waaay too far. I get that it's supposed to be mysterious and a little scary, and the explosion was a nice touch. But still too far and boring.

An empires might - should be ship icons instead of large collidable icons, would be much more impressive.

Overall an enjoyable experience, would play again.