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Dev blog: Opportunities Abound - The New Player Experience

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Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#21 - 2015-02-19 16:02:56 UTC
Why is it that every time the NPE comes up, we get a new set of tutorials and that's it? The tutorials are mediocre but not that terrible aside from a few specific issues.

The focus always falls on the first couple of days of playing Eve, but this isn't where the major problems arise. The current tutorial missions can be a bit confusing but they aren't the real NPE, nor the problem with it. The first day(s) of the game while you're working through the tutorial missions and newbie epic arc and have something to do aren't all that bad and present an accurate(if perhaps too honest) picture of Eve Online.

It's when those tutorials end that the problems arise. Week two through ten are where things are really rough. The game provides no guidance on what to do and the options available to players in this gap are laughable. They're complete wastes of time that earn so little that a new player is better off begging for isk. They learn the basics and decide what they want to train for but quickly realize that but nothing they can do right away is worth doing. During this period too many people end up just training skills rather than playing the game, waiting for the time when they'll be able to fly something worthwhile only to quit instead.

The problem with the NPE isn't the first few days, it's the first 60 days. Redoing those first few days again isn't going to help if that first 60 days isn't improved.
Sugar Kyle
Middle Ground
#22 - 2015-02-19 16:07:15 UTC
Innominate wrote:
Why is it that every time the NPE comes up, we get a new set of tutorials and that's it? The tutorials are mediocre but not that terrible aside from a few specific issues.

The focus always falls on the first couple of days of playing Eve, but this isn't where the major problems arise. The current tutorial missions can be a bit confusing but they aren't the real NPE, nor the problem with it. The first day(s) of the game while you're working through the tutorial missions and newbie epic arc and have something to do aren't all that bad and present an accurate(if perhaps too honest) picture of Eve Online.

It's when those tutorials end that the problems arise. Week two through ten are where things are really rough. The game provides no guidance on what to do and the options available to players in this gap are laughable. They're complete wastes of time that earn so little that a new player is better off begging for isk. They learn the basics and decide what they want to train for but quickly realize that but nothing they can do right away is worth doing. During this period too many people end up just training skills rather than playing the game, waiting for the time when they'll be able to fly something worthwhile only to quit instead.

The problem with the NPE isn't the first few days, it's the first 60 days. Redoing those first few days again isn't going to help if that first 60 days isn't improved.


The second part keeping them after they atr caught also had a team dedicated to them and work is being done in that area. This is one part of a large multidimensional project. Your other points have not been lost by CCP or members of the CSM nor is this a finished project.

Member of CSM9 and CSM10.

Maennas Vaer
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#23 - 2015-02-19 16:09:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Maennas Vaer
Innominate wrote:
Why is it that every time the NPE comes up, we get a new set of tutorials and that's it? The tutorials are mediocre but not that terrible aside from a few specific issues.

The focus always falls on the first couple of days of playing Eve, but this isn't where the major problems arise. The current tutorial missions can be a bit confusing but they aren't the real NPE, nor the problem with it. The first day(s) of the game while you're working through the tutorial missions and newbie epic arc and have something to do aren't all that bad and present an accurate(if perhaps too honest) picture of Eve Online.

It's when those tutorials end that the problems arise. Week two through ten are where things are really rough. The game provides no guidance on what to do and the options available to players in this gap are laughable. They're complete wastes of time that earn so little that a new player is better off begging for isk. They learn the basics and decide what they want to train for but quickly realize that but nothing they can do right away is worth doing. During this period too many people end up just training skills rather than playing the game, waiting for the time when they'll be able to fly something worthwhile only to quit instead.

The problem with the NPE isn't the first few days, it's the first 60 days. Redoing those first few days again isn't going to help if that first 60 days isn't improved.


CCP Rise wrote:
THE FUTURE OF THE NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE

We have a long ways to go. We already have a lot of new content planned and would be very happy to see the Opportunity system expand to become a medium-term goal setting tool that can answer the most common noobie question: “what do I do now”. At the moment though, we’re just excited to get this into the hands of new players and see what kind of impact it has.


For the record I do agree with you though. As long as CCP continues to iterate upon this then I think its a solid start.
CCP Delegate Zero
C C P
C C P Alliance
#24 - 2015-02-19 16:09:36 UTC
Our minds are still very open on rewards, we just need to see how things work without them and build from there. Some form of reward structure would have to be tailored to the experience the Opportunities framework provides.

On post 'New Experience' (however many days it might be) - this approach is very much looking to the longer term. We just have to get the foundational pieces in first. Thoughts on how mid- to long-term Opportunities could work are very welcome too.

CCP Delegate Zero | Content Designer - Writer | @CCPDelegateZero

Ripard Teg
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#25 - 2015-02-19 16:14:07 UTC
Innominate wrote:
The problem with the NPE isn't the first few days, it's the first 60 days. Redoing those first few days again isn't going to help if that first 60 days isn't improved.

This. A lot.

There's a huge gamble hidden between the lines in this change. Since Opportunities will not be paying much if any ISK, they're going to leave the player at the end of the trial period without the basic ISK stock pile they need for a couple of starter ships, fittings, and skill books to fly them properly. It seems to me that the concept here is to drive players into a corp right off so that they'll have someone to beg for the ISK that they need just to keep from getting strangled in the crib. And I have no doubt one of the upcoming Opportunities is going to be "Find a corp!"

But there's a very real possibility that the change is just going to accelerate and emphasize the new player's feeling that he's going to be eternally SP- and ISK-poor and they'll say "Screw this, I'm outta here" instead since finding a first corp is hard.

Sugar, I'm glad to hear that this time period is on CCP's radar. Hopefully, the CSM is emphasizing this point. And hopefully, we'll be hearing from CCP about their plans in this area quite soon.

Another question: why is friends/family testing being done here instead of another round of external testing? If anything was ever begging for a test group that's never heard of EVE, this is it.

aka Jester, who apparently was once Deemed Worthy To Wield The Banhammer to good effect.

Milla Goodpussy
Garoun Investment Bank
#26 - 2015-02-19 16:18:13 UTC
Would it be so much to ask for the Tutorials to advise or explain what the hec is going on in eve online at the current time? I honestly liked mittens idea for the NPE better, atleast it made sense but as usual seems they don't want to do that cause it requires much much work , and welp we cant have that now can we.


new bro's should be restricted in their own space, receiving guidance from ISD,CCP, etc.. call it friends and family-thera something.. put it all off in your wormhole for all I care. then once they mature let them out to the rest of us..

I still think the main thing that keeps pushing new bros away is the fact of the many many levels of griefing that you folks do allow.. but of course you wont nerf that cause that also would hurt someone else's game. perfect thinking here.



Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#27 - 2015-02-19 16:19:18 UTC
Do you have to start a new character to try out the NPE? I know Ive told my sister (who logs in very occasionally) that if she needs to, she can always re-run the tutorials. Will this new system be the same? You can try it out at any time, in case you want a refresher?

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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
#28 - 2015-02-19 16:20:30 UTC
We did friend and family testing on this version, though limited because it wasn't on TQ and also limited because our tests were more about the flow of the content we have than the choices made after the content was complete.

I really want to highlight that one of the huge benefits of this system is to NOT drop people after a tutorial with no idea what to do next. But, we decided to release now, with limited content, since we think we can learn a lot even now by doing so, rather than waiting another release or two when we have content to fill a few weeks.

We are still building towards that as fast as we can so hopefully this will be a non-issue in a couple months.

@ccp_rise

CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
#29 - 2015-02-19 16:22:48 UTC
Quote:
I still think the main thing that keeps pushing new bros away is the fact of the many many levels of griefing that you folks do allow.. but of course you wont nerf that cause that also would hurt someone else's game. perfect thinking here.


We have tried and tried to validate the myth that griefing has a pronounced affect on new players - we have failed. The strongest indicators for a new player staying with EVE are associated with social activity: joining corps, using market and contract systems, pvping, etc. Isolating players away from the actual sandbox seems very contrary to what we would like to accomplish.

@ccp_rise

Mixu Paatelainen
Eve Refinery
#30 - 2015-02-19 16:31:04 UTC
That's more like it. Good stuff.
Mynxee
Signal Cartel
EvE-Scout Enclave
#31 - 2015-02-19 16:33:57 UTC
What a great direction for the NPE, great work on the concept of Opportunities! Some thoughts:

-- Rewards should still be given, much like one is paid in the military to attend schools associated with one's specialty. Rather than viewing that negatively as a carrot that might cause players to go through material they doesn't interest them just to get the ISK, view it as an opportunity (yeah, I went there :P ) for them change their minds about a given topic (especially as you get into more career-specific things, which I assume will happen eventually) once they experience it. Encouraging people to try different things is never a bad idea in EVE!

-- With less hand-holding, there still needs to be contextual info about why sets of tasks are important to learn and how they fit into the bigger picture of life in New Eden. On both an opportunity and a task level, that may not always be as obvious as you might think. Some contextual info provides strong motivations to engage with learning and be thinking about how it will apply to one's aspirations in-game.

-- Hope to see probe scanning and other exploration related Opportunities in the queue sooner rather than later.

-- Is it the plan to eventually map opportunities into groupings relative to specific careers, once there's enough content to do that with?

-- Offering a few suggestions for the kinds of things that users might explore and find out on their own could be useful. Sometimes people don't realize the extent of freedom of choice that we have in New Eden and that you write your own story in the game by taking the initiative. Never hurts to remind them of that with relevant examples.

-- So glad you kept Aura around. She is the iconic voice of New Eden, long may she live.

-- Is there a plan--once you have a big catalog of Opportunities in place--to reference those in relevant Evelopedia topics?

With a recent focus on helping new bros and 20+ years of work in instructional design and training development, this NPE evolution is very exciting and looks like fun to work on. What are the best ways for players to help you guys with this effort once it hits TQ (or before)?

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Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#32 - 2015-02-19 16:34:41 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
The strongest indicators for a new player staying with EVE are associated with social activity: joining corps, using market and contract systems, pvping, etc.

Have you shown cause and effect here? That is, is the cause of the players leaving the game their lack of social activity? Or is it that the players who have no interest in social activity find this is not the game they were looking for, and move on?

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elitatwo
Zansha Expansion
#33 - 2015-02-19 16:43:36 UTC
A note on the reward thing,
maybe don't give out like 100 million isk but give them books instead and hint to the noobies that they always will be keep buying new ones.

What could also be good for noobies to know is that EVE is not a one-time log-in shooter where you log on and kill monsters and log off again.
What they may or may not discover is that EVE is a very long time commitment, one the things I already knew a while before I installed the 450mb trial once upon a time ago.

And skills (books). Never not talk about skillbooks and maybe give noobies a one time payment of 25.000 isk for opening the training que and training Engineering to level 2 or injecting a new book, so they assosiate skill training as something that is always a good thing but it will take some time before they reach everything at the magic level V.

Speaking of, it should be noted that not everything does need to be at level V to be 'useful'. In the early days in EVE people train some levels of skillpoints to fit some module they want to try out.

Make them take a trip through highsec, let's say 7 systems long and tell them about the navigation skills along the way.

I remember that 7 jumps used to take like 2 hours because I would need to make several jumps of 4-5AU and then have to wait until my capacitor recharged to make another one Smile

EVE was big back then.

Eve Minions is recruiting.

This is the law of ship progression!

Aura sound-clips: Aura forever

Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#34 - 2015-02-19 16:43:43 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
I really want to highlight that one of the huge benefits of this system is to NOT drop people after a tutorial with no idea what to do next.


What do you expect new players to do when they have finished the tutorial?
CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
#35 - 2015-02-19 16:44:13 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:
CCP Rise wrote:
The strongest indicators for a new player staying with EVE are associated with social activity: joining corps, using market and contract systems, pvping, etc.

Have you shown cause and effect here? That is, is the cause of the players leaving the game their lack of social activity? Or is it that the players who have no interest in social activity find this is not the game they were looking for, and move on?


Simple answer is no. The closest come, for now, to establishing cause is to simply ask using exit surveys or other similar feedback channels. Otherwise we are doing the best we can with correlation.

As a funny side note: one of the stronger indicators for whether or not someone sticks with EVE is whether or not they used combat drones during their first 30 days. Maybe using drones is just so awesome that they decide to sub right then and there?! Or maybe it's just correlation related to depth of engagement. You be the judge!

@ccp_rise

CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
#36 - 2015-02-19 16:45:15 UTC
Innominate wrote:
CCP Rise wrote:
I really want to highlight that one of the huge benefits of this system is to NOT drop people after a tutorial with no idea what to do next.


What do you expect new players to do when they have finished the tutorial?


For now, we expect most of them will go to the career agents. We make a direct hand off from our new system to the career agents in this release.

Later on we want to have enough content in this system that we can have them investigating game systems for weeks just based on Opportunities.

@ccp_rise

handige harrie
Vereenigde Handels Compagnie
#37 - 2015-02-19 16:45:44 UTC  |  Edited by: handige harrie
I like how it looks and the premise of it, scripted tutorials have always been bland.

With some adjustments, I smell an improved and more dynamic mission system.

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Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#38 - 2015-02-19 16:47:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Innominate
CCP Rise wrote:
Innominate wrote:
CCP Rise wrote:
I really want to highlight that one of the huge benefits of this system is to NOT drop people after a tutorial with no idea what to do next.


What do you expect new players to do when they have finished the tutorial?


For now, we expect most of them will go to the career agents. We make a direct hand off from our new system to the career agents in this release.


The career agents as in the ones that form the current advanced tutorials? Ok, so you've got the first few days covered, what's next? Edit: When the tutorials complete, pretend they no longer just dump the player into the game, what options does the new player have as far as things to do?
Sven Viko VIkolander
In space we are briefly free
#39 - 2015-02-19 16:51:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Sven Viko VIkolander
I have been a huge fan of the new vision for the NPE since it was first announced by Rise et al at fanfest. I am glad to see it finally taking shape. I would really like to see the opportunity system branch into more advanced gameplay which would also help new players make isk--such as, opportunity goals for setting up PI on a planet, for doing research on a blueprint, for participating in an incursion, for joining faction war and running a "plex," for visiting a wormhole, for killing a sleeper in a wormhole, for running a lvl 1 or lvl 2 lvl 3 or lvl 4 mission, for having 10m isk in the wallet, and so on. It would also be nice, as other people suggested, for the system to have "social" goals, such as joining a fleet, starting a conversation with another player, getting a kill mail, and so on. It seems like this would be a good system for launching players into content that will get them through those difficult first 10-60 days while also never, by itself, giving new players rewards.

Also: Some friends have started the game and so I've been spending time lately in new player systems helping them and talking to other new players. I've noticed a lot of new players using / talking about the new anomalies (the mini respawning belts). Do you have any metrics on how widely these are being used? They seem very popular and I am glad to see iteration on the idea of mini-sites coming.

Finally...

Ripard Teg wrote:

It seems to me that the concept here is to drive players into a corp right off so that they'll have someone to beg for the ISK that they need just to keep from getting strangled in the crib. And I have no doubt one of the upcoming Opportunities is going to be "Find a corp!"


What's wrong with getting help from others or being directed by the opportunities system to find a corporation? Presumably, corporations can help new players in more ways than just by giving them isk, but even that is not necessarily a bad thing... I mean, you of all players used to ask for isk on your blog lol
Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc
Tactical-Retreat
#40 - 2015-02-19 16:54:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Altrue
As someone who have done a lot of guides on youtube and on websites, and who had to redo the tutorial many times to keep the information up-to-date, I'm very curious to see what the opportunities system has to offer.

That being said, I'd immediately suggest that you add some solid reward for players when completing Opportunities. It doesn't have to be ONE REWARD = ONE OPPORTUNITY. If each opportunity gave one point, you could simply give players various rewards when they reach various fixed amount of points. This way, new players can still do whatever they like AND get rewards, without feeling compelled to specifically do something they don't like.

Also, what is the end-goal of that system? To completely remove career agents? Including the aura crash-course?
EDIT: Found out for the career agents, still missing an answer for aura.

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