Test Server Feedback

If you have another character that is training a skill at the moment, the Operations get stuck at training the first skill. You get the popup to buy multiple training but if you don't purchase that (or you don't stop skill training on the other char), the tutorial won't proceed.

Uhm... I just logged in my omega char on Singularity and NPE popped up (no new charakter).
It won't even let me "x-away" the NPE... stuck in Station... can't undock as server thinks I'm already in space running the NPE...
*welp*

(Caldari sequence)

-the first window that required "Next" to be clicked should be blinking or something. Perhaps just the "Next" button should blink. It required input from the player and that was a change of pace compared to the rest of the intro.

-When Aura describes how to loot a wreck, I was still on my way to the first wreck and it was a bit too much information. I felt my eyes glaze over while she was talking. No way a new player will process all that info. She should wait and highlight buttons instead, after the cargo wreck is opened.

-Aura advises right-clicking and selecting "Approach" but you could also mention that "Open Cargo" will work.

-Aura reminds you to close the inventory window after you're finished. The information sort of sticks, but mostly because the window is in the way after you're done and the player will probably want to close it anyway.

-There is no warp generator item in overview and I couldn't find one manually or in overview settings. So I'm slowboating out of the 300km bubble right now

-oh gah if you activate "Large Collidable Structure" in Overview Settings -> Tab Presets -> Types -> Entity the Warp Disruption Generator shows up. Slowboating back 260km now.

-where can we find this 300km warp bubble, it might be a bit useful, asking for a friend

-The seeker isn't on overview by default

-real talk, I just doubled my kill record.

-oh nice, Aura mentions "Open Cargo"

-This ibis is fit with an afterburner. I'm instructed to approach but I don't think she's mentioned activating my prop mod.

-oh wow you include the player in the counter attack that you mention in the dialog? That is the most satisfying example of chekhov's gun ever.

-The docking sequence is interrupted and there's a lot of talking while the ship sits there. This became an issue when I needed to redeem a skillbook and had to be docked. With docking attempts I heard "docking permission requested" but nothing happened. Eventually a docking request went through and I docked, but I didn't hear "Docking request accepted."

-I injected the skill manually instead of waiting for the tutorial and now it's stuck. I'll try to reactivate the intro later, for now I have to work on things irl~ (Cagali tweeted about the new NPE so I came by)



This is a great addition to the game.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE NEW HIGHSEC ORPHANS WHO STAY

What about some kind of rating system for corporations? Not necessarily to incentivize accepting new players, but more for the purpose of informing new players what corporation to select. A very obvious "Join these people" rating system that pops up, perhaps in the corporation offices tab of the station.

I don't think accepting new players needs to be incentivized, in fact I don't think it should be. There are enough corporations who take on new players for the intrinsic reward.

I think the rating system should be based on player retention. So if a corporation has a je ne sais quoi and is somehow able to maintain player activity and retention that is 50 times higher than average, they should be rated as Very Special

The mechanics of such a rating wouldn't be tied to game mechanics, and rather player activity and subscription stats.

****, couldn't you extend these stats for any corporation and its players, not just newbies but also veterans

Random thought because the server is rebooting.

The first add skill task does not include the message that as a vet is the most important. "Keep your skill queue full." If it did I filled it up out of reflex not because of the text. Saying that later in the NPE is a good repeate but needs to be said the first time a skill is added.

Multiple Character Training certificates are seeded on the market, 100 ISK a pop. You don't need to be in the same station to activate them so just buy them, open up your Assets window and activate the certificate from there. Instant access to training queue for your Alpha/NPE character!

That's fine on SiSi, but it can become a problem later on on Tranq :)

Also, when I try to resize the Aura/Commander popups, the pointer jumps upwards and starts to vibrate as I move the mouse, as if it was stuck in a very tiny box.

On Minmatar run, with entirely new character

Have *bought* the BPO for the Civilian Analyzer

Industry window will now identify it (which it wouldn't before), but won't allow me to *load* it.


Other comment: At one point the Minni CO refers to "the Empire" -- is this a misprunt from the Amarr script ?

Same problem as bolded/underlined text. Also can't close the Industry Window.

Whoohoo, got a little further this time. Past the final big battle. I had some issues where the game thought I was much further from targets than I actually was but I'll account that to SISI being unstable or whatever. Anyway; long list of feedback and important notes.

1. When Aura tells you to purchase a blueprint from the market the instruction with the name of the blueprint disappears and can not be found anywhere. The name of the blueprint the player needs to find should be ready on display while the market window is open, otherwise new players will get confused, frustrated and will quit.

(Here I had some issues with the Industry window but again, I'll account that to SISI being weird)

2. A major issue I have with this tutorial (and previous tutorials) is that the auto pilot is still promoted as the default way of travel. Not once, anywhere in the tutorial, is the player told that they can manually warp to a gate and manually jump and that it would be much faster. This happens not once, but 3 times. Including one route that has 3 gates in them, all of which need to be autopiloted because the newbie doesn't know any better.

In my opinion manual travel should be taught first and foremost. There is no reason to force a new player to sit idle as he warps 15km off a gate and slowboats to his goal. This will cause frustration. Especially when you do it twice more with even longer routes. Let Aura teach the player how to warp to a gate and jump through, with a side note mentioning the auto pilot for when they get lost or something. Promoting the auto pilot as default is HORRIBLE GAMEPLAY!

3. Why do we land so far away from the first acceleration gate? You could warp in a LOT closer and still have room enough for dialog that needs to happen before activating it. These long burns to objects will bore newbies.

4. Why on earth do we land so far away from the info shard?! You enter the site at 120km away from the damn thing and only when you reach 40km does it trigger a conversation. This needs to be compressed a lot. Warp in at 20, trigger the conversation at 10 or something. Cut out these insane distances. Are you trying to bore your new players to death?!

5. Players should be taught to find the station they need to dock in, instead of the operations panel giving them a magic button for it. That magic button will not be there after the tutorial ends.

6. Fitting the first frigate should teach the player to use the fitting window, not use this 'fit to active ship' nonsense. You WANT the new players to use the fitting screen, as it gives the best experience and they will need it heavily in the future.

7. Again, warping in 40km away from the spatial rift is completely unnecessary. It just causes a lot of boredom while the player burns to where he needs to go for no apparent reason.

8. After the battle is over the tutorial turns into one big chaos of information. I'm assuming this is work in progress since Aura has no lines at that point, but still. The player dies in the explosion and respawns in the station. It is completely unclear to any newbie how and what just happened. Aura or the FC needs to explain that, as a capsuleer, they are now immortal and will respawn at a fresh clone whenever their pod is destroyed.

(At this point the tutorial broke on me again so I wasn't able to continue). I'll run through it again a little closer to release and hopefully some (or all) of these issues have been fixed by then. I'm most concerned about the long burns between goals and the autopilot issue. I would highly recommend the NPE team to take a cold hard look at this again and really think about if this is the right way to do this.

Finished up the Caldari NPE. A few things:

I echo the concern of using higher ship class model for the Circadian mobs. A frigate or even "corvette" class ship would be more suitable for most of the ship classes you fight 1v1 or in packs vs those you fight in the scripted battles. It helps to differentiate the ships that you will fly against throughout the game.

Overview: I think the addition of a quick introduction to the overview in one of the Aura interactions would be helpful. It could be explained that by default your scanners are configured a certain way and to be able to target some object in space, you have to turn on LCO/LCS's in the overview, and Aura would step you through the process.

Also, I ran into a bug where I killed the three Circadian ships at the center of the final structure and the tutorial did not advance. I sat there for about a couple of minutes waiting for the story to advance.
1. I relogged to see if I could clear it.
2. When I logged back in the site had despawned and I was able to warp back to the Circadian gate and run the site again.
3. This time, after killing the final three Circadian ships I targeted and started damaging the structure.
4. The story then advanced normally.

It may be that I did not realize I was supposed to be targeting and killing the structure on the first pass. I don't know if the FC NPC made the call to target the structure at the end because there was a lot of action going on, not only on-screen but between Aura and the FC. But by damaging the structure, I was able to advance the tutorial. Using the callout balloon for the final structure would help newbs (like I apparently am) to know that they are supposed to be destroying that final structure.

I had some weird issues that kept red targets on the overview but when I tried to target them the system said they were no longer present? Is that server lag?

Another issue that was annoying was the new balloons being used to display important ships and other objects during the tutorial. On smaller resolution settings those boxes are pretty large and can get in the way of selecting things in space. If they were slightly smaller it would help with screen clutter.