[FEEDBACK] Suggesting an alternative approach for the tutorials for a truly new player

[RayRite]

I am aware that the major reason why players refund X4 is the onboarding experience. The new 7.0 tutorials will likely help, as many are easier to follow than the old ones.

What I am suggesting is to develop at some time an ultra-guided game start that ends when the player has shown that they understand how the game works. A start on rails. One that includes variations of all tutorials, so that the player plays through a multi-step story and is told all the way which buttons to press. Idiot-proof. For people like me, who love the game, but cannot stand the known problems with the tutorials.

This might lead a lot more people to play the game, people who now either refund out of frustration or stop playing the game soon after getting frustrated beyond repair. Thus not buying any of the DLCs.

This idea was born from ...
- the problems with the old tutorials which I experienced myself only a few weeks ago,
- having refunded several times over the years because of these problems,
- going through all the new 7.0 tutorials and their problems (see individual feedback reports),
- seeing that while the new tutorials show a clear improvement, the overall style and philosophy stay the same - a way that has proven to not work well enough, and
- repeated tips from people who love the game that new players had better ignore all tutorials, even the better ones, and start playing without them, to prevent getting frustrated too much.

[CBJ]

Your individual feedback on the tutorials is great, but "start again and do something completely different" doesn't really fit as beta feedback, so I've moved this particular thread to the main forum.

For the record, though, the new tutorials are about as "on rails" as it's possible to make them within this kind of open world game, so we will need to keep working on the tutorials in their current form (including taking into account your feedback where possible) and hopefully that will be enough to encourage new players.

[Blitz4]

should be called [OPINION PIECE] instead of [FEEDBACK]

[Trulyethereal]

Could I add to this and suggest posting or maybe direct me to where to find a diagram or explanation or “key” so to speak for the buttons that are on the x56 HOTAS and what corresponding numbers they are according to the game?? Because the buttons and such are clearly defined on the HOTAS as having specific alphanumeric assignments but the game refers to them as 1,2,3etc and doesn’t even specify which in UI they are referring to between the throttle and the stick. It’s very frustrating and I agree with the OP in the tutorials don’t explain very much but I do like the updates to them so far.

[Blitz4]

Could I add to this and suggest posting or maybe direct me to where to find a diagram or explanation or “key” so to speak for the buttons that are on the x56 HOTAS and what corresponding numbers they are according to the game?? Because the buttons and such are clearly defined on the HOTAS as having specific alphanumeric assignments but the game refers to them as 1,2,3etc and doesn’t even specify which in UI they are referring to between the throttle and the stick. It’s very frustrating and I agree with the OP in the tutorials don’t explain very much but I do like the updates to them so far.

All joysticks / controllers use numbers to define the buttons.

Windows > Control Panel (the old control panel)


Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers >
Right click the device > joystick properties / properties

Click the name of the device and then click properties

you'll see a UI showing the button numbers


That should answer the question. You just get used to remembering which button number corresponds to which button on the joystick. All games that I've seen do it this way.

If you want next level, you can change the numbers to whatever you want to remember them easier using Joystick Gremlin & vJoy. Take a bit to setup but on my x52 it's the only way I found to reliably remove the jitter present due to the cheap sensors inside. Basically I add a script that adds a buffer which increases input latency but smooths out the jitter. This video does a good job showing how to set that up. I doubt you get jitter, but there's a lot you can do with Joystick Gremlin. Over time you may find you use the keyboard and mouse less. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6CFPW4go0M

[gbjbaanb]

My 2 pennies for this, and I speak as someone with thousands of hours in X3, when I first came to X4 I almost ragequit because I couldn't figure out something (I ended up using google, as per X3). I did play through many of the tutorials, but I didn't do them all at first - there's too many of them for a new player.

The tutorials are excellent, but they are tutorials. Most players want an immediate fix to whatever problem they come across in game, tutorials are not fast answers.

Maybe a good idea would be to add a list of contents to what each tutorial is going to teach you to the tutorial's description. Then new players might be more keen to use them if they know what they were getting. Split the tutorials into 'stuff you need to know to get started', and 'stuff for later' might also help new players feel less daunted at the long list of them.

I think the game needs more textual information to guide a player when they need guiding. You'll never know when that is, so you have to provide the info in the places that they will look at when they get stuck. In past times when I have been stuck, my first point of call is to read the mission briefing. Often it says nothing relevant at all. Other times I go to the encyclopedia, sometimes they say "no description". Even if the description said "this is covered in tutorial 5", that'd be an improvement.

I suppose you can make this easier by creating a wiki that mirrors the encyclopedia and let us write the text for you, I'm sure many players would love to contribute.

[Socratatus]

No such thing as idiot-proof. Closest to that if you had a guy arrive at the buyer's home for each purchase of the product and guide the User through X4 for a couple of hours, like an IT guy that arrives and puts your pc togther for an extra $80. And even then someone would still not get it.