So many thanks moxian, that was some high quality feedback! Awesome. Makes me happy!
[*]When you select tutorial, a black screen with a character tile in the cente appears. There is no terrain whatsoever. The status menu on the right says it doesn't have health, magic, experience, str/dex/int etc. Feels EXTREMELY bad. I think it should be the #1 thing to fix.
Yeah, it looks quite bad. *looks around for an actual coder* Well, it might not be a coding issue, maybe some thing needs to be done in the map epilogue, or stuff in there needs to be in a certain order. I recall something similar with the pan lord warning messages.
[*] My notebook doesn't recognize Shift+<numpad number key> - it thinks that it is simply <number key>. And IIRC it's not only my notebook problem - there are others like that. Don't know how to combat this though -.-
Me neither, unfortunately.. does changing numlock help? I don't remember if I took that bit out of the texts.
[*] Search for secret dor is a *long* one. I've pressed [5] like 20 times and still nothing happened. WTF?? Yes, you told me it can take many turns, but THAT MANY?? I suggest giving the character higher T&D to alleviate this.
[*] - Okay, I got it, [5] makes you rest for 100 turns, but [numpad-5] only for 1. And tutorial doesn't differentiate them enough.
[*] Not enough stress on[5] vs [numpad-5] difference can totally break all that hunger-related sync. I waited for only some 2-3 turns before the door, and went "wtf" later. Also, no damage to the player can make him not want to rest, and that too will break the sync. Basically, if you are not hungry, then corpse-related message feels out of place, because player is neither hungry, nor has ever seen a corpse, and should rather be placed beyond the rat, not in front of it. I myself waited only some 2-3 turns before the door, and got hungry 2 turns after killing the rat.
Hmmh. It could note that it's the numrow 5, and not numpad 5.. but that'd require "hardcoding" the command letter to the tutorial texts. Now it looks up the key used for the long rest command.
[*] Do we really need to tell player now how to close the door? I close the door so rarely, that I don't thinka new player should try remembering it
I agree.
[*] Deep water. When I try to walk into it I get "Why would you want to do that?". It is totally ok, but what about first telling the player that the character cannot swim [in deep water]?
[*] Okay, it turns out, we have this pice of info. Maybe move the blue square a little bit higher? It should also say that you can *try* moving into dangerous terrain and nothing bad will happen, so as to relieve the fear of accidentally drowning due to a fingerslip
Yeah, perhaps could be earlier. Maybe there's also space for your suggestion.
[*] Minimap mouse control. Does the tutorial suggest going back to the starting point [using the mouse]? Why would it? What do we want to do there?
Indeed! There probably should be some reason to travel back to where you came from.
[*] Autoexclusions. I think we should make player cross a single tile of autoexclusion to deliver how that feels, instead of proceeding with autoexplore, that avoids exclusions. Currently it feels like a bit of extra and totally unrelevant information.
Yes, makes sense. Makes it a bit more complex, but I'll look into it. Or at least place a TODO.
[*] When I get a weapon and open a door I see a dummy but there's no message "A training dummy comes to view". Not sure if it *should* be there, but I somehow expected it. Again, not sure if it happens in actual game.
Hmm yes, there should be one.
[*] Well, okay, I have a weapon, I see a dummy what next? How do I kill things? Can we have a blue square after the door that says "A worthy opponent! To attack an enemy simply move in its direction", please?
[*] - Oh I get that message in the doorway.. Still kinda confusing - I'm used to blue squares telling me things, not doors.
I agree that the messages on the doors are awkward. I'll look into putting them all into blue squares.
[*] "...you can also step back and wait (with [.])..." - not only with [.] but with [numpad-5] also.
I would like to only print one key per command (plus mouse). Printing several makes them unwieldy and long, especially when the message is already long. Even if it is less infomative
[*] While examining the monsters, there is no hint on how to exit the descrition screen. [Esc] works as expected. (a minor tutorial-unrelated issue).
I think we should print such instructions in the tutorial where appropriate. Hints mode has very nice instructions in many screens, that are not included in normal game (where it might clutter them).
[*] "You can fire darts at the monster with [f] or by [clicking] on them in the inventory panel. To confirm auto-targeted monster press [f] or [Enter]." Why cannot I confirm it by clicking on the darts in the inventory again? Mouseclick-enter-mouseclick-enter feels inconvenient.
Sounds like a good interface improvement idea.
[*] Why are dummies positioned behind deep water? They cannot move, and not being able to retrieve ammo seems meh. I think tutorial should even explicitly say that you'd beter not waste preicous ammo when you cannot retrieve it and make you throw stones instead of arrows/darts at those behind deepwater/lava.
I think it's so you can't just go melee them. About not wasting ammo, it's a sensible strategy but sounds like the basic tutorial shouldn't use space to suggest it.
[*] Also, probably we should show the player that autoexpolore picks up valuable things automatically. I think it is nice piece of info to know, and lets player know what is that greenish square around the item is for. Oh, nevermind that is what lesson 3 is for.[/list]
Lesson 2 does give you a "dynamic" message when you first pick up an item you previously threw. Of course, that you didn't notice it goes to show that the messages are easy to miss.
But yeah, lesson 3 has more on autopickup (although not on thrown items, but that's probably ok).
I've started working on the third lesson, and have a pretty clear idea what I want to merge from jpeg's original and KiSS's suggestions. I think I should get it done early next week.
--Eino