Tutorial Island

[elidmw]

Problem:
- New players come
- If they come from Steam, they aren't used to our harsh version of learning by trial, error and death. And this is the main point in negative Steam reviews, besides dying from aggressive players (which should stay)
- However, there are could be many potential players, who just need a smoother introduction

The feature of a safe first experience was already introduced in Salem, and I think it could be adapted to Haven realities:
- Salem has an isolated solo tutorial "island", wilderness spawn or safe town spawn
- Town spawn would change the core of the world, so only personal tutorial island is possible
- It could be narrated as a spot where your soul takes birth before getting into the material world

Points it could cover:
- Basically, the quests that we are given at the start
- But they could be given in an order that makes sure the player learns things one by one: Movement, game UI, learning recipes by finding new items, eating and drinking, building, and finally being cautious and discreet
- To avoid player farming there, the resources at such location should be limited
- You could also show a scripted end of the tutorial where your guide is killed in the end of the tutorial and pushes you to the material realm, to set the right mood...

[The_Lich_King]

+1

[Pills]

yeah i think the biggest think that the game fails to do is express the importance of getting a palisade up.

There was this video just before reset where dude says he played on/off for 2 weeks and never mentioned anything about a palisade. he seemed to think he was safe inside is little stone wall entirely because he never saw anybody.

I think the initial tutorial quests could definitely use something along the lines of "Securing your safety" questline, has a description along the lines of "The hearthlands are brutal, a palisade will help you stay safer, visitor gates let people in so they can't do anything but can't be entered in combat" and a quest list of "Unlock Yeomanry", "Craft 2x Bone Glue", "Acquire 10x Leather", "Craft 5 ropes", "Construct a Palisade Cornerpost". With the option to completely skip this quest if they want to or for players in groups that will not complete it directly themselves and don't want it to linger in their quest log.

[The_Lich_King]

yeah i think the biggest think that the game fails to do is express the importance of getting a palisade up.

There was this video just before reset where dude says he played on/off for 2 weeks and never mentioned anything about a palisade. he seemed to think he was safe inside is little stone wall entirely because he never saw anybody.

I think the initial tutorial quests could definitely use something along the lines of "Securing your safety" questline, has a description along the lines of "The hearthlands are brutal, a palisade will help you stay safer, visitor gates let people in so they can't do anything but can't be entered in combat" and a quest list of "Unlock Yeomanry", "Craft 2x Bone Glue", "Acquire 10x Leather", "Craft 5 ropes", "Construct a Palisade Cornerpost". With the option to completely skip this quest if they want to or for players in groups that will not complete it directly themselves and don't want it to linger in their quest log.

Even if you tutorialize palisades with a quest which procs on character creation or upon unlocking yeomanry, it will still take a new player a minute to work through all the quests and learn the ropes to the point they are ready for a palisade and experienced players will have picked them apart before they get through the safety measure.

I like the idea of a tutorial zone where new players can practice for the nightmare before being thrown into it.

[Mepp]

There are many features in Salem that would do great in Haven. It might be interesting to know why J&L don't copy more of it. Maybe an instanced tutorial or a main-hub don't fit their idea of a sandbox game or they don't want Haven to be Salem2.0.

They are probably reading this but won't respond.

[Hasta]

Yeah the learning curve is brutal and unforgiving, but it's not the reason HnH will surely flop on Steam. It's the so-called "community", an assortment of vile spawns of satan's rancid anus. Unleashing this game on an unsuspecting Steam normie zoomer is like surprise-swapping a 4th-grader's birthday cake with a can of surstromming. And then hitting poor guy over the head with a chair for good measure.

But yeah, "Tutorial island" is a nice idea, just make it unskippable, PvP-disabled and so that noone could finish the tutorial before a RL week passes. This way every newcomer will have some time to learn the ropes of this awesome (not sarcasm!) game, and they won't be met at the very start by tutorial-speedrunning bot-army-wielding bloodthirsty "core players".

honestly if they were to do a tutorial island i'd make it opt-in, unskippable is a terrible idea. and a 1 week max timer, small map maybe 3x3 or 5x5 minimaps of a pre-generated world and have it friends-only (via the secret system). after 1 week or when you choose to abandon the tutorial world you get thrown into the real world.

[The_Lich_King]

Yeah the learning curve is brutal and unforgiving, but it's not the reason HnH will surely flop on Steam. It's the so-called "community", an assortment of vile spawns of satan's rancid anus. Unleashing this game on an unsuspecting Steam normie zoomer is like surprise-swapping a 4th-grader's birthday cake with a can of surstromming. And then hitting poor guy over the head with a chair for good measure.

But yeah, "Tutorial island" is a nice idea, just make it unskippable, PvP-disabled and so that noone could finish the tutorial before a RL week passes. This way every newcomer will have some time to learn the ropes of this awesome (not sarcasm!) game, and they won't be met at the very start by tutorial-speedrunning bot-army-wielding bloodthirsty "core players".

Nah definately make it skippable for those of us that do not want to play it (me)

New players are going to fall behind the grind (as is any solo hermit) regardless, so no need to gatekeep it with RL time before you can spawn into the real world... just need a safespace to teach new players how to not die before we send them forth to die.

As for the community... yeah it is REALLY bad, maybe the worst i have seen but it is far better now than it was when i started... Back in the day we had outspoken neo-nazis, pedophile apologists, and a whole manner of filth... Now the worst you get is everyone accusing each other of being pedophiles for having a different faction allegiance (not unlike realworld politics atm)

[Hasta]

Back in the day we had

Yah I know, I literally started playing a month after you did XD

a safespace to teach new players how to not die

In all honesty I can't see this game beeing appealing to general population of players. Hope I'm wrong. Maybe the devs' "short-lived worlds" idea will pan out in a surprising way and bore most evil griefers out of the game (doubtfully). Maybe the devs will implement some sort of mechanic like described in this thread. Right now it's similar to dumping a truckful of toddlers into a pit with angry bullteriers. I definitely thought Jorb would think of a way to adjust for new players.

[Sephiron]

Make it like 'return to hearthfire', where it sends you to a tutorial island that you can travel back and forth from. But you wouldn't be able to bring any items or attributes, skills etc. back from it. It could be flavored like some kind of mindscape where you can mess around and try new things, while also learning the game's concepts. You can build a house, farm, etc. but there are no other players or social interactions.
Also do the same thing with Valhalla but with other players obviously, so that people can practice PVP without doing that janky shit with the character creation.

1. travel to hearthfire
2. travel to tutorial world
3. travel to valhalla

[The_Lich_King]

Back in the day we had

Yah I know, I literally started playing a month after you did XD

a safespace to teach new players how to not die

In all honesty I can't see this game beeing appealing to general population of players. Hope I'm wrong. Maybe the devs' "short-lived worlds" idea will pan out in a surprising way and bore most evil griefers out of the game (doubtfully). Maybe the devs will implement some sort of mechanic like described in this thread. Right now it's similar to dumping a truckful of toddlers into a pit with angry bullteriers. I definitely thought Jorb would think of a way to adjust for new players.

yeah people keep pointing to Rust as a method of saying "you can get casuals to be engaged with a open world pvp game and not quite because of griefers" but what they are forgetting is that Rust and other Open World games are extremely low time commitment. You can reach the endgame in Rust in like 15 Hours so dying has no weight. Thats what makes the constant raiding work for it.

Now i do believe Haven could have a growing population of casuals... i mean it has a growing population now. We have 1.8k at the start of this world whereas at the start of other worlds it didn't get close to that. The population is gradually growing showing that the game is good enough and satisfying enough for new players to suffer through it. If we make the game more friendly right at the start i think you'd see a sharp increase in the growth of the game.