Simplify Tasks For Beguinners And Pros

[shokan 35]

Ok, I was thinking about my last post, discussing my 1st couple weeks of play.  The most important thing is getting over the initial painful couple days of trying to learn what to do.  There are some great ideas already in play, like free food and water for the 1st 24hrs of game time, plus a very short agro range for monsters. Both were awesome when I started. How about adding another thing to help the noob get going?

 

Auto tasking/suggestions/popups guides?  What I mean is this: Lets say I hover my mouse on a tree tile. Popup says "double click this tile to equip your hatchet and chop down the tree, or right click for more options".  Do the same for a grass or bush tile and "double click to forage and botanize". Dirt tile: "double click to dig..", so you are basically going to equip the most common tool, to do the most common function that is done on any specific tile type.

 

Another way to help educate the new user would be changing the menu system, to be more intuitive of what your possibilities are, based on your current inventory.  The way this would work is if I right click any item or tile (lets start with the tree tile), the menu would look something like this:

 

Forage

Botanize

Equip hatchet to chop

Equip shovel to chop

Equip sword to chop

etc...

 

Now lets say I click on a dirt tile:

Equip shovel to dig

Equip shovel to pack

Equip shovel to cultivate

Equip cotton seeds to sow field

Equip Cedar sprout to...

 

This not only helps the noob to quickly see their options, but saves the experienced player from clicking through so darn many menu layers for everything they do.  Certainly, there may be some actions that have so many possible options that a single menu layer may get too long, so in those cases, sub menus would be needed. HOWEVER, I believe almost all of those cases are from crafting, which is going to be replaced with the new craft system.

 

 

 

 

[Wulfgar 1,103]

Keybinds.....

 

-1.

[shokan 35]

Keybinds.....

 

-1.

I totally understand and in a previous post on my new player experience, I mention the importance of key mapping. But seriously, for a new player, key binds are not the easiest way to learn how to play.  Also, there are so many things that can't be done via a key bind and require multiple menus to accomplish (mostly crafting, so it won't matter soon).

 

If changing the menus to make things more intuitive and/or adding a double click default action can help prevent just 10% of new player dropout, Imagine how fast Wurm would grow.  I don't know the stats for new player retention, but I have to think 90% or more leave in the first few hours of play. I'm a pretty hard core gamer and I almost threw in the towel when I started.  So imagine keeping 20% of new players, rather than just 10%.  Boom! player growth doubles!

 

One can hope.

[Klinge 69]

in the beginning (lets say first 2 weeks) players should have an absurd high rate of finding cotton when foraging.

[gnomegates 1,427]

I think part of what makes wurm what it is, is the fact that it has a very steep learning curve. It can be hard for new people, but in reality, thousands of people have learned it and done it and love it, and thousands more will I hope. It is this very aspect of the game that many of us love and what keeps us playing. There are tons of guides and wiki pages available to help the new person. I guess if they cannot take a shovel and see a spot on the ground and know that they should dig with it, then they are already beyond help. If I have a hatchet in my hand, I should know that I can chop stuff, the game should not tell me what to chop if I hover a tile.

 

Keybinds were already suggested and you addressed that so I won't touch on that except to say that I love them!

 

Typically people complain that it is to hard because they want everything handed to them and they want the game to be easy to play. I'm not saying that you are one of these at all, but that is the point of view most people that makes posts asking for the game to be easier come from. They don't want the game easier, they want things done for them or handed to them already done.

 

Now if things can be done to make the life of a new person easier and not effect the overall game play that a lot of us love and play it for, then I'm all for it. In the end its a fine balance that has to be maintained and if that can be done great.

[Theodis 338]

I think part of what makes wurm what it is, is the fact that it has a very steep learning curve. It can be hard for new people, but in reality, thousands of people have learned it and done it and love it, and thousands more will I hope. It is this very aspect of the game that many of us love and what keeps us playing.

A steep learning curve due to deep and complex gameplay is good. A steep learning curve due to a cumbersome or convoluted UI is not. I find it funny that suggestions that would improve or streamline the interface or in this case make it more self evident how functions of the game work as you play get shot down because it's dumbing the game down and making it too easy. Yet when people suggest mechanics to increase the depth and complexity of the game the ideas also get shot down because people want a simple grind or just want to build without being hassled by other features which complicate the gameplay itself. Granted it's probably different people(at least I hope) shooting down the different kinds of ideas but I still find it silly.

Anyway I'm all for adding more cues to the players on how to accomplish things while in game. I think most people enjoy games where you learn as you play rather than go through a boring and lengthy tutorial. Things to cue what actions have what results would help this out a lot. Just please give me the option to disable them once I know what I'm doing . It's also good to have multiple ways of starting a task especially if it avoids stupid right click menus and keybinds since I imagine most players don't really learn about keybinds until they have played for awhile. Keybinds themselves really need a UI already as you should never expect a player to be inputting commands into a console for basic game functionality.

[Bryl 5]

I started recently and I struggled (and still do somewhat) with the UI initially, it definitely needs some loving attention. As for key binds, I was familiar with binding from when I played LoTRO so it wasn't too hard to figure out but even wiith binds Wurm has a very big learning curve. That's coming from an Eve Online player too.

 

What hooked me on Wurm is the sandbox nature but what made it easier to 'get' was the community. A friend and I were near Sloping Sands on Release trying to figure out what we should be doing when we happened to run into Saithes of Wyvern Academy.  Once he found out we were new he offered us a place at the acadmeny; in exchange for a safe place to learn the game and access to his resources we give him some of our time to help upkeep the academy.

 

The problem with relying on helpful individuals is that new players need to happen upon them, in a world the size of Wurm it would not be a reliable method. While we wait for improvements to the UI/tutorial/whatever, perhaps if settlements that were looking to teach new players advertised at the stater areas with signs or in the gloabl channel they would find that they would get more recruits continuously and in turn maybe keep a percentage of those new people playing. Not sure if this is happening on servers other than Release since I've not been to them.

[Cista 426]

Lets say I hover my mouse on a tree tile. Popup says "double click this tile to equip your hatchet and chop down the tree, or right click for more options".  

 

....

 

Equip Cedar sprout to...

Are you suggesting that in the first 24h or first week, double-clicking on something will accomplish some effect, but later the same effect will not happen? Or maybe you are suggesting that double clicking will always result in some action (in this case, chopping). 

I don't see that as a simplification though, on the contrary it would be confusing, since all other actions are done by rightclicking.

 

Your suggestion that some actions be auto-suggested based on what is in your inventory would not be feasable either, since you could have up to several hundred sprouts in your inventory, of different species and QL. Since you have options to plant, drop, examine, equip, eat etc etc you would end up with a suggestion list of thousands of options.

That's why the sequence is, you first choose the item which you wish to use, from your inventory, and then you have options for actions to do with it. 

[shokan 35]

Are you suggesting that in the first 24h or first week, double-clicking on something will accomplish some effect, but later the same effect will not happen? Or maybe you are suggesting that double clicking will always result in some action (in this case, chopping). 

I don't see that as a simplification though, on the contrary it would be confusing, since all other actions are done by rightclicking.

 

Your suggestion that some actions be auto-suggested based on what is in your inventory would not be feasable either, since you could have up to several hundred sprouts in your inventory, of different species and QL. Since you have options to plant, drop, examine, equip, eat etc etc you would end up with a suggestion list of thousands of options.

That's why the sequence is, you first choose the item which you wish to use, from your inventory, and then you have options for actions to do with it. 

very valid points. Being still somewhat new, I'm not entirely sure how many options cold be possible, but I believe inventory can only hold 100 items, so in theory, if you had 100 unique sprouts, it could give you a 100 choice list. However, if you consider the tile can only have a few options for action. A tree can be foraged, botanized, chopped, pruned or pick sprouts. A dirt tile can be packed, dug, cultivated, leveled, flattened (more?). So, based on the tile and what you actually carry in inventory, I think the front line menu will almost always be shorter than you would imagine. I really tried to think of all the tasks I do daily that aren't crafting and I could not come up with any that would have made a huge list of options.  Sowing fields would be the closest exception, since I have maybe 15 or so different seeds/plants I could sow.

 

Gnomegates,

 

In regards to the steep learning curve and dumbing it down. I really don't want to dumb it down at all. I love the advanced capability so VERY much, but I don't love cumbersome mouse work to achieve what could be done in fewer clicks. If driving cars requires you steer with a right wheel level and a left wheel lever, which had to be controlled in unison, to make a successful turn, I bet there would be quite a few less drivers on the road. That would be bad business for auto makers and many would have to close their doors.

[Tekari 133]

I agree that the UI needs an overgaul but not like this.

 

The way I remember my first days in Wurm btw were completely different.

 

I remember the fun and excitement while discovering every new tool and its purpose and especially possibilties I have in this game.

 

And tbh it isn't really as hard as you say it is. Most of the tools have a logical function. Shovel to dig, rake to cultivate, hatchet for chopping etc.

 

And most important... I really don't wanna have to read every single of those sentences numerous times every day.

 

So -1. Sorry.

[Druidnature 1,118]

I agree that the UI needs an overgaul but not like this.

The way I remember my first days in Wurm btw were completely different.

I remember the fun and excitement while discovering every new tool and its purpose and especially possibilties I have in this game.

And tbh it isn't really as hard as you say it is. Most of the tools have a logical function. Shovel to dig, rake to cultivate, hatchet for chopping etc.

And most important... I really don't wanna have to read every single of those sentences numerous times every day.

So -1. Sorry.

Mostly this, especially having to read it...ugh no.

For the most part using your head gets you where you need to be, but I can understand some people need that extra help...but I don't think this is a good solution. This would just be annoying >_<