Alpha players: What is the game still not telling you that you want it to?

[x4000]

The following changes have been made since you may have started playing:

* The "hover here for more stats" thing on the left side of the customization window has been replaced with a scrolling text area that gives you way more information without hovering.

* When you are viewing the exo customization screen, all of the stats for the bot as a whole now show you descriptions of what they are.  So you can find out just what the heck regen and regen window are this way, etc.
** Thanks to mrhanman and Misery for suggesting.

* The part picker has been heavily redesigned.
** Rather than showing partly over the exo customization screen itself, it now hides that and shows as its own thing.  While the other was great, there's just no way to show all the info that needs to be shown when space is restricted that way.
** There is now a "Return to Customization" button that lets you easily get back to the other window.
** The tooltips on the individual items are gone again, and instead the description texts at the bottom of the screen now include all that information in much larger spaces set aside for them.  The font of the stuff at the bottom has also been shifted to a more compact one so that it can actually all fit.
** Thanks to Aeson and Tridus for various suggestions that helped lead to these changes.

* All of the stats up at the top of the part picker screen now have tooltips that explain what each of those stats mean.  This is in addition to the previously-added tooltips on the Exo stat lines on the main Exo customization screen.

* There is a new "Hot Tips" popup for the city map that shows when you first enter it (after the game start voiceover).  This also has an opt-out.
** You have 50 days. Each mission will bring you closer to the final battle.
** Each mission has consequences that will equip your Exos or weaken the enemy in the final battle. You can take on up to 50 missions in any order, then the robots attack.

* There is a new "Hot Tips" popup for the customization screen that shows when you first enter it.  This also has an opt-out.
** You get loot from winning missions, from hacking locked doors, and from spending credits at the store on the left sidebar of the city map.
** Customize your Exos to your play style between missions.  Getting to the final battle is only half the challenge. You will need creativity in design to get there!

* There is a new "Hot Tips" popup for the missions that shows when you first enter one.  This also has an opt-out.
** A "turn" is a single action (take one step, shoot one shot, use an ability, switch Exos).  After you take a turn, any activated enemies each take their turns.
** Go slow during fights.  Hang back and let your enemy come to you.  Use narrow places.  Use your whistle ability (left sidebar) to draw them out.
** Switch which of your four exos is active, which gun they are using, and activate special abilities such as Stealth on the left sidebar.
** Mouse over your objective (the mission icon on the bottom left for each level), and try to survive with the least amount of casualties. You will be rewarded!

* New tutorial-y text added on the end of the description of loot containers in tooltips:
** Don't forget to actually go into the Exo Customization screen between missions (on the left sidebar in the city map).  Creatively customizing your Exos is a huge part of surviving to the last day.

* When you go to start a new game, it now has some hot tips there as well.  Which can be opted out of.
** All of the pictures on this screen can be clicked to change which Exos, Commander, and City you are playing with.
** If this is your first time, feel very free to leave the defaults alone for now.  It's a strong party good for new players.









So.  What else are we missing at this point?  I locked the prior two topics in order to consolidate all further discussion here.  Thoughts?

[Histidine]

You're probably better off asking the next round of alpha players I think most or all of us already know too much to represent a new player perspective by this stage.

I will say that the new part picker is great; pretty much everything I need is there.

[x4000]

This is true, but the last batch of alpha testers has everyone else in it that has asked so far.  So it's kind of our last chance to get first impressions until we do a beta, which makes me antsy.

[Breach]

I think the warp tiles needs to be emphasised i now that they've been implemented, otherwise players won't know what to do when they've finished the objective.

This could be done by added an extra hot tip, or more ideally, a 'success' could be played and an arrow could appear on screen pointing to the warp tile. This arrow would linger on the screen boundary if the warp tile was off-screen, similar to RTS tutorial tips if you've ever seen them.

[x4000]

I agree with you something needs to be done there, but I'm not quite sure what.  I could add that to the initial mission hot tips, I guess.  But the arrow and so forth off the screen doesn't work for well over half the missions, where technically the only goal is "find the warp."  For the others that have an actual intermediary goal, that would work, but I want to be consistent.

[Breach]

Right, I'd forgotten about that. Maybe have the mission objective 'button' in the action bar pulse noticeably when the mission's complete and have the tooltip update to indicate what needs to be done.

[x4000]

I think maybe having it show text on the button and have the tooltip there might do it, we'll see.

[Tridus]

Just tried it out by starting a new game. The new tips are excellent. They're short, but tell me everything I was confused about before. I'm really interested to see how the next wave of players fares with them.

[x4000]

Excellent!  I know you were one of the ones most blindsided by it before, so that's particularly great to hear.

[Aeson]

I would like:
1. Total Sight Range, because boosting the range of most weapons beyond that doesn't really do anything for you.

2. Total Sensor Range (either as some kind of dotted-line highlight in-mission or as a number out of mission; both is also acceptable), because certain computers list their effect as doing something to all of some kind of thing within sensor range.

3. Warnings when I have a weapon whose range exceeds the sight range of the Exo it's mounted on, unless that weapon can be fired at targets BVR.

4. Warnings when I have a weapon which cannot safely be used because the splash radius exceeds the sight range (for weapons that cannot be fired BVR but which have a range greater than sight range) or weapon range (for weapons which can be fired BVR or whose range does not exceed sight range).

[Rekka]

This is true, but the last batch of alpha testers has everyone else in it that has asked so far.  So it's kind of our last chance to get first impressions until we do a beta, which makes me antsy.

Really? Cause I did send an MP to tigersfan and I didn't get in. But it's true that my sent message inbox is empty... Strange stuff.

[x4000]

This is true, but the last batch of alpha testers has everyone else in it that has asked so far.  So it's kind of our last chance to get first impressions until we do a beta, which makes me antsy.

Really? Cause I did send an MP to tigersfan and I didn't get in. But it's true that my sent message inbox is empty... Strange stuff.

Sorry, I mean our next batch of alpha testers, which will include you.  That next batch will be the "last" in the sense of not having more coming after it.  As opposed to "last" meaning "previous."  Ah, language!

I want to make sure that people in your group are getting as close to a final-quality first impression of the game as possible, so that whatever is still wrong with it becomes more abundantly clear, faster.  That's all I meant!

[Rekka]

Oh okay! Great. That's clear for me now.

[x4000]

Glad I could help.

[x4000]

I would like:
1. Total Sight Range, because boosting the range of most weapons beyond that doesn't really do anything for you.

2. Total Sensor Range (either as some kind of dotted-line highlight in-mission or as a number out of mission; both is also acceptable), because certain computers list their effect as doing something to all of some kind of thing within sensor range.

3. Warnings when I have a weapon whose range exceeds the sight range of the Exo it's mounted on, unless that weapon can be fired at targets BVR.

4. Warnings when I have a weapon which cannot safely be used because the splash radius exceeds the sight range (for weapons that cannot be fired BVR but which have a range greater than sight range) or weapon range (for weapons which can be fired BVR or whose range does not exceed sight range).

I see your point, but I think that the underlying problem can be addressed rather than just adding interface around it.  Here's what I came up with, and in practice it feels like it works pretty well so far:

* The sight range for all exos has been increased to 16 instead of 8, and 20 instead of 12 for the snipers.
** Now that sight range does not (improperly) affect the alerting of enemies, this doesn't matter too much (well, not in a negative sense).  It lets you see more of the level more clearly, and frankly better models what might be considered some form of reality.
** On the positive side, this also lets your longer-range weapons be fired at the extents of their ranges more (speaking here of longer-ranged weapons further upgraded with range-enhancing parts).
** This also does let enemies with long range weapons fire at you from the same sort of longer range, since enemies can only fire when in your line, although there are not many enemies that are that long-ranged to begin with.  So that doesn't really change much.