Let's Write a Tutorial

Anyone interested in contributing to a very basic tutorial/FAQ for the weekend? It should cover the basics:

• Passives: allocating, refunding, classes
• Skills: sockets, links, supports (how they interact)
• Vendors
• Currency
• Defense: energy shield, armor, evasion
• Flasks
• Hotbars: changing skills
• Character Screen: how to find your DPS, defense, etc.

That's just a quick brainstorm of mine. Anything else can be added if it's pertinent to a brand-new player's basic understanding of the game. The idea is to have an easy-to-read FAQ that new players can see to gain a quick understanding of the game's core systems without having to read an entire Dev Diary or search the forums.

If anyone feels up to writing some information on these points, please make some posts here. I can aggregate all the information posted in this thread into a FAQ.

I gave my beta key to a friend that doesn't play this genre at all and I was astounded by how lost he was. I'm not quite sure if it's just him because some of the stuff he didn't understand was just, I mean.... he's not entirely idiotic. I think people take for granted how many standards people outside the genre don't know. I was on skype with him so I got a great deal of good info.

He didn't pick up the starter weapon on the shore because he couldn't see it and didn't know about ALT. he actually tried to just run to the end because he would face mobs without a weapon.

He didn't know you could how the mouse down to move around, and didn't know you could hold the mouse down to lock onto a target.

Didn't know about scrolls, and kept asking me why he couldn't equipt items. 90% of the time they weren't identified.

He didn't know how the flasks worked.

After we were playing for about an hour or so I asked him about the gems I gave him and which he was using. He didn't know that gems were linked to specific abilities. This one boggles me. When he turned in quest he just picked gems at random.

He didn't understand the concept that you can't just run into a pack of 25 mobs with a rare with an aura and expect to kickass.

He didn't know that spell locations were mapped out in the bottom right corner.

Didn't understand randomized items.

Didn't know about the map.

Didn't know about how item color related to quality and rareness.

Economy items is going to take a while to soke in I think.

He tried attacking my zombie the first time I brought it out.

Not all of this stuff needs to get explained, some I think would be better with trial and error, but there are some things that are very simple to everyone that played D2 and totally unknown for everyone else.

Epicurwin, I am surprised that your friend struggled with the game that much. I had the exact opposite experience when I sat my brother down to play. He doesn't use computers for gaming and had never seen an ARPG before and took to it like a fish to water.

I perfectly understand the starting weapon issue, but most of the issues your friend encountered was due to him not paying attention to the game at all. Lots of mechanics like holding mouse buttons comes with time and experimentation.

The first time he picked up an orb he asked "What's this?" I explained there were several tiers of orbs with various effects that are used as a currency in the game. He immediately caught on that the rarer ones had more desirable effects and that trade was based on relative value to each player.

Definitely adding tips for basic things like picking up your first weapon, displaying the map, and a talk-through about the behaviors of skill/support gems would be worthwhile to new players.

I think it will vary.

As for the first area. I think it is lacking. Most of the negative videos on youtube are people going through the first two areas becoming bored. People need to know how the game will feel later in the game.

Good tutorials should be a preview for the game and make you feel powerful. It shouldn't throw text at you and you should always feel like your still in the game world and not in a kiddie area.


Here are some things I think the tutorial needs:

*The entire thing should be spoken, NO TEXT.

*The first zone should become larger, maybe split into two areas.

*You should get 3-4 skills gems, reach level 4 and have a few rares.

*Once you get to the boss and defeat him you get knocked out and become awake inside the town with the gems and rares missing. Spoke dialog will explain your gems were stolen or actually belonged to the towns people and they will reward you for retrieving them.

You will then continue the game normally, with the knowledge that the game picks up over time.

GGG please watch this:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tutorials-101

PLEASE!

My personal recommendation for this weekend is to make Malice's great Tips / FAQ for new players thread (currently stickied in this forum) publicly available, that thread has all a new player needs and has been refined with feedback since being posted last august.

I dont see need to create somthing like this, because there is already. Just copy from this 2 threads, remove the info that is too much, and you have a tutorial for new players.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1199

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707

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Ragnar119 wrote:

I dont see need to create somthing like this, because there is already. Just copy from this 2 threads, remove the info that is too much, and you have a tutorial for new players.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1199

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707

You don't want walls of text in a game. You need dialog and you want the player to play the tutorial, not read it. Those are useful for figuring out what should be in the tutorial, but not how you create it.

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Epicurwin wrote:

You don't want walls of text in a game. You need dialog and you want the player to play the tutorial, not read it. Those are useful for figuring out what should be in the tutorial, but not how you create it.

I think the idea is to write a short tutorial in this forum. Something you can point the "weekenders" to if they have trouble getting started.


Something that goes:

"So, you're stranded on Wraeclast and have no clue?
Read these short pointers, and a hero is you."

I guess it could do without the rhymes, though.

It's amazing, by the way, what people not familiar with ARPGs do not know. The concept of identifying items, for example.