Poor tutorial

[Microsoft Word]

The tutorial isn't the best, it tells you to build a town center for your city but doesn't give you any kind of suggestion as to where you should place your first one nor what it means to place one down.

I just started playing, farmed a few monsters to gather materials to build it, now I'm being told it'll only last 5 hours with the amount of orbs I gave it (about 30 or so). Okay, fine I'll force myself to farm some more so that whatever I just did right as I started the game wasn't a complete waste of time.

I need some wood, fine, I'll cut a few trees. Now a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ skull level treant spawned next to my town center and I can't keep building until I kill it, it's daytime and I can't realistically go anywhere else, I'm on a timer to farm more red orbs so I can keep my town center alive and I have to fight a monster that can two shot kill me, has ranged attacks that can root me in place for ~5 seconds, I have zero ranged abilities outside of one ability that costs me a ton of blood and does basically no damage to the tree and I deal 2 whole points of damage to it per hit with axes while it has what I can assume waaaay over 1k HP.

I'm 30 minutes in, I'm right outside the starting area, and I've been following the tutorial to get a feel for the game. Please help me understand what the hell is going on and why would you design anything like this. I don't know why I'm building a city, I didn't know I would spawn a monster that's way too hard for my level to kill right next to my city center (right outside of the tutorial area), I can't do anything but wait for night, farm more orbs and hope I start a new city somewhere that doesn't suck ass?

At this point, the game didn't even bother teaching me about blood, or daytime or anything else, I just had to figure it out on my own and realize I had to suck blood out of living beings. I don't need a tutorial to learn how to make weapons and armor but I sure as ♥♥♥♥ need a tutorial that can teach me what building a city entails, why I'm building a city, what daytime means, how to drink blood, what blood types mean, how the blood system even works in the first place, etc.

I think there's a good concept behind this game but the devs have no idea how to convey how it even works and spend way too much time teaching mechanics that should be extremely straightforward to anyone who's ever played an ARPG before and zero time teaching the mechanics that makes this game unique while throwing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ challenges and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ decay mechanics on people who haven't been taught how these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mechanics work in the first place.

Please make this make sense

[Levi_Athan_VT]

People really do like hating on others just for a tutorial that actually doesn't explain anything outside of what abilities do what. The quests are probably the closest to a tutorial and while they do explain how to build, they don't explain where. The blood types and blood quality are also not explained at all. You have to figure that out on your own. Sure, some people may understand it faster than others, but he's not wrong that the tutorial explains stuff that should not need to be explained(what buttons do what. It's literally shown on your HUD), and doesn't explain stuff that should probably be explained(Blood Types, Blood Quality, for example. Especially Blood Quality, you're not gonna figure that out until you find a decent blood quality which is rare in the first area and even then some may not realize it because it's not something that sticks out like a sore thumb).

To OP, your castle will not be destroyed in 5 hours. It takes a while even if you're out of blood orbs for it to decay and be destroyed. 5 hours is just when the decay starts. It has a bar under that that goes down as your castle is left without blood orbs until it's destroyed iirc. You should be fine for a while, but it really doesn't take much farming at all to get it to 12 or even 24 hours.

[Levi_Athan_VT]

Originally posted by Ice-Nine:

Originally posted by Microsoft Word:

Yeah, the tutorial is fine bruh, nothing wrong with it. Skull level monsters spawning in your city center after your built it, just fine, monster leashing back to where it spawned if you try and lure it away? Just fine, my feedback sucks, the game is fine.

I honestly can't believe that you need a tutorial to tell you not to build right next to a skull level monster. You were clearly able to deduce from context that "skull level" meant something you probably couldn't kill at the moment, but you weren't smart enough to figure out NOT to hang out right next to it. That is some crazy ♥♥♥♥ right there. That's not even game mechanics; that's just basic human common sense. That's just unbelievable. I need to smoke a joint.

Just about every area in the game where a castle is, is next to a "skull level" monster at that point in the game. There's almost always a golem, or a treant near the castles. That said, it's not hard to avoid them completely, and once you get to copper age you can build fences outside to keep them out. It's kind of silly to say that he shouldn't build near a "skull level monster" when they're everywhere near castles.

[Ice-Nine]

Originally posted by Levi Athan:

Just about every area in the game where a castle is, is next to a "skull level" monster at that point in the game. There's almost always a golem, or a treant near the castles.

Well that's just completely untrue, unless you're defining "near" as anything up to 30 tiles away.

[Levi_Athan_VT]

Originally posted by Ice-Nine:

Originally posted by Levi Athan:

Just about every area in the game where a castle is, is next to a "skull level" monster at that point in the game. There's almost always a golem, or a treant near the castles.

Well that's just completely untrue, unless you're defining "near" as anything up to 30 tiles away.

30 tiles away isn't true either. Usually on the first level of the path going up to the first level, there are golems and/or treants. The first level is the biggest area, so naturally someone would want to build their castle heart there. Usually the golems/treants are 5 or so tiles away from the stairs going up to the NEXT level. As I said, they can be ignored though simply by dashing away from them. Doesn't mean they're not there. An instinct one would have would be that this enemy needs to go at some point. That said, they do respawn, so even that's kind of a silly idea, unless you manage to find exactly which tile they spawn on and claim it. I don't even know if that would do anything though. Honestly they're just free resources for me. You can ignore them for the most part. That doesn't mean his gripe was unfounded though. Those things are near almost every area where you can build a castle heart. Maybe it would be 30 tiles away if you built the castle heart in the exact same place as the destroyed castle heart is, but why would you do that when you have a perfect area for a throne room at the top of the cliff, with stairs leading down to the next area for the main hallway and other rooms connecting to it, and stairs leading down again to where you might want to put a garden and your entrance into your castle? Most of the golems and such are right near the mountains. I have both a treant and a golem on both sides of my castle entrance. The Treant is a bit farther away from my fence but the golem is right beside it.

Either way, OP will be fine around those golems, so even you claiming he's stupid for building there is silly. All he has to do is run away, and eventually he can block them off with fences. Saying it's stupid to build there is, well, kinda dumb.

[Ice-Nine]

Originally posted by Levi Athan:

Those things are near almost every area where you can build a castle heart.

That remains simply untrue.

[Levi_Athan_VT]

Originally posted by Ice-Nine:

Originally posted by Levi Athan:

Those things are near almost every area where you can build a castle heart.

That remains simply untrue.

I have two castles, and there's a golem or a treant near both. Maybe smaller areas don't have them, but almost every mountain I've seen has a golem or a treant near it. At least in the first area. I don't think they are in in Dunley, but a newbie isn't gonna immediately go there, and Dunley tends to have smaller areas to build, outside of the edges of Dunley, which, if you were going to build in Dunley, I don't see why you'd want to choose the edges.

I chose the area right next to the teleporter for my first castle, because it had a landscape I liked for a castle, and the second one is right below Dunley because it has a big building area. Both have golems/treants and just walking through the map I always see them near the mountains. A third castle I built in another save file also had a golem right next to the stairs leading up the mountain in a sort of round area, like a big semicircle with a rock in the middle of the open half of the circle. So I don't think I'm wrong.

[cudadown]

Wait a minute..... We can build Cities? I only have a castle. I have a lot to discover I guess.

[YouGotBeefInMyMold!]

The things that are explained in the tutorial are for someone that has never played a game like this before. It is better to assume this, giving access to 100% of the people that wish to play the game. WASD movement, how to interact with enemies and resources on the map, how to craft and equip gear, are all necessary information to playing the game. All the other things you have brought up are considered "hidden tutorial" in games. Things you interact with or and obstacle you interact with that you can quickly understand and need to understand to progress are considered hidden tutorial. One of the most famous examples of this is the very first upgrade your pick up in metroid, the morph ball. it never explains how to use it, but immediately after, there is a one block high passage you need to go through. You need to use the morph ball the pass through this, and you essentially are shown how to use it through experimentation instead of via text box on screen.

The first area is a heavily wooded area, i feel, to specifically explain day cycle. even if you had never heard of a vampire, you would probably panic when you started burning in your first day light, and accidentally ran in to shadow. you now know "Sun bad, shadow good." When you do start building, there is a mist generator in your fundamental tab. This protects you from the sun in your base until you can build actual castle pieces a little later.

outside of the initial crypt housing only undead, which cant be fed on as to not overload the player, the area near you enter the forest has mostly creatures that can be fed on. The game shows you a number and "Press F to Feed." Seeing your blood ball fill up and the symbol next to it change to the number next to it will usually prompt a played to try to interact with it, showing a nice wall of text, some lit up, and a bar. It's a lot of information, but the first time you feed on a human player, you see a different blood type. This prompts the question "I wonder how many different blood types there are and what they give me?" I didn't learn until a bit later that you could eat rats in a bind, but that was more on me for not reading something i picked up, and since the forest is pretty packed with things you can give the big succ to.

Building your base next to a treant is tough luck, but it happens. You could choose to build there and deal with it, or choose to build somewhere else. This teaches you that almost anywhere you build a base can have hazards, and that you need to properly scout a location you might may want to build on.

There are more ways then throwing a text box on screen to teach a player. This game uses inference and trial and error to teach the player some core concepts, which leads to fun discoveries. This game can use some work in some areas, but teaching the player what they need to know in the beginning is done very well.

[This PC]

Originally posted by Microsoft Word:

It's not a personal attack towards the devs, the game holds your hand for 30 minutes on how to craft all kinds of garbarge then skips over mechanics that are new to this game. This is important ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ feedback for an early access game. ¸

I don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ know what the consequences are for anything I'm doing. Is my base the only base I can build? Why the ♥♥♥♥ does it decay, did I just waste my time getting materials before building the first few steps for my base and going to sleep for 8 hours when I have materials to have my base survive on its own for 5 hours? What are the consequences of losing my base? Why the ♥♥♥♥ does the game spawn a monster I'm clearly not supposed to fight right outside of the tutorial and right next to the hearth of my first base?

Maybe that's valuable feedback for the devs and maybe you should use your head, just a thought. Not everyone spent time reading the forums to get a head start, maybe some people expected a tutorial that wasn't a complete waste of time before being thrown in the game with zero explanation on any of the new mechanics.

Never said you attacked the devs, but you did assume they don't know what they are doing.
The mechanics are so simple, I could've figured them out at 12 years old. I know, because I figured out Diablo 2's mechanics at that age, and they were about the same level of complexity. My feedback that more handholding is not needed is just as important as your entitled ass' feedback.

You'll learn the consequences of doing things by uuuh... doing them, or researching them on the web. If you had looked at the ui of the game you're actually playing, you'd know if it's the only base you can build. If you'd read what other people have told you, you'd know why it decay, and litterally kill 5 bandits more to get your base to survive for another 5 hours more. That takes ~2 minutes. Even if your castle decays while you're sleeping, you made a mistake, LEARN FROM IT AND TRY AGAIN TO DO BETTER THIS TIME. That is the whole point of survival games. /o/

I don't even know what the consequences are to losing your castle, I'd have to actually try to let my castle decay, which would be more effort than actually maintaining it, and I don't really play pvp enough to have lost a castle in a siege.

Maybe me telling you "the game is fine, and I don't want more handholding" is also valuable feedback, and you not seeing it as such is entitled and childish.

People like you only deserve one answer really: Don't play the game if you don't have enough brainpower to read from the UI, learn from the consequences of your actions, and try stuff. Don't play the game if you need to be told "Left click to swing your sword". I know I don't need that, and it's refreshing that the dev doesn't treat me like a 12 years old. Game just trusts me to find my way.

Me telling you you don't have enough brainpower is insulting to you ? Then prove me wrong, go play the game and learn it.

[Sauriel]

Technology bringing people closer can be a double edged sword sometimes. Im sure the steam forums have enough blood though to last 1000 years as a monument of terror to them. I would advice word, as a word of advice to close the thread, as it might only get worse and probably draw more people teaming up to create a long and unecessary thread

[This PC]

Originally posted by Sauriel:

Technology bringing people closer can be a double edged sword sometimes. Im sure the steam forums have enough blood though to last 1000 years as a monument of terror to them.

From another perspective, I'm sure the steam forums have enough entertainment to stand for the next 1000 years as a monument of clownship as well. :P

[Sauriel]

Originally posted by jdtuggey:

Originally posted by Sauriel:

Technology bringing people closer can be a double edged sword sometimes. Im sure the steam forums have enough blood though to last 1000 years as a monument of terror to them.

From another perspective, I'm sure the steam forums have enough entertainment to stand for the next 1000 years as a monument of clownship as well. :P

Back in the roman colosseums people did see even such things at entertainment, but who knows if it will return at this rate, yet we have no open executions for criminals anymore, where they feared to suffer through the execution Also i think its a good idea it close the thread

[Craiberk]

Learning and exploration is part of this game's charm. The tutorial's perfectly fine. I'd probably go as far as to say this is one of the best tutorials I've been through.

If anything, it should be shorter and skippable regardless of server settings. For example, instead of making you wait for 24 hours of IRL hours(or worse, gameplay hours) in order to make a servant, just to unlock the throne.

[Xenith_Shadow]

Originally posted by Craiberk:

Learning and exploration is part of this game's charm. The tutorial's perfectly fine. I'd probably go as far as to say this is one of the best tutorials I've been through.

If anything, it should be shorter and skippable regardless of server settings. For example, instead of making you wait for 24 hours of IRL hours(or worse, gameplay hours) in order to make a servant, just to unlock the throne.

While i do agree that 24 hour additional playtime lockout on the main/only questline. Probably at least in solo-locked servers you should be to skip the quest forward. As for no dedicated servers, there should be an ability to toggle realtime progression as was seen in state of decay (although is quite problematic due to you being able to be killed while you were at work ect) in which when you log in again the timer in game increment based on the time change since last playing.
I will say at some point the main quest is probably no longer actually classified as a tutorial, that probably end's when you unlock the ability to track the V power enemies.

On the note of the treant i also end up with my base kinda close to a treant, although i didn't find it till like 3 hours after i built my base when i came up a different path to my blood-core.

[†RAIN†]

Originally posted by Microsoft Word:

Seriously, what's wrong with you people. Do you think it's normal for a game to feel like it should teach you how to move around with WASD, how to move the camera around with the mouse and just go "lol, figure out on your own what all that blood/base building/decay mechanics are"?

Am I crazy for wanting to give genuine feedback to the devs on how poorly the mechanics are conveyed and how poor the new player experience is in a game that's in early access? Am I just supposed to fellate the devs and pretend everything is fine until the game is ready?

Guess you never played WoW