Hints way to direct and hand holding.

[StellarSkys]

Doing my first playthrough of Kepler, not so far in so most things i already know at this point.

But i'm flying off in the direction to a spotted star, and i'll just get a hint pop up that tells me exactly what i need to do to progress the a quest i just got the next stage unlocked for. like as in, i got the artifact i needed, fly back to the station, spent maybe 5 mins tops upgrading from scout to explorer, then flew near where the quest stage was and past it not even 10mins from picking that artifact up, and haven't explored at all.

and this kinda thing has already happened more than once.

its honestly really off putting for the game not even give me a chance to think for myself, and kind of insulting. There needs to be a default off hints button, or make it where hints can't show up after at least an hour of game play from when you unlocked that next quest stage, or perhaps making the hints, well hints and not the exact solution.

[justkevin]

This is a bit tricky: players like to figure out what to do, but hate feeling "stuck" with nothing to do. I've tried to address this in several ways, partly because having guidance delivered the same way feels dull, and partly because sometimes a solution is me trying something new.

There's also the harder problem of detecting when a player is stuck versus they know what to do but are in the middle of something else.

For quests that are critical to the main story (as in you probably won't be able to finish the game if you don't make progress on them) the general system has been:

1. Players tell me that they are stuck and submit a save, from which I deduce what they are stuck on.
2. I add some kind of hint: a crew member chimes in, a conversation is added to Celaeno, etc.
3. The timing for that hint is based on my guess as to how long a player might likely spend on this quest. This timing gets accelerated if they have fewer than X active goals.
4. I adjust the timing or directness of each hint based on player feedback.

Do you remember what the hints were that you felt were too aggressive?

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by justkevin:

This is a bit tricky: players like to figure out what to do, but hate feeling "stuck" with nothing to do. I've tried to address this in several ways, partly because having guidance delivered the same way feels dull, and partly because sometimes a solution is me trying something new.

There's also the harder problem of detecting when a player is stuck versus they know what to do but are in the middle of something else.

For quests that are critical to the main story (as in you probably won't be able to finish the game if you don't make progress on them) the general system has been:

1. Players tell me that they are stuck and submit a save, from which I deduce what they are stuck on.
2. I add some kind of hint: a crew member chimes in, a conversation is added to Celaeno, etc.
3. The timing for that hint is based on my guess as to how long a player might likely spend on this quest. This timing gets accelerated if they have fewer than X active goals.
4. I adjust the timing or directness of each hint based on player feedback.

Do you remember what the hints were that you felt were too aggressive?

The big one that stuck out to be so far is the kaleidoscope opening the heretic portal.

It was I think my last active progressable quest. (I am saying this with context of having done previous builds, my other quests are ones like find out more about the starlance, which aren’t meant to be continued directly at this point in the game.)

I got the kaleidoscope, analyzed it, then warped back to the station to do ship improvements with the resources and research I got for finishing that flinger chain.

I knowing this opens up the next areas of the map, decided to visit the red star south of the heretic portal planning to hit the portal after checking that star because I wanted to have my current map finished before expanding it. Maybe 30 seconds into flying south after using the closest flinger the npcs chime in something very close to “it just occurred to me that kaleidoscope we found in those intestines could be the key to that portal we found”

So I did have a very short quest log at the time, and granted flew by that area.

I will say though Standard game designs for games with area puzzle designs like this, finding a item with a unknown purpose at the end of an area, and having a effective door that couldn’t be opened is game 101. So like that’s a very blatant to have a “hint” be the actual solution. For something that’s already clear.

I do think there’s a couple ways to approach this. A simple enable hints option in settings that defaults off, or defaults on but tells you it’s on very early on so we know to switch it off is probably the simple thing here.

If you wanna go more creative maybe allowing us to select a “focus” in our quest log aka select a active quest could be possible. This could also have the quest destination (if one is applicable) is always showing on the hud instead of when within 10k units. And then if we struggle to continue that quest with having it selected for a bit we get provided a hint. (Sometimes that hint may be the first officer recommended exploring other goals and seeing if we find something related and we are currently at a dead end in that quest)

And have a “exploring” quest that is effectively telling our current goal is to explore and thus we are not trying to solve something in the moment. So the npcs won’t chime in giving hints about a quest cause in theory they are not working on that quest in that moment and their focus’s are on finding new frontiers.

Just spewing a few idea though. It feels really insulting for the game to imply I can’t figure stuff out even more so when I already know the answer. As well as being told the answer before I even started trying to solve it. Thankfully this time it spoiled something I already knew, but a system like this could really suck when I start hitting more new content.

[Mattrex]

I second the general sentiment.

I enjoyed the first Starcom a lot, but excessive hints and handholding are something that would discourage me to pick up this game. I don't like the feeling of being pandered to because some random person I have no connection to happened to get stuck on a mission I'm also on.

A more elegant solution than automatic pop-up hints would be to gate the hints behind something that requires player opt-in. A hint button, a toggle in the settings, or a dialogue option with someone that says, "Have any advice for what to do next?"

It drove me up the wall when I was playing God of War: Ragnarok and NPCs would start giving me puzzle solutions within 60 seconds of stepping into a room. Like, geez, let me catch my breath and take a look around before solving the puzzle for me. (Better yet, don't tell me at all unless I ask!) It makes me feel like the developer is calling me stupid and assumes I can't do anything unless I'm told exactly what to do step by step.

[shiantar]

I'm in the camp with @Mattrex, myself.

Take the case as with Starcom: Nexus and trying to find the Araona whirlpool by triangulating distances from planets to stars and then doing complicated conversions of AU to Lir and thence to pixels when plotting on a map screenshot map in Paint.

I suppose if you're the cerebral type that would feel rewarding. It sure felt rewarding at the time.

But I'm also with @justkevin in that there are (for each cerebral type) about 20 others who'd presumably have a harder time deducing the solution to certain puzzles or connecting the meaning of two widely-spaced dialogue entries or ship's log entries.

And we all vote with our pocketbooks.

The game already does a reasonably good job of encouraging the player to explore further afield (Emissary wormholes, Enigmatic Shapes results, Heretic portals, etc.) without putting guardrails to steer them in that direction.

Short of something like ... compartmenting the hints to special dialogues with the ship's first officer, Lt. Avery, I'm not sure what else can be done (or if there's a better balance to be struck between no hints for the elite and copious hints for the stuck).

@Mattrex @Stellarskys what do you think would help?

[Firestorm]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

The big one that stuck out to be so far is the kaleidoscope opening the heretic portal.

The kaleidoscope hint was too aggressive even before Kepler.

I like the idea of a hint system being tied to the quest log. Open log, select quest, have a little box of Lt. Avery somewhere with a button to ask her opinion on the quest. Or whichever officer is pertinent to the quest.

The downside is people would have to use their quest log. The extra upside is people would get the hint for the quest they want when they want it.

[shiantar]

Maybe a cooldown on Lt. Avery's hints ... can leverage her assistance but not too often ?

[Storm]

Originally posted by justkevin:

This is a bit tricky: players like to figure out what to do, but hate feeling "stuck" with nothing to do. I've tried to address this in several ways, partly because having guidance delivered the same way feels dull, and partly because sometimes a solution is me trying something new.

There's also the harder problem of detecting when a player is stuck versus they know what to do but are in the middle of something else.

For quests that are critical to the main story (as in you probably won't be able to finish the game if you don't make progress on them) the general system has been:

1. Players tell me that they are stuck and submit a save, from which I deduce what they are stuck on.
2. I add some kind of hint: a crew member chimes in, a conversation is added to Celaeno, etc.
3. The timing for that hint is based on my guess as to how long a player might likely spend on this quest. This timing gets accelerated if they have fewer than X active goals.
4. I adjust the timing or directness of each hint based on player feedback.

Do you remember what the hints were that you felt were too aggressive?

I just wanted to say that I commend the effort you've put in to try to deliver a helpful system. I don't think many studio's give even half the consideration you have. Well done.

Previous game was great, looking forward to diving into this one. Just bought it, not sure how long I can keep myself before firing it up :)

[Tozobi]

I am one of those people old enough to have played the original Star Control, and Star Control 2 when it first came out. For the latter, there were *some* hints, but there was a looooooooooot of cursing while trying to get certain things done in specific order so as to complete the game in some points, and it took ages.
Having also been a long time adventure game fan, I can see why some of the audience may like having fewer hints. However, there's a sizeable percentage of the audience that do not have the same amount of time to bother with obscure paths/quests as we did back in the day(or just never liked those), more so in a game that is of a genre not usually intended to be filled with this type of riddle solving.

I would say, if it is not too much hassle, code the hints in tiers, and let players decide which tier they want. If they want full on exploration, they can pick tier 1 and get partial text commentary/hints by the crew etc. If they want more help, tier 2 can have additional text with more info.

That being said, I am of the opinion that if you cannot have both, having fewer hints will put more people off than having too many. Whether that is an accurate guess or not, I do not know, but a poll might answer that if you also ensure players that do not check the forums get informed about it as a lot of us have just stopped playing, or never played and are waiting for the full release. I would play the final version regardless

[Malvastor]

Would it work to have an option to allow/block crew hints? Not sure what that would involve from a technical angle, but it would let the cerebral puzzle-solvers choose to figure things out on their own while the casual explorers and shooters could play without getting held up by wondering what to do next.

[justkevin]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

Would it work to have an option to allow/block crew hints? Not sure what that would involve from a technical angle, but it would let the cerebral puzzle-solvers choose to figure things out on their own while the casual explorers and shooters could play without getting held up by wondering what to do next.

I'll think about it. It's probably a fair amount of work because there isn't a hint system, rather the regular mission system using crew notifications to nudge the player when it thinks the player might be stuck. So every hint in the game would need to be modified to handle this.

My general strategy is that the main story line isn't suppose to require the player think hard or pay attention, but some main story points ended up being less obvious to some players, so the crew hints are a kind of "patch".

[Firestorm]

Originally posted by justkevin:

I'll think about it. It's probably a fair amount of work because there isn't a hint system, rather the regular mission system using crew notifications to nudge the player when it thinks the player might be stuck. So every hint in the game would need to be modified to handle this.

As a programmer, I'm rather surprised by this. I'd think the mission system would check a flag when it's about to nudge a player with a crew notification. If hint flag, then continue with notification. Otherwise, cancel out or skip over whatever code path the mission system runs when it decides to generate a hint.

Mark hint as having been delivered if need be. Player won't be able to reactivate hints cleanly, but that's the sort of thing they opted into.

Unless we're talking crew notifications that just got put on a timer, which cancels out on completion?

[justkevin]

Originally posted by Firestorm:

Originally posted by justkevin:

I'll think about it. It's probably a fair amount of work because there isn't a hint system, rather the regular mission system using crew notifications to nudge the player when it thinks the player might be stuck. So every hint in the game would need to be modified to handle this.

As a programmer, I'm rather surprised by this. I'd think the mission system would check a flag when it's about to nudge a player with a crew notification. If hint flag, then continue with notification. Otherwise, cancel out or skip over whatever code path the mission system runs when it decides to generate a hint.

Mark hint as having been delivered if need be. Player won't be able to reactivate hints cleanly, but that's the sort of thing they opted into.

Unless we're talking crew notifications that just got put on a timer, which cancels out on completion?

The primary issue is that mission-flow issues are hard to detect automatically, so changes to the logic need to be examined carefully and tested manually. Even when there's a change that seems benign (like skipping a notification), there can sometimes be an unanticipated aspect. Crew notifications do change the timing of missions, so skipping them reduces the minimum time to reach a particular mission state. Generally hints don't happen on the same "lane" as important mission logic, but I', not positive they never do.

A player recently discovered a soft-locking bug that was caused by reaching Celaeno a half second before a conversation was added to a character.

[Firestorm]

Originally posted by justkevin:

A player recently discovered a soft-locking bug that was caused by reaching Celaeno a half second before a conversation was added to a character.

A mission system that was that sensitive to timing issues wasn't the problem I was expecting, but that's programming for you.