Elevator Requirements - How to make them more obvious

[Madguy]

I get a bunch of messages from people asking why they haven't unlocked elevator access to different floors. Currently, if you interact with the Mysterious Elevator and mouse over the floor in question (or select the button with the cursor if using the gamepad), it tells you the requirements. In addition, the instructions literally state "Highlight locked floors to see requirements."

Despite this, people are still having difficulty figuring it out for whatever reason. If you're one of these people, I'd like to hear why you think you might have missed this. I'd also like to hear suggestions on how I might make the requirements more obvious.

[H8TRED]

it might need to be moved. even after i got a notif that said "unlocked elevator access to industrial" i had to look around a bit to find it (over by the locked door you fricking tease.)

I dont remeber if this already is in the game, but the resistance leaders could say somthing about it in the tutorial, like "if enough of our agents actually get to the mayor, we might consider making some room in the budget to build a new elevator."

Also, they should probably say something other than "is the mayor dead yet? can you get on that?" when you talk to them in the hideout. Alternatively the 2 elevators could be merged, and the 2 menus combined, for pure simplification.

[Madguy]

The issue is not that people are having trouble finding the elevator. The issue is that they can't figure out how to unlock access to different floors. A typical message that I just saw:

"I have the achievement for beating uptown, but I dont have elevator access achievement for uptown or downtown. Glitch or did I do something wrong?"

And from the recent bug reports:
I have been playing the game and completing it with the soldier, though I don't seem to be unlocking the achievements for the Park, Downtown, and Uptown Elevator Access. I don't think I have on any handicaps that would prevent this from happening. Just wondering if I'm doing something wrong or is anyone has any ideas."

[evillee]

I have no idea, the only way they would know about elevator access is to go to the elevator and read why they don't have elevator access. Unless it's to due to the achievement and them not putting it together that you wouldn't award 2 achievements for the same thing. I suggest adding more to the achievement so they can wrap their minds around it.

[Madguy]

Bump.

[Sepherix]

Don't tend to people that cannot read stuff that is clearly written down in front of their face.
If they can't figure the obvious, just let natural selection do its job.

[Ｂｏｏｂｓ]

why don't you just merge the two elevator altogether? i think people miss the (left) elevator because there are two of them with identical sprite and the one you need to unlock is on the left side of the screen, not the normal one

[Madguy]

Like I said, the issue is NOT that people can't find the elevator in the first place, they seem to just not be able to figure out how to unlock levels. See my previous post.

@Sepherix
Enough people message me about it that I believe it could be communicated better.

[carlospaul]

Maybe it is because they don't read "Complete with non-custom characters x/5" (I put x to denote that a value goes there based on the player's situation). They may also be using mutators that buff them too much (I would like to note that turning off disasters doesn't disable unlocking the levels at the mysterious elevator)

[bambeck]

I think it actually is that they're not finding the other elevator. They know that "unlock elevator access" is a thing, because of the achievements, but they don't know what it means, because they haven't noticed the other elevator. And then they take an elevator from 4-3 to 5-1, and think that's what "unlock elevator access" means.

[Madguy]

I suppose that could be. Easiest solution I suppose would be to stick a sign over the elevator, and see if that cuts down on this sort of report from players.

[bambeck]

You could also change the achievements to say "unlock express elevator access", and then in the tips you see when loading a new level, add "the express elevator is at the left side of Home Base".

[Kyle]

I suggest just rewording it or putting the information of how to unlock in a more obvious place. Though I think there is an issue with people not finding the elevator, I saw the "unlock elevator access" messages a lot of times and tried to use it but couldn't figure out how, only to find out much later on through a forum post that this randomly placed elevator that looks like it has no importance is the solution.

[PuhiMaster]

Originally posted by bambeck:

I think it actually is that they're not finding the other elevator. They know that "unlock elevator access" is a thing, because of the achievements, but they don't know what it means, because they haven't noticed the other elevator. And then they take an elevator from 4-3 to 5-1, and think that's what "unlock elevator access" means.

This was exactly the case for me, thanks for solving that mystery.

[DylanMiner007]

Maybe you could add a message that shows every time you make elevator progress, saying "Elevator Unlock Process: _/5", and when they do unlock it, it would say, "Elevator unlocked! Check out the mysterious elevator at home base!". To make it 100% foolproof, add an arrow that appears next to their character the first time they unlock an elevator, that guides them to the mysterious elevator.