Not a fan of the new start

[Kauldric]

The new start is a lot less clear to brand new players, who can very easily get lost and die over and over. Mina’s playing with my kids and that’s how it went, and it’s not like they haven’t played survival games before.

The old tutorial was much more clear.

The amount of new stuff in the game at the beginning is quite overwhelming, and now new players start quite far away from safe areas and it’s not that obvious that one should follow a specific path.

[Smightor]

I came here to complain about the same thing. I have 1000s of combined hours in survival games. 6 hours in and I am done with this one. Seeing the community attacks criticism makes me glad i was not the one to make the post.

[Triggerd_Noob]

I have to admit I do like the challenge of this new start and the survival that comes into play not knowing exactly where to go. I think the only thing I would change is having the wounded guy actually mention to travel the road and meet up with whatever the dudes name is. If he said something like this then I must have missed it.

I did see the owl statues and gathered I was on the right track but did wondered a few times if I had missed something.

[Damian Ramirez]

Originally posted by Zedd:

Personal attacks can only go so far before a report, Damian.
Whereas your suggestion would be to not read the messages? I'd call that poor design for a tutorial buddy.
You didn't answer- did you think that was good design then? You're still failing to contribute to this issue, aside from questioning my skill, so I think you and I are done.

its IS a good design compared to the old one. I've seen like 10 gameplay of the tutorials and on every single one ,everybody didn't knew where they needed to go after it. The old tutorial didnt even tell you about Top of the trees bases and how you can tranfer it between servers.

PD: saying that it's your fault commiting the same mistake 4 times its not a personal attack its a fact-

[Damian Ramirez]

Originally posted by Drogean:

agree 100%
new player here, veteran gamer

no way anyone other than hardcore gamers are going to make it to the "starting town" alive without being pretty frurstrated.

if there was an obvious road to town that would make sense but here i am going off road jumping over logs on the river and dodging giant bugs for 30 minutes just running for my life to get to the damn tutorial area by following the compass and map

this is going to turn off a LOT of new players

im looking for starting guides on youtube but none of the videos are even relevent anymore

the ''veteran gamer'' title seems so banal nowadays

[Triggerd_Noob]

Originally posted by Damian Ramirez:

Originally posted by Zedd:

Personal attacks can only go so far before a report, Damian.
Whereas your suggestion would be to not read the messages? I'd call that poor design for a tutorial buddy.
You didn't answer- did you think that was good design then? You're still failing to contribute to this issue, aside from questioning my skill, so I think you and I are done.

its IS a good design compared to the old one. I've seen like 10 gameplay of the tutorials and on every single one ,everybody didn't knew where they needed to go after it. The old tutorial didnt even tell you about Top of the trees bases and how you can tranfer it between servers.

PD: saying that it's your fault commiting the same mistake 4 times its not a personal attack its a fact-

I agree I like this start much better than the previous one. I may have missed a message about travelling the road hence my previous post. This is much better overall but I can see how newer players would be left wondering as they may have missed a message like myself, and the quest marker (pic of the guy to go to the on compass) wasn't consistently showing up for me. So maybe that is a bug that's also causing confusion.

[Damian Ramirez]

Originally posted by Triggerd_Noob:

Originally posted by Damian Ramirez:

its IS a good design compared to the old one. I've seen like 10 gameplay of the tutorials and on every single one ,everybody didn't knew where they needed to go after it. The old tutorial didnt even tell you about Top of the trees bases and how you can tranfer it between servers.

PD: saying that it's your fault commiting the same mistake 4 times its not a personal attack its a fact-

I agree I like this start much better than the previous one. I may have missed a message about travelling the road hence my previous post. This is much better overall but I can see how newer players would be left wondering as they may have missed a message like myself, and the quest marker (pic of the guy to go to the on compass) wasn't consistently showing up for me. So maybe that is a bug that's also causing confusion.

i know the new tutorial its not perfect. some things like the owl effigy on the left of where you spawn telling you that ''water kills you and you cant swim'' its really hidden behind a lot of grass and a lot of people will miss it.
But the rest of the effigies doesnt tell you anything important or new on this survival genre.
Some people here are calling themselves ''VETERANS'' of survivals games , but they cannot deduce the basic mechanics of a survival video game.
Hell, even if you've already played Valheim you already know 99% of Smalland's mechanics.

[Zuvan]

Just from reading these few replies after my post really just shows how not well thought out the new tutorial is, yes it is easy to know what to do without instructions for "veteran players" (after playing games like Grounded, Vallheim, Palworld, Sons of the Forest, Enshrouded, Subnautica, etc.) like picking up basic "wood", "stone" materials and craft away your basic tools and weapons, however the function of the new tutorial is to ease in new players into the story objectives and mechanics specific to this game.

Having missed an owl statue right after the spawn or a message being skipped on accident, not having the compass show the next objective, the map not showing the NPC related to the tutorial, missing the several owl statues on the road, etc. are bad design choices because they lead to confusion and frustration right from the beginning of the game.

[Drudackus]

I've played Smalland since shortly after release. My experience in the survival genre would best be described as marginal, but increasing. In any case, I tried the a new character in a new world and arrived at the opinion that the original start, with its very clear and linear progression is definitely more helpful for new players, both to this game in particular, and to the genre more generally.

To say it is simply a matter of 'following the path', in the new start assumes the path is even apparent to the player, which to me it was not. Refuting and belittling another player for describing their difficulties with the experience seems little more than swinging around a blunt instrument that should remain behind the zipper in this forum. Its infinitely more useful to explore ways in which to assist.

For example, Captain Herne can be seen on the map (M by default), and a left click on his icon will cause him to appear in the compass at the top of the screen as you move through the world.
Collecting the mushrooms you see along the way and cooking them in a fireplace will give a much higher nutritional yield per mushroom than eating them raw. The same is true for the ant heads dropped by the carpenter ants that enjoy attacking when reading signs, as I personally experienced in spite of the hundreds of hours I have played in this game, aand the bees were almost as inconsiderate.

For those new to the game, I highly recommend you raise your questions in the forum, but just ignore the salt. Someone sometime will provide a helpful response.

[Kauldric]

Originally posted by Triggerd_Noob:

I have to admit I do like the challenge of this new start and the survival that comes into play not knowing exactly where to go. I think the only thing I would change is having the wounded guy actually mention to travel the road and meet up with whatever the dudes name is. If he said something like this then I must have missed it.

I did see the owl statues and gathered I was on the right track but did wondered a few times if I had missed something.

Yeah, this would be fine. "Stay on the road or you will die, hurry". And make it more obvious where the road is.

Just saying, the current version is obviously not ready for a release.

[Damian Ramirez]

Originally posted by Drudackus:

I've played Smalland since shortly after release. My experience in the survival genre would best be described as marginal, but increasing. In any case, I tried the a new character in a new world and arrived at the opinion that the original start, with its very clear and linear progression is definitely more helpful for new players, both to this game in particular, and to the genre more generally.

To say it is simply a matter of 'following the path', in the new start assumes the path is even apparent to the player, which to me it was not. Refuting and belittling another player for describing their difficulties with the experience seems little more than swinging around a blunt instrument that should remain behind the zipper in this forum. Its infinitely more useful to explore ways in which to assist.

For example, Captain Herne can be seen on the map (M by default), and a left click on his icon will cause him to appear in the compass at the top of the screen as you move through the world.
Collecting the mushrooms you see along the way and cooking them in a fireplace will give a much higher nutritional yield per mushroom than eating them raw. The same is true for the ant heads dropped by the carpenter ants that enjoy attacking when reading signs, as I personally experienced in spite of the hundreds of hours I have played in this game, aand the bees were almost as inconsiderate.

For those new to the game, I highly recommend you raise your questions in the forum, but just ignore the salt. Someone sometime will provide a helpful response.

It is not belittling others. If you call yourself a veteran of the genre and can't complete a simple tutorial in which you have to go forward, read a couple of green-lit statues, and kill 2 damn ants, then don't call yourself a veteran to begin with. .



The path is clear as day, you start east of the beach, you have dense grass on both sides where you can't see absolutely anything, is the path going to be through all that grass? obviously not.
You walk a little further, you see a toad on the right and a sea on the left and a path that goes up in the center, where are you going to go? obviously to the center.
You continue running until you find a path on a destroyed bridge, you can know that it is the correct path by the effigies and the torches, not much later you reach the NPC.

Is that really that complicated? I could understand it for a small child but for people who call themselves ''veterans'' mmm I don't know.


The old tutorial was quite disastrous and confusing, I understand why the developers changed it.
You started in the burrow without any game context. You came to talk to Hernes, he told you to talk to the old man.
The old man tells you that the key to the chest was stolen.
There the tutorial ends, the confusion is total and you have no idea what to do after that.
If you go deeper into the forest you find yourself ambushed not by 2 ants but by 5 or 6 and perhaps there you will have your first death, because you have not had a tutorial about it before.
And forget about the bases on top of the trees, in the old version they never tell you how this mechanic works, I'm sure that 99% of the players set up a base anywhere else on the map before knowing what could be done such thing.

[Lady Wolfbane]

Bickering like children doesn't answer a simple thought or question. Regardless of the title of veteran or just someone who likes gaming. First IT'S just a game! Second if someone asks a simple Question why berate them for a simple quote they made and make it that big of a deal. It doesn't mean people don't like change. Sorry you need so much attention!!!.

I have same thoughts to Why change the beginning of a game where if you have at least some understanding where and how you begin your new adventure. There are a lot of Folks who have never played this game or even similar types of genre either that just want to try it out. At least it gives helpful understanding to your objective.

Besides every survival game including but not limited to just one, all have some kinda of help not everyone will even see the owls right away. Not everyone will know they exists to help and no having them so spread out and no the path is not that noticeable either. I also have play this game since the beginning and seeing this significant change in the beginning is wow what happened to understand the game and hearing the actual story. Instead of man on the ground and maybe a couple of owls plus instant attacks. At the least to no end I am not going to recommend this game to anyone including someone who has not played a survival game, especially!

I love watching games grow from there starts of course early access is always going to have ups and downs, For me it's just watching them grow or create their own downfall. Either try to include the community for these types extreme changed to get more thoughts. I saw now public test come out or warnings Major change coming. I don't hardly ever watch you tube, just love gaming.

Point being grow up! It's just a game!!

[Zedd]

Originally posted by Damian Ramirez:

It is not belittling others. If you call yourself a veteran of the genre and can't complete a simple tutorial in which you have to go forward, read a couple of green-lit statues, and kill 2 damn ants, then don't call yourself a veteran to begin with. .

You seem to be really stuck on my initial background statement.
I did not have problems reading the statues or completing the tutorial- I thoroughly dispatched all attackers and ate their still-beating hearts to quench my rage. I also did not need to read the statues to know what I'm doing- I was hoping to skip all of those assumptions by saying I kinda know what I'm doing. (though it was nice to read that you can't swim and you get all resources back when disassembling stuff)

I was pointing out I got attacked by things while reading the initial tutorial messages, which I find frustrating and not fun, and unbefitting a tutorial that's supposed to tell 12-year olds what to do. You know, constructive criticism with the aim of improving a game I quite like. Do I need it? No. Would others benefit? Probably!

I also revisited the area to look for improvements, and I did miss one or two statues the first time around. And again I'll spell it out for you- I did not NEED to read them, but again, for a tutorial, thats unbefitting and could be improved upon.

I don't know if it's better than the old one as I've never played before full release, which I also mentioned before. I can only comment on what I see, and saw room for improvement.


So. Improvement room. Looking for the statues, I actually kind of liked. Being able to miss a few- well, you can come back for them anyway, no issues there for me.
The path, as other commenters have shown, is definitely not fully clear, and some say they've pretty much missed it completely and ended up running through the brush full-speed while being chased by an angry pack of beasties. Part of survival fun I'd say, but again, not in the tutorial.

So:

-Remove all nasties from the first few owl statues- up until the death warning.
-Grant full invisibility to player during the reading of a statue. You can spend all the time you like reading the note in peace.
-I'd suggest occasional white stones as waymarkers to (slightly) improve visibility of the "path"

OR

-Get rid of all the statues (so you don't have to worry about missing any important tutorial messages) and leave the path as unclear and dangerous as it is (I kinda like that idea) but find some other way to do a tutorial. Perhaps just a small training session before the little person leaves the underground, in a fake outdoors setting in the caves, to prepare them? Would require considerably more programmer time and effort though, not sure this team can spare that for a simple tutorial.

Thoughts?

[☠ OnlyChud ☠ TTV/KTV]

these dudes know nothing about gaming that made this
I been gaming for 40+ years this shows their lack of skills - bUt i like the game its just mediocre (played 200+hrs so far,Am lvl 100)
I only paid $8 for this game anyways.....

[Drudackus]

In my opinion, the new start surpasses the original for its relatively dramatic intro to the setting. From that perspective, its good for experienced players, but it falls short in effectively delivering basic information to new players. How much are you going to take in if you're too busy looking for threats and fighting for your life?
For example, the first time I was attacked was while reading a statue and I have no clue what the statue text was about.

The placement of the statues could use some refinement as well. For example, when I tried the new start I didn't reach the statue about flying creatures until after the bees had attacked me. Previous experience got me through that encounter, but as a new player I'm pretty sure I would not have survived it.

I like the suggestion of the waymarking stones to indicate the recommended path. Necessary? No, Useful? Yes.

[Zedd]

Perhaps putting all the more important statues (heck, or even all of them) much closer together near the start? Like, all of them before you get to the planks. They can be spread out over those three paths with the pond so you have to look for them a bit, but without the bugs. (possible explanation- the battle with the wasps scared them away)