MD Tutorial Reconstruction

[BFH]

The following project will change the way we discover MagicDuel, the way new players realize what are the features they can expect from MD, and the way they learn about them. This project becomes decisive at the moment of a new player to make an important decision: Stay or Leave.

Council gives me the approval to start this and they want Chewett and Me to lead the effort and we will be doing so.

With your opinions, options, views, and solutions we will develop a Main plan that later on will be implemented as MagicDuel’s new tutorial. This effort is of all and therefore the Council, Chewett, and me would like to hear everything you would like to be changed and why.

So for example, you can post problems, possible solutions, new ideas, etc. Most important you can comment on other suggestions or even improve them


[b]I’ll start with my own suggestions:[/b][list=1]
[*]Start tutorial with a battle which should include:
[/list][list]
[*]Similar Interface explaining step by step:
[/list][list]
[*]How to set a ritual: For this we can give them a group of creatures from where to pick.
[*]We should include a new interface which allows them to give tokens to those creatures. It should explain what tokens are and how they help.
[*]Immediately when they click any token they choose, system should show them an interface explaining the relationship between token and principles and allowing them to choose a couple of principles.
[*]After principles selection and tokens selection. The battle begins. This shouldn’t be an easy battle since they have tokens and whatever. Should be a decent one.
[*]Still undecided aspect: If they lose should they repeat battle?
[*]After Battle, interface should be explained fast and they should recruit their first creatures.
[/list]
2. Interface explanation:[list]
[*]There should be a next stage after battle explaining fast how the interface works.
[*]Note I think the interface explanation can be done in front of Aramory. (Note: Check my suggestions on story mode).
[/list]
3. Creature recruitment:[list]
[*]Since they are in front of Aramory they should enter and recruit at least 3 creatures.
[*]Note: They should be forced to choose variety. (Ex: not all barrens XD)
[*]After recruitment a new battle should unlock, but this time they will choose their own creatures.
[*]Token selection should happen. System should at least give them 2-3 free tokens.
[/list]
4. After this battle a very important stage must happen: “Player vs Player” Fights.[list]
[*]For this they should be ported to Marble Dale Park
[*]System should pick a similar opponent to them and guide him/her to start a fight with that player.
[*]This should include the concept of healing their creats.
[*]I think that system should at least guide them to fight with 2-3 players.
[/list]
5. After PvP fights they are free of tutorial. They can be suggested to start an alternative story mode if they want more principles. (Story Mode can be unlocked at the PC normally, but interface explanation and creature recruitment process of story should be fixed, since they were already introduced to those concepts.

Why story should be alternative?[list=1]
[*]It is one of the causes that make us lose that many players. It takes long to complete.
[*]Story should not be totally removed since it’s important part of MD, hence the need of making it alternative.
[*]Story can take them hours to complete (if they really read) and that is NOT, EVER, NEVER good at the moment of any player to start a game.
[*]It has many traffic consequences that I won’t enter in details but are obvious. In other words: the longer they wait to experiment the real game, the more they will leave. Story is not the real game.
[/list]

Why I believe my idea can work?[list=1]
[*]It exposes the players to the real game fast.
[*]It starts out by intriguing them with a fight, which makes them eager to see what else they can expect. Right now they are introduced to a bunch of boring steps.
[*]MD needs players and I’m focusing on the aspect of keeping players.
[/list]

Other things that will have to be done included in my idea:[list=1]
[*]Story Mode flaws fix:
[/list][list]
[*]Parts of story can be skipped hence that means broken story mode.
[*]Principles selection can be skipped. That needs to be fixed.
[*]Spelling errors fix.
[/list]
2. LHO system implementation[list]
[*]Grido have a very good idea for that. I guess this can be done at the same time since LHO’s are essential at the moment of answering newbs questions. The fastest a player gets an answer the better.
[/list]
[b]So that’s my idea. Now it’s your turn to comment, post yours, etc.[/b]

[Sasha Lilias]

Just a quick point:

You don't want to create a tutorial that is too complicated or long. When explaining a new concept, you can't go through all of it in one go. You need to give the person time to process it all. So perhaps a tutorial that follows your progress in game and tells you information when needed?
Also, the longer the tutorial or introduction, the quicker the player is likely to become bored.

Those are all I'd say to look out for..

~Sasha

[BFH]

[quote name='Sasha Lilias' timestamp='1344351120' post='119563']
Just a quick point:

You don't want to create a tutorial that is too complicated or long. When explaining a new concept, you can't go through all of it in one go. You need to give the person time to process it all. So perhaps a tutorial that follows your progress in game and tells you information when needed?
Also, the longer the tutorial or introduction, the quicker the player is likely to become bored.

Those are all I'd say to look out for..

~Sasha
[/quote]

Indeed. Idea is to make a short tutorial. Without skipping concepts and introducing tokens one.

(Note tokens part is a [b]SUGGESTION[/b] from Council. They feel tokens are integral part of MD and that they should be included.)

Feel free to improve my suggestions or post yours

[b]Edit:[/b] Council says the community can choose whether they want or not tokens on tutorial. I quote "To be clear, tokens are part of Magic Duel now and the tutorial should therefore have some part in which the new player learns about them somehow." and quote again "we suggested the combat sequence should be updated with things like tokens."

Edited August 7, 2012 by BFH

[Sasha Lilias]

If tokens are to be added, then they should be introduced a little later in the game. That's why a running tutorial would be ideal.

~Sasha

[gonzalocsdf95]

very good idea to change the tutorial, I think it looked very simple and lacked information on some things, when I started, the tutorial did not help the new player, but I think too many instructions and help from the tutorial hurt a bit the relationship and the questions that are among the players.
I would also like the Castilian translation to be good

[Burns]

If you want to go for such a drastic change, it should probably be more like MP2. Lock them up in Marble Dale park as MP2 without the option to attack anybody or be attacked by anybody and set up some demo dummies, they get to see chat and get to talk to people and learn one thing about the system at a time.

First dummy, they get a predefined rit against a weak dummy, second dummy, they must create a rit from a predefined list, third dummy, they get a rit with a few tokens. It doesn't need to be a normal combat, just a set up log they need to watch. Like, this is your creature, this is his creature, this is the damage done, this is damage taken, setting up a rit works like this, oh look there, the token made it deal 150 more damage than usual.
I think the current intro pages are perfectly fine, just a little too much reading and too little doing. If we take what's written there and mash it up into a learning by doing interface, it'd work much better for most people. Like, you surely know those little puzzle flashgames they create for smartphones these days? They never make you read anything, the first level is just telling you exactly what to do: Put the bomb in the glowing ring, then push FIRE for it to go off, make sure to kill all vikings with as little bombs as possible.


Then they get to the old tutorial with a few tweaks, the welcome pages get cut a little because they already did all that, and the story gets adjusted a little:
(taken from LHO subforum, wrote it this morning in catchwords)


[b]Prologue:[/b]

'"This is as far as you should go, at least for now. Even though you saw the Map of the Realm, after moving this far into the No Man's Land, it does not do you any good.
You should return to the Paper Cabin and search for a copy of the Map of the Realm. This way, you will never get lost and you will be saved of a lot of coming and going to the Paper Cabin. "'
[b]Skip this bit, give portable map one step earlier[/b]

[b]Generally give the scroll and map from touching the big scroll and the big map, they are copied for you anyway.[/b]

'"Well, your first encounter with one of the many creatures of MagicDuel was not as pleasant as anybody would have hoped for. However, you can still surpass that ferocious obstacle, if you manage to find some help. There might be a few creatures willing to help you, in the furthest Southern end of the Realm. Consult your Map and explore that region."'
[b]Skip that, the land guardian doesn't do anything anyway.[/b]

' "Now it is time to return to the Land Guardian. However, once you have a creature bound to yourself, you begin to attract other creatures which desire only to devour your vitality."' [b]Change to paper cabin instead of land guardian[/b]

Maybe my fault, but i have to click all shades after they are dead before they vanish. not good.

Shade IV defeats you without battle, stupid. NEwbie boost destroyed their purpose already, but you should LOSE when you lose. The whole prologue works on keys anyways, give that one two keys, first fight impossible, second cheap as always. Make the popup tell that you should get a second creature or something to beat it. Shade IV should be attackable without going back to old mand road when you heal your aramor.

Maybe funny coincidence, but liquid shade (wall) used only weaken, didn't even try to beat me


If you pick waiting, bring out popup that tells the patience line from the welcome screen again
Also pointer to the top line, specially forums and free credits.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Burns

[Maebius]

That's what I was going to suggest.

While Principles can still be nice at the beginnig, liek they are now, the idea of Tokens are a bit more in-depth.
I suppose it comes down to if the focus is on combat stats (Principles for Tokens) or ..um... "Personality?" of characters (Principles as symbolic traits, that also are useful for Tokens). I'm sure both perspectives are valid, but I would save tokens for a bit later once the basics of combat are introduced.

Combat is different enough from other games, particularly with the encouragement "to lose" and keep Balance. I would imagine being a starting player, that Tokens would needlessly complicate the stats of creatures, particularly as MP3 when most crits are locked or unavailable anyway.
Tokens shoudl definitely be introduced, but only after a bit of combat experience, and only in a limited way, as a simple example.
(Claw for aramors, and/or something for the Barren Souls only, perhaps)


Overall, though, I really like your outline where story mode encourages soem quick fights right away. I very much enjoyed the Story for it's symbolism and such, but if the focus of the new player is "get wins, and losses and Heat(xp), then definitley jumping to PvP combat is much clearer than the current Tutorial which often makes folks think they need to find more NPC shades and guards after they are done.

It almost seems like a return to what I hear older folks talking of MP2 days. (which were before my time)

[Grido]

I don't think that there's any need for tokens to be mentioned in tutorial itself, maybe a separate faq/help bit on them, but not in the tutorial - I thought we were trying to reduce what they were reading? Rather than add to it?

[J-D]

[quote name='BFH' timestamp='1344350658' post='119559'][list]
[*]We should include a new interface which allows them to give tokens to those creatures. It should explain what tokens are and how they help.
[*]Immediately when they click any token they choose, system should show them an interface explaining the relationship between token and principles and allowing them to choose a couple of principles.
[/list]
[/quote]

Isn't the way that individual tokens work something that players are supposed to discover for themselves?

[BFH]

[b]Edit:[/b] Council says the community can choose whether they want or not tokens on tutorial. I quote "To be clear, tokens are part of Magic Duel now and the tutorial should therefore have some part in which the new player learns about them somehow." and quote again "we suggested the combat sequence should be updated with things like tokens."

You guys decide

[DARK DEMON]

I may not be an old player, but I have realized that the MP2 stage at the park would be the best time to introduce tokens, and not before that as to let the new player get more involved in the game first

[BFH]

[quote name='Burns' timestamp='1344352382' post='119571']
If you want to go for such a drastic change, it should probably be more like MP2. Lock them up in Marble Dale park as MP2 without the option to attack anybody or be attacked by anybody and set up some demo dummies, they get to see chat and get to talk to people and learn one thing about the system at a time.

First dummy, they get a predefined rit against a weak dummy, second dummy, they must create a rit from a predefined list, third dummy, they get a rit with a few tokens. It doesn't need to be a normal combat, just a set up log they need to watch. Like, this is your creature, this is his creature, this is the damage done, this is damage taken, setting up a rit works like this, oh look there, the token made it deal 150 more damage than usual.
I think the current intro pages are perfectly fine, just a little too much reading and too little doing. If we take what's written there and mash it up into a learning by doing interface, it'd work much better for most people. Like, you surely know those little puzzle flashgames they create for smartphones these days? They never make you read anything, the first level is just telling you exactly what to do: Put the bomb in the glowing ring, then push FIRE for it to go off, make sure to kill all vikings with as little bombs as possible.


Then they get to the old tutorial with a few tweaks, the welcome pages get cut a little because they already did all that, and the story gets adjusted a little:
(taken from LHO subforum, wrote it this morning in catchwords)


[b]Prologue:[/b]

'"This is as far as you should go, at least for now. Even though you saw the Map of the Realm, after moving this far into the No Man's Land, it does not do you any good.
You should return to the Paper Cabin and search for a copy of the Map of the Realm. This way, you will never get lost and you will be saved of a lot of coming and going to the Paper Cabin. "'
[b]Skip this bit, give portable map one step earlier[/b]

[b]Generally give the scroll and map from touching the big scroll and the big map, they are copied for you anyway.[/b]

'"Well, your first encounter with one of the many creatures of MagicDuel was not as pleasant as anybody would have hoped for. However, you can still surpass that ferocious obstacle, if you manage to find some help. There might be a few creatures willing to help you, in the furthest Southern end of the Realm. Consult your Map and explore that region."'
[b]Skip that, the land guardian doesn't do anything anyway.[/b]

' "Now it is time to return to the Land Guardian. However, once you have a creature bound to yourself, you begin to attract other creatures which desire only to devour your vitality."' [b]Change to paper cabin instead of land guardian[/b]

Maybe my fault, but i have to click all shades after they are dead before they vanish. not good.

Shade IV defeats you without battle, stupid. NEwbie boost destroyed their purpose already, but you should LOSE when you lose. The whole prologue works on keys anyways, give that one two keys, first fight impossible, second cheap as always. Make the popup tell that you should get a second creature or something to beat it. Shade IV should be attackable without going back to old mand road when you heal your aramor.

Maybe funny coincidence, but liquid shade (wall) used only weaken, didn't even try to beat me


If you pick waiting, bring out popup that tells the patience line from the welcome screen again
Also pointer to the top line, specially forums and free credits.
[/quote]

I like dummies part.

But do you think tutorial should include a forced story? That's what I think it's the major problem now.

I think we can make them something to choose principles apart of story and make story optional. That way we increase the amount of players that stay.

[Valldore Nal]

Is it possible to make 2 tutorials ?

One that will run when someone starts the game (mp3) and the second tutorial for when he/she passes to mp4 (maybe introducing tokens there? )

I agree that tokens shouldn't be the included in the first interaction experience someone has to the realm, give some time to "absorb" the first concepts.
(especially if the plan is to use a variety of creatures for the introductory combats, the new player will have quite a few things to read and learn about )

[BFH]

Ohh also the interface of clicking one arrow then get back is boring as hell that should be eliminated

[quote name='Valldore Nal' timestamp='1344353969' post='119578']
Is it possible to make 2 tutorials ?

One that will run when someone starts the game (mp3) and the second tutorial for when he/she passes to mp4 (maybe introducing tokens there? )

I agree that tokens shouldn't be the included in the first interaction experience someone has to the realm, give some time to "absorb" the first concepts.
(especially if the plan is to use a variety of creatures for the introductory combats, the new player will have quite a few things to read and learn about )
[/quote]

I guess mp4/mp5 part needs to be dealt here as well

So yes any suggestions are open.

[biermann]

I may be a bit lacking in knowledge on many subjects. But I do know what irked/confused me in the story.
The principles thoroughly puzzled me. Many choices with huge chunks of text, but I had no idea (and ok, still not have an idea) about their purpose.
Which on it's own is fine, some mystery is part of the atmosphere.

But then numbers appeared. Wait to increase my skills? ehm, that's good right (only to much later read a tip about sometimes swifter is better)?
CHoose a principle...Pick what your instinct says. Great, I can do that. But for that, I must resist the urge to pick the one with the higher number, no matter that I do not know what that number is.

And in many other games (wait, i;m not saying this should be like all the other games, just a mindset other games have bred) it is quite possible to ruin your character, before you even started. That number thing triggers that fear for me. I must choose 24 hours, otherwise I might suck. I must chose the principle with the highest number, otherwise I might suck.

And that concludes the thoughts of a true little newbie.

[DARK DEMON]

When I first joined as a new player a month or so back, the major thing I could see which would stop me and other new players to come was being repeatedly asked to view the scroll and return to the paper cabin after every few scenes. It would be better if you were directly taken to an "adventure" and you were made to fight NPC's on the way along with a tutorial, after which you would be ported to the park as mp2, and fight dummies and be introduced to tokens. This could be the second tutorial too, and within this tutorial the new player could chat with those at the park for help, questions, etc. After passing the tutorial, the player would advance to mp3.

That's my personal suggestion to what I would see fit to make new players stay.

[Sunfire]

nevermind, too slow typing

Edited August 7, 2012 by Sunfire

[(Zl-eye-f)-nea]

The clicking the scroll thing annoyed me too when I was new, at the very least it could autoload when you are supposed to look at it and maybe have the direction arrow you have to click next flash or something.

The LHOs having to run about writing loads of instructions in chat I also think is bad, the tutorial should be good enough that they dont have to do that.

I like the shade walk though.

Z

[DarkRaptor]

Some of my considerations:

1. Hardly a newcomer WILL understand a MD Fight Log.. Hardly he will be tempted to read it! A newcomer just want to see : [b]YOU WIN![/b]
[indent=1]
possible solutions:
a) Redesign the battle dialog to display in graphics (instead of text) the token aplication (maybe one by one with some delay) before the before the battle rounds start
[i]( please make it just for the tutorial!! )[/i][/indent]

2. Tokens in the tutorial would require that the new player have some relevant stats, otherwise most of them will have little or no visible effect.
[indent=1]
possible solutions:
a) give temporary (?) stats to the player
b) use some kind of mirror stats (although this May add some confusion to a newcomer )[/indent]


There is also a issue of "[b]Equity[/b]" IF the tokens are to be added in the tutorial.
Up to now All players, like ME, did NOT have the advantage of knowing the effects of the principles BEFORE choose them, a newcomer will have that chance.

darkraptor

[J-D]

Perhaps another solution to that would be to explain in the tutorial that the battle log is very helpful to read and encourage new players to read through their battle logs in order to see what each of the creatures does.

[Burns]

I've just done the story this morning, and i pride myself with a little knowledge about the keys used in there, if you cut out two or three bits from the scroll it doesn't hurt, but skips a whole lot of going back and forth. If you get the portable map immediately, and cut the land guardian, you'd get rid of all the back and forth. Currently, you need to go to road of battles, the go back to view the map, then to howling gates, then back to grab the portable map, then to path of loneliness and back to howling gates again because the bull sits on the way. If you move grabbing the map forward to before you leave the cabin, you can just move through to the aramory without further ado, no going back and forth and no reading the scroll every two steps.

I don't think the shade walk should just vanish, they are really important for the story. If you don't use that any more, the whole story needs a redsign, and i still like it a lot.

And the MP2 thing would need to happen before the story, for obvious reasons. They don't need to be anatomically correct, if you know what i mean, it just needs to read and write in chat and get you through some dummy fights. If they actually have any principles or not doesn't matter at all, it just needs to look like a fight, just that it stops every now and then and points at something, like a golden blinky around creatures, attacks, damages etc.

[MRAlyon]

hey:-) if it's possible I would see an automatic thing that explain step by step the interface (of a new player)... like Grido have done on forum for let new player understand it...

[url="http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/12273-a-breakdown-of-the-interface/"]http://magicduel.inv...-the-interface/[/url]

Edited August 7, 2012 by MRAlyon

[Phantom Orchid]

One suggestion: the text of intro/story-mode/etc. (i.e., *points at title of thread* - It's [i]restructuring[/i]!) should be edited for typos and grammatical errors. I have offered to help with this - I used to tutor English and writing - but was told that it would be a spoiler (even though I've already spoiled myself rotten and gone through each leg of story mode). The offer still stands.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Phantom Orchid

[Chewett]

talk to grido about english language spelling issues.

[Maebius]

One thought that still keeps bugging me slightly, is the Token concept.
I hate to focus on it, when the original topic is broad enough for many suggestinos, but Tokens are still the only part of the game that "requires" credits, if included in the tutorial.
Yes, there's free voting, and I can see the benefit of pointing it out to new folks and improving our realm's e-reputation.

But it still makes me worry that, unless explained as optional, the very idea of tokens "[i]feels[/i]" like a vague method of 'monetizing' the game. It's not really, but there's that sense behind the idea which I cant' rationalize away in my own mind. I don't have too many tokens myself either, but do vote every day for the credits. It's just not "necessary" to use them, is it?
Granted, human nature being what it is, pointing them out will be a nice boost to the votes over time, I'm sure.

(then again, bringing up the idea of "make every ritual has it's counter" again is a totally different topic )