Xenonauts 2 Tutorial

[Kamehamehayes]

I've recently been watching a lot of Game Maker's toolkit these days and I saw a lot of videos talking about the effectiveness of game tutorials (specifically for more complex games). After pondering this subject for a little while, I wanted to create a topic to discuss ideas for an effective tutorial for Xen 2.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GV814cWiAw

Xen 1 and the more recent steam demo for Xen 2 in February have been criticized for a lack of a tutorial, and for good reason. Many strategy and tactical games are complex enough for players to easily get confused with the ui and mechanics of the game. This has been shown in the February demo when I saw a lot of topics about people not being able to figure out how to spend more time units for more accuracy or couldn't figure out how to shoot aliens at higher elevations. And with the addition of the geoscape and air combat as well, it is easy to imagine a new player getting turned off because they don't understand how to play the game. 

So my question is, what is the best way to convey all of this information to the player in a game like Xenonauts or its sequel? I have sat through many tutorials for several strategy and tactical games that just tell you to click this and click that and they don't actually tell me how to play the game that well and they bore me with all of the massive text boxes and arbitrary clicking. The firaxis Xcoms also turned me off a little bit when they did these same tactics and it felt really tedious to have that much handholding and that much reading and clicking. The difference of enjoyment when you choose to turn off the tutorial in those games are staggering. 

I heard that you guys over at Goldhawk plan to make a tutorial that plans to introduce the player to various mechanics of tactical combat and introduce them to the main threat of the Cleaners at the start of the game. I would like to know how you would go about making that tutorial instructive at teaching new and veteran players about the mechanics of the game and the threat the that cleaners pose to the survival of humanity while still keeping the battle engaging and fun for new and veteran players alike. Another important thing that the tutorial absolutely needs is to convey the design philosophy of Xenonauts as a whole. Xenonauts is a true simulation that allows the player to play however they like without any sort of handholding or being shown what to do by the game. The tutorial needs to show that sort of philosophy as well to introduce new players to the design and feel of the game while still conveying all of the important information needed to fully experience the game. 

Then there is the issue with the geoscape where the player would go from one tutorial to another in quick succession, which can easily become really jarring. The geoscape has an arguably more complicated ui than the tactical battles do, so I'm also wondering how you guys can convey this information in an engaging way while easing the player into another tutorial (or tutorials depending on how you structure it). Air combat a little afterwards might also be another hassle for you guys to overcome as well. 

Yeah, this is a pretty huge task for this kind of game. And with the high expectation of this game due to the success of Xen 1, this is easily something that can make or break this game. So, I'm really interested in seeing your ideas for this tutorial. 

[Dagar]

Watched the video. From that, I think exposing new players to the different parts of the game in a staggered fashion could work well, possibly alongside some short challenges for ground and air combat that can teach you that through trial and error. For the former you could have the Geoscape and air games be run by the game itself (or "advisors") at the start, and you take over these tasks, like producing new equipment, choosing the loadout for your troops, hiring new staff, playing the air game and planning and building new bases over time. For seasoned players, that should be a choice, of course.

In the concrete case of Xenonauts 2, I feel it is also important to look at the target audience and at the resources Goldhawk have available. I feel that with what the game looks like right now it targets Xenonauts 1 players (duh!), old X-COM fans and possibly FiraXCOM players looking for something new. With that in mind, I don't think the game has to be too hand-holdy for new players. Also, e.g. the challenges mentioned above have a high chance of being out of scope for Goldhawk as a developer due to time, staff and budget restrictions.

[Kamehamehayes]

10 hours ago, Dagar said:

Watched the video. From that, I think exposing new players to the different parts of the game in a staggered fashion could work well, possibly alongside some short challenges for ground and air combat that can teach you that through trial and error. For the former you could have the Geoscape and air games be run by the game itself (or "advisors") at the start, and you take over these tasks, like producing new equipment, choosing the loadout for your troops, hiring new staff, playing the air game and planning and building new bases over time. For seasoned players, that should be a choice, of course.

 In the concrete case of Xenonauts 2, I feel it is also important to look at the target audience and at the resources Goldhawk have available. I feel that with what the game looks like right now it targets Xenonauts 1 players (duh!), old X-COM fans and possibly FiraXCOM players looking for something new. With that in mind, I don't think the game has to be too hand-holdy for new players. Also, e.g. the challenges mentioned above have a high chance of being out of scope for Goldhawk as a developer due to time, staff and budget restrictions.

Yeah, Goldhawk's budget is a big part of how the tutorial should be structured. I'm not sure if they have the budget to implement advisors to help carry out the geoscape for players during the first couple of months. I agree that the tutorial should not be too hand holdy because the target audience likely has experience with these kinds of games, but I've seen a lot of people on the steam forums that haven't really played this kind of game before and got confused with the ui and the controls. 

It would also be nice if Goldhawk could separate the tutorial between those who have experienced xcom-type games before and returning players who want to get strait to the newer stuff. Perhaps newer players can have access to advisors that help to manage the geoscape in the early months while returning players can get into the action of the geoscape immediately. 

I understand that the restrictions on Goldhawk would not allow them to implement things that I just described, though it would still be important to have a good tutorial. 

I'm struggling to see how a good tutorial would be structured in this predicament. Pop ups with a lot of words and clicking tutorials don't function all that well imo, so I'm wondering if the tutorial can teach the player how to play with hands-on experience like some of the examples in the video does. Perhaps a tutorial that tells the player the bare-bones basics of how to play the game would be effective as the player would have to get some hands-on experience with their various weapons and tactics. This would prob be an effective way to ease in veterans into Xen 2, but I'm not sure how it would effect newer players. 

I'll prob have to look for a tutorial for a tactical game that achieves this to see whether this kind of tutorial is effective for newcomers. 

[Chris]

Yeah, a lot of people bounced off Xenonauts 1 due to lack of tutorial. I somehow don't think Xenonauts 2 is going to be a world leader in tutorialisation but I do want it to be better.

The first way to do this has already been implemented - it's the nested tooltips. Having all the required information on game mechanics in the game means that people can learn how to play the game if they're willing to spend the time reading the tooltips, and this is helpful even to semi-experienced players too.

However, you still need a way to teach people the real basics, particularly in the ground combat. How do you move soldiers? How do you shoot with a weapon? How do you end the turn? The idea we have is to put that in an on-rails tutorial tactical mission in the same way that XCOM 2 and many other games do it (and it'll explain some of the basic game lore too). And then maybe we can have a few text pop ups on the strategy layer saying "you've got to build some planes and use them to shoot down UFOs" and "now lets send some troops to the crash site to capture some technology".

I figure the player can figure out the rest on their own, particularly with the new tooltips.

[Steelpoint]

Maybe one esoteric solution is to have a separate 'tutorial campaign introduction'. Your designated as the 'second' in command of the Xenonauts and you go through each major aspect of the game one at a time until such point where you take over the organization after your superior dies. 

So you start off and are told to select where your HQ is going to be, you then get a run through of each major aspect of the Geoscape command, which caps off with you having to take commander of some local national guard air units to try to intercept some UFO/rogue cleaner aircraft, which then introduces you to air combat. 

Your first Cleaner mission is then announced, at a UN summit/ambushed convoy/etc, you go there and discover the Cleaners have assassinated the Xenonauts commander, you play through a semi-structured ground battle after which you are given full command and the game continues. 

[EurekaSeven]

I'll guess it will be difficult to complete a "tutorial campaign" by the devs with fewer resource and time. Such mode need to at least include a way to "insert" dialogs, fixed scripts, a number of markers.etc to a ground combat mission (and maybe air combat), if the devs have such resource to do so they will reveal it right away as such ability can also be used to create more dynamic "main story" missions and especially the final one to make it more immersive lore wise, and also demonstrate deeper aspects of those NPC characters by utilizing dialogs (like XCOM2 and Chimera Squad that have dialogs popped out occationally).

But it would an interesting idea to make such tutorial missions, maybe setting as the prologue of the main event, or even something related to the Iceland Incident.