Mink Gex
Zumari Force Projection
Caldari State
3
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Posted - 2012.08.04 02:26:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hi all,
The UX designer in me (yes that is my profession) is concerned that Dust might go the way of EVE (at least the way EVE started) by having a _very_ steep initial learning curve and correspondingly high frustration index. My EVE experience helps a great deal in navigating this game, but without it, I would likely be lost despite the extensive help. I'd like to encourage the developers to include a few things that are not currently in the beta:
1) A quick, easy game with default gear that gets people into Dust without too much reading: Allow people to drop down and have some success, perhaps against other players with recruit gear. Do this very early, even immediately after making a character. Ensure that the experience is positive -- players should be able to survive with that gear for more than 20 seconds (my record over my first session). This experience has to hook people who are even in it just as a demo.
2) A clear guided path through the initial purchasing and fitting of gear that makes it seem easy. Some major barriers exist here at the moment. In particular, it's hard to identify what is missing from a fitting when making it (if you haven't memorized the introductory help message). It's also hard to determine what skills are necessary for vehicles (and how to deploy them once you have them), what is a reasonable, initial replacement path for weapons, etc. I'm not suggesting that the user's hand should be held all the way through this, just that there should be some initial, obvious paths to allow people to get hooked. After that, people will invest the time to learn the rest.
3) Improved initial survivability, goals, etc. At the moment, surviving those first few drops for longer than a few seconds, let alone getting a kill, is neigh impossible. This will turn people off the game and has to be improved. Once on the ground, goals are not clearly understandable (what targets do I need to hit, how do I do that, where do people spawn, etc.). The overview map between spawns is cool, but unusable in the sense that options seem to appear and disappear without explanation. Why can I sometimes spawn in a vehicle and not other times? Why sometimes are there no other options for selecting a spawn point? What is the difference between selecting a spawn point and using the default (especially when there are no other options available)? I'm not saying these are not discoverable, it's just that they're not easily understood initially -- especially for players experiencing the sound and graphical impact of the first few drops where it's hard to identify important information. On the overview screen, we're also missing status information that would be quite useful: what colour are you shooting at? who is winning? what are the general characteristics of those who have dropped already? etc.
I really like many of the ideas behind DUST and I believe, unquestionably, that this takes the FPS genre in a new and interesting direction. These comments are intended only to help make it easier for people to access. After all, it will be more fun for everyone if there's a nice user base of players...
Cheers,
./Aaron |