[Historical] Wesnoth Tutorial

Feedback for the game tutorial.

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rusty
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[Historical] Wesnoth Tutorial

Post by rusty »

I'd love feedback on the tutorial, especially from new players!

Thanks,
Rusty.
Ethan
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Post by Ethan »

The new one (from the dev version) seems to me to be very better i.e. you learn faster strategical points than before.
But I found a glitch, when attaquing the first doll, once my two units (soldier) have attacked it, a dialog was prompted to explain I would need to "end turn", however I could still attack with my leader (and that is what I did, and I kill the doll).
If you don't understand what I want to say, it may be quite normal, just ask me to reformulate. :p And your are welcome to correct my errors. :p
HaJo
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Post by HaJo »

Playing with 1.3svn, I noticed that Konrad did not level up when he got to 28/28 EP.

Also, with some luck he can finish the first doll all by himself,
and the story does not notice.
OTOH, if he dies in such a reckless attack, it would be nice
to have another comment from Delfador...
-HaJo
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WWWWolf
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Post by WWWWolf »

Sorry, but sometimes we need a little bit of a negative feedback. I'm not a big fan of the 1.1+ tutorial; I just played through it for the first time a few days ago out of curiosity and found it much harder and more frustrating than the 1.0 tutorial. Two issues that I have to bring up:

1) The second mission is as complex as any ordinary mission, with just a few more appropriate hints. Call me old-fashioned, but tutorials should always be so dead simple that absolute utter beginner can beat them with hands tied behind their backs... :)

2) I'm not a big fan of the dialogue in these missions - but I suppose it's tolerable. If you break the fourth wall, it has to be hilarious, not just moderately humorous. :)

3) It would be very nice if the second mission would have some dialogue to wrap things up... perhaps even some nice end pictures as a reward for completing the tutorial?

I believe this could be improved without compromising the big idea and keeping the tutorial as short as it is now. For example, in the second mission, the orc chief could be muttering something about not being able to find the recruit button, or sit around in a highly disadvantageous position, choose completely wrong attacks, or do some other highly newbieish mistakes - not sure if they can all be even scripted, but it'd be funny if at least the highly educational responses from the trainer could be: "All right, this is what could happen to you too if you don't know about the terrain effect..."
Dwachs
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Re: Tutorial (1.1.2 and above)

Post by Dwachs »

I played it some days ago on 1.2.8.

I must say it was very short (only two scenarios). I expected more. However, I dont know, which important aspects are not covered.

Only one thing, which I discovered after playing 'tale of two brothers': The number 5-4 means: attack strength, number of attaks and not attack strength-defense strength :lol: (like in Civilisation and others)
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Viliam
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Re: Tutorial (1.1.2 and above)

Post by Viliam »

Dwachs wrote:However, I dont know, which important aspects are not covered.
Shroud and fog, I guess.

And at the end it should tell player: "after you finish this tutorial, play Two Brothers". Because that is the easiest and shortest campaign, and it contains shroud and fog.
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Viliam
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Post by Viliam »

I looked at the 1.3 tutorial yesterday, and it recommends for beginners playing "South Guard". In my opinion, "Two Brothers" is better as a first post-tutorial campaign. It is shorter, it explains fog + shroud, and also seems easier (the final levels in South Guard are pretty difficult). So the tutorial should recommend this campaign.
Jozrael
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Post by Jozrael »

So I've been introducing a large number of people to Wesnoth recently. I am pretty surprised at how clueless nongamers are <_<. I introduced it to my gf, a gamer, and she did well on the tutorial (but failed in AToTB). My grandfather and cousin, both nongamers, failed the second mission of the tutorial because I didn't mentor them. <_<. I think there needs to be more undo support or wrong action support. For example, my grandfather consistently recalled/recruited in the wrong castle tile, and that ended up in the unit being lost permanently. Sorta unfair :p.

I dunno. I never had a prob learning the game, but I'm familiar with the genre. I wish there was a way to just imbue people with basic gaming aptitude. :p
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Post by thespaceinvader »

Two brothers or An Orcish Incursion would be the two best tutorial campaigns from Dev.
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Post by Jozrael »

AOI is love.
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Anym
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Re: Tutorial (1.1.2 and above)

Post by Anym »

Uh, what's the relation of this thread to the two tutorial scenario review threads? I'm not quite sure which feedback is supposed to go where and in fact, didn't see this thread at first. It should probably be linked to from the sticky Tutorial - Index thread if you want feedback here in addition to the others or be locked if you don't.

So, just in case, here are my thoughts, as a new player, on 1.4's tutorial as a whole, repeating some of the points from my posts in the two scenario review threads. Sorry if that was superfluous.

I think the first scenario does a good job a teaching the basics of movement, attacking, healing and recruiting and is fine as it is. However, in its latter, optional turns, it contains some valuable bits of information, which the second tutorial scenario seems to take for granted, but which I assume a good deal of new players will skip. This isn't a problem in itself, but it becomes one when the second part of the tutorial starts to expect that information.

The second scenario does a good job at teaching the basics of traits, recalling, zone of control and alignment IMHO, but it doesn't do as good a job at teaching the basics of upkeep, terrain and experience, which seem to be much more important to know. In part, because it expects the player to have already heard about them in the first scenario, as stated above. I don't suggest forcing the player to sit through that information in the first scenario, but rather making sure he gets all the necessary information in the second one, even if this means repetition. In the tutorial, I'd say repetition is much less harmful than omission. Other than that, the only important stuff that I felt were missing from the tutorial was information on attack types and resistance.

A big problem I noticed is that the second tutorial scenario doesn't work as intended as the very first instruction in this scenario, "Right click on the tile south of you and recall...", fails because that tile is a road and not a castle tile! The castle tile that is labeled with "RECALL..." is actually to the north-east of you. The second instruction has the same problem. It tells you to "click on the tile south-east of you", which is a forest, when the tile that is labeled for recalling is actually straight to the east. This will cause further problems later on when you're supposed to "Tell a Fighter to move to the far east village" because starting further to the east than originally intended the fighters can actually move further to the east on one turn than the scenario seems to expect them to and thus will fail to trigger the next event. Needless to say that something like that in the tutorial will needlessly confuse, annoy and maybe even alienate new players.

After having finished the tutorial, I proceeded with playing the campaigns it recommended, namely A Tale of Two Brothers and The South Guard (in that order) and after having done that, I'm afraid I have to say that I think A Tale of Two Brothers shouldn't be recommended to anybody. I found it to be just a badly written collection on only marginally connected scenarios with wobbly levels of difficulty. It didn't seem to contain any hints for new players, background on the world of Wesnoth or any other redeeming features and seems better suited to scare new players away than to get them hooked on Wesnoth. The South Guard seemed much better by comparison in just about every aspect (writing, storyline, difficulty curve, hints, relevance) and I think of the two only it (and probably also Heir to the Throne, for the characters, and maybe, maybe also An Orcish Incursion, which I haven't played yet) should be recommended at the end of the tutorial in future versions. Unfortunately, in the current version, I can't even whole-heartedly recommend The South Guard, because it contains a downright impossible scenario (The Long March) at present, which is of course very bad for any mainline campaign, but even more so for any that's recommended to new players.
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