More Immersive Handbook

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Think older than that.

Colossal Caves Adventure

Oh, so more like an old choose-your-own-adventure book! 'Twas a bit before my time here.

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

I tried playing Riven (Myst II) once a while back, and I would absolutely not have been able to complete that game without a detailed guide. 
"Turn around to face where you came from, and click this hidden button the size of a single pixel on your monitor".

I've not played any of the Myst games, but from what I've heard of the series they're basically "try everything and keep guessing until you figure out the pattern". Kinda reminds me of trying to 100% the original Crash Bandicoot 2 game. There were secret levels that you could only get to via doing some fairly random stuff in other levels, and a couple of the colored gems you had to get by completing a certain objective in certain levels. Sheep Raider(Sheep, Dog 'N Wolf for the Europeans out there) also had a couple of secret levels to find and play, although the game gave you a way to unlock the secret of how to find them, instead of making you find it yourself.

Back to the general discussion topic though--I think that if too many new players are still having issues figuring out the earliest tech tiers of the game, the tutorial should probably be expanded a little more. In that case, I think it would perhaps warrant a special "scenario world", where the player is given a little more obvious direction on what to be doing and what to be looking for. It could be a full world that allows the player to keep playing even after completing the tutorial segments, or it could be a small scenario world that only teaches the basic concepts while leaving the actual practice of them to the actual game worlds. In any case, making it a separate thing from the standard game modes would give brand new players a more detailed walkthrough of the core systems, if they so wished, while allowing more veteran players to easily ignore it.

[EzioCoda]

On 7/11/2024 at 7:06 PM, Thorfinn said:

What an odd thing to say. What makes you think that's even remotely true?

Re: all the hidden stuff, with all your implementation ideas, write a mod. The API is documented here.

Seems my point didn't come across as well as I'd hoped. My mistake, so please allow me to correct things:

My post was meant primarily as a criticism of people who judge general/vague ideas for a game based purely on specific, pre-existing implementations of that idea in other games.

The point I was attempting to make is that even a "simple" idea for a game can consist of a dozen variables that lead to a hundred different implementations, which can affect a game in a thousand different ways, so judging an idea only because the currently existing implementations are flawed isn't very fair.

Outside of the "locking stuff behind npcs" and "changes to the handbook" sections (I used Spoilers to separate my post into sections because it's easier to read) I actively tried to avoid giving specific implementation ideas, the first two sections are supposed to be examples of how implementing a single idea consists of several smaller decisions that can lead to several, completely different results depending on how you go about things.

I sincerely hope my point has come across better with this post.

[Thorfinn]

40 minutes ago, EzioCoda said:

My post was meant primarily as a criticism of people who judge general/vague ideas for a game based purely on specific, pre-existing implementations of that idea in other games.

Did anyone do that?

After rereading the thread, as near as I can tell, the closest to that was me, saying that I've never seen an implementation of progressive mode that would work well in this setting. And in that case, heck, yes, a suggestion to put in progressive mode should at least put forward an idea of why what you are suggesting would be a good match for this game. Or at least not completely suck.

I know that's the internet thing, you are supposed to be offended and believe the worst of people, but calm down. (That line always works with my wife when she's upset.) Without any concrete implementation suggestions, all we are left to go on is how people have attempted it in the past.

We aren't the ones who think we have some brilliant idea that would be totally awesome, or whatever's the current lingo. That's you. We can't read minds. Give us at least some inkling of what's in your brain. What do you think would work well? This is a suggestions forum, after all.

The only progression that's in any sense "locked" is finding a trader to get the RA. But like anything else in the game currently, it's only "locked" by the refusal to explore beyond your current horizons.

Edited July 13 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Without any concrete implementation suggestions, all we are left to go on is how people have attempted it in the past.

Even with a detailed explanation of an idea, examples of how others found success/failure attempting similar things in similar scenarios will still come up in the discussion. Although if the initial idea is presented with a detailed explanation, it becomes a lot easier to discuss and figure out what might and might not work.

I'd also note that it's not a bad thing to post less-than-stellar ideas either. While they might not get a lot of support, discussing them may spur ideas for other things, such as mods or gameplay challenges.

[Thorfinn]

Fair. The OP had a perfectly fine solution to at least part of the problem he saw. assuming that the tooltip can be made to display more text. A verbose mode, more or less. Seems to me it's well within bounds of a mod. I might even try it out. Wouldn't want to use it on an ongoing basis, I don't think, 

It is, indeed a pain to realize you are missing a few ingredients for some recipe, so you lose your page. Which is why organization is so important in this game. Moreso than any other game I've ever played. Particularly if you tend to hoard. You can probably remember that automation will need logs and sticks, and remember to bring them, but everything else in that recipe should be in an "automation" chest so you don't have to go searching. It's a great place to put that mostly worn out hammer or chisel or whatever so you don't even have to remember them. I usually make an extra of stuff, a gear section, angled gear, axle, whatever, so that the page I want is only an "H" away.

The core of the idea is getting rid of the walls of text. Which is fine. But no matter how many vague hints you are given in lore books or from merchants  (and why would they know it?) you will never trial and error your way to a working pulverizer. I'm much the same mentality. I'd much rather hop in and try things out. But you can't really do that in a situation as involved as this. You can't just buy a scalpel and trial and error your way into brain surgery.