2020-04-29 Client Crash, Noob Teleport

[Neils Iyssada]

Well actually if someone have the choice to TP he will tend to easily skip the difficulties... Kinda like in MC when you died and lost your fav gear with cheats on.
I'm not against noob TP but it should be a choice for secondary characters, so the first one get the true survival phase.

[NeoKuro]

Tbh all I see this doing is saving new players or new empires some time and encourages start-game exploration.

When I started my empire I checked the map as teh first thing (like I always do) and saw a bunch of landmarks listed. Three grabbed my attention; Geothermal Vent, and 2 volcanoes. Ofc they were on the opposite side of the planet to me.

So I ended up going off to take a look at all 3 landmarks. It took me over 2 hours to do this. My opinion is there is nothing gained for me in terms of the player experience by forcing me to spend those 2 hours slowly travelling my planet just so I can discover cool biomes...there was never any danger of death and oceans weren't an issue because I can fly.

Well actually if someone have the choice to TP he will tend to easily skip the difficulties... Kinda like in MC when you died and lost your fav gear with cheats on.
I'm not against noob TP but it should be a choice for secondary characters, so the first one get the true survival phase.

I wouldn't really say it would allow you to skip the difficulties..........since the game already offers that option (Flight) which players can choose to use or not at character creation. It just lets players skip the pointless time consuming task of travelling a large and mostly empty world to find a place to settle (also an entirely optional thing to do), and I wouldn't say the game has a "true survival" phase either.

In fact I'd argue it doesn't even have one at all anymore, previously when I played you required a flag to make a city so I spent the 30 seconds getting a log then plant fibre then a flag. Turns out I didn't need to since you can just start placing buildings anywhere. So you don't need to forage for anything at all to get started (and hunger damage is so slow / insignificant its not even worth thinking about, in fact my guy was starving until I built my space rocket when I finally got him some food xD and food isn't tough to come by especially as a veggie or omnivore).

The closest it comes to true survival is really when you're making your city, and are essentially anchored to that position as you build it up. For me I spend most of my time in this 'survival phase' in top down / city building view so thats when I'm most likely to be attacked (but I fly so I never did), but with the rules of the noob TP you wouldn't be able to TP away to safety anyway because as soon as you step on a building site the noob TP is disabled anyway (if I read it correctly).



If the game were intended to be a true survival experience, you'd at minimum have to up the starvation damage significantly (its a minor inconvenience not being able to sprint when starving but thats all). But it'd have to be like every day/night cycle you can start starving, and it'd have to kill you in a couple of minutes at most for it to be a serious issue imo, but even then if SoH is about building a civilisation, what would forcing players to endure starvation for hours on end bring to the game experience beyond (imo) frustration?

[Norway174]

What if...

The "new" state of an avatar is cleared when any of these things happens:

• The avatar stands at a building site.
  
• The avatar stands inside a spacecraft.
  
• The avatar boards a vehicle.
  
• The avatar accepts a berth aboard a spacecraft.
  
• The avatar has teleported at least once.
  

So that way, you can only teleport once. If you were to spawn either in the dark side. Or on a tiny island, or somewhere you didn't like it.

Of course, that also brings with it the risk of someone teleporting somewhere they didn't like.
Which there's a few options for:

• Suck it up. That's risk vs. consequences.
  
• Walk / run / fly.
  
• Find a new world. (Maybe this would grant one new teleport for the new world?)
  
• Craft a boat / or swim. (In case of teleporting to an island.)
  
• Contact an Agent for help. (In case of a bug.)
  
• Contact another empire.
  

If this idea is received badly, then I'm probably leaning more towards just removing TP as well. As seems to be the general consensus in this thread. As it does seem to negate some other gameplayer parts.

I remember when I first started my city in the last universe, where I sailed across an entire ocean, in the search of a perfect place to build my capital.
It was fun, and engaging. (And a times a little frustrating.) But it made the whole city feel much more of an accomplishment once I was settled in.

Obviously, I don't wanna force people to go trough what I did. But I feel like it might be a cheap escape, to get anywhere, and miss out on those potential opportunities.

Whereas, if you get one teleport. It's like a gamble. Do you stick with what you got. Or do you take the chance at something better? Or in some situations, if your spawn is really terrible. It could be a tool. One freebie to get somewhere better.

[NeoKuro]

I remember when I first started my city in the last universe, where I sailed across an entire ocean, in the search of a perfect place to build my capital.
It was fun, and engaging. (And a times a little frustrating.) But it made the whole city feel much more of an accomplishment once I was settled in.

Tbh I disagree entirely....to me searching for the perfect place to setup my first city didn't add anything to the player experience beyond boredom and frustration. I'm fine with worlds being so big (I like that, makes them feel like actual planets), but forcing new players to either "Suck it up" and settle there and then, or waste hours of their gametime for no game advantage beyond "oh hey look at my pretty city setting!".

Like yes, people COULD teleport around checking resource qualities of the different zones and determine the best zone to settle. But thats not really a massive advantage imo, if they settled in zone 1 where there was like Q55 ore, and had zone 3 with Q200, if they could TP around to figure that out it would save them 30 minutes of setting up a new city later on thats all. But lets face it, brand new players to the game won't even know about the difference between Q1 and Q255 resources, let alone that they could optimise by teleporting around and foraging, that would be a benefit to existing / returning players only. For brand new players it lets them explore their homeworld, see what the game has to offer, maybe they find a really cool site for a city and start building.

It also empowers people (new and returning and existing) to create cool(er) cities with awesome backdrops, that they might want to show off on forums, facebook, IG, Twitter etc. If I started a new empire...would I spend the 2 hours again hunting for a cool city location? Its highly unlikely, I'd probably just settle where I start, because I cba to invest that amount of time for no material gain in the game experience, the main reason I did this time is because the waypoints on the map were new from the last time I played so as a returning player was curious.



But what potential opportunities do you miss out on in being forced to either settle there and then, or walk or fly for hours on end hunting for a nice city? Death? Starvation? Boredom? The map already outlines points of interest that might look cool anyway, and 50% of the time it will be too dark to see any of the environment as you walk to those points. Imo being forced to spend the hours walking to these points of interest the map has highlighted is just a waste of time and doesn't yield any real player experiences.

So I totally disagree that its a cheap escape. It gets players (especially brand new players) into the game faster, allows them to see their world and what the game offers faster. And encourages players to take a little time to setup a city in an area they think is really cool which they might later want to show off.

[Systemicyco]

I honestly question whether this game's development sometimes is snuffed by the player base being a bit of an "ol boys club." It is important to try to view things at how a brand new player with no experience, nobody to guide them, and no care may experience them. The first 20-30 minutes in a game are key to ensuring long-term grab.

[Deantwo]

I don't really think "noob teleport" adds anything. Mainly because new players won't know about it unless they read this update. They will place a building before they think to right-click the map, and then it is too late.

So I would mostly way that it is a complication that is not very well communicated and is lost before a new player would learn about it.

Also the idea of it being something you just right-click on the map, it is weird. It is literally just an admin power being given to new avatars in the short time before they start building a city.

---

A better way of implementing "noob teleport" would be with the villagers. Add a new villager, caravan manager or something, and have talking with them give an option to move to somewhere else on the world. It should move the entire village too, so the respawn point will also be at the teleport destination. And it could even be useful for non-new avatars that way, as there isn't really a need to limit it to .

Visually it could be made as entering a vehicle and being transported quickly to the location, nice fast-travel instead of instant teleportation. Of course that would make it harder to implement.

The biggest issue I really see is not having an easy way to pick a destination using the communication window. Maybe I guess the villager could just suggest a few locations or something. Not like we need teleportation to exact locations, just near enough that we can walk there within reasonable time and have out respawn point not be too far away.
Destination options like "near the mountain of x", "the eastern continent", "the southern isles", or even "near the world's biggest city".

Further iteration of the feature could be applied to airports, asking a pilot to fly us to another airport on the world or in the solar system. Or even subway train stations. We are missing some non-spacecraft travel options like that that don't require piloting skills.

[NeoKuro]

I don't really think "noob teleport" adds anything. Mainly because new players won't know about it unless they read this update. They will place a building before they think to right-click the map, and then it is too late.

So tell them about it when they join the game (and I don't mean via Targoss...takes far too long for that one to speak, and I always terminate him...I'd much rather personally have a text-based tutorial / howto dialog box but thats another discussion...............but yeah..........tell them about it when they first create a new empire.

So I would mostly way that it is a complication that is not very well communicated and is lost before a new player would learn about it.

See above about communicating...and I doubt its all that complicated (i've not used it yet since I've had no need, but if its complicated, it can be improved through an iterative process like everything)

Also the idea of it being something you just right-click on the map, it is weird. It is literally just an admin power being given to new avatars in the short time before they start building a city.

---

A better way of implementing "noob teleport" would be with the villagers. Add a new villager, caravan manager or something, and have talking with them give an option to move to somewhere else on the world. It should move the entire village too, so the respawn point will also be at the teleport destination. And it could even be useful for non-new avatars that way, as there isn't really a need to limit it to .

Visually it could be made as entering a vehicle and being transported quickly to the location, nice fast-travel instead of instant teleportation. Of course that would make it harder to implement.

The biggest issue I really see is not having an easy way to pick a destination using the communication window. Maybe I guess the villager could just suggest a few locations or something. Not like we need teleportation to exact locations, just near enough that we can walk there within reasonable time and have out respawn point not be too far away.
Destination options like "near the mountain of x", "the eastern continent", "the southern isles", or even "near the world's biggest city".

You literally just talked about it being complicated and its a simple right click command on the map.....and then immediately start talking about making it integrated into the villager system (which I never used...I'm essentially a new player at this point with basic background knowledge of SoH since I've been gone so long, and I just flew away and ignored the village because I didn't know how to interact with them, and still don't really).

But why make something to encourage people (new old and returning alike) to find cool scenes for cities, more convoluted that it needs to be? Right click to teleport somewhere seems simple enough to me (if it happens unintentionally, right click to bring up a context menu with Teleport as an option).

Currently, its simple, and does the job, and most gamers can understand context menus whatever game they play. Start adding in caravans, and village-integration you are tying it directly into the game which new people won't have a clue about, and makes it more of a chore for other people, and for what reason?

Further iteration of the feature could be applied to airports, asking a pilot to fly us to another airport on the world or in the solar system. Or even subway train stations. We are missing some non-spacecraft travel options like that that don't require piloting skills.

For this you might as well do away with the transporter tech and system on ships / airports entirely. The current implementation was meant to speed up the process of: Spawn in game -> Find city location -> Get to building and into the core of what SOH is.

To me, SoH isn't about wandering aimlessly on a barran planet with 2 or 3 teepee tents and a handful of villagers...that is what I have Proteus for (and I've never once installed it). To me SoH is about building cities, exploring other systems and planets, and expanding an empire. The whole Teepee phase I don't see the point in, and still no one has answered the question of what the missing opportunities, or relevant game experience (optionally) wandering aimlessly around for hours on end trying to find a cool place to settle.

[Norway174]

A better way of implementing "noob teleport" would be with the villagers. Add a new villager, caravan manager or something, and have talking with them give an option to move to somewhere else on the world. It should move the entire village too, so the respawn point will also be at the teleport destination. And it could even be useful for non-new avatars that way, as there isn't really a need to limit it to .

Visually it could be made as entering a vehicle and being transported quickly to the location, nice fast-travel instead of instant teleportation. Of course that would make it harder to implement.

The biggest issue I really see is not having an easy way to pick a destination using the communication window. Maybe I guess the villager could just suggest a few locations or something. Not like we need teleportation to exact locations, just near enough that we can walk there within reasonable time and have out respawn point not be too far away.
Destination options like "near the mountain of x", "the eastern continent", "the southern isles", or even "near the world's biggest city".

Further iteration of the feature could be applied to airports, asking a pilot to fly us to another airport on the world or in the solar system. Or even subway train stations. We are missing some non-spacecraft travel options like that that don't require piloting skills.

Oooh... Yes, I actually like this idea.

More non-spaceship automatic travel would be good.

And I always thought it didn't make much sense how we can't use the airports to travel to other airports. Or wharf's.

And subways/trains/bus/taxi's I guess could be combined into one type; Land transport. And would be left up to the designers to decide how to make it look.

Which could serve as fast travel points on the same planet. But maybe limited to a certain radius? So you'd like need a Wharf or an Airport to go to the other side of the planet. Or set up a connecting network.

While Wharf's could go to any other wharf connected by water.

And airports to any other airports within the whole solar system.

[Neils Iyssada]

To me, SoH isn't about wandering aimlessly on a barran planet with 2 or 3 teepee tents and a handful of villagers...that is what I have Proteus for (and I've never once installed it). To me SoH is about building cities, exploring other systems and planets, and expanding an empire. The whole Teepee phase I don't see the point in, and still no one has answered the question of what the missing opportunities, or relevant game experience (optionally) wandering aimlessly around for hours on end trying to find a cool place to settle.

To me this stage of the game isn't pointless, this isn't a god simulator. You have to start somewhere. If you don't like it you already have wings so you're way quicker than moving around on feet. I don't see the problem.
If you consider this phase as "wasting time" then you don't get the point of this game. Many people have done a challenge : who's gonna be out of their solar system quicker. Though this phase is short, as it was said you just need to make a flag, find some stone and you have a quarry. Then with it you can mine some stone to make a mine and a house and begin the automation.

And actually, those who stop playing because "meh I have to move myself"... well I think they shouldn't be part of this game anyway as it isn't user friendly and they would constantly complain about it in galchat.

[Systemicyco]

I must again emphasise that this type of player base behaviour is dangerous to the long-term success of the project. We should not be engaged in disdain for people because of their intention of play style especially brand new players. That is how a project like this ends up with negative reviews and doesn't grow.

Please be open minded. The toxic rhetoric I have seen in this post and many others has me vastly concerned especially given that I have been around Hazeron for a couple years short a decade now.