Add descriptions to Custom Game templates?

AdaRynin shared this feedback 4 years ago
Submitted

tl;dr: Please add descriptions to Custom Game templates on the New Game screen.


Beginners might chose a Custom Game such as "Earth Planet" because "common sense" tells us that sounds familiar and easy (compared to starting out in space, which beginners associate with suffocating and lack of resources). Why might beginners use "common sense" to make this decision? Because the New Game screen does not give any additional information what the challenge will be...


Turns out, on Earth the challenge is that not all resources can be found, and beginners actually should be recommended _against_choosing it.

So could you please add descriptions or tooltips? There is a Description field but it's empty. (Maybe you'll need to distinguish between a fixed default tooltip and an editable custom description.)

Currently, the New Game screen doesn't answer "dumb questions" such as:


  • If I choose a custom game with "Red Ship"/"Green Station" etc. in the title, will any planets be in my game?
  • If I choose a custom game with a specific planet name in the title, will the other planets and NPC ships also be in my game?
  • If I choose "Star System", where do I spawn? (This gets answered on the Spawn screen, but then it's too late to compare.)
  • Do they offer different challenges or bonuses? (E.g. Survivalkit or Refinery/Assembly/O2Gen? Many or few resources? With or without gravity? With or without atmosphere? With or without NPCs/spiders/wolves? -- A few of these questions are answered on the Spawn screen, but then it's too late to compare.)
  • I know I can choose whichever I want, but what would you recommend for PvP? or PvE? or Solo?

Someone who spent 100 hours in SE knows the answer to these questions, for others it's completely unclear.


Basically, imagine enthusiastic new players sitting next to you, and they ask what you would recommend. You could tell us in the description e.g.


  1. "Two Platforms is a good first choice for fans of PvP..." or "X Planet is a good first choice for players who want to challenge themselves with scarce resources..." or "Empty World is a good first choice for scenario creators or designers in creative mode..."
  2. ... "You will spawn on the surface and work your way up to space...", "... in space and work your way down to a planet", or "... in a location of your choice..."
  3. ... "By default this includes a survival drop pod and all planets" or "By default this includes a working base and all planets" or "By default this includes no planets and no drop pod"...
  4. And so on.

(Theoretically you could even generate and concatenate these sentences on the fly from the current custom settings.)

Replies (1)

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PS:My feedback was inspired by watching some youtubers (with over half a million followers) rage quitting and cussing out SE because they couldn't find any resources in the Earth Savannah they started in. After hours they still didn't know the ore detector existed because it never detected anything. They were bored shovelling stones. One used the Suicide key ever 5 mins and told the others it refills hydrogen. Nothing they built out of the few parts they could afford (several people working together for hours) could be steered or lift of. It was frustrating to watch.

It was all typical simple beginner mistakes... and it was their mistake to ignore the Bot and tutorials... And obviously, in other survival games it's also possible to start out in a Dessert, SE is not the only game in this situation... But you could help prevent the frustration a bit.

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