Hello dbemont!

Are yiu referring to the tutorial in the missions section? We have received some mostly positive feedback about that one. It would help us a lot to know more, what was to your disliking, so that we can work on it

A better one is coming. But if you have any questions we’re here for you. ;)

I was referring to the one in the first menu, fourth button down from "New Game."

I did not see the one under missions (in my defense, if you open a new game and see "tutorial" it's not unreasonable to think that's where to be). I may look at that one, but regardless, if a better one is coming, all is good. I'm not impatient, just wanted to know whether waiting was going to bring something. :)

Thanks!

No worries. They are the same tutorial. ;)

Originally posted by z|A|bik2:

Hello dbemont!

Are yiu referring to the tutorial in the missions section? We have received some mostly positive feedback about that one. It would help us a lot to know more, what was to your disliking, so that we can work on it :lunar2019wavingpig:

Sure, I started over using that missions section tutorial, and I kept a log of my thoughts as I tried to follow the tutorial. If it helps you, great. (My overall impression, though, is that your tutorial leans heavily on what the player ought to try to accomplish early in the game, rather than explaining exactly how interface items work.)

My log:

Turn 1: Message from advisor in upper right about executive orders available. No indication of where to go to do that, no matching icon.

Turn 2: The tile upgrades are partly explained, but 1) the choice between dragging a unique improvement or clicking on a tile and then selecting a choice is not stated nor obvious, and 2) tile bonuses could mean either of two things -- either you get that bonus no matter what you do in that tile (so a farm on a bulb is a tech producing farm), or that bonus applies if the tile improvement is of that type (so a farm on a bulb wastes that bulb). These imply very different strategies! T

So I chose Capital City unique improvement and placed it. Surprise! It doesn't seem to take up my tile upgrade "turn." Why?

So I then placed a research district next to it, and see a circled 3 and a white 17. Reasonable guess that the 3 refers to turns required. Not a clue what 17 refers to.

A few turns later: First trade offer. They offer tech in exchange for credits and open borders. But this is ambiguous. Is this I allow them into my territory? Or is it that we both allow the other into their territories?
Also, this is oddly worded. My leader says that this is what we offer. But we did not make that offer, they made the offer. But if I am making the offer, I see no way to alter it in any way, other than to reject it.

Next turn: My research district is complete. Apparently the 3 did not refer to turns, so that's a mystery. Also, my planetary input is now research 3. Odd because I already had at least some research, and my research district was on a bulb (+1) and next to the capital city (+2 adjacency to everything). So that means that my starting amount of research plus the inherent value of the research district equals zero. On the other hand, the output is 4.4. I can mouse over and see that probably the explanation is in the difference between input and output, but nothing explained in the tutorial makes it clear what the math is here.

Next turn: I have a colony ship. How? Why? It looked as though I had to get a particular tech to build one, and I never queued one up. Edit: And this is a misleading event because it is the one time you do not have to move a citizen onto the colony ship.

Starbases are a big deal, but there is no explanation of the rules of the game in this regard. How wide an area does a military starbase protect, for example. You just pick one. I set up a mining starbase next to two spheres labeled promethium, and I am happy to see I can mine both, I had no way of knowing if that would be the case. I see I can build a Mining drone there, and now I see it added to both locations -- a bit illlogical, but the real point is that I had no way of knowing this. I can now see two new circles around this system, one bold (like the territory circle around Sol) and a lighter circle. Since starbases are not mobile, that can't be its range of movement? The entire starbase matter seems unaddressed in the tutorial, and if this game is typical, the game centers on starbases, so the specific rules are important.

My flagship now comes up as idle and can find another anomaly. But I got a cutscene several turns back saying what it had discovered at the first anomaly. Why the delay?
Oops, after moving, I get a report that the flagship just now discovered a stealth thing at the first anomoly. So it was not that there was an unexplained delay, but rather that the cutscene was misleading.

First colonization gave a choice that involved +20% resistance. If I have a way to see what that means, I am missing it.

As I go to improve another region tile, I am noticing how much I have not been told about this screen. It turns out that buildings have levels and my research district is level 3 while my capital city is livel 0 yet I do not know how to affect those levels. I see citizens but do not know why I should care about that information -- the number of citizens does not match up with the number of tiles I can improve so I have no guess what that is about.

A choice to secure a weapon artifact. Not clear what that means, but I am guessing that ship construction will eventually be explained, and then this will be a part of that? Odd that ship construction has not been mentioned yet, though.

A weird ship enters my space. Oh, it's a foreign freighter. That's a build option for me, odd that the tutorial hasn't gone into the effects of that, although now that I look I see it is covered in a cursory way in the Galactapedia.

Time to improve another region. I need more income. Odd, I see that building next to my capital city with its +2 adjacency bonus or on a jungle with its +1 wealth both give me a circled 2 and an 8 next to Financial District. My working theory was that the circled number referred to the output, but that makes no sense -- adjacency 2 and 1 ought to lead to different outputs, right? Really, no idea what's up with this, and I assume it is crucial to strategy.

I built a freighter. Odd, upon completion it did not show up as a ship needing action. I found it in the Sol fleet. I'm sending it to the Drengin world to see if that is how to create a trade route. Who knows?

Time to improve another region, and frustration is setting in. Kind of like being asked to make a chess move without knowing the capabilities of each piece.
Maybe build a Planetary generator, but I don't know if that +2 adjacency applies to everything, or to just to the manufacturing district, or maybe also to the industrial center. And what's this military +2 adjacency? It's an adjacency so it's wasted if it isn't next to the right thing, but I haven't a clue what that might be.

This is so useful. Thank you!

Also, the fact that executive orders are disabled at first but the UI down below in the dock is still enabled is a problem too.

The tutorial will be getting improvements right up until release (as well as improvements after).

Biggest limitation to improving it is that we can't easily change strings due to localization (they'd kill me!).

That said, the tutorial won't go into the kind of detail I think you're looking for here. For that you really need to watch videos or read a guide.

For example, I'm sure a tutorial could be made to explain that the circle with a number represents the Level bonus of placing an improvement there and the number number (17) being the number of turns, I don't think it will take users very long to figure that out on their own since, once you place them, it becomes reasonably clear.

Agree with OP...tutorial doesn't really explain WHY we're doing things and TBH, watch a video is kind of a cop out. For new players, a step by step tutorial that offers in depth explanations to at least get you started is needed.

Originally posted by Senna:

Agree with OP...tutorial doesn't really explain WHY we're doing things and TBH, watch a video is kind of a cop out. For new players, a step by step tutorial that offers in depth explanations to at least get you started is needed.

We are listening to feedback on it.

In the meantime, I wrote up an early game guide that does offer in depth instructions to get you started here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3053858268

Not to belabor the subject, but as a new player I had no idea how to even advance to the next turn. I had to watch a video of someone playing the game on youtube before I knew it was mandatory to move both of your starting ships before advancing to the next turn. It is pretty obvious that the devs did not employ a brand new player to help with the tutorial as they glossed over what probably seem to be extremely basic concepts. I'm old school back when there were no in game tutorials and you had to read a manual to even figure out how to play games, but that is certainly not the norm any more and I hope the devs can see what a turn off this can be to brand new players. I implore you to redo the tutorial with someone who has never seen the game before and listen to their input. Looks like a good game but for now I'm refunding as I am like most players now and simply too spoiled to do homework on youtube just to figure out the basics. I have zero issue with learning moderate to advanced concepts on my own, but the absolute basics should be in any tutorial.

New user guide is exactly what the tutorial should be. I'm at a complete loss as to why you didn't set your tutorial up that way? I know it sounds stupid, but the tutorial not only doesn't explain that you MUST move your ships to get to end of turn, it doesn't even tell you HOW to move your ships. Granted, left clicking on your ship then right clicking your target isn't too hard to figure out, but nearly every tutorial I've ever seen highlights/flashes/outlines in game icons that you need to click on to advance, etc. Like I said, I don't expect a tutorial to teach you how to play the game in depth, but it should at least lead you by the hand on game mechanics with some brief explanations as to WHY you are doing what is being asked of you.

I would also like to point out that with just a 2 hour return policy on steam, most players don't have the time to have the game open and watch videos to decide if they want to keep the game, which is why it's so important that an in game tutorial quickly and efficiently lead players through the basic concepts of the game. I played for 30 minutes and it took me 15 of them to figure out that I had no idea how to advance the turn, so I went to YT to figure that out. Play that same loop out exponentially and I would hardly get even a decent look at the game before the 2 hour limit was reached.

This is very good feedback.

I'm keeping the game wish listed and will definitely give it another spin when/if the tutorial is majorly improved. Thanks for your attention.

Originally posted by Senna:

I'm keeping the game wish listed and will definitely give it another spin when/if the tutorial is majorly improved. Thanks for your attention.

Not exactly nice to give the game a negative review. The level of handholding you are expecting is well beyond what other games of the genre provide.

Also the tutorial does tell you how to move your ships in several places. (left click to select, right click to move, etc.).

At a certain level the player is responsible for learning the basic concepts of the genre (like turn buttons) and reading a guide or a video. Especially when there are literally guides on Steam that do as you ask.

If you want to defend your in game tutorial as adequate, then there's nothing to see here. FWIW I no issue learning DW2 or Stellaris. Maybe I am looking at different tutorial because your statement about the tutorial telling you how to move is factually false. At no point does the tutorial in turn 1 tell you that you MUST move your ships in order to advance to turns end. As far as my review, if I test drive a car and it's missing a tire, I'm not going to give it a glowing review. Maybe it's a great car, but it's kind of hard to tell when you can't drive it. I would be happy to go back and amend my review should a proper tutorial be implemented. As for your comment on "the level of hand holding," it's quite demeaning as I'm 58 and have probably been playing strategy games for longer than you've been alive. I have played far more complex strategy games than GC (the entire Gary Grigsby series for starters). If I desired, I could certainly go online and figure our GC4, I was merely pointing out that for new players, the tutorial doesn't explain hardly anything at all.