My thoughts on the new tutorial and a few other things

derpsticks

I ran through the tutorial on a newly created nightblade and did not apply any of my available champion points before doing so. Here are my thoughts regarding the tutorial and a bit of the justice system.

When looting a weapon from the Dremora there should be a glow around the body to match how the rest of the game will be. I would also recommend at this point placing a few weapons on the ground around the bodies on the ground. Not every player will want to play with a 2H weapon right away and I think giving players the options is a much better approach. There is no need to put every weapon on the ground, just a few different ones. See the image below for reference:




Er-Jaseen looks like an idiot against this door:




At this point in the tutorial I was not seeing the health bars on the Dremora update at all. After this point in the main room with the eyes, everything seemed fine:




I think this map should be flipped upside down. It feels unnatural having the player start at the top of the map facing south:




Talking to Lyris gets in the way of looting and looking at objects. I must have accidentally talked to her 3-4 times while looting an item in the world. Look at how far away she is from where I am pointing, maybe this has something to do with my orientation facing her but it is annoying to say the least:




At this point in the tutorial Lyris talks so slowly while I was running up the ramp that I didn't understand why she just stopped and didn't follow me till she said she was watching my back. It seemed odd and out of sync with the pace I was going:




Upon killing the eye the music kicks up a bit and it feels like something exciting was about to happen. Nothing happened. I think at this point it would be a good idea for two or three mobs to appear to match the tone set by the music. It only makes sense that something would be pissed off when the eye is destroyed. Oh look, Lyris is back:




After lockpicking the door you enter an area where there are many chests similar to the ones you had been looting in the larger room. I think this would be a great time to further strengthen the lockpicking portion of the tutorial. Make some or all of these chests lockpickable:




Along the way I looted just about every container I could. I think I amassed about 20-25 different ingredients for provisioning and not a single recipe. This is way too many ingredients to be introduced to the player at this point in the game and there is no way to use them. I also came across old corn mash. Why can I even loot this? This is useless and should be removed from the loot tables and only should be the product of a converted item from pre 1.6:




So after my run through the tutorial I decided that participating in a little bit of the justice system was in store. I eventually looted a motif and since it was Wood Elves and I was a Wood Elf I couldn't use it. The only option was to launder or fence it. Go figure it only costs 15g to launder and I would only get 9g to sell it. I think this would be a great opportunity for you help to economy by raising the cost to launder motifs and increasing their sell value:




I'll post some more later as I go through and play around with the system some more but to answer your questions:

How does the new tutorial feel? Do you feel like you’re learning more?

The new tutorial feels ok. Not great, not bad, just ok. As I explained above, there are a few moments where the music and rhythm/pace of gameplay does not sync well. Certain events don't feel right and certain mechanics could use better explaining. Lyris could be better at showing the player a thing or two. I think she could be a little more vocal and prompt when addressing the player. She needs to be direct and focus on explaining the mechanics in a way that doesn't make the player feel like she knows this is a game.

I have played the game for many hours, I did not learn much here. I did however note that certain mechanics were presented clearly to the player. For instance, lockpicking was presented in a way that forces the player to at least do it once before proceeding. As I mentioned above I think giving the player a few more optional opportunities to lockpick chests would reinforce this part of the tutorial.

Did you come out of the tutorial with a character that can perform well in the game world?

How can I not? I left with a few skill points and a few pieces of each type of armor. Assuming a player does not want to loot anything and avoids all the bad guys, then maybe they would have a problem. Why isn't there one last opportunity to customize the look/race/class of your character before exiting the tutorial like in other ES games?

Did you feel you had enough armor, a high enough level, and proper knowledge?

As I said above, I left with a few pieces of each type, but I did loot everything. My level was three and a half I think, I had killed a few extra mobs. I think a new player would have knowledge enough but things could be polished.

How do new systems like Champion Points and Provisioning feel with a new character going through the tutorial?

I did not use any champion points because I wanted to evaluate this tutorial from the perspective of a new player as best I could.

Provisioning felt like a hot mess at this point in the game. I had way too many ingredients and nothing to do with them. Why even bother introducing provisioning at this point in the game? It is just another craft and should not be treated as being special. If the tutorial is supposed to introduce provisioning to the player it should do so directly and without such a mess. Take all of the ingredients out of the loot tables and have Lyris or whoever give the player the option to learn and make one of six recipes (M/H/S food or drink) preferably after/before talking to Cadwell using the fire right next to him as a place to cook.

Does the new tutorial perform well? Did you notice any lag?

The tutorial performed well. I had nearly max settings I think while running at 2560x1440 on an R9 290x with an i7 3770k. You should be able to see the FPS and Latency I had. I turned on vsync about half way through the tutorial but not because I saw any tearing, just because. Latency has always been a problem with this game unfortunately, even with a 125Mb connection living just outside of DC, I still get 80-130 ping consistently.

Overall I'd rate the old tutorial as a 4.5/10 and this new one as a 6.5/10.

Let me know if you fix any of the above issues or make any major changes and I will give the tutorial another run through. If you'd like me to comment on anything that I didn't discuss above, just ask and I'll respond.

AngryNord

I agree With a lot of Your sentiments. Especially re looting the fallen Dremora, and also the Point re talking to Lyris (that's a problem in the current intro, too).
I also think there should be some chests or racks that are guaranteed to give you armour - as it is now it seems a bit hit-and-miss - some might get almost a full suit of armour (albeit of different types/styles), others nothing at all, but end up With 5-6 daggers and 3-4 swords...

derpsticks

I get what you mean, it was just luck that I ended up with 6/7 armor pieces 2 of each type. I could have had 8 daggers just as easily.

adriant1978

I feel bad for Er-Jaseen, going from major early exposition character to holding a door closed. Ouch.

For those who have played before, the cut & paste job they did on Lyris and the Prophet's lines will also be painfully obvious.

And why in the name of the Eight did you cut Molag Bal's "I am the face of pain, the souls of the damned are my weapons" line. That was an early classic which really set him up as a villain.

On the positive side it's nice to see the Bleeding Forge look a bit more like a forge, the scene where the Dremora strangles the Soul Shriven before throwing him onto the spikes is cool and creepy, and I think I prefer the Dremora and Clannfears over the original atronachs.