I took my first few days binding everything to my HOTAS as I went. I felt it was easiest to start from a clean slate, and bind buttons and sticks as required.
You are right that the game has a steep learning curve. There's plenty of things to pay attention to
and really many buttons. You are completely right there. So yes, starting out can be frustrating.
But it also means you can master the ship. Once you have things down, it feels very rewarding to be able to do things fast and efficient. It contributes a lot to the ship feeling more like a simulator and less like an arcade game.
That being said, perhaps you should also do what i at the start did: i stuck small labels next to the buttons and switches on my joystick for the first time of playing. If i needed a function, i didn't have to check any menu or help page, but was able to directly see on my jostick and throttle, which switch i would need to use for this. Muscle memory quickly took over from that, but for the first few weeks this helped me a lot. Maybe it'd also be a thing for you.
On the rest of what you wrote: yes, the game urgently needs to give more support to the new player. Luckily FD is well aware of that. You claim that the last patch was all quality of life for the older players. I think you should check out the patch notes again. The last patch included a locked off area for new players, along with specially designed missions, more info on activities in game, etc. (Just check all the buttons we now have in the UI, which take you to the codex and the help pages there. A veteran player knows all these things, he uses the links once out of curiosity, to see what they do, then forgets about them. The new player can use it to quickly get information. ) We also got things like the new docking computer and supercruise assist and they now come pre-installed in all small ships. Thus in those ships which new players most likely use. The new docking computer can also help with launching and supercruise assist, while being slower than when an experienced player uses supercruise, helps a lot in making people see how they could do things, without repeatedly overshooting the target and getting too frustrated. They are of no interest for the experienced player, but they provide helping hands to the new player. (Also, tutorials and training missions were upgraded a bit and made more accessible. But i know that most players still don't touch those. Some would rather quit a game a minute after buying it than ever doing a tutorial. )
Despite plenty of thingss were made for the new player, they don't cover all the bases yet. There's still plenty to do. But it seems like FD finally acknowledged the problem and decided to act. Supposedly the next patch also aims at improving the new players experience. We have to see what they come up with next. The last patch took some steps in the right direction, but the game can need a lot more. I am hoping for a pack of context sensitive help. It's not easy to detect when a player struggles and provide good feedback, without also sometimes seeming patronizing. Thus it's not easy to do, but if done well, it would improve things for the new player a lot.
We have to see what we will get. But unlike many other things reported, this is something where FD has shown that they are aware of the problem and are working to improve upon.
I saw a study that was done by some university (forgot which one) where they determined that the younger generation is so used to their phones being able to answer any questions that they do not actually know the difference between "what they know" and "what their phone knows" (i.e. Google/siri). This suggests that technology is producing a populace not inclined to think or problem solve for themselves.Seriously, with as technologically-driven as the current generation(s) is, you'd think they would be running circles around an old fart like me when it comes to things like this.
Actually, you've reminded me of something that goes with this; I was at a house party maybe a year or two ago and the guy hosting it was controlling his TV with those "Okay Google" voice commands to make it change channel and search and whatever. After listening to him say "Okay Google" about 15 damn times trying to get it to understand the voice command to turn off, I got up and walked the 8 feet or so over to the TV and pressed the physical power button. The sheer laziness just baffled me since it took me less than 10 seconds to get up out of my chair and go to the TV and manually do the task myself while he had taken over half a minute, PLUS he was the closest one to the TV to begin with.I saw a study that was done by some university (forgot which one) where they determined that the younger generation is so used to their phones being able to answer any questions that they do not actually know the difference between "what they know" and "what their phone knows" (i.e. Google/siri). This suggests that technology is producing a populace not inclined to think or problem solve for themselves.
I saw a study that was done by some university (forgot which one) where they determined that the younger generation is so used to their phones being able to answer any questions that they do not actually know the difference between "what they know" and "what their phone knows" (i.e. Google/siri). This suggests that technology is producing a populace not inclined to think or problem solve for themselves.
Um, what paywall? You buy the game, then play the game. You can't pay (read: waste) real money for a new ship like Star Citizen, there's no micro-trans boosters, no locked characters you have to pay to access, none of that. The only thing you can buy outside the game itself is cosmetic stuff.i would say the biggest turnoff of this game is the malicious paywall...
That's your own fault. If you're playing in Open, you should know that the coast is NEVER clear. If you want to fiddle around with settings and NOT die, do it at a station. Or here's a better idea: Do all of your play testing and controls adjustment in Solo where you can be left alone while you test and tinker. When you're done, then go back to Open. Or if the tweaks you're making are combat-related, conduct mock battles with a friend in Private, i.e. drop to 25% hull in a fight and call it. Repair bills are much better than full claim costs. This would not only give you to peace and quiet to adjust your controls to just how you want them, but also keep you from looking like a fool when you get blasted. Be vigilant, be prepared.i cant tell you how many times i've paid the ultimate price for it either (it's like anytime i think the coast is clear and edit my settings a wild ship appears and i exit the menu just in time to see the insurance screen)
Hello,
Ive started and stopped playing this game several times in frustration... I even bought a 200$ HOTAS kit ...and stopped again out of frustration... it would seem i need more buttons to do anything in this game. 300+ hours in this game and its been a ton of frustration.
Im not the only one to have said this, but given the latest set of updates, and the devs seeming desire to gain more players, i think it bares repeating it all.
Between the masses of buttons and micromanaging this game is not fun.
There is no fun, no pay off. Nothing.
It takes such a long time to even just bind keys, and sort out menus... It's maddening!
the game seems like its not so much a space simulator, but rather a Button Binding, micro managing simulator.
My car has less to learn to use it, and i had to get a licence for that thing. I have yet to receive my Elite Licence in the mail.
Luckily for us, nearly every update just adds more modes and buttons to bind and more fiddly things to micromanage!
The game has a really high learning curve. With very poor tutorials, this can only mean you don't want new players. And yet the last update seemed to be all about new player quality of life things. You must want people to buy the game and demand their money back and/or leave a hateful review somewhere on the internet.
Its not that its just hard to learn to play it... it's just difficult to do very basic things.
As a new player, you can't do a thing until you sort out what "joy 5 button 2" is and why you should care. A new player seems to need to spend an hour or five just binding buttons for things they have no idea what are for, yet. ...Just bind a button to a thing and hope to figure it out later.
Also, apparently the computerized ships of the future are dumber than the cell phone in my pocket, and seem capable of less.
So are the station interactive menus.
My ship can't even figure out how to filter missions based on what i've already accepted, something i have cell phone apps that can do for other things. You need a scratch pad to remember what is what, and a bevy of 3rd party apps to keep you organised with your missions. Most of which now are no longer functional because of some update to how they interact with the frontier servers on the backend.
Im guessing the devs have never used a modern day database or play their own game. must be too much work to play this game, and really, once you play it, i understand.
Much of the micro managing makes little sense. Math or computer tech seems to not be a strong suit in the distant future.
I mean, really... a limpet is 1 ton of cargo... for each limpet. Because counting limpets is someones idea of fun. More so if its hidden somewhere in the bowels of sub-menus. 1 ton. I can only guess what they must be made of. Given their depth of thought, its certainly not PCB boards or computer chips.
It also takes 1+ ton of ship space to house and control it's systems on the ship... so now the system is at least a couple of tons in weight, and im guessing that none of it can sort out the basic AI brains that the computer that is running this game can... that is much less than a ton in weight.
Less brains than a raspberry pit, in fact.
And for all the tonnages of parts, they last for seconds!
Oh the wonders of future science!
Id say it must be for rocket fuel, but that would only lead to more questions about other game mechanics.
Every thing you want to do requires a different special mode, that you can only get into in a special way, with more buttons to bind.
Nothing is just easy to do. nothing.
If my car was a Elite Ship, id have to change to a certain gear, reduce my speed, open the glove compartment and toggle my blinkers to turn on my headlights for "night mode" driving.
The last update made simple scanning honks into a nightmare for me. Not only do i have to figure how to do it again, but i also have to sort out what buttons to bind and how. There is a special mode that i can only get into if the stars line up a certain way with my local baristas horoscope and even then i need to bind a dozen more buttons to do it. im not even told which barista i need to line the stars up with.
The tutorials telling me "use joy 2 + button 4" doesn't help me sort out what the hell they are talking about. ...and that is assuming there is a tutorial to be found. I have a 200$+tax HOTAS... do you know how many joys and buttons i have? do you know how many of those are numbered? (pssst... its labeled none of them on the unit, but i bet i don't have enough of them)
The latest update gave me hope, but alas more of the same.
I can't even get a Hutton Orbital mug for the dash... you have to buy it by the tonnage and paw at the cargo inventory screen to remember the good ole days when you remembered what buttons allowed you to fly there in the first place... for almost an hour... for so much reward that your pilot might even afford a coffee after handing in the mission... but not in said mug... or in the tonnage of them, you'd have to buy the coffee by the tonnage after all...
please make the game more "game" like and less fiddly. I don't want to spend hours rebinding all of my buttons and sorting out all of the flight modes WOW wasn't successful because it was fiddly button-binding fun. If you want players, make it more accessible to those of us that do not want to spend our prescious weekends learning to do simple things in a "game", with or without the help of a poorly thought out tutorial.
None of my joysticks are numbered. literally none of them. Not even in the windows config for sorting them out and testing the buttons.
Thrustmaster T16000M that i bought and had shipped to me, specifically for this game, because i needed more buttons.