Typical newbie questions that are not easy to explain or why so few new players remain in the game.

GreenVamGreenVam ✭✭✭✭✭
edited December 2021 in General

A player from Pokémon comes. Turns on the game and looks at the pitch void. Where are the textures of the sky? Where are the textures of the earth? Is this a beta version of the game? the new agent asks me. I have to explain that this is such a "design", and yes, it is hard to see in the sun, and yes, it is in a style reminiscent of neon signs from the 80s. It's just that we have it here, and we have already got used to it, and yes, the game developers and many players consider this design to be normal.

And it also happens that a new agent starts playing under a large field that hangs for weeks, and he cannot link at all. He may not understand why, how, and what is happening. And he might even think that this is a glitch and the game is not working. Or lose interest in the game altogether.

Oh, the plot, I wonder ... And what are these shapers? what do they look like, will they appear in the game later? The agent asks me as a connoisseur of the plot. I answer no, because we have already got rid of the threat of external invasion. Then why are the shapers listed as a threat in the game? Why do Blue and Green heads talk about them as the most important? What can I explain to such a player? That the developer company was simply too lazy to redo a few dialogues in the training? Further, the player remains to play and asks me. If we don't see the shapers anymore, why are we drawing green fields? And another question, why the plot about tessellation and so on is poorly represented in the game ??? What will I answer him ???

- Well, it's just that we, in Pokemon, have three factions and each has its own ideals ... And what are the ideals and idiology of enlightenment now? I have nothing to answer now.

The agent has reached level 8. Immediately questions, why, if there are 16 levels, then there are only 8 levels of portals, and the equipment is only from 1 to 8? Why should I take the 16th level if it is easy to play on the territory of the city and with the 8th level and further, new and interesting equipment will not drop out of the portals? What to answer to the agent? Many of our newbies have the impression that the game is unfinished, that this is some kind of beta version. Unfinished plot that does not fit into the plot of the universe, unfinished graphic design, unfinished item levels ...

And many beginners leave without understanding this game. They have not seen great battles on anomalies, they have not seen shards, they do not have access to a plot that is poorly represented in the game. And recent events are not presented in this way at all.

But they see a lot of unfinished work, a lot of inconsistencies, a lot of game problems. And they leave. According to many players whom I tried to recruit in Pokemon - Pokemon Go is a complete, holistic product that is understandable from the first steps. He has a clear and understandable plot. Each of its functions is logical and reasonable. The egg incubator is clear, the mechanism of the gym is clear, but the mechanism for drawing glyphs is not. Why are there deprecated sequences? Why is there only a certain set of glyphs and the vocabulary of the scanner does not expand? I cannot honestly answer a lot of questions that newbies ask me so that they do not lose the desire to play.

But many do not even have those who could explain all these oddities, and they simply leave without understanding the game, having received only 1-3 levels.

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Comments

  • GoblinGranateGoblinGranate ✭✭✭✭✭

    COMM chats also tend to prevent new comers to stick around but nobody talks about it.

  • Yep, you hit the nail on the head. I've had so many friends/acquaintances try this game and that's pretty much the same takeaway. They also don't see the appeal of the gameplay loop when I try to explain it as excitedly as I can. I really think levels 1-8 should have their own private game board so that they can learn linking and fielding. It could even have some "enemy resonators" from an AI just to simulate attacking - because if someone were to start an Enlightened account where I live there wouldn't be a single opposite faction portal for at least an hour drive in any direction. I don't save XMP, I never need them... I play this game the hard way but I just can't get anyone else to want to bother.

  • One nitpick:

    Well, it's just that we, in Pokemon, have three factions and each has its own ideals ... And what are the ideals and idiology of enlightenment now? I have nothing to answer now.

    The Shapers are not now and have never been completely essential to the story's foundations, and potentially degrade the plot by making it more convoluted than it needs to be. There's an entire Netflix series and plenty of posts on this forum explaining the fundamental motivations of the two factions. XM is a new, ubiquitous, powerful, enigmatic substance with the ability to influence the human mind and body in almost supernatural ways. Even at its low, naturally-occurring concentrations, it can influence the human mind in a number of ways. The Enlightened see XM as the next step to unlocking Humanity's true potential, while the Resistance fear the potential side-effects of XM and want to isolate, study, and understand it instead of blindly embracing it. Enlightened want to immerse the world in XM, while Resistance want to free people from its influence until we know enough to decide for ourselves.

    With that out of the way, you're totally right that the lore and mechanics need to be really reined in and made cohesive. The game functions exactly the same without the Shapers, so take them out. The Ingress Animation managed to communicate the main points of the lore while only mentioning Shapers once in a throwaway line from a background character. Change "Shaper Glyphs" to "Network Glyphs" in the game and make it the language of the Portal Network itself. Remove the "N'Zeer" glyph completely, swap it out for the "Shaper" glyph, and rename the "Shaper" glyph the "Network" glyph. These should just be basic text changes, and they would make the story far less confusing to new players, but they've persisted for more than a year after the Exogenous got dropped from the story.

    This might be controversial with some of the veteran players who watched the lore evolve from the beginning, but let's be honest: the out-of-game lore has almost never been properly aligned with the in-game lore, to the detriment of both. Streamline the story, explain it from the start, and don't contradict it.

  • 0X00FF000X00FF00 ✭✭✭✭✭

    On occasion I've wondered if I'd want user-customizable "skins" for Ingress. I mean, a LOT of this game is played in a pseudo-stealth mode, where you don't really want to be "caught in the act" by the frenemy team.

    It would hardly have to be perfect in execution, but being able to match colour schemes against other AR or mapping games would go quite far in the "hiding in plain sight" department. Imagine having the bright green colours similar to Pogo on your Scanner! Or playing in a a 2D mode overhead view that is reminiscent of Apple or Google Maps! Either would be more than good enough to fool onlookers from 6+ feet away, yes?

    Meanwhile, any such "stealth mode" on my part would be by actually having one of those second apps open in the foreground while otherwise going about my business. After all, Ingress is basically only played at the portals. The rest of them are played between portals.

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