*HOT TAKE* Starchart 2.0 was better for new player experience than the current 3.0

[Cerikus]

For those that don't remember, before this

we had this

Now why do I think it was better for new players? Because all planets were hidden until you discovered navigational coordinates. When you booted the game for the first time you saw Earth and only the Earth and as you progressed you explored the solar system and your starchart was expanding with new planets. Now when you boot the game you are hit in the face with the full starchart and it's a really big turn off. New player is instantly overwhelmed.

I think it's bad for onboarding experience and it is among common complaints from "first impression" youtube videos.
All the planets should either be hidden or new player shouldn't be able to focus on it and see all the incomplete nodes before activating junction.

[Voltage]

I agree partially. Starchart 3.0 does actually have the benefit of leading players directionally around the map, but as you said, it can still be overwhelming. I think a Starchart 2.5 would have been better, where the map is modernized and leads players around like in our current map, but as you said, areas are hidden until unlocked. 

One issue both maps suffer from is Node bloat. There are way too many repeated missions with nothing really offered in the drop tables or mechanical differences between other nodes of the same type. You can see this the most in Arbitrations where most are Survival and Defense because that is most of the endurance missions on the map.

[KIREEK]

You are not hit with the full star chart when you start, kuva fortress and lua are not visible i believe.

[LuckyCharm]

I dont simply see why we cant simply have a central hub, and be sent off on missions by the lotus regardless of planet or faction, like we were her own little army travelling out from a war room. Legit tho, if i was to start again id be bored as hell just starting off fighting through a full world of grineer, then a world of corpus, then another grineer world, etc. at least if things were from a central hub we could be sent to fight any faction any time in different tilesets. I did most of mine in starchart 1.0 and it was still easy enough to navigate through but still got repetitive 

[Cerikus]

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

I agree partially. Starchart 3.0 does actually have the benefit of leading players directionally around the map, but as you said, it can still be overwhelming. I think a Starchart 2.5 would have been better, where the map is modernized and leads players around like in our current map, but as you said, areas are hidden until unlocked. 

One issue both maps suffer from is Node bloat. There are way too many repeated missions with nothing really offered in the drop tables or mechanical differences between other nodes of the same type. You can see this the most in Arbitrations where most are Survival and Defense because that is most of the endurance missions on the map.

Yes, exactly. We really desperately need Starchart 4.0.

[(NSW)Greybones]

I like the idea of hidden planets until you get to them.

One of the aspects of this game that kept me around was that sense of discovering new things or mechanics or places (I kept my wiki-ing down to a minimum and do not regret it). This was a game where it was like “Huh. There’s more than meets the eye” every time I experienced something new, and then I progressed through the story missions and big stuff happened.

I think vomiting everything onto the new player isn’t great, since it both overwhelms the player and undermines that sense of discovery, so things being hidden until down the line with a modicum of guidance so someone doesn’t feel completely lost in what to do or where to go can be a good thing

[Hexerin]

Just put a hazy void fog over everything except the starting planet. Then, when the new player completes a junction, the void fog pulls back with a neat animation, revealing the unlocked planet. Once the the final junction is completed, the rest of the void fog pulls back and the new player (now just "player") sees what we currently have. For a narrative/lore explanation, could simply have it an aesthetic representation of the Operator slowly regaining their full coherency as they progress.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Hexerin

[(XBOX)Tucker D Dawg]

meh - so many things (wiki, help chat, etc)  ref. locations like all the auto-help bot in Q&A chat, resource locating, etc..." xyz is available after defeating A on B"  or "Blah is a rare resource on blah blah"

hiding planets. would just add more confusion since they couldn't see B or blah blah, nor have any idea how to start working toward it.

 

[BroDutt]

The new starchart shouldn't had many nodes as today. DE should compress the mission. Each planet shouldn't had more than one defense, exterminate, survival or excavation. Dark sector should be an option mission to scroll down like nightmare, invasion or kuva siphon on a fix nodes.

We can keep special mission like Assassination, Mirror Defense, Survival Junction and later Abyssal Zone as a special nodes per planet (they definitely need to replace Sergeant on Phobos).

The reason why Sisters of Pavros is faster because Corpus had less nodes than Grineer. The Earth and Mars had too many nodes with the same tile set which make unlocking requiem too slow/tedious.

[Birdframe_Prime]

I think that the smallest change would be to simply hide connected nodes until the next ones are done. Let people explore it, find the dead-ends, or ignore them.

That would remove the new-player clutter of all those locked nodes, but keep the entire map visible as a 'everything the light touches is our kingdom' aspect. Give players areas to go and find, and have the Junctions serve as those important 'Go to X and do Y before you can go here' gates.

Finding a 'Mars Junction' with the instruction to 'Defeat Captain Vor on Mercury' task on it would not only show that the player has to explore the other way, but also show that they have to explore two whole planets in the process.

[Sol_IX]

I have a similar opinion, here is my suggestion for how it may look:

Star Chart 3.1 Earth:

Star Chart 3.1 Full:

[Birdframe_Prime]

I think @Sol_IX has hit on exactly what I was talking about, well done that tenno!

[NinjaZeku]

On 2023-11-06 at 3:47 AM, BroDutt said:

Each planet shouldn't had more than one defense, exterminate, survival or excavation.

But that's ... pretty much the case right now?

There may be a "duplicate" in the form of a Dark Sector, but with those using another faction
compared to the rest of the planet, it's different enough still.

Now the previous star chart, that one had plenty of dupes lol.

On 2023-11-06 at 3:47 AM, BroDutt said:

Earth [...] too many nodes with the same tile set

Uhm ... what? Earth is in fact the MOST diverse planet in terms of tilesets used.

On 2023-11-06 at 3:47 AM, BroDutt said:

The reason why Sisters of Pavros is faster because Corpus had less nodes than Grineer.

Could simply be that it's because Sisters came later, DE often has newer content with improvements
while older stuff can take a long time to get any updates, if ever.

[BroDutt]

26 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

But that's ... pretty much the case right now?

There's two exterminate, Defense and Excavation on Earth. Two Mobile Defense, Defense (not Mirror Defense), Spy on Mars.

40 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

There may be a "duplicate" in the form of a Dark Sector, but with those using another faction
compared to the rest of the planet, it's different enough still.

That's why I suggested Dark Sector node can use the same node but we can choose what type mission like selecting normal, invasion and nightmare mission on the same nodes

34 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

Uhm ... what? Earth is in fact the MOST diverse planet in terms of tilesets used.

Using the same Uranus tile set for Mariana and basically the same jungle tile set with random pipe or junk for Sabotage, Exterminate and Capture. Why there's a grineer generator tile on exterminate mission or that big tree with sunlight on sabotage mission? And I'm not talking about Silver Groove.  That's what you call diverse? 

Galleon or asteroid tile set should just use on mercury/saturn, at least there's logic since the Orokin haven't terraform the planet. And keep Corpus tile ship on corpus planet  (invasion already has it's own tile combination of corpus ship and grineer galleon.

37 minutes ago, NinjaZeku said:

Could simply be that it's because Sisters came later, DE often has newer content with improvements
while older stuff can take a long time to get any updates, if ever.

Then why not improve Kuva liches too. By reducing some of the double mission nodes on Earth and Mars, DE can reduce how many murmur/kuva thrall to unlock requiem. Just like Ceres and Mercury. Make it less tedious to unlock the third requiem without using Oull

[Birdframe_Prime]

On 2023-11-08 at 8:24 AM, BroDutt said:

Using the same Uranus tile set for Mariana and basically the same jungle tile set with random pipe or junk for Sabotage, Exterminate and Capture. Why there's a grineer generator tile on exterminate mission or that big tree with sunlight on sabotage mission? And I'm not talking about Silver Groove.  That's what you call diverse?

Dude, the very fact that Earth has missions with tiles from other planets is already diverse. Almost every other planet only has one tile set for land based missions, with ships around it for a little variety. Some places literally only have one tile set for every mission.

I mean... let's list them:

Spoiler

Mercury: Grineer Asteroid for land-based, Grineer Galleon for ship based

Venus: Corpus Outpost for land-based, Corpus Ship for ship based, plus the Orb Vallis.

Earth: Grineer Forest and Grineer Sealab for land, Grineer Galleon for ship, plus the Plains.

Mars: Grineer Settlement and Corpus Ice Planet for land, Grineer Galleon for ship.

Phobos: Grineer Asteroid for land, Corpus Ship for ship.

Deimos: Orokin Derelict and Cambion Drift.

Ceres: Grineer Shipyard and Grineer Galleon.

Jupiter: Corpus Gas City, Corpus Ship.

Europa: Corpus Ice Planet and Corpus Ship, with a single Infested Ship for the Dark Sector.

Saturn: Grineer Asteroid, Grineer Galleon and it turns out the Conclave Maps are stored here.

Uranus: Grineer Sealab and Grineer Galleon.

Neptune: Corpus Outpost, Corpus Ice Planet and Corpus Ship, with one Infested Ship Dark Sector. Oh, and the Index.

Pluto: Corpus Outpost and Corpus Ship.

Sedna: Grineer Shipyard, Grineer Asteroid and Grineer Galleon. Plus the Rathuum arenas.

Eris: Infested Ship. Every tile.

Void: Orokin Tower.

Lua: Orokin Moon.

Kuva Fortress: Grineer Asteroid Fortress.

The Zariman: Zariman and Duviri tiles.

It's funny that.

It's almost like there's no diversity on almost any of the planets. Earth and Mars at least get on the list for having at least one completely contrasting land-based mission area on them, and Neptune is the only one with two land tiles and two space tiles, if you count the dark sector.

When the most diverse planet only has four tiles on it, I think Earth is pretty good having three, plus the Plains.

As for why some specific tiles appear on other missions, do you... not know what generated tile sets do? I mean... they pull from the whole list and make a mission area for you, using any and all of the existing tiles they want to. There are over fifty different potential tiles in the Grineer Forest, and it has a day/night cycle to add even more variety.

Earth is by far one of the most diverse planets out there in terms of tile sets.

[Steel_Rook]

On 2023-11-06 at 4:47 AM, BroDutt said:

The new starchart shouldn't had many nodes as today. DE should compress the mission. Each planet shouldn't had more than one defense, exterminate, survival or excavation. Dark sector should be an option mission to scroll down like nightmare, invasion or kuva siphon on a fix nodes.

Agreed. I'd also really like for individual nodes to display an icon directly on the Star Chart representing the mission type. Any time I'm looking for a specific mission type for Nightwave, for example, I have to keep mousing over missions again and again. And even then that doesn't always work because Syndicate and Invasion missions can show up with a different type than the underlying node.

Restrict each planet to only a single node per mission type, ensure all planets have one of each mission type (or alternative, such as Hive/Assault for Sabotage), get rid of Dark Sectors entirely and make them an optional alternative on the node of the same mission type, display each mission node with an icon representing its type. That right there would make the Star Chart a LOT easier to use.

 

On 2023-11-07 at 6:44 AM, Sol_IX said:

I have a similar opinion, here is my suggestion for how it may look:

Yup, that could work. I've no issue with hiding nodes before the player has access to them. It would need to account for players unlocking nodes out of order, though, such as when playing with friends on a planet they don't have access to. But yes - hiding content not yet unlocked is not a bad idea.