Instructions - Your feedback

[thehippo8]

If you've read Issue 71 then you'll know what this is about. Looking forward to reading your thoughts!!

[koontz1973]

Read it already. Going to set up some games on Poison Rome for us. I need the points.

[greenoaks]

issue 71 hasn't been released yet

[thehippo8]

issue 71 hasn't been released yet

You passed the first test!

[Fewnix]

Hopefully, now posted in the right thread.

Very interesting. I have a different perspectives on those maps, based maybe on different eyesight or different reasoning procci or different experiences, I have played half a dozen Das Schloss, usually as a stacker on the guy who did all the attacks. Never could figure out the whole point of the exercise and would guess we were winning or losing based on if it was a sunny day and we had lots of troops. Arms Race to me is a delight, a quick read of the legend sand I was off and running, ready to conquer the world. Or blow it up. sUually I blew i up, didn't win. But I felt I was close to learning how to use Weapons of Mass Destruction, a few more tries and I could have it right.s

a respectull suggestion to the builders of the maps, whose work is much appreciated when I use Game Finder to look at the different maps, I get is a link to the Map Foundry discussion of how the map was formed. Lets keep that, and could we have a link built in as a bit of Dummy's Guide to the Play of ,,,, ? Maybe it could be the last post in the Map formation discussion.
This might be an idea to try as maps go beta or the supersize me maps come out, all maps have a link to How to Play This ... one step more instructive than the legends attached to the map, one step below the detailed and advanced work of excellent Strategy Forum.

Perhaps a task the foundry team and the strategy team could share work on? You tell us how you see the map being played, we put it in newby talk and we have a link on the map

p.s. for interest sake here is the final post , number 1393 on the map discussion :
viewtopic.php?t=35810

I think one of the problems is that all of the flughafen territories are different colors...some just solid white, some are gray and some are white with these blue lines on them. To someone new to the map they will probably wonder where flughafen is...and if they can figure out that it is that top right cluster they may be unsure as to which territories count towards the 5/11/19 bonus.

if you want to work with/bring out the blue in the eagle you could change the airport tiles all to a white with a blue tint to them?

This is the solution.
The airport has now been changed back to blue; i have also added the Flaghfen Perimeter indcator to ansure that qnyone dsoesn't miss it; and there are now two references as to what is encompassed by the Schloss Walls.

Ah, now that I know what is encompassed by the Shloss Walls I can lumpen the Flaghfen

[thehippo8]

Thanks Fewnix!!

As Greenoaks said, we're a bit premature so this'll be a bit confusing until issue 71 comes out, but yah ... correct thread.

@ Koontz & Fenwix, I must say one of the real joys of baring your soul on your deficiencies is that on the one hand you get a good debate ... on the other hand you get taken advantage of. Hmmm, now I wonder whether one counterbalances the other!?

The maps we play (and do well on) comes down to (I think) a combination of understanding (in a real and deep sense rather than just the instructions) and fun (ie, whatever whets your whistle). But I think you have a point Fenwix, those instructions at the beginning must take us into the game so we are at leaast not flundering like a flounder (which have themselves as fish been described as scum sucking bottom feeders but I wouldn't repeat that here!). I agree, maybe some more work in the threads would be good. I must say though that there's nothing to stop the community from continuing to throw things into the thread or starting threads here in the discussion pages sharing their knowledge! But a project you say ... hmmm ... now I wonder how many people are keen on that? Maybe I'll be happily surprised. But keep in mind that it takes a brave person to share their knowledge. Once trained, the student can often be better than the teacher (I found that out the hard way by teaching people how to play chess - they alw2ays see a better way of doing it than me!!).

[DiM]

i've just read it and all i can say is that different people perceive the maps in different ways. for some people the solution clicks in a second, for others it doesn't click at all.

Das Schloss: while at a first impression it does seem rather difficult it's actually not that hard to figure out what you need to do. the bonuses aren't "in your face" but if you spend 30 seconds to read everything on the map you'll know them all.

Cricket – Silly Mid On: first impression is. "no way am i trying that map. it looks like a clusterfuck of instructions and territory clutter". then again i could be completely wrong and it might actually be very easy to understand. it's just that the first impression is one that drives me away.

Supermax – Prison Riot: not a big fan of this map but the map's instructions are pretty clear. if you don't have bob it does take a while to search visually for each member of each gang. so even if you read and understand the instructions from the first time you play this map you'll still most likely make many mistakes.

Arms Race: this for me is an incredibly clear and easy to understand map. i have no idea how some people consider this complex or hard to understand. on a complexity scale from 1 to 10 where doodle is at 1 and classic is at 2, i would rate arms race any higher than 4. but i'm obviously wrong. a lot of farming has been done on this map so clearly many noobs don't get it and get farmed.

Poison Rome: i've played this map and i've even won on it but i still think the map is hard to play. the instructions are clear, in fact i can't think of a way to make them any clearer. but the problem is the layout of the terits. without bob you have to look at each and every line and see what connects to what. this can become rather difficult and especially on speedgames if you don't know the map by heart you're dead cause there's no time to analyse it.

Monsters: now this is a map that no matter what the instructions say i'll never even bother to understand simply because the graphics gross me out. it's just plain horrible. from a first glance i can't even tell what connects to what.

Struggle for Oil: the map is not visually friendly. so many colours with a bright border make analysis really hard. the instructions seem to be pretty straight forward even if they could use a better layout.

Death Race Mojave: this one has several things that make it rather difficult to understand. some borders are kinda hard to see (kindred>aaron), the circular arrows that point the direction of the race can easily be lost among the visual details. the snipers attack range, while i do get it, i fear not everybody will. and some instructions are just mind boggling (like the one for silver guards. what does that mean?). this map definitely needs both graphical adjustments as well as revised instructions to make things clearer.

Pirates and Merchants: i might be subjective here since it's my map but i honestly find this very easy to understand. that doesn't mean it's a simple map. the treasures and ports have little icons and their bonus is clearly written, the governor bonuses are represented on a clear minimap and experience has taught us that minimaps are retard-proof
the only thing that might bring confusion are the little stories but you can omit reading them as a whole and focus only on the bolded parts. for example red beard needs any 7 treasures to win. that's easy. jesse the ox needs to hold any 14 regions. just as easy to understand. or hindenburg. he needs any 3 ports and 4 specific regions.



PS: my thoughts were mainly about complexity and understandability of instructions not the gameplay. a map can have simple instructions with a very complex gameplay just like it can have complex instructions but simple gameplay.

[natty dread]

I've always tried to make my maps as clear and easy to read as possible, it's always been a main focus for me. I may have not succeeded as well in every map, but I really think a map shouldn't require BOB to decipher - if you can't reasonably figure out everything by just looking at the map image, then the mapmaker has failed.

The main thing is connections. Connections have to be clear, and not just clear - they need to be intuitive. If they aren't, that gives headache to players, and an unfair advantage to players who have had time to memorize the connections, especially in freestyle or speed. If the connections aren't clear without using BOB, the mapmaker has failed.

The second most important thing is rules (bonuses, special rules, killer neutrals or decays etc). Walls of text should be avoided as much as possible. If you can't explain the rules of your map without writing a manual that takes half the map image, then you need to simplify your concept. Use visual clues and shorthands, symbolics, stuff like that. There's a reason why we have traffic signs with images and symbols on them instead of ones with text. Again, the keyword is intuitivity. If the rules and instructions of the map can't be easily understood without using BOB, the mapmaker has failed.

[ManBungalow]

To this day I have no idea what is happening on the WWII Ardennes map.