New player tweaks?

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kamnet
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by kamnet »

hidaso wrote: 19 Mar 2021 03:41 This super, I need to read a guide for newcomers players, it is difficult for me to understand the mechanics.
What I am planning is not going to be a full-blown guide to help new players understand basic mechanics. As I said earlier, there are a lot of resources for that already.

You can download the Beginner Tutorial scenario from the in-game content download service and get an immediate, hands-on guided demonstration that walks you step-by-step through the basics. There are also several YouTube video series from individuals which do much of the same.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by einsteinyh »

I think creating presets and displaying them on 1st run would be more useful for new players, the game is a bit dense in the beginning and asking then for settings to be changed makes it quite denser. Maybe having a toggle of Novice-normal-custom could be?
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Taschi »

For new players, cargodist should be on, at the very least for passengers.

I keep seeing newbies on the Steam forums who are utterly confused that their passengers just exit the vehicle at the nearest stop, because that is something several newer TT-style games have handled in more accurate ways (e. g. Transport Fever and Mashinky). Building a working passenger network with the default setting (no cargodist) also requires dealing with custom loading and transfer orders and that kind of micromanaging is not something you should dump on a newbie.

In fact, I think the game would be better for most users, not just newbies, if cargodist was on by default and had some decent, well-balanced default settings.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by 2TallTyler »

Taschi wrote: 23 May 2021 11:33 For new players, cargodist should be on, at the very least for passengers.

...

In fact, I think the game would be better for most users, not just newbies, if cargodist was on by default and had some decent, well-balanced default settings.
I agree. So then, what are the decent, well-balanced settings?

For a start, I'd say Symmetric for Passengers, Asymmetric for Mail, and Manual for Valuables and other cargos.

Open question to all: what value do you like for "Effect of distance on demands"?
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by dol422 »

2TallTyler wrote: 23 May 2021 22:01 Open question to all: what value do you like for "Effect of distance on demands"?
I have it set to 200%. Cargo prefers closer connections which can save money especially in the early game where you are just starting out and dont have a large income. It also encourages me to maintain the smaller connections even when my network spans the entire map and I am making millions.
Take a look at: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=74993
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by _dp_ »

Cargodist implies some very specific "realistic" way of playing the game. It directly conflicts with any other like competive/goal play, openttdcoop-style networking, etc. So while It may not be a bad way to play it's just one of the many, and it's not even that popular (only about 15% of servers use it). So it's hardly a good idea to force it, if so why not make it a citybuilder by default, for example, it's no less popular.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Taschi »

_dp_ wrote: 24 May 2021 10:53 Cargodist implies some very specific "realistic" way of playing the game. It directly conflicts with any other like competive/goal play, openttdcoop-style networking, etc. So while It may not be a bad way to play it's just one of the many, and it's not even that popular (only about 15% of servers use it). So it's hardly a good idea to force it, if so why not make it a citybuilder by default, for example, it's no less popular.
Three points here:

The current default setting also implies a very specific way of playing the game.
Changing the default setting does not "force" anybody to do anything.
The "slippery slope fallacy" is never a good argument.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by _dp_ »

Taschi wrote: 24 May 2021 10:57 The current default setting also implies a very specific way of playing the game.
Current settings are very sandbox'y, they may not be perfect for anything specific but it's an ok start.
Cargodist adds a hidden goal that conflicts with pretty much everything. For example, it completely nullifies the whole economic aspect of the game, however little it may be.
Taschi wrote: 24 May 2021 10:57 Changing the default setting does not "force" anybody to do anything.
New players don't dive into settings right after downloading the game. They expect it to be configured for some consistent gameplay out of the box, not some hidden arcanistry they have to disable if they want to play the game the way it's advertised (i.e. sandbox or business simulator). Even without cargodist being default there are already plenty of questions from confused new players who read some random "advice" on the internet to enable cargodist without understanding it and now their income/citybuilder/whatever is broken.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by LaChupacabra »

Taschi wrote: 23 May 2021 11:33 For new players, cargodist should be on, at the very least for passengers.
I keep seeing newbies on the Steam forums who are utterly confused that their passengers just exit the vehicle at the nearest stop...
And the inclusion of cargodist will not change anything here. Players will be even more confused. Whenever I play on any server with cargodist, every time, several times in one game, I see the same problem: there are thousands of passengers waiting at the stations, and players do not know why this is happening, because there is a train at the station all the time - they think. Players do not know that the passengers or the mail have designated directions. How are they to know about it? The problem is that the station window does not show directions, and newbies very often don't know that they need to press the number bar to show the destinations. Therefore, if you want to change anything about the cargodist, you should first of all make it easier for the player to notice the fact that the loads have transport directions at all. Rebuilding the station window layout would be nice, but it's don't really need big changes, just the direction lists expand by default.
Station window.png
Station window.png (46.37 KiB) Viewed 2411 times
_dp_ wrote: 24 May 2021 10:53 Cargodist ... only about 15% of servers use it
Considering the popularity of the servers and the number of players, I think it's more than 50 maybe even 70%. But as I mentioned above, it is very clear that many players don't understand how cargodist works and it is problematic for them.
In my opinion, making it as the default setting would not be a bad thing, but for that to happen, some significant adjustments would have to be made to make the game mechanics easier, not more difficult to understand.

Some of the existing cargodist issues:
1. The new player doesn't see that the passengers (and other cargo) have designated directions.
2. Cargodist often uses transfers that introduce conditional payments, which in the case of a new player only makes it difficult to understand the already intricate game mechanics.
3. Transfers often generate negative income, which is incomprehensible and illogical for many players, not only new ones.
4. In the case of industrial cargo transport, the appearance of a new enterprise within the reach of one of the stations can completely block the movement of trains, and the location and solution of such problem may be difficult even for an advanced player.
5. Removing or adding stations in the orders may block traffic until the connection chart is updated, which may take up to several months.
6. You can take hundreds of thousands of passengers to a tiny village and they will never return from there.
7. The more extensive the network of connections, the lower the income.
8. Still the most profitable style of building is to create isolated A-B connections between two distant points, which makes the game de facto financially penalizes those who try to build realistic and complex networks.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Wahazar »

What about pre-settings in game options menu:
TTD (with settings making game similar to the original one, as it is possible)
OpenTTD (with some settings optimised, for example cargodist for pax/mail, autorenew etc)
Custom (doesn't change anything, just let it change via settings interface as it is currently implemented, otherwise settings menu is read only).
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Eddi »

McZapkie wrote: 24 May 2021 16:11 TTD (with settings making game similar to the original one, as it is possible)
  1. this is not possible
  2. this is explicitly not a goal of the project
  3. no new player needs this setting
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by _dp_ »

LaChupacabra wrote: 24 May 2021 14:59
_dp_ wrote: 24 May 2021 10:53 Cargodist ... only about 15% of servers use it
Considering the popularity of the servers and the number of players, I think it's more than 50 maybe even 70%.
You are wrong, 15% was already an overstatement: https://citymania.org/tools/serverstat. I don't have stats by players but it should be even less considering that out of popular servers only reddit seems to have cargodist.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Wahazar »

Eddi wrote: 24 May 2021 22:18
  1. this is not possible
  2. this is explicitly not a goal of the project
  3. no new player needs this setting
You completely misunderstood me, so let me rephrase:

What about pre-settings in game options menu:
Standard TTD (with settings making game similar to the original one, as it is currently implemented as default settings)
OpenTTD (with some settings optimized, as it is proposed in this thread)
Custom (doesn't change anything, just let it change via settings interface as it is currently implemented, otherwise settings menu are read only).
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Eddi »

no, i understood you. you want to make presets.

but the presets you suggested don't make any sense.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Wahazar »

Eddi wrote: 25 May 2021 10:10 no, i understood you. you want to make presets.
but the presets you suggested don't make any sense.
Because?
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Taschi »

A preset that is as close as possible to the original TTD settings is, by definition, possible. The real question is how close it can be (and how useful it is).
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by LaChupacabra »

Eddi wrote: 24 May 2021 22:18
McZapkie wrote: 24 May 2021 16:11 TTD (with settings making game similar to the original one, as it is possible)
  1. this is not possible
  2. this is explicitly not a goal of the project
  3. no new player needs this setting
a. I think you give up too quickly. :wink: It doesn't even seem particularly difficult, although perhaps quite laborious.
b. I see no point as to why this should be inconsistent with the goal of the project. This doesn't remove or limit anything (unlike, for example, blocking the inflation period, which is completely inconsistent with the goal of the project - it restricts the freedom of the game, is not related to the original game, makes it impossible to play in the old style, doesn't take into account different playstyles and does not solve any problem)
c. I think you may be right, but I also think that being able to choose of a preset settings could be a bit of a convenience for new players.
d. I think most players like to play sometimes easier and sometimes more difficult games. The ability to easily save and load various preferred settings would be a great help instead of changing all settings separately.
e. Recently, I went back to one of the old versions of the game for a while... I never played the original TTD and for me, but I think for many other players as well, it would be really interesting to use such a setup with the original settings. It would also allow to recognize and appreciate the progress that has been made over the years.
f. Perhaps it would be possible to create presets of new games in a similar way - TrueBrain wrote about such an interesting idea not so long ago (here) (draft).
g. Looking at the main topic of this thread, which is the willingness to suggest to the player what settings can make the game more interesting, I think that the possibility of simply copying the settings, pasting and using them would be a very useful solution. :)

Ad.a

Possible solution:
1. Create a new folder "settings"
2. Add a bar to select a preset in the settings window similar to the one in the NewGRF settings window
3. Divide the settings from the openttd.cfg file between three types of files:
A. With not significantly influencing for the gameplay (player_settings.cfg) - interface, company settings etc. (It can be several files)
B. Specifying the gamepley, its level of difficulty and nature:
- "preset-current settings.cfg" - the default file that saves the current settings (doesn't show the preset name in the game)
- "preset -... cfg" - would be permanent, non-removable files that the game has, defined by the developers as optimal and interesting settings as possible
- "preset_custom -... cfg" - would be the settings files saved by the players
- changing the settings in the second and third case can be blocked, and if not, it will be saved as "preset-current settings.cfg"
- these presets should also be able to overwrite selected settings from the player_settings.cfg file, for example to be able to better recreate the atmosphere of the original TTD game
C. Presets NewGRF - they would be separate files so it would be easy to find them and share them or do anything else.
4. Save changes to the settings in the game in the above files.
5. Import the settings from the above files used in the game to openttd.cfg or create a new openttd.cfg file based on the above files.
Setting presets 0.7+.png
Setting presets 0.7+.png (100.95 KiB) Viewed 2282 times
_dp_ wrote: 25 May 2021 07:53
LaChupacabra wrote: 24 May 2021 14:59
_dp_ wrote: 24 May 2021 10:53 Cargodist ... only about 15% of servers use it
Considering the popularity of the servers and the number of players, I think it's more than 50 maybe even 70%.
You are wrong, 15% was already an overstatement: https://citymania.org/tools/serverstat. I don't have stats by players but it should be even less considering that out of popular servers only reddit seems to have cargodist.
Well, those 50-70% are my subjective feelings. Indeed, the vast majority of servers don't use cargodist, although usually most of them were empty. However, the most popular ones, where there were almost always 10-15 players, have cargodist turned on. Brief comparison: there are currently 116 online players (public servers), 26 of which are on cargodist's servers.
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Re: New player tweaks?

Post by Wahazar »

Taschi wrote: 25 May 2021 11:36 A preset that is as close as possible to the original TTD settings is, by definition, possible. The real question is how close it can be (and how useful it is).
LaChupacabra wrote: 25 May 2021 12:06 It doesn't even seem particularly difficult, although perhaps quite laborious.
Wait, there is still misunderstand.

When I was referring to "close to TTD settings", I had current default settings in mind.

My idea was to preserve current default settings while adding 'improved' setting set discussed within this topic.



If talking about cargodist statistics - server with 15/15 companies and 12 users online =/= server with 1/15 companies and 0 users online.
Formerly known as: McZapkie
Projects: Reproducible Map Generation patch, NewGRFs: Manpower industries, PolTrams, Polroad, 600mm narrow gauge, wired, ECS industry extension, V4 CEE train set, HotHut.
Another favorite games: freeciv longturn, OHOL/2HOL.
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