One of my game-in-progress is a space opera style game. Depending on the character you choose to play, you have different ways to achieve victory. The game is also rather open-ended as to what types of progression and strategy you choose.
For the new player, this can bit a bit daunting and they may not have a clear picture as to how they are going to win. Some small feedback so far has been that it is good that the game moves fast despite the complexity. Individual parts make sense, but there's a lot of them, and they don't have the experience to put them into any kind of context. So it becomes paralysis of too many options, and having no idea of the long term consequences of choices.
However, once the player grasps the game, the strategic depth is very welcome.
One player remarked that he thought there were too many options at the beginning. The thing is, is that there really *wasn't* that many options at the beginning. He just couldn't tell because he was overloaded with all of the various aspects, and couldn't tell which options weren't strategically viable choices, and which were strategic musts, or that some of the choices weren't even possible. Now this player wasn't my intended audience by any means, however if I can get someone like him to get it, then anyone can pick it up. So that's seems to be a good goal.
Perhaps it might end up being a question of well written rules, and good examples.
My questions become one of tips on balancing strategic depth vs learnability, and also of the best way to get new players into the flow (especially if someone won't be there to explain it in person)
All interesting responses.
The confusion at the beginning was along the lines of, "Ok, I have my ship, now where should I head first, and why?"
Also, the player starts with some cash and is presented with a collection of randomly drawn items to buy.
Some of these items may use up all your money for very little benefit in the early game, whereas others may be more useful at the beginning, and may or may not use up lots of money, but the player may not know when it's worth the investment. A few turns down the road, it becomes apparent what the player *should* have bought, but now has no money and has inadvertently harmed their chances for getting more money.
I've been thinking about some major revisions to address some of this.
They largely stem from the idea of eliminating money altogether.
Purchases are already limited to one item per turn, and only at a colony. So the player still has to make choices as to what to get, but wrong purchases will not cripple a player's ability to fix their mistake later. The random availability of items also ensures that cheaper, lesser items still get used because the better items may not have been available (also, many items are additive)
Naturally, I have to retool rewards and such. I already have a victory point system, so they can act as a form of currency in some aspects. Such as, spend a VP to purchase a new ship, completing missions now rewards VPs instead of cash (they already did give a VP, but I can introduce more fidelity here), Alien artifacts no longer are sold for cash but become 'special use' items, capturing a criminal player rewards a VP as bounty, etc.
As a ripple effect, I have to change the idea that different characters have a unique way to earn VPs, since now VPs are awarded for completing tasks that largely overlap some of these 'unique goals'.
However, this has the added benefit of further reducing complexity. They unique goal idea was to encourage varied gameplay, but in my tests so far this encouragement seems completely necessary.
However I think I can introduce an alternate way to end the game early also using the now improved alien artifacts, and this even enhances the flavor of the game.
I think this one fundamental change will improve things quite a bit.