Laserbeam Design

This weekend I was playing with a bunch of folks I've never seen before. From their behavior I guessed they were classmates taking a break during lunch or a comp lab. That's mostly irrelevant, but the point is that they were relatively new to the game.

One thing I noticed they struggled with frequently was destroying laserbeams. It seemed the act of shooting the emitter to open the gate was not overly obvious. It got me thinking, hey, that isn't overly obvious! It's kind of hard to comprehend since I'm an experienced player, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of players get tripped up with not knowing how to destroy lasers.

Two things I think could help new users overcome this:

- Add a line to the instructions, "Shoot emitter to deactivate"
- Maybe change the design of the laserbeam? Does anyone have suggestions on how the second bullet point could be accomplished? Something to make the emitter stand out a little more.

Besides all of this I think it's really useful to get new player feedback. If you introduce a friend to the game, be sure to ask them what they thought - and encourage them to be honest and specific. We should be on the lookout for patterns and signs of new player difficulty.

I saw this too.
Instructions are the wrong way to go about it

make the laser emitter bigger looks good
or just add lasers.. looks bad

[Skybax]

Making the base bigger would break a lot of levels with bottleneck corridors that rely on the base being that size for ships to get though.

Maybe making it glow or flash would work

Maybe making it glow or flash would work

I agree! A softly glowing emitter would probably do the charm. But, Bitfighter graphics up until this point have been static, ie. no flashing/glowing effects. Maybe that contradicts traditional Bitfighter art?

[watusimoto]

You mean like teleporters?

You mean like teleporters?

D'oh! I stand corrected.

what it it was solid and not a outline in addtion to flashing maybe that would make it easier