On "hand holding" or tutorials in games

[Dragoncat]

I see a lot of complaints about this sort of thing, examples being Fi in Zelda Skyward Sword, or the "how to catch a pokemon" in every main series Pokemon game, that up until Sword and Shield, was unskippable. Unless I heard wrong and it's there too, I haven't played it yet.

We complain and get annoyed, or at least roll our eyes at it, because we have played these games since their beginning or close to it. But there will always be somebody playing the game for the first time, so that's why it's there.

Xenoblade doesn't have tutorials like that, but it has a menu you can access with tutorial articles. FE Path of Radiance had one too. I beat PoR because I had previous FE experience, but even with the tutorial menu in Xenoblade, I'm pretty sure I got myself softlocked, because I relied on Shulk throughout the whole game and I reached a point where he's out of the party and the game throws powerful enemies that normally only he can debuff at me. I'm not looking for discussions/advice on how to get past this with this topic, I'm using it as an example for what's in the title. Nothing in the tutorial articles suggested "You will have to put someone other than the main character in the lead eventually", and this isn't Pokemon where somebody will tell you to use water or grass types against the rock gym leader. I struggled enough in Yellow with Brock as a 9 year old, starting with an electric type and the game not saying a fighting type would work just as good. And not understanding the concept of grinding...man that was something else.

My question is, how do you think this sort of thing should be handled? What's your opinion on it in general?

[Hanes]

17 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

or the "how to catch a pokemon" in every main series Pokemon game, that up until Sword and Shield, was unskippable.

It is actually skippable.

My perfect way to do this is that every time the game wants to explain something, it will show a pop-up that you can immediately close (and when you do so, it'll stay as a little box in the corner and then dissappear after a few seconds so you can look for it.) On your subsequent playthroughs you should be given an option to just never let these things even appear again, so you can replay and not have them waste time. Or remove them entirely on harder difficulties, like Fates does if you pick Classic mode (or hard mode, I don't remember which).

Edited May 14, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[Light Strategist]

7 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

the "how to catch a pokemon" in every main series Pokemon game, that up until Sword and Shield, was unskippable. Unless I heard wrong and it's there too, I haven't played it yet.

4 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

It is actually skippable.

I said no to Leon and was still made to watch so unless something changed from when I did it or if I did something wrong, I'll never know. But this is starting to get to me now.

Also just wanted to point out: It was skippable in the Gen 2 games.

[Dragoncat]

1 minute ago, Light Strategist said:

Also just wanted to point out: It was skippable in the Gen 2 games.

Oh yeah, it was! I forgot.

[Hanes]

Just now, Light Strategist said:

Also just wanted to point out: It was skippable in the Gen 2 games.

Oh yeah I forgot about that, depsite Crystal being my favorite pokemon game... but it is kinda cool. That you can, I wonder why they changed it...

[Light Strategist]

2 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

I wonder why they changed it...

In the case of Gen 3, it was likely due to Wally's presence and how you're supposed to oversee him. It always felt like I was the mentor there so that was never really something I'd call intrusive. It helped newcomers while allowing veterans to feel more in charge of the situation. At the very least that's how I felt with it. And hey, Wally came back in the late game with a kick-ass team because you made sure he did it right. What better reward is there than you giving someone a hand and then them growing on their own and becoming a worthy rival?

Why they changed the format from that in Gen 4 though... that's the big question. It'd have been really cool to have helped someone catch a Shinx or something and they come back late-game with a Luxray or something. Honestly though, it remains a mystery. At least they're finally lifting requirement after 2 decades...

[Hanes]

4 minutes ago, Light Strategist said:

In the case of Gen 3, it was likely due to Wally's presence and how you're supposed to oversee him. It always felt like I was the mentor there so that was never really something I'd call intrusive. It helped newcomers while allowing veterans to feel more in charge of the situation. At the very least that's how I felt with it. And hey, Wally came back in the late game with a kick-ass team because you made sure he did it right. What better reward is there than you giving someone a hand and then them growing on their own and becoming a worthy rival?

I never actually thought about it that way, that's pretty cool

Edited May 14, 2020 by This boi uses Nino

[Light Strategist]

3 minutes ago, This boi uses Nino said:

I never actually thought about it that way, that's pretty cool

The game always seemed to pretty clearly indicate that you were more experienced than him and that he just wanted to catch a Pokemon to make friends with. Truthfully, I never even realized that it was a tutorial because of that. That might be why I never looked at it as a bother. I don't need the help, Wally does. I'm not being talked down to, I'm being asked to help him get a little experience as a trainer. Seems pretty reasonable in that regard.

[Ertrick36]

For one thing, it needs to always be optional.  Generally speaking it should not interrupt one's ability to replay the game.  An opening tutorial should be a separate thing from every other game mode, tutorial explanations should be skippable, and a tooltip should only elaborate when you actively investigate it (and it should let you close them out, possibly even disable them entirely if you're familiar enough with the game).

Next is writing.  It's difficult to write tutorials that make sense, at times, as there are a lot of factors at play.  You want to provide just enough information so that your players understand how the game works but aren't overburdened by information overload or clutter, and you also want them to be appropriate for the game.  In a game where immersion is everything, this is risky territory because you can't make the tutorial feel like a gamey tutorial, which means you can't obtusely explain controls.  And lately devs have gotten cheeky about how they write tutorials - and that's an issue that should be mitigated, because you run the risk of annoying your players.  If it's a game where tutorials show up in textboxes, then the writing should be as simple and concise as possible while still explaining the mechanics.

And lastly, the tutorial should be appropriate for the type of game, as different games will require different kinds of tutorials.  A game like Civilization requires a lot more explanation through word while a game like Call of Duty is better off demonstrating things for you.  Some still do well to have persistent reminders - tooltips, if you will - explaining mechanics you might easily forget about - that'd be for a game with a lot of different mechanics and intricacies, such as any game after the Sims 1 (assuming a fair bit of expansions have been installed).  It's important to keep in mind the type of game you have and build your tutorial around how complicated a game you've made.

 

So to put it all together in an example, lemme explain what I think would be an ideal tutorial for Fire Emblem.

• There is no "tutorial mission".  Maybe the game will start off with more simplistic matchups, like with Lyn's battle with the axe-wielding bandits in Blazing Sword, but nothing like, say, Awakening where you literally just charge a single enemy and kill them.
• In the options menu there's a setting to disable tutorials.
• Any time new game mechanics are introduced you will be provided a list of the mechanics and you can look at each of them individually (or choose to not look at them).
• Alternatively they'll be shown in a similar fashion as they were in the 3DS games, but that's assuming the game is on a platform where that's even possible.
• UI leaves hints for how to navigate menus by placing button prompts over certain elements.
• The explanations last no longer than a paragraph per element.  They come as textboxes and tooltips.
• The explanations are also dry reading.  They don't need flair to impress anyone or make people chuckle, they're delivered by disembodied textboxes from the void and so it'd be kind of weird if the tutorial textboxes had more character than potentially some actual characters in the game.
• The explanations can contain as deliberately immersion-breaking explanations as needed.

No, I totally didn't just describe the tutorials in FE:TH.

[Gannondworf13]

I think tutorials are a good way to introduce new players to the mechanics of a game. However, they shouldn't feel too intrusive or forced for players that know what they are doing. Three houses annoys me in that on every single playthrough on every difficulty it will pop up the tutorials in the prologue. Like this is my 4th time through the game on Hard I know what I'm doing. 

[Light Strategist]

49 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

My question is, how do you think this sort of thing should be handled? What's your opinion on it in general?

Since I forgot to actually answer this part, I think having the tutorials as optional but defaultly set to on is a good idea. Beginners can get their experience and veteran players or people replaying for fun can turn them off and not need to put up with them.

25 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

For one thing, it needs to always be optional.  Generally speaking it should not interrupt one's ability to replay the game.  An opening tutorial should be a separate thing from every other game mode, tutorial explanations should be skippable, and a tooltip should only elaborate when you actively investigate it (and it should let you close them out, possibly even disable them entirely if you're familiar enough with the game).

I guess I'm really just echoing this point now though.

[Hanes]

1 hour ago, Light Strategist said:

The game always seemed to pretty clearly indicate that you were more experienced than him and that he just wanted to catch a Pokemon to make friends with. Truthfully, I never even realized that it was a tutorial because of that. That might be why I never looked at it as a bother. I don't need the help, Wally does. I'm not being talked down to, I'm being asked to help him get a little experience as a trainer. Seems pretty reasonable in that regard.

Oh no I meant I just never saw it as anything but an event and that's it. It is pretty cool you're shown to be more experienced.

[The Roger The Paladin]

I personally like the way Binding Blade handled the tutorial. Does anyone remember that? It a separate option from playing a game, and thus just something you could do before you started, or never touch if you knew what you were doing. It gave you all the important stuff.

That said, the best tutorial is the type where you don't even realize there is a tutorial. The Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild basically lets a player learn the basics until they prove themselves ready to leave. Because it's actually fairly easy to die in this game, it doesn't feel like a tutorial at all, and thus is even pretty decent on a subsequent play.

[know_naim]

9 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

My question is, how do you think this sort of thing should be handled? What's your opinion on it in general?

Imo how in game tutorials should be handled depends vastly on the game's direction. Take games with cold opens for example. Elaborate tutorials would take away a big chunk of 'immersion' in this context. 

In general I prefer being able to skip any tutorial and just look up the controls on my own but I don't mind a well executed mandatory tutorial. Like the pilot training in Titanfall 2: was legit one of the best missions in the whole campaign.  

 

[vanguard333]

20 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

For one thing, it needs to always be optional. 

Not necessarily; one of the best tutorial sections ever made isn't skippable: Breath of the Wild's Great Plateau. It gets away with it by basically being a miniaturized version of the full game; easing the player in without handholding. All the shrines apart from the first can be tackled in any order and there are many different ways to get to each one; increasing the replayability of the Great Plateau. In general, I'd say that the Great Plateau is one of the best tutorials, if not the best tutorial, ever put in a video game. 

 

Where I stand on tutorials: it all depends on the game, but my general rule is this: feel free to add stuff that can help new players, but only so long as it does not come at the expense of experienced players, and any way that the tutorial can be effectively intertwined into the rest of the game and made seamless is appreciated.

As much as FLUDD from Mario Sunshine can be annoying in intro cutscenes, one great thing about FLUDD was that it could offer tips to the player without interrupting the gameplay. By contrast, characters like Fi and Navi interrupt the gameplay constantly. 

[Ottservia]

It definitely depends on the game in question and what exactly it's goals are but preferably you would want to show rather than tell. I find that the best tutorials just kinda give you a basic rundown on controls let's you practice them for a little bit before just letting go. You don't want the player to feel like they're being railroaded or forced to do something in a sense(well unless of course it's a very linear story based game like an rpg but even so there's a balance). I generally like the dark souls or Monster hunter approach where all they really tell you is a basic rundown on controls and simple mechanics and the rest you just kinda learn as you play. It's a trial and error kinda way of teaching. if you don't learn the visual tell for Rathian's tail spin you're gonna get smacked, hard, so you best learn how to dodge it if you want to get better.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Ottservia

[Hawkwing]

I would say that a good tutorial informs the player on the information they need to know, provides an example of how a mechanic can be used, and lets the player discover the rest of the game on their own. More advanced information (such as how percentages are determined or more in-depth explanations of what stats affect) should either be optional or provided in a non-intrusive manner (such as Fallout with how starting skill levels are determined).

It depends on the game for whether the tutorial should be incorporated as a separate option on the menu or present when starting a new game. Strategy games or games that are heavily mission based often benefit from the tutorial being optional, as there the player can get information about the games mechanics and maybe an example of how a normal level would play out, and then they can engage in the rest of the campaigns without having to go through a review every time. More action or adventure based games can often work with the tutorial information being provided as the player makes it through the starting are, or in some cases a list of what each button on the controller does is enough.

Knowing when to show and when to tell, as well as designing a good starting level, are things that most players won't pick up on but are vital for providing an effective tutorial. To use an excellent example, the Great Plateau in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is rather light on what it tells the player. You get the controls and some nudging to visit an old man, but for the most part that's it. Yet regardless of whether or not you go in the opposite direction, the player will discover the importance and versatility of climbing, that weapons in this game can and will break, that it is easy to take damage and die in this game, and that exploration will consistently be rewarded. By going through the first quest, they will discover that towers reveal more of the map, how shrines work as well as the abilities you gain from them, and that by clearing four you can increase your heart total or your stamina. The player may even have found some Koroks or that dodging at the right time activates a flurry rush in-between this. By the time the player is given the paraglider and is allowed to explore the rest of the world, they already know several of the games core mechanics while still leaving the entire rest of the game to be discovered.

It's far from the only good example, but the Great Plateau highlights how great level design can often be a more efficient teacher than providing several text boxes.

[Ertrick36]

19 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Not necessarily; one of the best tutorial sections ever made isn't skippable: Breath of the Wild's Great Plateau. It gets away with it by basically being a miniaturized version of the full game; easing the player in without handholding. All the shrines apart from the first can be tackled in any order and there are many different ways to get to each one; increasing the replayability of the Great Plateau. In general, I'd say that the Great Plateau is one of the best tutorials, if not the best tutorial, ever put in a video game.

Eh..  What I mean by tutorial is, strictly speaking, the game telling you how to use its most basic functions.  How to jump, how to pick things up, how to attack, how to use certain items, all that.  If I recall correctly, much of the elements of the game actually telling you how to do those things are prompts that either show up when first starting the game or are persistent elements on the UI.  I don't think any of the times the old man actually interrupts you he's giving you a tutorial message, but instead is giving you your objective.

What I'm thinking of in terms of a "tutorial level" isn't something like the Great Plateau - a beginning area where you can try out some of the game's basic elements if you want to.  I'm talking about a tutorial level where the game stops every 30 seconds or so to tell you how to use certain gameplay elements - a tutorial that actively disrupts the flow of gameplay to teach you new things or that makes you do brain-dead things like walk in a straight line to an objective marker.

I've played a lot of shovelware on the PS2 with tutorials just like that.  Breath of the Wild's Great Plateau segment is nothing like those.  Sure, you have Zelda stopping you every, like, 5, 10, or 15 minutes to remind you what you need to do, but you don't have some dipshit stopping you every minute to tell you how to frickin' walk.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

Eh..  What I mean by tutorial is, strictly speaking, the game telling you how to use its most basic functions.  How to jump, how to pick things up, how to attack, how to use certain items, all that.  If I recall correctly, much of the elements of the game actually telling you how to do those things are prompts that either show up when first starting the game or are persistent elements on the UI.  I don't think any of the times the old man actually interrupts you he's giving you a tutorial message, but instead is giving you your objective.

What I'm thinking of in terms of a "tutorial level" isn't something like the Great Plateau - a beginning area where you can try out some of the game's basic elements if you want to.  I'm talking about a tutorial level where the game stops every 30 seconds or so to tell you how to use certain gameplay elements - a tutorial that actively disrupts the flow of gameplay to teach you new things or that makes you do brain-dead things like walk in a straight line to an objective marker.

I've played a lot of shovelware on the PS2 with tutorials just like that.  Breath of the Wild's Great Plateau segment is nothing like those.  Sure, you have Zelda stopping you every, like, 5, 10, or 15 minutes to remind you what you need to do, but you don't have some dipshit stopping you every minute to tell you how to frickin' walk.

Oh. Okay. Now I understand. 

Then, going back to the "has to be skippable" part, what about the opening bombing mission in Final Fantasy 7 Remake? That still fits your definition of a tutorial level, as the game gives frequent prompts about the gameplay and how to do things throughout it. It isn't skippable (not to my knowledge anyway), and I'd still say it's easily worth playing through; especially since, even with the prompts, most of the actual teaching is done either through gameplay or through banter between the characters. 

[Lightcosmo]

I think tutorials are great to have, but there should be a point when they say, "is this way too drawn out or boring?" Kingdom Hearts II is a great example of an awful drawn out tutorial, it's padded with stuff that you practiced a few times already. Enough is enough.

[Ertrick36]

8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Then, going back to the "has to be skippable" part, what about the opening bombing mission in Final Fantasy 7 Remake? That still fits your definition of a tutorial level, as the game gives frequent prompts about the gameplay and how to do things throughout it. It isn't skippable (not to my knowledge anyway), and I'd still say it's easily worth playing through; especially since, even with the prompts, most of the actual teaching is done either through gameplay or through banter between the characters. 

I have no flippin' clue, I barely play FF games.

If it's what it sounds like, and that they're tutorial boxes that appear on screen and pause the game, then I have this to say:

On 5/13/2020 at 6:59 PM, Ertrick36 said:

tutorial explanations should be skippable

And if you can press X to close them, they're semi-skippable, though tbh there should be an option to just disable them altogether.  Doesn't mean it's a bad tutorial, it means it's a tutorial with at least one flaw, that flaw being that an element isn't skippable.

What I'm talking about, in terms of tutorial level, isn't that.  An easy level for helping you to grow accustomed to the mechanics of the game is, by my definition, not a tutorial level, but instead a first level.

A proper tutorial level is the most dumbed-down, hand-holding, baby's first video game type of garbage in a tutorial.  It's forcing you to listen to some dickhead NPC explain to you that you use the left control stick to move the character (through unskippable dialogue that you're forced to listen to), then making you walk to a simple point on a flat plane to progress the tutorial, and then the same song and dance being repeated for moving the camera, for punching, for shooting, for talking to NPCs, and for every single aspect of the controls... with all of it being a big, unskippable segment.  Maybe as a further kick in the nads the devs threw in some Kaepora Gaebora BS where you have to confirm that you understood what the NPC said each time by selecting "Yes" in a prompt that defaults to "No", the latter option of which repeats the explanation.

Maybe that's an archaic idea that's been abandoned a while ago - perhaps long enough that people who didn't start their gaming with N64's and Playstation 1's wouldn't know about it.  Really ought to be, because it's awful.  Maybe it's also that such a tutorial is just bad in general, not just for the reason that it's not skippable.  Games from my youth did that a lot - maybe not to such an extreme extent, but there was plenty of "use the control stick to move the character to the objective" type garbage in game tutorials in PS1 and PS2 era games.

 

Also, just to be clear, you do understand that my aversion to this is a matter of concern over a game's replayability, right?  And that I'm strictly referring to the element of skippability - that such an element alone doesn't make a tutorial immediately bad, but rather that it's the element itself that's bad?  Either way, this will be the hill I die on, I despise unskippable, non-optional tutorials.  No matter what game you bring, what tutorial you explain, I'm gonna always say that if the tutorial parts are obtrusive to game flow and non-optional that their flaw is that they're non-optional.  There are many ways you can formulate a tutorial, but forcing the player to waste time taking in crap they've already come to understand perfectly (or forcing them to find a way to blow through it all as quickly as possible) is bad design.  There is no context I'm aware of where the unskippability is actually a good thing for a tutorial.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

On 5/14/2020 at 1:56 AM, Dragoncat said:

My question is, how do you think this sort of thing should be handled? What's your opinion on it in general?

back in the 90's we had this little thing called "Instructions Manual", and people were able to get the most basic informations about game mechanics without ruining their immersion while playing the game.

you could also get some infos about the background story along with some artworks at times, so all in all it wasn't only a nice addition, but an integral part of the game as well.

 

nowdays we have no paper whatsoever except for the box cover, unless you got some special/deluxe/limited/whatever edition of a game.

in-game tutorials have become the new trend. for better or worse, i guess it all depends if they're skippable or not.

[The Roger The Paladin]

2 hours ago, Fenreir said:

back in the 90's we had this little thing called "Instructions Manual", and people were able to get the most basic informations about game mechanics without ruining their immersion while playing the game.

you could also get some infos about the background story along with some artworks at times, so all in all it wasn't only a nice addition, but an integral part of the game as well.

 

nowdays we have no paper whatsoever except for the box cover, unless you got some special/deluxe/limited/whatever edition of a game.

in-game tutorials have become the new trend. for better or worse, i guess it all depends if they're skippable or not.

I miss those things. I used to literally read them while waiting to play a game for the first time between buying it and getting home. Hyping myself up. But now I can't.

[Dragoncat]

5 hours ago, Fenreir said:

back in the 90's we had this little thing called "Instructions Manual", and people were able to get the most basic informations about game mechanics without ruining their immersion while playing the game.

you could also get some infos about the background story along with some artworks at times, so all in all it wasn't only a nice addition, but an integral part of the game as well.

 

nowdays we have no paper whatsoever except for the box cover, unless you got some special/deluxe/limited/whatever edition of a game.

in-game tutorials have become the new trend. for better or worse, i guess it all depends if they're skippable or not.

Omg yes I miss those.