Playing Binding Blade before Blazing Blade?

[OriginalRaisins]

On 10/9/2021 at 3:18 AM, eclipse said:

It shows that you have no idea what objectively easier/harder is (as in, this can be proven with math).  The thing that makes FE8/Awakening a lot easier is that enemy stats are low, combined with opportunities to raise your unit's stats and gain resources outside of the story for as long as you can stomach.  Fates/3H has this feature too, but offsets this by implementing a RNG that's a bigger pain in the neck and generally being more complex.  And if you can't understand these principles on an objective level, then I don't think you should be talking about what makes a good entry point, or what a good tutorial looks like.

The two of you have now gone back and forth for like 3 posts each over something completely irrelevant to the point at hand. Whether or not fe7 is easier than fe8 or is easier than PoR easy mode has literally nothing to do with the original subject: that fe6 may be a good entry point for newer players. Certainly fe6 is harder than some other games but most people understand that if they're going to play a game there's going to be some difficulty. As long as the game gives them the tools to overcome their problems and learn the game it's fine. Oh, and as an aside point, the "restart chapter" button is a tool.

Certainly fe6 is at least difficulty enough that it is not an appropriate game to recommend to somebody who is completely 100% challenge-averse. If some people need Birthright phoenix mode then recommend to them Birthright phoenix mode. But likewise a sizeable portion of the potential playerbase would be turned off of FE if Birthright phoenix mode was their entry point. Each person has different tastes and a good first game recommendation is one that communicates the game's experience directly to their tastes. Aspects such as difficulty should be communicated, but I don't necessarily think easier = better starting point.

In my opinion, the only thing that matters when recommending a first game is that the player enjoys it. Learning mechanics that help you in other games or getting context for the story of other games don't matter at all, since they won't play a second game if they don't like the first. If someone were looking for a first FE game and I thought fe6 might be a good candidate, I'd basically ask them:

• Are you okay with solving problems whose outcomes are uncertain? (random misses, etc.)
• Are you okay with fog of war?
• Some of your tools are definitely better than others and there is not a lot of balance within your own army. Does that bother you?
• The rules of the game are pretty straightforward and classic with not many bells or whistles. Does that bother you?
• There is not an official localization and so you're playing a fan translation. Does that bother you?

If someone answered yes to 1 and 2 and no to 3, 4, and 5 then fe6 is probably a perfect game for them starting out.

On 10/6/2021 at 12:11 PM, MuteMousou said:

I think if you played fe6 first, you would have the context of who Eliwood and Hector are, as well as the entire world and sort of "get" the point of the entire story in the context of Elibe, whereas this wouldn't be evident if you went into it knowing nothing about Elibe. I don't really remember much on the story of either, but I think it is pretty reasonable to say that the returning characters in fe7 are probably there sort of as "fanservice" to people who played fe6, even if you don't need to have played fe6 to understand who they are. To an extent I think you could also say the same thing for fe10, even though it is a sequel, in that, although the game definitely was intended to be experienced after fe9, you don't really need to have played fe9 to understand the story.

It's not hard to figure out briefly who a character is and what they want to do in a sentence. Literally pressing R on their name in the stat screen does it too. Certainly the writing is no in-depth Shakespearean masterpiece but it's easy enough to get a grasp on it. Also if someone liked the game and wants more answers regarding Elibe then they can just play FE6 next.

On 10/7/2021 at 12:03 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Lyn mode is a pretty crappy tutorial because it holds your hand and makes you crawl through explanations of its mechanics, even the most basic and intuitive ones. Even as a small, stupid 12 year old playing the game for the first time, I didn't need Lyn to tell me how to move units. It's patronizing, probably because it was made for the kinds of people Japanese developers perceive Americans to be (which is to say "borderline vegetables").

Some people like this sort of thing, myself included. People deride the fe7 tutorial but it was the first game for a lot of people who still play today, how offensive could it have been?

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, OriginalRaisins said:

The two of you have now gone back and forth for like 3 posts each over something completely irrelevant to the point at hand. Whether or not fe7 is easier than fe8 or is easier than PoR easy mode has literally nothing to do with the original subject: that fe6 may be a good entry point for newer players. Certainly fe6 is harder than some other games but most people understand that if they're going to play a game there's going to be some difficulty. As long as the game gives them the tools to overcome their problems and learn the game it's fine. Oh, and as an aside point, the "restart chapter" button is a tool.

Here's the last paragraph of the topic:

Quote

I wonder if part of the reason the English community doesn't ever suggest this is possibly because they personally didn't play fe6 first. I don't really know anyone in the English community who played fe6 first, so that's fine, like of course this is going to happen lol. But, I do think we should suggest fe6 more often as an option to newer players. I think the tutorial in fe7 is pretty unnecessary for new players anyway and there are many other fine entry points for the series.

It's two different points.  I'm harping on the the second one.  As in, it's ridiculous enough on its own that I think it's worth the effort to respond to it (and you).  I'm sorry if you aren't able to understand why it's important to have a good tutorial, even if it feels overbearing.  It's far better than none at all.

[OriginalRaisins]

3 minutes ago, eclipse said:

It's two different points.  I'm harping on the the second one.  As in, it's ridiculous enough on its own that I think it's worth the effort to respond to it (and you).  I'm sorry if you aren't able to understand why it's important to have a good tutorial, even if it feels overbearing.  It's far better than none at all.

Why is the fe6 tutorial inadequate?

[eclipse]

Just now, OriginalRaisins said:

Why is the fe6 tutorial inadequate?

FE7's tutorial is though the stages themselves, using the character's voices.  IMO these tutorials are the best at explaining things, because it's a little bit of character introduction alongside explaining how the game works.  Granted Lyn Mode's long, but at least it can be skipped after the first time (or set to hard, if the player wants to reread the story but not go through the tutorial motions again).  Something that I think serious FE players forget is that the game's pretty complicated to someone who's never touched a SRPG before.

[OriginalRaisins]

Just now, eclipse said:

FE7's tutorial is though the stages themselves, using the character's voices.  IMO these tutorials are the best at explaining things, because it's a little bit of character introduction alongside explaining how the game works.  Granted Lyn Mode's long, but at least it can be skipped after the first time (or set to hard, if the player wants to reread the story but not go through the tutorial motions again).  Something that I think serious FE players forget is that the game's pretty complicated to someone who's never touched a SRPG before.

That's evidence that FE7's tutorial is good, which by my post above

1 hour ago, OriginalRaisins said:

Some people like this sort of thing, myself included. People deride the fe7 tutorial but it was the first game for a lot of people who still play today, how offensive could it have been?

(In reference to Lyn mode) I actually agree with. But it doesn't answer my question. My question was:

4 minutes ago, OriginalRaisins said:

Why is the fe6 tutorial inadequate?

It's certainly different than the fe7 tutorial, which is good, but also different people may like different tutorials. I do not wish to put words in AnonymousSpeed's mouth, but this comment leads me to believe there is a nonzero number of people who don't like the Lyn mode tutorial and will prefer a tutorial like FE6's

On 10/8/2021 at 7:44 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

I can't believe it. 12 chapters, an entire chapter about ballistas and reavers, doesn't even trust you to know how to move a cursor, and the darn thing doesn't event each you about rescue-dropping. Truly Lyn mode is an abject failure.

 

[eclipse]

2 minutes ago, OriginalRaisins said:

It's certainly different than the fe7 tutorial, which is good, but also different people may like different tutorials. I do not wish to put words in AnonymousSpeed's mouth, but this comment leads me to believe there is a nonzero number of people who don't like the Lyn mode tutorial and will prefer a tutorial like FE6's

I'd rather a tutorial err on the side of overly detailed, which means that FE7 wins by default.  Hence why I'm going to recommend the most detailed tutorial in the series for newcomers.  Since there's not that many FE7 cartridges floating around, someone who's never played the game will most likely use an emulator.  If so, there's a patch that eliminates the tutorial, should they find it to be too boring.

[MuteMousou]

4 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

It's not hard to figure out briefly who a character is and what they want to do in a sentence. Literally pressing R on their name in the stat screen does it too. Certainly the writing is no in-depth Shakespearean masterpiece but it's easy enough to get a grasp on it. Also if someone liked the game and wants more answers regarding Elibe then they can just play FE6 next.

I'm not saying there is like an objectively better way to play the game or anything, like certainly the games that are supplements to other games always give the context to understand what the hell is going on at least to some degree without having played/read/whatever the other thing beforehand, as anything should do. My entire point is that, given that it was made before and takes place in the same world, that I think that is reasonable that the developers probably intended at least in some respect to have the game that came first be the one that was played first, as it was obviously intended that the latter game was made with fans of the first in mind. Also note that there are things that you won't understand the intended significance of at all if you haven't played fe6, such as the epilogue scene where you won't get what the hell the significance of Roy, Lilina and Zephiel are if you don't know that fe7 is a prequel, the only real point of some of these scenes is to tie the game into fe6, which will be completely meaningless to someone who hasn't played that game.
 

5 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

Some people like this sort of thing, myself included. People deride the fe7 tutorial but it was the first game for a lot of people who still play today, how offensive could it have been?

I don't know if i necessarily agree with the statement that because people liked the game that this means the tutorial wasn't especially offensive. The thing in general is that it is completely skippable for Japanese players who have a save file of fe6, but it is impossible to ever skip as an English player unless you finish the game twice (or more? not sure if this is correct) which in itself I thinks shows the flaw in how Japanese developers understood English audiences at the time, branching all the way back to the reason super mario brothers 2 wasn't initially released outside of Japan. I don't believe the super long and tedious tutorial was actually necessary for new players because three houses is a much more popular game with a much less intrusive tutorial. 

[MuteMousou]

On 10/7/2021 at 12:03 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Probably, yeah. It's a darn shame, since FE6 is a much better game.

Personally I agree, but I don't think that necessarily tells whether the game is better to start with versus fe7 for any random person. 

 

On 10/7/2021 at 12:03 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Well, reality itself is subjective in some sense, so that's not such a big deal.

I mean, I don't really understand your point. Difficulty being subjective just means certain people will find things difficult where others won't, which is an objective fact that people just tend to look at things differently.

[AnonymousSpeed]

11 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

Some people like this sort of thing, myself included. People deride the fe7 tutorial but it was the first game for a lot of people who still play today, how offensive could it have been?

Eh, probably not terribly so. It's like said though, the problems with Lyn mode are entirely separate from FE6 and whether its tutorial is adequate. I never played the FE6 tutorial, but I'll take your word for it if you say it is. Really, the fact that you can boot up a virgin copy of FE6 and completely ignore the tutorial is something to its credit. That said, I enjoy harping on FE7, so I will continue to utilize this opportunity to do so.

9 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

It's certainly different than the fe7 tutorial, which is good, but also different people may like different tutorials. I do not wish to put words in AnonymousSpeed's mouth, but this comment leads me to believe there is a nonzero number of people who don't like the Lyn mode tutorial and will prefer a tutorial like FE6's

'Ey, no problem lad. You got the read on me just right, so no hard feelings.

9 hours ago, eclipse said:

FE7's tutorial is though the stages themselves, using the character's voices.  IMO these tutorials are the best at explaining things, because it's a little bit of character introduction alongside explaining how the game works.

Ya like Twilight Princess?

9 hours ago, eclipse said:

Since there's not that many FE7 cartridges floating around, someone who's never played the game will most likely use an emulator.  If so, there's a patch that eliminates the tutorial, should they find it to be too boring.

This doesn't make any sense though. If someone is playing FE7 as their first Fire Emblem game and are doing it on emulator- well, first of all, it's unlikely to be a new player's first FE game since the series is still getting big new commercial releases. This is a historical scenario, but let's assume its the case anyway. After all, it'll probably happen to someone else eventually.

If a player is a true newcomer, someone totally unfamiliar with Fire Emblem and its playerbase, then they're not going to know how to look for Arch's Tutorial Slayer and apply it using NUPs to their GBA file. Those terms look made up to an outsider. Maybe they'll get a 100% save file with Lyn Hard Mode unlocked- but how would they know that was even a feature if they weren't already familiar with the game? Perhaps they get bored and look up how to skip the tutorial- but couldn't they just look up whatever other questions they had with the game at that point?

5 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

I mean, I don't really understand your point. Difficulty being subjective just means certain people will find things difficult where others won't, which is an objective fact that people just tend to look at things differently.

Point being that, while difficulty is subjective, any criticism or praise of a game you could make is technically subjective, so I don't think it's necessary to preface that what you're talking about is subjective.

[Armchair General]

15 hours ago, eclipse said:

FE7's tutorial is though the stages themselves, using the character's voices.  IMO these tutorials are the best at explaining things, because it's a little bit of character introduction alongside explaining how the game works.  Granted Lyn Mode's long, but at least it can be skipped after the first time (or set to hard, if the player wants to reread the story but not go through the tutorial motions again).  Something that I think serious FE players forget is that the game's pretty complicated to someone who's never touched a SRPG before.

Honestly, the series needs more people like Sain.

The guy ignores the basics of warfare and the game uses him as an scapegoat just to tell the player, "See this guy? Don't be like him." Granted, the previous mission should have gave you a hint or two to be a little bit more cautious; but this actually explains why you need to switch weapons and never attack a forest tile. But considering that it's a 87% hit rate, I'll still take it and won't bitch if I miss.

Edited October 11, 2021 by Armchair General

[MuteMousou]

24 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

The guy ignores the basics of warfare and the game uses him as an scapegoat just to tell the player, "See this guy? Don't be like him." Granted, the previous mission should have gave you a hint or two to be a little bit more cautious; but this actually explains why you need to switch weapons and never attack a forest tile. But considering that it's a 87% hit rate, I'll still take it and won't bitch if I miss.

The thing is I think that tutorializing through having the player forced into something and explaining literally everything is always worse than just showing you what you should pay attention to through gameplay alone, it could be a ridiculously easy level but as long as it relays something important to the player through how it uses the game's mechanics, it doesn't really matter how easy it is. If you first present a situation to them where they actually have to recognize something on their own, I think it will be better kept in their mind versus being told that something is important and not being given the actual normal gameplay context to understand why it's important.

[Armchair General]

12 minutes ago, MuteMousou said:

The thing is I think that tutorializing through having the player forced into something and explaining literally everything is always worse than just showing you what you should pay attention to through gameplay alone, it could be a ridiculously easy level but as long as it relays something important to the player through how it uses the game's mechanics, it doesn't really matter how easy it is. If you first present a situation to them where they actually have to recognize something on their own, I think it will be better kept in their mind versus being told that something is important and not being given the actual normal gameplay context to understand why it's important.

Yeah, video games tutorials are generally scripted  so that there's only one or two options to progress through them. It would help if there's some unique dialogue that happens when you first attack an enemy in a forest instead of just railroading the situation. But you can only do so much with the GBA.

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, Armchair General said:

But you can only do so much with the GBA.

The limitations of the medium aren't an excuse, you're supposed to work around them.

[MuteMousou]

I'm not sure how much of the removed mechanics and QoL from fe5 to fe6 are actually because of system limitations. They did a pretty good job getting it to work on the GBA though, i just don't really like gba music or the fact that map animations are kind of lame in gba compared to fe3-5

[Whisky]

19 hours ago, eclipse said:

I'd rather a tutorial err on the side of overly detailed, which means that FE7 wins by default.

I don't agree with this. I recommend watching the Sequelitis video on Megaman vs Megaman X. It's a good video and makes some points that help with the points I'm trying to make here. Part of the video is him complaining about how modern games have a tendency to hold players' hands more, halting the flow of the game to explain everything to the player instead of letting players figure things out on their own. Older games tended to encourage players to learn the game through how the maps were designed, and Sequelitus says that Megaman and Megaman X are both very good at doing this. They basically take a "show don't tell" approach to teaching players how to play the game, which is an approach that I personally prefer. I like to figure things out on my own.

I think that tutorials shouldn't explain to players more than they need to. They need to explain the controls, the rules, and the objective, but they should not explain the solution. Players should be encouraged to figure that out on their own. Problem solving and figuring things out is kind of the point of games isn't it? Games should be designed in a way that facilitates players' learning, they shouldn't be unfair and throw things at the player that they couldn't possibly be expected to know, but they shouldn't spell things out for them either, they should give them the tools they need to figure things out on their own.

I think that the most important aspect of a tutorial is not to be as detailed as possible. The most important aspect of a tutorial is to allow players to get through it at their own pace. Not only because of players replaying the game again, but also because different first time players will learn things at different paces, and also will have different preferences for how much they want things explained to them or if they would prefer to just jump right in and start figuring things out on their own. It's been a long time since I've played Banjo-Kazooie, but I think that game takes an approach to its tutorial like this. Having obstacles the player needs to traverse to complete it. If they already know how to do it, they can quickly and easily traverse the obstacles and move on, but for players that don't know how, an optional explanation is provided to help them out.

Another big thing that a tutorial should not do is giving them bad advice, and teaching them bad strategies. Such as telling the player to have a unit attack a boss when doing say would put her at risk of dying if the fight wasn't scripted for the tutorial. Telling players to take a risk of death for no reason in a game with risk management as a huge aspect of it is definitely a point against the tutorial in my book.

Overall I don't think the Lyn Mode tutorial is bad, at least not for first time players, I just think players should have the option to either skip LM entirely or start on Lyn Hard Mode (which should also clarify what it actually is, it isn't actually any harder than Lyn Normal mode, the only difference is that it removes the tutorials and scripted events).

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The limitations of the medium aren't an excuse, you're supposed to work around them.

While each character of regular text (including the spaces) eats up a single byte, rigging cutscenes and AI consumes a lot more data. My point is, that somewhere down the line, you're going to eventually run of out of room if you keep adding stuff. For my old PC, I can't really download so many games that occupies 30 gigs of memory. For the GBA, cartridges, I'm not entirely sure what's the capacity for those; but a ROM for Blazing Blade is around 15 MB. Sure, that's nothing, nowadays and it can easily be modded; but they are limits on how much you can cram in, outside of IntSys ordering a custom cartridge from Nintendo.

[MuteMousou]

1 hour ago, Whisky said:

Another big thing that a tutorial should not do is giving them bad advice, and teaching them bad strategies. Such as telling the player to have a unit attack a boss when doing say would put her at risk of dying if the fight wasn't scripted for the tutorial. Telling players to take a risk of death for no reason in a game with risk management as a huge aspect of it is definitely a point against the tutorial in my book.

I remember the fates tutorial level with Xander also does this haha. It is a bit strange in this instance also considering that Awakening was more of a "soft reboot" game than fates and did not have such a tutorial, on top of the fact that it's generally easier than Fates.

[Clear World]

I personally wouldn't recommended FE6 to someone who is new to turn-base tactical games or to FE in general. There are a lot of aspect within that gameplay I could see becoming annoying quickly, usually because the player is unaware of its existence until it shows itself and screws the player over. And the lack of a tutorial being integrated into the campaign does not help it.

13 hours ago, Whisky said:

I don't agree with this. I recommend watching the Sequelitis video on Megaman vs Megaman X. It's a good video and makes some points that help with the points I'm trying to make here. Part of the video is him complaining about how modern games have a tendency to hold players' hands more, halting the flow of the game to explain everything to the player instead of letting players figure things out on their own. Older games tended to encourage players to learn the game through how the maps were designed, and Sequelitus says that Megaman and Megaman X are both very good at doing this. They basically take a "show don't tell" approach to teaching players how to play the game, which is an approach that I personally prefer. I like to figure things out on my own.

I think that tutorials shouldn't explain to players more than they need to. They need to explain the controls, the rules, and the objective, but they should not explain the solution. Players should be encouraged to figure that out on their own. Problem solving and figuring things out is kind of the point of games isn't it? Games should be designed in a way that facilitates players' learning, they shouldn't be unfair and throw things at the player that they couldn't possibly be expected to know, but they shouldn't spell things out for them either, they should give them the tools they need to figure things out on their own.

I think that the most important aspect of a tutorial is not to be as detailed as possible. The most important aspect of a tutorial is to allow players to get through it at their own pace. Not only because of players replaying the game again, but also because different first time players will learn things at different paces, and also will have different preferences for how much they want things explained to them or if they would prefer to just jump right in and start figuring things out on their own. It's been a long time since I've played Banjo-Kazooie, but I think that game takes an approach to its tutorial like this. Having obstacles the player needs to traverse to complete it. If they already know how to do it, they can quickly and easily traverse the obstacles and move on, but for players that don't know how, an optional explanation is provided to help them out.

Another big thing that a tutorial should not do is giving them bad advice, and teaching them bad strategies. Such as telling the player to have a unit attack a boss when doing say would put her at risk of dying if the fight wasn't scripted for the tutorial. Telling players to take a risk of death for no reason in a game with risk management as a huge aspect of it is definitely a point against the tutorial in my book.

Overall I don't think the Lyn Mode tutorial is bad, at least not for first time players, I just think players should have the option to either skip LM entirely or start on Lyn Hard Mode (which should also clarify what it actually is, it isn't actually any harder than Lyn Normal mode, the only difference is that it removes the tutorials and scripted events).

Lyn Mode may force the player to perform certain actions at the beginning of most maps, but as a tutorial, I think it's needed because they need to make sure the player is actually aware of their many options. This isn't a simple press a button and that action will always happen. They have options and they should be made aware of it. As dumb as it may sound, it might take a long time for a player to actually realize they can trade items to another unit, or that you can attack things besides enemy units, or that forts heals your unit at the start of the turn. What comes obvious to one player may not be obvious to another. 

"Show, don't tell" is a generally good philosophy to take, until there are tons of hidden mechanics and inner workers that are invisible or extremely easy to overlook as the player. It's extremely easy to not notice something like 'Terran bonus' or the 'Weapon Triangle' if the game doesn't explicitly brings it to attention. Most players aren't willing to the math equation to fact check if the damage output & accuracy matches up with the stats & weapon. They can easily play the entire game and never realize why the arrows points the way they do before combat & what affect it actually has.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Clear World

[eclipse]

15 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

This doesn't make any sense though. If someone is playing FE7 as their first Fire Emblem game and are doing it on emulator- well, first of all, it's unlikely to be a new player's first FE game since the series is still getting big new commercial releases. This is a historical scenario, but let's assume its the case anyway. After all, it'll probably happen to someone else eventually.

If a player is a true newcomer, someone totally unfamiliar with Fire Emblem and its playerbase, then they're not going to know how to look for Arch's Tutorial Slayer and apply it using NUPs to their GBA file. Those terms look made up to an outsider. Maybe they'll get a 100% save file with Lyn Hard Mode unlocked- but how would they know that was even a feature if they weren't already familiar with the game? Perhaps they get bored and look up how to skip the tutorial- but couldn't they just look up whatever other questions they had with the game at that point?

I expect someone who's smart enough to play it on emulator to know how to Google stuff.  Including "hey this tutorial's taking too long, how do I skip it?".

6 hours ago, Whisky said:

(snip)

You are not the world.  Something that's easy to you won't be for someone else.  For stuff like tutorials, it's better to err on the side of too much than too little.  About the only thing first-time Lyn Mode is missing is the option to skip the rest of the tutorial for the chapter, but I'm not sure how that would look on GBA coding (there's probably enough room on the cartridge?).

[MuteMousou]

4 hours ago, Clear World said:

"Show, don't tell" is a generally good philosophy to take, until there are tons of hidden mechanics and inner workers that are invisible or extremely easy to overlook as the player. It's extremely easy to not notice something like 'Terran bonus' or the 'Weapon Triangle' if the game doesn't explicitly brings it to attention. Most players aren't willing to the math equation to fact check if the damage output & accuracy matches up with the stats & weapon. They can easily play the entire game and never realize why the arrows points the way they do before combat & what affect it actually has.

You could say this about literally anything in any game. "First time dark souls players might not understand the concept of equip weight affecting roll speed or weapon stat requirements, then that means it must be verbally explained to the player in a series of text popups." There are points in almost any game where players cannot be sure what something can do or how they use it, and it is up to the game to make this evident in a creative way to the player, for example, the first fe2 levels are actually a very good tutorial for terrain, because anyone who is paying attention would realize that hit changes based on the terrain a unit is on, and you would pretty easily notice this even as a new time player, I feel like we are sometimes riding on the perception that we must bring down the pacing of the entire game just off of the chance that maybe a few players will not understand whatever mechanic on their own. If there are players that want everything verbally explained to them, this is what having optional explanations or using the internet is for, the entire game does not need to be designed around the tiny amount of people who wouldn't understand what is going on even if the game pretty deliberately shows what a mechanic does through good tutorializing. Gamers generally hate wall of text tutorials anyway so I think in general people would probably prefer less talking and more actual video game.

I also appreciate games that don't barrage me with walls of text even if I'm new. Even though Berwick saga isn't a game I fully understand still, I still think the early chapters seem to explain the mechanics pretty well, and I think I prefer this over a slow forced tutorial, the thing is even if the game verbally explained everything I doubt it would increase my understanding of the game at all. But in general I just enjoy games more that have some respect for my ability to think on my own, of course I am only one person but that's the case for everyone who plays video games.

Edited October 12, 2021 by MuteMousou

[KMT4ever]

The difference between tutorials in FE and tutorials in most games is that in most games screwing up means you just go back to the previous checkpoint to try again as many times as you want. In FE screwing up once, even in a minor way, can mean you've handicapped yourself for the rest of the story in some fashion, whether it's because somebody died or you overused a useful weapon on random mooks. A new player isn't likely to restart over something they may not even realize was a mistake. There's also the gameplay element of long-term party management, i.e. which units to use. Better to ease new players into that over the course of several chapters.

[MuteMousou]

1 hour ago, KMT4ever said:

The difference between tutorials in FE and tutorials in most games is that in most games screwing up means you just go back to the previous checkpoint to try again as many times as you want. In FE screwing up once, even in a minor way, can mean you've handicapped yourself for the rest of the story in some fashion, whether it's because somebody died or you overused a useful weapon on random mooks. A new player isn't likely to restart over something they may not even realize was a mistake. There's also the gameplay element of long-term party management, i.e. which units to use. Better to ease new players into that over the course of several chapters.

Characters dying or wasting useful items is part of the game and the game is generally designed around the fact that players will have these things happen. You can waste useful things or lose important items in basically every game with any kind of inventory system but that doesn't mean that the game should need to take extra special care of telling the player that since it should be evident when items are finite or can be lost in some way.

[Whisky]

4 hours ago, eclipse said:

You are not the world. 

How is this a remotely appropriate response when I literally said the most important aspect of a tutorial is to account for different types of people? I’m so confused.

4 hours ago, eclipse said:

For stuff like tutorials, it's better to err on the side of too much than too little.

Where do you draw the line? Tutorials can always be more detailed, at a certain point the developers have to decide that what they have is good enough. And tutorials have a limit to how detailed they even can be before they start crossing the line into being a guide. Tell players what they need to understand and play the game and leave some room for players to figure out the rest and keep improving on their own.

The Super Smash Bros tutorials are pretty great. First of all, they’re optional and entirely skippable for people who either already know how to play or want to figure it out on their own. Then the tutorials themselves explain the controls and shows what it looks like actually being performed (because some people learn more from visuals). They teach the basics of the game, what players need to know to start playing and be able to keep improving on their own. Do you think this tutorial would be objectively better if it explained competitive level mechanics and taught advanced techs and combos, etc.?

I think this is actually a pretty complex topic and the answer will often depend on the situation and be a case by case kind of thing. I’m not convinced that games even need tutorials rather than being able to show players how the game works and facilitate players’ learning the game through its level design. Megaman really only needs to teach players that they can jump and they can shoot, let them figure out the rest on their own, but show them through the level design how new things work in a fair way such as by having new platforming challenges introduced in a safe environment so that players can figure it out without dying if they mess up, and then put them into more difficult scenarios after they have crossed the first safer obstacle. I personally think this is a far better approach than having a super detailed explanation of how the obstacle works.

I already said games shouldn’t throw things at the player that they couldn’t reasonably be expected to figure out on their own. Some explanations are good, but ‘more detailed explanations is always better than less’ seems way too simplified.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Whisky

[AnonymousSpeed]

7 hours ago, eclipse said:

I expect someone who's smart enough to play it on emulator to know how to Google stuff.  Including "hey this tutorial's taking too long, how do I skip it?".

Exactly. They can also google "how to play Fire Emblem" and negate the need for the tutorial entirely.

3 hours ago, Whisky said:

The Super Smash Bros tutorials are pretty great. First of all, they’re optional and entirely skippable for people who either already know how to play or want to figure it out on their own. Then the tutorials themselves explain the controls and shows what it looks like actually being performed (because some people learn more from visuals). They teach the basics of the game, what players need to know to start playing and be able to keep improving on their own. Do you think this tutorial would be objectively better if it explained competitive level mechanics and taught advanced techs and combos, etc.?

Yo, do you remember back in the good old days when Nintendo had a series of videos explaining Brawl's mechanics you could watch on your Wii? Those were pretty slick, my dude. Dang, I'm already feeling nostalgia.

Anyway, with respect to "not being the world", I quite favor tutorials that are not overly detailed or intrusive (people who favor overly-detailed tutorials are not the world either). I like them not being a part of the main game, and I think the 3DS games handled it quite well by making them optional popups. As for Mega Man, it's a bit of a worn out point, but I completely agree about the whole "teach players through playing" thing.

12 hours ago, Armchair General said:

While each character of regular text (including the spaces) eats up a single byte, rigging cutscenes and AI consumes a lot more data. My point is, that somewhere down the line, you're going to eventually run of out of room if you keep adding stuff. For my old PC, I can't really download so many games that occupies 30 gigs of memory. For the GBA, cartridges, I'm not entirely sure what's the capacity for those; but a ROM for Blazing Blade is around 15 MB. Sure, that's nothing, nowadays and it can easily be modded; but they are limits on how much you can cram in, outside of IntSys ordering a custom cartridge from Nintendo.

This is just stating some limitations of the medium, though. My point was that the designer should work around their limitations, whatever they might be.

***

Anyway, wasn't this thread supposed to be about FE6? I figure someone who never played Fire Emblem before could enjoy FE6. Most of the criticisms the game gets seem (to me) to result from its deviations from other Fire Emblem games. Sure, it's harder than FE7 and FE8, but how would a total newcomer to the series have any meaningful understanding of that? Axes aren't super accurate, but why would they expect them to be if not for the fact that they got used to axe hit-rates being "fixed" in other games? The mechanics are fairly simple and intuitive, so that you could probably get by even without playing the tutorial. Not every player will know what trading does, but when you select the 'Trade' option, you can find out first hand.

Edited October 12, 2021 by AnonymousSpeed

[Clear World]

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Anyway, wasn't this thread supposed to be about FE6? I figure someone who never played Fire Emblem before could enjoy FE6. Most of the criticisms the game gets seem (to me) to result from its deviations from other Fire Emblem games. Sure, it's harder than FE7 and FE8, but how would a total newcomer to the series have any meaningful understanding of that? Axes aren't super accurate, but why would they expect them to be if not for the fact that they got used to axe hit-rates being "fixed" in other games? The mechanics are fairly simple and intuitive, so that you could probably get by even without playing the tutorial. Not every player will know what trading does, but when you select the 'Trade' option, you can find out first hand.

I disagree because I think there are two line of argument being made that don't really conflict with each other.

Anyone can play any FE game as their first and still manage to enjoy & complete it, which includes FE6. Ecplise has definitely not denied that claim, nor has anyone else here on this thread.

Saying that, to many, FE6 isn't an ideal choice to recommend as a gateway to FE due various of different reasons, one of which is the tutorial. FE7 has an advantage for serving as the better gateway into the series because it goes out of its way to teach players how to play the game instead of hoping the player search outside the game to understand it's basics.

Also, recruiting an enemy unit isn't intuitive, especially having spent hours doing nothing but slaughtering them. Recruiting neutral units isn't intuitive. Terran bonuses aren't intuitive nor is the weapon triangle. It is very possible to learn things by playing it, and most, if not all, good tutorial does that as well. But there are a lot non-intrinsic things a tactical game have that new player may not grasp or even realize exist, that more veteran players take for granted. 

Due note, when talking about having a good tutorial, we're not just saying, this game pauses the game to provide a bunch of info-dump to explain one aspect. A good tutorial for a topic usually does a mixture of showing & telling, that varies base on how intrinsic the topic is. Something that has an immediately impact & easily noticeable can usually be done by showing, but the more conceptual the topic, the better it is probably to explain directly why its important and how it affects the gameplay.

Difficulty various from game to game, along with what the player is willing to tolerant. But a game that tries to teach its basic will usually gather a larger audience than one that tosses them into the deep end without any explanation and expects them to do their own homework. Having options is all good and fun, but it backfires hard if the player isn't learning the lessons the devs need them to learn, or worst, players are learning the wrong lessons, before the devs starts implementing the harder challenges.

10 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Characters dying or wasting useful items is part of the game and the game is generally designed around the fact that players will have these things happen. You can waste useful things or lose important items in basically every game with any kind of inventory system but that doesn't mean that the game should need to take extra special care of telling the player that since it should be evident when items are finite or can be lost in some way.

Pretty sure most people did not like FE6's decision to lock the player out of the end-game if they use up the legendary weapons they acquired early in the game. This is a choice a player could easily make, fully unaware of the penalty they have just inflicted on themselves, and won't figure out for many chapters or even playthroughs.

Dying & starting over is fine for a learning tool. Losing units & weapons that increasing makes the game harder for the player, unable to fix these mistakes as you progress within the story, is a completely different field. Better to err in safety and alert the player before they accidently put themselves in a soft-lock.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Clear World