Tutorial Torture

[Shamus Young]

Tutorial Torture

Sometimes tutorials are bad. Sometimes tutorials are obnoxious. Sometimes, you just weren't paying attention.

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[Somebloke]

Regarding real life- or gameworld context: Then there is Kojima, who makes himself an entire thing about having a special relationship with the fourth wall... :9

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

In Metal Gear Rising game never tells you that you dodge or dodge parry with square+cross. Granted, it's all wonky as hell but the sheer fact that it's just not there...

 

[mjc0961]

Clippy with a gun fettish, hahaha!

The only recent example I can think of regarding having trouble in a game because of not knowing the controls was Luigi's Mansion 2. I didn't realize you could press B while vacuuming to do a hop/dodge until I did it by accident trying to run while using the vacuum. I don't remember the game ever explaining that one, but it's a good thing I found it when I did because I was at a part where I kept dying and having to replay a mission due to getting attacked while vacuuming up another ghost and I was one more death and replay away from getting seriously pissed off.

 

[Falterfire]

Speaking of annoying hint in Bioshock Infinite...

I spent most of the game not using Plasmids because on Normal it just wasn't worth bothering. So I spent a large chunk of the game with "Press to use plasmids!" at the bottom of my screen. Thanks game, you're really helping.

 

[Al_]

I do remember one of the big changes from Half Life to Half Life 2 being ditching the stand-alone tutorials- good, in a "game flow" kind of way, but the three assault course levels were fun in their own way- especially the Opposing Force one with the drill sergeant- and the moment where you were shot in the chest.

 

[Ace Morologist]

Resident Evil 4: I didn't realize there was a run button until I hit it by accident. Also, I couldn't find the reload button in the first tense situation when I needed it. It made that first fight in the village before the bell rings REALLY stressful.

--Morology!

 

[Zeckt]

The original Neverwinter Nights had the absolute worst tutorial imaginable. So you get the game your all excited and are immediately put in a MASSIVELY hour long tutorial that breaks any sense of immersion you possibly could have. You are bombarded with npc's who only exist to spout a wall of text like "press enter to pause game." and it goes on and on and on with npc's that are not really npc's but more like signposts full of text.

I never did play that game ...

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

For all purposes, open world devs need to take these exact rules in to account with objectives, etc. Yahtzee makes an extremely big point in his Far Cry 3 review: it's a great game, but I want to spend 4 hours goofing around the island. Because I'm not directly following 'game logic' I have one popup telling me the objective that remains on screen permanently, another telling me I should skin the deer 200 meters over there, yet another saying I have an extra weapon, another saying I should probably hide from those guys, and that doesn't include the achievements/levels/inventory ticker that stays onscreen way too long. Including the fact that I have a big ass rocket launcher taking up the right half of the screen, only ~25% of the screen is even visible.

All game engines these days have a "in/out of combat" toggle, have tutorials appear and disappear based on that. Give me only weapon tips on screen in combat so I know 'how to combat' and all the leveling/exploration stuff when screen clutter will not impact my survivability.

 

[GundamSentinel]

The original Neverwinter Nights had the absolute worst tutorial imaginable. So you get the game your all excited and are immediately put in a MASSIVELY hour long tutorial that breaks any sense of immersion you possibly could have. You are bombarded with npc's who only exist to spout a wall of text like "press enter to pause game." and it goes on and on and on with npc's that are not really npc's but more like signposts full of text.

I never did play that game ...

Yeah, Neverwinter Nights was pretty atrocious at that. Took me hours to actually 'get into' the game.

In general: I'm often playing several different games at a time, so I enjoy a bit of repetition in my tutorials. My experience with playing a game I haven't played in a bit often includes a variation of: "Hang on, which button was crouch again...? No, wait! That's throwing a grenade! AAAAH!" *splat*

 

[Callate]

...Yeah, some of Bioshock Infinite's "tutorials" started coming across as,

Game: "Oh, please, we spent so many months on this feature, won't you at least occasionally use it?"

Me: "No, I'm doing just dandy, thanks; don't really feel a need to ready a less-enhanced Vigor and blow a bunch of salt on mooks who are going down just fine under the machine gun."

Game: "Well, you just suck. Fine. Here's another four weapons you'll never use."

Me: "Passive-aggressive, much?"

Part of my fatigue with GTA IV, especially on my second attempted play-through, was on broader but similar lines. "Oh, you created a working transit rail system? That's nice. And- oh, you can take pictures with your cell phone? And keep appointments on it? And there's a whole dart throwing mini-game? And an e-mail system?...

...And you're going to expect me to keep using all of this...? ...@$%#."

I'm glad for the presence of tutorials. But I think I'm also glad for games that have easy means to skip tutorial-related features, and games that are elegant and streamlined enough that 90% of what you need to know can be comprehended by studying the "configure controls" screen.

I'm playing Batman: Arkham City right now, and I will say that I think they've largely done a good job in helping the player out without getting excessively obtrusive.

 

[Catface Meowmers]

I seems like most of these problems can be solved by pausing the game and checking the control scheme. I'd rather not have a game constantly trying to figure out if I need help with the buttons.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Most of my struggles with controls are things forgotten once I returned to a game later. Like many gamers, the new hotness is a tough draw to ignore. So I'll often hop into a new game prior to completing my current one, only to return later and keep fiddling with buttons. Can't tell you how many times I'd go from Borderlands to Halo then chuck a grenade while trying to zoom in my sniper rifle.

 

[Bostur]

Some good points there.

Also they shouldn't contain spoilers unless the player specifically asks for it. I hate it when a game tells me how to defeat a boss just because I died a few times. It's related to distinguishing between mechanics and information related to the setting.

Here's a novel idea. Maybe some of those clever programmers could invent a system where the player can look up the information when needed. ;-)

Fallout:NV and Skyrim had a nice system with small 'cards' describing major gameplay features. Mass Effect had an in-game codex and Civilization had - well Civilopedia. Some people may prefer to have popup-messages telling them how to jump, but I think it should be one of several options.

 

[faefrost]

I am the worst for. This. I start a console game and then don't get back to it for monts. I never finished AC2 or Arkham Asylum because it was so annoying and comber some to relearn the controls once I was deep in the game. I don't need a more elaborate series of prompts. I need a short control review tutorial or review that I can pull up at any time. Not the normal static control map picture. Something that lets me quickly play through the moves while not in combat, but that isn't in any way tied to cutscenes or the story progression or the games save status.

 

[ThrashJazzAssassin]

Sands of Time.

I played through the entire game until I got to (as far as I remember) the only point in the game where you have access to a save point but not a drinking fountain. Inevitably, the next obstacle required you to take a tiny amount of falling damage and I had a similarly tiny amount of health left, with no way to replenish it. So I started again from scratch and found two powerful new moves I'd missed the first time round because the tutorial text appeared at the bottom of the screen mid-fight while I WAS BUSY FIGHTING DUDES. JEEZ.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Mass Effect - 2 years later going for another playthrough

-press 'r' for grenades-

*Me seeing the overheating gun symbol

"I gotta get behind cover and reload" (this was more instinct that conscious thought though)

self death from grenade

"Oh yeah..."

 

[scorptatious]

You guys do know you can turn off the pop up hints in Bioshock Infinite right?

But yeah, it does seem very odd when a game gives you an obvious hint about basic stuff even when you're pretty far into the game.

Sonic Generations told me via a loading screen that rings serve as health RIGHT BEFORE the final boss.

It's not too big a deal to me, but it can be kind of annoying yes.