Complacency in Storytelling

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

Complacency in Storytelling

I noticed it when I was playing Batman: Arkham Origins. The unearned assumption that we're on board seems to extend to the gameplay as well as the exposition.

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[Evonisia]

I miss tutorials, too. I remember in Gears of War 2 you could optionally do a tutorial by choosing to 'train the rook' or just sod the matter and rush ahead to the next mission. That's how you do it.

And yeah it's a bit odd that we're just supposed to know everything that has happened before. At least Black Ops II was largely unconnected to 1 but made occasional references to it (which is also how Black Ops is a 'sequel' to World at War). Have you not played Assassin's Creed III? Well sod you, here's a plot which ruins III for you.

I'm surprised you didn't say "PS4 and Xbox One" in that final sentence.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I actually kind of liked how Modern Warfare did its' tutorial mission, as an actual training session for the character as well as the player. Not only did it help new players learn the controls, it was also world building in that it showed us that the elite soldiers you hang with apparently prepares meticulously for their assignments (the tutorial has you clearing out a mock up of a ship, the very next mission has you boarding a freighter). Then you could repeat the section as many times as you wanted, either to get a better hang of the controls or just to see if you could beat your own high score.

I prefer either that or the good ol' System Shock 2/Deus Ex/Half-Life version with a stand alone tutorial level that also serves as an introduction to the game world.

 

[Pseudonym2]

This is how I felt about Gears of War 3. At first I liked it as a game with good gameplay with bad aesthetics. Then by the time it had the Pompeii/Hiroshima level and started flat out encouraging genocide, I was genuinely creeped out and it really affected my enjoyment of the game. When the game makes the massive assumption that we're on board with their worldview it becomes a weird outsider art/art brut deal.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Well there's always the Prince of Persia/God of War-style tutorials. Tell you how to do something and kill you dead if you do it wrong. Of course this method makes some players cry so...

But yes, despite the benefits of such an introduction, the flaws show with more and more games doing it. You want an action-packed opening but can't make things too hectic for the player before they learn how to walk. A separate tutorial can help avoid that and prevent repetition on repeat playthroughs (Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, etc.). One of the best examples of these I can think of would be Star Fox 64, which had a medal score like any other stage and an early Star Wolf cameo if you scored high.

Story-wise, you can't expect Call of Duty to pay any attention to narrative sense, their main audience doesn't care why they're shooting people, just that they are. Arkham Origins is a prequel so there's not much to bring you up to speed on, but aren't there dossiers for each villain anyway?

 

[DataSnake]

I actually like the way Arkham City does tutorials: you get a little blurb on how each gadget and ability works as you go, they're spread out through the game, and if you've played it before you don't have to wait for the tutorial to use them. In fact, the variety of Riddler trophies lying around encourages you to experiment. Take, as an example, the Remote Batarang. You aren't actually TOLD how to use it until you're in the museum, but it's available as soon as you get the Batsuit, and several of the trophies visible right off the bat require you to use it.

 

[vun]

My problem with some games is that they make you do the standard course where they basically show you that look, jump and crouch all works the same as every other game you've played, but doesn't bother mentioning where the game adds to the mechanics or differ from them.

Give me a proper tutorial course that I can pick from the menu instead of ending up with the beginning of every game being the same crippled tutorial that doesn't actually teach you anything.

 

[Battenberg]

I think the complacency thing is dead on. Even with AAA games that I genuinely enjoy I do tend to get the sense that it was made knowing that by the time I was playing it my money would already be safely stored in the AAA Games Inc. vault. That said the alternative, at least of issues of morality (like with Killzone or CoD's propensity for assuming you want to teabag the underdog until it has two round dents in its face), is to put some kind of binary moral choice in like Infamous or even Mass Effect. Press X to help injured civilian up, press Y to execute him on the spot in case he's a turrrrrist.

Although considering the sales figures of the PS4 a lessening of respect for one's fellow man is something I can sympathize with.

Also it's pretty ballsy to insult 1 million plus Americans for your closing point (not that I disagree).

 

[hermes]

But now, it's almost as if the player has been roped to the game without the game's knowledge, and the game is simply proceeding forwards, oblivious. Sometimes it pauses as the player becomes momentarily caught on something, but then it just gives an extra-strong push and continues. Let me know if I'm not explaining this well.

You are explaining yourself quite well. I have the same issue with a lot of games...

The first one that I noticed and really bothered me was God of War 3, where it assumes Kratos is justified to commit genocide because he just IS. No explanation is ever given to show it as more than a tantrum and it never stops to consider that you are not an antihero, you are a villain (to call him an antihero would be like calling Jason Voorhees an antihero). He kills everyone he meets (except those he fucks) so by the time they introduce Pandora and act like we should be grateful that he finds redemption, all I could do was glare in disbelief at the laziness of the writing.

Its not even about the lack of a tutorial. Its about some basics of writing and world building: Who am I? What do I want? and Why would the player care about it? If they can't answer those questions at the beginning (or, at least, address them at some point), what is the point of even having writing? Call of Duty Ghosts went the extra mile in laziness with that by having your commanding official being you father, and your partner your brother, so that they didn't even have to build on those relationships.

 

[LiMaSaRe]

Just because the protagonists are always Vektan doesn't mean that the developer expects you to be fully on their side. I think there are a lot of opportunities for the player to make their own judgement about who is more right or wrong, particularly with the collectible audio logs and newspapers of Killzone: Shadowfall.

 

[blackrave]

My problem with some games is that they make you do the standard course where they basically show you that look, jump and crouch all works the same as every other game you've played, but doesn't bother mentioning where the game adds to the mechanics or differ from them.

Give me a proper tutorial course that I can pick from the menu instead of ending up with the beginning of every game being the same crippled tutorial that doesn't actually teach you anything.

You know, making multiple tutorials isn't that bad of idea
For example you start the game
You choose difficulty and next you are provided with an options
A)Full tutorial
B)Quick tutorial
C)No tutorial
A assumes you haven't played any similar game before, so it teaches you all you need to know before you start the game.
B assumes you have played some games similar to on you're playing now, so it teaches you only how this game differs from genre baseline
C assumes you are experienced gamer (and have played previous games if there is established series), so it quickly mentions only the things you absolutely need to know (and can't know on your first playthrough)
That would allow players to setup level of help they need

 

[FallenMessiah88]

The Call Of Duty series started out as a world war 2 shooter, so the title actually fits the time it was meant to portray. A time where nationalism and jingoism was much more prevalent than it is today.

Ghosts takes place in an alternate timeline and so my guess is that they wanted to present a world where the balance of power is significantly changed from how it is today.

Also, just because you jumped ship doesn't mean that others can't still enjoy playing on consoles.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Believe it or not, my point is not whether or not the alleged good guys have a claim to the moral high ground. My point is that it's a growing trend that new games can't even be bothered to try to convince you that they do, and simply sweep forward, without glancing backward to make sure you're keeping up.

The worst thing is, developers can claim that as some way that the game encourages you to think about the morality of your decisions. Unfortunately, they rarely make it clear what the choice and the consequences are, or they present a "choice" that is decided for you by the bland non-characters.

I actually like the way Arkham City does tutorials: you get a little blurb on how each gadget and ability works as you go, they're spread out through the game, and if you've played it before you don't have to wait for the tutorial to use them. In fact, the variety of Riddler trophies lying around encourages you to experiment. Take, as an example, the Remote Batarang. You aren't actually TOLD how to use it until you're in the museum, but it's available as soon as you get the Batsuit, and several of the trophies visible right off the bat require you to use it.

The bit I don't like is that you don't know what the Remote Batarang does until you get to the museum, which might be hours in depending on how much you muck about. It's present, but nothing draws you to it unless you have some idea what it does from previous games, or your just going through all the gadgets and experimenting. Everyone can work out punching people, but it can be frustrating to have a deep system presented to you (and the expectation that you know how to use it, if the fights are any indication) but not know how to use it until an unknown (to you) point in the game.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

I actually like the way Arkham City does tutorials: you get a little blurb on how each gadget and ability works as you go, they're spread out through the game, and if you've played it before you don't have to wait for the tutorial to use them. In fact, the variety of Riddler trophies lying around encourages you to experiment. Take, as an example, the Remote Batarang. You aren't actually TOLD how to use it until you're in the museum, but it's available as soon as you get the Batsuit, and several of the trophies visible right off the bat require you to use it.

I see what you did there! Even if you didn't mean to do it!

I do miss proper, full tutorials now that Yahtzee mentions it. Especially when they do that thing he described where they try to make it all super dramatic and rushed while still trying to teach you things. Like in Arkham Origins, you start off at a prison break at Blackgate and you arrive, alas, mere seconds too late to stop the main dramatic event. But it's the very first section of the game, so for many players they're going to feel like Batman was "just too late" because he was busy spazzing out with the explosive gel sprayer, trying to learn how to detonate it properly.

Actually, one other thing that I've suddenly remembered from Arkham Origins which is pretty unrelated. They absolutely fucked up the colour design of large portions of the game, in a way that actually makes combat harder. See, most of the game takes place in the open city, during a blizzard. And the colour of the standard counter icon is pale blue, verging on white. So you're trying to see this thing against a snowy background, and it fucks you over so hard some times. Oh, and it's really hard to distinguish armoured enemies from non-armoured ones. In Arkham City it was a doddle because the armour was either bright red or a full metal suit, but in Origins it's barely noticeable. And you can kind of fix these problems by keeping on detective vision in combat, but the problems with that are A) Detective vision turns off the moment you get hit and you have to flick it back on again, and that B) It's yet another situation where you end up using detective vision and losing all the visual details.

 

[EclipsiumRasa]

Isn't the real question: "Why didn't the makers of Call Ghosts of Duty grow have the guts to drop the narrative completely, and focus utterly on the gunplay?"

Its vestigial storytelling. All of it is like so many words knitted together like an appendix that exists so it can, as typical of an appendix that is expected to do something, explode.

 

[Penguin_Factory]

I still remember being extremely wierded out about how the opening cut-scene goes out of its way to pain the Helghans as slaves of an oppressive Nazi/Stalinist hybrid regime, but then a) you never actually see any Helghast who aren't loyal soldiers trying to kill you and b) you end up destroying the entire planet at the end.

I get the feeling they were going for a parallel to Hiroshima- brutal war ends with a highly morally questionable act of destruction against the enemy side- but the thing is if America had literally reduced the entirety of Japan to ashes at the end of WWII I think even the most die-hard jingoistic warmonger would have trouble condoning it. I remember sitting there thinking "wait didn't that just kill, like, millions of Helghast children? Aren't I the bad guy now?"

 

[UberPubert]

This is how I felt about Gears of War 3. At first I liked it as a game with good gameplay with bad aesthetics. Then by the time it had the Pompeii/Hiroshima level and started flat out encouraging genocide, I was genuinely creeped out and it really affected my enjoyment of the game. When the game makes the massive assumption that we're on board with their worldview it becomes a weird outsider art/art brut deal.

Pompeii/Hiroshima level...? You mean the one where all the main characters walk past the ash statues of dead people and act horrified? As in, they're actively condemning what happened through their reactions? Does that really seem like encouragement to you?

And if you're referring to the completely separate neutron bomb you'd know it was entirely necessary to save any semblance of life remaining on the planet from extinction if you were even half paying attention when it was explained.

 

[Storm Dragon]

Don't forget the old-school tutorials where characters broke the fourth wall and literally told you to press A to jump.