Are Dev's getting lazier about tutorials, or catering to "Influencers"

[Dalisclock]

Okay so what's considered bad tutorial vs expected exploration?
Look at Dark Souls. It's considered a great epic exploration game. Yet it tells you fuck all. Tells you how to move and hit and then just expects you to figure the rest out yourself. But no one considers it poorly tutorialized.

No, pretty much everyone considers it poorly tutorialized.

You basically have to have someone teach you how the weapon upgrades work because otherwise it makes no sense.

Love the games, but there's a reason there's so many community guides for them, it's because pretty much all the mechanics are incredibly poorly explained.

That's just to keep the filthy casuals out and so you can get that sense of Pride and Accomplishment /sarcasm

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Okay so what's considered bad tutorial vs expected exploration?
Look at Dark Souls. It's considered a great epic exploration game. Yet it tells you fuck all. Tells you how to move and hit and then just expects you to figure the rest out yourself. But no one considers it poorly tutorialized.

Honestly, knowing how to move and hit and what some fairly self explanatory stats like strength, health and stamina do will get you through most of the game just fine.

 

[skywolfblue]

Okay so what's considered bad tutorial vs expected exploration?
Look at Dark Souls. It's considered a great epic exploration game. Yet it tells you fuck all. Tells you how to move and hit and then just expects you to figure the rest out yourself. But no one considers it poorly tutorialized.

Dark Souls is an example of poor tutorialization.

I would point out Horizon Zero Dawn, Dead Space 2, or the new Tomb Raider games as games that did their "tutorials" well. The first few missions have short but informative hints that hover over things, then after that you are on your own.

The Dead Space games in particular are a brilliant master stroke in the shear level of detail in making things accessible. The games have no HUD elements. Everything you see is generated in the environment itself. Such as Isaac's space-suit RIG and it's spine-as-a-healthbar. Everything is made as intuitive as possible. While the combat brings the difficulty.

...

There are a lot of games that are way too reliant on their wikis. "Lets make the game, then just let the players have to explain it." I've been playing Elite Dangerous a bit lately and that game is really bad about that. It has interesting exploration elements (it has a very fascinating 1-1 simulation of the real milky way galaxy), but nothing is ever explained. While I appreciate having wiki's as a resource to consult in a pinch, I hate it when I have to use them for central game mechanics.

I remember this:

That's an perfect example of a proper tutorial to an INSANELY COMPLEX game. But most developers are too lazy to write an entire carefully detailed flight manual.