I watched someone play the first few hours of Pokemon Legends Arceus and holy shit it shows how important it is to have a good tutorial. If you're 2 hours in and still talking to people who are explaining things instead of being able to just go and do things, then that's a terrible tutorial.
BotW had the perfect tutorial, and I don't care what you think of the rest of the game. It teaches you the basics while not keeping you completely on rails. You're almost as free in the tutorial as you are in the main game.
Sure more it's more like 20-30 minutes than 2 hours. They've also completely revamped a stale system after people got used to it for over 20 years. You have much to learn and unlearn from previous games, so a detailed tutorial is necessary.
Jaxson Campbell
BotW has the best tutorial (or lack thereof). No game comes close.
Adam Robinson
No it was definitely longer than that before you're given freedom to explore. And after that there's more on-rails talking.
Jonathan Jones
Educationfag here. It's a surprisingly difficult issue to address, because there's so many factors at play. ESPECIALLY when it comes to Nintendo games, you could very well be dealing with a 4 year old who's never even held a controller. At what point do wall-of-text tutorials become necessary? Can you rely on the player to figure out mechanics through intuitive design and layout? The world of education today plays a role, in my opinion, because kids are spoonfed more than ever. I work with kids who will literally not write a single original word without being told what to put on the page. What kind of tutorial best serves them? And before you say "fuck those mouthbreathers" or whatever, remember that they're a significantly large userbase and must be accommodated in order to make a successful game. There's no right answer, but generally I agree with your observations. I'm reminded of Xenoblade 2, which has tutorials literally 30+ hours into the game. It's absurd.
Hudson Morris
Agreed. It's amazing how they managed to do a whole 180, from holding your hand like a child crossing an empty road, to kicking you out the door. SS held your hand throughout the whole game something awful, and TP had the longest tutorial in any game I've played. Quite nice that they heard the complaints about handholding and fixed it.
Jace Anderson
Have a guy with all the info and give you the option to speak with him or not.
Luis Watson
I think it's because i was already trying out and learning new things before i reached the tutorial for certain things. Tutorials don't seem to unlock anything for the most part.
That's why you make in an option that you can opt out of. The issue is that so many tutorialized introductions are tied into the story and cutscenes, so you're forced to do long stretches of boring shit because of "muh immersion".
Tutorials should be optional.
Nolan Rivera
Dark Souls has the best tutorial, you can just skip reading the messages and get to the meat of the game.
The original pokemon had a pretty decent tutorial too...Here's grass where there's monsters. Here's me, catching a monster. Now here's your own monster.
I feel like making long tutorials shows how little faith someone has in their own systems they're designing. Is it intuitive on its own? If not, why? Raises a good point in that you can't really know if you're explaining the system to a baby or a manbaby, and what one person thinks is intuitive might only be that way because they've played games their whole life already. I agree with responses that it should probably just be optional. Remember in the NES/SNES era where there was sometimes buildings full of NPCs that just explain the mechanics of the game to you, but you never needed to talk to them?
Joseph Rivera
It's a fine line I suppose. The reality is, You can't appeal to everyone. Either you make the game playable for people who need help the whole way, or for people who can figure things out on their own. You can't admire your beautiful wedding cake and eat it too. You have to pick one. I think the wiser choice would be to make the game for problem solvers. Dungeons and puzzles are already a staple for Zelda. If people need coddled, they're not likely to pick up the game anyway over fortnite or fall guys. And most people who grew up with the game have done just that, grown up. They shouldn't need their hands held.
It's the harsh reality of making a successful game, but I'd rather see all those spoonfed kids get filtered to avert our eventual total degredation into a slave race.
Matthew Phillips
pokemon LA has more of a story and introduces characters and lore to you, so it needs that shit. Also it isn't open world, it just has 5 big areas.
Brody Myers
Because running from a boss is something you can do all the time, right? If it gets too hot, just run out.
Joseph Anderson
Then have fewer characters or spread them out.
William Cook
You faggots are unpleasable >have tutorial FUCK THIS HANDHOLDING SHIT I WANT TO GET TO THE ACTION >don't have tutorial, let player learn through experimenting WTF HOW DO I SHOT WEB THIS GAME IS TOO HARD do you want tutorials or not?
Nathaniel Turner
That's the most important lesson that the tutorial teaches you yes. Since you can run from 99% of the enemies in the game and the game has an open world where you can easily find yourself in an area where you're not expected to be able to kill things.
Charles Howard
>At what point do wall-of-text tutorials become necessary? Having stuff that teaches you how to play is ok-ish. I personally prefer reference resources, FRLG help system-style. However, devs should strive their damndest to make sure it doesn't affect people doing a repeat playthrough. There's nothing more patronizing and off-putting than mandatory, unskippable tutorials.
In plenty of games having NPCs that teach you shit you may not be aware of to encourage you to do stuff is ok in my book. e.g. "if your pokemon are worn from battle, try running away. the faster your pokemon, the higher your chance of success", "those pesky zubats sure are annoying, right? buy some repels, but be careful since they won't work if your lead pokemon isn't strong enough" Tutorials for showing off a new powerup are also ok (e.g. Metroid Prime screw attack).
Bro who are you trying to fool, you can be 5 hours into the damn game and people won't SHUT THE FUCK UP. Gamefreak needs to stop this shit, too bad people keep buying this trash so they'll never stop to reevaluate themselves.
Charles Hernandez
The thing is. The first couple of hours of BotW are they best of the entire game. Meanwhile pokemon arceus pick up the pace after the slow tutorial.
Joshua Watson
>you can run from 99% of the enemies in the game enemy aggro and leash ranges in DS1 are pretty high and mobs close enough won't reset when you camp either the only real places I can think of where you'd want to run from mobs you "can't handle yet" would probably be drake valley and new londo, where you can probably double back to avoid them in that case but if things are already going pear shaped you're most likely just fucked and to be fair the person you're quoting specifically said bosses, and I can't remember one of those after tutorious fattus that doesn't lock you in when the fight starts
Gabriel King
Because there was nothing to explain in BotW. It has incredibly shallow gameplay
Joshua Jones
>I feel like making long tutorials shows how little faith someone has in their own systems they're designing I consider it more a complete lack of faith in the player. you also fail to consider how complex games have become over time. compare a game like super mario bros, puzzle bobble, or time crisis to, say, pikmin or prince of persia.
