How much tutorial should a developer put in an RPG?

[Yosharian]

Firstly, have a 'practice level' that is accessible from the main menu. In this level, there are button prompts for every action, and opportunities to use all abilities, spells etc. If you're really putting the effort in, you can make a tutorial like Thief's where there's an actual story reason to do it, but you don't need to go to that much trouble.

Secondly, have a help screen accessible from the main game at any time that reminds you exactly what each button does (just defaults is perfectly fine).

Do not:

• prompt me during gameplay with hotkey reminders
• have hotkey reminders on the UI
• pause play during the main game at any time to tell me what to do

If you fail to follow these simple rules you are a shit game developer.

 

[Sykar]

Perfect Tutorial:

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Secondly, have a help screen accessible from the main game at any time that reminds you exactly what each button does

Yeah, that's how it is now. That's the manual.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Perfect Tutorial:

I'm really tempted to just put: Press Enter to show your ability to read. Press M to read the manual.

 

[Yosharian]

And then the game tells you exactly where to go using a quest marker. The devs think they're being clever but they're actually shit.

 

[bionicman]

It depends on who plays your game e.g. some people will prefer to have no tutorials, some people will be frustrated by the lack thereof. Some people would like a light amount of tutorialization, some people would like handholding.

The logical thing is to have a prompt at the creation of a new game profile, i.e. when the game is first launched, asking the player whether he'd prefer tutorials or not, or how experienced he is with the genre of the game he's playing (and have this setting always adjustable from the settings menu).

Most game developers nowadays don't do this however, and just shower you with tutorial screens. What I've seen, which is a reasonable compromise, is to show every tutorial screen with a check box that says "Do not show any more hints", so the player can at any point cancel the entire tutorial.

 

[Kalin]

Shitware for tards: tutorials all the way (they'll still complain quest compass is too hard and demand auto-walk)
Good game for bros: zero hand-holding make them read the manual

 

[Yosharian]

Lmao call me retarded Sykar but you have no fucking response, do you? Quest markers telling you where to go are just as dumb as tutorial prompts yet somehow they get a pass? The people who make Far Cry games and the chumps that play them deserve each other. Fucking morons.

 

[Sykar]

Lmao call me retarded Sykar but you have no fucking response, do you? Quest markers telling you where to go are just as dumb as tutorial prompts yet somehow they get a pass? The people who make Far Cry games and the chumps that play them deserve each other. Fucking morons.

Your criticism makes no sense and is flat out retarded. Blood Dragon is a parody of 80s action movies with a plot deep as a puddle. It makes no effort to be complicated or deep nor does it have any aspirations to be. The tutorial is a bit of light hearted fun and does not pretend to be anyhing more than that. Why anyone would complain about quest compass in a plain action game is beyond me.

 

[Yosharian]

It's fucking obvious why quest markers are bad for gameplay. 'Lul it's an action game' is a moronic response.

 

[JarlFrank]

Optional tutorial levels are fine. OPTIONAL. Not mandatory.

Or just design an opening dungeon that naturally teaches you how the game works. Wizardry 8's Monastery level is a good one, it confronts the player with all the challenges he will have to face throughout the game, and it also is one of the best dungeons in the entire game.

 

[J1M]

After a couple of playtests I got a lot of feedback (mostly from people who don't play RPGs or at least don't play turn-based Dungeon Crawlers) and something that popped up quite frequently (even more so if the testers were younger) is that there is not enough tutorialisation. And I wondered if this is due to the fact that they normally play simpler games or is an overall problem I need to address.

Personally, I really hate tutorials except when they feel very necessary due to the complexity of the whole game or a part of the system. I mostly just read the controls in the options.

Since my game is relatively simple I just say: press m to read the manual in the beginning but some players don't do this, skim it once and get stuck or do something they didn't intend.

I personally fear that a tutorial that holds the hand too much leaves people wanting even more tips/tutorialisation. What's the most effective thing in combat (figure it out is my approach now), maybe even quest markers and more.


So, what's your opinion on tutorials? Explain everything even moving with wasd, explain only some parts, make explanations optional or just read the fucking manual?

For reference

Spoiler

I prefer the approach of Deus Ex. A separate option from the main menu that takes place in the setting. I often abandon games when it is unclear if they are trivial or the first third of the game is a tutorial.

 

[Ninjerk]

I like the Demon's Souls/Dark Souls approach (haven't played DS2 or 3 so IDK if they did the same).

 

[Great Deceiver]

Zero

 

[Tweed]

A good tutorial is at least thirty minutes long, explores each control individually, and forces you to do additional meaningless tasks unrelated to learning anything about the game while being entirely unskippable.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I don't mind tutorials
But I am of the opinion that any tutorial, no matter the length and quantity, should always be optional
And if a developer can't find a good solution to include them in the campaign without breaking immersion, then it should be a separate "game mode" selectable on the main menu

 

[Nutria]

So a normal dungeon, where the obstacles are placed in a way that makes you encounter the mechanics one buy one, with signs on the walls explaining the mechanics.

I think this is really crucial. The best way to learn a game is one mechanic at a time. Even if there's no explanation at all how it works, you can figure it out for yourself one step at a time. The problem with "just read the manual bro" is that you have to memorize a bunch of details about how a game works before you've even played it, and the human brain is just not equipped to learn that many different things without doing them.

 

[Silverfish]

Play the opening mission of Deus Ex Mankind Divided and then do the opposite.

 

[Tweed]

Bethesda is the best place to start to learn how to make the very best tutorials you can.

Real talk in-game manuals with hyperlinks are great ideas and more games should do that.

 

[laclongquan]

Fallout 2 made a good beginning tutorial and you see how people around here complain about it.

Vampire the Masquerades Bloodlines also made another one and I dont think they complain much about it~

 

[V_K]

Make the whole game one big tutorial. The faces of gamers waiting for hours for it to end and the real game begin and then getting the ending screen... Priceless!

 

[Nutria]

Vampire the Masquerades Bloodlines also made another one and I dont think they complain much about it

What I remember about that is when the guy says, "Oh shit, you're Malkavian? You really are fucked." And then I realized that I better go back to character creation. It's one of those moments when a character in the game is talking to you but you know that you're actually getting advice from the people who made the game.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've yet to play an RPG so complex it actually needs a tutorial. All you need is good UI that gives access to all the information that is relevant to the player, and with no obfuscation or even outright lies (i.e no bugged skills, they do exactly what the tooltip says). Most of the time when I see people make long tutorials for RPGs it's exactly to explain how or why things work as the devs failed to provide that information themselves.

Also baked in and forced tutorial levels kill my Dick. Don't do that.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

It's fucking obvious why quest markers are bad for gameplay. 'Lul it's an action game' is a moronic response.

Quest markers are detrimental for games where exploration is a substancial aspect of the experience
Blood Dragon might be an open-world, but exploration isn't the least bit significant, the mayhem and ridiculousness is

 

[Yosharian]

It's fucking obvious why quest markers are bad for gameplay. 'Lul it's an action game' is a moronic response.

Quest markers are detrimental for games where exploration is a substancial aspect of the experience
Blood Dragon might be an open-world, but exploration isn't the least bit significant, the mayhem and ridiculousness is

It has levels, therefore any kind of 'go here, dumbass' is just as retarded as 'here's how you move'. It's just a different kind of retarded but it's no less impactful on gameplay.

People don't notice this usually because they've been conditioned to expect it, and don't understand that good level design makes quest markers unnecessary.

Good level design is important in any game that has levels. It's not important in Tetris, but it is important in 3D shooters.