And people are telling me that are some that are not fixated in this game? Come on guys, is a tutorial, they can be as "silly" or "dumb" as the developers want. Not everyone have been playing video-games all their lives or half of their lives.
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"The Boss Health Bar is located at the bottom of the screen." New low in tutorial hints?
- Thread starter jett
- Start date
I've played games for a long time. There is no way with the vast amount of games out there, the various mechanics, the different genres and such I would ever play a new game without a tutorial. Just cause you can play super meat boy, doesn't make you proficient at dark souls.
Modern games are complex. A good clean tutorial is not a bad thing peoole should think they're above.
That takes way more work and has to be engineered for specific scenarios that are often changing up to the last minute. Hence brute force. Same line of code works anywhere in the game no matter what.
I'm not saying it's good , it's not imo just trying to give context. The better solutions take more time, more resources, and a schedule that takes them into account alongside gameplay features.
Going to make a few assumptions here because I haven't seen the gameplay video since it seemingly got pulled, but let's try to establish a few things:
- The player has had a health bar up to this boss fight.
- Enemies the player has already fought have had a health bar.
- This enemy is bigger than the others and takes longer to kill.
This particular tutorial message tells you a few things:
1) This is a "boss"
2) It has "health"
3) The health is represented by a "bar"
4) The bar is located near the bottom of the screen
Now, let's also assume that people are incapable of picking up on context clues.
So let's go after those point by point:
-To point 1), if someone has not played enough games before to understand what a "boss" (or mini-boss, etc) is, calling something out as a boss tells them nothing useful. They will not know what that term signifies.
-To point 2) health, HP, etc. as a term is something we've grown used to after decades of games. The idea of health as an integer that goes from whatever to zero is silly. It always has been. Bodies and life do not work that way. You can't hit a person in the leg with a sword enough times until they're suddenly and immediately dead (thank you Spec Ops and Far Cry 5). They still would have to bleed out. So, again, the idea of health as representative of being alive or dead is inscrutable.
-To point 3) just see point 2. "Bar" isn't the best word for it, but we use it instead of "guage", which would be better. People need to understand what video game health means to understand what a health bar is.
-To point 4), the player character's health has been in the lower left. Previous enemy health has been (based on what has been said) above their heads. Oh look, we have a new, larger enemy! Their health is not above their head. Wherever could it be?
This is, of course, nonsensical. People can pick up on context.
For several dozen people, this will be their first video game. For likely hundreds (maybe several thousand) more, this will be their first action game. To them I say congrats and welcome to a fun hobby. To the developers I say trust those people to pick up on fucking context clues and let them discover even the littlest things before you railroad them into learning your way, and/or overwhelm them with enough information that they give up. I'm not even anti-tutorial or anti-accessibility; I'm all for a thorough version of the former and love what Naughty Dog has been doing with the latter and hope that more developers pick up on that trend and roll with it. I'm even for the Souls games having an "easy mode". For someone picking up a PS4 controller for the first time, there's nothing that would make them intuitively figure out that the left stick moves a character. Tell us that; that's fine! However: if you can't trust people to figure out from pre-established context that the boss's health is at the bottom of the screen, you aren't giving people the respect they deserve and aren't trusting them enough to figure it out for themselves.
Therefore I say this tutorial message is stupid and pointless. I'm not insulted. I'm not offended. I just think it's kinda dumb and kinda pointless and more can be expected of new players because they're human beings with brains that do brain things.
- The player has had a health bar up to this boss fight.
- Enemies the player has already fought have had a health bar.
- This enemy is bigger than the others and takes longer to kill.
This particular tutorial message tells you a few things:
1) This is a "boss"
2) It has "health"
3) The health is represented by a "bar"
4) The bar is located near the bottom of the screen
Now, let's also assume that people are incapable of picking up on context clues.
So let's go after those point by point:
-To point 1), if someone has not played enough games before to understand what a "boss" (or mini-boss, etc) is, calling something out as a boss tells them nothing useful. They will not know what that term signifies.
-To point 2) health, HP, etc. as a term is something we've grown used to after decades of games. The idea of health as an integer that goes from whatever to zero is silly. It always has been. Bodies and life do not work that way. You can't hit a person in the leg with a sword enough times until they're suddenly and immediately dead (thank you Spec Ops and Far Cry 5). They still would have to bleed out. So, again, the idea of health as representative of being alive or dead is inscrutable.
-To point 3) just see point 2. "Bar" isn't the best word for it, but we use it instead of "guage", which would be better. People need to understand what video game health means to understand what a health bar is.
-To point 4), the player character's health has been in the lower left. Previous enemy health has been (based on what has been said) above their heads. Oh look, we have a new, larger enemy! Their health is not above their head. Wherever could it be?
This is, of course, nonsensical. People can pick up on context.
For several dozen people, this will be their first video game. For likely hundreds (maybe several thousand) more, this will be their first action game. To them I say congrats and welcome to a fun hobby. To the developers I say trust those people to pick up on fucking context clues and let them discover even the littlest things before you railroad them into learning your way, and/or overwhelm them with enough information that they give up. I'm not even anti-tutorial or anti-accessibility; I'm all for a thorough version of the former and love what Naughty Dog has been doing with the latter and hope that more developers pick up on that trend and roll with it. I'm even for the Souls games having an "easy mode". For someone picking up a PS4 controller for the first time, there's nothing that would make them intuitively figure out that the left stick moves a character. Tell us that; that's fine! However: if you can't trust people to figure out from pre-established context that the boss's health is at the bottom of the screen, you aren't giving people the respect they deserve and aren't trusting them enough to figure it out for themselves.
Therefore I say this tutorial message is stupid and pointless. I'm not insulted. I'm not offended. I just think it's kinda dumb and kinda pointless and more can be expected of new players because they're human beings with brains that do brain things.
Already addressed.
What you're describing is performative learning, which is different from a tutorial. A tutorial is effectively a walkthrough placed in the game with the intention of making some obvious or not obvious aspect of play as clear as possible. Some tutorials may require performance, but many do not (or have no way to "perform" them, such as understanding that a bar represents a boss' health - the only way to understand that is basically via context or an explanation - though context can typically do it much more quickly using visual and auditory cues).
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Crazy how so many are missing the point of the thread... I came in looking for Fi and similar examples, for a laugh, you know, but here I am, reading pages of people accusing the OP for being "offended". Just because they found that one bit funny doesn't mean they now hates God of War with all their heart, one can criticise something they love.
In OP's example, it's clear, to me at least, that they weren't making fun of the hand-holdiness of the "boss health bar is at the bottom" message. It's not a huge issue, but I do find an overabundant of tutorial pop-ups will make me ignore them eventually, as many have mentioned. Something are better left naturally discovered, especially something as obvious as a boss health bar that has the boss's name on it, and I assume, wasn't there before the fight.
On the other hand, I wish Capcom, in all their handholdiness and annoying tutorial spam in MHWorld, would have explained that you could check the radar and monster's heartbeat meter(the monster's health bar, in essence) to see if they're ready for capture...
In the example of Fi, I think the main issue is that it's an interruption to flow during a tense, and often frustrated, moment that is causing so much bad memories. I haven't played the game, but I have encountered similar "pause action to explain something basic during moment of frustrations" enough to know that feel.
In OP's example, it's clear, to me at least, that they weren't making fun of the hand-holdiness of the "boss health bar is at the bottom" message. It's not a huge issue, but I do find an overabundant of tutorial pop-ups will make me ignore them eventually, as many have mentioned. Something are better left naturally discovered, especially something as obvious as a boss health bar that has the boss's name on it, and I assume, wasn't there before the fight.
On the other hand, I wish Capcom, in all their handholdiness and annoying tutorial spam in MHWorld, would have explained that you could check the radar and monster's heartbeat meter(the monster's health bar, in essence) to see if they're ready for capture...
In the example of Fi, I think the main issue is that it's an interruption to flow during a tense, and often frustrated, moment that is causing so much bad memories. I haven't played the game, but I have encountered similar "pause action to explain something basic during moment of frustrations" enough to know that feel.
This sounds great until 9/10 people fail the UR test. Once again not everyone plays games the way you do. Not everyone is interested in figuring it out themselves. Not everyone is good at figuring out things that should seem obvious.
Tutorials won't stop core gamers like you from buying the game and playing it how you want. They are there for everyone else.
Many times I have been shocked watching live UR sessions but the issues that arise from them must be addressed no matter the creator's opinions most of the time.
Different teams have different philosophies on how to address these issues and staff and schedule appropriately. Most teams would rather not use messaging but often times it's the quickest way to solve an issue.
It's not about trust it's about business and internal perception of accessibility to different types of players and people.
I'm just not convinced that someone that new would be able to play this game successfully anyway. The god of war games are not super hard for people who played games before, but people who don't know what health bars are would struggle with even the most basic movement controls in modern games. GoW requires a certain amount of dexterity with modern controllers that you take for granted because they are muscle memory for people who played a few PS1+ era games before, but may be totally alien for non-gamers. Just look at the actual boss fight in the video, and tell me that someone who has never heard of health bars can clear that. Despite people saying ITT "why not make god of war someone's very first game", this doesn't make sense. There are steps involved in the middle between 0 and god of war. When you're learning to drive you don't start with parallel parking - it requires a certain amount of familiarity with the cars controls that you just don't have when starting out.
I'd be very impressed if GoW could scale from "people who never played games before can play it" to "provide adequate challenge for previous players of the franchise".
I don't think tutorials are bad by any means, nor bringing new people to existing genres, but this looks like they're misreading their target demo. I'd expect a tutorial like this in a game made for small children primarily, not in a (probably) M-rated character action game.
I'd be very impressed if GoW could scale from "people who never played games before can play it" to "provide adequate challenge for previous players of the franchise".
I don't think tutorials are bad by any means, nor bringing new people to existing genres, but this looks like they're misreading their target demo. I'd expect a tutorial like this in a game made for small children primarily, not in a (probably) M-rated character action game.
Excessive hand-holding in games has been an issue for way too long. You'd think the success of all these Souls games would have woken people up: No, we're not stupid and we don't have the memory of a goldfish, thanks.
It can be for sure. I should have filled UR tests with my friends who would never admit not knowing something. Would have made my life easier lol.
I think the biggest UR issue I saw was with 1vs100. People didn't pres start to join the actual game once in the lobby with the initial ux flow. They just sat there lol.
This was shocking to the team as none of us had ever done this or had this issue with take home betas where close family and friends could play.
This was a huge scare as the game needed a certain amount of people to "join" for it to start. lol.
I had a few hours to come up with a solution which would not disrupt development or cause too much rework to our core systems.
We fixed it for launch but I'll never forget the shock. It's a risk we couldn't ship without minimizing.
I don't take this stuff seriously , I think people are just giving context into why tutorials nowadays can come off a little overbearing borderlining silly to many of us who have been playing games for most of our lives.
I hate it when games dumb it down and make easy mode with a health bar, I'm looking at you dark souls...
Worth noting that pretty much everyone has played games most of their lives. Which is why obvious information frequently comes off as condescending.
So, two things:
I'd love more stories about weird UX experiences a la 1 vs 100 and whatnot. That is endlessly interesting. Even commonalities like "press start" (but then also A or B or X or whatever works) is a fun read.
Also, I'm really not taking this particular GoW tutorial that seriously on the user end. It's more interesting as a story on the testing/developer side, and how things led to this particular point. I'd really like to hear about the specific testing observations and decisions that led to it. Like I said, as a "video game player" I have no problem with the concept of it, but I think that even for complete newbies it doesn't seem meaningfully helpful.
I'm really not sure where you're getting the sarcasm from. The "hmm?" was mild puzzlement/interrogation...
I'm not familiar with 1v100, but is this the equivalent of starting a game and just starring at the main menu waiting for something to happen?
Fair enough, it came off to me differently than you had intended it then. I nuked my last post.
ヘ( ^o^)ノ＼(^_^ )
Real talk though, Fi was a pile of garbage. Never has a Zelda game made me feel like such a child.
Most people have played games but not games that are as complex as many video games are now.
Some people have also only played games with friends or family giving them helpful contextual information.
My dad for instance despite working in tech did not grow up playing games nor did he play them as an adult. Hes retired now but that doesnt make him NOT a target demographic. In fact many older people play mobile games and have the extra money to spend so they have become a target demo.
I work at one of the biggest tech companies in the world and most people on my team do not play games.
Some may have played stuff 20+ years ago but many just have never had an interest. Their kids may play
but they do not due to time, and complexity of getting into gaming from their POV.
From a business perspective we want the people who we haven't hooked yet. Hence doing UR with various target audiences. We want grandparents to fill just as comfortable as grandkids.
The game was live. Which came with a host of other ux issues. So if the game didnt start for one of the live sessions that would be a huge problem as we had tons of people involved with the live show in various studio locations including live guests. This issue was past the main menu, in the lobby. The lobby allowed you basically create a local session with friends before heading into the main game session. You could see your avatar and mess around while waiting for the show to "start". Once your friends were there, you needed to select join from your player menu. The same menu you used to invite friends.
So yes they would just stare at the lobby waiting for something to happen , this was also post us popping up tutorial which they dismissed of course and never read lol.
Yes, some people do need those.
And your problem is...?
Precisely.
Well at least some people can show off their "elitism", which they claim to hate in some other threads.
This is why I don't take most of the stuff people say here seriously.
I am saying that there are more new people playing games than before and not all of them well-versed with the mechanics and ideas of video games.
If you would have demonstrated as much empathy as you claim to have, you would have put yourself on the place of the newcomers and have figured it out without me telling you to do it.
Hm, maybe it is because those medias are not interactive?
You don't control movies or music. So comparing video games to those is pointless.
I hope you wont' complain about toxicity in video game communities after this, because, your post is an epitome of toxicity.
If you think that someone is an idiot for needing help in the games and that the fact that you have learnt controls when you was a kid, makes you special - then let me break the news: no. You are not special and people who are new to the VG and need help are not idiots.
Or maybe newcomers just have zero knowledge of how video games are working?
And I am so-so happy, that most people, both developers and players don't see games as you do.
I think you are lost. 4Chan is on the other side.
Also, reported.
But you don't understand! Those people are so special for figuring stuff on their own! Of course it was so simple for them!
And everyone who can't figure it our are people who apparently "can't function in life".
Erase "Zelda" from that last sentence of yours and I'll agree completely.
The only reason Navi has a worse reputation is because OoT is the better game and more people played it but make no mistake; it wasn't just Fi that was the problem. That game was an excercise in frustration from top to bottom. Remember how the game needed to remind you of all 50 bugs you pick up for the first time each session where Link will stop to show you what he got and forcing you to scroll through a text box even if it's the 67th of that type of bug you've picked up in hour 90 of your adventure? And unlike most ppl the reasons that made me loathe SS have almost nothing to do with motion controls (except for swimming. Who's responsible for making me swim with the Wiimote's accelerometers? Fuck that!).
It's amazing how that franchise moved from my most hated Zelda game ever to the best they've ever done (SS->BotW) so they at least learned from it.
Fuck Skyward Sword.
I think for a small subset of games, the complexity has increased. Most video games are no more complex than they were 30 or 40 years ago. And most are less so (definitely true for any well-established genre). Admittedly, controllers are a much more involved affair than they were 30 or 40 years ago, and I can understand why that would be intimidating.
That said, I do think video games are also much more twitchy than they were in the past, and they reward action over strategy, which is likely why the demographics you mention are so rarely involved (and it's also why games like chess, shogi, mahjong and go are still alive and well).
I take issue with targeting grandparents because they have money, but that's not really the point of this thread.
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I mean, I work at a VR place and customers still struggle to know whether the giant helicopter firing at them is the boss or not despite the bar at the bottom and multiple warnings. Maybe we do need over-the-top obvious hints?
So interaction is beyond most people? Is that what you're saying? Because the vast majority of people interact with games and interact with electronics every single day. Also, anyone can watch a movie, but understanding the material is something completely different.
You really don't think there's a difference in complexity from Zork to Eve: Online...? I can't imagine you actually mean this if you think about it for a second, lmao
I don't see any connection here whatsoever.
Interacting with electronic devices is not the same as interacting with video games. Neither watching movie is.
Maybe he is - this guy is supposedly from FGC. You know how they are...
They are "cool", everyone else are "worthless lazy scrubs, who only deserved to be laughed upon".
This one from Fortnite is pretty insulting.
In the age of CoD where everyone is quickscoping others at point blank range, it's not surprising if people forget the proper use for them.
But isn't the whole idea of tips to give the player some insight into the mechanics of your particular game? Saying snipers are long range and that bosses have health bars is describing 99% of games that have those things.
I'm not opposed at all to games giving tips about their particular shooting mechanics but make it stuff that compliments this already extremely basic information. How about "when shooting with a sniper rifle at long range, aim ahead of the where the target is moving." It introduces that basic-ass information that sniper rifles are long range but also makes the tip actually useful for the 98% of players who have heard of sniper rifles.
The relatively brief tutorial for Kirby Star Allies involved telling me what each face button did. I think Super Mario Bros taught us that people are going to hit the damn buttons without having to be told. Let them learn what they do - it's not exactly a challenging or complicated game.
What, exactly, are you comparing Zork to? Are you comparing it to other games in its genre, or all games generally? Because there's no argument anyone could make that a game like Zork is more complicated than most games generally, but within its genre, it's basically as complex as or more complex than most modern text adventures (not that text adventures are really much of a thing anymore). Same with Breakout and Space Invaders in their respective genres.
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What the?
You watch a movie, you listen to music, you play a game. The game doesn't work without your input. What are you talking about?
The last text adventure I played (like a month ago) had, like, mood and relationship mechanics, and much better writing than Zork (no offence to the granddaddy), and the last old-school adventure game I played before that had dialogue for literally every item interaction in the game. The last text adventure I played before that was simpler than Zork, but was in the middle of an action adventure rpg that regularly was like "hey you know what we should do? completely shift genres for about three minutes!", meaning the game overall was DEFINITELY more complicated than Zork. Even later Zork games were more complicated than the original Zork. Even the dumb MUDs I played in high school were more complicated than Zork because they had, like, leveling mechanics and multiplayer? Have YOU played a text-based game since Zork??????
What you're speaking to is differences and focus, not complexity.
Like, just as an example. Some would say Nioh is more complex than the Souls series because of all the item mechanics and the manner in which the combat proceeds. I'd argue that it's not more complicated, the focus is simply different (item mechanics, twitchier gameplay). Those might be argued as complexity, but the fundamentals aren't being usurped or changed in a manner that makes the old methods so dated that they're unusable or even unpalatable.
I'm not saying this is either good or bad, it's just the reality of creating things for mass consumption. Complexity tends to go down as you appeal to larger audiences (and video games are increasingly attempting to do that, with exceptions becoming rarer over time).
Not really, you just let them fail once or twice and then they will learn, it's okat to do that. Makes the experience a lot more immersive.
The problem is that necessary/unintuitive information is always mixed in there along with "press forward on the analog stick to walk"
Usually the case, majority pick up that the giant helicopter shooting at them is indeed bad but there is always one who doesn't figure it out haha.
Goldeneye was probably the first game I played that had a sniper rifle, and the first time I'd had any reason to know what one was. Given fortnites low age requirement and popularly, it may very well be the first time some kids come across the words "sniper rifle"
What isn't common is explaining everything twice and always hearing "but he died on AvP" in the end.
Hahaha. I can actually imagine a dev reading this and thinking "we have to go deeper"
Please don't give them anymore bad ideas. It'll dumb down game design even more.
Definitely requires work but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done and it is beneficial to the player
A lot of games need changes these are good quality of life ones to help people acclimate to a game
If your argument is to teach people to play your game don't make the lesson frustrating
Advocacy for a worse first impression is just asking fewer people to try your game sorry