I have recently played 3 games that have forced a lengthy, unskippable tutorial section that runs for several hours of the game, just to unlock the most basic functions like buying the items, customizing features, multiplayer, and even 2-player split screen modes.
For 2 of these games (Armored Core 6 and Gran Turismo 7), the major draw for me was the MP and I haven’t even gotten to check out MP yet because it’s locked out until you get passed a certain point in the progression system. Fuckin’ why do any developers do this? I just wanted to play with my sister but we have to get through most of the fucking game before we are allowed to do the multiplayer modes. Such bullshit.
One of the Pokémon games has audio settings behind an unlock.
Ugh, it took me so long to find that when playing Pokémon Sword so I wasn’t deafened by the cries whenever someone Dynamaxed.
Remember when earlier gens locked the run button behind an unlock?
Fuck the running shoes too.
Don’t you get them after about 10 minutes of play?
It’s a slow ten minutes
That’s evil
Pokemon Sword/Shield
I have uninstalled and refunded games with frustrating tutorials
At this point in life, if a game is too complex for me to understand by simply playing the game organically, I’m going to watch a YouTube video. Reading pop up menus is okay unless they physically lock you out of the game.
If there is a constant need to watch YouTube videos or look up game guides the days of playing that game ends very quickly. Must be intuitive to play.
I very much disagree. Games like Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld absolutely benefit from both being left to your own devices AND having a repository of information to resort to.
Games with a steep learning curve shouldn’t necessarily lock you into a tutorial, just give me the option and let me fail a few times until I get the hang of things.
Factorio and Stellaris are another 2 great games with steep learning curves. They’re also 2 of my most played games according to steam.
Another commenter mentioned Elite: Dangerous. I have almost 300 hours into this game (rookie numbers for a lot of ED players), and I was still learning brand new mechanics I had no idea were in the game. One of the best experiences I’ve ever had in a game purely because it let me fail and learn on my own, even after I had lots of experience.
I returned a game because it went right into tutorial and story in an alleged “open world” game. When I got out, I you too close to an NPC and back into the story I went! Riders Republic didn’t last 20 minutes with me.
People won’t enjoy a game unless they learn the basic features.
It’s a fine line for devs between teaching the player what they need to know in order to even have a chance at enjoying the game, and jamming it down their throats.
The classic example is the game Portal. It’s a perfect tutorial. The player doesn’t even realize it’s the tutorial.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/analysis-of-game-concepts-and-player-learning-in-portal
I am frustrated with Cities Skylines 2, lately. Text-based tutorial with optional progress checks which is okay, but they pop up as soon as you look at a newly unlocked feature, not necessarily when you are ready to build the feature.
My favorite tutorial was in STALKER. The guy gives you a pistol and tells you good luck.
Halo does it that way too
Even in Halo, there’s a bit of a movement tutorial to get to the bridge and get the gun.
STALKER opens with a dialog screen and “hey want to kill some bandits for me?”
Halo makes a point of limiting the enemy and weapons sandbox on the first level, and does have a few explicit tutorial moments, mostly around melee and grenades.
The original Super Mario Brothers’ first level is the best tutorial ever made. It teaches you every function of the game right in that first level, without holding your hand or even telling you it’s a tutorial.
MegaMan Xis what I think of for the ghost tutorial.
Mario, nice name drop. I hadn’t ever thought of that level as a tutorial, yeah it sure is though.
I guess another example of the Portal technique, where the teaching moments are blended into gameplay, is Cocoon. It takes that concept to an extreme.
Can’t wait for a sequel/DLC tho.
Sometimes I feel this, but the opposite is also true. I have a friend who will play a game for less than half an hour, declare it trash, and then complain the entire time because he thinks the mechanics are broken because he never bothered to play the single player mode where the game teaches you how the weapons, vehicles, and planes all work. It makes playing virtually any game with him a total drag unless he actually spends a bit of time in it. And then suddenly, he actually likes it.
He’s declared a bunch of games trash, played them for longer than a few sessions, and then puts 100 hours in it once he’s been forced to actually understand how the game works x3
Subnautica, Deep Rock Galactic, The Forest, Divinity 2: Original Sin, and Baldur’s Gate 3, all trash until he actually put time into them, and then really liked them. Somehow, he put 500 hours into Elite Dangerous, lol.
I am playing Elite Dangerous right now with over 500 hours too. I know all the mechanics since I’ve been playing since beta and saw them as they were added and have even contributed to the wiki.
It is trash. :P
Beautiful trash
3000 hours, done everything, killed everything, mined everything. It’s horrible. Oh well. Back to Tarkov, and my 13000 hours…
By far my favourite horrible game. Hehe. I will spend several more thousands of hours on it, hoping they decide to finally finish the VR implementation in the “recent” expansion.
1,041 hours here!
I can’t say I agree with this take.
I’ve played some games where the hero gets all of their tools from the outset, and it ends up being really hard to figure out when to use each one. Comparatively, when you slowly unlock things during tutorials, you’re building a mental framework of how combat should go, and on each unlock, get some time to work out how that fits in.
In fact, it’s something I think is an issue with fighting games and their competitive-only mindset. People play the 20 tutorials in quick sequence, get confused by a Reverse Upper Back-Airdodge-Cancel input that’s only going to happen in high-level play, and feel overwhelmed.
I’m not really talking about powers or skills your character can get; I’m talking like being able to get into multiplayer, or the settings, specific game modes, etc.
Using GT7 as an example again, you can’t even get to the settings page until you have gone through a very niche “tutorial” race mode that is unlike the rest of the game, and also sit through a 20 minute unskippable cutscene (which plays everytime you run the game unless you go into the settings to disable it) before you’re presented with the main menu screen.
I mean, arguing against unskippable cutscenes or misrepresentative tutorials is basically like comedians pegging on airline food.
Airplane food is actually more palatable than unskippable 20 minute cutscenes, IMO.
Get bored with games SO quickly. Part of how to keep interest is figuring out on my own how the game works. And I can, on my own, figure out games, software, very quickly.
Too many phone games try to make you sit thru insufferable tedious tutorials. So you’re not only depriving me the chance to figure out on my own, you’re also insulting my intelligence. Any game does this, instant uninstall.
I find figuring out the controls the least interesting part of any game. I would be pissed if I played a game and couldn’t unlock multiplayer without hours of play, but I’ve not played a game where the tutorial was so long that I was really bothered by it, even if I found it completely unnecessary.
can suck my nuts
Present them.
Are you one of said games?
It’s from South Park. Cartman says suck my balls, and Ms Chokesondiks replies “present them, and I’ll suck 'em”.
Get suckin’
I replayed FF 13 a while ago, I was absolutely shocked how long it took to be able to customize role settings for the party members.
That was my main complaint with the game. I didn’t mind starting limited and building up to full control, but it should have taken half of the time. And some of the early pairings were pretty rough to use without their full kit.
20 hours before you’re allowed 3 people as well.
As much as I love AC6 I too was baffled as to why multiplayer was locked until half the game was complete.
I would probably have done it at the start of Chapter 2 rather than the end, but Chapter 2 (on NG) is pretty short anyway. The main idea is that you have faced two (and a half) different boss types by that point and should have a good feel for how to use different legs, have a good set of weapons, etc. Which, since there is no concept of Soul Memory or even progression based matchmaking, is kind of needed to prevent people’s first experience with AC6 multiplayer being the starting core getting demolished by double Zimmers.
And it isn’t half the game.
spoiler
Chapter 3 is pretty long and 4 and 5, while somewhat short, are brutal.
What I do disagree with is holding off access to the store until late Chapter 1. But I also get that people will likely be overwhelmed by the store rather than excited, so it is probably a good approach. Let the player know how to swap out parts and what not before letting them run free. Still don’t like it though.
I agree on this sentiment. The games mechanics, while more streamlined than its predecessors, are still insanely complex. I’ve been playing these games since the first on the original PlayStation. And when I first jumped into MP, I got my ass handed to me quite thoroughly. It took quite some time upgrading parts and getting familiar with various builds before I started actually winning.
I figure they gated MP more to minimize how many noobs are in lobbies.
Is it really half the game? That’s crazy
Its not, and on subsequent playthroughs the tutorial is skipped and online is available. You get multiplayer at the end of chapter 2, there are 5 chapters in the game.
So it’s locked for 40% of the game, not 50%. That’s so much better…
No. Chapter 2 is short compared to the others. And it’s 3 playthroughs to beat the game. It’s not one run of 5 chapters.
If people can’t be bothered to beat the second chapter to play multiplayer, then they’re just going to ragequit when they get stomped online anyway.
Ah, that makes a lot more sense, thanks :)
No it’s 30 minutes of you don’t suck ass at the first boss. If you can’t beat him you are going to get rocked by everyone.
In Starfield (and FO4 for that matter) basic game functions are locked behind perks, you need to be like level 30 before you can start playing the game
It felt really odd that the stealth meter, a staple in every Bethesda rpg I’ve played, had to be unlocked with a skill point in Starfield.
I think this makes sense for a RPG, why would a guns blazing character suddenly know how good he was at being stealthy? Bethesda is trying to do undo what they did with Skyrim with the hero that is a good at everything.
I have to say that this highly depends on the type of games you like, and if the unlocks are well designed into the story.
In general most of the types mentioned are cashgrabs, but I enjoyed an indie game called Evoland. You can ‘unlock’ better graphics and audio as part of the game, watching the evolution of gaming
Yeah, local multiplayer or custom hosted multiplayer should be unlocked right away. Online matched multiplayer can be skill/tutorial gated just fine.
In ac6 it’s about the inventory and not the gameplay. Before the multiplayer unlocks you simply don’t have enough stuff to go online to fight.
Yes, it would be nice if they had some kind of fixed inventory multiplayer mode, but the main game is about getting stuff and early on you don’t really have enough for a decent fight.
100% this. AC PvP would be awful for a new player using the limited early game parts/weapons. Think MMO level 50 vs level 5.
Yes an argument can be made to still allow it so people can fight their friends early… but a lot of people would just go straight into it and just be turned off to it altogether.
I don’t even remember anything in AC6 I would consider a tutorial. Unless he means the first 5 minute mission.
OP, the only multiplayer you missed playing with your sister was pvp, and you would have been absolutely shat on if you went into pvp. And you would shit up the games for other people too, because no one wants to fight a bunch of noobs all in the same starting gear who don’t know how to move (or worse, have them on your team).
GT7 makes sense. There needs to be some barrier to make sure people know how to drive the cars without just immediately jumping into the game.
Tutorials under 1hr are ok. Once they go over that I stop playing.
It’s not even just online MP. It’s the split screen, too!
Besides: Why would there need to be a barrier? If you suck, you’re just gonna lose. If there was a ranking system, eventually you only match with other players who suck. 🤷🏻♂️
Because losing takes out the other players too. Racing is unique in that if you’re bad, you’ll also end the races of multiple players around you.
limit the mp to ghost and “coop” modes - case closed
Online racing sim is one of the most bizarre “gaming” communities. I came to hate driving after years of several hours commute and have zero patience for virtual cars now, but the small amount of time I was trying out sim racing was plagued with cursed elitism. Having driven for many years with a clean license isn’t enough for these people. You could be a professional driver for races and movies both and they would probably fault you for something. I don’t know the game you are speaking of in particular so maybe it’s not that bad.
Because noobs ruin the race for everyone else. Just watch older SuperGT videos about the shadow realm. I say if you want to get into multilayer in racing sims, you must have a valid driving license and a hundred hours of real life racing.
iRacing has a license system. You need to pass an exam to go above the rookie rank, and you can lose your license if you drive too badly and cause accidents.
Yep.
Why? What if I want to jump into the game and then learn how to drive the cars?
Then do that in single player, that’s what it’s there for
I didn’t see that this was referring to multiplayer. In that case it makes sense.
Because when you people get online like in Grid, you just crash everyone else and now there’s only a handful a people racing, fun is over before the first curve.
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I thought you were talking about mobile games or something locked behind a paywall before I read further and realized you’re mad that multi-player is “locked” behind someone completing a tutorial. I haven’t played either of the two games you mentioned by name but I would imagine that they are complicated/unique enough where a tutorial is warranted. It’s kind of annoying if you just want to hop in and go, sure, but if “most of the fucking game” content consists of the beginning tutorial then you bought the wrong game to begin with.
GT7 isn’t any more complicated than GT1-6. To have an unskippable tutorial in the umpteenth installment of a game go over the basic controls and mechanics of racing a car is madness. They don’t actually give you any tutorial on the stuff that should have it, like manually manipulating the engine tuning, but they have several points of progression to familiarize you with the brakes and gas and steering. Which anyone who has driven a car or played a racing game can very much figure the fuck out without a tutorial.
Tutorials are designed for the dumbest person out there who has zero idea what they’re doing. So in this case someone who has never driven a car or played a racing game before. If a tutorial told you “this works like the last game, do the same” it’s obviously bad design. Yeah that’s a super small subset of the people playing the game but it’s better to overexplain than underexplain. But in this case yeah they should 100% just have a separate tutorial mode section for people who need it, having that REQUIRED in a racing game is ridiculous. I haven’t played racing games in years but last I remember that’s what used to be the norm.
I mean, the easy option is just selecting your level of experience at the beginning and offering experienced players an option to skip the tutorial.
Based on what you and others are eating about GT7, I’m not sure this will totally apply, but in my experience it seems like games will do things like this deter smurfs from making a fresh account and destroying low ranked players in MP. Not saying that is a good way to handle smurfs, or that these games are doing it for that specific reason, but might be something to consider.
But on fresh installs? That’s where it really sucks
