CloneFighter
Mediocre Lua scripter
I don't like how Tutorial Zone's character ability tutorial section can be passed with just two jumps and no thokking.
Something about the tutorial
- Thread starter CloneFighter
- Start date
- Status
PencilVoid
Circuit Enthusiast
There aren't any pits in that room, though.
It's actually because the tutorial is intended to teach new players. Several of the sections can actually be completed without following the directions. However, following the directions is the easiest way to complete it, and therefore new players, who generally don't have the skill to cheese it, will follow the directions and learn what the tutorial is trying to teach them.
time gear
Eternity in an hour
All you have to do to clear those gaps is when the camera is facing the right direction, hold forward and jump. I don't really see how skill is a factor here. It requires none to cheese this particular section. Some players might even try this first on purpose just to see if they can do it, and as such miss the opportunity to clear it with the thok because they weren't expecting to actually end up cheesing it that easily.
If you are going for a design in which it's possible to cheese with the right know how but hard enough that new players won't do it by accident, there should be a bigger gap there or something so that experienced players can cross the gap with the right timing but new players lean on the thok to get across.
LunickTMM
Member
You do realize this is for newer players, right? No one who is already knowledgeable on how the game works is going to turn on the tutorial other than just for curiosity.
Heck, if you want that part of the tutorial to be more interesting, you can even make it to the teleporter by thokking into the slope and then thoking straight up to it without ever going near the second platform.
Anyway, the first three challenges can all be completed by not following directions. You can beat the first room just by looking around and thokking. You can beat the second by just running. And you can cheese the third by standing next to the Eggman Statue and thokking right to the goal.
time gear
Eternity in an hour
I couldn't care less about how much advanced stuff is possible in the tutorial. My comment was a reply to Mystic regarding when he said
That is to say, there is a distinction being made here between experienced players and new players regarding there being more than one way to finish each section. If I were designing it, I would actually be going further to encourage doing the thing that is actually being taught regardless of skill level, rather than keeping it open ended. The purpose of a tutorial is to introduce players to the controls and concepts present within the game. Making it too easy to ignore these instructions beats the point, especially with the tutorial itself being strictly optional. Players should have much more strict requirements to progress through the tutorial to ensure that passing the tutorial means having learned the lessons it's trying to teach.
You're completely missing the point. The architecture in the tutorial is designed to maximize teaching new players, and does not care about the ability to cheese it. Making the jumps larger would make it more necessary to use the thok, but also make the jumps significantly harder. We want newbies to try to thok and succeed on their first or second try. If the jump is more difficult, they will start to have trouble in the tutorial, which is not what we want to happen. Instead, we just let people break it if they know what they're doing, and that's not a problem because if you already know what you're doing, you don't need the explanation anyways.
It does not matter that the player can ignore the instructions, because the goal is instead to teach the target audience, new players, the things they need to know as quickly and effectively as possible.
It does not matter that the player can ignore the instructions, because the goal is instead to teach the target audience, new players, the things they need to know as quickly and effectively as possible.
time gear
Eternity in an hour
This is an exaggeration of what I am talking about. You can make the gap longer without making it difficult to make it with the thok. The idea is for it to be easy to make the jump with the thok, but not so much if you don't. The thok provides enough speed that this should be doable.
However, my point has never been to make the tutorial more expert friendly. My point is that the tutorial is too easy, at least in this section, and that there are better ways to teach the lesson to newcomers that still allow them to be experimental and find alternative solutions. Those solutions shouldn't be as easy as "hold forward and press jump to skip the lesson".
The problem is that none of this is accurate. At all. You can easily break it even if you don't know what you are doing, at least in this section. Literally all you have to do to cheese it is hold forward and press jump. This requires no more skill or know how than you have already learned in the tutorial up to this point, and could easily happen by accident.
When it's this easy to cheese, it becomes more likely to do so, which doesn't teach the player the necessary information that the section is trying to convey. It's allowing players who reached the goal incorrectly to pass, effectively allowing them to not learn what is being explained to them.
Granted, there are other ways the section could be tweaked to ensure that the player is learning the lesson properly, not only in terms of changing the level geometry but also in terms of more strict "pass" requirements similar to how in most situations, not looking at the Eggman statue resets you to the start of that room. Alternatively, it could lead to a room with another selection of gaps to give the player a few more chances to practice the thok before continuing to the next lesson.
Basically, my point is that if you want to make it so that the tutorial doesn't actually require you to do anything it's telling you to, or at least within certain sections, it should still at least be more challenging to break the rules than just moving forward and jumping. The only way a player could possibly have trouble doing that would be if they don't have the camera facing the right way, which isn't likely considering they just learned about making the camera point the direction they want it to. If a player misunderstands and doesn't press the jump button in the air a second time to do the thok, or intends to but is too slow to press jump again, they are going to pass anyway and it treats it as them having learned it when they have not. This is not quick or efficient learning. It's a missed chance to learn.
Effectively, making it too easy to ignore instructions does not teach new players anything. All it does is set them up with the expectation that they will be able to succeed without learning anything the tutorial was attempting to teach them but wasn't very strict about. If you want to make alternative solutions possible, the player should be required to get creative to discover those solutions. The intended solution should be easy (For example: thokking to get to the goal), the alternative solution should be challenging (For example: reaching the goal without thokking). This way, players have to demonstrate that they understand the mechanics of the game well enough to proceed, rather than proceeding by accident. New players should be encouraged to take their time through this process, given the chance to familiarize themselves with what is being taught, not rushed through as quickly as possible.
LunickTMM
Member
I still don't think you get it. Unless the task is made only completable by thok would players "learn" this lesson. By making it harder, it still boils down to your same issue, which is that this is completable by holding forward and jumping.
And even if the jump was made to be not possible by holding forward and jump, it then approaches difficulty levels not appropriate of a tutorial. Add on top of that if players applied their knowledge of spin dashing, which they just learned, they can find out they can clear gaps not even possible with thok.
You're looking too much into this, instead of just letting it be the non intrusive tutorial it's trying to be.
And even if the jump was made to be not possible by holding forward and jump, it then approaches difficulty levels not appropriate of a tutorial. Add on top of that if players applied their knowledge of spin dashing, which they just learned, they can find out they can clear gaps not even possible with thok.
You're looking too much into this, instead of just letting it be the non intrusive tutorial it's trying to be.
cookiefonster
Wiki Admin
Jesus Christ, are people seriously arguing with a game dev about the way the tutorial is designed?????
It should be obvious that the tutorial is designed for new players, who won't know right off the bat how far Sonic can jump or how to best optimize his jumping. I can easily imagine a new player just slightly pressing forward and then jump, and not quite making it to the next platform. Then they try the thok and go "oh, that's what it does".
It should be obvious that the tutorial is designed for new players, who won't know right off the bat how far Sonic can jump or how to best optimize his jumping. I can easily imagine a new player just slightly pressing forward and then jump, and not quite making it to the next platform. Then they try the thok and go "oh, that's what it does".
time gear
Eternity in an hour
Again, I'm not trying to say that the tutorial should be hard. I'm trying to say that entirely missing the lesson it's trying to teach is against the point of a tutorial to begin with. I've never encountered a tutorial before SRB2 in which it's possible to accidentally miss steps because of the simplicity and ease involved in cheesing it.
The natural instinct of anyone trying to jump over a gap is to not stop moving. This combined with the increased odds of a player performing the tutorial on keyboard and mouse as opposed to a controller with analog sticks (Though it would still be more instinctual to hold forward all the way on an analog controller) suggests the opposite. A player is entirely likely to make the jump before they have a chance to realize what the thok actually does.
I'm entirely on the same page as everyone else that the tutorial should be easy. I'm just saying that the things it's trying to teach you shouldn't be so easy to skip as to be possible to do so entirely by accident and miss the lesson. The tutorial is already entirely optional, so if someone actually chooses to play the tutorial it's because they want to learn the controls of how to play and are choosing to take some of their time to do so, not because they want to accidentally overshoot a jump and miss their chance to learn what the thok does.
The natural instinct of anyone trying to jump over a gap is to not stop moving. This combined with the increased odds of a player performing the tutorial on keyboard and mouse as opposed to a controller with analog sticks (Though it would still be more instinctual to hold forward all the way on an analog controller) suggests the opposite. A player is entirely likely to make the jump before they have a chance to realize what the thok actually does.
I'm entirely on the same page as everyone else that the tutorial should be easy. I'm just saying that the things it's trying to teach you shouldn't be so easy to skip as to be possible to do so entirely by accident and miss the lesson. The tutorial is already entirely optional, so if someone actually chooses to play the tutorial it's because they want to learn the controls of how to play and are choosing to take some of their time to do so, not because they want to accidentally overshoot a jump and miss their chance to learn what the thok does.
In a way, the current tutorial already lets you train. The text at the bottom of the screen tells you blaringly what an ability does. It doesn't matter if the current room is completable without a thok. As soon as you enter that room, the game tells you that, yes, "you have a thok", and provides you with platforms where you can try said ability. It's an environment where you CAN try to use the ability, not one where you HAVE to try it, and that's just fine in my eyes.
Cyron
Waddle Dee Enthusiast
Regardless of what a player does, the game tells you directly via text what you're suppose to do, sometimes with imagery as well. If a beginner for some reason decides to jump instead of thok, congratulations, they learned that they get rewarded for good play. The lesson has still been taught even if they went about it another way, great way of showing how flexible the game is.
time gear
Eternity in an hour
Holding forward and pressing jump isn't "good play". It's the easiest combination of buttons possible in the game. You will get the same result from it every time. We aren't talking about some complex maneuver where the player demonstrates they have an additional degree of skill than is required by the tutorial. We are talking about an incredibly simple combination of buttons that causes the player to be able to entirely miss the lesson the tutorial is trying to teach them at the moment.
The point of a tutorial is to teach you the controls, and give the player the chance to demonstrate that they understand what is being conveyed to them. Just having the button prompt shown on screen is not enough for an interactive tutorial. It's fine for a button guide, but not an actual tutorial. The player is going to find out they have additional actions if they go into the control binds menu anyway, the purpose of a tutorial isn't to just inform players that they have a certain ability, but to give them an environment to test those abilities and demonstrate some level of ability to perform them. A tutorial room that is teaching thok but can be easily cleared by accident without using thok fails as a thok tutorial.
It's like if in a fighting game, the "press this button to punch!" tutorial cleared you for just standing there for a few seconds. It's not difficult to do, and can easily happen by accident. This does not teach the player how to perform a punch. Alternatively, it's like if there was a tutorial teaching the player about flying as Tails, and all you had to do to clear it was jump up to a slightly higher level that's perfectly within regular jump height.
Tutorials are two things. They are instructions, and they are tests. You are given information, and then expected to use this information to complete tasks relevant to what is being taught. These can be simple tasks for new players, or they can be advanced tasks for experienced players. The tutorial we have currently in SRB2 is entirely geared towards new players, and as such it's especially important that fundamentals aren't so easily skipped over by accident.
Crum
Member
Why are we so adamant about severely overanalyzing every minute aspect of this game? The tutorial was designed with the expectation that a new player would slowly follow along with what it's telling them to do at a given moment. If the player decides not to do that and just runs and makes that jump anyway, they're most likely doing it on purpose and probably beyond what the game is trying to teach them already. I've seen enough of people stumbling around and struggling to make it through Greenflower to give reasonable doubt that they could even make such a seemingly basic jump on the first go without prior practice... or using the thok the game is trying to teach them about at the given moment.
time gear
Eternity in an hour
Expecting a tutorial to do what a tutorial is supposed to do isn't a nitpick.
Expecting a player to make that jump, which requires no turning or special timing, just holding forward and pressing the jump button, is also not unrealistic. To the contrary, if somehow the player can't make that jump then they are definitely not ready to make use of the thok, which is what that section of the tutorial is trying to teach them.
A room structured identically but teaching the player about jumping over gaps instead of thokking would be perfectly fine as a tutorial, as the player is indeed required to jump over the gap to reach the goal. If it then transitioned into a similar room with a more strict requirement of using the thok to progress, this would function fine as a thok tutorial. However, a tutorial that does not require you to make use of the abilities being taught to you fails as a tutorial. The player is already taking the time to go through the optional tutorial, this suggests that they actually want to familiarize themselves with the fundamentals before jumping into the game proper, and aren't trying to skip over it. Otherwise, they would just go into the keybinds menu to view the controls from there and ignore the tutorial outright. Demonstration of the ability to perform the fundamentals is the entire point of a tutorial like this existing to begin with.
I'll say it again for good measure: Holding forward and pressing jump is not a skill based maneuver. It requires less skill to perform than what the tutorial is actually trying to teach in this instance. There's nothing advanced about it whatsoever.
In the amount of time it took you to write five walls of text to defend your position, you could have instead opened up the map in Zone Builder and fixed that section yourself.
Or maybe don't, because the thok probably isn't going to be on a starting character in the future, so it won't need to be explained in the tutorial.
Either way, this argument is a waste of everyone's time.
Or maybe don't, because the thok probably isn't going to be on a starting character in the future, so it won't need to be explained in the tutorial.
Either way, this argument is a waste of everyone's time.
- Status