Poll: Should you be able to fail a game's tutorial?

[LookingGlass]

After playing Rome: Total War for a while a few months back, I started playing Medieval 2: Total War tonight. I figured I'd play through the tutorial despite knowing how to play Rome, in case anything major had changed or been added.

First battle: no problem.
Second battle, a siege: got my ass handed to me and lost practically my entire army, despite following their suggested plan of attack (which I might add didn't seem very smart).

So I quit to start the proper campaign, and decided that it probably didn't have anything too important to tell me after that anyway. Similarly, the Rome: Total War tutorial got really hard, really fast.


It's always struck me as odd, because the idea behind a tutorial is surely that you get through all of it and learn everything it wants you to, before tackling the full game. On the other hand, maybe they want you to master certain things before progressing... but considering my tutorial failure hasn't really handicapped my campaign play I don't think that's quite it here.


So what say you? Should you always be able to get through a tutorial (unless you do something stupid like blow your legs off in Deus Ex like I've heard lots of people did)? Or should it kick your ass until you've demonstrated that you really know what you're doing?

And as a bonus, what are the best and worst tutorials you've encountered?

 

[Dr Pyramid Head]

I think the main reason why a tutorial is included with a game is to help the player pick up the basic controls and mechanics of a game without taking a good, hard look at the manual. It's probably because either most players just want to start playing as soon as they arrive home, or that they need to learn by actually playing instead of staring at small screenshots explaining something in the manual.
Overall, I think you should. It tests whether you paid attention to what the tutorial had to offer, and set the bar for the beginning of a difficulty curve so you can adjust. if you fail it, it means you should practice to adjsut to the game.

 

[SoulSalmon]

I can't really answer the poll question because it depends on the game...

Your particular example sounds to me like a badly done tutorial though, those can really ruin the experience of a game first time round >.>

Best tutorial? As much as the games overhyped, Portal.
Portal introduced elements to you as you needed them, and sometimes did so in ways that let you know WHAT you had to do, and left you to figure out the how through analysing the level design and experimenting.

Worst? Erm... I'll get back to you on that...
Edit: Nope, I can't really think of any tutorials I've played through that were bad enough to warrant being remembered >.>

 

[Slaanesh]

Yes, you should be able to fail it. There should be a basic tutorial, which teaches you the basics of the game, and an "advanced" tutorial which would teach you, well, the advanced stuff in the game. If you get your ass handed to you, then try again until you understand and get the hang of it.

As for your situation in Medieval 2, did you try a strategy of your own? It is an rts, maybe the tutorial was showing you some tough love, and was hoping you would come up with a plan of your own.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Of course they should. If a tutorial doesn't test the player it isn't helping the player to improve - surely the whole point of a tutorial. The best way I've seen this done is Gran Turismo's Driving Licence system. Races and tournaments are set in a tier system graded on difficulty, and if you want to unlock that tier you have to pass the driving licence required to unlock it. And guess what? If you don't pass each and every test in a given licence, you don't get said licence. You just get told to practice more, and come back when you're better. These tests provide the player with the skills they'll need to compete in the upcoming courses, and ensure that advanced drivers aren't taken off the track in a 24 hour endurance race by novices who come into the game fresh from Burnout and assume that the best way to tackle a hairpin is a full throttle four wheel drift.

But yeah, the long and short of it is that I reckon players do not get better at any given game unless their skills are challenged. A tutorial that does not challenge not a good tutorial. And challenges should always carry the risk of failure.

 

[LookingGlass]

As for your situation in Medieval 2, did you try a strategy of your own? It is an rts, maybe the tutorial was showing you some tough love, and was hoping you would come up with a plan of your own.

Nah, I didn't bother. I could have beaten it if I added another ladder or two... or just didn't suicide my ladder and tower guys which is basically what happened when I did what the tutorial told me to. But I figured knowing what didn't work was about as good as knowing what does.

That's true... maybe it was the tough love approach. They certainly did that in Rome where after taking two cities or something in the tutorial they just threw you to the wolves.

 

[Maeta]

I played the tutorial for that Combat Wings: Battle of Britain game that came up on the steam sale a while back an failed the objectives, but i learned all the controls (though looking at the options screen also teaches you that), and I aced every mission with no difficulty, even though I was miserable in the tutorial. Surely that proves that the failure of the tutorial didn't matter (so long as you didn't die when fighting signs, trees and balloons, but then if you crash, there's a need to redo stuff or the game would just die for you...)

The only other tutorials I can remember at the mo are the couple early on in Gun: the first level introduces you to gunplay, and it's not too bad: plenty of things to kill and whatnot, and a cool fight with a bear, but then the second is the horseracing one after the paddlesteamer level, and I kept on messing it up the first time i played because it didn't tell me something I should have known for the race you have to do.

Oh yeah, there's also the LoL tutorial which isn't too bad, but then it doesn't take into account how you play, and offers you 3 different characters with a minimal idea of how they are played and so it's only again helpful for saying 'right click to move here/attack'.

Then there's Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban/Goblet of Fire... the latter has in the tutorial prompts for when there's something that needs a combined spell, so occasionally Mr Weasley appears to tell you this and then fucks off again, and so the 2 characters you aren't controlling shout at you to sort it out, while they run off in the wrong bloody direction (and they seem to do this as far into the game as I got (maybe half an hour whilst waiting for the pizza to arrive) so maybe it wasn't just the tutorial). As for Prisoner of Azkaban: it doesn't have a clearly defined tutorial area, so I'll say it's the first few days of the new school year, and so it includes a forced stealth section...

I couldn't think really best tutorials, so I gave you 2 ok ones, and then 2 bloody awful ones, though FIFA06 deserves a mention for throwing you straight in to a difficult match (albeit on a moderate difficulty which is beneath me) with no instructions, and then when you find the tutorial videos they are narrated by Andy Gray, and often the skill moves don't work anyway, so add that to the crap pile...

 

[Wuffykins]

They certainly did that in Rome where after taking two cities or something in the tutorial they just threw you to the wolves.

Honestly I've noticed that the Total War series is pretty bad in its tutorial systems. As from what I recall of the original Shogun:TW they first took you through the scripted and fail proof camera/UI tutorial, then immediately gave you a unit of archers to face a unit of swordsmen with the simple instructions of "Use the Art of War to defeat the enemy!" and wouldn't proceed in the tutorial until you'd done it (at least Medieval II gives you the option to auto-resolve the sieges to continue the map tutorial).

Personally when it comes to RTS & RTT games I really liked how the first Dawn of War did things, particularly with Dark Crusade (not sure if it was the same before that expansion came out). The basic tutorial started with the basic UI & game control and then showed you the basics of the faction involved (Space Marines), then the other tutorial missions where just Faction primers to give you an idea of the way they played and gave you a chance to mess around a bit before jumping into the game proper (namely, the same mission as the Space Marines without camera control and such). How Relic went from this to the overly scripted tutorial in Company of Heroes is something I personally can't grasp.

 

[Aura Guardian]

You can fail at Spelunky's tutorial.

 

[Rawne1980]

When Witcher 2 first came out and people were complaining about being slaughtered in the first few fights or by that bloody dragon....

That was the tutorial.

Tutorials are designed to teach you, are we in agreement?

How are you supposed to learn if you can't possibly fail?

We learn by our mistakes young grasshopper.

 

[DEAD34345]

You can fail at Spelunky's tutorial.

As I did. Multiple times... (I blame the unclear instructions. How the hell am I supposed to know what "Button 1" means, and why has this bomb I'm holding suddenly started flashing!?)

OT: Sure, in fact I think that a tutorial without the possibility of failure is pointless, and the worst kind of tutorial. The point in these things is to give you the skills needed to play the game, and if you haven't yet got those skills, you shouldn't be able to go on to the game proper until you learn them.

 

[Aura Guardian]

You can fail at Spelunky's tutorial.

As I did. Multiple times... (I blame the unclear instructions. How the hell am I supposed to know what "Button 1" means, and why has this bomb I'm holding suddenly started flashing!?)

OT: Sure, in fact I think that a tutorial without the possibility of failure is pointless, and the worst kind of tutorial. The point in these things is to give you the skills needed to play the game, and if you haven't yet got those skills, you shouldn't be able to go on to the game proper until you learn them.

I didn't fail at it though. I just pointed out that you can fail at it. I would imagine it would have something to do with the bomb and most people wouldn't know how big the bomb blast radius was. And saw someone's test video of Spelunky and he ran out of bombs while messing around. It was quite funny.

 

[Panzervaughn]

I think a tutorial should show you different ways you CAN fail, and maybe even what happens if you do. In Bioshock i had been scared of death for 80% of the game, until i discovered all it did was move you back 20 feet.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The question is, if you can't get past the tutorial, how do you plan to beat the game?

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

You really shouldn't have to even try to do the tutorial, it is supposed to teach newcomers how to play the game. We shouldn't have to be masters at a particular genre to get through what is supposed to be the easiest part of the game.

 

[Liviola]

I repeatedly died at the VERY START of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas tutorial (you start on a bike and you're supposed to cycle away from people shooting at you from cars).

Never ended up playing the game beyond that point because of that

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You should be able to fail anytime. Otherwise you're not playing a game, you're just following instructions.

It shouldn't be hard to complete a tutorial, but goddam, if you're a moron then you should get kicked like one.

 

[Creator002]

You do in Demon's Souls, sort of.

It should be possible to fail in a tutorial, but it should be extremely hard to fail.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Honestly I've noticed that the Total War series is pretty bad in its tutorial systems. As from what I recall of the original Shogun:TW they first took you through the scripted and fail proof camera/UI tutorial, then immediately gave you a unit of archers to face a unit of swordsmen with the simple instructions of "Use the Art of War to defeat the enemy!" and wouldn't proceed in the tutorial until you'd done it (at least Medieval II gives you the option to auto-resolve the sieges to continue the map tutorial).

I remember that fight. It wasn't too hard if you used the terrain and skirmished properly (i.e. ran like a little ***** whenever they got too close).

M1:TW had a tutorial that was pretty good. Took you through all you needed to know, then gave you a final challenge that was an actual challenge.

 

[Antonidious]

Yes you should be able to fail.

The tutorial is usually there to give you the skills necessary to play the game without having to break up gameplay in the story to explain it. If you don't have the skills necessary to do the most basic things in the game how do you expect to play the game?