"This would work so well if only I could get the player to learn this."

[Paul Debrion]

Video games are unique in that the player has a part in creating the experience for themselves. This gives them a level of interactivity not possible with other entertainment mediums like books or movies.

However, this does bring up an interesting conundrum. What do you do if the player becomes the weak point in trying to create the experience?

Unfortunately, players aren't as easy to fix or improve as gameplay or graphics.

Most games use tutorials or more subtle methods of player training to get players to carry out behaviors needed to interact with the game. Another way to get around this is to stick with already common mechanics that the players are already familiar with (red barrels always explode).

The extent to which you can do this varies from person to person. Ultimately it comes down to a balance between the need to keep the game reasonably easy to learn and the need to able to introduce the behaviors necessary to interact with the gameplay you want the game to have. Trying to introduce more complex behaviors through player training can give you more freedom to add new ideas to the game, but as you're learning curve becomes steeper you start losing potential players.


One thing I've liked about Valve games like the Half-Life series has been it's subtle player training. These games are good at introducing the player to new behaviors without dragging him/her out of the experience. For example, placing an already dead headcrab zombie cut in half by a sawblade implies that the sawblade can be used as a weapon, and many players will pick up on this fairly quickly.

On the flip side you have games where it's not so easy to make player training invisible. A lot of gamers are turned off by X3: Terran Conflict's learning curve. Unfortunately, you can only do so much. It would be difficult to make things much simpler or easier without cutting out important features and reducing the overall quality of the game.



How have your favorite games "trained" the player?

[Wylfred]

Touhou games have trained me by showing me the death screen every second; Albeit I do make progress.

Also shmups.

[shadowbringer]

note: I'm okay with adapting myself to the games I play, as long as I don't consider them a pure waste of time with no interesting mental exercise

Der Langrisser: at the beginning of the game, Lushiris asks some questions to you, to define your initial stats (infantry/cavalry/airborne type, unit types and amounts, initial equiments), and then, she asks you if you want a brief explanation of how the game works (for example, explaining that you shouldn't use infantry against horse-mounted units, or allow your archers to be attacked directly). After that, there's Scott, an intelligent strategist, playable character that will make comments (as well as your main character) about what they should do, or avoid, during the game. (even the strong, but somewhat not very bright Princess Cherie, does help in that sense, even if she fails most of the times, getting corrected by some of the other characters :p)

most other games seem to prefer to allow the player's creativity to solve certain puzzles, too. For example, Drakkhen 2/Dragon View (SNES)'s Inferno cave and the water temple.

[MysTeariousYukari]

Makai Kingdom, Zetta gives you a solid run-down of how battle works, but this is completly skippable. Then after that, he gives you the basic gist of character creation and tells you to make a total of 3 characters, 1 to control then 2 others. The game will later explain things as they become worth knowing about... or a bit after that :3 Speaking with Zetta also brings up a menu that even has a Help option on it to read older tutorials. Your created characters can also give actually useful playing tips at times, but rarly.

It's pretty much a "this is basicly how it works, go ahead and figure it out from their" deal. Once you decide you want to reincarnate, a common option in Nippon Ichi games, THAT is where the head-scratching starts... and ends really. Reincarnation is probly the most complex thing in the game and once you figure it out, you will wonder how the Netherworld you didn't figure it out sooner.

Not much actual learning is needed once you figure out the basics of combat and your safe area. Extra learning for extra fun and options. Simple game, tremendous fun.

[Ironheart]

I usually charge head first into a game. I find games with a steep learning curve interesting, and they tend to hold my interest longer than a typical run and gun shooter.

The current game I'm playing,Just Cause 2, It has the basic tutorial levels. Fast learners will realize the easy way to take out the objectives with the grappling hook.

And being a old fan of the Disgaea, I can agree with, Utsuho. The games are fairly simple to pick up on until you attempt to wrap your head around Reincarnation.

[MysTeariousYukari]

The games are fairly simple to pick up on until you attempt to wrap your head around Reincarnation.

Nope, it's really just Makai Kingdom for what I've seen that had annoying Reincarnation. I've played Disgaea 1 and 3, and the Reincarnation was simple, grab a character with 100+ Mana and have them request a Reincarnation then pick what you want them to be, but Makai Kingdom added unto that, 100 Mana minimum at best, price goes up a bit each time or based off of what that character currently is(this is basic). The annoying kicker/the troublesome part? Trying to figure out Reincarnation then seeing that "A character must have been created from an item that had a Star on it in order to Reincarnate." I face palmed at my own idiocy when I finally figured it out XD

It's a definate "How the f*** did I miss THAT?!" moment, and I look back at it and laugh at my failure, which is what I do.

[Ironheart]

Oh wow. I had no idea that Makai Kingdom went that far with it. I'll definitely have to pick it up again.

In Disgaea I just had trouble figuring out what the 'Inheritance rate' was.

[MysTeariousYukari]

In Disgaea I just had trouble figuring out what the 'Inheritance rate' was.

Percentage of Weapon Level carried over and Skill Level carried over IIRC.

[Ironheart]

Huh. Explains alot. Actually.

[Widermelonz]

I enjoy steep learning curves. But the game gets too complicated too fast then there should be an easier, albeit more ineffective, way of approach. Take the Armored Core series, for example. In them, there's a maneuver called "booster hopping" that take time to master and pays off really well, but the game can be played without it if the player finds it too overwhelming. The leaning curve for Armored Core games are steep, but not brick-wall ridiculous.

[Dead Princess Sakana]

I'll mention Portal for this. The whole game was about learning new techniques, and if you listen to the commentary from the developers, it's impressive how much work it needs just to get a player to learn simple simple things.

[Bananamatic]

God Hand was rather unique - no tutorial, you were thrown right into the game with only some exclamation marks which gave some tips.

But Hard Mode really trains the player without the player realizing it - on Easy and Normal, dash kicks easily separate enemy groups and counter sweeps knock down 90% of the time - on Hard, the enemies guard the kicks 95% of the time and counter sweep reliably knocks down only if the enemy has one foot on the ground.

Also going 2v1 is hard and 3v1 is suicide - the enemies no longer hesitate to attack from behind and leave almost no openings.

After the torture in the 1st level, I've learned to take advantage of every single crate which can be used for enemy luring so I can take them 1 by 1 and overall I've learned how to separate enemies with more strategy compared to mindless face kicking like letting one of them pick up a weapon or quick guard break to High Side Kick.

Really, 20 Normal modes wouldn't prepare you for Hard - you need to get in there and develop a completely new way of playing.

[orinrin]

EVE Online - Learn how to use a spreadsheet and you will have pretty much learned the entire game.  Well, you could always do those useless tutorials that make things even more complicated.


Probably the only MMO with a learning curve designed to drive away potential subscribers.

[Zondac]

The Zelda series tought me about puzzles, action and the basic way a game's story should be.
Touhou thought me to get the fuck away from bullets.
Megaman-series thought me that powerups is the best thing ever, and makes every game better.
Kirby thought me how childish games can be ALOT better than mature ones.
Pokemon thought me math :v

[Helion]

EVE Online - Learn how to use a spreadsheet and you will have pretty much learned the entire game.  Well, you could always do those useless tutorials that make things even more complicated.
Probably the only MMO with a learning curve designed to drive away potential subscribers.

Summary.
It's probably best to focus on a very small area and only learn everything else when you're comfortable with what you learned.

[Tengukami]

I will say this about EVE, though - the players who are into it are effin' dedicated players. EVE Online was the only company in Iceland to report a profit in 2008.

Back on topic:

This is an excellent discussion. I've learned different things from different types of games.

Maybe not ironically, the two games with the steepest learning curve have been really low-tech. Yume Nikki and, to a lesser extent, Cave Story took me the longest to learn how to play properly. I think what does a lot of people in when it comes to Yume Nikki is that it doesn't do the unlocking levels thing. Every single item you need to collect are all somewhere, spread out across multiple rooms but on the same level. I think most players are accustomed rather to starting, say, in a single room and finding one item, which unlocks the floor of a house, where you will find another item, and so on. Yume Nikki is a lot of endless, endless exploring. I really think the major reason why people stay on Yume Nikki is that the visible world is finite - you know all the items are somewhere within these rooms. Plus the surreal, sort-of-disturbing music and art keep players' attention.

3D RPGs are I think, easier for me to play than shmups, and FPSs even easier. I played the former (first in pencil-and-paper D&D, later in video) for years before I tried a straight-up first person shooter. An FPS is all about going from A to ultimately B down a path with few deviations, killing everything in your way. There's certainly a time and a place where I'm in that kind of mood, but I like the exploration aspect of an RPG; the freedom and the potential for hours of gameplay.

One thing that helps keep players coming back to both genres is that you usually don't die in them the same way you would in a shmup. You die, you come back to life, right where you are, for as many times as it takes. If you could only die three times, in an FPS or RPG, where after the third time you died, you were returned to the very beginning of the game, people would lose their minds. Of course, a complete run through a shmup is about 20-odd minutes long, so programming the player to lose hours of gameplay in the event of three deaths would be pretty harsh.

Their dynamics are entirely different, too. RPGs are more slow-paced. They teach you to take your time in your explorations, because they can pay off: side quests. The first time I played Fallout 3, I raced straight for the main goal and got it. Then I decided to try and see how many sidequests I could get in before hitting the primary target. That was an entirely new experience. Playing with six or seven active sidequests opened up the entire game world for me.

The FPS, I think, is a lot more fast-paced in building your character's power. And the path to the goal, although it meanders, is narrow. In Bioshock, for example, every step of the way was an act of accruing something - money, ammo, Eve, some random crap in case I find a U-Invent. The gaming path snakes its way through Rapture, and you just keep attacking and/or acquiring. My usual country stroll pace of gaming was out of the question. The game taught me to react more on reflex for a lot of actions, picking up items without really thinking about it.

Shmups in general teach me more than anything else to learn from my mistakes. I don't know why I do this, but for some reason, I find it hard to watch a replay of a Touhou stage I haven't completed but want to. I have no problem pausing Oblivion to google something that's confusing me. But playing Touhou, only if watching replays of my failures and trying everything I can think of has failed to get me anywhere. It seems pretty arbitrary to reserve a strictly I'll-figure-it-out policy to Touhou when I have no trouble looking up solutions for probably every game I've played. But there it is. Touhou's taught me to think more flexibly.

I just got I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, and I love it. It's definitely something else. But I think I need to play that more before I can say anything about what it's teaching me.

[Paul Debrion]

Some developers seem to disregard the need to keep learning curve under control and choose not to be limited by it.
What you sometimes get as a result are games that can be extremely difficult to learn, but are incredible once you learn them.

Eve Online has been mentioned and a lot of people here already know about Dwarf Fortress.

Another good example is X3: Terran Conflict. Like EVE it can be hell to get into the game, but once you really get the hang of things it can be a very enjoyable game. Since it's not held back by the need to keep things simple, the game can incorporate a lot of features that it wouldn't be able to otherwise. The variety of stuff you can do in the game is very impressive indeed.

[Azure Lazuline]

I think a good example of this is Knights in the Nightmare. It's essentially a real-time-strategy turn-based bullet hell game. Yes, it's even more complicated than it sounds, and someone who was watching (or attempting to play) even the first level without going through the text tutorials first would be completely and utterly lost. However, once you learn the mechanics, it's amazing. It's just extremely daunting to get into it.