Remember the "Men hate to ask for directions" stereotype?

I propose we replace it with "men throw fits over tutorials in videogames"

Comments

  • Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
    Guys don't like tutorials?

    I don't understand why. It's always beneficial to learn the button configurations and mechanics.
  • I strongly suspect, though I have no proof, that this is an exclusively American thing.

    For the most part I'm pretty patriotic and will shoot down stereotypes about my countrymen when I see them, but Americans really seem to hate instructions for some reason.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    MachSpeed said:

    Guys don't like tutorials?

    I don't understand why. It's always beneficial to learn the button configurations and mechanics.
    You have never seen people throw fits about how Navi is absolutely inexcusable, and how Okami is an unplayable game I see
  • Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
    The first one I have, the second one, no, not at all.
  • I have seen people skip over config screens, reading the manual, even in-game tutorials/explanations, and then complain about not knowing how to play the game.

    This isn't a male problem though; it's an impatient gamer problem.
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    And most gamers who do that are male.

    My armchair sociological opinion is that it's because the stereotypical expectation of men is that they shouldn't need help and that actually following directions somehow deprives them of agency and makes it look like they need help and aren't already an expert, which somehow makes them unmanly. This is engrained enough in some that others feel like they'll look stupid if they don't just know how to do something even if they don't personally think reading directions is actually unmanly.
  • Which is why I think the whole framework of "manliness" should be broken down into its component pieces, and the good parts salvaged and the bad parts unceremoniously dumped.

    > And most gamers who do that are male.

    Insufficient sample size for females.
  • edited 2016-09-09 14:13:11
    “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    That said, the video game thing is exacerbated by the way that most people learn board games and such when they're kids, which is by word of mouth rather than reading the rules and by playing through a few times while learning. This doesn't translate well to video games, particularly since learning the rules "wrong" as in house rules or through the whisper-down-the-lane effect is potentially disastrous in such a rigid playing field.

    ^ I could go on at length about toxic masculinity but I will refrain.
  • To be fair I can understand wanting to learn games by trial and error, but the thing is, it's not learning if one just yells at the game for not being like what they wanted it to be.

    Besides, you'd think that checking the controls and basic config settings before playing a game the first time would be a standard practice amongst gamers, especially PC gamers, but...apparently not.  lol Stock Control Schemes
  • Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.

    Which is why I think the whole framework of "manliness" should be broken down into its component pieces, and the good parts salvaged and the bad parts unceremoniously dumped.

    There's no really "good parts salvaged" at least the way you're thinking, because by themselves the traits mean nothing.

    Masculinity is a thing made of component parts, none of them truly essential.
  • MachSpeed said:

    Which is why I think the whole framework of "manliness" should be broken down into its component pieces, and the good parts salvaged and the bad parts unceremoniously dumped.

    There's no really "good parts salvaged" at least the way you're thinking, because by themselves the traits mean nothing.

    Masculinity is a thing made of component parts, none of them truly essential.
    As an identity marker, the traits by themselves mean nothing, but some of the traits may be good ways to live life.

    If one needs to attach them to an identity marker, one could attach them to a different one, such as a religious or spiritual belief.
  • Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
    Sure, I agree with that. The traits are non-essential to "being a man." And as such, they are only coincidental to "being a man." "Being a man" is an empty thing that is believed to be solid. All things are, ultimately empty.

    So there's no salvaging needed at all. You just look elsewhere for the things you need.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    Okay

    You two actually do not need to argue here.

    You can stop having this discussion and your life will go on in much the same way
  • BeeBee
    edited 2016-09-09 16:03:47
    I didn't have much issue with Navi.

    Fi, on the other hand, lives up to every stereotype Navi ever had and then some.

    I dunno, I don't mind tutorials, but they're best when skippable or at least aren't godawful long and repeatedly disrupt gameplay long into the game.  Developers need to be cognizant of the fact that while it's likely a 4 year old with the attention span of a turnip will pick up their game, it will not comprise the majority of their audience.  In most cases a clearly-labeled menu item or simple button prompt the first time or two is sufficient tutorial.
  • Touch the cow. Do it now.
    I don't mind a tutorial if it's my first time playing a game. It just gets annoying if I'm replaying the game and already know this stuff.

    Of course, I dislike masculine stereotypes more than most people, I would imagine
  • kill living beings
    gps means never having to talk to anybody anyway
  • BeeBee
    edited 2016-09-09 17:01:20
    I don't mind if it's tutorializing something complex that wouldn't be adequately explained with a button map or basic reading comprehension.  Like, spell effects, or item descriptions, or intricacies of what can/can't be guarded or something.

    But if you have a big fucking button that says "status" and people can't figure that out, chances are they're not literate enough to sit through gobs of text explaining it verbosely either.  We've hopefully moved past the days where localization was done by Some Dude With A JP-EN Dictionary and can at least make labels halfway indicative.
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    What about Toriel?
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    80s NES kids constantly complain about games overloading you with information, but most of them grew up in an era where there was a manual with all the information in it, even if they ignored it and figured shit out via playground rumors and little kid patience.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    i feel like Toriel was kind of a parody of the sort of tutorials people complain about

    i mean she literally holds your hand at one point
  • BeeBee
    edited 2016-09-09 18:04:27
    The combat in Undertale was unusual enough to warrant something, and Toriel herself was unusual in that being a bit overbearing was part of her characterization (which happened to be executed well enough to work).  It's the same reason I don't mind the extended tutorial in Trails in the Sky.  It teaches you stuff while also building the world really well.

    The reason Fi was annoying wasn't that she taught you stuff.  She was annoying because she repeatedly broke the rhythm of the game, consistently and throughout its entire duration, to tell you shit you'd already done before.  FFS she was lecturing you about Timeshift Stones in the final dungeon, after you'd already spent two dungeons and their surrounding overworlds previous based entirely around it.  Even her help text on individual enemies had several unskippable boxes' worth of garbage about past performance and how to contact her later (which you used seconds previous to see that help text).
  • edited 2016-09-09 17:40:43
    imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    generally i feel that the game should be designed in such a way as to make discovery of the mechanics intuitive, but clear instructions should be provided for anyone who needs them?

    it does kind of exasperate me how everyone seems so averse to reading the manual.  i never saw any issue with reading the manual.
  • I totally encourage devs to put a list of tutorials in the menu.  That's GREAT.  It means you can go light on it ingame, and let them brush up on whatever else they need.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    Also the CRPGs that are beloved by grognards had huge doorstopper manuals.
  • “I'm surprised. Those clothes… but, aren't you…?”
    Honestly, I like the fact that Toriel is exactly the kind of character who would show you how the game works, and behaves like it, which most similar characters... don't, really. The literal handholding has a real character reason behind it. Which is why I brought it up.
  • imagei will watch the heck outta this pumpkin patch
    Bee said:

    The reason Fi was annoying wasn't that she taught you stuff.  She was annoying because she repeatedly broke the rhythm of the game, consistently and throughout its entire duration, to tell you shit you'd already done before.  FFS she was lecturing you about Timeshift Stones in the final dungeon, after you'd already spent two dungeons previous based entirely around it.  Even her help text on individual enemies had several unskippable boxes' worth of garbage about past performance and how to contact her later (which you used seconds previous to see that help text).


    thing for me is, well, i guess i get why this might irritate people, but to me it never did? at best i find it reassuring and helpful in that it clarifies some stuff for me that i was uncertain about, at worst it's the mildest of mild irritations and not enough to hurt an otherwise enjoyable game experience
  • Bee said:

    The reason Fi was annoying wasn't that she taught you stuff.  She was annoying because she repeatedly broke the rhythm of the game, consistently and throughout its entire duration, to tell you shit you'd already done before.

    I wanna see a game where the Advice Fairy tells you stuff that you've already done and this eventually leads to the Advice Fairy becoming an actual character in their own right who has different goals than you do and you end up in conflict or something more interesting like that.
  • BeeBee
    edited 2016-09-09 18:07:26
    It would've irritated me less if you could hit B and skip the text like in most previous games.  Skyward Sword disabled that, and all you could do was speed it up slightly.  It didn't help that Fi was also unusually verbose.

    That's the other thing I like about Trails I guess.  If for whatever reason you stop giving a shit, you can just hold Cancel.
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    Baten Kaitos sort of does that? You're a guardian spirit for the MC, and late in the game, it's revealed that he's actually the main villain's right hand man.
  • I get the feeling that every game really needs to, proverbially, "spend a month making sure that Mario is fun to control in 3D".

    As in, making sure that everything works right and is actually fun (or produces the intended emotion in the player) as opposed to slapped on for necessity.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    Terranigma also has a "the tutorial gremlin was actually evil" twist
  • i need to finish playing that game

    list of games i should finish:

    MPrime
    Lufia2
    Ys2
    Terranigma
    Recettear
    Sky FC
    Nostalgia
    Symphonia

    In addition to my ongoing Crystal run.
Sign In or Register to comment.