The Problem With Fighting Game Tutorials
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- Playing through a fighting game tutorial is probably one of the worst ways to learn how to play a fighting game. In this video, I explain why. Shoot a subscription my way and follow me on Twitter because I forgot to mention it in the video.
Twitter: / stumblebeetv
Patreon: / stumblebee
**
Get 70% off NordVPN! Only $3.49 a month and get two additional months FREE at nordvpn.com/Stumblebee
**
Mario Kart DS Footage From: • Mario Kart DS - All Mi...
Music:
UNIST Character - Select Theme
Flappy Fighter - Flappy's Theme
Street Fighter x Tekken - Training Mode Theme
Street Fighter V - The Grid 3
Thems Fightin' Herds - Training Mode Theme
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Training Mode Theme - เกม
Tutorial one: quarter circle forward, punch.
Tutorial two: quarter circle back, kick.
Tutorial three: Zero lightning Loops.
Tutorial 4: dustloop roman cancel combos (if that's even a thing lol I haven't played Guilty Gear in like 5 years)
Why does this remind me of SF4 combo trials...?
Tutorial 5: taunt jet upper
@@letmeshowumypkmn well now you've crossed the line good sir!
I remember when a friend of mine tried to teach me how to play Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3 then I would pick characters that I just liked so dormammu zero and Taskmaster and he would pick Virgil Dante Wesker in Doctor Doom and Magneto and he would whoop my ass every single time so then I remember asking him how he does all those fancy combos in the explanation he gave me absolutely made me never want to touch that game ever again I remember watching a video explaining how to do combos with zero that was like I'm never going to be able to do that so I just gave up
One other thing I see a lot is that they expect you to know fighting game terminology without explaining it. They will often discuss cancelling without saying what it means, what it is, or why it is useful.
Or they will explain it but in the most useless way possible
"Cancelling - a good way of positioning and spacing"
... I still don't know what a reversal is... I have been playing and watching for a year now and still only nod and shut up whenever I listen to other players talking cause they might as well be talking Greece Script A
@@Mirro18 it depends on a game and environment, because the word reversal has a lot of meanings by itself, I know it can stand for throw breaking also known as throw teching, it can stand for any kind of parry in the game it's like a move that is supposed to catch another person's attack without or with absorbing the attack, in Tekken f.e. it stands for specific things which are the moves that catch another person's attack and then deal inevitable damage, like Asuka's reversal, there are specifics, if you have problems understanding it in Tekken, I can help, but there are also controversial things like Alisa's parry/reversal
@@andrewmirror4611 I am unfortunately not a Tekken player. But what I gather a reversal in that game at least refers to what you would call counter attack, or a parry or something of sorts, where your attack absorbs the opponent's and damages back. Did I understand that correctly?
@@Mirro18 probably, by absorbing an attack I mean you still get damage from it, in Tekken that would probably not pass the definition of a reversal, but in your game it may be the only way, and if by absorbing you mean that you don't get the damage from the attack then yeah, your definition is good
Part of the problem is that the first generation of FGC weren't tutorialized at all....we put in a quarter, wiggled the stick to see what happens, got beat the crap out of, and put in another quarter. There's absolutely no sympathy in the system, no sense that you should be learning anything. The CPU (or the college kid) will grease your face into the pavement and say "CONTINUE?" Under those circumstances, it made everyone feel like fire is the only method of baptism....there's no such thing as 'easing in', you just drop in a quarter and get beat. That attitude is everywhere in the FGC, and it's made its way into our tutorials as well.
Exquisite Corpse its either for u or it isnt tbh
@@y2kjetters317 Sure, but there are a lot of specialist hobbies that are "for you or not", and I doubt the model airplane community suggests you build your first kit with no instructions because "it's all about the journey" and "that's how everyone did it in the 50s"
@@y2kjetters317 except overly obtuse "tutorials" don't decide if a game is for you
While not entirely wrong, plenty of old arcade games showed a small tutorial in the demo reel. It was only basic movement, buttons, and some specials, but it was enough to get rolling.
@@manuelmateo3392 Fair....but whatever research you're doing better be fast. I have distinct memories of trying to check a Tekken movelist on a cabinet while the continue timer ticked. Character select had a timer too. I also remember bringing paper and writing down movelists from cabs so I could memorize them at home.
You weren't completely in the dark (and guides existed....though I was too young to have my own money), but you definitely had to try a lot harder just to have a basic mechanical understanding.
As a real life martial artist and avid fighting game fan, I feel like the "dojo" aspect of fighters are sorely lacking. If I were teaching someone a jab, for example, I would first have them practice the mechanics. Then, once they get the mechanics down, I would show them things about range and distance and moving in and out to throw it. Then once they start finding how to land it without other activity impeding them, I'd throw up some roadblocks and have them use it on reaction. Finally, I would ask them to concentrate on using their jab, but incorporating it with all the other aspects in a controlled environment.
Once I feel like they can use it in an exhibition, they are ready to throw it in real-time.
A tutorial built with a progression system like you were learning a REAL SKILL (fighting or otherwise) would be great.
Same here, martial artist and fighting gamer. I feel like fighting game makers should maybe partner up with an actual martial arts coach during the dev cycle to get into the psychology of teaching total newbies from the ground up. As someone who's taught kids/teens martial arts for years, the tutorials in today's fighting games are excruciatingly missing the engagement/application pacing that I've realized is essential in retaining practitioners of anything technical.
How about just let them play the game?
@@U9B they already do this. The point of this video was how to do it better.
@@kingofthesharks Absolutely. I taught kid's TKD in college and you really have to give them bread crumbs and keep that feeling of progression. I feel like novice fighting gamers would stick with games longer if they could keep seeing that progression, instead of a one-off tutorial and then getting your ass beat online until you get frustrated and leave lol
Currently my status as I try to play SamSho, a game series I've never played ^_^;
@@profoundpro No it isn't. His good points are washed by "inputs are hard" and "I can't do charge characters" maybe some people should just not play fighting games.
Not like you'd understand. Fighting games were fine and grew over the years without whatever this guy was selling.
Instead of treating tutorials as its own separate thing, developers should make a game out of it.
Yes, you heard me right: *_Make a game out of the tutorial._*
After all, people want to play games, not read textbooks.
3rd Strike online's parry training mode is pretty fun, I think. You can even try your hand at recreating moment 37 lol
Something like Skullgirls Mobile?
I guess it depends how you can make it work with the game theme or lore...
Exactly, making a story mode where the AI is specifically designed to teach you how to play the game. Going against an enemy that only sweeps, but jumps over your projectiles, teaches you how to block low. Enemies that don't take damage unless they're airborne will force you to juggle, or anti-air. Smart enemy design would go a long way to making learning fun
@Shaman X brokenmoonstudio might be on to something...
How about making the story mode the tutorial. I doesn't really hold your hand with everything but I sets goals or challenges for you to complete during the matches.
And by the end of the story you have "basic" mastery of your character.
Hahaha. Learning via reading? Get them strategy guides outta here.
This video was like a breath of fresh air; I feel like I'm going crazy when the community praises tutorials for being these War and Peace size novels that start with "Press right to move [0/8]" and the only useful stuff is around the 356 mark of 500 entries.
Yeah many people praise the Under Night Tutorial for being good. But it's so god damn long and a bit tedious after a while I started skipping the text and just started doing the commands.
I believe I posted my thoughts about this on Sajam's video as well, but I might as well post here. I believe fighting games should put their efforts into a story mode that does what traditional "tutorials" have done by teaching the player through gameplay. The story mode could feature a branching set of paths that involve different characters or concepts that are required to progress, and each one becomes more and more difficult until the player finally beats the game. Don't make the AI just dummies that let you pull off the tutorial junk, either. Make the AI actually work against you until you learn and apply the concepts necessary. Maybe a level where your opponent really likes to jump at you so you have to DP him, but make it to where the DP does a lot of damage compared to everything else to drive home the fact that the DP is the right choice in that situation, or a character that likes to play super defensively and blocks a lot, prompting the player to learn how to throw or even tick throw. Teach and test as the player advances so they can have the knowledge ingrained in them while also feeling accomplished because they are progressing through a path they choose to pursue.
I also think that there's something to consider that exploration of a physical space is incredibly important to casual gamers. I'd like to see a fighting game allow for some kind of out-of-combat action and let them look for lore things and sidequests. IDK this all seems really expensive.
@@Stumblebee If fighting game developers are willing to shovel thousands of dollars into "cinematic story modes", I think this would be a much more cost effective and consumer friendly approach to new and veteran players alike. In my mind I'm imagining something that Inuyasha fighting game on the PS1, where you explored said map to find the shards scattered about it. Something like that, where the main path to branch off into side paths involving extended characters and stories.
There's a game on the PS4 called Absolver that tried to do something different with the way the world worked. I don't think the fighting is all that great, but take a look at what they tried to do and see if it interests you.
Virtua Fighter 5 Arcade Mode Kinda Had That, Each Opponent you Face is Going To Have Something they Keep Doing Troughout The Fight ( Grabing, Using Lows, Dodging ) and The Game Wants You To Pay Attention to That, There's No other fighting Game I played that Had This type of AI
I really like your idea of utilizing Story Mode in a fighting game to help teach the player the basic fundamentals they need to learn. I always felt Story Modes in fighting games were a bit of a waste of precious development time, and resources that could've gone into something much more worthwhile for all players. Otherwise, they just end up being a mode you play through in a few hours, unlock some stuff, and probably never touch it again. In the long run, it adds so little to the overall experience for everything that was put into making it. Your idea would no longer make that an issue, and give the Story Mode a much greater purpose overall.
The “break the disks” from smash is by far my favourite version of a tutorial mode in a fighting game
*break the targets
very important, there’s a big difference
Ikr. Instead of throwing texts for every character and wait for you to do it, it has you experiment with the character you chose varying from placement of targets and your character's moveset. Also, you should check out Rivals of Aether's tutorial. They explain more than basic movements and even character specific techniques and more important stuff.
I hated that so much. It was just boring. The punching bag one was my favorite one from the series.
When you allow games of other genres, it's basically impossible to do it better than Portal. The first 3/4 of the game (measured by what I partially and vaguely remember the split breakdown of my speedrun PB to be) is just introducing you to more and more mechanics in a masterfully incremental way (they originally had 08 as the first energy ball puzzle, but the acid made it too complicated and so they added 06 and 07) so that the player knows what they need to know to complete last quarter of the game (yes, even 17 introduces something: the incinerator for the final battle).
Oh, and Kirby in Smash.
break the targets was pretty decent in meelee, but after that they screwed it up and then removed it.
they still have their mostly consistent controls between characters (sure, the reaction is different, but at least the inputs are the same; and easy to do by themselves), however, they never even explain half their mechanics
BAD week to be sponsored by Nord lmfao
A tutorial on what VPN not to use.
Doubt there'll ever be a good week for it after that. Especially for people who promote it.
@1998SIMOMEGA They were hacked. Meaning, they ain't as secure as they're like you to think.
@1998SIMOMEGA Not only were they hacked, they hid it from the public for over a year until someone else found out.
@@SvensPron And on top of that, the intruders were in the network for months!
I think the best way to teach players how to use complex controls and motions is to teach them like a rhythm game. Often if you mask actual fighting with minigames its much less intimidating however It still teaches you. And Rhythm games are perfect for this because Combos are kinda complex rhythms.
That's an interesting way to think about it. Also with dodging it becomes a matter of the rhythm unexpectantly changing in the middle of the game
Coming from an FFR/Stepmania background, this would actually help me a whole lot.
I find that an interesting way to put it, as more than once I've seen some fighting game players derogatorily use the phrase "rhythm game" to refer to how they DON'T want their fighting games to be like.
Personally, blending it with any other well-known genre would help improve accessibility.
SF/MK: Here's a special attack that you have to hold a direction and press a button, but we won't tell you hold block to pull it off. And the npc can launch on the spot...
"The problem with fighting game tutorials"
"Under Night In-Birth background music"
I think I know where this is going.
"Too many lessons"
I KNEW IT
Theres one thing I wish tutorials would do, specifically combo tutorials. Show the combo with button presses on the side and show when we need to press that button. I dont know how many tutorials I've quite because I just dont understand the stupid timing window. Am I pressing it to early? Too late? Who knows
Timing windows never match with what the fuck it should look like .. so that we as players go ...Oh that makes perfect since. lol
the animations for combos linking to reach complex levels are only so complex because as a community we have been doing quantum computing on a manual process. through trial and error. more like random repetition.
it just makes you wonder . where would the gaming would the fighting game community be if all input was involved with the fighting game developers. hhhhmmmm
Funnily enough, one of the games with the worst tutorials (can you even call it one?) has this, Tekken 7.
in multi hit moves the inputs flash in time with the hits and also make a small noise.
What I learned from this though is that you're not as fast at pressing buttons as you think you are, pressing a button and the input registering are two very different things and you probably need to hit it significantly earlier than you think.
This needs more likes! I cannot even begin to list the amount of time I've wasted from deceptive input times in certain tutorials and I'm the kind of person who never gives up I can only imagine the amount of would be fighters who just gave up completely because of crap like that!
@Fuck Justin Y. But then there's air combos where in many cases air blocks are impossible so just using block as an indicator doesn't really cut it and there are a lot of combos with bizarre timing that just does not get properly indicated by the methods you describe, it's hard to put into words but once you experience it you'll know what I mean.
Another thing Guilty gear does, if you do a combo challange and play the demo of the combo it shows a little joystick and buttons on the screen that shows exactly what you're supposed to do
*Who needs tutorials when you can get good online using a smurf account first?*
galaxy brain level method right here.
@Moist Tony A smurf account is a secondary account some people have, that is lower ranked than their main account so that they can play vs less skilled players and thus have an easier time winning.
@Moist Tony the first person to famously do it went by the in game name of "Papa Smurf" iirc, and the term smurfing just stuck from there.
Yeah smurf the two guys left playing the game everyday.
900 IQ Confirmed.
It's neat watching this video from 3 years ago and see how Street Fighter 6's world tour mode has solved a lot of these issues by making the core gameplay loop more like an RPG with fights in between than a fighting game where all you do is fight.
"I'm looking for online latency"
Uh, excuse me, I think you mean
N E G A T I V E L A T E N C Y
Airline latency*
I think another thing to note is that a game like Tekken 7 doesn't have a true tutorial (not counting assist combos and the auto combos). There ARE hints and tidbits in the loading screens, but as far as I know, these hints aren't organized anywhere and that is a missed opportunity. I have been playing tekken 7 for a few months personally and I only learned how to do a toe kick as a wakeup option last week. I also think saying "Well tekken 7 is a hard game" in this argument is a really bad excuse because just because a game is hard, that doesn't mean it shouldn't try to teach me how to play it. If there was a menu where all of these loading screen tips were categorized and viewable by the player, I feel that it would make a big difference and I doubt it would be difficult to implement.
Smash Ultimate is unfortunately the only Smash game to organise those loading screen hints to be accessed anytime that I know. I hope Tekken 7 learns since Bamco are actually helping to make Smash since 3DS/Wii U.
I think that that is exactly what makes Tekken hard. That it doesn't teach you how to play.
I'd disagree. Training mode in Tekken 7 has always been very good for specific stage, character, and/or position setups. And the new update adding way more to it with more sample combos and specific frame data on the spot, just makes it even better.
I've personally never had a problem trying many new things in it.
@@quithsturge3398 I know Tekken has some tools like a move list (which had hidden moves and listed no properties), left/right select and allowing all stages for practice but that's still below par till the most recent update when Street Fighter been consistent with trials since the PS1 honestly and they have never been leaders on teaching.
Tekken finally has frame data for a price. A small price and with the complement of some punishment training but it is just kinda up there now after decades as an IP if I'm not mistaken.
Remember when Harada said the reason there wasn't a tutorial in Tekken 7 was because nobody would use it?
Glad that statement didn't backfire in any way shape or form.....in a game thats already lacking in additional modes.
When I was younger, I had the idea of combining a fighting game with an RPG to teach people how to play fighting games. All advanced stuff would be unlocked through usage and mastery of the old stuff, and terminology and mind game tricks could be taught through character information. Maybe I'll get back to that, after I'm done with my current stuff.
Dissidia 012 final Fantasy duodecim(the name is long I know) already did that on the psp
I think an issue too is that there's little to no followup for tutorials, especially for casual players. Games like BBTag offer scenarios to help improve your execution and response times, but don't really offer an incentive for people to come back after they "finish" it. Obviously higher-skilled players can identify where they need to improve and go back to it, but such a thing may not be apparent to beginning and even mid-level players.
also a problem is just wanting to play online casually everyone else just up and bodies you with 100 move combos preventing you from ever attacking or getting out cause the game isn't registering it as an infinite stunlock combo.
I often find that the attitude of many fighting game players is what nullifies all these efforts. You see hundreds of comments in this very video saying that ideas are bad, that arcade mode is enough, that good tutorials won't make you good so why does it matter. They enjoy emphasizing the word "work" (as if most people playing games wanted to think of them as work) and making others feel like they are being lazy.
Fighting games are already very expensive and trying to help beginners when your vocal hardcore audience actively advocates against information is just a waste of money, it seems.
they just pussies too scared of competition
@@velocityraptor2890 considering that the "competition" youre talking about wont even touch the game because the tutorial is bad kinda makes you look like a clown with that insult
squid please don’t listen to him, in my eyes, the more people in the fighting game community the better. There’s tons of reasons why a lot of people don’t like fighting games but one major one is people don’t want to put a decent amount of effort into their entertainment but unfortunately that just how fighting games are. We definitely need better tutorials and make games more accessible to newcomers but I don’t think developers will see that as a good time investment for a few more players who stick with the game.
Tutorials are there to learn the basics they're not gonna teach U to play like daigo
@@intergalacticdegengypsy6135 Okay. Nobody's arguing for that.
A Nord VPN ad? Even after the massive data leak that they hid from the public?
Do you think people being paid by those companies care about their ethics?
@@FranKirara well, sometimes
th-cam.com/video/WVDQEoe6ZWY/w-d-xo.html
I think its more likely he already recorded, or was contractually obligated to put the ad in before the breach was known about. I’m mostly certain he’s not trying to screw over his viewers. Mostly...
Seriously it's gross
One of the best fighting game tutorials I had was from a PS1 game called Rival Schools: United by Fate. It had 2 discs, and the second disc had a tutorial minigame called Lesson Mode that not only taught you the basic moves and techniques that every character can do, but also graded you on how well you could pull them off. The difficulty curve is very beginner friendly, and you have full control over your actions.
I was graded on using Tardy Counters efficiently when the AI attacked. How to tech landings after being hit. How to recover and attack in multiple directions if I don't tech. How to sidestep behind someone right when they attack. How to negate attacks or escape grabs with the right timing. Each Lesson was individualized, and had just the right amount of repetition, combined with the grading system based on speed and accuracy, so that I could visually see my progress rise from a D, to a B, and eventually an S once I mastered it.
There's 6 Lessons broken down into 5 parts, for 30 tutorials. The 5th part of every Lesson is a summary of all four parts you've done before. Lessons 1 & 2 show basic stuff like moving and recovering, so it's easy to breeze through. Lesson 3 teaches basic combos and supers. Lessons 4 & 5 are where the game starts teaching you about its advanced mechanics. And Lesson 6 is a five-part final exam of all the other Lessons combined with one final twist at the end: You have to do 30 hits to the AI as fast as you can in any way you want, so you can start creating your own fighting style now that you have mastered the mechanics.
The rest of the training comes from Story Mode and fighting real people. After mastering Lesson Mode, even when I was losing I knew exactly what was happening on screen at any given moment, and the only thing keeping me down was a lack of experience, not a lack of knowledge. That's what a tutorial should do.
I've only played a small amount of the original PS1 game and sequel in Japanese but I agree that it seemed to be far ahead of the times based on my experience with it.
The fact that lessons fit in for a school based universe and how you are allowed to use any characters is a bonus IIRC.
Yeah that was great yet we know Capcom ain't doing that anymore...
I feel like it's the whole training mode that turns me off of fighting games.
I tried getting into MKX when it launched but ended up being punched into the floor over and over again, only to be met with the response of "go practice in training mode". The thing I don't like about it is I have to stop playing the game and go beat up a CPU for an hour trying to learn a combo, only to go back into public matches and find out I still have to go into training mode and practice more, which is just incredibly unfun. It feels like I don't learn how to play by simply playing the game like most other genres, I have to go practice it like it's homework.
It's the same reason I ended up not picking up MK11 and/or Dragon Ball FighterZ when they both came out, as I felt I would only get stuck in that gameplay loop that I don't enjoy.
I hope people took note that tekken wasnt shown at all in this (get a damn tutorial tekken)
Tekken tag tournament 2 had a tutorial and it was very good at teaching the basics but it was just long
@@angelomichael3357 at least it gave rewards based on performance
I play Tekken casually because to this day I don't know the getup options. I have gotten loading tips like "Press the correct button as soon as you land to get up quickly" (what button?) and "The loading screen will show useful tips" so you can imagine how useful that was.
Just design a main game story that teaches you how play like literally every other game genre. By the time they finish the story they should be decent
DJ Howard right! It’s so fucken obvious
To be fair, CPU can allow players to get bad habits of mashing and spamming one move. Also computer can't play neutral and such can't teach players to do so. As a result: billions of players who do the same thing and wonder why that Korean guy keeps getting 50-hit combo on them after missing that heavy attack that works against CPU
@@vladgolub5407 I recall MK9's story mode, it was almost impossible to beat Shao Kahn without cheesing him, which is a poor way to learn Raiden.
@@vladgolub5407 just make the ai punish you hard for spamming and make it obvious.
@@vladgolub5407 Lazy CPUs in some fighting games don't mean there can't be well made ones that actually teach you something.
For example, many low-level CPUs I see in fighting games just stay idle or don't react much of the time. If you whiff a very unsafe attack or get dizzy, the CPU should absolutely punish you hard all the time. Because even the dumbest of players will know to do that then. If you do that unsafe attack 3-4 times and constantly get punished, you'll learn not to do that. It's not about making the AI more complex just more lifelike.
There are a couple of problems with fighting games that make them difficult to learn, but also get into.
The first one is intuitiveness.
If you look at most of the popular modern games today, they don't really have tutorials, you just start the game and you play. As you play you start to learn how to be an even better player, but the core mechanics of the game is something that is designed in a way that makes it "pick up and play", fighting games (atleast most) aren't really pickup and play, sure you can mash... but you have no idea wtf is going on when mashing. That's not the case with other games/genres.
The other problem is the idea of tutorials themselfes... people don't like to play tutorials, they like to play games.
If a game requires an extensive tutorial to just understand the basics of how to play, perhaps the game itself is at fault rather then the tutorial.
I remember as a kid play mvc, sf and tekken and enjoying all 3 of them, i remember just mashing around hoping for something cool to happen or for me to win. But i felt like i had zero controll and that i was gambling, pressing buttons and hoping to win.
I tried to figure out how to play these games and every single one of them i just couldn't understand (this was b4 the internet), i tried to do specfic moves and just couldn't figure out the input.
I also didn't like scrolling through inputs to find the move i was looking for, i want to play and not scroll through movelists.
Tekken was the only game that clicked for me, because tekken did something neither of those fighting games did. It attached every button to a single limb, then attached directional buttons to properties (low,high,mid) this made it super intuitive for me to figure out how to use the basic tools. Even better was that when i did a cool move all i had to do was look at the limbs and the property and follow the "game design" rule of every button being attached to a limb and direction being linked with property to basically figure out the input for said move WITHOUT looking at the move list. That is intuitive design, and that's what most games do that fighting games just don't.
Ofcourse tekken is plauged with too many moves, but the reason they can have that many moves is because the moves are designed in an intuitive way that follows universal rules for inputs that make them easy to figure out, but also remember.
The other problem is, overloading players.
When you play a game, any game, the first thing you try to do is just get the feels for the buttons. You press stuff and see what happends, you don't think about properties nor frames, range or anything for that matter... you just press stuff and move forward.
UNTILL a challange is presented, usually the challange is something that can be beaten by following a certain pattern or following certain rules, but the game forces you to utilize certain specific moves that beats said challange. The game is teaching you as you play, and as the game progresses more mechanics and tools are unlocked and more challanges that forces you to utilize all these tools are presented, gradually you go from learning 3 moves to learning 4,5,6 etc etc, you go from learning how to block to learning how to space. This is done without a tutorial, instead you just play the game and learn as you play in a gradual, intuitive way.
Fighting games lack this, they start you with a dozen of moves, tell you the inputs and uses and then throw you in. There is no gradual introduction like most games, there is no forced interactions with limited tools or anything, it's just everything at once chaos. But hey here's a wall of text to learn how to play... That is not fun, and if it's not fun then what's the point. lf it takes hours or days untill it becomes truly fun... then what's the point.
It's lazy game design.
The third thing is objective.
What is the objective?
Why play with ai when i can play with players??? Isn't that the point of fighting games, isn't that where fun truly is???
Why would i play in a restrictive mode, with forced interactions and gradual progession when i can just go online, pick a character and all their moves and do whatever... "i'll figure it out as i go along right"?
There is no incentive to play vs AI when the games permits you to dive in head first into online, where the real fun is at. Unless you think about how it will make you a better player, but players don't think, don't put the onus on the player to play your tutorial, incetivize the player to go there instead.
How do you do this???
With a fun, story driven, progression based single player with tangible rewards.
Not just a tutorial.
Offer them an actual fun gameplay experience, where they have space to learn and grow before you send them of online. If your single player content is good enough, players won't object playing it. Because it's fun, with a true objective, story, progression and characters. Tutorials aren't fun.
Rant done.
What you want is the arcade mode with better designed AI. Maybe an AI like how RE4 worked was if you played good it gets harder yet if you lose it gets easier in a deceptive way so you don't clearly notice it. Since you also forgot some players don't even want to play through the story mode either at times. Pretty much it sucks for the novice because there's gonna be something that a decent player finds already that the novice has zero ideas what they're doing or they just don't want to do it. They want to win yet they cannot win and will never will if they cannot handle losing if they think the only thing that's supposed to happen is them winning they will not survive long in fighting games. Novices have to get rid of that midset quickly for their own sanity.
@@ExeErdna The idea of taking loses is also something you see in the Souls series, and it seems to work.
People love the souls series despite them dying over and over, the issue with fighting games is that when you lose, you have zero idea as to why you lost.
So you don't know what you did wrong, and how you can improve. This gives you a lesser sense of controll, which according to alot of studies is what causes frustration amongst players.
So funny enough it's not the losing itself that's the problem, the souls series are a clear example of a game that is rather unforgiving, yet the person keeps pushing trough, gradually learning and improving.
But the soul series are clear with their mechanics, you understand what's going on, because the core mechanics are intuitiv and simple.
Don't know much about RE4, but i will look into it.
But the point is that fighting games need to go outside of their comfort zone, and focus on a roboust single player (whatever form it comes) that gradually teaches the player while still keeping it fun, without just a wall of text or something.
@@anibalmattiwos7613 RE4's difficulty = the better you perform do the harder it gets and the worse you do the easier it gets. Even with Souls basically teaching you what you need to do and give you places to basically pratice/farm it's still to much for some people which will bleed into fighting games where there's a point it's on the player the devs can give them everything and it's still too much for them without watering it down for more seasoned players. I kinda want to see what they do with the LOL fighter
One interesting thing I have encountered with a fighter called ARMS (which I play competitively) is that in the 'training' mode there are sections call "anti-jump practice" or "anti-punch practice" which set the CPU to a specific playstyle and have the players figure out how to beat it. Considering the amount of casuals who complain about "broken playstyles" this could be a good way to help give them practice against them.
@1998SIMOMEGA The same way games like Tekken have less of a focus on stuff like meter and air game, and more on ground movement, ARMS has very little focus on combos, but has thousands of ARM combinations that add depth as well as really fluid movement that makes neutral at high level really fun to play, like a dance almost.
Ahhh, ARMS. 'Twas a good game that didn't get nearly enough attention or content.
This comment has aged like Fine Wine
Yep. Already the first day of the demo nobody could stand Ninjara vanishing, so it's actually cool that they give you one spamming to try against.
Wouldn't every fighting game want that? A Ken that spams Hadouken afar and Shoryukens immediately when close. A Link or Toon Link constantly trying to down air. This isn't only for noobs either. Sometimes you know the strategy is vulnerable but it's hard to practice the timing in a real match with a real person mixing it up.
To this day I remember playing Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade, the first SF I've played. I was left hopelessly lost (in the tutorials!) because I didn't understand charge characters. I love Skullgirls so much because it cared... like even the slighest to teach you how to play the game.
I actually hate SkullGirl's tutorial, at least what I played of it. It completely locks out all actions besides what it wants you to do, and it's aggravating, and in some cases, gets you or the enemy in a corner that makes it harder to do the tutorial you are supposed to be doing.
Holy shit finally someone else agrees
Sg's tutorial is only deemed good because of descriptiveness, unist's tutorial is leagues better. Most game tutorials in general suffer from red light syndrome, you have to stop in order to read/have the thing explained to you so it feels completely unnatural to immediately put it into practice after. Who in their right mind thought that pausing the game for a tooltip that tells you how to jump Is a good idea?
@@IPODsify All the games that have a tutorial that tells players how to jump? That method of tuts is the most common.
I'm kind of confused on what you mean here. If by locking out actions you mean preventing you from attacking when the tutorial is telling you to block for example, then yeah. The reason it does that is so the player actually learns how to block and the repercussions for not blocking. The tutorials lessen the input limits in later lessons regardless. The tutorial is their to teach. If you want to mess around that is absolutely fine. That can be done in training mode, which allows you to experiment and do whatever you want, of which is highly encouraged.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't understand what you're trying to say
@@FireSonic102 It doesn't even let you move left and right, and you don't need to lock it out that much to make sure the player learns. At the very least for as many tutorials as they do, which is a fair amount, actually.
I think the smartest thing devs could do is not make the tutorial a “tutorial” but rather make it something more engaging like a single player campaign “adventure mode.” And I don’t mean like a story mode where you do fights and more fights in between sequences. Recontextualize various fighting game concepts within challenges that the player must overcome. Kinda like how Guilty Gear did it, but with a narrative “context” and a different more engaging skin. Games are already teaching tools as is. Platformers (like Mario) especially, already work with introducing an idea, gradually weaning the player in with more and more difficult challenges, putting a twist on the challenge that recontextualizes it, and then putting the player to the ultimate test of mastery of that concept. That’s why I said “Adventure Mode” because Smash Melee’s Adventure Mode introduces a cool idea that could be better explored. Lay that over a narrative skin. Hell, even make it a side scroller like Muramasa, and you can not only take players really far in what you teach them, but this mode becomes a lot more engaging and appealing to casual players, AND, by the time they’re done, they’re ready to face an even greater challenge with the versus mode. Best part is, you can even make it genuinely challenging/difficult too, as the point is to prepare the player for the VS mode. I mean, just look at Dark Souls and how a community over the multiplayer built itself around a 1P game.
That’s how I’d do it at least.
Once that person finishes the single player tutorial, they will go online and get destroyed by someone who learned in the heat of battle. There is no easy way around actual experience. Its the best way to learn. People just hate losing and dont have enough patience
Abram Little No, because that’s what Ranking modes exist. So you don’t pit players against professionals. Second, the main campaign can do a lot to teach a player all the necessary fundamentals; which is what this video is about: tutorials are ineffective at teaching beginners, either because they’re too boring, don’t have enough hands on practice, or both. The point is to teach and train a player on all the necessary elements, in a fun and entertaining way, before throwing them in the pit. Games like Dark Souls prove you can even make the challenge significant through difficulty, and that players WILL learn through great boss design, and level design. And that’s the point being made. You can craft AI enemies that focus on a singular concept, like shooting projectiles, you you can get players to practice the timing on parries, or even get concepts like cancels carrier over to the player, if you build levels around introducing and testing these ideas. Best of all, you can do this in a way that’s fun and rewarding in its own way, and not a boring slog of the computer spitting info at you, that feels like a necessity you must ENDURE in order to be able to play. Turn the tutorial into a fun FEATURE through a campaign mode. By doing so, you will easily take the player from “move left to walk” to “roman cancels” and other shit, through a fun 10-40 hour experience. Include bosses, challenges, secrets, collectibles, etc... and people will enjoy it a lot more. Will it get then ready for tournaments? Of course not. But it’ll sure leave them more ready for PvP combat than current tutorials do. I mean, even in the video the guy mentioned Smash’s Target Test, Homerun Contest, and Event Matches as really clever ways to indirectly teach players about their character’s movesets, combos, and how to deal with certain situations, without ever info-dumping on them. Combine this with a low pressure FFA casual versus mode, and it’s evident why Smash’s competitive scene is so large. It’s very accessible.
@@ivancito7790 You'll get murdered in non-rank and cry anyway what difference does it make for the devs to waste their time on you. Go play arcade mode. It's been a mechanic for almost 30 years.
U9B Nice projection, but I never said it was about me. I play fighting games regularly, and have no problems getting into them. But the point of discussion i how to improve tutorials so they’re more beneficial and appealing to new players. If this isn’t a topic that interests you because “you’re so l33t gud” then maybe you should realize that this isn’t about you, and not bother posting. You can always go somewhere else.
@@ivancito7790 sounds like a lot of lying because you know for a fact those story mode players who are engaged gets disengaged once they have to fight players which is the ultimate finale of fighting games. Playing vs others.
There’s not enough “sub games” in fighting games. Like why can’t I go online and play a game of HORSE where I try to do the same combo as my opponent? What about an online game where you and your opponent start with low health and you’re limited to only blocking and doing overheads and sweeps? Or how about where you and your opponent take turns from only full screen as the fireball user and the other as a jumper where you try to juke them with your unpredictable fireball pattern for a certain amount of time.
Online shouldn’t just be about one mode where you can be exposed to any conceivable situation. It should also have isolated modes that still get you use to your character in fun competitive ways.
There could also be something where you send a recording (via inputs) in training mode to let people practice against some sick setup.
@@Stumblebee
Yeah! Like give us more ways to enjoy this game with other people so we can help each other learn.
There is a massive amount of potential there for sure. The best games at that I know are offline and with self-imposed rules like playing Tennis with Ki Blasts in Budokai (Tenkaichi) but some cases exist which are close like Single Button Smash in Melee (though custom controls allow this in other games) and I think Tekken Ball is good for letting people appreciate moves without a direct versus component.
@@thelastgogeta
Great example! That sort of self imposed challenge should be an online mode that you can experience with anyone. It's relatively low execution for beginners and gets people to still enjoy playing a competitive game with another person while still learning the ropes.
@@Stumblebee You can do that in Them's Fightin' Herds with combos
Just some input on why I find fighting games to be difficult is that because of their 1v1 PvP nature it's almost required for the systems and mechanics to be rigid. Maybe it's just my experience mainly being jrpgs and action platformers but I felt a lack of control of my actions. Also I find it difficult to create complex strategies and react in real time.
The only Mortal Kombat game I've played is MK9 (2011). I remember the tutorial would have the player execute one move after the other, not legging them proceed until they've done the move successfully.
At one point, the tutorial assigned me with the task of performing a simple, three-button combo. No motion inputs - just three button presses, and nothing more.
I was absolutely stuck at this part. I was performing three attacks over and over and over again, not having the slightest clue why the game wasn't letting me proceed. It looked like I was doing a combo. The character was responding to my button presses. So what was wrong?
Then, by complete accident... I did it. I pressed the buttons, and a different, flashy-looking move came out. A few moments of pondering, and I figured out that the reason it wasn't happening before was because I was pressing the buttons in sync with the character's movements, but in fact combos are done by pressing the buttons so fast that the character has barely thrown out two attacks by the time the input is done. To this day, I still think negatively of this design choice.
Read-based gameplay aside, the point is that the tutorial didn't do an adequate job of explaining how to perform the move. It told me what buttons to press, but it didn't tell me that I had to do the input lightning fast, instead of with the rhythm of the character's attacks, as I had assumed. The result was me spending an unnecessary amount of time feeling confused.
Some tutorials are like those how to draw books. Starts off basic the first couple steps and expects you to finish it a master piece out of nowhere on the final steps.
How to draw Superman:
1. Start by drawing a circle.
2. Draw Superman.
My main gripe with Fighting Games is actually the fact that you need to learn how to play them in order to get any enjoyment out of them. I mean yeah, you need to learn every game before you can really enjoy it and especially when it comes to multiplayer learning the mechanics is needed as getting your ass handed to you isn't fun. But I feel like fighting games are a bit special when it comes to that.
At least to me learning fighting games is like trying to learn a new language by using a textbook written in another language you don't understand. They are complex but not very transparent in their mechanics I feel. Like in a shooter you can always account you getting farmed by someone to "that guy has better aim than me" but in a fighting game getting your butt handed to you can lead to alot of confusion as to what exactly just happened. All I know is that every move I tried got blocked or dodged and every move the other guy made just led to a big combo that took away half my health. Yeah sure, there are hidden techniques in shooters that determine your skill beyond your ability to point at someones head quickly and pressing Mouse 1, like recoil patterns in Counter Strike. And sure, you need to learn those in order to get good at the game, but when I get shot I can at least somewhat understand why I was bested.
But not with fighting games. Sure you can set the AI to the lowest but that'll teach you basically nothing as those bots are usually just way too passive and you can beat them by randomly mashing buttons. And at some point you'll hit the threshhold of when the AI can still be beaten by having a toddler hammer on the controller to AI that understands the basics and will not succumb to such shenanigans. But because you have no idea how the game actually works you'll just get beaten to a pulp. And yes, most fighting game tutorials are just terrible at teaching the player. And in most fighting games you can't hop online hoping to learn because the online lobbies are usually populated by above average players that eat you for breakfast.
And yeah, that's why I hate about fighting games. You need to sit down, take your time and look up guides on how they actually work in order to achieve anything. That's just not fun to me.
Did I ever tell you that you are a hero?
This is an excellent video and needed to be made.
I'm going to add on to something you mentioned about tutorial in games of the past...I can't say when they started but SNK had tutorials in their cabinet titles like KOF before 2003 and Samurai Shodown.
Snk has done a lot of work to show how much more fighters can be and we're perfect rivals to Capcom.
I'm not too big on arcade games (I can't use stick) but I don't remember many other fighters in the 90's even having a a short demo reel of how to play.
I also wanna mention that charge characters take a bit of time to grasp because when you learn the move it's easy just about 2 seconds but as you go on as a player you might find yourself shaving a bit of time in the execution and then you might stumble into extra stuff you can do like storing some charge after a charge move.
What he should do is play fighting games
I didn’t know that about KI reversing the directions. It’s amazing how much they got right.
I think the biggest issues with players trying to get into fighting games is that the concept on how to approach neutral through single player usually leads to a lot of bad habits, at the end of the day the player might have no idea how to actually defend in an actual match since he/she spent most of their time just doing the bare minimum of what the AI just never blocked.
Fighting games tutorials also teach you the mechanics but even if they were enjoyable so that they don't fall sleep or frustrated by walls of text of info I think the player might still fall into this trap, maybe something like showing footage of actual matches highlighting proper and clever uses of the mechanics the game is teaching to the player could help a lot since one of the biggest hurdles a student has to go through in education is just reading theory but having no idea how to actually apply the knowledge on a real situation or under pressure.
Another issue newcomers run into is thinking that they should learn complex combos as soon as possible so they go to the training room/combo challenge mode and try to clear and master the hardest combo available for the characters yet so many times these combos are actually challenges rather than something actually useful for matches (Street Fighter 4 comes into mind) and the new player might think that they don't know how to use the character unless they master these. Dividing combos into basic, intermediate, advanced and the "for show" or whatever might help with that but also let the player know that it is more important to train neutral (how to move, defend during the match and approach the opponent) rather than grinding complex combos and teach them that combos aren't all about damage, sometimes knowing a simple combo that you can perform consistently is better than just grinding a hard combo that requires 100% of your resources. Eventually teach the player about resource management, corner carry and other important aspects about some combos rather so that they don't think that raw damage/amount of hits is the only think that matters here.
Also something similar with frame data, obsessing over it early in the game can also lead to frustration when in reality you can become really good at most fighting games without knowing anything about them and lots of players get confused by thinking that something punishable by only looking at the raw frame data is actually safe due to pushback and similar factors.
That part about how newbies skip straight to the flashy combos and complex moves made me think of how the first lesson in our dojo class was the proper way to *stand.* No balance? Nothing else will work. You need those fundamental foundation blocks before you go onto anything else. This is where terms such as "bread and butter" come from.
Another problem people would get upset if the AI was just as aggressive and or oppressive as a decent player. Yet that's how they gotta learn. Also the whole concept of frame data and how people obsess over it turns it into a crutch since they still can't play. It doesn't matter what you know if you cannot apply it. Which goes into combos sometimes small effective combos are better than cracking on trying to learn 1 touch kills which end up getting predictable. Remember Evil Ryu in SF4 where everybody did the same combo and then that said combo didn't really work anymore due to even novice players were using it.
One thing about fighting game tutorials is that they can't teach certain skills like reading. Being able to read your opponent is completely experience based and relies on scenario familiarity
Oh, at first I thought you were talking about the novel of text they usually want you to read before they let you move your character.
That too, haha!
The best way I could think to counter this is trying to teach the player what can combo into what. Besides that theres not really a common way to teach someone to read.
12:20: "[Tutorial] is a great opportunity to introduce the personality, story and attitude of the world."
This was something I said in Core-A gaming's video about difficulty. When Extra Credit brought the idea up, they are not talking about an offline tutorial being the best practice you have. It is the best practice for a noob to even begin to start liking the game. Every other game incorporate their tutorials into their story, and make the whole experience enjoyable by pacing it properly. By reinforcing and rewarding good baseline executions and knowledge, you can shape the player's progression to the right path. It's like how by the time you beat Starcraft 2's story mode, you would've learned most of the basics that you need for the rest of the game, like, making sure you're using hotkeys instead of clicking the bottom right panel. This is akin to teaching DP, sweeps, advantage and anti air to beginner players, which is enough to get you start enjoying baseline fighting games.
Jerald and many others will bring up neutral, and you're right, you can never learn neutral in FG offline. However, Neutral isn't something you'll learn properly online as a beginner either, unless you have a coach. But if you can teach the player the flowchart answers for each of the opponent's major tools, like guilty gear's character guide, you are one step closer to teaching neutral. For example, you can make one stage where the only way you will beat your opponent is to block everything, but only punish one set of moves.
None of that matters once you fight someone who knows what you do from the same tutorial and then uses that knowledge against you if you can't adapt.
@@U9B dude, adaption is only possible after you understand all the fundamentals and match up knowledge. That's even harder than conditioning sometimes. It's an endgame skill, just like reading. By the time you worry about adaption, you're no longer worried about anything close to a tutorial
As someone who practises martial arts and is a fighting game fan, I would love to see more aspects of learning real martial arts in fighting games. What fighting game tutorials need is to take each special move and slowly take it step by step and show everything you can do with that move, like demonstrating if it’s a good anti-air or combo starter for example.
Basically what ArcSys games do, but far more in-depth.
Your videos are great, FGC needs more content like this
I think this is why smash is so popular for me it was so easy to learn the basics and start learning frame traps and 50/50s and things like tech chasing when i didn’t have to focus on remapping my mind for controls
13:05
1. Yes, I blocked that. The game is lying and messed up MY perfect input.
2. The odds are 1 - (1 / [Opponent's Current Player Rank])
3. I dropped the input, so Ken's fireball will land on my face. See 1.
One thing that i noticed as to why fighting games tutorials are so wierd is because unlike most games, controllers dont melt into your mind and you just forget about them. They are intrinsic to how the game works thanks to things like motion inputs.
It took me a while to learn how to do a charge move in Street Fighter; I just wanted to play as the cool guy in the mask. It was my first fighting game, Street Fighter 4 and when I finally learned; it was badass
I got Street Fighter 2 when it came out as a kid. I beat the game on hard a hundred times before no was able to do one special move. But it made me better nearly everyone at that time. Then I got better once I start to use fireballs, and shoryukens
Random uppercutts
SO THAT'S WHY I ALWAYS LOSE WITH Ken
I have not been spamming enough Shoryukens
Must spam even more
Jokes aside, the tutorials having some personality, like the one in Xrd Sign, would be cool
You do the tutorial while seeing the characters interacting with one another.
Inb4 meme about ken flowchart
I really like fighting games (or at least watching them and imagining myself playing them) but the one thing that always gets me stuck is how to even do a "quarter circle" or a "half circle" because no other game that I have (besides Ryu, Ken and Terry in Smash) use that sort of combo system and it makes me feel a bit better about not being able to play these games well knowing that part of the problem is the actual in-game tutorials
The button display thing is definitely the biggest hurdle I've been facing trying to learn the basics in fighting games
@Haku infinite THIS. When a move is taught during a tutorial, there absolutely should be an animation of the joystick showing you the proper timing of the move.
It's Always Sunny is always a good transition theme
It's legitimately a cheat code lmao
I just wanna bring up something I like about Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle's tutorial, is that each character has their own tutorial focused on their moves and abilities (Although there are probably many more like this, even predating Cross Tag Battle)
There's only so many matches one can play before getting overtaken by the curiosity of what Labrys' ax meter or Blake's shadow clones do
Wait, Labrys' ax meter was confusing?
@@NEETKitten Kinda? I mean, if you didn't know before hand what it did, it would be, especially the nitty gritty
15:46 That sh*t frustrated me so much that I almost wanted to stop playing fighting games all together. Not really but that damn mission was so hard and it annoyed me beyond comprehension.
TCHORT AFF what game is this? It looks really cool
@@mad-dash6448 under night in birth ex latest and AFF this mission ain't that hard
i enjoyed what Thems Fighting Herds has done with their tutorial.
good vdo
I thought I was going to be the first- that game's tutorial is exactly what fighting games need!
For fighting games I think Guilty Gear does take the cake when it comes to helping you get better. In Rev 2 you have the intro which you did point out along with its mission mode which forces you to do it 3/5 for a basic passing grade and the Combo missions that do tell you how many clears you have. Then you have a mode I wish had more attention, MOM mode. A combination of survival, RPG and mettle testing that can present various challenges to keep you sharp. These run the gambit of "Damage after X hit", Weak to Blitz, Resistant to strikes and so on which force you to try new routes with your character or even learn a sub to cover your weaknesses.
I personally think the MOM mode system where it forces conditions on the fight is a great knowledge check of "Why would I do this?" issue that most fighting games ignore. For instance if a foe is weak to blitz and I dont know what that is, I might try it first to see if I can do it without it and then if I fail it drives me to mission mode to practice it. This loop of knowledge I feel is lacking in most games until you get destroyed by someone online but if you dont know the mechanic they are using its hard to look it up later.
The issue with fighting game tutorials might just be because of the nature of fighting games themselves. While on its surface, many have straight forward commands, one action you perform usually has one consequence when you look at them singularly. However, the combination of all these simple things, actually makes a complex architecture, known as emergent gameplay. How do you know when it's the right time to do a low sweep? During what part of your combo do you cancel into your super? These are things are all super contextual, and requires more than anything, experience, and that's something you can only go so far to attempt to explain in tutorials. I'm not saying it's the only way, but the best (most cost effective?) thing the developers can do is show you the tools you have, because it's darn near impossible to train you to recognize every single situation with every single character, with every single human opponent. That only comes when you've sunk enough time into learning what your tools do.
That said, I don't think they would need to go that far to create better tutorials. If I were looking to engage and teach someone how to play, I would give them a few tools, then pit them against AI that challenge them based on what tools they have access to. If they can handle it, then they move on to more advanced concepts. That way, you're not giving them so much that they aren't sure what's what, and they can actually play the game instead of slogging through 20 minutes of the same paced bit.
How about a game with in-game guides from the content creators that already make them? Imagine Core-A-Gaming making in game tutorials with visuals and you can play along with them.
I honestly hope that dude helps develop a fighting game someday. Kinda like how max dood helped with KI on Xbox.
@@Clos93 i have been thinking . what if a fighting game player enthusiast . a wannabe try hard .. became a game developer built with a team to create fighting game.
@@darkblitzrz8 Isn't that what's up with the developers of Rising Thunder and the upcoming Riot's fighting game?
@@MrGraywolf09 I hope so. We just have to see how they take the approach. I would love to see more player enjoy fighting games. Riots games knows how to get the casualty of things into high engagement attention so far with league of legends.
@@darkblitzrz8 I'm not a fighting game player (thinking about giving it a go for a week now), but I played League for 4 years or so. MOBAs are also very hard and complex, but the reasons why people play League is: 1. they present you with immediate gratification; 2. there's nothing stopping you from simply enjoying the game at your current skill level. If you don't want to invest time and effort trying to learn all the nooks and crannies, you can just hop in a match and get paired with others of similar ability. Over time, even without studying you will progressively get better (to a certain point). Fighting games seem daunting because they practically come with a label saying "unless you spend an excruciating amount of hours painstakingly training beforehand, you won't enjoy this game". Now who's to blame for this label - industry, community or new players - I don't really know. All I know is that I loved mashing buttons in FGs as a kid... LMAO
I deadass quit this genre because of I coudlnt beat tutorials when I was 12.
I know Them's Fightin' Herds has a stigma it will probably never overcome, but I seriously recommend checking out the tutorial in that game. It does so many things right, and actually got me back into the fighting game genre.
Fighting games are in a weird spot in which a good chunk of stuff that needs to be learned is universal, but I can see why a game developer might not want to put that in every game as it could inflate the tutorial by quite a lot, depending on the game.
With that said, the poor explanation and overall quality of fighting game tutorials are why it took me so long to start enjoying them. It'd be nice for devs to actually start dedicating resources to well made tutorials. These types of games are inherently complex and that needs to be taken in consideration. The lack of well made and fun tutorials are why, imo, this genre doesn't do as well as it should
On one hand, you’re right, on the other, FPS games STILL tutorialize every inch of their games from “push the left stick to move” in the story modes. It’s definitely possible
Breaking tutorials out into beginner/intermediate/advanced like you said is pretty helpful, especially for the players who just want to get right into it. The next step for improving it, though it will probably be costly and require some smart design decisions, is to fit it invisibly into a NetherRealm-esque story mode.
The problem is that they’re not all the Skullgirls tutorial. The Skullgirls tutorial opened the door to fighting games for me. But I can see how someone whose never touched a fighting game would have some issues.
I heard that the Guilty Gear Xrd tutorial was really good, but my biggest gripe with it was they it was really lenient. It would let you pass if you did things in an odd order, or if your combo wouldn’t have worked in a real match.
Used Napkin DBZ is the fighting game that opened the door for me. Only cause there wasn’t really much to memorize in the tutorials XD
Them's Fightin' Herds has a similar tutorial to Skullgirls. Granted it was also developed on the same engine.
As someone who doesn't play fighting games the barrier to entry to me is being able to do the moves at all. I'll look on the pause menu, find a move i want to use, input what I think is the correct button input and then nothing happens and I have no feedback as to why. I mostly tried this in games against friends who wanted me to play some fighting game with them.
I've played Joy Mech Fight on emulator, which was a fighting game for Famicom. Everything was dead simple, but the single-player campaign was crushing.
Ironically years later I could utilize the knowledge I did find during the campaign in order to change my attitude on how to improve at fighting games.
Since most of the enemies spammed their best moves, it was in my best interest to find a weakness with whatever character I'm playing as. And dang did it feel satisfying. The difficulty curve wasn't too steep too. I subconciously learned how to deal with classic fighting game shenanigans and I was forced to find my way around it without feeling like an idiot playing against a real player who knows better.
If only fighting games could help you how to deal with casual killers, like spam, combos, etc in a fun, engaging way. It should also teach new players the right mindset on how to approach fighting game improvement.
Because of that knowledge I accumulated (which was pretty basic) I picked up Mortal Kombat X, played it with my friend who had the game for a long time (he's a casual, plays for fun) and I won every single time simply, because I took the time to understand the basics. He did the cardinal sin of spamming moves and being predictable. That's all it took.
I'm a massive noob at fighting games, and my first introduction to them was Tatsunoko vs Capcom on the Wii. I quickly stopped playing because of how confusing the tutorial was. Instead of telling me what button does what action, they instead had letters that were not on the Wii controller.
They typically do that so that it's the same control language across all platforms as well as if you remap controls, but yeah it's a serious stumbling block for newer players and it's the first major hurdle whenever I try to introduce people to fighting games or even just a new fighting game series if they've played other fighters but not that series before.
@@GodOfOrphans Ah, that makes sense. Still annoying, but it makes sense.
@@GodOfOrphans It honestly shouldn't be that hard to program though. PC games, in particular, have customizable controls by default, and the keys or buttons shown in the tutorials change to match whatever they've been customized into.
Also, in all other genres I've played, games released on more than one system have different icons in their tutorials depending on what system they're on.
Fighting games are the only genre I've seen that doesn't do this, and I honestly never figured out why. It sounds like the result of an insular culture, as if people who make fighting games don't play any other genre of video game.
I always though that Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus had a great tutorial system..
Now I am not sure any more.
I think one of the problems with fighting games when it comes to new players is that they introduce all of these mechanics and things that you can play through basically every AI battle without ever even using. They seem pointless and you can win by mashing, then you go into multiplayer and get your ass handed to you by players using things you were taught one time in a tutorial several hours of offline playtime ago and it just seems so off putting. Like a skill you can never get
I mean, with SSB for me, I’d been watching competitive play for years and I was amazed by the skill level of these pros while I was killing Lv. 5 CPUs with FSmash spam, and getting my ass handed to me online
Then finally, a friend of mine who’s really good at the game just sat down with me one day and sat there for hours fighting me at my level and forcing me out of my old habits by punishing them and beating my ass while telling me what I was doing wrong, then suddenly everything began to make sense and now I’m actually half decent in competitive
Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution has my favorite set of tutorials. It's very complete and you can come back to it as you get better.
The best solution I can think of is to directly integrate the tutorial into the story mode.
This might be flavored as the player’s character is a novice fighter.
Teach the player one or two things and then present them with an enemy/scenario that rewards them for using what was just taught.
Slowly compounding and building upon what was learned until the player is comfortable with the systems and are ready for the complex challenges that later opponents present.
All you're going to do is teach them bad habits players outside of the tutorial won't do or intentionally look to exploit.
U9B its just going to be basic stuff.
This character spams lows. This one wants to grapple you. This one likes to jump in. This one spams fireball.
Default to blocking low. React to the grab. Switch to high guard when an opponent jumps. Or crush their approach with an uppercut. Here’s how to whiff punish. Don’t panic if they cross you up, here’s what you can do. Etc.
@@moncala7787 And then they have to fight a character who does everything with a player who doesn't use any of the routine they were practicing for.
U9B there aren’t players who don’t make use of highs/lows, grabs, fireballs or grabs. The whole point is to expose new players to common things they will run into and give them the tools to recognize and combat them.
The idea is to Mr. Miyagi them into training without realizing it so that they are a competent low level player before they encounter human opponents.
@@moncala7787 They can introduced to those concepts in arcade mode, tutorial, or practice. A better way is playing the game versus players and finding new friends out there and integrating.
I like fighting games, rather the idea of them more actually.. The last time I really played them regularly was when I was basement king in my local area in high school, long before internet connection matches were common. So after finding Super Best Friends and liking their content I got the bug again. Got MK10 on steam and put the time in to beat the game on hard and learn to play my character and memorize some combos and even do them on command pretty well. Got hyped, got online, and got bodied 4 times in a row. Took a break, changed characters, then lost 17 more times. Once against a Scorpion player who didn't even let me touch them. I went online and tried to learn about frame data and advanced moves, I went through the tutorial and tried to play the game on the hardest modes. All a waste. I could not put it all together. Uninstalled and I've never been enthused to try again. Advanced fighting game play is so impenetrable and games never seem to build you into the skills that would have you able to even be confident to play in you local FGC community. Thank you for doing a video to highlight the need for a better way to train players so the FGC can grow and add new members.
So, I was never a fighting game fanatic. barely touched them for most of my school years. Then I got into skullgrils
(because, hey, the art looks nice. Noir cartoon style, I dig it.)
Played it for a little, then left it.
Last December, I don't know why, I got into a buying spree. like, 20 fighting games on a sale. Been playing them since then.
And, I think I'm getting better (Okay, I'm still like a 1/10 in a scale, but 1 is bigger than 0)
The moment you said "blocking is probably the best you can do in the majority of situations"... I actually cried a little.
I knew it. I didn't knew before December, and no person or tutorial had taught me that, but I knew. I just hadn't realized I knew yet.
It's like I'm learning to love video games for the first time again.
Anyways, thanks for making me cry with your video.
something I noticed with charge characters is they usually have very distinct animations to tell you how long to charge. A good example is I started learning guile casually because when he’d hold back, I’d use his hops to time when I should forward+punch
I hate quarter circles. Its probally just my inexperience but getting moves to work properally that use them sucks.
Are you using the D-pad, or the analog stick? input difficulty is one of the biggest complaints I hear about when people try and learn fighting games. And it's really not all that well explained.
@@Stumblebee analog stick
@@ivanbackfromthecardshop8093 Depending on the game, you might be able to use Negative Edge (releasing a button to do a special).
It works in Street Fighter generally but also Smash with Ryu and Ken. I personally recommend D-Pad use but if that isn't your thing, it may need some practice and watching the state your character is in.
A crouch to forward walk should be fine but you can do it fast enough to not see either action before the result.
Honestly, I remember when I saw that gargantuan pile of lessons in DOA6 at 11:45. But I did notice the "Recommended Player Level" thing. I relaxed a bit, did the basics first, tried them out and later came back. I assume that's what they meant with that. Still, amazing video and good points. I tried to get into SFV once, hated the explanations. I've seen quite a few videos on this topic in the last months. Seems to be relevant currently, for some reason.
Fun tutorials are one way to go, but they will always feel like 'not the real game' to me.
IMO the way to go would be the option to have matches with limited movesets (eg. neither player may jump) and/or simplified mechanics (eg. single kind of block that blocks everything) and/or more forgiving mechanics (eg. the wrong kind of block drains stamina instead of health).
Then, once the player gains more experience and starts getting bored, they may choose to play matches with more and more of the complex mechanics enabled. This makes the game more approachable without making the player spend endless amounts of time in the tutorial.
shoutout to Pokken Tournament for having a great tutorial system
Here's something I think all Fighting game tutorials should include from now on:
In the menus where it challenges you to do a specific character's combo moves, there should be a part that is divided into 3 or 4 tiers of exectution speed, and it ramps up the exectution speed the more comfortable you get with the combo.
Seriously, the combos in games like BlazeBlue for certain
15:10 Good to see TFH be the first game shown in this bit, it really is a good tutorial to teach you universal and character specific mechanics. I was wondering if it'd come up at all after I noticed you were playing its training theme at 8:49
It's a good candidate for showing off an actual personality in a tutorial, which is increasingly rare these days.
I'm considering the idea of turning my characters into fighters for a self-made fighting game. I'm *considering* it, but if I get to it, I'll definitely look to your videos and others of fighting games to try and understand what players want out of the experience. There are some things I've gathered and some things I've experienced, being a fighting game fan myself, but I know there's more out there, and I'm willing to learn anything that you put out in the future about this kind of topic. I know it's more than a year late for this kind of comment, but if I get to making the game I've always wanted to make, you'll definitely be one of the people I'll credit for insight into these kinds of details. Thanks for the information, and the amazing videos, and keep up the good work!!!
Good luck
Most tutorials have the real bad problem of inflating the newbie mindset of “if I learn X move/combo, I’ll be good” and then they go online and wonder why they lost. I’ve been the resident FG guy in my group for around 5 years now and I always observe that the first thing my friends wanna do is lab this or that character’s combo options before anything else and hop online, and then they wonder why they lost if they know this ToD With this really good character. FG tutorials need to teach you the basics of neutral and defensive options and emphasize their importance because most people in panic situations like to just mash what they know is armored or invul and get blown up for it, and one of the first questions I always get asked is “how do I block?” Once you teach a player to defend themselves, it becomes easier for them to actually play, and then they’ll learn combos on their own with time without the need of a 4 mission tutorial that railroads them into learning a BnB (Which is why I also think Combo Challenges should have tiers set up like GGs and be exclusive from the actual tutorials)
You just identified the problem right there: Even if there was a neutral, defensive option in the tutorial, they jump right in the lab to learn ToD combos.
(FG newbie/novice here. Ie, button mash and don't know the terminology)
If I understand you properly, you're saying to teach/learn defense first, so that we can get familiar with our opponents openings and see what we can fit into them?
Or something like that?
I now want to liken it to Souls-like defense (Nioh specifically for me): recognizing attack patterns, safe/not areas for each, how long and from where the enemies are vulnerable. Offense being using those openings to do damage, and learning how much you're able to do while the opening is there without making yourself more open than needed.
Ozark
Yeah basically, a good defense just makes for a stronger offense once it’s your turn
This was an awesome video and hearing that you're covering Stadia as a Fighting game player is a big f***ing deal. I look forward to that video.
I need that fighting game mariana trench meme. Also, love the video, good job putting to words something I have struggled to explain for years.
9:06 More of “Realizing the fighting games were the friends we LOST along the way” but close enough
The problem is that they just teach you how to do the moves and combos. They don't teach things that are really important like spacing, health bar manager, super meter, and footies. There are also a lot of things you can't learn unless you play but that's the fun of it
I hope you don't mind, but I have an idea for a video you can do. Adaptions into fighting games.
Stuff like fighterZ, power rangers bftg, JoJo's hftf, smash, etc.
They could take a lesson from you. Your videos are the perfect blend of fun and sharing of knowledge. Loved it as always.
Another great video. You have a real knack for clearly outlining a problem and then approaching it with positive thinking.
As a recent newcomer to Skullgirls and fighting games in general, I agree with this video. It’s kinda hard trying to remember what was HK or LP and I often forget how to do basic attacks because of it
*What bothered me more*
is how do you know how much a Chun Li costume cost
I feel this most with charge characters, EVERY fighting game has different charge lengths and even Street fighter, the series that invented it, doesn't have consistent timing between games
A few really easy ideas to implement to help bring newbies up to speed. The first is the literal translation of that last sentence: give the player the ability to *slow down* the game speed while practicing combos, like guitar hero's practice mode (or like any musician can do by just turning down the metronome speed). Then, they can slowly turn up the game speed and work their way up to full speed.
The second idea is borrowed from rocket league. In rocket league, players are able to set up their own practice shots and upload them online for others to download and use for practice. Thing is, game developers can never know all the techniques that players will come up with to play their games at the highest levels, so having a feature where the community can upload their own combos for other people to practice would enable everyone to practice like the very best.
The last idea goes back to guitar hero. It would be nice if newbies could turn on a scrolling bar that would tell them *when* to press the inputs as well as what inputs to press. This would help new players learn when they are pressing buttons too fast or too slow, and get them into the *rhythm* of comboing.
Put all three of these ideas together, and suddenly you can have newbies pulling of pro-uploaded ToD combos at 30-40% speed in a day or two, full speed in a matter of weeks. Of course, that would have to be players that are at least competent with a controller, your grandma isnt pulling that off anytime soon even with these tools, but shit... I feel like these things would drastically increase the accessibility of fighting games without needing to compromise the gameplay by making it simpler.
Best part is? This shit would be cheap! Even the scrolling bar thing would be really easy. After all, most of these games already allow you to store inputs, with their timing and all, into your training dummy to practice against. They already put graphical symbols for the different inputs into the game, all they'd have to do is literally create a scrolling bar to slap that information on.
It took years of not understanding fighting games for me to realise that you needed to input movements to do different moves, and that was with heritage for of the future on an emulator with a keyboard.
Imagine actually shilling NordVPN after their controversy
Peasham what happened with nord?
@@SkyMushrooms Their system got breached. In other words, the service don't work the best in terms of security. Which kinda demolishes the shilling.
@@Peasham That isn't what happened....
@@cileavictoria1229 By all means, enlighten me.
@@Peasham Stop being lazy and do it yourself
The problem with fighting game tutorials these days is mainly developer intent. To look at mk11 for example Johnny Cage is sold as a character who’s good at frame traps (the game even spells out what this is for you) with this pitch; “this character is great because he can do this”...
Johnny Cage sucks in 11. his only overheads are from jump which means he’s never gonna really open you up so you just keep blocking until you recognize the pattern and punish him. He also had really garbage krushing blows (short and simple for non mk players kBs are special instances once a match where a move has altered properties depending on what you do to land it. Johnny has next to none and the requirements are ludicrously strict and niche).
How does the game expect to teach you anything when they can’t be certain what they’re teaching you is even a valuable skill or tool? Especially if it’s a game with balance updates where said tools get nerfed horribly like sfv and srk’s.
the devs can’t take into account what tools are gonna be good for that game. In 3rd strike 12 has a lot of aerial mobility and a strong poke game but low combos. 3s isn’t a game where these particular strengths matter that much because anything can be punished so prodding and enforcing block actually makes things harder sometimes.
FGs aren’t like shooters where skills necessarily carry over smoothly. In an FPS once you learn how to aim you can adjust to all the guns easily. In FGs your ass is lucky if the clones even play similar.
So the kicker is “how do I teach someone something I’m not quite certain what’s important about it, that I’ll probably change as I go along altering what’s important even more, and nothing completely carries over when trying another character?” The answer is simple. And depressing.
You really can’t. Especially when so many fighting games play so differently it’s impossible to get into fighting games when fighting GAME was already a mine field.
That’s why the community is so important a support for people who make content for it is so pivotal. Fighting games need these people, the guide makers the TASers the combo labers the tourney players the Max’s the woolies the mike z’s the Gerald lees the beasts the Justin Wongs the calipowers and the bafaels are all how people get interested and learn.
Because without the people like them who make everything simpler for the newbies, nobody gets interested at deciphering these constantly evolving messes that can’t really teach you shit because it doesn’t even know what it’s about.
So yeah that’s my ted talk thanks for sitting through.
I'd also agree with this. The Devs aren't always the best people to ask on how to play their fighter.You gotta get some other people like players who know the game in and out even more to tell you the good stuff.
So then how about this:
Make a story mode tutorial where the game is teaching you how to combo buttons. Say for example your running through a gauntlet and in order to open doors you have to punch certain buttons. Make the 3 buttons only accessible through certain moves and have another character in the party tell you what needs to happen for example:
"There are 3 primary moves you can do: Punch (Square), Kick (Circle), and Jump (X). just combine these moves in sets of 3 to create more complex movements. To reach that button up on the ceiling, why don't you try jumping twice and then kicking (X, X, Circle)?" Then watch as you complete the challenge by understanding your move sets. Then the rooms continue and different challenges let you test different devices.
I got stuck on the Skull Girls tutorial for so long on the blocking mixups tutorial. Kept forgetting which sequence to block in and got super frustated that I had to do it perfectly 3 times in a row. Think I played that for an hour then put the game down for a month.
I'd have preferred "get this right 10 times" and it just keeps a counter, then at the end asks if I feel like I've got it.
And I share your frustration with charge characters; the instructions said "hold back for 2 seconds" so I did; imagine my surprise when I play against a Guile who can out-fireball Ryu. Felt like I'd been lied to.
You should've checked out the MK11 tutorial.
I love how he talks to the audience like we're pros at fighting games even though I've almost never played them and when I have I just had zero clue what I was doing.
TFH (that one game you saw near the end with the yellow llama thing) has a very good tutorial, and a dareisay better practice mode, given that you can not only record a given combo so that you can practice it until you feel like you can pull it off in a real game, it gives you the option of slow motion mode, with varying degrees OF slow motion, allowing you to; set the slow mo very slow, use that slowness to record a combo, practice it WHILE its slow, and when you feel comfortable with it you speed it up, then rinse and repeat till you hit real time, making the act of learning AND making combos so much better
I've always struggled with rotating sticks. I can't even do manual spin attacks in Zelda games reliably. I've given up on the Street Fighter series after trying it a few times and consistently failing to do characters' moves at will.