Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

The very similar system structure and operation mode between the preface and the product software are different. The gap between the game products is huge. No matter how many old players have game experience, they always need some guidance to get started in the face of new games. The differences between games are so great that almost every game has its own guidance scheme.

The fundamental purpose of game guidance is to improve the player's experience of getting started, reducing difficulty, frustration, ineffective attempts, etc. So depending on the type of player, the guidance needed is different. There are two main types of guidance: a complete beginner's tutorial for new players and a hint guide for old players to introduce new systems or advanced operations. Among them, the novice tutorial is more complex and comprehensive in purpose and performance, so this article focuses on the original god and summarizes some common guidance modes and forms. The applicability and application methods of different manifestations are summarized.

Second, the original god novice tutorial combs first combed the main content of the original god novice tutorial, in this stage, the game plot and novice teaching combined, the original god did not explicitly set a so-called "novice tutorial," but let players in the process of completing various game tasks gradually master the game operation method and interface layout.

Figure 1-The main process of the original god novice tutorial The overall feeling of the novice tutorial is smooth and free of imprisonment. In the process of the novice tutorial, the player can move freely in the scene, which is very similar to the feeling of doing daily tasks. In the teaching process, only the most important game settings (such as the Seven Days God Statue, the Wind Demon Dragon) and game operations (such as magnification, bow aiming) have relatively limited teaching. Other knowledge points are taught through various trigger tutorials and tutorials that do not affect the player's movement. Here are some examples:

More restricted guidance: 1. When the player first sees the Seven Days God Statue, the game's basic world view setting (seven elemental gods) is introduced through fixed scenes and dialogues. The game's world view setting is the basis for the game's logic to be self-consistent. It must be understood and understood by the player. It is a very important information, so it needs to stop to ensure that the information can be transmitted to the player.

2. When the player switches to Amber, he gains the gameplay of bow and arrow weapons. At this time, the game will make the player understand the operation of bow and arrow aiming through the mandatory guidance shown below. For designers who have experienced countless games, aiming is a common operation in games. Such a tutorial simply treats players as fools. However, among the real players of Original God, it is very likely that there are many players who have come into contact with this kind of gameplay for the first time, or even players who have come into contact with this kind of game for the first time. For the experience of novice players, such mandatory guidance is necessary. After clicking Aim, it becomes a freely operable toast guide, minimizing the burden of simple tutorials for most players.

More liberal guidance: 1. Beginner tutorials are integrated into the quest process. For example, the first time to enter the battle and unlock the transfer point, the player is holding the mentality of doing the mission to complete the novice tutorial. As shown below, the player unlocked the teleportation point according to the mission prompt, and then various operation instructions about the teleportation point popped up. In this process, players feel that they have completed the quest-received more hints; compared with the transmission teaching method: according to the relevant hints-completed the specified operation, the experience is less constrained, and there is more of a quest-added gain than a "good student" feeling.

2. Passively triggered tutorials. In the process, the player can freely move and touch the operation, as shown in the figure below, if the player runs to an apple tree, the approach will trigger the description prompt of the sunset fruit and the guidance prompt of the backpack entrance (upper right corner); this design is based on the player's spontaneous behavior. For knowledge points that don't affect the game, this is a good way to avoid the burden of feeding players all the information at once.

3. Conversation on the move, Paimon. As the main character's guide, Paimon accompanies the player all the time. There are many details about the game, mission descriptions and background introductions, which are informed to the player through Paimon's conversation during the journey. The content of such dialogue narration is basically not very important. The player can choose to pay attention to it or ignore it, and it will not affect the player's game progress. The player is always in a state of action, instead of wasting time with Paimon.

Summary The novice tutorial of the game has different meanings for different groups of people. It is an essential entry guide for novice players, but it is an optional burden for old players with certain similar game experience. Game analyst Josh Bycer calls the time spent on novice boot the gamer tax, which is how much time it takes players to get into the game and figure out what to do. It's like buying a car, and the time spent learning to drive is a game tax. An extra cost you have to pay.

To improve the beginner tutorial experience. Hidden in the first few quests, passive triggers, on-the-move conversations, skippable "textbook readings," etc. reduce the sense of bondage of the tutorial to the player, and also reduce the "game tax" spent on the tutorial. Josh Bycer believes that "gamer taxes also have an impact on game popularity, because the most popular games tend to have the least gamer taxes." "The possible reason is that the Retention rate of the first week of the game has too great an impact on the game. As shown in the figure below, according to relevant data reports, it can be seen that the Retention rate of most games on the next day is only 30%-50%. The novice guide is the first part to leave an impression on the player experience, and its importance is self-evident.

On the other hand, in addition to reducing the game tax for novice tutorials, the original god has stimulated the curiosity and revenge of players through the opening interactive animation. Imagine that you and your brother are eating hot pot and singing songs, and suddenly they are robbed by bandits (error)... With this emotion, players enter the novice tutorial that is packaged as a mission. It is natural in psychology and feelings, and driven by emotions, it is easier to complete various tasks of the novice tutorial.

Third, the classification of guidance methods as shown in the figure below, through sorting, teaching methods can be divided into the following five categories, namely reading teaching, mandatory guidance, non-mandatory guidance, demonstration teaching, trigger teaching. The demonstrative teaching is not embodied in the original god, but it is also a common teaching method, so it is summarized here (refer to the classification method of blue as one).

In addition to the above five teaching methods, there is also a kind of "metaphorical guidance," such as "Mario,""Rockman X," etc., without obvious UI performance, through the arrangement of scenes, and monster behavior to complete a behavior guidance, prompting players to spontaneously discover operation methods. This kind of teaching is more suitable for intuitive performance, simple operation of the game, it is difficult to show more information.

Fourth, there is no best, only the most appropriate In the comparison of teaching methods, the first concern is the amount of information in the teaching content, on the other hand, the freedom that affects the player's game experience. Just as in chemistry, where you can memorize books or experiment with your own hands, the amount of information and limited freedom help you learn knowledge.

So comparing these two factors, we can see that reading is undoubtedly the most informative method, but it is too boring for anyone to read a long paragraph in a game. However, in a game with a huge amount of information, knowledge manuals that players could read at any time were also necessary. For example, Civilization 6, Wizard 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Original God all had built-in manuals summarizing various game knowledge. You can access all the rules and data of the game and solve most of the intermediate and intermediate problems encountered by players.

To take a counter example, in EVE,"love kings is not eternal." It is often used by old people to tease newcomers who do not understand the rules and complain everywhere.

As a game with complicated content, EVE does not have a manual summarizing the game content, but requires players to right-click to "view information," which is inefficient and fragmented. Old players in the game may only know a little about the game, a large part of the game fans are writing tutorials, training newcomers, most of the game encyclopedia, tutorial guides are written by players to upload. Such consequences brought a huge "game tax" to the newcomer, and later... The game stopped playing.

Demonstration-based teaching contains both feasible information and a certain degree of freedom, which is a very good experience for players. Through dynamic demonstration, it is very suitable for games that need complex actions. Take "Eternal Disaster" as an example, with "I am free" as the core experience of the game, it has complex combination actions, and a large number of demonstrative teaching methods are adopted in the novice tutorial.

Summary Generally speaking, there is no best, only the most suitable. Each guidance method has its own advantages and disadvantages. It needs to analyze which method to use according to the specific game type, play method and information transmitted first. This places a higher demand on our understanding of the game, on the splitting of information: how many steps does it take to stuff an elephant into a refrigerator? We also need to work hard to understand the needs and abilities of our players: too much detail can be tedious, too much detail can be confusing.

V. Summary For game designers, the designated novice tutorial has the following functions:

1. Introduction to the game background: whether it is the game operation or interface layout, including the game world view settings, can be integrated in the novice tutorial introduced to novice players, the current method is usually used in the tutorial process of the game background, interspersed, passed to the player.

2. Quick start: introduce operation methods, interface layout, game features, etc. in various ways to reduce the learning cost of players, help players get started, and reduce fear of blank canvas.

3. Practice replaying: In some games, the entrance of novice teaching will be retained, and even advanced teaching methods will be set up, so that players can try various play methods and operations independently, and hone their skills and test game strategies in these practice teaching without bearing the loss of failure. For example, the advanced training of Eternal Calamity and the training base of lol.

As a "game tax," although there is a need for novice tutorials, there is still a need to improve the player experience through various designs. On the one hand, players can have emotional fluctuations through the combination of plots, and generate spontaneous motivation. On the other hand, players can also increase their income through novice tutorials by setting rewards. They can also make players have full freedom in tutorials like the original gods, reducing the sense of restraint and stagnation from tutorials. It was also possible to hide the teaching in the game flow layer by layer, continuously providing new gameplay as the player's ability increased. For example, in Zelda, the player gradually unlocked different Sika skills by unlocking different temples, and more temples would prompt the player to try different skills of Sika skills.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: GameTube (ID: GameTube), author: doorbell

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.