this, x1000 I don't understand the point in adding a big tutorial, it's literally just knowing basic gmod physics and making a damn boat. I especially don't understand giving players a reward for it, seems pointless as their reward should be learning how to play the gamemode in the first place. And why give the people who already know how to play 5000 less money, giving them a disadvantage? You should never force a tutorial on someone, basic game design. Just make the message: "hold q to open the buy menu, combine buoyant props (such as the vending machine and the blue barrels) using the weld tool to make a boat, make sure your boat is evenly balanced in terms of weight so it doesn't tip over, make creative combinations, use the water in each room to test the buoyancy of your boat, when build phase is over you cant build anymore so finish up before the time runs out, buy good weapons before the time runs out (which will be used after the water rises), get on your boat in standby, shoot the others after the water rises, have fun". I don't see how you can get more in-depth than that, and if the person still doesn't get it then other than messing around in sandbox nothing else could help them, seriously. If the person doesn't know how to use the phys gun despite being the most simplistic design ever and being the most used thing in gmod, then it's their fault tbh. Maybe include a dumb "left click to move props, right click to freeze them in place" will do, but still pointless imo. Stuff like smart weld is self explanatory, but not only that, literally explanatory because the game tells you how to use it at the top of your screen. How can you not know how to smart weld after reading that and experimenting? Teams is basic af too, just click teams tab and the rest is self explanatory af. Basic game design- don't assume the player is literally retarded. Why do you think a lot of critically renown classics have no tutorial at all? I'm not saying to not add a tutorial but you don't need to explain every tiny thing, especially when you can just google it. And also, the reward for a tutorial should always be learning how to play the game and using that to your advantage. That is the incentive, not actual money/points whatever. In fact adding an incentive will make players more drawn to zoom through it for the ez money (the issue with surveys/polls with incentive).
So I can see how you wouldn't want to give the player cash or any reward upon completing the tutorial for that matter (even if it is just a vanity item), however if we did do that and people just 'zoomed through it' for the reward, they still might've learned something they didn't know before, enhancing their experience, and making one less question they have to ask someone else. When I first joined the gamemode I knew nothing of 'basic gmod physics' and had the hardest of times learning anything, didn't even know how to pull up the damn prop menu, and no one would tell me how to, I did not google how to because I didn't care enough to google it, I feel that the new players will feel the same way and just leave like I did, I just came back after awhile. After the longest amount of time and vague hints from other people, I managed to teach myself how to use the smart weld tool, I don't know what the text at the top said but it did not help, almost at all I believe, maybe it's just because I was trying to learn how to smart weld and not many people knew how a long while ago. Teams is the most commonly asked question on the server. I have 2 binds talking and telling about them. Physics gun gave me a hard time, only because I did not know how to rotate a prop or use the shift e while holding it to straighten it and whatnot. I get why you think it's reasonable to think people know a lot of this stuff already but, I am on the server a lot, and am constantly asked how to do all of the things you said are self explanatory. Going off of what you have stated I would say that about 7/10 people are 'literally retarded', and that I am also 'literally retarded'. I rest my case, and agree with what Legacy said about there being a one time message, and it telling you that you can do !tutorial to bring it up (the video and the step by step playthrough) again. We should also have a periodic message saying you can use !tutorial if you are new to the gamemode! Or something like that.
There really could be no harm throwing in a small spoiler on top of the motd that contains a video. Additionally, we could add in a tip that reminds player that there is a tutorial in the motd.
You have a point there , we can't really help the fact that alot of new people that are new to Garry's Mod itself join the server and don't know the basics.This will always happen on every server and yes it does get annoying after a while. I'm on the fence about the tutorial , it's not really a gmod thing if you know what I mean.The majority of successful server's , including Devinity , are doing just fine without a tutorial. It's really not that hard to learn or to google a tutorial. We could just make a command that link's them to a tutorial video that would work just fine. That's literally how it's been for the past I don't know how many years.
Since we are trying to improve and not just stick with whats been fine for a long time, adding a tutorial that is playable and having a tutorial video to go along with our tutorial will answer many questions and rake in players (or rather keep many players from immediately leaving) helping out the server, community, other players, and staff a lot. Obviously to us googling something or a tutorial would not seem like a hassle, but someone who just joined a server wouldn't really ever want to google something or want to make the effort to look for the information they want/need to play and enjoy the game. I once again rest my case.
You're going into a gmod server with absolutely no idea how gmod physics works, of course you're gonna have a hard time. If you can't be bothered to google "how to use physgun in gmod" then why spend so much time asking other people on the server and having a bad time using only vague hints? Shift tab + "how use physgun" takes 5 seconds. Smart weld is completely explained, and I'm pretty sure I've been on flood longer than you. If you still don't get it, just do trial and error and go from there? Or perhaps, don't use it at all? There is still no point to adding a reward for the tutorial, something as asinine as "maybe it will entice people to take it and people will learn more than what they knew already" isn't strong at all. The tutorial is there for people who don't know how to play the game, not to give people who take the tutorial an advantage of others who start out without taking it. The reward of a tutorial is always knowledge, there shouldn't be an incentive. If a person couldn't be bothered to take it because there is no incentive, then they can just not take it at all. And you might argue, "well some people who didn't know how to play would not be bothered to take it without an incentive" well clearly it's their fault for not giving a shit about how to play the video game. You don't need a complex step by step in-game tutorial for flood, I agree with adding a !tutorial to just describe the basics and what to do and perhaps one or two hints like my original post. But implementing an actual gameplay tutorial in which you perform each step to advance is absolutely absurd. How would you even go about implementing that? Unless you want it to have completely shitty design, it's going to take a lot of time and be generally irritating to add. Adding a playable tutorial is just a complete waste of time and pointless given everything in flood can be explained with words. Like, practically objectively.
My hole issue with the tutorial is I do not see it as a major priority for things to be done in the Flood 2.0 update. So many better things can be worked on than a tutorial. While a tutorial could help newer players, taking the developers time and adding a tutorial is not something I would want over many of the other ideas posted.
Devs don't even need to be involved, I could make a vid in an hour and get someone to put it into the motd
True, but I think he's talking about a full blown interactive tutorial or something that the others seem to be implying, if so I agree with him 100%
@Wolfgang @Mapplesauce I am talking about the entire full blown interactive tutorial, I have seen them on a few servers before, they are terrible. Saying it was only terrible was hard for me to do because I refrained from using a lot of meaner/ harsher words. If we add a simple video that you can watch in !motd or !tutorial (Something along those lines), I am fine. Forcing a player to do something like a tutorial will only be buggy, time inducing, and not needed.
For MappleSauce: "If you can't be bothered to google "how to use physgun in gmod" then why spend so much time asking other people on the server and having a bad time using only vague hints?" ^That's what I'm wondering, except for the fact that I don't give vague hints to other players like I was given. My answer is I don't know why, maybe it just never came to mind, still does not change the fact that other players do it all the time. "There is still no point to adding a reward for the tutorial, something as asinine as "maybe it will entice people to take it and people will learn more than what they knew already" isn't strong at all. The tutorial is there for people who don't know how to play the game, not to give people who take the tutorial an advantage of others who start out without taking it. The reward of a tutorial is always knowledge, there shouldn't be an incentive. If a person couldn't be bothered to take it because there is no incentive, then they can just not take it at all. And you might argue, "well some people who didn't know how to play would not be bothered to take it without an incentive" well clearly it's their fault for not giving a shit about how to play the video game." ^If the tutorial gave you an accessory it would not give anyone an advantage over anyone, and the tutorial is for anyone that feels like watching/experiencing the tutorial, whether they are zipping through it for a playermodel/hat or not. That asinine reason is just an added bonus for support, that's the reason I suggested it, it could be an achievement like suggested in the replies above, NO ONE said that it HAD to be cash, although I suggested, I agreed that if we are not using cash, an accessory/achievement would be just fine. "You don't need a complex step by step in-game tutorial for flood, I agree with adding a !tutorial to just describe the basics and what to do and perhaps one or two hints like my original post. But implementing an actual gameplay tutorial in which you perform each step to advance is absolutely absurd. How would you even go about implementing that? Unless you want it to have completely shitty design, it's going to take a lot of time and be generally irritating to add. Adding a playable tutorial is just a complete waste of time and pointless given everything in flood can be explained with words. Like, practically objectively." ^I don't believe a lot of stuff is 'needed' in flood, people believe that things 'should' be added. I also agree with !tutorial except instead of bringing up a couple small sentences that don't cover a lot of stuff, it could have a video/tutorial covering everything, they could skip through parts on the video if they already knew certain things and just wanted to know one thing in particular, maybe we could even add the option to skip certain parts of the tutorial while in it. I do not believe the idea is absurd. 'How would you even go about implementing that?' That is a good point you have there, but I have no idea in the slightest how to answer for I am not equipped with those skills, maybe dedicate one of the three servers to it, which seems kind of absurd, just putting the idea out there. However, I don't believe you have any knowledge as to whether or not it will be generally irritating to add and take a long time to add either, we would need someone who knows that to tell us, at that point, it may or may not be a waste of time and effort (unless you already know). I do not believe it would be a complete waste of time depending on the previous sentence. ____________________________________________________________________ After thinking about how it would need to be implemented more, it seems to me that maybe a playable tutorial would not be worth the time and effort and I was wrong there, I still %100 support and see no reason why we shouldn't add a tutorial video, although words can tell you how to do it, so can a video, but it also has motion pictures, since creating a video would most likely be easy peasy, that should happen. ____________________________________________________________________ For Derfboy the fish: "My hole issue with the tutorial is I do not see it as a major priority for things to be done in the Flood 2.0 update. So many better things can be worked on than a tutorial. While a tutorial could help newer players, taking the developers time and adding a tutorial is not something I would want over many of the other ideas posted." ^I may not see it as a Flood 2.0 update priority, but most definitely an update priority. Helping newer players not just leave and never come back is a huge deal, the players, what give this whole game and server meaning, is most definitely a priority in my opinion. The developers may not even have to do anything as WolfGang has stated. Also no one said this would be chosen over other ideas, maybe those other ideas and this one would be selected. "I am talking about the entire full blown interactive tutorial, I have seen them on a few servers before, they are terrible. Saying it was only terrible was hard for me to do because I refrained from using a lot of meaner/ harsher words. If we add a simple video that you can watch in !motd or !tutorial (Something along those lines), I am fine. Forcing a player to do something like a tutorial will only be buggy, time inducing, and not needed." ^Just because they are terrible on other servers does NOT mean they will be terrible here. I am glad that you're fine with the tutorial video idea. 'Forcing a player to do something like a tutorial will only be buggy, time inducing, and not needed.' A tutorial would first of all not be forced upon anyone, no one has said anything about it being forced upon someone else, you would not know if it would be buggy and time inducing or not, and once again, no one said it was needed, we believe (or I believe) that it would be a great idea. ____________________________________________________________________ I would just like to say that half of this is quoting and you don't need to read that half.
TL;DR Nah just kidding I read it all. Let's just drop the interactive tutorial idea.It's not as beneficial as you may think it is , the server is going fine as it is without a tutorial and it will only keep getting better. It's honestly too much work and if you think about it , would newer players really want to play through a tutorial and how would this even be implemented due to the nature of the rounds? From the previous replies I came to the conclusion that a video tutorial is the best way to implement a tutorial for new players that will be optionally played for players that join for the first time and after that can be played at any time using the !tutorial command. As for what the command does , we could just make it play one long video , or make an interactive box where players can choose what aspect of the game they are stuck on , or both. This could be easily polled to suit the needs of the players. As for the video itself I can create it unless anyone else wants to do it instead.It would just cover the barebones of Flood ; The 'Q' Menu , Team's and Store's . How to use the Physgun and Gravity Gun , The Toolgun , How to build a basic boat etc. Also Seth that post is long as shit when you look at it on mobile holy crap.
Although I have not yet dropped the interactive tutorial idea, ;P I do believe a video is the best option at this point, I'm not sure whether we should make a new thread or discuss here what exactly should be inside the tutorial video, I personally believe it should be very intricate and make it so you can choose exactly which part you want to watch, either that or just choose from a list of multiple smaller videos. Sorry about the long post, first I was replying to Mapple's long post, then I was replying to Derfboy's two medium posts all in one post rather than a couple posts. ;3
Honestly I don't believe the video should be that intricate. There's no need, once players have the roots of the game they can start to learn new stuff on their own. We don't want to play the game for them, and I doubt they'd be willing to watch all those videos. When I joined I knew how to weld and such, not make architectural masterpieces of boats but by watching other players and taking some initiative I became god at it. That's part of the fun.
@Seth jesus christ that formatting, you could have hit reply and snippet each, like so (insert rebuttal here) Anyway, Ok regardless, implementing an interactive tutorial would make no sense at all, I (and pretty much anyone who's into computing even slightly) know enough to know that creating something like that would be time consuming as hell and in general be impossible to fit on the same server without the UI being awkwardly designed as fuck and completely in disarray. Coding things isn't even nearly as easy as you are implying, this isn't simple scratch or drag and drop programming, its way more plus knowing how to manipulate the physics of the props. Seriously, say we do make an interactive tutorial, can you propose an actual way we can implement it? What would the design be like? What would the formatting be like? Who is going to code the tutorial? How would you be able to do something like that given the limitations of the engine? What plug-ins should we use? How are we even supposed to begin developing this? We aren't gods, we can't just make it happen by telling the computer to make it happen. Also, dedicating a full server to it is completely out of the question and stupid as fuck. Running a server requires a shitton of time and most of all funding. We aren't going to spend money on a full blown server that serves the same purpose of a few lines of text or a 3 minute long video. An interactive tutorial, for a gamemode as simplistic as flood (mak boat shoot othr peopl boat repeat proces), would require a way bigger project, and you aren't suggesting anything about how we can design it at all. I hate to be a dick but thinking this is a plausible idea in the slightest is a complete delusion. This times a million. A lot of the fun in starting out playing Flood is trial and error, and seeing which boats work and which don't. Can you suggest how we can possibly be intricate without the video being filled with extraneous BS? That wouldn't even be a tutorial anymore. A tutorial doesn't explain every single mechanic down to the bone of a game, that's not good game design at all. A tutorial should teach players the essentials, and let the player learn more on their own. For example, the tutorial to csgo teaches the absolute basics, but doesn't include how to control each recoil pattern, not to crouch shoot the instant you see an enemy, smoke spots, etc. If you want to make a video called "Flood knowledge for advanced people" then go ahead (pointless anyway given theres like 3 mechanics in flood), but a tutorial is never intricate/complex. The flood video should be max 3 minutes long, that's more than enough to explain how to combine floaty objects to make a boat in a simple sandbox game that even 8 year olds casually play.
How about 2 videos, a true starter video that teaches you the real basic stuff that a beginner could use and be fine with, and for the more extreme, we could have a second video going a little more in depth with certain stuff. Video 1-Goes over the basics such as welding, the objective of flood, how to win a round, making money, etc. 3-5 minutes Video 2-Going more into the props, weapons, and lesser things a beginner may not care about but could still be important. 5-8 minutes
There is no need for an advanced video because people should watch the beginner tutorial and then learn and improve by themselves.
There really is just no point, having two tutorials in the motd if anything could end up confusing players and we'd end up only putting one in rendering the other one pretty useless. Trust me people who are seeking a tutorial aren't looking to be drowned in flood talk for 8 minutes. They want to get the basics down so the can get back to the server asap and start playing. Not to mention that if those videos took that long (combined lengths of 12 mins) it would kick the player for being afk.
Once again more than half of this post is quoting someone else R.I.P. First I would like to say I still don't understand how to do the snippet thing, please explain it to me like I am two, sorry. Next, "Ok regardless, implementing an interactive tutorial would make no sense at all, I (and pretty much anyone who's into computing even slightly) know enough to know that creating something like that would be time consuming as hell and in general be impossible to fit on the same server without the UI being awkwardly designed as fuck and completely in disarray." ^ I'm not into computing even in the slightest and am clueless to these facts that you know, if that's what they are. "Coding things isn't even nearly as easy as you are implying, this isn't simple scratch or drag and drop programming, its way more plus knowing how to manipulate the physics of the props." ^ I never implied it was easy, not once. "Seriously, say we do make an interactive tutorial, can you propose an actual way we can implement it? What would the design be like? What would the formatting be like? Who is going to code the tutorial? How would you be able to do something like that given the limitations of the engine? What plug-ins should we use? How are we even supposed to begin developing this?" ^I can not answer these questions for, as I said above, I'm not into computing even in the slightest. "We aren't gods, we can't just make it happen by telling the computer to make it happen." ^I never said you were gods, I never said you could make it happen by telling the computer to make it happen, if suggesting what I suggested seemed like I was saying that you were gods and that you could make it happen by telling the computer to make it happen, I am here to tell you that's not what I was saying. "An interactive tutorial, for a gamemode as simplistic as flood (mak boat shoot othr peopl boat repeat proces), would require a way bigger project, and you aren't suggesting anything about how we can design it at all. I hate to be a dick but thinking this is a plausible idea in the slightest is a complete delusion." ^You didn't have to be a dick, you had already said what would a wouldn't work above, if those were true facts. I have attempted suggestion with my minimal knowledge. "Can you suggest how we can possibly be intricate without the video being filled with extraneous BS?" ^ Yes, just don't fill it with extraneous BS. Basically what I'm saying for this, is that we haven't even decided exactly what we're going to put into it yet, and maybe my, barely over what you guys have minimally suggested, ideas, aren't super extraneous? You've been putting lots of words in my mouth and it tastes terrible. "A tutorial doesn't explain every single mechanic down to the bone of a game, that's not good game design at all." ^ I never said it did, and I understand this already. .-. "For example, the tutorial to csgo teaches the absolute basics, but doesn't include how to control each recoil pattern, not to crouch shoot the instant you see an enemy, smoke spots, etc." ^ First off, terrible example, all of those things are way different then what I had in mind, recoil pattern Jesus, I mean seriously? I said very intricate but was not talking about stuff like that. For example, in your little text of how to play, you suggested we could add a dumb, left click to move and right click to freeze, but I think we should also have rotating props explained in the video, also maybe the shift-e straightening technique, to you I thought that would seem, 'very intricate'. "A tutorial should teach players the essentials, and let the player learn more on their own." ^Ok, but I still think we should answer the questions that I am constantly asked on the server, if we made the tutorial have, like, the absolute bare minimum, then the players would still ask me abunch of stuff after watching the tutorial, ruining one of the main reasons the tutorial is being created. Although it may be a simple gamemode, it's not as simple as you're making it out to be. Or atleast for almost everyone on the server, that is. "The flood video should be max 3 minutes long, that's more than enough to explain how to combine floaty objects to make a boat in a simple sandbox game that even 8 year olds casually play." ^Ummm, probably not max 3 minutes long, you'd think maybe we should at the very least we should have the tutorial go trough one round, taking more than 3 minutes, 3 minutes is a ridiculously low amount of time. Also, 8 year olds casually play because they have asked many questions and received many answers, most of the time anyway. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Now, I believe that we should stop doing this, and begin deciding what we're going to put onto the video, one question needs to be answered before we start though, are we doing that here or in another thread?
