Tutorials: What are the best way to do them?

lol, don't get me wrong, I agree. The way the industry and its players have moved away from the older ways bothers me a lot. If this game was being made just for me, I'd say don't tell me how to do anything.

Same. I'd rather not have my hand held through the game, especially when some concepts are a given.

Miriam's abilities for example. I'm sure that the intro into the game will tell those who don't know, that Miriam has been afflicted with the Magic-Crystal Curse. Boom. She can use the CRYSTALIZED abilities of monsters, given she defeats enough of them, and she absorbs their powers. Again, one of those 'a given' circumstances.

In my opinion, anyway. :p

tbh, I'm kinda hoping that the 'in your face stopping whatever you might have just been doing' tutorial was JUST for the demo. It seems kinda outta place in a traditional IGA game. I mean none of the others had that. (With the exception of PoR, which gave SMALL tutorials on how new relics worked, which wasn't too annoying lol)

A) "Lots of people said something is the best, ergo it must be true, said product must be flawless, everything it did was the right way to do thing and there is no way to improve upon it." This seems to be an argument a few people are making? This is TERRIBLE logic. Extend this type of thinking to any other field of life and it would spell the end of human advancement. “Chamber pots are good, why bother with indoor plumbing?”, “The monarchy is great, why try other forms of government?”, “Leeches seem pretty cool, why bother with medical research?”. You can like/love something without deifying it. Acknowledge its flaws and use that as an avenue for iteration and improvement. Game design has evolved and the industry is much larger than it has ever been. Lots of the things that were done in the past were done that way because they couldn’t do better or didn’t know how to do better yet. This is an ideal time for Iga to use everything he has learned as a game designer so far to make the best Igavania he can. Bloodstained will not be the best game it can be by copying all design elements wholesale from a 20 year old game.

B) The inability of some to think outside their bubble and appreciate the needs of those unlike them is a little depressing This is Game Design Theory 101. You obviously want to design the sort of game you and those who think like you want to play but if you want an audience beyond that, you have to think of the needs of others too. There are going to be more people who play this game than just backers – I have no idea where some have some fairy tale dream that backers will be the only/majority players of this game over the years it will exist. If this was a retail game with a standard publisher arrangement and only sold 65k (approx. number of backers) copies lifetime that would be a disaster. I assume Iga wants/expects more out of this game than that. We should too.

In game tutorials have existed in games and been done in ways that both acknowledged the needs of neophytes while not impeding on the fun of the more experienced. There are ways to make everybody happy here – experienced players don’t have to be screwed at all if this is done well. No creative elements or vision has to be sacrificed here either. The goal is to offer feedback to ensure that any tutorials done in this game are done right. Not to debate the merit of the concept of a tutorial.

For my part, if they've got the idea to do it that way then I'm actually pretty interested in what IGA and crew's implementation for it is.

Considering I've even said it would be keen if tutorials were optional/skippable it makes make me question a bit if you read some of the things I've written in here? However multiple posts in here have both denigrated tutorials in general and extolled the virtues of the complete absence of tutorials (including some of yours) so I felt it was important to speak out against. 

Regarding the type of tutorial used, effectiveness is a big concern. If the tutorial isn't good enough at conveying information that is a concern and that seemed to be the feedback Iga was getting at E3. There is a reason he was standing there watching people play his game - he wasn't there just for kicks. If the command prompts weren't doing the job well enough (that at they are often harder to segregated entirely from the gameplay that cutscenes and overdosing on text can be an issue) then that may mean a change up is in order. Tutorials that are interactive and fun tend to be the most successful as well as ones that avoid front-loading information. Sometimes cutscenes can botch those elements so that is a concern of mine - I'm just not sure what would be a comparable game/example to what they want to do. Again, is OoE something they are looking towards (which had interactive and directed elements that even had you engage in a mock battle)?

I never said you didn't say you didn't agree with some of the points made by me or other users. However, you're saying I'm basically saying screw tutorials we don't need them and while I PERSONALLY think that I've also said at various points that they should give the option to turn them on or off. Also I don't even get how the tutorial wasn't good enough. It tells you what to press to perform an action. What more does a tutorial need to accomplish? Lol

I said they could animate the button pressing or make the analog make a spinning animation to get the point across better. Why not do something simple like that instead of make cutscenes just to accomplish the same goals? If you want to please the most people you make it optional imo.

Anyways, I'll be happy either way. I can live with the cutscenes but I'm just saying there's better ways to go about this.

Tutorials are a tricky thing to handle, and I also agree that the "death of the manual" is what really brought them on. I know a lot of us backed the game enough to get a manual but that's more for our nostalgia ans obviously isnt going to be available to the general public.

Someone mentioned Dark Souls and I find that agreeable. Imagine if the Galleon Minerva had Stained Glass Runes on the ground or something to that effect: if you interact with them, you get tutorial messages, or if you know what you're doing you walk right over them and everything's dandy. Its a great way to give newcomers to the game.genre what they need but for veterans we can just get on with our intro level just fine.

Another way would be the Devil May Cry/Fire Emblem method: have a Glossary in the menu itself that explains terms/controls/mechanics etc. Its another way to have the tutorials readily available at all times but not forcefully dumped on you.

I can understand and agree with the concerns of many here. This is hardly my first IGAvania rodeo, I've been doing it for years and I dont need any help aside from the obvious specific/new mechanics like rotating your arm to free-aim spells.

Of course the quickest and dirtiest solution is to just have pop-up messages and at the start of the game ask players if they do or don't want them.

<-- covers it.