As TLDR: Agreed on all points, not much to add.
Originally Posted by
jsph
extremely based post
Exactly, mine is only a
baseline that is quite strongly biased toward control, maybe even more than it should be, forgetting to specify some details. Thankfully, you did it instead with your reply.
Originally Posted by
jsph
yup, i strongly disagree when people say there's no way to make better tutorials for Toribash. to me, tutorials and guides are often ineffective because they're usually just teaching moves, not giving the player tools to be able to solve a position for themselves. it's like trying to teach someone chess by only showing them a sequence that lead to a checkmate
That one was the second reason I posted this, however incomplete the post itself is.
Originally Posted by
jsph
exhibit A of what i mentioned above, learning to parse your ghost is one of the most fundamental things you need to learn to play, it's literally just as simple as "where am i going to end up after some amount of frames pass in this sequence", which then the player may consider "what can i do out of the position after". i wouldn't necessarily say ghostlengths that go on somewhat longer after the turn interrupt are useless though, even in singleplayer that little bit more it gives can help in grasping your momentum and how it's affected by your limbs as they move throughout their range of motion
Maybe they are not useless, but the main point is that ghost is overloaded with information, which brings more harm than benefit to a new player. Still, you stressed it, I will stress again:
parsing ghost correctly is fundamental.
Originally Posted by
jsph
we're sort of on the same page here, but i think it should be noted that to a new player, having agency every single frame (which can feel like a drag, if we're being honest) contests with setting intentions. it's giving a lot more room to contradict what you were doing before, changing what you've committed to sporadically - it makes it harder to establish a direction and go with it, basically. you're giving this agency to someone who hasn't built this intentionality yet, which draws the parallel to asking a child to have fun with a blank piece of paper and a pencil. sure, they can, but i wouldn't call that much of agame. i think that one solid way this intentionality is built up is when the player can engage with a straightforwardgoal -> idea/action -> refine idea towards goal, or goal itselfgameplay loop. IMO there's a ton of different setups and situations that people can come up with that have this dynamic for beginners to engage with
Best point of all. Moreover, correct for teachers and players both.
Barring the drag part, which is true, and situations that people can come up with, which is doubly true, I want players to approach setting intentions on their own. The post is not about the game retaining a player nor about getting/retaining motivation to play the game — those are a separate concern — but only about what hinders us the most from learning to convert real life knowledge to the game movement.
Thank you for your reply.