MythoLogic Interactive Forums

I believe I had commented my concern regarding this issue on an already existing thread, however it deserves its own.

I will start this off with a little personal anecdote. I had a little free time so I had opened up Superfighters Deluxe and started playing with 2 bots. A buddy of mine from my college dorm saw the game I was playing and was interested. He asked if he could try a couple times so I let him. I had attempted to tell him the basic controls. He had at this point been still playing under my configuration of Two expert bots on a team versus myself. He had been struggling a lot, and I had remembered that this configuration may not be suitable for a beginner. I had changed it to an easy bot for him and he had still be struggling an extraordinary amount. It was at last I had sent him to the tutorial to get the basic gist of what is expected from him. Immediately they were overwhelmed with the amount of controls present within the game. He had trouble doing some of the most basic tasks. He had read the instructions out loud, attempted to do it, and miserably fail. The ladders for example. He was probably trying to get up that ladder for 30 seconds, which is nuts. It is such simple platforming for those who play the game. The next significant moment was with melee. He had not a single idea what he was doing. It got to a point where he did not realize how to grab punch and group through, and he was literally just punching this guy for a good 2 minutes. I had not noticed as I was talking with my roommate, until he turns to me frustrated and asks, "How do i kill this guy?". I then told him to just read the directions. For some reason he just was not understanding the instructions given to him. I had to tell him the keys to press myself, and in what order. I think it was the order of the keys that was confusing to him. I think he was attempting to press the keys at the same time. There was the knife catching segment, where it took him a bunch of tries. He did not know he had to time it. He thought if you just held D he would be capable of catching it. There is also the situation with the box where I had to tell him how and where to move the box. There is also the case when you got the guns. He had no idea how to aim upwards. He had been trying to hip fire these targets the entire time. This I vividly recall pointing at the direction on the screen telling them how to aim. This was the same for the grenades. He could not figure out how to cook, aim, and throw the grenade at the same time.

Moral of the story, this "New Player" had no idea what he was doing even in the tutorial. Sure... this case is anecdotal, and likely not representative of everyone individual who wants to try the game, however if you look up videos of people on YouTube, or even some of the negative reviews on steam, you will see this is the common theme surrounding the negativity. I can't tell you how many times I have seen people literally run on fire not knowing how to put it out. The game is incredibly complex, and I personally love that, however with a complex game like this, you really need to hold the hands of the New Player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aFvVgHQsis
Don't ask why I did a speed run of the tutorial... I don't know why either

Don't Get me wrong, I love the new Aesthetics and style of the tutorial when the game released, however I have come to realize that the overall effectiveness of the old tutorial was superior to that of the new tutorial. With the old tutorial, they seemed to hold your hand a lot more. It rewarded you with a positive jingle when you have completed something correctly. In present, you can do something right, but have no idea you are doing it right. The fighting scene for example, you don't know if it is telling you random moves, or if they actually want you to do said moves. Even I when I play the tutorial randomly, I think to myself "Why isn't tutorial progressing". It feels like I am doing the incorrect moves if the tutorial remains in the same state, and as a result, the new player may try a different move, either what they were told in the past, or spam some random buttons until they get it.

Then there is the Campaigns. The single player experience is great for a new player. The veterans know what they are doing, and for someone getting used to the controls, it is good to feel out how the bots play and get used to it. I believe it was @KliPeH who really stressed this issue, and I could not agree more. What leaves me disdained is... Why did you make the hardest Campaign the first one in the list? Don't get me wrong, I understand why it is the first in terms of the timeline and the story, however I'm just confused as to why it was made so difficult (I cant speak for everyone, but that was the most difficult for me). This type of behavior deters the new player from trying out the single player experience, which is the first step!

Before the challenges are mentioned, I am aware they exist, and I am aware there is a decent curve, however I think this curve should be even less steep. I feel like the hands really need to be held for these individuals to get them accustomed to the control and finally work their way up the ladder. What we see now is that they are stuck on the bottom, and have absolutely no helping hand to get up other than a tutorial that at times can be very confusing.
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Anyways, that is all I have to say. If you think I missed anything let me know.

I think what would really help is a setting that is sort of like training wheels for a new player, maybe like displaying controls and button combinations In game. I can totally see what you are saying and maybe there can be more things than just a tutorial, or the tutorial could be improved.

Well, i certainly hope there are other people who catch up quicker. I asked a few people online if they thought the tutorial was hard, most people said it was easy.
But thinking about it, going throught the new tutorial a second time, i have come to see that i too have to agree that the old tutorial actually had a deeper learning, and i think you got to learn more. The new one is very nice and kind of fun, but i feel like its going way to quickly. The old tutorial was much more concrete in your tasks. I also like how it was on only 1 map, very basic, and not many different map segments. They also told you specific things like ledgegrabbing, that you can knock people down ladders underneath. Also the CPU was standing still during the attacking, it was a lot easier to focus on the writing and what to do. Now the CPU chases you and makes New Players panic, players who aren't familiar with blocks even. The old tutorial also informed you that you are defenseless after air attacks. All in all, i feel like old tutorial was a much better teacher, while the new one kind of only rushes you throught it.

So summed up:
The old Tutorial - More of an actual tutorial to get familiar with controls and stuff, in a static and non changing enviroment. It gave New Players more time to get familiar and use the enviroment creatively and learning at their own pace. More informational too.

The new Tutorial - More of an actual walktrough and demonstration of the game and how it looks. Less focus on actual repetition and learning. It feels more like a big parkour map, with some random melee fight and gun segments.
Also, the fight with the general, it is a nice idea, but it could just as well have been a separate boss challenge of higher difficulty, not really sure what it has to do at the begining of a tutorial.

For the challenges, i'm surprised that the bots in first lever on easy already can block, and that there are 2! I thought this was for real New Players. And then the next challenge there are 3??? Then 4, and these bots can block, corner and spam you... (not challenging for a veteran, but very for a New Player, who does not even know controls very well.) This is actually frustrating for someone who barely knows block. Worse, he can't even use cosmetics cos they are locked until he can safely learn this game. It would have been much improved, if the New Player plays easy challenges at the beginning and then unlocks a bunch of stuff that is really cool looking. This would trigger a positive reward system, for doing the then harder challenges. I mean the last few are pretty insane. As the system is now, its pretty much just running away from bots and hope they kill themselves (i'm still uncertain if this is actually by design???)