Usage of Beginner levels in a mod

I've taken my opinion on the usage of beginner/tutorial levels in mods to another topic in order not to bog down and take attention from MBStop's own mod topic.

The discussion in that topic pretty much went as follows:

Rosalyn wrote: First off (and I'll make this short and sweet), we don't need tutorial levels!
Yes, I understand this was started quite some time ago, but with Marble Blast Gold, Platinum, Fubar (kinda doesn't count), and other mods like Emerald and Future, I've learned more than 5 times how to jump and use a PowerUp. I don't want to learn. I know how to play the game.
I can 99.999% guarantee you beginners will learn the Marble Blast skills through either Gold or Platinum.

Derpking wrote: Well, part of the reason why we generally discourage tutorial levels in mods around here is because mod creators tend to start with them and then get hung up trying to make a good tutorial and never actually finish their mod.

J@ckrb wrote: I am conflicted on whether to include beginner levels or not, but on the whole I think they are discouraged as a means to focus on the other, bigger levels that have a more important role than the easier levels. Because this is complete and features plenty of levels aside from beginner levels I don't think they are entirely wasted.

The addition of beginner/tutorial levels in *any* mod was pretty much frowned upon because it wasted more than it added:
- It adds 20-something levels to the overall count of levels in the mod
- Does not add actual gameplay or depth to the mod
- We already know how to play... please...

The upside is what both Aayrl and Jiquor went for: non-marble blast players won't know how to play and don't have Gold/Platinum as a reliance, so it needs to teach them.
I haven't played MBStop so I can't speak for it, but from my talks with Aayrl he gave Fubar to pretty much hunderds of random people and got them to play the beginners. He fine-toned them so they will learn what is needed, and he did the same to a lot of other levels. Needless to say, he went for the casual gamer and thus the game turned out the way it did.

For PlatinumQuest, we also wanted the basic understanding of the game, but we didn't want to linger on it very much. We ended up combining 19 introduction levels (movement, hazards, frictions and more) into 4 levels, and even added three new features into the mix. These are the only tutorials you get in case you haven't played Gold/Platinum, and they suffice as far as we're concerned. The advanced techniques went into another small level that strictly taught you the 'advanced stuff' PQ asks you for, and stops there.
We definitely haven't gone the casual way that Fubar did, but we didn't go the "pros only" of MBP. We settled for a nice middle-ground.

Anyhow, it is really up to the mod's devs to decide how to go. For the players of this community, we don't really want to replay those 20 levels, but for the outside player, they are necessary.

Also I don't speak for any other members of the Platinum Team, as it would be a challenge to do so.

Here's my suggestion...

If you don't even know what difficulty of levels you want you shouldn't even start a mod yet.

Thanks Matan. I'm also trying to get the word out.

Matan; if you play MBStop; I'd love to see recordings of your shortcuts and times when you find them.
I bet you can beat mine; but can you find all the octagons?

Chiming in, as IsraeliRD captured the major reasons for the Tutorial levels in Fubar --

Way back in 2008/2009, when I was starting to get some feedback on the actual gameplay of Fubar, I had the unique opportunity to pursue the project as part of one of my college courses. Part of the course required peer reviews, so I actually had access to a computer lab of maybe 10 or 20 workstations and I preloaded each of them with Fubar. I then had around 100-200 students, at random, sit down and play a couple of the levels, with no prior experience with the game beforehand (to my knowledge).

The results I found were shocking - most folks weren't able to play past the first few beginner levels in Fubar. They were not accustomed to player movement, they had no working knowledge of how PowerUps worked, or the purpose of the game, the hazards to avoid, etc.

This motivated me to build 20ish Tutorial Levels, and again I had another sampling of around 100 students test the game a few months later, but this time, they were required to play the Tutorial Levels first. The results? Players were much more aware of the game mechanics and had a much more enjoyable experience as they found most of the Tutorial Levels fairly easy to complete. The catch? Most of them found Tutorial levels monotonous after playing through 10 or 12 of them. Granted, they were then able to complete some of the Beginner levels and explored the more fascinating mechanics of Fubar.

To this day, I'm still contemplating Tutorial Levels in Fubar and their purpose. I've gone back and forth between merging all of the levels into a small sampling of maybe five levels (as the PlatinumQuest team has done), and even removing experience gains / tokens from these levels entirely to discourage players from "grinding" simple platform levels.

There is no simple answer here. You have to decide on your mod's audience. In this case, I'm tuning the entry level content to the casual or even beginner player, because I find I can make more players enjoy a game if there is a wider variety of difficulties involved. Nothing frustrates new players more than only having a single level they can actually complete simply because they lacked the time commitment to garnish their epic skills to be able to complete Platinum's Intermediate or Advanced levels.

Bottom line, construct, test, receive feedback, tune, and repeat. Don't give up or be discouraged because half of the players here do not agree with your design philosophies. Design the game how YOU would like to play it, and how YOU think your peers would enjoy it.

~Aayrl