Original Post
Main issue — and some additional ones — for learning toribash
Greetings, this is an expression of my toribash experience which I think would have helped me in the beginning of my own toribash journey. And which I think might be useful to you.
This will not solve all the possible troubles you might find yourself in, but it might give you a direction. Also, this will be focused only on how to play the game and not how to achieve victory. Specifically and hopefully, learning how to convert your lifetime knowledge of moving your body to the game.
So, let me go through problems that we meet while learning the game. Some of those are less important that the others, but they still matter.
You may find useful this script for personally experiencing how ghost warps our play.
This will not solve all the possible troubles you might find yourself in, but it might give you a direction. Also, this will be focused only on how to play the game and not how to achieve victory. Specifically and hopefully, learning how to convert your lifetime knowledge of moving your body to the game.
So, let me go through problems that we meet while learning the game. Some of those are less important that the others, but they still matter.
- Playing high turn frames mods first. Even worse would be playing with small reaction time. Why? As a new player, one does not know deep enough how to move at all, and in that condition is forced to perform complex actions under no time. Imagine trying to run when you do not know how to crawl. All that while being timed. Turn frames are directly opposite to control.
- Not knowing what are you doing AND what your tori is capable of doing. Clicking the joints randomly is detrimental both to learning and to playing. Also related to this is making a change each single turn.
- The most important issue, which slows down progress the most: trusting ghost. Not because it actually lies sometimes, but because, in most cases, more than a half of what it shows is useless. As an example, consider xspar.tbm. Default ghost shows you the next 100 frames, whereas you spend 10 per turn. Catching by eye the exact position your tori would be in is difficult. And what do you even need those 90 remaining frames for? Even worse, those remaining frames make players discard valid moves because they look like one would fall onto the floor face first in no time, whereas one can stop the movement next turn.
- Learn from basics to more complex movements, ideally with small turn frames set AND without a timer at first. Why? Consider real life, we, while this is a stretch, move with 1 turn frame each single moment of life. A mistake that our equivalent of ghost(physical senses) shows us is corrected almost instantly. But playing with more turn frames demands not making mistakes in the first place.
- Learning the basics of joints and setting intentions. Sounds obvious, but at times if you ask yourself what joints are absolutely essential for a move and what joints are only supplementary you might find out that you do unnecessary things. Without intentions, you would be unable to know what joints are needed for the movement since you do not know what the movement even is. Even "I want to jump around without falling" is better than nothing, the more defined it is the better it would be.
You may find useful this script for personally experiencing how ghost warps our play.
extremely based post, i touched on similar things in a reply from a year ago, excuse my poor writing
yeah this is a big one, more frames in between control = less agency, which is funnily counterintuitive since we want to build intuition for the player between the agency they have over their limbs and the movement/goal they want to execute. the cliche "it works like irl, just imagine the movement" is ineffective as a heuristic because we don't give the player an environment that has analogous movement to what they're used to irl, making it far harder to interface with. i don't mean to be elitist - ABD, aikido, boxshu, and classic have all been fun, depthful mods to me - but you're asking the new player to not only learn the mechanics of Toribash, but also learn a completely abstract style of movement. it compounds the lack of intuition they're already wrestling with
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
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
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 a game. i think that one solid way this intentionality is built up is when the player can engage with a straightforward goal -> idea/action -> refine idea towards goal, or goal itself gameplay 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
Originally Posted by Insolentia
- Playing high turn frames mods first. Even worse would be playing with small reaction time. Why? As a new player, one does not know deep enough how to move at all, and in that condition is forced to perform complex actions under no time. Imagine trying to run when you do not know how to crawl. All that while being timed. Turn frames are directly opposite to control.
yeah this is a big one, more frames in between control = less agency, which is funnily counterintuitive since we want to build intuition for the player between the agency they have over their limbs and the movement/goal they want to execute. the cliche "it works like irl, just imagine the movement" is ineffective as a heuristic because we don't give the player an environment that has analogous movement to what they're used to irl, making it far harder to interface with. i don't mean to be elitist - ABD, aikido, boxshu, and classic have all been fun, depthful mods to me - but you're asking the new player to not only learn the mechanics of Toribash, but also learn a completely abstract style of movement. it compounds the lack of intuition they're already wrestling with
Originally Posted by Insolentia
- Not knowing what are you doing AND what your tori is capable of doing. Clicking the joints randomly is detrimental both to learning and to playing. Also related to this is making a change each single turn.
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
Originally Posted by Insolentia
- The most important issue, which slows down progress the most: trusting ghost. Not because it actually lies sometimes, but because, in most cases, more than a half of what it shows is useless. As an example, consider xspar.tbm. Default ghost shows you the next 100 frames, whereas you spend 10 per turn. Catching by eye the exact position your tori would be in is difficult. And what do you even need those 90 remaining frames for? Even worse, those remaining frames make players discard valid moves because they look like one would fall onto the floor face first in no time, whereas one can stop the movement next turn.
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
Originally Posted by Insolentia
For the first two issues the solutions are simple:
- Learn from basics to more complex movements, ideally with small turn frames set AND without a timer at first. Why? Consider real life, we, while this is a stretch, move with 1 turn frame each single moment of life. A mistake that our equivalent of ghost(physical senses) shows us is corrected almost instantly. But playing with more turn frames demands not making mistakes in the first place.
- Learning the basics of joints and setting intentions. Sounds obvious, but at times if you ask yourself what joints are absolutely essential for a move and what joints are only supplementary you might find out that you do unnecessary things. Without intentions, you would be unable to know what joints are needed for the movement since you do not know what the movement even is. Even "I want to jump around without falling" is better than nothing, the more defined it is the better it would be.
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 a game. i think that one solid way this intentionality is built up is when the player can engage with a straightforward goal -> idea/action -> refine idea towards goal, or goal itself gameplay 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
Last edited by jsph; 3 Weeks Ago at 09:27 PM.
As TLDR: Agreed on all points, not much to add.
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.
That one was the second reason I posted this, however incomplete the post itself is.
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.
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.
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.
Originally Posted by Insolentia
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.
ooh that makes sense, I think was conflating too much of this post with the discussion I linked from a year ago. the actual topic you were originally getting at is just as interesting imo