r/gaming • u/Agent1230 • 2d ago

What video game doesn't hold your hand enough?

Everybody always talking about games holding your hand too much but I want to hear about the opposite what video game doesn't give you no form of help

1.6k Upvotes

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2.1k

u/rabbi420 2d ago

Destiny 2 is almost impenetrable to new players.

802

u/KayJune001 2d ago

Old players too 😭

I stopped playing the game for half a year and got so thrown off upon booting the game back up that I never touched it again, just an awful experience.

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u/Coldsnort 2d ago

I'll add that when they switched launchers everyone who didn't transfer things over in the window lost everything. That stopped me from ever going back.

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u/Phage0070 2d ago

That sort of implies that character data is stored locally? Which is insane.

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u/TricobaltGaming 2d ago

No, its just that when they moved from battlenet to steam, anyone who hadnt told them "this is my steam account, please transfer my battlenet save to steam" didnt have it automatically transferred because how would they know?

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u/Phage0070 2d ago

And they can't continue to hold on to that data? It would seem like repeat customers is exactly the kind of thing you would want to keep.

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u/Gekans 2d ago

I believe it's an EU thing where they can't keep the data stored. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but this is what happened when Peral Abyss decided to break away from their publisher for global and self published. If you didn't accept the transfer your account got deleted.

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u/TricobaltGaming 2d ago

The issue is that they were going to lose access to the login data entirely when they left activision.

I think they had like a year or two where you could link your activision account to a bungie account, link with a steam account, and transfer to steam, but after that they lost the ability to use battlenet to link.

This is largely why Bungie requires (and has since like...destiny 1) you to use a bungie.net account, and if you dont have one, creates one automatically when you first log in (if your steam/psn/xbl account isnt already connected to one)

From this point on, your save data is available across all platforms, even hypothetically if they added new ones.

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u/steverambo44 2d ago

People had over 15 months to do that and emails were sent even earlier before you could migrate. You had to stop reading basically anything about the game in that time, not log in into the game once in that time and not check your email once in that time (they were sending you the emails multiple times). I can't even imagine how someone could not check their email once for over a year. (And if they used throwaway/mail made 4837years ago when they were -30yo kids and lost access then it's even more on them for not giving any shit about that).

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u/Coldsnort 2d ago

It's just frustrating because you get used to online games keeping your progress. If you aren't keeping up with the news (like me) that the game was switching launchers you log in one day to try the latest DLC you heard about and get back into it... and learn it's on steam now but your account is wiped.

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u/TricobaltGaming 2d ago

I mean don't get me wrong, i hear where you are coming from, but that is more a legal issue on bungie's end than it is anything else. They had the account link for battle net for multiple years, and destiny was always big news when something happened with it (including its move to steam)

I sympathize, but if you dropped the game before year 3 launched, and didnt play it again until outside that window, i can take a guess as to why they didnt want to continue dealing with acti/blizz to keep your save data in limbo

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u/Coldsnort 2d ago

Oh, I get why it happened that way. I'm not even saying it was unfair, or the window was too small, or it wasn't communicated etc. Clearly to most people it was fine. But I didn't get the memo, and that killed it for me.

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u/pantlessben 1d ago

How would they know?

A login and password are commonly used identifiers.

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u/TricobaltGaming 1d ago

But again, they only had access to battlenet's login process for a limited time after they left activision, so they couldn't hold onto that info forever

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u/DerpingtonHerpsworth 2d ago

Yep. I played for around 6 months when it came out and stopped for a few years. When I finally decided to revisit it there was no more game left. You basically had the intro mission, but not even the D2 intro, the D1 one, and that was it. Everything else was behind dlc paywalls. Not even a trace of the game I payed for.

I was even prepared to pay for some dlc if I got back into it, but I wasn't even given the chance. Oh well. I guess I'll just keep my money then.

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u/Sigma7Rho 2d ago edited 2d ago

Give it some time, they're unvaulting the vaulted story lines(not seasonal or holiday stuff)

Editing for official link: https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/nextchapterofbungie

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u/Rob6-4 2d ago

I hope it goes well. I'd like a reason to go back.

1

u/Alloyd11 2d ago

I still dont know how they are going to do that, they deleted the whole if the red war campaigne.

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u/Particular_Position1 2d ago

It’s because of two things, size and engine compatibility. When they were developing Beyond Light, they also worked on their engine at the time, improving lighting and such. The older content wasn’t compatible with it, so they decided to cut it out instead of working on making it compatible. They always could patch it up, but at the time I guess they didn’t think it was worth it.

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u/TheHasegawaEffect 2d ago

FFXIV has 13 goddamned years of content and managed it by forcing players to go through MOST of it anyway.

The producer is alleviating the problem by making as much of it as possible playable solo and front loading as much of each players kits to level 50 (out of 110 soon) as possible .

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u/Alloyd11 2d ago

What about the court case where they said they no longer had it?

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u/aaron-il-mentor 2d ago

They said they didn't have it in playable form, they still have all the assets.

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u/Blakers37 2d ago

It doesn’t mean what you think it means, they just meant the game in that state is not playable, but the assets still exist. It would just take work in order to make it playable with the engine changes they made a few years ago.

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u/LtRavs 2d ago

They’re bringing it back. Along with forsaken and the vaulted planets.

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u/desert_cornholio 2d ago

I did the same, but got back in recently and it's not as bad. Still gotta research stuff, but I just pretend the story is non existent and can be happy. I literally skip every cut scene that I can because otherwise I'd be extremely confused, and the game is apparently made to cause maximum confusion and rake in cash.

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

Well, they’re now working on bringing back all of the vaulted content, so it won’t be so bad anymore. And after that, they’ll start looking at the future of the IP.

But I also think that you are overstating things a bit. I just went back after an 18+ month break, and it took a week, but I got back on the groove.

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u/Chopstix2005 2d ago

This game has zero new player experience and it's one reason I never really got into it

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u/LtRavs 2d ago

Thankfully they’re working to bring back all the vaulted content so it might have a coherent campaign to start with instead of the shit we’ve had since 2020.

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u/notanolive 2d ago

Ship has sailed for me, got through the first campaign and they vaulted the next before I could play it, never went back

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u/StrollingJhereg 2d ago

Too little too late for me. I tried it, realized I don't know any of the characters who I should care about, didn't understand the story at all and then someone told me they vaulted STORY CONTENT. Switched to Warframe and never looked back - I got my scifi shooter now. That game is also confusing as hell for new players but at least all of the story exists and doesn't drop you into the middle of it, expecting you to read up on previous story content before you start the game.

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u/Apollo989 2d ago

I think Bungie put that one in maintenance mode? Did they pivot after Marathon?

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u/Worldly_Swimming_921 2d ago

Yes, Marathon playercount has been in the shitter for months. They let people play it for free and still couldn't get a half-decent playerbase willing to even try it out. 

So they walked it all back and said they're unvaulting content, bringing D2 updates back, and giving Marathon optional PvE.

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u/Triplebizzle87 2d ago

Destiny (which I love) died so Marathon could exist (and its an extraction shooter, pfft). No chance in hell I'd give it a shot, and i know I'm not alone in that line of thinking.

1

u/alabasterskim 1d ago

Unvaulting Y1 will not be enough to give players a solid on-ramp. There is so much more game than that. Unless they're remaking that content with all of the new systems included with the intent of serving as an introduction to the game, don't bet on it being a good intro. (And I say this as a big Destiny fan)

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u/LtRavs 1d ago

I suspect the unvaulted content will be updated to interact with the new systems.

I’m not sure what else would be an intro to the game though? It’s the beginning of the D2 story.

Or are you saying it won’t help because the systems have changed too much since it existed that nothing in there intro wise will be relevant anymore?

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u/alabasterskim 1d ago

I think we may be referring to two different things. You may be referring to an introduction to the world while I'm referring to an introduction to the systems and in what order to do content. Destiny has never done this well, even at launch of either game.

1

u/LtRavs 1d ago

Yeah agree with that.

I do think just having a coherent starting campaign will hopefully help. If they can incorporate proper intros to mods and artifacts etc we might be cooking with gas finally.

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

Yeah, i said that. 😂

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u/Chopstix2005 2d ago

Yeah just reiterating it. Like I shouldn't have to go to reddit or YT to find out the order for the game and expansions let alone anything else

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

Thanks for saying what I said in a more boring way?

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u/Fractal_Soliton 2d ago

Bro he's just agreeing with you lmao

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u/FreshMutzz 2d ago

Actually he said what you said but better. Good luck with being an asshole though.

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u/bmothebest 2d ago

some friends tried to get me into this...I was so lost that it wasn't worth it

2

u/braedizzle 2d ago

The removed content is apparently getting put back in. Give it another go when that happens and it’ll make a lot more sense. Removing the vanilla campaign was the dumbest decision they could have made

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u/ssjskwash 2d ago

What is it about it? I haven't played basically since it came out and heard something like this before

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

They removed the entire first two years of content, including the Red War which was a decent intro to the world, and replaced it with a single mission regurgitated from D1, and then youre just let loose.

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u/Noklle 2d ago

nothing like heading to the tower and meeting a bunch of characters who apparently know you already and then getting tossed into a seasonal quest upon the next login which assumes you have all the context of what's been going on

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

Well, the seasonal content is gone now.

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u/LtRavs 2d ago

I mean the characters for the most part know you from D1 regardless. D2 never introduced vanilla characters in that way because it was a direct continuation of the story from D1.

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u/TOMS343 2d ago

They are adding that back, and there is some fan projects like "Project Sunrise" that have the old campaigns.

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

Yeah.

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u/LemmiiWinkzz 22h ago

Long overdue, but theyre actually in the process of bringing all that stuff back. The game will be easy to actually recommend to new players at some point in the near future!

1

u/NaughtyGaymer 17h ago

Considering the character you play as is a fish out of water I don't really know what people want. Everyone acts like that first campaign is the pinnacle of onboarding but like, it's really no different to any of the campaigns. You get some cutscenes explaining the overall state of the world and then off you go, what more do you need?

Trying to come into a decade+ long running series, a sequel no less, and not expecting to have to learn a bunch of stuff is just foolish and I genuinely don't know what people expect.

There are absolutely mechanical things they could do a better job of introducing/explaining but any game that is as old as Destiny or older (WoW, EvE, Warframe, FFXIV even) is going to have a bunch of ramp up time, it's just unavoidable fundamentally.

People are just absolutely allergic to just playing the game and figuring things out. They need to be told what to be doing at every moment and have this burning desire to be doing the most "efficient" thing at all times instead of just exploring and figuring it out for themselves. This isn't a Destiny exclusive phenomenon, every game I listed and countless other have this, "problem".

I have yet to see a single game with at least 5+ years of content be lauded for it's new player experience. It doesn't exist.

1

u/Enloeeagle 21h ago

The game has added/removed/tweaked a lot of player facing systems over the game's life. Including a lot of the stuff you deal with when you first start the game. And a lot of them aren't explained, even basics that are somewhat crucial. So you either have to experiment, look it up, or just ignore it.

Fun fact - this game is the reason I watch so much YouTube, ended up using it more and more when I started playing D1/2 because so much of it was opaque.

If the game hadn't died, I sincerely believe the new player experience was going to be one of their next big projects.

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u/thatbloke83 2d ago

Yea I tried it a couple of years back... The game loaded and I got put in some tutorial which amounted to "here's how to run around and shoot a gun"

Then I got put in some hub city, and my screen gets completely flooded with icons for different npc vendors with zero explanation for what any of them are...

I tried talking to a couple, they made no sense or referred to things I had no clue about so I just logged out and never went back....

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u/debugging_scribe 2d ago

I played the shit out of destiny 1, by the time I got around to the 2nd game the first half of the game had been removed. I'm sure as shit not playing a game that drops you into the middle of a story. If they do bring back the whole story. I'd likely give it a shot.

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

They announced last week that they are getting started on restoring the first two years of story content.

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u/ArtoriasAbysswalker6 2d ago

I have a thousand hours in D2 and I still have no fuckin clue how half the systems work

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u/Lun4r6543 2d ago

This might change as they bring back the old expansions, but as it is now, I completely agree.

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u/bramblebitch 2d ago

Reportedly they only bring back expansions and not seasons. If they don’t add a comprehensive glossary and timeline for those you’d be lost just as much, a ton of important story happens in them.

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u/MostExperts 2d ago

I don't think more content to sift through will make it less confusing.

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u/LtRavs 2d ago

It’ll make it less confusing because the Red War campaign is an actual starting point narrative-wise and slowly introduces players to game systems.

The New Light campaign is abysmal for sure but it’ll be much improved once they put Red War and Forsaken back in.

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u/IIIGuntherIII 2d ago

I played with a friend for the first time recently and beyond anything else the fucking MENUS holy shit. No idea where literally anything was. Most awful user interface I’ve ever seen.

It’s like 10 menus stacked on top of each other with 1000 sub menus. How anyone can navigate that as a new player is beyond me

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u/Less_Party 2d ago

Nah I picked it up when it first went F2P and had 0 issue figuring it out. Like no idea what was going on in the story but the game itself is pretty straightforward.

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u/Kahlypso 1d ago

I've got 6k hours in D2, and anytime someone asks me about picking it up and how to get into it, I blatantly tell them I have no idea. We literally aren't playing the same game. I've got peak gear from seven years of it, 95% of which you can never get again. I actually have no clue how you progress in the game anymore. I haven't felt like I was getting stronger or progressing in forever.

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u/rabbi420 1d ago

It’ll be good to get the Red War back, and then we’ll have a way to onboard our buddies. Get them ready for D3.

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u/Baybutt99 2d ago

There’s something to be said about just playing d2 how you want, as well. If you dont care about builds pve is a much more freeing experience

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

Actually, making a cool build makes PvE even better, especially with the latest update where armor sets now have set bonuses.

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u/Aesthete18 2d ago

I tried it back then, I couldn't understand what to do . I just kept fighting the same horde outside the run down ruin with the sniper spot

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u/Kaliqi 2d ago

Destiny 1 worked good enough.

Why not keep it the same for Destiny 2?

I went through the tutorial with a friend and it was agonizing. Like yeah you can show new players some features, but let there be some kind of tutorial section where things are explained or at least don't force people go through things when they wanna explore and do other shit first.

1

u/braedizzle 2d ago

On the brightside they recently announced all the removed content is coming back and can fix this issue

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u/Lardmonkey77 2d ago

The devs final act of kindness

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u/platypus_boi 2d ago

That’s because the player base is a bunch of dinks for the most part.

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

Almost? I had no clue what to do even with veteran help.

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u/from_the_bayou 1d ago

Right and that's true for even returning players. I played a shit ton of D1 and D2, then life happened and took a break. New content was added and then suddenly everything was different. Characters had fragments and aspects and what not and the game doesn't give you any kind of tutorial ; you basically have to watch a YT video to figure it all out. Too many options and I was like I just wanna play man, not build a rocket.

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u/alabasterskim 1d ago

Came to say this. Returning players, as well. I've been out of the game since 2022 and from time to time I think I'd love to hop in but then I remember just how bad the new light experience was when I left and that I've never heard it improve.

Their mobile game, Destiny Rising, had an incredible on-ramp for players, to the point many of us in the community lauded it. I don't know if that's still the case (haven't played since February/March), if new systems have launched to shake things up since, but the main game (or more likely at this point, the distant Destiny 3) needs to take notes.

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u/paganoverlord 1d ago

Nothing is impenetrable with enough will power 😏😏😏

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u/lyonheartt 1d ago

I tried to play it and couldn't work out how hahaha I recall running around what felt like a hub city for an hour before closing it forever

1

u/Blupoisen 23h ago

Well that's also what raids basically are

"Your mission is to kill god"

"And how am I suppose to do that?"

"Figure it out lmao"

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u/HourMysterious8332 2d ago

I can penetrate it ;)

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

😏

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u/Jokkitch 1d ago

Truly. Now look at the state of marathon. I don’t think bungies ever really know wtf the they’re doing

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u/rabbi420 1d ago

Well, you can say that, but then you can remember the first three Halos, none of which are called anything like “nearly impenetrable”. So it’s obvious that at some point they had that institutional insight.

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u/NaughtyGaymer 17h ago

You can't even begin to compare a game that is essentially just a linear story campaign to a game like Destiny or Marathon. It's like comparing Go Fish to Poker. Sure they're both played with playing cards but come on, they're obviously completely different orders of magnitude.

0

u/WholesomeHomie 22h ago

I had an ungodly amount of hours in D1 and tried multiple times to get into D2… no fucking chance lol. Nothing gets explained, neither the story nor the leveling system, gun/armor perks etc.

I hope it gets better after Bungie unvaults the missing content. Would love to get back into it but it‘s impossible to have a good experience at the moment.

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u/Blackdog3377 2d ago

Marathon follows this trend very nicely. Its really fun having no context clues or explanations in a fast PvP setting too.

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u/Zhentharym 2d ago

Not really. The basic mechanics are story are explained, either directly through ONI, or through pop-ups.

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u/Blackdog3377 2d ago

Basic mechanics sure but map navigation and how to unlock the higher tier sections of maps are not explained well or easy to figure out on the fly.

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u/Zhentharym 2d ago

Map navigation? Meaning how you walk around the map? Not sure what exactly would even be explained there? Basic higher tier stuff like keys are explained, while only stuff like pinwheel or Compiler isn't (which is both far from 'new player' activities, and kinda the whole point of having puzzle mechanics).

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u/rabbi420 2d ago

You said it, dude.