Recently I decided to get into speed running. I will start speed running Twisted Metal Small Brawl next week, actually. I am setting everything up as we go. What is speed running? It is where you compete to see who can complete a game the fastest within certain rule sets. However, getting set up for speed running has been annoying. With numerous tools and programs I’ve never used before. These tutorials were so awful I just took the time to learn how to use it all on my own because I was not about to waste a hour of my life of “uhms” and wasted explanations.Which is how this subject came to my mind.
Make better tutorials. Christ how is that hard? I want to go over types of tutorials too because it is very annoying how alike all of them are because people can’t make decent ones. Before I go over them I want to go over what I think the best tutorials have:
- Split into sections
- Keeps uhms and stutters to a minimum.
- Has a script
- Audio
- Properly mixed audio
- Cut the useless content
- Know what you are talking about
Split into sections: I know why people don’t do this, but screw you. Do it. It is very annoying to go through a 40 minute video for 2 minutes of content I need because people don’t even bother to do time codes. This is because people are trying to get YouTube watch time for higher ad rev. However, these videos I tend to ignore.
I once watched a tutorial over map making issues I was having when I made Killing Floor maps. I kept getting this one bug and people kept linking to this one video for the fix on it. Everyone linked to this video. The video was a hour long and the part I needed was under 5 minutes. The video was poorly edited with no time stamps or anything. So, after spending some time trying to scrub through I just gave up and watched it. 40 minutes into it what I needed finally showed up. Split your content up or at least provide time tables.
Keep “uhs” and “ums” to a minimum: Nothing is more annoying then when you watch a tutorial video, or any video, and it is full of uhs and ums. Unless it is supposed to be a live recording. It is clear these people had no plans to make a tutorial. They just opened up their screen recorder program and just went to town. I’m sure if you go through and edit out the uhs,ums, and pauses you could cut some of these videos from 25 minutes to 18.
I recently was linked a video for LiveSplit, from their official website, and it was the worst thing ever. The video was full of uhs and ums just wasting time. The fact this was the programs officially recommended tutorial is pretty sad. Later I will go over this video more.
Has a script: As with the above mentioned uhs and ums it often feels like people just create a tutorial with no script or outline. They just open the program and go. So, it is disorganized and disjointed. You can go from talking about how to set up keyboard short cuts to editing the theme then to how the short cuts actually work.
You need to keep things progressively linear. If I am teaching someone about programming. I don’t explain an int, for loop, switch statement, and then increamentation. No, you’d explain variables at once, basic math, increamentation, if statements, do while, for loops, and then switch statements. There is an order you should teach things to keep it simple. Like if you are learning the ABCs you don’t go A,B,Y,R,F,H,E,C,Z,X,L, and D in order of learning the ABCs. You learn them in order.
Audio: Speak in your videos. I know this isn’t common these days but back in the day people just used to do either text to speech or text on screen tutorials. Depending on the tutorials you are looking up these can still be common. Not only that if you are looking up something sometimes people will link to a video that is over 10 years old and has no voice. Just make a new god damn video and stop linking to tutorials that old.
Properly mixed audio: Look, audio is important. So is making sure it doesn’t sound like you have a upper respiratory infection when you are talking. It is also important to learn how to mask your microphone noise and to not add music that makes you hard to hear. That last one I never understood. I am here to learn from you and I can’t hear you.
Cute the useless content: When looking up videos for LiveSplit many of them included how to download Livesplit, WinRar, how to extract files, how to move files to a new directory, how to create files, etc… This is a lot of extra steps I see often in tutorial videos.
I was looking up how to connect a Switch to a USB ethernet cable adapter because mine wasn’t working. Turns out mine was an unsupported chipset I had to find out through a lot of Googling. I wasn’t sure if I needed to do something special or what; so I tried a tutorial to at least see. The guy in the tutorial spends 5 minutes explaining how to plug in a USB cable, how to remove your Switch from the dock, how to plug your Switch into the dock, and how to plug in an ethernet cable. The tutorial was 6 minutes long.
Know what you are talking about: This is the biggest offense there is. It is very annoying to watch a tutorial video and they just say “Click this box for this option. I have no idea what it does but click it.” Explain the fucking option if you are going to recommend it or recommend against it. For the LiveSplit one it had the opposite effect and the option it told you not to check is the MOST IMPORTANT THING for speed running on PC.
I am fine if you make a tutorial video and you don’t know everything. However, at least be honest and don’t cover that part. I was watching a tutorial on digital audio workstations, or DAWs, the other day. The guy says “These options I have no idea what they are for. I do not touch them so I will not try to explain them or tell you to mimic my settings.” That I can respect. If the guy told us to load specific settings and drivers without explaining anything then it would’ve made me upset.
It’s like when people get random PC performance tips from random people and install all this shit that ruins their computer without understanding what it is doing. There was one person I knew who installed custom network drivers that were designed for a single network line system so they could play games better. What happened was only one connection could be active at a time. She’d connect to CS:GO and steam would die. She’d load steam and YouTube would die in the background. Etc. It made whatever she was using faster but it gave her internet tunnel vision, so to speak. She came to me for help and when I explained this she refused to listen. The guy who told her to install that driver basically then convinced her to make a bunch of fake networks to connect to and run things through. Which slowed her PC to a crawl performance wise and then her network too for it being split so much.
So now let’s go over types of tutorials:
- Videos by people who can’t teach
- Videos by people who have no clue
- Good videos by experts
- Bade videos by experts
- Long videos that say nothing
Videos by people who can’t teach: This is the LiveSplit video I will have a section on in a bit. The guy who made this video can’t teach. Every rule one has for being a teacher this guy broke. However, he at least knew what he was talking about for the most part. I feel like these people would make great tutorials if they didn’t just load up their screen recording tools and go. Spend time writing it and planning it.
Videos by people who have no clue: You run into these in the tech field a lot. Someone will just read a wiki how and make a video on it explaining nothing but step by step instructions they got somewhere else. They often get a lot of things wrong and cause a lot of harm. I ran into these a lot when trying to learn how the AndroidOS worked.
Good videos by experts: These are the best! These follow all the above guide lines I have, except for split/time stamps most of the time. These people take very confusing instructions and make them easy to understand. These people can make a video for beginners that experts can use at the same time to get that small bit of missing info. There was a great PS2 HDD mod video that turned this confusing mess of forum posts into a easy to follow video.
Bad videos by experts: These are still good, oddly enough. The only reason these are bad is because they gloss over a lot of stuff they have forgotten people might not know. While you can still get some great lesson from these videos they are not good for beginners. The people who need these tutorials the most.
Long videos that say nothing: That stupid Switch ethernet video. 6 minutes may not be long but it wasted 5 minutes on stuff it didn’t need to show. However, I have seen tutorials for modding consoles and software that are over 30 minutes long but honestly by the end of the video I felt like I learned nothing.
The live split video: This video is the main reason for this post so I feel it is important to single it out. This video is awful and the fact it is on the main website for their tutorial is bad. This video clearly had no script or outline, the guy did no editing, full of pauses, had useless content sections that were of sections being repeated, was over 20 minutes with no time stamps, and didn’t know what he was talking about randomly.
I feel this video could be drastically improved. I watched the video for two bits, how to set up LiveSplit and use it into OBS to make sure a internet connection wasn’t needed because people kept saying I had to connect to an online database. The internet part wasn’t included and setting up was pretty awful. Most of the video was how to make it look pretty. Where he even stopped midway through going over setting it up on how to make it look pretty then went back to going over how to set it up. Then went over the same thing he just did later in another how to make it look pretty section.
He also told people to not check global hot keys because it was useless despite not knowing what it is. Global Hotkeys just means you don’t have to have LiveSplit active to use it’s hotkeys. Say you are speed running a PC game and you need to stop your timer or mark a section. Without global hot keys you will need to minimize and have LiveSplit be your active program to stop the timer. This is a very important thing and he told you to not turn it on. It took me 20 seconds of testing to figure this out. He said he’s never used and had no idea so to not turn it on.
How to make the video better? I think splitting the video into a function video and then a make over video would’ve been better. This way if you are like me and want to focus on getting it running first before making it look pretty you can.
Then you would write a outline and basic script to keep you in check and cut down on wasted time/sections for each video. Fun fact, preparing with a basic outline and studying it helps cut down on stutters, uhs, ums, and pauses. Those happen because you are stuck thinking and are uncertain of where to go. If you keep an outline handy you can always reference it.
It was very clear he was just recording with no idea of what to talk about or discuss. In fact, when he was going over how to create splits and all that jazz he stopped confused and then after a bit decided on Wind Waker to be the example. He should’ve had from the start “When I get to this section on creating a game and custom splits the game should be titled xxxx and there should be y splits, each of which titled a,b,c,d….. Even him wasting that small bit of time trying to come up with a game and then splits is still wasted time. Even if it only amounts to say a minute that is still 1 minute out of 20 minutes. That’s 5% of the video wasted. Add in the pauses and uhs you can probably cut down 2 minutes. Which makes it 20% saved with a script. Possibly more with the wasted extra content.
I also think learning how to actually use all the sections of the program before telling people what not to use and to use is important. This is also something an outline is good for. When I am teaching something and there is something I don’t know I include in my outline to study it then create an outline of that sections. It is more work but you will be a much better teacher for it.
His audio was perfectly fine and I think it was well mixed.
This has always been a thing that bothers me. A lot of people get away with this truly awful tutorials simply because no one knows any better. I am tempted to start making some to cut down on unneeded content. Not sure. Yes, I am aware this is long with a lot of repeated things said but it was still a oddly organized rant.