How do I improve my game's onboarding completion rate?

Find the exact step where players drop (a funnel through your onboarding shows the step with the biggest drop), diagnose why (clarity, a crash/bug, or too-demanding, using crash data and fresh-player playtesting), and fix that step. Then re-check the funnel and iterate. Onboarding gates the whole game, players who don't complete it never reach it, so fixing the drop points has outsized retention impact.

Why do players drop out of my tutorial?

Usually at a specific step that's failing: an unclear instruction or one that assumes knowledge the player lacks, a crash or bug at that point, or a step too demanding for a newcomer. You can't see the problem yourself because you know the game, so use a funnel to find which step they drop on and watch fresh players to see why they get stuck there.

How do I find where players get stuck in my tutorial?

Use a funnel through your onboarding (each tutorial beat and required action), which shows exactly which step players fail to get past, the one with the biggest drop is the sticking point. Then watch fresh players (who don't know the game) play through to see why they get stuck there, and check crash data for a technical cause. The data finds the step; observation reveals the reason.

How to Improve Your Onboarding Completion Rate

Quick answer: Improve your onboarding completion rate by pinpointing the step where players drop (a funnel through your onboarding) and fixing it: clarify confusing instructions, ease points where players get stuck, and check for a crash or bug at that step. Onboarding is where you most need players to succeed, and a single bad step can wall off the rest of your game, so fixing the drop points has outsized impact.

Onboarding completion, the share of new players who get through your tutorial/intro, strongly predicts retention: players who can't get through onboarding never reach the game. Improving it means finding the specific steps where players drop and fixing them, because onboarding problems are usually concentrated at identifiable points.

Find the Step Players Drop On

Onboarding is a sequence, and players drop at specific steps, not uniformly. A funnel through your onboarding (each tutorial beat, each required action) shows exactly which step players fail to get past, the one with the biggest drop is your sticking point. This localizes the problem: 'players get stuck here,' which is far more actionable than 'onboarding completion is low.'

Bugnet captures the events/funnel data that reveal onboarding drop-off points, so you can see precisely where players leave the tutorial. Because you (knowing the game) can't see what confuses a newcomer, this data is essential, it tells you the step that's failing even though it looks fine to you.

Diagnose and Fix the Sticking Point

Once you know the step, find why players drop there. Often it's clarity, the step doesn't clearly communicate what to do, or assumes knowledge the player lacks. Sometimes it's a technical problem, a crash or bug at that point (crash data showing a crash concentrated there reveals this). And sometimes it's too demanding, requiring a skill the player doesn't have yet. Playtesting, watching fresh players hit the step, shows which.

Fix accordingly: clarify the instruction and improve signposting, fix the crash or bug, or ease the step (more guidance, less precision). Because you can't see the problem yourself (you know the game), watching fresh players is the key tool for understanding why a step traps newcomers.

Verify and Iterate

After fixing the sticking point, re-check the funnel: do more players now get past that step? Improving onboarding is iterative, fix the worst drop, re-test with fresh players, and move to the next drop point. Each fixed step lifts the completion rate.

Improving your onboarding completion rate is the loop, find the drop step (funnel), diagnose why (crash data plus fresh-player playtesting), fix it, and verify, that gets more players through the tutorial and into the game. Because onboarding gates the entire experience (players who don't complete it never reach the game), improving its completion rate has outsized retention impact. See also: fixing a tutorial players get stuck on.

Onboarding gates the whole game, players who don't complete it never reach it. Find the step they drop on (funnel), diagnose why (crash data plus fresh-player playtesting), fix it, and iterate.