Cerikus

While what you say it's possible, with such a high drop rate (37.5%) it's very unlikely. Are you sure you are running voidstorm missions?

Bruh.. I wasn't ready for this...

"Mission complete" nightwave act is either bugged or it's worded poorly. I am pretty sure I should have completed this act by now, but the UI suggests I only did like 6 or 7 missions (not sure about the exact number, because it doesn't say). At minimum I ran 3 nightmare missions, 2 Duviri runs, to complete other acts I went to Cambion drift and Orb vallis, I helped Clem. I played ESO. I played 3 runs of that horrible Conclave event, I played an Abyssal zone mission and I am sure I'm forgetting something. Can we get a clarification on what actually counts for this? It's annoying and it will lead to player burnout. I don't want to go grind pointless captures just to complete this. I want to complete this by doing what I usually do. Also.. 15 feels somewhat high for 4500 points.

I am unable to purchase this week's copy of Enter Nihil's Oubliette key. It says I already own it, but this has never been an issue before as I obviously own 28 of those.

I’ve been listening to Warframe OST 2 pretty much nonstop since it’s release. As well as revisiting OST 1. After Tennocon 2023 we know how powerful is Warframe’s soundtrack performed live. DE, please organize a live concert.

Yes, exactly. We really desperately need Starchart 4.0.

For those that don't remember, before this we had this Now why do I think it was better for new players? Because all planets were hidden until you discovered navigational coordinates. When you booted the game for the first time you saw Earth and only the Earth and as you progressed you explored the solar system and your starchart was expanding with new planets. Now when you boot the game you are hit in the face with the full starchart and it's a really big turn off. New player is instantly overwhelmed. I think it's bad for onboarding experience and it is among common complaints from "first impression" youtube videos. All the planets should either be hidden or new player shouldn't be able to focus on it and see all the incomplete nodes before activating junction.

No. Putting a price tag on something literally means it has value. Story skip would contain completion and rewards, which means you are not only buying a skip, you are also buying progression, which is time and that's money. No, not really. They lessen progression roadblocks, because they see new players leaving. They are loosing potential customers, because new players see the big shiny trailer for newest update and upon installation they find out they have to grind through at least 50-100 hours of old decrepit content. And unless DE are willing to rework entire starchart and create 2 or 3 cinematic quests that bring new players from earth to Uranus, this won't get better. It's all about player retention. People who leave usually don't give feedback. I don't care about hypotheticals. Warframe is in the best state it's ever been and DE are listening to players more than they ever were. Everything they said and posted about this topic points to them trying to solve an actual problem. Innocent until proven guilty. This argument is nonesensical, because grinds are never connected to quests.

I am also on the side of a free skip, but I have to admit some of the arguments against it are very solid. - If you offer it for free, many players who otherwise wouldn't skip it, will skip it and that's bad. - If you offer it for free, it means the whole questline is worth literally nothing and can be freely skiped and that's also bad. - The story skip should never be something you are incentivised to do unless you have a good reason and giving it away for free would be a huge incentive and that's bad. Nah. If 10 years of Warframe is a proof of something it's that DE wouldn't do that.

Yes, exactly. Good solution would be a rework of the entire starchart, big audit of all planets, missions and quests and streamlining the onboarding experience so new player can catch up with othes within 20 hours. It would also need a big cinematic quest that takes a player from Earth to Uranus. Good solution that will never happen.

I agree. Building a Railjack is not an issue, because it takes like 30 minutes total. Even if they give you Railjack and Necramech for free instantly, it takes 100 hours to get to New war. I know this because I've been a sherpa to someone recently. It could've been less, but that would ruin the game for them. Letting experienced player do it for you is bad and if you want to do it yourself, it WILL take 100 hours. That's the problem. Doing all the starchart missions, junctions, sidequests that are prerequisits for junctions. Let's imagine DE decide that to play Whispers in the Walls you "ONLY" need to get to Deimos and finish "Heart of Deimos". That's approx. 20 hours without being pushed through by Sherpa. That I think would be reasonable, but not ideal. Because Warframe gets better the longer you play it and it is not because of "time sunk fallacy", but because most of the early game is genuinely bad. It's old and decrepit and until you hit Uranus and start Natah, there is no story and no actual strong reason for "why I am doing this stuff". It takes 50 hours to get to Second dream and if you are not invested before, you won't even reach it, let alone New War or The whispers in the Walls... The newest content is the big shiny that can be advertised and that can attract new players and this game NEEDS new players. It has been steadily declining since 2020 and DE have the stats and data and if they say the 10 years of warframe is a roadblock for new players, it IS a roadblock for new players and we NEED a solution. All the solutions are bad. All we need is to pick the one that is the least bad and unfortunatelly I agree with Rebecca. Pay to skip story and receive gear to participate in the newest content IS the "least bad solution". I totally agree it can be dangerous, but I don't think DE are that kind of developer. I trully belive they wouldn't use it as an excuse to do worse, especially since pay to skip is the core monetization technique of warframe. You can finish tutorial, buy plat and get the best gear, maxed out mods and everything from other players. You already can skip everything with money... EXCEPT for the starchart grind. And afaik (and I've been playing since 2016) it was never an excuse to make the content worse on purpose. Yeah, sometimes they miss the mark, but tthey always promptly fix it.

I agree, but it doesn't invalidate my solution. The game is in the best state it has ever been, but the barrier to entry is the highest it has ever been. Warframe could easily pop off and grow more, if there was a way to skip. If you are a new player and you see new update ad, but you find out you have to play at least 200 h to get to it, you leave. There are suggestions like allow new players to "just play main story quests", but that's like 20h of story gameplay you have no real attachment to. I love warframe quests, but without the attachment you build by playing the game, the quests honestly aren't as impactful as we think they are. Second dream IS a masterpiece, but only because you play for 100 hours and THEN you find out the truth that's been before your eyes. If you allow a player to play it within first 10 hours of Warframe, it's actually meaningless. Pay2skip or allow2skip is not a good solution, it will invalidate the story even more, but DE MUST allow players to play the newest content... The reason why I am suggesting decoupling story from progression is that you could allow a new player into the current state of Warframe. In an ideal world of make belive I would rework the entire starchart, so you don't have to grind through Earth, Venus, Mercury and Mars to get to Deimos. The planets would just be there and all of them would be accessible from Earth. Story would NOT be connected to starchart progression, but WOULD unlock stuff in Starchart. (You can still hide Lua, Kuva Fortress, Zariman, etc. until you progress through story), but if you are a new player and you want to play Whispers in the walls because you've seen an advert, you should be allowed to.

Very good point, but then the question is whether let's say 20 bucks is a good deal, when the price stays the same for "skip only New War" as well as for "skip literally everything after Vor's prize". Maybe partial skip can be some advanced stuff that't not presented up front, but DE really shoud take into account how much you are skipping.

Regardless of what I think about it I want to provide feedback about how it should be monetized, if you do it. The "story pack" cannot be one singular pack with set price. That would be very VERY bad. It needs to be a special menu in Market, where you can pick and choose which "story stage" and how many of them you want to skip. I've made a mock up. "In this situation we have a player who completed The second dream and wants to skip The War within and Chains of Harrow only." Each stage must have it's own price based on the length and difficulty of the quest as well as the items you get from it. (For example Apostasy prologue should be super cheap, because it's nothing, but New war should cost more, because it's long and gives you Nataruk, Sirocco, Rumblejack and other stuff.)

I am not entirely sure if this is 100% correct, because Warframe has little to none actual mechanics. Niche peripheral content like Eidolons is not relevant, because the core gameplay of Warframe is indisputably: aim and shot, hold E or press 1-4 for death of everything. Most players don't ever get to Steel path and if a player has basic videogame knowledge and experience they will have no issue being useful in normal mission, where most players reside. The real "challange" of Warframe is knowing how stuff works and how to make a builds and let me tell you, vast majority of players don't know any of that. Most people just copy builds from youtube or overframe. We ALREADY have crowds od players that are getting carried in "endgame", because that's how it is, but luckily in Warframe having players to carry is a non-issue, because there are no mechanics that can wipe out a raid, if one person fails to play their role... There are plenty good arguments against pay2skip, but "it will allow players to get to endgame" is simply false and disingenuous, especially since "endgame" is SP and the story skip would get you nowhere near steel path.

I just remembered I have another story that will add a reason for why this would be good idea, even though I am not convinced it is. Ironic... We recently had a LAN party with my friends. One never played Warframe, one played it for like 50 hours in 2016. I booted up the game, picked a very good and easy loadout to play and I've selected several missions for them to play for fun. There were some normal missions, but I also started some Railjack missions and then I even started the Duviri experience. They had a blast and enjoyed every second of the gameplay and the didn't care AT ALL about why they are doing it or what they are doing. Only question that came up was that the friend that played second dream in 2016 asked me: "Who is this dude I am playing as, that's not the operator, is it?" I said: "Well, it's a spoiler, you can learn about it in a quest, but I can tell you..." and he replied. "Nah, I don't really care that much, but it's fun." And kept playing... The questline of warframe is amazing and precious, but so many people don't care and just want to murder stuff in cool ways. Let's not forget the promotional material for Whispers in the Walls will have "NEW WEAPON TYPE - GRIMOIRE" and everyone will want to murder crowds with magic book, but they will realize they have to grind for 200h to get to it...

I totally agree that the message could be very bad, which is something I said somewhere in here as well. The whole taste of the onboarding experience could be tainted by "go grind for 200h or you can pay us, lul", which would be detrimental to everything. And as you say "skip our story" sounds disgusting, which is something Reb said on the devstream herself. They know it's a problem. However, I do have to agree with one thing that's been said as well. There is nothing DE can do to lower the barrier "enough". If the game gave you everything for free and said "just play the story quests", that's still like 15-20 hours of gameplay... It doesn't seem like much compared to thousands of hours people put in this game, but it is too much for this huge amount of potential playeres that the game could attract. (Like my friends, who don't care for the grind, but would totally jump in the game for a few hours when the new update drops) Like, damn... This is trully a situation.

Sure, but you are missing one huge point that changes a lot. You had knowledge of 6 years. You knew how and where to go, you knew everything. Warframe is about knowledge and experience... Another story I have: About a year ago I got my ex to play Warframe with me. She enjoyed the game and I did all I could to make the experience for her as nice as possible. I offered to push her through, but she refused, because being pushed through was not nice time. It took her 112 hours at a very reasonable pace with my guidence to get to New war. That is the typical Warframe experience and if you don't have guidance and you have no prior experience in the game it is more than 112 hours.

It does, but imho I think Warframe has the proud badge of f2p done 100% right. This could blemish that. Maybe you didn't understand me. I am for skip. I am simply cautious about the skip costing platinum, if it does, how much, how will it work and how it should be communicated. It can be VERY VERY easily misinterpreted if handled poorly. I like DE, but we know they sometimes have huge problems doing these things right (Prime Access, Prime resurgence, Heriloom collection, etc.) I don't want this game be "rebranded" from fair free to play to freemium. I want a skip, just read my other posts. I don't want them to ruin the reputation of this game. Exactly. Rebecca is great for doing this and it was the best way to open a discussion about this very important topic.

I completely understand where you are coming from and I understand why Warframe needs something like this. I have several friends who would play with me, but they refuse to put in 200 hours to catch up, so I am for any kind of way to help players play the newest thing instantly. What I have an issue with is the platinum price. I get that it's completely in-line with Warframe's imho super fair monetization, but I would fear that the onboarding experience would change the tone. Currently it's "warframe is completelly free", but it would change to "the new stuff is locked behind 200h grind, or you can pay", which is a shift in tone, which I don't think would be super great. It has to be handled very carefully.

While I am on the side "allow to skip, don't do pay to skip", I do have to say a FACTUAL TRUTH to balance the perspective. I have several actual friends that would instantly jump into this game to play with me, but they know that this game wants you to put in 200 hours to catch up. And they don't have that. What they have is money. They would have zero issue to pay to play with me. So it doesn't have to be only about pay2skip, but also about allowing adults with limited time to play together. It's true that you can already skip Railjack and Necramech, so it wouldn't really be any different. Just another perspective.

Yup, that's why I don't think pay to skip is a good idea. I would be for "allow to skip".

This argument is not relevant, because there's currently plenty of low MR players playing SP runs that are getting carried. Also I am pretty sure the skip would not include SP. Also, also, the skip would have to include a warframe and weapons with good premade builds, which I think they would do. If you ignore emotional outburst and non-arguments, I think the only good counter argument (which I share) is that it would cost plat, which would change the onboarding taste of this game. Currently it is "Warframe is completely free, you can only pay to skip grind". With this change it would be "Newest content is locked behind paywall or a 200 hours grind". And that's not a good thing to have.

This is perfect.

I have no idea how complicated it would actually be to implement, but the solution is NOT to let players skip the story, but to DECOUPLE it from progression. Story quests simply need to be fed to a new player without the new player having to grind through MR and build a bunch of nonsense. The biggest hurdle is that there are quest prerequisites. The experience needs to be: 1) You install Warframe for the first time, because you want to play Whispers in the Walls. 2) You open the quest and start it. 3) UI box opens up with text "This is the latest quest. You won't understand unless you play previous quests. Are you sure? Type in "I AM SURE" to start." 4) There can also be a button that will start the mentioned story recap video. Solved.