In brief: I'm OK with a story skip, but I don't think it should be paid. There's plenty of other things to pay for in WF, but paying to play (or to skip) the story doesn't match the balance I've come to expect from Warframe's monetization strategy.
Long-form:
Thank you DE for your openness. We forum-posters have always been the vocal minority, but I'm glad you asked for our input on what could be a pretty major change. Sorry for the folks who aren't so civil.
There's been good effort on improving the new player experience - the recent updates have removed some gates, softened others, and given more new-player-accessible explanations to complex systems. I hope to see this trend continue in any case!
I also very much liked the idea of the Duviri Path, where players got a new way to begin their Warframe journey. I can understand that it was scrapped because new players were then "dumped into normal Warframe", which was pretty different from what they saw in Duviri. I hope that if/when there's more of a bridge between the two, this can come back as an option.
What I don't like is that while this was presented as very much "under consideration", the first we are hearing directly on this topic is a "pay with plat" suggestion. You're obviously working on other paths to the same goal of getting new players up to speed, but I was expecting even more on that front before we reach for that "pay with plat" as a solution. There are plenty of items to buy with plat - WF needs to make money somewhere, and adds more items that can be purchased with each update - but when it comes to the story experience, I'd expect that to continue to be free, whether it's all in order or if folks can skip around.
My suggestions:
Story skip? Free. The current missions serve as both story and tutorial for the mechanics of the operator, drifter, archwing, mech, and railjack. If folks don't care about experiencing the story in a given order (or don't care about it at all), I say... make a streamlined tutorial for each of those items, and let that substitute for completion of the quest. If you're trying to cater to folks who don't want to do the story (or at least, not right now), then make the story truly optional. They can always circle back to it.
What about gear? Paid options, obviously. We already have the choice of buying or grinding for each item once the quest unlocks it for us. If players want to rush the Operator tutorial before they get to that point in the story, and buy an amp rather than grind one... then that's fine, I have no objection.
Maybe give them a freebie or a "loaner" item so they won't be totally underpowered in the time it takes them to earn better gear, if they go that route. Not every Tenno has to experience the early gameplay the way I did.
