Suggestion: add a "beginner equipment" tab in the Market

[Gentleman_Bird]

The first time I unlocked the Market landing craft segment and opened up the in-game Market, the first thing I saw was the "Featured" tab full of cosmetics that are paid for with platinum. My first thought after seeing this was "Oh, this is for premium players, I don't want this". And then I proceeded to never touch the Market again until other people told me that the Market actually has stuff I can buy with credits.

My proposed solution is to add a "Starter Gear" tab to the market that includes all the weapons that you can directly buy with credits (MK-1 and standard versions of the Lex, Braton, Bo, Paris, etc.) and also blueprints to some basic gear items such as ciphers and codex scanners.

I also think this should be the first thing a new player sees when they open up the market for the first time. This should result in less new player confusion.

 

[DissentWomble]

+1. Didn't noticed some weapons are available for credits till I needed them for MR at MR 20+. Could've used that when I was using MK-Bo and MK-Paris and hated myself for not choosing the Braton. 

[AdunSaveMe]

I don't think having a tab just for starter weapons is going to solve this problem. It simply needs to be more obvious that you can get blueprints. Like, front page obvious.

[polarity]

Trying to get money out of new players of an F2P game, before they've even played it long enough to know if they want to keep playing it, is a great way to make them think it's just like every other player-bilking F2P game out there, and give them a reason not to keep playing.

Let them see some meaningful progress, and a decent sample of the game's variety, and then as their progression slows down and they start to see some of the power possible (from their own equipment instead of other players room nuking everything around them) introduce the paid short cuts.  Let them access a bigger range of gear in the first 3 days (including more than one of the now 37 warframes), instead of locking it all behind a paywall or crafting timers (I'm not locked to one hero in a MOBA, or one class in any other F/TPS for my first few days unless I pay, so why the harsh limit here?).

Maybe instead of giving players 50 plat, and not telling them about slots before they've wasted it on a syandana, give them all the starter weapons, and the slots to put them in, from the outset.

Edited December 3, 2018 by polarity

[Gentleman_Bird]

21 minutes ago, AdunSaveMe said:

I don't think having a tab just for starter weapons is going to solve this problem. It simply needs to be more obvious that you can get blueprints. Like, front page obvious.

True. They could put in a text box saying that blueprints can be purchased on the market, but that may clutter up the UI.

Or, when the player first installs the Market segment, they could put in a voice line from Ordis or Lotus talking about how the market grants you access to weapon and warframe blueprints.

[polarity]

Or they could make one of the first quests have them go to the market, buy a blueprint, collect the resources, and craft the item, and also tell them that platinum can be traded for from other players, once they have items valuable enough to trade.

There's no excuse for hiding any of that from players, except unless the intent is to make money by exploiting new players' lack of game-knowledge.  It just doesn't look good coming from developers who claim to be aiming for 'F2P done right'.  Sure, they have a huge respect for established players, and they have ours in return, but it would be nice if that extended to fresh players, and we didn't have to keep explaining to them that Digital Extremes is not trying to milk them for cash right from the outset, while everything about the market communicates the complete opposite.

Really I think cosmetics should be in a completely separate section of the market, while all the equipment should be put on another, and alternative buying methods should be shown side-by-side: blueprint, credit and resource cost, crafting time, and the fact that no inventory slots or potatoes come with that purchase, and right next to it the price in plat for a fully crafted version with potato and slot.

If DE want to claim they're better than the rest of the F2P market, then they need to stop hiding the non-premium-currency-means to get the equipment needed to progress in the game behind a small icon, and be honest enough to give both options similar levels of visibility.

Edited December 8, 2018 by polarity