A New Perspective

[CaffeineTanuki]

Hey everyone! 

By no means is this a shot at DE, nor am I telling them how to run their team/game. This is merely a suggestion.

I've been a proud Tenno since the very early days of Closed Beta, Update 5.5. Ever since then, I have had the joy of watching this game grow to astronomical levels, and then seen those peaks fall back down to normalcy. The game isn't engaging enough for new players to stick with the game through to the cinematic quests, and the endgame is too repetitive to keep the attention of Veterans, like myself. 

These are all things I've heard and witnessed over nearly 5 years of Open Beta. As someone who has played the game for almost 2 months of playtime, I often find myself wondering why I come back. So far, the only answer I find is that I take comfort in the mindless grinding that is End-Game. I know the game isn't finished yet, so I don't have any room to talk about that right now.

What I want to focus on here is the early game. The early game gets too stale too quickly. I recently did an experiment where I started a new account and challenged myself to get to the first cinematic quest, where the story truly explodes and the game gets incredibly fun and immersive. I couldn't do it. Running through all of those missions again, doing the same thing over and over in an attempt to level up just the basic weaponry on low-level planets, it was too much. I had grown too accustomed to the high-speed killing spree of end-game content. I found myself getting frustrated with how long it was taking to progress, when back before the new/old star chart released/was re-worked it was a walk in the park. I started a new account in 2015, and caught up to Uranus in a single month of playing. 

My point is that the early game stagnates. There wasn't enough there to keep me interested, even when I knew what I was working towards. I kept telling myself the same thing I find myself telling newer players: "Just keep with it and you'll get to the good parts." 

Veterans shouldn't have to tell that to new players just to keep them playing. New players should want to go through the early game, learning new things as they go. As I see it, the game introduces too many mechanics at once; too many mission types, too many enemy types, and not enough reward for the little guys. It feels like you're scaling a mountain, and the peak just keeps getting higher. 

As I said, there isn't enough of a reward for going through the early game. There isn't enough substance to keep new players interested.

My suggestion is to have the creative team, or at least some of the directors, play through the early game and see where you can fit in some juicy bits, just enough to keep new players going. A piece of lore here, a bit of character development there. Little stuff, but bigger and more cohesive than the 10-20 minute quests that we get in the beginning, introducing characters that have no overarching meaning to the game. Have it tie into the history of the Tenno, or have some kind of buildup sequence with the Grineer to set the stage for The War Within. It's never explained why the Corpus, specifically Nef Anyo, hate the Tenno, or even how he knows about them. After all, the Tenno are supposed to be a forgotten faction to most of the system at this point, living merely in legend. Maybe bring in some of the oldest active veteran accounts for some kind of input. Have them tell you what they enjoyed the most through their journey as Tenno, and what made them stick with the game for this long.

One thing I would very much like to see is a cinematic quest based on Alad V's transformation and remission. It's a rarely touched piece of the story, and would serve as a great quest for post-Jupiter. It would also serve as a much better and more dramatic introduction to Mesa.

And please, rework the Vay Hek fight! I get that it's not supposed to be done right away, but even with my normal account, which by the way can one-shot Sargas Ruk under the right circumstances, has a hard time taking down the big yellow parrot! He moves around too much, his weak spot is too small and isn't shown enough, and we shouldn't have to play cat-and-mouse three times to chase him down for a big epic fight, which shouldn't start with a carbon copy of the first phase but in a confined space.

Sincerely,

Skyward_Knight

[DerGreif2]

I think they cater enough to new players. It a grind game. You have to grind for it and if people dont like it ok but that's not DEs fault. They also said that they working on a new tutorial and will explain a few things better.

There is no need to give new players even more content they have a huge amount. They just need a better tutorial and they are working on it.

[CaffeineTanuki]

22 minutes ago, DerGreif2 said:

I think they cater enough to new players. It a grind game. You have to grind for it and if people dont like it ok but that's not DEs fault. They also said that they working on a new tutorial and will explain a few things better.

There is no need to give new players even more content they have a huge amount. They just need a better tutorial and they are working on it.

how do they cater to new players? yes, the new open world updates have been released at lower levels, but each one has experienced the problem that newer players either aren't ready for something like the Plains or the Orb Vallis, or they get too overloaded with things to do from these two and lose track of the star chart progression. One of my points is that new players are given too much too quickly, and these two are examples of that.

[DerGreif2]

15 minutes ago, Skyward_Knight said:

how do they cater to new players? yes, the new open world updates have been released at lower levels, but each one has experienced the problem that newer players either aren't ready for something like the Plains or the Orb Vallis, or they get too overloaded with things to do from these two and lose track of the star chart progression. One of my points is that new players are given too much too quickly, and these two are examples of that.

The thing is that players always want to play on the highest levels. They need to realize that the high level bounties are for people that completed the star chart. Not for some MR5 players. They just need a better tutorial. Nothing more.

Also even if they just do Orb or the Plains. If they have fun then let it. If not they just can do the missions. Its management and new people need to learn also that.

Edited February 18, 2019 by DerGreif2

[(PSN)HAVOCS-Regret]

Thanks for yr post, lots i agree with there.

However, I think for quite a long time most of their efforts have been directed at new players, though as you have indicated they are still missing the mark a little

i’ve felt for a very long time that what they should focus more on is player retention (which is terrible in this game)

and of course I would really like them to give us vets some attention.  All they usually do for us is throw huge abouts if grind at us periodically to keep us busy until the next chunk of grind.  

We need addictive, compelling, challenging, and rewarding gameplay loops.  We should want to play because we want to play, not just to grind out meaningless and useless ‘stuff’