Warframe's open worlds and new player experience

[Ira_Dei]

I know this post is a bit long and my ideas are quite controversial, but i'd really want you to read it. Recently, i've been helping some friends who are new to the game and we've talked a lot about how it feels to start playing now and how it felt back when i started 3 years ago. And while there's a lot of progress that's been made, there are also few issues that prevent some of the newcomers from truly enjoying this amazing game.

New player experience in warframe can be a big problem. Despite 50 milion registered players, less than 20% have even gotten past Venus (according to steam achievements) - and it should not be a suprise. Even with the upcoming changes teased at tennocon, the complexity of the game's systems can easily confuse anyone without guidance from a more advanced player. And the open worlds only add to that, creating at least two big problems on their own.

First problem is the confusion caused by throwing at newcomers lots of new mechanics with barely any explanation - and most of them aren't even useful in regular missions. Before PoE, the starchart progression offered a relatively good learning curve that allowed players to adapt to the main mechanics. PoE and Fortuna create two separate branches of progression, which will often seem more inviting that the starchart progression - only to throw interested players into deep waters with pretty much no guidance at all, and keeping them from learning the most important aspects of the game the normal way.

The second problem comes from the fact that PoE and Fortuna look and feel far more spectacular than the standard missions. Starting with a huge impact can work really well, but only if you have something even better to follow it up. You can see it with movies, tv series, and even some games - those that relay on shock value to pull people in at first but then fail to follow it up are quickly abandoned by most. Additionally, it will be quite hard for a new players that got used to the open world mechanics to go back to simple regular missions. Many of them will probably run around on Plains or in Orb Vallis for some time and have fun, but once they realize they need to go back to starchart to progress futher they will quickly get bored and drop the game.

The solution is simple: Make open worlds a mid game content, so that players are already somewhat familiar with regular Warframe mechanics and gameplay when they unlock them. I know this is a controversial idea, but should it really be? Just like the amazing cinematic quests are locked behind starchart progress, it's better to make content accesible more gradually. It can serve as an incentive to keep progressing, and gives player the feeling of being rewarded when they unlock it - and that's what games are all about. In fact, unlocking them in the midgame would even serve to reduce the separation between them and normal gameplay - rather than being a 'separate island', they would be more like a freeplay zone - a change of pace for players to come to whenever they get tired with normal missions.


There is also another problem with open worlds - especially the Plains - that i'd like to touch on, but before that allow me to present an example of how earning acces to open worlds could look like, and how it could make them feel more alive and more interesting:

Upon earing acces to Saturn, players would be contacted by Lotus who tells them that she's been contacted by Vox Solaris - a group that leads their own fight against the tyranny of corpus and grineer. One of independent colonies they are allied with has been raided by grineer, who obtained large amounts of orokin artefacts and took a prisoner. You are tasked with retiveing the hosatge, the stolen treasure, and erasing any information about the colony from grineer systems. You complete a rescue mission to free the captive ostron, but the treasure is on it's way away from Earth. You proceed to hack the systems, only to learn that Vay Hek himself has already begun the siege of the colony. The Vox Solaris contact you directly and ask you to come there and help pushing back the invaders, but before that destroy the ship carrying stolen artifacts. After completing a sabotage mission, you go to Cetus for the first time, welcomed by the already existing short opening cinematic.
This way, players would have some background on the situation before entering the plains for the first time - with only 3 regular missions and some new voicelines.
But where's Fortuna?

In many ways, Fortuna seems like someting of a sequel to Plains - and not only because it was relased later. The corpus enemies are a lot more challenging than the grineer, the map is way larger, and the systems are more complex. In terms of in game lore, the situation there is also a lot more delicate - this colony is already under enemy control, and it could be easily wiped out if Nef Anyo decided so. In fact, even the equipment available there is more advanced that what you can get from the Ostron, with the mining tool available instantly in Fortuna being as good as the best one from Cetus. Therfore, it only makes sense that Fortuna should be unlocked after Cetus. Gaining acces to it could be even simpler - after earing the rank of Trusted with ostron (the third one), you would be contacted by Vox again and invited to Fortuna directly. This way, the experience would be a lot more streamlined - and players would be already familiar with open world mechanic before facing the more complex Orb Vallis.

 

Now, the other problem i mentioned earlier. I know this is going to be a very controversial one, but please bear with me. In short: arcanes, baits etc being purchasable for rep with no need for crafting makes huge part of the mechanics irrelevant (especially fishing). Now, i know what you might be thinking: i'm just salty that i had to farm it back in the day, and now it all can be simply bouhgt for rep. You'd be only half correct. I am actually glad that i got to play on the Plains back then - when they actually seemed to have any depth. Right now, the way most people gain the PoE/Fortuna items is by farming large amount of PoE fish or Fortuna gems in one run, and then once a day coming to the hubs, getting to their daily rep limit, buying what they need and leaving. If it sounds like a chore, that's because that is exactly how it feels like. Now, i'm absolutely not saying that we should bring back the old receipes. The grind was terrible, and nobody wants it back. However, there are a bit more options than just "lots of grind" and "pretty much no grind". Reducing the resource requirements and production time by more than 50% as compared to the old receipes would keep the grind down, while still incentivising players to experience more aspects of the open worlds, spend more time there, and hopefully get attached to them - just like i did. In fact, having the standing cost of non-reusable blueprints (arcanes) reduced would more than make up for a bit of resources required in the eyes of most players.

I know that my ideas are very problematic. The open worlds were widely marketed towards new players, and locking them away behind progression would feel like taking something away from them. However, this is not just an idea of a single endgame player - it's based on opinions of two new tenno, and few more i've talked with in chat. Besides, i'm not talking about making it endgame content - most players who aren't scared away at first will get to Saturn in two or three days. It will still be new player friendly, and even more so without all the unnecesary confusion. However, this is only an opinion - and i'd love all who have read it to share theirs. 

Edited July 23, 2019 by Ira_Dei
fixed some spelling issues -sorry for any i might have missed, english is not my first language

[(XBOX)Erudite Prime]

The open world areas are entirely optional until "endgame", so if a new player is too confused by them, they can simply choose to focus on the main game until they're ready. This is a non-issue. 

[Ira_Dei]

17 hours ago, (XB1)Erudite Prime said:

The open world areas are entirely optional until "endgame", so if a new player is too confused by them, they can simply choose to focus on the main game until they're ready. This is a non-issue. 

Yes, and that's exactly the point. The game forces you to go there before you can acces Mars junction, and with how spectacular the Plains look as compared to regular missions, many new players will be pulled in. To us veterans it's a non issue, but the main purpuose of these changes would be to prevent newbies from getting too confused and improve player retention.