Cetus and new players, just how confusing is it?.

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

I had a video pop up in my feed that i found intresting. This lads journey into Warframe currently and it really shows just how unfriendly Warframe still is to new people.

I thought this may be something worth discussing. We all know how many systems on systems we have in Warframe but when it comes to Cetus and their introduction in to open worlds. It's definitely alot for new players that could still be an issue for getting new people into the game.

Recently brought someone into the game (who has now stopped) because of just how confusing Warframe was to them. So watching this lads videos on Warframe i noticed alot of the same issues as i had with my mate.

Anyway here is the video, enjoy and let me know what ya think of the new players expeirence.

 

[Vlada91]

We know its confusing even for old players, add something new with new materials to farm doing things that for old players eventually know how to possess in future. Even some thing if you are not familiar you will not know that is there if someone didn't say something about that new thing thats been add in the game.... And this game is just not holds you hand, ita more like if you figure it out then you are good to go if not you spending much more time then you need to bee spend. 

[JackHargreav]

Warframe has a LOT of stuff in it.

And while DE certainly could explain new players everything it might be a bit too much work. And There's so much in the game I don't think new players would understand much of the tutorials even. I saw some guy playing wf the first time and when he looked up something on google that had an accurate description he was like "I did't even understand anything from this".

[SerphV]

I didnt know CETUS has RAIN...~~

OMG...

[DancingJoker]

When I first started playing I clicked on Cetus thinking it would start another mission, like most nodes on Earth, I was pretty confused for a few minutes, but was able to figure out what was up pretty quickly.  It isn't ever explained, but once you set down to figure things out you pretty quickly discover how it all works.  While it may be lacking in explanation it is not the worst part of the game for that, there are many more important things that the game doesn't tell you.

[Ogger]

disabling the "free roam" node before visiting cetus is definitely good but it should have a pop-up upon first selection/ or unlocking the node that explains the very basics of what cetus and it's open world is.

Also cetus (and the following open worlds) should have loading screen hints specific to the open world explaining what you can do there. The people you go to should VERY BRIEFLY (NOT TOO LONG OR PLAYERS WILL JUST IGNORE IT LIKE MOST DIALOGUES) explain what you can do with them.

[ShortCat]

I love his reaction when he asks "How to get hoverboard in Warframe". 😃 New Player Experience 101.

[(PSN)Mofojokers]

15 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

I love his reaction when he asks "How to get hoverboard in Warframe". 😃 New Player Experience 101.

I did enjoy that lol legit sums it up well.

[superiouz]

This is pretty much me. 

Idk anything about mission or whatever happen. Thumper and eidolon and dont forget annoying flying grinneer. 

The same goes to valiss. They pair me with random squad that farm toroid. I was so confuse what to do. What objective. 

 

[BahamutKaiser]

Way points need an overhaul, as well as objective descriptions, there's plenty of space in one of the menus to put some explanation. 

[0_The_F00l]

I am so glad i started the game 4 years ago,

It allowed me to grow into the system ,

like having adaptation against heavy gunners where every bullet is a new update.

Any new players are gonna feel like fighting a lvl 100 toxic ancient with bleeding dragon key without any mods.

 

They are trying to make new stuff for new players but they base the power level and complexity on veteran content - of course S#&$s gonna be confusing.

 

I was hopeful when they mentioned they would relook NPE (New player experience) , and i was disappointed with what actually launched.

[DrivaMain]

They should have MR locked open world content. Throwing all of these to new players this early only overwhelms them to the point of quitting.

MR 5 Lock should suffice.
 

[Hayrack]

Actually, new player experience is not confusing.

(deploys shields)

I started just fine by myself - reading wiki, watching videos, googling, etc. If he quit so easily, he doesn't want to play the game in the first place, maybe there is no game-to-player chemistry, so to speak.

[Killa_Byte]

Video cracked me up

[(PSN)robotwars7]

53 minutes ago, Hayrack said:

Actually, new player experience is not confusing.

(deploys shields)

I started just fine by myself - reading wiki, watching videos, googling, etc. If he quit so easily, he doesn't want to play the game in the first place, maybe there is no game-to-player chemistry, so to speak.

(punches your shield and breaks it)

that's not really ideal though is it? having to rely on 3rd party sites for information that should already be in the game itself. really, the wiki should be for more specific information, and videos for discovering more efficient methods of fighting bosses, farming etc. the basic explanations of what you have to do and what you're working towards should be in the game itself, there's no excuse for that.

it wasn't too bad for me because I had friends who were already semi-experienced with the game when I first joined, and I had the incentive to look at 3rd party sites, but it shouldn't have to be like that: the challenge of learning the game should come from memorizing and retaining information that's in the game, not from knowing which sites to look on. you can play plenty other, equally complex games without needing a phone or tablet by your side, why should warframe have to be like this?

[0_The_F00l]

53 minutes ago, Hayrack said:

Actually, new player experience is not confusing.

(deploys shields)

I started just fine by myself - reading wiki, watching videos, googling, etc. If he quit so easily, he doesn't want to play the game in the first place, maybe there is no game-to-player chemistry, so to speak.

(activates collision force)

What he wants to do is play the game and not have to google, wiki or watch tutorials to find stuff.

Sure it may not be for him , but its the equivalent of not liking a specific food stall cause the line to get it is too long.

It may still be something you don't like - that's fine but you need to actually use that thing to make that judgement.

[akots]

1 hour ago, Hayrack said:

.. If he quit so easily, he doesn't want to play the game in the first place, maybe there is no game-to-player chemistry, so to speak.

He did not quit and seems to be actually enjoying WF a lot, at least based on another vid:

 

I think, it works out pretty well for him. Which means that the point of OP is kind of moot. 😉

[(NSW)BalticBarbarian]

I started Warframe relatively recently (just over a year ago) so I did go to the Plains/Valis as a brand new MR0/1 player.

Personally, I did not find the Plains experience particularly confusing. But I suspect that was because I played on solo mode for quite while before I started doing public squads.

On my first few Plains missions, I was able to go at my own speed and figure things out. The first time I went to the Plains at night, I was promptly murdered by the first  Vormvalyst I met (right next to the Cetus gate) - that told me to stick to daytime until I get better stuff. IT was somewhat of a learning curve, but it got me to a better understanding of the game's basics.

If you immediately go to public missions, you will end up in the situations, where you've just spawned in, looked around, and the mission suddenly finishes because the high-level player you got teamed up with did everything already. Or worse, you get dumped into content waaay above your level (I often keep my matchmaking on public while doing eidolons. I still remember the one time an MR1 Mag got added to my squad half-way through a Terry fight - he had his mic on and the commentary I heard from him was rather "surprised")

While Warframe is a coop game, I think it would benefit most new players greatly if they stayed in solo mode for a bit longer at the start of their playthrough. Not sure what DE would need to do to achieve that without discouraging coop play though.

[Hayrack]

1 hour ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

(punches your shield and breaks it)

that's not really ideal though is it? having to rely on 3rd party sites for information that should already be in the game itself. really, the wiki should be for more specific information, and videos for discovering more efficient methods of fighting bosses, farming etc. the basic explanations of what you have to do and what you're working towards should be in the game itself, there's no excuse for that.

it wasn't too bad for me because I had friends who were already semi-experienced with the game when I first joined, and I had the incentive to look at 3rd party sites, but it shouldn't have to be like that: the challenge of learning the game should come from memorizing and retaining information that's in the game, not from knowing which sites to look on. you can play plenty other, equally complex games without needing a phone or tablet by your side, why should warframe have to be like this?

I agree, in ideal world it should be the way you described, but can we count on DE to expand and improve tutorials? I've been playing this game for less than a year and I'm confident they won't... well fine then.

[Crabopoulos-Michael]

Loving this guys series, hope he keeps playing 🙂. I started playing almost a year ago and can totally relate with this video. My first time in POE didn't go very well, it was also at night and the moment I got out the door I got one-shoted by a vomvalyst so I decided to park it until I could gear up properly, so yeah for me it was quite daunting compared to the other missions I was doing at the time. However the good thing ab WF is that you can always continue doing other stuff and once u get hooked by the game u actually want to learn stuff to get better at it.

[Hayrack]

2 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

(activates collision force)

What he wants to do is play the game and not have to google, wiki or watch tutorials to find stuff.

Sure it may not be for him , but its the equivalent of not liking a specific food stall cause the line to get it is too long.

It may still be something you don't like - that's fine but you need to actually use that thing to make that judgement.

Oh, btw

(uses Switch teleport)

1 hour ago, (NSW)BalticBarbarian said:

I started Warframe relatively recently (just over a year ago) so I did go to the Plains/Valis as a brand new MR0/1 player.

Personally, I did not find the Plains experience particularly confusing. But I suspect that was because I played on solo mode for quite while before I started doing public squads.

On my first few Plains missions, I was able to go at my own speed and figure things out. The first time I went to the Plains at night, I was promptly murdered by the first  Vormvalyst I met (right next to the Cetus gate) - that told me to stick to daytime until I get better stuff. IT was somewhat of a learning curve, but it got me to a better understanding of the game's basics.

If you immediately go to public missions, you will end up in the situations, where you've just spawned in, looked around, and the mission suddenly finishes because the high-level player you got teamed up with did everything already. Or worse, you get dumped into content waaay above your level (I often keep my matchmaking on public while doing eidolons. I still remember the one time an MR1 Mag got added to my squad half-way through a Terry fight - he had his mic on and the commentary I heard from him was rather "surprised")

While Warframe is a coop game, I think it would benefit most new players greatly if they stayed in solo mode for a bit longer at the start of their playthrough. Not sure what DE would need to do to achieve that without discouraging coop play though.

 

[0_The_F00l]

2 hours ago, (NSW)BalticBarbarian said:

I started Warframe relatively recently (just over a year ago) so I did go to the Plains/Valis as a brand new MR0/1 player.

Personally, I did not find the Plains experience particularly confusing. But I suspect that was because I played on solo mode for quite while before I started doing public squads.

What? a year old and MR0? a new account? or did you only log in a year ago and forgot about it till now? i need clarification on this before i can add any further comments.

35 minutes ago, Hayrack said:

Oh, btw

(uses Switch teleport)

 

too bad you switch teleported a guy that was hovering over the void.

[Jarriaga]

This matches my own experience. 

5 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

They should have MR locked open world content. Throwing all of these to new players this early only overwhelms them to the point of quitting.

MR 5 Lock should suffice.
 

Checks out with my own experience when bringing friends to the game:

Quote

If you believe that making this system accessible so early is a good thing then you do you. I say that it actually has the opposite effect because it shows new players a level of potential grind that will turn off most players if they are not naturally hooked by then irrespective of MR rank.

It's the same as giving away a Vauban Prime set to a new player: Most of them will get the wrong impression of Primes needing a hefty grind when they see just how much Oxium and Cryotic they need.

The level of grind is not an incentive to stay; it pushes new players to leave. Has happened to many friends I've introduced to the game, with players @winserEX and @darkjuste being examples. Both introduced to the game by me during PoE. Both left when they researched the requirements to kill an Eidolon because they wanted Arcanes.

There are also many players who started out with me but gave up on the grind early on, such as @bulletbong

Most casuals and new players want it as easy and as painless as possible. That's incompatible with giving them a taste of massive grindwalls absurdly early on unless they happen to enjoy grinding to begin with. It's a two way street. 

The video also highlights how having veterans carry newer players can be actually detrimental rather than helpful. The new players get to do nothing, as exemplified when the mission ended just as he entered the plains. He also couldn't even participate in the objectives for the Gara quest because other players were already done by the time he got to the objectives.

If they are not going to MR lock the Plains, then at least block matchmaking so they have to play solo and get a hang of it and actually do something.

[ChaoticEdge]

oh oh, I recognized him...*sigh* yes he is the scrub of the scrub but we can't criticized him at all.  There is some players who start as new already know the hints how gain more power though out mods and other new weapons even frames which some new players can be more advance.  This guy isn't type of advance but hinting modern age as in a player is a simpleton or just being simple or bland human being, more likely he is a guy who tinker things for longest time like sort of Rick & Morty show he is more of resembled that Morty's Dad in the show in some what personality and playing the game.  Noted he isn't gone for pro by watching the movement he isn't really fully yet which it is kind of eye stabbing my eyes on this one but letting that go, so basically we understand players who are new to the game we already have basic even have symbol hinting all these already and tons of stuff for players get the hints with what.

Anyway, it seems he is going struggle a lot but let him be under a struggled until he come with co-op again.  As so far, I think we the half pro or full pro players should of write a beginner guide for the players and given a selective chose for a guide.  Then again I think they need pro players still walk them though all the training.  More likely they need a training simulation without using the "Dojo" for they can at least get a feel using a frame so their movement get work up better.  For me if I want improve my training skills with certain weapon I have a dojo do training shooting only with guns/bows but it only meant for beginner to train their according eyes.  As thus so far, I believed a training beginner room are needed for the players and it have to be optional like how we have a dojo with that room the speed room.

[Monolake]

Yhea Warrame is terrible for new players. Borderline unplayable without guides and wiki. Open worlds are totally NOT for new players.

Make DE watch it. Send it to Steve, Scott and everyone who designs missions.