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

[Aldain]

4 hours ago, Hayrack said:

reading wiki, watching videos, googling, etc.

Most video games are better at teaching the player so that things like that aren't required.

On the main topic, The problem of Open Worlds is that even for new players it can toss somebody towards the deep end very quick if there isn't an explanation of things, I wouldn't suggest an MR lock, but there needs to be something to prevent a newbie from throwing themselves into a level 30-40+ bounty thinking "Oh my Warframe is level 30 now, I should be able to do this".

Of course most of the problem Warframe has is its OUTRAGEOUSLY NONLINEAR POWER CURVE, which means that a player has very little to measure if they can do something or not. Enemies level up to the thousands but we stop at 30 (40 for some weapons), there's no logistical connection between player level and enemy level that is obviously present.

The fact that 1-100 is considered easy mode nowadays is part of the problem, because many people have long since forgotten what it means to be a new player, they've grown used to their min-maxed mod loadouts and expect level 500+ enemies at every turn, the simple fact that we're in such an exponential difficulty/power curve is one of the major things that drives new players away, because you hit a wall really fast with no realistic communication as to why there's a wall in the first place.

[Softballbryan]

4 hours 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?

With the limited staff and the need to supply new content, DE isn’t gonna add much to help. Steve said in a documentary that some people see how much commitment it takes and they aren’t gonna commit. I remember being new and it was a mess.... but there’s absolutely piles of helpful resources available. Players got to be patient at the beginning..... that’s a potential challenge for many. 

[Softballbryan]

45 minutes ago, Aldain said:

Most video games are better at teaching the player so that things like that aren't required.

On the main topic, The problem of Open Worlds is that even for new players it can toss somebody towards the deep end very quick if there isn't an explanation of things, I wouldn't suggest an MR lock, but there needs to be something to prevent a newbie from throwing themselves into a level 30-40+ bounty thinking "Oh my Warframe is level 30 now, I should be able to do this".

Of course most of the problem Warframe has is its OUTRAGEOUSLY NONLINEAR POWER CURVE, which means that a player has very little to measure if they can do something or not. Enemies level up to the thousands but we stop at 30 (40 for some weapons), there's no logistical connection between player level and enemy level that is obviously present.

The fact that 1-100 is considered easy mode nowadays is part of the problem, because many people have long since forgotten what it means to be a new player, they've grown used to their min-maxed mod loadouts and expect level 500+ enemies at every turn, the simple fact that we're in such an exponential difficulty/power curve is one of the major things that drives new players away, because you hit a wall really fast with no realistic communication as to why there's a wall in the first place.

I dunno.... when I was new I’d try something, get crushed, and then do other things and learn. I eventually was able to put it together and move forward. It’s just a big mountain to climb. Takes time. 

[Rantear]

4 часа назад, akots сказал:

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. 😉

Huh
Jackal is actually easier now than it used to be.
Well, until the electricity kicks in.

[(NSW)BalticBarbarian]

5 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

i need clarification on this before i can add any further comments.

Forum ranks do not correlate with in-game MR. I'm pretty sure you're the only person on this forum who doesn't know that.

[32768]

14:30 I feel bad for this dude, he doesn't know that the game is called Bugframe just yet. But welcome anyways, tenno, feel youself at home.

[32768]

IMO the problem is that he went to the open world, which is one big clustertruck of something and something. He immediately bumped into vombalists and Eudolon, and bounties and syndicate rep. All of this can be easily ignored for years and nothing of value would be lost. Well, unless he wants to play Warframe for fishing, but even then game most likely won't let him fish in peace as he will be constantly shot by enemies spawning on top of his head.

Regular missions are way better designed and provide some sort of progression. He could fight enemies of increasing level while figuring out what they drop and how to use it.

And yeah, stuff locked behind some grindwalls, like k-drive is locked behind something, archwing is locked behind clans, etc etc, all of this isn't friendly not just to new players, but to any players and everyone is suffering from this. Including DE of course, it's surprising that they don't understand how they are discouraging people from playing their open worlds. They probably think that they encourage people to join clans and everything, but all they do really is locking out part of the content. Even though they probably want new players to play PoE, because it's right in their faces, but at the same time they are discouraging them from doing that. It's like PoE was designed by two people with opposite objectives.

IDK really what to discuss here. This is Warframe.

[(PSN)grayhyh]

Man when he got yeeted across the map becuase of a bug lol.

Honestly i can see him either way stop for a long time or quit soon,idk if he will even get to th second dream even,i wonder what his reaction will be when he unlocks deimos(You can unlock deimos when you reach mars lmao its so dumb,3 pseudo-open world overloaded on new players at once lmao)

Also that new lotus talk,i did new jackel 10 times already and never knew she said that becuase my transmissions are off(i only turn transmissions sounds on incase i was doing a new quest these days) like she makes it look so overcomplicated with the parazon thing than it is when in the new jackel its just "press this one button when he is down and you get a cutscene" ffs why instead of making stuff clear you overcomplicate the simplest stuff DE? lol

[(PSN)GingyGreen]

So while there's no doubt that Warframe could use better tutorials waypoints and explanations, there's also issue that modern gamers are all...utterly hopeless The perfect storm really.

 

Know how I learned this game? I played it. I crashed head first and learned as I went along. People just need to play the game and things will come along. Hey how do you get that Umbra Excalibur? Play the damn game and find out

 

Don't forget this is just a YouTuber. His job isn't to record footages if gameplay, his job is to act in a way to get more views. Think of all those stupid over the top shrieking and people crying when playing Outlast and Resident Evil. Those aren't real people playing a game, it's all people reacting to a game in a way to get views

[Surbusken]

Depends on who your target is.

Not everyone likes the same. The complexity and mystery can be an engaging puzzle for some, and excruciating and obnoxious for others.

I don't think anyone can claim warfarme is casual on any front. Compare it to playing counterstrike or something, those are different consumers.

Especially when new content comes out for those first players to engage with it - for instance, I recently grinded out protea and only by chance I have played with dual wielding glavies before, it being from the movie predator 2, that I am a fan of.

Even then I still had to look up several videos to understand the mechanics and even with all that I very nearly quit trying. I can only imagine the frustration of trying to play it without dual wielding and without knowing what to do.

When I played my first lich recently, even having read the wiki, I get to the very last screen giving me 20 seconds to pick if I wanted to keep the weapon or not. I didn't know what the options were since they use warframe jargon.

Try explaining to a new player, they need to "play void fissures collecting reactant to open relics".  The whole game is like that. Deliberate, unncessary layers that don't seem to do much except waste your time and distort the flow.

... except if you are into that. lol.

Problems show up if you have several groups of people playing your game whose interests don't allign and you want to create content for everyone.

But generally speaking I'd say warframe is hardcore. It does require basically everything it can from the player, time, effort, having to read manuals etc.

 

[(PSN)grayhyh]

I must say the new youtuber guy did okay with jackel,Better than other people tbh tho not sure if new jackel is easier or harder now for new players.

I paired up with like mr 28 on a jackel sortie at the first week this jackel was new,the effing dude took so many attempts just to stab the thing once and i even told him to stab it and to do it like a lich constantly,i was done and did nothing watching him failing to do that simple thing LOL.

[Aldain]

5 hours ago, Softballbryan said:

I dunno.... when I was new I’d try something, get crushed, and then do other things and learn. I eventually was able to put it together and move forward. It’s just a big mountain to climb. Takes time. 

There's one issue with that statement, it is outrageously vague and explains nothing of how you got around anything. It is all well and good that you did, but the fact that you aren't saying how or what you did makes me wonder how you learned things.

How did you go about learning what you did wrong? Was it through the old standbys of the Wiki and Youtube? Because I don't blame you or other players for needing to look that up, the math in this game is a fustercluck from top to bottom and does nothing in service of retaining players. 

A big mountain is all well and good, but as a piece of entertainment media there needs to be some outline for what right and wrong is in terms of design. Here in Warframe, that feedback is so muted you'd swear Banshee used Silence on it because you can go from having little issue with most things to having no clue why nothing is working in very short order.

Add in the volume of "options" of things like older ranged weapons that are all but traps that siphon resources and time from new players due to how poorly the scale up (see the entire Bronco line, the Aklato and more) and you have something that isn't just confusing, and not even intentionally confusing to serve as a puzzle, it is confusing by sheer imbalance and lack of any clear communication to the player as to what is considered "good" for their current location.

For even more confusion we can add in the absolute non-communication of how things like enemy armor scaling works exponentially, which makes the Grineer (who just so happen to be the first open world faction) go from 0 to 100 in terms of how much punishment they need to kill with no clear indicator why to the player, especially when Corpus and Infested of similar levels still are fairly weak by comparison.

Warframe's complexity isn't always good thing at this point, it is starting to become convoluted to the point of turning players off from the game because the expected power curve is both not communicated and non-linear.

[Hypernaut1]

The complexity is a great barrier to entry IMO. If you can't make it past the first 25+ hours, then it's probably never going to be the game for you

[(PSN)ForNoPurpose]

On 2020-09-22 at 12:21 AM, (PS4)Mofojokers said:

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.

 

That was a precious video. I sub for more from that guy.

[0_The_F00l]

10 hours ago, (NSW)BalticBarbarian said:

Forum ranks do not correlate with in-game MR. I'm pretty sure you're the only person on this forum who doesn't know that.

I need to know the answer to the actual questions I posed to you. If you have been playing a year you are not new. 

P. S. Preaching to the choir about difference in forum and game ranks, Mr is also not a measure of competence in the game only usage lavel of different items. 

[(NSW)BalticBarbarian]

5 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

I need to know the answer to the actual questions I posed to you. If you have been playing a year you are not new. 

P. S. Preaching to the choir about difference in forum and game ranks, Mr is also not a measure of competence in the game only usage lavel of different items. 

Right now I cannot claim to be a new player: been playing for just over a year, ~1800 hours in-game (according to in-game profile; I know that's too much in just a year, but the whole country has been in lockdown for the last 6 months), MR25 (not that it means much), have engaged with most of the content currently in the game (have not been able to find an open Conclave match yet - not that I've been looking too hard).

But the Plains experiences I described in my post were from a year ago (when I WAS a new MR0/1 player trying to do Earth nodes), as I remember and view them today. Except the Terry anecdote - that (obviously) happened much later. Apparently, I did not make that as clear as I thought I did in my original post.

 

[0_The_F00l]

14 minutes ago, (NSW)BalticBarbarian said:

But the Plains experiences I described in my post were from a year ago (when I WAS a new MR0/1 player trying to do Earth nodes), as I remember and view them today. Except the Terry anecdote - that (obviously) happened much later. Apparently, I did not make that as clear as I thought I did in my original post.

 

Ok , thought so , but wanted to be sure. No problem from my side in that case.

Solo really should be default to avoid the "I just landed and its alred finished , what the hell just happened?" scenarios,

 

[Luciole77]

On 2020-09-22 at 1:21 AM, (PS4)Mofojokers said:

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.

 

warframe is a free game but with purely commercial views on the product. Warframe is an audience-oriented game, the more online players the more money goes into DE. He has no commitment to teaching players how to play ... because it is a free game. It is undeniably unfriendly to new players and even older players who suffer from a lack of information. It is a superficial game in everything .... aimed at the audience. As it is free, the DE has no obligation to do tutorials ... but this has a negative side. New players are very likely to stop playing because most things in the game are learned by watching videos on youtube ....

[Galuf]

it's dense but the verticality makes it more bearable than some other games and the wiki is kind of nicely updated with an active comment section that tells a lot.

[Luciole77]

For better experience go solo. Its the only way to learn things....in group the experience is just awful because we didnt anything to get the reward....

[Invisibleaxeman]

I remember finding it quite quickly after I started playing.  At that point, I had no idea there was a fast travel menu, so I wandered around quite confused for a while, didn't even find the gate to the plains.

[vegetosayajin]

i remember, Cetus was not confusing, but I I went the first time in the night and I tried to fight an eido, because it was just walking there..."why doesn't my lv2 skana, braton and lato do any damage to it" :D

[(NSW)BalticBarbarian]

21 minutes ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Solo really should be default to avoid the "I just landed and its alred finished , what the hell just happened?" scenarios,

It's not quite as easy as that. New players would benefit greatly from trying to do the content solo, but they also need to be told that coop is an option they can and should use for certain things.

And that is a rather difficult message to properly communicate. Setting solo to be the default mode fails to communicate the latter part of the message, same as setting coop to be the default mode fails to communicate the former part. I'd love to suggest a solution, but I don't know what that would be.

[Luciole77]

3 minutes ago, vegetosayajin said:

i remember, Cetus was not confusing, but I I went the first time in the night and I tried to fight an eido, because it was just walking there..."why doesn't my lv2 skana, braton and lato do any damage to it" :D

same here....how to kill this little flying guys hitting me? I was mr 7 or lower and no clue about operators...i got killed always buy this guys. 🙄

 

So...cetus need to be blocked for new players....and even with operators need arcanes...warframe is too much complex and same time shallow/obscure.

[(NSW)BalticBarbarian]

5 minutes ago, Luciole77 said:

So...cetus need to be blocked for new players

Blocking it outright until Second Dream is not the answer - there's nothing wrong with low-level players trying to do T1-2 bounties during the day. Things just need to be more clearly signposted.

Maybe give them the "Saya's Vigil" quest after completing the Mars junction, adding a "hack a console at Hek's Stilleto base at night" stage - so that they see that there are scary things out at night but don't have to engage any of them.