Is warframe's dependence on the wiki bad?

[OneYenShort]

11 hours ago, Aldain said:

Yes.

Obscuring information or putting it in outside sources is not depth or complexity, it is just a method of wasting the player's time.

Showing your age there. 

This game wasn't designed for "lemme spell everything out for you" players.  But those that want to figure things out on their own. But in order to handle the "feed me the buffet" style there is a wiki.

In some aspects information sharing has ruined gaming's ability to teach "how to think" aspects.  which I find sad considering video games were some of the best teachers of that skill as U.S. public schooling sucked on that aspect.

[NecroPed]

3 minutes ago, OneYenShort said:

Showing your age there. 

This game wasn't designed for "lemme spell everything out for you" players.  But those that want to figure things out on their own. But in order to handle the "feed me the buffet" style there is a wiki.

In some aspects information sharing has ruined gaming's ability to teach "how to think" aspects.  which I find sad considering video games were some of the best teachers of that skill as U.S. public schooling sucked on that aspect.

I remember playing an old megaman game and it didn't even tell you how to shoot. You got in, you jumped, you shot, and you went into playing the game and the level design taught you how to play. And boy was it satisfying!

[TheVeiledScion]

13 hours ago, continue said:

most of us probably know that in order to get info on a lot of content in warframe, you have to go to the wiki (or youtube, reddit, or other sources of information)

i have some thoughts on that

1. Speculation: wiki usage is encouraged by the game's farming system, but wiki usage also sets up the player for frustration with farming and RNG
   
   As we all know, RNG is a *@##$. I'll go out on a limb here and say I actually personally like gambling minigames in games. However, RNG is not gambling. It's often worse, because when you use the wiki, you generally use it to plan out a path to acquiring something, and RNG is only entertaining when you don't know what you're going to get, not how long it'll take you to get it. Add to this the often broken or unbalanced state of content on release, and any expectations are even further frustrated. (There's much more that could be discussed here about farming RNG, such as the game's 3-part-crafting system, or content islands that simply don't reward much else while you're farming one thing, but I have full confidence that the community has already discussed that ad nauseam.) 
    
2. Speculation: wiki usage shifts players towards hardcore on a casual-hardcore spectrum
   
   This is a double-edged sword IMO. In most games, the most hardcore players are the ones who will love the game and hate the game the most. They're more likely to be discontent with the direction of the game because they're more aware of its flaws and of failures in communication from the developers, but they're also much more engaged with the game and the community (especially if they use youtube or reddit as an info source). Engagement with the community is also a double-edged sword IMO for fairly obvious reasons if you watch Shy or Brozime like I do. Sadly, across all the live service games I've played, I feel that the happiest players have been the ones that don't get too attached. On the other hand, making meme builds (even when they don't work in the end) is something that has brought me great entertainment over the years, and I don't know if that would be possible to the same extent without a deep understanding of the game's systems supported by the wiki. 

anyways, i think it's important to remind ourselves that whether we decide dependence on the wiki is good or bad, it's kind of too late for most of us. unless you're going to be a new player in 2021, you'll probably already have the habit of going to the wiki, so what we're doing here is really just shooting the S#&$.

tl;dr

The wiki existing is not a bad thing. But, DE using the wiki as an excuse not to provide better basic guides to  their content for new players is a bad thing.

[JackHargreav]

I'm kinda fine with the way information is given to us.

Sometimes it can create an uncomfortable situation but somehow the game feels more "real" when you have to figure things out yourself.

[Aydason]

Without wiki i would literally hang in chat half of my time to get eventually accurate information

edit#No frustration for me , atleast not from using the wiki XDD

[DogsConkers]

I don’t like attrition it doesn’t help me I want players to stay so the game doesn’t shut down, yes it’s important as it’s one of the tools used to keep the game alive

[Pinegulf]

Yes. When I literally have to alt-tab find what I need to grind to get relics, for instance, is sign that  Information delivery in-game just isn't up to snuff. 

[TheGodofWiFi]

Yes it is. I've long railed on the cesspool of mediocrity that is the Destiny franchise for not having any of its important lore in the actual games themselves, but Warframe has it even worse as basic gameplay systems are not very well explained in the game at all. For new players this is outright terrible as they have to go to YouTube or the wiki to figure how the freaking game works.

[DrivaMain]

It made DE lazy to explain stuff in depth. I don't hate the wiki, but it does affect DE and the game negatively somewhat. Reviewers always bash Warframe with the lack of in-depth tutorial. That statement is enough to scare potential new players away.

They could have easily fix this by integrating The Wiki into the game.

[NekroArts]

8 minutes ago, TheGodofWiFi said:

Yes it is. I've long railed on the cesspool of mediocrity that is the Destiny franchise for not having any of its important lore in the actual games themselves, but Warframe has it even worse as basic gameplay systems are not very well explained in the game at all. For new players this is outright terrible as they have to go to YouTube or the wiki to figure how the freaking game works.

Not a valid comparison when one is about lore and the other is about gameplay. In terms of gameplay both are bad in their own ways of explaining things.

[TheGodofWiFi]

9 minutes ago, NekroArts said:

Not a valid comparison when one is about lore and the other is about gameplay. In terms of gameplay both are bad in their own ways of explaining things.

Its the principle of leaving important things out of the video games themselves and forcing the player to go and look for them on the internet. Story and gameplay are the two halves that make up the whole of video games. 

It's detrimental to the gaming experience since you have to actually stop playing the game to go and find out stuff about the game itself.

[NekroArts]

27 minutes ago, TheGodofWiFi said:

Its the principle of leaving important things out of the video games themselves and forcing the player to go and look for them on the internet. Story and gameplay are the two halves that make up the whole of video games. 

It's detrimental to the gaming experience since you have to actually stop playing the game to go and find out stuff about the game itself.

That would make sense if the story and the gameplay were actually integrated into each other and not just placed into gameplay. For example, in the last part of the Ace of Spades quest players opens multiple chests containing personal audio logs of Cayde. If we stripped all that lore out the quest is just a mundane fetch quest that is guided by a linear path with a marker should a player miss a chest.

One of my poor experience was no in-game info on activating heroic public events. What they could've have done is have players find a piece of lore that explains how to activate it. It's doesn't need to be blatant, it could be a conversation between two entities where one of them stress the importance of keeping "x" undamaged.

[CxLL]

7 hours ago, JackHargreav said:

Sometimes it can create an uncomfortable situation but somehow the game feels more "real" when you have to figure things out yourself.

I personally love this. It has lead me through the game since day one.

Going off Jack's note (sorry you'll be quoted in this mini wall of text), the exploration and self-education where you're later allowed to enrich an encyclopedia with your knowledge and help others navigate with less effort. A weird form of gratification, of course, but it works - you definitely feel some achievement through it.
The game did change though, making some parts easier and more user-friendly, while others became a bit more difficult to comprehend. It's normal for teams with little to no differentiation when it comes to executing the required tasks. The level of communication needed to do everything in a standardized manner is usually impossible to achieve, so you will see, for instance, one item description being extremely informative, whilst another completely lacking (and by that, I do mean missing. Entirely non-existent.).
This is where the players step in and fill in their findings through the experience, helping others skip a step in the learning process, which can be both good and bad, depending on the player. It does seem like spoonfeeding results in a very large amount of loud, angry demandypants, but regardless of the noise, they actually don't make up the majority.

What would actually boost the development of mediums that grant information is not an external player-made encyclopedia but instead a clear line of communication with the staff. The forums offer an excellent platform for such things, it's solely up to the players to read the instructions prior to posting complaints. A smidge more organization wouldn't hurt either, such as making a difference between feedback, suggestions, demands, qol, bugs, complaints, overlooks and so on rather than stuffing all of that in two categories whilst accepting bug reports as replies in a single megathread most tend not to read. It's definitely not impossible considering the amount of (not only gaming) companies working in such a manner, and there's definitely more than enough people, employed or not, available to handle the task of organizing, filtering and refining the material.

But, just as most things at present, this remains wishful thinking, in a large reply of a random General thread, that most will simply scroll pass due to the practiced fear of wasting time on dealing with letters, that the internet took decades to prove aren't always worth reading. The usual.

[OwlOfJune]

There is another set of problem a lot of ppl here would forget, but the issue with dependence on Wiki is that the game becomes a lot less accessible to non-English speaking players.

 

Yes we exist, I personally can read English to use wikia or google stuff, but it isn't not what I would say accessible to all players.

 

Granted, being Mature game that is quite niche, the majority of players are mostly young adults who can at least read Wikia and some have made their own translated wika- equivalents and blog/forums to help out players do exist. 

 

But still, at very least main game play mechanics such as drop tables and where to farm items should be in-game.

[Aldain]

9 hours ago, OneYenShort said:

Showing your age there.

That card doesn't really work that well, considering one of my earliest gaming experiences was the original Megaman X back when I was about 4 years old, so I grew up long before the "handed on a silver platter" thing started.

But maybe you're right in a different way about my age, as I get older I have less and less of a tolerance for the "git gud" crowd being as unhelpful as possible, directing people to just go read a wiki to save themselves any effort of having to inform people, people automatically assuming everyone is lazy even when something is complex and unclear.

So yeah, I'm getting old and getting tired of all of this BS of people not even trying to explain things, not just in games, but in the real world too, because nobody is ever going to learn "how to think" if somebody doesn't try to inform them in the first place and leading to people just googling the answer to a question and learning nothing from it.

[SneakyErvin]

Some things could be better handled by the game. Like having drop location tags on resources after you've obtained them one time. This mostly applies to the RJ eximus resources since most other things can be found by looking at the star chart. 

Specter abilities could also be shown in-game, with CDs showing and so on.

Other than that most things have been smooth without a wiki. I've only checked a few small things regarding certain boss mechanics.

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I think the reliance on the wiki is blown out of proportion. When you start, yes, you will probably spend quite some time on the internet looking at wiki and videos, but I feel it's the same with 95 percent of games nowadays. 

Imho biggest issue with the game is still the useless mod codex. What's the point of having a mod codex if it only show you the info on mods you already own ? If I want to see the mods I already own, I can check my mod collection. New players shouldn't have to google the name of like 1000 mods to find out what they do and which ones are worth farming, and it could include more precise drop locations with the percentage shown.

Player profile could also be updated to give drop source and percentage when you look at stuff you haven't crafted yet.

With these two changes, it would cut the need to check the wiki for gear and mods, and since there's already tutorial pages in-game and you can search for relics, I'd say it would make external sources not mandatory.

[Zimzala]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Stealth_Cobra said:

I think the reliance on the wiki is blown out of proportion. When you start, yes, you will probably spend quite some time on the internet looking at wiki and videos, but I feel it's the same with 95 percent of games nowadays. 

This.

If you are the type of person that 'must know it all', then you will end up on the wiki anyway.

If you like to figure things out, then you will go to the wiki only now and then.

The entire premise of 'wiki bad', IMO/IME, is all based around players that do not want to think for themselves and and want the game to just lead them along a pre-defined path and WF is simply not designed that way.

It is not a financial program. It is not a CAD system. It is a game and part of this game is, in fact, 'figuring things out' because the DE devs have stated they think the players are smart enough and resourceful enough to do it. Part of this game from day one was the 'out of game' communications, just like The Secret World.

IMO/IME. the people clamoring loudest for not using a wiki just seem to want the game to give them data that the developers, as part of the game, want to the player to have to experiment to learn.

It is a design choice, like it or don't like it, but it is a choice, not a fail, not bad, simply a design choice.

This vilification of the design choice by players that have over-active curiosity to the degree they think they actually need damage formulas and drop rates to play are the issue, IMO, not the Wikis.

Sure, you want this data. That's fine. But the gist of this thread and many players is that the are entitled to that data without finding it themselves, to which I disagree.

[(PSN)Yggranya]

4 minutes ago, Zimzala said:

This.

If you are the type of person that 'must know it all', then you will end up on the wiki anyway.

If you like to figure things out, then you will go to the wiki only now and then.

The entire premise of 'wiki bad', IMO/IME, is all based around players that do not want to think for themselves and and want the game to just lead them along a pre-defined path and WF is simply not designed that way.

It is not a financial program. It is not a CAD system. It is a game and part of this game is, in fact, 'figuring things out' because the DE devs have stated they think the players are smart enough and resourceful enough to do it. Part of this game from day one was the 'out of game' communications, just like The Secret World.

IMO/IME. the people clamoring loudest for not using a wiki just seem to want the game to give them data that the developers, as part of the game, want to the player to have to experiment to learn.

It is a design choice, like it or don't like it, but it is a choice, not a fail, not bad, simply a design choice.

This vilification of the design choice by players that have over-active curiosity to the degree they think they actually need damage formulas and drop rates to play are the issue, IMO, not the Wikis.

Sure, you want this data. That's fine. But the gist of this thread and many players is that the are entitled to that data without finding it themselves, to which I disagree.

Yes, DE saving money by doing nothing and getting you mooks to defend them by inflating your ego with flattery is working as intended. Heh, "smart enough". Hah!

[Zimzala]

31 minutes ago, (PSN)Yggranya said:

Yes, DE saving money by doing nothing and getting you mooks to defend them by inflating your ego with flattery is working as intended. Heh, "smart enough". Hah!

So, by being a player, a person, that enjoys tinkering and figuring things out and finding a game that provides that entertainment, providing the developers of that entertainment with resources to create more of it, I am a 'mook'...uh-huh.

I love these people that look down their noses at corporations being 'evil' while they use the Internet to spout this crap, play games, and use all sorts of services, hourly, that depend on these corporations that have created this system we use...too funny.

You sound like a 12 year old that has never had a job or created anything worthwhile for society with this outlook, IMO.

This is simply an entertainment vector, nothing more. If you are unsatisfied with the entertainment and still play it, then the 'problem' is in your own brain...if you don't play any more yet still post this kind of crap here, then the problem is really in your brain.

To have such a small world view sounds terrible, you have my pity.

[Veridian]

Given the state of the WF wiki I can safely say its ok.

Another example is when I played Destiny and I did more research than I did on my desertation to find a coherent answer for some of my questions.

I guess it ultimately boils down that WF has a community that makes up for some shortcomings.

[WoodedSkate89]

23 hours ago, (XBOX)C11H22O11 said:

You mean the Sacrifice?

i do... thank you!

[General-Pacman]

I have mixed feelings about this.
On one hand, I enjoy having to figure things out. I don't like when a game hands everything to you on a silver plate; doing my research is like solving a puzzle or discovering a secret, it's half of the fun to me.
On the other hand, and as someone already stated, I feel like Warframe completely fails to explain basic core gameplay mechanics, like modding, the damage system, progression, etc, specially in early game; and I think  this is probably one of the reasons Warframe has a hard time retaining new players; It's very easy to start playing a bit and get quickly overwhelmed with the amount of systems to learn and with the general sense of being lost, without knowing how to progress.

TL;DR I do like having to research on my own to learn about "late game" or deeper  aspects of the game, but Warframe should have a better in-game way of teaching its core systems to newcomers.

[Tesseract7777]

7 hours ago, Aldain said:

That card doesn't really work that well, considering one of my earliest gaming experiences was the original Megaman X back when I was about 4 years old, so I grew up long before the "handed on a silver platter" thing started.

But maybe you're right in a different way about my age, as I get older I have less and less of a tolerance for the "git gud" crowd being as unhelpful as possible, directing people to just go read a wiki to save themselves any effort of having to inform people, people automatically assuming everyone is lazy even when something is complex and unclear.

So yeah, I'm getting old and getting tired of all of this BS of people not even trying to explain things, not just in games, but in the real world too, because nobody is ever going to learn "how to think" if somebody doesn't try to inform them in the first place and leading to people just googling the answer to a question and learning nothing from it.

Indeed.

If unwarranted elitism were hot air the amount we have in this thread alone could easily push the earth out of orbit futurama style. 

In fact, I think "a bunch of polluting robots farting" is a good analogy for the cesspool of obnoxious git gud in this thread. 

[Iccotak]

The game is still incomplete and leaves players directionless as to its systems.

an over-reliance on the wiki is a symptom of this issue