New Player: Baffling Storyline

[Arias_Pher]

So I started a month ago and have been having fun with the gameplay and have only been doing the quests to progress to new planets. I'm part way through Natah and I feel like I'm missing something. I have no idea about pretty much everything and the quests feel like you should. The lotus (woman who talks alot) leaves and Ordis (man who talks alot, may be space ship) says he know what it feels like to be abandoned (is that supposed to mean anything?) and that Teshin (?) shows up and says he'll help. It's just so meaningless because I have no idea wtf is going on, am I supposed to care that lotus left? And yes I know it's a looter shooter and lore isn't a focus at all, but it feels like it could be just with more foundation. It feels like the sequel to a game you had to play to understand anything.

Am I the half drowned indian girl from the intro cutscene? Am I the last tenno after vor killed them all on that planet? What's a tenno? If I'm not the Indian girl then where'd she go and where'd I come from? Are the grineer and corpus bad or am I the baddie? Is it true that the orokin (whoever they are) got killed by their smart lawnmowers? Should we be worried? Will anyone even care?

Essentially should I wait and all will be explained or just read the wiki/watch youtube?

[smashedwookie]

some part will be explained a little more in the quests your working on and will unlock afterward. don't want to spoil anything.

For now iirc what you should know/understand from previous interaction with those character is that:

• Lotus as been you're handler ever since you woke up (started the game)
• Ordis is you ship cephalon (AI)
• Teshin at this point is pretty much a new character, since he is mostly only been invovled in Conclave (PVP), and Steel Path (Harder Star chart) which you are not ready to unlock.

 

[-Krism-]

8 minutes ago, Arias_Pher said:

And yes I know it's a looter shooter and lore isn't a focus at all

Oh wow, you can't be serious right now, please tell me you're joking

[Aeiroth]

If you want to know what's going on, you either read up, or invent a time machine to go back in time to the many Events we've had which actually has important story elements for various parts of the game to them, but has never been reimplemented into the game so new players will not and cannot possibly know most of it.

[Sevek7]

7 minutes ago, Arias_Pher said:

Essentially should I wait and all will be explained or just read the wiki/watch youtube?

You pretty much have to read the wiki/watch youtube.

Unfortunately, a lot of Warframe's story was originally explained in events. These events were time limited Category:Event | WARFRAME Wiki | Fandom and the vast majority have not been repeated.

I sympathize with your situation. I was there for a couple of the events but missed the majority. I started playing in 2014 and have replayed all the replayable story quests several times and I can confidently say that I have no idea what is actually going on.

[Nurmetya]

That is due to there being no actual storyline its more like a painting, but the painters tool of choice is a drippy sippy cup.

DE had planned out a storyline at one point, Natah is the start of of it but its been dragged out to a point of nonsense over the course of 4 years.

[rastaban75]

I understand part of the sentiment, the story in Warframe is not spelled out to the player and can be iften confusing... but saying that you don't know who Ordis is... that shows that you don't really pay much attention.

[Arias_Pher]

7 minutes ago, rastaban75 said:

I understand part of the sentiment, the story in Warframe is not spelled out to the player and can be iften confusing... but saying that you don't know who Ordis is... that shows that you don't really pay much attention.

Yeah I was exaggerating but beyond the bare minimum of him being a ship AI that's all that I really know. https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Cephalon As per the wiki, almost all of the references are from later in the game. The only knowledge I should have is that he's a glitched antique AI. 

Referencesedit | edit source

1. ↑ Warframe - Ask Cephalon
2. ↑ "Wow. You may want to get a new Ship Cephalon, when you can afford it, haha. That one seems glitched. I’ve marked your navigation with a place I know... it’s good for resources... if you can stand the cold." - Darvo during Vor's Prize
3. ↑ "Heard of those cubes? You know - "Cephalons" right? Probably got one a bit-cracked kissin' up to you all the time? See, in the old days, crime and punishment was all in the hands of those Orokin judges, the Seven. Mercy was a quick flash of the Jade light... But - if they wanted to make an example, they'd suck up your soul and make you a prisoner of the glass, forever." - Nora Night during Nightwave Series 3
4. ↑ "Nihil's hit his endgame. Dozens are getting glassed now, systemwide, and he's just warming up. Easy to trace a signal that strong. This is where Nihil glassed thousands - maybe millions. Back in the day, this place would have been stacked with pretty glass bottles - Cephalon oubliettes. Tiny little hells, each built for one. He's hiding out. We gotta find out where - and fast." - Nora Night during Nightwave Series 3
5. ↑ Cephalon Fragments
6. ↑ "So you see, Operator. No Orokin would permit a thinking machine. Such things almost destroyed them! No. Cephalons were alive once. And now they are immortal phantom minds, imprisoned to serve. Ill will and longing memories fragmented and erased. Only the bits they need remaining." - Ordis in "Pluto" Cephalon Fragment
7. ↑ "Curious about music, as I am? Ignore the rants of that monster, Irmis, who perverts his function with destruction. Correction, Simaris is to whom I refer. I am busy with my data collecting, What is your query?" - Cephalon Suda in Octavia's Anthem
8. ↑ "What is this? An antique Series-2 Cephalon? All I found were degraded beyond repair, but you're still functional. Your abilities could be of great use in my Sanctuary." - Cephalon Simaris during The New Strange
9. ↑ "Hunter, if you continue to follow that corrupted Cephalon, my Sanctuary will be the only place left for you. She must be disconnected from the weave before she corrupts the other Cephalons! [...] Whatever bit-rot is affecting Suda could cross the weave and infect us as well. Don't let your compassion-glitch drive you and your hunter to death by this demented Cephalon. Sever ties before we both are corrupted." - Cephalon Simaris during Octavia's Anthem
10. ↑ "Cephalons can manifest an alternate reality of information. Training simulations, archives... even a grandiose archival of living creatures is possible, as is the case with Sanctuary." - Cephalon Simaris in response to "Suda's datascape?" during Octavia's Anthem
11. ↑ "Operator, you are still helping me rescue Jordas, correct? I must fulfill my 44th precept, to help others like me in need." - Ordis during The Jordas Precept
12. ↑ "What? Gone? Are you sure? How will you command the Warframes if your --Conditions satisfied. Engaging Purge Precept.--" - Ordis during The War Within
13. ↑ "A Railjack requires a viable Command Cephalon. I am NOT a viable Command Cephalon. I will identify a viable replacement. But first: salvage, then assembly. Return to your Orbiter." - Cephalon Cy during Rising Tide
14. ↑ Dev Workshop - New (Spoiler) Mods

[vanaukas]

49 minutes ago, Arias_Pher said:

I'm part way through Natah and I feel like I'm missing something. I have no idea about pretty much everything and the quests feel like you should. The lotus (woman who talks alot) leaves and Ordis (man who talks alot, may be space ship) says he know what it feels like to be abandoned (is that supposed to mean anything?) and that Teshin (?) shows up and says he'll help. It's just so meaningless because I have no idea wtf is going on, am I supposed to care that lotus left?

This is clearly a bait, since those events are well explained in quest after Natah. In Natah, nothing of what you have mentioned takes place. Lotus leaving happens after the Chains of Harrow quest.

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, Arias_Pher said:

I'm part way through Natah and I feel like I'm missing something. I have no idea about pretty much everything and the quests feel like you should. The lotus (woman who talks alot) leaves and Ordis (man who talks alot, may be space ship) says he know what it feels like to be abandoned (is that supposed to mean anything?) and that Teshin (?) shows up and says he'll help. It's just so meaningless because I have no idea wtf is going on, am I supposed to care that lotus left? 

What you're missing is that there is an enemy faction called the Sentients. Aliens from another star system who nearly wiped out humanity, and the only thing who stopped them was us, the Tenno.

At the start of the Natah quest, Lotus realizes that there are Sentient artifacts around, and that some of them are still active. This scares her (for reasons revealed in the quest), and scares her so badly that she abandons you in the middle of a mission. This is supposed to be a huge red flag

[Arias_Pher]

16 minutes ago, vanaukas said:

This is clearly a bait, since those events are well explained in quest after Natah. In Natah, nothing of what you have mentioned takes place. Lotus leaving happens after the Chains of Harrow quest.

No, in Natah all of what I said happened. Like I said I was part way through. After the first planet, where I scanned the scout drones, she said they were orocysts and then wished me luck and left. I returned to the ship where I got a audio log of ordis saying he know what it feels like to be abandoned and that Teshin (?) shows up and says he'll help. She comes back a few planet missions later

[Surbusken]

I think lore fans would tell you to play the story quests first. I think nearly all the cutscenes are in there?

You can watch all the cutscenes and read up, on google, but might ruin the playthrough for you.

Either which way, you are going to get booed out of town, if you say the lore isn't great - you only have people who don't care about lore and people who get waframe tattoos and play the soundtrack at their wedding.

So there is really no place, for a guy that cares about lore, but don't like it. Your best strategy is opening up with "I love the lore" and then debate plots or characters, ask questions.

All in or all out.

 

 

[PublikDomain]

Yeah, the story isn't exactly cohesive... There's a lot of context that used to be given through in-game events which have long since ended, and the rest of the context is lost when new players can move through the quests so quickly. Older players know the old event lore because we were there, and the quests make more sense because we spent so long asking questions in between when they were still being released. A lot of players like to hype TSD up like it's the pinnacle of storytelling, but I don't see how it can have much of an impact if you don't have those years of build-up.

StallordD has a series on the game's lore that's generally accurate AFAIK: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTTHakyFGvV0x4-ngF7nITjj_Dg7xJ1OP

Though your best bet is scanning ingame fragments with your scanner to unlock codex entries. Or, just reading up on the wikia.

[Arias_Pher]

10 minutes ago, Surbusken said:

I think lore fans would tell you to play the story quests first. I think nearly all the cutscenes are in there?

You can watch all the cutscenes and read up, on google, but might ruin the playthrough for you.

Either which way, you are going to get booed out of town, if you say the lore isn't great - you only have people who don't care about lore and people who get waframe tattoos and play the soundtrack at their wedding.

So there is really no place, for a guy that cares about lore, but don't like it. Your best strategy is opening up with "I love the lore" and then debate plots or characters, ask questions.

All in or all out.

 

 

Oh I do like the lore, I just know that in looter shooters it doesn't have the depth of like RPG's or bigger universes like WoW, elder scrolls, star wars etc. It just feels like I'm playing a second game where the basics are already known. This whole thing started being I was trying to figure out who teshin was after he basically just showed up out of the blue and then it doesn't explain who/how/why he is helping us. Same thing with Simaris. Seems like if you spoke to him or knew him from elsewhere it would make more sense. If we felt more beholden to the lotus, we'd feel her absence more.

[Carl_Bar]

I get the feeling the OP hasn't played through the earlier quests too recently either. There where a few key "event" related thingies that happened in the past that are relevant, but the bulk is explained within the previous quests, but i get the distinct feeling that a lots been forgoten from them.

 

That said a few of the questions your asking, (where did ordis come from, who is the Lotus, what is a tenno), where huge mysteries to the player-base for literal in game years. We didn't get the answers to those until the back end of the quest your now on or quests you haven't got to. The playbase spent all their time speculating about it but we didn;t et anwsers for a long time. there's no prior game you need to play or anything.

 

As for how Lore heavy the game is, as mentioned Event's can and have provided a lot of lore prior to the quests your on, so it's nowhere near typical looter shooter lore levels, there's allways been a full, complex, and rich story there, but for new players you don't start to really see it till you hit your current quest because nearly all the stuff that happened before this is in events you never did. They've gotten a lot better about not doing that since.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

This is a bit hard to answer, because the story isn't supposed to be immediately apparent, but I also don't know how hyperbolic you are being. Then also depending on how much insight and understanding you might want, looking at outside sources will help, but also some of your questions can be answered just by playing the game, and picking up on implicit story telling devices. Except such things can be subjective. Like when I first saw the intro quest, I assumed the young girl wasn't us, but she made her way towards what she believed to be heroic figures of the past. What's a Tenno? Lotus referring to me as a Tenno, so I must be a Tenno? What does that mean more specifically? Well, at that stage I didn't know, I had random speculation, and figured it would pop up later and it does... 

So if you have questions, I, and probably others would be more than happy to help out with answers, but you may also not be as lost as you think you are, because your speculation/guesses might be accurate, because the game isn't necessarily meant to be straight forward and plain, some quests are more important plot wise than others, but depending on what you spend your time in the game doing, it might take you a while to get there, and some people might not care for such details, and some do, which impacts such questions as "should I care if?" like uhh... if you do, you do, if you don't... 

I guess my recommendation would be, finish the main storyline/plot heavy quests, and if you still feel lost, or if you are more curious about details, then look at Wikia/Youtube. Remember you have a Codex as well. If you have more specific questions and don't mind spoilers, can always ask as well.  

[Arias_Pher]

22 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

This is a bit hard to answer, because the story isn't supposed to be immediately apparent, but I also don't know how hyperbolic you are being. Then also depending on how much insight and understanding you might want, looking at outside sources will help, but also some of your questions can be answered just by playing the game, and picking up on implicit story telling devices. Except such things can be subjective. Like when I first saw the intro quest, I assumed the young girl wasn't us, but she made her way towards what she believed to be heroic figures of the past. What's a Tenno? Lotus referring to me as a Tenno, so I must be a Tenno? What does that mean more specifically? Well, at that stage I didn't know, I had random speculation, and figured it would pop up later and it does... 

So if you have questions, I, and probably others would be more than happy to help out with answers, but you may also not be as lost as you think you are, because your speculation/guesses might be accurate, because the game isn't necessarily meant to be straight forward and plain, some quests are more important plot wise than others, but depending on what you spend your time in the game doing, it might take you a while to get there, and some people might not care for such details, and some do, which impacts such questions as "should I care if?" like uhh... if you do, you do, if you don't... 

I guess my recommendation would be, finish the main storyline/plot heavy quests, and if you still feel lost, or if you are more curious about details, then look at Wikia/Youtube. Remember you have a Codex as well. If you have more specific questions and don't mind spoilers, can always ask as well.  

I was definitely over exaggerating a bit, it's just odd that characters pop up from nowhere all the time without rhyme or reason. The Natah quest did answer some questions. But take teshin, he just shows up when the lotus leaves. Who is he, who does he work for, why is he helping us, why did ordis contact him out of everybody. Then a few planet missions go by and we still don't know anything about him, then he leaves. It's like getting a single puzzle piece without any other pieces, I can't really do anything with it and have no idea his relevance in anything. 

Also the codex is just for seeing enemies drops and stats. There's nothing of any help there besides replaying past missions.

[Corvid]

1 hour ago, vanaukas said:

This is clearly a bait, since those events are well explained in quest after Natah. In Natah, nothing of what you have mentioned takes place. Lotus leaving happens after the Chains of Harrow quest.

The Lotus actually does leave temporarily over the course of the Natah quest, resulting in Teshin taking over mission control duties for the next mission or two.

[smashedwookie]

8 minutes ago, Arias_Pher said:

I was definitely over exaggerating a bit, it's just odd that characters pop up from nowhere all the time without rhyme or reason. The Natah quest did answer some questions. But take teshin, he just shows up when the lotus leaves. Who is he, who does he work for, why is he helping us, why did ordis contact him out of everybody. Then a few planet missions go by and we still don't know anything about him, then he leaves. It's like getting a single puzzle piece without any other pieces, I can't really do anything with it and have no idea his relevance in anything. 

Also the codex is just for seeing enemies drops and stats. There's nothing of any help there besides replaying past missions.

You'll get more info on Teshin in the following quests

[wtrmlnjuc]

9 minutes ago, Arias_Pher said:

he codex is just for seeing enemies drops and stats

Not gonna deny the opaqueness of Warframe’s storytelling but you’re really undervaluing the Codex when it comes to lore. Story quests are good for main plot points, but Codex is good for backstory (and there is a lot). Scan items, look through the Codex, read and listen to the vast amount of flavour text and hidden stories. If you’re really looking for Ordis’ backstory, it is found through the completing and hunting the clues in the Codex. 

On that note, you should build Helios to make that task a lot less tedious. 

[vanaukas]

9 minutes ago, Corvid said:

The Lotus actually does leave temporarily over the course of the Natah quest, resulting in Teshin taking over mission control duties for the next mission or two.

lmao I didn't remembered that, I've just spoiled this user without even knowing it

[GrayArchon]

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

I'm part way through Natah and I feel like I'm missing something. I have no idea about pretty much everything and the quests feel like you should.

Many of the quests, especially Natah, date from a time when lore was exceedingly scarce, and people who enjoyed it absorbed every drop that DE put out. Natah is a fascinating quest because was the first time the Sentients had appeared in the game, and because of its end reveal (do not expand unless you have finished the quest or do not care):

Spoiler

The Lotus is a Sentient.

Now, however, Sentients are encountered on Earth, Venus, and Jupiter, so the quest no longer has that distinction. Additionally, the impact of the reveal falls flat on new players who haven't played for very long. And it's easy to miss the dialogue when you're jumping around in a mission, much less ponder its implications. To that end, one of my main recommendations is to read the transcripts of the quests after you've finished playing them, so you can absorb the story without distractions. Transcripts are on the wiki, but I have written more detailed ones on my site, the Orokin Archives. Watching the quests on YouTube also works too.

This is all based on the assumption that you want to understand the lore, of course. If you're just playing the quests to clear the planets, don't feel the need to devote additional time on something that isn't important.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Ordis (man who talks alot, may be space ship) says he know what it feels like to be abandoned (is that supposed to mean anything?)

Ordis is your ship's AI. During your tutorial, you get your ship back, and Ordis explains that he has been abandoned for the centuries that you have been in cryosleep. He's been waiting for you this whole time.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Teshin (?) shows up and says he'll help

Admittedly, this was abrupt even at the time of release. Teshin is an incredibly minor character until he starts playing big roles in the story, and then he disappears again. It's frustrating.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

am I supposed to care that lotus left?

The Lotus is your mission coordinator and really the only ally you have, aside from Ordis. Nowadays there are multiple civilian towns and other factions, but at the time Lotus sometimes seemed like the only other person in the universe. She guided you on all your missions and during the events. So when quests started to focus on her (Natah, Second Dream, War Within, Chains of Harrow, Apostasy Prologue, Sacrifice, etc) it was significant for long-term players at the time. Again, new players will have much less emotional investment.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Am I the half drowned indian girl from the intro cutscene?

Not specifically (probably?). It's a little unclear and difficult to dive into if all you've played is Natah.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Am I the last tenno after vor killed them all on that planet?

No. He's going around one by one. He's killed a bunch but not all.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

What's a tenno?

The nature of the Tenno is developed in further quests, most significantly the Second Dream, the War Within, and the Sacrifice.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Are the grineer and corpus bad or am I the baddie?

They're the baddies. Grineer are shown early on since they torched that girl's town and tried to capture/kill you. Corpus are given a short intro by Darvo in Vor's Prize as soulless capitalists. Both factions and their misdeeds were developed in a series of global events over the course of the game, especially in the 2013-2015 time frame. Unfortunately, new players don't have access to most of that in the game, and must seek it from outside sources. Again, my website has transcripts of all dialogue and events from those operations.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Is it true that the orokin (whoever they are) got killed by their smart lawnmowers?

The Orokin participated in a great war against their own creations, as described in the Excalibur Codex entry However, they did win that war (or rather, the Tenno won it for them), and they were ultimately killed by the Tenno themselves, as described in the Stalker Codex entry. These are early bits of lore that you technically have access to (if you've scanned the Stalker), but probably didn't seek out.

2 hours ago, Arias_Pher said:

Essentially should I wait and all will be explained or just read the wiki/watch youtube?

My recommendation, as I said above, is to play through the quests so you experience them firsthand, then read transcripts or watch YouTube to see if you missed anything. There's also a lot of lore outside of the main questlines: dialogue from NPCs, Codex entries, Simaris scans, and time-limited events. For those, I would recommend just skipping to the wiki (or, for a third shameless plug, my website, which lays out all the different categories of lore you can find).

Your confusion is understandable. The quests assume that you know everything that's been released up until that point. Much of it can be very hidden. In fact, after you complete the War Within quest, you will have to go back to the civilian towns (Cetus, Fortuna, Necralisk) and unlock parts of them that were previously inaccessible.

The timeline of events can be interpreted in a linear manner, but it's very hard to find that line and follow it, particularly for a new player. You have to treat things in the order they were released into the game, which of course you have no way of knowing without the wiki.

It is a shame DE hasn't invested the effort into clearing it up and making the new player experience more linear with respect to the lore, but then of course they still haven't made the new player experience more comprehensible with respect to the actual game mechanics, either.

1 hour ago, vanaukas said:

This is clearly a bait, since those events are well explained in quest after Natah. In Natah, nothing of what you have mentioned takes place. Lotus leaving happens after the Chains of Harrow quest.

Lotus does leave briefly for one mission during the Natah quest, and it's treated as a big deal. This is what OP is referencing.

[GrayArchon]

17 minutes ago, wtrmlnjuc said:

Not gonna deny the opaqueness of Warframe’s storytelling but you’re really undervaluing the Codex when it comes to lore. Story quests are good for main plot points, but Codex is good for backstory (and there is a lot). Scan items, look through the Codex, read and listen to the vast amount of flavour text and hidden stories. If you’re really looking for Ordis’ backstory, it is found through the completing and hunting the clues in the Codex.

The fragments (which you access from the Codex terminal) do indeed have a wealth of deep lore, but I don't know that I'd consider them part of the Codex proper. The actual Codex, with entries for the warframes, objects, and enemies, is very sparse in lore. Only 4 warframes and a handful of enemies have actual lore entries, though they are again significant (or at least were at the time; it's since been repeated by other dialogue in the game).

19 minutes ago, wtrmlnjuc said:

On that note, you should build Helios to make that task a lot less tedious.

Extremely good suggestion. Also can help incidentally with Silver Grove plants and Kavat DNA extracts (until you've completed the Codex entries).

[Sovyul]

Yeah, there's very little exposition, I felt the same way when I started playing back then. It won't get any better either, so yes, you should do your own research.

[MasterControl]

Warframe's story has a lot of stuff that is out of order or missing due to context being present in past events (Alad V's timeline is a particularly bad mess for exactly this reason). That said, a little bit of confusion is normal - Warframe has a *bit* of an amnesia story going on, and characters operate under their own knowledge without explaining things to you. The reason they do this will make sense later, but for now they are somewhat disregarding the importance of you understanding what is happening, and that is intentional. This leaves you to piece things together from hints and context clues - In fact, before any of the cinematic quests, there were people who managed to figure out the game's main story hook just from information you could find in the world. For what it's worth, you aren't there yet - and things will become a lot more clear once you do.