The New Player Experience Dev Workshop!

[Yulfan]

Le 02/11/2021 à 16:52, [DE]Zach a dit :

Introducing the ‘TENNO GUIDE”! 

The ‘Tenno Guide’ adds a new UI notification when inside the Orbiter! A lot of new players have felt lost once they finish Vor’s Prize, and this persistent reminder will guide new Tenno to their next steps. This new feature will be auto-enabled on login, but can be disabled at any time in the menus under Options > Interface > Show Tenno Guide! 

We hope this change makes the biggest impact to a new player in Warframe. There is a lot to know about our game, and the Tenno Guide will help new Tenno focus on what matters at that point and time in their journey!

It's a nice addition, but i find it too binary : it's either a rather large notification who is ALWAYS here, or nothing at all. I find it a bit distracting to always see a notification that i chose to ignore for the time being : for example, i don't want to start the Yareli quest yet but it keep showing up, which become really annoying after a while … (Well at least it's better than the Lotus popping up everytime i enter my orbiter nagging at me "ThErE iS a NeW qUeSt In YoUr CoDeX !¡!" 🤬 ).

I would have apreciate if the bar could reduce into an icon after showing up the first time. Always there to indicate that there is something to do, but not a full bar which is too eye-catching imo (Maybe a three-mode option, with Full/Discreet/Off).

[whyimnot]

As a new player, removing a 24 hour timeout for failing a mastery test for whatever silly reason would be nice, as timing someone out for failing vice passing wouldn't stop boosters.

 

Maybe an hour or so if it's a failure? But even then since there's a practice version, why even have a penalty for failing it?

[Loopgru]

I'm a 2000 hour player and just went back and replayed on a fresh account from 0 to The Second Dream. Here are some things I noticed along the way:

1. After the intro quest, the NPE immediately directs the player to Saya's Vigil as the next quest. This is a giant mistake- an MR0 player gets absolutely wrecked on the plains (especially if they happen to arrive at night), and it makes for a really confusing, negative experience.

2. The Mars junction requirements appear to have completion of Once Awake as an unlisted prerequisite. The unlock condition simply says to complete the Mercury junction and visit the codex, but the junction remains locked until after Once Awake is completed. This also cascades into Howl of the Kubrow, as you do not receive the incubator core.

3. In Once Awake, there is a brief nod to faction/armor-specific damage types with the award of a heat mod. That's great, but could use better explanation- for example, I knew I was creating blast on my Bo as I already had a North Wind on it, but a new player would have no idea.

4. Venus junction awards a Clashing Forest stance mod, which is, again, great, but could use some explanation. Further, it would be a kindness to new players to include unranked stance mods with all of the MK1 weapons.

5. Immediately upon completion of Once Awake, the NPE directs you to Deimos. Again, this seems like a giant mistake and prone to overwhelming new players- an MR1 has no business there.

6. Plastids as a requirement for Rhino is pretty mean. It gates creation of what's most players' first frame behind completion of Earth, Mars, Venus, and a significant chunk of Mercury in order to access Phobos. I remember back during my initial playthrough this was what frustrated me into quitting. More generally, there should be vastly better transparency about resource locations- a new player would have no idea that they had to get gallium from Mars or plastids from Deimos.

7. In general I think the NPE really just needs an internal MR threshold for what it suggests; if that's happening now, it needs to be refined a lot. As an experienced player who knows how to mod effectively, the introductory Deimos encounters were still rough at MR1- for someone without that experience that would've been a brick wall.

8. Remove the rep cost from basic gathering tools. Going out and having to pass by nodes is annoying.

9. A kiddie pool matchmaking system would be a great change, so low MR players can be queued alongside others in the same boat rather than the typical "what just happened / guess I'll just scoop loot and leave" feeling that happens now.

[Lutesque]

13 hours ago, Loopgru said:

 

1. After the intro quest, the NPE immediately directs the player to Saya's Vigil as the next quest. This is a giant mistake- an MR0 player gets absolutely wrecked on the plains (especially if they happen to arrive at night), and it makes for a really confusing, negative experience.

Oh yes... This is exactly what happened to me when I was new.... I'm not even sure how I wound up on The Plains... Much less how I wound up there at night... But it was Awful 😱 !!!

13 hours ago, Loopgru said:

 

5. Immediately upon completion of Once Awake, the NPE directs you to Deimos. Again, this seems like a giant mistake and prone to overwhelming new players- an MR1 has no business there.

I don't know.... I feel the exact opposite way about Deimos compared to Cetus.... Purely because Deimos appears to have faster Progression compared to the other two Open Worlds.....

14 hours ago, Loopgru said:

6. Plastids as a requirement for Rhino is pretty mean. It gates creation of what's most players' first frame behind completion of Earth, Mars, Venus, and a significant chunk of Mercury in order to access Phobos. I remember back during my initial playthrough this was what frustrated me into quitting. More generally, there should be vastly better transparency about resource locations- a new player would have no idea that they had to get gallium from Mars or plastids from Deimos.

I really don't like how the one and only way to require 99.9% of all resources is by killing Enemies and even then with the Exception of Oxium Ospreys it's RNG whether you get those Resources or not.... It's really annoying.

 

[AlienPickle]

I have some thoughts about the NPE - and heck, the OPE too, because I'm still lost 3000 hours in.

1. Ordis could be useful.

Instead of telling me dad-jokes all day, Ordis could be a more "assistant" presence.

First, there should be a DE created logical walkthrough of things that a player should have accomplished to be "on the path".  Then Ordis keeps a checklist of what's next to do.  This isn't just a quest tracker, but a curated list of what a player would be advised to accomplish in a specific order if they're lost on what to be doing next.

1. Has the player completed the intro quests?
2. Has the player cleared the starmap nodes to the Mars junction?
3. Has the player... etc.

If those things haven't been done they are priority to carrying the player from first quest to 2nd Dream.  Then what are the steps from 2nd Dream to the next quest, and so on.  

If the player gets to the phase in their path where they're eligible to start a quest, Ordis can ask "Would you like to start the XYZ quest, operator?"  This drops the player into the quest terminal, looking at the "Start Quest" button.

2. What am I missing, and where do I find it?

The codex is great... IF PLAYERS FIND IT.  You'd be surprised how many don't even look in here and start googling and going to the wiki instead.  When there are quests or pre-requisite items and such, it would be great if the item names were hotlinks to the codex so the player can get there to the specific items they want to know about with a single click.

Once you're in the codex, we could have some improvements.  Here's specifically something about the Mods:

When I'm looking at mods, I see the mods I do and don't have.
If I don't have a mod, then the text is ?????? obsfucated.  This is a mistake.  Let the player read what things are, so they know what they want to seek out.
When I click on a mod - let's use Antitoxin as example - it indicates as drop sources "Fusion MOA, Vapos Fusion MOA".  
Those drop sources should be links to the starmap.  If I select "Fusion MOA" then the starmap comes up and every node where that creature type spawns should be pulsating for me to click on and go there.

Furthermore, I should be able to create a "to-do list" quest reminder for myself. 

== To Do ==
Drop: Antitoxin Mod
Target: Fusion MOA
Resource: Hexanon (1000)
Resource: Rubido (250)

Then I can refer back to "what the heck am I doing?" and see that I was looking for a mod, and I need to go hunt Fusion MOAs.  Clicking on the creature's name takes me to the nav map with the relevant locations pulsating.  Now I can't lose track of what I'm doing.

When looking at stuff in the codex, I should have a "Add to to-do list" that sticks it on my list tracker.

When I try to build something and I lack the resources for the job, ask the player "Add needed items to to-do tracker?"  Then I have a reminder of what resources I need to be grinding.  Clicking on the resource on the list takes me to the nav map and all the nodes where I can get it are pulsating.  

Now I can manage my own hyperlink list right in game of what I'm trying to get, where I need to get it, and what drops it.  And I can populate that list any time there's some dialogue that says I'm lacking it, or I'm looking at a mod I don't have or a frame, weapon, gadet, or whatever I don't have that I want.

If we extrapolate this to further into the game... I want a Necramech.  How do I get one?
1. Heart of Deimos quest complete.
2. Kadesh on Mars
3. Horend
4. Phlegyas
5. War Within quest
6. Travel to Necralisk and meet Loid
7. Reach Modus rank with Loid
Add to my to-do list:
27000 standing
25 Orokin Orientation Matrix
400 void traces
1 zymos blueprint
40 Father tokens
1 Sepulcrum blueprint

So where do I get those 24 orientation matrixes? Well, I click on the item and it takes me to the nav map where they are.  If it's a reward from a specific bounty type, it takes me to the "accept bounty" window or sends me at minimum to the bounty issuing NPC.  Otherwise, I'm out hunting around for "how to" guides and reading the wiki.  The game itself could suggest to me where I need to go, what I need to kill to get the drop, etc.

If Ordis was really cool - but it would require a lot of voice lines added - he could say "I think you get Orokin Orientation Matrixes from Vault bounties, issued by Mother in the Necralisk.  Would you like a waypoint to her?"  Perhaps just a text popup without the specific voicing of it is good enough.

The point being is if I set a personal goal target = "obtain a necramech" then my to-do list can be auto-populated with the "next thing to do".  I can select "I want a Necramech" by looking at it in the codex, seeing that I don't have one, and clicking "add to shopping list".  Then Ordis starts breadcrumb guidance to get me there, get me the resources I need to turn in, and who to give them to, in the correct order to get it done.

 

 

 

 

 

[YuvenPrime]

New player here too (200 hours maybe, a lil less half was afk, next to urano and done most adv i crossed) , on the verge of quitting the game, and not because the game is intimidating or whatsover... its actually all the contrary. The design overall feels a lot like a mobile game; I'll expose my matters here;

 

1-One of the biggest problem the game has is AI; Artificial inteligence. It is straight awful and boring. Enemies starts to run around like chicken and shoot nonstop, then they try to cover and show their ass on you to kill them. They are also slow as hell and stale, most of the enemies have the exact same AI code. their "awereness" zone is also so stupid and low, AI shines a lot here for its absence. for 50 hours its ok, but then it gets really really bad, legit like a mobile game. on top of that, they bug quite a lot, Especially Bosses; looks like some starter bosses been "reworked" to offer a lil better experience but most of them are quite trashy and boring, doesnt feel boss at all. And the reward for them is also very dishearting. On top of that, they are extremely buggy.

2-Exp farming on weapons; Actually very mobile like; game forces you to repeat over and over a gameplay that doesnt provide actual substance and force you to farm and repeat best places which is usually not fun at all, especially since AI doesnt provide any real fun or som depth to the gameplay. Seriously, some weapons are very bad and doesnt provide absolutely anything, or change anything, its the same over, and over, and over... repetition isnt bad; Boring repetition, is. Give the player challenges and an actual purpose in the game, we are supposed to be tennos and we play like grineers lvl 5.

3-Cooldown creation: an actual abusive paywall to get things done... which you are forced to since its the base of the game. You need to create hundreds of guns to lvl up over and over, frames and huge etc... Its really boring and slow down the game quite a lot. We already have to farm stuff, I dont really understand the need to put all the stuff like 12, 24, or even 1 freaking week for a full frame, since we are forced to farm even if we dont like it.

4- Gameplay loop right now isnt fun, at all. I had a blast around Fortuna... but it quickly slow down and now touching the soil. Literraly sleeping in missions sometimes.

5-Adventures doesnt make the cut since Fortuna: "create X you have farmed in the story but then have to buy it on market because yes" in a simple voice file spam of some simple story that gets more and more uniteresting, When Fortuna was quite the blast. It feels really bad, I can tell you that.

6-Warframes: Some frames have outdated skill kit, way too simple kit, and they only have around 4 skills with passive, which a lot of frame actually has the "same" power and function but with different effects. Why so many frames if the gameplay is exactly the same?

 

The last one is a little more subjective but it also deminish my fun inside the game; Lotus, and our character; Lotus can be muted-more or less, she still spam in some missions...- but we have to endure her manipulating our character non stop and making us going on rampage assasination constantly. Being forced to be an awful simp kid ingame also doesnt help, we should have the some little choice for our character... if not, whats the point of customizing it and choosing all our skillset, sindicate and etc? Everything is so messy.

 

Right now I really dont know how to feel about the game, I feel pretty much dissapointed and Im not sure how the "endgame" will be, I have an idea since I play with people who made most of the story and... it doesnt look especially good. Its the same but with diff stats.

[atteSmythe]

On 2021-12-04 at 12:19 PM, Loopgru said:

I'm a 2000 hour player and just went back and replayed on a fresh account from 0 to The Second Dream. Here are some things I noticed along the way:

1. After the intro quest, the NPE immediately directs the player to Saya's Vigil as the next quest. This is a giant mistake- an MR0 player gets absolutely wrecked on the plains (especially if they happen to arrive at night), and it makes for a really confusing, negative experience.

On 2021-12-05 at 2:23 AM, Lutesque said:

Oh yes... This is exactly what happened to me when I was new.... I'm not even sure how I wound up on The Plains... Much less how I wound up there at night... But it was Awful 😱 !!!

Yes! This happened to my group, too. We went right to the recommended quest and ended up on the Plains at night. Grineer popping up out of the ground, the water messed up the UI, some giant robot thing was attacking a grineer camp, and it was waaaaay over our level. We left, and the group decided that PoE was some high-level, optional open-world stuff and hasn't been back since. It significantly stunted the development of my regular gaming group.

Even after I went back independently, the vomvalysts at night never felt adequately explained. I knew I couldn't kill them but didn't know why. It taught me to avoid PoE at night at least...maybe it's supposed to be a mystery at that point.

On Venus and Deimos, the relatively lengthy single-player missions to open the zones are a significant roadblock to a regular gaming group. I have a group that plays together regularly, but due to personal obligations and schedules most of the team doesn't play between our group nights. We're loath to spend our time together running individual quests, where our varying experience and skill levels mean that we quickly get out of sync. Slower players get frustrated with failure or have to rush through without paying attention to what's going on just to try to keep up with the rest of the group.