Warframe Story Pack Feedback Thread!

[(XBOX)Mastermitchel89]

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Where we are right now:
- Whispers in the Walls has a prerequisite of The New War to access it for narrative  & story reasons.
- While we remove grind and barriers with every Update to make the story more streamlined (and will continue this), players interested in accessing this new content day 1 must first complete 10 years of Warframe before they can dive in. This is a barrier to many people that we’re trying to provide options around. 

17 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

- Continue to improve the gameplay path to The New War, as seen in changes with Abyss of Dagath and in future updates (unrelated to Story Skip but important to the conversation overall). 

The only options i could suggest or advise is to Smoothen (or streamline) the trip there, or allow a Demo of the quest with a limit

Duviri has Data pads that can reveal story?

The point being Sneakpeaks or a magic ball that reveals the future, Then player gets 30 seconds worth of Demo to run around in

This could also patch up story parts players may be oblivious to, Like the queens being suddenly presented like we know they exist

Edited October 28, 2023 by (XBOX)Mastermitchel89

[SneakyErvin]

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post. I was talking about people getting overwhelmed by several systems suddenly all at once. To see how this can affect someone all you really need to do is look at how overwhelming it can be come back to game you havent played in a while where systems you knew have gotten changed or you've simply forgotten about.

I've ran into this myself, both versions of it and I've ran into situations where I've been active in the game when several systems have changed, making it rather overwhelming after a massive patch or expansion. And this is pretty much what would happen to new players that can skip everything up to the latest since they'll face that situation where they have access to everything at once. However in the case of a new player skipping it would be worse, since they have no prior knowledge regarding where systems are used, or how important and useful they are or not. While getting back to a game after a break you still know roughly where the things were used or useful, so it is easier to set up those systems or learning them again since you used to be a veteran.

[LittleLeoniePrime]

18 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Allow players to use Platinum to buy a pack that unlocks & completes the replayable Quests required to access Whispers in the Walls -- either purchasing it themselves or receiving it as a gift from a friend so they can play together.

In my oppinion, the quests shouldn't get completed by this. I'm okay with a pack that let's you play all quests up until wispers in the walls. but imo the experience of the quests themselves is too valuable to just be skipped. If that player still doesn't care about the story they can skip most cutscenes, but at least they played the quests. having something that completely skips the quest gameplay undermines thousands of hours of work that went into them.

[WidescreenJohn]

13 minutes ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

It says RIGHT THERE it will complete, and presumably skip through, New War and go past literally EVERYTHING just so that the new players can get the shiny goodies.

It says no such thing. All Rebb did was say that currently "Whispers in the Walls has a prerequisite of The New War to access it for narrative  & story reasons" and that the goal is to "allow players to use Platinum to buy a pack that unlocks & completes the replayable Quests required to access Whispers in the Walls". (Emphasis mine.)

She makes NO statement whatsoever in any of her post that every, single thing - nodes, junctions, etc. - will be unlocked as part of the purchase, just that previous quests will be unlocked so that newer players can go into the Codex and start quests. She also makes no mention of the entire Origin system or other requirements that force core gameplay, nor is she saying that all quests will be unlocked, just the ones for Whispers in the Walls.

This implies that Origin System grind will still be necessary for other quests, and DE has also acknowledged that they're looking for ways to streamline that, too. But I still see absolutely no problem with playing plat to skip a quest that gets unlocked during Origin System progression, just like we can with weapons, warframes, or mechs that we don't want to have to grind.

[Spookmineer]

I do really appreciate the transparency, having a look into the internal discussions is really cool.

From what I got from the devstream, the point was: "make new players who were invited by friends, able to play with them from the get go".

And let's say their friends are MR30+.

 

What happens to the new player? They are going to be able to play with their friends who invited them in the new quest, which is really cool.

And then... They're MR3 with little to no resources, few forma and a handful of weapons and frames.

 

Now, let's all do this steel path mission. Or this archon hunt.

I still encounter players who don't know how to use keys in disruption, and they're MR15+.

The point is, new players are missing the mechanics and experience of how to play the game at the level their friends do. You can't expect new players to do end content gameplay just because they paid plat.

 

No amount of plat is going to account for that.

 

As for the lore/quests, I wonder how much sense it would make for a new player to skip all quests prior, and jump into the latest one.

What impact would that have on someone totally new to the game? The whole quest, its meaning and significance would be lost on them.

Pablo said it this devstream and I agree, most impactful quest is "the second dream" and I'm not ashamed to say I actually cried. I did.

I would never keep a friend from experiencing that for any amount of plat.

 

For a new player it would end up being a worse playing experience in the long run, I'm afraid.

The quests are what we look forward to, skipping any of the quests is losing out big time, these are the events you want to experience and not want to skip. At all.

Even if you are a new player. Especially if you are a new player.

[(PSN)killer115550]

As an add-on to my previous post, where I very much support a story skip. 

The only reason I got into FFXIV is because of story skip. My friends were all at endwalker, but I didn't want to slog through 100 hours of story content. I didn't really care about the storyline and just wanted to play with my friends. There are occasions where you end up with more money than time and being able to skip some content lets you experience a game you otherwise wouldn't try.

[LittleLeoniePrime]

17 hours ago, SDGDen said:

i don't believe any of the main story quests should be skipable. if a "fast track" is desired, i'd like to see the following:

> "firepower" market packs akin to the new war firepower pack for every big story quest that can be used to acquire the neccesary gear for the quest

>all story quests between vor's prize and the second dream should be made fully multiplayer, these quests are SIGNIFICANTLY dated and should also have some amount of reworking to them

>provide a clearer ingame "path" to follow to get through the story, for example after the second dream finishes, the game should tell you you need to go do the pluto and sedna junctions next so you can get to the war within quest. 

>remove or lower MR locks that prevent progression, specifically the vay hek mr5 requirement (lower to MR3) which is needed to unlock the sedna junction and thus get the war within. 


along with that, i do think a story summary view is a good idea, but NOT because of new players... instead, because of OLD players. some people haven't seen the storyline up to second dream in 8 years, some of us barely remember what the new strange questline was like or what the story was about. 

I wholeheartedly agree with all of this.

[S074]

I do not think skipping the content is a bad idea in on itself.

Some games accomplished this in what I consider a very effective way (see the first GuildWars: every new expansion had a tutorial area that threw you into its own story and allowed you to go back and replay older stories and content at your own pace.

Honestly I think that for an online game like warframe it's not bad to allow newcomers to enjoy the new parts first (like it was done somewhat well with Duviri, for example), but I'm not sure it's fair to do so via pay to skip.

 

Before the cinematic quests were a thing Warframe pretty much forced everyone to be at the same point in the story regardless of when you started after the tutorial: its story was told through one-time events. If you came in during the Suspicious Shipments event, you missed out on anything before that story wise: previous events were in the literal past compare to your awakening in the Origin System.

The cinematic quests slowly changed that and introduced for the first time mandatory story progression (while at the same time completely messing up leftovers of the previous story events: Corrupted Alad on Eris is the top tier example of incoherent story progression still "infesting" the game today).

Mandatory progression is ironically an "issue" DE created and kept expanding on. Fast forward to today and the solution would be to pay to skip it? How about simply remove it?

Let new players go through the tutorial and then enable them to play the new content. Generate "placeholder" archwings/railjacks/necramechs for the purpose of the quests where those items are mandatory and let the items be unavailable anywhere else. Players can then play the game as intended and catch up with the missing stuff if they decide to keep playing.

 

On the subject of story content DE, I would pay for a cleaned up story mode and the ability to replay it on my account as a proper chain of quests any time I want. Instead of a video that recaps the story, give me the ability to replay it from the proper start. Flesh out old story events and put them in the starchart progression. As a very long time player, I'd love to re-experience old events, especially if proposed as a chain of cleaned up quests.

Edited October 28, 2023 by S074
typos

[(PSN)rexis12]

12 minutes ago, WidescreenJohn said:

It says no such thing. All Rebb did was say that currently "Whispers in the Walls has a prerequisite of The New War to access it for narrative  & story reasons" and that the goal is to "allow players to use Platinum to buy a pack that unlocks & completes the replayable Quests required to access Whispers in the Walls". (Emphasis mine.)

She makes NO statement whatsoever in any of her post that every, single thing - nodes, junctions, etc. - will be unlocked as part of the purchase, just that previous quests will be unlocked so that newer players can go into the Codex and start quests. She also makes no mention of the entire Origin system or other requirements that force core gameplay, nor is she saying that all quests will be unlocked, just the ones for Whispers in the Walls.

This implies that Origin System grind will still be necessary for other quests, and DE has also acknowledged that they're looking for ways to streamline that, too. But I still see absolutely no problem with playing plat to skip a quest that gets unlocked during Origin System progression, just like we can with weapons, warframes, or mechs that we don't want to have to grind.

One of the prerequisites is the New War, which has a prerequisites of Railjack, War Within, Second Dream, CHAINS KF HARROW, and like Rise of the Tempastarii of all things.

That's means all of them are completed, which means all of those things have to have all THOSE prerequisites unlocked and done, or else S#&$ breaks. What's going to happen when Whisper in the Walls ask for Transference.

It also says that it 'Unlocks and Completes' the quest, because otherwise how are they going to do things like New War if one of the prerequisites is a goddamn Necramech and Railjack?! Unless of course they still have to grind for it, which means that they wasted their money for nothing.

Again, it says that:

"Allow players to use Platinum to buy a pack that unlocks & completes the replayable Quests required to access Whispers in the Walls"

Emphasis on 'Complete'.

And again, what happens when they do this and after Whispers in the Wall happens and they have to do the rest of the game that it NOTHING like the cinematic quests?! Hell, imagine them going from Whispers in the Wall and the 'Streamline p2skip' bs and then smack headfirst into dumb S#&$ like Titania and the Silver Grove where you have to wait a full 1 IRL hour for the earth rotation to come back around. Like THATS not gonna make them leave.

[Genitive]

Another way to handle it, if story skip isn't to many players' liking, is to have an account boost that will get you to MR5 and provide all the mandatory resources. Grinding mastery is probably the biggest hurdle now to get through all the quests, as well as getting all the materials to craft railjacks and necramechs. This way you will have players prepared for the story more quickly, without any skips. Add to that making any quest blueprints craftable instantaneously, and you will probably shave off a lot of time without sacrificing the quests.

[(XBOX)Hellsteeth30]

Pay to get Simaris to respect personal space.

I dislike having disembodied code floating nearby, there's enough of that in game already.

Pay to fix Sanctuary Onslaught, it crashes every three runs and turns into a lag fest.

[(PSN)rexis12]

8 minutes ago, Genitive said:

mandatory resources

AND shorter craft times.

Or else you have the situation where a new player pays money to skip, only to either wait THREE DAYS for the Necramech to finish or pay EVEN MORE.

[Aearie]

A story skip would be extremely helpful in getting new players to try the game. I myself have gotten 3 friends caught up (working on a 4th!), and have literally bought each one of those friends a necramech to get them through the New War (along with giving them tons of mods). And while the new necramech parts for standing introduced in this update will be very helpful for the next person I bring in, having a simple, giftable option so they can catch up and play the same content as me would seriously help in keeping them in the game.

That said, I think it's important to make sure that the prices for items within the story skip are competitive with the story skip itself. If the skip includes a necramech, I think that just buying the necramech should still be a reasonable option, even if not the best deal. Otherwise I'll just end up buying story skips for all my friends even if it's not exactly what they'd want. The story skip should be a great deal, but not the only good one in the market.

I also think a lore recap video would be good as well. Heck, I want that even for me.

[Sporthand]

Pay to buy weapon-sounding components for customization!

[(XBOX)The Reject7946]

We already have a 'pay to skip' system in place. Let's say that I were on a new account in the Origin System--between MR 0-1, I could get Grendel, the Opticor, the War, Broken War, Hate, Despair, and Dread, a Railjack, Forma Bundles, Reactors, Catalysts, etc., etc., etc. I could even get the Hema. All while on Earth at MR 0-1. as plat acquisition bypasses mastery requirements. I could skip star chart clearance for Grendel. I could get Stalker's weapons before meeting them once in-game.

Some 7-8 years ago, I started with Excalibur and decided to get the lowest cost platinum option from the market and got Atlas, before ever reaching Eris and it became one of my favorite/most used, even at a MR Legendary 3 today, albeit the 'primed' variant now. I have all equipment other than the Founder's Bundle. I have extra slots for new stuff and every upgraded variant of every weapon, every Warframe, every Archwing unit, etc., because I invested the plat to do so.

Having the option for questlines when things like Inaros, Nidus, Atlas, Grendel, etc., etc., etc. are already available in the market is simply adding the option of skipping over storyline cutscenes and quest playthroughs to get around to newer content that most people playing are focused on doing, rather than leaving them behind and getting to the same point much, much later, after another update or two has hit the game. This is another platinum=time saver option for newer players that didn't play during the majority or any of the prior updates of the past and want to join in on the current fun. That means that by adding this, we can retain interest of newer players a bit more effectively, not being left feeling like they're left-out at the start or like they can never catch-up to play what was recently 'advertised' during a Devstream or Tennocon that ends up on YouTube and some gamer magazine websites to advertise. 

Greater retention=more people. More people=more people to play with, to mingle with, to make friends with, to grind with, to enjoy Warframe. 

I would like to see the option of all quests being replayable, something that could be revisited after the get hooked, after they come to enjoy what we all have come to enjoy. A skip-over doesn't have to be permanent. 

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by (XBOX)The Reject7946
Typo.

[(PSN)rexis12]

5 minutes ago, (XBOX)The Reject7946 said:

That means that by adding this, we can retain interest of newer players a bit more effectivel

You know, until they have to like play the game which is not going to be anything like the cinematic quests.

"Cool I did the new quest, now what do I do?!"

Grind for MR points.

[(XBOX)Andre Zuniga]

Allow players to access missions locked behind a quest, just set some restrictions.

1) If the mission type is locked, Players will be forced to play with a default loadout.. make 3 loadouts with each starter frame.

2) If the mission type is locked, set the loot modifier to 50 percent. 

[LuckyCharm]

Given the story of Warframe is basically its entire content besides the grind, why would people pay to skip the main part of the game just to get to the grind? 

That said, there are a TON of frustrating grindy missions in the storyline. I would be for a button that lets you skip individual quest parts but takes you to the next cutscene so people can see the story if they want rather than skip it all entirely, but a skip whole quest button could be okay too. 

However, as a player who has paid for things like necramechs or grinded the whole weeks building process on railjack on release feels kinda bad people could just get like 700 plat worth of items free that i and many others paid for given the new war requirements. I say rental gear should be given for the quests, even op it out, its rental anyway, let newbies have fun with overpowered stuff during the quests, then just set them up with basic blueprints for stuff after the quests so they have things to work for. Just make the costs reasonable and players would still be fine. None of that needing to run 6000isolation vaults or whatever nonsense

 

Edit: to add to it... Why not simply do away with weapon and warframe slots. I know its probably your biggest earner  but im goin to be honest here, of the bunch of people ive shown the game to, they all get turned off with having to pay to even get their first few gear bits because of slots being required pretty much immediately. Thats the killer, along with a few quests sure, but mostly the inability to build everything you want to level up and enjoy

Edited October 28, 2023 by LuckyCharm
Amendment

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

35 minutes ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

One of the prerequisites is the New War, which has a prerequisites of Railjack, War Within, Second Dream, CHAINS KF HARROW, and like Rise of the Tempastarii of all things.

That's means all of them are completed, which means all of those things have to have all THOSE prerequisites unlocked and done, or else S#&$ breaks. What's going to happen when Whisper in the Walls ask for Transference.

It also says that it 'Unlocks and Completes' the quest, because otherwise how are they going to do things like New War if one of the prerequisites is a goddamn Necramech and Railjack?! Unless of course they still have to grind for it, which means that they wasted their money for nothing.

Again, it says that:

"Allow players to use Platinum to buy a pack that unlocks & completes the replayable Quests required to access Whispers in the Walls"

Emphasis on 'Complete'.

And again, what happens when they do this and after Whispers in the Wall happens and they have to do the rest of the game that it NOTHING like the cinematic quests?! Hell, imagine them going from Whispers in the Wall and the 'Streamline p2skip' bs and then smack headfirst into dumb S#&$ like Titania and the Silver Grove where you have to wait a full 1 IRL hour for the earth rotation to come back around. Like THATS not gonna make them leave.

Bro you’re using logic, logic is to much these days lol.

8 minutes ago, (XBOX)The Reject7946 said:

Greater retention=more people. More people=more people to play with, to mingle with, to make friends with, to grind with, to enjoy Warframe. 

Not everybody wants to play co-op though, like a fair bit of the player base are solo players.

[(XBOX)The Reject7946]

1 minute ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

You know, until they have to like play the game which is not going to be anything like the cinematic quests.

"Cool I did the new quest, now what do I do?!"

Grind for MR points.

Like what was previewed when they created the account? Or building equipment? 
Skipping over 10 years of content to join-in where the update leaves off at would be playing--like Vainthornes currently being of focus to earn. A few quests being skipped doesn't change the fact that they joined to play, yeah?

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

11 minutes ago, (XBOX)The Reject7946 said:

would like to see the option of all quests being replayable, something that could be revisited after the get hooked, after they come to enjoy what we all have come to enjoy. A skip-over doesn't have to be permanent. 

That option is already available you can replay a few main story quests.

Edited October 28, 2023 by (PSN)FrDiabloFr

[(XBOX)The Reject7946]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

Bro you’re using logic, logic is to much these days lol.

Not everybody wants to play co-op though, like a fair bit of the player base are solo players.

True. I'm a Founding Warlord that's earned about 34 million Salvage, over 600,000 Oxium, etc., for a clan that I don't interact with much, because I play solo most of the time.

1 minute ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

That option is already available you can replay main story quests.

Some. Not all. I mean all of them.

[(PSN)FrDiabloFr]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)The Reject7946 said:

True. I'm a Founding Warlord that's earned about 34 million Salvage, over 600,000 Oxium, etc., for a clan that I don't interact with much, because I play solo most of the time.

Some. Not all. I mean all of them.

I literally said a few, I corrected my comment pretty quickly.

Edited October 28, 2023 by (PSN)FrDiabloFr

[(XBOX)The Reject7946]

Just now, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

I literally said a few.

And I said all quests, even for those that were to skip.

[(PSN)rexis12]

2 minutes ago, (PSN)FrDiabloFr said:

Bro you’re using logic, logic is to much these days lol.

I have even stronger logic!

Imagine, after making them go through this new and shiny Quest of Whispers in the Wall.

You just shunt them back into the old boring quests of Warframe that have little to no story whatsoever.

Like imagine going from the Cinematic moments of New War and then playing #*!%ing Limbo's Theorem where the quest is literally just three excavation missions.

3 minutes ago, (XBOX)The Reject7946 said:

Like what was previewed when they created the account? Or building equipment? 
Skipping over 10 years of content to join-in where the update leaves off at would be playing--like Vainthornes currently being of focus to earn. A few quests being skipped doesn't change the fact that they joined to play, yeah?

They joined to play the shiny new Cinematic Quests that is Whispers in the Wall, which is what DE wants. Assuming that DE doesn't just drop an entirely new game file into Warframe, it'll take an hour or so. Then after that, what's next.

Play Spy Missions several hundred times to get Ivara? struggle in Infested Salvage for Nidus? Hell go for another quest like Deadlock Protocol and then go through the HELL that's Protea parts grinding? Like that's not gonna make the players that just saw a new expansion just up and leave when the rest of the game is nothing like their cinematic quests.