Warframe Story Pack Feedback Thread!

[SilentMobius]

I want to add to my previous comment.

The underlying idea of giving new players some mechanism to do new content with their friends is great, it's always good to maximise the ROI for new content and making content appeal to long-time players and new players certainly seems to have cause compromises in the past

To give an example from another game, "City of Heroes" had a "Sidekick" system, where two players could agree to play together and the lower level player would earn xp as if they were fighting content their level while they were temporarily boosted to the mentor players level -1. No that wouldn't work verbatim for Warframe. Also there was risk of griefing.

But.

I think the base idea of "you can do this new content with a temporary boost alongside your friends" is good (better than just paying to totally skip), but we should still encourage/require those players to do the existing content later, after they have enjoyed the new content.

We already have loner Warframes with "default" loadouts. How about something like that to get new players up to fighting level and they pay plat for a "Progress Paradox Pass" that lets them play the new content with "paradoxical" equipment (Stick a void shader on the equipment) that they don't yet have (With the skip summary you talked about to bring them up to speed). The Paradoxical equipment can't be upgraded but they still earn affinity on it and when they later earn the same gear they get something useful (catalysts, forma, rivens) that transform the plat spent into a permanent utility as the earned gear replaces the "paradoxical" gear, affinity earned transfers onto the earned item and any MR that should be earned manifests.

And it feels like it should be implementable without a massive overhaul of many legacy systems. Which is a big deal.

Edited October 31, 2023 by SilentMobius

[ElKayJae]

I have an idea to pull out all the story content from the starchart and streamline it into a campaign.

The story scattered throughout starchart is quite daunting to new and returning players. Also a campaign mode like what other games have will help to push the narrative aspect of warframe. Players can dive straight into the story without all that grinding on the campaign path.

The campaign path can be split into chapters which must be completed in order. you can pay plat to skip a chapter, and it should give you all the pre requisites items to play the next chapter. I think doing so will help to cut  away all the unecessary grind in the starchart and help players have a more story focused playthrough if they wish. It will also help to bring warframe's story driven narrative to the forefront when there is a clear campaign mode.

The campaign mode further helps new players who are left off without any direction after vor's prize by highlighting the storyline in its entirety.

Edited October 30, 2023 by ElKayJae
added additional details

[AegidiusF]

Le 27/10/2023 à 22:23, [DE]Rebecca a dit :

There are many opinions on this idea, and we want to be transparent with our community before we consider shipping any iteration of this system. Please use this thread for constructive feedback, so we can read and understand your concerns. 

Thank you!

First, thank you very much for hearing our opinion and for your transparency.

I've been thinking about this topic since the devstream and I think that the "Story pack" is something that can be positive, but that needs to be implemented carefully.

 

Le 27/10/2023 à 22:23, [DE]Rebecca a dit :

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. 

This is true. New updates come with many marketing operations, advertisements, ads, interviews to try to reach new players. If these players can't have access to the new content, this would greatly limit the audience the new updates could reach and this would be very bad for business and for the players that only want to play the new content (the one they are hyped for).

On the other hand, a skip story pack should not only let players play the new content, but also make them want to play the old content : it should be an open door to introduce new players to the game, not being presented as a "throw the boring things away". Perhaps, the possibility to follow the quests on sotry mode only (cinematics and voice texts) would be nice.

There are many ways to support the game : by giving our time (playing the content, being present) or by giving our money. I see no problem at some players giving their money to play new content without playing the previous quests, the same way I do not see any problem at some players getting Prime stuff without farming.

I'm for the Story Skip Pack, but I would like to see it declined in different versions, letting those who want just to skip the story to play with their friends be able to do this without having to purchase tons of plat or non-wanted stuff at the same time (sorry, but the Heirloom packs still hurts).

[Askell91]

When a new people see you have to "PAY to start from the new content", most of them will think how is it different than other pay to play games? (looking at you Destiny). This could hurt them a lot instead of helping the community if they do it wrong. I have been around for 8-9 ish years so got some experience in how new players think while helping them out. Platinum is a big concern. They see it a bigger wall than it is thats for sure so, if they make this an option they have to price it perfectly or else just make it a clan research thing. Like buy the "content key" for ->credits<- than make it a 1 day craft than you have to watch a vid on what is that quest was about.

 

Again as a long time player I think that DE should think this trough reeeeeeeeeeeeeealy carefully. If its not done right it could possibly ruin theyr reputation.

[Jsepa]

I don't know if this has been said before but a nice thing to implement in parallel if a story-skip is introduced is a "mentor" system.

If newer player use a story-skip, I assume it is to access "end-game" content (such as the whispers amazing tileset and new enemies/boss). The issue is that new player may not have a good understanding of the different mechanics of the game (abilities, modding, operator, necrameck, archwing, k-drive, and much more)

I think something nice would be to give the option for experienced player (maybe based on MR or quest completion) to become a "Mentor". The mentors would then be prioritized when matchmaking with new players and could then help them understand the game.

(Otherwise new players may be forced to face many host migration and playing solo, due to experienced player not wanting to play end-game with an MR1 unmodded Excalibur in their team...)

I think even if story-skip is not implemented it would still be a great idea for new players and an "easy" way to improve the early game understanding of the game.

[(PSN)JKboogeyman]

I already spend a huge amount of time having to explain how various aspects of the game work to almost everyone I start playing with. I really do think this game has a lot to offer but it does a terrible job introducing people to its systems at appropriate times or with appropriate detail.
I see no way that doesn't become an even bigger problem if this is implemented.
 

That was the most personally resonant concern I had though many of the others expressed are good ones as well... concerns about whether it will actually enhance the experience or just lure someone into paying to miss content because of natural human inclination, or the absurdity of 'solving' the problem of not being able to play with friends by suggesting they pay for a free-to-play game. These are reasonable things to question in my opinion but not the most pressing one.

The most pressing concern imo should be that there are serious pacing issues that have created the problem this suggestion tries to "solve". Problems DE are clearly aware of given many recent adjustments the progress path of the game. This doesn't solve those problems. It actually creates financial incentive to limit how much those problems are solved; both by making it a less pressing issue because a (bad) solution is already implemented and because the very need to skip content can then be a source of income.

It really doesn't matter how good or honest you think a game studio is. They have financial responsibilities and the best way to make sure those responsibilities don't force them to make decisions they otherwise wouldn't is to not put them in a position where they are incentivized to.
The best bet for the future of the game and the new player experience is to not let DE put themselves in a compromised position at all and reject the proposal in it's current form entirely. It is simply not possible to get the best result in fixing the major pacing issues the game currently has with on-boarding players if a payed skip exists to obscure those issues.  

[Firaxion]

Repost of my opinion from another thread:

 

I chatted in depth with my longest standing clanmate and whilst neither of us are *completely* against the idea of plat-for-latest, we kept returning to certain problematic issues that definitely orbit around the "pay to skip" idea.

 

Fundamentally the biggest problem imo is that by allowing this plat to skip option, you are pitting TWO groups of tenno against each other in the future STORYWISE, the old "we know it all, give us more depth" tenno and the "meh i know kinda whats going on i guess, but can we keep it understandable and easy to follow please?" tenno.

 

IF THE GENERAL PLAN/ACCESSIBILITY OF STORY HAS TO CHANGE TO ACCOMMODATE THOSE WHO ARE UNWILLING TO ACCEPT AN INCREASE IN COMPLEXITY AND DEPTH IN THE STORYTELLING, THEN THERE IS A HUGE, HUGE PROBLEM FOR THE FUTURE OF WARFAME.

Please excuse the caplocks but i cannot emphasise how gamebreaking a decision like this has the potential to be, if implemented without proper thought (as a makeshift fix to a longstanding problem) and continued in bad faith (future story expansions with similar plat catchup skip, added without consideration to longterm impact).

 

It will require the "pay to skip ahead" players to accept to be permanently left in the dark UNTIL they go and replay the old quests (to me, this is actually quite an assumption, especially as older content is clunkier and, i'm sorry to say, often still outdated compared to common current accessibility expectations from gamers)

Should certain players complain about being "dropped in the deep end of the pool" and demanding change then i predict nothing but making a quite tricky problem EVEN WORSE.

 

By all means DE, go for it, add the plat skipping option, it actually offends me FAR LESS than the plat incarnon adapters in the shop. (Those items clearly should have been tradable items on the market, similar to prime parts, post first week in game market, if you wished to keep consistency in your monetization strategy, and also "allowing access on first week of release to all players".)

 

 

In my eyes the critical issue that needs addressing is too strict MR requirements for weapons/frames/riven mods/content. That was the point of MR wasnt it? To lock out those who hadnt progressed enough from jumping ahead too far? Ignoring the GLARING exception of KUVA/TENET weapons not locking MR requirements, yet being shockingly powerful, MR control has been too strict on progression for a very long time now. This problem absolutely needs to be dealt with properly AS WELL.

 

The greater context contributes to a increasing sense of unease for myself. Take in account a similar problem (in the same orbit for sure): Whilst on one level I LIKE auto melee for sure, the timing of having it just before iphone release looks AWFULLY SUSPICIOUS to me. It heavily implies an intent for DUMBING DOWN of mechanics, when what is DESPERATELY NEEDED is actually an increase in complexity and finesse of gameplay.

Why is it we never had auto melee been mentioned before as a quality of life ages before, if it is so obviously universally better? 

 

It is the convenient TIMING of all these discussed changes, that concerns me the most. The reasons seem plausible, for now.

 

But it requires absolute good faith on DEs part to not snowball these questionable ideas into a complete dumpster fire future catastrophe for the game.

 

Either way, it has been an amazing run up to this point. Definitely my favorite game of all time right now, irrespective of the unknown future.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Firaxion
spelling error

[Stafelund]

Adding on to the story, I think there at least needs to be one driving force with regard to the planets and their respective bosses. Despite that we have quests for each planet, as soon as I finished Earth after I started, I didn't remember any plot-related stuff in Venus and Fortuna seems like its own thing. With Mercury, there is a plot with Dr. Tengus and the infested, but there's not much about it. And I'm just scratching my head on why Vor is there when we killed him after the first quest.

In short, there's no plot on why we have to kill The Jackal, why we have to face Lech Kril (speaking of which, is his VA still around?), what's the deal with The Sergeant and why Lech and Vor are both on Ceres? Story-wise, I think this can contribute to fatigue for new players. Story-driven people would definitely want to see what's going on each planet so they'll keep playing, in hopes of getting themselves deep into the game later.

Hell, it would be actually a good time to repurpose some of the Nightwave's stories, the one with Arlo could pretty much be the quest in Deimos besides the one in the Necralisk.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Stafelund

[Jsepa]

To add to my "Mentor" suggestion, a way to tag into "new player teams" could be great too.

I'm thinking something similar to railjack with the "join squad" button.

Mentors could just choose any mission where a new player is and come help them. This would allow newer player to evolve quicker to higher content, all while having experienced user guiding them if they need help understanding things.

I find myself sometimes not really knowing what mission to play cause tired of grinding the same one again. This could be a nice change of habit and being helpful to newer tenno at the same time.

 

I agree that there is a lot of things that could be done to improve progression of new player (improve some quest objectives, clearer tutorials mainly on modding, understanding of all the weird mechanics, clearer intent to complete star chart, and many more) but all those require a lot of work and time for DE, maybe even rethinking the whole programming underneath. We do not know how complex some systems are behind the scenes, so some things might be really hard to change.

That's why I thing a mentor mechanic could be great and quite easy to implement for DE. And then the community could help the new ones, as is already the case with wiki and tutorials video and forums, but then in an in-game way so new players don't have to search the net.

I know that it would not "fix" the problems, and I hope DE will continue to improve game understanding as they've been doing recently. But that would be a quick way to improve things while they work on even better solutions in the background.

(Maybe I get my hopes too high, but DE is looking for ideas here and I don't think that saying they will mess up is helping much, I prefer hoping they'll do their best)

[SneakyErvin]

11 hours ago, (PSN)rexis12 said:

Again, I still have to remind everyone that once Whisper is done you'd still be sending these new players back to the grind that you are sure would make players quit.

Except, once again, except of just time being wasted for a Ninja experience only for it to be a farming experience, you wasted time AND money.

And considering how plat purchases work, you won't be able to do something like buy a game play a few hours and then realise it's not for you and then you refund it. Because I'm not sure how plat purchased and spent on in game packs can be refunded.

You'd essentially either swindle money out of the New Players with a shiny quest and then shunt them into the New Player killer, or you'd Sunk Cost Fallacy them into enjoying the boring grind that kills new players and breed resentment.

And this will only get worse, because what happens if this continues past Whispers In the Wall? Are you going to continuously have new quest that players skip while not touching the old quest because there's now a skip option?

All of that cannot be said enough times. 

A thing to add is that within DE there have been heated discussions/debates regarding this according to themselves, they said so much straight up in the devstream. That means there are clear and present issues with this whole idea. And I think it comes down to a severe case of detachment and distancing for some behind this idea. With too much looking at other games and not how their own is set up in comparison to those they look at. With no real thought or consideration regarding why it is possible in those other games, even though those games also have massive issues tied to it.

And this isnt the first time they look at other games and forget what WF is and why it works in those other games but not in WF. Like Kahl Veilbreaker, a generic shooter experience with no ties to the looter/arpg that WF is. No progression, no farm, no loot, nothing.

[Warlohk]

Speaking as someone with Legendary Rank 3 I am 50/50 on this decision, I understand from your point of view that you want new players to play your newest releases but from a player's point of view this isn't quite healthy for a new player. When there is 10 years worth of content, skipping to the end will be very overwhelming to the new player (and the game already is overwhelming for new players with just its modding system), the new player must be introduced the content slowly, especially cause the quests introduce many new mechanics that take time to learn. 

Look at for example League of Legends, a new account can't hop into ranked until the account level is at least 30 because it takes time to learn how to play the game, the game mechanics, the many different characters all with their own abilities to understand what they do, many many items one can build etc. While yes, their new content consists exclusively in the form of cosmetics and occasional new game mode the point still stands that new players can't play ranked because it takes TIME to learn how to play the game.
Another example are the Souls games who do get new content in the form of DLCs but when a new player starts the game right away they aren't asked to go ahead and skip to the DLC because that's the newest content, they first need to be introduced to the game and taught how to play the game and understand its mechanics before they can be hopping in to any new content.
A great example as to why you shouldn't is WoW, they sell character boost so that people can get into the newest content, but to a new player giving a character boost is likely going to put them away from the game due to how many abilities a character unlocks until its ready to access the newest content, a new player will be entirely confused when there are 2 talent trees to read through and maybe understand how the character can be played. Whereas when one levels a character to the level needed to access the newest content then by that TIME they know how to play their class and spec and know if they would even enjoy playing said class and spec.

Narratively speaking story skip isn't good because the player needs to experience the story as the developer had envisioned instead of just skipping through it, adding a story skip shows to the new players that you as a developer do not really care about the story you had crafted for your game.

Regarding the approach of the skip, I agree that there should be something like it to help out the newer players but it shouldn't be story skip, it should be everything holding them from those quests, be it crafting times(maybe a for plat upgrade to the foundry which permanently reduces crafting time but also allowing the option to farm for the upgrade so it doesn't feel like the game is purposefully gating you), modding system needs reworked to be simplified (I.E. damage increase, multishot, and other autoinclude mods to be lets say permanent upgrades to the weapon itself for like a forma cost - ofcourse stuff like crit chance, status chance, elemental damage mods should still remain as they are since those are situational and not included for every weapon, which would allow other mods like ammo max, magazine increase, reload and other mods that are often overlooked to be able to shine once the mandatory mods aren't taking up room) naturally the modding system should still include an in-depth explanation that is easy for the new players to understand.

Also removing the MR requirements for the quests, as well as removing the unnecessary "try tomorrow" if one would mess up their MR promotion(I understand that in cephalon simaris' room you can practice each challenge but would the new players know about it? likelihood is not), if you do want to keep the spirit of this lets call a challenge then make it so that 1-10 MR has no daily limitations for how often they can try, 10-20 MR have 5 tries per day, 20-30+ have 1 try per day.

Instead of thinking how can we get new players to play the new content on day 1, instead think how can we allow new players to reach the new content(which should be the exciting thing for them to reach as a goal) without hindering their progress with timed lockouts (daily standing, MR promotion, weapon and warframe crafting times, etc.)

[Folken999]

For what is worth, here are my thoughts on this, I call this idea the "story tree":

What I thought we needed for quite some time is a new "Story" section in the codex, where the quests are displayed as a tree, so one can clearly see how the quests depend on each other. New players can then look up what they need to do to progress and have a better understanding of how everything is connected. It also helps us to look back at old content, also in case we want to replay it. And it would be a good interface where to place tutorials, and remind us what was unlocked by each quest.

Then, once you have the story tree, I think it would become easier to implement a pay to skip, where you can pay plat to move up to the next quest. Some quests are themselves tutorials, so choosing to skip would probably be best if implemented on a per-quest basis. If you skip the quest, perhaps you can have a shorter new tutorial in there, and later on come back and play the quest, which would be marked as "not yet played" on the story tree.

Edit: I wrote a reddit post about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/17jzgco/a_new_story_tree_section_in_the_codex_might_help/

Edited October 30, 2023 by (NSW)Folken

[(PSN)Nik1303]

Since there are already so many responses, I gave up on reading every post before adding my two cents to this topic. Therefore if someone already had the same idea as I did, consider this as an upvote ;-)

Since it was mentioned on dev stream, that there should be some sort of recap functionality anyways, why not combine this with the skip feature in the following way: 

Adapt the quest view so that the actual order of quests (per lane e.g. Main Story, Side Quest,...) Is more clear and make all or many individually skipable for free, but with the drawback of not getting the reward. For quests that rely on having specific equipment like archwing, railjack and so on you are provided a (most) basic sufficient version of it only for the quest playthrough. Since all quest are replayable anyways, it could be set up that as soon as a player completed the quest, the rewards are unlocked. Also players can buy gear from the market anyways as they can today.

So (new) players can skip the years of content and play new content with their experienced friends with (almost) no penalty and on the other hand it it's not a pay to win/progress. Also while allowing to always access and play the newest in some ways it won't be such a hindrance for potential new players to start playing the game because they would have to catch up years of content to reach a veteran state before they reach the content, which was the reason to start playing the game initially. Maybe this also reduces the churn of newer players as they might see just the pile of content they have to get through. Additionally being able to do, individually speaking, less interesting quests/content, between updates or releases of new content sounds also appealing to me and may reduce issues regarding "content drought" at least for newer or "mid ranged" players. Can't help players that already have played everything and looted all items. 😅

I guess including replayability of Nightwave Missions, which happened before joining or were left incomplete, would also be nice.

If there is some sort of recap for all (or just skipped) quests to at least catch up with the lore, maybe even mandatory, would be a nice idea. If you skip all 10 years of content, this would make a good movie if done well. Since I am at least quest wise up to date, I am craving for new quest content and lore. Still would love to watch a whole story recap, maybe with some new details of lore sneaked in. 😁

[Famecans]

The main objective of online games is to maintain the largest number of novice and veteran players, but the novice player does not deserve to have access to all the new advertising content as the novice player is not initially emphasized by the game's story. From the new player's point of view, after enjoying all the new content the old content will seem clunky and less attractive so this will have the opposite effect, the player will leave the game faster before having fun with the progression.

The new released content is attractive, it's more beautiful, it's new but the new player must face the progression line as all the content is covered by the game universe in a homogeneous way. The player already has access to new content such as weapons and warframes through the orbiter market, but this access is limited due platinum and trade system.

The best way to keep the new player in the game is to give access to content facilitators, you know, the new player needs weapon and warframe slots to have more progression power, the new player needs Forma's and Catalysts to have more progression power, the new player needs to have more platinum to speed up the forging time which also relates to the progression power, the new player needs to have more access to requiem system facilitators which will facilitate access to Tenet and Kuva weapons ... all of these can smooth the progression curve, guarantee fun and a sense of progress, and keep the player committed to the game. the new player needs reasons to continue playing the game the next day and sometimes this reason is destroyed by the resource penalty or the inaccessibility of platinum archived in the player market.

I have a list of enablers:

• The market needs to be more automatic and less social, this is a multilinge system need be less social. the player needs more access to platinum within market as this will give him more access to progression resources.
• Requiem Ultimatum must be a purchasable accessible or exchangeable resource between players.
• The player must keep the resources and credits collected in any mission even after failing the mission, only arenas and betting mechanics should penalize the player.
• The system for leveling weapons and warframes needs to be updated, the affinity division is confusing and needs to be channeled to unupgraded equipments. new arena for afinity looks cool, new players have arenas for credit and endo but no arenas for affinity.
• Arenas need to include new betting levels, the player needs to bet higher amounts in order to obtain even greater or intermittent credit and endo rewards.
• The forge can work similar to the Helminth system, the forge could speed up the manufacturing of items by feeding the system with resources, this is the same as exchanging game time for forging time, the resources will work as an acceleration currency.
• The resource level tier needs to be revised, resources should be negotiable between players, game time should be summarized in credit points, credit is the only resource in the game that represents time played and cannot be exchanged between players.
• Gear Consumables need to be more accessible and simple to use, energy generators, shields and ammunition must work from the player with an affinity range aura, static pods are stationary and problematic, Stims are also useful but rarely used as The consumable system involves the forge and Gear buttons.
• Universal Syndicate Points coins earned on Moon Mission need to be more accessible and tradeable between players. Syndicate currencies need to be exchangeable between players, syndicates including Lunar can be more accessible through these currencies.

Thanks for reading

Edited October 30, 2023 by Famecans

[Famecans]

On 2023-10-27 at 5:23 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Our goals:
- 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.
- Require Vor’s Prize to be complete so there’s a baseline of game understanding. 
- Provide value in this pack by giving gear that would be earned in the course of play so they are ‘ready’ for content at a given level range (i.e Include Endo & Mods in the pack). 
- 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). 

I am MR32 and I will quote some notes about platinum.

the market for parts and platinum is liquid and abundant, I have more than 40k of platinum in market parts which have increased in value by 400% 600% 800%+ "however" I don't have platinum in my account because the market and trading system is rough and limited, it is very stressful and limited to buy and sell and this becomes even worse for new players as the perception of game progression is based on the limited market system that becomes increasingly rough with each update.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Famecans

[(PSN)Xcommandmission]

     Adding a story skip to Warframe isn't a simple thing. It isn't just adding a catch-up to the latest quest release.

     First and foremost: The story doesn't matter. What's more important is the gamplay elements tied to The Second Dream and The War Within. Vor's Prize and Once Awake are a tutorial and introduction. Stolen Dreams, The New Strange, Natah, and The Sacrifice mean nothing. The New War and Angels of the Zariman have some significance.

     Operators require learning and need to be "leveled-up" with amps and Focus. You can add an Amp and Focus shards to the Skip-Pack but then it's just more than being story focused. An amp requirement was added to Eidolon Hunts remember? Adding a recap will make only the story less confusing but not any of the gameplay elements. You would still be relying on YouTube and Warframe guides to do most of the legwork.

    The average level of enemies in quests aren't that high. Excalibur Umbra in The Sacrifice is probably the biggest skill-gap among quests. Just look at the successive Episodes in Nightwave and how the bosses were toned down. Wolf of Saturn Six was a brickhouse, Zealoid Prelate required mechanics, and Nihil was just a minigame instead of a traditional boss fight.

     Saying that Warframe has a decade of content to explore is disingenuous. This type of misinformation is a barrier itself, especially when you consider content that was removed or changed for ease of access. I do not believe Conclave something necessary to explore and the lack of care for it makes it seem like neither does Digital Extremes. Arbitrations were added in October 2018 which is when completing all nodes on the Starchart actually meant something.

     I think if the story skip is added it should add a node to play The Second Dream and The War Within. Loid on Deimos is unlocked with an Operator and therefore Whispers in the Wall would just need that. You should still require it to work your way there. Only allow the Operator in missions that absolutely require the use. You have to keep in mind players that don't skip don't want spoilers. The story skip regardless of price should be discounted for a month. In the afterglow of the update no reasons for it not to be full price considering main quests are as frequent as new primes.

     I truly do not believe a story skip to be necessary with Warframe in the current state it is in. Even with mobile release soon I do not even think 1999 would be a good time.  Adding one with Whispers in the Wall will not magic away various problems that are and are not independent of gameplay.

Spoiler

Just look at r/Warframe and how a very small number of people feel about the icon. I'm sure Digital Extremes is well aware of the challenges of such but that is just the vocal minority. It isn't just about inclusivity. There is toxicity everywhere throughout the game in small amounts. You can blame the community but the limited ingame report tools aren't exactly concurrent with modern times. This option for skipping the story can not be bandage fixed. I think more avenues for monetization should be looked at. Collabs or crossovers, more merchandise, ingame engravings or something. Anything. I may be one of twenty in saying I don't think it is greedy for you to want money. I think most players look at things like "I don't want or need it, therefore you're being greedy" and blame Tencent but the economy in North America is going down. People need value not only from the purchase price but also from time and they find better deals in many other games. They can return to Warframe for free at any time especially since it is not going to just walk up and leave. I can't offer any real solutions, but thank you for five years and more. I love to play Warframe because it is unique to me and I hope you find the best way to open the game up for others.

[Adeptguy]

I dont post often, barely at all. But this is too important subject not to comment on. Also I feel like everyone in the community should give their opinion as well since it can be one of the most important decisions for the future DE can make. Anyway:

Forming my own opinion from my first initial reaction and from reading the opinion of others I have come to the conclusion that maybe the best option is to not add a skip story option but a skip grind option instead. The real reason why it takes so long to get anywhere is because WF is a grinding game at heart. Story is important. It would be a terrible idea to skip the story. However skipping part of the grind in one way or another is different, grind cannot be ruined. Telling a story can. So it seems to me very clear what the priority should be put on regarding this discussion.

Many others have put it far more detailed and better than I am willing to use my time on so I would take their ideas and consider them. Im only repeating the message I generally agree with as the best path to take.

 

TL;DR

Dont skip story, skip grind.

[(PSN)Madame_Banshee12]

• I agree with the reason for Warframe to have a story skip and do not mind it as much. The only concern I have is the gifting. I can see this being used to grief other players if they wanted to play through the story. I think there could be a couple of ways to do this without removing gifting entirely but prevent griefing players:

1) Remove the gift icon from the purchase menu in the in-game market but still have the star to add the story skip to the wishlist. That way a friend can gift it and not a player looking to grief another player.

2) Keep the gifting icon but once you open the gift in the in-game inbox, and it just happens to be a story skip, have the option to be able to accept or refuse this story skip the player is gifting you.

3) The only other option I see is having a setting in options to turn off gifting of story skips.

• This was another idea that a friend of mine was saying is maybe do not skip the mainline story quests but the side ones. For example, Silver Grove. This story skip pack could give instant access to the story quests (I agree with @Xcommandmission for maybe having a stand alone planet or list with the story quest nodes), but have the side quests completed or put on hold for later if they chose to do it or not.

- Happy ya'll are being very transparent or open about this! Hopefully there is a way to implement this where it doesn't cause issues of griefing or having a player feeling lost. ☺️

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by (PSN)Madame_Banshee12

[Renseishin]

On 2023-10-27 at 10:45 PM, BraveDude8 said:

*snip*

My proposal is that it shouldn't be a story skip at all, it should be a grind skip.

*snip*

I had the same idea. I don't think anyone would complain playing these fantastic quests back to back without the associated grind in between. It would be like playing a single player game for a while, sort of... While more gradually giving enough context and knowledge about the lore and some of the stuff that the quests unlock like archwing, operator, railjack, necramech etc. In my opinion it's a better onboarding experience than just dropping all that stuff on a clueless new player and call it a day.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Renseishin

[(PSN)ShadowMables]

Salty vet here😂 This is all wrong for Warframe. It's always been pay to look balla or avoid 3wks of Disruption to get a frame. This new thing is as brazenly pay to win as it gets. I don't judge DE, y'all love Warframe, it's your baby, you're fiercely proud of it and you damn well should be. If anything I judge Tencent bc there's been an *avalanche* of this vibe since the buyout. Idk whether the most shocking thing about the halo gear is the price of it or the fact that you can't get it with plat. It costs as much as a full game, that's *madness*.

I guess I feel like this whole topic is just kinda disrespectful to those of us who are longtime supporters of it. If you see the Whispers trailer and think THIS is the game for me, you're almost certainly right. Welcome to the party. But why you should be able to throw money at the front door and then just walk into the VIP lounge is beyond me. It's a looter shooter. There's grind.  We've paid our dues and you should too. You wanna get to the kickass endgame stuff? Then get to the endgame.

 

It does seem a bit of an identity crisis. There's no doubt Warframe is approaching some sort of critical mass in the gaming world. *Ofc* we want more ppl to play it. But one of its eternal strengths has always been that it's *fair*. You can pay for Prime access, you can pay for weapons and so on. But you can't, or shouldn't anyway, pay to jump into endgame. Apart from anything else that virtually guarantees that going forward squads can expect to go into endgame content saddled with one or more ppl who just have no idea what they're doing. And I just think that's wrong. Flat out wrong. Bad JuJu and the first step on a path that leads directly to EA. The most universally reviled developer in the world. Why are they universally reviled? Bc they can't stand to go 5 minutes without putting their hand in your wallet. 

I'm frickin begging you guys, don't do this. For the love of God and sonny Jesus, *do not do this thing*. If it's a Tencent thing then they need to be told to get the hell out of the way before they kill the golden goose. If it's a DE thing, I support the constant evolution of the game 100% but if ever there was a time to listen to community feedback *this is it*. You're not getting feedback from the pay to win crowd bc they're not here yet. It's just you and us, the ppl who've kept it afloat all this time. We earned our status. Don't sell us out. It'll legit break hearts by the thousand. I honestly feel sick thinking about it. 

[Katinka]

The big question is:

Do you want people to know the story so far before going into the quest or not? 

If you feel the player will need to have played other quests for the new story to make sense then charging people Platinum to skip narrative essential to understanding the new quest seems strange to me.  They'd be paying to not have a base understanding of what's going on.  I think a better system would be to allow people to play through the essential quests without the grind normally required.  Let a new player run through the essential quests with borrowed mods like The Circuit uses (but on their choice of frames and weapons).  This way they can blitz through the story quests back-to-back without the normal time gates of grinding materials and mods and working through star chart.

If paying to skip were to be an option then I would have to conclude that knowledge of the story isn't essential, in which case why bother with prerequisites at all?

[(PSN)M00n_Slippers]

Quote

But nodes are the biggest time sink and yeah you don't need all nodes but grinding through 91 missions kills it for a lot of people 

You. Don't. Need To. Do. All. Nodes. To. Access, The. New. Upcoming. Content.

It's like you didn't read anything I wrote. The New War is the point you need to hit to do Whisper in the Walls. You can strategically avoid tons of nodes and still accomplish this. You don't need to unlock arbitration or do Steel Path at all. "Skipping nodes" does literally nothing to solve the problem or help players complete New War in time for the new content.

Also, Nodes are not even a time sink. Most missions can be completed in under five minutes. You can do a whole planet in like an hour. When Steel Path unlocked, I did every SP mission in about a week of casual grind, and I don't consider myself to be above average of a player.

[DellMafia]

How I would like to play this new update, 10 years of warframe, a historic milestone.
But unfortunately, after the update that blocked Warframe on my computer, it no longer runs because it doesn't respond, and being an old processor I'm very sad for not participating in this celebration! Miss you Warframe sz

[moondog548]

On 2023-10-27 at 9:33 PM, Disasterchild said:

There might be a lot of repeating or stuff I could've shortened down by a lot here. Also a lot of terms that sound dramatic, but that's just the way I speak. I don't mean to exaggerate anything. Hope it's readable. Just felt compelled to speak my mind on the matter. I guess I somewhat summarize what I'm trying to say in the last part, complete with comparisons as Rebb Steve welcomed.

------------------------------------------------------------
Paraphrasing what Pablo said during the latest Devstream, "if I want to invite someone to play with during a new update, I have to get them into the game and go like "okay, now play hundreds of hours and then we can squad up". I get what you're getting at with this thought. Even though playtime until someone clear the path to the newest content may vary a bit, it does take time and I know that some players drop off during this period. Paying attention to the in-game chats and particularly the Warframe subreddit, you get clued into that this is an issue and it's nice to see you're on the ball.

However, by putting in an option to skip mainline quests, what you're effectively saying is that the thing that causes the hitches in progression is the story itself. This isn't true, and I don't think that's what you're going for either. The general cause of players giving up before they get to a certain point in the story is that they are either stuck/lost looking for a specific thing or worn out by the general grind. Which is surely what you're intending for people to be able to skip over, not the order of your story. Giving them the option to skip the story is giving them an unfair choice. It would be between committing to possibly spending a lot of time doing the same things over and over again to experience the story, or pay money to ruin the experience by skipping the story and placing themselves in a different place where they still have to commit to possibly spending a lot of time doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, that's the game and all. You do things a lot of times, because it's fun. But the reason it's fun isn't only because of the movement and gunplay, or only because of the shiny new golden walls and superior lighting engine. There's more to it.

Skipping the story is skipping the grind as well, but removes something players want to experience but can't bring themselves to. I.e. skipping the story is skipping the grind, but skipping the story is also skipping an experience that keeps a lot of players around long-term. One that you spend a lot of energy creating. And for those players who genuinely don't care about the story, they can blast right through it using the in-game market. They can just buy the gear they need and get on with the story, and then decide after the fact whether it meant anything to them. That solution continues to be good enough for the indefinite future. Discussing whether that's the right solution or not is still healthy. A step up is always a step up, and I could get behind the idea that there may be better ways of doing it. But taunting players with a choice to sacrifice experiencing the story the intended way to progress in the game, contrarily not because they have a problem with experiencing the story but because they don't want to spend hours of their lives doing something else than experiencing the story and progressing in the game? To me, that just doesn't seem like a valid solution.

Putting in a story-skip would be selling the story short to new players. Many would see the story-skip and think it's put there because the story is superfluous, just unnecessary to the experience of the game. They'll have no clue about it being put there in an attempt to retain newcomers. They'll just see that the devs themselves admit that the story is skippable. Do you want to reduce the game to that level? If you don't insert the story into the gameplay, it will be missed and reasons a lot of players still stick with the game won't be discovered by those players. I don't see that as a valid solution to the problem. It's a fix with the end goal to get more players to play the game for a bit and ignoring the same players having their reasons to stay spoiled by them ripping apart the story. A writer would cry if they knew someone opened their book and read from the middle to the front, then a bit in the back and some pages here and there. But people don't read a book like that, so it's not an issue. It's different with a game that lets the players loose to discover on their own. A story-skip would inevitably ruin the full game experience. Don't provide the option.

This is all like an identity crisis, where you don't know what the game should be focused towards. This despite the fact that you keep putting a lot of energy in developing the story and universe and create this beautiful thing that pulls so many in, and people constantly praising those parts. You still don't see what sets Warframe apart from other games of a similar style of gameplay or design. It's the lore and the world. You should absolutely take agency curating the experience for players. The page should turn where you mean for it to be turned. The quests don't take up an unreasonable amount of time at all. It's the other aspects of the game that, if anything, needs adjusting to streamline how players go through the motions.

To sum it up, you're not a fast food joint. And you're not a bougie fine-dining restaurant. You're a place people hear about through the grapevines, someone talking about them having a mindblowing food experience, and you have to book a table two months in advance and you get there and have to float in a sensory deprivation tank for an hour and then go sit down at a table in a garden with specifically shaped cutlery and plants that give off specific aroma, and have a normal meal that you could've had anywhere but now in this setting tastes like heaven. Warframe is a game with tried and true game concepts, but set together with thoughtful design and passionate storytelling and world building. To me, it's the way you set up the story and world that makes the normal gameplay feel good. Without going through the story, the game doesn't feel as good for as long as it can. It gives inspiration to play the different parts of the game.

Outstandingly said. I hope they heed this!

[(XBOX)Omega399]

12 hours ago, Stafelund said:

Adding on to the story, I think there at least needs to be one driving force with regard to the planets and their respective bosses. Despite that we have quests for each planet, as soon as I finished Earth after I started, I didn't remember any plot-related stuff in Venus and Fortuna seems like its own thing. With Mercury, there is a plot with Dr. Tengus and the infested, but there's not much about it. And I'm just scratching my head on why Vor is there when we killed him after the first quest.

In short, there's no plot on why we have to kill The Jackal, why we have to face Lech Kril (speaking of which, is his VA still around?), what's the deal with The Sergeant and why Lech and Vor are both on Ceres? Story-wise, I think this can contribute to fatigue for new players. Story-driven people would definitely want to see what's going on each planet so they'll keep playing, in hopes of getting themselves deep into the game later.

Hell, it would be actually a good time to repurpose some of the Nightwave's stories, the one with Arlo could pretty much be the quest in Deimos besides the one in the Necralisk.

I felt I should chime in, and point out that a lot of the narrative issues with The Jackal and The Sergeant could be fixed if they flipped their locations.

 

The Sergeant was originally intended to be Nef Anyo anyways, so making him the main boss of Venus is something thats been a long time coming, and just makes more sense in general for gameplay reasons. It also allows for him to be tied into the rest of the Venus storyline without distracting from it; killing him is purely for the benefit of the Solaris, and the detriment of Anyo.

 

As for the Lynx, putting it on Phobos could be used as a better explanation for why Phobos is in Corpus control instead of Grineer control; its purely business, one moon for one deathmachine. killing Lech and destroying the Lynx ensures that the Corpus and Grineer keep fighting eachother instead of making peace and threatening the rest of the system.