A new players perspective - skipping story

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

Since DE is implementing story skipping as a feature aimed at new players I feel that as a new player myself I should give feedback regarding this.

 

It took me 7 years (maybe longer) to get into this game. I have had my account since the game released on PlayStation and I have logged in a number of times over the years to claim a few free PS+ plat packages and screw around in some survival and defense missions (they’re fun). That’s about it. I had done the beginning quests with Vor and unlocked the Archwing but as far as I could tell Warframe was just a F2P cash grab hallway simulator with virtually identical enemies and virtually identical environments with no compelling narrative or objective.

It wasn’t until Destiny started having so many issues with its servers and constantly hearing “play Warframe” from the people there that I decided to finally give the game a solid try.

I have now spent almost $200 on plat and been playing 8 hours a day for the last month and have gone from MR4-16. I have completed The New War, Angles of Zariman and Veilbreaker. I now see that this game is significantly more in depth than I thought it was and it is infact not a soulless cash grab hallway simulator. There is a fantastic story here with some of the most amazing music I’ve not just heard in a game but in my entire life. Hybrid Abominations (Archon Battle Music) is one of the greatest pieces of music I have ever heard in my life comparable to the likes of music by Hans Zimmer

It was largely the story quests in this game that began to draw me in. The Second Dream and beginning to understand the world that I’m in. It has quite honestly been the most epic video game adventure I have been on in the last 5-10 years.

Without this core world building people have no ties to the game world. They have no reason to care for it. They have no attachment to their character or any of the other characters in the game. I cried for the Lotus. I felt Umbras rage and hated Ballas. 
 

Obtaining Naturak from Hunhow and slaying the Archons with it and then being rewarded with that incredibly powerful weapon in the game is extremely rewarding and satisfying. The same thing with Broken War. These quest weapons are special and are a massive power boost in the game and add to the world building. Naturak is one of my favourite weapons in my arsenal and not just because of how powerful it is but because of what I went through to obtain it and what it is and it’s relevance to the story.
 

The FFXIV subreddit is constantly littered with posts and comments of people who skipped the story and now regret it or people who have dropped the game because they have no care for the world because they have nothing tying them to it. 
 

If DEs concern is new players then they should be addressing the things that kept people like me from playing the game - and it wasn’t the story or the grind. It was the lack of direction and purpose and world building early on. I didn’t know there was spaceships and mechs and a metaverse (Duviri), and hunting and mining, and an epic story. I didn’t know Warframes could look so cool. They should give new players a sizeable chunk of free starting platinum that can’t be traded. Looking cool is great motivation to keep playing. Excalibur in particular - being one of the starting frames has one of the coolest skins in the game (Zato)

People will most often take the path of least resistance and I know DE as a game developer understands this. It’s well known game design philosophy going back to tabletop eras and dungeon masters. It is the DMs (developers) job to create and curate an experience for their players that they may not immediately understand is for their own benefit even if it seems like it’s something they may not really want. Sure we’d all like all of the loot right now but it’s the journey getting the loot that matters whether we realize it or not. For example pay to win is another mechanic that can have a large negative impact on the player experience (both for those who engage with it and those who don’t). This is why good pay to win games (Warframe is pay to win. No way around it) make pay to win so obscenely expensive and inaccessible that the player doesn’t feel obligated by it or that they’re being impeded in any way because it isn’t something that is ever realistically attainable for the vast majority of players that it is as if the option to do so doesn’t even exist. This leaves players feeling good about the system while still allowing the developer to make money off of it. Everyone is happy. A developer understands how their choices will make their players (feel).

If I as a new player with the new player experience I had been presented with the option of a story skip without even knowing how amazing the story was and the memories and attachments it was going to create I may have taken that path of least resistance and done myself a great disservice and I may not be here right now playing this game and from a monetary standpoint the value of a story skip versus the $200 I spent on plat for some sick cosmetics is significantly more valuable and will guarantee to retain me as a player and customer in the future.

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)MaistBitPollen]

Similar story for me, overwhelmed at the beginning it felt like a job rather than a game so I deleted warframe. I run out of games to play a few years later and gave warframe a real try and soo glad I did it’s the best game I’ve ever played. Pay to skip is a waste of DE time when there’s loads of things it would be better spent on. 

[trst]

The problem is that they're not looking at players who're struggling to get into the game but at players who want to get into the game JUST for the latest update. Your situation simply isn't comparable to what they're aiming for.

Also it's pretty irrelevant if the story is/would be a hook for players since if anyone who skipped it wanted to experience it they can go and replay every major quest and nearly every side quest in the game at any point. So the option to get into the story is always available regardless of having a skip function plus story recaps were a mentioned feature alongside it.

Edited October 29, 2023 by trst

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

31 minutes ago, trst said:

The problem is that they're not looking at players who're struggling to get into the game but at players who want to get into the game JUST for the latest update. Your situation simply isn't comparable to what they're aiming for.

Also it's pretty irrelevant if the story is/would be a hook for players since if anyone who skipped it wanted to experience it they can go and replay every major quest and nearly every side quest in the game at any point. So the option to get into the story is always available regardless of having a skip function plus story recaps were a mentioned feature alongside it.

How many of those players really exist though? The majority of those people are going to be friends of existing players who want to play with their friends.

The issue with even being able to replay the story is it puts the player in a position of doing something that is essentially a waste of their time when that time could be better spent progressing their character. When the story itself is part of character progress it works in tandem for providing a great world building experience along with rewarding character progression. 
 

A large part of game design philosophy and being a “dungeon master” is understanding how things are going to make your players feel and what kind of mindset they’re going to be in. There may be things they might not necessarily think they enjoy but ultimately create a better game experience. One of those things is people always taking the path of least resistance. You have to understand even if people do enjoy the story and will enjoy the story they will not be motivated to do it when it doesn’t reward anything and takes away from other rewards. As I said before as well story is important for world building and giving a player a sense of purpose. It’s hard to retain a player when they don’t care about the world or why they’re in it

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[trst]

1 minute ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

How many of those players really exist though? The majority of those people are going to be friends of existing players who want to play with their friends.

The issue with even being able to replay the story is it puts the player in a position of doing something that is essentially a waste of their time when that time could be better spent progressing their character. When the story itself is part of character progress it works in tandem for providing a great world building experience along with rewarding character progression. 

Does it matter how many of those players there are when without such a feature they likely wouldn't play the game in the first place?

And if experiencing the story after they intentionally skipped is considered a waste of time then they twice over didn't care about it anyways. And it doesn't matter if they're no longer getting progression out of it as they already got said progression and the whole point is that they can still experience it. Thus the issue you pointed out with FF can't happen here.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

1 minute ago, trst said:

Does it matter how many of those players there are when without such a feature they likely wouldn't play the game in the first place?

And if experiencing the story after they intentionally skipped is considered a waste of time then they twice over didn't care about it anyways. And it doesn't matter if they're no longer getting progression out of it as they already got said progression and the whole point is that they can still experience it. Thus the issue you pointed out with FF can't happen here.

You can’t say they didn’t care about it anyways. People will almost always do what is most efficient regardless of whether or not it’s the most enjoyable experience and understanding this is a part of good game design 

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[The_Royal_Elf_Mika]

28 minutes ago, trst said:

The problem is that they're not looking at players who're struggling to get into the game but at players who want to get into the game JUST for the latest update. Your situation simply isn't comparable to what they're aiming for.

Also it's pretty irrelevant if the story is/would be a hook for players since if anyone who skipped it wanted to experience it they can go and replay every major quest and nearly every side quest in the game at any point. So the option to get into the story is always available regardless of having a skip function plus story recaps were a mentioned feature alongside it.

funny thing is, if people are only interested in the game only for the lastest update, then they probably will be gone after that update. since they have no value to the story other than that "Latest update".

i have seen a lot of MMOs die due to adding a skip button. it cheapens the experience and ruins the game overall in the long run.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

51 minutes ago, (PSN)MaistBitPollen said:

Similar story for me, overwhelmed at the beginning it felt like a job rather than a game so I deleted warframe. I run out of games to play a few years later and gave warframe a real try and soo glad I did it’s the best game I’ve ever played. Pay to skip is a waste of DE time when there’s loads of things it would be better spent on. 

Honestly it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played too. I also really like the monetization model. About the only thing I’m not super in love with is the mod system, I find it’s extremely complicated and doesn’t change the gameplay very much other than “number go up” so in that regard I definitely like Destiny’s mod system more but Helminth and other things make up for where the mod system lacks and a very slight lack of controller customization for some very few things like operator sling. Switching to and from operator is a really cool mechanic but controlling it well on controller is difficult

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[trst]

10 minutes ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

You can’t say they didn’t care about it anyways. People will almost always do what is most efficient regardless of whether or not it’s the most enjoyable experience and understanding this is a part of good game design 

They absolutely don't care if they both intentionally chose to skip the story and then later viewed experiencing said story as a waste of time. If they did care then they'd bother to experience it at some point even if they didn't want to at the start. Also even without a "tangible" reward for replaying the story they still get rewarded with the experience itself.

And yeah players will optimize the fun out of a game but we're talking about a monetary investment at the beginning of a game. If that was such an issue then DE selling ANY non-cosmetic content is just as bad.

 

9 minutes ago, (NSW)Royal_Elf_Mika said:

funny thing is, if people are only interested in the game only for the lastest update, then they probably will be gone after that update. since they have no value to the story other than that "Latest update".

i have seen a lot of MMOs die due to adding a skip button. it cheapens the experience and ruins the game overall in the long run.

That logic doesn't follow.

If a player was only interested in a game for the latest update and thus isn't willing to put the time investment into getting to said content then it's likely they wouldn't play anyways. Giving them the option to skip to what they want means they get to actually play the game, the game gets supported, and they can then either leave or invest into the rest of the game. Plus nothing is actually skipped here since the entire story can still be experienced at any point via replays.

The only "bad" thing that could come of it is increasing the percentage of players who don't care about the story. Which already appears to be a considerable portion of the community with how many didn't pay enough attention to understand it or who just didn't care and just want to enjoy the gameplay. And that hasn't ruined anything thus far.

[The_Royal_Elf_Mika]

2 minutes ago, trst said:

That logic doesn't follow.

If a player was only interested in a game for the latest update and thus isn't willing to put the time investment into getting to said content then it's likely they wouldn't play anyways. Giving them the option to skip to what they want means they get to actually play the game, the game gets supported, and they can then either leave or invest into the rest of the game. Plus nothing is actually skipped here since the entire story can still be experienced at any point via replays.

The only "bad" thing that could come of it is increasing the percentage of players who don't care about the story. Which already appears to be a considerable portion of the community with how many didn't pay enough attention to understand it or who just didn't care and just want to enjoy the gameplay. And that hasn't ruined anything thus far.

if thats the case, i want you to stop watching any shows from the first season/First EP and instead only watch shows on their final seasons. you should enjoy the show on par with other fans. its a lot of investment to start on the first season, so why not skip all the way to the latest season?

 

i literally have proof that these actions kill games.

here is Closers, it was a very popular game with a great story, they started to add in "make a new character and that character is boosted to End Game" and guess what? the game literally died.

Spoiler

 

 

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

25 minutes ago, trst said:

They absolutely don't care if they both intentionally chose to skip the story and then later viewed experiencing said story as a waste of time. If they did care then they'd bother to experience it at some point even if they didn't want to at the start. Also even without a "tangible" reward for replaying the story they still get rewarded with the experience itself.

And yeah players will optimize the fun out of a game but we're talking about a monetary investment at the beginning of a game. If that was such an issue then DE selling ANY non-cosmetic content is just as bad.

 

That logic doesn't follow.

If a player was only interested in a game for the latest update and thus isn't willing to put the time investment into getting to said content then it's likely they wouldn't play anyways. Giving them the option to skip to what they want means they get to actually play the game, the game gets supported, and they can then either leave or invest into the rest of the game. Plus nothing is actually skipped here since the entire story can still be experienced at any point via replays.

The only "bad" thing that could come of it is increasing the percentage of players who don't care about the story. Which already appears to be a considerable portion of the community with how many didn't pay enough attention to understand it or who just didn't care and just want to enjoy the gameplay. And that hasn't ruined anything thus far.

I’m sorry but that’s simply false and stating it as any kind of “logic” is irrelevant because it is kind of illogical. People will often do what is easiest/most efficient regardless of whether or not it is most enjoyable. This is basic human psychology and it’s a core part of understanding in game design philosophy that has been widely understood since tabletop era RPGs with dungeon masters curating a specific experience for their players. The experience itself isn’t reward enough when held against things like weekly limited activities and events like Circuit and events and Khals garrison and other syndicate standing. The player is then forced into a position of leaving something like this until they reach a point where they have nothing left to do (which the entire point of a live service game is to never let the player reach that point) or putting them in the position of taking away from their characters progress to do these things. It’s bad game design philosophy any way you look at it and it’s bad for player retention. It’s only good for short term monetary gain.

 

The reason FFXIV can do this and succeed is because of how diverse it’s community and gameplay is as well as the games activities. It has a massive roleplaying community that never even touch the story or combat, crafters, gatherers, homesteaders, worlds first raiders, casuals, hardcore. It has everything. It has a multitude of things besides just it’s story for people to engage with and it has a strong community supporting all of those aspects.

Warframe has its story, it has its gameplay, it has the objective of killing things, looking cool and looking cool while killing things. It isn’t diverse enough to support a large enough sub community to viably retain a majority players who story skip. Roleplayers don’t need a story tying them to the game because they create their own narrative. WF doesn’t have a community like that.

 

Other types of games that can do well without story are PvP games because they’re also player driven. The experiences are always different because the opponents you face are real people. You are creating the world in something like that. PvE games though need world building or they need roleplaying.

 

I also don’t think people didn’t pay attention to the story and that’s why they don’t understand it. I think it’s because the entire story has been retconned and is difficult to understand. That doesn’t make it a bad story though, it’s a great story and I don’t even fully understand it.

 

Based on my first impressions of Warframe I may very well have bought a story skip if the option was available just to see if it got any better and missed out on the story and not been hooked into the game. That can happen to other people and with how bad the games early game is it seems likely to me that it could happen. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)robotwars7]

this is why I'm always going to advise against the story skip, assuming DE goes ahead with it (I'd rather they not). sure, there's a lot of grind and content, but many parts of the story, especially quests like Second Dream and The Sacrifice , which are not only the best quests in the game, they're some of the best quests I've ever played in any game, and to miss out on that, I think you'd be robbing yourself of a valuable and wonderful experience.

it's up to the person spending the money at the end of the day, but I will never advocate for skipping: the greatest moments in the story are well worth enduring the hardship of the farm. 

[-Krism-]

I've linked your post in the compilation thread I did, if that's ok with you, as I find your perspective very interesting

[Roble_Viejo]

Removing Pre-Requisites to play Quests? Good, very Good
Making Players Pay for it? Definitely not, thats Predatory

DE is testing the Community to see how much they can push
Predatory Monetization Tactics, just look at the Heirloom Scam

If we let DE add P2W to Warframe this Game will go downhill like Destiny
And those who think this is not P2W, these were the EXACT words DE used: 
 

Cita

Our goals:
- Allow players to use Platinum to Buy a pack that Unlocks & Completes
 the replayable Quests required to access Whispers in the Walls

Everybody knows that Paying to Complete Progress automatically is P2W
Is too sad to see hardcore White Knights defending this, they are defending the downfall
of Warframe. I cant believe my eyes, Im baffled to see DE has become so utterly greedy

[SneakyErvin]

13 hours ago, trst said:

Does it matter how many of those players there are when without such a feature they likely wouldn't play the game in the first place?

And if experiencing the story after they intentionally skipped is considered a waste of time then they twice over didn't care about it anyways. And it doesn't matter if they're no longer getting progression out of it as they already got said progression and the whole point is that they can still experience it. Thus the issue you pointed out with FF can't happen here.

It matters because it will not just be about how they can attract those players it also matter how it will actually reflect on DE. It may turn out being a big risk for little return that instead ends up staining the name of the game and DE. Since this system does not actually cater to those players even if DE thinks so. And that reason is because WF is not a linear game, so those players are really only skipping the stories to get to a point that they think is the latest content. But it is in the end only a quest that they unlock this way, they still need to do all of the rest of the game, because it is all still viable content in WF since again WF isnt linear, so the best itemization and progress is not isolated to the latest content.

DE wants to implement this due to seamingly having this assumption that a new player will actually know how WF is designed, when in reality a new player very likely wont. Which makes this look like a cash grab approach to cash in on players early on. Since they sell something that doesnt actually represent the majority of the gameplay or connects with the sandbox nature of WF progress. If this was a linear game I'd prolly see this as beneficial, since most things prior to the latest update would very likely be obsolete, and whatever can be done in the latest content will be what is relevant to progression. But that just isnt how WF works and likely never will.

Plus dont forget that the whole "play with friends" idea DE is pushing here is really far fetched. Because several of the people that might have friends are already frequent SP runners, so them grouping up with friends that just started wont be a reality. And when the friends eventually end up in SP to play with those far progressed friends, it will just be carries since those newer players will be horribly undergeared. So skipping the story doesnt really do much for the "latest content", since they will experience the story and then be thrown back into the old to get any form of wortwhile progress done, that or getting severely carried through it all after the quest. Which just leads to the same burn out quit that current carries do. The difference is DE got money from them before they quit from the same reasons they would have quit otherwise.

 

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

3 hours ago, Roble_Viejo said:

Removing Pre-Requisites to play Quests? Good, very Good
Making Players Pay for it? Definitely not, thats Predatory

DE is testing the Community to see how much they can push
Predatory Monetization Tactics, just look at the Heirloom Scam

If we let DE add P2W to Warframe this Game will go downhill like Destiny
And those who think this is not P2W, these were the EXACT words DE used: 
 

Everybody knows that Paying to Complete Progress automatically is P2W
Is too sad to see hardcore White Knights defending this, they are defending the downfall
of Warframe. I cant believe my eyes, Im baffled to see DE has become so utterly greedy

Warframe already is P2W the thing is that it’s fair in that a lot of the paying for power is set by a player driven economy that isn’t hyper inflated (look at the price of frames in the market vs people selling them) and cosmetics and other things function as a currency sink for that plat and Rivens remove a significant amount of it from the economy either through wealthy players hoarding it (much like real life billionaires who if they did spend their money or have it in liquid assets would have huge affects on the global economy or spending it on cosmetics and other things) and that to truly P2W would be such an obscenely expensive task it’s virtually out of reach for most people so it’s as if the option doesn’t exist anyways.

 

I agree with the Heirloom thing you mentioned. Not because it’s unfair to the player though but because it doesn’t function as a platinum sink to remove plat from the economy. That isn’t good in my opinion. They could at the very least make it purchasable for the equivalent value of plat and it could function as a very good sink.

 

I don’t think people are defending it because they’re white knights I think they’re defending it because they don’t properly understand it. Many successful games have story skips but their story skips haven’t been successful simply because story skips are successful monetization methods, it’s because the games themselves have a particular framework that supports it. For example WoW. Story skips make sense in WoW because you are expected to play multiple characters and cannot complete everything on one character. This is the same thing for Destiny. In the case of FFXIV it’s because FFXIV is a theme park with an incredibly diverse set of activities and an incredibly diverse community - in particular it’s RP community which largely doesn’t even engage with the games systems or narrative because they roleplay their own narrative. Warframe has none of these sorts of things. A story skip can only be detrimental to the long term player experience and retention at the benefit of short term and insignificant monetary gain. I don’t pay for games I’m not playing. I wouldn’t have dropped $200 in plat for cosmetics if I wasn’t hooked into the game. A $20 story skip is not anything even remotely comparable in the monetary value brought to the game as hooking me into it with the story experience has been

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

3 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

It matters because it will not just be about how they can attract those players it also matter how it will actually reflect on DE. It may turn out being a big risk for little return that instead ends up staining the name of the game and DE. Since this system does not actually cater to those players even if DE thinks so. And that reason is because WF is not a linear game, so those players are really only skipping the stories to get to a point that they think is the latest content. But it is in the end only a quest that they unlock this way, they still need to do all of the rest of the game, because it is all still viable content in WF since again WF isnt linear, so the best itemization and progress is not isolated to the latest content.

DE wants to implement this due to seamingly having this assumption that a new player will actually know how WF is designed, when in reality a new player very likely wont. Which makes this look like a cash grab approach to cash in on players early on. Since they sell something that doesnt actually represent the majority of the gameplay or connects with the sandbox nature of WF progress. If this was a linear game I'd prolly see this as beneficial, since most things prior to the latest update would very likely be obsolete, and whatever can be done in the latest content will be what is relevant to progression. But that just isnt how WF works and likely never will.

Plus dont forget that the whole "play with friends" idea DE is pushing here is really far fetched. Because several of the people that might have friends are already frequent SP runners, so them grouping up with friends that just started wont be a reality. And when the friends eventually end up in SP to play with those far progressed friends, it will just be carries since those newer players will be horribly undergeared. So skipping the story doesnt really do much for the "latest content", since they will experience the story and then be thrown back into the old to get any form of wortwhile progress done, that or getting severely carried through it all after the quest. Which just leads to the same burn out quit that current carries do. The difference is DE got money from them before they quit from the same reasons they would have quit otherwise.

 

I don’t think it will stain the games reputation. As I already explained what my perception of WF was prior to actually playing it. It was negative.

I did forgo mentioning however that I am also extremely prejudiced against F2P games and many other people are as well. I think purely from a monetization method standpoint this wouldn’t hurt the games image. It will only hurt player rentention, sentiment and emotional investment as well as possibly harm the development of future story content for players already retained

 

Regarding the “play with friends” thing. Sounds like the same crap Bungie pushed about Destiny. It isn’t a reality. Most of us don’t have friends and these sorts of games attract basement dwellers like myself. The game also already has a pretty supportive community that can easily and willingly carry new players through harder content (much like Destiny’s best designed raids allow for) due to a strong player power fantasy and player skill allowing for it.

This “play with friends” thing is a relic of a bygone era of Lan parties and never even existed in MMORPGs to begin with. You made your friends in the game as you played the game.

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

3 hours ago, -Krism- said:

I've linked your post in the compilation thread I did, if that's ok with you, as I find your perspective very interesting

Sounds good.

For anyone further reading this forgive my multiple replies. Quoting multiple people in a single post on mobile platform is difficult to format.

[(PSN)Unstar]

This feature isn't aimed at new players, it's aimed at people who won't become new players unless they get to skip.

Does DE need to delicately thread this needle so that the people who need this feature can get access to it but people who don't are dissuaded from it?  Yes.  But that's an issue of how they should do this, not if they should do this.  And there are plenty of great solutions to that.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

13 minutes ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

This feature isn't aimed at new players, it's aimed at people who won't become new players unless they get to skip.

Does DE need to delicately thread this needle so that the people who need this feature can get access to it but people who don't are dissuaded from it?  Yes.  But that's an issue of how they should do this, not if they should do this.  And there are plenty of great solutions to that.

Those are still new players who are still going to be subject to the same potentially damaging effects of story skipping.

The best option for getting new players to end game quickly isn’t story skipping - it’s removing the barriers to it. Those largest barriers being Mastery Rank, Necramech, Railjack. 

You could bang out the games entire story in a day easily without those requirements and it would honestly make it a better experience overall. It’s not like FFXIV where you have 500 hours of quests and cutscenes. Being into the story and then getting hit with a wall of grinding and time gated Mastery Ranks really throws off the pace of things. They already give us a Mech for the Deimos quests at the start. There’s no reason they couldn’t as well for TNW. 
 

The game also already suffers from a heavily retconned and difficult to understand story (albeit amazing) and skipping this would be a detriment to future story quests they could engage with unless DE stops making good stories because of this which comes at the detriment of everyone who enjoys it.

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)Unstar]

18 minutes ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

Those are still new players who are still going to be subject to the same potentially damaging effects of story skipping.

The best option for getting new players to end game quickly isn’t story skipping - it’s removing the barriers to it. Those largest barriers being Mastery Rank, Necramech, Railjack. 

You could bang out the games entire story in a day easily without those requirements

These are certainly some ways that your suggestions would shorten "getting up to speed", but I don't think it's enough.  The New War alone is 5 hours of content, and that content is meant to be tackled by an experienced player.  And I know experienced Tenno who haven't yet finished it because it's too much for them.

Beyond that, a lot of the "barriers" you're suggesting removing are "the game".  And as much as I love the story of Warframe, what I love even more is the gameplay.  I think it would do a disservice to the overall game to so drastically reduce the gameplay loops along the critical path that new players are finishing all of the story on day 1.  And importantly, that doesn't just impact players who want to get to the new content faster, that impacts all players.  The players who like that gameplay, who enjoy these tasks and achieving these goals?  Such a change negatively impacts them.  I would much rather have players who want to skip things be able to skip those things than force players who don't want to skip to skip content.

And from the perspective of someone who loves Warframe's story, I think that a player completing The Second Dream anywhere close to day 1 would gut the experience.  The Second Dream is as impactful as it is because by the time you get there you've had time to grow comfortable with viewing the world from a specific viewpoint...and then The Second Dream pulls the rug out from under you.  It's an absolute masterpiece of an experience, one of the best I've ever had in all my years of playing games.  But it loses so much of its weight if you as a player haven't had enough time to heavily normalize what came before it.  Which is to say, I think that the overview of the changes you're proposing would hurt all new players' experience of the story.  Timing and pacing are important aspects of story-telling.  Our solution to this issue should not negatively impact non-skipping players.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

1 hour ago, (PSN)Unstar said:

These are certainly some ways that your suggestions would shorten "getting up to speed", but I don't think it's enough.  The New War alone is 5 hours of content, and that content is meant to be tackled by an experienced player.  And I know experienced Tenno who haven't yet finished it because it's too much for them.

Beyond that, a lot of the "barriers" you're suggesting removing are "the game".  And as much as I love the story of Warframe, what I love even more is the gameplay.  I think it would do a disservice to the overall game to so drastically reduce the gameplay loops along the critical path that new players are finishing all of the story on day 1.  And importantly, that doesn't just impact players who want to get to the new content faster, that impacts all players.  The players who like that gameplay, who enjoy these tasks and achieving these goals?  Such a change negatively impacts them.  I would much rather have players who want to skip things be able to skip those things than force players who don't want to skip to skip content.

And from the perspective of someone who loves Warframe's story, I think that a player completing The Second Dream anywhere close to day 1 would gut the experience.  The Second Dream is as impactful as it is because by the time you get there you've had time to grow comfortable with viewing the world from a specific viewpoint...and then The Second Dream pulls the rug out from under you.  It's an absolute masterpiece of an experience, one of the best I've ever had in all my years of playing games.  But it loses so much of its weight if you as a player haven't had enough time to heavily normalize what came before it.  Which is to say, I think that the overview of the changes you're proposing would hurt all new players' experience of the story.  Timing and pacing are important aspects of story-telling.  Our solution to this issue should not negatively impact non-skipping players.

If TNW is too much of a skill barrier for them because “it’s meant to be tackled by an experienced player” then they aren’t ready to be in the end game yet anyways, making the entire skip redundant and putting them in a position of even less experience with a significant challenge ahead of them.

Removing Mastery Rank and Mech/Railjack requirements from quests isn’t removing it from the game. I’m not saying give people a free Mech and Railjack and make Mastery Rank irrelevant. Simply for this one aspect of the game. We already get a “loaner” Mech for the Deimos introduction quest anyways.

Time gating these quests behind Mastery Rank - which is a largely trivial “challenge” in no way at all in my opinion positively contributes to the pacing or experience of these quests. There is reason to argue that the Mech and Railjack do to an extent but I believe that would be significantly less damaging than story skipping given the multitude of possible negative consequences it could bring about for all players

There also isn’t anything very compelling about clearing the star chart. As I said it was a large factor in giving me a very negative first impression of the game (hallway simulator with virtually indentical levels with virtually identical enemies). Forcing the player into clearing the star chart to progress quests and access junctions leads to the impression that this is all the game has to offer. Removing the junction requirements would also improve the game.

Edited October 29, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(XBOX)Cram Duahcim]

Honestly if they just make it easier to get to Second Dream and keep the momentum going through other quests it would make it easier for new players to catch up.

Only issue that I see is having War Within and New War locking players out of all other content until they are completed.

But I think if you cut down the time to actually get to the quests then that should be more then sufficient to get new players into the game.

I do see value with P2S but it has to be done in the right way. I can see why they are looking at implementing it.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

Just now, (XBOX)Cram Duahcim said:

Honestly if they just make it easier to get to Second Dream and keep the momentum going through other quests it would make it easier for new players to catch up.

Only issue that I see is having War Within and New War locking players out of all other content until they are completed.

But I think if you cut down the time to actually get to the quests then that should be more then sufficient to get new players into the game.

I do see value with P2S but it has to be done in the right way. I can see why they are looking at implementing it.

TNW definitely needs an “easy mode” option after too many failures like FFXIVs main quests. The challenge is great but if someone’s skill is too low, locking them out of the game is terrible design.

[(XBOX)Cram Duahcim]

8 minutes ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

TNW definitely needs an “easy mode” option after too many failures like FFXIVs main quests. The challenge is great but if someone’s skill is too low, locking them out of the game is terrible design.

WW really isn't that hard but I do agree that being locked out of the entire game is bad design. 

If that element is fixed: Then your in a much better position.