A new players perspective - skipping story

[SneakyErvin]

18 hours ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

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 mean in the eyes of the public. Since if they sell this and fail to convey down to the detail exactly how limited this skip will be there are likely many gaming sites, magazines and individual critics and content creators that will give DE and the game massive flak. Which will spill over to new projects, like Soulframe. It has happened for other companies, so no reason DE will be shielded from making poor decisions.

And if they are truely transparent with what will actually be part of the skip, I cant really see it selling all that much. Which makes me think it is even more pointless compared to just going back and implement what is needed directly into the quests/rewards so people can just start with doing the quest line. I mean, they are currently "looking at other games" as they put it, but how then have they missed plain old regular story setups that you can more or less do before starting with the actual farm of the game.

Diablo, Borderlands, Shadow Warrior 2, Outriders, Grim Dawn, PoE, Inquisitor Martyr and so on and so on. Games of similar design where you engage with the story and follow it, then engage with the "endless" progression after that.

[(PSN)Unstar]

22 hours ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

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.

Strong disagree.  The New War is very special case because it doesn't play by the normal rules of Warframe: it locks players in and there is nothing you can do to upgrade your gear, etc, to make it easier to get through.  It's a bunch of (and I say this with love and respect) gimmick gameplay that is an entirely isolated experience relative to the rest of Warframe.

Conversely, 99% of the other content in Warframe can be over-geared, not to mention that in any content that's multiplayer, unskilled/ungeared players simply get carried.  If the paid skip gives players something along the lines of a well-built Rhino and a well-built (Kuva?) Hek, they'll be well-equipped to defeat most Warframe content.

 

Beyond that, I'm curious what you thought about my final paragraph about how fast-tracking the story would be a detriment to all new players.  Since we both seem to love Warframe's story, I would figure this would be an area where we both have very similar goals.

Edited October 30, 2023 by (PSN)Unstar

[Jarriaga]

On 2023-10-28 at 10:30 PM, 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.

At that point it's too late and unrecoverable for most people though.

If you watch a movie where a character dies but was perfectly healthy and unscratched up until that point, and the next movie in that franchise takes place 5 years before you know the character is going to survive that movie unharmed even if they are falling from a space station. It kills all tension, attachment and concern for the past iteration of the character because you know this is not where their journey ends. Being able to go back feels redundant and unimportant at that point. Sure you can't picture the exact details of how things will play out until you experience it yourself, but you'll still have 100% full confidence on the character making it through no worse for the wear (Black Widow).

This could have been a character you may have cared about and connected with had you experienced concern and tension in chronological order, but that is not possible at all when you get the option to skip and see where they are at that point in time. This is the "Is the Lotus going to die?" tension we had prior to TNW. It won't exist in Whispers in the Wall if players are allowed to skip because new players will see Lotus is alive and not evil at the tail-end of the journey, so going back to TNW will have no impact (And Erra, and The Sacrifice, and Apostasy by extension).

Edited November 1, 2023 by Jarriaga

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

9 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

At that point it's too late and unrecoverable for most people though.

If you see a movie where a character dies but was perfectly healthy and unscratched up until that point, and the next movie in that franchise takes place 5 years before you know the character is going to survive that movie unharmed even if they are falling from a space station. It kills all tension, attachment and concern for the past iteration of the character because you know this is not where their journey ends. Being able to go back feels redundant and unimportant at that point. Sure you can't picture the exact details of how things will play out until you experience it yourself, but you'll still have 100% full confidence on the character making it through no worse for the wear (Black Widow).

This could have been a character you may have cared about and connected with had you experienced concern and tension in chronological order, but that is not possible at all when you get the option to skip and see where they are at that point in time. This is the "Is the Lotus going to die?" tension we had prior to TNW. It won't exist in Whispers in the Wall if players are allowed to skip because new players will see Lotus is alive and not evil at the tail-end of the journey, so going back to TNW will have no impact (And Erra, and The Sacrifice, and Apostasy by extension).

This is also a really good point. It’s something I wanted to add but couldn’t put to words properly.

[Alpha_Tango]

Personal opinion. If hardcore WF players believe in the "gripping story " of the game so much that it is a must to go through and experience, I don't get what is stopping a P2S player from backtracking and discovering it in any order if it even comes to that point. They will make the effort or not and that's about it. 

I don't specifically know in what financial status DE is in right now but making a proposition like this sounds desperate.

Worrisome players who frown at the future, "worthiness" or the tendency of a p2s customer to just drop off eventually because of not investing in the story/grind as they did are the least noise they should be hearing if the game is breathing through a respirator. 

DE should just prioritize what's important and get a rational P2S scheme going because the player base will just go about their business as usual in the end.

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

4 minutes ago, Alpha_Tango said:

Personal opinion. If hardcore WF players believe in the "gripping story " of the game so much that it is a must to go through and experience, I don't get what is stopping a P2S player from backtracking and discovering it in any order if it even comes to that point. They will make the effort or not and that's about it. 

I don't specifically know in what financial status DE is in right now but making a proposition like this sounds desperate.

Worrisome players who frown at the future, "worthiness" or the tendency of a p2s customer to just drop off eventually because of not investing in the story/grind as they did are the least noise they should be hearing if the game is breathing through a respirator. 

DE should just prioritize what's important and get a rational P2S scheme going because the player base will just go about their business as usual in the end.

I don’t think it sounds desperate. It’s a very sound idea given other games have successfully implemented it and there is a real issue with some of the pacing getting to end game. The problem is I don’t believe WF has the framework to support a story skip very well and a story skip isn’t the best solution to solving those problems.

The post above mine (above yours) by Jarriaga talks about why going back to do the story is bad and there’s other comments as well highlighting it.

Edited November 1, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[Jarriaga]

9 minutes ago, Alpha_Tango said:

I don't get what is stopping a P2S player from backtracking and discovering it in any order if it even comes to that point.

Nothing stops them. You are correct.

But it won't matter. It won't have impact. It won't have tension. It won't have bite.

Just like Black Window after Endgame instead of the other way around.

For most people going back after seeing the present state of a story feels unimportant past a certain point and that's a sentiment most people can't recover from.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Jarriaga

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

1 minute ago, Jarriaga said:

Nothing stops them. You are correct.

But it won't matter. It won't have impact. It won't have tension. It won't have bite.

Black Window after Endgame.

For most people, going back feels unimportant past a certain point and you can't recover from it.

This is very relatable to my NG+ experience in FFXIV. I love the story in that game and I suffer some pretty severe memory issues so I can’t really remember a lot of it but I have no incentive to go back and play it for a multitude of reasons.

[Alpha_Tango]

21 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Nothing stops them. You are correct.

But it won't matter. It won't have impact. It won't have tension. It won't have bite.

Just like Black Window after Endgame instead of the other way around.

For most people going back after seeing the present state of a story feels unimportant past a certain point and that's a sentiment most people can't recover from.

I am sure you are trying very hard (even with bold letters) to make it sound like what you assume will definitely happen but who can really tell? DE doesn't sound like they need assumptions right now. Let it run and I seriously doubt any harm will come to any player at all.

This is a game like any, paying customers will drop the game no matter how good/bad it is if they aren't built for it.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Alpha_Tango

[(PSN)FirmBizkit]

14 minutes ago, Alpha_Tango said:

I am sure you are trying very hard (even with bold letters) to make it sound like what you assume will definitely happen but who can really tell? DE doesn't sound like they need assumptions right now. Let it run and I seriously doubt any harm will come to any player at all.

This is a game like any, paying customers will drop the game no matter how good/bad it is if they aren't built for it.

Bungie just laid off 100 people because sales revenue is down 45% and it’s player counts have fallen the sharpest it ever has since Vanilla release due to management drastically changing Destiny and not listening to the players and the next expansion has been delayed by 3 months. People dropping the game is not good for the people playing the game. That’s why we have to ensure good feedback and that it’s taken into consideration.

Edited November 1, 2023 by (PSN)FirmBizkit

[(PSN)rexis12]

42 minutes ago, (PSN)FirmBizkit said:

I don’t think it sounds desperate

I think it sounds plenty desperate.

Not for money, though I've made my noise on how shadily greedy this is, but it's them being desperate after years and years of the community asking for the new player experience to NOT be hell and then just plugging their ears and going "He's new content, new things to farm, here's the next big thing for the next big update" while something like story progression to New War can be gated behind RNG that they only mitigated THIS PATCH.

It's them realising that putting off the thing that players and community asked for and commonly said how bad it was, had unintended consequences of those things stopping the New Players that they wanted to attract from being amazed by the New Thing they made.

Why I think Duviri was even a choice for an alternate start when it completely ruins the surprise of Operator I will never goddamn know, but hey new players can to play a completely unrelated arcade mode with mechanics that they'll never bring into the real game, so I guess that's a win for them.

[CephalonCarnage]

Is this because DE have gotten bored with Warframe and want to turn it into something else - you remember the ill-fated decision to put Duviri on the new player screen as a starting track. A truly terrible idea.

 

I think this is a plan B to achieve the same thing - they think new players arent interested in this space ninja game and want to skip ahead to the new cool stuff, ie Duviri and 1999.

 

The truth is so far from this. All the old players are only still here because we went through the story. DE has this great game that should be considered stable, and ready for new players to experience for the next 10 years and another after that. The more DE wants to avoid it, the less hope I have for the future.

[Jarriaga]

6 hours ago, Alpha_Tango said:

I am sure you are trying very hard (even with bold letters) to make it sound like what you assume will definitely happen but who can really tell? DE doesn't sound like they need assumptions right now.

Black Widow's public reception and common critic complaints on lack of investment are pieces of data DE can research as a point of comparison and reference.

They absolutely don't need me to point that out.

[Venus-Venera]

Am 29.10.2023 um 02:58 schrieb (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.

I was never interested in story. I tried to watch the cutscenes at the beginning of 2013(?). but that was so boring.........

Everything looks extremely bad for humanity. Soon there will only be living beings with the iq of an animal.
or look at the story of very old games like thief1 and thief2... sounds, atmosphere, logic etc. still impress. the same with old films. look at "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) and compare it to today's garbage with tons of special effects from Hollywood. That's not funny anymore...that's so sad!