New player experience is funky to say the least....

[dragonborn0998]

So i finally managed to convince my gf to play warframe with me and it made me realise how oddly paced the new player experience is and other issues.

The main thing is jesus christ, DE is aweful at explaining their own game. I dont think i ever spent more time being a personal cyclepedia on legs then i have with Warframe. Even ignoring the mechanics like modding and such, the lore itself is just so disjointed, full of retcons *cough* Chroma *cough* and a pain in the ass to follow through as a new player. The main thing is the pacing of quests. I think its obvious that when DE made quests such as Second Dream, they kept in mind that players will have waited for YEARS for the reveal..... they defintely did not keep in mind the average player barely having weeks or 2 months max gap between second dream and the previous quests.... therefore making the huge reveal a hell of a lot less special when youve only spent x amount of time with Warframes. Also choosing to start out with Duviri just ruined every single ounce of surprise and awe of the second dream... When she saw the operator for the first time she literally went "oh... that guy from duviri is back...?" and it just made me laugh so hard.

Its straight forward enough to follow through the junctions and keep completing the quests as you get them, my main concern however is with the open worlds. They are such a waste of time for new players its unreal and it makes you wonder why they bothered to even make them so low level and noob friendly when literally nothing you get from them is beneficial to the rest of the game after a certain point. All those recourses you collect on Plains for example become useless to you as a new player after you farm Gara, as you wont have focus schools unlocked until way later..... so yeah, what was the point of making them so noob friendly in the first place? my gf spent so much time playing around on the plains and when she went back to focusing on the main starchart, she came to a dissapointing realisation that non of the recourses shes been grinding were useful whatsoever outside the plains until later in the game. The exact same can be said with Duviri although since it focuses on the drifter (which everyone gets in the duviri) it could be considered worse. Why is she taught some Elden Ring rip off (her words) with parrying, blocking and dodging single enemies in duviri in 1 v 1s or 1 v 2s, when that literally will never happen again in a single starchart mission...... Like why? its cool when you're soley playing Drifter Duviri but literally nowhere else in the game will you use these, so why bother teaching new players this?

Explnation is another issue. As mentioned before, the junction gives a good enough direction to where players are supposed to go..... but why? the game never tells her why she should be killing these bosses and mowing through generations of grineer and corpus outside of tiny little lotus voicelines at the start of a assasination mission.  The world building is ironically so deep and good, yet so shallow unless you go out of your way to read external sources.

Edited February 24 by dragonborn0998

[MaxTunnerX]

Yeah one of the things I hate is how the content that gets released at present time (that means for players who basically have everything completed) gets automatically available to complete newbies as well. Plains, orb vallis, deimos, duviri. You already need a PhD to udnerstand the core of the game and you spawm newbies with all this crap. Not to mention that when this kidn of content comes out, veteran players are only mildly annoyed because they have everything so they get to grind the new thing, but newbies have to grind the new thign and the rest of the game too at the same time! That instantly EMPs newbies brains as they arent able to keep track of what the hell to do and how and when. Good thing is they fixed duviri so you cant start your game there anymore. Also circuit is a much better way to get some frames than the normal way so some "almost newbies" getting to duviri is not that big of a problem.

In any case, I totally agree that this game sucks at explaining things. Something got better (like when you hover over blueprints it usually tells you where to get them, or even when you hover over resources it tells you where to get them). Its still nearly not eough and this game feels much better if youre a veteran and start a new game than it does when youre really a newbie. Lastly, only PC master race has the AlecaFrame app which is a great help in many aspects. I would be still stuck at MR20 without it. Thats how crappy the inventory system is. Not to mention goddamn ducats and other nonsense you have to keep track of. Like if you want to explain aya to someoen you also need to tell them about syndicates and then the rabbit hole keeps going. Works the same for any other subject people need help with (mostly SP, which is where they start failing). So yeah, I agree totally with you man.

Edited February 24 by MaxTunnerX

[dragonborn0998]

8 minutes ago, MaxTunnerX said:

Yeah one of the things I hate is how the content that gets released at present time (that means for players who basically have everything completed) gets automatically available to complete newbies as well. Plains, orb vallis, deimos, duviri. You already need a PhD to udnerstand the core of the game and you spawm newbies with all this crap. Not to mention that when this kidn of content comes out, veteran players are only mildly annoyed because they have everything so they get to grind the new thing, but newbies have to grind the new thign and the rest of the game too at the same time! That instantly EMPs newbies brains as they arent able to keep track of what the hell to do and how and when. Good thing is they fixed duviri so you cant start your game there anymore. Also circuit is a much better way to get some frames than the normal way so some "almost newbies" getting to duviri is not that big of a problem.

In any case, I totally agree that this game sucks at explaining things. Something got better (like when you hover over blueprints it usually tells you where to get them, or even when you hover over resources it tells you where to get them). Its still nearly not eough and this game feels much better if youre a veteran and start a new game than it does when youre really a newbie.

Yeah, totally agree. You can imagine how hard it was when she got to Deimos and I had to try to explain necramechs and isolation vaults to someone who hasnt even got her 4th frame by then yet....... As mentioned before, i dont see why making open worlds accessible so early was a good idea, everything about them screams "end game"

Edited February 24 by dragonborn0998

[schilds]

I think the intention is that new players will progress their star chart and (re)visit open worlds one small nibble at a time.

[MaxTunnerX]

1 hour ago, schilds said:

I think the intention is that new players will progress their star chart and (re)visit open worlds one small nibble at a time.

Intention has to manifest somehow. If you intend the players to only do something for a limited time, and then you give them free access and unlimited time access, then your intention is rendered invalid as if it doesnt even exist. For all we know, the intention can be exactly what we see in game. Or maybe to overwhelm players with so many resources that theyre going to buy plat more or I dont know. Whatever the intention is, the result is confused players, quitting players and both newbies and vets spending way too much time in the help chat.

Edited February 24 by MaxTunnerX

[schilds]

13 minutes ago, MaxTunnerX said:

Intention has to manifest somehow

I generally agree with the sentiments expressed in this thread. DE seem to expect players to be mind readers.

That said, in a sense their intent is expressed (poorly) in the increasing levels of each bounty (in comparison to startchart mission levels) and the daily standing cap.

 

Maybe accumulating some number of bounties (or MR or something) should trigger minor delivery "quests" from various npcs to places further along the starchart, not as time-fillers, but to nudge players on their way and roughly signal where DE expects players to be at different progression points. Kind of "hey, you've spent too much time here, go somewhere else".

Edited February 24 by schilds

[MaxTunnerX]

3 hours ago, schilds said:

I generally agree with the sentiments expressed in this thread. DE seem to expect players to be mind readers.

That said, in a sense their intent is expressed (poorly) in the increasing levels of each bounty (in comparison to startchart mission levels) and the daily standing cap.

 

Maybe accumulating some number of bounties (or MR or something) should trigger minor delivery "quests" from various npcs to places further along the starchart, not as time-fillers, but to nudge players on their way and roughly signal where DE expects players to be at different progression points. Kind of "hey, you've spent too much time here, go somewhere else".

Theres an easier way, lock higher level bounties behind more nodes. Also, just making a bounty higher level doesnt give the signal "dont do it" to newbies. Why? Because this is a coop game and they will get a squad with other players who will carry them. And again, thats why newbies fail at steel path, because its not popular enough and they have to solo it which tells them exactly how good they are and if they are ready or not. Maybe we should keep all nodes singleplayer only the first time you play them, and multiplayer after that? If there are any problems, they will get sorted soon, not mid-way through the game, and most importantly, players will be in touch with reality rather than living in a dreamworld where everything works, not even knowing that it only works cause of other people carrying them. Devs will also have a better time seeing where the problem is when the missions arent affected by other players. Maybe they will make a proper tutorial after that.

Edited February 24 by MaxTunnerX

[ominumi]

Hand holding and funneling new players isn't the answer. Dropping new players into the middle fo the ocean isn't a solution either. What we got is DE attemp at a middle ground. 

You can still block, parry, dodge outside of Duviri. Or press one button to wipe the entire map of enemy units so you don't have to. How hard would it be to fight Elden Ring bosses with the full might of a warframe?