Five new players all quit within 4 weeks!!

[Jax_Cavalera]

In the last 4 weeks, I have introduced 5 friends of mine to Warframe as they were watching my stream and seeing how much fun I was having and thought they'd give it a go because it's 100% Free.

They all specifically remarked about how crazy it was that such a full featured game was completely free, and that it has less bugs than a AAA game like COD DMZ (the game we all met on and also play together). We had previously tried Helldivers, but the grind there was too brutal and the customisation lacking severely along with the mission types etc.

Some wanted the space sim experience, others wanted the power trip experience, one loved the index and concept of gambling your skills to earn big reward payoffs (DE might be worth doing this for other resource types eh?) but the main thing they all consistently said was, it looked fun and is great you can do 4 man squads (just like in DMZ).

Skip ahead 4 weeks to now and I am back playing Warframe solo again, they all lost interest and it was the same pain points each time:

1. Where do I go? Can you show me?
   • The opening quest left them very confused about where to go, what the game expected them to do next, where was I, why couldn't I just show them or help them out
   • They all stuck with it and got through the initial quest and selected a warframe - but most chose Excalibur and were all like.. "why does he have a dong on his head??", and soon after "why can't I do the things your character can do?" ( I was playing Mag at the time)
     • I explained to them I have no idea about the erm horn on his head
     • I mentioned excalibur has really powerful moves too and spent a bit of time with each of them (about an hour for each of them) going over how to do those
     • They all soon felt sad they chose the wrong starter frame for their playstyle and wanted to swap.. this is where things took a slight turn for the worst
        
2. How do I play with you?
   • I would try explain where in the menu to go, but because of the segment system, their menu and ship interactions didn't look the same adding to the confusion
   • "We just have to finish off this first quest, then we can do most other missions together" They would hear this and unenthusiastically agree to grind through it
     • Worth noting 2 of them gave up at this point, they didn't have the stamina to finish the opening quest and unlock all segments it was too much effort for what they assumed would be very low reward.. they realised they had a huge wall of quests to grind through if they ever wanted to do the fun things they saw me showcase in my streams and that was it GG. The oompa loompas took 2 away and we were down to 3
        
3. We got the opening quest done.. YAY now can we trade
   • Oh you're on Playstation I'm on PC that won't work yet here's a long list of complicated steps to go through to get access to that so I can give you a few nice starter mods etc.
   • We lose another player before doing this
   • We lose another almost immediately after they got it working because it was such a painful and exhausting experience
      
4. Ok great 1 player made it this far with me... let's go do that fun mission together!!
   • Oh I got kicked from the squad now you're flying in solo without me.. it says "I need to do some quest to go there"
   • I'd look it up and be like, "damn yeah ok so to do that you need this other prerequisite done"
   • They'd go oh to do that it says I need this other quest done
   • and this goes on for some time
   • They go.. ahh never mind let's just do a survival and get more mods or index for cash
     • We do that then they go "so how do I get X, Y or Z" I explain that now u have the cash and mods you need to unlock more slots or buy several things and do a few quests to use it. They lose interest and bail out

Soo in the end it's just back to me playing and it's really sad that these are not new problems we have had them in game for a long time, and it feels like they are mostly easy fixes if we took away some of the grind walls or changed how things work.

With retention rates like this, I think it's somewhat obvious why it's hard to get a lot of fresh blood into the game now days, They need to spend a little bit of time on this stuff and a bit less on new content (I love the new content sure, but please fix the basics first so we can get more people in to enjoy it!!

[Flannoit]

I played through the tutorial again on Switch when they enabled cross-platform for my account and honestly... It's not that bad?

Sure, the tutorial isn't the best and you get some of the worst toys to play with barring frame, but it sounds like to me the classic conundrum of "pick up and put down game with big timers has to much picking up and putting down and big timers"

People have complained about build times forever, people have complained about most of the grinds forever. It's a game that you're better off knowing at the fore-front that it IS a time-eater to do any little basic thing, but generally once you've done it once you don't gotta do it again. (With the exception of building, to a degree)

Warframe doesn't have as much issue with retention or fresh blood as you seem to think, a lot of the time it's just mini burnout or people getting surprised by how much work you gotta do.

If you really wanna give people a leg up, show them the frames on the wiki. Let them pick some out. Offer to help them farm for it. It's a small goals game, not a "I need to do everything right here right now". Pick it up. Do a few things. Put it down. Take a break. Pick it up. Do a few things. Put it down. Take a break. Repeat.

Warframe has a much better early start than most other MMOs, only caveat is that Warframe does nothing to really prep you for the difficulty spikes of some content like Arbitrations, Steel Path, or Archon Hunts. Where it lacks is clean, understandable guides on what some things are and how they work.

What the hell are mods for? What makes them good? How do I fit more in? How do I get more for my setup?

What the hell are archon shards? Why are they so hard to get? What do they even do? Is this effect I'm picking even going to help me?

Hell, I had no idea what I was doing with modding or anything until I decided to learn how to make a good Kitgun - and I make some pretty banger builds now that are powerful, useful, steel path viable, AND fun. I love current Warframe with a passion, and it definitely could use some defunk in its earlier stages, but the biggest issue is that people see the big picture and get overwhelmed and there's almost nothing in place to help them with the systems that have a huge learning curve.

[ExcaliburSpecter]

recently I've tried to introduce 4 other friends in the last 2 months into Warframe and had similar issues, the first 2 didn't even last an hour, and both quit. 1 of them made it as far as mercury then quit. when I asked them why they quit they said its too complicated, too much effort and they have no idea what their doing.

only 1 of them are still playing and I just recently helped them reach mastery 15
 

[BiancaRoughfin]

26 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

Where do I go? Can you show me?

This is to me one of if not the main issue in the game, not for a full lack of directions but in my own experience, most of the players iv seen quitting the game have done so because they get stuck as soon as they reach an OpenWorld map, either Cetus on Earth or Fortuna on Venus as they feel they need to complete any mission or grind related to these maps before proceeding into other territories.

This overwhelms them, there is too much content in OpenWorlds that are mostly unexplained or over new player's power reach in order for them to progress through and it takes away their motivations to carry on.

This is an issue i predicted long ago when DE added Cetus and made it easily accessible to newer players, they should not have these nodes show up in their maps until they are further into the game and have either the power to deal with enemies they will encounter or the knowledge of how to deal with them. Locomotion is another issue with these maps and the addition of Telepads in my view was a lazy way to deal with it. Even when Newer players use these they still arrive late for the party when playing with more experienced players as the Archwing is still a better way to get around these maps quickly.

Sadly DE is further removing MR requirements for content in the game meaning newer players can enter or be carried into content they wont be able to handle and get stuck on or frustrated they cant keep up.

Cetus should have an Introduction quest to it which should only be accessible once the player has reached Ceres and unlocked Archwing and in this quest, crafting the Archwing Launcher should be a part of its progress just as players are introduced to the K-Drives just as they reach Fortuna, furthermore Fortuna should require players having reached Jupiter or Neptune and having completed the Cetus introduction mission.

[quxier]

26 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

Where do I go? Can you show me?

• The opening quest left them very confused about where to go, what the game expected them to do next, where was I, why couldn't I just show them or help them out

 

Have they turned of... ugh.. "guide of Lotus" or whatever it was called? It's especially for new players that don't know what to do.

29 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

How do I play with you?

• I would try explain where in the menu to go, but because of the segment system, their menu and ship interactions didn't look the same adding to the confusion

 

Ok, but how it looks different for new players that have access to teamplay? Is navigation placed in different place? Is "ESC>Navigation" not working?

30 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

We just have to finish off this first quest, then we can do most other missions together" They would hear this and unenthusiastically agree to grind through it

• Worth noting 2 of them gave up at this point, they didn't have the stamina to finish the opening quest and unlock all segments it was too much effort for what they assumed would be very low reward.. they realised they had a huge wall of quests to grind through if they ever wanted to do the fun things they saw me showcase in my streams and that was it GG. The oompa loompas took 2 away and we were down to 3

I've seen some guy finishing "introduction" in 1-1.5 hour. If people cannot play that long for big game then it's honestly their "fault".

48 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

We got the opening quest done.. YAY now can we trade

• Oh you're on Playstation I'm on PC that won't work yet here's a long list of complicated steps to go through to get access to that so I can give you a few nice starter mods etc.
• We lose another player before doing this
• We lose another almost immediately after they got it working because it was such a painful and exhausting experience

 

Is 'long list' finishing mr 1 test & leveling them? Enabling crossplay in options? I'm not sure what PS has it differently.

56 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

1. • •  

Soo in the end it's just back to me playing and it's really sad that these are not new problems we have had them in game for a long time, and it feels like they are mostly easy fixes if we took away some of the grind walls or changed how things work.

With retention rates like this, I think it's somewhat obvious why it's hard to get a lot of fresh blood into the game now days, They need to spend a little bit of time on this stuff and a bit less on new content (I love the new content sure, but please fix the basics first so we can get more people in to enjoy it!!

What to do with that? Because some are essential to the game. You cannot just "help" them with co-op because they would not understand basics.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

At this point, the ones who gets lost in Warframe is because they are a lazy a*s, we have filled the internet with guides to everything in the game but it seems they still have trouble reading or something.

Edited July 23 by CosoMalvadoNG

[0bsi]

While I agree wholeheartedly that Warframe is a confusing game for newbies..... honestly, I feel that to a certain extent, it is a way of testing how suitable a player is for what Warframe is.  Eg if a player can't be bothered going through the opening quest or grinding for the first few things, then are they really going to enjoy doing that for thousands more hours to keep playing?   Not all games are for everyone...

If you're introducing people to the game (especially friends) and want them to continue playing, I feel it's important to manage their expectations.

• Let them know it's grindy and confusing - so they have that in mind going in
• Let them know some parts (like the story quests) are single player only, but you'll be able to squad up outside of that
• If you've got access to a voice chat, you can be "with them" that way while they are doign singleplayer content, to help guide them if they need it, and to make them feel like you're still playing together.
• Make sure they know that the starter gear is not great and they start as 1 frame (I would recommend discussing the options before they go in, so they can make an informed choice) - but that the main idea of the game is to grind missions for resources and blueprints to craft more frames/weapons to play with.  So the starter frame doesn't really matter, because they will make more.
• HELP THEM!

Eg the frames.  I understand that if they see you strutting around in a prime weighed down by cool attachments and a funky companion, and they have newbie Excal and nothing else - they are going to feel left out.   I have a "newbie loadout" where I play as Mag Prime with the default Mag skin, no attachments or companion and basic weapons - so my newbie squadmates don't feel like I'm flexing my fashion and I'm not running around nuking everything before they have a chance.

If they didn't like Excal, then you let them know where they can get the other easily obtainable frames, and run missions with them to grind for those.  Get them to look at the Wiki etc. and see what the different frames are and look like - and start working towards helping them get a new frame (that's within their reach, like if they want Dante, as a newbie, guide them into something more easily obtainable [unless they want to buy him])

 

It's definitely hard being thrown into the deep end, so give them a goal.  For some of my friends it was getting a kubrow and Ember.  So that gives them a goal to work towards, that is fairly easy to achieve.

Edited July 23 by 0bsi

[Jax_Cavalera]

The UI and controls between console and PC are quite different, so already it's tricky to try explain "press this key or do this thing" they don't have keys like PC. If they can't walk to the same spot in a ship or they don't have the segment yet to unlock a menu option, it's going to be tricky. I spent a lot of 1-1 time with each of them walking through what do you see now? Ok try going here.. type stuff

We got through for most of them as well, but compare it to other games that have a very simple "pick an avatar, pick a weapon, play" onboard in 5 minutes or less - it's not in the same league, even Helldivers 2 had a slightly painful onboard experience, but that was 1 hour of my life and then Boom straight into actual gameplay with friends immediately.

@quxier even I don't know what Guide of the Lotus is, is that some option players can turn on or off, what does it do? - The fact a 10+yr veteran has no idea about this is probably another indication of the challenge this feedback aims to highlight. Should we expect new players to a game to have to google this stuff, that seems like the worst crutch for User Experience a game could have.

-

I see a lot of comments about how these players maybe aren't a good fit for the game etc. When I started playing Warframe, they had no quests, no opening grind, it was a lot more straight forward, and I could jump into the action with my friends immediately.

This game has been around for a long time now, if we think society and the trend for wanting more sooner should change instead of the game adapting to the changes in social culture over time, then it shouldn't be a surprise that the game doesn't age very well moving forwards and players slowly die off moving to other games that pander to this new emerging "lazy" culture.

I too think it's lazy, short sighted, and shows a lack of will power, however am reminded time and time again, It's A Game.. we play these to escape from the grind of life, games shouldn't feel like more work to the people playing them.

-

The point here is that we shouldn't be managing the player's expectations of what a game can do for them.. it's really simple - If people can't do what they want in a game, they'll go somewhere else they can.. you can't make people change for a game, the games have to change for the people.

People aren't the product in this equation, the game is.

So the feedback can continue to be overlooked because we expect society to get better, harden up, endure more, care more or whatever deficiency we observe, this feedback is really simple.. 5 people in 4 weeks tried the game and all of them found it wasn't able to meet their needs. that's 5 people who saw gameplay and thought "that looks fun" but couldn't actually participate in any of the fun gameplay they saw due to the new player onboarding experience.

The feedback simply says we may have a problem here, to say the players are the problem is the wrong position to take when they are the supply, not the demand. Games demand a supply of players to survive.

[ominumi]

You should of started a fresh account with the friends. Just so the group don't rely on you to carry them. It's actually a bonding experience when there's people suffering and struggling together.

[Jax_Cavalera]

35 minutes ago, ominumi said:

You should of started a fresh account with the friends. Just so the group don't rely on you to carry them. It's actually a bonding experience when there's people suffering and struggling together.

This is really true actually 100% I even flagged this to another existing veteran player before I started inviting my friends to play and they had another cool idea, which was to play as a support frame like Trinity so I can buff them and keep them alive instead of speed carrying them through. I did this and it really helped a lot more, for those that were able to endure to the point of playing together at least.

Edited July 23 by Jax_Cavalera

[quxier]

1 hour ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

@quxier even I don't know what Guide of the Lotus is, is that some option players can turn on or off, what does it do? - The fact a 10+yr veteran has no idea about this is probably another indication of the challenge this feedback aims to highlight. Should we expect new players to a game to have to google this stuff, that seems like the worst crutch for User Experience a game could have.

I've made mistake. Guide of lotus were group of players that helped others. It was discontinued.

The feature I was talking about is Tenno guide introduced in 30.9 (2021.11.11):

Quote

NEW PLAYER / EARLY PLAYER EXPERIENCE CHANGES

Introducing the ‘TENNO GUIDE”!

Added a new UI notification when inside the Orbiter that is a persistent reminder for Quests, to help guide new Tenno to their next steps. A lot of new players have felt lost once they finish Vor’s Prize, and this persistent reminder will show them what to do next! This can be disabled at any time in the menus under Options > Interface > Show Tenno Guide!

Based on wording it should be enabled by default. AFAIR it shows in top right corner. I'm older player so I've either disabled it or it doesn't show anything because I've done all things.

1 hour ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

I too think it's lazy, short sighted, and shows a lack of will power, however am reminded time and time again, It's A Game.. we play these to escape from the grind of life, games shouldn't feel like more work to the people playing them.

-

The point here is that we shouldn't be managing the player's expectations of what a game can do for them.. it's really simple - If people can't do what they want in a game, they'll go somewhere else they can.. you can't make people change for a game, the games have to change for the people.

They problem is that bigger or harder game expect you to to spend some time.  Just quest, junction and maybe few other stuff takes like 15-20 hours (based on some playthrough). That's not counting other stuff. If someone expects to to get what veteran players get in hundreds if not thousands of hours in mere minutes then they are just delusional. We can improve but let's not set our standards too low.

[0bsi]

30 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

This is really true actually 100% I even flagged this to another existing veteran player before I started inviting my friends to play and they had another cool idea, which was to play as a support frame like Trinity so I can buff them and keep them alive instead of speed carrying them through.

I have a Citrine with despensary that I use with my friends who need a little more help in harder content. (I can't do Trinity, with her lobster tail lol).

 

1 hour ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

The fact a 10+yr veteran has no idea about this is probably another indication of the challenge this feedback aims to highlight. Should we expect new players to a game to have to google this stuff, that seems like the worst crutch for User Experience a game could have.

To be fair though, they have apparently done several improvements to the new player experience lately, and I believe that does include making some things more obvious that we didn't have when we started playing -- so unless you create a new account to experience it as they do, you won't really be able to judge how the new player experience works today, compared to a year ago, compared to 10 years ago.

Again I don't disagree that there's a problem with the game being too confusing.  But I have a friend who has been playing for years and is still confused with almost everything in the game.  It's at the point where I'm not sure what the answer is to fix it to make it not be a confusing mess.... With so much content, so many little nuances...  It's always going to be a game you need to play with the Wiki up, and a game that benefits from being part of a community where you can ask for help if you need it.

I do think though that the game's complexity is kinda how much the player wants it to be.

Want a simple ninja shooter - just focus on playing the nodes
Want to have more power - you'll need to learn how modding and stuff works
Want to have all the things - then you're going to have to grind, grind, grind and live on the wiki

[Jax_Cavalera]

I have personally tried making new accounts (or more specifically - playtesting on my wife's new account when she threw in the towel as well) to see what that experience looks like, and for me it seemed fine because:

1. I have become accustomed to the grind already
2. I know where things are supposed to go and what various UI queues mean
3. I understand all the keybinds and controls already
4. I understand the concept of quests preventing unlocking new content ... or more over I have become conditioned to accept this is how the game "needs to work"

The insights and feedback I got from recent attempts to get friends to start playing the game were raw, and I believe hold more value than my own since I can't just forget those 4 key things listed above.. but they naturally have no concept of them so it's a more accurate insight.

-

I agree there are very few games I don't ever have to reach out to google / a wiki for, but I think it's a safe statement to make that of all the games I have ever played, Warframe has consistently required me to do this for just about every single feature added to the game. Nothing has been self documenting, evident or intuitive. Once you understand how it works it's so much fun but that learning curve is by far above average.

3 hours ago, 0bsi said:

Want a simple ninja shooter - just focus on playing the nodes
Want to have more power - you'll need to learn how modding and stuff works
Want to have all the things - then you're going to have to grind, grind, grind and live on the wiki

Absolutely and this is the cool thing about it. It's another reason each of my friends chose to give the game a go in the first place, but is a shame none of them made it far enough through to really enjoy it.

One friend started with the Braton - Complained it was doing almost no damage vs the others who were using the Paris. The Paris friends said it was too slow for the qty of mobs they were up against so nearly everyone opted for melee (skana from memory). They found swinging the melee weapon to be effective, but quite boring compared to what they were looking forward to - exciting gun-play (all COD players so this makes sense)

I saw they took away the broken mods which is nice, perhaps they need to cycle out the MK1 weapons or just give them a buff so they hit a bit harder, pretty sure spitting on enemies can deal more damage.

[iUDEXnCr]

hmm... I tried to get back into it a few years ago after being away from the game for a few years, but there was just so much story I missed and the instructions were extremely unclear. If I jump back in now, is there some way to skip a lot of what I missed? So I can enjoy the current content?

Many thanks in advance.

[0bsi]

3 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

I saw they took away the broken mods which is nice, perhaps they need to cycle out the MK1 weapons or just give them a buff so they hit a bit harder, pretty sure spitting on enemies can deal more damage.

They did.  Last year when they took out the flawed mods (which are still available. just hidden away in Iron Wake) they replaced the Mk1 weapons newbies get for the standard versions.

5 minutes ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

 They found swinging the melee weapon to be effective, but quite boring compared to what they were looking forward to - exciting gun-play (all COD players so this makes sense)

Headshots on the basic weapons on the starter quest enemies should deal enough damage not to struggle though... and within a few days they would be able to work their way up to better guns.

I think that's a problem of them starting the game and expecting to have all the pew pew fancy guns and not realising you start with garbage and need to work your way up - that's just the way this game works.

 

1 minute ago, iUDEXnCr said:

is there some way to skip a lot of what I missed? So I can enjoy the current content?

There is no story skip option  (Reb floated the idea and the forum armed with pitchforks shut that idea down) - you'll need to do the story quests.  If you're struggling to understand what to do though, just ask and people should be willing to help.

To get to the current content, you need to work your way up to completing The New War quest, which requires a railjack and necramech - so if you don't have those, focus on that.

[PollexMessier]

A lot of this post just sounds like you were a bad guide to these players tbh. Showed off too much, failed to explain many important things well if at all, and tried to drag them to what you wanted to do instead of walking them through content on their level.

The game does have some serious new player experience issues. But the biggest one is that you almost need a friend to guide you through the game, or be willing to look up a lot of guides. It's telling that they had that friend, and still bailed that early. I haven't had a single friend I've tried to introduce to the game stop playing it before at least getting to the second dream.

I agree cross save is an absolute train wreck tho. Even with it's current limitations there are ways they could make it much more user friendly. Imo all console accounts should have automatically been converted to cross-save accounts when cross-save was released. Even if that means DE needed to create a duplicate PC account for every single one of them to link to, and make it so that default linked account can be overwritten by a manual link. They slacked real hard on the user experience of cross save and nearly all of it's functionality independently.

[z1p1]

I started playing 3-4 months ago with 2 friends, both of them have quit and I am about to do so. We were so excited to find this game through another buddy, music, graphics, story, just amazing, but after a while just repetitive grind and for what reason?  Game is lacking end game content, altho some warframes/builds are so broken that nothing will ever be challenging enough. Maybe it needs large scale parties on free roaming maps with pvp of some short, no idea, but its missing something. If you don't have ocd to max things there is hardly any content to keep you playing which is sad cause this game is just art.

[Jax_Cavalera]

1 hour ago, PollexMessier said:

A lot of this post just sounds like you were a bad guide to these players tbh. Showed off too much, failed to explain many important things well if at all, and tried to drag them to what you wanted to do instead of walking them through content on their level.

That's a fair assumption reading back over everything I don't actually say what kind of missions I was running with them. My typical go to when playing normally will be minimum enemy level 120+ and often in zones where newer players can't get to as that's new content for me. When I showcased what you can do in the game, I went right back to basics to give them (what I thought would be) reasonable expectations i.e. running weapons vs lvl 20 or lower enemies, using little to no mods to show them how adding a mod or 2 makes the way weapons work different etc. I demonstrated a few other game modes and mentioned that as you unlock more of the game you'll get to do things like this or that i.e. railjack.

As they finished making accounts I talked them through the 3 starter frame options, and they all listened carefully, then suddenly each of them started asking me, "When do we get to choose our actual character, the one I have now has a dong on the head" I was like.. oh no I think you already did choose, did you get options, they implied they didn't think they did but now couldn't be sure.

When they joined I had them select the missions they could access instead of me serving as a taxi. At a certain point 1 of them (the one that played the longest) started requesting I taxi them to hard stuff so they could get a sense of what it feels like, they really enjoyed pluto survival and wanted to do more so we did, they were having a blast but then they wanted to go there on their own while I wasn't online and realised they can't till they do a bunch of other things and yeah I think that's when the grind wall hit them hard.

I'm sure there's a lot more I could have done to make their first experience with the game better. I really tried to do my best. I wouldn't say it's fair that I be held 100% responsible for their experience with the game though, I believe the game should take a majority of that responsibility.

38 minutes ago, z1p1 said:

I started playing 3-4 months ago with 2 friends, both of them have quit and I am about to do so. We were so excited to find this game through another buddy, music, graphics, story, just amazing, but after a while just repetitive grind and for what reason?  Game is lacking end game content, altho some warframes/builds are so broken that nothing will ever be challenging enough. Maybe it needs large scale parties on free roaming maps with pvp of some short, no idea, but its missing something. If you don't have ocd to max things there is hardly any content to keep you playing which is sad cause this game is just art.

I think this is an experience many people have as well, a lot of the more interesting content and things to do aren't going to be found down the beaten path. You may have tried the following things out before, or perhaps not (I find them a lot of fun and different to pushing for mastery) - I'm still MR 28 for a reason.

• Finding the unique easter eggs with my scanner hidden in the maps
• Exploring the outside of the maps, they actually have really interesting things outside them, part of the "fun" for me is finding new ways to try get outside the maps to see what cool surprises the developers left there
• Finding new ways to break the game mechanics with obscure builds and gear combinations to see what happens - Will a mob get so confused they have no idea what to do, will they reveal some interesting behaviour scripted in but rarely seen.. what do mobs do when they think no player is around? etc.
  • I watch a lot of Let's Game It Out .. maybe this is where my obsession comes from lol
• Exploring the rarely visited parts of the open world and space maps to see if there's anything interesting to be found out there
• Mass killing mobs to see what random mods drop, how many mods can I get per minute?
• Trying to find new ways of making "trash" weapons strong using things like rivens, abilities, archons, arcanes, etc. I love it when you find an old forgotten weapon that is now able to do something amazing under the right circumstances

And then more mainstream but still not as common things

• Index Gambling - how many of these green crystals can I hold before I die lol
• Fashion
• Dojo
  • Building cool items in the main area
  • Building fun obstacle courses in the dedicated obstacle course room type
• Playing drifter's camp missions
• Exploring with the horse in Duviri

Perhaps you've done all of this as well, I still haven't had the time to do all of this stuff as much as I would like, and I just learned the other day of even more crazy difficult content hidden away on deimos

Edited July 23 by Jax_Cavalera

[supernils]

18 hours ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

Oh you're on Playstation I'm on PC that won't work yet here's a long list of complicated steps to go through to get access to that so I can give you a few nice starter mods etc.

the game actually gives you starter mods when you play it, did you know that?

maybe if you had just let them play the game instead of trying to forcefully pull them onto your level they hadn't quit. And if not, that's life. Not everyone can like every game. A game so mainstreamed that everyone likes it is likely #*!%ing dull.

Edited July 23 by supernils

[supernils]

18 hours ago, Flannoit said:

People have complained about build times forever

that's the silliest most childish complaint ever. "but I want it NOW! Mommy I want I want!!". Jesus, get your impulses under control, you're probably not a child anymore. You get your new weapon tomorrow.

[supernils]

17 hours ago, BiancaRoughfin said:

This is to me one of if not the main issue in the game, not for a full lack of directions but in my own experience, most of the players iv seen quitting the game have done so because they get stuck as soon as they reach an OpenWorld map, either Cetus on Earth or Fortuna on Venus as they feel they need to complete any mission or grind related to these maps before proceeding into other territories.

it takes a while to understand the basic gameplay loop if you don't know a game like this (I didn't). the game expects you to choose from a variety of challenges (that's what the top menu in navigation is for) and everything will reward you with certain items. You have to be able to find goals for yourself, which mostly comes very easy: level the gear you have while playing the game while enjoying the gameplay. For newbies there is also this relatively linear goal of clearing the star chart, so it's not all that complicated. Maybe it would be helpful if there actually was a quest to conquer the star chart, with constant display of your progress. Lotus could introduce you to new planets, tell a little story about the faction and what it's doing on the planet. I think that would be very helpful.

[Jax_Cavalera]

3 hours ago, supernils said:

the game actually gives you starter mods when you play it, did you know that?

maybe if you had just let them play the game instead of trying to forcefully pull them onto your level they hadn't quit. And if not, that's life. Not everyone can like every game. A game so mainstreamed that everyone likes it is likely #*!%ing dull.

One of the players in particular really wanted a Mag because they weren't enjoying the playstyle of Excalibur, so I had a spare set on me and traded them that, and while we were there I asked if they had some of the dual stat mods as those might help make their weapons feel a bit more punchy (they complained it took multiple headshots to get a kill vs what they were used to in COD).

I think it's worth differentiating between mainstreaming a game to the point of it being dull, and improving a user experience in any type of game to make it more accessible. Minecraft wasn't always mainstream popular, but the core game mechanics haven't changed that much between releases on some clients (o.g. vs bedrock latest version) and the user experience across o.g. to now on bedrock has consistently been really enjoyable hence the popularity.

I'd rather this game continue to grow exponentially more popular due to a better user experience for newer players, than to have it sulk in a corner missing out on so many potential new players to it.

I had a friend that had never tried roleplay games before, we jumped onto a GTA 5 RP server and they were butchering roleplay, not to be rude but coz they didn't know better. If that community had your attitude. there's no way he would have stayed playing RP, he would have felt ostracised and excluded and given up. But they had patience, and now days he mostly plays RP servers and runs a biker gang in there and is fantastic at it too, part of the community, because people took the time to make his new user experience enjoyable, welcoming, and more accessible. 

[TenTonneSkeleton]

This is an important ongoing discussion topic for sure. I think there are STILL certain things in the game that are big turn offs for newer players unnecessarily. Yes, i agree that warframe isnt for everyone. It's inherently grindy and confusing. There are a lot of good ideas and points in the this thread.

I'm the founder of a 3 (or 4??) year old moon clan and i am constantly seeing an influx and exit of players. In fact I'd say fewer than half of the players I invite to the clan actually stick with the game for more than a month. I wish I could interview them on whey they chose to stop logging in. I do my best to explain game mechanics and shortcuts and what I actually think is fun about the game.

[Rexis12]

Hey at least they didn't implement the Pay the Skip, would've been a massive kick in the balls for them to want to join you but then quit after they were unsatisfied with the core loop and progression. 

[ominumi]

4 hours ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

One of the players in particular really wanted a Mag because they weren't enjoying the playstyle of Excalibur, so I had a spare set on me and traded them that, and while we were there I asked if they had some of the dual stat mods as those might help make their weapons feel a bit more punchy (they complained it took multiple headshots to get a kill vs what they were used to in COD).

The power fantasy is the noob trap that most new player tend to fall into. Warframe has a slow start for sure but that's just to get new players accustom to the game play. I don't think your friends even realize the enemy have levels. It's all patience at this point.