Five new players all quit within 4 weeks!!

[Flannoit]

On 2024-07-24 at 10:12 AM, Nekomian said:

It really hasn't been that type of game for a while now, at least in terms of new players - it's a lot more story driven with solo-only quests and requirements for accessing certain content. They still try to make it drop in and play, but the majority of the beginning portions should probably be completed solo so the player can go at their own pace and learn mechanics as the game is teaching them. Granted it's still a bit more open-ended than it should be IMO in regards to tutorials and instructions, but it's far better than it was when I started in 2013

Ironically, when they were temporarily allowing new players to start with The Duviri Paradox, it provided a better and make cohesive tutorial than the actual tutorial... But that's naturally going to happen when you go out of your way to make a new tutorial for the modern era but have it sequestered to an end story (in terms of recency and relevancy) quest.

They do very much have the means to make a more coherent tutorial, the problem I see is making one that ties into the extreme early game.

[Jax_Cavalera]

8 hours ago, 0bsi said:

Take the Sanctum nodes... they are all 55-60 enemy levels.   Let's say you or some other veteran player has newbie friends who wanted to come check out the cool new mission nodes they've seen in this awesome new tileset.... take their freshly minted MR1 Excals in there, with an unlevelled Paris and Skana....    And how enjoyable would that be for them?  

Also how enjoyable would that be for the rest of the squad.... could you imagine pub squads?  *shudder*  If they let anyone in at any level, then you'd have all sorts of trouble matchmaking because you'd have a squad, a noob joins, others nope out... host migration....  Please God no.

To be fair if they went to the effort of adding that warning in, it could set a flag under the hood, and if players running pub squads could use a toggle to allow players who get the warning to join the squad - in this regard it would prevent them doing so by default.

8 hours ago, 0bsi said:

Imagine you have a player who doesn't read (or doesn't understand) the "You are too noob for this" warning and goes in anyway with a false sense of bravado, gets their ass kicked, and nopes out, realising they need better stuff.  Then what?  If they realise that maybe since they are MR1, and the enemies they encounter on Earth are 1-3.... that probably means they are presently geared up for a lvl 1-3 fight, and suddenly having to get to lvl 55-60 would look like an insurmountable goal, when they just want to play there NOW..... and if they don't lose hope at that point, then they might get lost, not knowing how to go about getting good enough for that node they had a taste of.

It's entirely possible players may have that reaction, the thing is, right now we know what reaction they're having to the current situation, in the scenario they play a tougher round that's at least more game time than they currently are getting before they start to tap out.

8 hours ago, 0bsi said:

Until players get comfortable with bullet jumping, maps like Sanctum are going to be very painful to navigate.

Bullet jumping usually takes about 10 minutes to master if you are taking your time, it's just crouch - look up - jump.

8 hours ago, 0bsi said:

Some of the quests introduce players to gameplay mechanics that prepare them for doing the same things in missions - but in a quest you're given more assistance, you don't have squadmates doing it for you (so you have to actually learn how to do it, can't be carried through).... which I argue is better than just throwing players into something like void cascade completely unprepared.

Completely agree, I think interactive tutorials are a great way to learn. Does it need to be a forced solo quest though? Why not just have a training camp section where you can practice a whole bunch of different types of game mechanics / learn them with dedicated tutorials that aren't cluttered with cut scenes and long winded segments of gameplay running around looking for the next objective.

8 hours ago, 0bsi said:

Another point is that the "annoyance" of working your way around the starchart and grinding nodes is actually essential to gathering resources.

If the weapon you buy a blueprint for needs resources from 2 or 3 planets, it seems to me more convenient to be able to go direct to them and select a mission type that matches your preferred playstyle than being forced to unlock a bunch of other nodes in between and grind out mission types you aren't enjoying to get there. Typically when I need fast resources I run a Capture mission and bring either an AoE weapon or frame like Limbo to nuke all the breakables in the rooms as I go.

8 hours ago, 0bsi said:

People complain about the necramech and railjack being prerequisites for TNW, but both are incredibly useful things to have.

Hmm yeah idk how I feel about this, I like the point you are making about the value of certain prerequisites. I also know personally I rarely jump into my necramech suit because it's too slow, clunky and I can deal better damage with my human / frames. A newer player would have a different experience though I agree, and the railjack is really fun to won in my opinion so mandatory or not players should / would want to get one of those ASAP.

4 hours ago, Flannoit said:

Ironically, when they were temporarily allowing new players to start with The Duviri Paradox, it provided a better and make cohesive tutorial than the actual tutorial

Best I can remember when I started this I had all unranked gear in there, it was like I started playing a completely new game, I wonder why they changed their minds, it seemed ok to me.. it had different game mechanics to the standard warframe game so being a vet in warframe didn't really help me all that much in Duviri.

[Birdframe_Prime]

I'm glad you're taking the feedback better than a huge portion of the player base does when they post threads here.

For the most part, you're completely entitled to the opinions you hold and I can see why you're reaching the conclusions you have.

There is one thing to point to, though; 

17 hours ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

What would it hurt to give players the option of skipping the solo quests experience?

There was a massive discussion around this when DE were pitching the idea that players actually could skip the quests in order to get to the newer content.

The decision by the fanbase and by DE agreeing with them was this; The quests in Warframe are a story worth playing, adding meaningful context and explanation for the situations we're in. They lead to far less confusion about the game world, and more informed discussions in game and out of game here on the Forums, and for many they are genuinely emotional moments.

While there is one specific quest that does lock players in while they complete it (and there are the odd threads here and there protesting that they cannot actually beat the quest, despite being handed one of the best weapons in the game and all of the mechanics to do so... which is sad for those players), but outside of that, progressing the game is done at the players' own pace due to the specific markers given by the Devs.

My point earlier about 'the Devs have done quite a bit to make progression clear' is pretty much emblemised here: The paths linking mission nodes, the Junctions listing tasks, the 'what to do next' box in your UI whenever you're in the Orbiter or in the Navigation... it's all designed to try and get players through to what DE is advertising.

Heck they just did an update that features an adjustment to new player progression, putting Duviri back a few locations so players don't get confused about which rules the game is following.

Basically, DE feel it really would hurt. And I agree. The quests in Warframe are important to feeling like you're actually connected to Warframe.

Edited July 26 by Birdframe_Prime

[Flannoit]

5 hours ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

Best I can remember when I started this I had all unranked gear in there, it was like I started playing a completely new game, I wonder why they changed their minds, it seemed ok to me.. it had different game mechanics to the standard warframe game so being a vet in warframe didn't really help me all that much in Duviri.

I wager they rolled back because Duviri was muddling the story for new players too much at the point you were at (since you were basically getting end-of-the-game lore right away but not in a way that made sense unless if you already did TWW, TSD, and TNW)

Still - Duviri offered a faster, cleaner, more coherent and better conveyed tutorial and it would be nice to see the current tutorial updated to be, well, faster. cleaner. more coherent. If anything, there should be a little base mechanics tutorial BEFORE you get set up with picking your first frame to at least cover movement and basic functions like attacking, reloading, etc. That way when you're in the current tutorial you're not being forced to learn in-the-moment with easily missable objectives and tutorials if you're being shot at.

[Jax_Cavalera]

6 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The decision by the fanbase and by DE agreeing with them was this; The quests in Warframe are a story worth playing, adding meaningful context and explanation for the situations we're in. They lead to far less confusion about the game world, and more informed discussions in game and out of game here on the Forums, and for many they are genuinely emotional moments.

Which is fair, they built the game, and put a lot of time and effort into making a rich storyline for it. Unfortunately for me and the friends I often game with the drawcard to most games is more around the shooting of things, the collecting of things, and creating things with the stuff we collected. We've never needed to understand why there's a new enemy unit type, or even have a reason as to why we are fighting the enemy.

Actually I just realised something: There is a double standard from DE on this, i.e. when they introduced nullifier units to the game, there was no lore behind it, they basically invented a new unit type to stop players spawn farming the corpus. There's no specific lore behind it and there are other units in a similar boat, they exist because they serve a function / game mechanic.

We've never needed the lore behind these units to enjoy killing them like every other mob in the game. They could go back and invent some story behind their creation but it won't change the fact we still kill them all the same regardless.

If they haven't bothered to incorporate those kind of additions into the storyline, but then also claim the storyline is critical to understand the context of why we are here doing what we do and that players would get confused or feel disconnected if there was no context or explanation... I don't think their argument holds that much water. It's clearly a position they're comfortable disbanding when convenient.

Maybe I'm being too critical because their position on this cost a few more friends of mine to dip out and I worked really hard over a couple months promoting the idea of giving the game a shot to them. It does seem like there is a standard the uphold when convenient though, which makes me question just how much they really care about the storyline vs using it to justify additional grind walls.

4 hours ago, Flannoit said:

I wager they rolled back because Duviri was muddling the story for new players too much at the point you were at (since you were basically getting end-of-the-game lore right away but not in a way that made sense unless if you already did TWW, TSD, and TNW)

I have no idea what the story is for Duviri actually haha I don't even remember if there was a specific quest to unlock access to it, To me it's basically Red Dead Redemption Warframe style, which is pretty cool. I've never felt that it confused the story .. but I suppose that's because I'm not really certain why it exists, I just take it at face value and go .. sweet horses and stuff this looks pretty cool.

I'd say you're right though, for players who care about the storyline, it's possible they were getting a bit confused. That game mode to me has also been quite self explanatory where it gives pretty good prompts of what you need to do next etc.

[Birdframe_Prime]

14 hours ago, Jax_Cavalera said:

Actually I just realised something: There is a double standard from DE on this, i.e. when they introduced nullifier units to the game

I think you'll find that, funnily enough, there's a good reason for that. You'll also find that it's not a double standard and that a lot of enemies do not have lore around them, the factions have lore, the enemies themselves are all designed for a mechanic.

The reason there isn't lore for most is simply; The Story and Lore of the game hadn't come out at all yet. All we got before December 2015 were individual Frame quests, where the lore was drip-fed so broadly that there was no interconnective tissue at all, and outside of that were the Events, Alerts and any new Boss monologues they put in.

Nullifiers were introduced to give us a mechanical inhibitor to the already-present AoE and Ability Nuke meta, where 'casters with bombs' had been so entrenched that back in the clan I joined, we competed with each other to hit new trading milestones for Plat reserves with our long-run play. I remember that me hitting 12k Plat didn't actually impress a few of them... that really took the wind out of my sails back then, but now? I wish I had that kind of time and dedication to spare.

Still, anecdotes aside, a lot of the enemies didn't have lore back then, only collectively. In point of fact, a lot of enemies still don't. Drahk Masters only exist because we can have Kubrows, there really wasn't anything to introduce them in the lore either.

December 2015 is when it all kicked off and things had to start being part of the Story. And that's also, coincidentally, when DE came out and recognised that their fanbase is a bunch of whiny children, by giving us our Character Creation... Anyway.

Point being, while not everything in the game has lore and explanation for it being there, ever since The Second Dream, DE have genuinely wanted players to experience the world they're making on a more personal level.

And if that isn't something that your friends, or even you, enjoy... that's completely normal. For a given 'normal'. Everyone has things they prefer in the gaming space, and if your thing is the in-game action rather than the cinematic story and world they're making, then sure. That's not something to be ashamed of.

It will, however, put you at a disadvantage when it comes to a game like Warframe, where progression is based on the grind, where the Story is considered a key part of making you care about your character, and there are locks on things that make it difficult to get to key points easily and quickly.

So I kind of expect there to be many, many similar stories to yours out there ^^

[Jax_Cavalera]

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

The reason there isn't lore for most is simply; The Story and Lore of the game hadn't come out at all yet. All we got before December 2015 were individual Frame quests, where the lore was drip-fed so broadly that there was no interconnective tissue at all, and outside of that were the Events, Alerts and any new Boss monologues they put in.

Nullifiers were introduced to give us a mechanical inhibitor to the already-present AoE and Ability Nuke meta, where 'casters with bombs' had been so entrenched that back in the clan I joined, we competed with each other to hit new trading milestones for Plat reserves with our long-run play. I remember that me hitting 12k Plat didn't actually impress a few of them... that really took the wind out of my sails back then, but now? I wish I had that kind of time and dedication to spare.

Yeah I miss that kind of gameplay, it's great to see it's starting to come back again.. but I dare not speak of how for fear it's not playing the game the way DE wish and you know it'll be stopped with another out of pocket unit type 

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

December 2015 is when it all kicked off and things had to start being part of the Story. And that's also, coincidentally, when DE came out and recognised that their fanbase is a bunch of whiny children, by giving us our Character Creation... Anyway.

Haha when they read this feedback they'll probably be rolling their eyes so hard dismissing all the grievances flagged too.

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Point being, while not everything in the game has lore and explanation for it being there, ever since The Second Dream, DE have genuinely wanted players to experience the world they're making on a more personal level.

Yeah I guess that's more what I was meaning, to me it seemed like a double standard because Tube Men have strong lore, Jade mobs also have lore, most modern branches of core factions have lore, and even the base Grineer and Corpus units have lore thanks to stories surrounding Kahl, the Queens and Fortuna. All of the infested units have lore, especially true now thanks to 1999's recent demo. but then you get the random pockets of units that have no logical explanation other than they exist to provide a desired game mechanic. 

8 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

It will, however, put you at a disadvantage when it comes to a game like Warframe, where progression is based on the grind, where the Story is considered a key part of making you care about your character, and there are locks on things that make it difficult to get to key points easily and quickly.

So I kind of expect there to be many, many similar stories to yours out there ^^

Yeah which is fair, I'm probably the most storyline tolerant of my group of friends, sometimes on a quiet day I might go back and do a quest if I'm looking for something unique to experience. The problem is, when people like my friends all quit upon mass, there's no one left to give their feedback, to tell their story or explain the challenges they faced.

I really hope that DE don't just roll their eyes at this feedback and brush it off as a bunch of whining but take it serious and consider how they might approach adjusting some aspects of the game to suit the desires of a broader selection of players, I don't mean abandoning what they love, but rather acknowledging there are a lot of players out there that don't really like that and just want to have what they would consider "Fun" 

Edited July 27 by Jax_Cavalera