I Can't Get My Friends Into The Game. Here's Why.

[taiiat]

There isnt a LOTUS IRL following you around telling you what to do and where to go. Its a game.

IRL isn't something you voluntarily participate in, or pay for. 

 

Video Games are a service. services... service the customer. otherwise they don't make money. 

[Katakuna]

Not everyone wants their entertainment to be easily accessible to the idiot brigade.

 

Then those folks can go bugger off with the rest of the elitists.

[BadPoetry]

IRL isn't something you voluntarily participate in, or pay for. 

 

Video Games are a service. services... service the customer. otherwise they don't make money. 

 

Which is why I'm bringing it up, because I want to see this game be polished up and the best it can be. DE gets a more successful and profitable game by listening to the qualms of its playerbase. I don't see how they lose anything by people making criticisms based on their player experience and the experiences of people who didn't enjoy the game.

 

 

Games are too hard.

 

OP, you should try playing Eve Online and then come back and complain about accessibility.

 

If you don't have the intuition to figure out or research things on your own, you probably shouldn't be playing such videogames.  Not everyone wants their entertainment to be easily accessible to the idiot brigade.

 

 

I feel like you're suggesting that these specific friends, of whom a lot I mentioned have studied games design themselves even to a masters level and working on titles themselves, as well as regularly playing other MMOs, shooters and even definitively complex games like Age of Empires, EVE and whatever, are somehow casuals, idiots and need to lern 2 play.

 

I should add that I'm a Dark Souls player. The difference is that game introduces you to its mechanics and shows you what to do and not to do very clearly by punishing you very distinctly for wrong moves. This game just has you perform badly and shuffle along as long as you can move and click left mouse. Please stop resorting to ad hominem.

[xxseedlexx]

I think I reached gamer bingo with "nobody helps you in real life", "learn to play", "I like it so you can't criticise it", "representation doesn't matter" and the free space of "shut up". Please be civil, nobody here except you has made any slight against DE or any other member so far. Everything said has been directed as positive criticism. Chill, reread and stop making this a flamewar nobody has any interest in.

 

 

The controls don't teach you anything about things like dodge mechanics, parkour, combos, melee, nothing to do with how the levelling systems work, etc. They say absolutely nothing about damage types, though I'm hoping this is just because the mechanisms are a work in progress so they don't want to build anything explaining them yet.

 

They're a bit sparse. It's all well and good saying "just look it up" but the fact you don't even know about all these systems, the one I'm gonna pick on being polarities, means you don't know what to look up and you just end up discovering them by accident, potentially much later.

The thing is that I play multiple video games (console, handheld, pc) I already had an idea of what to do I'm sure this applies to most of the people here, when I begin a new game I can look back at past experiences to help me figure this stuff out I mean most of this seemed pretty similar to monster hunter.

[BadPoetry]

Yes, it is bad and needs fixing. DE has made several claims that it is one of their primary goals to amend. We shall see what they have in store (possibly in U12).

 

I'm glad, its been a bother echoed by players since I joined.

 

 

While early equipment is not designed to be top of the line fire power, yes there are some things that could be changed to make it much less of a headache. ie. I suggested providing 3 weapon bundles when you first start the game, each one specializing in a different type of play style [(1.) A shotgun, short range pistol, and hand to hand melee bundle, (2.) A sniper, a long range pistol, and a heavy melee/long range melee weapon bundle (3.) Mk-1 Braton, Lato, and Skana in the middle as a bundle]

And perhaps to take it one step further - having a pool of weapons to chose from that you would start with to create an even more specialized play style according to the player's wants ans needs. (ie. An Mk-1, a long range pistol, and a hand to hand melee)

 

This would be nice, but I feel like the Lato/Skana combo with your choice of frame is perfectly viable if they stop nerfing them. The MK1 Braton is absolutely horrible though and you don't even use it for upgrades into decent weaponry like the Lato can be.

 

If I was to suggest anything it'd be stop nerfing Lato, add a direct upgrade for the Braton e.g. craft from MK1 to standard Braton, and maybe boost the stat gains as you rank them up, to give players a more definite idea of how levelling works and making the first chunk of grind more rewarding.

 

 

Typing during a fast paced shooter where pausing for even less than 10 seconds can mean you either live or die and risk failing an important mission is both as frustrating as it is foolish. Imagine if this was a PvP game. Yeah, no. Get a game mic. It's an unfortunate issue that would also unfortunately require gameplay to be sacrificed in order to be fixed. Not ideal.

 

Yeah, I don't really have a suggestion to fix this except making the UI for this less awkward (being worked on anyway) and encouraging the use of mic, which seemingly nobody does. I'd point the finger more at how communication is deemed unnecessary for the majority of public matches, which is the result of teamwork not being properly implemented. That's something fixable.

 

 

Sure, this can be an issue, but honestly any girl who is offended by being called 'bro' is overly sensitive. It's a term of endearment most of the time, I mean really it's just silly sometimes. Moreover, this is not unique to Warframe as many others have stated. In fact, this is one of the few game where I haven't seen it appear once on any random match I've been a part of. Not one. 

 

Let the female players speak for themselves on this issue. I'm not saying DE is sexist or anything, that's untrue speculation and also incredibly rude to suggest, but when multiple people have commented on this stuff then its something worth discussing. "Bro" doesn't bug me either much but, again, let the people speak for themselves.

 

 

The thing is that I play multiple video games (console, handheld, pc) I already had an idea of what to do I'm sure this applies to most of the people here, when I begin a new game I can look back at past experiences to help me figure this stuff out I mean most of this seemed pretty similar to monster hunter.

 

MonHun is pretty unintuitive to new players too though. None of the games give a very good overview of some of the necessary features, it just sort of gives you all the options and expects you to eventually work it out. It works for some people but I'm saying how it doesnt work for everyone.

 

Edit: Wait did edit 2: the accepted word for people who are not heterosexual seriously get edited out of one of my posts? You know that's not an insult right.

Edited December 28, 2013 by BadPoetry

[Leremblompes]

What are you talking about?

 

Monster Hunter has a tediously drawn out and patronising series of tutorials; to the point it almost puts you off getting through them to the actual game.

[Sidathe]

Trust me, man...if it exists. Someone out there will find it attractive in exceedingly creepy ways.

[Kyria]

1. The entire control system is confusing and poorly explained by the tutorial

 

Major issue, search the forum and you can find a lot of people going on about it. I really did not learn much about how to play from it at all and nobody else I know did either. I only found out how to slide from messing around, I had no idea about polarities in mods until a few months after I started and the Lotus never actually told me what I'm supposed to do. Missions for money? Ok, but I didn't know that until I got extracted from my first one. I'd suggest working on this properly before even considering a final run to release.

 

2. Early equipment is terrible and has only been nerfed since

 

No good quotes, but here's one thread highlighting that its an issue. Even fully leveled the basic equipment is horrible now. It should be the lowest stats but it should also be actually viable to use.

 

I understand its an FTP title so buying new weapons for an early edge is fine, but its a poor method of money making long term to push players into buying a different item just to get by, when they haven't had the game properly explain itself either.

 

3. Players, especially in random matchups, say absolutely nothing 90% of the time.

 

This one bugs me a lot too. Players have a terrible tendency to do nothing but rush, even on early levels, and fail to communicate at all for any teamwork. For new players especially, this puts pressure on and can make things awkward, confusing and unenjoyable. One of my only friends who played the game for more than a few days specifically told me they gave up on online play because of this, and I know from my own solo play that its much, much more difficult that way as everything has now been fixed as to be a challenge for a cell.

 

This isn't even a case of "lrn 2 play nub", its offputting as an MMO is a social situation and the community, in-match, has almost no solidarity or focus as a team beyond what the Lotus orders. Pushing communication outside of the fast-moving Region chat seems a really important thing in a team game.

 

4. Poor representation in characters; playerbase

 

I hate to say that this is something that actually came up with probably 2/3 of my friends I asked about it. Unprompted. A lot of these people are gamers, some post on /vg/ and get involved in MOBAs and MMOs and FPSs the same as anyone else here. I hadn't even noticed any of this too badly myself, but after asking people why they didn't like the game, this was consistently coming up without being discussed before.

 

1) I agree. As far as I know they are working on improving the new user experience.

 

2) I do not know of a nerf, but how it was when I started I feel the MK-1 should have been replaced with the Braton - although it was also a great satisfaction when I got the credits to purchase it and upgrade.

 

3) It is difficult to take the time out to chat while being shot at, but there is currently room for improvement - such as making the chat available on countdown/splash/exit screen. I would love to get the time to tell my team mates "Good run", "Thanks for the revive" etc. Aside from that I prefer the focused gameplay it currently has.

 

4) I strongly disagree. I love how WF so far has chosen to represent the female frames. Different strokes, I suppose.

[BadPoetry]

What are you talking about?

 

Monster Hunter has a tediously drawn out and patronising series of tutorials; to the point it almost puts you off getting through them to the actual game.

 

I didn't really see any in whichever ones I played but if I'm wrong then apologies. I hope you get what I mean about unintuitive introductions in relation to this game though. If better examples help then randomly naming off, Megaman X and Half-Life 1 & 2 both blend gameplay and tutorials really well without feeling very forced.

 

 

Trust me, man...if it exists. Someone out there will find it attractive in exceedingly creepy ways.

 

Well that's a given.

 

[sweeps away Alad/Sargas slashfic under the desk]

[CheeseHasLeafs]

Ash has one hell of a codpiece going on.

 

Have you seen Volt or Rhino? They have a straight up horn downstairs.

I agree with your points. First and foremost is the point that the new player experience is horrible. One should not need a wiki or forums to figure out how to slide. 

 

Sorry that you and your friends need your hands held to be able to understand the simple and strait forward nature of warframe.

 

If the information isn't handed to you and you start whining about it then I have no idea how you have survived through life thus far.

 

And honestly you could have looked up the forum thread that specifically tells you how to use all the tricks with in warframe. The wiki as well is a useful tool, but just remember, you have to know what your looking for, so asking question on the forums isn't a bad way to get information either.

 

I think the whole problem is how frail you and your friends knowledge gathering skills are that drives you out and away from the greatness known as warframe. Obviously you have never played a game before wiki ever existed.

are you serious

[BadPoetry]

4) I strongly disagree. I love how WF so far has chosen to represent the female frames. Different strokes, I suppose.

 

I like that there's no real difference between genders at all, and I don't personally agree they're oversexualised as most of what people are slobbering over is curves and stuff that I don't really relate to sexiness at all as much as frame function and design, e.g. Ember's thighs which I always considered to be taken from Arabic garb; yes female humans have boobs and they're gonna protude in skintight armoursuits as much as Ash and his ninja codpiece. I do dislike that their body types are near identical. Other points withstanding. Remember some of this is second hand opinion and while I might not completely agree I don't disagree.

 

 

Have you seen Volt or Rhino? They have a straight up horn downstairs.

 

Rhino isn't the name of the frame.

 

Edited December 28, 2013 by BadPoetry

[DHKany]

third and fourth points DE can't really do anything for. 

People are just gonna be people 

[BadPoetry]

third and fourth points DE can't really do anything for. 

People are just gonna be people 

 

I posted several several suggestions to improve it. Whether they'd actually work I wouldnt know.

[DHKany]

I posted several several suggestions to improve it. Whether they'd actually work I wouldnt know.

they wouldn't cause people are still just gonna be people. 

Online interactions in Warframe for me have ranged from great, to downright terrible (basically the same as every other online game that I've ever bothered to get into). 

[BadPoetry]

they wouldn't cause people are still just gonna be people. 

Online interactions in Warframe for me have ranged from great, to downright terrible (basically the same as every other online game that I've ever bothered to get into). 

 

There's things to encourage communication like revamping the chat system and making situations that encourage communication/planning. Most defence missions tend to have pre-discussion, why don't other missions need it?

[yggdrazzle]

1) Yes, I agree 100% a lot of improvements can be made to improve people's first impressions of the game. And as is well known, the first impression is always the most important.

 

 

2) This is simply not true, and damage 2.0 has made this even untrue-er. Mk-1 is ok, but a Braton can take you through the whole game. You should be aware of the "iahgames" promotion FillyRarity was nice enough to remind people about before it expires on Dec 31 - they give you a free Braton with custom skin and Catalyst already installed for about 3 minutes of your time to do a quick sign up.

 

You can get enough credits to upgrade to Braton on the first day. I would say upgrading mods are more important than the gun itself in the early stages, but that is a natural progression and perfectly fine, you should not expect to max everything in a week... hell, I barely made it to Earth my first week.

 

At the very least Braton, Burston, Hind, etc. all of them can take you to Rank 6 where you can upgrade to the Soma if you so desire.

 

 

3) This has been greatly alleviated by DE's recent push to get people involved in the game more communally. Having people searching for Clans to share the Trading Post, Clan Tech, complete the Cicero Crisis, do Vaults, Orokin Void etc.

 

It's pretty much a given that you won't talk much or receive much random help unless you ask for it. Especially in the starting areas (Barrens anyone); if you've ever played any online game, it's the same way. I can honestly say nobody was outright rude to me with the typical "lrn 2 play nub" lines, I think it's actually far from the norm, warframe seems to have an older and more mature player base than other games.

 

Solution: Get people involved in clans earlier on. They can add a list of clans in the GUI you can choose from and request an invite. Or  at the very least they can provide a link to the Clan Recruitment area of the forums so you can choose the clan that fits you. I didn't have a clan for the longest time and didn't bother coming to the clan recruitment forums for the longest time while playing, but in hindsight it would have been nice to have been guided by the game to a good clan somehow much sooner.

 

*Yes, my 'recently played with' list is stuck with the same 10 people all the time, and it's pretty much the top 10 people in chat. Pretty sure this is not intended. Does make it harder to meet up again with people I enjoyed playing with.

 

 

4) In a player base of a hundred thousand people of course there will be different opinions, backgrounds, personalities, preferences. Your perception of #4 seems more like random nitpicking, using 2 random forum posts as supporting evidence. The answer to this is also just part of who you choose to play with, which will obviously be your clan, or real life friends, or online friends, etc.

 

 

While some of your arguments/examples seem wholly generic, all in all you bring up good points for discussion.

 

TLDR; if you don't like to play with random strangers in the game, go find a clan with people you like! There are tons of clans available with a variety of 'themes' and clan hopping is easy as *$)@all (plus, sorry you had a bad experience, but this community is actually better than most out there and the PvE nature automatically makes it friendlier)

Edited December 28, 2013 by yggdrazzle

[LostAlone]

The community in this game is kind of weird. 

 

The generally cooperative nature of the game means that the community is better than most in my experience. Generally I have found people will answer a certain type of question when you ask them in game (how did you get that cool gun? where's the best place to defend from? should I fire the life support capsule?) but that's pretty much the limit of it. 

 

Not that people aren't nice, but this is not a game where typed chat is a good discussion medium, but for most of us playing in PUGs, we have voice chat off because... well voice chat with randoms is a bad idea no matter what. (You think it's bad on the US TZs, you should try it on Euro where there isn't a universal language and everyone assume's that their one is what everyone else should be speaking - me included). Chat in Wf really needs to be voice but no-one wants to voice until they are confident no-ones going to start screaming abuse at them. It's not a WF-only problem.

 

Often when you are in a decent public group who you might want to talk to after a game or two you just get randomly disconnected and never find them again. So when we're grinding, most people just watch TV, listen to music or do other stuff on top of warframe. Again, not warframe's fault, but it exacerbates a problem. Making friends in this game is really @(*()$ hard because you never see the same people.

 

As for the whole gender stuff... 

 

Well... That's tricky. 

 

In all the online games I've ever played it didn't matter what genitals you happened to possess; everyone had to be one of the lads. It's not about girls not being allowed in the club house. It's really not. It's about the gamer culture that's about kicking &#!. If women can kick &#! then they are welcome. If anyone of any gender *@##$es and moans and isn't awesome and a team player then they aren't welcome. 

 

The people who make XboxLive etc notorious for yelling at people yell at everyone. They are equal opportunity jerks. The stuff I've heard said to women is especially posionous, but they don't just shout at women. They're equal opportunity jerkwads who think that very teenage kind of shock-crap is funny. 

 

As for people feeling like they have to 'prove' they are women. That's another shade of jerkwad that causes that. A pretty standard troll is to claim to be a woman and chat up a guy online. It's apparently funny because... I guess schadenfreude? Thing is that those kinds of experience, even if only seen from a distance, have taught people that people who seem to be proclaiming femininity in situations where it doesn't matter (any public chat room or pick up group) is to be treated with caution. Gender tends to come when you've known someone a while.

 

I get that not everyone is happy to be assumed male, but at the same time I do feel it's a little overly sensitive for people to really object to being called 'bro' or 'dude' or whatever by random people who have no way of knowing what else to call you. I mean, it's a friendly expression. Even if it's not exactly what you want to be called, the intention of 'nice damage bro' is pretty clear. 

 

I'm not saying that people don't have the right to be upset by gender issues. Quite the opposite. There's all kinds of problems out there that people should be upset about, and not just women. Discrimination should upset everyone. But it feels to me like calling everyone by the same thing, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation isn't that big of a problem.

[Renan.Ruivo]

I'm not saying that people don't have the right to be upset by gender issues. Quite the opposite. There's all kinds of problems out there that people should be upset about, and not just women. Discrimination should upset everyone. But it feels to me like calling everyone by the same thing, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation isn't that big of a problem.

 

Not to ignore the rest of your post, but i have to agree with the OP about this specific point. While i'm a manly man that chops down trees with the forehead and hunts brontosaurus for dinner, i wouldn't mind be called a lady. I wouldn't mind anything, actually. However we cannot tell people what they can and can't be offended by. I can see why some women would mind being called "bro". Hell, even some men don't like to be called that.

 

Still i believe that this is a teensy bit off-topic so i'll just leave it at that :P

[Mak_Gohae]

What are you talking about?

 

Monster Hunter has a tediously drawn out and patronising series of tutorials; to the point it almost puts you off getting through them to the actual game.

 

Yeah.

If they put everything at the start it becomes info overload that people skip or just get turned off.

 

Back the day there were booklets and now there are a whole mess of places to get info on the game.

Folks should look around, this website has a beginner's guide on the main page plus all the guides created in the board.

The tutorial now tells you how to shoot, use powers, pickups and parkour, those are the basics for what you most likely be doing for most of your first play time.

 

The rest of the stuff if you cant figure out you can look through all the resources available.

 

If you guys want to really see a totally absent starting point you should get in FFXIV... in that game they LITERALLY just drop you at a starting point and say NOTHING. You actually have to move and start clicking on NPC until some one tells you something you can use. . .  they dont even tell you how to move.

[ShiyokuShi]

I can relate.

[SilentCynic]

I concur with your points, although #4 has irked me in particular.

 

Let the female players speak for themselves on this issue. I'm not saying DE is sexist or anything, that's untrue speculation and also incredibly rude to suggest, but when multiple people have commented on this stuff then its something worth discussing. "Bro" doesn't bug me either much but, again, let the people speak for themselves.

 

I wouldn't say being called 'bro' or 'dude' is at all derogatory or insulting. As others have mentioned, it's mostly a term of endearment or just for general use. That said, my experiences with Warframe have shown considerably more sexism and hostile attitudes from players than any other title I've encountered, above and beyond the usual "omg no girls on the internet" and "gb2kitchen" crap that is rather pathetically deemed standard.

 

I don't think this is DE's problem, and perhaps I've just been hitting the bad spots, but this stuff quickly puts a bad taste in my mouth. It's a part of why I've finally packed away Warframe after several hundred hours.

Edited December 28, 2013 by SilentCynic

[(PSN)Lord_Gremlin]

I've got to tell... If you start the game by dumping $30 on it all those initial issues go away. Maybe this is DE intention, really. An argument can be made that that assumes that player already knows what kind of game it is. They should probably rework some of the first missions on Mercury to show off game to people who come in blind.

I do agree it's hard to get people into it.

[PlebbyMilliner]

I agree and disagree with some of this.

 

Tutorials:

- I grew up with games in the day where 100+ page manuals with pull out maps were used and there were NO in game tutorials (yes, I am a dinosaur). So to an extent, I had no problem reading up on combo moves in the forums, or other things in the wiki about how to fuse, or any of the YouTube videos. I did research.

- That said, ever since Half-Life did that wonderful Trainging Course tutorial, games have been trying to train in-game.

- I do think that an optional set of "VR Missions" or something similar need to be available to address specific mechanics. Gun play, damage, mod fusing, certain movement, types of enemies, Codex scanning, etc. And then have someone from DE run through these and post captured video on their webpage. The game is still truly in beta, but it now has a huge player base and could use some help.

- Part of the "tutorial" is completing the Mecury system.

 

Mics:

- Totally agree about the usefulness

- But I like the idea of the silent ninja

- And having someone speak that's not ninja-y kind of breaks immersion for me. It would be neat to have a selectable voice mask (variants could even been for sale in the market) to keep in touch.

- The other difficulty is that Warframe is a VERY international game. I regularly play with South American, Japanese, and German players. I'm not sure sure that voice communications with accents or my talking speed would help. I think this is more of an issue with the region game matching than anything else.

 

Whitewash of characters:

- Tenno = unknown race

- Infested = mutants

- Grineer = a mush of all races of earth that have been cloned. No unique character traits.

- Corpus = the only "human" race seen. And realistically, they are the bad guys. Look at Alad V. He is a white, high pitched voice, "frilly" aristocrat. Why wouldn't he be white (I say this as the czars, pre-revolution French, Spainish royalty, etc.) have been.

I think that aspect is overblown, but should DE ever reveal the Tenno underneath the suits, it would be well within character to show them as "the people" and a wide mix of races.

 

Early Equipment is not terrible.

- The guns work until mid-game very easily. Along with the above tutorial about how to buy things, the emphasis should be placed on earning credits to swap the Braton MK-I to the Braton.

- The Lato still kicks &#!.

- The Cronus is given with the very first boss and is a very reasonable sword.

- Remember that CREDITS can be used to directly upgrade to a lot of weapons. The Braton is 25K still so should be very buyable for new players.

 

Playerbase:

- There's really no fixing it. It's the internet. &^%holes are everywhere, but there are still a lot of good people I've played with.

- To be blunt, I'm really surprised that this particular game format has this much teamwork.

[biggles1y3]

There will always be people that find something creepy and others that find it cute, just different opinions. I don't like being called bro but it's just a fad. No matter how loud an opinion is, it is not fact, and there are others that agree with your views more-so.

 

Any amount of sexist comments is just repulsive and shouldn't have to be dealt with when playing a game for leisure time, unfortunately society is taking it's sweet time to real equality.

 

I'd agree that it isn't DE's problem but I am extremely appreciative when I see developers/publishers going out of their way to improve their community, it was the reason I installed "LoL" again.

 

TL:DR Welcome to (some unknown portion of) people assuming everyone is like themselves.

If you can ignore it, it's more fun.

If you can't, you aren't the one at fault.

 

That's my male 2c.

[(PSN)sage042000]

the damage formula is the biggest hurdle imo. It's bad enough right now with shields, robots, flesh, infested and armor. but I see from the latest damage charts on the wiki, that the pc has gotten even more enemy types. It's getting just a bit ridiculous, and I really can't see how a new player would know why their weapon is doing s*** damage to some enemies and great damage to others, or why this weapon with 15 attack is doing less damage to a certain enemy than this other weapon with 22.

if you're gonna have so many factors affecting damage, they really should be listed somewhere in game. having all stats for weapons listed in the market before you spend money on them would be a huge step in the right direction. my cousin and I are both seasoned gamers. he just started and has no idea what he's doing beyond point and shoot. I've taught him the mod/polarity and market/blueprint systems, but dread having to get into damage types and enemy weaknesses. ffs, I don't even know all the exact elemental weaknesses myself. no one I've talked to is sure which version of the damage table we have on ps4, and it's not listed anywhere in game. luckily, he's no stranger to gaming and linking him to the wiki should do the job for me. he has the sense to gamefaqs or google anything he can't find there.

but the point is, he shouldn't have to.