New Tutorial Idea - Please Give Me Your Feedback.

[EntityOmega]

---- Please bear with me on this post, I know its a monster. Skip to paragraph 4 if you want to get straight into my idea, and if you don't care where it came from.

 

 

When I started this game, I hated it. Thought it was boring, and with my weak weapons, I thought that's how the rest of the game was going to be. Enemies soaking up your shots like it was nothing, and somewhat boring gameplay with "meh" acrobatics.

 

After my brother begged me to try the game again, I used his higher level account, and was blown away. Played for around 10 hours straight, before he made me give his account back. This is what got me hooked on this game, the feeling of powerful weapons and intense powers, while retaining a difficulty - and learning curve - to make the game challenging and fun.

 

While playing a match with a new player yesterday, the new player echoed the same sentiments I had all those months ago. Luckily I was able to recruit them to my clan, after lengthy explanations on how to work the chat/friend/clan system, and bring him on some missions with my friends, to demonstrate some different 'frames and weapons. Already he is hooked, all it took was some explanation and displays of how powerful you can become, and the things that this game is capable of.

 

In my opinion, the current tutorial, and the way to you start the game is wholly inadequate. You cannot have a proper feel for the game with horrible weapons, and this has dissuaded many of my real life friends from loving the game at first, until they had some experience with better gear.

 

I've been thinking about this a lot now. Obviously, the solution is NOT to give new players better gear to start with. They need to start weak, so that they can become more powerful over time, and be convinced to buy platinum for things and such. However, I DO believe, as do many of my friends when I presented this idea to them, and new players need to have the experience of how powerful you will become, right at the beginning of the game.

 

My idea:

A new cut scene to start the game: A battle long ago, between the Sentients and the Orokin. Doesn't have to be in-depth at all, the players can learn the backstory later.

At some point during the cut scene, an Excalibur Prime, a Mag Prime, and a Loki Prime(assuming Loki is going to be the next prime, its my best bet, judging that the other starters already have primes), all showing off their powers and generally wrecking mayhem within the enemy forces with concentrated power.

After this cutscene, and having learned about the powers of the 3 starter warframes, you are presented with your choice, Mag, Loki, or Excalibur.

 

After you choose your warframe, you aren't thrown to the wolves. Instead, you begin as the Prime version of the warframe you chose, fully decked out with a potato'd build, and balanced powers and mods pre-installed. Also, you have some decent weapons - I haven't fully thought out the weapons side yet, suggestions are welcomed.

Your mission, with this frame, is a solo mission against some enemies, during the Old War. During this mission, you are briefed on how to use everything, same as the current tutorial, - this is your health, your energy, etc. The difference is that you are going to embark on a challenging exterminate, but already have a fully decked out frame, allowing you to experience how the game will feel after more gameplay. At the end of the mission, after completing it, you are extracted to an Orokin Void tower, where you enter a cryopod.

 

At this point, the story unfolds about how many years have passed, and how everything orokin has been lost, and you reawaken, but as a different Tenno, with the default unmodded frame and weapons. At this point, you embark on your journey through mercury. But you already have an idea how how the game will feel after investing some time in it, so that new players won't think the same as me, and believe that the whole game is slow paced, and played with weak weapons and negligible powers.

 

 

This is an extremely rough draft, and I realize there are a multitude of problems with it, including the fact that DE already has a stunning intro with Capt. Vor, and the warframe in the crypod in the void. I just think that its possible some of these ideas could be used to make a more engaging tutorial, demonstrating how the game is really played, as well as giving some more of the back story so many of the players crave right now. The feeling that you KNOW how it was to be alive back when the Orokin were still fighting the Sentients in the Old War would be exhilarating, in my opinion.

 

Please, give me your comments and ideas on my idea. Or has this been suggested before? I didn't see any posts quite like it. - Sorry about no pictures, I am not an artist.

 

TL;DR - Warframe tutorial starting with a fully decked out warframe and weapons fighting in the Old War, to play a full "demonstration" of how it is to play the game after investing time in it, before getting thrown to the wolves on Mercury with an unmodded warframe.

 

Thanks for reading my long post!

Edited February 14, 2014 by EntityOmega

[baron1357]

As a lore @#&*( i love this idea

D.E pls give this to us

[rexkiller4]

I like the idea , but I do not think we should start with a prime frame as they are strictly from the void  ( and possibly not around at the time ) but a little lore would certainly grab new players attention .

[gnat6]

I like this idea and there is no reason we can't have the capt. vor intro as the end of the tutorial the only problem with it is DE needs to write the lore about the old war first.

[EntityOmega]

The Prime warframes ought to exist, you would be fighting at the same time as the pinnacle of Orokin power. This is also supposed to "prompt" the lore to be written, or actually be a part of the lore.

 

Thanks for the input so far!

Edited February 14, 2014 by EntityOmega

[-Berserk-]

This is a really good +1 for a well thought out idea for a lacking area that could use this kind of improvement.

[EntityOmega]

Shameless bump.

[Little687]

I've been a proponent for this sort of introduction to mmos for a while... unfortunately it requires the devs to actually know what direction they want for the game so they don't have to keep fixing the intro after big changes.