The New Player Experience Is...off

[Boondorl]

Hey guys, I thought I'd start this off by mentioning I'm currently MR14, nearing MR15, and have played the game for over 700 hours. I have been playing since U7 and every single update since then. I decided to hop on a new account today to test out the new player experience, and what I found was...odd.

 

The Starter Weapons

 

There's no beating around the bush. They're bad. Personally, I don't even think the Mk1 should exist, and all players should just get the Braton. Lato and Skana just need a buff. This is all fairly obvious stuff, though.

 

The Tutorial

 

It was...ok for the most part. A barebones rundown of the game. I guess what you'd expect. However, teaching advanced things would have been far more useful. It's not hard to learn how to move and shoot. Specific areas that involve lots of wall running and climbing would have been nice to get the players into the feel of the game, not just telling them how to shoot (you're assuming your playerbase is too stupid here, DE).

 

Mercury

 

As far as the first planet goes, it has an ok progression. I'm not too sure about opening with Exterminate, however. Exterminate is, in my opinion, the worst mission type in this entire game. It's the most linear of all modes and forces you to wait up for bad enemy spawns (see: Invasions). Something like Sabotage would be much better, as it fits closer to the rest of the style of this game.

 

The Missions

 

I'm going to start by saying that most of these missions were done in solo. Solo challenge seems to range from being fair to way too hard, while playing with other people just seems to make the game too easy (barring two missions).

 

Ok, this is where things get bad.

 

Exterminate, for the most part, was as easy and boring as it seems.

 

I found the targets in Capture and Sabotage missions took way too many shots. They felt like bullet sponges, and the Capture targets actively run away, making the feeling worse. They need to be way more on par with the rest of the Grineer. There's no reason to make them take this many shots. It doesn't offer anything besides slowing down the gameplay in an unnatural fashion.

 

Mobile Defense was the hardest one I had to do solo. There's little place to take cover, and if you do hide, the enemies start bashing the objective. To an older player, this can be a better experience, but with my lack of mods I found it dreadful more than anything. I understand that death should be a real threat, but c'mon, guys. This is the first planet. At least wait until Venus to start throwing challenge at the player. This is the first time they've done these modes, so they still need to learn the rules. I'd simply suggest adding better cover.

 

There were simply too many enemies in Defense. If it weren't for the other player that joined, I surely would've been overwhelmed. There were at least 25 per wave, and with a Mk1 with no mods, that's way too many to deal with at once. Maybe slow down the flow of the enemies a little so they aren't coming out in these massive 15-person waves.

 

Vor was way too hard. At level 3, he was kicking the other two pubs' asses, and nearly kicked mine. His damage needs to be dropped down a bit. Once again, this is the first boss of the game. Players are still learning the rules. Be a little lenient on the first planet. Also, as well all know, his drops are still bugged. This is actually a fairly awful bug for new players who have nothing, and need to scavenge for everything they can get. pls fix

 

Ok, Survival is where I got confused greatly. For most veterans, Apollodorus is simply seen as "that place I take unranked gear to." I'll admit, I'm also guilty of this. But coming in with no gear...why is this place as brutal as it is? I understand it's optional, but new players are basically forced out by 11 minutes because of the Bombards. Why are these tough enemies here? Shield Lancers? Bombards, Napalmers, and Heavy Gunners? They have no place here. The player, at this point, doesn't even know how Survival works. Why are these tough-as-nails enemies all showing up? The level increase on enemies will be more than enough challenge. You don't need to bring in Elites with 100% bleed proc chances to get the players to leave. The Grakata alone will be more than enough. This place really bothers me. It doesn't feel like it's catered to new players. If you're that worried about the vets staying long, you can avoid it all together by taking out the enemies with big affinity numbers like the Bombards. Even with my regular Braton, I found this place way too challenging for someone with no gear. Either change it to fit the rest of the planet, or simply remove it.

 

Mods of Bust

 

Seriously, do mods exist? Because up until about the fourth mission or so, I had zero. None. All I had was the Mag mods and a redirection from the tutorial. This is a HUGE problem, DE. All throughout my missions, I was just finding nothing. The only damage mod I saw was a Shocking Touch, which I can't even use due to costing 6 (Skana is only rank 4 at the moment). I got a few mods on the Defense mission, but none very useful. Just some Warframe abilities I can't use (yes, I know they'll be removing these, which is a very good step in the right direction). But then, something happened.

 

You get to Apollodorus, and...it's mods galore! Seriously, the more I look at Apollodorus, the less it looks like it belongs. Why does this mode suddenly throw mods at your face like no tomorrow? And why are they all useless? The only decent one is Pressure Point. It just feels odd compared to the rest of the mission, like you're playing a completely different game.

 

I'll be leaving Mercury without a single damage mod for my pistol or rifle. This is not a good start, DE. This game is very gear reliant. You can't restrict players like this. There's no harm in giving them these mods early, as they can't level them high anyway. It'd make the new player experience far better if they could get their hands on these mods on Mercury, instead of going to ODD and praying that Electric Crawler drops a Contagious Spread.

 

Other

 

I wasn't sure what to call this, but Nav Points should not be dropping in Mercury. They have no reason to. The player can't use these properly yet. Moving them to higher level areas (everything beyond Earth) would make far more sense as they're meant to be mid-end game collectibles.

 

Weapons and the Market

 

Ok, this is where my biggest gripe with the game comes in. By the time I had fully beaten Mercury, I only had a mere 43k credits, and that's including Lotus' generous 25k donation. And yes, this includes exploration. I looted every locker and container I could in those maps. Overall, I didn't even make enough to get a Braton without Lotus' help. The credit gains need to be upped a little.

 

Back to the main topic, what happened to the weapon variety? I knew the changes from credit-bought to bps was a terrible idea, and this just confirmed it. There's simply no options for new players.

 

Back when I started in U7, all Tenno weapons could be bought with credits (albeit with high prices). This allowed the player to have something to save up for with credits alone. No resources were needed to get these basic Tenno MR0 weapons. Now, the bp curse is upon us. The worst offender? The fact that none of them use only ferrite and polymer bundles. They all require things like Salvage, Alloy Plates, Neurodes, and Morphics. What gives? I can't build any of these weapons yet. So your choices are limited to Strun and Braton...or, ya know, giving DE your money. This is a terrible system, IMO. This just felt like a way to monetize the old Tenno weapons since credit ones can't be bought with plat. This, in my experience, is one of the worst changes to the new player experience. I had goals back in U7. I could buy that Latron with my hard-earned credits. Now it's a joke, forcing you to go to planets you can't handle because you have zero mods.

 

Please, make MR0 Tenno weapons purchasable with credits again. I don't care if you wanna keep the high rank ones as craftable, but Latron and Burston have no reason to be locked behind this resource wall (which, funny enough, you can also buy resources with plat as well).

 

Mastery Rank Test Bug

 

I just thought I'd point out that there's currently a bug with the Mastery Rank test system. When I got enough exp to take the MR1 test, it said I couldn't and would have to wait 22 hours, despite not taking a test before.

 

The Conclusion

 

Between the lack of weapon variety, the scarcity of mods, and the random heightened difficulty of certain missions...

 

It's not looking too good, DE. The challenge on some of the missions were either fair or too much in solo, and too easy in co-op aside from Vor and Apollodorus, which are simply too hard for any new player. Unless some major changes are made here, I can't see why anyone would stick around. It just seems like a poorly balanced game that wants your money.

[Magicfingers]

and another post about the new player experience...sigh

[SpilockT_T]

and another post about the new player experience...sigh

 

It's not a bad thing....

 

We all know that Warframe has the worst new player experience..

 

And I know they are working on it..

[Neutralred]

And I know they are working on it..

How exactly do you know?

 

Seriously, Intercepts have been roadblocking players for months now, and the response on the last devstream was "it's an awesome challenge and we're glad new players get to experience it". Except that there's a thread pretty much every day now asking why Intercept is so poorly balanced, so players are clearly not having the same experience.

 

I suspect that the dev team don't even realise it's impossible to craft any frames, any primaries or secondaries, or even any melee weapons other than Orthos, before making it out to Saturn, Mars and Jupiter - Europa or the Void for frames. This because of another comment from the devs' own mouths that they tested Interception with a "gimped build using stuff that a player who played linearly to Earth would have" - meanwhile the heavily-overequipped players of the last Prime Time managed to fail their Intercepts consistently. Yeah, I'd like to know what weapons, frames and mods they expect a player on Earth to have, but I don't expect to ever see this legendary testing loadout. Because if there's anything DE hates, it's having to admit they're wrong.

 

The issue of early mod drops was also brought up in the devstream, and the dev who addressed it said that "I think we're doing a good job of putting these required mods on common enemies". Really? Then why aren't they dropping for new players?

 

Somewhere around U12, the dev team nerfed Lato and AkLato. This amidst consistent complaints that the starter weapons were already extremely poor. Yes, players were likely using the Lato in preference to the MK-1... but that wasn't because the Lato family were OP, it was because of how utterly useless the MK-1 had become after Damage 2.0.

 

None of this points to a dev team that's willing to address the issues. It all points to someone having a vision of balance completely divorced from the reality of new players' experience.

 

So yeah. Tell me more about how you "know" they're working on it. Meanwhile, I'm just happy to see the community doesn't just accept it without comment.

[mpastor]

New players... bah.  Let them eat cake.  

 

Learning to play the game is like an intelligence test.  High learning curve helps weed out the field.  Smarter more capable player base means less melee enthusiast spinning like over-energized dradles in front of you obscuring your shots or hoping like juiced up rabbits into the air only to knock down a line of ten Grineer whose heads (moments ago) were all lined up for a quick burst of fire and instant death, but now you have to individually shoot and target each half dead one laying on the ground.  Ugh... you're not going to do that this whole mission are you?  This mission is gonna take us at least 90 seconds longer to run like this.

Edited April 1, 2014 by mpastor

[Maou]

They should atleast give those damage mods like serration,hornet strike and pressure point as an end reward after the tutorial. 

[mpastor]

A week or two after I first started playing, I looked over my mods.  You guessed it... 150 pressure points had accumulated.  But sure, I'm with you... let's add more.

[Neutralred]

-snip-

This has to be a parody, it's too perfect. Curse you, Internet, and your lack of tone!

 

On the off chance that you're serious (or someone takes you seriously), we're talking about players that are still building the required skills, yet are at an extreme numerical disadvantage. No matter what skills you're bringing to the table, in a gear-based game like WF, you're going to end up on the back foot without the mods and weapons that the content is balanced around.

[Suupa-Kistu]

Honestly, it is amazing that I played this game past Venus. In the early game you can make nothing, are given nothing, and without friends insisting I keep going, I would never have gotten to earth. With interceptions being so overpowered, i would have stopped there for sure.

 

I have done a million Grineer missions with Ballistas, and a single Stormbringer has yet to drop for me. I had almost the entire starchart done before a single Serration dropped for me.

 

There are MAJOR problems with the early game, especially mod drops, but definitely given how many things require additional resources and yet are powered for new players. The game needs to stop getting NEW content, and start having the old content be made to work. Stop making new frames and weapons for a whole update cycle, and just work on these issues. You will retain more new players.

 

Edit: To clarify I am now almost rank 12 and have spent too many hours to count on warframe. I started really playing in January, just enough after Cicero so as to never get my hands on those nice poison mods since I can't afford the plat to purchase them from other players. The level of exclusive goodies for older players is bad, and only seems to be getting worse. At least the gorgon wraith and dex furis are nothing to write home about...

Edited April 1, 2014 by Suupa-Kistu

[mpastor]

In all non-snarky, unsarcasticness.  Probably the best thing you could do for new players is create a squad recruitment system that surpasses late 1990's technology.  Microsoft's gamezone of that era was better at putting people together to play than what we have in this game.  This is quite an indictment when someone points out that Microsoft of almost two decades ago was doing something better than you are currently.

 

The subtext here... we need a better squad recruitment system and GUI.  <--- actually this is not even the subtext of the above statement... it's the text plain and simple.

[unmog]

Good post. I've tried it before myself, making a second account and getting it to mastery 2 was mind blowingly difficult on my own. And like you mentioned, the bug about not being able to take your mastery test until you wait at least a day after creating the account is dumb, and should be easily fixed. Otherwise, I liked a lot of your points. Im just glad I did it before the introduction of the zappy traps, do they appear on mercury?

 

Anyway, yea... its why I try helping out new players whenever I can. Since the game is so brutal to begin with, it helps to have an understanding, patient, and helpful player base.

[Neutralred]

@Suupa: hey, sounds like I started just a bit after you... a little over a week before U12 dropped. I didn't have friends in the game yet, though... made the mistake of getting friends from other games to start playing. A little after U12 dropped. >.< Buddies hit the Intercepts on Earth just after they were buffed because people were complaining that they were too easy... which made them impossible for new players, and I didn't have the gear yet to help them through it. The difficulty was dropped for a couple of weeks before Tethra, but then Tethra came along and screwed newbies even harder...

 

So yeah, I'm a little sore on those Intercepts and the NPE because they basically cost me any chance of playing this game with the people I'd met playing other games. Every time I try and introduce someone they hit a brick wall, and with no trading until MR2, I can't really help them other than by taxiing them to places where they're effectively irrelevant - which isn't very fun for them.

[Monolake]

Hey OP, you chose Mag, so it was much easier for you, you could Pull spam all the way to Earth, why didnt you?  Soloing Apollo 15 min with Mag  is no problem even when you have zero damage mods. You should'v tried it with Loki to get a real taste of noob experience. 

 

I had made a new account ~2 months ago and tho I didnt play solo, had couple real noobs with me, it was mostly proper difficulty, only at Apollo I had to revive them constantly due to high spawnrate, we stayed for 10 minutes but felt like they wouldnt last 5 if not me. Vor was fairly easy, far easier than back in 2013, when he didn't scale to noob level. Credits were enough even back then to buy a new gun and up some mods once you beat Mercury, now you even get 25k more and Strun costs exactly that, so there is an improvement.  

 

Getting no mods is by far the worst problem, even when you buy Braton, its only ~15% stronger iirc and you have to fight higher level Corpus at Venus already. And then you get to Earth real noob nightmare starts, and you are very likely still without any rifle mods, only Heated charge for pistol drops reliably. 

 

Then of course there is Eurasia, which DE-Megan with some fellas all equipped with Somas and Boltor primes Rhinos and Embers failed to pass 2 times on the last primetime stream. How are noobs expected to beat that, and it hasnt been fixed for a month now, despite a dozen of threads. 

Edited April 1, 2014 by Monolake

[unmog]

I keep hearing about eurasia, should try it sometime before it gets fixed.

[Monolake]

The issue of early mod drops was also brought up in the devstream, and the dev who addressed it said that "I think we're doing a good job of putting these required mods on common enemies". Really? Then why aren't they dropping for new players?

 

Somewhere around U12, the dev team nerfed Lato and AkLato. This amidst consistent complaints that the starter weapons were already extremely poor. Yes, players were likely using the Lato in preference to the MK-1... but that wasn't because the Lato family were OP, it was because of how utterly useless the MK-1 had become after Damage 2.0.

 

As I remember they said they are working on a new quest for Mercury which will give mod rewards.

 

I dont see Lato getting nerfed, but they nerfed AkLato by 50% ffs why, now its not worth getting - same damage per shot as regular Lato and the firerate difference is useless, since you can't click that fast, another blind change made without any testing and understanding of the game. 

[Neutralred]

I keep hearing about eurasia, should try it sometime before it gets fixed.

If you're after a challenge, go for Lua. It's even more difficult, but further along the required path so fewer people get to it to complain, and it only gates off Jupiter and Europa. I hear it's fun as a sniper.

 

Electric traps were pulled from Mercury in the first hotfix after the original broken lights. Fortunately Venus is Corpus, and Earth is mostly Jungle tileset, so no traps there either - they only show up on Galleon.

 

@Mono: Pull spam still requires energy, and early frames don't have Flow or efficiency mods, not to mention Siphon. It's effective... as long as you can keep it up. :D

 

Edit:

As I remember they said they are working on a new quest for Mercury which will give mod rewards.

 

I dont see Lato getting nerfed, but they nerfed AkLato by 50% ffs why, now its not worth getting - same damage per shot as regular Lato and the firerate difference is useless, since you can't click that fast, another blind change made without any testing and understanding of the game. 

Would that be "Vor's Prize", which no-one knows anything solid about despite first mentions being mid-2013, before it was excised from the codex after months of nothingness, only to be revived in the last devstream? Even given DE's current drive to make content all Grineer all the time, I wouldn't be holding my breath for that one.

 

Lato was nerfed, sadly... I remember a bunch of threads in the Weapons feedback forum from around that time, and they still crop up.

 

I figure some designer expects us to have secondaries' fire mapped to mousewheel.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Neutralred

[HansJurgen]

New players... bah.  Let them eat cake.  

 

Learning to play the game is like an intelligence test.  High learning curve helps weed out the field.  Smarter more capable player base means less melee enthusiast spinning like over-energized dradles in front of you obscuring your shots or hoping like juiced up rabbits into the air only to knock down a line of ten Grineer whose heads (moments ago) were all lined up for a quick burst of fire and instant death, but now you have to individually shoot and target each half dead one laying on the ground.  Ugh... you're not going to do that this whole mission are you?  This mission is gonna take us at least 90 seconds longer to run like this.

 

Because a small community for what is essentially a coop game makes perfect sense.

 

I believe you have played dumb, grindy Asian PVP games for too long. Warframe isn't one of them.

Edited April 1, 2014 by HansJurgen

[DocHolliday13]

The problem is that many of the big changes made over the last 6 months that improved the game for veteran players made it just that much worse for new players. Take for example the change of mod drops - all mods used to be random. The variety of mods you could get in any given mission was much greater. You also were more likely to get a few drops from any given mission. I know it sure wasn't long before I had most of the basic damage dealing mods like Serration when I started, and most of my Serration and Hornet Strike rank-ups back in the day were done with... guess what... duplicates. The new mod system makes it much easier for veteran players who have access to every mission to farm specific mods, but it also means that new players won't get much that's good early on.

 

Same thing with making bosses like Vor harder. Same thing with the changes made to capture (used to be way way easier), and the addition of survival. Even damage 2.0. Used to be any elemental card was fairly useful, because even if the enemy had a resistance to the element, at least you were going to get the status effect. All of these changes made it better for us veterans at the expense of new players. It saddens me, because no persistent online game like this can survive without a steady stream of new players.

 

Something like the suggestion in the link below would help alleviate many of these issues.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/137875-a-complete-rework-of-the-foundation-of-warframe/

Edited April 1, 2014 by DocHolliday13

[Boondorl]

The problem is that many of the big changes made over the last 6 months that improved the game for veteran players made it just that much worse for new players. Take for example the change of mod drops - all mods used to be random. The variety of mods you could get in any given mission was much greater. You also were more likely to get a few drops from any given mission. I know it sure wasn't long before I had most of the basic damage dealing mods like Serration when I started, and most of my Serration and Hornet Strike rank-ups back in the day were done with... guess what... duplicates. The new mod system makes it much easier for veteran players who have access to every mission to farm specific mods, but it also means that new players won't get much that's good early on.

 

Agreed on the mod system. This new one is terrible. I used to get Serration drops in Mobile Defense all the time. It was my go-to place for them. If they had the old mod drop system, I'd very much say there was a purpose to Apollodorus. That place could be an amazing spot to farm necessary mods. However, the mod changes just dump all over that idea. Now you'll be getting nothing but Pressure Points and Fast Hands.

 

It's funny, I haven't had to experience this feeling in almost a year now, yet here we are. The new player experience is largely unchanged, and is just as bad as it was when I first started. I'm not going to say it's worse, because I don't feel like it is. So far, almost all of the new player experience's problems stem from Mercury. Just giving players the necessary damage mods (without having to farm for them) would go a long way. Also giving the option for more weapon variety would be nice. It just feels cruel to taunt new players like that.

[MDRLOz]

Did you actually play the tutorial or just skip it? The tutorial introduces wall running to cross a broken bridge. Long sections in the tutorial would be stupid because if a new player cannot complete it they will get frustrated. A secondary, optional tutorial is needed.

Exterminate as first mission is a sensible choice. Start things off simple then hit them with different game types. Originally it was sabotage first and exterminate second. This makes mission two boring. Exterminate first gives an easy safe first mission for player to use and learn in.

Nav co-ordinates should drop in mercury! You should always be getting them so that when you realise the point of them and want to do derelicts you have an ample supply. I am hoping we see them used for something else in the future.

Edited April 2, 2014 by MDRLOz

[Kickboxing_Banana]

I have been playing with a new account recently, and I must say that the credit survival rewards are so goddamn annoying. I can't get any mods when all the rewards are credits, and the enemies won't drop a crap.

[Axterix13]

and another post about the new player experience...sigh

And they all say pretty much the same things.  I know my "new player" post covered most of these points (starting weapons need work, lack of early weapon mods, etc).

[notionphil]

Please, make MR0 Tenno weapons purchasable with credits again. I don't care if you wanna keep the high rank ones as craftable, but Latron and Burston have no reason to be locked behind this resource wall (which, funny enough, you can also buy resources with plat as well).

 

 

What? they removed that ?!?

 

Sigh

[Boondorl]

What? they removed that ?!?

 

Sigh

 

Unfortunately, yes, all the way back in U8. It was the same time the Snipetron was removed with no notice. I thought it was a bad idea at first, but given I had been playing for a while, I already had those guns and didn't care. Getting on a new account, however, shows just how painful it truly is. I wouldn't mind if you could build them with the only resources you have available, but seriously, look at those costs. To a new player, they might as well just be trying to grab for your wallet.

[Makemap]

If they make MK1 Braton deal puncture instead of slash damage, everything is okay because infestation doesn't exist anymore on new player experience. We all have to face Grineer first(armored).