The New Player Experience Is...off

[DocHolliday13]

I don't at all see the new player experience as broken.  I took up a number people's challenge and started a new account to check out new player experience.  I stayed in the planetary system, didnt go to recruit channel for help, and collected no damage or rare mods.  When I got to Eurasia I was like level 22. 

 

I have now played Eurasia three times.  All three were successes.  The best the Grineer ever did was my last mission.  There were three very new players and myself.  I manage to talk each into waiting for a full party to join before starting.  When the fourth guy came we went to the mission.

 

I had a braton and the rest noob gear.  I run a Loki with invis mod maxed.  Using my brat to take out trash and going invisible to deal with bosses (would only need swipe one to three times), I held my area without issue, and roamed the map from time to time to collect ammo and energy.  At the end, I had 42 percent of damage, another guy had 43 and the other two had the rest.

 

This is the third time in a row that I ran the quest and it was a success, though this was by far the worst showing with Grineer getting up close to 50%.  I think the success is due mostly to me being able to convince people to wait for a full group before starting.  Anyway.  take it or leave it, I dont believe the new player experience is in any way shape or form broken.  If anything up to this mission I was a little bored.

 

BTW, I could be imagining things, but i would swear we had less Hvy Grineer and bad guys in general.  Perhaps some scaling is going on and this was due to our low levels or perhaps I just imagined it.

 

But you're still playing it as a veteran player, just with worse gear. If you really want to try to simulate it, you have to remember how you played when you first started, and try to apply that.

 

It's not just about the lack of gear and mods for new players. There's also a horrendous lack of information. There's no tutorial that tells you anything about mods. You pick up a Redirection in the tutorial and are told it will come in handy later. That's it. No info on how to equip them, nevermind on how to rank them up. And that's just scratching the surface of the info that isn't given.

 

My personal observation also is that most new players select Excalibur as their first frame, based on the descriptions given in the tutorial. He's presented as the "balanced" option, so most players opt to 'play it safe' and take him. That means no invisibility.

 

And then, by your own admission, two of your teammates combined for 5% of the damage. I think it's fairly safe to assume that you and the other big damage dealer were both veteran players, and the other two were newbies. Now imagine how that team would have fared if they were all four newbies.

Edited April 6, 2014 by DocHolliday13

[Lokismokes]

Why do you think excaliber?  Most of the frames during level up to and while in Eurasia mission were by far Loki's.  I often ran with Loki only parties.  Excalibers were rarely seen by me.  At least no more so than any other frame outside of Loki.  

 

I think on this map you are typically going to have two players who do the lion's share of the work. So, I imagine that two of the newbies would get the majority of the kills.  I don't think it is so much an issue of new players as it is poor players or poorly prepared players.  In the later case, you really are not doing them too much of a favor by giving them a pass.  If you are a poor new player then the odds of you landing in a party with people able to carry you is lower than if you are an average to good new player who only has to have one other competent player in the group to insure an easy success.   

 

At any rate, I think I have helped identify where the real problem lies (unprepared people and people not starting with a full group).  The next step is to come up with a solution.  Instead of making this node easier or creeping the power of early players higher, I think it would be better to first see if giving new players better access to the tools to succeed (namely a good recruiting system and direct them to trading) would work.  The former makes the game less of a challenge and duller, while the later would not even solve the real problem and people still would have trouble here.

[-CM-LittleSnow]

But you're still playing it as a veteran player, just with worse gear. If you really want to try to simulate it, you have to remember how you played when you first started, and try to apply that.

 

It's not just about the lack of gear and mods for new players. There's also a horrendous lack of information. There's no tutorial that tells you anything about mods. You pick up a Redirection in the tutorial and are told it will come in handy later. That's it. No info on how to equip them, nevermind on how to rank them up. And that's just scratching the surface of the info that isn't given.

 

My personal observation also is that most new players select Excalibur as their first frame, based on the descriptions given in the tutorial. He's presented as the "balanced" option, so most players opt to 'play it safe' and take him. That means no invisibility.

 

And then, by your own admission, two of your teammates combined for 5% of the damage. I think it's fairly safe to assume that you and the other big damage dealer were both veteran players, and the other two were newbies. Now imagine how that team would have fared if they were all four newbies.

 

I started the game about 2months back and cleared eurasia with 2 more new players with a mk-1 braton and a level 20 excalibur frame as i remembered.. sure it was slightly tougher than other missions but it is not totally unplayable. I was there with no mods and the fact that i did not know about mastery rank either, only curious to see a bar flashing after playing for almost a week as a rank 1 player and had to take 2 test consecutively by then. What we did was just to try maintain 3 towers up and leaving the 4th one alone.. its about working together as a team and not going all out rambo in that mission.

[mpastor]

I just want to add.  In this mission you are probably going to have two players perform better regardless of whether one or both are vets.  The reason being typically  players watch specific towers.  This means on one side of the map the better player is going to get the lions share of the kills... be he vet or not.  LIkewise a vet mimicking a new player may be watching and handling one side... on the other side one player is typically going to be more dominant than the other player and he will get the lion share of kills on that side.  If he is a real new player, he might not do it as gracefully as the vet on the other side, but he will still do it. He has to or fail.

 

UGh, this discussion is exhausting me.  I feel as though I cross one obstacle only to see a new one has been placed in front of me.  Now people are asking folks to try and remember how it was to be a new player and play like that.  Even if I could achieve this, would you not just say that I let some non new player thought or ability encroach, and thereby completely nullifying the results.  

[Shackram]

I started the game about 2months back and cleared eurasia with 2 more new players with a mk-1 braton and a level 20 excalibur frame as i remembered.. sure it was slightly tougher than other missions but it is not totally unplayable.

 

Are you aware that the issue with Interception is that the difficulty was greatly increased for because of overgeared high rank players complaining that it was too easy during Tetras doom event?

 

The problem isn't Interception two months ago, the problem is interception after the event.

[Riot_Inducer]

Are you aware that the issue with Interception is that the difficulty was greatly increased for because of overgeared high rank players complaining that it was too easy during Tetras doom event?

 

The problem isn't Interception two months ago, the problem is interception after the event.

Yeah, and that's the part about the whole Interception issue that I don't get. I'm pretty sure DE stated that the normal interception missions (Eurasia and Lua) being affected by the higher end spawns was not intended. So why is it so hard to simply roll back the changes to the spawns after the event ended?

 

I mean the whole issue is that the high rank players were finding the event boring but with the event over those high rank players aren't going to hang around Eurasia for funsies.  This leaves the newbies who actually have to complete the mission alone versus the hordes intended for high rank vets. Especially, considering they changed the spawns in a hotfix, why the hell haven't they reverted the change?

Edited April 6, 2014 by Riot_Inducer

[ThePresident777]

If you think Eurasia is a wall, Lua is a mountain of shear cliffs.  I've done newbie runs before, but, those were more optimistic set ups.  This time, I went full newbie over the weekend.  I started in Mprime, Mercury, with my Mag and starter weapons, just as I did when I started in April 2013.  I used only what I could find. 

 

The mod drops are so terrible that it was more like The Great Depression than Warframe.  I found hardly any mods.  I have no Rush or Marathon or Zorencoptor.  The result is that I can't keep up with the team so I miss out on the action and struggle to get to extraction thereby risking the loss of rewards.(This could be a rap song, maybe sort of no.)  Rush drops only from Fusions Moas.  I saw no Fusion Moas in Venus and only one in Kappa.

 

I made it to Kappa, Gravidus, and Dione.  With those locations unlocked, a player can get the nano spores, salvage, gallium, neurodes, and orokin cells needed to build many weapons and Orokin Derelict Keys. 

 

But, still, no Lua.  Lua is the key to opening Jupiter.  Without Jupiter, it 's not possible to get the Neural Sensors needed to build Warframes, certain weapons(IIRC), and Gifts of The Lotus. 

 

This is a serious problem in my opinion.  I wouldn't enjoy being a new Warframe player today because of the severe mod austerity currently in place and bottle necked progression.  It reduces new players to being hitch hikers.

 

My suggestion towards solving this problem is:

1)  Tone down the enemies on Earth to fit in line with their nearest neighbors in Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.

2)  Put interception missions in other planets so it can be tested under a wider range of levels.

3)  Give all solar map enemies the same mod drop table so that there are no mod bottle necks.  This also improves player choice and reduces grind because the players can focus on the game play they enjoy when they enjoy it rather than getting stuck over playing a particular mission because they feel they have to as opposed to want to.

4)  Increase the locations for Salvage, Nanospores, and Neural Sensors  to remove their bottle necks.  Yes, I know, Nanospores, you will have many, when you finally get to the locations where they drop.  But, for new players, nanospores are not available yet necessary.

Edited April 8, 2014 by ThePresident777

[-CM-LittleSnow]

Are you aware that the issue with Interception is that the difficulty was greatly increased for because of overgeared high rank players complaining that it was too easy during Tetras doom event?

 

The problem isn't Interception two months ago, the problem is interception after the event.

 

mind you... when the tethra doom event was launched, I still using the damn mk-1 braton but this time my excalibur was already level 30. I did not buy the braton as I spent my credits by mistake to upgrade up my mods. And yes, the event is easy. I went for shield hijack with that gear too... whats there to complain about? i just helped 3 new guys get pass interception yesterday. To actually clear that mission, it requires the players to actually work as a team and not go all out rambo and rush alone like what most of them are doing. My instructions to them were simple. stay at your own radio tower. when you need help, call out for help and the nearest one go and help them. If unable to hold that tower, escape to the other tower and hold it with the other guy. Having 3 towers will take a longer time to end the game but we will win.

Edited April 8, 2014 by x1aok1tty

[Zookes]

I can relate to this new player experience being rough at best. I was lucky enough to be joined by high-rank players in nearly every mission from Tolstoj through the entirety of Venus, and all of them were miraculously tolerant of my terrible gear, never leaving me behind to bleed out from my numerous dirt naps.

 

It wasn't until Earth that I learned how truly weak my weapons were, as I found myself stuck on the first exterminate there with my MK-1. Soloing it, the Hellions were simply too powerful and bullet spongy, and my heat damage mods were useless against most things. It was by a stroke of luck that those random highly ranked players continued to appear and carry me. Interception was enjoyable at the time of my joining the game - this before Tethra, when the mode was frequently farmed. At Eurasia, one very kind player noticed my struggle to kill anything in even the first wave, and decided to taxi me to Cassini and farm for a few minutes. I found it fairly easy to survive there, as my first frame was a Loki and invisibility proved very useful for remaining undetected by enemies that could otherwise one-shot me. In that very mission, I got Serration and enough resources (nano spores) to build a Burston, along with an invitation to join a clan full of extremely kind and helpful people.

 

Fortunate that a few people who play this game are kind-hearted enough to taxi and carry, but this doesn't happen for all new players.

 

Aside: as a Loki, it was extremely difficult for me to complete my first rank test without the Burston - no damage abilities, energy regeneration, or CC. With the MK-1, I would run out of time because I couldn't deal enough damage, and the squishiness of my frame prevented me from taking direct fire. I imagine it would have been easier with an Excalibur to start, but I liked the idea of stealth in a space ninja game... something this game does not reward at all, and in fact punishes the same as rushing. That's for another topic, however.

 

 

TLDR; the game gave me nothing until players decided to be nice and carry me to other planets, through missions that gave reasonable loot. I'm only still playing because of that generousity.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Zookes

[ThePresident777]

There are furthur problems with the current setup that I failed to mention previously, if you can't unlock Lua, Earth, then you can't unlock Gannymede, Jupiter.  If you can't unlock Gannymede Jupiter, then you can't unlock Thebe, Europa.  Without Europa, your only source for Control Modules is far off level 20-27 Neptune.  Without Control Modules, you can't build Sentinels.

 

There is another serious problem with the current mod austerity.  Without the full set of elemental mods, damage 2.0 is wasted.  Currently, Toxin and Electric damage mods are virtually rare mods.  That leaves you with Heat and Cold.  Having only 2 types of elemental damage mods leaves you stuck with a virtual rainbow build.  But, eliminating Rainbow Builds was one of the stated purposes of Damage 2.0. 

 

Another effect of the current mod scarcity on Damage 2.0 is that with only heat and cold elemental mods, Grineer armor gains the advantage over the other faction's defenses.  But, eliminating the advantage of Grineer armor over other faction's defenses was another stated purpose of Damage 2.0. 

 

So, the current mod scarcity renders Damage 2.0 useless on 2 counts.

 

I want to reiterate, I think it's best to give all solar map enemies the same mod drop table so that there are no mod bottle necks.  Having multiple mod drop tables in the solar map is not worth the hassle.  It doesn't add anything to the game.  All it does is complicate things and punish you for playing the game play that you do want to play instead of playing the game play that gets you the mod you want.  That is a terrible choice to have to make because it defeats the purpose of playing any game.

 

I'd go so far as to give each new account a basic set of mods.  It's generosity that does not cost DE anything but buffs their image.  It's not going to suddenly give new accounts the ability to rampage across pluto like a jet powered jesus lizard in a kiddie pool.(Somebody confirm Jet Powered Jesus Lizard Warframe now please!)  It will take time to accumulate the credits and other mods to make the starter mods potent.  But, it gives new accounts something to play around with and a focus.   Every time they get a mod, they will have something useful to fuse.  I would say that this basic set includes one each of the following:
1) Warframe: Redirection, Vitality, Rush, Marathon, Quick Rest
2) Rifle: Serration, Speed Trigger, Fast Hands, Magazine Warp, Cryo Rounds, Hellfire, Infected Clip, Stormbringer.
3) Pistol: Hornet's Nest, Gunslinger, Quick Draw, Slip Magazine, Convulsion, Deep Freeze, Heated Charge, Pathogen Rounds.
4) Melee: Pressure Point, Fury, Molten Impact, Northwind, Shocking Touch, Fever Strike

 

When I first started playing Warframe in April 2013 BC, there were no mod bottle necks.  There was one mod drop table, and it was written in cuniform.  You didn't have to go to special places to get mods.  The freedom was awesome.  There was also no mod sharing.  You needed a lot of mods to load out multiple weapons.  But, we had more mods dropping, or so it seems.  Pscychologically, it was like being middle class.  You had an abundance of stuff, enough to be comfortable.  But, not enough to be wealthy without a lot of play time.  There was always something to look forward to.

 

In my opinion and experience, that feeling is gone from Warframe today.  I'm shielded from it because I "made my money when times were good."  But, for new players, it's the goddamn Great Depression.  I personally do not find that fun.  I tried it.  Did not enjoy it.  If you have to grind all day at work or school and much of what you see appears perpetually out of reach, if you had to move back in with your parents for the forseable future after graduating from college with a mountain of debt, why would you want a Virtual Great Depression when you are hoping to avoid one in your real life?

Edited April 9, 2014 by ThePresident777

[ThePresident777]

I finally found a charitable soul to carry my newbie team over Mount Lua.  Jupiter awaits.  Let's see if Rush mods actually still drop.

[Drakontis]

As a veteran player, I've gone through the new player experience recently. I made my account the day that Tethra's Doom ended. A mere, what, 3 weeks ago? I decided to start with Loki (A grievous mistake on my part, but I'll get into that later) because I know he scales very well into late game. The problem, however, is early game. His squishy-ness is a horrible weakness when you don't have the mod space, nor the fusion power, nor the actual mods themselves, to do ANYTHING. And maybe this is because I don't abuse Decoy enough, but I still had a lot of trouble starting out. I made my way through the beginning levels with a moderate amount of difficulty. I know to take cover, I know how to move through the maps (in fact, I had very little trouble starting out post Update 7, but that's possibly because I'm pretty good at understanding things). So those things weren't a weakness for me. 

Then I got to Mastery Rank 1. 

This is terrible. This is absolutely terrible. I HATE Mastery Rank 1. When I first started, this was a CAKE WALK. Glad0s literally took me by the hand and shoved cake into my mouth. The first Mastery Rank test now is all but impossible to beat using only the Mk1 Braton. In fact, the first WAVE is impossible to beat using only the Mk1 Braton. This does not include skills (which can still be used) or melee (which is pointless), but first let me explain why. First, the damage spread of the Mk1 braton. Im-2 P-4 S-10. Now look at that first number. Impact 2, that will become VERY important in a second. The enemies you face in the first Mastery Rank test USED to be hologram Grineer. Pretty easy to deal with. In fact, early game Grineer really aren't that difficult at all. But NOW? NOW your first Mastery Rank test is against CORPUS. The base, unmodded Mk1 Braton is MATHEMATICALLY unable to beat the first Mastery Rank test. It requires too much ammo, too much time, and you will fail the mission. I, as a currently max rank player, could not beat the first Mastery Rank test with the starter weapon. You are REQUIRED to either have some damage mods (which by the way, aren't available yet) or you're REQUIRED to buy a Braton.

Speaking of which, damage mods. They're a sore point for me right now. I'm actually FURIOUS about Serration right now. I hop on that new account and my demeanor changes almost instantly for one single reason. Serration. Serration, Serration, SERRATION. Umadbro? YES I AM. Whoever decided to slap this NECESSARY TO PROGRESS mod on 1 uncommon enemy and TWO ALMOST COMPLETELY UNHEARD OF, UNSEEN ENEMIES needs to be forced to play through the entire game without Serration and with an Mk1 Braton. This is practically torture. Even with the regular Braton, it's infuriating. Not because of the fact that I'm not HURR DURR OVERPOWERED, but because I cannot do enough damage with my primary weapon in order to survive. And let's face it, to most beginning players, the primary weapon is going to be... YOUR PRIMARY WEAPON. The damage drop off started against the Corpus, but with a team, it's at least moderately bearable. Going to Earth though (especially Interception...) or anywhere else, is horrible.

Fortunately, doing some Gift of the Lotus missions and alerts, and I think a taxi or two, I managed to pick up a Point Blank. I promptly switched to the Strun. This gun, while a pain to use, can actually manage to touch some enemies. But with Loki, it's a hard bargain because, again, squishy, no mod survival from something as simple as Continuity. 

So instead, the Skana has become my main weapon, and by extension, my recently build Orthos. Now, you're probably asking, "Well, why don't you just trade for a free serration?" The answer is simple, I'm trying my best to do this account as clean as possible. I cheated and traded myself 2 prime sets, Reaper and Braton Prime, because they're my favorites, and I don't want to wait. But it's not like I can use them until Saturn and even trying to DO ANYTHING on Saturn is like trying to pull the teeth out of a fully awake, pissed off, unrestrained, in his prime Arnold Swarzenegger. You can't rely on Melee with Loki until you have the mods to pull it off. Energy Siphon, Streamline, and at LEAST Continuity, and Flow for a bonus. I'm trying, I really am. But it's hard to continue. 

SOMETHING needs to be done about at least this ONE ISSUE. SERRATION NEEDS to drop earlier. It drops from Scorpions who are all but unheard of until you meet Hek. (In fact, dragging a newbie friend through the game, we got her a Serration on her first Hek mission. I have yet to find one even after her and I stuck around after killing him and ran around killing things until we gave up.) And just when are you going to come across the crawlers? So far as I've noticed, they're a 1% spawn rate and then you have to deal with a mod drop. And EVEN STILL, they're not around in ANY missions in the first two areas. And if you want to say "Oh, just use Point Strike!" Yeah, well, hate to break it to you, but if you have a +100% Point Strike, you'll crit ONCE out of every TEN bullets. NOT to mention that the multiplier is 1.5. Which means you'll do 24 damage, and 15 of that is STILL going to be slashing and is STILL not going to do anything but POKE a very annoyed Shockwave Moa on Venus. Does the Braton help with this? Minimally. 

Do I seem bitter about this? Yes. Yes I am. I'm actually furious. The new player experience has changed for the worse. YES, the new tutorial is great. YES, getting a free Redirection is great. But not being able to get your most basic DPS mod? It's crap. I hate it. It needs to be changed. And I'm not saying that it needs to be changed because I hate it. It needs to be changed because without being dragged through the game by a high rank, OMGBBQPOWERFUL player, you just suffer. 

[AcquisCommunitaire]

It seems Eurasia and Lua are gone now.