Devstream 33 Overview Part 1, New Player Experience And Quests

[DE_Adam]

Update 14 has finally arrived, and with it comes a joyous and caffeine-fueled Devstream 33!  While most of our Devstreams are dedicated to discussing our plans for future content we spent this one looking at Warframe’s most recent changes.  What’s working as intended, what bugs slipped through, and what features we’re still focusing on adjusting were a few of the topics we looked at; but for this Overview we’re going to focus a little less on the bugs (I promise our team is already working hard to take care of those) and a little more what’s to come.

 

New Player Experience

 

Our new player experience is finally live, and with it come a lot of new changes not just to the UI but also to some key selections at the start of the game.  New players will no longer have access to Loki at the start, and will instead be able to choose from Excalibur, Mag, or Volt.  The choice wasn’t so much anti-Loki as it was simply easier for us to design a tutorial that incorporated Volt’s skillset rather than Loki’s more advanced abilities.

 

Another big part of the new player experience is weapon selection and how we would like to approach getting new players into experimenting with various primary weapons.  Being able to select a bow to start the game off with is an example of adding more variety to early-game, but it’s our plan to add these weapons to the marketplace at reasonable credit prices.  This should hopefully give all our players a more expansive selection of weapon types to enjoy early on, as well as satisfy those looking to earn a little more mastery rating.

 

New players will also progress through Warframe’s early quests with some basic mods to help give a better idea of what to do with weapons and Warframes that rank up. Players may recognize these as ‘Damaged’ mods, which are given to the player to expose them early to the benefits of modding.  Though mods as a quest reward are nothing new to much of our playerbase, the quest system does present a lot of new opportunities to reward players for participating in special events.  Not only that but it lets us play with the concept of rewards too.

 

Quests

 

Riddles are a great example of this: an opportunity for players to hunt down and discover the objective in more creative ways than simply being told where they are.  Starting every single quest with a riddle isn’t our objective, but if you all enjoy it could be a nice way to break up the usual start to questing.

 

Being told where to find an item or blueprint versus earning the information can be a very rewarding experience, and in the case of Mirage it’s entirely possible to experience the quest as a straightforward puzzle that’s relatively RNG-free.  Not everyone wants the satisfaction of figuring out the quest’s puzzle on their own of course, but for those that don’t want to rush straight to the end result there’s something to be said about a journey made more rewarding from time well spent.

 

As a final note, since Devstream 33 has aired we’ve pumped out 4 hotfixes that immediately address many of the issues discussed in the stream, and we’ve got more to come!  If you're unsure on whether or not an issue mentioned on the Devstream has yet to be fixed you should check out our Update and Build Note subforum for more information on our latest hotfixes. 

[TheStag]

Remember DE, no more RNG based rewards for platinum purchases!!

I think the megathread shows enough feedback on this topic for you guys. Take a look for more ideas on improvement.

Otherwise, I do enjoy U14.

Edited July 21, 2014 by TheStag

[Darkfreack]

This devstream i missed when live, just to go back and recap what was basically a Update highlight.

 

Considering how it was released right before the devstream just hours ago, it seems proper to talk about what they had just launched. All in all, great update, still many issues, more fixes to come. Can't wait to see whats down the road.

[GratuitousLurking]

The only issue I've had with the update thus far is that it seems anything with melee can nuke a sentinel from 10 or so feet away, and the rarity of Kubrow Eggs for the Kubrow quest seems a little... excessive.

[RahuHordika]

it seems anything with melee can nuke a sentinel from 10 or so feet away

No kidding, I think my carrier may have developed a phobia of Kubrows, maybe that's why we can't have 'em together.

Edited July 22, 2014 by RahuStalker

[SonicSonedit]

Will you do something about MOD fusion/upgrade GUI? It's freaking terrible.

[Sen.Sejet]

Please shoot the person who approved the new UI. Thank you in advance.

 

P.S. My apologies for "breaking" the forum rules a bit... but i feel no respect for the thought process that produced this... thing that is called the new and improved UI.

 

P.P.S. The ship and the whole concept of more immersion is great.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Sen.Sejet

[Salenstormwing]

I personally don't mind the new player experience, but I do wish there was some testing (and fixing) of issues such as folks with standard 4:3 monitors don't have their Navigation windows chopped off or being unable to see how much it costs to rush a Kubrow's incubation, or the fact that some players on PC do use controllers and the new UI feels very clunky or is just unresponsive/inoperable with a controller.

 

Can't controller development/programming be bumped up a bit higher in hotfixing, since DE has to consider PS4 issues with controllers in the very near future as well with U14?

[mrecentric]

Riddles are a TERRIBLE idea. I freaking hate that sort of thing. I really really loathe it. I wish you guys would stop with the riddles.

[wtrmlnjuc]

Loving the new UI and riddles. Maybe Dorian/Pablo could look into having the WF slide to a certain spot when activating a module, as approaching from different angles completely alters how much of the UI can be seen at one time. Base it on which shoulder they are looking over.

Edited July 22, 2014 by wtrmlnjuc

[Fiiiinnn]

I love new UI