Warframes Free To Play Model And First Impressions Of New Players Is A Problem

[Katuro117]

Dear DE, this is a bit more of a focused observation as a person who likes your game, but when it came to trying to get friends to play they weren't exactly sucked in like I was. Then I started to understand why from critical observation.

 

The game at it's core, is pretty solid. There might be a bit of a lack of variety at times with the variants but I see you guys are trying to add more over time in that regard, which is good. You guys got your core features down right, gun play, with super suits that add a unique element to the game. There's a ton of stuff and a lot of guns and a lot of Frames, and especially the Frames have an identity. You guys have a pretty cool forum with good moderator support, it seems to form a pretty good form of communication for players and the dev team to work out (though I imagine a lot of it is, "I know we're working on that." haha) There's a lot of good stuff about this game and it's community that I don't see in other games.

 

But here's the issue, while it's not a bad pay to play game, but nearly every person I tried to invite, did not like the game because it -looked- like you had to pay to access the game's content. So unfortunately, a lot of stuff I said in the last paragraph goes unseen.

 

 

The game's pay currency is Platinum, which is fine if you wanna get things early or get some special items or something, I'm not talking about getting rid of that. The point I want to make is that even when I played the game at first, even I had had the impression that I had to pay, when I could get most of the game's content for free. It seems to immediately impose from on high that if you want the games content you have to pay real money to access it, and that's when the player turns away getting the heavy impression that this is a 'pay to win' kind of game, (technically pay to play but anyways), and THAT'S because when you look at the Market menus they list the upfront prices for everything in platinum. 

 

 

What's more everything listed to spend platinum on is really emphasized a lot more than the stuff you get for free. The buttons where you buy things in system menus are bigger, where the free buttons are smalller or less noticable, and when you click on those items in the main buy menu there is no evident option that tells the player of an alternative. 

 

[Maybe include another button that offers the player the Blueprint option next to the pay option]

 

The funny thing is, -I- realize that there are a lot of work arounds. You can spend waaaay less money by crafting the item and using the insta-build button, but it required me to dig into the game to figure that out in the first place. It's going unoticed by this wall of pay content.

 

I am not DE, I am not the guy making this game, and I am most definitely am not trying to be an authority on this. These are the accounts of my first impressions and the first impressions my friends had. And if I learned something really important about a game, is that the game will make or break a players expectations within' the first five minutes of play. (Make the player want to play without scaring them off). You know so, basically make those free options more noticeable for new players.

 

I  say check out these videos, it comments about the free to play model and they try to give advice on it. They are experienced at games and they have lots of videos that talk about video games. I'd say I couldn't go wrong with their advice. Funny enough, you guys at DE already seem to follow parts of the videos pretty well so kudos!

 

Extra Credits - Doing Free to Play Wrong: http://youtu.be/Mhz9OXy86a0

 

Extra Credits - Microtransactions:

[Sasquatchias]

Edit: Am half-asleep and posted the wrong thing.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Sasquatch180

[JohnProdman]

The game has more than 8 million players, the majority of which are free to play.

 

I'd say DE is doing it right. 

[vaugahn]

This marks the 19879837987498372th time someone has posted an EC video about free-to-play here.

Edited September 30, 2014 by vaugahn

[Archistopheles]

Katuro makes an excellent point, though. Customers should be shown all options and educated properly so that they can make an informed decision. An informed player is a happy player.

[--Q--JoeTheBanshee]

There should at least be some tutorial messages showing new players the blueprints first.

[noveltyhero]

The game has more than 8 million players, the majority of which are free to play.

 

I'd say DE is doing it right. 

Didn't even read? Or not understood?

 

I agree with OP, upon being able to access the market during the prologue the player should be properly educated with a step by step guide, "this is plat item, it comes with a reactor/catalyst upgrade and its own slot, however you can also make its blueprint but it requires resources and uses an inventory slot without any upgrade"

[Archistopheles]

you can also make its blueprint but it requires resources and uses an inventory slot without any upgrade

Dojo weapons are in dire need of this. "This weapon must be unlocked in your clan dojo in order to build it, [Would you like to learn how?] (That'd be a tutorial button) or you may purchase one now for 200 plat."

[direcyphre]

I'd say it's more a matter of still not having a properly thorough Foundry tutorial. The Market isn't functional as a tool to teach peple about the many ways to acquire a weapon, because that is not it's purpose. If anything, we just need additional parts added to the Vor's Prize intro sequence (like when you first acqiure the Foundry module), and give new players a free blueprint to look at in their foundry.

 

Lots and lots of thinds to do with Foundry and not the market. Nothing will change the fact that people who start playing these games immediately assume it is engaging in some sort of P2W model due to the sheer number of other really crappy F2P games. It's an assumed position, not one that can be immediately avoided regardless of the game.

[Mokkania]

The game has more than 8 million players, the majority of which are free to play.

 

I'd say DE is doing it right. 

the game doesn't have more than 8 million players.

[MetatronShinji]

+1

[(PSN)Veg1ta]

Yep the OP is spot on, new players think they need to buy everything with plat, i did myself, untill you figure out how BP work, by that time alot of newbies be like that`hate this game, pay 2 win, why cant i look that badass and kill everything ´ i see them on youtube all the time, spreading false info that warframe is pay 2 win.

Edited September 30, 2014 by (PS4)Veg1ta

[(PSN)IkariWarrior83]

My biggest problem was that I was on the old build, before the current tutorial.  They gave me an MK-1 Braton, a Lato, and a Skana and shoved me out the door once I selected the Mag frame.  What the game doesn't tell you is that the Braton Sucks, and the Lato does the SAME damage but it's not auto-fire.  I missed out on the new tutorial because I thought I could access it at any time (maybe I can and I'm just not finding it).

 

I also had no idea that platinum was acquired via pay options only.  I feel like there should be a way to earn platinum in-game, aside from trades and such.  I understand you guys are providing a free game and need to stay in business, but I feel like this is the appropriate place to express my opinion as well.

 

Because so much costs plat instead of credits, I didn't know that the Strun and the Lex were full, non-gimped weapons that can be bought with credits.

 

I bought the glaive with plat in part to support DE, but also because I couldn't buy a blueprint for it.  I didn't know that you can get blueprints as log-in rewards because I wasn't logging in on a daily basis.

 

Another problem I had was that (on the old tutorial) I couldn't take a frame for a test drive.  I didn't know I couldn't have multiple accounts with different frames.  At this point, that's not a problem and I understand why that is the case, but it would be nice to test-drive something before choosing it, and it would be even better to be able to test-drive before spending plat.

 

Also: there is a lot of homework to do.  A lot of reading the codex and the forums if you want to win at the game without spending platinum.  I would almost prefer that the weapons have some kind of tag on them that says what faction it's effective against.  I keep getting impact and puncture mixed up. So I'm using weapons on the corpus that are best used against grineer and vice-versa.

 

And I know some of the more seasoned players are going to say "What's wrong with reading, noob?"  I believe in the philosophy that the game should teach you while you're playing it.  Again: I didn't get the new tutorial, so if the game explains there which factions are weak to what using mods, then you can disregard this criticism.

 

However, having to go to the forums in order to figure out how to play the game breaks immersion.  I didn't start coming here to the forums until I was comfortable with the game and had a friend explain everything to me as we played.

 

I'm still kinda mad about how terrible the MK-1 Braton is.  I was having a hard time killing anything on Venus...as if the Corpus aren't hard enough.

 

TL:DR of my post: I agree with the OP.  This game is really hard for newcomers to get into (especially without a friend to show them the way).  Once you're comfortable in the game, though, it opens up and is amazing.

[insaninater]

He does bring up a good point, once you know what you're looking for and get a handle on trading, I've found the game very accommodating for me as a free player, but it doesn't exactly present itself as such when you first look at it. A tutorial for blueprints and killing bosses for frame parts and maybe a tutorial for how each game session works would be a great way to break down that entry barrier. 

[Othergrunty]

Those are good points.

 

The market indeed pushes a lot of the player focus towards the platinum purchase options while the credit purchasable things have to be largely discovered.

Now this makes a lot of sense from a marketing point of view but it could work discouraging the many who might still only consider buying anything.

 

High lighting the blueprint alternative would help a bit to ease the early tension.

[Retrikaethan]

>But here's the issue, while it's not a bad pay to play game, but nearly every person I tried to invite, did not like the game because it -looked- like you had to pay to access the game's content. So unfortunately, a lot of stuff I said in the last paragraph goes unseen.

 

as a long time player i completely agree with this. simple solution to an otherwise minor (albeit potentially customer losing) problem could be to have an introductory tutorial explaining the market when the player accesses it for the first time, explaining that the front page shows the most current/popular things and that you can otherwise find credit-based stuff/blueprints by looking into the next tabs. should probably also explain that crafting things via blueprint takes real time, and that if you want to get a weapon/frame quickly but as cheaply as possible, the best thing to do would be to craft the parts and rush them [also explaining the rushing option] finishing with a statement that you can get anything in the game without platinum with the sole exception being slots (warframe, weapon, and kubrow)

 

this would be a good place to have ordis be introduced as the bipolar crazy ai aka the mad cephalon. would suggest using him to explain this because the market is a pretty neat contrast between working for/paying for things.

[(XBOX)ShapelessHorr0r]

New players are the ripe fruit for free to play developers.

To be frank, aesthetic items are far superior to function based items.

You'll make much more money if your art/animations departments went berzerk.

[(PSN)IkariWarrior83]

One "quick" solution to this is to make more weapons like the Lex or the Strun that can be purchased with credits.  If more powerful credit-weapons are available for the early-goers, they'll have an easier time of things.  One of my primary frustrations is that I felt like I was shooting blanks.

 

I put "quick" in quotes because I am aware that "make more weapons" is neither a quick nor easy process, but I lacked a better term :)

 

As of now, there are 3 primary weapons (MK-1 Braton, MK-1 Paris, Strun), 4 secondary weapons (Lato, Lex, a third handgun, and MK-1 Kunai), and 2 Melee weapons (MK-1 staff and Skana) for purchase with credits.  Perhaps an additional weapon in the primary and melee categories will help balance the credits vs. plat disparity, and also introduce new players to the store without feeling plat-trapped?

 

I'm not sure what I'm asking for on the part of new players, except maybe more powerful weapons being avaiable until they get the hang of farming for resources and building blueprints.

[hijinks_the_turtle]

There should at least be some tutorial messages showing new players the blueprints first.

 

Katuro makes an excellent point, though. Customers should be shown all options and educated properly so that they can make an informed decision. An informed player is a happy player.

 

These.

[arisaka]

I'm curious as to why there are separate menus for blueprints in the first place. As the OP's screenshots showed, if you click on a weapon and not a blueprint in the store, there is absolutely no indication that you can buy that weapon for anything other than plat. Combining the (for example) primary weapons button and the primary blueprints buttons and displaying both prices right next to each other (if the blueprint is purchasable in the market, of course) seems like a much better idea. It would also help if the featured buttons could display both credits and plat prices.

[Nox-Lamina]

Yea I am going to be mean about this. The fact that it takes just a BIT of curiosity to find the blueprints, is of little to consequence. If someone lacks the intellectual curiosity to click on weapons and weapon blueprints to find out you don't have to use plat for everything, the market is going to be the least of their worries.

[Katuro117]

Well. I was expecting reception, but not this positive. Here's hoping they add it to the production list down the line. Thanks guys.

 

An ya know even considering some of you guys might not think this is necessary, it's still player feed back, and in the business world, this is at least something to consider (I.E. better first impression = more long term players = more money). DE has a good thing going, so let's keep the steam train rolling.

[Netami]

I can support the idea of showing new players all the alternatives. My friends told me multiple times that without me they wouldn't play the game as I took my time to explain all the things they had to know.

 

I guess starting Warframe is a bit like starting EVE Online just not as bad.  In EVE without a friend holding your hand when you first start you're completely lost =p

[JoeXyo]

Well. I was expecting reception, but not this positive. Here's hoping they add it to the production list down the line. Thanks guys.

 

An ya know even considering some of you guys might not think this is necessary, it's still player feed back, and in the business world, this is at least something to consider (I.E. better first impression = more long term players = more money). DE has a good thing going, so let's keep the steam train rolling.

First impression was pretty sick all ready, It's still beta and they'll probably fix some sort of a guide line to new players in the near future. 

I started not to long ago, and all it took was some curiosity to figure out things. And i highly doubt long term players care for first impression, Long term players rather want options of customization as that's probably one of the things that attract new players to begin with.

[Feallike]

TBH at first i thought you had to pay for weapons. XD Though i enjoyed the gameplay of warframe so much i stuck around, when i learned you could get everything in the game for free i was so overjoyed. :p

 

Yes the DE needs to improve how it shows its F2P model... +1