The Problem With Learning Curve And Ambiguity.

[deadjockey]

I have been playing warframe for well over a year and I'm still not entirely savvy with the system and you really have to hunt for information which becomes difficult at times. Not all players are patient and/or savvy with the information hunt.

 

While it is admirable that the game features almost an entirely different world view for the gamers, this can get confusing at times and new players frequently quit because it not easy to figure out. Especially the trade aspect of the game (Mod values change like the stock market), although it is a nice touch.

 

Considering the learning curve and the desire to be at par with the current players, trading is a much faster way of gaining mods and other items. If the game does not give out information to help with this curve then players simply feel frustrated and quit. Partly because some of the working folk who tread onto this game realize it will take up way more time than they can give, because of the time restrictions and generally self initiated pace of learning.

 

I'm writing about this from experience of trying to get my friends into warframe. I had to sit with one through a whole week to try and explain the different aspects properly. Other new players I've met while gaming are confused about the modding processes; for instance Fusing with cores and fusing with duplicates was so complicated to one guy, i had to give him screen by screen instructions on which buttons to press, where and how one might find them.

 

The codex isn't available at its full potential (unless you have the helios sentinel) at an early stage in the game. So mod info is also limited untill you have spent a substantial amount of time in the game. This considering the fact that Modding is the life blood of every frame from MR1 and so forth, information regarding mods should be made freely available. What mods one later chooses is up to the player (and RNG).

 

So I'd say more info on mods in general, maybe also define an in-game info system for trading (although the folks at wftrading.com have done a splendid job in filling this void).

 

Thank you and have a nice day

[VampirePirate]

People have different learning processes.  So what?

 

As for game info on mods, there is something called a wiki.  Use that.

[wolf96781]

I'll be honest, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't had a friend.

 

I tried warframe, and because of the modding system, and the way your guns lvl up without mods I wasn't able to beat the first lvl in the game

 

That's right, I found it so hard I couldn't;t beat the ext mission on mars. Game didn't relie on accuracy, it relied on mods

 

 

Mods, mods, mods, mods. If you're a noob you have the serration wall. Game is impossible until you have a sufficiently lvled seration

[APBladeX]

People have different learning processes.  So what?

 

As for game info on mods, there is something called a wiki.  Use that.

Except the wiki isn't run by DE, and it isn't in the actual game. Tutorials should explain these things enough so new players know what they're doing.

[Zardbooster]

I can certainly agree on giving players more info about some things, but at the same time I think that the very same things might actually make it more confusing.

For instance, the different damage types on a gun when you taka look at it, how should a new player know what in the world impact, puncture and slash was good for?

There is the wiki, yes, but it's so inconvienient to have to leave your game to get info on something very basic, or maybe even trivial, just because you can't find that info in-game, I have had people ask me the mastery requirement on weapons, if you can't tell when you can use a weapon from in-game info, it's not very well explained.

 

So all in all, I would love to see more fleshed out info about things in the codex, but at the same time I'd like to keep it simple when just comparing in the arsenal or market, it certainly would help to be able to compare weapons faster.

[Davoodoo]

Learning curve in warframe is quite funny, if you wanted to draw graph showing learning curve you would get parabola, with pretty high left side bottom border and very low right side bottom border, upper border however would be moment of getting basic mandatory mods.

[Viedra_Lavinova]

Unless you're buying potatoes for your equipment, the learning curve is ok in my opinion. When I first started playing, which was around March 2015, I picked it up quite fast, as everything seemed to make sense in an intuitive way. Sure, as I became more powerful I looked for ways to increase it, and I had most of the common mods to do it too by that time.

 

Sooner or later I hit the wall around Phobos and Sedna where I still had no clan and no past those planets rarely have anyone playing, no potatoes whatsoever. And you guess what, I increased my knowledge, experience, and tools in the game to make it to Pluto and Eris via near solo most of the time. I only had to potato a couple of warframes by then, but anyways I feel that is the natural progression of early game in a nut-shell.

 

Ultimately, I do agree the system does need a little explaining. Some people don't even know that there is a guide in the codex that shows you all the controls and basics of the game. Scanning only explains about the various trees in the forest, but the forest itself, in general, is already available to everyone.

 

The learning and time curve for this game is huge, but that's what you get for a free game. While I do agree the first few planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, are extremely rough on newer players, as long as they team up with someone they are decently fine. Shadow clans, or bigger, are a great resource/ community for newer players to go through all the walls in the game, something I never had my first time through the game, as this is my second. The hardest part of this game is the beginning in all honesty, and if you buy everything when you just start out and expect to go to mid-endgame content.

[RealPandemonium]

DE should just scream at people to read the wiki.  I guess they could improve the auto-mod system that currently just installs random mods.  

[AlphaHorseman]

DE should just scream at people to read the wiki.  I guess they could improve the auto-mod system that currently just installs random mods.  

That's a pretty clear indicator that the game is bad at explaining itself when it needs an unofficial website not run by the company to explain things for them. It not only breaks the immersion of the game, but it presents players with the problem of having to look somewhere else other than the game itself to learn about the game and how to play it. The game itself should be able to explain itself in a way that gives the players the foundations and the introduction, but also the freedom to explore and do things in their own right, as with all things WarFrame.

 

That auto mod system could use some tuning up though.

[Davoodoo]

That's a pretty clear indicator that the game is bad at explaining itself when it needs an unofficial website not run by the company to explain things for them. It not only breaks the immersion of the game, but it presents players with the problem of having to look somewhere else other than the game itself to learn about the game and how to play it. The game itself should be able to explain itself in a way that gives the players the foundations and the introduction, but also the freedom to explore and do things in their own right, as with all things WarFrame.

 

That auto mod system could use some tuning up though.

Tbh every game so far that i played actually required me to go into wiki or forums to learn intricacies of its dmg or progression system.

 

From battlefield, through diablo 3, wow, ending at games like clicker heroes. Even payday 2 or monster hunter required me to check outside sources for weakpoint resistance on enemies and in case of monster hunter to actually get any idea on how to plan my weapon upgrade path.

 

Usually amount of info in game is tbh directed at idiots who wont give a F*** either way and just derp through content.

Im not saying thats a good thing, but amount of info which i personally would like to see would be staggering to many other ppl and im fully aware of what impact it would have.

Edited July 31, 2015 by Davoodoo

[Keyse]

I learned how to play through the wiki and with lots of videos. Am still learning! In fact, when U17 drops I'll be learning more again!
What Waframe needs is an in-game resource where we don't have to leave the game to learn how to play. Tutorial helps with the basics, but the advanced stuff is all either figured out by yourself or learned outside the game. It would be nice if it was all inside the Warframe Universe.

 

That's a pretty clear indicator that the game is bad at explaining itself when it needs an unofficial website not run by the company to explain things for them. It not only breaks the immersion of the game, but it presents players with the problem of having to look somewhere else other than the game itself to learn about the game and how to play it. The game itself should be able to explain itself in a way that gives the players the foundations and the introduction, but also the freedom to explore and do things in their own right, as with all things WarFrame.

Also this. You took the words right out of my mouth with the breaking the immersion part.


-Edited for spelling.

Edited July 31, 2015 by Keyse

[Sidathe]

While it is admirable that the game features almost an entirely different world view for the gamers, this can get confusing at times and new players frequently quit because it not easy to figure out. Especially the trade aspect of the game (Mod values change like the stock market), although it is a nice touch.

Trading is largely based around making everything up, and then entering the bartering process for something that makes everyone happy.

[Liminal]

As for game info on mods, there is something called a wiki.  Use that.

A game without information that's vital in it is incomplete. Everything in the wiki should be ingame.

[AlphaHorseman]

Tbh every game so far that i played actually required me to go into wiki or forums to learn intricacies of its dmg or progression system.

 

From battlefield, through diablo 3, wow, ending at games like clicker heroes. Even payday 2 or monster hunter required me to check outside sources for weakpoint resistance on enemies and in case of monster hunter to actually get any idea on how to plan my weapon upgrade path.

 

Usually amount of info in game is tbh directed at idiots who wont give a F*** either way and just derp through content.

Im not saying thats a good thing, but amount of info which i personally would like to see would be staggering to many other ppl and im fully aware of what impact it would have.

There's a wiki for Diablo 3? People need a wiki for Diablo 3? WoW I can see, it's pretty massive.

 

I'm not saying that the system should explain everything in the beginning, but over time explain things to the player as they come up, and allow the players to experiment from there. So long as the system gives them a solid foundation and an idea of what areas they can branch out and expand into, and also identify what does what, that should be sufficient to begin the players' experience.

[deadjockey]

Well I'm specifically pointing out that, since mods are such an essential part of the game (and since there already is a roster which is half locked). It would be easy enough to let players have access to that (mod) info. It would make decision making so much more informed. (right now all i can see are question marks on the locked mods so no name, no info) This would definitely help with using the wiki as well.

 

For instance Handspring and Constitution. They share a specific skill: knockdown recovery, and now many more nightmare mods are coming up which follow the dual stat trend. If this information is made available in the codex it would make life easier on warframe. It makes farming easier. It makes modding more informed. for instance if I put in handspring first I would know that I'm better off looking for Constitution if I'm playing Ash or some such duration based skill that needs the effect the mod offers. Right now the only way to get to this information is blocked. I have no way of knowing what mods are out there let alone farm them.

 

This is just one simple step that will take out the ambiguity in terms of modding- which is an essential part of warframe. The helios sentinel can still have its utility without putting players completely in the dark.

[DelialFallen]

DE should just scream at people to read the wiki.  I guess they could improve the auto-mod system that currently just installs random mods.  

 

I played for about a month using nothing but auto install.

 

I suppose I didn't feel like sitting down and try to make sense of things (it's not that important unless you want to do the more 'serious' stuff) until about halfway through the solar map (i mainly played defense missions, took me a while).

 

@OP: I think your friends might want to approach the game for the gameplay itself at first instead of trying to focus on the lore and meta form the getgo.