New(er) Players and Griefing - an open Discussion (enormous Wall of Text)

[SYL3NZR]

Warframe is a successful game and thus has a lot of players and keeps growing steadily as we can see here http://steamcharts.com/app/230410 .

Obviously this means there's new players joining regularily and alot of players with different progression speeds, who doesn't know that one person that played for 2 years and barely saw another frame that isn't Excalibur?

With newly joining players, and players that play for longer but didn't really progress much further than new(er) players comes one problem: Lack of Knowledge and lack of Item-options/power to be a valuable asset to a squad.

This thread is supposed to serve several purposes:

1.  Explain the current problem Warframe has that leads to point 2
2.  A huge amount of players exist, who are a detriment to experienced players/groups and themselves (because they cannot finish content "alone") 
3. What is Griefing - where does it start and do "Veterans" have the right to be offended by "griefing"? =>  YOUR ANSWERS NEEDED
4. What can be done to help this situation? => INPUT APPRECIATED

 

1. Warframe lacks orientation and has almost no "gating" to let anybody feel a sense of progression:

We all know Warframe is not quite intuitive, modding (including elementals) is poorly explained (soon to be addressed with u19 supposedly) and the importance of it is absolutely not made clear, as for Abilities / Weapons lack the vast majority of descriptions, putting anybody who doesn't have the http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/WARFRAME_Wiki open at all times at a SEVERE disadvantage.

The feeling of progression through planets is horrible, player just get thrown into the mission selection screen and clear nodes, for what? Interaction with the player is almost non existant, theres no "Lore-progression" for clearing nodes and defeating bosses and unlocking more planets. Most Quests feel like completely out of touch of the actual game and don't interact with the starchart in a meaningful manner. There is no narrative following your progression through the game and barely any narrative exists at all, the player knows nothing about nothing going on in the world, stuff is just there but nobody knows why. The Lotus feels more like a commander, and we like a soldier, but nobody knows what we are fighting for, nor do we see any progression towards any goal. Warframe is mostly flashy third-person hack 'n' slash with IMMENSE grind required to stay on top of content, this is absolutely not made clear and puts alot of players into situations where they simply lack the numbers to progress anymore, way too quickly.

Syndicates and anything to do with them have absolutely ZERO explanation to what they do, why they exist or why "we" should even interact with them, neither do they have any presence in the game world, assassination squads and normal missions with pickups and 2 dudes dont cut it.

Suggested by whiskey_14 As a new players you are never aware which content is locked by which MR, which is especially apparent with weapons (which are the main MR locked content so far) weapon blueprints in the market / foundry should have some indication of MR required on them before even clicking on them AND be ordered by MR requirements naturally, any item bought with platinum should obviously still not be locked or anything and be fully useable. There should also be an indication for new and old players if they mastered said item, giving them this "star" we can see in the profile view. 

Lastly, DE's choice of severely limiting slots for weapons / frames, forcing people to delete old items they have leveled, maybe even forma'd, just to progress in mastery (THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT MASTERY) or pickup stronger weapons (and be weaker in the meantime until the new stuff is good enough). Nerfs to credit gains / ressource drops over the years has made progression pretty slow early on (if not carried through higher content by stronger players) further reducing the odds of people receiving enough competitive items.

Quote

I'll probably be chased with pitchforks and torches for saying this... but I think guilds and the community are a big part of the problem.

This game isn't as easy as other MMOs where you can just stack stats and become 'good' at it. You actually need to have experience in almost every aspect of it. Ok, before you stab me and burn me, let me explain a bit more...

A lot of guilds think that they can help new people by taking them to Draco to power level them, but that hurts them immensely. This game is more skill based than others, and it needs you to understand your frame and your weapons and how to use them. When in Draco, they don't get to have experience with these things and just leech and learn "just abuse this button to win". This is where your Press4toWin Ash, Excalibur, Ember and such come out. A lot of squads I've joined these guys have the worst aim accuracy, no headshots or just a few, no revives and die so fast when their energy goes down. "Don't worry, just use x skill. It's all you need". No it's not...

They also never learn how to mod things or understand how modding works. They just look it up online or have guild mates tell them. They just copy the builds but have no idea what they are doing or why. This isn't as bad since the damage is already done on being unable to use them properly.

They don't get to understand their weapons. They are horribly dependent of the meta-weaponry and "the one skill" to abuse.

Worst of all, they don't even know how to fight bosses. Really? someone rank 18 complaining that they have no idea how to beat Vay Hek? Why? They are rank 18! They should be knowledgeable!... wait, they aren't. They Draco'd their way there. They need to Taxi to alarms because they never completed the map BECAUSE they went to Draco and started doing Void soon after and never went back.

All in all people are babying new players and giving them strong tools that they don't understand and end up just using them to whack their way around. Weakness in this game shows, and you can tell the weak links fast. And sometimes their ranks would imply differently, but they don't mean a damn thing anymore.

by Heatnix.

2. This results in a huge amount of players floating around the game, absolutely unprepared for the real game:

These "helpless" players now float around in the starchart, having cleared 1-4 planets thinking they have a grasp about this game and feel ready to properly play the game now receiving taxis and see the recruit chat (maybe even clans / alliances) tempting them with many activities. Eventually they give in, they ask to join this alert one alert, or this "Draco" they see so much about or ask to be invited for these "Sorties" and whatever "LoR" is; thinking it would be just as easy to understand and beat as the rest of the stuff they have done.

AND it's not as easy as they thought, they constantly die, don't keep up with the rest of the players, IF they use their abilities they barely have any effect and these level 30 mobs look like unbeatable gods made of titanium. They get yelled at constantly when they activate the life support as it comes, shoot enemies that are blinded in interception or just walk into the lasers in spy missions and wonder why these stupid ciphers don't work in sorties. Generally very confused why their approach that has worked so far doesn't work anymore, everything till now was easy.

Suddenly the whole game is different and everybody seems to hate them, people get infuriated and angry because they don't know what they do wrong, nobody tells them anything and nothing in the game has any way of obtaining information, eventually they bark back when people yell at them, toxicity brooding all over the place. They find out if they just keep quiet and don't tell anybody they're new / even lie their way into missions they get stuff without being qualified / working for it ===> THIS LEADS TO 3

 

3. At which point is the circumvention of investment to reach the qualification for "endgame" griefing?

Definition of Griefing:

Spoiler

 

"A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and harasses other players within the game, using aspects of the game in unintended ways. A griefer derives pleasure primarily or exclusively from the act of annoying other users, and as such is a particular nuisance in online gaming communities, since griefers often cannot be deterred by penalties related to in-game goals." _{from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer}   (more on this quote under 4.)

"Purposefully shooting or otherwise sabotaging your teammates in an online game." _{from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=griefing}

In Warframe this is often not for the intention to have "trolled" your team, but for the pleasure of receiving rewards they want.

 

 

Now the majority of "Veteran" players have experienced that alot of "unfit" players have joined their missions, be it because it was a public mission on <insert higher level planet here> (because they gained access with taxis), Sortie nodes on beginner planets or because hosts didn't check their qualifications beforehand (which is depending on the case not really possible).

This leads to many problems for the more experienced and better equipped players, they expected to have a teammate they can rely on, that will actually be helpful in achieving the goal of the mission, but the inexperienced / undergeared player is not only not able to do that, but also often refusing to be helpful while being extremely toxic in chat, actively griefing with abilities in protest. This puts more stress on the remaining useful players to still achieve the mission goal and hindering their experience for a fun and smooth mission, in some cases it may even render the mission impossible to complete but because the inexperienced player is unable to perform a vital role.

But also the few "good" new players that were perfectly able to adapt and play Warframe as its intended and perform almost as good as a veteran get immediately stereotyped, and excluded because many of their peers decided to ruin games for other people.

IS IT GRIEFING FOR UNQUALIFIED PLAYERS TO PURPOSELY JOIN MISSIONS, KNOWING THEY WON'T BE OF ANY VALUE TO THE SQUAD? THUS PUTTING REMAINING PLAYERS ON TILT OR EVEN MAKE THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLETE / PROGRESS FURTHER.

I WANT _YOUR_ OPINIONS ON THIS MATTER

Spoiler

>>> My personal answer is YES, it quite literally is griefing in the sense that they knowingly make the mission harder for anybody else, knowing that they alone (in the sense of players with similiar usefulness) wouldn't be able to finish the mission and rely on being "carried", receiving joy getting "free" rewards. As explained above, this has infact negative consequences for anybody who is qualified to play the mission and breeds toxicity. It can also lead wasting ressources and more time than required, e.g. having to use pads in raids or losing rare / expensive to craft keys. <<<

 

4. What can be done to help fix this situation?:

People in the past have pointed out that if other people had "full view" into other peoples mods and more "stats" that this would lead to more "elitism" and banter for not being as well progressed / developed or not having "META" builds. So I am personally against more seeing than we do now, I'd even say cut away the "Stats" page from profiles and remove the accuracy (only for others) on weapons.

I want to propose the following:

          Interactive tutorials; every mission type has to be on the starter planet (a "seperate" Mercury/earth that once finished reveals the current one, with much more story along the way ofc.) _{(exluding raids ofc)} and upon entering these missions the Lotus / Teshin hold your hand through everything idiot-safely happening in there, which includes a few of the loading screen tips we can already see. The current codex is horrible and most players don't even realise it exists for the longest time.

          Small mastery locks on planets: From Earth to Pluto, every Planet should have an increase of Mastery needed to progress, e.g. upon entering whats beyond the tutorial planet you need MR1 (which is literally like 10 minutes of gameplay) and to access the next planet beyond that you need MR2 and so on. (subject to change ofc.) OBVIOUSLY: this means DE has to change ressource acquisition / ressources needed for a few of the lower MR weapons, but i think thats in the best interest of everyone, not forcing beginners to to go to high level areas to build a starter weapon. REMOVAL OF MASTERY RANK TEST COOLDOWN BELOW MASTERY RANK 10. (but make tests a bit more meaningful)

Each Mastery Rank should award their respective number in platinum up to MR 10, so up to 55platinum + another 25-50 for clearing all nodes (untradeable and ungiftable like starterplat)

          Taxis not "clearing" nodes / giving players nav segments: Everyone should obviously still be able to be taxi'd to alerts and normal missions, it would be a penis-move to not allow that, but players should ONLY clear a node if they officially had "access" (not greyed out) to it before, if a taxi brings you to a node you have access to, but didnt clear, thats great for you, otherwise you gotta work your way there and clear it again. Players should still be able to be taxi'd to assassinations but not receive nav segments from it, only when they had access to the assassination node before they receive the nav segments as a reward, this lets players practise bosses beforehand with more experienced people. I hope with the new proposed starchart there wont be 10 million empty nodes, and because it forces! all lower players to clear these nodes; it would be re-populating many lower level planets.

          Massive Requirements-increases for Sorties and Raids: NOTE, FULLY PREMADE GROUPS (invite only, not public) SHOULD NOT HAVE THESE RESTRCTIONS APPLIED TO SORTIES This is the biggest one for me, personally. Sorties should be MR 10 maybe even 12, why ? Because the "real endgame" weapons that Syndicates are supposed to deliver are pretty close by, also one must bring a full loadout (primary, secondary and melee, unless specified otherwise) with everything rank 30, many people see sorties as a place to level their equipment and this disadvanting their team - this needs to stop, if people arent willing to invest into a "colourful" gearset they shouldn't have access to endgame. RAIDS/Trials should all require full lvl 30 loadouts normal Law of Retribution should have a minimum MR of 8, Nightmare LOR of MR12, Jordas Verdict should be MR12 too. (If there's ever nightmare Jordas it should be MR14)

>>>> I do hope that these proposed mastery locks behind everything, the lowering of nodes with u19, gives not only more sense progression for every player, but also re-populate most missions, while making sure people spend time actually playing and learning the game, because they cant just freely access any endgame. More time invested, and more mastery needed for anything almost guarantees that people have somewhat useful loadout options if they have cleared content this far, i hope this would MASSIVELY reduce the complaints from "Veteran" players and help the general atmosphere of public games to be much more relaxed. Warframe is somehow an MMO and i kinda want to make it more feel like one, structure wise. <<<<

Thanks for reading, I'd appreciate feedback DONT LET THIS THREAD DIE GUYS, REGARDLESS OF YOUR PERSONAL OPINION, THERE IS A PROBLEM IN WARFRAME RIGHT NOW, THE ONLY QUESTION IS HOW DO WE APPROACH IT

EDITS:

1.  Added Heatnix. quote, because i think it is very fitting
2. I want to add that time invested / mastery gained coexists with "useful" (read= forma'd+modded) gear acquired, i dont want to lock stuff behind mastery for mastery but ensure time invested, if people feel the need to blindly rush through mastery and not get any useful gear, i cant think of any measurement to ensure people actually use strong and correct mods
3. incorporated whiskey_14's complaint about the lack of indicators of MR requirments on content and more importantly weapons / blueprints.

Edited April 2, 2016 by SYL3NZR

[fatpig84]

I consider letting people die frequently in Sorties / Raids / high end T4s is a good way to learn.

My clan actively encourages people of all MR in our clans to participate even in the hardest content.
Even if the gameplay for them is like Warframe: Prepare to die edition.

But that is how you pick things up the fastest and you will learn.

Edited April 2, 2016 by fatpig84

[SYL3NZR]

1 minute ago, fatpig84 said:

I consider letting people die frequently in Sorties / Raids / high end T4s is a good way to learn.

My clan actively encourages people of all MR in our clans to participate even in the hardest content.
Even if the gameplay for them is like Warframe: Prepare to die edition.

But that is how you pick things up the fastest and you will learn.

actually you made a good point

i dont mean that this is great for some players, which it might be, but rather letting full premade groups do sorties, and letting my restrictions only apply in public games

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

I said this in another post just a minute ago, but I feel it pertains to your OP as well. I personally like how the Earth and Moon maps works. You have to meet a requirement like the Second Dream Mission to open the Moon Nodes. The Moon Maps offer better rewards and harder enemies if you consider the weaker ones running around Earth. They have puzzles and interesting environments and new enemy units as in example of the Sentients meant to challenge mid tier players and vets to some degree. 

This can be applied to the other planets ramping up the difficulty as you climb the solar map. De can set requirements to be met for players. Guns, gear, better mod cards can be placed in these puzzle environments alongside Mastery ranks, planet node completion, and story missions finished. All meant to inspire players to follow a certain linear guide from Starter to Vet. 

[Sorkheff]

10 minutes ago, fatpig84 said:

I consider letting people die frequently in Sorties / Raids / high end T4s is a good way to learn.

My clan actively encourages people of all MR in our clans to participate even in the hardest content.
Even if the gameplay for them is like Warframe: Prepare to die edition.

But that is how you pick things up the fastest and you will learn.

That's a lot more applicable for a clan. IE, people who know each other and accept the difficulties of teaching without the probability of blowing up at each other and raging.

I could be wrong, but I think OP is talking about public play a bit more than semi-organized.

In general, I support increasing the MR requirements on most things.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Sorkheff

[Klavinmour]

I like to carry my friends who are "new" to the game or less experienced at it through high level content.

For example, I've yet to come across a Sortie mission that myself and my best friend can't duo with ease, yet we take another two of our friends along with us so they can get the rewards while we enjoy the "difficult" content.

So in this case your idea of Mastery capping or equipment capping would hinder myself or others like me.

 

You also mentioned that some low Mastery people can play this game to the level of us "Veteran" players. Again the Mastery/Equipment cap you propose would hinder these players.

[Heatnix.]

I'll probably be chased with pitchforks and torches for saying this... but I think guilds and the community are a big part of the problem.

This game isn't as easy as other MMOs where you can just stack stats and become 'good' at it. You actually need to have experience in almost every aspect of it. Ok, before you stab me and burn me, let me explain a bit more...

A lot of guilds think that they can help new people by taking them to Draco to power level them, but that hurts them immensely. This game is more skill based than others, and it needs you to understand your frame and your weapons and how to use them. When in Draco, they don't get to have experience with these things and just leech and learn "just abuse this button to win". This is where your Press4toWin Ash, Excalibur, Ember and such come out. A lot of squads I've joined these guys have the worst aim accuracy, no headshots or just a few, no revives and die so fast when their energy goes down. "Don't worry, just use x skill. It's all you need". No it's not...

They also never learn how to mod things or understand how modding works. They just look it up online or have guild mates tell them. They just copy the builds but have no idea what they are doing or why. This isn't as bad since the damage is already done on being unable to use them properly.

They don't get to understand their weapons. They are horribly dependent of the meta-weaponry and "the one skill" to abuse.

Worst of all, they don't even know how to fight bosses. Really? someone rank 18 complaining that they have no idea how to beat Vay Hek? Why? They are rank 18! They should be knowledgeable!... wait, they aren't. They Draco'd their way there. They need to Taxi to alarms because they never completed the map BECAUSE they went to Draco and started doing Void soon after and never went back.

All in all people are babying new players and giving them strong tools that they don't understand and end up just using them to whack their way around. Weakness in this game shows, and you can tell the weak links fast. And sometimes their ranks would imply differently, but they don't mean a damn thing anymore.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Heatnix.

[DeadlyPeanutt]

OP, you show a good understanding of the structural/system problems in WF regarding the training and integration of new players through the skill chain, but your suggestions seem to focus on restricting content and making life easier for yourself and other experienced players, not supporting new players so they learn more quickly and easily.  

with due respect, restricting content to exclude new players is ultimately bad for the game and rather self serving for experienced players.

btw, new players who jump into a sortie, raid or T4 mission may not be griefing or free riding... they may be trying their best to help their team and accomplish the mission goals, with the tools they have. 

structurally WF sucks at training new players in modding, weapon and frame choice.  personally, most of my information on almost anything in WF has come from the WF wiki, which I'm sure everyone knows.  most of my learning in game has come from dying repeatedly, and I agree with the poster above who said that letting a player die repeatedly may be a valuable learning experience. 

the solution to the problems OP points out is not restricting content and creating more hoops for new players to jump through, because that may ultimately drive the majority of new players away, which is bad for the game.  no new players means dev abandon the game and stop providing new content and bug fixes... i'm sure we've all seen this happen. 

the better solutions to the valid problems OP points out is to create systems to educate new players and reward them with useful mods/weapons/tools along the way.  for example, a quest to teach players how to play a sortie successfully that rewards success by giving a primed flow or overextended. 

again, the life of a game is not experienced players who have most of the game's toys... it's new players who are eager to learn, to buy your stuff on trade chat and spend real money in the market.  

[SYL3NZR]

13 minutes ago, Klavinmour said:

I like to carry my friends who are "new" to the game or less experienced at it through high level content.

For example, I've yet to come across a Sortie mission that myself and my best friend can't duo with ease, yet we take another two of our friends along with us so they can get the rewards while we enjoy the "difficult" content.

So in this case your idea of Mastery capping or equipment capping would hinder myself or others like me.

 

You also mentioned that some low Mastery people can play this game to the level of us "Veteran" players. Again the Mastery/Equipment cap you propose would hinder these players.

theres 2 things; theres "skill" and knowledge and adaptibility which of a good chunk of newer players can have;but what about gear? theres no way that even a small amount of players has competitive gear so early on, fully forma'd with max mods

if somehow they bought all maxed mods for plat you and taxi'd them through draco to cap them out, thats great for you and them, that should also eleminate any difficulty / most of the time needed to do the few missions on the straight line to the boss and progress through any low content

for the mastery numbers im not sure myself, but then again, the number of "very good new players that get their experience destroyed by progress gates" is abysmally low, we both know that, the number of "veterans that get their experienced ruined by unqualified players" is MUCH higher

also, theres basically no game that allows fresh players to compete in endgame content that requires "numbers", Warframes actual skill input is VERY little in PVE, mods and abilities are infinitely more important, aside from aim on heads, no skill is required, burden of knowledge is a completely different thing

Warframe has mmo character and i want to slightly build more on that

[DeadlyPeanutt]

2 minutes ago, Heatnix. said:

A lot of guilds think that they can help new people by taking them to Draco to power level them, but that hurts them immensely. This game is more skill based than others, and it needs you to understand your frame and your weapons and how to use them. When in Draco, they don't get to have experience with these things and just leech and learn "just abuse this button to win". This is where your Press4toWin Ash, Excalibur, Ember and such come out. A lot of squads I've joined these guys have the worst aim accuracy, no headshots or just a few, no revives and die so fast when their energy goes down. "Don't worry, just use x skill. It's all you need". No it's not...

All in all people are babying new players and giving them strong tools that they don't understand and end up just using them to whack their way around. Weakness in this game shows, and you can tell the weak links fast. And sometimes their ranks would imply differently, but they don't mean a damn thing anymore.

using a level 0-15 weapon with no forma is completely different than using a level 30 weapon with 4 forma. weapons simply are not effective until they are at max level with a certain number of forma, and you can't learn how to use a weapon until it is moderately effective. 

the essence of your comment is that new players should be forced to grind more, which would certainly drive more new players away from the game. 

fwiw

[ashrah]

actual game start wen u max mods.make good wepons frames...so u not depend on anyone...than u farm prime parts start getting plat...buying cosmetics cool stuff

[SYL3NZR]

4 minutes ago, Heatnix. said:

Isnip

hope you dont mind me putting that in the OP, very accurate, its not just the games fault for new players struggling but also the "community's"

[Klavinmour]

2 minutes ago, SYL3NZR said:

theres 2 things; theres "skill" and knowledge and adaptibility which of a good chunk of newer players can have;but what about gear? theres no way that even a small amount of players has competitive gear so early on, fully forma'd with max mods

if somehow they bought all maxed mods for plat you and taxi'd them through draco to cap them out, thats great for you and them, that should also eleminate any difficulty / most of the time needed to do the few missions on the straight line to the boss and progress through any low content

for the mastery numbers im not sure myself, but then again, the number of "very good new players that get their experience destroyed by progress gates" is abysmally low, we both know that, the number of "veterans that get their experienced ruined by unqualified players" is MUCH higher

also, theres basically no game that allows fresh players to compete in endgame content that requires "numbers", Warframes actual skill input is VERY little in PVE, mods and abilities are infinitely more important, aside from aim on heads, no skill is required, burden of knowledge is a completely different thing

Warframe has mmo character and i want to slightly build more on that

There's a problem I have when people say "fully Forma". What exactly do you mean? I have plenty of weapons that need not a single Forma to be fully modded, where I've also tossed multiple Forma into other weapons, say my Dread I've Forma'd 4 times and my Mara Detron 5 times. I've Forma'd my Spira Prime twice, yet I'm not satisfied with it and am waiting to max my Primed secondary crit mods before I Forma it further, yet it still does it's job fine in end game content.

 

With nothing but my light guidance and the beginner mods that get given to you, my nephew was able to actively participate in Tower 3 content as his starting frame Excalibur. Yeah okay, T3 is pretty easy content, you can easily solo most of it on low level frames, but the point remains that you seem to be just outright underestimating new players.

 

PS: Draco is by far the most annoying and boring way to level gear, ODD is far better.

[AsianLyf]

I'd say I agree with you, as this problem becomes very apparent when someone recruits for T3/T4 Survival/defense/Interception, or perhaps something like the gift of lotus yesterday where not having endgame frames/weapons really cause the squad to get screwed over, if they had to revive the said person over and over again until the mission either fails or the mission ends. Another thing is Draco, I forma my weapons and go there to relevel them, but lo and behold the lower masteries with an underleveled/unmodded frame with 3 weapons that aren't 30 and don't understand that they have to at least help cap the towers instead of dying every 30 seconds and pretending that they are helpful at D.  With the ever increasing number of leeches and low mastery players, I find myself often having 50% or more of the total damage dealt in the mission with the other 50% either splitting between two players and the last having 5% or less, or the other guy and I having around 48/48 and the other two dealing the remaining 4%. This is a huge problem when it comes to late game content, and Draco doesn't help the new players in anyway and cause them to rapidly skyrocket in mastery but learning nothing about contribution to the squad. 

Tl:Dr I agree with OP's views and wish for a better leveling system so low masteries can learn how to play the game instead of leeching Draco and rendering the higher masteries such as mastery 10 as redundant and being treated the same way as a mastery 5.

Edit: After reading @Heatnix.'s post about how the community and the clan is also a part of the problem, I would agree but at the same time clans don't like to recruit new players as the majority who only beg for prime content and mods, and leeching the research. I am not painting the entire group of newbies with the same brush, but unfortunately due to the influx of new players in my alliance and their behavior, I am forced to come to that conclusion and be extremely picky with the way I recruit. 

Edit 2: The smaller ghost clans would have to be more picky, as the larger ones only have people for numbers, and most of their research is already done or the main leaders are afk and gone from the game. Kinda like what is happening in my alliance to the larger clans.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Ankoku_no_Hime

[SYL3NZR]

3 minutes ago, Ankoku_no_Hime said:

SNIP

while theres actually tonnes of clans virtually begging for everyone and everything to join them just to have numbers

my suggestions of MR would lock ceres and therefor draco pretty far away for many players, because getting through all that content "alone" until they arrive at this "high level" planet can take time and be challenging, this would stop most "leeches" from just joining public dracos and be dead weight, while people that actually made it that far should know much better to stay alive and be useful, even if they dont know the "draco strategy"

[SYL3NZR]

25 minutes ago, DeadlyPeanutt said:

snip

this isnt just for me "the veteran"

as heatnix pointed out people are spoiled and have no idea about most of the game because they get carried and just join draco

forcing people to actually "PLAY" the game ensures at least some basic knowledge, while also ensuring they dont just random join the mission next to draco, while being mr2 with lvl 3 serration as their only mod

its like leveling in an MMORPG, its not only there to teach you skills and mechanics by unlocking them slowly step by step, but also gearing you for dungeons which slowly gear you for raids while featuring new mechanics, i just want to add a "learning" process that also gears players

idk if you know FF14, but basically you HAVE TO! play the mainstory mission (which is also level capped, if you for some reason are 53, but the next story mission is 55 then do sidequests) these forced story quests lead you to ever increasing dungeons which you also have to beat to progress the story and so on

its the same approach i want warframe to to some degree, in playing ff14 i have BARELY EVER even complained about somebody doing bad or being undergeared, because its almost not possible, after you've done all these diffrent story dungeons and raids you just are "good" at the game when you join me in my endgame content, this may seem "harsh" on new players but inevitibly helps them in the longrun and almost completely nullifies toxicity

[Lord_Datastorm]

I have seen MR6s hold up better in sorties than some MR20s. It is all the the skill of the player, how well they adapt to the warframe system.

My clan likes recruiting new players and we talk them through the aspects of the game. 

A lot of items are already MR locked, for example syndicate weapons, Earth Boss, certain weapons (Dragon nikana), etc.

When the new starchart comes out it should help more in progression since they will have to do certain paths (I miss starchart 1.0).

 

[SYL3NZR]

22 minutes ago, Klavinmour said:

snipe

well firstly, Draco is incredibly much more efficient than ODD

well "fully forma'd" is maybe a bit excegerated, but some forma to dent enemies in sorties is pretty much required, without forma and potatoes there literally no way you can compete in any content

but mods to to a decent level and 5ranked mods maxed is expected, lvl 8 on the 10 ranks is pretty quick too, im more or less expecting that and a "few" formas in most weapons and frames, melees often dont need forma because they get free mod points and dont have many mods costing more than 11, most only cost 9

[SYL3NZR]

4 minutes ago, Lord_Datastorm said:

I have seen MR6s hold up better in sorties than some MR20s. It is all the the skill of the player, how well they adapt to the warframe system.

My clan likes recruiting new players and we talk them through the aspects of the game. 

A lot of items are already MR locked, for example syndicate weapons, Earth Boss, certain weapons (Dragon nikana), etc.

When the new starchart comes out it should help more in progression since they will have to do certain paths (I miss starchart 1.0).

 

thats anecdotal evidence and proves nothing, nobody including me is implying every new player till MR12 is absolutely useless, but the majority is, because of how the game is designed

its great that you. your clan and many other clans do that, i do it too, but talking alone doesnt help nobody in terms of gear, talking doesnt give people forma on their guns, talking doesnt give them strong / maxed mods and talking doesnt "optimise" their gameplay fluidity in terms of movement shooting etc, even if theres a few people good at picking up this game and evolving quickly, the vast majority doesnt and this is why im here, this little "hassle" i want to put them through wont hurt anybody

i want people to "play" the game actually and be a reliable teammate in every situation

that weapons are locked is good, and relays are optional and serve as a purpose to play the game, the mr 4 lock for sorties and 5 for vay hek are a joke, and you know that

[Stratego89]

I'll admit that I did not read through this whole wall of text properly- maybe I'll come back to do so later and put another proper comment up. I will say this from what I did read though.

Warframe's lack of "progression" system is GOOD. It is what differentiates it from every other MMO and makes it NOT grindy. "Not grindy?!" You might ask- yes, not grindy. Warframe has no grind unless you think it does. There is no "I need to get this gear to get better gear to get better gear" cycle that eventually ends in you having the best gear with nothing else to do. Everything is essentially a "get what you want, test everything out at your own pace, and even once you have everything you can try new combinations for ages" setup. That replayability factor is what keeps people in warframe- and the constant updates keep even older players interested for the most part.

TL;DR Adding a "progression" to warframe more than we have in terms of starchart (which will be updated to be much more progression-y soon^TM) and MR (which needs a rework that would make it feel much more rewarding- so that you actually have to EARN it and MASTER stuff instead of just getting levels on gear that you don't even use- usually ala draco as most people have this obsession with doing for some reason (seriously why skip the content- that's the whole point of warframe- BUT I DIGRESS).

As for griefing- again I didn't read but from what I did read so far it looks like you are basically equating inexperienced/undergeared players to griefing teams by not being prepared. That is not griefing- at all. Griefing is intentionally bringing grief to people through whatever method they may have at their disposal. I agree there should be some sort of limiters put in place to keep people from ending up on stuff they're not prepared for- EG sorties have an MR requirement, raids should too. Thing is as I said before the MR system in it's current state doesn't represent much of anything due to how people abuse draco, so the system needs to be reworked for it to work as a means of limitation.

[(NSW)Estalior]

I agree that mastery rank means nothing any more. I am in the game since it came out to open beta (three years? I'm old) and my mastery has been stuck close to 10 (I am 14 now). But that doesn't as hell show my level of understanding and actual skill. There are players that will throw a lot of time in the game, and rise the mastery ranks, but will learn little things.

The last sortie I did was a corpus interception. One had an ember. They would let me alone at a point and let me die all of the 4 times while most of them were hugging point A. And when they tried to save me it was with lots of enemies around, so we all lost of course.

This was an example that even if they [the new players] learn how to mod or equip the right stuff (accept for the ember guy) skill is something more. The content is too much to just learn from zero.

There will always be, also, those players who don't really care to learn too much. Nothing we can do about it.

The question is how do we orient [new] players to skill when we don't even properly introduce them to the mechanics?

Edited April 2, 2016 by kasalaba

[polarity]

The problem you're seeing is the result of something common to any game that has any depth to it, when it becomes popular.

It's not anything to do with the game, but more to do with the kind of people who start playing at that time.

 

Warframe's popularity can to a reasonable extent be attributed to the depth of its systems, and the fact that it has a high skill ceiling, allowing players to progress not just in what they do with their characters, but also in how much they themselves can learn about the game.

Another way to put it is to say that being good at this game requires two things, knowledge, and experience.

 

Here's where the players and the game's popularity come in:

Throughout a game's development there will be two kinds of players, the first group always being smaller than the second:

• Those who take the time to learn about the game, take their time leveling up, take time to gain a good understanding of the game's systems, take the time to practice, and therefore, in time, become good players.
• Those who can't be bothered, and just want to go straight to endgame to play with all the 'cool kids', without making any effort to improve themselves.

Before a game becomes popular the second group will just give up and play something else (with the excuse "No biggie, it's not like the game was any good anyway").  But after it becomes popular, they will want to be part of this big thing, and because it's popular there will be a lot more of them (although still in a similar kind of ratio to the first kind of players).

 

And here's the big thing:  How the developers respond to this huge number of players demanding that the game be changed in their favor.  Do they:

• A - Dumb the game down for players who can't be bothered to learn about all the systems they've taken the time to develop, in order to maximize their appeal to as many potential players as possible, but in turn end up producing a generic, mass-market game, functionally indistinguishable from any others, and hence in direct competition with them.

or do they:

• B - Stay true to their core players - the ones who like the game's depth, and its uniqueness - realizing that while they may appear to be turning away many players from the second group, the game's popularity will also have brought in many more from the first; that is those who will become far more invested in the game over time, and therefore less likely to 'jump ship' for the next shiny new thing.

 

Here's where all of the above comes together with the whole MR / newbie / veteran thing:

A new player can be from the first group, and therefore make rapid progress towards mastering of the game, while a veteran may be from the second group, and have been carried by others to their high MR.

Because of this developers should be very wary of implementing too many gates, in case they end up putting off players who have invested time into the game.

The new players' effort should be rewarded, but not necessarily by giving them bigger and better guns, or pointing them straight at higher level content; rather by giving them the information they need to make the best use of what they have.

DE are already making steps towards this by simplifying fusion, and updating the star-chart.  What they could also do is provide some kind of tutorial as to which mods players should focus on fusing first, to best improve their weapons, rather than giving them the impression that they need to get better ones (or cram what they have full of whatever mods they have in their inventory).

Perhaps they could create a 'Master of Arms' at the relays, and have the Lotus give a quest to go see him after defeating Vor the first time (this would double as a breadcrumb to a relay, as many newer players don't know they exist).  He could explain the fundamentals of the module and damage system in a bit more depth than the codex (although he might have to break the 4th wall/diegesis a bit, in order to cover everything, eg. explaining crit/status weapons, how to spot them by the base values for those stats, and the kind of mods that should be put on them).

 

Newbie/vet not being directly related to player effort also ties in to how players treat each other.  What you call griefing is what many consider appropriate behavior towards people who make little effort to understand the game, and hence become more and more of a burden on other players the longer they keep playing.

Waframe is not in the same genre as CoD.  It is not something you can just pick up and play, due to it completely lacking any depth.  It has many elements in common with MMORPGs, so it is something you have to invest time in to understand.

The respect you get in this kind of game is a reflection of the time you have invested, or are willing to invest.

 

I will offer up a lot of my time to help players who want to learn, but those who don't, I'd rather they go and play a game they can get invested in, rather than have them expect me to be one of the people who ends up carrying them towards something they haven't l/earned.

 

Edited April 19, 2016 by polarity

[NixtheLow]

The first thing I do whenever I pick up a newbie to help out is: I pick up my Trin, select Apollodorus, then give them tips on how to play and show them what a Kuria looks like (that was my 'end-game', to collect all the Kuria). I do my best not to buff them too much, and once they go down enough times or the enemy level gets too high, I suggest we leave. I don't really believe in going to Draco to level. I'll play survival missions or defense missions with my friends to help them level their stuff, mainly because I feel like it requires a bit more teamwork than 'press 4 to win'. 

One of the best things you can do to help out new players is explain. What do elements do? How do you use parkour effectively? What kinds of damage are good against what faction? And, the most important thing, is to say 'What Stalker?'

[AsianLyf]

22 minutes ago, Stratego89 said:

-snip-

Not grindy, for real?

[polarity]

2 minutes ago, Ankoku_no_Hime said:

Not grindy, for real?

If you're of the 'stampede towards the clitoris' mindset of chasing MR and endgame, then yes it is.

If you're of the 'equipment as content' and 'systems to be mastered' mindset it isn't.

I don't find the game grindy, but then I don't care one bit about MR, don't care about efficient affinity farming, and can leave doing new content until later.  To me weapons and frames are something to have fun with, not just something to be leveled and then replaced.  You wouldn't believe the kind of crap I've put formas in, because I was still enjoying using it, and figured I may as well see what it's like with more mod space for crazy builds.