Muk's TLDR Experience and Feedback

[Mukk]

Warning, this is going to get way too long way too fast.

I’ve been playing Warframe since last week. In that time, I have put in over 30 hours according to the in-game stat. I have reached level 30 with my Volt frame, and level 30 with my Strun shotgun, as well as a few other weapons into the teens. I have built a Fragor hammer, and my Rhino warframe will be done Friday morning. I have soloed a few missions in Pluto, and have every intention of beating the rest this weekend when my buddy and I can play together. I bought a Founder’s pack because I like what this game has to offer, and the potential that it has.

Needless to say, I played a lot. I really like this game, but I have some feedback on some of my thoughts while encountering the game.

Before I begin, I just want to say: If I come across as rude or condescending, I genuinely don’t mean it. I really do like this game and can’t wait to see what is in store for the future. I’m just not very good at conveying tone in written word, so I apologize in advance.

The “First Steps”

1. When my friend linked me the game, I had a very difficult time finding out anything about the game really. The site is fairly bare on details. I was even unclear as to what exactly I was signing up for, it doesn’t say that you are signing up for beta anywhere that I saw, and I still had little clue as to anything about the game besides the fact that there are Warframes which are essentially classes. Luckily, the IGN giveaway had started so I grabbed a key and so did a couple friends.

2. The very first thing I noticed was that there was no options until I had gotten into the tutorial, which isn’t a huge deal, but something I always look for as I have to crank volume down and turn the game to borderless fullscreen (although huge kudos for having borderless fullscreen!). An options button at the login menu would be nice.

This is going to get random and all over the place now..

The Solar System View

3. If in a multiplayer session, I couldn’t figure out a way to comfortably navigate between planets as I couldn’t return to the overview of the solar system without leaving the session. Coupled with the bug that always returns your view to a random planet (damn youuuuu Saturn!), it becomes a bit of a chore. I would love to be able to use the overview of the Solar System to navigate regardless of what match type, or group I have selected.

4. To go one further, when looking for online sessions, I am unsure if it is possible to refresh the view without relogging. I would like to see a refresh whether it’s manual or timed. Maybe it already is there, I apologize if it is, I didn’t notice it.

5. The way the planets are laid out progression-wise feel a bit strange. It doesn’t seem to follow any specific path, it is more or less random as far as I can tell. Not a huge deal, but something I definitely noticed. I could never look at a planet I haven’t visited yet and go “I bet that’s x level range” which made it a bit difficult to decide which way to go when progressing through a system. That made progression feel a bit unintuitive. Perhaps have a rough level range estimate visible without having that planet system unlocked. They already list what resources they have, so I don’t think this is a stretch.

Alerts

6. Yesterday I did an alert mission that apparently rewarded an artifact that I already had. There was no indicator that there was a duplicate reward or anything, so I was left searching my inventory wondering what I got until I checked the forum and saw people saying what the reward was. Maybe list the reward still, but note that it’s a duplicate and I can’t have duplicate artifacts? Some sort of indication would be great.

7. Alerts are starting to feel kind of like a lottery, and are not very “rewarding.” I don’t feel like I earned the reward as much as I feel I was granted a chance at being given an item. I’m not sure how to fix this one without a total overhaul of the alert system, which I’m not sure is a good idea. It’s just sort of a nagging feeling I’m getting, especially when I find out there was an Orokin Catalyst reward at 3am when I was in bed.

8. I fought a level 84 Jackal yesterday, and that was freakin’ awesome. I hope to see more of that, super-challenging-bordering-on-impossible stuff.

Resources/Blueprints/Crafting

9. Each warframe blueprint has the same mat requirements as far as I can tell. This has a nasty side-effect of funnelling everyone into a few specific maps, leaving the rest relatively untouched except for progressing through them on the way to the level you need.

10. Way, way too much emphasis on Rubedo overall. Same issue as above. Makes farming Earth a necessity. Warframes take 800 Rubedo, and then 2 of the 3 blueprints I’ve acquired via alert missions take 300 Rubedo each. There are plenty of materials that feel unused, so I think spreading those out would be good.

12. Because some mats/blueprints only come from some places, I had to spend a lot of time farming maps that were, frankly, low level and not very challenging. This is a bigger issue that will likely require a major overhaul of the resource system to solve, but it is worth thinking about, I feel. Farming ezpz mobs for hours for some mats gets kinda boring.

11. I would like to be able to sell, destroy, or otherwise hide blueprints I have no intention of crafting right now. The display is very limited, so I would like to have some control over what I see. Re-ordering them, at the very least.

In-Game UI Stuff

12. There is a very distinct lack of information. The game has a tutorial for basic gameplay, and I appreciate that for sure, but it didn’t clue me in to things like Affinity, Mastery, their relationship, etc. I had to search the forum to figure out how Mastery worked. Expanding the tutorial to explain all of this would be greatly beneficial.

13. On the subject of Affinity, I found it very confusing that it is sometimes referred to as “XP” and other times as “Affinity.” I would prefer to see it one or the other, in which case, I would say going for XP is simple and easier for new players to wrap their heads around as XP is prevalent in just about every game nowadays.

14. The mini-Achievements that pop up every round. There is no way to check what it is, and sometimes it doesn’t even show up at the beginning of the match at all. If you miss it, or it doesn’t show up, you are left guessing. I still have no idea what these reward me with, either. Displaying it on the escape menu alongside the mission objective would solve this one.

15. I would love to see an in-game party display. Especially useful for Trinity warframes as well as Team Heal gear. It would be greatly beneficial towards making the game feel less solitary, and more teamwork oriented if I can know that I need to rush to defend my team mate if he is getting low on health or what have you.

16. Picking up items in game. It is very difficult to see what I’m picking up if there is ammo laying there that I can’t pick up. I’ve noticed that Affinity XP has it’s own UI piece that is a lot more visible, as do mod pickups. I would like to see those utilized more for resource pickups and such as well, or perhaps a chatlog of pickups.

17. Which brings me to ammo pickups. I don’t see a reason for dropping sniper rifle ammo if no one in the match has a sniper rifle. This has a negative side-effect of training me to ignore ammo pickups, which leads to less efficient playing as I’m missing all the ammo that I need. This also has the negative side-effect of making me spend time running over each little ammo pickup in hopes that it is useful to me. Less ammo drops that are relevant would be amazing to game flow. I would go so far as to suggest making different ammo types visually distinguishable from one another.

18. Magazine irregularity. For example, Gorgon has, say, 150/500. Now let’s say I fire a few bullets and I’m at 145/500, I am unable to pick up that 5 spare ammo until I reload. This feels punishing to people who have slow reloading, large magazine weapons as opposed to say, a Lato that can and will reload often. This will probably lead to an issue of wasting ammo pickups and only getting 1 or 2 bullets. Would it be detrimental to keep partial ammo on the ground? I actually think that would be awesome. Just sort of brainstorming here.

19. Interacting with terminals and elevators is pickier than I’d like. I can be standing in front of it, and because my character or camera is not facing the right way, it won’t let me interact. I end up just spamming the key as I maneuver around. I would like to see this simplified and made easier.

Arsenal UI Stuff

20. Going through mods is a pain. At the very least, I would like to see a list view. To go further, I’d love to eventually see filter options as well.

21. Mod removal. I haven’t found a way to remove mods short of scrolling that list all the way to empty slots and dragging it out. Perhaps right-clicking can remove them? Replacing is fine and works as I’d expect, but removing is slightly unintuitive.

22. More complete stat sheets. I think it’s a given that the stats not updating on the display is probably not intentional, so I’ll skip that. However, I still have no idea what my crit rates, sprint speeds, etc are, and because there is no stat sheet, it isn’t intuitive to determine how the different mods affect things.

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for making this game. I can't wait to see what you have for us in the future.

Muk,

Rubedo Procuring Bureau

Edited January 24, 2013 by Mukk

[Zakalwe]

All sensible suggestions. I'm sure they're working on most of this stuff.

[[DE]Steve]

Thanks! Great post - pretty much all of this stuff is in the queue, particularly unifiying communication, adding a lore section to explaining more systems (didn't want to length the overlong tutorial) and improving flow.

[cypherhalo]

Great post, I agree with just about everything I think. Especially clarifying alerts. I love the idea but they are really unclear right now. Plus, they need to think about timeframes. I have a specific time of each day I can play, I can't hang around all day waiting for alerts and I certainly can't do alerts at 3 AM. I know there are different time zones and all, but just realize that some of us only have about 2 hours a day (at a specific time of day) to play. I'm sure everyone has their own situation.

[Sohberson]

Checking mods gets me more than anything.

[Noteleet]

I would really, really, like to have a proper stat screen. I'd love to be able to see what all my tree bonuses and mods actually add up to at a glance. But yeah, good suggestions and observations here.

[FreshJB2]

Great post op.

Thanks! Great post - pretty much all of this stuff is in the queue, particularly unifiying communication, adding a lore section to explaining more systems (didn't want to length the overlong tutorial) and improving flow.

This is just a suggestion, but for the tutorial mode why not have a separate advanced training area where players can learn and master some of this games more complex moves? It could be set up like the virtual arena you go to to advance your rank.

Edited January 29, 2013 by FreshJB2

[sambarpowder]

Just so you know, pressing Z shows your team's current health, although slightly inaccurately. I believe that was one of the points you raised.

[Tarudizer]

This is just a suggestion, but for the tutorial mode why note have a separate advanced training are where players can learn and master some of this games more complex moves? It could be set up like the virtual arena you go to to advance your rank.

+1

[Kokurai]

Just so you know, pressing Z shows your team's current health, although slightly inaccurately. I believe that was one of the points you raised.

u gonna kill stuff n constantly press Z to c team hp? lol....also it doesnt display shields or energy...bad ui...it shud alwiz b shown or a toggle base

[plznohurtme]

I didn't want to start a new thread given that I found someone already suggested it, but I'd just like to reiterate how good being able to see party (at least hp) frames would be for playing trinity. The blessing ability is awesome, but it's really hard to use at the perfect time because usually that comes when the S#&$ is hitting the fan. I try to use it if I'm looking to be in trouble or if someone else obviously is, but more often than not it ends up being used to res or just after one.