List of basic storytelling errors

[MordaxPraetorian]

Hello DE

I and another veteran recently helped 3 of our friends get into the game, and wanted to share some feedback on plot hangups that we encountered. I'm going to stay away from the big obvious stuff, like the lack of any sort of Corpus origin story because I know you guys probably have plans for that, and focus on basic errors that you may have missed or forgotten about

I wanted to do this before the rest of U19 because it's likely to bring in a lot of new players, and some of this has simple fixes that hopefully you can perform quickly

Overall, the general feeling from playing through Warframe's plot seems to be one of being left out, as so much plot is referenced but not included.

1. Uranus/Natah/Second Dream

I'm going to do this first because it should be the crowning jewel in Warframe's plot right now

One of my friends played it first and said he was confused and lost by the whole thing, the other 2 got a big plot overview both before and afterwards and it still failed to have the proper impact on them

a. Lead Up

In theory, Hidden Messages, Stolen Dreams and The New Strange should do a good job of building the hype and mystery surrounding The Sentients, however 2 of 3 of them are so optional that new players are unlikely to find them without serious prompting.

Hidden Messages is literally hidden behind multiple layers of obscurity, requiring a new player without help to:

1. Stumble upon the Derelict Keys in the market
2. Figure out the Orokin Vault
3. Access an Orokin Vault, which requires a lot of luck or a party
4. Be incentivised to come back to the Orokin Vault 4 more times

That last point is only an issue because even the Corrupted Mods that are really really useful look very bad to new players, who are likely to ask things like "Why would I ever equip Fleeting Expertise over Streamline?" based on a lack of understanding, and a lack of capacity points because they've not invested in potatoes

The New Strange is actually even harder to access

We were unable to get into the same relay as our friends, even when travelling in a party together. Explaining to them how to access the upper level of the relay took us an age because the lifts don't look like lifts, and blend into the scenery so well that explaining where they are is very difficult. It also took me quite a while to find this part of the relay after it was introduced.

There's also the issue that new players aren't incentivised to explore the relays at all. The first thing you find there are the syndicates which new players can't access, and possibly Baro who deals with very expensive items requiring a mysterious orange currency. 2 of 3 of my friends went to the Relay once and then just moved on and forgot about them, so expecting them to find Simaris and access The New Strange before the stuff on Uranus is way out

Sadly without this build up, the reveal of the Sentients carries no weight whatsoever

Also all of this is ignoring the fact that the game gives no hints on what to do with the Oculist to access Natah, requiring players to stumble upon the Codex Scanner in the market and then put 2 and 2 together

Short Term Fix:

Give the player The New Strange quest as soon as it becomes available, and have the first part be a visit to Simaris, that way you can use waypoints to guide players to the upper level of the relay and introduce Simaris properly

For Hidden Messages, look at making the Derelict Keys more obvious, maybe insert a voice message from The Lotus if an Orokin Vault is found but no key is available

b. Old War Wreckage

It's almost impossible to see the Oculist in this scene before it flies off, and the piece of wreckage blends into the background so well that it was difficult for even the veterans to pick it out, leaving us all wandering around and saying "what the heck are we supposed to scan?"

This was not helped at all by all the named plants still being in the game, as they are infinitely more obvious as scan targets than the wreckage

Short Term Fix:

Remove the plants from that one mission, have the Oculist stick around a bit longer, give the wreckage a name when it's looked at

c. Tesshin

Although it's likely that new players will have encountered Tesshin through the conclave terminal on their ship, he is instantly forgettable to them because even those new players who want to do PvP see it as endgame content,

Tesshin's appearance in Natah was greeted with a universal "Who is this guy?" all around, and his habit of referring to the player as "my pupil" was very confusing

Short Term Fix:

Insert one voice line when Tesshin shows up that introduces him a bit better, take out all of the "my pupil" at least for now until new plot can be added that establishes this relationship

d. Stalker

Because The Stalker appears so rarely, my friends did not encounter him a single time between starting the game, and playing The Second Dream (which they did late due to encountering Kela during the Raathum event and thus missing out on the Uranus Nav Segment), he was simply referred to as "That Guy" throughout by players who had no idea who he was

Short Term Fix:

The game needs at least one mandatory encounter with The Stalker early on to put the fear into people. I would:

1. Hard disable The Stalker until the first couple of planets have been completed
2. Have one early boss trigger a mandatory encounter with The Stalker on the following mission
3. In this encounter, Insert one voice line at the start from The Stalker that lists all of the bosses that the player has killed so far
4. ...and end it with a line from The Lotus that clarifies or speculates a little on who he is

c. Alad V

Currently, the game offers almost no introduction to this character, as all of the back and forth with him is missing. He has none of the significance that he should do.

For a new player, working with him in The Second Dream is just confusing, not a plot twist

"Isn't that the boss from Jupiter, didn't we kill him already?"

I was honestly very surprised to see that the line about owing him a debt is still in the game, as this refers to a one-off event that has already happened and thus leaves the plot thread dangling for new players never to be resolved

While we're on the subject of dear Alad, there's also no plot in the game right now showing his fall from the Corpus or induction into the Infestation, which completely kills the hype for Patient Zero

Short Term Fix:

The first time Alad is killed on Jupiter have him send an Inbox Message clarifying his continued existence

Force 1 mandatory encounter with the Zanuka Hunter at some point on Jupiter to give Alad some significance. Maybe even consider making the encounter unwinnable so that the player has to go through the escape mission

Take out the line that refers to Shadow Debt

d. Tyl Regor/Tubemen

Tyl Regor relentlessly references the killing of his Tubemen which isn't something that new players ever have the opportunity to do

Short Term Fix:

Take out all of the lines that refer to the Tubemen until replacement plot can be added, or add a voice line to Uranus Sabotage missions that refers to the damage caused specifically killing Tubemen

2. Vey Hek/Fomorians

As a reminder, here's the correct order of plot for this storyline

1. Hijack Event from before I started playing, remnants of this on Ceres for players to find long after Archwing quest
2. Lead in event introducing threat of Balor Fomorians - No longer in the game
3. Archwing Quest
4. Eyes of Blight - No longer in the game, part of event surfaces occasionally without context
5. Law of Retribution

So the remaining pieces are out of order, new players have no context as to who Vey Hek is, or why it is that we have such a grudge on him

Personally, I would love to see a linking quest between the Archwing and Law of Retribution where we Archwing through the ruins of one the relays destroyed during Eyes of Blight, that would be amazing.

Short Term Fix:

Sadly I don't think there is one, having an extra voice line or two on Ceres talking about smaller, mass produced Formorians would certainly help a bit

3. Kela/Rathuum

Little bits of Rathuum story are still present on Sedna, but there isn't enough of it to make sense

Short Term Fix:

I would honestly keep the Rathuum stuff, just put back in the inbox message from Steel Meridian explaining the whole thing when Sedna is accessed for the first time

4. Phobos Boss

Vor should definitely be dead here and there's no way a new player could have encountered Lech Krill on Ceres before doing this

Short Term Fix:

Just take this boss out and have Trinity parts drop from selected Arid enemies until a replacement boss can be drafted in.

Honestly, it just doesn't add anything to the game, and it actively confuses the progression from Captain Vor -> Corrupted Vor

 

So that's everything I can think of from the top of my head, but I feel like I've missed a ton of stuff

Edited June 26, 2016 by MordaxPraetorian
Short Term Fixes

[PikeOrShield]

This is a very good breakdown.  I took a lot of this knowledge for granted when I played the second dream since I've been around for a couple years.  I can see why it would be very confusing to new players who have not had enough time to explore the game before playing the quest.  Hopefully DE will address this sometime since they have had some focus on improving the new player experience.

[Cydro_]

First we have everyone complaining about lack of end game content, now we have complaints about early game content. While yeah, this should be addressed at some point... One thing at a time, folks

[MordaxPraetorian]

I don't know about "at some point" I think some small tweaks could have a dramatic improvement on most of this. For example just adding an inbox message after Alad V is killed for the first time on Jupiter explaining that he's still alive would help immensely

I guess I'll edit some short term fix suggestions into the initial post

[BlackCoMerc]

1 hour ago, Cydro_ said:

First we have everyone complaining about lack of end game content, now we have complaints about early game content. While yeah, this should be addressed at some point... One thing at a time, folks

This is pretty vital. Talking over the heads of new players is a good way to end up with no new players. Which in turn is a good way to end up with no new revenue.

Moreover, late game is a job for content designers. Fixing the utter disaster that is Warframes "story" to date is a task for writers.

[Plushy]

The only thing you got wrong was there being no corpus origin story. One of the Simaris scans has very important stuff on it. I believe its the MOA one. 

[MordaxPraetorian]

The Anti-Moa imprint isn't an origin story, it is just a hint at best

[MagPrime]

I didn't see anything I disagreed with.

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

The old events need to be brought back as quests. I wonder if DE had some issues with their work on making quests easier to produce, but if not hopefully they come back with, or soon after, the new chart.

[MordaxPraetorian]

I get the impression that most of the old events existed to test new mission types or systems, rather than to provide plot, and that some of the others existed (or at least existed in the form that they did) to provide bridges between the state of the system before something happened, and the state of the system afterwards, like "hey it would be a little jarring for our existing player base if all of these gas cities just appeared out of nowhere all of a sudden"

But yes, that doesn't change the fact that plot did come out of them which is vital to understanding the content that's in the game right now. So the plot needs to be put back in but those old events probably shouldn't just return as quests in the exact form that they existed in as events.

Think about Alad V's induction into the Infestation for example, that plot came out of a couple of samey alerts and Operation Breeding Grounds which was just a Hive mission that was played over and over again. It worked for what it was designed to do, which was to provide a quick explanation and test the Hive mission type, but as a Quest that would be really lacklustre.

Edited June 26, 2016 by MordaxPraetorian
typo

[Autongnosis]

I agree with what you say, unless you're really into story (i was and as such played every quest obsessively) you're gonna miss a lot of pieces.

Also, i think one of the problems of bringing back old events as wuest is exactly what you described above, that is that most of those events would not work as quests. And thus probably having to convert all events to quests by doing new interludes and differentiating mission types, on top of adding new voice lines is what's holding the Whole thing back.

[Chipputer]

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

the piece of wreckage blends into the background so well that it was difficult for even the veterans to pick it out

It was the only new thing on the entire map. It was huge. It was easily identified as a similar shape to the other Sentients you've already seen. How in the holy love of balls could you not pick it out immediately?

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

The Stalker appears so rarely, my friends did not encounter him a single time between starting the game, and playing The Second Dream

Good. He's meant to be a rare occurrence and you're meant to be left wondering, "who the heck was that?" If your friends didn't encounter him before the Second Dream then that's just luck of the draw. One has to wonder why they weren't asking who was sending them mail after they killed bosses, though.

For that matter, the only good explanation we have about who, or what, the Stalker is... pretty much happens during the cutscenes of the Second Dream. Sure his codex entry goes on about vengeance, but those cutscenes explain all you need to know-- he hunts Tenno and yet it's blatantly obvious that he, himself, either is a Tenno that is controlling that suit remotely, or is a Tenno who is directly inside of that suit and goes mad when he has to face that reality.

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

c. Alad V

Yeah they really need to fix his storyline up. Badly.

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

Tyl Regor relentlessly references the killing of his Tubemen which isn't something that new players ever have the opportunity to do

Uranus Sabotages have you dealing with some of his experiments. You also directly destroy some tubemen in some permutations of the mission. This one is fine.

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

2. Vey Hek/Fomorians

Definitely needs a story link to explain what a Balor Fomorian is and why they matter so much.

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

3. Kela/Rathuum

Agreed 100%.

7 hours ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

4. Phobos Boss

I always understood this to be a placeholder boss, but I could be wrong. It's poor design, either way, because you have no idea why Vor is still alive and you have no idea who Lech Kril is.

For that matter, it hearkens back to the whole Alad V thing.

For that other matter, the game never truly explains how Vor becomes Corrupted Vor except through his ridiculously long winded monologues. Those simply state, "MY JANUS KEY CALLED TO ME AND BROUGHT ME HERE," yet nothing else we see in the game dictates that keys act this way-- they all require some form of beam device and a gate in order for them to even activate, to begin with. That could be explored much better by the developers, especially now that the Void is planned to be collapsed.

[Chipputer]

5 hours ago, BlackCoMerc said:

Fixing the utter disaster that is Warframes "story" to date is a task for writers.

Sometimes I feel like the writers are taking a page from Five Nights at Freddy's and just making it up as they go along.

They seem to have a firm structure to work off of, but they just don't seem to know where to go from there. Mirage's quest done right before or right after the Second Dream really highlights this. Yes, you could say the Lotus is lying about what the Tenno are, but they heavily hint at the frame being disintegrated directly killing the Tenno, or something, and it just doesn't add up.

[(PSN)Yodunheim]

I wish I could put this directly in the hands of DE and force them to read, they desperately need more storytelling and it kills the game and significance imo. Good post

[TheVeiledScion]

Excellent post OP. A lot of this really has to do with DE's somewhat ad hoc way of introducing game mechanics, items, characters and story. It really has become rather convoluted. A big part of the issue is that DE doesn't seem to have any sort of story bible that guides game development and narrative progression. And it's something that needs to be addressed now, since DE is finally getting to the place where they can actually do substantive narrative content. Without a firmer foundation, new players will be hopelessly lost. A massive streamlining is needed, one that would probably take more time than is honestly worth. So here's what I suggest:

1. Compile the "history" of the WF narrative in one massive Lore piece for every player to receive. Put it under the Quests tab, and include the new game modes, units or enemies introduced. Before each new quest or event, update that Lore piece so that new players are always up to date.

2. Order all of the Quests such that players know which ones to do first.

3. Provide detailed Lore pieces on all the bosses, including their past actions and current relationship to the Tenno so that players understand who they are fighting and why.

 

I think that'd be the simplest thing to do at this point, since there are so many other things on DE's agenda at the moment.

 

[MordaxPraetorian]

1 hour ago, Chipputer said:

It was the only new thing on the entire map. It was huge. It was easily identified as a similar shape to the other Sentients you've already seen. How in the holy love of balls could you not pick it out immediately?

Well it's roughly the same colour as all of the other odd shaped rocks on the earth tile set and even as a long time player I would be hard pushed to describe the shape and location of every odd shaped rock on the earth tileset

In addition, absolutely everything else that is scannable can be highlighted in some way, at least the plants have names when you look at them

Quote

Good. He's meant to be a rare occurrence and you're meant to be left wondering, "who the heck was that?" If your friends didn't encounter him before the Second Dream then that's just luck of the draw. One has to wonder why they weren't asking who was sending them mail after they killed bosses, though.

The thing is that one has to have encountered him in order to wonder about him. In order for the intro cutscene to the Second Dream to have the right effect the player must already be able to identify the Stalker

Quote

Uranus Sabotages have you dealing with some of his experiments. You also directly destroy some tubemen in some permutations of the mission. This one is fine.

If there is a variation like that then this is better, however I'm quite sure I've never played it, and as you're the first person to point it out, I don't think I'm alone in that

I remember the one where you have to kill a special manic, but I definitely don't remember him being in a tube

Quote

For that other matter, the game never truly explains how Vor becomes Corrupted Vor except through his ridiculously long winded monologues. Those simply state, "MY JANUS KEY CALLED TO ME AND BROUGHT ME HERE," yet nothing else we see in the game dictates that keys act this way-- they all require some form of beam device and a gate in order for them to even activate, to begin with. That could be explored much better by the developers, especially now that the Void is planned to be collapsed.

I do 100% agree with this, really hoping there's some mention of it in Spectres of the Rail and/or War Within, what with the queens around and all

[Chipputer]

1 hour ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

Well it's roughly the same colour as all of the other odd shaped rocks on the earth tile set and even as a long time player I would be hard pushed to describe the shape and location of every odd shaped rock on the earth tileset

It's not even a matter of identifying everything. It's literally a completely new thing that pops up only for that mission. Missing it shows that you just simply weren't paying attention to the environment-- that's fine. I'm not knocking you for that, I'm just saying that it was a blatantly obvious thing.

1 hour ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

In addition, absolutely everything else that is scannable can be highlighted in some way, at least the plants have names when you look at them

I'll give you this. I can't think of anything else, off the top of my head, that doesn't highlight before you scan it. That means it's an exception or it means that there are so few that it's hard to remember. Either way it's a problem.

1 hour ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

The thing is that one has to have encountered him in order to wonder about him. In order for the intro cutscene to the Second Dream to have the right effect the player must already be able to identify the Stalker

That's the thing, though. "That guy who sent me the mail," has his face on the mail. Noticing these things should lead the player to identify, "oh man that guy's face is familiar, he said I must face the consequences of my actions and now he has some dude's head in his hands.

... oh."

Again, this seems to be an issue of not paying as much attention to details as others, much like with the rock on Earth, thing.

1 hour ago, MordaxPraetorian said:

If there is a variation like that then this is better, however I'm quite sure I've never played it, and as you're the first person to point it out, I don't think I'm alone in that

I remember the one where you have to kill a special manic, but I definitely don't remember him being in a tube

It's in the same area and it rarely, if ever, activates. I've done it about three times and that's it. Those times were when I was trying to find the Kurias before I decided to look up a guide on them and ran through the sabotage mission about fifty million times.

It's rare but it's there. It's rare being the operative term, of course.

I'm not saying they shouldn't bring back the Tubemen of Regor as some form of quest, though. It would solve the issue outright.

[Kethus]

Yeah, the quests are all over the place. When there were regular events you could draw a timeline, but now you can kill Alad V on Jupiter, see him with some infested scars in Second Dream, then see him fully infested in Patient Zero, while Second Dream should have come after that. The first two quests are played out as if the players is one of the first awakened tenno and the infestation was just discovered and in the second dream it's like the player is the first tenno to actually awaken and that's the point in time the moon is moved out of the void. So any events must never reference things from any of the quests, the quests mustn't reference any events, and one quest can't reference another quest unless the another quest is required.

DE could make the other quests requirements for Natah, but one person already complained that Second Dream is locked behind a content wall, and this will make the wall bigger. There was also a suggestion about an archive section in the codex, to describe all the past events, but it would contradict Once Awake, because the player is the one who discovered the infestation. Or they could also place the "main story" quests in the archive's timeline, which would kill immersion, which is fine for the veterans, but might not be for the new players.

Is Maroo's Bazaar locked until the players actually complete her quest?

[BlackCoMerc]

22 hours ago, Chipputer said:

Sometimes I feel like the writers are taking a page from Five Nights at Freddy's and just making it up as they go along.

They seem to have a firm structure to work off of, but they just don't seem to know where to go from there. Mirage's quest done right before or right after the Second Dream really highlights this. Yes, you could say the Lotus is lying about what the Tenno are, but they heavily hint at the frame being disintegrated directly killing the Tenno, or something, and it just doesn't add up.

My girl did the Mirage quest line after second dream. I went along and helped her run the missions.

She was absolutely shaking her head in disbelief at the monologue on the part of Lotus. Where for me, last year, it was a really cool, really emotional thing...now, its just nonsense. Utter and complete nonsense. If there is nothing inside the frame, who cares whether the empty metal is disintegrated. I mean, at least to the degree Lotus was concerned during her monologue. And no to mention...she is bleeding out? Really.

It was utter nonsense. But then, the whole second dream was a poorly conceived, lore breaking idea that could have been done better. I dont want to be a gothic emo kid sitting in a spaceship, impervious from real harm, happily slaughtering hundreds I have never met nor really understand. The Second Dream is almost a meta commentary on the absurdity of Warframe's narrative...

[Chipputer]

17 minutes ago, BlackCoMerc said:

The Second Dream is almost a meta commentary on the absurdity of Warframe's narrative...

It might be.

I do appreciate that they, at least, have tried to say that the Tenno, themselves, are meant to be a stark contrast to what the frames they control are. I like that much. I also don't, directly, dislike the idea of the Tenno, I just dislike how they've been implemented in their current form (yes, they're immature, but they've been controlling these death machines for years, you'd think they'd be a little battle hardened and jaded at this point).

What I don't like is how it came out of nowhere and, due to vague language being used in previous lore entries, people are now forming the previous lore to fit the new scenario. Hence why I called it a page from Five Nights at Freddy's.

[(XBOX)ThatsFine9]

Having been playing for almost 2 years now and avidly searching for new endgame content, I think I'd rather them focus on the new player experience so that we can keep getting new players instead running with the same old people. For starters, there needs to be a clear and concise narrative/plot/quest line which new players must follow. No one downloads this game thinking "I can't wait to farm plastids!!" No. They download it looking for a compelling story and for the gameplay. I feel like a lot of stuff is geared towards the veterans, which is nice, but we can entertain ourselves. New players need direction and guidance until they get hooked. One mandatory quest isn't going to so that.

[DrBorris]

[(PSN)WiiConquered]

13 hours ago, Kethus said:

DE could make the other quests requirements for Natah, but one person already complained that Second Dream is locked behind a content wall, and this will make the wall bigger.

I doubt there are many people who would complain if parts of the story were locked behind other parts--that's how a story works. The problem is that, right now, Second Dream is locked behind a ton of stuff that isn't story, (Sedna grinding, for example) and many of the quests have time gates and stuff like that too. But no one should complain that they can't see the middle of the story until they get through the beginning.

[(PSN)Lord_Gremlin]

A lot of issues come from the fact that events are supposed to be turned into quests. Developers already talked about it. But it takes ages. Shadow debt quest, gradivus dilemma quest, all currently missing, hence plot holes.

[Necrius]

In current state it's a colossal work to fix all those dangling storyline threads into something bearable. Way harder than breaking everything apart and rebuilding it from scratch.

Not only they need events to be reintroduced as quests, they also need to introduce them in right order to make sense.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Necrius