Provide players with MUCH more information!

[Stormandreas]

So Warframe is RIFE with areas where very little information is given, and it's completely up to the players to tell other players about things (i.e. the Wikia, which is NOT created by DE in any way)

This is flat out poor game design, no argument. You make a system and you fail to provide the correct information about or to use said system. It's just awful.

This is no exception. I have been trying to do my Mastery 24 test (for the 2nd time), when, for the 2nd time, it just randomly goes "BOOM! MISSION FAILED!", despite me not dying, nor using all my resets, and actively destroying the target orb.
What was the problem? An invisible timer that you are NOT told is there. You have 3 minutes to complete the test, but are NOT told this, nor do you have any indication as to how long you've taken. This is just flat out stupid, when you're having to use the super clunky mechanics of the Operator, vs super fast moving infested maggots and Brood Mothers that run 15089436 miles an hour at you!

DE, this is a rant, yes, and it's a highly justified one. It's poor design to give people an objective and not give them the parameters of said objective, and it's also very poor to rely solely on your playerbase to provide information that you rightly should have provided as developers, in-game or otherwise.

[Spartan336]

It really needs fixing.

[Twilight053]

Not happening. Unless we nuke the wikia, it just won't happen. DE has come to rely on wikia as source of information too much.

[Doomsknightmare]

I got to swtich swiftly between Warframe.exe and Warframe wiki / Market everytime I play

[Spartan336]

1 minute ago, Twilight053 said:

Not happening. Unless we nuke the wikia, it just won't happen. DE has come to rely on wikia as source of information too much.

And that's a bad thing. Having to switch out to something that isn't even in the game is very poor game design. It needs fixing, and I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be fixed. 

[Xaelroa]

37 minutes ago, Spartan336 said:

And that's a bad thing. Having to switch out to something that isn't even in the game is very poor game design. It needs fixing, and I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be fixed. 

Go try playing any retro game from the "nes" era. The only instructions you got for games for a long time was in the manual and that was the barest of basics. "push right to go" "push a to jump" anything else that was in the game should there be things like keys or whatever else, you had to figure out on your own. Those of us that played in those generations of games survived just fine and even learned quite a bit. I've learned quite a bit playing warframe the same way. There's not really a major need for super handholding "this is how to play the game in the way everyone is going to say is best little timmy".

And before anyone bashes me for supporting a lack of information, how often have many of you even looked at the in game codex? There's a surprising amount of info in there if you put the effort into filling it out.

Oh, a particular game that comes to mind about having "unexplained mechanics": look at just about any metroid/castlevania style game. They almost invariably lack tutorials beyond basic movement until the most recent generations of games in their respective title series. Yet people easily figured out the advanced movements and the like without aid from others by simply experimenting and seeing what they could do with the tools they had at hand.

TL;DR - leaving the "advanced" info to the wiki is fine. people should learn to experiment more rather than demand all possible info be spoonfed to them.

[FrackingBiscuit]

56 minutes ago, Stormandreas said:

What was the problem? An invisible timer that you are NOT told is there. You have 3 minutes to complete the test, but are NOT told this, nor do you have any indication as to how long you've taken.

I just took the MR24 test and there was definitely a timer there. 

That said, your basic argument that the game doesn't explain itself enough it spot on.  DE even knows this, but they seem to be completely clueless as to how to actually fix that.  Plains of Eidolon really emphasizes this problem - there is exactly zero attempt to explain any of the systems introduced, and there are a lot of systems introduced with PoE.  The one and only thing they attempted to do was introduce a tutorial for codex scanners with Saya's Vigil... except it completely fails, because you're told three times by the Lotus that you need to equip your scanners to complete a mission, and once you get into the mission you don't use the scanners at all.  They sit in your gear wheel which the Lotus very emphatically insisted needed to be loaded up with scanners, and then you never once pull them out.  Worse, there is no effort made to explain that the scanners are used for anything outside the quest - in which, again, they are not actually used.

DE can kill a lot of birds with a handful of stones if they work on making a true quest line that runs through the first few planets and incrementally introduces players to the basic gameplay systems with explicit, hands-on explanations.  Mission types, enemy types, weapon handling, parkour, codex, scanning, crafting, fusing - players need to actually be walked through these systems instead of being told "Okay, your Mod segment is on that side of the ship - good luck!" and left to figure out these systems which are often complex and sometimes obtuse (Different mod rarities have different fusion costs?  I can melt mods down into Endo?  What's "transmutation" mean?  I need Endo AND credits to fuse mods?  But who am I paying the credits to...).  This could also be used to load players up with basic essential gear instead of the silliness that was broken mods in Vor's Prize - by which I mean the basic mods that contain core equipment progression, like base damage mods for weapons and stat mods for Warframes.  Because progression is tied to these items, and there's no garuanteed way to get them, meaning character progression is up to RNG in a way that's really inappropriate, and this fact itself is hidden from players until they happen across these mods for the first time and realize they've been missing out.

[Spartan336]

1 hour ago, Xaelroa said:

Go try playing any retro game from the "nes" era. The only instructions you got for games for a long time was in the manual and that was the barest of basics. "push right to go" "push a to jump" anything else that was in the game should there be things like keys or whatever else, you had to figure out on your own. Those of us that played in those generations of games survived just fine and even learned quite a bit. I've learned quite a bit playing warframe the same way. There's not really a major need for super handholding "this is how to play the game in the way everyone is going to say is best little timmy".

And before anyone bashes me for supporting a lack of information, how often have many of you even looked at the in game codex? There's a surprising amount of info in there if you put the effort into filling it out.

Oh, a particular game that comes to mind about having "unexplained mechanics": look at just about any metroid/castlevania style game. They almost invariably lack tutorials beyond basic movement until the most recent generations of games in their respective title series. Yet people easily figured out the advanced movements and the like without aid from others by simply experimenting and seeing what they could do with the tools they had at hand.

TL;DR - leaving the "advanced" info to the wiki is fine. people should learn to experiment more rather than demand all possible info be spoonfed to them.

This isn't a retro game this is a complex 3D 2013-2017 game about space ninja's with more content than most of those games combined. Should Warframe hold a players hand? No. But it shouldn't straight up abandon them either. Bullet jumping isn't explained unless you go to the codex, which most players actually end up missing because they either don't realize it's full of random info, or they just don't know it exists. (Sounds far fetched considering how big it is, but it happens way more than it should.)

For more on that, go read the post I linked up top. 

[Stormandreas]

8 hours ago, Xaelroa said:

Go try playing any retro game from the "nes" era. The only instructions you got for games for a long time was in the manual and that was the barest of basics. "push right to go" "push a to jump" anything else that was in the game should there be things like keys or whatever else, you had to figure out on your own. Those of us that played in those generations of games survived just fine and even learned quite a bit. I've learned quite a bit playing warframe the same way. There's not really a major need for super handholding "this is how to play the game in the way everyone is going to say is best little timmy".

And before anyone bashes me for supporting a lack of information, how often have many of you even looked at the in game codex? There's a surprising amount of info in there if you put the effort into filling it out.

Oh, a particular game that comes to mind about having "unexplained mechanics": look at just about any metroid/castlevania style game. They almost invariably lack tutorials beyond basic movement until the most recent generations of games in their respective title series. Yet people easily figured out the advanced movements and the like without aid from others by simply experimenting and seeing what they could do with the tools they had at hand.

TL;DR - leaving the "advanced" info to the wiki is fine. people should learn to experiment more rather than demand all possible info be spoonfed to them.

I have played many Nes era games, and absolutely love Metroid like games.

They give plenty of instruction, to the amount that those games are capable of doing. In Metroid, for example, you get an upgrade, look at your upgrade screen, and it tells you what it does.

Warframe, you look at say, the Dual Toxocyst, it tells you it 'gets excited on headshots'... what does that even mean? What does that do? does it buff the gun? who knows!? It doesn't even tell you it adds on Toxin Damage when you get headshots, nor does it tell you you get infinite ammo, nor does it tell you you get increased fire rate.... am I making it clear here?

Leaving "Advanced" info for the wiki is fine, like optimised builds and the like, but not simple things like "You're mission is timed".

[Elrond_McBong]

17 hours ago, Xaelroa said:

Go try playing any retro game from the "nes" era. The only instructions you got for games for a long time was in the manual and that was the barest of basics. "push right to go" "push a to jump" anything else that was in the game should there be things like keys or whatever else, you had to figure out on your own. Those of us that played in those generations of games survived just fine and even learned quite a bit. I've learned quite a bit playing warframe the same way. There's not really a major need for super handholding "this is how to play the game in the way everyone is going to say is best little timmy".

And before anyone bashes me for supporting a lack of information, how often have many of you even looked at the in game codex? There's a surprising amount of info in there if you put the effort into filling it out.

Oh, a particular game that comes to mind about having "unexplained mechanics": look at just about any metroid/castlevania style game. They almost invariably lack tutorials beyond basic movement until the most recent generations of games in their respective title series. Yet people easily figured out the advanced movements and the like without aid from others by simply experimenting and seeing what they could do with the tools they had at hand.

TL;DR - leaving the "advanced" info to the wiki is fine. people should learn to experiment more rather than demand all possible info be spoonfed to them.

lol. Games 20 years ago were equally bad in that aspect - therefor its ok.

Also, a mission being timed is not "advanced" info. Its the most basic rule a mission can have.

 

Edit: ninja'd by andreas, damn

 

Edited November 10, 2017 by Elrond_McBong