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Improving the New Player Experience


DeckardPain
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Hello Tenno,

I am [DE]DeckardPain. My background is in UX/UI Design but also in Warframe. I've been a member of the community since August of 2013 and recently have had the pleasure of joining the Digital Extremes family.

My current focus is specifically taking a deeper look into pain points in the New Player Experience, specifically within the first 2 hours of gameplay. There are many ways to approach what we perceive as the biggest issues, but we definitely wanted to also take the time to approach you and gather information from within the community.

With that in mind, we would love to hear more about your experience (if you can remember that far back, for some of you); for example:

  • What were some things you wish Warframe taught you in the first 2 hours?
  • Were there some things that were too overwhelming or confusing during these first 2 hours?
  • Can you recall any points in which you or a friend weren't sure what they were supposed to be doing during the first 2 hours?
  • Any other obstacles that stood out to you at the beginning of your Warframe experience, or any particular items you feel a new player would benefit from.

See you in-game!

[DE]DeckardPain

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I'd say the biggest issue is the objective markers being confusing, imo the markers need to specifically be placed on the appropriate door within the current tile, rather than the marker just guiding u in the general direction of the objective, because the current system often leads u around in circles when tiles have verticality or aren't non-linear.

Edited by Kutsus
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Mods and upgrading it - a mission to recover an artifact [endo] from a spy vault and then use it would be good. This can be part of a bigger quest line. This could also be a good place to inform players that they can turn other mods to endo. 

An introduction to forma, relics, primes, and fissures would also be good. This could involve retrieving a relic, and opening that relic to get a forma BP can also help. 

This might need new tiles but a quest that introduces players to the movement system would be good too. I see a lot of new players who don't know how bullet jump. Movement is one of the most essential things in warframe and shouldn't be left to players learning them on their own.

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yo what up bruh welcome to the fun

Have to say the main pain point myself and other people I get to play the game is the direct objective going forward after the tutorial. There is no clear cut path on what you are supposed to do and what needs to be done. Some other pain points are definitely how to earn certain mods (nightmare, vault), what the difference between broken and non broken mods are, and also getting matched with people who are MR 15+ when you are just starting out. The later is an issue due to the enjoyment/flow of the game. You dont really get to experience or learn whats going in when someone is running around blasting everything for you. 

My two cents for you.

Edited by Bibby
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I wont really go into my past start (having also started in 2013 the current state is so different from back then). But there are some things I would like to see happen.

For absolute starters. After completing Vor's prise. Point the new player to the location of the codex tutorials. Maybe have it even open it in their face with a pointer to where they can find it again.

more points:

  • automatically prompt the tutorial for movement 2.0 as people got when it was introduced. You need to learn this early.
  • start the player with all broken mods and show them what a build could look like on their chosen starter gear
  • while the starchart is a lot clearer. give the player small bits of lore indicating their path through the chart.
    IE. vor as been defeated but the corpus have this dangerous proxy, head for venus. (and so on)
  • mods
  • mods
  • mods
  • more subjects need entries in the codex that are in a way presented to the player. like a more in depth info entry on elementals
  • Endo needs a tutorial (part of mods)
  • Have people meet maroo so so they can learn about statues and stars.

Will update as new ideas pop up.

EDIT: new stuff

Edited by Airwolfen
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Not just in the first two hours, but Warframe needs better tutorials, at all levels.  Stuff like Khuva Siphons, Rivens, mod fusion, the Quills, Amps all just get dropped into the game without explanation.  It shouldn't be a required part of the new player experience to track down a third-party Wiki to figure out game mechanics.

It would also be extremely helpful if there was an in-game method of learning where components drop for weapons and especially Warframes.  I just went ahead and bought Chroma, because I would rather spend my game-time using new items to punch Grineer.  Not punching Grineer hoping for new items.  But if I hadn't, I probably still wouldn't be able to craft Chroma.  Because I have *no clue* where the parts for Saryn, Ember, and Frost drop from, and as far as I know there is zero in-game reference for it.  Again, the only way I'd find out is... to check the wiki.  This would be a perfect use for the Codex - for a frame you haven't unlocked, allow a player to click on it.  Provide a basic description (or the same description for the large number that don't get any actual lore) and a note like "It is rumored that Alad V held a Valkyr prisoner, and now keeps the secrets of her construction close to him as he studies how to exploit Tenno technology."  It doesn't have to be actual drop rates, or which parts are rare.  But *some* clue for how to even farm for a frame would go a long way. 

Edit:  And it should also mention if the parts are drops, but the actual blueprint can be gotten from the in-game Credit market.  I've been playing since Founder's Access was a thing, and had to look it up when a friend asked how to actually craft Oberon from all the components they'd gotten.

Edited by EmberStar
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Edit:  Also, waypoint markers need to be looked at.  In some tilesets, the marker will settle over the exit from the current tile, rather than from the current visible room.  In some cases, this results in an objective marker floating apparently at random hundreds of meters from the visible exit of the current room.  There are a couple of tiles on the Grineer shipyard/scrapyard tileset that are really, really awful for this, as well as some of the larger Corpus rooms.

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I actually started a new account about a year ago with the intention of making a megapost with everything I noticed about going through the starmap with a fresh set of eyes. You guys update so damn fast that a lot of these were fixed or made non-issues within days of finding them, but here's the notepad file I have copy+pasted. Maybe there's some things in here that are still valuable.
 

Spoiler

-Introduce Teshin with small side mission that rewards stance for equipped melee weapon. Having all of the one handed sword stances be rare means picking the skana is underwhelming. Also solves Teshin being a "literally who" when he shows up in quests if you've never done pvp.

-Range indicator on certain abilities (Pull, Crush.) Maybe hold button to highlight affected enemies?

-Magnetize can sometimes select enemies behind/next to you instead of target far away

-Give line about wardens being extra susceptible to stealth finishers?

-Color Correction seriously needs a slider. Some abilities are painful with it on.

-Some kind of brightness/contrast sampler would be nice

-Boss Battles need music

-Taxon too OP for when acquired?

-Lato needs buff, feels plinky

-No explanation for facing Vor after killing him once? Lotus acts as if we've never heard of him.

-Killing enemies with the environment is FUN. Need more ways.

-Jackal fight seriously underwheming. Needs more interesting movement/animations.

-Cronus is worse than MK-1 Bo. Feels disappointing to craft first dropped weapon and find it's a downgrade. Needs buff in some area.

-Maxed out Mag by mid-Mercury, Rhino Systems requires plastids which are unobtainable until Phobos. (NOTE: FIXED WITH PoE)

-"Requires Scanner" should be more clear. "Requires Codex Scanner" to know what to search for in market.

-AFURIS MR 4 but is not listed that way on the market

-Receive Heat Sword BP from Once Awake but can't build it until Jupiter, can't progress from Earth without completing Once Awake. (NOTE: FIXED WITH PoE?)

-Ordis' text and dialogue do not match during Void Relic Segment installation

-Hitscan weapons auto-track to the center of Magnetize regardless of whether you are aiming at the bubble or at an enemy in front of the bubble

-Maroo "dies" in a standing position during her capture

-Maroo has repeating dialogue for every spy vault during codice recovery, implying you steal three when you only steal one

-Codex scanner reward only gives 1 scanner, not 25

-Amphis hitbox issue on left side charge attack

-Ordis missing "ABANDON THE OPERATOR?!" dialogue subtitles in The New Strange (before last mission)


THE ARCHWING
-------------------

-Who is Vay Hek? Do they lead the Grineer? But then who are the Queens?

-Who is Frohd Bek? Does he lead the Corpus?

-A fast player can reach damaged areas during ground segment before the Fomorian actually "appears," ruining pacing. Add enemies in the beginning to slow progress?

-No music during escape, anticlimactic

-Needs more screen shake, explosions, events knocking player off feet. Very little tension during Archwing deployment.

-Archwing underwhelming vs. Shield Dargyns. Players should feel powerful & excited to use the Archwing, not immediately encounter counters to it.

-General setup of Archwing run disappointing. Should be redone. Make terrain destroyable by Fomorian, no threat if you can take cover behind debris the main cannon should be able to destroy but can't. A scripted trench run through a breaking apart Corpus Vessel might be more exciting, with the Fomorian's gun cutting through the ship in front of you as you try to escape. Leaving the "trench" leads to the fomorian zapping you out of the sky.

 

Only thing I'd add to this off the top of my head is: -IMPORT PoE ARCHWING CONTROL SCHEME. Most satisfying iteration so far.

Thanks for the thread, and congrats on the job!
 

Edited by Tavanaka
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I feel like the tutorial doesn't explain enough. The solution isn't to make the tutorial longer, but disguise an advanced tutorial system as an opening quest line that shows you how to unlock new planets and find everything you need to find on your ship.

Examples could be - 

Craft a new weapon using a blueprint that can be found here

Mod your weapon with these mods that can be found here

Level the weapon to 30

Forma the weapon with a free forma that can be found here

Then each step can have tips explaining what these things do and how to obtain them in the real game. Just do things like that cover basically every aspect of the game until you've done everything once. 

 

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increasing mob spawns in early levels would be good, a lot of the problems with early warframe is it's so slow to teach the importance of mobility. now, that's not to say increasing the mob spawns without looking at scaling, but give the players more to do when they complete the star chart. veterans run missions for loot, new players run them for fun and to learn mechanics, and leaving them to fight a few mobs every tile or so isn't a good introduction to the fluid, fast-paced game warframe becomes

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I'd say that ironically, the codex is the number one issue. There's tons of lore and worthless information in there, as well as so, SO, SO many things that aren't totally explained at all! 

Needs more straight-up, detailed explanations. A big ol' glossary section where every term in the game is explained completely would be great.

Example: I type in arcane into this. It offers me: Arcane Helmets, Arcanes (Cetus) and Arcanes (Trials)

Each has a complete description of mechanics and lists of all arcanes available.

But wait, what's a trial?
If I were to type that in, it aught to return both an explanation of how raids work, as well as entries for all raids. The raids should also be fully explained mechanically, step by step, in those entries.

That's just one(or two) examples though. I should be able to put something like "slash" in there and recieve full info of how it works as a proc or as damage. I should be able to read all about damage and status/crit as well. I should be able to tell exactly where something drops just by checking it in the glossary.

 

Save lore and stuff for the main codex. We really could use a place to get full, detailed explanations of everything in-game.

Edited by BeeOverlord
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I cant really remember much from back 2 1/2 years ago but I've helped a lot of new users get their feet wet in the game so here's what I see are the common issues that arent explained well;

 

Firstly, mods and modding.

 

More than a few times I've run into users who say "yeah I put mods on my weapons" but when I ask them what mods they've put on it always amounts to things like diamond skin on the warframe, ammo drum on the primary, and nothing on their secondary or melee since they didnt have enough mod capacity. There have even been occasions where users have put no mods on at all because the explination was no more than a blurb from Ordis that they may have missed out on.

 

Perhaps some greater explination of what damage-boosting mods do, as well as explaining fusion in greater detail will help here. Showing users that survivability mods like vitality are going to be their best friend early on while they figure out the rest of the systems and ways to deal damage. Also including here an explination of mod capacity and how levelling up a warframe/weapon increases the capacity.

 

Another thing that I notice a lot from new users is the "ok I beat vors prize quest now what?"

 

Users dont know about the navigation screen, the quests/alerts icons, what junctions are or why they should push towards them.

 

Something that might help here is after Vors prize, a second quest immediately starts up to get the user off Earth and to Venus, pushing them towards the junction so they understand how to make progress on the star chart. Alternatively, Ordis can push the user to navigation and up around the quest icon have it circled in a red flashing square and when the user clicks on it, bring up a dialogue box that explains all the different icons.

 

Another thing that I see a lot of people stumble on is the movement system. They can run, walk, roll and jump, but more advanced things like aimglide, bullet jumping etc. are things that players need another player to explain in detail during a mission.

 

The movement system, though lightly explained in Vors prize, falls short of a full explination of how to move around. One of the mastery rank tests is on the movement system and requires bullet jumping and aimgliding to complete, so perhaps bringing that mastery rank test into a tutorial shortly after the very first mission where you escape from Earth might help? Bring the new player into a mini simulacrum and have dsome explinations come up on screen with a small test or challenge for the user to complete using the movement that was explained.

 

**I'll add more shortly

Edited by giantconch
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Been a while since I started but lets think what I've 'had issues with'

Instructions when you get 'something new'

Instructions for the map, players often miss the icon to show the resources (I really feel this should be active all the time like before the change).

Information about finding clans etc probably wouldn't go a miss because most weapons come from there.

Directing players to the codex etc so they know they have an ingame resource about enemies items etc and explaining how it's filled

Explaining the chat window icons and the shortcuts like /w etc

A brief tutorial about what you do and how it's used in game added to the orbiter modules such as the incubator etc. 

I'd say more info for syndicates wouldn't hurt either, something 'recommending' you grab all the base level sigils because you can't get them when you're in negative standing (or you couldn't when I started it)

 

Ideally though we need instructions anywhere where we end up needing to go to the wiki to find answers....same goes for anything where we basically click on it to find out what it does (think things like the navigation map icons top right)

Edited by LSG501
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Pulling up the in game tutorials (they do exists) when a new play first interacts with the mod screen/ arsenal/ foundry etc would be a good idea even having teshin (preferred as it introduces his character for reference in later quests) or ordis do a bit of a voice over tutorial at the same time like nef anyo does for the index tutorial.
 
Other then that i say have more of a lead to pull new players into completing the junctions and more understand as to what mastery is for advancement.

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First off, congrats on moving from being a part of the community to part of the DE team; and hope it works out as well as playing. On the topic of the early player experience; I feel the first goals are to address what the early game wishes to accomplish and what the player should do - what are they doing and why, what they need to do to be able to accomplish that. To this end, establishing how progression is through mods and how a player should try to gain functional mods versus broken examples and some idea of how they acquire them would be good. The Codex has its still diorama hints but I do not feel these fully prepare new players for this sometimes daunting task, and might function best as a reminder of sorts. Secondly, what and why the player is completing nodes. Players like myself might know that players want to clear nodes to open junctions to journey to other planetoids and missions, but why is the new player trying to do so. The Specters of the Rails never did get that explanation quest or event I recall DE Steve originally mentioning was the intent; perhaps an early tell to the player from npcs or a light quest as in the case of Once Awake could help lead the player into this early goal. For players wanting to grind to get stronger so as to challenge the junctions, perhaps Dark Sectors could be mentioned or better marked for the early player as a possible means to needed early progression mods and other bonuses like Endo, Resources, and Credits.

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The few new player questions that have been asked to me are

  • How to Fix Broken Mods
  • Where do I find X resource(IE:not knowing to hover over the extractor area to show resource drops)
  • How do I trade
  • Why can't I trade
  • What is a Clan
  • Lotus told me to go to the next extractor area. (Starting extractors cause one of Lotus' voice lines tells them to go to the next dig site.)
  • Not knowing +%IPS mods don't add damage to Elemental only weapons even though they are written no different then the elemental mods who DO add damage of that type to non Elemental weapons.
  • What are Syndicates
  • Why are they trying to kill me
  • Why can't I hurt the Boss
  • Where do I go next?
  • Should I complete Cetus before leaving Earth?
  • What are Relays for?
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Showing very clearly that there's blueprints for credits instead of buying for platinum. 

Explain how modding works. 

Explain the difference between how elemental and IPS mods modify damage. 

Explain slots and their limitations. 

Explain potatoes

Explain how mod capacity is calculated (mastery rank or level). 

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I'm going to stick to just 1 thing for now.

 

Reddit had a discussion a few weeks back that revealed that a lot of new players tend to miss the core mechanics of Parkour 2.0 such as bullet jumping(!) since the tutorial that introduced it isn't brought to the player's attention anymore.

 

So its definitely a good idea to either change the tutorial missions to introduce you to those concepts directly (hard to do I imagine.)

Or you should make the current Parkour 2.0 tutorial be brought directly to the player's attention at some point during Vor's Prize instead of it being hidden away in the depths of the Codex menus (which are fairly confusing to navigate for new players.)

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It would be great if the tutorial mission was changed to let players try out each of the warframe/weapon options before committing to it. Bonus if they let you test out all of the warframe's abilities in that first room before you settle in. That way they can get a feel for these pieces of equipment.

That, and Excalibur really should not be locked behind the second to last system on the Star Chart. Mag and Volt can both be obtained fairly early on by comparison.

Excalibur is the defacto choice/recommended starting warframe both because he is a good all-around warframe and the difficulty of acquiring him later and being the only warframe without a Prime variant for improved stats. It's the best frame to start with and worthwhile to invest in. Though I guess the point about investing into it / not having a prime variant for stats could be affected by Umbra :V

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Give them a mulligan on the first MR test. I have seen quite a few people fail it because they did not realize it was Primary weapons only, and/or because they brought a sentinel and it immediately failed them when it fired. Early on this can bring progression to a frustrating halt for new players.

Honestly I feel like the first few levels should have a lower delay between retaking the tests.

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Well, I posted a massive post about all the different things you should do, but it didn't save and didn't post which is really, REALLY annoying.

 

I'd really love for you guys to fix the forums. That would be good. They're so glitchy. Copying things I write, moving my cursor around randomly, deleted random blocks of text and so on.

 

To make things short so I do not re-write my entire large post:

Clean up early explanations and do that highlight intro thing that websites do, where they do a highlight tutorial, and do it for all the different stations in the landing craft.

Review the starter frames because right now, they basically force you into using Excalibur and smack players in the face with grind if they choose something else.

Do a proper introduction to trading and give the game a PROPER, open API for web developers.

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