So... I kind of put this together quickly and didn't really have time to premier this evening so... I hope you enjoy and sorry in advance for the lack of a premier. That being said... the next video in the New War series is almost done so look for that to drop in the next couple of days, complete with the typical premier.
Your idea is acutely really good pitch it to de plz going drifter path to play the new content then coming back to the tenno is something they should thought about.
Honestly i don't mind either way with your drifter options as long as *something* can give us an archgun unlock option. you've no idea how long i've just been going traditional because nobody does profit taker or even solo, I don't want to have to grind up those medical bonds just to get to the bit of unlocking profit taker to begin with! It's the only trluy dead part of the game and even though i don't *need* it, it is the one feature im missing.
It’s a 10 year old game. If you haven’t played Warframe yet or heard of it at this point then I don’t care. But most people should of and it’s a free to play so everyone has access to it. So with that said they need to stop caring so much about the new players or attracting new players. Imagine coming to a 10 year old game and skipping all the main campaign because there’s “a lot”. It’s a 10 year old game.
I do like the idea of having new players take a different path as opposed to just skipping content. This sounds like the happiest medium you could ask for.
I like that i think the alternate routes would fit really well especially since most of warframes early game is find something that looks cool and go after it
@@TheDsIEGEbut its not really for the quest. Its for skipping the time required to gain access to operator/drifter content. Id prefer if people got to experience the quest as I think it helps fuel people’s want to play the game just a little bit. But being able to skip through it al and get a decent warframe/weapons is a nice alternative path.
I think a cool idea would be if there was just a story mode where you could play with your current gear or a pre-made load out so even if you aren’t far enough in the game to beat or play the new content you can still do it.
What they should do is make a way for you to play the absolutely important quests w/ loner gear. Or maybe just have a side path/menu for “how to get to the newest content QUICK” Not a skip, but like a epitomized path kinda.
@@Unless-feature i for one really enjoyed the stealth bits, the consoles were rather fun, and i honestly enjoyed the health tankiness of the the archons the least
instead of story skip they can also choose to lower the prerequisites of the quests so they can get all the lore and cinematics warframe has to offer and catch up to their friends pretty quick
Rebecca clarified multiple times they would be making changes to reduce early game grind and accelerate quest progression in addition to offering pay-to-skip.
They already laid out the groundwork for drifter tenno paths, they just need go commit to making it work. Definitely like the idea of starting at new war after duviri, and I think the whole "leave stay" thing could be given weight, telling you that leaving will immediately put you in the new war where drifter is playable. Maybe then we could finally get a good cutscene of the drifter popping out of duviri and just existing now. All the while, they'd have to remind players that this is only half of the story.
I watched a friend play the new war yesterday, there’s been a bug since december 2022 (veilbreaker) that makes deacons have MUCH higher view ranges than intended, making the stealth segments nearly impossible to beat. If they are facing you, they will almost definitely see you. DE doesnt pay attention to issues like this enough, leading to quests being miserable if you dont play them in the first week (but not day one, and dont try to do anything unintended of the player) EDIT: I also think DE HAS to rework the early quests and bosses and tilesets, the story should not start at Uranus. They could go planet by planet and rework it, even once or twice a year would be good.
My brother noped out if the game when he realised the amount of grind he needs to do to be able to join us and not be able to do more than 1 digit damage, a drifters path with some basic frames maxed basic mods and an open star chart would have really helped
I like the idea if the using the idea to see the skipped quests as a sort of a cutscenes that shows the lore of the story till the whisper of the walls Preferably I prefer the skipped equipment being limited to encourage new or only battle players them to try to enjoy the game
*spoiler* Man, i can't describe all the feelings i got from all the high moments from the new war After all the grind i made to get my beloved sevagoth, my railjack (which my friends helped me), my nechramech, all the formas, potatos and stuff I can't describe the satisfaction i felt when cefalon cy rescued my tenno from space and damn, my golden railjack design soaring through tau, was just awesome, i feel that this skip is going to absolutely butcher that experience, i feel like warframe's true skip is the friends that led you to that point (may them be, your actual friends, the NPCs, your clan, your companions)
Without question... they'll never know any of those feelings and what really made the quest great, the culmination of all that stuff together in one epic story. It's a shame our culture has lost it's patience...
I’d rather them make all story quests available after the Mars junction, the only prerequisites should be the quest coming before. I feel the experience in the game is necessary and well, give someone everything bc they wanted to catch up with their friends, it’s going to be bad as they’ll end up dependent on their friends or random pubs without the know-how on modding and more, overall I think they just need to go back to the drawing board, and make an even better new player experience to help them speed up to where the new updates are at as this is an issue that can be solved without plat purchases required.
I'd prefer the quests not tied to the star chart myself, but... I also don't know what goes into detaching them, so... I don't know how feasible the best solutions would be without abandoning new content for a while until they get everything redone...
I think it would be possible to add a third option to the "timeline" choice at the end of Duviri, something like "show me the future" that will immediately deposit you into to the latest content available with some basic setup - a Warframe of your choice, some weapons, mods, a companion, while providing for you things like a Necramech, a Railjack and limited access to Focus schools when necessary. Or this option could be available to everyone in the game, somewhere in a separate section in the game menu, maybe in profile, so that people that started the game already and just finished, say, The Second Dream, could just jump into new content, and while without context to what is going on, they'd still participate, and then they'd be able to come back to what they were doing previously. Maybe give new-ish players limited access to the content, like you only get to do missions in a pretty, new tileset without the full explanation and mystery that a full quest will provide. And the quest itself would still be available to be played in intended order, so the player would play around with new toys and then do the meaty story that would later give them an "aha!" moment, when they finally catch up. It could be a completely new way of experiencing the game! And there is always an option to rip everything old out of the game like Destiny did lmao
While there are a bunch of rusty old systems kicking around the dark corners of the game, I think "sunsetting" this old content (what Destiny 2 does) would be really bad for Warframe in general.
While i say Sunsetting old content is undoubtably bad, I suppose it isnt as bad as Destiny did where they gave out their paid game for free with said DLC, and then vaulted it less than a few months later leaving people who got the game for free, with barely any game left. Such is the curse of a ever sprawling story i suppose
For anyone interested in investment necessary: I have an amazing friend that committed a ton to this game, and since she started she has reached the prerequisites for new war in about 5 and a half months. BUT: this does not include all of the game's features up to that point, as she's half way through solaris and necraloid rep, we still haven't played an eidolon hunt, and we finished just one orb mother fight (by mistake lmao)
I think the old game content needs an entire overhaul. In the meantime the option for the drifters path should give a necromech and railjack to the player under the guise that they are borrowing these things from their past self. They would still have to earn them from the Tenno path at some point. Should go Duviri, New War, Whispers in the Walls. It would be even better if Warframe 1999 actually was the past and could Segway into those new players coming full circle to the Tenno path.
I'd like that but I worry that it would require no new content for a while until they get it redone. That's something I think the vets would hate, myself included.
@@TheDsIEGE personally think we need like a year of health or whatever where de comes and overhauls alot of the old content many mmos have done this before and while it wasn’t popular at the time after the fact it skyrocketed the game’s popularity
They could still add “new content” maybe pull out a few of the older events that havent been run in forever as like a content vault type thing, but warframe hasnt really gotten a massive overhaul since honestly protea where the corpus gas tile set was updated alot of the older content that should be updated hasnt and you can feel it when you play some of the older missions
my stance on this has been softening, but i am still very cautious. I need DE to be very cautious too. There are plenty of ways to do this that will end horribly, but, Im starting to think it can be done well, and for the benefit of everyone. your suggestions are a great idea, and i hope DE considers more of these kinds of alternatives before jumping on the easy, likely disasterous option.
dude TF dunt chu get...DE onwy cares about the fwakn MONEY! if $ dunt come up ten DE dosnt give a shit over it....YTF chu tink 6 7 or 8yr glitchs and bugs STILL exsist tat coulda been fixed way long ago.....exsactwy its bc of MONEY! 😒 and its a shadey ass disgusting game pwatice.....
DE has and always will be one of my favorite game developers. In spite of everything they have never made me feel like warframe has gotten worse. It's ALL been up hill and it's only getting better. It's been rocky at times and I've had doubts, but time and time again they've been squashed. I've been playing warframe off and on for the last decade and I've come back each time having a blast. DE has made it clear to me that every dime goes into making the game the best they can while being I touch with the pulse of the community, something few dev teams can say they do. If DE wants to add a bundle to round up everything new players need to play this massive COOPERATIVE GAME, hell yeah. Keep it pushing DE.
Yeah, I'd say a giftable Beginner Booster Pack giving you a Railjack, Necramech, Slots and Boosters (Maybe even Potatoes and Forma) would be the best baseline solution for the grind problem. Any other solution could be just added on top of this one. EDIT: I've just thought of maybe having a way to skip unlocking nodes on the Star Chart. They won't affect Quests in any way and it only would make them even more accessible. It does take away the feeling of progression but it doesn't retract the experience as much as a "Pay to skip" option for quests. Maybe you could make an exception for Junctions, Open worlds, Assassination nodes and other special nodes but honestly this is as far as I would take the concept of skipping the game to reach the newer content faster.
The solution is to have everyone watch your entire channel before they can enable the skip :P Giving my two cents tho (before i watch your video). Some people in the wf discord mentioned the tutorial aspect. I didn't agree with that myself since at least from my experience the tutorial came in the form of digging through way too many videos. Like the bullet jump mechanic that i had to google and kuva siphons which i had to ask a random player about. And the way they talked about it you'd still have to progress naturally to some extent, at least in the free "story skip". My bigger concern is long term player engagement. Again, speaking from my perspective. But in the first 60 hours, before any actual story happened i probably would've skipped it. Which would have sucked because I'd lack a lot of basic context for whatever update i skipped towards. And given that this point whenever I'm awake I'll gladly drop in and wait for your premiers and just generally enjoy watching people discuss the story and lore, putting together the dots and trying to pull a coherent thread through everything, not having all that basic (even if confusing) engagement with the story could potentially reduce player engagement further. If they really wanna help new players they'd probably be better off streamlining a lot of the early grinds up until tnw etc.which hopefully wouldn't kill the investment that the story could bring. Will add further cents (edit) once i get around to watching your video. Further cents: I agree with most of the video. The idea of essentially doing a 180 and start as drifter meeting the operator, while i don't know how doable, would give an excuse to skip some of the longer story while still giving a pathway to experience it when you want to. Might need a few incentives for people to actually do that, but it beats just skipping it entirely. I also have really no complaints about the pay to skip aspect in regards to gear, i bought bonewidow after all :P so that ship sailed long ago. I get wanting to avoid people losing interest because they join for the new thing, just for them to be stuck doing 10 year old content their friends long finished. Skipping like this just doesn't seem the move tho.
Pay to skip leads to pay to win..... I started to play Warframe this year. I have had a blast discovering all the different lore and story. DE has built a great universe, lore, and fan base. Cheapening the experience by pay to skip spits in the face of the players of the last 10 years. This games as a service model that ALL the games development/distribution companies are looking at is making the videogames industry worse off. I have stopped playing so many games over the past 5 years because they became pay to play/pay to win. I believe that if DE does this it will be the equivalent of when Blizzard looked at the crowd and said "Well everyone has a cell phone don't they".
Yeah, an option to essentially start as the Drifter at his part of the New War, play from that point on with a mech, jack, and wing, then get the option to tome warp back to the start as the Op sounds like a decent option.
I honestly just think the rookies will miss out on the fun of the quest but it's still an option and maybe you will have those who know the lore and those who just don't. It's controversial for games to do this but I think it's just as simple as it's not the only option people have and very very few people will go out of their way to pay for a skip because it's not the easy way.
I mean... I'd prefer players to just do it the regular way. But I think DE wants to use that shiny new content to attract new players... it's a really difficult situation to say the least.
I think the issue people are having, or at least one I could see happening, is that getting all of that stuff from a one time purchase would be.. Pricey. And how would they price it? $20 seems staggeringly low, $60 is the price of a full game, which would be in my opinion, would be okay. As for what all would be included in such a bundle would require massive talks with not just everyone at DE, but the community as a whole. As for your idea, it sounds great. I would like a refresh of the tutorial section of the codex if your idea goes through. Most of it is.. Outdated to say the least.
60$ ehh tat sounds a bit ify tuu meh now if tey make it suu tat chu pay plat. for the whole bundle but make the plat count tu say a high tire WF plat price tat would help both partys out but ofc bc it kinda loses $ on DEs part tey WONT bother wif good ideas
I really think it's just that people forget how many things you can buy for irl money in Warframe. In my eyes(it it's priced appropriately) this is no different than someone buying Harrow or a new companion
I actually like your idea. I could see them doing it, but I also think if the goal is getting new player retention then they could just use the whispers and the wall like a teaser. I tell my friends to play warframe because the story is so good, but then I look back and realize you have to play like 100 hours or something to get where it’s good. I’ve had three friends quit playing because they didn’t wanna deal with Thursby’s quest. I think if they offered the chains of harrow quest or whispers in the wall or something as an option to get a taste of the main story, then players would be enticed by the newer quests and be more inclined to finish the grind of the beginning. Idk, right now only one of my friends plays and so if I’m not with him I’m alone, and I think the story is so good it’s the best selling point, but it’s so far into it it’s a hard sell. I really don’t have a problem with anything they do. Pay to skip or teaser to entice or anything along those lines to keep player interest would be really good for the game imo
The drifter path is a is a fantastic idea would 💯 agree with that method.however using the drifter as a cash cow is probably going to go over bad with the fan base giving that character is essential to whatever is going to be happening the next few years but that is my option
step 1: put a lot of things to farm step 2: with each great update add more things to farm and build step 3: realise now the game is overloaded with things to farm and build and not much about story, making it a wall to the new players to access the new cool stuff
I will never understand or even TRY to understand people that say stuff like this. It's a farming based game, this is not an Horizon zero dawn or a bloodborne. It's FARMING. BASED.
I also think the best idea is to have a "premium edition" of the game for $20-$60 that gives you everything needed to play through the big stories. Right now there's a huge wall for beginner players trying to get into the game of leveling and crafting and playing boring missions with no hint that the story gets way better later on.
wtf tey shouls ULT do ish get RID of the real world time B.S! bc most of the grind cwap ish bc chu need tuu WAIT irl time for weapons and ect. tey NVR shoulda made the foundry B.S as real world time tied in the 1st damnd pwace froms the start...wike for exp. say the railjack making it takes wike 3 real world days just tu build the shit...and TATS ONTOP of the alrdy hrs of grind JUST tu even GET tu tat point B.S 😒.....but NUU ofc DE wont bc tere greed based fagget fwaks and just care of lineing tere pockets wif owr $ 😒
I 100% would love this for my friends, they legit stopped playing when I told them they had to complete the star chart. Literally didn’t have time for that 😂. I sent this to them they said BET!
One thing I noticed since the new highlighted teammates and enemies option… during new war on the zariman when you give the flashlight away… I only have enemies highlighted in crimson and the kid you give it to was glowing red!
•Many of the quests bring information on how the game mechanics work, straight up skipping them would only generate high level, fully geared players with no knowledge on some of the most basic features of the game, that by itself already messes up the experience, throws any sense of achievement out the window (most games don't even have it anymore, which is why so many modern games feel so stale after just a few weeks) and makes huge chunks of the story obsolete. •I honestly don't think that skipping years of content and development should even be considered an option for new players because, at the end of the day, you will inevitably end up with the classic scenario that already exists on games that offer the same idea: People skip the core content, play the latest stuff, are too lazy to go back and experience the stuff they skipped and proceed to complain about lack of "new content" on the game. You may say "well, that's on them" yeah, but once it builds up and enough people are complaining about it, that ultimately affects the whole image of the game due to what the same people will say when potential new players ask about the game, don't believe me? look at the current state of the MMORPG genre, this is how it started. •If DE wants to make it easier for new players to access the latest content, then they should just create new ways for experienced players to help them or give new accounts a few more bonus perks that helps speed up that progression without necessarily skipping it entirely. -Maybe add a few more resources to the reward table of certain quests in order to speed up the progress of the next one. -Increase the amount of specific resources obtained on certain missions., if they are trying to reduce the grind, maybe start with the base of it all to give new players the desired boost. -Use the duality of the starting quest as a gateway for the latest content rather than proposing the idea of ignoring everything else. In my opinion, if they are so adamant about taking players to the latest piece of content, that tells me they are fully aware of the flaws regarding the grindy nature of the early game and how slow things can be, and rather than fixing the experience...they are telling players they may skip it...that's just not a good message at all.
Well, I can tell you I certainly saw it. I've created two new characters recently and the older quests, like the mission parts of the quests... are just bad. And pretty boring. Might have been ok in 2016 but... now it's not good.
What I would like to see is a story skip that: 1. lets new/ returning players do the new quest right away 2. unlocks all the previous quests and removes their requirements without just marking them as completed, letting the player do those quests whenever they please with no friction. This would mean that the player doesn't have 20 new mechanics and grinds dumped on them at the very start like the archon hunts/ sorties/ etc, but they would have the option to complete the quests and gain access to the content they unlock whenever they like. 3. has a built in bare bones summery of the story so far so players don't go in 100% blind. My thoughts for this would be something like the Drifter and Operator having a conversation (like how they had one in the new war) about each quest. Every quest would have its own short conversation between the 2, and you could skip the summery of each quest to get to the next one if you remember one pretty well. This should be an option for all players too. 4. gives the player a maxed warframe and weapons (rank 30 and catalyst), and gives them the mods necessary for their loaner builds so that the player is equip enough to handle the newest content. I think a story skip/ fast pass is kind of necessary at this point, but it HAS to be handled properly and with extreme care. I also think DE HAS to use this as an opportunity to introduce proper, hand holdy, tutorials. Warframe basically needs to have Ordis pop up and explain in detail how every mechanic/ grind/ system/ etc works right as the player unlocks them, as well as give suggestions for what the player should be doing next from time to time. Because otherwise new players are going to pay to skip the story, then have 0 idea what to do after the new quest, then feel like they were just scammed out of their money and quit.
It's really not needed let's go over what it really dose 1 gives de the ok to charge you for a f2p to play 2 deprives you of the experience of playing through the lore and storyvand grasp its importance 3 allows casuals to skip then quit and bitch cuz the games too short nothing to do
@Waydewilson89 it wouldn't be charging players for a f2p game. New players could still do all 300 hours of grind to get to the new content just like they would HAVE to do if the skip option wasn't there. It doesn't deprive the player of anything. They can still go back and do all the quests and get the full experience. If you think giving players instant access to unlocking all the content in the game is going to cause players to get bored then you've got a couple loose screws in your head. Telling players "just do 50 hours of star chart missions to unlock the good quest" is guaranteed to cause 99.9% of new players to get bored and quit.
I think the story skip is mostly gonna be used by people making new accounts, and less new players. and even if a new player uses it, it means they can join theyre friends sooner, instead of going through a story they may not even care about
I had a different idea taken from duviri in a dedicated story mode, that rewarded the tings you need so youre not paying to skip lore youre paying to skip the stuff in between until youre done. Cos one Thing about those early quests yes theyre not great but there also short, So charge the price of a mid budget game and take a day or two play the entire story up to that point and get everything youd need as rewards maxed as if youd bought them. you could even split it into 3 acts that could be individually purchased for a returning player who fell behind. Act1 awaking to second dream, act2 war within to sacrifice, act3 the prelude to war chapters punctuated with rising tide, call of the tempestarii and the new war ending with angels. I do like your idea though give a way to differntiate the drifter more by having them perpetually confused as a character as to whats going on as a proxy for the new player where as the tenno can have more in depth questions in dialogue options but im not sure about the conviently finding all the things you need just laying around especially when some of this stuff like railjacks are supposed to be rare canonically
I think they need to streamline the early game instead of skip. First step - you can go to any node on any planet you can access. You still have to unlock the junctions, but once you have access to lets say Mars, you can click on any node in Mars and start a mission. Second Step: Remove the quests that have no significant lore and replace the disconnected 'get this warframe' quests with a Leverian and move the blueprints for the parts into the market (for credits). Third Step: Have Ordis keep 'bugging' you to go to the next quest step. "I heard Ceres is great this time of year. Why haven't you unlocked that junction yet?" Fourth Step: Remove the grind from the essentials. Dump the essential mods and equipment in the junction rewards. I would say the goal would be to hit second dream in about 20 hours or less, instead of the 60+ it is now. Also let Ordis really be your new player tutorial. Give him some awareness of your loadout. "Your gun feels sad, it's not up to it's potential. Put some Endo into your mods!" "You just got Intensify last mission. That will make your warframe ability's much stronger!" That sort of thing. Instead of the lazy way out of offering a skip, make it a shorter jounrney to being ready for the new quests, but make stuff like steel path still require the grind. Then you have it both ways really, new players get into the meat of the game without needing a skip, and there will still be plenty of improvement ahead of them to master the game.
Yeah, I can get behind this... the only thing I would say, and I've mentioned that to others is that lore related quests like once awake and even vor's prize are... incredibly dated. I like your timeline though and think it's a good model for getting the player along.
Perhaps if the story was divided into something like character-themed chapters along w a chapter selection screen? (Tenno, drifter, Arthur) A little bit like a collection of books - each enjoyable in their own right - but together telling the story of the Warframe universe? Obviously there’s the issue of the Tenno’s involvement across each but it’s just a rough idea off the top of my head… maybe the chapter selection idea could be like the man in the wall’s way of showing off the crazy narratives it’s weaved by manipulating different characters (If that makes sense)
As someone with over 3k hours who started playing when Fortuna launched, I am ALL in favor of anything that reduces the grind for new players. However I'm very defensive towards the idea of a story skip. As you said, so much of what would be skipped in order to jump straight into Whispers in the Walls is the best content in the game. Playing through the narrative leading up to The Second Dream, and then getting hit with the climax of the quest is one of the best gaming moments of my life. I would hate for people to be denied having that same experience. I feel like it would also take some unreal level of narrative/writing wizardry to try to catch people up with any kind of "the story so far" summary in a way that doesn't just detract from the experience overall. Not that I doubt DE's writing team capabilities, obviously they have proven their talent and creativity repeatedly, it just seems like an impossible task. Like you mentioned as well, there's also the fact that so much of the story is left to speculation, and that's part of the appeal. There's a youtube video I saw recently titled "Why are we obsessed with the lore of Dark Souls and Elden Ring?" by the youtuber FatBrett, and one of the points he makes is that the unknowability of the stories of FromSoft games is a large part of why they are so enthralling. They don't give you all the details, so it makes you try to put all the story pieces together like a puzzle. Most of the points he makes in this regard also apply perfectly to Warframe's lore, so it would seem weird to try to distill it down in a way that is comprehensible for a new player that doesn't just completely butcher the experience. IMO, I like the idea that another commenter mentioned of a fast route to get to the new content, where you still play through the main story quests, but don't have to do any of the repetitive gameplay grind and just be given some basic gear to use in quests like The New War. Most of the story content is very easy anyways, you don't need anything close to optimized gear (in fact it's probably a better experience without OP gear so you don't just one-shot every enemy lol)
I think in order to make this work, DE would have to be EXTREMELY explicit in how it works. They'd have to let the player know that they'd be skipping out on major story beats and much of what others are talking about may not make sense. Secondly, the option would have to make the pay aspect worth it, i.e. I think it would have to include Warframe, weapon, and Riven mod slots, a couple of Warframes, at least one of each companion type, and a few starter weapons, because otherwise, you're jumping the player WAY ahead without the ability to really play all the different aspects of the game. Otherwise the OTHER option would be like you said, a Drifter path and a Tenno path, but that would require quite a bit more work I imagine to make the story make sense. BUT it'd be interesting to be able to jump back and forth between the two because it would add some more depth to what the Drifter had been through in all the time that the Tenno had been asleep.
Easily the best video I've seen on the topic. Actual solutions given without a torrent of complaints. Gotta love a person that take the full picture into account 👍🏾👍🏾
I've been thinking of Warframe adding a sort of "campaign only" mode where, just like in normal singleplayer games, you just play through a set of levels till you beat the game. Similarly they could take all the campaign missions and package them into one linear string of missions, with maybe some of the optional side missions being tagged as such and maybe some of the "first encounter" missions like the sentient encounter before Natah being added in between. Not sure about skipping to the end, like, would anything make sense?
Heres a thought in relation to the drifther path option. If duveri had portals like the ones to the undercroft but these ones connect to various main points in the young tenno story except its teshin doing the mission control voice instead of the lotus. The reason for this happening is due to the switching of the drifter and the tenno so if the drifter is in the origin system the tenno is in duveri and thwt switch provides a portal point to a quest. When completed in can be accessed again in teshins cave or the dormizone This way it can provide an alternate shortened path without the need for farming. And if you haven't played the tenno path yet it can be handwaved away by 'big' events happening to the tenno bleeding through to the drifter.
I think the idea of the "Story Skip" sounds like the player basically gets to bypass all the wait and work to actually beat challenges in the quests. It goes beyond just buying the stuff, people are probably thinking about players being able to just max out a necramech without playing the game kind of "Pay to skip". If I were to design a "Pay to skip", there are a few ways to do it. First is "Beginner boosting" where players get a temporary fixed bonus until they reach MR5 worth of mastery points. Second would be a 'fixed' gameplay path that you HAVE to play, which guides you through all the quests in quick succession. Third would be a "New content pass" kinda like the "Drifter Path" you described, which would unlock Whispers in the Walls _specifically,_ and give you what could be considered a "starter kit" that would allow you to play it. Headless Kavat starting at 9:17
Let em pay to skip the grinds, not the story. Give em the stuff they need at the time it is needed and not all at once. So for some plat, let the players play the story and remove the grinds in between. At least that would be my advice. I also like the idea about the Drifters Path with the option of experiencing the Operator Path at a later point in time.
This was my initial thought too, but more i think of it, more i think that these are two different "products". While uninterrupted quests campaign is much faster than their grind, they still might take several days, which might be too long for some. So adding this as an option might benefit some players, but removing the "full skip" might hurt others.
@@naktiluka problem is: if you've ever skipped stuff in a game (for money or not doesn't matter), you will find yourself quitting the game pretty fast. Ask yourself these 2 questions: Why do I play a game? And why has stuff in that game value for me? Usually it's because you've invested time. Forget about money, time is the only thing of real value. If you do not invest time into a game, the stuff in it will never become valuable to you.
@@xaendark I have also left a few games I like because they required too much time investment, so I cannot really relate to that. I might not be the target audience of this possible purchase, but it looks that I'm definitely closer on spectrum than you or elitists in other comments. EDIT: There's a third question to ask for these two: are you willing to endure content you don't value in order to get to content you do? Sometimes I am, sometimes not.
@@naktiluka Maybe I wasn't clear what I meant. I do not want the new players to have to grind through all the content. Rather have them a short and easy way in, but without overwhelming them. To my knowledge, a lot of people drop the game as soon as they get to the modding part, because it starts to get confusing. Now imagine getting thrown Archwing, Necramech and Railjack at you, on top of the already complicated systems. Hell, even I would quit after that.
In my mind the best way to implement a "story skip" for warframe would be supplying the player with a built up odonata archwing, nechramech, a few warframeand weapon slots slots with the ability to pick a handful from the roster giving each a basic build. Then unlock the entirety of the map and let them start the tenno focused quests right away without having to go through the grind while giving them the ability to start the best parts of the game right away
I agree with your idea of separating the games story to arch of the Tenno or arch of the Drifter stories. I might not be a fan of the skip (want to make sure everyone gets a true grasp of the lore), but if someone wants to waste money, that's their choice. At the least, DE should improve the match-making before making the change official by hours spent playing and rank. It's bad enough having vets speed running through the game and you can barely keep up with them at times. To now have new players slow down the experience is also an issue. Both sides to the coin has it's pros and cons. We just need for DE to make it a fair fundamental experience. Give an option for players to choose if they want to play with fully unlocked whales in public synergies vs. those that don't, and maybe we can select that as an option like us playing public, private or alone.
Personally i think it would be better to skip obtaining things like a nercamech, railjack, etc etc, the parts where you really get stuck on, like a "speed pass in a amusement park. you still experience the same things, just faster.
I wish you could, but because they are already baked into these quests, it's either give them away or make people grind for them. I'm all for some grinding but forcing someone to do all of it right away, while offering tons of content, is still a daunting task...
@@TheDsIEGE they could do it like duravi, give the players snake and a default railjack used only in missions, so they can still play just.. not outside of story mode
Funnily enough, they already have a system of “loaning” new players items for quests implemented in some newer content. My sister started playing very recently and got to Deimos before acquiring her Tenno. When she got to the necramech section of the Heart of Deimos, father lent her a necramech and she was immediately transferred into it, no operator required. Something similar to that for other quests like the new war that require investment heavy features I think would go a long way for new player engagement. I was a bit bothered when DE just gave everyone Voidrig parts after the new war came out because it felt like the months I’d spent grinding for my own had been wasted. The workaround they did for Heart of Deimos sat much better with me
I think @TheDsIEGE has a quite valid point and a just as plausible idea. Another option that I have been thinking since the Devstream, though, is another type of pay-to-skip (or rather "pay-to-reach" of sorts): instead of paying Platinum to skip the cinematic quests, what could be "skipped" is the whole grind needed to reach said quests in the first place. Be it for a comprehensive skip (like all the way to Natah, for example), or small jumps (like blocks that include the smaller quests leading to Natah as well), we should be able to pay to skip the grind (just like with the Foundry, Dojo rooms and decorations, or cool weapons, or new frames etc) instead of the quests themselves. This would kinda look like following: * Bigger blocks: Don't want to grind your way to Natah? Pay X Plat to unlock the quest automatically and also gain an Archwing (maybe also a K-Drive, just because we'd have gone through Fortuna inevitably), some slots, a moderate-duration affinity booster to reach the MR needed/expected and voilà. Don't want to grind from Natah to the New War? Pay another pack of X Plat to immediately unlock the quests (Second Dream, The War Within, all the Prologues, The Sacrifice), throw in a Necramech, a Railjack, more affinity boosters, maybe a couple more slots, plus whatever other essential resource I may be forgetting and voilà again. * Shorter blocks (same as above, but more like): Don't wanna grind until Saya's Vigil? Here, a smaller pack of benefits and unlock the quest automatically. Don't wanna grind until Stolen Dreams? The New Strange? Natah? Second Dream? The War Within? and so on? For each quest, immediate unlock and a couple benefits that make it playable. This way the new player will still have to play through the campaign to catch-up on the story, but chooses which shortcuts to pay for in order to get there. It's literally a skip-the-grind approach, which is already a practice within the game and would make a player's lack of patience or time available to grind profitable. In other videos, I've seen people complain about having a job, kids, a life outside the game and not wanting to spend hours grinding for stuff. Fair enough, use plat to rush your way through the quests (to the risk of boredom once you reach the end of the track), but do the mainline quests. That's how the story can still make sense via the Operator path and make everyone as satisfied as possible. As Reb said on the Devstream, Platinum is farmable, it's giftable, it's not like Regal Aya or Access packs, where you inevitably have to put in cash by yourself in order to access the content. Have a friend lend you some plat, or ask for help to farm a few relics on the chat, sell your prime parts to other players, pay to skip a good chunk of grind preventing you from the meat of the game and that's it.
And I can't understand problem with paying for skips. I against skiping lore, but there is no problem to buy preparations for quest. Just give ability to pay for needed materials to proceed quest, or just give new players "damaged" versions of cornbots, railjack, etc. (maybe only for quest missions only)
Honestly, I think the best solution on the Operator side of things is to rewrite Vor's Prize in a way that jumps directly into Second Dream Maybe the Tenno's awakening triggers Hunhow's hunt for Lotus and the Tenno, making the opening story a race to Lua. Along the way, run-ins with Vor and Alad V would introduce the Grineer and Corpus through high ranking members who specifically want the Warframes and know enough to exposit history at you alongside Hunhow and Lotus. From there, the Operator reveal can happen as normal and set up the status quo for War Within, Chains of Harrow, and Sacrifice The reveal in Second Dream is amazing, but nowadays its almost impossible to keep unspoiled to new players, especially with Drifter now here. Having it happen sooner but not immediately seems like the best compromise. Tbh Archwings should just be a base kit just something the orbiter comes stock with, and the Railjack and Nercomech can be just "borrowed" tools for New War as you said Everything else should be optional, quests to either get certain tools and/or flesh out the world - making the starchart feel a bit more like exploring rather than a checklist, especially if it also gets tuned Edit: grammer
what they could do is have an exclusive quest like when you die to zenuka. Maybe your tenno was the rhino prime that died in new war, and the quest is reality re-writing it's self so you never died
It broke my heart when Reb started reading out all the messages. It's such a kneejerk reaction that just perplexes me. The people who are hating it so much, 99% wont have to even use it. if you've done all quests, this doesn't effect you. If you've just started and want to do all the quests, that's great, it doesn't effect you. If you've just started and want to skip to the new content, then now you can do that, and we should be more than happy to fill you in if you end up confused. The whole drifter path sounds like a great idea as well, I think after the paradox there might have to be some extra tie in to how the drifter made it to the camp. There's also cut scenes/story that include the operator. The main one that comes to mind is the one straight after teshins bit where he gets killed and the operator gets stabbed. My question is do they keep the entire new quest the sane or edit it a bit so it makes more sense or is there a prelude for the drifters path to new war?
I like two of the three ways the most: 1. The Drifter's Path - really good idea that takes nothing from the Tenno story ❤ And I like the idea of prototype equipment for everything skipped. 2. Reducing quest relevant grind to a minimum (similar to Railjack) - I think thats fair enough to engage new players in the origin system's story. 3. "Pay to skip" is super bad in my opinion if it's just that - unless you could play the full story anyways for context - and I like the idea of prototype equipment for everything that's not in the package until you farm it yourself
I would love if they made an almost "abridged" version of the story, preferably replayable, that gives you prebuilt frames/necramech/railjack etc., and guides you through all the major parts of the story without having to wait for crafting things (like Excalibur umbra, voidrig). They'd probably have to reorganize/drop a couple of parts for it to feel fluid and not jarring (e.g. Vor's Prize), but honestly the ability to experience all the missions back to back without as much grinding sounds far more interesting than just skipping them and pretending they don't exist.
I really like your idea, honestly. Having a different "experience" as the drifter makes sense in the context of the story as well. I think the reason so many people hated the idea DE mentioned at first is because of skipping story stuff, but your idea sorta fixes both problems at once lol
Considering how much the community overall enjoys the story of warframe (to the point that nearly a decade later people refuse to spoil any of the major quests) I find a story skip to be incredibly weird. Like I get that sometimes people just want to catch up to friends or play the new thing right away but to me it seems like losing out on all the context is not a worthwhile tradeoff.I would much rather see them go back and connect/rework quests and certain events into a cohesive campaing thats shorter or more accesible to go through than to just skip the whole thing.Something like making a campain line of missions/quests to guide you through every planet kinda like what the junctions are supposed to be but better
You're opening me up to the idea here. Though with just how many systems are in place in the game, I don't know how anyone is gonna understand anything about their equipment.
Something is definitely needed, one of my friends hasn't played warframe in a very long time and wants to get back in but he seems daunted by the amount of content thats been added.
It's insane. There's so much to do not even considering the rng aspects of certain things along the way. I mean... if you're looking to really dig into a game and want to get lost for a few months straight, Warframe's your game but... for the common person, I'm not sure they have the fortitude...
really what they should focus on is redoing the way the story is presented. if your players need breakdowns to explain your story, your story is in desperate need of work. i have been around since the start, i am a founder, but even i remember going through some quests and not having a clue what just happened. the way the story is told... its disjointed, just following the main missions will simply not give you the answers needed to make sense of some of the later stuff. its also very disconnected from the rest of the game, which stands out very much when the game already has so many disconnected parts. it also does not help that it takes so long in between story updates without a easy way to help you refresh your memory on what happened before. and this story skip... looking at other games with things like that, it is really gonna hurt the long term player count. look at it from a new player's perspective. you start the game, do the missions needed to when you can buy the story skip and then do the most recent updated mission, you dont know these characters, you dont know what they're talking about, you dont know why you're killing the things you're killing. so then you go grind for weapons and frames with a friend, that does not take an awful lot of time or effort. its gonna take awhile before the next big update, and since you dont know most of the story, why would you be looking forward to that part of the update? so you wait for the update to grind out the new frame and couple of weapons... and then what? you do the same thing again? no, most new players have stopped playing by this point, they went on to other games that actually managed to keep their attention with something other than the endless cycle of grinding and waiting for updates. this is simply not a sustainable gameplay cycle. i am a long time player, but i only play 4-6 days per update. because that is all the time i need to get the new stuff, and have my fun with it. after that, i got other more interesting games waiting for me.
@@TheDsIEGE oh without a doubt, it is gonna take a ton of resources, and i am 100% sure DE is not willing to spend those resources on it. which i kinda get, they have this common misconception that more new content will keep the game afloat. but world of warcraft is a prime example of that not being the case. sure wow has been around for nearly 20 years, but it has been bleeding out since like... the 3th or 4th expansion, and it has been going downhill fast in recent years. DE should look at things like that and realize they need to learn what games like wow did wrong and then do anything but that. but i have no hope they will do anything like this.
That's your fault if your not paying attention or can't grasp simple things that are being presented founder aswell and have had 0 problems grasping the lore nor story cuz I actually played the quests and looked through all lore we have and did not take the lazy way out and skip
@@Waydewilson89 i think you need to work on your comprehensive reading skills, cause nowhere did i say anything you're talking about. also, you dont need to play defence for DE, they're a big company that can take care of itself, it is not gonna cry just because i pointed out some problems, no need to white knight for a multi-billion dollar company.
one other thing about the skip to endgame part is the fact that new player will surely be overwelmed with the amout of content in the game. I think DE should do a kind of mentor thing where experienced players (based on MR or starchart completion) could opt in. the mentors would hthen be prioritized when matchmaking with newer player and could help them understand the mecanics of the game. Maybe adding a reward for mentors too ? Otherwise, I already see newer player going to latest content missions and facing multiple host migration until they end up solo and unable to complete the mission since they don't know how the game works...
We need a Warframe "solo mode" like a standalone game that you buy that let you experience all the quest but without grind and juste some preset, or at least having the choice to not farm...
Wouldnt that be that one talks about story skip/quest skip but means pay to get top tier stuff with maxed frame and mods to gain things, since skipping story doesnt do them any good. And skipping is good if they get some prime mods, galvanize mods maxed on getgo with kuva/tenet or incarnons prebuilt with meta setup.. Else pay to skip would mean they paid to face harsh reality skipping lore doesnt do anything. And buying mr 3 wouldnt work either. Since then nothing to grind for :).
I like your ideas. I personally don't see the problem with the pay'd skip either, but I can understand why some might. I personally had an idea that might help, unlock all nodes on every planet without the need to run every single node to unlock a junction in a direction, keep the junction points as locked until the certain requirements are met, this would allow players to more easily get through the system and allows quests to become less locked for hours upon hours of gameplay because you would no longer need to comeplete every node unless going for MR. Keep steel path the way of old where you have to work to unlock everything, for that "challenge" that it can be for newer players to it. This is just my thoughts. Appreciate the video as always TheDsIEGE!
Thank you! I thought this would be a kind of middle ground, and also allow the new player a bit of experience before they jump into the newest stuff as well without needing 120 hours before hand. We'll just have to see.
The open worlds are the biggest current speedbumps in the games linear progression. But Deimos and the Zariman are both leagues above the Planes and Valis. They NEEEED to change those old two open world faction progression to update them to the new standards. This would cut down hugely on the feeling of misery and obliterating souls having to grind the same amount every day for weeks.
when they discussed that, I thought, what was the point of Duviri then, that's kinda already a good story skip, why just not make a more streamlined path to whispers from there?
I had a thought while watching this for a different starting point. This would certainly require a little set up on DE's part but from a story perspective, Lotus always talks about their being more Tenno and what not. Obviously alot of them are active but in theory, couldn't many Tenno also still be slumbering away on Lua, protected by other Tenno and the Lotus herself? What if they created a new quest or two that ties into a 'second great awakening' and from that Awakening point is where new players can join in. New Players can choose either Path 1 - the original Tenno path and play from beginning all the way to present OR Path 2 - the new Tenno awakens on Lua in the midst of a battle taking place during a new quest. From our perspective as veteran players, we play it as we're evacuating the remaining pods from some attack - perhaps the Indifference - while for any new players its them playing in their chosen starter Warframe in a new starter tutorial before being suddenly awoken from their slumber, not even getting a chance to understand what's happening as they are guided by the veteran Tenno and the Lotus' instruction to get to safety. Quest gives them a brief overview of many of the current mechanics Warframe and Operators can do. Perhaps add one older frame into the starting rotation alongside a new beginner friendly frame for a total of five for these new Tenno as well. Could allow DE to make more original Tenno beyond Rell for us to interact with. Ultimately the new Tenno don't get an orbitor right away or ever if they don't wish to, instead maybe take some initial base quests from a new Relay on or near Lua. For them, a selection of the older story quests that occured after a certain point are considered 'the past' and may be undertaken as a sort of simulation path to acquire those rewards with them sort of having an out of body experience, experiencing these old quests from the point of view like it was theres. Could give DE a reason to go back and update certain tasks as a result like the Archwing and Kubrows if not creating quick new ones. This is spitballing off the top of my head but having a new 'introduction' point while not gating them off from the old content if they so choose could be a very good idea. Maybe something to do every 10-12 years - 'second awakening' in this case but maybe in another decade having a different unique awakening perhaps of 'lost tenno'? There could be some interesting concepts if one takes some time to think about what you could do to ease the burden to newer players.
I personally think the reason why the paid path is getting flak than the other element in the game is that the much more sensible approach would be either making the grind to the quest easier or making it where you can pay to instantly get all the perquisites but still have to experience the quests. With the exception of the new war these quests take very little time when you remove the grinds to unlock said quests.
the pay to skip is for new players. If you're already caught up, then how does it affect you? It's the pay to skip players that miss out on the experience and some quests are replayable so if they have fomo, they can go back.
Imagine utilizing other content to bridge the gap in a way that neither spoils nor skips anything. Idea: Once the player has completed The Duviri Paradox, a new path opens in Teshin's Cave leading to a totally different portal. Accessing this would work just like running the Circuit, but solo. You get your selection of frames and weapons, a perfect means for newer players to try weapons and frames they have little to no experience with, and you go through the new portal to access a small portion of a quest you select when entering (as opposed to picking Circuit or Duviri Experience). It can be one, two, maybe even three moments of that quest specifically chosen by DE themselves, like little demos. Like if you wanted to pick The New War, you enter the portal and one snippet has you awakening as Veso. You play all the way up to the Jackel fight and it fades to black and you're sent back to Teshin's cave. Enough to give a taste, but not enough to see how that segment of the quest concludes. This would allow people to jump into Whispers with a random assortment of leveled gear, run through a small portion of the quest, get that taste, but leave them itching to see how it plays out after the fade to black. Demo, incentive, and best of all, nothing spoiled. Definitely not even remotely as easy to implement as $100 and you're there, but what's best for the players isn't usually what's easiest or most profitable.
While the idea of an alternate "new player fast track" sounds like the best idea if a story skip must be added, a fast track to a slow game will always feel a little out of place. Alas, I think a page could be taken out of Celeste's book here; allowing the player to take the fast story path *but heavily deincentivising it*, saying something along the lines of "This isn't how warframe was intended to be played" or something. The player is warned that if they take the option, their enjoyment of the game might be diminished as they weren't given the full experience. Additionally, I think the drifter's path cost should be the player's starting platinum, but not obviously. By this, I mean starting platinum would only be given to players who choose the main game over the drifters path. It would both incentivize playing the game normally by letting the player start with premium currency and, should the player take the drifters path anyway, then force the player to make their first auxillary purchases with real world cash, earning DE their extra bit of money from the less patient players. Asking for money right out of the gate might ruin a new player's first impression of the game, and this entire function is about the new player experience - no reason to ruin it with a paywall. I personally think that the starting quests should be overhauled to hook new players better instead, but I have no right to be asking for that much development work from DE. Alas, how much effort will they put in to make this fast track cohesive compared to how much it'd take to improve the beginning quests? Food for thought.
3 months ago, I've returned to warframe after 12 year and into a mastery 3 account. Barely any story quest were in the logs, so i had to play through those years of content. By playing regularly, i am now preparing for the new war , the necramech mainly. I think changing the drop rates for rare loot could go a long way to reduce the grind and keep the game moving. The only parts i genuinely stalled was for rarer components linked to standing (ex. Specific rare gems and ores, specific fish parts, amps) or rare drops in bounties (which require a decent understanding of the game and equipement good enough to succeed). Playing the game is almost enough, but i can understand the grind can be substantial at first. However, getting into warframe without liking some of the grind seems wierd , since the grind is the game
While I really like the idea of giving new players the option of a drifter path there are a few issues that would be present to have it implemented for Whispers in the wall. First the new war quest would have to be broken into two different quests due to the first half being operator specific. That would probably take more work then DE would be able to do before Whispers comes out. Second it does not get to the underlying issue that in order for someone to join their friend to play Whispers in the Wall they would still have to get through 5-8 hours of solo content before being able to join their friend.
For me maybe it was a miscommunication, I thought they would just be skipping the new war and everything before, which would be horrible because those moments are integral
Man talking with people about the skip is so incredibly difficult. You either get people who are so naive they genuinely dont see any possibility DE will abuse this feature; or you get people who are so invested in every single person who plays warframe going through the exact same grind they went through or else it somehow makes them unworthy
I think the only way this is viable is if they have a cinematic version of the game. Meaning everything up until Whispers in the Walls is presented to you as a cut together movie. However, you still need to pause to make choices that influence the game. That way the new player gets to experience the lore of the game and also participate in decision making. Then when they get to Whispers in the Walls, it makes sense.
I think being loaned gear, like is already the case in Teshin's Cave, could save so much time and grind for new players eager to get in the story. Gear that isn't good per se, but usable, and like you said allowing players to get their own better version if they wanted. However, I still believe the BIGGEST opportunity to improve the new player experience lies earlier on in the game. This could include having the main story start earlier on, provide MUCH better tutorials for game systems, and giving newbies a clearer sense of direction. As for the Drifter Path idea: it sounds like a really cool idea, but I worry that the additional lore, gameplay and experience you get from the Tenno Path would make these Drifter players a little more lost. Or maybe not. In any case, I appreciate you stepping outside of your norm to address this.
It is... but I wonder if DE will actually do anything like that. It seems like they already have their hands full with Whispers and 1999, but... fingers crossed.
Great idea to feed drifter into new way but the real job is to fix the new player experience. Throw some slots into junction rewards, increase drop rates on the must have mods, decrease the grind and/or build time for necessary pieces of kit. GIVE THEM A FREE archwing launcher when they build odonata
While I don't hate the idea as a whole. Bundling the already existing plat cost for stuff does in fact make sense. I do like the drifter path idea a lot. I also wish there was a way, even if it cost plat, to reset our choose counter. Although I would prefer it not have a plat cost.
When I think about how I played "the second dream" there was this moment where I thought to myself "now it all makes sense how I can use so many different characters for a single person" until then I always had it in the back of my mind lots of Warframs and no matter which one I use the NPC's see me as the same person, that doesn't make sense but it's ok I think? After that, Warframe became a lot more fun and that was the point where I became interested in the story and where I really started investing a lot of time. If you leave that out... I don't know whether you stay in the game for a long time or whether it was just an experience and you're somewhere else again. on the other hand, if my brother hadn't encouraged me to keep going or to choose a Warframe that I definitely farm myself, don't buy it with platinum, but see where it's available and how I can get it. For me it was Ivara at the time, I don't know if I'll even be there would have played until “the second dream” came... so I'm not sure if that's a good or bad idea. I'm a bit conflicted about whether I'm happy that the end content is available for beginners or whether I'm worried
I don't really understand the issue, paying to skip the story is not something I ever see myself doing because I want to experience stories in the games I play. But what is the issue with players who don't care about the story skipping ahead? Of course they are going to be confused about the story, but is that an issue when they don't care about the story in the first place?
While i kinda like the idea of giving players the option of taking the path of the drifter if they start out as the drifter, the whole thing about starting in duviri in the first place will already get some new players confused. Tried to get a few people into warframe when duviri came out and they had the option to start with duviri, but they were already confused from the start to the point that they did not even finish it in the first place. From 1 of them, i know they stopped around the fire spiral ( i think that was anger? ) as it was not fun to them. And that was just duviri starting point where the devs probably tried to keep things simpler. Not sure if they would also have had that same reaction if they started out like the older players with vor's quest and all, but that could be an interesting topic for a later time. The pay to skip option however is a rather risky option if they do go with that path. Sure, it will allow new players to catch up pretty quickly, even allow older players to skip content that they could not complete otherwise as i remember a lot of complaints with the new war where people could not complete it purely thanks to physical problems like artritis. However, the downsides of skipping like that is less interest in staying as you already got to the end pretty quickly, you will be confused as hell with all the systems and lore and unless you have someone that will explain stuff to you you will get frustrated enough to just stop playing entirely if we go with the player side of the negatives. The other side of the negatives ( not sure if that would be the dev side or also on the player side ) is that it cheapens the experience overall. They made all these quests, these story related places and other places to tell a story and get people immersed in the world. By giving the option to skip those very same things for real world money like how they described it, it gives off the implication that the previous content is not worth your attention in the first place and that they might even consider removing it in a similar manner as destiny 2 did with how they made expansions that people bought are now unplayable.
I definitely think this is a great solution to the whole "controversy", if that's what we're calling it lol. I watched the Devstream Friday and some of the comments I saw in the livechat directed toward DE were genuinely abhorrent... I hope they find a solution, maybe utilize your idea, in the path going forward.
I think it’s fine because we don’t have cross save yet so if someone has to start over on a new system they’d have to replay quests that they already did probably years ago. This way a second account can catch up really fast
Personally I have my own narrative idea of how DE could make this pay to skip concept fit, at least narratively, even if maybe over-exagerated. So to my understanding the player isn't the only Tenno, that's pretty hard to argue against, but at the same time we are the only Tenno who has woken from the Dream, or one of the very few at least. Whatever will happen with whispers of the wall could be an event of such a scale beyond even the New War where we HAVE to ask for help and the only way to fight the Void is with the Void itself, so through some kind of space magic (likely using the Wall itself to do it) we cause the mass awareking of the other Tennos and since the Void holds the power to create things out of imagination alone we are also able to load up those newly awakened Tennos in an instant. This could be some kind of opening cinematic to the quest, one which is only shown to those who played the game to that point meanwhile those who skipped right to Whispers get a different cinematic of their awakening. It would also be a nod to the well known waframe tradition of veterans being super helpful and welcoming to newcomers. I'm likely just writing some fanfiction level scenario in my head but there's definitely a way to make this idea of skips go through smoothly.
To be honest, my first reaction was also negative. However, just as you said, there's already the option to purchase most things in the game. Also, let's be completely honest, there's a large player section that doesn't even care about the story. They just want to shoot something. The option for new players to stop right away to whispers in the walls, and next year's Warframe 1999, could make them feel more invested to play the previous content to know the full story. So if it helps DE get new players, I think they should do it. The option for a Drifter storyline is algo a good one! It like how DE wanted it to be with Duviri being a new player experience.
New players are indeed essential to the game. A lot of the older quests are for sure a bit lackluster but I do think it’ll lose its charm by skipping. The way you’re seeing/hoping it’ll turn out would be ideal but we’ll have to wait and see. I personally am not with the idea of someone just buying their way through the game regardless of what was already available in shop but to each their own.
As someone who just pops into the game when I don't have anything else I want to play, I'm still grinding out the star chart. Duviri was fun, but not really what I want for gameplay.
I feel like reducing the star chart requirement (ie. the junctions) can be a great solution. I had a friend quitting the game because the star chart is very repetitive
So... I kind of put this together quickly and didn't really have time to premier this evening so... I hope you enjoy and sorry in advance for the lack of a premier. That being said... the next video in the New War series is almost done so look for that to drop in the next couple of days, complete with the typical premier.
Your idea is acutely really good pitch it to de plz going drifter path to play the new content then coming back to the tenno is something they should thought about.
Honestly i don't mind either way with your drifter options as long as *something* can give us an archgun unlock option. you've no idea how long i've just been going traditional because nobody does profit taker or even solo, I don't want to have to grind up those medical bonds just to get to the bit of unlocking profit taker to begin with! It's the only trluy dead part of the game and even though i don't *need* it, it is the one feature im missing.
It’s a 10 year old game. If you haven’t played Warframe yet or heard of it at this point then I don’t care. But most people should of and it’s a free to play so everyone has access to it.
So with that said they need to stop caring so much about the new players or attracting new players.
Imagine coming to a 10 year old game and skipping all the main campaign because there’s “a lot”.
It’s a 10 year old game.
I just want to be allowed to replay all the quests as a cinematic movie in game
That would be some playthrough. I didn't even realize how many quests there were until putting this video together...
Seriously, i wanna see my drifter on the Duviri throne again!
@@IronMan-ds5biwith the new drip as well lol
What quests aren't replayable? Can't you replay them all? They've been working on making them all replayable, I thought.
@@RedShadowOfSaturn world introduction quests are not.
I do like the idea of having new players take a different path as opposed to just skipping content. This sounds like the happiest medium you could ask for.
I like that i think the alternate routes would fit really well especially since most of warframes early game is find something that looks cool and go after it
I LOVE the "drifter path" idea tbh!!! I hope they do something like that for the fix!!!!
Thank you! I feel like it's the path of least resistance without completely gutting the experience for one quest, you know?
@@TheDsIEGEbut its not really for the quest. Its for skipping the time required to gain access to operator/drifter content.
Id prefer if people got to experience the quest as I think it helps fuel people’s want to play the game just a little bit. But being able to skip through it al and get a decent warframe/weapons is a nice alternative path.
I think a cool idea would be if there was just a story mode where you could play with your current gear or a pre-made load out so even if you aren’t far enough in the game to beat or play the new content you can still do it.
Kind of like what already happens in duviri, yeah that could work.
What they should do is make a way for you to play the absolutely important quests w/ loner gear.
Or maybe just have a side path/menu for “how to get to the newest content QUICK”
Not a skip, but like a epitomized path kinda.
I'm definitely ok with that, it's not like they've never done it before in other quests...
Loner gear? The New War is a nightmare because of drifter stealth and the damn Narmer security consoles that didn't have the console versions in mind
@@Unless-feature i for one really enjoyed the stealth bits, the consoles were rather fun, and i honestly enjoyed the health tankiness of the the archons the least
instead of story skip they can also choose to lower the prerequisites of the quests so they can get all the lore and cinematics warframe has to offer and catch up to their friends pretty quick
the time to rework is unreasonable. It would to to much time and money.
Reducing building timers and ressources needed for 20-30 quests (or so) doesn't seem very complex, to be honest
My only issue with that is that it would set up an expectation of progression speed that will not keep up when they hit the wall of "caught up."
Rebecca clarified multiple times they would be making changes to reduce early game grind and accelerate quest progression in addition to offering pay-to-skip.
They already laid out the groundwork for drifter tenno paths, they just need go commit to making it work.
Definitely like the idea of starting at new war after duviri, and I think the whole "leave stay" thing could be given weight, telling you that leaving will immediately put you in the new war where drifter is playable.
Maybe then we could finally get a good cutscene of the drifter popping out of duviri and just existing now. All the while, they'd have to remind players that this is only half of the story.
I do think the drifter path idea you mentioned could be good/interesting
I think so... and it allows for newer players to jump right in and still be able to somewhat follow the story.
@@TheDsIEGEhonestly you have had the best take and idea on this entire ordeal and I applaud you and agree with the drifter path
I watched a friend play the new war yesterday, there’s been a bug since december 2022 (veilbreaker) that makes deacons have MUCH higher view ranges than intended, making the stealth segments nearly impossible to beat.
If they are facing you, they will almost definitely see you.
DE doesnt pay attention to issues like this enough, leading to quests being miserable if you dont play them in the first week (but not day one, and dont try to do anything unintended of the player)
EDIT: I also think DE HAS to rework the early quests and bosses and tilesets, the story should not start at Uranus. They could go planet by planet and rework it, even once or twice a year would be good.
Yeah, I've dealt with this too recently. It's a huge pain, but... I doubt at this point we'll ever see it changed...
My brother noped out if the game when he realised the amount of grind he needs to do to be able to join us and not be able to do more than 1 digit damage, a drifters path with some basic frames maxed basic mods and an open star chart would have really helped
I like the idea if the using the idea to see the skipped quests as a sort of a cutscenes that shows the lore of the story till the whisper of the walls
Preferably I prefer the skipped equipment being limited to encourage new or only battle players them to try to enjoy the game
Hey, I'm ok with it, as long as new players get to see what DE has made over the last two years or so... it's definitely worth it.
*spoiler*
Man, i can't describe all the feelings i got from all the high moments from the new war
After all the grind i made to get my beloved sevagoth, my railjack (which my friends helped me), my nechramech, all the formas, potatos and stuff
I can't describe the satisfaction i felt when cefalon cy rescued my tenno from space and damn, my golden railjack design soaring through tau, was just awesome, i feel that this skip is going to absolutely butcher that experience, i feel like warframe's true skip is the friends that led you to that point (may them be, your actual friends, the NPCs, your clan, your companions)
Without question... they'll never know any of those feelings and what really made the quest great, the culmination of all that stuff together in one epic story. It's a shame our culture has lost it's patience...
I’d rather them make all story quests available after the Mars junction, the only prerequisites should be the quest coming before.
I feel the experience in the game is necessary and well, give someone everything bc they wanted to catch up with their friends, it’s going to be bad as they’ll end up dependent on their friends or random pubs without the know-how on modding and more, overall I think they just need to go back to the drawing board, and make an even better new player experience to help them speed up to where the new updates are at as this is an issue that can be solved without plat purchases required.
I'd prefer the quests not tied to the star chart myself, but... I also don't know what goes into detaching them, so... I don't know how feasible the best solutions would be without abandoning new content for a while until they get everything redone...
I think it would be possible to add a third option to the "timeline" choice at the end of Duviri, something like "show me the future" that will immediately deposit you into to the latest content available with some basic setup - a Warframe of your choice, some weapons, mods, a companion, while providing for you things like a Necramech, a Railjack and limited access to Focus schools when necessary.
Or this option could be available to everyone in the game, somewhere in a separate section in the game menu, maybe in profile, so that people that started the game already and just finished, say, The Second Dream, could just jump into new content, and while without context to what is going on, they'd still participate, and then they'd be able to come back to what they were doing previously. Maybe give new-ish players limited access to the content, like you only get to do missions in a pretty, new tileset without the full explanation and mystery that a full quest will provide.
And the quest itself would still be available to be played in intended order, so the player would play around with new toys and then do the meaty story that would later give them an "aha!" moment, when they finally catch up. It could be a completely new way of experiencing the game!
And there is always an option to rip everything old out of the game like Destiny did lmao
While there are a bunch of rusty old systems kicking around the dark corners of the game, I think "sunsetting" this old content (what Destiny 2 does) would be really bad for Warframe in general.
While i say Sunsetting old content is undoubtably bad, I suppose it isnt as bad as Destiny did where they gave out their paid game for free with said DLC, and then vaulted it less than a few months later leaving people who got the game for free, with barely any game left. Such is the curse of a ever sprawling story i suppose
For anyone interested in investment necessary:
I have an amazing friend that committed a ton to this game, and since she started she has reached the prerequisites for new war in about 5 and a half months.
BUT: this does not include all of the game's features up to that point, as she's half way through solaris and necraloid rep, we still haven't played an eidolon hunt, and we finished just one orb mother fight (by mistake lmao)
I think the old game content needs an entire overhaul. In the meantime the option for the drifters path should give a necromech and railjack to the player under the guise that they are borrowing these things from their past self. They would still have to earn them from the Tenno path at some point. Should go Duviri, New War, Whispers in the Walls. It would be even better if Warframe 1999 actually was the past and could Segway into those new players coming full circle to the Tenno path.
I'd like that but I worry that it would require no new content for a while until they get it redone. That's something I think the vets would hate, myself included.
@@TheDsIEGE personally think we need like a year of health or whatever where de comes and overhauls alot of the old content many mmos have done this before and while it wasn’t popular at the time after the fact it skyrocketed the game’s popularity
They could still add “new content” maybe pull out a few of the older events that havent been run in forever as like a content vault type thing, but warframe hasnt really gotten a massive overhaul since honestly protea where the corpus gas tile set was updated alot of the older content that should be updated hasnt and you can feel it when you play some of the older missions
my stance on this has been softening, but i am still very cautious. I need DE to be very cautious too. There are plenty of ways to do this that will end horribly, but, Im starting to think it can be done well, and for the benefit of everyone. your suggestions are a great idea, and i hope DE considers more of these kinds of alternatives before jumping on the easy, likely disasterous option.
dude TF dunt chu get...DE onwy cares about the fwakn MONEY! if $ dunt come up ten DE dosnt give a shit over it....YTF chu tink 6 7 or 8yr glitchs and bugs STILL exsist tat coulda been fixed way long ago.....exsactwy its bc of MONEY! 😒 and its a shadey ass disgusting game pwatice.....
DE has and always will be one of my favorite game developers. In spite of everything they have never made me feel like warframe has gotten worse. It's ALL been up hill and it's only getting better. It's been rocky at times and I've had doubts, but time and time again they've been squashed. I've been playing warframe off and on for the last decade and I've come back each time having a blast. DE has made it clear to me that every dime goes into making the game the best they can while being I touch with the pulse of the community, something few dev teams can say they do. If DE wants to add a bundle to round up everything new players need to play this massive COOPERATIVE GAME, hell yeah. Keep it pushing DE.
Hop off de for a sec and realize this is a ploy to make them pay to play
@@Waydewilson89that's literally not what's happening. calm down with paranoia for a sec yeah?
Yeah, I'd say a giftable Beginner Booster Pack giving you a Railjack, Necramech, Slots and Boosters (Maybe even Potatoes and Forma) would be the best baseline solution for the grind problem. Any other solution could be just added on top of this one.
EDIT: I've just thought of maybe having a way to skip unlocking nodes on the Star Chart. They won't affect Quests in any way and it only would make them even more accessible. It does take away the feeling of progression but it doesn't retract the experience as much as a "Pay to skip" option for quests. Maybe you could make an exception for Junctions, Open worlds, Assassination nodes and other special nodes but honestly this is as far as I would take the concept of skipping the game to reach the newer content faster.
The solution is to have everyone watch your entire channel before they can enable the skip :P
Giving my two cents tho (before i watch your video). Some people in the wf discord mentioned the tutorial aspect. I didn't agree with that myself since at least from my experience the tutorial came in the form of digging through way too many videos. Like the bullet jump mechanic that i had to google and kuva siphons which i had to ask a random player about. And the way they talked about it you'd still have to progress naturally to some extent, at least in the free "story skip". My bigger concern is long term player engagement. Again, speaking from my perspective. But in the first 60 hours, before any actual story happened i probably would've skipped it. Which would have sucked because I'd lack a lot of basic context for whatever update i skipped towards. And given that this point whenever I'm awake I'll gladly drop in and wait for your premiers and just generally enjoy watching people discuss the story and lore, putting together the dots and trying to pull a coherent thread through everything, not having all that basic (even if confusing) engagement with the story could potentially reduce player engagement further. If they really wanna help new players they'd probably be better off streamlining a lot of the early grinds up until tnw etc.which hopefully wouldn't kill the investment that the story could bring.
Will add further cents (edit) once i get around to watching your video.
Further cents:
I agree with most of the video. The idea of essentially doing a 180 and start as drifter meeting the operator, while i don't know how doable, would give an excuse to skip some of the longer story while still giving a pathway to experience it when you want to. Might need a few incentives for people to actually do that, but it beats just skipping it entirely. I also have really no complaints about the pay to skip aspect in regards to gear, i bought bonewidow after all :P so that ship sailed long ago.
I get wanting to avoid people losing interest because they join for the new thing, just for them to be stuck doing 10 year old content their friends long finished. Skipping like this just doesn't seem the move tho.
Pay to skip leads to pay to win..... I started to play Warframe this year. I have had a blast discovering all the different lore and story. DE has built a great universe, lore, and fan base. Cheapening the experience by pay to skip spits in the face of the players of the last 10 years. This games as a service model that ALL the games development/distribution companies are looking at is making the videogames industry worse off. I have stopped playing so many games over the past 5 years because they became pay to play/pay to win. I believe that if DE does this it will be the equivalent of when Blizzard looked at the crowd and said "Well everyone has a cell phone don't they".
Yeah, an option to essentially start as the Drifter at his part of the New War, play from that point on with a mech, jack, and wing, then get the option to tome warp back to the start as the Op sounds like a decent option.
I honestly just think the rookies will miss out on the fun of the quest but it's still an option and maybe you will have those who know the lore and those who just don't.
It's controversial for games to do this but I think it's just as simple as it's not the only option people have and very very few people will go out of their way to pay for a skip because it's not the easy way.
I mean... I'd prefer players to just do it the regular way. But I think DE wants to use that shiny new content to attract new players... it's a really difficult situation to say the least.
I think the issue people are having, or at least one I could see happening, is that getting all of that stuff from a one time purchase would be.. Pricey. And how would they price it? $20 seems staggeringly low, $60 is the price of a full game, which would be in my opinion, would be okay. As for what all would be included in such a bundle would require massive talks with not just everyone at DE, but the community as a whole. As for your idea, it sounds great. I would like a refresh of the tutorial section of the codex if your idea goes through. Most of it is.. Outdated to say the least.
60$ ehh tat sounds a bit ify tuu meh now if tey make it suu tat chu pay plat. for the whole bundle but make the plat count tu say a high tire WF plat price tat would help both partys out but ofc bc it kinda loses $ on DEs part tey WONT bother wif good ideas
I really think it's just that people forget how many things you can buy for irl money in Warframe. In my eyes(it it's priced appropriately) this is no different than someone buying Harrow or a new companion
@@shadowdragonx07wtf are you even saying
I actually like your idea. I could see them doing it, but I also think if the goal is getting new player retention then they could just use the whispers and the wall like a teaser. I tell my friends to play warframe because the story is so good, but then I look back and realize you have to play like 100 hours or something to get where it’s good. I’ve had three friends quit playing because they didn’t wanna deal with Thursby’s quest. I think if they offered the chains of harrow quest or whispers in the wall or something as an option to get a taste of the main story, then players would be enticed by the newer quests and be more inclined to finish the grind of the beginning. Idk, right now only one of my friends plays and so if I’m not with him I’m alone, and I think the story is so good it’s the best selling point, but it’s so far into it it’s a hard sell. I really don’t have a problem with anything they do. Pay to skip or teaser to entice or anything along those lines to keep player interest would be really good for the game imo
The drifter path is a is a fantastic idea would 💯 agree with that method.however using the drifter as a cash cow is probably going to go over bad with the fan base giving that character is essential to whatever is going to be happening the next few years but that is my option
That's fair, I agree...
step 1: put a lot of things to farm
step 2: with each great update add more things to farm and build
step 3: realise now the game is overloaded with things to farm and build and not much about story, making it a wall to the new players to access the new cool stuff
The greed of yesterday has cause problems for the greed of tomorrow.
It's a grind game with no direction in 10yrs 11 for beta players the noobs can suffer what they sowed with the farms just as we all have
I will never understand or even TRY to understand people that say stuff like this.
It's a farming based game, this is not an Horizon zero dawn or a bloodborne.
It's FARMING. BASED.
I also think the best idea is to have a "premium edition" of the game for $20-$60 that gives you everything needed to play through the big stories. Right now there's a huge wall for beginner players trying to get into the game of leveling and crafting and playing boring missions with no hint that the story gets way better later on.
wtf tey shouls ULT do ish get RID of the real world time B.S! bc most of the grind cwap ish bc chu need tuu WAIT irl time for weapons and ect. tey NVR shoulda made the foundry B.S as real world time tied in the 1st damnd pwace froms the start...wike for exp. say the railjack making it takes wike 3 real world days just tu build the shit...and TATS ONTOP of the alrdy hrs of grind JUST tu even GET tu tat point B.S 😒.....but NUU ofc DE wont bc tere greed based fagget fwaks and just care of lineing tere pockets wif owr $ 😒
I 100% would love this for my friends, they legit stopped playing when I told them they had to complete the star chart. Literally didn’t have time for that 😂. I sent this to them they said BET!
I hope DE takes on this idea as i think its an incredible one and makes sense on a business perspective while adding another layer to the game's story
One thing I noticed since the new highlighted teammates and enemies option… during new war on the zariman when you give the flashlight away… I only have enemies highlighted in crimson and the kid you give it to was glowing red!
•Many of the quests bring information on how the game mechanics work, straight up skipping them would only generate high level, fully geared players with no knowledge on some of the most basic features of the game, that by itself already messes up the experience, throws any sense of achievement out the window (most games don't even have it anymore, which is why so many modern games feel so stale after just a few weeks) and makes huge chunks of the story obsolete.
•I honestly don't think that skipping years of content and development should even be considered an option for new players because, at the end of the day, you will inevitably end up with the classic scenario that already exists on games that offer the same idea: People skip the core content, play the latest stuff, are too lazy to go back and experience the stuff they skipped and proceed to complain about lack of "new content" on the game. You may say "well, that's on them" yeah, but once it builds up and enough people are complaining about it, that ultimately affects the whole image of the game due to what the same people will say when potential new players ask about the game, don't believe me? look at the current state of the MMORPG genre, this is how it started.
•If DE wants to make it easier for new players to access the latest content, then they should just create new ways for experienced players to help them or give new accounts a few more bonus perks that helps speed up that progression without necessarily skipping it entirely.
-Maybe add a few more resources to the reward table of certain quests in order to speed up the progress of the next one.
-Increase the amount of specific resources obtained on certain missions., if they are trying to reduce the grind, maybe start with the base of it all to give new players the desired boost.
-Use the duality of the starting quest as a gateway for the latest content rather than proposing the idea of ignoring everything else.
In my opinion, if they are so adamant about taking players to the latest piece of content, that tells me they are fully aware of the flaws regarding the grindy nature of the early game and how slow things can be, and rather than fixing the experience...they are telling players they may skip it...that's just not a good message at all.
Well, I can tell you I certainly saw it. I've created two new characters recently and the older quests, like the mission parts of the quests... are just bad. And pretty boring. Might have been ok in 2016 but... now it's not good.
What I would like to see is a story skip that:
1. lets new/ returning players do the new quest right away
2. unlocks all the previous quests and removes their requirements without just marking them as completed, letting the player do those quests whenever they please with no friction. This would mean that the player doesn't have 20 new mechanics and grinds dumped on them at the very start like the archon hunts/ sorties/ etc, but they would have the option to complete the quests and gain access to the content they unlock whenever they like.
3. has a built in bare bones summery of the story so far so players don't go in 100% blind. My thoughts for this would be something like the Drifter and Operator having a conversation (like how they had one in the new war) about each quest. Every quest would have its own short conversation between the 2, and you could skip the summery of each quest to get to the next one if you remember one pretty well. This should be an option for all players too.
4. gives the player a maxed warframe and weapons (rank 30 and catalyst), and gives them the mods necessary for their loaner builds so that the player is equip enough to handle the newest content.
I think a story skip/ fast pass is kind of necessary at this point, but it HAS to be handled properly and with extreme care. I also think DE HAS to use this as an opportunity to introduce proper, hand holdy, tutorials. Warframe basically needs to have Ordis pop up and explain in detail how every mechanic/ grind/ system/ etc works right as the player unlocks them, as well as give suggestions for what the player should be doing next from time to time. Because otherwise new players are going to pay to skip the story, then have 0 idea what to do after the new quest, then feel like they were just scammed out of their money and quit.
It's really not needed let's go over what it really dose 1 gives de the ok to charge you for a f2p to play 2 deprives you of the experience of playing through the lore and storyvand grasp its importance 3 allows casuals to skip then quit and bitch cuz the games too short nothing to do
@Waydewilson89 it wouldn't be charging players for a f2p game. New players could still do all 300 hours of grind to get to the new content just like they would HAVE to do if the skip option wasn't there.
It doesn't deprive the player of anything. They can still go back and do all the quests and get the full experience.
If you think giving players instant access to unlocking all the content in the game is going to cause players to get bored then you've got a couple loose screws in your head. Telling players "just do 50 hours of star chart missions to unlock the good quest" is guaranteed to cause 99.9% of new players to get bored and quit.
I think the story skip is mostly gonna be used by people making new accounts, and less new players. and even if a new player uses it, it means they can join theyre friends sooner, instead of going through a story they may not even care about
I had a different idea taken from duviri in a dedicated story mode, that rewarded the tings you need so youre not paying to skip lore youre paying to skip the stuff in between until youre done. Cos one Thing about those early quests yes theyre not great but there also short, So charge the price of a mid budget game and take a day or two play the entire story up to that point and get everything youd need as rewards maxed as if youd bought them. you could even split it into 3 acts that could be individually purchased for a returning player who fell behind. Act1 awaking to second dream, act2 war within to sacrifice, act3 the prelude to war chapters punctuated with rising tide, call of the tempestarii and the new war ending with angels.
I
do like your idea though give a way to differntiate the drifter more by having them perpetually confused as a character as to whats going on as a proxy for the new player where as the tenno can have more in depth questions in dialogue options but im not sure about the conviently finding all the things you need just laying around especially when some of this stuff like railjacks are supposed to be rare canonically
I think they need to streamline the early game instead of skip.
First step - you can go to any node on any planet you can access. You still have to unlock the junctions, but once you have access to lets say Mars, you can click on any node in Mars and start a mission.
Second Step: Remove the quests that have no significant lore and replace the disconnected 'get this warframe' quests with a Leverian and move the blueprints for the parts into the market (for credits).
Third Step: Have Ordis keep 'bugging' you to go to the next quest step. "I heard Ceres is great this time of year. Why haven't you unlocked that junction yet?"
Fourth Step: Remove the grind from the essentials. Dump the essential mods and equipment in the junction rewards.
I would say the goal would be to hit second dream in about 20 hours or less, instead of the 60+ it is now. Also let Ordis really be your new player tutorial. Give him some awareness of your loadout. "Your gun feels sad, it's not up to it's potential. Put some Endo into your mods!" "You just got Intensify last mission. That will make your warframe ability's much stronger!" That sort of thing.
Instead of the lazy way out of offering a skip, make it a shorter jounrney to being ready for the new quests, but make stuff like steel path still require the grind. Then you have it both ways really, new players get into the meat of the game without needing a skip, and there will still be plenty of improvement ahead of them to master the game.
Yeah, I can get behind this... the only thing I would say, and I've mentioned that to others is that lore related quests like once awake and even vor's prize are... incredibly dated. I like your timeline though and think it's a good model for getting the player along.
That would be a good way of doing it.
Perhaps if the story was divided into something like character-themed chapters along w a chapter selection screen? (Tenno, drifter, Arthur) A little bit like a collection of books - each enjoyable in their own right - but together telling the story of the Warframe universe?
Obviously there’s the issue of the Tenno’s involvement across each but it’s just a rough idea off the top of my head… maybe the chapter selection idea could be like the man in the wall’s way of showing off the crazy narratives it’s weaved by manipulating different characters (If that makes sense)
As someone with over 3k hours who started playing when Fortuna launched, I am ALL in favor of anything that reduces the grind for new players. However I'm very defensive towards the idea of a story skip. As you said, so much of what would be skipped in order to jump straight into Whispers in the Walls is the best content in the game.
Playing through the narrative leading up to The Second Dream, and then getting hit with the climax of the quest is one of the best gaming moments of my life. I would hate for people to be denied having that same experience. I feel like it would also take some unreal level of narrative/writing wizardry to try to catch people up with any kind of "the story so far" summary in a way that doesn't just detract from the experience overall. Not that I doubt DE's writing team capabilities, obviously they have proven their talent and creativity repeatedly, it just seems like an impossible task.
Like you mentioned as well, there's also the fact that so much of the story is left to speculation, and that's part of the appeal. There's a youtube video I saw recently titled "Why are we obsessed with the lore of Dark Souls and Elden Ring?" by the youtuber FatBrett, and one of the points he makes is that the unknowability of the stories of FromSoft games is a large part of why they are so enthralling. They don't give you all the details, so it makes you try to put all the story pieces together like a puzzle. Most of the points he makes in this regard also apply perfectly to Warframe's lore, so it would seem weird to try to distill it down in a way that is comprehensible for a new player that doesn't just completely butcher the experience.
IMO, I like the idea that another commenter mentioned of a fast route to get to the new content, where you still play through the main story quests, but don't have to do any of the repetitive gameplay grind and just be given some basic gear to use in quests like The New War. Most of the story content is very easy anyways, you don't need anything close to optimized gear (in fact it's probably a better experience without OP gear so you don't just one-shot every enemy lol)
They should have the bundles for quest prerequisites be on sale for returning players
I think in order to make this work, DE would have to be EXTREMELY explicit in how it works. They'd have to let the player know that they'd be skipping out on major story beats and much of what others are talking about may not make sense.
Secondly, the option would have to make the pay aspect worth it, i.e. I think it would have to include Warframe, weapon, and Riven mod slots, a couple of Warframes, at least one of each companion type, and a few starter weapons, because otherwise, you're jumping the player WAY ahead without the ability to really play all the different aspects of the game.
Otherwise the OTHER option would be like you said, a Drifter path and a Tenno path, but that would require quite a bit more work I imagine to make the story make sense. BUT it'd be interesting to be able to jump back and forth between the two because it would add some more depth to what the Drifter had been through in all the time that the Tenno had been asleep.
Easily the best video I've seen on the topic. Actual solutions given without a torrent of complaints. Gotta love a person that take the full picture into account 👍🏾👍🏾
I've been thinking of Warframe adding a sort of "campaign only" mode where, just like in normal singleplayer games, you just play through a set of levels till you beat the game. Similarly they could take all the campaign missions and package them into one linear string of missions, with maybe some of the optional side missions being tagged as such and maybe some of the "first encounter" missions like the sentient encounter before Natah being added in between. Not sure about skipping to the end, like, would anything make sense?
Heres a thought in relation to the drifther path option. If duveri had portals like the ones to the undercroft but these ones connect to various main points in the young tenno story except its teshin doing the mission control voice instead of the lotus. The reason for this happening is due to the switching of the drifter and the tenno so if the drifter is in the origin system the tenno is in duveri and thwt switch provides a portal point to a quest. When completed in can be accessed again in teshins cave or the dormizone
This way it can provide an alternate shortened path without the need for farming. And if you haven't played the tenno path yet it can be handwaved away by 'big' events happening to the tenno bleeding through to the drifter.
I think the idea of the "Story Skip" sounds like the player basically gets to bypass all the wait and work to actually beat challenges in the quests. It goes beyond just buying the stuff, people are probably thinking about players being able to just max out a necramech without playing the game kind of "Pay to skip".
If I were to design a "Pay to skip", there are a few ways to do it. First is "Beginner boosting" where players get a temporary fixed bonus until they reach MR5 worth of mastery points. Second would be a 'fixed' gameplay path that you HAVE to play, which guides you through all the quests in quick succession. Third would be a "New content pass" kinda like the "Drifter Path" you described, which would unlock Whispers in the Walls _specifically,_ and give you what could be considered a "starter kit" that would allow you to play it.
Headless Kavat starting at 9:17
I like the idea of the Drifter and Tenno path
I like it when people give solutions instead of just complaining about the problem
adore the purist approach tbh... Easy and workable.
Hey, I'm good with that!
Let em pay to skip the grinds, not the story. Give em the stuff they need at the time it is needed and not all at once. So for some plat, let the players play the story and remove the grinds in between.
At least that would be my advice. I also like the idea about the Drifters Path with the option of experiencing the Operator Path at a later point in time.
This was my initial thought too, but more i think of it, more i think that these are two different "products". While uninterrupted quests campaign is much faster than their grind, they still might take several days, which might be too long for some. So adding this as an option might benefit some players, but removing the "full skip" might hurt others.
@@naktiluka problem is: if you've ever skipped stuff in a game (for money or not doesn't matter), you will find yourself quitting the game pretty fast. Ask yourself these 2 questions: Why do I play a game? And why has stuff in that game value for me?
Usually it's because you've invested time. Forget about money, time is the only thing of real value. If you do not invest time into a game, the stuff in it will never become valuable to you.
@@xaendark I have also left a few games I like because they required too much time investment, so I cannot really relate to that. I might not be the target audience of this possible purchase, but it looks that I'm definitely closer on spectrum than you or elitists in other comments.
EDIT: There's a third question to ask for these two: are you willing to endure content you don't value in order to get to content you do?
Sometimes I am, sometimes not.
@@naktiluka Maybe I wasn't clear what I meant. I do not want the new players to have to grind through all the content. Rather have them a short and easy way in, but without overwhelming them. To my knowledge, a lot of people drop the game as soon as they get to the modding part, because it starts to get confusing. Now imagine getting thrown Archwing, Necramech and Railjack at you, on top of the already complicated systems. Hell, even I would quit after that.
In my mind the best way to implement a "story skip" for warframe would be supplying the player with a built up odonata archwing, nechramech, a few warframeand weapon slots slots with the ability to pick a handful from the roster giving each a basic build. Then unlock the entirety of the map and let them start the tenno focused quests right away without having to go through the grind while giving them the ability to start the best parts of the game right away
I agree with your idea of separating the games story to arch of the Tenno or arch of the Drifter stories. I might not be a fan of the skip (want to make sure everyone gets a true grasp of the lore), but if someone wants to waste money, that's their choice.
At the least, DE should improve the match-making before making the change official by hours spent playing and rank. It's bad enough having vets speed running through the game and you can barely keep up with them at times. To now have new players slow down the experience is also an issue. Both sides to the coin has it's pros and cons. We just need for DE to make it a fair fundamental experience.
Give an option for players to choose if they want to play with fully unlocked whales in public synergies vs. those that don't, and maybe we can select that as an option like us playing public, private or alone.
Personally i think it would be better to skip obtaining things like a nercamech, railjack, etc etc, the parts where you really get stuck on, like a "speed pass
in a amusement park. you still experience the same things, just faster.
I wish you could, but because they are already baked into these quests, it's either give them away or make people grind for them. I'm all for some grinding but forcing someone to do all of it right away, while offering tons of content, is still a daunting task...
@@TheDsIEGE they could do it like duravi, give the players snake and a default railjack used only in missions, so they can still play just.. not outside of story mode
Only really needed the rj sorry but a wall for 5sec of use of a mech was pittiful
Funnily enough, they already have a system of “loaning” new players items for quests implemented in some newer content. My sister started playing very recently and got to Deimos before acquiring her Tenno. When she got to the necramech section of the Heart of Deimos, father lent her a necramech and she was immediately transferred into it, no operator required. Something similar to that for other quests like the new war that require investment heavy features I think would go a long way for new player engagement. I was a bit bothered when DE just gave everyone Voidrig parts after the new war came out because it felt like the months I’d spent grinding for my own had been wasted. The workaround they did for Heart of Deimos sat much better with me
I think @TheDsIEGE has a quite valid point and a just as plausible idea.
Another option that I have been thinking since the Devstream, though, is another type of pay-to-skip (or rather "pay-to-reach" of sorts): instead of paying Platinum to skip the cinematic quests, what could be "skipped" is the whole grind needed to reach said quests in the first place. Be it for a comprehensive skip (like all the way to Natah, for example), or small jumps (like blocks that include the smaller quests leading to Natah as well), we should be able to pay to skip the grind (just like with the Foundry, Dojo rooms and decorations, or cool weapons, or new frames etc) instead of the quests themselves.
This would kinda look like following:
* Bigger blocks:
Don't want to grind your way to Natah? Pay X Plat to unlock the quest automatically and also gain an Archwing (maybe also a K-Drive, just because we'd have gone through Fortuna inevitably), some slots, a moderate-duration affinity booster to reach the MR needed/expected and voilà.
Don't want to grind from Natah to the New War? Pay another pack of X Plat to immediately unlock the quests (Second Dream, The War Within, all the Prologues, The Sacrifice), throw in a Necramech, a Railjack, more affinity boosters, maybe a couple more slots, plus whatever other essential resource I may be forgetting and voilà again.
* Shorter blocks (same as above, but more like):
Don't wanna grind until Saya's Vigil? Here, a smaller pack of benefits and unlock the quest automatically.
Don't wanna grind until Stolen Dreams? The New Strange? Natah? Second Dream? The War Within? and so on?
For each quest, immediate unlock and a couple benefits that make it playable.
This way the new player will still have to play through the campaign to catch-up on the story, but chooses which shortcuts to pay for in order to get there. It's literally a skip-the-grind approach, which is already a practice within the game and would make a player's lack of patience or time available to grind profitable.
In other videos, I've seen people complain about having a job, kids, a life outside the game and not wanting to spend hours grinding for stuff. Fair enough, use plat to rush your way through the quests (to the risk of boredom once you reach the end of the track), but do the mainline quests. That's how the story can still make sense via the Operator path and make everyone as satisfied as possible. As Reb said on the Devstream, Platinum is farmable, it's giftable, it's not like Regal Aya or Access packs, where you inevitably have to put in cash by yourself in order to access the content. Have a friend lend you some plat, or ask for help to farm a few relics on the chat, sell your prime parts to other players, pay to skip a good chunk of grind preventing you from the meat of the game and that's it.
I would personally edit the entire beginner story, vors prize, natah second dream etc but no annoying requirements for each and no painful craft times
And I can't understand problem with paying for skips.
I against skiping lore, but there is no problem to buy preparations for quest.
Just give ability to pay for needed materials to proceed quest, or just give new players "damaged" versions of cornbots, railjack, etc. (maybe only for quest missions only)
Honestly, I think the best solution on the Operator side of things is to rewrite Vor's Prize in a way that jumps directly into Second Dream
Maybe the Tenno's awakening triggers Hunhow's hunt for Lotus and the Tenno, making the opening story a race to Lua.
Along the way, run-ins with Vor and Alad V would introduce the Grineer and Corpus through high ranking members who specifically want the Warframes and know enough to exposit history at you alongside Hunhow and Lotus.
From there, the Operator reveal can happen as normal and set up the status quo for War Within, Chains of Harrow, and Sacrifice
The reveal in Second Dream is amazing, but nowadays its almost impossible to keep unspoiled to new players, especially with Drifter now here. Having it happen sooner but not immediately seems like the best compromise.
Tbh Archwings should just be a base kit just something the orbiter comes stock with, and the Railjack and Nercomech can be just "borrowed" tools for New War as you said
Everything else should be optional, quests to either get certain tools and/or flesh out the world - making the starchart feel a bit more like exploring rather than a checklist, especially if it also gets tuned
Edit: grammer
what they could do is have an exclusive quest like when you die to zenuka. Maybe your tenno was the rhino prime that died in new war, and the quest is reality re-writing it's self so you never died
It broke my heart when Reb started reading out all the messages. It's such a kneejerk reaction that just perplexes me. The people who are hating it so much, 99% wont have to even use it. if you've done all quests, this doesn't effect you. If you've just started and want to do all the quests, that's great, it doesn't effect you. If you've just started and want to skip to the new content, then now you can do that, and we should be more than happy to fill you in if you end up confused.
The whole drifter path sounds like a great idea as well, I think after the paradox there might have to be some extra tie in to how the drifter made it to the camp. There's also cut scenes/story that include the operator. The main one that comes to mind is the one straight after teshins bit where he gets killed and the operator gets stabbed. My question is do they keep the entire new quest the sane or edit it a bit so it makes more sense or is there a prelude for the drifters path to new war?
I like two of the three ways the most:
1. The Drifter's Path - really good idea that takes nothing from the Tenno story ❤ And I like the idea of prototype equipment for everything skipped.
2. Reducing quest relevant grind to a minimum (similar to Railjack) - I think thats fair enough to engage new players in the origin system's story.
3. "Pay to skip" is super bad in my opinion if it's just that - unless you could play the full story anyways for context - and I like the idea of prototype equipment for everything that's not in the package until you farm it yourself
I would love if they made an almost "abridged" version of the story, preferably replayable, that gives you prebuilt frames/necramech/railjack etc., and guides you through all the major parts of the story without having to wait for crafting things (like Excalibur umbra, voidrig). They'd probably have to reorganize/drop a couple of parts for it to feel fluid and not jarring (e.g. Vor's Prize), but honestly the ability to experience all the missions back to back without as much grinding sounds far more interesting than just skipping them and pretending they don't exist.
I really like your idea, honestly. Having a different "experience" as the drifter makes sense in the context of the story as well. I think the reason so many people hated the idea DE mentioned at first is because of skipping story stuff, but your idea sorta fixes both problems at once lol
Considering how much the community overall enjoys the story of warframe (to the point that nearly a decade later people refuse to spoil any of the major quests) I find a story skip to be incredibly weird. Like I get that sometimes people just want to catch up to friends or play the new thing right away but to me it seems like losing out on all the context is not a worthwhile tradeoff.I would much rather see them go back and connect/rework quests and certain events into a cohesive campaing thats shorter or more accesible to go through than to just skip the whole thing.Something like making a campain line of missions/quests to guide you through every planet kinda like what the junctions are supposed to be but better
That's a really good point. I even do it like... instinctively. No other game does that huh...
You're opening me up to the idea here. Though with just how many systems are in place in the game, I don't know how anyone is gonna understand anything about their equipment.
Something is definitely needed, one of my friends hasn't played warframe in a very long time and wants to get back in but he seems daunted by the amount of content thats been added.
It's insane. There's so much to do not even considering the rng aspects of certain things along the way. I mean... if you're looking to really dig into a game and want to get lost for a few months straight, Warframe's your game but... for the common person, I'm not sure they have the fortitude...
Sux for him don't be a casual and take "brakes" for months at a time
really what they should focus on is redoing the way the story is presented. if your players need breakdowns to explain your story, your story is in desperate need of work.
i have been around since the start, i am a founder, but even i remember going through some quests and not having a clue what just happened.
the way the story is told... its disjointed, just following the main missions will simply not give you the answers needed to make sense of some of the later stuff. its also very disconnected from the rest of the game, which stands out very much when the game already has so many disconnected parts. it also does not help that it takes so long in between story updates without a easy way to help you refresh your memory on what happened before.
and this story skip... looking at other games with things like that, it is really gonna hurt the long term player count.
look at it from a new player's perspective. you start the game, do the missions needed to when you can buy the story skip and then do the most recent updated mission, you dont know these characters, you dont know what they're talking about, you dont know why you're killing the things you're killing. so then you go grind for weapons and frames with a friend, that does not take an awful lot of time or effort. its gonna take awhile before the next big update, and since you dont know most of the story, why would you be looking forward to that part of the update? so you wait for the update to grind out the new frame and couple of weapons... and then what? you do the same thing again? no, most new players have stopped playing by this point, they went on to other games that actually managed to keep their attention with something other than the endless cycle of grinding and waiting for updates. this is simply not a sustainable gameplay cycle.
i am a long time player, but i only play 4-6 days per update. because that is all the time i need to get the new stuff, and have my fun with it. after that, i got other more interesting games waiting for me.
I will tell you, redoing all that would be a monumental task... although it is probably needed in the end.
@@TheDsIEGE oh without a doubt, it is gonna take a ton of resources, and i am 100% sure DE is not willing to spend those resources on it. which i kinda get, they have this common misconception that more new content will keep the game afloat. but world of warcraft is a prime example of that not being the case. sure wow has been around for nearly 20 years, but it has been bleeding out since like... the 3th or 4th expansion, and it has been going downhill fast in recent years.
DE should look at things like that and realize they need to learn what games like wow did wrong and then do anything but that.
but i have no hope they will do anything like this.
That's your fault if your not paying attention or can't grasp simple things that are being presented founder aswell and have had 0 problems grasping the lore nor story cuz I actually played the quests and looked through all lore we have and did not take the lazy way out and skip
@@Waydewilson89 i think you need to work on your comprehensive reading skills, cause nowhere did i say anything you're talking about.
also, you dont need to play defence for DE, they're a big company that can take care of itself, it is not gonna cry just because i pointed out some problems, no need to white knight for a multi-billion dollar company.
one other thing about the skip to endgame part is the fact that new player will surely be overwelmed with the amout of content in the game. I think DE should do a kind of mentor thing where experienced players (based on MR or starchart completion) could opt in. the mentors would hthen be prioritized when matchmaking with newer player and could help them understand the mecanics of the game. Maybe adding a reward for mentors too ? Otherwise, I already see newer player going to latest content missions and facing multiple host migration until they end up solo and unable to complete the mission since they don't know how the game works...
We need a Warframe "solo mode" like a standalone game that you buy that let you experience all the quest but without grind and juste some preset, or at least having the choice to not farm...
Wouldnt that be that one talks about story skip/quest skip but means pay to get top tier stuff with maxed frame and mods to gain things, since skipping story doesnt do them any good. And skipping is good if they get some prime mods, galvanize mods maxed on getgo with kuva/tenet or incarnons prebuilt with meta setup.. Else pay to skip would mean they paid to face harsh reality skipping lore doesnt do anything. And buying mr 3 wouldnt work either. Since then nothing to grind for :).
I like your ideas. I personally don't see the problem with the pay'd skip either, but I can understand why some might. I personally had an idea that might help, unlock all nodes on every planet without the need to run every single node to unlock a junction in a direction, keep the junction points as locked until the certain requirements are met, this would allow players to more easily get through the system and allows quests to become less locked for hours upon hours of gameplay because you would no longer need to comeplete every node unless going for MR. Keep steel path the way of old where you have to work to unlock everything, for that "challenge" that it can be for newer players to it. This is just my thoughts. Appreciate the video as always TheDsIEGE!
Your idea is pure genius! It works thematically and in a practical way I genuinely hope DE takes this good advice.
Thank you! I thought this would be a kind of middle ground, and also allow the new player a bit of experience before they jump into the newest stuff as well without needing 120 hours before hand. We'll just have to see.
The open worlds are the biggest current speedbumps in the games linear progression. But Deimos and the Zariman are both leagues above the Planes and Valis. They NEEEED to change those old two open world faction progression to update them to the new standards. This would cut down hugely on the feeling of misery and obliterating souls having to grind the same amount every day for weeks.
Maybe the new player can play as their friends warframe spectre, Or we bring back the echos of umbra and tie it in some how
when they discussed that, I thought, what was the point of Duviri then, that's kinda already a good story skip, why just not make a more streamlined path to whispers from there?
Good point.
I had a thought while watching this for a different starting point. This would certainly require a little set up on DE's part but from a story perspective, Lotus always talks about their being more Tenno and what not. Obviously alot of them are active but in theory, couldn't many Tenno also still be slumbering away on Lua, protected by other Tenno and the Lotus herself?
What if they created a new quest or two that ties into a 'second great awakening' and from that Awakening point is where new players can join in. New Players can choose either Path 1 - the original Tenno path and play from beginning all the way to present OR Path 2 - the new Tenno awakens on Lua in the midst of a battle taking place during a new quest. From our perspective as veteran players, we play it as we're evacuating the remaining pods from some attack - perhaps the Indifference - while for any new players its them playing in their chosen starter Warframe in a new starter tutorial before being suddenly awoken from their slumber, not even getting a chance to understand what's happening as they are guided by the veteran Tenno and the Lotus' instruction to get to safety. Quest gives them a brief overview of many of the current mechanics Warframe and Operators can do. Perhaps add one older frame into the starting rotation alongside a new beginner friendly frame for a total of five for these new Tenno as well.
Could allow DE to make more original Tenno beyond Rell for us to interact with. Ultimately the new Tenno don't get an orbitor right away or ever if they don't wish to, instead maybe take some initial base quests from a new Relay on or near Lua. For them, a selection of the older story quests that occured after a certain point are considered 'the past' and may be undertaken as a sort of simulation path to acquire those rewards with them sort of having an out of body experience, experiencing these old quests from the point of view like it was theres. Could give DE a reason to go back and update certain tasks as a result like the Archwing and Kubrows if not creating quick new ones.
This is spitballing off the top of my head but having a new 'introduction' point while not gating them off from the old content if they so choose could be a very good idea. Maybe something to do every 10-12 years - 'second awakening' in this case but maybe in another decade having a different unique awakening perhaps of 'lost tenno'? There could be some interesting concepts if one takes some time to think about what you could do to ease the burden to newer players.
I personally think the reason why the paid path is getting flak than the other element in the game is that the much more sensible approach would be either making the grind to the quest easier or making it where you can pay to instantly get all the perquisites but still have to experience the quests.
With the exception of the new war these quests take very little time when you remove the grinds to unlock said quests.
the pay to skip is for new players. If you're already caught up, then how does it affect you? It's the pay to skip players that miss out on the experience and some quests are replayable so if they have fomo, they can go back.
Imagine utilizing other content to bridge the gap in a way that neither spoils nor skips anything. Idea: Once the player has completed The Duviri Paradox, a new path opens in Teshin's Cave leading to a totally different portal. Accessing this would work just like running the Circuit, but solo. You get your selection of frames and weapons, a perfect means for newer players to try weapons and frames they have little to no experience with, and you go through the new portal to access a small portion of a quest you select when entering (as opposed to picking Circuit or Duviri Experience). It can be one, two, maybe even three moments of that quest specifically chosen by DE themselves, like little demos. Like if you wanted to pick The New War, you enter the portal and one snippet has you awakening as Veso. You play all the way up to the Jackel fight and it fades to black and you're sent back to Teshin's cave. Enough to give a taste, but not enough to see how that segment of the quest concludes. This would allow people to jump into Whispers with a random assortment of leveled gear, run through a small portion of the quest, get that taste, but leave them itching to see how it plays out after the fade to black. Demo, incentive, and best of all, nothing spoiled. Definitely not even remotely as easy to implement as $100 and you're there, but what's best for the players isn't usually what's easiest or most profitable.
While the idea of an alternate "new player fast track" sounds like the best idea if a story skip must be added, a fast track to a slow game will always feel a little out of place. Alas, I think a page could be taken out of Celeste's book here; allowing the player to take the fast story path *but heavily deincentivising it*, saying something along the lines of "This isn't how warframe was intended to be played" or something. The player is warned that if they take the option, their enjoyment of the game might be diminished as they weren't given the full experience. Additionally, I think the drifter's path cost should be the player's starting platinum, but not obviously. By this, I mean starting platinum would only be given to players who choose the main game over the drifters path. It would both incentivize playing the game normally by letting the player start with premium currency and, should the player take the drifters path anyway, then force the player to make their first auxillary purchases with real world cash, earning DE their extra bit of money from the less patient players. Asking for money right out of the gate might ruin a new player's first impression of the game, and this entire function is about the new player experience - no reason to ruin it with a paywall.
I personally think that the starting quests should be overhauled to hook new players better instead, but I have no right to be asking for that much development work from DE. Alas, how much effort will they put in to make this fast track cohesive compared to how much it'd take to improve the beginning quests? Food for thought.
in my experience introducing friends to wf, the thing that made them quit isnt a paywall but a grind / time wall.
3 months ago, I've returned to warframe after 12 year and into a mastery 3 account. Barely any story quest were in the logs, so i had to play through those years of content. By playing regularly, i am now preparing for the new war , the necramech mainly. I think changing the drop rates for rare loot could go a long way to reduce the grind and keep the game moving. The only parts i genuinely stalled was for rarer components linked to standing (ex. Specific rare gems and ores, specific fish parts, amps) or rare drops in bounties (which require a decent understanding of the game and equipement good enough to succeed).
Playing the game is almost enough, but i can understand the grind can be substantial at first. However, getting into warframe without liking some of the grind seems wierd , since the grind is the game
While I really like the idea of giving new players the option of a drifter path there are a few issues that would be present to have it implemented for Whispers in the wall. First the new war quest would have to be broken into two different quests due to the first half being operator specific. That would probably take more work then DE would be able to do before Whispers comes out. Second it does not get to the underlying issue that in order for someone to join their friend to play Whispers in the Wall they would still have to get through 5-8 hours of solo content before being able to join their friend.
I'll leave the business decisions to DE, but I would like to story skip Whispers to get on with the farming.
The drifter path concept sounds like an amazing idea. Espcially if i want to play this game afresh in a new platform but just for the story stuff.
For me maybe it was a miscommunication, I thought they would just be skipping the new war and everything before, which would be horrible because those moments are integral
I think that's what they want to do... it's tough to say because they were kinda vague
Man talking with people about the skip is so incredibly difficult. You either get people who are so naive they genuinely dont see any possibility DE will abuse this feature; or you get people who are so invested in every single person who plays warframe going through the exact same grind they went through or else it somehow makes them unworthy
I think the only way this is viable is if they have a cinematic version of the game. Meaning everything up until Whispers in the Walls is presented to you as a cut together movie. However, you still need to pause to make choices that influence the game. That way the new player gets to experience the lore of the game and also participate in decision making. Then when they get to Whispers in the Walls, it makes sense.
I think being loaned gear, like is already the case in Teshin's Cave, could save so much time and grind for new players eager to get in the story. Gear that isn't good per se, but usable, and like you said allowing players to get their own better version if they wanted.
However, I still believe the BIGGEST opportunity to improve the new player experience lies earlier on in the game. This could include having the main story start earlier on, provide MUCH better tutorials for game systems, and giving newbies a clearer sense of direction.
As for the Drifter Path idea: it sounds like a really cool idea, but I worry that the additional lore, gameplay and experience you get from the Tenno Path would make these Drifter players a little more lost. Or maybe not. In any case, I appreciate you stepping outside of your norm to address this.
It is... but I wonder if DE will actually do anything like that. It seems like they already have their hands full with Whispers and 1999, but... fingers crossed.
Great idea to feed drifter into new way but the real job is to fix the new player experience. Throw some slots into junction rewards, increase drop rates on the must have mods, decrease the grind and/or build time for necessary pieces of kit. GIVE THEM A FREE archwing launcher when they build odonata
While I don't hate the idea as a whole. Bundling the already existing plat cost for stuff does in fact make sense. I do like the drifter path idea a lot.
I also wish there was a way, even if it cost plat, to reset our choose counter. Although I would prefer it not have a plat cost.
okay realistically the "drifter skip" is galaxy brain & DE like neeeeeds to do that holy frigg 👀💜
When I think about how I played "the second dream" there was this moment where I thought to myself "now it all makes sense how I can use so many different characters for a single person" until then I always had it in the back of my mind lots of Warframs and no matter which one I use the NPC's see me as the same person, that doesn't make sense but it's ok I think? After that, Warframe became a lot more fun and that was the point where I became interested in the story and where I really started investing a lot of time. If you leave that out... I don't know whether you stay in the game for a long time or whether it was just an experience and you're somewhere else again. on the other hand, if my brother hadn't encouraged me to keep going or to choose a Warframe that I definitely farm myself, don't buy it with platinum, but see where it's available and how I can get it. For me it was Ivara at the time, I don't know if I'll even be there would have played until “the second dream” came... so I'm not sure if that's a good or bad idea. I'm a bit conflicted about whether I'm happy that the end content is available for beginners or whether I'm worried
I don't really understand the issue, paying to skip the story is not something I ever see myself doing because I want to experience stories in the games I play.
But what is the issue with players who don't care about the story skipping ahead? Of course they are going to be confused about the story, but is that an issue when they don't care about the story in the first place?
While i kinda like the idea of giving players the option of taking the path of the drifter if they start out as the drifter, the whole thing about starting in duviri in the first place will already get some new players confused. Tried to get a few people into warframe when duviri came out and they had the option to start with duviri, but they were already confused from the start to the point that they did not even finish it in the first place. From 1 of them, i know they stopped around the fire spiral ( i think that was anger? ) as it was not fun to them. And that was just duviri starting point where the devs probably tried to keep things simpler. Not sure if they would also have had that same reaction if they started out like the older players with vor's quest and all, but that could be an interesting topic for a later time.
The pay to skip option however is a rather risky option if they do go with that path. Sure, it will allow new players to catch up pretty quickly, even allow older players to skip content that they could not complete otherwise as i remember a lot of complaints with the new war where people could not complete it purely thanks to physical problems like artritis. However, the downsides of skipping like that is less interest in staying as you already got to the end pretty quickly, you will be confused as hell with all the systems and lore and unless you have someone that will explain stuff to you you will get frustrated enough to just stop playing entirely if we go with the player side of the negatives. The other side of the negatives ( not sure if that would be the dev side or also on the player side ) is that it cheapens the experience overall. They made all these quests, these story related places and other places to tell a story and get people immersed in the world. By giving the option to skip those very same things for real world money like how they described it, it gives off the implication that the previous content is not worth your attention in the first place and that they might even consider removing it in a similar manner as destiny 2 did with how they made expansions that people bought are now unplayable.
I definitely think this is a great solution to the whole "controversy", if that's what we're calling it lol. I watched the Devstream Friday and some of the comments I saw in the livechat directed toward DE were genuinely abhorrent... I hope they find a solution, maybe utilize your idea, in the path going forward.
I think it’s fine because we don’t have cross save yet so if someone has to start over on a new system they’d have to replay quests that they already did probably years ago. This way a second account can catch up really fast
Personally I have my own narrative idea of how DE could make this pay to skip concept fit, at least narratively, even if maybe over-exagerated.
So to my understanding the player isn't the only Tenno, that's pretty hard to argue against, but at the same time we are the only Tenno who has woken from the Dream, or one of the very few at least.
Whatever will happen with whispers of the wall could be an event of such a scale beyond even the New War where we HAVE to ask for help and the only way to fight the Void is with the Void itself, so through some kind of space magic (likely using the Wall itself to do it) we cause the mass awareking of the other Tennos and since the Void holds the power to create things out of imagination alone we are also able to load up those newly awakened Tennos in an instant.
This could be some kind of opening cinematic to the quest, one which is only shown to those who played the game to that point meanwhile those who skipped right to Whispers get a different cinematic of their awakening.
It would also be a nod to the well known waframe tradition of veterans being super helpful and welcoming to newcomers.
I'm likely just writing some fanfiction level scenario in my head but there's definitely a way to make this idea of skips go through smoothly.
To be honest, my first reaction was also negative. However, just as you said, there's already the option to purchase most things in the game. Also, let's be completely honest, there's a large player section that doesn't even care about the story. They just want to shoot something.
The option for new players to stop right away to whispers in the walls, and next year's Warframe 1999, could make them feel more invested to play the previous content to know the full story. So if it helps DE get new players, I think they should do it.
The option for a Drifter storyline is algo a good one! It like how DE wanted it to be with Duviri being a new player experience.
“For platinum”
Reb should’ve added that AFTER she explained it a lot further.
New players are indeed essential to the game. A lot of the older quests are for sure a bit lackluster but I do think it’ll lose its charm by skipping. The way you’re seeing/hoping it’ll turn out would be ideal but we’ll have to wait and see. I personally am not with the idea of someone just buying their way through the game regardless of what was already available in shop but to each their own.
As someone who just pops into the game when I don't have anything else I want to play, I'm still grinding out the star chart. Duviri was fun, but not really what I want for gameplay.
I feel like reducing the star chart requirement (ie. the junctions) can be a great solution. I had a friend quitting the game because the star chart is very repetitive