Warframe | Why Do New Players REALLY Quit?

UPDATE: For those of you watching after 7/25/2024, you'll notice the comments on this video are now locked, despite me asking for comments and thoughts at the end of the video. The simple reason for this is that this video's comments have become a hotbed for negativity, dev bashing and even personal attacks, and I'm done dealing with it. I dread logging into this account, I don't look forward to engaging with my community, I've considered taking this video entirely because of the sheer quantity of them and how YouTube's creator studio design makes them unavoidable. I know many of you with genuine feedback and insight will find this disappointing, but I've learned the hard way that the Warframe community at large is not mature enough to engage in these discussions. Beyond that, I will not let something I made in good faith be used as the vessel for that negativity or a platform to attack me directly. I'm sorry to handle it this way, but waking up every day to 10+ more comments just bashing me or a game I'm passionate about is unbelievably draining. If you want to talk, DM me on Discord or Twitter, I'm done with this comment section. ORIGINAL COMMENT: On the topic of good things they added for new players, the Dreamer's Bond aura helps to address the issue of early game energy and health generation and also gives players a free +14 capacity because it can be slotted into any aura polarity. HUGE addition that, while not helpful at my point in the game, really does make the experience of actually playing the game much better early on. Auto-install has also been updated in the past, and new players do receive plenty of mods from both Vor's Prize and Junctions, but my point still stands regarding both. Auto-install is an option that encourages laziness instead of learning the system and often throws whatever it can at the wall to fill out capacity. The starter mods are a step in the right direction, but if they were implemented as a tutorial that would be ideal.

The fact that your first warframe and weapons do not have a catalyst built in even after 11 years is a crime.

My boyfriend always thought it was a weird ass gatcha mobile game cus of the crafting times and able to skip the timer, which is sad cus I really wanted to introduce him to the game :(

For me, it's definitely because the game felt extremely overwhelming. Couldn't even get to the two main issues because as soon as I was done with the introductory missions, I had no idea what I should do next. I couldn't figure it out.

It's the lack of direction, grind and time gating. Crafting taking days and hours upon hours of grinding for the mats, limited slots, mastery rank tests having 24 hour lockout for no good reason, the complete absence of any form of proper organic guidance in-game...it's just not worth the time required for a new player. I quit after 30 hours and went to playing through my backlog of games that actually respect my free time such as it is.

Gods, the slots issue is a huge one. I got a group of friends into the game since we were in the middle of a content drought for FFXIV and one of our four man team was legitimately about to quit because of slots, so my boyfriend and I bought him some weapon and frame slots, and now he's at Steel Path. If they just gave starting players more slots it would greatly increase retention on it's own.

why is auto-installing ayatan stars only unlocked at mr10

I’ll say as a new warframe player for me personally, I have a hard time staying on the game for too long because everything is extremely confusing, especially with where to go to to get new warframe parts, new weapons, and even just mods. Every time you HAVE to google it or check the wiki and there’s no in game way to like “track” where to go and or give you recommendations on what to do. If they could just import the info from the wiki into the game I think that would save a lot of headache and help with not having to disengage from the game every time you want to figure out how to get a resource or part.

I’m on the verge of quitting right now, and because of two reasons; the first is that there aren’t enough warframe slots, and the second is that the grind required for a necramech to progress the story is absolutely insane

this just goes to show that reckless financial decisions improve one's enjoyment in a videogame

One day my online friend, a guy I used to play Valorant with at that time, suggested we play something else – Warframe. I don't usually try new games, but somehow he convinced me, I installed it and went through the tutorial (awakening). We tried to squad up, but I had to go through Vor's price solo as well. At that time the guy had to go for the day. I kept progressing, but he didn't come the next day or the day after... As of today, we've never played or even talked since then, but I found a new passion and I've sunk thousands of hours in.

I have 1k hours in warframe but quit around when archwings came out (a billion years ago I know). I would hop in every once in a while when new content came out to see if I could once again derive enjoyment from it, but every time I would run into issues with slots and catalysts and build times. I know I could just sell stuff to get plat but I don't really like selling stuff in this game. It triggers the part of my brain where I am like "I could get interrupted at any moment and have to go to someone's dojo to trade this thing, so I better do nothing while I wait." and just sit in my ship twiddling my thumbs. Its strange to me that there isn't an in-game market board where you can just post your own listings and the game would facilitate transactions for you like every other MMO on the planet. If there were, I would just throw all my junk on there then play the game to kill time while they sell. Also, I dislike it when DE adds tangentially related gameplay modes, which is why I quit with archwings. I don't want to play in a mech or as a psychic space child, I just want to bisect a person with a shotgun before melting another person with space magic from my cool space armor.

I mean, I still have to tell new players how to take out Eidolons because it's never explained in-game. A little step by step tutorial like they have in the game's new first quest would probably help.

Slots being a reward for junctions is a great idea and would push people to A get quests unlocked B get slots for the frame they just farmed for C mastery gain D give them a clear line of where to go even just 1 frame slot and 2 weapon slots would be great

The main problems all my friends had was slots costing platinum, the market not showing blueprints so they all thought it was pay to win, and veterans nuking the room for them making them basically just not play the game

as someone who returned to this game somewhat recently, the one thing I want to add is that each story quests feel written as if i'm watching a random episode of a season. I don't know how we ended up theres, and why is this really happening. the more the quests progress, the less it feel that way (mostly at zariman and whispers in the walls). and then, i've learn, *in the wiki*, that there where a bunch of lore and stories in events that i've missed. which feel... so bad. and it really doesn't help feeling like the story is a show that miss a good half of it's episodes, instead of a full, complete, narrative.

I downloaded warframe for the first time after the realase of cetus, i was lost, and the slot limitations made me quit, i redownloaded the game like 2 years ago, i'm still playing but my introvert mentality keeps me from speeking or trading with people, i rarely sell things, so no plats, and when you see the amount of plats your need to buy the slots, for a person like me it's a bit difficult

You've hit the nail on the head. Things like Slots (and even Orokin Catalysts/Reactors) are money-makers that DE only needed when Warframe was in its VERY early days. It's only function today is inconveniencing veterans and warding off new players.

A potential quit point I think is actually the multi player openness. Sure you can select to multi play or go solo and friend and invite exclusive. But the problem is getting into a game with all these vets and try hards. In early game you want to explore and expand your knowledge experience and a squad helps you stay alive, but getting an experienced player tends to cause mission completion too quickly leading to noob learning and not getting a chance to do and learn how to play

For me, it was not knowing and consequently not caring about what or why I was doing anything in the game. Grinding for bigger numbers can only drive enjoyment so far...