I have actually done the new player tutorials and I have various ideas about how to redesign them. For instance, the game shows you "modding" but doesn't show you merging (unless I remember incorrectly). It also doesnt give you real mods to play with, it gives you damaged ones so even if people do learn how to merge, they end up wasting resources on a lesser version of a mod. Almost everyone in my Warframe group at some point asked me "how do I repair mods?" and my answer was "what? I dont even understand what you mean". The concept of giving players deliberately gimped gear and not telling them about that causes them to waste time and resources upgrading that gear which is a terrible idea. Not introducing players to the trade channel as it turns it out is also a bad idea. So many twitter replies saying "THERE'S A TRADE CHAT?!" or "YOU CAN TRADE FOR PLAT?!". Gee I wonder how many of the people angry about the slow progression in the game just didn't know that. Yes, you can sell things like fusion cores, mods and prime parts for plat. I bought Gold 5 Fusion cores at 2p a piece. Sell a few of those and oh look, suddenly that big grind you had for an extra weapon or frame slot, or a reactor to double your mod capacity just vanished! Seriously, so many people seem to think I don't understand "the struggle" but actually I've clearly seen how the trade system works and participated in it. The grind is real but it's not AS bad as people make it out to be simply because they don't fully understand the systems at play. Whose fault is that? Well it's the developers, honestly. They don't do a good job explaining this stuff and throw you off with a lot of red herrings. "Hey get a Kubrow" they say, without mentioning its a giant money sink and you're far better off as a f2player with just Sentinel that doesnt cost you anything. I get that's part of the whole f2p business model and I support them having to make money but a lot of the anguish of newer players could be dispelled by being less obtuse about things. I am tempted, as a result, to make a video that goes through the new player tutorials on a brand new account and fills in the blanks for people, plus suggests how it could be improved.



A lot of "the grind" is about attitude though. As I pointed out in the video, if you want a specific piece of gear, yes, it may be a huge grind to get it. However if you just want "gear" and aren't specific about which piece you want, it's not that hard to get a piece of it. People run into problems when they get fixated on one particular item and then run into the frustrating of having to jump through so many hoops to get it. If you can't get the weapon or frame you want, get another one instead. Try different things. Sell those parts you dont need for plat in the trade channel so you can buy more slots. That to me is the "correct" way to play Warframe without spending money. That said, I think the expectation of playing a game for hundreds of hours and not having to pay a cent for it is a bit unrealistic. At some point, the devs want you to pay. As it stands, people like myself are subsidising your play time, which is fine, we dont mind, just it gets a little grating for people to be so violently opposed to spending money on a game that's given them so many hours of playtime in exchange for nothing at all. So yeah, maybe I do another Warframe video on that new player experience. As it stands, that Warframe video was about my returning experience.