🔗 Share this article

The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a major update. This latest expansion showcases the creative flair that has come to define Warframe in recent years.

The new content, released on Wednesday, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that does a little dance, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. But it’s also going back to basics, with another quest geared at making sure this complex, vast long-running online game makes sense to new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Titled “The Teacher,” this is the highly anticipated mission that trains Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: the mod system.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” said a key developer. “I think it was really important, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I want to try more of this.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was created through a partnership between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is tasked with obtaining a component for their ship, but they’re interrupted by a menacing, powerful warrior called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and close-combat arms, and forces them to engage with the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Many of the external team were already fans of the game, but others had never played before, according to a lead designer. This fresh viewpoint that proved critical.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and go right play through the tutorial and document extensively on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. But the team observed these weren't effective for all.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where the game highlights it saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who desire more advanced content, like optimizing for endgame challenges. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for early players — and that doing so isn’t as simple as it looks.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and background details there to just demonstrate the possibilities rather than explain it outright,” the designer said. For example, one of the goals of “The Teacher” is to show how mods can create powerful elemental status effects; in this case, Magnetic damage that eats chunks out of enemy shields.

“We had to change the weapon to be a rapid-fire gun, because it shows off the proc rate more,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to explicitly tell players, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to trigger a special damage type.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Experienced players will naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but new players have to be taught to pay attention to these things.

“This type of design work that we've had to worry about as much just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a story developer. “But part of it not being our focus that we never really told people how to use mods.”

A Labor of Love

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — frankly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for loads of people.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over being able to work on a game that he loves — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“I love Teshin,” he said. “He embodies everything my younger self found awesome.”

Improving the New Player Experience

In the decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players can ignore initially — and won’t even have access to until much later. And others, like modding, that increase in depth depending on your level of engagement. A previous patch improved the introductory experience so that players could reach Warframe’s complex narrative arcs with reduced repetitive play up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. New players can get their foot in the door — regardless of overlooking tutorials.