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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, an experience where you might encounter bizarre cosmic entities and pilot futuristic vehicles, has launched a significant update. This latest expansion exemplifies the distinctive charm that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

The new content, made available this week, introduces a new mushroom-themed warframe that performs a unique animation, along with a whole new explorable fungal area. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest aimed at making sure this complex, vast 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

Named “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 added to your character or your weapons to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“Many players likely started their journey, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” said a key developer. “We believed it was crucial, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Joint Development

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration 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 melee weapons, and forces them to engage with the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Many of the external team were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a lead designer. This fresh viewpoint that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and go right play through the tutorial and take prodigious notes on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials introduced players to modding. But the team observed these weren't effective for all.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions where the game highlights it saying equip the modification,” he said.

Addressing a Real Need

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations 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 wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight for early players — and that executing this is quite complex.

“There’s lots of little tweaks and little subtle things in the background there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than tell you,” the designer said. For example, one of the mission's objectives is to show how mods can create elemental damage types; in this case, a magnetic effect that depletes protective barriers.

“Adjustments to the armament to be a burst-fire weapon, because it better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, 'with a basic modification, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Veterans will naturally recognize these mechanics and understand how it works, but new players have to be taught to pay attention to these things.

“It’s not a kind of game development that we've had to worry about as much just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that we never really told people how to use mods.”

Months of Effort

“There’s so much that goes into just making a seemingly straightforward quest that — honestly — 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 visibly glowing with excitement over being able to work on a game that he loves — and to design content featuring a preferred figure.

“I'm a huge fan of Teshin,” he said. “He embodies everything my younger self found awesome.”

Improving the New Player Experience

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a consistent battle with its own new user introduction. There are lots of complex systems that players don’t need to worry about — 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 streamlined the early game 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 doubling down on a commitment to make sure Warframe’s early game experience doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — regardless of overlooking tutorials.