We Never Really Told People How to Use Mods: Warframe's New Quest Corrects a Longstanding Issue

The popular online game known as Warframe, a title where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a major update. The Vallis Undermind highlights 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 brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complex, vast 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

Introducing "The Teacher"

Titled “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest that instructs Warframe players on how to use one of the game's most basic — yet most intricate systems: the mod system.

In Warframe, modifications are enhancements that can be added to your character or your weapons to improve their stats. These can be simple (boosting power or shortening reload times) to the devastatingly complex. Dedicated players often craft hour-long videos about optimized loadouts that use synergistic enhancements to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, encountering mods without grasping their purpose,” said a lead narrative designer. “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 created through a partnership between the original developers, who provided the narrative sauce, and an external team, who designed the mission, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is asked to retrieve a new segment for their spaceship, but they’re confronted by a formidable foe called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and melee weapons, and compels them to use the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Several developers were longtime players, but some were newcomers, 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 it's flashing on the screen saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations that fill the display with damage values. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who desire more advanced content, like creating powerful and specific builds. But it became clear that the mission addresses a genuine oversight for early players — and that doing so isn’t as simple as it looks.

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

“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, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a few percentage chance to trigger a special damage type.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and understand how it works, but beginners require instruction 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 our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a story developer. “But part of it not being our focus that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

A Labor of Love

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a really simple mission that — honestly — you can complete quickly,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for many team members.”

The designer was clearly enthusiastic over contributing to a beloved title — and to craft a mission for one of his favorite characters.

“I love Teshin,” he said. “He's my 8-year-old internal self's idea of what's cool.”

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own new user introduction. There are many intricate mechanics that players don’t need to worry about — and won’t even have access to until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on how much time you want to invest. A previous patch improved the introductory experience so that players could reach Warframe’s complex narrative arcs with less time on the grind up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s initial hours evolves beyond its origins. New players can get their foot in the door — regardless of overlooking tutorials.