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The space ninja adventure known as Warframe, a title where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has launched a significant update. This latest expansion highlights the unique whimsy that has become synonymous with Warframe in the past few seasons.

The new content, released on Wednesday, adds a new mushroom-themed warframe that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with a new mission aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive 12-year-old MMO makes sense to new players.

The Arrival of "The Teacher"

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

In Warframe, mods are augments 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 devastatingly complex. Dedicated players often produce extensive guides 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,” noted a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, 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 asked to retrieve a component for their ship, but they’re confronted by a formidable foe called Teshin, who removes the player's powers and close-combat arms, and compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were already fans of the game, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games designer. It was this outside perspective that proved critical.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and have them experience the introduction and take prodigious notes on everywhere they fell out,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials presented the mod system. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions 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" focuses on different aspects. Veteran users who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like optimizing for endgame challenges. 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 background details there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than tell you,” the designer said. For example, one of the goals of “The Teacher” is to show how mods can create elemental damage types; 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. “However, the goal isn't to explicitly tell players, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a few percentage chance to proc an elemental effect.' How can you teach this mechanic effectively?”

Veterans will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect and grasp their function, 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 our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a story developer. “However, this oversight meant that players weren't properly taught the modding system.”

Months of Effort

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a really simple mission that — frankly — 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 being able to work on a game that he loves — and to design content featuring a preferred figure.

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

Streamlining the Beginning

In the decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a consistent battle with its own new user introduction. There are many intricate mechanics that players can ignore initially — and won’t even have access to until hours into the game. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on your level of engagement. 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. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.