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The popular online game 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 creative flair that has come to define Warframe in more recent times.

The new content, made available this week, brings in 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"

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: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be added to your character or your weapons to boost their performance. 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 powerful mods in combination to create devastating effects.

“Many players likely started their journey, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” explained a lead narrative designer. “I think it was really important, upon completing the mission, for players to think, ‘Hey, modding is cool. I'd like to experiment further.’”

A Collaborative Effort

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the core team, who provided the narrative sauce, and a supporting studio, who crafted the gameplay, which will be introduced to new players.

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 takes away the player’s abilities and close-combat arms, and compels them to use the mod system to handily demonstrate its power.

Several developers were longtime players, but others had never played before, according to a lead designer. It was this outside perspective that was essential.

“Our initial step involved observing new players and have them experience the introduction and take prodigious notes on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Early-game menu pop-ups introduced players to modding. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Some people didn't see basic instructions where it's flashing on the screen saying equip the modification,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create stupidly powerful synergies 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 newcomers — 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 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 better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “But you don’t want 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?”

Experienced players will instinctively look for that kind of weapon effect 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 previously focused on just because our priorities lay elsewhere,” said a narrative lead. “However, this oversight meant 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 many team members.”

The designer was visibly glowing with excitement over contributing to a beloved title — 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 decade-plus since launch, Warframe has been in a ongoing struggle with its own player onboarding process. There are many intricate mechanics that players don’t need to worry about — and won’t even have access to until much later. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on how much time you want to invest. A previous patch streamlined the early game so that players could reach Warframe’s mind-bending plot developments with reduced repetitive play up front.

With “The Teacher,” it’s clear that the developers are reinforcing their dedication to make sure Warframe’s initial hours doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.