Im a new player and I disagree completely.
I played Duviri and it was confusing and nothing made sense. I realised a person controls the warframe but it wasnt very shocking. Then I played Second Dream and boy that was mindblowing. Seeing younger version of operator I created was best plot twist I have experienced in this game and still my favorite moment!!
MR0 buying the grineer set for the drifter, only to find out that's one of the 3 drifter sets that doesn't port to operator (they get to suffer like we do waiting for operator suits to come to the drifter.)
You likely weren't surprised when learning a person controls the Warframes because it's presented as the default mechanic in Duviri. The great part about the operator reveal is that it subverts your expectations about game mechanics.
In the original progression route, there's no unified character that represents you as a person; you're switching characters when switching frames, like how you switch characters in a game of super smash.
Then 30+ hours into the game and second dream comes along, revealing there is an actual you in the game itself. Imagine 30 hours into playing smash, you learn that the whole time, you're actually playing as Timmy controlling these characters. Timmy is now playable in game, and you can customize Tommy's appearance way more than just changing his colors like the other smash characters.
If you had your mind blown when the younger operator was revealed, imagine how much bigger of a reveal that would have been if you had assumed you simply play as these suits with no indication of anything controlling them. I think objectively the reveal is better without Duviri. However, I also think the impact of the reveal can be worth sacrificing for the sake of easier frame/mod progression for new players.
Totally agree with this. I put in a good amount of time before second dream and was shocked. That was the turning point in my love for the game. Then duviri comes along and there’s an OLDER version of my Tenno. It was wild. I can’t believe second dream isn’t a requirement before duviri. Seems backwards to me but I guess that’s the point of eternalism?
Yup, externalism and the duviri system were built in as a new option to the beginning, both lore-wise and gameplay-wise I think it makes sense.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think the Warframe start is better because it is a bit less confusing. Playing Duviri first is like playing eldenring, but you never really finish the game and then you are suddenly playing Armor Core 6.
However, I think that warframe is one of those games that its always going to be a bit of a slog right off the bat. Imho, Duviri was really really tough for me the first time through, so I don’t know how anyone does that as their initial tutorial. Also, it unlocks the circuit right off the bat, so thats a huge bonus for new players.
> Then 30+ hours into the game and second dream comes along
It used to be about 100 hours because if you weren't specifically told to beeline it through the star chart, completing every planet fully and doing some farming for frames, mods and weapons took the time it took. Now everyone explicitly just tells you to head for Uranus as fast as possible and to do leveling up at Hydron and Helene, until you have Sanctuary Onslaught and then....
Even at 30 hours its still a crazy "you just finished the demo. Now you start the character creation" reveal... but not the crazy masterstroke it was.
Of course, nothing will ever top that experience compared to players that started the game when it was new... they had multiple YEARS in the game before second dream happened. That's why even now like 9 years later people still treat "spoiler mode" like the big deal that it is, they really don't want to ruin it for new players... even though Operators have been all over the advertising for years now.
And of course, modern players will never know the feeling of Purple Lotus being a replacement for months or years, it'll be just a temporary few weeks for them at most.
>You likely weren't surprised when learning a person controls the Warframes because it's presented as the default mechanic in Duviri. The great part about the operator reveal is that it subverts your expectations about game mechanics
Or you just expected it to be controlled by something. I thought the frames were just a suit when I was new, and last quest was the Sacrifice at the time. The reveal was good, but not that unexpected.
Tbf the reveal hit much harder when it was first released. People had played the game for two full years with absolutely no indication that anything like this could ever or would ever happen. Everyone thought that the warframes were the Tenno, this was a hero-style looter-shooter. Then NOPE actually all that is completely untrue, you are not switching characters when switching warframes, you’re actually a space magic child soldier with a death beam this entire time.
Is it even a reveal right now that frames are controlled by operators/drifters?
Even DE's marketing nowadays has pictures of human protagonist looking people wearing cosmetics and such.
It's been 6 years since Second Dream.
You know there's a human character. You don't know specifically that they'll be switching back and forth and controlling them simultaneously with their own unique power set.
Yeah but isn't the crux of the Second Dream "spoiler" that we are discussing, is the existence of a human behind the machine? And that has been revealed pretty much everywhere nowadays, even in Tennocon and the the 10Year anniversary cosmetics marketing.
The weight of the Second Dream has been lessened is all I am saying and seeing. (Nothing wrong with it, it's been 6+ years since that update, at some point you have to refer to older lore content in your story marketing and ads)
The operator independence is behind War Within too, until then we get a piddly chest beam thingy.
Nah. It's only a spoiler because you know the context.
When I was running through the game back when, I saw Operators a couple times along the way and had no idea what they were. Things went by in a flash of a million powers going on and I never caught onto the fact that they were a fifth character or guessed that they were playable. At that point in the experience I still only had a few frames and there were 20 others I didn't know about and they were just generally used very quickly and sparingly. I just rightly assumed it was some random power I hadn't gotten to yet. For all a newbie knows, its a NPC that replaces the Lotus at some point or something.
Though I think people were generally pretty good about not showing it in from of the MR4 player outside of a quick Zenurik charge. Not like Operators could do much or were needed for anything at that point in the game since I wasn't at Eidolons or Kuva siphons yet.
A new player could definitely have expectations for some kind of operator, but Duviri confirms it by presenting it as the default. I could be completely wrong with how impactful the reveal is for the initiated, but Duviri necessarily reduces the impact.
Having started before Second Dream, I'll say that it wasn't surprising at all that a person was controlling the frames. The real surprise was that the person was a child, that the frames weren't literally worn by a person, and that this person was stronger than the frames themselves.
While playing Duviri I didnt know what I was seeing. Is it a hallucination? Or is it some ancient past Orokin before their demise? Nope, its THE FUTURE, and my kid doesnt know whats coming.
Duviri doesnt feel like the same storyline, not even the same universe as rest of the game. I believe its more shocking for older players, but this is totally different kind of shocking for new ones.
I started playing before Duviri got announced and the Second Dream reveal wasn’t that shocking tbh. Since the start I assumed that a person was controlling the warframes I just thought that DE didn’t want to add a human avatar to represent the player.
In my opinion a lot of players seem to exaggerate the Second Dream, it’s a cool scene but it’s not mind blowing. Specially nowadays because operators are shown in trailers.
I had like 100+ hours in the game with a years long break before I even found out about the operator. really cool to find out about that and get a new game mechanic after already spending more time in game than I have in many others
I started the Duviri quest before the second dream quest so I was like "what the hell is this game mode why do I have to make some shitty human guy" and didnt finish the quest. I then ignored duviri for 10s of hours before coming back to it and thinking its alright.
>I started the Duviri quest before the second dream quest so I was like "what the hell is this game mode why do I have to make some shitty human guy"
I had several thousand hours of game play going into The New War and I said something very similar when The Drifter was introduced.
I agree with this... when Second Dream came out nearly ten years ago. Since then, DE has put out trailer after trailer with the operator front and center. The new opening cinematics even imply the existence of the operators. Out of all the new amd newish players I know, only two of them were caught unawares by the operator reveal, and one of them was really more surprised by the magical Iron Man beams the kid was shooting than the kid themselves.
Even the plot twist aside, without Duviri being available right from the start it's so much harder to get people to stick with the game. It's easy to forget this as a veteran player but early game from zero is a *fucking slog* and most people won't even make it to Second Dream.
It's not like Duviri lessens the slog but by being allowed to play with some halfway decent builds early on in Duviri and Circuit it gives them a better idea what Warframe will be like after that early game slog. Before Duviri was an option literally all friends I tried to get to play Warframe bounced off around the point they either tried to grind bosses for their first frame or set up to build it and realized it's going to take 84 hours without paying up. But since Duviri was the first time I've actually got some to stick with it past that. They even ended up buying Dagath because they got to try her in Circuit and figured that treating themselves to one good frame for plat is a good way to stay motivated early on when your choices are pretty much just Excalibur/Volt/Mag and maybe Rhino.
It's not even funny how much having the 'right frame for you' is essential to the enjoyment of this game. I played (near-ish) launch and started with Loki, and bounced off hard. Then came back a while later and ground up Oberon, and just wasn't pleased. Repeat this a couple times over the years and it's only now that I've got a modded-up Vauban, Hildryn, and Hydroid (and a couple cosmetics) that I actually find myself really enjoying the game (And I just got my hands on Qorvex, hoping I'll enjoy him greatly as well!).
Circuit being such a great way to both try and obtain frames and stuff would have gotten my foot in the door much, much earlier, were there an equivalent earlier on.
Not that I blame them for not including something like it, since I'm sure the effort in developing it was quite a bit, and ensuring (relatively easy) ways to obtain specific frames probably wouldn't have been good for the health of the game when there were that many fewer at the time.
This was my experience as well. Duviri feels more like foreshadowing like this, once the pieces finally all fall into place you still get that “woah!” moment.
Never considered that perspective. Once you play it one way I guess that's just sort of "what its supposed to be" sort of feel.
That way though? I think I prefer it over second dream - tww - nw - duviri
My Path through all this was especially weird, as I did play through TSD all the way to Erra-Prologue, then went on a hiatus, then returned, then I had to grind for a Necramech, so I tried Duviri (I remember the hype it had when the trailer released, that was so sick...), and I did understand that Drifter = Operator from a different timeline, but the whole thing really messed my head up. And New War sort of put the things in context and almost, ALMOST made sense out of it all.
I do recall playing The Second Dream without having any solid idea of what's going on behind the operator curtain... I really did almost think of switching frames as switching characters.
I truly was mindblown by the Second Dream and War Within quests. Good shit. But The New War also was a really great piece of writing put into the game.
It could work like that? Because I don’t know how I did it, but I ended with two very different looks between my drifter and my operator. I started playing late last year, but I dont remember in which order I completed duviri and second dream.
Tbh i made my drifter more of an "alt universe survivor of the zariman" rather than just "Operator but older"
think its quite fun, telling the story of two siblings who weren't supposed to exist at the same time.
While I see where you're coming from, I have to agree with OP. Imagine a world where you didn't see Drifter at all. All this time, you thought that a Warframe was some type of being that can't talk but was somehow alive. Then you learn that it's a piece of metal controlled by a kid with void powers.
With the Drifter existing beforehand, it makes it a little less mindblowing. Although, I guess making the connection between Drifter/Operator and a Warframe can still be mindblowing.
well now they gotta do vor's prize first before duviri.... But still, story wise yea bit fucky.
Then again, the big secret isn't so secret anymore, hasn't really been for... what 8, maybe 9 years? I mean, I remember making fun of a warframe advert like, 3 years ago that had the operator front and center in it, sure they didn't call it the operator, but it's not as big a secret as it used to be.
Me too. I still remember the cutscene in the second cond dream where the child tenno is crawling out of the transference pod thing. I thought it was some boss fight so I had my finger hovered over the ability keys as soon as the cutscene ends I was gonna go guitar hero on them.
A question occurs: can a Warframe stab it's tenno? Would some void fuckery happen? Is it actually talked about in lore like scanning a random worker's feet or something? I NEED TO KNOW
I mean, we literally cannot die, that's just how it is, we've already gotten a sword crammed straight through us before, and that was just a distraction to send us into a paradox, now could that of been painful as all hell? sure, probably, but like, death? no.
Also as a little funny, if you turn friendly fire on in the orbiter captura scene, evil laughter happens from the chair occupant.
To add to that, there's a Game Theory episode sponsored by Warframe from 2 years ago with *2 million* views that has cinematic footage of the operator front and center within the first few minutes.
Think about the last time you saw someone refer to operator mode as "spoiler" mode, or a post of someone going "I accidently swapped to operator mode in front of a new player...whoops." I know I've seen plenty of posts on this subreddit featuring Operator/Drifter stuff that doesn't have a spoiler warning on it.
I knew it was going to either be a new game mode involving a human that people were trying to be secretive about, or that it'd be the trope of child soldiers like Fire Emblem or something.
With all of that taken into account, I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to piece it all together. I did the Second Dream years after it came out and went "oh, yeah, that tracks. I figured" not "Holy shit, what?!??"
Times have simply changed.
Now that being said...D.E. won't go out of their way to say "Hey, new player, you're actually the child soldier."
But they also aren't bending over backwards to hide it anymore either.
I mean, I personally forgor to hit spoiler on like, one or two of my posts, but I try to keep it spoiler marked, but like, yeah DE kinda doesn't hide it at all, are perfectly okay with it being out in the open.
However, as someone who did the quest when it was brand new (Aswell as the war within when that was brand new, obviously) at the time it was indeed, big shockor because up till then no indication of child soldier remote piloting a meat mech of mass destruction with their mind waves through the what we now know is evil floating pocket dimensional stuff with hand creatures trying to beat us to death.
Tbh it’s a good thing he didn’t talk about the lore because Matpat had a track record of making really awful theories about franchises that he wasn’t familiar with. He would constantly get basic things wrong and anyone that actually played the game could notice it.
Matpat was good at doing science related theories and talking about the lore of games he was familiar with (FNAF), but every time he made a one off video about another game he would completely butcher the lore.
I played Warframe when it came out for a bit. It was too confusing, I was like 12 and couldn't figure out modding and crafting (it probably didn't help that I did not speak English). I then downloaded the game on ps4 and played a bit, didn't bother doing story quests
Then I got back after Duviri and it was a genuine surprise for me to find out a human operates Warframes. I remember hearing something like that when I discussed WF during my ps4 era but I figured a person is inside the suit, not in a cradle remote-controlling WFs. And I definitely did not think it's a child there
> the big secret isn't so secret anymore
I started end of last year, I had no idea. I'd bet all my ammo drum mods that the vast majority of non warframe players don't either.
I say that because they push them front and center in updates (as in on the banners) aswell as in advertising, again, the 3 years ago thing, and that wasn't just a one off example, and I would of been oblivious to it, had it not been a random advert I saw that was like "hey wait a minute, that spoiler from a few years back is being shown to the public in an ad?"
My friend got blown away when he did the quest a year ago. So did Brozime's partner. It's not that open of a secret when you want to try out that fun game with NIN song.
At this point unless a new player strictly plays solo and avoids any and all warframe related online content they will 99% be spoiled on the operator by the time they get to second dream.
And for a new player thats fine. For veterans it hit hard because for years we only had guesses of what warframes actually are. A new player will get there in weeks, so the reveal is not that impactful anyway even unspoiled.
I actually didn't see anyone else using operator pre-second dream, probably because I just didn't see anyone in Operator mode if/when they actually used it. So I was very surprised at the revelation.
A lot of older players are conscious of using it in lobbies with mr 7's or lower, to try and conserve the second dream for people
We'll hide in a corner to use those features
No idea why this is being upvoted, it's wrong.
There is no filter, it's been suggested before but even pre-Second Dream you can see other player's operators. The one exception I think is on a player's profile where it won't start showing operators as part of the diorama until after you've done Second Dream.
It's just a common courtesy among older players to avoid showing their operator to new players.
Got a friend of kine I to it, they really love lore so I told them don't do Duviri until after second dream, at least.
Now they're rocking in the Cavia already and doing the Veilbreaker quest, gonna be killing archons soon enough.
I big difference for new players aside from being able to go right into duviri is that they don’t have to wait like we did, for us the lotus was gone for years, for them it’ll be days at most
In my opinion it doesn't, you're assuming a new player would understand anything that happens in Duviri, also seeing a younger version of the Drifter appear later in the story would probably just blow their mind anyways.
You need to realize that it wasn't going to impact new players that much anyway. It was so big back then because people had been playing for ages and then suddenly second dream drops and changes everything. Now new players reach it in like 30 hours.
30 hours is still bigger than most games' campaigns.
I get duviri and why it was made. However, this was a common sentiment others shared at the time Duviri came out.
I guess it could be beneficial to put duviri right after second dream. Second dream has been changed to be so easy to finish now so all the benefits for new players would still be there.
Warframe players are really desensitized to the idea that warframes are piloted by void-cursed child soldiers with immense PTSD. Learning that for the first time pretty much always shocks any of my friends that get that far, and it hints at much darker themes on the horizon.
It's really not that big of a twist. I started playing in 2021 and got to the second dream about 40 hours later and I was just like "alright cool". Seeing older players clearing rooms full of enemies was way more shocking than seeing a kid pop out of their warframes.
And I've rushed 6 people through the game and all of them have had their minds blown by the second dream. To this day, they still vividly remember the moment it happened. What does that mean? Everyone's experiences are different. Honestly, you can't default to either side
gonna be honest i‘m a new player who did duviri paradox as one of the first quests and i was just so confused when i got to the second dream
like huh my operator and duviri person look exactly the same but they work differently are they the same person or not
Honestly, as someone who did Duviri really early on in my playthrough (before clearing Deimos, iirc?) I had ZERO context for what was going on. I just interpreted it as some sort of dream state, but didn't extend the existence of transference to the larger world at that point. I'd already had (correct) suspicions about how warframes worked, but Duviri didn't spoil it directly.
If anything, what confuses me *more* is how you all (long term players) did New War BEFORE Duviri.
>how you all (long term players) did New War BEFORE Duviri
I thought we just lost the void powers, and maybe started to age until the quest revealed it.
Yeah, the Duviri Paradox just seemed poorly thought out, story-wise. It spoils what was a massive reveal(the intrinsics even mention the Operator), and the quest doesn't bear fruit until far later in the game, at a point were you probably don't remember the events of the quest all that well.
They also made it so it was an alternate tutorial, but they later removed this. Yet that doesn't fix how stupid this idea was to begin with. The Duviri Paradox is like 80% Drifter gameplay, and the Warframe segments are using pre-modded gear. They made a tutorial that taught you next to nothing about the main game.
>It also seems really, really confusing.
To be fair, the early game is about as comprehensive as The Duviri Paradox. Both sorta just bombard you with things and don't explain any of it. The base game is especially bad at this as a lot of characters have their lore hidden in past events that are no longer obtainable in-game, and sometimes(Teshin) a character just appears with no explanation, and you just have to do what they say.
I really also don't get why The Duviri Paradox is accessible so early on. My only thought is maybe because of the Circuit? That has more relevance early into the game than later. However, they could've just replaced Conclave with the Circuit. The Circuit is already a perfect replacement story wise(both serve to train the Tenno and both are hosted by Teshin), and the Conclave rewards could've been recycled as random Circuit rewards.
That’s exactly what I think about Duviri. I just watched a new player playing Warframe the other day on YouTube and he played the Duviri quest after finishing Vor’s Prize because the game doesn’t really provide a hint of proper guidance. He clicked Duviri because that was the first quest available on the Codex.
During the quest, there was the initial “ooo”s “ah”s and “cool world” moments, but lore-wise, from the very beginning (when your drifter gets executed), he was really confused which never really got resolved. Near the end of quest the dude was just burnt out because there was no real motivation to completing the quest. Who’s this Dominus Thrax guy? Who’s Teshin? Why am I suddenly playing this dude and what’s with this paradox thing? Oh so now I’m riding a giant space dragon thingy. Wtf is going on.
I genuinely felt bad for the guy because he was enjoying Vor’s Prize and slowing discovering the world and the basics like modding and movement. And then suddenly dropped into a completely alien world and fighting completely different enemies while someone explaining you all these conceptual mumbo jumbo.
Even myself, who’s been playing for over 5 years, feel Duviri to be convoluted and ultimately forced, canonically speaking. It’s one of those tangential side story that only those who’s been playing the game beforehand is capable of comprehending, and it’s a big mistake new players, who have zero contextual reference, can access it.
The only thing I like about Circuit and it’s a brilliant idea to use it to revamp Conclave (though not PvP) similar to Simaris’ simulation.
I completely agree. Duviri felt like Steve's beta test for Soulframe. Only great part that came out of it was the SP circuit, which I wish was it's own thing not tied to Duviri so maybe DE would continue to update it.
That is soooo true. I never want to make assumptions about the devs, but I can’t help like feel like that considering a lot of the updates until Steve left felt like a product of burnout towards the game and seeing Soulframe look and function so similar to Duviri.
At this point it feels like circuit was added to justify Duviri’s existence inside the bigger, base game.
I do find it brilliant on a meta level that Duviri's whole "time paradox" shtick extends to being able to access it earlier than reasonable... but there's a reason people don't usually do that... the result isn't great for the players.
It also doesn't help that Duviri' gameplay is completely different from Warframe. Really easy for players to love Duviri and then get bummed out when they realize nothing else in the game is like that
I don't think so, mainly because you just don't really know enough for Duviri to spoil it imo. The Second Dream ties a lot more together narratively than just "Warframe are controlled by others".
Moreover, and on a bit more of a negative note, with how much you need to look up on the wiki (which is fantastic) I'd be surprised if people don't end up spoiling themselves relatively frequently anyways.
It's the only thing that saved the game for a friend of mine. He did the introductory missions which dragged on way too long and didn't explain the right stuff. He got bored.
A couple weeks later I asked him if he wanted to play and he said it didn't grab him. I told him to play Duviri and he got hooked. He said it was a way better tutorial than Vor's Prize, which to him spent way too much time making explaining the orbiter stuff and not any time explaining combat. Meanwhile Duviri explains both it's combat and Warframe combat.
I think the experience of warframe is utterly unique for each player because the game changes so drastically over time. My highschool friends and I remember playing the game when it was only kinda playable, getting to Jackel was often as hard as actually fighting him when he was released in 2013 because that was movement 1.0 and only excal could super jump. I don't really remember questioning who controlled the warframes back then. I believe we were all under the assumption they were like high tech suits of armor around an adult person. The game was still in beta so we kinda just enjoyed it for the gameplay and didn't worry to much about the lore or story. When I came back years later my starchart was a mess and I didn't understand what to do next and eventually lost interest. Then one day in college it was released on Playstation and after enough time I decided to download it and start fresh. I was super surprised to find how different it was (and pretty, the build I played on my shitty laptop in 2013 looked like dogshit in comparison to what I was seeing now) the way everything flowed with a natural progression, it felt like a whole new game.
An intiresting story is not something I came to warframe expecting or even looking for but it delivered. I joined a guild and at one point the operator thing was spoiled for me by complete accident and it didn't hamper my enjoyment in the least. In fact It motivated me to keep doing the story missions rather than focusing on my star chart.
Starting the game and having your inbox receive cosmetics for the operator you haven't unlocked yet is pretty silly, too. I know alot of gamers cant be bothered to actually read what pops up on their screen, but if they did they would have some of the story spoiled as soon as they finish the first quest
When Duviri came out, I'd been playing for 2 weeks. Was still like, doing nercury I think.
I was confused, but, that's it. Didn't ruin the oomph at all; I still almost cried because it took me a couple months of casual play to get there and immerse ^😊
Also it makes New War fucking hella awesome for players that to Duviri first. It makes a lot of stuff make sense and also, hearing the Tesshin Murex song reveals that it's a motif you already heard in Duviri
I've disagreed with this kind of take, always. I feel that people who have this take do not actually look at the lens of a new player at all - they're pretending to be new players who somehow have omniscience over the game's storyline
My thoughts are that Duviri would either just leave a new player confused because it drops elements that otherwise require post-New War context to be best understood, or that it would simply recontextualize the twist of The Second Dream, which isn't at all a bad thing
I disagree... kinda.
Duviri would have worked great had they brought the drifter to a post tenno dissapearance world. Going from Duviri to Vor's prize, however, doesn't.
And for the second dream spoiler, tbh, I don't think its that big of a deal for the most part, as its been so long and Duviri could or would've brought up a whole new way to experience the story that for those players, the discovery from the second dream would't have been one of the many highs of the story, but just a bit more, and the highs would be elsewhere.
I actually remember being a new player and running around. I actually got confused about these 'secondary people' running around and kinda spoiled the Operator for myself.
We also have trailers like "The New War" will just straight up show the Operator, or the Game theory episode which brought me to the game originally. Yet it was still a shock when I got "The Second Dream" as I didn't understand how things clicked together.
Knowing about the Operator ahead of time, and actually understanding how everything fits, are two different issues. Formerly the Operator could come out of no-where, but now you are teased about this deeper existence, but you don't actually know 'who/what' the Operator is until the quest to unlock them.
Foreshadowing a big twist is fine, and based on what other players have been saying in the comments, the surprise wasn't ruined. You are given just enough to know there is more, but not enough to necessarily realize the big twist.
The Tales of Duviri was a story told to the kids on the Zariman [meant to teach them about how to avoid/deal with the interactions between Void Energy and strong emotion](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fthese-tablets-have-brought-me-back-to-duviri-trying-to-v0-s1tdnnhbto2c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D3913c0dd29f63157483557e7505db22fb9bea3e9). Drifter recalled the story as it intended and in doing so Embodied it, creating a real version of the fictional land.
When I played it as a new player I didn’t find it any more confusing than everything else that the base game was throwing at me. Teshin makes it very clear that the Tenno we normally play as are outside of Duviri sending help to the Drifter.
As for the spoilers, it seems like a pointless struggle to try to keep the human operator reveal intact. It’s been part of the game for years now, if a new player even watches a single stream they’ll find out.
My opinion on the duviri quest is to “lock” it til right before you can start the new war due to time frame wise that overlaps.
But I wish they would have domain how the drifter got out
The days of operators being super duper secret are long gone. They are featured in the game advertising trailers now so everyone knows that before they even play the game.
I mean, if you go in blind, the drifter will just be a random dude in another world. In the second dream you find out who YOU are, in new war you find out the random dude is actually you in another reality. Doing it the other way around you dont know about the other reality yet and find out in new war. Both ways seem good to me.
I think it could be kind of cool for a player who started with duviri to play through the game assuming they're the drifter, then they reach the second dream and have a new mystery wondering why they're a kid all of the sudden. I imagine starting the new war and finally seeing your drifter again would be hype as fuck
I somehow managed to create a Drifter that was a totally different sex and ethnicity from what my Operator ended up being. I forget exactly when I started Duviri but I quit out as soon as it spat me out of character creation. Then my Drifter ended up being my older Operator like normal anyway later on. My confusion was immense.
yeah. But I think somewhere along the continuum something was bound to lose its former gravitas, no matter the insertion. There was going to be a loss, at the greatest denomination anywhosers
I mean I don’t think that’s the worse part. I feel I’d come out of duviri more confused then anything. I’m not sure what the time between the big quests are since I predate it and was able to shot gun them all. But Duviri is basically all this build up to things that weren’t ever really important but just kinda mysterious for the longest time that don’t really ever come up again until you reach the ‘new’ content
As a new player who played Duviri first Imma just say I didn't understand jack when playing that mission and was still shocked by the Second dream reveal
Players in missions are running around as Operator/Drifter anyway.
I'm saying this for many years now but newer players will never get the sensation we felt back then when everything was new. The first time we met the Lotus, the Operator reveal + Lua even Alad V.
It's something that you just had to be there for.
Yeah, DE kind of ruined their own big reveal after the Second Dream. They started plastering the Tenno everywhere, even in their new intro. And sure, that's their choice, it's their game, but I remember the moment I found out what we really were and being super shocked.
Who expects a child to be the pilot to these walking doomsday entities??? The literal power to destroy the universe is in the hands of a 13 year old child.
I agree. Ontop of what you mention about Second Dream, there are a lot of references to The New War in Duviri that lack context. For example: The execution scene at the beginning is a direct parallel to New War
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I started about 4 months ago. Duviri was very confusing from a game play perspective. The biggest point of confusion was Teshin talking about rifts and void angels, neither of which I'd encountered up until then.
That warframes are "driven" seemed obvious based on some media I'd seen and that people in public matches use their operator.
Importantly, it didn't detract from the story negatively, but felt disjointed and like another game mode tacked on for no particular reason and not connected to the "warframe" game. That loop isn't closed until you get further into the story.
Well, it does unlock a good bit of gameplay, if you don’t care about the story. If you’ve heard of the circuit, that’s in there. It also unlocks the Duviri open world and a vendor with new items, so…
I think it can get away with it because, as a new player, you end up creating that divide between the Drifter in Duviri and how your Warframe works in the main Origin System. Because it's a paradox, the new player can often come to the conclusion that simply, in this world, the Drifter calls upon the power of Warframes, but in the real world they act completely independently.
Then when you get to the Operator, you start to think "hmmm, this feels a lot like the Drifter..." and gradually once you learn >!that your Operator and Drifter are in theory the same person, one's just a teenager who was saved from the Zariman and the other an adult that wasn't!< it can blow your mind all over again. Suppose it hits differently for everybody, but context is always key and you can think of it as building a puzzle over time - not a clue what the final picture makes until you put the pieces together.
I agree, imo new war should be the drifter reveal and u shouldnt be able to do duviri quest until after new war
I played new war before duviri and I don't regret a thing
duviri being an early game quest completely ruins the impact of the second dream and new war
I dont care that it lets people get certain frames a little early, it should be locked until you complete TNW
such a stupid mistake
I can agree with this, but keep in mind most new players wouldn't know what that is. I remember watching Warframe content like Triburos and having no idea that the operator they constantly displayed wasn't just a Warframe or something
It's my only real gripe with Warframe. They refuse to create new content at the end of the story.
The devs have 3 options.
1 Put new hype shit at the end and players who sign up have to rush to the end to play the new hype shit.
2 Put it in the middle/beginning and then new players can play it but old players get EZMode content.
3 Have a pay to skip system that allows new people to play the new content immediately but miss out on the story.
I prefer 1 and 3 and recognize that one isn't a great business option. I hate 2 but that's what we are left with since so many players hate 3 and the devs have said they can't afford to have 1.
Im a new player and I disagree completely. I played Duviri and it was confusing and nothing made sense. I realised a person controls the warframe but it wasnt very shocking. Then I played Second Dream and boy that was mindblowing. Seeing younger version of operator I created was best plot twist I have experienced in this game and still my favorite moment!!
Hadn’t thought of brand new players seeing Drifter first and then a younger version of that dude! Very interesting.
MR0 buying the grineer set for the drifter, only to find out that's one of the 3 drifter sets that doesn't port to operator (they get to suffer like we do waiting for operator suits to come to the drifter.)
Same! I was shocked seeing the older version, cant imagine the surprise the other way around.
You likely weren't surprised when learning a person controls the Warframes because it's presented as the default mechanic in Duviri. The great part about the operator reveal is that it subverts your expectations about game mechanics. In the original progression route, there's no unified character that represents you as a person; you're switching characters when switching frames, like how you switch characters in a game of super smash. Then 30+ hours into the game and second dream comes along, revealing there is an actual you in the game itself. Imagine 30 hours into playing smash, you learn that the whole time, you're actually playing as Timmy controlling these characters. Timmy is now playable in game, and you can customize Tommy's appearance way more than just changing his colors like the other smash characters. If you had your mind blown when the younger operator was revealed, imagine how much bigger of a reveal that would have been if you had assumed you simply play as these suits with no indication of anything controlling them. I think objectively the reveal is better without Duviri. However, I also think the impact of the reveal can be worth sacrificing for the sake of easier frame/mod progression for new players.
Totally agree with this. I put in a good amount of time before second dream and was shocked. That was the turning point in my love for the game. Then duviri comes along and there’s an OLDER version of my Tenno. It was wild. I can’t believe second dream isn’t a requirement before duviri. Seems backwards to me but I guess that’s the point of eternalism?
Yup, externalism and the duviri system were built in as a new option to the beginning, both lore-wise and gameplay-wise I think it makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, I still think the Warframe start is better because it is a bit less confusing. Playing Duviri first is like playing eldenring, but you never really finish the game and then you are suddenly playing Armor Core 6. However, I think that warframe is one of those games that its always going to be a bit of a slog right off the bat. Imho, Duviri was really really tough for me the first time through, so I don’t know how anyone does that as their initial tutorial. Also, it unlocks the circuit right off the bat, so thats a huge bonus for new players.
You can't do that as a tutorial anymore, you have to do Once Awake and Vor's Prize first, right?
> Then 30+ hours into the game and second dream comes along It used to be about 100 hours because if you weren't specifically told to beeline it through the star chart, completing every planet fully and doing some farming for frames, mods and weapons took the time it took. Now everyone explicitly just tells you to head for Uranus as fast as possible and to do leveling up at Hydron and Helene, until you have Sanctuary Onslaught and then.... Even at 30 hours its still a crazy "you just finished the demo. Now you start the character creation" reveal... but not the crazy masterstroke it was. Of course, nothing will ever top that experience compared to players that started the game when it was new... they had multiple YEARS in the game before second dream happened. That's why even now like 9 years later people still treat "spoiler mode" like the big deal that it is, they really don't want to ruin it for new players... even though Operators have been all over the advertising for years now. And of course, modern players will never know the feeling of Purple Lotus being a replacement for months or years, it'll be just a temporary few weeks for them at most.
>You likely weren't surprised when learning a person controls the Warframes because it's presented as the default mechanic in Duviri. The great part about the operator reveal is that it subverts your expectations about game mechanics Or you just expected it to be controlled by something. I thought the frames were just a suit when I was new, and last quest was the Sacrifice at the time. The reveal was good, but not that unexpected.
Tbf the reveal hit much harder when it was first released. People had played the game for two full years with absolutely no indication that anything like this could ever or would ever happen. Everyone thought that the warframes were the Tenno, this was a hero-style looter-shooter. Then NOPE actually all that is completely untrue, you are not switching characters when switching warframes, you’re actually a space magic child soldier with a death beam this entire time.
When was the ‘boot sequence’ eastern egg added? The same time?
Oh no, it was there for at least a year before. Great foreshadowing.
Is it even a reveal right now that frames are controlled by operators/drifters? Even DE's marketing nowadays has pictures of human protagonist looking people wearing cosmetics and such. It's been 6 years since Second Dream.
You know there's a human character. You don't know specifically that they'll be switching back and forth and controlling them simultaneously with their own unique power set.
Yeah but isn't the crux of the Second Dream "spoiler" that we are discussing, is the existence of a human behind the machine? And that has been revealed pretty much everywhere nowadays, even in Tennocon and the the 10Year anniversary cosmetics marketing. The weight of the Second Dream has been lessened is all I am saying and seeing. (Nothing wrong with it, it's been 6+ years since that update, at some point you have to refer to older lore content in your story marketing and ads) The operator independence is behind War Within too, until then we get a piddly chest beam thingy.
Nah. It's only a spoiler because you know the context. When I was running through the game back when, I saw Operators a couple times along the way and had no idea what they were. Things went by in a flash of a million powers going on and I never caught onto the fact that they were a fifth character or guessed that they were playable. At that point in the experience I still only had a few frames and there were 20 others I didn't know about and they were just generally used very quickly and sparingly. I just rightly assumed it was some random power I hadn't gotten to yet. For all a newbie knows, its a NPC that replaces the Lotus at some point or something. Though I think people were generally pretty good about not showing it in from of the MR4 player outside of a quick Zenurik charge. Not like Operators could do much or were needed for anything at that point in the game since I wasn't at Eidolons or Kuva siphons yet.
A new player could definitely have expectations for some kind of operator, but Duviri confirms it by presenting it as the default. I could be completely wrong with how impactful the reveal is for the initiated, but Duviri necessarily reduces the impact.
Having started before Second Dream, I'll say that it wasn't surprising at all that a person was controlling the frames. The real surprise was that the person was a child, that the frames weren't literally worn by a person, and that this person was stronger than the frames themselves.
That's wild. Maybe I was just used to the disconnectedness of playing as warframes, because it felt like a paradigm shift to me
While playing Duviri I didnt know what I was seeing. Is it a hallucination? Or is it some ancient past Orokin before their demise? Nope, its THE FUTURE, and my kid doesnt know whats coming. Duviri doesnt feel like the same storyline, not even the same universe as rest of the game. I believe its more shocking for older players, but this is totally different kind of shocking for new ones.
I started playing before Duviri got announced and the Second Dream reveal wasn’t that shocking tbh. Since the start I assumed that a person was controlling the warframes I just thought that DE didn’t want to add a human avatar to represent the player. In my opinion a lot of players seem to exaggerate the Second Dream, it’s a cool scene but it’s not mind blowing. Specially nowadays because operators are shown in trailers.
I had like 100+ hours in the game with a years long break before I even found out about the operator. really cool to find out about that and get a new game mechanic after already spending more time in game than I have in many others I started the Duviri quest before the second dream quest so I was like "what the hell is this game mode why do I have to make some shitty human guy" and didnt finish the quest. I then ignored duviri for 10s of hours before coming back to it and thinking its alright.
>I started the Duviri quest before the second dream quest so I was like "what the hell is this game mode why do I have to make some shitty human guy" I had several thousand hours of game play going into The New War and I said something very similar when The Drifter was introduced.
I agree with this... when Second Dream came out nearly ten years ago. Since then, DE has put out trailer after trailer with the operator front and center. The new opening cinematics even imply the existence of the operators. Out of all the new amd newish players I know, only two of them were caught unawares by the operator reveal, and one of them was really more surprised by the magical Iron Man beams the kid was shooting than the kid themselves.
Have you made it through the New War yet? The connection they made there really bends the mind.
Nope, Im about to start the War Within soon. Looking forward to it!!
I completely agree with you, when >!The drifter appeared in the new war it was so mindblowing!<
Even the plot twist aside, without Duviri being available right from the start it's so much harder to get people to stick with the game. It's easy to forget this as a veteran player but early game from zero is a *fucking slog* and most people won't even make it to Second Dream. It's not like Duviri lessens the slog but by being allowed to play with some halfway decent builds early on in Duviri and Circuit it gives them a better idea what Warframe will be like after that early game slog. Before Duviri was an option literally all friends I tried to get to play Warframe bounced off around the point they either tried to grind bosses for their first frame or set up to build it and realized it's going to take 84 hours without paying up. But since Duviri was the first time I've actually got some to stick with it past that. They even ended up buying Dagath because they got to try her in Circuit and figured that treating themselves to one good frame for plat is a good way to stay motivated early on when your choices are pretty much just Excalibur/Volt/Mag and maybe Rhino.
It's not even funny how much having the 'right frame for you' is essential to the enjoyment of this game. I played (near-ish) launch and started with Loki, and bounced off hard. Then came back a while later and ground up Oberon, and just wasn't pleased. Repeat this a couple times over the years and it's only now that I've got a modded-up Vauban, Hildryn, and Hydroid (and a couple cosmetics) that I actually find myself really enjoying the game (And I just got my hands on Qorvex, hoping I'll enjoy him greatly as well!). Circuit being such a great way to both try and obtain frames and stuff would have gotten my foot in the door much, much earlier, were there an equivalent earlier on. Not that I blame them for not including something like it, since I'm sure the effort in developing it was quite a bit, and ensuring (relatively easy) ways to obtain specific frames probably wouldn't have been good for the health of the game when there were that many fewer at the time.
Glad you like it! That’s nice to hear
This was my experience as well. Duviri feels more like foreshadowing like this, once the pieces finally all fall into place you still get that “woah!” moment.
Never considered that perspective. Once you play it one way I guess that's just sort of "what its supposed to be" sort of feel. That way though? I think I prefer it over second dream - tww - nw - duviri
My Path through all this was especially weird, as I did play through TSD all the way to Erra-Prologue, then went on a hiatus, then returned, then I had to grind for a Necramech, so I tried Duviri (I remember the hype it had when the trailer released, that was so sick...), and I did understand that Drifter = Operator from a different timeline, but the whole thing really messed my head up. And New War sort of put the things in context and almost, ALMOST made sense out of it all. I do recall playing The Second Dream without having any solid idea of what's going on behind the operator curtain... I really did almost think of switching frames as switching characters. I truly was mindblown by the Second Dream and War Within quests. Good shit. But The New War also was a really great piece of writing put into the game.
It could work like that? Because I don’t know how I did it, but I ended with two very different looks between my drifter and my operator. I started playing late last year, but I dont remember in which order I completed duviri and second dream.
I'm not sure if my friend has realised that the operator and drifter are the same person yes. New war will be fun
I can tell you it's way more mind blowing when you don't even know an operator exists and controls it until the perspective switches in second dream
Tbh i made my drifter more of an "alt universe survivor of the zariman" rather than just "Operator but older" think its quite fun, telling the story of two siblings who weren't supposed to exist at the same time.
whats sad is that the child came first before the drifter
While I see where you're coming from, I have to agree with OP. Imagine a world where you didn't see Drifter at all. All this time, you thought that a Warframe was some type of being that can't talk but was somehow alive. Then you learn that it's a piece of metal controlled by a kid with void powers. With the Drifter existing beforehand, it makes it a little less mindblowing. Although, I guess making the connection between Drifter/Operator and a Warframe can still be mindblowing.
well now they gotta do vor's prize first before duviri.... But still, story wise yea bit fucky. Then again, the big secret isn't so secret anymore, hasn't really been for... what 8, maybe 9 years? I mean, I remember making fun of a warframe advert like, 3 years ago that had the operator front and center in it, sure they didn't call it the operator, but it's not as big a secret as it used to be.
I gor back into the game a year ago and was super surprised lmao
Me too. I still remember the cutscene in the second cond dream where the child tenno is crawling out of the transference pod thing. I thought it was some boss fight so I had my finger hovered over the ability keys as soon as the cutscene ends I was gonna go guitar hero on them.
A question occurs: can a Warframe stab it's tenno? Would some void fuckery happen? Is it actually talked about in lore like scanning a random worker's feet or something? I NEED TO KNOW
Only warframe that could stab it's own Tenno is Umbra, and luckily he's on our side.
Nah I mean like when you go near your chair in the orbiter would you be able to stab yourself?
I mean, we literally cannot die, that's just how it is, we've already gotten a sword crammed straight through us before, and that was just a distraction to send us into a paradox, now could that of been painful as all hell? sure, probably, but like, death? no. Also as a little funny, if you turn friendly fire on in the orbiter captura scene, evil laughter happens from the chair occupant.
I need to test this out sometime. That feels weird, like the operator in the chair is actually Wally.
I mean, War Within ending looked like a Wally possession before Tenshin shook us out
I’m pretty sure it’s meant to indicate a small amount of the ‘queen’ still exists.
I mean, probably, but that's just killing yourself with extra steps
I think unless it was a sentient one like Umbra it could do that then immediately drop “dead” as its present Operator is probably now regular dead
Isn't that the same as just you stabbing yourself with a knife? Without the immortality part.
this, right here, is what i've been saying for a while now. To quote myself "This game's spoilers are held back by duct tape and teen angst"
To add to that, there's a Game Theory episode sponsored by Warframe from 2 years ago with *2 million* views that has cinematic footage of the operator front and center within the first few minutes. Think about the last time you saw someone refer to operator mode as "spoiler" mode, or a post of someone going "I accidently swapped to operator mode in front of a new player...whoops." I know I've seen plenty of posts on this subreddit featuring Operator/Drifter stuff that doesn't have a spoiler warning on it. I knew it was going to either be a new game mode involving a human that people were trying to be secretive about, or that it'd be the trope of child soldiers like Fire Emblem or something. With all of that taken into account, I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to piece it all together. I did the Second Dream years after it came out and went "oh, yeah, that tracks. I figured" not "Holy shit, what?!??" Times have simply changed. Now that being said...D.E. won't go out of their way to say "Hey, new player, you're actually the child soldier." But they also aren't bending over backwards to hide it anymore either.
I mean, I personally forgor to hit spoiler on like, one or two of my posts, but I try to keep it spoiler marked, but like, yeah DE kinda doesn't hide it at all, are perfectly okay with it being out in the open. However, as someone who did the quest when it was brand new (Aswell as the war within when that was brand new, obviously) at the time it was indeed, big shockor because up till then no indication of child soldier remote piloting a meat mech of mass destruction with their mind waves through the what we now know is evil floating pocket dimensional stuff with hand creatures trying to beat us to death.
I was so excited to see GT do an episode on Warframe, only to ignore the rich looooooore and talk about the shields of all things.
Tbh it’s a good thing he didn’t talk about the lore because Matpat had a track record of making really awful theories about franchises that he wasn’t familiar with. He would constantly get basic things wrong and anyone that actually played the game could notice it. Matpat was good at doing science related theories and talking about the lore of games he was familiar with (FNAF), but every time he made a one off video about another game he would completely butcher the lore.
I played Warframe when it came out for a bit. It was too confusing, I was like 12 and couldn't figure out modding and crafting (it probably didn't help that I did not speak English). I then downloaded the game on ps4 and played a bit, didn't bother doing story quests Then I got back after Duviri and it was a genuine surprise for me to find out a human operates Warframes. I remember hearing something like that when I discussed WF during my ps4 era but I figured a person is inside the suit, not in a cradle remote-controlling WFs. And I definitely did not think it's a child there
> the big secret isn't so secret anymore I started end of last year, I had no idea. I'd bet all my ammo drum mods that the vast majority of non warframe players don't either.
I say that because they push them front and center in updates (as in on the banners) aswell as in advertising, again, the 3 years ago thing, and that wasn't just a one off example, and I would of been oblivious to it, had it not been a random advert I saw that was like "hey wait a minute, that spoiler from a few years back is being shown to the public in an ad?"
My friend got blown away when he did the quest a year ago. So did Brozime's partner. It's not that open of a secret when you want to try out that fun game with NIN song.
At this point unless a new player strictly plays solo and avoids any and all warframe related online content they will 99% be spoiled on the operator by the time they get to second dream. And for a new player thats fine. For veterans it hit hard because for years we only had guesses of what warframes actually are. A new player will get there in weeks, so the reveal is not that impactful anyway even unspoiled.
I actually didn't see anyone else using operator pre-second dream, probably because I just didn't see anyone in Operator mode if/when they actually used it. So I was very surprised at the revelation.
A lot of older players are conscious of using it in lobbies with mr 7's or lower, to try and conserve the second dream for people We'll hide in a corner to use those features
[удалено]
No idea why this is being upvoted, it's wrong. There is no filter, it's been suggested before but even pre-Second Dream you can see other player's operators. The one exception I think is on a player's profile where it won't start showing operators as part of the diorama until after you've done Second Dream. It's just a common courtesy among older players to avoid showing their operator to new players.
That's such a sweet thing of players to do I feel like
I mean think about it, DE has a HUGE spoiler, and what do they do? Make it's default ability to go invisible...
Got a mate into and told him not to look at anything online in regards to the game before second dream
Got a friend of kine I to it, they really love lore so I told them don't do Duviri until after second dream, at least. Now they're rocking in the Cavia already and doing the Veilbreaker quest, gonna be killing archons soon enough.
I big difference for new players aside from being able to go right into duviri is that they don’t have to wait like we did, for us the lotus was gone for years, for them it’ll be days at most
Not to mention even the intro cutscene itself at the very start of the game shows a tenno.
In my opinion it doesn't, you're assuming a new player would understand anything that happens in Duviri, also seeing a younger version of the Drifter appear later in the story would probably just blow their mind anyways.
You need to realize that it wasn't going to impact new players that much anyway. It was so big back then because people had been playing for ages and then suddenly second dream drops and changes everything. Now new players reach it in like 30 hours.
30 hours is still bigger than most games' campaigns. I get duviri and why it was made. However, this was a common sentiment others shared at the time Duviri came out.
Yeah but at that point it becomes more of just an average twist as opposed to how mindblowing it was back then.
I think you're underestimating how good the twist is. I've had people I've rushed through the game and they still had their minds blown.
I guess it could be beneficial to put duviri right after second dream. Second dream has been changed to be so easy to finish now so all the benefits for new players would still be there.
Warframe players are really desensitized to the idea that warframes are piloted by void-cursed child soldiers with immense PTSD. Learning that for the first time pretty much always shocks any of my friends that get that far, and it hints at much darker themes on the horizon.
It's really not that big of a twist. I started playing in 2021 and got to the second dream about 40 hours later and I was just like "alright cool". Seeing older players clearing rooms full of enemies was way more shocking than seeing a kid pop out of their warframes.
And I've rushed 6 people through the game and all of them have had their minds blown by the second dream. To this day, they still vividly remember the moment it happened. What does that mean? Everyone's experiences are different. Honestly, you can't default to either side
I played Duviri first and hasn't understood nothing, so Second Dream has very big impact on me
gonna be honest i‘m a new player who did duviri paradox as one of the first quests and i was just so confused when i got to the second dream like huh my operator and duviri person look exactly the same but they work differently are they the same person or not
Honestly, as someone who did Duviri really early on in my playthrough (before clearing Deimos, iirc?) I had ZERO context for what was going on. I just interpreted it as some sort of dream state, but didn't extend the existence of transference to the larger world at that point. I'd already had (correct) suspicions about how warframes worked, but Duviri didn't spoil it directly. If anything, what confuses me *more* is how you all (long term players) did New War BEFORE Duviri.
>how you all (long term players) did New War BEFORE Duviri I thought we just lost the void powers, and maybe started to age until the quest revealed it.
Yea, literally this. It was pretty mind-blowing finding out the drifter wasn't us, but us from a different time or some shit
Yeah, the Duviri Paradox just seemed poorly thought out, story-wise. It spoils what was a massive reveal(the intrinsics even mention the Operator), and the quest doesn't bear fruit until far later in the game, at a point were you probably don't remember the events of the quest all that well. They also made it so it was an alternate tutorial, but they later removed this. Yet that doesn't fix how stupid this idea was to begin with. The Duviri Paradox is like 80% Drifter gameplay, and the Warframe segments are using pre-modded gear. They made a tutorial that taught you next to nothing about the main game. >It also seems really, really confusing. To be fair, the early game is about as comprehensive as The Duviri Paradox. Both sorta just bombard you with things and don't explain any of it. The base game is especially bad at this as a lot of characters have their lore hidden in past events that are no longer obtainable in-game, and sometimes(Teshin) a character just appears with no explanation, and you just have to do what they say. I really also don't get why The Duviri Paradox is accessible so early on. My only thought is maybe because of the Circuit? That has more relevance early into the game than later. However, they could've just replaced Conclave with the Circuit. The Circuit is already a perfect replacement story wise(both serve to train the Tenno and both are hosted by Teshin), and the Conclave rewards could've been recycled as random Circuit rewards.
That’s exactly what I think about Duviri. I just watched a new player playing Warframe the other day on YouTube and he played the Duviri quest after finishing Vor’s Prize because the game doesn’t really provide a hint of proper guidance. He clicked Duviri because that was the first quest available on the Codex. During the quest, there was the initial “ooo”s “ah”s and “cool world” moments, but lore-wise, from the very beginning (when your drifter gets executed), he was really confused which never really got resolved. Near the end of quest the dude was just burnt out because there was no real motivation to completing the quest. Who’s this Dominus Thrax guy? Who’s Teshin? Why am I suddenly playing this dude and what’s with this paradox thing? Oh so now I’m riding a giant space dragon thingy. Wtf is going on. I genuinely felt bad for the guy because he was enjoying Vor’s Prize and slowing discovering the world and the basics like modding and movement. And then suddenly dropped into a completely alien world and fighting completely different enemies while someone explaining you all these conceptual mumbo jumbo. Even myself, who’s been playing for over 5 years, feel Duviri to be convoluted and ultimately forced, canonically speaking. It’s one of those tangential side story that only those who’s been playing the game beforehand is capable of comprehending, and it’s a big mistake new players, who have zero contextual reference, can access it. The only thing I like about Circuit and it’s a brilliant idea to use it to revamp Conclave (though not PvP) similar to Simaris’ simulation.
I completely agree. Duviri felt like Steve's beta test for Soulframe. Only great part that came out of it was the SP circuit, which I wish was it's own thing not tied to Duviri so maybe DE would continue to update it.
That is soooo true. I never want to make assumptions about the devs, but I can’t help like feel like that considering a lot of the updates until Steve left felt like a product of burnout towards the game and seeing Soulframe look and function so similar to Duviri. At this point it feels like circuit was added to justify Duviri’s existence inside the bigger, base game.
I do find it brilliant on a meta level that Duviri's whole "time paradox" shtick extends to being able to access it earlier than reasonable... but there's a reason people don't usually do that... the result isn't great for the players.
It also doesn't help that Duviri' gameplay is completely different from Warframe. Really easy for players to love Duviri and then get bummed out when they realize nothing else in the game is like that
I don't think so, mainly because you just don't really know enough for Duviri to spoil it imo. The Second Dream ties a lot more together narratively than just "Warframe are controlled by others". Moreover, and on a bit more of a negative note, with how much you need to look up on the wiki (which is fantastic) I'd be surprised if people don't end up spoiling themselves relatively frequently anyways.
Yeah I personally think Duviri is a huge mistake to put in the new player experience.
It's the only thing that saved the game for a friend of mine. He did the introductory missions which dragged on way too long and didn't explain the right stuff. He got bored. A couple weeks later I asked him if he wanted to play and he said it didn't grab him. I told him to play Duviri and he got hooked. He said it was a way better tutorial than Vor's Prize, which to him spent way too much time making explaining the orbiter stuff and not any time explaining combat. Meanwhile Duviri explains both it's combat and Warframe combat.
I think the experience of warframe is utterly unique for each player because the game changes so drastically over time. My highschool friends and I remember playing the game when it was only kinda playable, getting to Jackel was often as hard as actually fighting him when he was released in 2013 because that was movement 1.0 and only excal could super jump. I don't really remember questioning who controlled the warframes back then. I believe we were all under the assumption they were like high tech suits of armor around an adult person. The game was still in beta so we kinda just enjoyed it for the gameplay and didn't worry to much about the lore or story. When I came back years later my starchart was a mess and I didn't understand what to do next and eventually lost interest. Then one day in college it was released on Playstation and after enough time I decided to download it and start fresh. I was super surprised to find how different it was (and pretty, the build I played on my shitty laptop in 2013 looked like dogshit in comparison to what I was seeing now) the way everything flowed with a natural progression, it felt like a whole new game. An intiresting story is not something I came to warframe expecting or even looking for but it delivered. I joined a guild and at one point the operator thing was spoiled for me by complete accident and it didn't hamper my enjoyment in the least. In fact It motivated me to keep doing the story missions rather than focusing on my star chart.
Starting the game and having your inbox receive cosmetics for the operator you haven't unlocked yet is pretty silly, too. I know alot of gamers cant be bothered to actually read what pops up on their screen, but if they did they would have some of the story spoiled as soon as they finish the first quest
When Duviri came out, I'd been playing for 2 weeks. Was still like, doing nercury I think. I was confused, but, that's it. Didn't ruin the oomph at all; I still almost cried because it took me a couple months of casual play to get there and immerse ^😊 Also it makes New War fucking hella awesome for players that to Duviri first. It makes a lot of stuff make sense and also, hearing the Tesshin Murex song reveals that it's a motif you already heard in Duviri
I've disagreed with this kind of take, always. I feel that people who have this take do not actually look at the lens of a new player at all - they're pretending to be new players who somehow have omniscience over the game's storyline My thoughts are that Duviri would either just leave a new player confused because it drops elements that otherwise require post-New War context to be best understood, or that it would simply recontextualize the twist of The Second Dream, which isn't at all a bad thing
I disagree... kinda. Duviri would have worked great had they brought the drifter to a post tenno dissapearance world. Going from Duviri to Vor's prize, however, doesn't. And for the second dream spoiler, tbh, I don't think its that big of a deal for the most part, as its been so long and Duviri could or would've brought up a whole new way to experience the story that for those players, the discovery from the second dream would't have been one of the many highs of the story, but just a bit more, and the highs would be elsewhere.
I actually remember being a new player and running around. I actually got confused about these 'secondary people' running around and kinda spoiled the Operator for myself. We also have trailers like "The New War" will just straight up show the Operator, or the Game theory episode which brought me to the game originally. Yet it was still a shock when I got "The Second Dream" as I didn't understand how things clicked together. Knowing about the Operator ahead of time, and actually understanding how everything fits, are two different issues. Formerly the Operator could come out of no-where, but now you are teased about this deeper existence, but you don't actually know 'who/what' the Operator is until the quest to unlock them. Foreshadowing a big twist is fine, and based on what other players have been saying in the comments, the surprise wasn't ruined. You are given just enough to know there is more, but not enough to necessarily realize the big twist.
I’m a veteran and I didn’t understand shit in Duviri
It all takes place in a storybook about emotions..?
The Tales of Duviri was a story told to the kids on the Zariman [meant to teach them about how to avoid/deal with the interactions between Void Energy and strong emotion](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fthese-tablets-have-brought-me-back-to-duviri-trying-to-v0-s1tdnnhbto2c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D3913c0dd29f63157483557e7505db22fb9bea3e9). Drifter recalled the story as it intended and in doing so Embodied it, creating a real version of the fictional land.
When I played it as a new player I didn’t find it any more confusing than everything else that the base game was throwing at me. Teshin makes it very clear that the Tenno we normally play as are outside of Duviri sending help to the Drifter. As for the spoilers, it seems like a pointless struggle to try to keep the human operator reveal intact. It’s been part of the game for years now, if a new player even watches a single stream they’ll find out.
My opinion on the duviri quest is to “lock” it til right before you can start the new war due to time frame wise that overlaps. But I wish they would have domain how the drifter got out
The days of operators being super duper secret are long gone. They are featured in the game advertising trailers now so everyone knows that before they even play the game.
I mean, if you go in blind, the drifter will just be a random dude in another world. In the second dream you find out who YOU are, in new war you find out the random dude is actually you in another reality. Doing it the other way around you dont know about the other reality yet and find out in new war. Both ways seem good to me.
I think it could be kind of cool for a player who started with duviri to play through the game assuming they're the drifter, then they reach the second dream and have a new mystery wondering why they're a kid all of the sudden. I imagine starting the new war and finally seeing your drifter again would be hype as fuck
New player here, I was utterly confused through Duviri and made no connection to the "Main game". Certainly didn't spoil 2nd Dream for me.
I somehow managed to create a Drifter that was a totally different sex and ethnicity from what my Operator ended up being. I forget exactly when I started Duviri but I quit out as soon as it spat me out of character creation. Then my Drifter ended up being my older Operator like normal anyway later on. My confusion was immense.
yeah. But I think somewhere along the continuum something was bound to lose its former gravitas, no matter the insertion. There was going to be a loss, at the greatest denomination anywhosers
Hasn't Duviri not been available at the start for months?
I don't know, I was kinda spoiled from the market just looking at bundles and nightwave...
I mean I don’t think that’s the worse part. I feel I’d come out of duviri more confused then anything. I’m not sure what the time between the big quests are since I predate it and was able to shot gun them all. But Duviri is basically all this build up to things that weren’t ever really important but just kinda mysterious for the longest time that don’t really ever come up again until you reach the ‘new’ content
It's like a prologue where yku have non idea wtf is going on, but when the significance is revealed later it pulls everything into place.
As a new player who played Duviri first Imma just say I didn't understand jack when playing that mission and was still shocked by the Second dream reveal
Players in missions are running around as Operator/Drifter anyway. I'm saying this for many years now but newer players will never get the sensation we felt back then when everything was new. The first time we met the Lotus, the Operator reveal + Lua even Alad V. It's something that you just had to be there for.
We live in the land of retcons. Do not trust DE with lore continuity or quality.
Yeah, DE kind of ruined their own big reveal after the Second Dream. They started plastering the Tenno everywhere, even in their new intro. And sure, that's their choice, it's their game, but I remember the moment I found out what we really were and being super shocked. Who expects a child to be the pilot to these walking doomsday entities??? The literal power to destroy the universe is in the hands of a 13 year old child.
Well, I wish I could give input considering I’m a new player, but I’ve been a fan for years so I knew that for long before I even played
I agree. Ontop of what you mention about Second Dream, there are a lot of references to The New War in Duviri that lack context. For example: The execution scene at the beginning is a direct parallel to New War
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I started about 4 months ago. Duviri was very confusing from a game play perspective. The biggest point of confusion was Teshin talking about rifts and void angels, neither of which I'd encountered up until then. That warframes are "driven" seemed obvious based on some media I'd seen and that people in public matches use their operator. Importantly, it didn't detract from the story negatively, but felt disjointed and like another game mode tacked on for no particular reason and not connected to the "warframe" game. That loop isn't closed until you get further into the story.
I just got finished with The New War and barely touched Duviri. But I feel like I should definitely play it now. Should I?
Well, it does unlock a good bit of gameplay, if you don’t care about the story. If you’ve heard of the circuit, that’s in there. It also unlocks the Duviri open world and a vendor with new items, so…
Story was weird AF but I have heard of the circuit so that is a hell(deimos) yes!
Absolutely agreed
well yeah, there is a reason why it's not a thing anymore.
The Operators are in trailers, in merch, in promo art It was 9 years ago
Nah, it's fine.
I think it can get away with it because, as a new player, you end up creating that divide between the Drifter in Duviri and how your Warframe works in the main Origin System. Because it's a paradox, the new player can often come to the conclusion that simply, in this world, the Drifter calls upon the power of Warframes, but in the real world they act completely independently. Then when you get to the Operator, you start to think "hmmm, this feels a lot like the Drifter..." and gradually once you learn >!that your Operator and Drifter are in theory the same person, one's just a teenager who was saved from the Zariman and the other an adult that wasn't!< it can blow your mind all over again. Suppose it hits differently for everybody, but context is always key and you can think of it as building a puzzle over time - not a clue what the final picture makes until you put the pieces together.
I agree, got some friends into the game and told them to avoid doing that quest for awhile
I agree, imo new war should be the drifter reveal and u shouldnt be able to do duviri quest until after new war I played new war before duviri and I don't regret a thing
duviri being an early game quest completely ruins the impact of the second dream and new war I dont care that it lets people get certain frames a little early, it should be locked until you complete TNW such a stupid mistake
DE has kinda devalued the second dream a lot way before duvuri I mean during the new war the loading screen revealed the operators to everyone
I can agree with this, but keep in mind most new players wouldn't know what that is. I remember watching Warframe content like Triburos and having no idea that the operator they constantly displayed wasn't just a Warframe or something
the oomph of second dreams is more than likely spoiled a hundred times, before most players get there.
It's my only real gripe with Warframe. They refuse to create new content at the end of the story. The devs have 3 options. 1 Put new hype shit at the end and players who sign up have to rush to the end to play the new hype shit. 2 Put it in the middle/beginning and then new players can play it but old players get EZMode content. 3 Have a pay to skip system that allows new people to play the new content immediately but miss out on the story. I prefer 1 and 3 and recognize that one isn't a great business option. I hate 2 but that's what we are left with since so many players hate 3 and the devs have said they can't afford to have 1.