The Long-Awaited Lesson on Modding: The Game's New Quest Fixes an Oversight

The popular online game known as Warframe, an experience where you can feed yourself to a giant mouth and pilot futuristic vehicles, has unveiled a significant update. The Vallis Undermind showcases the creative flair that has become synonymous with Warframe in recent years.

The new content, made available this week, adds a fungus-inspired character that performs a unique animation, along with a brand-new biome to discover. However, it also revisits core concepts, with another quest aimed at making sure this complicated, expansive long-running online game is accessible for new players.

A Quest Called "The Teacher"

Named “The Teacher,” this is the long-awaited quest that instructs Warframe players on how to use one of the game's fundamental yet complex systems: modding.

In Warframe, mods are augments that can be equipped on your warframe or arsenal to enhance their abilities. These can be simple (increase damage or speed up reload rate) to the incredibly intricate. Content creators often produce extensive guides about idealized builds that use powerful mods in combination to create overwhelming power.

“I think a lot of people were maybe getting into the early game, seeing mods, not really understanding it,” said a key developer. “I think it was really important, at the end of the quest, for players to think, ‘Wow, modding is interesting. I'd like to experiment further.’”

Teamwork in Action

“The Teacher” was developed in a collaboration between the original developers, who handled the story elements, and an external team, who crafted the gameplay, which will appear early in the game.

In the quest, the player is tasked with obtaining a component for their ship, but they’re interrupted by a menacing, powerful warrior called Teshin, who takes away the player’s abilities and close-combat arms, and compels them to use the mod system to effectively show its potential.

Many of the external team were longtime players, but some were newcomers, according to a principal games designer. This fresh viewpoint that was essential.

“The first thing we did was basically sit behind them and go right play through the tutorial and take prodigious notes on all points of confusion,” the designer said. Introductory tutorials introduced players to modding. But the team noted that they didn’t work on everyone.

“Certain players missed fundamental guidance where the game highlights it saying put the mod in the slot,” he said.

Closing an Important Loop

Warframe’s mods allow players to create incredibly strong combinations that turn the screen into a blitz of numbers. But "The Teacher" isn’t really about that. There will be some long-time players who wish the quest was geared more towards their needs, like optimizing for endgame challenges. But it became clear that “The Teacher” is filling a real and significant gap for newcomers — and that executing this is quite complex.

“Numerous subtle adjustments and background details there to just sort of show you what it can do rather than explain it outright,” 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 better demonstrates the effect frequency,” the designer said. “But you don’t want to say to people, 'oh yeah, actually on a base level mod, you only got a low probability to trigger a special damage type.' So how do you tutorialize that without changing it?”

Experienced players will naturally recognize these mechanics and grasp their function, but new players have to be taught to notice these details.

“This type of design work that we've had to worry about as much just because that hasn't been our focus,” said a narrative lead. “But part of it not being our focus that we never really told people how to use mods.”

Months of Effort

“A tremendous amount of work is required for just making a really simple mission that — frankly — you can blast through in about 15 minutes,” said the designer. “But it's months and months of work for loads of people.”

The designer was 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 embodies everything my younger self found awesome.”

An Evolving Onboarding Process

In the 12 years since its release, Warframe has been in a consistent battle with its own player onboarding process. There are lots of complex systems that players can ignore initially — and won't encounter until much later. And others, like modding, that scale in complexity depending on your level of engagement. An update earlier this year improved the introductory experience so that players could reach Warframe’s mind-bending plot developments 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 doesn’t stay locked in 2013. Beginners can find their way — even if they miss the menu prompts.