How would you describe Warframe to an interested party and potential new player?

[PublikDomain]

30 minutes ago, EmberStar said:

At this point... I wouldn't.  I've invited a dozen people to this game.  I had offered to explain anything I could if they had questions, and help with missions if they wanted it.  Every single one quit in less than a month.  Several after only a couple of hours in-game.

I'm in the same boat. All of my friends know Warframe as "that game Publik plays" and I know better than to try and get them to try it. If it were 6 years ago, maybe. But we're all gettin' old and none of them have the time to start a new game, especially if it's a game that people regularly sink thousands of hours into. I can't ask them for that.

39 minutes ago, EmberStar said:

In my experience it costs time, possibly data cap, and a great deal of my personal credibility when I'm the one recommending the game to people who bounce off it so hard that they don't want even want to discuss it afterwards.

Yeah, but you'll have to "spend" time and some bandwidth for any new game. Obviously you wouldn't recommend downloading the game to someone who isn't interested in the genre at all, but if someone is interested enough to ask for a recommendation then they might as well try it out. As for credibility... sounds like a problem with the people you're recommending it to, not you.

[TARINunit9]

Third person shooter focused on PvE and space magic. And it does free2play right

[Tesseract7777]

I'd tell them it's a truly awesome game, but that they cannot expect to get the level I can get out of it unless they put in an MMO level commitment. It's not an MMO technically as it is 4 squad based, but it requires an MMO level commitment. 

Most people who are already gamers and are interested in the first place understand exactly what I mean and don't need anymore explanation. 

It's pretty clear. If trying out all the frames and the other most unique themes of Warframe interests them and they enjoy grind games, they will enjoy Warframe. If not, they won't. A gamer, like I said, gets that pretty quickly. It's easy to explain. 

[LillyRaccune]

1 hour ago, (PSN)theelix said:

You become a floaty ninja robot with guns that include, but are not limited to: Bazookas, Bows that also shoot bazookas, pistols that, of course, shoot bazookas, and melee weapons that may or may not be bazookas.

Classic!

Don't forget the judgemental teenagers that shoot cosmic energy out of their belly buttons that can also harness that power to shoot, you guessed it, cosmic bazookas.

9 minutes ago, EmberStar said:

Run past resources, because the game has already accidentally trained them that "random things on floor" are probably useless, and anything worth having will be highlighted.

But resources do have a highlighted glow to them. A part of me thinks "if players don't like collecting random loots on the ground, maybe I don't want them playing my game" (sarsastic(...mostly)).

But yes, part of me agrees that the game is missing a few "best practices" advice for new players. I made this tool tip:

I think I would have more fun reading memes during the loading screen instead of "when an Ancient or Scorpion is winding up to grab you, dodge it by rolling out of the way".

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

I wouldn’t currently recommend to a new player, not by themselves anyway. Mod station and no direction after Vors prize is enough to make anyone quit. 

[Hypernaut1]

I always preface any recommendation of Warframe with - you need to love games with grind. For me, Warframe grind is almost perfect and well tuned. The devs have it down to a science, but if you aren't a player into repeating the same thing over and over, it's going to be hard to get into. 

 

[Jitsuryoku]

• High action / Space ninja
• MMO-like
• Free (not freemium) 
• Entry barrier (the fact that 2 hours in the game expects you to know everything, you're given no direction AND you need wiki). 
• Censored chat (non-spam focused)

Fashion, grind and other stuff is something you'll find in every modern online game, so I don't think it's even worth mentioning unless they ask.

[Soy77]

"friggin try the game bruh. I play it, [insert our mutual friend name] play it."

 

That's all the pitch I threw. If they love it, they'll love it and threw couple thousand hours like the rest of us here.

Explanations from people with enough experience playing the game -especially those who tries to be fair and critical in their sales pitch can potentially do more harm than good for warframe.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Like someone else said, if you're a gamer, you'll just "get it". 

You have 2 friends: one has been playing nothing but madden and fifa games for 15 years, the other has been playing FF tactics and sci fi games. 

Who's more likely to stick with warframe? 

[Circle_of_Psi]

Play Destiny 2 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

9 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Play Destiny 2 

What if they don't like sunsetting?

[(PSN)robotwars7]

you can become a magical space ninja who is a martial arts master, wizard and spec ops soldier all rolled into one. it's free but as with any F2P game, you do sometimes have to put in the effort to get what you want, but you can literally kill hundreds of people per mission while wearing fabulous capes.

usually though it's difficult to keep newer players even when someone helps them, on account of the grind for many things and needing the wiki on hand if you want to make any real progress in limited playing time. 

[Psianide73]

Fun, vast, free, confusing at times.

Install it, get playing, and I'll be here whenever you get lost or stuck 

Have fun!

[(XBOX)Obi Wan Dandobi]

Farming simulator with swords and guns

[Sinekanter]

When it comes to beginner friendliness, Warframe is like an old game that has been sitting on someone's attic, with complex rules. The instruction booklet has gone missing and you have to look up the rules on the internet. If you go the extra mile to look for them, you can expect a fun game. 

It is a grindy game and enjoyed best in small portions. Graphics are ok, art direction is fantastic. 

[SneakyErvin]

3rd person arpg looter shooter with great movement and shooter/melee combat. With a sandbox progression approach and things to keep you busy for thousands of hours. Can be played completely free if you get into trading.

[(PSN)ErydisTheLucario]

13 hours ago, TheArmchairThinker said:

This alone makes me think that those who think warframe is never ending grind never played other games with worse grind because there are multiple things that warframe barely or doesn't have

- Power rating/level : Keep grinding to reach the max level, with one level usually requiring 1,000,000 EXP to level once you hit the high level spectrum (level 100 is max with 1m EXP to level up from level 90 to level 91), Also, the enemies give small amount of EXP (500 or lower) so have fun grinding that level before the "endgame level"

- Item rarity : Common/Basic to Legendary or Exotic. Basically you will get drowned with rares (blues) and eternal grind for legendary/exotic with insanely low drop rate

- Quality : Good/Common to Exquisite/Legendary/Whatever the highest quality called, with Good/Common quality being the easiest to drop/make while the highest quality has sub 1% chance to get

- Enhancement : Chance to burn enemy on hit, health restored per hit/second or any enhancement you can think of. Usually in form of gemstone or rune and you need to upgrade it to the highest level to get the best result and depending on the game, removing the enhancement means deleting it permanently, making you grind for a new one

- Randomized stat : You have this +100 attack sword with full upgrade and enhancement? Too bad, you just got this sword with +98 attack, +10 speed, +5 intelligence and +3 vitality so have fun upgrading this one to get better result than your +100 attack sword. Warframe still being nice enough to add valence fusion to make the prior grind still worth keeping

- Star : Another layer of RNG, so you can get Legendary 5 weapon/armor, but 1 star with the highest being 5 star, back to grinding again

So, if we want to put it, you have a lot of combination for that

- Rarity (5/6)

- Quality (5)

- Stat (can be very wild so I'll just put 10)

* 10 ATT

* 10 SPD

* 10 INT

* 10 VIT

- Enhancement (10 for simplicity)

- Star (5)

That means, your drop can be ranging from 1,250 to 1,500 possible combination, 12,500 to 15,000  with enhancement, up to 12,500,000 to 15,000,000 possible combination with 4 different stat rolls. Not to mention the chance being weightened to lower spectrum of the quality so you can spend your life trying to sift that one between thousands to millions. Not to mention if the devs decided to increase the level/power cap, your previous investment is obsolete if they don't give infusion option

Oh I've played other games with bad drop rates, warframe is the worst offender imo. That doesn't mean I hate the game, otherwise I wouldn't be here. I'm not here to hate on the game, but even I can't sit here and say everything about it is perfect. If I really had to promote the game, I would honestly say there's alot to to the game. Flashy, you get the sense of feeling op, there's alot of complex systems that are fun to mess around with and more. But I won't sit here and say the grind isn't an important part of this game, because that's all DE keeps pushing, despite saying they would reel it in in the past. I mean, DE keeps releasing new stuff with abyssmal drop rates. That's not appealing to newer players, and the gameplay will only keep them around for so long. 

[mac10smg--Toa_of_Green]

8 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

What if they don't like sunsetting?

Well, that was no longer a thing almost half a year ago, so…

[Marvelous_A]

"What kind of game it is?"

"Yes"

 

"The other day I infiltrated a ship full of militarized slaves and killed everyone with toxic gas. The survivors shot my child soldier and I in turn shot their dogs in the face."

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

56 minutes ago, mac10smg--Toa_of_Green said:

Well, that was no longer a thing almost half a year ago, so…

What if they don't like some other stuff the game has lol?

[Circle_of_Psi]

9 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

What if they don't like sunsetting?

Play XCOM

[(PSN)DoctorWho_90250]

I wouldn't recommend Warframe to anyone. At the same time, if I were forced to do so, then....

 

18 hours ago, (PSN)ErydisTheLucario said:

I couldn't lie to someone. I gotta be honest and say this is a game you play if you have an itch for a never ending grind and if you have nothing but time on your hands, as the game does take tons of time to progress. 

This^. Just a never ending grind and not much else unfortunately.

[Galuf]

I'd simply say that it is the best looter shooter atm on the market, one of the best free to play game that give an arcade and speed feeling in 2021. However I'd also tell the truth, the experience is significantly better when you don't care about spending money on it and that the game has significant architecture issues. Still, even if you are story driven, WF has a better campain and narration than Destiny 2(I tryed it and literally hated it) and Outriders(wich is imho a terrible game as well, but imho less insanely disgusting than Destiny 2 for "non pvp" players)

[(PSN)Sorcery-Vortex]

Mass Murder Simulator with an extra dose of power creep. 

[(NSW)Greybones]

Thanks for the ideas!

Some of these are sounding pretty good, and, combined with my teaching them an alternative approach to my own when starting, I’ll tie these suggestions into initial descriptions 👍