Humor's First Impressions

[Humor]

Hello All,

So earlier today, I noticed a website "MMOBOMB" which I frequently check for Beta keys had some Beta keys for Warframe. Now I had originally heard of this through a different website I forget which one, and had thought I had signed up for Beta a while back, apparently I didn't. So anyways, now here I am through "MMOBOMB", and happy to say, became a founding member for $100, which is more then worth it for this game (For the time being, I have a short attention span). Of course, It did take one level for me to make my decision. I'm not very good with money....

So first of all, the tutorial was amazing, it reminded me of Assassin's Creed (dislike the entire series personally...) where you start off in a white room, and simply fight some holograms. The tutorial did a splendid job in explaining how to go about shooting, aiming, using your special abilities as should be expected of pretty much any game. Sad to say, not many know how to do a proper tutorial to teach the very basics.

The combat in this game is well done to an extent, if I said it was perfect, I would be lying, and everyone else who's tested the Beta thus far would know I am lying, because let's face facts, no game is perfect, nor will be perfect. Now, the good parts about the combat are the shooting mechanics, and the melee mechanics, they both have a smooth feel to it, don't seem to have much problem connecting hits, or getting hit markers. However, being one of those "Master" members, you obviously know I've bought pretty much everything in the cash shop from weapons, to frames, which leads me to the point I disliked about Warframe so far. Some of the "Frames" skills are just beyond well done, such as Excalibur with his "Dash N' Slash", it's smooth, and it works. Now, what's bothersome is some of the other frames abilitiles such as the "Ember". The Ember by far has the worst excuse of skills I've seen so far, and I can't say from the 4 hours or so I've tested Warframe that it's incredible terrible, however, the skills just feel as if they're ineffective, and either a "hit or a miss". The first skill you get for Ember for example the firebolt/ball, whichever it is. The velocity this skills travels is unacceptable. This skill travels so slow, that it makes it difficult to hit any enemy at all, unless they're standing right in front of you, and avoid from moving. I've noticed the only way I was ever able to hit any enemy with this skill was by aiming at the ground, and hoping for some sort of "Splash" damage, sadly this does not work too well, and could use some serious improvement. The "Overheat" skill, I am not sure if it's a bug, or if it even does anything at all. I've used this while being chased by a horde of infested, sure enough they all caught fire, but what happened next, I have no clue. There is no damage indicator, markers, numbers over the enemies head, and it didn't seem as if it did any damage at all, like none, the horde was still chasing me, and I did not see any of the HP bars drop a tiny bit. Probably something that should be looked into as well. As I said though, it feels as if "some" frames need work.

Another one I'd like to mention is the "Trinity" Frame. It's personally my favorite frame as of now, or at least I "Want" it to be, just because of the looks, but it's definitely difficult to try and effectively use her "Healing" abilities, and "Energy" abilities when you're not healing for much while a monster is "Tagged" with the skill. Seriously, 1 HP per shot? This pretty much defeats the purpose of the whole ability alone considering enemies die in what 5 shots (Aimed at the head)? Sure, you could just say "Upgrade the Frame" again, without being a member, or having "Platinum", this becomes very difficult to do, and still, would most likely defeat the purpose of even having the "Well Of Life". I personally think the idea of the skill itself is awesome, and very creative, it just feels you're getting no where with HP, when your entire team unloads on one enemy, or you pop them in the head a couple times, and heal for 2 HP. I did however find the "Energy Drain", and "Blessing" to be the most effective skills with Trinity, again, I feel a little useless when I have to stop, hold down my tab key (My custom "Player List" button) just to look at my team mates HP. Should my allies not have a health bar above their heads? This is probably something that could be implemented with ease, and should be, especially if you're trying to play "Trinity" the medic Frame.

The level designs... I enjoyed the level design the first ten times. Now it's getting repetitive. Me, my brother, my cousin, and my friend have beat Mercury, went to Saturn, and the other planet for a bit, but nothing has changed... It feels like we're on the exact same ship, just thrown in random places on this one "Map". I'm not sure if this is subject to change or not (God I hope so), but honestly, it feels like it's the same map, over, and over, and over. How many times do we have to play the same map? Why is it we're on spaceships, and not the actual planet itself? A change in scenerey is most definitely needed, you don't want to bore players with the same ship and map do you? That aside, running through the spaceships is fun, and I will admit, I got lost quite a bit the first time around. Sometimes it's actually rather difficult to navigate your way through the spaceships, as your minimap does not actually tell you if you need to go up, down, left, right, etc. By that of course I mean, the exlamation marks on your minimap shoulld have some type of indicator like an arrow pointing up, or an arroind pointing down to indicate which level of the spaceship you actually need to be on in order to find where you're going. It may seem like common sense to just follow the marks considering majority of the time they lead you down, or up an elevator, but this is not all the time, and quite often I'll find myself in the middle on the minimap where the mark is, but there's nothing for me, forcing me to run around, get lost some more, and finally find where the mark actually was trying to get me to go.

I can't help but notice the Ammo I'm picking up isn't for the gun(s) I'm using, and majority of the time the ammo I'm looking for doesn't seem to show up, at least this proves to be true for the Rifle Ammo. Why is this Ammo so scarce? It's pretty much our main weapon. I always find tons of shotgun, and sniper ammunition, the funny thing is, I don't have either of the guns equipped. In almost every single match I've played, I've ran out of my Rifle Ammo before the stage is done, or almost before the stage is done, and this is with 4 people playing in one game. I would suggest you highly rethink your ammunition drops, or at the very least add something in the market like an ammunition pack that could be bought with in game currency. At least then if I do run out of ammo, I could always use it to refill, and I wouldn't be left with what seems to be a useless pistol, that can't fend off a horde of Greenir, of Infested.

I have noticed some small bugs here and there. Sometimes the minimap will decide to "Crap Out", and stay stuck in one position, leaving me incredibly clueless as to where to go. It doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes it will definitely just flatout stop working. I've also noticed while migrating hosts as my group has experienced today when my friend disconnected. We had some "Data Nodes" or whatever they are, and were just about to finish the level, when all of a sudden he disconnected, and it migrated hosts. Now, at the time I had all the nodes in my hand, but after the "Migration" of hosts, we found ourselves without any Nodes, and could not extract from the level, nor find the Nodes again, thus we had to restart the level, which is no big deal, just something that should be looked into.

This game could definitely use:

- PvP, although the PvE is a nice change of things, killing the same enemies over, and over again becomes boring after awhile, a nice change up from PvE-PvP would be just what this game needs, I would personally be curious to see how it would play out in PvP with all the skills, or if the skill system would be completely removed from PvP.

-Ammo Packs/Increase Rifle Ammo, this is pretty much a must. I don't know very many people who use a main weapon being a Shotgun, or Sniper Rifle. And with majority of your "Main" guns being rifles, the ammo is incredibly scarce. A nie ammunition pack, or increase in rifle ammunition would definitely help Warframe out, and increase the enjoyment.

-Change of Map, While this game is sitll in Beta, I would love to see later on down the road some different changes in the maps. It's only closed Beta, and I can already feel the boredom of being in almost the exact same map over, and over again.

-Health Bars Overhead, This would help out the Fram Trinity a ton, being able to keep an eye on your allies health while still being mobile is incredibly useful.

-Trinity "Well Of Life" Tweak, This skill needs to change. If you're only getting 5 HP out of killing an enemy and losing more energy then you're gaining, something is very wrong. Might I suggest "Half" of the damage you do, is absorbed as HP? This would make the feeling of "Well of Life" much more useful. As of now, it's pretty much a useless skill, and I simply play Trinity for looks alone.

Well, this pretty much sums up my "First Impressions". Warframe is definitely a title I want to keep my eye on. Hopefully we can see, and can expect some good changes in the future. Thanks for reading. (those who dared)

[Ced23Ric]

PvP: Has been brought up numerous times, DE have stated that they won't produce two mediocre games but rather one good one - and that will be cooperative PvE. Warframe is closer to Diablo than to Counterstrike.

Rifle Ammo: Strun Shotgun and Snipetron are extremely strong - I use them both, and many more seasoned players do, too. Furthermore, ammo management is part of "playing better". You should use your primary and secondary evenly so you can always pick up ammo, and don't be afraid to spice it up with melee. Running out of ammo isn't necessary. :D

New Map Tiles: DE is working on it, as per dev posts. Rejoice, it'll come! :)

Health Bars: FULL ACK. It would be great to have my squad as tiles with their respective shield/health bars, especially on Trinity.

Well of Life: You are proposing a nerf there - currently, it heals as much damage as you inflict. And as for Trinity being useless other than for looks: Get a buddy who plays a Volt or an Ember, and then slap Energy Vampire on a boss. Watch your buddy toast the boss in seconds. Heal him with Blessing or put a Well of Life on the boss if you are too far away. Trinity is a massive, massive force multiplier if people are aware of what's going on.

[DiBBz]

so it took me around 5 or so mins to read that all and as soon as i get to the bottom i see PvP and then i was like no just NO , like Ced23Ric said this has been brough up alot of times , but facts are it just wont get put in infact it will ruin the game in my eyes , this game is special in its own way PvE is what its known for if you are wanting to play PVP there are huge amounts of games that have that

[Humor]

PvP: Has been brought up numerous times, DE have stated that they won't produce two mediocre games but rather one good one - and that will be cooperative PvE. Warframe is closer to Diablo than to Counterstrike.

Rifle Ammo: Strun Shotgun and Snipetron are extremely strong - I use them both, and many more seasoned players do, too. Furthermore, ammo management is part of "playing better". You should use your primary and secondary evenly so you can always pick up ammo, and don't be afraid to spice it up with melee. Running out of ammo isn't necessary. :D

New Map Tiles: DE is working on it, as per dev posts. Rejoice, it'll come! :)

Health Bars: FULL ACK. It would be great to have my squad as tiles with their respective shield/health bars, especially on Trinity.

Well of Life: You are proposing a nerf there - currently, it heals as much damage as you inflict. And as for Trinity being useless other than for looks: Get a buddy who plays a Volt or an Ember, and then slap Energy Vampire on a boss. Watch your buddy toast the boss in seconds. Heal him with Blessing or put a Well of Life on the boss if you are too far away. Trinity is a massive, massive force multiplier if people are aware of what's going on.

While I appreciate the advice, and the biased opinion about how "Veteran players" use different guns, that's simply all it is, your opinion. You definitely can not base what you think, and what you've "seen", as to what most players you assume who are "Veteran" use. It actually shows a lot of players used the weapons which are considered the most "overpowered" thus being the Snipetron. Keep your biased opinions to yourself. (I don't mean thi as an insult either)

As for the "Trinity" frame healing, I've actually noticed myself that I wasn't healing full HP with the damage I was doing, for if I have, I would be seeing my HP rise from 50-150 within one burst fire of the "Burston" (the way my gun is modded anyways), which in fact I was only seeing 1-10 hp fill up with 2 burst fires. This could possibly be a bug with the one gun, or multiple guns, Because I did seem to notice today while using the "Bolto" pistol, I was healing quite a bit more while using "Well Of Life". Like I said, it could simply be a bug with the one rifle I use.

As for ammo, I still have to disagree with you. I'm sorry, but a "Secondary" weapon at least to me, suggests that I should only use the weapon should I run out of my Primary, or Main ammunition, which happens more then often. As for the Strun, and Snipetron, as stated above, players will tend to use the guns that feel more overpowered, just like player will tend to use the frames that are more over powered. Who are you more likely to use as a frame in battle? Trinity? Or Rhino? The choice is quite obvious as to what the majority of players would choose, or your opinion the "Seasoned" players would choose, which of course would be Rhino, his HP/Shield shield is massive. My cousin already has a shield of 900 with his Rhino. So there's literally nothing that can pick apart his shield, let alone break through his HP. Him and my friend literally run through stages now, only killing what they need do in order to "Finish" the stage. That point aside. The only reason people are connserving ammo so much with the Shotgun, and Sniper rifle, is simply because the guns are more less one shot kills, and if you have trouble aiming in this game, and can't hit the targets which are pretty much near impossible to miss, something is wrong. So yes, in a sense you can conserve more ammo, due to the weapons being slightly overpowred then others.

As for PvP, I haven't read anything about the "DE" company, as I am still 2 days new to the game, not even, more like 5 hours new. and don't check the forums as frequent as I probably should. Honestly though, a game like Warframe has so much potential PvP wise, and I, as a player of Warframe, just can't see the game going too far with PvE alone. Already we're looking at nine planets in the Closed Beta, which is a fair amount to do I'll give Warframe that, however, what do you think is going to happen after Closed Beta? Just like most closed beta's, people make their judgments based on what they see. Such as the maps simple designs, which yes, as you've stated "DE" plans to bring in new maps, the question is when? And before how many players leave the closed beta forever giving the game a bad rep? PvP on the other hand, even if it's the same map, never get's as tiring as PvE content, this is because every battle is almost entirely a new feeling, where as PvE, you're fighting the same infested, the same Greenrir, etc.

Of course, these are just my opinions. I'm sure DE knows well what they're doing, but pointing out the obvious here, players will leave. And PvE strictly games are known to lose more playerbase, then a game that offers PvP, and PvE, of course those aren't actual facts, just something I've personally seen playing tons of mmorpg's/Fps games. Either Way, I still enjoy Warframe all the same, but, I would have say, I would eventually be one of those players to leave, once every PvE mission/quest was done, as there'd simply be nothing more to do. How long would you be willing to stick around having done everything hundreds of times over, and over?

Edited January 4, 2013 by Humor

[NeverDT]

Ced23Ric hit some points more directly. I find your comments about Trinity and Ember interesting, not having played either of them, and having personally taken an interest to giving more uniqueness/strength to each of the frames, so thanks for that.

Make sure you report bugs you find on the forums, I'm sure the map bug has been reported but it never hurts to make sure.

Ammo - conserve it. Aim for the head. Coordinate with your team to use different weapons so that you're not all fighting over rifle ammo. Loot all the lockers. That's not to say that I don't think ammo might be a little iffy, although I personally rarely run out of ammo except against the tankier bosses. Also, I use the Gorgon for generally killing things (especially Corpus crowds) and the dual Latos for headshots. Secondaries are meant as a compliment. They're only a fallback if you make them one, and the secondaries in this game have great potential especially with mods. Melee usually comes out for Grineer on occasion and all the time for Infested, of course.

As for PvP...

How long would you be willing to stick around having done everything hundreds of times over, and over?

My record's about 200 hours on BL2, probably about the same on BL1, 120 hours of Vindictus, God knows how much in Firefall (and that was a closed beta as well), and let's not even discuss the people with 1000+ (or even 2000+) hours of Borderlands or L4D. Co-op is the future of e-sports...err, wait, that's not right. Regardless, this game is appealing to the same market of gamers that sucked up Borderlands and L4D and made them the crazy hits they are. If you came here for PvP, I'm sorry you're going to be disappointed, but for the time being it's not going to happen. The "this game will fail if it doesn't have PvP" argument has been brought up before and is wholly fallacious.

Edited January 4, 2013 by NeverDT

[Ced23Ric]

It actually shows a lot of players used the weapons which are considered the most "overpowered" thus being the Snipetron. Keep your biased opinions to yourself. (I don't mean thi as an insult either)

Well. The Gorgon LMG is certainly the most overpowered rifle these days, but if you break it down, melee is pretty much the strongest weapon. My biased opinion is based on ranking #10 in the leaderboards of the Beta. It is also based on running multiple frames and weapons, testing them individually, leading to conclusions. "That is just, like, your opinion, man!" is an empty statement. Of course it is my opinion. That doesn't rebuke that my opinion stems from research.

"Well Of Life"

Might be. Some targets have iffy hitboxes, I have noticed. Usually, Energy Vamp fills my 399 energy from empty to full in four of 5 bursts with the Burston, but sometimes, it just sits there idly. I am still probing whether Link or Well overlapse Vamp and cancel it out.

I'm sorry, but a "Secondary" weapon at least to me, suggests that I should only use the weapon should I run out of my Primary, or Main ammunition, which happens more then often.

Secondary is really just what I call it, but the correct game term would be "pistol". It doesn't say where the focus is. You can grab ammo max mods, giving your pistol more ammo (One config I run has over 400 shots of pistol ammo) and ignore your long gun until you run out of pistol bullets, no problem. And in the end, I do not care if you disagree with me, but resource management is part of skillfull play. If you have empty rifle ammo and full pistol ammo, and pistol ammo drops, you can use it. You wasted those bullets. If you empty your ammo pools more evenly, you can get that pickup, get that ammo, and do more damage without running out. It's a no-brainer. Once you hit bosses like the Jackal, every shot counts - or you will run out of ammo, because you did not manage your resources efficiently.

As for the Strun, and Snipetron, as stated above, players will tend to use the guns that feel more overpowered, just like player will tend to use the frames that are more over powered.

Considering how many different guns I see in use, this statement is, just, like, your opinion, man. ;)

Who are you more likely to use as a frame in battle? Trinity? Or Rhino? The choice is quite obvious as to what the majority of players would choose, or your opinion the "Seasoned" players would choose, which of course would be Rhino, his HP/Shield shield is massive. My cousin already has a shield of 900 with his Rhino. So there's literally nothing that can pick apart his shield, let alone break through his HP.

My current statistics say that I play Trinity mostly. Excal is at 30, Rhino is at 30, Trinity is at 30. I am leveling Volt right now, sits around 15. And you may be mistaken there, as all frames have the same shields/health, because they have the same upgrade tree. Rhino doesn't get more health, armor or shields. The difference is mods. My Trinity has 1200 shields, 490 health, 399 energy, +70% armor. If I would take out the mods and put them in my Rhino, he would have the same. The only difference between frames are the abilities. Your assessment is factually wrong.

I haven't read anything about the "DE" company

Digital Extremes, DE for short, is the company developing Warframe. The people who have names likes DESteve or DERebecca are Digital Extremes employess.

Honestly though, a game like Warframe has so much potential PvP wise

None, actually. If you look at this game and see a shooter, you are not looking at the same game. It is a cooperative dungeon crawler like Diablo 1/2 and Torchlight 2, and several other clones. Instead of an isometric bird's view, they are using a 3rd person 3D engine. That art of display does not make the game, it's the combination of elements. The abilities are nowhere near PvP feasible, neither are the frames, the quick-use items or the 3rd person perspective itself.

Such as the maps simple designs, which yes, as you've stated "DE" plans to bring in new maps, the question is when?

When it's done, I guess? This is a Beta, not a finished product. DE has stated numerous times that they will add more content, levels, tilesets, enemies, and such. I am lost as to what the point you are trying to make is.

How long would you be willing to stick around having done everything hundreds of times over, and over?

With thousands of hours and numerous characters in Diablo 1, Diablo Hellfire, Diablo 2, Torchlight, Torchlight 2, Greed: The Black Border, Alien Swarm, Resurection, Reload, Crusader: No Remorse/No Regret etc. pp., I am sure it'll be a while. If you aren't the cooperative dungeon crawler player, this might not be the game for you.

PvP would be detrimental. Luckily, DE agrees.

I do think there might be a simple duel mode that works with the vibe of the game (I even thought Borderlands 2 was fun with this as a way of mixing it up for a few minutes) and there could be creative ways of keeping the supreme power and uniqueness of the abilities alive within it. A very short battle that hinges on very limited energy supply might be an interesting way to approach this.

Things change but right now our goals are: Making the best PvE ever with new locations, crazy enemies, and brutal weapons. Fostering a positive & cooperative community of players. Making one sick, awesome game, rather than two mediocre ones.