First Impressions

[Mietz]

So I joined the game pretty recently.

Currently I played around 5 hours total so this will be my first impression.

When I first heard about this game, I was not very excited because it was referred to as "multiplayer third person shooter" and that evoked memories of GunZ (frantic PVP nonsense wasn't really what I was looking for)

Later I've seen some gameplay and the caster said it was a co-op TPS, which immediately peaked my interest.

First of all I want to congratulate the devs on a graphically and aesthetically stunning game. The models, animations and environments look very pretty while having a functional design. My medium-range system doesn't budge one bit from my desired 60FPS with almost everything maxed. Well done.

Now to my actual critique.

Aesthetics:

While I enjoy the graphics and aesthetics, the regions/levels can become unnecessary repetitive due to their modular design.

I understand the logic behind it, its a space-station/ship obviously it would be modular in design, however I was quite disappointed with the lack of variety in environments. Maybe some planetary levels, something different from the blue-grey metal interiors? Biodomes? Some moving objects/set-pieces would also be nice, the world feels awfully static.

The UI leaves also something to be desired, especially the combat-information is placed unintuitively.

I prefer centralized HUDs in action games because health/shield menagement is more important. The game would benefit from a cleaner hud placed around the center of the screen, or maybe even displayed on the characters themselves (i.e. Dead Space)

A visual representation instead of pure numbers would also be preferable.

Gameplay:

The gameplay seems...lets say, basic.

Shooting is not bad, but also not satisfying, meele weapons like swords feel much better to me because the interaction with the enemy is more visceral. Powers are generally useful and satisfying to use but are held back by the energy-mechanic. I would prefer to put abilities on cooldown rather than having another resource system to manage besides shields, health and ammo.

It would also make usage more consistent instead of being limited by energy and pickups.

In general the gameplay seems on the slow and contemplating side rather than what I expected from the look and concept.

The first time I went into the PowerSlide I was sorely disappointed. I expected crazy speeds like Vanquish offers with its sliding mechanic as well as more visceral gameplay with fast-paced acrobatics. The warframes, even the fast and agile ones, move far too slow and rather sluggish.

I appreciate the weight they simulate with movement but more often than not, they feel like moving through molasses and lack agility.

The combat simply doesn't "flow" in Warframe, it rather degenerates into a hide and seek behind cover without an actual cover mechanic. There is little incentive to rush your opponents in some crazy display of skill, instead it's far safer to hide behind barrels and take potshots at their head when they come out of cover to fire.

It's quite tedious to combat enemies this way and Warframe could do with a general increase in pace.

You are a space-samurai, an elite warrior, a super-badass turbo-charged soldier, lets reflect this in the gameplay.

Let us eviscirate multiple enemies with ease, save some tougher ones for the tactial positioning play, let the combat flow.

This brings me to my biggest concern, the variety of gameplay.

Warframe seems to do its job competently, but thats about it, after a few hours the novelty sadly wears off and repetition settles in. The game simply has too little variety to warrant long lasting appeal.

Interactions with players are limited to shooting the same guys and it would be nice to have more team-oriented features in combat. Power Combos for example would be a good place to start, Powers that would synergize in a team beyond the most basic desire to DPS.

I would also hope for a generally stronger variety in mission types and level-design, with different routes to objectives for example.

Story:

I'm quite interested in the story and lore of Warframe, however there seems to be little to none, as far as I experienced the game. Mostly I'm asking myself what I'm doing on this station and why I'm doing all these things that the girl whispers in my ear.

Warframe has a very unique look, feel and lore, there should be more emphasis to capitalize on that.

It lacks strong characters or at the very least some interesting small lore-tidbits one could collect. A pure PVP game doesn't need this since conflict is established by the characters. Games like Planetside 2 capitalize on real human rivalry for this purpose.

Warframe being a PVE game needs to manufacture a driving conflict from the lore or story. Simply pointing at the enemy and saying "badguy" isn't good enough, not for a game as unique as this.

Business Model:

I looked over the pricing in the store and the progression curve as well as the cash gain from missions.

It seems that this game is either heavily centered around grinding or around buying Platinum as real-money currency.

With gains of ~1000 from a mission, the first new gun might drop into my lap at around the 20-30 hour mark, and thats discounting modding of weapons, which also costs money.

Add to this the fact that "pro" upgrades for real money double the upgrade capacity for weapons and characters, it becomes hard not to call this a predatory business model.

The term Pay To Win is bandied about far too often and I'm hesitant to use it, but it seems hardly fair for non-paying customers that provide an important part of the content (other people to play with) to be treated this way.

Something like this actually reduces the incentive to buy things from the store "on principle", gamers are very sensitive that way.

At the very least make the "pro" unlock achievable ingame and introduce a weekly free gun/warframe rotation.

It's a good and tried model, the customers will get to try a gun/warframe before they invest and free players get to play around with the new toys and maybe even get enticed to buy one themselves.

Try before you buy is a must in Free To Play games.

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All in all Warframe seems to have the basics right, it's a good starting-point for a game, but it's nowhere near ready for prime-time.

I hope the developers all the best and hope that my post will add to their feedback and design-process.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Mietz

[Mietz]

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