First Impressions Of Warframe

[Vetch]

So, you may want to take everything written here with a big pinch of salt. Since you're here, a lot of the threads and comments you're probably used to seeing are from players who have had a lot more experience with the game, and are used to all the good and the bad. Naturally things that annoy, frustrate and irritate are going to end up making it into this post, but just bare with me. I thought it'd be worth imparting my experience with the game so far, since every player is a new player to begin with.

 

First off, it looks pretty. Good job on that part. The whole customisation thing looks nice enough, but I can't help but feel like maybe I missed a tutorial somewhere to explain everything. I guess maybe I can put that one down to the game being in beta. I did have a friend who has a few hours more experience than I do explain a few things to me. For example, when I picked my warframe, I did so because I read about some cool abilities I'd get to play with. I had to ask my friend why I didn't actually have those in-game, and how I get them. I did manage to avoid fusing those given mods, though, but I can certainly see a few new players doing that out of sheer confusion. It just isn't apparent enough what's going on with that.

 

After a few missions I found myself wondering: "Maybe it'd be nice to try out one of the other warframes?"

 

So I tried to find an option for me to start over from scratch. There was no such option. I'm still not quite sure why. I searched google for at least an explanation; there are credit-things that can be bought with real money, and you get 50 of them to start off with for free. Maybe you could trade those to other players, and restarting over and over could abuse that? Nope. My friend reassured me that you can't trade anything at all. Alright, fine, I'm stuck with the warframe I chose right at the start for now at least, let's just move on.

 

I do like those sliding combos, the wallrunning and such. It was a little awkward at first, what with my little finger having to work spring and crouch, often at the same time. I got the hang of it though, after looking up what combos were available online. The one thing that struck me as odd was that all the offensive combos available are initiative attacks; I can start attacking an enemy just fine, with a few different slides, dives and such. ...once I'm up close and personal, I seem to be entirely limited to either a basic, rather weak-feeling slash, or the charged slash. Waaay back, ages ago, I played a few games from the Jedi-Knight series. It was about 10 years ago now, but I distinctly remember there was a hell of a lot you could do in terms of deliberate combos without the need to take a damn run-up.

 

Eventually I conceded the idea that I could be a ninja and slice up everything, and did what was probably more intended of me; using a mix of all the weapons. Sure enough, it worked. Occasionally I'd get surrounded, but I'd manage okay. There were those odd occasions where enemies would spawn (effectively) directly behind me, in a room I'd just cleared. Once I managed to get stuck in a room, after crawling through a vent and dropping down. I couldn't figure out how it was possible for me to jump high enough to get back into the vent. Another eventual google search later and I was wallrunning right out of there.

 

I do a few missions, eventually reaching an infestation mission. My warframe was about rank 3 or 4 at the time, but the mission said it was ...level 1-3? Am I high enough level for that? I've noticed there's a thing in the top left of the screen that indicates some type of level; at the time it said 0. So the mission is level 1-3, my warframe is rank 3, but my ...thing is only 0? Fine, whatever, the other missions were okay, this one didn't ought to be too hard.

 

It was on this infestation mission that I feel like my suspicions are being confirmed, that the game doesn't scale in any way to the number of players present. I mean, I'm sure it's just fantastic when there are four of you around, but it felt kind of brutal with only me. The last game I've been playing on Steam was Torchlight 2; when more players were added, the enemies hit harder, and they could take more damage, and it was great. It didn't matter too much if you were playing alone, or with one, two, or even five other people.

 

Standing my ground just wasn't an option again those infected. I'd get surrounded, ganked down and killed pretty quick. The tactic that I found to work, and ended up using to beat the mission consisted of running away, occasionally through entire areas, just to thin out the horde of enemies chasing me enough for me to pick a few of them off. The bigger infected I'd have to leave 'til the end because they'd hammer me into the floor, and the other enemies aren't exactly polite about letting you get back on your feet. It's fine having a few enemies that can do that, but getting completely stunlocked by the infected happens a bit too often (for my liking, at least). In any case, I felt tremendously ineffective and weak. Maybe I'm just bad?

 

Right now, I have 3 systems unlocked. I'm trying to work my way through Saturn, but alas, a certain big-red-guy keeps popping up during the mission and flaming his way through the damn hull. My friend has just assured me this is because the grineer are supposed to be "thick as S#&$". I can understand this, but I don't seem to be given a lot of options to deal with this scenario. At one point I was basically cornered trying to leave the first room. I had plenty of cover, and wasn't taking damage, but there were a lot of enemies shooting back. I'd pick them off one by one, until... hull breach. I didn't even see it happen.

 

I guess it's a bit of a long read, but to summarise; looks really pretty, has some great ideas, but right now it seems like it has a few... problems with the delivery.

 

*edit: Oh, and it's really not so nice to lose everything upon death; given some of the issues I've been running into listed above, the salt-in-the-wound is often that any shiny things I've found during the mission up until my death are lost forever. Sadface.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Vetch

[Ashgan9]

Yeah infected can be a pain but they are managable although I would say they could use a few tweaks to make them harder without the use of repeat knockdowns -_- (tricks I've used are try dodging after a knockdown when you get up, unless your completely surrounded in which case jumping)

Also be weary of running around too much as you can actually get more spawns on you which is not fun -_-

 

As for delivery and whatnot its still in beta give it some time hopefully by release the game is going to be awesome.

 

if you want someone to play with just add me in game I'm on way more then is healthy =P

[Vetch]

I probably should have put a lot more emphasis on how the game does not scale for the number of players present. Right now I'm trying to fight a boss that has a very high shield recharge rate. I have literally run out of bullets trying to kill him. I have to reload just a few shots after I get his shield down. I'd use my ability that reduces shields, but it's tremendously weak, and for some reason you don't regen energy at all, ever. I'm sure with two or three people this is easy, but one player simply doesn't have enough damage output. Either scale things down when there's only one player, or make it such that I can't play this mission without assistance.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Vetch