I Couldn't Recommend Warframe To My Friend

[HyenaGrin]

Trading isn't unlocked until Mastery Rank 2.

 

Your first weapons are crappy versions of crappy weapons. No catalysts, of course.

 

Your first frame does not come with a reactor installed.

 

Warframe abilities are extremely hard to use for most frames until you have Streamline and/or Flow, which sucks for the two caster frames you can start with.

 

Conclusion: This game @(*()$ hates new players and does not want you to have a good time without spending money.

 

Solution:

1) Remove the MK1 weapons. They don't need to exist. Get rid of them, just give new players the real versions

2) Give away 1 catalyst and 1 reactor as part of the tutorial sequence. This will allow the new player to see what potential awaits them by upgrading their gear. Trust me when I say that this will not prevent them from spending money buying catalysts and reactors later on, because they, like the rest of us, will quickly learn how unbearable it is trying to play without them.

3) Provide some Ability Mods as part of an optional post-tutorial questline. Give people an idiot-proof way to get Streamline and/or Flow so that they can experience the half of the game that isn't gunplay.

 

The problem is that people won't pay for things that they don't have a reason to think are worth it. This is why crack dealers give away free crack sometimes. Give new players some power and they will want more. Right now all you are accomplishing is hiding away the fun and relying on the playerbase to convince people that no, the grindwall and waitingwall are worth it.

[PeterKha]

Trading isn't unlocked until Mastery Rank 2.

 

Your first weapons are crappy versions of crappy weapons. No catalysts, of course.

 

Your first frame does not come with a reactor installed.

 

Warframe abilities are extremely hard to use for most frames until you have Streamline and/or Flow, which sucks for the two caster frames you can start with.

 

Conclusion: This game @(*()$ hates new players and does not want you to have a good time without spending money.

 

Solution:

1) Remove the MK1 weapons. They don't need to exist. Get rid of them, just give new players the real versions

2) Give away 1 catalyst and 1 reactor as part of the tutorial sequence. This will allow the new player to see what potential awaits them by upgrading their gear. Trust me when I say that this will not prevent them from spending money buying catalysts and reactors later on, because they, like the rest of us, will quickly learn how unbearable it is trying to play without them.

3) Provide some Ability Mods as part of an optional post-tutorial questline. Give people an idiot-proof way to get Streamline and/or Flow so that they can experience the half of the game that isn't gunplay.

 

The problem is that people won't pay for things that they don't have a reason to think are worth it. This is why crack dealers give away free crack sometimes. Give new players some power and they will want more. Right now all you are accomplishing is hiding away the fun and relying on the playerbase to convince people that no, the grindwall and waitingwall are worth it.

I agree on the fact that this game isn't newbie friendly but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I played this game long before trading was even a thing, where the only way of getting plat was to buy it rather than selling stuff for it, tbh the game has come a long way in order to help people who've just started.

 

Also, the MK1 weapons is your key to rushing to mastery 2. They are weapons you can straight up buy in the market without spending plat or waiting 12 hours to craft in the foundry + farming resources.

 

Having a friend help you works miraculously, you would be mastery rank 2 within about 2 hours if it were possible but it's not since you can only take the test once a day so therefore you'd have to wait 2 days to be mastery rank 2, from then on if you have experienced friends like in this case, OP is an experienced player, you could help your friend farm for popular parts in order to sell for platinum or be able to hand over some spares that he has in order to give his friend a helping hand.

 

The game isn't that hard to pick up but yes, it's harder when you have to go through it alone which I agree totally sucks and needs to be reworked to a degree where it's easier on absolute newcomers who first jump into the game. The game is absolutely piss easy if you're new and you have experienced players to help you out.

 

I helped my friends out with a little boost and in return what I get is to see them off being able to play the game by themselves and enjoying it without me having to babysit them, I mean one of them who's only played for a month even has stuff that I haven't been able to farm myself and I've been playing for a long time and it makes me happy as a friend knowing that he achieved those goals all by himself once he got the flow of the game and with a little nudge from me.

 

IMO the grind is only in the game if you want to grind otherwise you can play the game as it is and enjoy, my friend who's only been playing a month, he doesn't grind much, he just runs missions either with me or with pubs for fun, if he gets the parts he need, he's happy, if he doesn't, he sells the other parts he got and then later buys the part that he needs, it's really that simple. He gets to enjoy playing the game the way he wants + he avoids grind completely, if anything that is a smart way to play.

[Sloan441]

Nothing like a little angst and self-flagellation to start off the week.

 

Waframe is free to play. You've got nothing in it initially. I think your friend--or anyone else--can make up their own mind when it comes to sticking around.

 

When you get down to it, any RPG class game is going to have grind. I haven't found Warframe any worse than many others. Frankly, it's about middle of the pack. If you've played 1999-2001 era EQ you know what massive grind is and this game isn't anywhere near that. Hell, Diablo 2 had more grind than this game.

 

What's nice about Warframe is you pretty much just play and stuff comes to you. Mostly. There is a bit of targeted grinding for some things you need, but it's nowhere near what you see in MMRPGs, or even other ARPGs. 

 

When I first came to this game I had only a vague idea what to expect. It became apparent early on that being in a clan was a big plus and eventually you were going to have to spend some money to increase inventory if you're a collector. Other than that, it's been nothing but fun and a steadily improving game.

 

You did your friend a disservice.

[Rakosta_Kai]

-snip-

 

I really don't agree with any of this...

I had to give it a bit of thought... But that's my general conclusion.

 

Here's why:

 

Trading is locked in a decent place.

Any earlier and we'd be besieged with RMT starter accounts and players who got twinked before they even learned the basics.

Any later (although MR4 would be reasonable), and it's just annoying to new players.

 

MK-1 weapons are actually fairly decent (Strun and Braton are the exceptions) compared to what they were...

The Lotus gives you enough money to buy a normal Braton and the Missions pay pretty good on their own.

A player could literally buy a Lex and Braton and have some levels under them before getting done with the first story arc and fighting Vor if they chose to.

 

A player who decided to work Apollodorous long and often enough would walk away with the normal version of those mods fairly easily. The starter missions offers starter versions of many mods as well that offer good cost-performance balance.

 

New players start the game with a bit of platinum which allows them to buy the reactor and catalyst should they choose to.

 

Moreover, the need for a reactor and catalyst presumes that the new player would have the regular version of those mods and have leveled them.

 

The average new player would have starter version mods and the un-potatoed weapon or frame would fit them fine.

 

Crack references aside, the new player game is pretty decent.

 

The Vet game could use some attention though.

[Liminal]

Uh...there isn't that much grind in this game...idk why people keep saying that.

You're right. There's a sh**-ton of gambling though.

[TheDoctah]

Yesterday I was talking to a long time buddy of mine and he asked what game he should pick up. It hit me like a sack of bricks. I honestly could not recommend warframe to him because of the insane amount of grind to get geared out. 

 

I have been here since the excal prime founders package was available.........long time. I drank to kool aid a long time ago. But looking at what it takes to farm up and max out a decent set of BASIC mods like redirection, serration, hornet strike, ECT not including the corrupted mods.

 

I couldn't do it. I wouldn't put a friend through that. Because he would be playing with me, and I would be on a whole different level than him. It wouldn't be fun, and it would be months before it ever was fun.

 

No I wouldn't start a new account, because I don't want to go through that crap again either.

imo, as the game stands, you're probably doing your friend a favor. I went through the same experience with a friend of mine and he dropped the game after a week. This was back when I was still actually playing the game. (4 or 5 months ago) They told me the grind was too immense and there really wasn't much else to do in the game. Fast forward to today and the only connection I have with this game now is it's forums. There hasn't been a update in sometime that's made me want to reinstall this game and my friend hasn't even spoken of the game since they left it. This game has grind and really nothing else outside of mindless shooting with fake teamwork. Game is still in beta and I don't see this game being a finished product within the next two years cause of how the Devs handle the updates and the games many, many needs.

[Dornez]

If you're talking about your friend doing the false profit event then I'm sorry to break it to you but those events aren't designed for new players to do them nor is it compulsory for them to play the event, they could go on doing other things.

 

PFFFFFFFT

 

So you are telling me that a brand new player should not be expected aspire to earn the completely unique mods /weapon / sigil.....you are nuts.

 

No sir that alert was a prime example of trying to keep new players OUT

[Valar.Morghulis]

I have to agree, but for different reasons, Much of the game feels "unfinished" or "abandoned".

 

Balance and Scalability are the worst and DE interactions with the community.

 

Balance:

Anyone who has played any thing competitively will know there are rules to limit what someone can or cant do. So for example As a Pro-Athlete your not allowed to use "Performance Enhancing Substances". In professional car racing (F1/NASCAR/Indi/Cart/Ect) there are many rules and regulations to help keep competition fair and prevent cheating. In e-Sports you see competitors given every access to every possible character/item/skill.

 

This is to create a level of balance, Warframe fails completely in this respect with the existence of exclusive power items (Frames/Mods/Weapons).

 

Scalability:

Interestingly enough the endless missions and Raids point out the massive problem with Warframe witch is the it's in ability to scale. The fact that none of your pure damage frames preform well once enemies go past level 60'ish. The fact that melee falls off as for almost all frames as a viable form of combat long before you even get near the end of the star-chart.

 

Honestly for me to be able to recommend Warframe without a bunch of cleats/cheviots a few things need to be address in some way.

 

Exclusive Power needs to be removed - This normally makes 95% of the people I tell about the game immediately not consider playing. Before you say that "there is no exclusive power", you are just WRONG. Someone who creates an account today doesn't not have access to a number of event weapon/mods. The best Archwing gun in the game is an event exclusive weapon, this should never happen. Someone tho starts today levels up over the next few weeks should have the same opportunity to power that every other player does.

 

Fix Bugs and Power Scaling - Many of the problems with the game are due to bugs and poor power scaling, half the frames in the game are damage based yet power scaling has not been addressed.

 

Removal of "Mandatory MODS" - Serration/Hornet Strike/Pressure Point are simply not fun, they suck new players dry of resources. Simply bake the damage in to the weapons every level the weapon gets a little more powerful up to the same damage. Mandatory mods simply are not fun or interesting or even a decision point at all beyond what rank you drop in the weapon as you level.

[Dornez]

So instead of giving the guy a full set of basic mods of which you already have 20 copies of each, you told him the game was grindy.

 

Dude I sell those. I never have spare mods lyin around. And why would I deprive him of the true nature of the game?

[Flowen231]

HELA SNIP

Nova Prime, and Loki Prime both took me 2 months to farm. Volt Prime took me 1.

 

Yes, That's exactly how me and my friend started out. Within an hour I had every planet unlocked and in that same day I had my first built warframe (nova) cooking in my foundry. After that point, the grind began.

 

Seems like your friend has alot of time on his hands. Me and mine have a job.

 

No you don't need max mods to be a decent player, and for some builds, you should not have all of your mods maxed, however some mods (vitality, redirection, serration, hornet strike, some corrupt mods, primed mods if you get that far) should really be maxed or in the case of primed mods, 9/10. Because no matter what, there will be things that you simply won't be able to do in the game because your stats won't be up to snuff.

 

It's nice that you told your friend how to make plat. My teammate helped me himself and it still felt like a grind.

 

The problem with warframe is not the grind itself. It's the fact that there's nothing to do but grind. There is no endgame content that requires you to have a 5-6 forma boltor prime, or a 4-5 forma brakk (the raid can be done without the use of weapons up to the G3 part and the rewards for the raid suck). The reason you grind in this game, is to grind better, and that's all there is to warframe.

[Flowen231]

What strange Warframe took you months to grind? I farmed up Chroma in a single day and that included the Saryn/Ember/Frost parts.

 

We're talking about a new player taking his first few steps into a new game. We're not talking about someone who's played for a couple of months and is looking for Prime frames and weapons. A new player can make do with a Braton or a Karak or some other low mastery weapon you can get from the market, all of which are easy to obtain.

 

Sure the grind does come in later, but it's not immediately shoved down your throat. When the grindwall hits, its up to the individual player to decide if he wants to partake or not.

You do make fine points here. However that's the issue. Why bother showing someone what the game is like if they're just going to be turned off by the grind?

 

DEspite@

I'd like to point out that if he finds all this out, he will no longer be your friend.

 

LOL do you honestly think a real friend would stop being your friend just because they ended up liking a game you told them was bad? That's completely off topic but that line had me in stitches irl.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Flowen231

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

For better or for worse, the game requires a fairly large time investment, even for a paying customer.

I can attest to that, bought every PA so far and have hundreds of hours from farming cores alone on my back.

 

That said, the very very essential mods are still the same as they were many updates ago, and are pretty easy to max: serration, hornet strike, vitality, redirection (sorta), steel fiber (for chroma and valk shenanigans). Voilá, you don't need the kubrow stuff, aa stuff, primed stuff, corrupted stuff. Those are long term goals. I'd make narrow minded, primed continuity and primed flow the next priorities but they are in no way necessary.

 

I have every mod released so far maxed and two of each Rifle mod, for sentinels. In case anyone has ever been curious about it, that's around 158kk mod rate.

[MaimFrame]

I tell my friends to stay away because I've managed to spend over 1k hours on it.  I don't wanna be the one that puts the needle in his arm.  I could've learned a language or the guitar something.   j/k   love this game and can't want to hunt some more rotation c forma ;p 

This game really isn't that bad to jump into.  1 week of strategic leveling and finding the right frames, I think a novice could sit in a tunnel with u and get to 60 mins in a t4 survival   ;p   

[Keyse]

Make sure you use your referral code tho. If he stays, you'll get some loot. :)

[(XBOX)BLK THORN]

One of my friends watched me play Warframe a few times during a week and asked a lot of good questions about the game. His problem wasn't really the grind wall, it was the lack of storyline with cut scenes and bugs compared to other mmo games we both played throughout the years. I know it's beta but mmos are still a investment of time and money so he agreed to give Warframe a shot when a DE establishes a storyline with a single/ multiplayer campaign.

Edited May 6, 2015 by (XB1)BLK THORN

[Zakmonster]

 

You do make fine points here. However that's the issue. Why bother showing someone what the game is like if they're just going to be turned off by the grind?

 

 

If they're going to be turned off by the grind. Some people are okay with grinding, some people actually like it.

 

These days, my friends and I don't grind for anything anymore. We might decide to farm a specific Prime if one of us really wants it, but more often than not we're just messing around doing stuff we find fun - Excavation missions, testing out weapons, and generally doing silly S#&$.

 

The grind is there, but there are parts of the game we still find fun (the gameplay, generally). We choose what we want to do.

[Lightsmith]

I can attest to that, bought every PA so far and have hundreds of hours from farming cores alone on my back.

 

That said, the very very essential mods are still the same as they were many updates ago, and are pretty easy to max: serration, hornet strike, vitality, redirection (sorta), steel fiber (for chroma and valk shenanigans). Voilá, you don't need the kubrow stuff, aa stuff, primed stuff, corrupted stuff. Those are long term goals. I'd make narrow minded, primed continuity and primed flow the next priorities but they are in no way necessary.

 

I have every mod released so far maxed and two of each Rifle mod, for sentinels. In case anyone has ever been curious about it, that's around 158kk mod rate.

 

I disagree. The time investment is minimal, or better stated, it varies on what you want to do. Time investment doesn't really apply to Maxing things, in my mind. It refers to effective gameplay, and that is fairly easy, you don't need much to rank up a serration to 6-8 as well as other mods.

 

Perhaps its just youth these days that these things seems like time invested. Prior to WoW games took crazy amounts of effort and time to even get to end game (Everquest) World of Warcraft made it easier, and every expansion made it even easier each time. The relative amount of time it takes in this game is minimal. With heavy game play and knowledge you can max out in a week. Other PVE games are typically more (especially korean ones)

[PeterKha]

PFFFFFFFT

So you are telling me that a brand new player should not be expected aspire to earn the completely unique mods /weapon / sigil.....you are nuts.

No sir that alert was a prime example of trying to keep new players OUT

They can if they want to but it's not a necessity to have since those mods will come back into play eventually like the Cicero and cryotic mod sets and even the tethras doom set with two of its parts being available from baro so far. The only thing that would be unique would be the weapon itself and the sigil which is practically useless outside of aesthetics and the weapon? Meh, most of the weapons in game already out class the event weapons, it's just there to feel special about yourself that you participated.

Though I was helping friends who hadn't done the event and it took a total of 5 runs since my score was already high so was getting 300 to 400 per run. The event was easy if you knew what to do, you could easily solo it or carry 3 people and help them achieve the rewards if you wanted to which was what I did for my friends. Was it boring? Hell yeah it was, but did I mind? No because helping friends out and seeing their reaction to a level 100 mob is priceless.

In most games I've played, events are never usually designed for newcomers. They're always designed for people who've been around for a bit to get the feel of the game. My fairly new friend with like 80 hours in game which is like about a bit more than a months worth of game time and hemanaged to do the event by himself with no hassle. He found it heaps boring though but he managed to do it himself which is all that counts.

[(PSN)DanteVincent]

I disagree. The time investment is minimal, or better stated, it varies on what you want to do. Time investment doesn't really apply to Maxing things, in my mind. It refers to effective gameplay, and that is fairly easy, you don't need much to rank up a serration to 6-8 as well as other mods.

 

Perhaps its just youth these days that these things seems like time invested. Prior to WoW games took crazy amounts of effort and time to even get to end game (Everquest) World of Warcraft made it easier, and every expansion made it even easier each time. The relative amount of time it takes in this game is minimal. With heavy game play and knowledge you can max out in a week. Other PVE games are typically more (especially korean ones)

Well, yeah, you don't need to max things tbh and a rank 6-8 will come naturally as you said. Now, multi formaing an arsenal of hundreds of weapons and attaining rank 10 in all mods are feats that do require a huge amount of time invested (but far from requirements to enjoy the game as equals in a 30min T4S or 30 wave T4D), specially now that the most reliable means have been nerfed/fixed, old t4s/egate.

 

In that sense it was a silly reason not to recommend WF, even more so when you compare to the games you exemplified.

[vaugahn]

 multi formaing an arsenal of hundreds of weapons and attaining rank 10 in all mods are feats that do require a huge amount of time invested

 

Those are things I generally instruct new players to avoid. As you said, they're not at all necessary. 

 

Most of the massive grinds in this game are ones people choose to take on.

[PeterKha]

Dude I sell those. I never have spare mods lyin around. And why would I deprive him of the true nature of the game?

All that shows is that you value your greed over a friends needs.

I gave my friends whatever essential spares I had. I mean just yday I had 434 redirections and 194 vitalities which I ended up using for fusing stuff but seriously if you can't spare your friends hornet strike serration vitality redirection at least then what even, those mode are so easy to come by.

You're not depriving him of anything, you're giving him a little boost, it's not like you're spoon feeding him and leveling up those mods for him. I even have spare corrupted mods which I eventually refarmed with them so they could sell the extras they had for plat.

Plat isn't even hard to obtain in this game once you get the hang of it and learn the market, I could Prob make 3k plat right now if I sold everything that I have worth selling at the lowest prices to low ball everyone.

[PeterKha]

Nova Prime, and Loki Prime both took me 2 months to farm. Volt Prime took me 1.

Yes, That's exactly how me and my friend started out. Within an hour I had every planet unlocked and in that same day I had my first built warframe (nova) cooking in my foundry. After that point, the grind began.

Seems like your friend has alot of time on his hands. Me and mine have a job.

No you don't need max mods to be a decent player, and for some builds, you should not have all of your mods maxed, however some mods (vitality, redirection, serration, hornet strike, some corrupt mods, primed mods if you get that far) should really be maxed or in the case of primed mods, 9/10. Because no matter what, there will be things that you simply won't be able to do in the game because your stats won't be up to snuff.

It's nice that you told your friend how to make plat. My teammate helped me himself and it still felt like a grind.

The problem with warframe is not the grind itself. It's the fact that there's nothing to do but grind. There is no endgame content that requires you to have a 5-6 forma boltor prime, or a 4-5 forma brakk (the raid can be done without the use of weapons up to the G3 part and the rewards for the raid suck). The reason you grind in this game, is to grind better, and that's all there is to warframe.

To be honest, I don't even have all the primes and I don't feel the need to since I can complete late game missions fine without them and I'll get them either whenever I feel like it or if a friend wants it then I'll end up getting the parts whilst helping. There a few mods that I don't have maxed even though I have enough resources to max them out for some reason I just feel like stacking mods, I have like 17k atm which about 5k of them are fusion cores yet I still feel hesitant when it comes to maxing out mods hahahah but I can still hold myself pretty well when it comes to higher level missions probably due to my experience. But yeah both of us have work too, he's only been playing for like a bit over a month now whereas I've been playing on and off since like 2 years ago

I agree and disagree with your last post, I mean yeah all there is to do later once you got a decent frame and weapon is to farm the rest for mastery which leads to grinding or farming new weapons to test out and see if you'll like but then again instead of doing those you could easily run amuck with friends having fun doing long missions challenging yourself to see how far we can push ourselves before things start to get tough, the only thing that keeps me in the game atm are there are still things I need to farm + friends to play with which make the game significantly more fun for me.

[Lightsmith]

Well, yeah, you don't need to max things tbh and a rank 6-8 will come naturally as you said. Now, multi formaing an arsenal of hundreds of weapons and attaining rank 10 in all mods are feats that do require a huge amount of time invested (but far from requirements to enjoy the game as equals in a 30min T4S or 30 wave T4D), specially now that the most reliable means have been nerfed/fixed, old t4s/egate.

 

In that sense it was a silly reason not to recommend WF, even more so when you compare to the games you exemplified.

True but that is like saying don't bother playing Disgaea since it's technical max level is 199998 and there are 30+ classes. Not to mention priming stats. When in fact its a great game that people can get a lot of fun out of without pursuing it to the max. (Its not that well known of a game so the example may not make sense, fyi, you only have to be level 100 to beat the game)

 

My point is to say to some one, "don't play because its a grind," but only if you want to be the ultimate player isn't a fair reflection of the game.

 

Another example is, "Don't bother playing Wow because you have to get into raids and take hours just to hopefully get a chance at some good gear." Although true, it isn't a fair reflection of what the game has to offer. It's just talking about what is needed to top out.

 

I mean I still haven't maxed any R10 mods and I carry most of my missions. I've only recently started using Forma, and that is because I maxed all weapons I had. Prior to that I still carried a lot of missions and could do T4s no problem.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Lightsmith

[BluelitHalo]

This will be a glaringly unpopular opinion, but Warframe, as an MMO, is the least grindy game I've ever played.  I could max out most of my preferred frames/weapons within 6 months, while in other MMOs it takes years or even a half-decade to get to such a standing.

 

As for trying to get every frame and weapon and all that jazz, that seems like nothing but a completionist goal.  "Beating the game" has always been attributed to getting your gear to its maximum potential and conquering high level content.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Sonitorum

[Noble_Cactus]

You could have given him some mods, like I did with a friend of a friend recently.

 

But if someone were to ask me for an ARPG to play, Warframe would probably be 4th or 5th on my list. It's not that there's grind; every ARPG has grind. It's just that the grind isn't fun to me, mostly because there isn't much of a direction or purpose for the grind that keeps me from recommending the game to people.

 

Not sure if recommending him not to try the game is a good thing, he could have easily discovered the "grind" for himself. Warframe has a huge player base (including me) that are tolerant of the grind to get to the juiciness of the rest of Warframe, Who knows, that person may have been one of those people. There are also many new players coming up in ranks, we all did it, so it cant be that bad. 

 

 

I'd argue that there isn't much juciness to be had

Edited May 6, 2015 by Noble_Cactus