Why Is F2P An Excuse, Not A Feature? (Anymore)

[tinyranitar]

Warframe went through some drastics changes from when I first started to play and fall in love with it, some changes are good, but some are difficult to get through my head. One of those horrible changes is how Warframe's F2P tag is thrown around as an excuse, not a feature.

 

"and it's Free to Play!" turns into "but it's Free to Play...".

 

I remember the time when I refuted people saying Warframe model is pay2win due to potato. I mean, back then when we all get contents at a reasonable rate, potatoes comes twice or even better, three times a month. Everything seems so accessible at time, even the ever elusive Loki Prime. What kind of game let us trade for premium credit, all the while granting access to all gameplay-related paid contents (well, besides slots). F2P back then made Warframe stood out from all the money grubbing business, not to mention its concept.

 

But since Wukong, I have seen some serious things going on. For example, Wukong. One may refute that it is fairly easy to gather resources for, especially now we can downgrade clans. But it's not always that simple. Before the downgrading clan update, we already have to wait for an eternity just to get enough Nitian Extract. Locking a resource behind a timewall is not really a good decision, unless your decision is to frustrate players so that they take the cash shortcut.

 

One might bring up the "b-but syndicate rep" argument here. But you know what, if Syndicate Rep isn't capped, all we will be doing is Draco all day long, since there is an infinite amount of contents buyable with Syndicate rep (that can be traded for plat). But not for Nitian. We just get enough and get to other nodes.

 

And it goes against the point of a clan. We do in other steads. A clan's point is not making a group of elitist (well some clan does that) but making a community, consisting the able and the unable. The able helps the unable, by doing things a little more. But same cannot goes for nitian. 

 

But patience is a virtue, and if that is not much of a problem for you, let's look at a very recent example: War and Broken War.

 

Why is it a bad example of F2P? It is because either of those is locked unless you shed out your precious cash. You can't have both, and if you want to switch, tada, brilliant use of Nitian. I wish they would use Despair, Hate and Dread to make War, because that I have plenty. No, I do not mean the weapons, I mean the emotion. I know Warframe is going downhill since people started saying "It's a Free to Play game, what do you expect?" instead of "Oh and it's free to play too".

 

I know that Devs gotta eat, but it's not how much you eat, it's how you eat. I am perfectly fine with paying for cosmetics bundle. Hell, I bought all of them but for Nyx (I don't use her) or Loki (I don't really like the design). But I am against bad business model such as this...

 

I love Warframe and I will continue to support it, even through the form of discussion and feedbacks like this. 

 

People say these examples are too few to justify anything. But Silence is like a cancer grows, leave it like this, and downhill is the only way we go. 

 

Thanks for reading.

[RagingGrizzly]

Doesn't the War and Broken War bps drop from the stalker now?

[Pride]

you dont play many f2p korean mmorpg do you?

[tinyranitar]

Doesn't the War and Broken War bps drop from the stalker now?

You need War to craft Broken War and vice versa

[Stratego89]

"But it's free to play" is only ever said when players complain about stuff taking time or effort to get. DE is a company. They have this game to get money- and they deserve it.

 

Any time a player is being (IMO- figure I have to state this otherwise people will get their panties in a twist) lazy/entitled/ in general acting like everything should be handed to them on a silver platter BECAUSE it's a free game- not caring that there are people making it who rely on the income to feed their families- THAT is when it turns into "but it's free to play".

 

I always think of it as "And it's free to play", because I understand that these things exist for a reason, and that reason is- just as it seems- to get people to buy stuff. They HAVE to do that. They don't FORCE us to buy ANYTHING unless it's totally non-functional. MOST games would NEVER do that. DE spoils their community- sometimes I feel it bites them in the buttocks.

 

 

Quick edit: I will say though that I do not personally approve of what they have done with the whole War vs Broken War crafting requirements situation. THAT BEING SAID- DE Steve has said on his twitter than broken war will be offered in the future as a reward from sorties, so it IS still possible to get both of the swords without paying ANYTHING. IMO this solution is kinda lame since it makes no sense for sorties of all things to drop it, doesn't keep in line with lore, might ruin stuff for new players that join and have yet to do TSD, etc. The best solution would be for the broken war BP that shadow stalker drops to not take war to build- or for it to instead take shards of war or something that he can drop as a special "resource".

Edited December 25, 2015 by Stratego89

[lightdragon64]

well... here is the thing... while yes the game is free to play, there is also a thing that exists within it that also exists in nearly every other free to play game i have ever seen, a gimmick i suppose. a large amount of the free to play games i have seen and personally played while their concepts are interesting enough but in the case of some (let's use planetside for example) there is a fine line between free to play and paying to win... i see planetside as a more pay to win type game considering the massive amount of hours needed in order to unlock one gun or vehicle. warframe on the other hand, while it does seem like there are things that are of an issue (such as war/broken war) you can essentially find/farm every single weapon and warframe. it's just that as you would expect some things are meant to be a bit more difficult to obtain... as for some things like the war and broken war i honestly think that due to the feedback about it there will be a high possibility that it will be changed in the foreseeable future. yes... there are some heavy grinds in place of some seemingly normal looking warframes (e.g. wukong and nesha) and weapons... but the nice thing about the game is that you can acquire all of these things within a matter of hours (not counting crafting time).

 

as for things that seem like that they were designed to be bought rather than farmed (nesha for example) i would more or less defend this as like you said... the need for the company to make money.

 

overall i would agree, there are some kinks that need to be worked out, but in all honesty i think that warframe is one of the most fair and reasonable free to play games i have seen to date.

[Stalker_lad]

Doesn't the War and Broken War bps drop from the stalker now?

 

The issue he brings up is - You have to use broken war to craft War, and War to craft Broken war

 

E: someone answered before me, darn it.

Edited December 25, 2015 by AJSA_Sarcastic_Pyro

[RagingGrizzly]

You need War to craft Broken War and vice versa

Oh, well that sucks.

[Volinus7]

Free to Login

[Ahcruna]

I didn't know the crafting for Broken was like that. I didn't even craft War because I accidently got it with the Gift pack (I thought it was only cosmetics)

In any case you can't have more than one of the weapons if you don't buy the pack. that's a real $&*^ move.

 

 

 

___________________________________________________

There was a hole here, now it's gone. I guess...  (╯°Д°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[RagingGrizzly]

The issue he brings up is - You have to use broken war to craft War, and War to craft Broken war

 

E: someone answered before me, darn it.

Able to have both Broken War and War if you get 2 or 3 bps of each and then use them to craft eachother?

Edited December 25, 2015 by PUR3K1LL3R

[tinyranitar]

Able to have both Broken War and War if you get 2 or 3 bps of each and then use them to craft eachother?

Each fully crafted weapon is required to make the other

[RagingGrizzly]

Each fully crafted weapon is required to make the other

*Is dumb*

[(PSN)FunyFlyBoy]

"But it's free to play" is only ever said when players complain about stuff taking time or effort to get. DE is a company. They have this game to get money- and they deserve it.

Any time a player is being (IMO- figure I have to state this otherwise people will get their panties in a twist) lazy/entitled/ in general acting like everything should be handed to them on a silver platter BECAUSE it's a free game- not caring that there are people making it who rely on the income to feed their families- THAT is when it turns into "but it's free to play".

I always think of it as "And it's free to play", because I understand that these things exist for a reason, and that reason is- just as it seems- to get people to buy stuff. They HAVE to do that. They don't FORCE us to buy ANYTHING unless it's totally non-functional. MOST games would NEVER do that. DE spoils their community- sometimes I feel it bites them in the buttocks.

This. Could not agree more with this sentiment.

[-FrostByte-]

please keep in mind that the company has to make money

[Sabrewolfe]

It is immature players like OP who keep moaning about time locked stuff and being unable to have two weapons at the same time. Well boo-hoo so you can't get what you want easy peasily ? You can't unlock everything in 24 hours so you complain and see it as a design fault?

Here's something eye opening: you don't NEED Wukong or War.

You WANT them.

But because you can't get them in a few clicks without paying you complain.

It does not take long to get the parts for Wukong, heck he is easier to get than Ivara, Oberon, Equinox, etc.

And about this War thing, yeah you can't have both but you can change between them.

Either pick the best two-hander weapon or best one-hander weapon. It is YOUR choice.

[bejuizb]

While I can understand that DE has to make money, I completely and utterly respect that factor, I also feel like more attempts could be made at implementing the content in an innovative way, which is what Warframe started with. Something completely unlike any other game in the F2P market. We've lost that flavour, and I attribute it to the extreme emphasis on content generation, without ensuring the foundations are widespread and solid enough to allow future building. What we've seen for a long time now is new content being added in a rudimentary state, and forgotten as other projects take priority. While this might be considered essential to prolong the life of a game, I'd argue that ensuring that your content is absolutely as polished as it can be prior to release would lead to a better experience, for both developers and players.

 

Taking time to ensure that the magic exists instead of tossing content out like a couple of rabbits in Spring would mean that you don't construct the game on skeletons and then have to shoot yourself in the foot when the pressure causes the foundation to collapse. It's the issue we're experiencing with the stale and one dimensional damage system. I feel like not enough thought was put into the system to ensure longevity and nearly all the mods that exist do one thing and nothing else. And now, when the feedback is getting very strong regarding the flaws of the system, the dev team is struggling a lot to make changes work because the system is buried so deep into the core of the game, that one change cascades into other systems and their workload keeps expanding. It's a giant pile of dominos constantly knocking each other over.

 

To me, Warframe is like a Jenga building, with a singular piece as its foundation. The more content being mindlessly added without careful design, the more and more precarious it is to be near the top.

 

This game needs a better foundation, a better platform to implement content with, so that the magic returns, so that people go back to saying "Oh, and the best part? It's free to play!"

[Zachatoo]

And about this War thing, yeah you can't have both but you can change between them.

Either pick the best two-hander weapon or best one-hander weapon. It is YOUR choice.

Thank you for this insight. At least for now DE allows you to switch between the two (arguably) best weapons in the game, depending on your playstyle.

[(PSN)Soo_Unreal]

Whatever happened to playing games just for fun?

[MagPrime]

At first I agreed with the OP, but then I took a step back and looked at things from a new players perspective.

Nitain isn't such an issue when you're MR1-10 and still gathering your weapons, resources and Warframes. Situations like the time wall are only an issue for veterans and players focused on getting Wukong, Nezha or Ivara ASAP.

From lurking the forums for a few days, I've come to realize that the loudest complaints come from players that have everything (or almost everything) when the new updates hit. For them, the time walls are horrible, unreasonable and disgruntaling.

For new players, it's less of an issue because they have so much catching up to do already.

As much as DE loves its vets and works hard to keep us around, they have to think of new players and making the game last longer for them as well.

Edited December 25, 2015 by Noamuth

[JohnKable]

Warframe is F2P, and a good one.

 

I have put money on this game but all i bought with it is basically cosmetic stuff.

 

i didnt put any money to get actually useful content, i grinded for it or traded for it without burning myself.

I have almost everything in the game, except excal prime and primed chamber, and random stuff that i never wanted.

In fact i have much more than i actually use without putting money or too big effort.

 

i really dont know what you mean... with a minumum daily time and no money you can have everything for free, you just cant have everithing immediately without putting money.

Also if you want to put very little money you can have a lot of stuff for cheap, and thats the whole point. they encourage you to spend little money on this game to enjoy it more and not burn out.
There is NO free to play game where you can have ALL the content, immediately, wihtout grinding or paying some money.

 

so, again, its still a F2P game and a very good one to me. you were never supposed to get everithing easy or in a reasonable time. im mr18 and got brakk a few days ago... and never complained about it.

[MrJxt]

The only point I somewhat agree with is war and broken-war crafting. However, broken-war will be a sortie reward in the future which allows players to have both without having to pay. Other than that, f2p is still a very strong feature in Warframe and far from being an excuse.

[InglriousB]

I do agree that whilst previous releases of warframes were fun and enjoyable because of the new content which was released, the new releases have been buried behind a grind wall which takes all the fun out of it. Like with Jordas where you have to farm ages for a gear item no one ever uses and now wukong with nitain and nesha which parts can only be obtained at the mercy of RNGesus (who has been not been so merciful on me).

As you said ofc the devs need money, but making even more grindwalls isn't gonna work as the people who are buying because they don't like the grind already bought it in the first place and the people who would work for it before aren't gonna pay either. So it does not succeed in getting more revenue, only more hate and grind.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

While I agree some recent decisions buy DE have been kind of bad I hardly think that calls for saying P2W is happening now.

[SilvaDreams]

Free to Login

That would be a certain unnamed StarWars MMO made by a certain two letter publisher neither of which I'll name.

____________________

More on topic I don't find the grind all that bad but most gamers now days are spoiled by the instant gratification others have instilled on them.

I use to play Ultima Online and you could spend two years on a single character reaching end game status, things took time. StarWars Galaxies was the same way where everything was player made but starter gear.(At least till Sony ruined it trying to copy EverQuest's now standard class system)

Edited December 25, 2015 by SilvaDreams