My review of the Warframe

[Velmarshal]

I am quite annoyed by the ignorant pile of lazy children that keep calling this game bad for whatever reasons they think of. So i have an urge to shove my opinion out there.

Firstly, what most people fail to understand, this game is a co op game, designed for four players. It is not designed for you to play rambo at solo with your Loki. This game is free to play, you as a F2P player are not entitled to anything, so stop acting like devs should kiss your ♥♥♥ for your opinion. Everyone has one, but very few are noteworthy and unbiased (as much as possible). But for the other side as well, just because it's beta doesnt mean everything bad will be changed, in fact very little gameplay changes hapen in beta, dont slap "it's beta" on every negative opinion, some of those people do have a point.

Now on to the game itself. Since I'm not sure where to start first I'll go with the obvious choice, graphics.

So, warframe, compared to other games doesnt look bad nor it's Crysis 3 level of fidelity. The overall look of the game and how it performs made me think few times it's running on an Unreal 3 engine, but I was wrong. It's running on their custom build Evolution engine. So yeah, mistaking it for U3 is a good thing, because U3 is an excelent engine. The visuals in the game are how to say it, "fine". Nothing bad or good that is noteworthy. Ugly grineer and meaty looking warframes is the style, do not mix it up with graphics.

Next thing, let's see... Level design.

I'm sure everyone here is sick of looking at the same mines and spaceship interiors, but relatively recently a new area was added. The snowy exterior areas usually populated by corpus, that was probably the most welcome and refreshing addition to the game. But those exterior levels don't make those mines and ships look any better. Though do take note, a lot of assets are reused on every level, and some are used quite intelligently. Ever wondered, how can a decent looking game like this fit in 1.3Gb of space? efficient level design, reusing assets as much as possible without going overboard. So overall, level design was bad, but the new exterior levels do show signs of it going the right way.


Gameplay.

Now, a lot of people say that gameplay is similar to mass effect. Don't take me wrong, mass effect is a great game, and it's good to have your game compared to some of the best out there if not the best. But they are mistaken, first and most obvious difference, the pacing. Warframe is much faster and it doesnt utilize the conventional cover system seen in Mass Effect and Gears of War games. And that's a good thing, do you really want to sit behind a crate the whole firefight when you can just flank them and cut them in half with a cyber katana?
Guns feel good, not to hard to control, butI have to point out the issue with the crosshair. The crosshair zero point is offset by a little downwards. You can test that out with a snipetron and a wall that has a spot that you can use as a reference point. Or the green dot on the doors. Aim at it and then zoom in, youll see that the white dot is slightly above the point you were aiming at. Overall, gameplay is solid and I can't really point out anything bad about it.

Balance.

Warframe as a strict co op game, doesn't have to have gun balance calculated by some PhD from some fancy university, but some weapons truly are underpowered to the brink of being utterly useless. Same thing with warframes, but then again, balance is what gets changed the most in betas besides bugs. So I can't really speak about balance before full release.

F2P vs P2P

So the ever going discussion between the two mostly comes down to the platinum just being planly too expensive. And that's true, most of the people won't pay 20$ for a warframe, no matter what silly weapon you bundle it with. Now there's the founders program, but hat will last only until the end of the beta and can't be taken into account post launch when all the real reviews come out. being able to obtain everything besides cosmetics without paying is good. though to be honest, the time needed to obtain a new warframe and cost of credits are a bit high, the waiting time for crafting is utter rubbish. If someone took their time to farm the bloody boss 50+ times and materials required for it (presuming that credits are the least of your problems), you will make them wait 3 +1/2 days in best case just to pick it up? seriously, I personally like this game and I am slightly positively biased towards it, but not even I can pass by that BS.

Some things I haven't mentioned.

All the matches in warframe are hosted on party leader's PC, warframe devs only have the item and account servers, so having a lot of peope being F2P isn't all that detrimental to the game itself, because the renting costs are minimized, ensuring that the game will last. Overal that's a good thing and a bad thing as well. The lag... The blo*dy lag hwne playing with people who use tin can PCs or dial up internet... Seriously, atleast measure the players bandwidth and number of CPU cores to determine the best host. If I had a platinum every time I had to stand around like an idiot waiting for a material to drop on the ground so I can pick it up, I would probably own everything purchasable with platinum. Or just waiting for enemies to die, sheesh.

Another issue. If someone with a problematic internet connection starts an alert mission in online mode, and everyone trying to connect to him get all kinds of errors and disconnections, the game should stop trying to connect to the same cr*ppy host over and over. Seriously, atleast allow people to host their own games when playing online and not force them to connect to some guy who lives on the other side of the world because he selected the wrong region in the options.

The size of the game is commenable and more developers should use their recourses intelligently like digital extremes. Because a lot of us are sick of bloated 30Gbs games that take ages to download.

Bosses are overall boring and plain bullet sponges, with the exception of the Jackal.

And one suggestion which will probably implemented later, support for steam microtransactions. (Trading will be added in following patches so no need to mention it)

Final verdict.

Warframe is a shining example of how F2P games should be made, ofcourse even such a good game isn't perfect and has its own issues, but those do little to stain the overall feel of the game. A game which has gameplay often compared to mass effect, graphics that are mistaken for U3 all of it for free. not to mention the ability to obtain everything by playing and a bit of farming. And besides, who doesn't like to play as a Cyber ninja who slashes everything with a katana and does crazy wallruns.

Now, I wonder what do you guys think, about warframe and the review itself (besides the typos).

[Velmarshal]

True, I also forgot the infamous green lasers.

[Partycrasher]

Re level design. While I agree that more level assets would be welcome, I do think the devs have done an amazing job in combining randomness (which really benefits repeated play), size (gives a feeling of exploration), intricacy (multiple levels, hidden routes etc) and atmosphere (esp infested missions).

In fact I don't recall playing any other game where randomised levels have been done so well - didn't even realise they were random at first - this is one of the aspects of the game that really impressed me (along with the art direction, enemy design, combat and customisation).

[Wowie]

My comments are in italics.


I am quite annoyed by the ignorant pile of lazy children that keep calling this game bad for whatever reasons they think of. So i have an urge to shove my opinion out there.

Firstly, what most people fail to understand, this game is a co op game, designed for four players. It is not designed for you to play rambo at solo with your Loki.

With a high level Warframe and weapons, you can solo low and mid-level areas all you want. It's a good way to blow off steam after being frustrated by a lagfest because someone decided to host a game on their washing machine instead of their gaming machine. It's also pretty much the only way you'll ever play a stealth style mission without specifically organizing one with friends.

This game is free to play, you as a F2P player are not entitled to anything, so stop acting like devs should kiss your {Censored} for your opinion. Everyone has one, but very few are noteworthy and unbiased (as much as possible). But for the other side as well, just because it's beta doesnt mean everything bad will be changed, in fact very little gameplay changes hapen in beta, dont slap "it's beta" on every negative opinion, some of those people do have a point.

Now on to the game itself. Since I'm not sure where to start first I'll go with the obvious choice, graphics.

So, warframe, compared to other games doesnt look bad nor it's Crysis 3 level of fidelity. The overall look of the game and how it performs made me think few times it's running on an Unreal 3 engine, but I was wrong. It's running on their custom build Evolution engine. So yeah, mistaking it for U3 is a good thing, because U3 is an excelent engine. The visuals in the game are how to say it, "fine". Nothing bad or good that is noteworthy. Ugly grineer and meaty looking warframes is the style, do not mix it up with graphics.

Only major complaint I have is that some of the animations are kind of blah, or look strange, especially the shockwave stomp animation for the MOAs. Then again, that's just my opinion.

Next thing, let's see... Level design.

I'm sure everyone here is sick of looking at the same mines and spaceship interiors, but relatively recently a new area was added. The snowy exterior areas usually populated by corpus, that was probably the most welcome and refreshing addition to the game. But those exterior levels don't make those mines and ships look any better. Though do take note, a lot of assets are reused on every level, and some are used quite intelligently. Ever wondered, how can a decent looking game like this fit in 1.3Gb of space? efficient level design, reusing assets as much as possible without going overboard. So overall, level design was bad, but the new exterior levels do show signs of it going the right way.

Some areas seem reused so often though, that you memorize that "block" (as in, building block) and it gets kind of boring when you enter the next room and get that deja vu sense of having been there before... because you have been there before, just in a different part of the level. Some block arrangements also seem to confuse the minimap waypoint in such a way that it turns what would be an otherwise simple level into a frustrating maze that eventually ends with you ragequitting. Then again, it is beta, so I expect that more tilesets will be made in due time and that old tilesets will receive more additions.


Gameplay.

Now, a lot of people say that gameplay is similar to mass effect. Don't take me wrong, mass effect is a great game, and it's good to have your game compared to some of the best out there if not the best. But they are mistaken, first and most obvious difference, the pacing. Warframe is much faster and it doesnt utilize the conventional cover system seen in Mass Effect and Gears of War games. And that's a good thing, do you really want to sit behind a crate the whole firefight when you can just flank them and cut them in half with a cyber katana?
Guns feel good, not to hard to control, butI have to point out the issue with the crosshair. The crosshair zero point is offset by a little downwards. You can test that out with a snipetron and a wall that has a spot that you can use as a reference point. Or the green dot on the doors. Aim at it and then zoom in, youll see that the white dot is slightly above the point you were aiming at. Overall, gameplay is solid and I can't really point out anything bad about it.

Balance.

Warframe as a strict co op game, doesn't have to have gun balance calculated by some PhD from some fancy university, but some weapons truly are underpowered to the brink of being utterly useless. Same thing with warframes, but then again, balance is what gets changed the most in betas besides bugs. So I can't really speak about balance before full release.

F2P vs P2P

So the ever going discussion between the two mostly comes down to the platinum just being planly too expensive. And that's true, most of the people won't pay 20$ for a warframe, no matter what silly weapon you bundle it with. Now there's the founders program, but hat will last only until the end of the beta and can't be taken into account post launch when all the real reviews come out. being able to obtain everything besides cosmetics without paying is good. though to be honest, the time needed to obtain a new warframe and cost of credits are a bit high, the waiting time for crafting is utter rubbish. If someone took their time to farm the bloody boss 50+ times and materials required for it (presuming that credits are the least of your problems), you will make them wait 3 +1/2 days in best case just to pick it up? seriously, I personally like this game and I am slightly positively biased towards it, but not even I can pass by that B.

I've been playing for only a week or two now and I already have a Rhino building in my foundry. Personally, I don't mind the waiting, what I do mind is having to play the same boss repeatedly. More on that later...

Some things I haven't mentioned.

All the matches in warframe are hosted on party leader's PC, warframe devs only have the item and account servers, so having a lot of peope being F2P isn't all that detrimental to the game itself, because the renting costs are minimized, ensuring that the game will last. Overal that's a good thing and a bad thing as well. The lag... The blo*dy lag hwne playing with people who use tin can PCs or dial up internet... Seriously, atleast measure the players bandwidth and number of CPU cores to determine the best host. If I had a platinum every time I had to stand around like an idiot waiting for a material to drop on the ground so I can pick it up, I would probably own everything purchasable with platinum. Or just waiting for enemies to die, sheesh.

THIS! THIS A HUNDRED TIMES OVER! There NEEDS to be a minimum bandwidth requirement, along with a minimum CPU speed requirement. Perhaps a small benchmark could be baked into the game, and whenever a party comes together, whoever scored highest on the benchmark (how frequently this benchmark is ran... idk, but there should be one, and I definitely wouldn't mind having to wait a minute or so while a benchmark runs if it ensured that the next 2 hours were mostly lag-free) automatically gets host instead of the idiot with a ping that's over 9000!

Another issue. If someone with a problematic internet connection starts an alert mission in online mode, and everyone trying to connect to him get all kinds of errors and disconnections, the game should stop trying to connect to the same {Censored} host over and over. Seriously, atleast allow people to host their own games when playing online and not force them to connect to some guy who lives on the other side of the world because he selected the wrong region in the options.

This just ties into the same issue as the one above. Three consecutive fails should mean that you no longer attempt to connect to the same host, and that that host isn't displayed to you anymore.

The size of the game is commenable and more developers should use their recourses intelligently like digital extremes. Because a lot of us are sick of bloated 30Gbs games that take ages to download.

I was surprised at how fast this game downloaded. I have to agree with this.

Bosses are overall boring and plain bullet sponges, with the exception of the Jackal.

Plain and boring bullet sponges, including the Jackal, if you ask me. I haven't played all the bosses so far, but the only thing I see that makes the Jackal different is that you have to shoot his leg(s) which functions as a regenerating shield before you can touch his main healthbar. I also have to complain about that super cheap mortar attack, which, more often than not, results in a Total-Party-Kill if you happen to be caught in the middle of where he fires it due to not being able to get out of the ridiculous blast radius in time. There's also that one Blockhead (my personal nickname for the Corpus) boss that turns invisible, but that invisibility doesn't really do anything because the boss waypoint marker still tracks his every move. The waypoint marker should disappear when he does, or perhaps have a "glitchy" effect (like when you're hit by a disrupter, except just for the waypoint marker instead of your whole UI) and remain in place until he becomes visible again.

And one suggestion which will probably implemented later, support for steam microtransactions. (Trading will be added in following patches so no need to mention it)

Steam achievements would be nice, too, like achievements for beating every level on a planet, or acquiring a new mastery level, or maybe just copy some of the mini-achievements already in game, e.g. speed kill, headhunter, etc.

Final verdict.

Warframe is a shining example of how F2P games should be made, ofcourse even such a good game isn't perfect and has its own issues, but those do little to stain the overall feel of the game. A game which has gameplay often compared to mass effect, graphics that are mistaken for U3 all of it for free. not to mention the ability to obtain everything by playing and a bit of farming. And besides, who doesn't like to play as a Cyber ninja who slashes everything with a katana and does crazy wallruns.

Now, I wonder what do you guys think, about warframe and the review itself (besides the typos).

Oh look a typo! BURN HIM!

[Grimly Feendish]

Nice review :)
Personally I have a love/hate relationship with the game. I don't play for the exp or materials but for the teamwork side of things.

I love the game when everyone acts as a squad and it is that which makes the game shine. There is nothing better than moving as a pro unit using suppressing fire, flanking etc.

The game also fails on the same point.
I have just had a game with an asshat that did a run and gun leaving myself and another player up to our butts in gunfire. By the time we got to the assassination target he was already stuffed and the tosser responsible was already on his way to the exit. As a personal opinion, it really hurts the game when someone geared up to hell and back drops into a low level game and lolstomps it solo.

Maybe in the future the person hosting the game can set the level range they want to play with.

[Snake?]

pretty good review

I really like the randomization of the maps in warframe. Only other games I can think of with randomize map everytime you play a new game is diablo2 and 3. Unlike Warframe, it isn't fix on a single camera angel which is a win for me.

[Velmarshal]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Grimly Fiendish:

Nice review :)
Personally I have a love/hate relationship with the game. I don't play for the exp or materials but for the teamwork side of things.

I love the game when everyone acts as a squad and it is that which makes the game shine. There is nothing better than moving as a pro unit using suppressing fire, flanking etc.

The game also fails on the same point.
I have just had a game with an asshat that did a run and gun leaving myself and another player up to our butts in gunfire. By the time we got to the assassination target he was already stuffed and the tosser responsible was already on his way to the exit. As a personal opinion, it really hurts the game when someone geared up to hell and back drops into a low level game and lolstomps it solo.

Maybe in the future the person hosting the game can set the level range they want to play with.

Well most of that deppends on the players themselves. And about the level range, what if a guy has a new warframe at rank 0 and he want to level it up with his rank 30 guns?

[Lumidama]

You can make an impressions post, but calling it a full on review is silly(especially when talking about tile sets that will change over time). Because the review would only fully apply to the Beta and not the full release in a lot of cases. The most obvious being....reviewing Aliens colonial marines based on the E3 version people could play of the game and then the mess it was on release.

Also, you are on ships. Ships that seem to be meant to be military vessels. If you have seen any Military vehicles or really any vehicles in general...they are all the same. If you have seen 1 submarine you have seen them all. If you have seen 1 Corvette frigate from star wars....you have seen them all. I am just glad they bothered to make the levels randomly generated.

[Chicory]

you're right, We shouldn't stick the "it's in beta" tag to every negative review. (im a main offender)

Now things like grind i dont care about since the base game is unlockable without need to purchase. Though the scenary doesn't change, the Devs said they are working on more tilesets, so i do believe new players should look into it on google or the forums instead of blasting these or main forums with comments like "OMGzzzz erry level luuks da same, dis game suckzzzz"

Same goes with enemies, they are thinking of more factions but 3 are the only ones for now

[Velmarshal]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Valedrel:

You can make an impressions post, but calling it a full on review is silly(especially when talking about tile sets that will change over time). Because the review would only fully apply to the Beta and not the full release in a lot of cases. The most obvious being....reviewing Aliens colonial marines based on the E3 version people could play of the game and then the mess it was on release.

While that is mostly true, games in beta versions should have fully fleshed out gameplay and other features. the whole point of beta is to fix bugs, rebalance weapons and add more content. I have rarely seen games that completely change their gameplay during beta. Revamps of some systems, maybe, but no major features. they won't for example change it to a first person shooter with regenerating health overnight.

Personaly I think you could make a review of beta games by taking into account the fact that most things are subject to change (not everything). If everything was truly subject to change this wouldn't be even alpha but prototyping phase, which never goes public.

Oprindeligt skrevet af Valedrel:

Also, you are on ships. Ships that seem to be meant to be military vessels. If you have seen any Military vehicles or really any vehicles in general...they are all the same. If you have seen 1 submarine you have seen them all. If you have seen 1 Corvette frigate from star wars....you have seen them all. I am just glad they bothered to make the levels randomly generated.

True, but as someone previously said, after a certain amount of time you memorize the tiles and technically know every level in advance without even playing it.
While that is also true about military vehicles, it's hardly relevant to this because levels are randomly generated. No military vehicle is randomly generated.

[Gingka pls]

I don't have a word wall to say , game is good - is in beta so we cannot expect everything to be perfect. The waiting time to build something is worth it.