Cyber-Ninjas in Space - A Warframe Thread

[Arcanum]

So let's get the basics out of the way first: What the hell is Warframe?

It's a free-to-play co-op third-person shooter PvE dungeon-crawler. You and up to three friends (or random internet folks) work your way through semi-randomly generated maps to complete whatever objective you are given for that mission. The game blends shooting, casting skills, and melee combat, along with very fun and fluid movement and free-running mechanics.

The available weaponry includes assault rifles, shotguns, snipers, swords, daggers, axes, hammers, staves, smgs, pistols, hell there's even a bow. You have a single melee button instead of needing to swap to your melee weapon, but there's still combos and charge attacks that give it some nice depth.

Most importantly Digital Extremes, the devs behind the game, actually listen to the fans. The game is being constantly updated and has improved a ridiculous amount since I started playing in closed beta. And to top it off the game is extremely fun and I recommend everyone gives it a go.


That right there is the TL;DR version, but brace yourselves. What started out as a simple "check out this game" thread evolved into a sort of guide to your first moments in Warframe. If you're satisfied with the TL;DR version and just want to know where the micro-transactions are at, I talk about that at the very bottom in the last section so you can skip to that. Anyway, enjoy.

A Frame of Your Very Own

When you start playing you get to choose from one of three starter frames. Volt, Loki, and Excalibur..

Every Warframe has four unique* abilities that are a huge part of gameplay, and these three starter Frames are only the tip of the iceberg. I might talk a bit more about the other Frames later on, but for now I'll keep it to the starting three.

*there's a bit of an overlap in some of their "ultimate" abilities, where a lot of them tend to be large AoE damage moves

I don't know if they updated the starting tutorial, but when I played it they didn't give you much information on the three starting frames, so here's some info on each to help you decide.

Volt: Volt is a caster-type Warframe, with high-damage electric abilities. His ultimate is one of the most devastating in the game, as it covers a huge area and deals insane damage. This emphasis on skills comes at a cost of reduced health, but you have higher base energy to allow you more frequent casting.

Loki: Loki is a stealth-type Frame, with no direct damage skills. He can use a decoy, instantly switch places with an enemy or ally, briefly turn invisible (giving him a massive damage boost while cloaked, and attacking doesn't break the cloak), and disarm enemies around him, forcing them to fight like gentlemen (with their fists). He is extremely versatile, but you will be relying more on your guns and your melee weapon to deal damage.

Excalibur: Excalibur is a "balanced" frame according to the game, but really he's an up-close-and-personal damage dealer. He can dash into combat, dealing significant damage to any enemy he passes through, or use his ultimate to launch swords at every nearby enemy, pinning them to the walls. He also has a blind, and a super-jump to improve is vertical movement capabilities. He is an extremely powerful frame, with little to no drawbacks.

Getting Started: Missions

After you have cleared the tutorial and picked your Frame, this is what you will see.

Yes, just a simple map of the solar system (along with some extra planets/moons). However, each planet is a hub for a wide variety of missions. Clicking on a planet will show you this.

Each of those circles are missions, and every mission has a different objective. Hovering your mouse over one of them will tell you what the mission is, what faction you will be fighting, and what level of enemies you will face. As seen here.

I'll take more about Factions in a moment. For now, missions. No two missions are the same thanks to two things.

First, the random map generation is pretty great. You will see a lot of the same compartments used across missions, but the way they are connected and the overall map layout can change drastically. There are also three tilesets: A Corpus spaceship, Grineer asteroid base, and an icy outdoors research station that I can only explain with "maybe a terraformed moon/asteroid."

Second, your mission is always subject to change. You may start out trying to destroy a reactor, but the RNG might decide, nah, you're just going to kill everyone aboard the vessel. Or maybe after you rescue a hostage you have to download and extract data from their network. The objectives changing on the fly help spice up otherwise repetitive content.

Factions

There are four factions in the game, the one you are a part of and the three you fight against, each with their own quirks. So let's just jump right in.

Tenno: You are a Tenno. A mysterious warrior capable of operating Warframes. The Tenno are the only ones who can use Warframes, and have just recently been woken from a very long period of stasis. The Solar System is a mess and they're here to clean it up.

Grineer: The Grineer are humans that have begun to degrade through excessive cloning. They are heavily armored, so all but a few weapons deal reduced damage to them (unless you're aiming for their exposed heads). The Grineer also employ "commando" units, powerful elite foes that can take, and dish out, a severe beating.

Corpus: The Corpus forsake the brutality of the Grineer in favor of the elegance of machinery. Expect to fight swarms of "Moa" mechs, bipedal shielded drones with mounted plasma weaponry. There are also humanoid, biological Corpus, but don't try landing a headshot on them; their helmets are heavily armored. But don't worry, they rely on energy shields to protect the rest of their body so some sustained fire is all it takes to mow them down. Also, keep an eye out on the ceiling for security cameras. If they spot you the Corpus laser defenses and auto-turrets will activate, and will only deactivate if you destroy the camera that has you in its sights.

Infested: Think zombies, or the flood from Halo. The Infested does exactly that: infests and mutates both the Corpus and Grineer to its own designs. Fortunately for you these things are extremely flammable, and their fleshy nature makes them easy prey to a sword.

Now as I said earlier every mission you will go up against one of these three factions, but that's not entirely true. There's always a chance your mission will be invaded by another faction, turning the mission into a three way brawl. Or, you can just let them fight each other while you slip by unnoticed.

Your Loadout

You can equip your Tenno with three weapons: A primary, a pistol, and a melee weapon. Most weapons can be bought with in-game credits in the game's Market, but some weapons you can only buy the blueprint with credits and need to craft the actual weapon (more on crafting later). Primary weapons run the gamut of rifles, snipers, shotguns, and as mentioned above even a bow. What you use depends entirely on your play style. With pistols you have your standard pistol, dual pistols, smgs (and dual smgs), revolver-level pistols, and even pistols that fire bolts that can pin enemies to walls.

And finally melee weapons, ranging from swords to staves to axes, blah blah I said it all up top. There are also dual-wield varieties of a few weapons. You only have one melee button, but tapping it gives you a simplistic combo, and holding it starts a charge attack. If you're sprinting you can crouch to go into a slide and then perform a sliding melee attack (usually a rapid spinning slash), and even an aerial melee to knock foes to the ground, where you can then tap your melee button to deliver a ground finisher. Melee weapons also have get a massive damage bonus on unaware enemies, allowing you to try your hand at stealth until the shit inevitably hits the fan. Of course getting into melee range can be risky, but sending your foes flying with a warhammer, or cutting a group in half with twin axes swinging in a blur is extremely satisfying.

Unlimited Power

Alright you know the basics of the game, now how do you gain the power of a Ninja Space God? The mod system.

Honestly, this video right here is a great way to understand the system. That's the official tutorial released by the devs.

But I'll try to give you the short and sweet version. Mods are items that are randomly dropped by enemies as you play the game. Low level enemies are more likely to drop low rarity mods, whereas high level enemies drop rarer mods. Even your skills are technically mods, albeit mods specific to each individual Frame. Every Frame and every weapon has 8 mod slots. So if you wanted you could only slot 3 of your 4 abilities in favor of having an extra passive bonus. However, Frames and weapons have a limited "power capacity." The better the mod, the more power is required to slot it. Every time your Frame or weapon levels up, it gains 1 power capacity, up to a max of 30 (this can be doubled to 60 if you "supercharge" your Frame or weapon, but more on that later). You can't stack multiples of the same mod, but you can upgrade mods through the fusion system (and fusing duplicates is the most effective way to level up mods).

Honestly, if you watch the tutorial, and mess around with it a bit in-game, it all clicks into place and is very intuitive.

But This Is F2P, What's the Catch?

Remember when I said this game is a dungeon crawler? Well mods aren't the only loot you can find. Enemies will also randomly drop crafting materials. Every planet has three materials that drop in that region (usually common, uncommon, and rare drop rates), and the various materials are used to craft new weapons and Warframes. You buy blueprints in the game's market with in-game credits (that you earn from looting, killing enemies, and completing missions) and then you use the required materials to build that item. Just playing through the game (playing a mission unlocks the next missions its linked to on the map, so you kind of carve your path through the solar system) will net you enough materials to craft a few things as you need/want them without needing to grind much.

But in the end you will resort to grinding for a few things. 1) Rare materials can be a pain in the ass to get. They have a higher drop chance from bosses, but it's still a pain. 2) Rubedo. This uncommon material is needed for everything (okay, almost everything) and you need a damn lot of it. 3) Depending how much time you spend in Venus before moving to other planets, Alloy Plate is also a pain for the amount needed in warframes and certain weapons.

4) Warframe Blueprint parts. Yeah this merits its own paragraph. You need more than just the blueprint you buy on the market to build a new Warframe. The market blueprint is just for assembling the three pieces of the Warframe into its complete, usable form. To build those parts you need to farm the boss that drops those blueprints. If you're lucky, you'll get all the blueprints you need in about 4-5 runs (that's the best I've managed). If you're unlucky, you'll be doing 20-30 runs (I've been really unlucky at times). At the very least you'll be getting a rare material or a blueprint duplicate that you can sell for credits.

Anway, what does all this crafting talk have to do with the F2Pness of the game?
Well here's a look at the crafting screen.
And here's what it takes to build a new frame and its three pieces.

Notice the times on the bottom right of those tabs? Yes that's right, from 12 to 24 hours is how long it takes to craft most things, and it takes 3 whole days to assemble a new Warframe. You can build any amount of items simultaneously, but it's still a hefty time sink, and that's where they get you. You can skip all the farming, all the crafting, and all the wait times, and get any Warframe or weapon with "Platinum" that you buy with real money.

Fortunately nothing essential is hidden behind a pay wall. Everything that has an impact on the game (weapons, frames, the reactors/catalysts used to supercharge items, alternate helmets that modify base stats slightly) can be crafted in the game. The only things that can not be obtained without platinum are additional color palettes, and timed exp/credit boosts.

However, some of these items, such as those used to supercharge your frame/weapon and double their power capacity, alternate helmets, and several melee weapons are only obtainable through "Alert" missions. Alert missions are timed events that happen at random times. Here is what a regular alert looks like. Notice the timer in the top left.

Usually alert missions only offer bonus credits, but occasionally a question mark will show up in the rewards section, and that means there's one of these rare items up for grabs. The item reward in a "? Alert" (as they're called) is the same for all players, and there's an entire subforum on the Warframe forums dedicated to letting people know when these Alerts happen, as well as a Steam group.

The biggest culprit here is the Reactors/Catalysts, items used to Supercharge your Warframe or weapon, thus doubling its energy capacity for mods (boosting it from 1 per level to 2 per level, with the max doubling from 30 to 60). While Supercharging your frame and weapons isn't entirely necessary, it will make the late-game levels (mostly Pluto missions) much more challenging. It can also be disheartening knowing you missed one of these items because you were asleep or at work.

The crafting times and the randomness of "? Alerts" are the two biggest gripes free players have with the game, but overall it's not that bad compared to many other F2P games out there right now.

Well, that about concludes my intro guide to Warframe. I absolutely love this game and I recommend everyone gives it a shot. It's free, so you have nothing to lose.