Last year I was trying to find something to play daily, since I ditched Destiny a few years ago. Then I decided to try Warframe, I got 90h on it, even tho I know it’s very little I think I can have an opinion already.
I got overwhelmed by how hard the game tries to make me spend money, I might be exaggerating but I think literally everything has a way to be boosted or achieved by paying. This kind of completely kills that friendly competitive aspect of the game like you achieve something and you just can’t tell if it was legit or someone paid for it.
For example I remember there was this double resources boost and other kind of boosts that double many things you do in the game, and I kind of felt bad thinking “fuck man… look how much I farmed here, if I had paid for it, it’d be double”, which often was letting me down.
Then suddenly they show that daily offer, I got a 75% OFF offer on game currency and FOMO syndrome just hit, I bought it. I asked on Reddit sub if it’s worth it and everybody was just saying they pray to get offers like that, then I thought: well, it seems good I’ll do it.
And I did it, now I see how manipulated I got by this game. I didn’t spend too much, a 75% OFF was like an old game price, I thought it was fair to pay a game price for playing the game, at least once.
But then I realized if I kept doing it I’d lost myself and always want more. Then I just decided to ditch this game as well before it was too late. The game looks good overall but man… What an aggressive monetization, it’s definitely not just cosmetics, you pay to speed up things and way more stuff than cosmetic.
I know that late game you’ll eventually farm cosmetics and earn many stuff that at first is bought only by real money, but that’s a massive almost inhuman grind to achieve we’re talking like 1000-5000h. And then at the end you think again “fuck… I should’ve payed for a few stuff, I’d have double of everything now”.
I mean I don’t get it, this game isn’t all of this, it feels everything you do in the game there’s a part on the screen screaming “LOOK AT HERE IF YOU PAY YOU CAN GET IT EASIER AND WITH EXTRA STUFF WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”.
I fell for it once and now I see how I was manipulated, Warframe somehow helped me on my decision to not spend a cent on extra content anymore. Btw I didn’t spend any of my game currency I bought with real money, I just made a mistake and cut it right away.
Been a while since I played, but I didn’t even reach 1k hours and was trading stuff much earlier than that. In 850h I think I bought plat once, and made it to 21 (iirc) mastery total, with a dozen or two frames and weapons in store. The only thing I spent plat on is either intermediate currency for trading, or more slots (which you still get plenty of for free from events and such).
The game involves a lot of grinding to begin with, but you can easily farm a bit to find something to sell for plat.
Also Reddit misled you a bit. The game throws 50 and 75% off plat fairly regularly at you.
Especially about the competitive thing though: I’ve never had that thought. I’ve never seen it as competitive to begin with, even in a friendly way. And afaict, there’s nothing you could do with money that would give you too much of an advantage. Maybe skip a bit of the grind, but a lot comes from mastery levels, build synergies, and knowing how to play your frame right… And even then outside of Steel Path and other endgame-ish content you can easily nuke an entire level with minimal effort.
All that said: yeah, it’s a free to play game and it has a few features that will make you want to spend money. You can absolutely not spend a single cent and achieve whatever you want though, which is why people praise it. It just means playing the game more, so the question really becomes whether you enjoy the gameplay loop to begin with and how much time you’re willing to spend.
The short answer to your question is that for the vast majority its very easy to ignore. If youre the kind of player that absolutely must be able to collect everything there is to collect, youre gonna have a bad time even if you pay. There is no friendly competitive aspect to it, its an easy game with a big grind.
To be honest, having been in the exact same situation with other games, I think the problem is you.
I’ve played Warframe for hundreds of hours, I never once felt forced to spend money. I had fun with my friends, we were farming the Frames we wanted, at our pace.
While I get your point, I think you should really consider WHY you want to spend money. What’s you goal with the game ? Are you at least having fun playing it, or are you achieving a list of chores as fast as possible in order to feel the achievement of having 100% the game ? If it’s the later, it’s a never ending quest. There won’t be pride at the end, just frustration, and wasted money.
Hey, my 2 cents here since I’ve over 2000h in Warframe. I never had this feeling “I have to buy XY” but on the other hand I’m a cheap ass which thinks twice about every penny spent… I never spent a dime on Warframe but have buddies who buys every big pack and so on. Later on you’re able to trade with other players and earn platinum (premium currency) this way. But I can see it maybe get frustrating when the needed items won’t drop. If you’ve got the feeling to have buy boosters to reduce farming, this game won’t be a good choice for longer terms. You may check out path of exile since their monetisation is focused on inventory space (but kind of not hard limiting) and cosmetics.
The bottom line is that you can trade other players stuff for their platinum.
Picked up warframe in 2016, I think I have something like 5k hours in it with some breaks while I waited for the account move and off and on because I’m the last of my clan.
I’ll preface by saying I’ve spent around $300 on the game in that time, including purchasing the prime pack for Wukong as he’s my main. That said, I wholly champion DE’s minorization for three big reasons.
-
Player trades - if you look at my account I’ve got well over $2k worth cosmetics and decor. The difference between what I paid and what I have is entirely due to selling rivens and prime parts on the market and the generalities of random players that I’ve bonded with on long grinds.
-
Communty feedback - every* time DE has dropped the ball on a grind or a price, the community out cry leads to an immediate fix on the issue and account refunds of the platinum and resources uses by anyone who paid full price. Every time I come back from a break I get at least a load of forma from reworks they’ve done to something I own.
*to this day they still haven’t dealt with the Garuda release pack and the hema but I’m the only one complaining about the prior and the later is a meme.
- Plat is just for flex - yes, doubling drops and instant builds feel exciting, but if you just casually play through the start chart and the various missions, you get all the resources you ever need. Weapons and frames are really cheap to build if you just play the game. Staggering your foundry builds gives you time to Max them out before the next one finished. Everything that actually matters in the game can be earned by playing the game. While I would complain about the ability to buy most of the late game things, the game is co-op. When I land in a match with a whale, he’s not paying to make me lose, he’s paying to make us win. I’ve never needed a doubler to get what I need, just the right build, a friend, and about 2 hours keeping your abilities up in the right room.
All in all, that FOMO you’re feeling is something trained into you by Destiny, I had it bad when I was playing. Warframe doesn’t remove content, doesn’t hold out, and your play experience doesn’t diminish if you don’t get the limited edition bobble head that comes with the prime releases. I’ve put the money I’ve spent into this game because it’s genuinely given me far more than that worth of fun and engagement. That’s $30 bucks a year over the time I’ve been playing, I spend more than that on DVDs.
Just dive in and do things, if you want to get something specific, ask in the chat, the discord, the reddit, or any of the other community resources, one of us ancients will gladly carry you through it. DM me if you need any mods, help with the basic eidolon hunt, or need credits.
-
This is why I avoid f2p games. Much rather pay for a game than to be constantly hounded. There’s so many cheap indie games. Or cheap old AAA games.
I wouldn’t spend a second in a game where you need to grind to unlock gameplay changing stuff that you can unlock with money.
I’m 1800 hours deep and overall across the 10 years or so I’ve played I’ve spent about 200 dollars total because there were some pretty cool cosmetic packs. Not gonna harp on and repeat what others have said because they pretty much summed it up, but my only addition is the reason I’m fully ok with it is because of the type of game it is.
Warframe is not competitive, in any way, shape or form really. Conclave exists but we don’t talk about that becuase it sucks. The rest of the entire game is entirely cooperative and designed to be enjoyed with people helping you and vice versa. It’s among the few games you can ask in chat and someone will most likely almost always be willing to help you out with a mission, or even sometimes just GIVING you premium items or currency. Nothing you pay for really gives you an edge OVER other players, it only helps you help more. And the few whales that DO dump money in, really only helps the in game economy.
I was in your shoes just today lol. I’ve got about 50h of gametime and bought a platinum pack because I heard 75% off is fairly rare. I don’t really feel bad about it - even if I stop playing today, it was well worth it.
The monetization doesn’t feel too aggressive, it seems fairly balanced, but it does have some annoyances. Not sure how similar mmos behave, but the amount of weeklies, dailies, battle passes, layers upon layers of complexity and currencies, and other mild fomo does get old. I suppose servers need to be kept up, and they’ve been successful at the pay-for-convenience model for the past 13 years, so they must be doing something right.
Luckily the gameplay and the overall loop is fun, the pve is pretty good and the community seems to be one of the better ones.
You might feel better if you’d take off the completionist glasses. The amount of grinding and farming to get everything without paying is indeed annoying but again, it’s a 13yo game, the backlog adds up.
Reminds me of Halo pushing skingrinder when Inf released. Just use default gray and grind your actual skills.
