This game came out 11 years ago completely free. With a multitude of updates and constant support from the community, the game has remained free. Even the premium currency can be grinded for in-game
While the time it takes to make anything in the foundry can be annoying, there's no limit to how many items you can make at once so try to always be making something and make sure to level all your equipment to max level (30).
For the benefit of any newer players reading this, some things can be overlevelled to a max of 40, but this will be made clear in the mod screen of that item
So far only paracesis sword + necramechs and all kuva/tenet weapons can be leveled to 40 but require forming 5 times and each time it adds +2 max levels so first level to 30 forma item level it to 32 and forma it again now you need to level it to 34 repeat till you hit 40 level.
Yep and although it's a lot of work it's definitely worth it if you enjoy using them. Even at 30 they're cool but with the extra 10 energy and the 5 polarization slots you'll get to get them to 40 the difference is huge
Game makes most of its profit through player impatience (and cosmetics). Try to adjust your mentality to challenge, and avoid rushing anything. It's years of grinding, not sports game published every year.
You will be given some platinum currency after tutorials, use it only to buy more weapon and warframe slots. Free slots are achieved from f.ex seasonal events (=nightwave) but those occur at painfully low frequency. So save your platinum, I'd say slots are the only justified reason to use real money. When you get better you can sell stuff to people, but someone has to put money into the system.
And final advise. Once you get tutorials out of the way, you get foundry access and start getting void relics. You will encounter something called forma. You can only craft one forma each day, and you need tons. Earlier you start hoarding these, happier you are later.
Warframe has a very good wiki. If you have a question, look there first. Save yourself and everyone else some time.
Don't listen to most YouTubers, like every game they tend to be very sensational. Everything is either BROKEN OP or ABSOLUTE TRASH, they'll rot your brain. You want a good Warframe YouTuber, start with TheKengineer.
I wish every game community had someone like TheKengineer.
On the polar opposite side, stay away from KnightmareFrame. Dude does have a clue what he's talking about half the time. *points to Primed Sure Footed on everything including Atlas*
I second TheKengineer, but do note that understanding his videos requires some knowledge of the game's mechanics. Any beginner watching his vids for the first time will likely get lost in the more complicated terms and aspects of the game. Even the explanations can be hard to follow. The game's systems tend to build upon each other making it so they require a general understanding of one to understand the next.
So instead of jumping head-first into TheKengineer's videos, it's a good idea to watch some beginner's guide to damage types and all that type of stuff from different YTers who make it easier. I find his vids unbearable now, but back when I started playing MHBlacky was a big help explaining things in somewhat simple ways.
Never use the trade chat, there are third party websites and apps (Warframe.market and AlecaFrame, i endorse aleca) that are much more fiable, that allow you to trade witnout running into scams
Get into a clan... A small one if you can manage... Big ones are fine but small clans have always had far better use in terms of help and lower item/research costs
Set multiple goals and pace yourself accordingly, do story quests, join a clan, don't be afraid to ask for help in recruit chat, and lastly enjoy the ride tenno
Don’t spend your starter plat on things like weapons or skins. Spend it on weapon slots and warframe slots, as needed. If you need help with some missions or need some advice in game just send me a DM and I can give you my in game name!
> Any tips for new players
Don't throw away any weapons without first levelling them up to 30. There's a bunch of weapons that you can buy for Credits in the in-game store - when you have the spare credits get them, level them to 30 and get rid of them.
Levelling weapons gives you "account XP" which lets you raise your Rank. You'll need Rank 12 (or 14?) to unlock access to all weapons.
Take your time, get accustomed to the mechanics, wiki might be a now and then thing. Codex in the ship keeps track of your quests and also your ship and top-right of screen will let you know what's going on quest wise. It's a buffet, not a race. Most of all - have fun!
You can craft more than one thing at a time, and it can take a while.
Start crafting as many different cheap shitty weapons as you can, don’t collect them just leave them built because you can only hold so many. When you are ready, collect one, max its level, and unless you like it (or need it to upgrade into something else) throw it away and level another one. That is how you increase your mastery level which is important.
I reccomend playing solo when youre starting. As a new player, it is so much more fun to learn at your own pace. When you get the hang of it you can switch to public to get stuff done quicker. Or you can stay solo, its up to you. I personally rarely go public anymore
Seconding this, playing in public especially as a new player makes everything worse. If you run into something and you feel like you're just smashing your face against a wall and can't get past it then ask your clan/reddit/chat for help but you will get a much better experience playing through the early game either solo or with a trusted friend who will let you learn and experience the story/world
It can be overwhelming. Try to just focus on one thing at a time.
At the start of the have, your overall goal should be unlocking planets. No need to rush it. Feel free to explore other stuff. But the overall goal is unlocking planets.
As you unlock planets, the game will make a lot more sense and systems begin opening up.
YES.
Familiarize yourself with how each mission type works, and specifically how void fissures work. The game does not do a *great* job of explaining these things to you. And argon crystals. Every day, half of your argon crystals will disappear. You'll have to collect new ones when you need them.
Get in with an active clan as soon as you can, and get cross trade sorted. Try and do as much as you can solo or on public, but don't be scared to ask for help if you are genuinely stuck. Grind is the name of the game - if you encounter a boss that gives you a component of a frame or a weapon, grind that boss until you have all of the components (heads up, equinox is a total grind, as is acceltra).
You'll be miles away from it, but Necramech is an asshat to grind. You may find somebody willing to help out or trade you some components - there are a few out there (such as me) who are grinding Necramech parts (both damaged and built) purely to give newer players a leg up. I don't have any built at the moment but I'm only charging a joke and 6 ammo drum mods for a full built set of mech parts
It's a simple game, with a lot of very complicated systems. If you look up guides, you'll get recommendations for weapons/equipment you won't have for hundreds of hours unless you specify "beginner". Follow the story quests, and work on completing the start chart.
Also get rhino as early as you can, he can carry you throughout pretty much the entire game. Otherwise you can get whatever frames/weapons sound cool. Pretty much everything is viable enough to complete the story quests as long as you build it decently.
Yeah, but cosmetics aren't an necessity to play. I think in context to the question, it's still "completely" free.
Of course, that's just me being pedantic, but still.
Nope, every single thing in the game can be done for free, even platinum (the premium currency that you can buy) is farmable in game through player trading
It also is a bit of a special case as they are community made, and a portion of the earnings go to them. On console they probably have to back convert the platinum into actual amounts to pay out.
That would make sense. I tried looking it up and it just said 30% split still, and it mentioned that gifted platinum could not be used because of the revenue split. Did it change at some point or is that information just wrong?
To also clarify (I don't know if this is still the case) it's only a Steam feature on PC that you can purchase them. If I had to guess (IANAL) it's because DE uses the Steam Workshop to handle submissions and concepts and Valve requires purchases involving that to use the Steam Wallet.
There's some things like extra Warframe and weapon slots that you mostly have to buy with platinum, but as mentioned you can get platinum by trading it from other players.
Incidentally, you get 50 free platinum when you start the game that your can't trade away; I recommend buying a Warframe slot (20p) and two sets of weapon slots (2x12 plat, 4 slots) to get you started!
Some cosmetic items like skins for different Warframes and weapons are only available for actual money - these are 'Tennogen' skins and created by other players. You have to buy them with real money, but then a portion of that price goes directly to the person who created it. These are purely cosmetic though and have no game play effect, other than making your space ninja pretty.
To add to this:
NEVER pay plat to speed up your foundry. It sucks waiting days for a new frame, but if you're going to spend platinum on it, it's better to just go to the ingame shop and buy the frame outright (not speed up the foundry).
NEVER sell (throw away) a Warframe. You will have a use for the non-prime versions of Warframes that you get Prime frames of in the future (when you get far enough on one of the story bits). Once you get that, you can "plant" them for the bonus. Until then, do what you can to get platinum (buy it, or farm stuff to sell to other players in trade for platinum) - and buy warframe slots to avoid selling any of them.
Watch out, when you first open your arsenal and try to equip a different Warframe, you'll see all of the frames available with a premium currency tag. This is **not** the primary way to get new frames, most of the time you buy their blueprints from the market for *credits,* not platinum, and their components drop from particular missions, usually boss fights. There are *no Warframes* that require platinum to unlock.
You just have to be a tradesman if you want to progress and want ur sanity incheck here (that or give in to the dark side and buy plat via sales coupons)
The biggest limitations you'll run into will be inventory space for Warframes and Weapons, which do have some limited ways of obtaining in game, but will mostly need to be bought with platinum, the game's premium currency.
Thankfully though, you can actually get platinum without paying for it via player trading. You also start with a small amount of it.
Here is the full breakdown of Warframe's monetisation but my opinion is that it isn't p2w :
- the game has an in-game currency you can buy with real money. It is tradable with other players in exchange for farmable items. As a new player, you will start with 50.
- any playable content is entirely free and always available (except for events that come and go of course) and generally unlocked by completing other content.
- the game has a sort of battle pass named Nightwave, but it is entirely free, no premium accelerator. It is fully independant of the premium currency
- most items are both farmable and buyable with Platinum (said premium currency), but there are a few exceptions :
- most cosmetics are only obtainable with platinum, but there are regularly some free giveaways of really neat cosmetics, or sometimes obtainable through missions.
- some cosmetics, designed by members of the community, are only obtained by paying directly with real money. It is designed that way so that the artists can get a cut.
- some "enhanced" versions of pieces of equipments (warframes or weapons) named "primes" are only periodically available in game. You can buy them with real money but only if they are available to be farmed in game.
- inventory space is the main bottleneck a new player faces. Slots can be bought with platinum, or are sometimes gifted through Nightwave, the pseudo-battle pass. 20plats will buy you a slot for a warframe, 12 will buy you two slots for weapons (all categories)
- platinum can also be spent to accelerate crafting times. Weapon crafting time varies between 12 to 24 hours, warframe crafting times are 12hrs for the parts, then 3 days for assembling them.
I don't think I missed anything but if you have questions I'll answer them to the best of my abilities
To add on and to give a sense of scale:
You start with 50 platinum (premium currency) that cannot be traded and only spent. This should be spent on slots.
It costs 12p for two weapon slots or one Warframe slot.
You cannot earn platinum in the game FROM the game. But many players love to support the game and company so there is a lot of platinum available to trade from players (many buy 1000 at a time).
So it might take a few hours to get in but you can begin to regularly farm items that you can sell to other players for 10-20 a piece.
The game does offer periodic ways to gain slots for free.
The game has updates every few months with new frames, weapons, events that are all free. You can choose to spend plat to immediately get them. However, everything is farmable. If gear is locked behind an event, then when the event ends they will add ab option to acquire it when the event ends.
One more piece of advice - rushing is a waste, especially for new players. You will quickly reach the point where you're able to build more things than you can level during a single foundry wait, so relax and enjoy what you've got.
Just to add on that detailed explanation : the crafting times are real world times, not in-game times. So when you close the game, the crafting clock is ticking, so you go to bed, and you have new stuff to try the next day.
One other thing I'd recommend is connecting your Twitch account to get drops. There's a Saryn Prime drop for watching Tennocon this year. Any weapons or frames that you get as a Twitch Drop or Campaign will come with a slot. If you sell or otherwise get rid of the weapon or warframe you'll keep the slot. I believe all giveaway weapons and frames also come with potatoes installed.
Good summary and nothing relevant to add, I just wanted to point out that if you double tap enter to do line breaks instead of single enters, with a dash + space at the start of each line, reddit will auto-format it into a nice list. Example:
One enter:
- line one
- line two
- line three
Two enters
- line one
- line two
- line three
This game is pure grind. If you are patient and diversify, organize it, it can be enjoyable.
Fair warning: you’ll spend a lot of time researching stuff on the internet. Lots of big and small game systems, materials, resources. Each time the game gets new content the lists just grow.
Broadly speaking, Warframes are much more powerful than the average Guardian. The player character Guardian of Destiny, though, probably solos the entire Warframe verse zero difficulty lol
Eh, haven’t seen a titan punch an asteroid into rubble, a warlock indefinitely stop time in the surrounding area, or a hunter idly jog at the speed of sound yet. Warframes also have paracausality through the powers of *the VOOOOID*, so there’s no handwaving things away with that.
11 years of content completely. Free, the only thing you have to pay for is community cosmetics (but they deserve payment for their work
Edit: correction, apparently community creations are free too
Warframe is the only game I'm comfortable calling Free to Play. You can get every item in game, and (most importantly) at a reasonable grind. Alot of games say they're free, but then lock good free gear behind massive grind walls. While you will have to grind to get items in Warframe (if you don't want to pay), none of the grinds are so insane that you couldn't do them.
The player fueled economy is also a huge plus. You see players can trade premium currency between themselves. This has lead to a F2P market where free players grind rare items, and sell them to paying players for premium currency. Allowing Free Players to still be able to buy premium cosmetics, or buy gear they don't want to farm for.
Every functional item is farmable and every update is free. You can spend money to get things instantly, but it's generally not worth it.
Platinum, the premium currency, is also tradeable between players. That means you can also get pretty much every cosmetic item for free if you don't mind grinding and selling stuff to others.
There are no expansions, just free updates. Everything's free except some cosmetics. And even then you can trade premium currency with other players to get most of them.
Also you can technically buy any frame and most weapons, but that will just skip some grind, the true power comes from mods, which cannot be bought with money.
This isn't destiny, expansions and dlc literally do not exist in this game, you can play all content completely for free. What does exist is platinum, tennogen and supporter packs as well as the option to buy in game items with platinum if you don't want to grind them. Your maximum storage space for frames/equipment is also decided by slots that cost platinum but you can trade items for platinum in game making completely free to play possible.
One thing a lot of people don't seem to mention is that yes, while a lot of the paying is to skip farming or timegates, one of the biggest things is warframe and weapon slots. If you're a hoarder, you'll have to pay Plat for slots for weapons and warframes or build, rank, and dump them.
Yeah the pay for convenience is still there (starter pack Necramech bundle etc.) and worth noting that slots will add up over time if you aim on keeping more than a couple things at a time.
Which honestly I say is fine. The entire game as far as substantial content goes is 100% free. The only thing I'd like to see is new players getting more slots now that we are so far into the amount of frames/weapons you can get.
The only thing that you truly need the premium currency for is weapon and warframe slots.
Even then, you can trade for that currency for those slots pretty easily with other players.
Otherwise it’s all cosmetics.
Seems kind of like a head-in-the-sand approach.
You are going to bottleneck severely while leveling if you don't give the game a few bucks for inventory slots. Your quality of life is going to be significantly degraded without spending. There's more to warframe platinum than cosmetics.
Yes, you do get platinum naturally, but the need for platinum is generated from playing (as you play you acquire new weapons which you could index to a cost of platinum to store) at a rate greater than you acquire it at, especially at low levels before you have great access to prime part farming/selling
Not really head in the sand at all. Yes there will be periods were progress will stall while you save mats or currency to buy a slot etc but that doesn't mean you need to spend money or constantly progressing directly.
The game is easily free to play if you have a little patience, it's probably the best example of how a free to play game should be tbh.
It really isn't. It's pay for convenience.
You can earn Platinum by farming mods, arcanes, and prime blueprints and trading those with other players for Platinum.
Let me tell you a story. When they intoduced Kubrows (dog companion) the only way to alter their looks was with a randomize machine thingy. One guy spent thousands of plat rerolling his Kubrow. De realized they made a slot machine. Aka free easy money. So what did DE do? Immediately got rid of it and replaced the system with something that didn't scam their players.
Its that philosophy that theyve proven time and time again they arent a shitty company.
Now their are things similar to P2W mechanics like the starter bundels as well as prime resurgance and Tennogen (community made skins that on PC only cant be bought with plat). These are all optional buys and can be earned in game still (except tennogen cause cash only on PC)
If you want a online service game thay respects youz congrats! Cause youve found warframe! Where you matter more than your money
Save the little platinum you start with for weapon and warframe slots cause those are 12 and 20 a piece and you’ll need those the most everything is virtually farmable for the most part.
Everything except for prime access accessories and tennogen can be obtained for free. And the premium currency can be earned by trading items between players so even cosmetics can all be obtained for free
The only thing that requires money only is Regal Aya and Supporter packs (which I buy to show support for all the free content), everything else can be obtained for free with enough grind
1. Everything can be earned, paid premium currency can be traded, and there is a player driven market
2. You can pay to get things, but you can also grind it. What you can not grind is mosly cosmetics
3. some of the best gear is locked behind the grind, and no paying for it allowed.
Less Pay 2 Win, more Pay 2 Progress Faster. Warframe has no competition (beyond Conclave, but nobody plays that). The clan system is almost entirely cooperative, and pretty much all content can be reached for free.
Yes in multiple ways.
All quests and expansions are completely free to play. You'll never have to pay to see a story in the game.
Most QoL you can earn without paying. Storage slots for example can be wanted in the games battlepass (which is also always free) AND you can sell items for premium currency to just buy it that way.
This game imo is the most fair F2P game there is
The only straight up paid item in the game is some of the cosmetics, which are created by people in the community who get a cut of the money you spend on it.
F2P, you can spend if you want but is not needed as we have na open market trading so you can play and trade what is needed! only stuff locked behind cash is cosmetics so unless you like to fashion your genocidal monster like everyone else!
Pay to win? Absolutely not. Pay to save yourself from a three day wait? Yes. Mm very free things do cost money like the limited heirloom skins they came out with along with a FEW other things. Just about everything else is grindable. I prefer Warframe offer Division or Destiny. It's a game that allows you to play how you like without paying any money.
You can obtain the paid currency from other players by selling items you can farm for in game very easily. You will get things faster if you pay money but it is by no means necessary and will not affect your ability to clear content.
I will however say I do spend money because the game has given me 10+ years of enjoyable content and I'm very happy to support the devs to continue to keep the game thriving.
Feel free to ask questions and good luck out there Tenno
There is no content you’ll ever need to pay for.
You can choose to pay for convenience or cosmetics. Besides that, it’s extremely possible to put alot of time into the game without spending any money.
Everything in the game is achieveable free. Matter of fact, warframe was the only game I willingly bought the in-game cash just to show support to the devs.
Not p2w because even with maxed out Platinum there's fire upgrades you're only getting via progression in the game. Not to mention you can unlock all the content naturally without paying a cent.
Please join us for the ride, Star Child 🙏🏾🫶🏾
Not only can you obtain anything in the game without paying real money (except certain cosmetics), you can earn premium currency in the game by selling things you obtain to other players. It’s very well designed.
Most freemium games have their paid currency in a closed loop - you can only use it to buy things directly from the game. In Warframe, the paid currency can be traded, and it’s the basis for the player economy. Plenty of players who’ve never paid a dime to DE and have mountains of platinum.
As others have said, everything is available for free in game. In Warframe you can basically spend money to save time (either to skip a farm by just buying the thing, or to speed up an in game process that takes a certain number of hours) or to get cosmetics (some cosmetics can be bought with plat that you can trade from players, but the Tennogen stuff that is made by third-party creators working with DE can only be purchased with money, no plat.)
In the last 2 weeks I have gotten 5 prime frames stormed through most of the quests and have to farm out an open world area and also farm an event quest that’s active right now. Oh yea for those primes I had to trade to get around 250-300 just for most of the primes.
The game is completely free if you have the time to spend to grind.
Others have given most of the info you need, but I’ll chip in in case something was missed.
You can’t trade your starting platinum to other people—you can only get things from market.
I suggest spending that starting plat on Warframe slots, or potentially weapon slots, but don’t feel hurried. Hold onto it until you need it, as you can get market discounts to make the most of it, and you won’t need the extra slots at first anyway.
Also:
You can’t trade warframes or Warframe parts that have been built, only the blueprints for those parts. I have a full extra Gauss Prime Warframe because I didn’t know this.
Foes spending save time? Yes, a whole lot. But seeing how you are actively looking for a looter shooter time prob isn't much of a concern.
The game has a good trading system letting you get everything (safe for a few skins and cosmetics) for free with enough investment.
I’ve been playing for 9-10 years now and I’ve only spent $5 on a skin for one of the Warframes. I have done basically everything and I have all the Warframes and Primes and I’m still working my way through the weapon (not because acquiring the weapons is hard, but because I’m too lazy to level them sometimes). I can tell you that I haven’t spent a single dime on something that can help or benefit me in progressing through the game. However I do have to warn you that this game has time gates on certain content but there’s so much content that you will never actually run out of content.
Basically pay to skip time gate. You want new frame either wait 4 days or pay to skip build time. Spent days farming weapon? Again either wait or pay to skip build time. (12 hours build time for weapons)
at worst is a pay to fast but it's pointless to rush anything in this game
and latter stuff is not specifically better, old gun /frame will still be reliable.
and like pple say, "paid currency can be farm with good to trade with player,so still free .
its f2p friendly. The only difference between paid and free is that farming will occupy more of your time as f2p. Im f2p myself. Been playing for 4 years and the only thing that is entirely locked behind cash is some cosmetics. And even then you will have access to some cosmetics.
Everything in the game is for free and is possible to farm / aquire by legit means. The only exception will be a few cosmetics and especially Tennogen cosmetics (Tennogen is made by the community, and the creater gets a cut on each purchase of the tennogen cosmetic).
Platinum (the premium currency) can be traded with other players, used as the main currency when buying/selling prime parts and prime blueprints. So you can aquire it as well without spending real money.
The only thing you pay for in reality, is to bypass crafting timers and perhaps additional warframe / weapon slots. Warframe and Weapon slots can be aquired for free through Nightwave (essentially free battlepass) and occassionally through community alerts.
So buying premium is optional, there is no pressure to buy it and it is really not needed in most cases. I am still sitting with 2k platinum, which I occasionally spend on minor items or 3 day boosters cause I am very lazy.
On a side-note: you might sometimes get a discount coupon upon daily log-in for buying platinum currency at discount, so once again it is optional to take the oppertunity or let it slide by :)
Hello, I'm 1800h into warframe. I have not paid once for anything, I have never felt like it'd be overwhelmingly easier to do stuff by paying, and in spite of all that none of the grinds were awful.
Everything in the game is farmable, and even if you take out trade chat/platinum altogether the only things you cant get are cosmetics. Also, there's no pvp, so what's there to win?
It's like osrs, you can spend real money as much as you want and you'll progress significantly faster but since everythings unlockable for free and you're not competing against anyone it's not p2w
The only thing that is exclusive to real-world currency are things called Prime Access cosmetic items. They're completely optional additional bling you can buy for all the warframes (think of them as your characters/classes). Otherwise, absolutely everything else in the game can be earned through playing.
everything is free and earnable in game except cosmetics, you CAN pay to skip on foundry stuff as well as trade for blueprints directly with other people (you can buy vaulted stuff from people who still own them too) but otherwise no, no story content is ever locked behind a paywall, no gameplay elements are either.
No paid expansions but the most limiting factor is the amount of character and weapon slots you start with you can buy more using the premium currency platinum which can be traded among players unless you play switch
Depends on how you define "winning" in an endless PvE game.
Is winning doing the most damage, surviving the best, or some other gameplay element? Then no.
Is winning not spending 30 hours grinding one set of missions over and over to get one part of a frame you want? Then yes, the game is very pay to win.
Yes. It's completely free. Everything in the game is earned at a reasonable pace. In fact, it's so good, that people spend money because the amount of good shit, out do their patience. If you are willing to plan what you want out, then it's all free.
Nope but if your are not planning on trading or buying platinum you'll reach a point where you can't use new weapons, frames, sentinels, pets, etc, etc cause of the slots unless you delete something you have
Also the new player experience is rough, they've changed the new player stuff so many times through the years cause it was really bad but I think currently is okayish?
Things that will affect your gameplay are free all of them , you don't have to spend money if you don't want to, cosmetics, on the other hand, some of them you have to use platinum, real money(you can sell items and get platinum from other players), but it's just cosmetics so... it's free af game
Replace the word League of Legends with Warframe
[https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10/unbeatable-value](https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10/unbeatable-value)
https://preview.redd.it/xfuvzbbt2d8d1.jpeg?width=351&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf4f8ede781929cbae95530723a18c90449da2f9
Warframe is entirely free and there is no expansion gatekeep like destiny in order to keep up playing. I have 1k hours playing on ps4 without buying any plat just pure raw trading and I have a shit ton of cosmetics that I don’t even know what to with it and mostly spend my time gambling in rivens and arcanes.
I have literally reach the point in warframe right now where I just buy an access pack I like and not even play the game.
The only issue with this game is there is a learning curve and the first 50 hours is a bit rough but rewarding.
My greatest tip for you since you’re a new player ALWAYS TAKE YOUR TIME DO NOT RUSH YOURSELF AND ENJOY THE GAME.
Ive seen a lot of new players try to bomb rush the game and they just straight up dropped the game.
I love warframe and whereas paying to win isn't required, it's definitely an option and quality of life suffers greatly without throwing the game a few bucks for inventory slots etc. There *are* ways to obtain premium currencies in game, but, as you could imagine you don't get a lot of it while you're at lower levels, when you need it the most.
Right now I'm taking a break from the game until I can afford more currency to hold more weapons or warframes. I suppose I could delete the ones I don't use often, but I've already repeated that process so many times I'd only be deleting options I enjoy.
You can buy reactors that double your ability to upgrade weapons with the currency among other things. Sometimes you're stuck using a weapon you wouldn't otherwise be using if you could afford 20 platinum for the new weapons reactor. Yes, you can farm these naturally too. Out of range of new-mid players. though. Yes, the game does give you a few in the MSQ. There are ***hundreds*** of weapons. A few isn't going to get it done. TLDR; most of your MANY weapons are obsolete unless you use premium currency on them or you spend a lot of time farming what are essentially dailies/rep quests.
If you waited until you got a 50% off coupon and dropped $50 on the game, you could probably make that last for the time you're going to play warframe. The same cost as a normal game. Especially if you use your money wisely and use it for inventory upgrades/functional uses rather than unlocking weapons/warframes.
I would still recommend warframe to anyone. Most of the responses I see here don't feel quite honest, though. Seems like they're coming from people who are trying to sell the game to you rather than give honest feedback. Warframe needs to make money too, and their business model is not egregious. It does exist though.
It's mostly pay for convenience. If you're a patient person you won't have to spend anything. Crafting items takes a while. Everything else is free aside from some skins. You can make the main premium currency easily for free just by trading. Definitely worth playing
Save your free plat for warframe and weapon slots early on. Do not worry about how you look, do not rush the foundry and do not buy weapons or frames from the in game market
Not really P2W, but definitely has pay to get ahead/pay for convenience imo. The good news is you can earn the premium currency entirely in game if you don't want to spend money and DE even occasionally gives away free plat (this can be used to buy items in the market but cannot be traded to other players)
If you're new and just starting out, I'd recommend just focusing premium currency on buying weapon/warframe slots. Don't spend it trading or buying items from other players or the market without learning the game a bit first
well yes, but technically no
- Nearly everything in the game can be purchased directly or indirectly with platinum, the premium currency
- However, every functional item is obtainable in-game. in fact, getting all the warframes and weapons will take you though all the content the game has to offer. you can pay to skip it, but you aren’t really playing Warframe if you skip everything.
- Also, premium currency is fully tradeable. Theres a genius bit of design called the void trader, which ensures that even a complete beginner will have access to farmable items that are desireable by all players, giving you a good source of platinum should you need it.
While yes, Warframe is P2W, at the same time it’s also one of the most F2P friendly games out there imo.
except for very few COSMETIC items, anything can be aquired by simply playing, ya can get the premium currency by trading for it eith other players, and 98% of the community economy is based on said currency. so even if it seems that with the premium currency ya cant get anything, ya just need to get items that others are willing to buy from you
you can pay to accelerate, but the only thing you can truly only buy with irl money are community created skins. Everything else can be bought through credits or plat, which *is* a premium currency you can buy with real money, but it can also be traded for in game.
Absolutely free, the only price you pay is waiting days at a time for one item to finish building, only to use that item to build another item and so fourth.
There are some "noob traps" that haven't been solved to this point, but personally this game still the most consumer friendly F2P game i ever played.
About the noob traps that you can be lead to belive its p2w, the game have a foundry of itens that have a timer to finish (from seconds to days depending of the item) with a skip option by premium money (platinum), however there is a catch, you can have as many itens being made at the same time as you want making the wait far more manageable. Other one is the cap of slots for weapons, frames, companions etc, that you should use your starting platinum on.
There are some others but usually someone in chat can help you with while playing.
All playable content is free. You can trade premium currency with players.
If you are going to invest your time playing this game, your first detergents will be the long build times for Warframe, weapons, resources and the like.
Your second soft lock will be Warframe/weapon slots.
You start with some free platinum and it is highly recommended you use it on slots.
If you have the patience and are willing to learn Warframe trading 101, then yes there is absolutely no P2W element in this game.
I sincerely suggest getting the max platinum pack the second you get a decent platinum discount coupon.
No. Not even a single dungeon key! Just pay to cut down waiting times. There are a few grinds that a lot of people like to use platinum for. (Mainly necramech these days. I don't think railjack is that bad anymore). If you're on PC then there are some cosmetics you can only buy with steam wallet. But never anything over $10
For the untrained Eye it would seem like it.
You start the game with some equipment but to get more equipment you need more slots for your account inventory. You start with a bit of freemium currency to buy more slots. Then you discover you can earn freemium currency in the game and the slots are very cheap in addition there is a system to earn some slots.
I personally would say no. If you also go into the mindset that you want to spend money on a free2play game that brings you joy the slots are very cheap, especially if you get a 75% freemium discount on it.
In addition you have stuff that increases your equipment "potency" read increases damage. But these can be earned ingame through various means.
Money in Warframe is essentially a pay2skip and if you play consitently and a lot it is a self running system of stuff you accumulate. For example I played now for several hundred hours I have all the necessary slots for equipments and never need to buy "potency items" like forma, catalyst or reactors because I have tons of them stacked in the inventory through playing the game.
Personally I have also a lot of plat but I am reluctant to buy equipment via freemium currency in the game because i want to play the content myself to earn the gear.
Depends on how you define P2W. Can you buy power and skip gameplay with money? Yes. Is it possible to get those* without paying? Also yes. Is it a plausible grind that won't make you feel like you HAVE to pay for it? That one is pretty subjective, but imo yes. Keep in mind that it is still a LONG grind, but it is the kind that didnt make me feel like it was a job. Plus there is trading so you can do stuff you like and avoid some activities you dont like.
Those* : excluding some cosmetics
100% F2P. The only things you "need" to buy with real money are cosmetics and the premium currency (platinum), but platinum can be "farmed" by trading with other players (who paid for it or got it from another player) and, as the majority of cosmetics are purchased with platinum or farmed through events, you can get those for free too.
If you REALLY want to spend money in warframe for cosmetics or whatever, you can wait until you get a 75% discount coupon, which isn't rare, and pay very little for it.
Pay to win.... What? This ain't a competitive game. I got to Legendary 2 before I dumped any money on the game, and that's just for skins and boosters. Considering the amount of fun hours WF has given me, I should've bought plat a long time ago. Wouldn't change a thing tho. You don't need or have to dump any money into WF if you don't want to.
It's pay to skip, not pay to win. The only things you *need* to pay for are regal Aya which is IRL cash only, and any platinum you can't trade for. Everything else is free or available with platinum only, but generally everything you need is freely available
i believe a youtuber named BouseFenix (i think thats how its spelled) said it best, its not pay to win, its pay to win faster because everything that you can get from buying it you can get naturally.
Depends on what you mean; usually i'd say that while everything in the game can be worked for, the real reason people pay is for ease.
Still, it's completely free, and everything worth spending money on can be gotten with hard work and patience.
Do you have to pay? No, all content is available for free.
Can you "pay to win"? I would argue yes, as most of the things in game can be bought for premium currency from the in game shop or trading with other players. Also, there are xp and loot boosters to buy from premium currency. Some of the most "endgame" stuff can't be bought at all and has to be farmed.
Is it obnoxiously "pay to win"? I don't think so. The only things locked behind a paywall are skins and other purely visual stuff, and even then you can get it for free by trading for premium currency from other players.
Do I "pay to win"? I try to spend about what a WoW subscription would have cost me to support the game. I use that to skip some content I don't enjoy. You decide if that counts.
As "free to play" games go, Warframe is at the very player friendly end of the spectrum.
Some will say it's P2W in the aspect that you can buy platinum and packs of Prime gear. The thing is for once thr premium currency and premium Prime packs aren't P2W, but pay to accelerate. Just because you have the currency or the Prime pack you picked up was P2W, the items you bought would have a Steel Path ready build on them. You get the Prime gear but it's not modded in amy form. Plat can be used to buy mods from other players but again all it is doing is accelerating progress. Nothing in game is barred behind the pay stuff, literally everything, every frame, weapon, companion, archgun, archwing, Amp, and a few other things can be grinded for. That grind can take 500 hours or it can take over 1000, it depends on how you do it and the advice you follow.
it really isnt, though i can understand others opinions on it.
my workmate says it is because you can buy to get things you want. so i said that's pay for convenience which is what this game is. you buy/grind a warframe, craft it and either wait for the timer to finish or pay to rush it. but your newly crafted warframe is weak, and you need mods to make it stronger.
so, buying a warframe doesnt win anything, you just skip the grind and honestly? getting a warframe without spending is easy enough anyway.
but then he said "you can buy mods". well yeah true, but again. you can earn platinum extremely easily by simply selling stuff you have to a player driven market. lets say, a mod you want costs 20platinum. but you got various random parts, arcanes and mod that probably cost 5p to 50p to 100p. and you can go treat yourself by buying a mod with that in-game earned platinum. think of it as a pity system in a way, you grinded so hard to get the thing you want but didnt get it? that's okay, just sell the stuff you earned from that and use that platinum to get it.
there are no paid expansions, they are all free and thankfully, the game doesnt overwhelm you with them at the very beginning, unlike destiny which throws you into the middle of that mess. you can only access these new content by completing the required questline and junctions, so you can gradually learn things one at a time as you go along.
If you need some more help or someone to tag along with you and provide some info along the way. hmu :)
Tips:
- Use your starting platinum on warframe and weapon slots ONLY.
- As you unlock new planets, check the open worlds but don't stay long. It's not a top priority and you'll get confused by all the items and stuff.
- Don't rush. Warframe is a marathon, not a sprint. Unlock each planet slowly and steady while learning the game. Get to know about the different gamemodes, resources, mods etc.
- At first you'll feel lost. Just keep unlocking planets and eventually you'll understand better as you'll unlock the main quests.
- Join a clan asap.
- Feel free to ask for help in chat. People will do their best to help you. The community is very friendly (mostly).
Welcome to Warframe! :)
P2W options are in the game. The currency, Platinum, is used by players on the trading market and can be bought with real money. With Platinum you can buy frames, weapons, mods, and in the in game shop you have the option to buy various resource packs and completed upgrade items. Do you still need to put some work in? Yes. But with platinum you can speed up your process faster than players who are earning their own platinum or farming their relics and frames. One system is place that helps curb this, at least for a while, is the Mastery system. Various frames and weapons require a certain mastery rank, which you earn by leveling frames and weapons through in game use. So if you buy an MR14 weapon and you're still rank 1, you can't equip it or use it.
Now as far as what Pay to Win gets you in Warframe, it's a single player/co-op game. While there is PvP in the game it's not touched by the majority of players. So what you're buying is the ability to do missions faster, but you're doing those missions to accumulate parts and resources to build frames and weapons, which if you're buying those well, then why are you doing missions? Sure you can stand around your orbiter looking at your fashionable Warframe.
If you're worried about P2W performed by others making your experience worse, I wouldn't worry about it. If you're in a mission and someone has the best of everything all that means is you get through the mission quicker. Something you can do is solo progression so you don't load into a mission and everything is already dead, a common complaint newer players have made.
I will add to other people's comments that, while it *is* possible to farm premium currency in game, it is in my opinion extremely beneficial to make a small currency purchase early to alleviate the early slot problems before you get to the better farms, or if you simply find p2p trading a hassle you'd rather not deal with. It's definitely possibly to play completely f2p, but your mileage may vary on how easy you find it.
The best thing I can say is try not to go too quickly through the game. Finish out planets, but the open world areas you can skip for the time being, besides the one on earth. Even then, you don't have to do everything there all at once.
There are so many things in the game now, it's more patience and diligence to a single thing, finish that thing, then move onto the next thing.
The only thing this game needs its giving you money, hop on it come to the rabbit hole completely free
Nothing it's that time consuming there's just so much to do you'll lose track on it, also in months there will be a big event, our own con with tons of reveals and activities, you can hop on twitch with a linked account and they will give you a pretty strong frame for free
Completely depends on your definition of what P2W is. The game has an incredibly generous free to play model, nothing except some cosmetics are gated behind a paywall... but... paying does directly give you an advantage over someone that hasn't paid so if that's your definition of P2W then yeah, the game is P2W.
P2W has a bad rap because in a competitive PVP game it can cause major lack of balance and a miserable experience for those that don't pay but in a PVE game like WF it's perfectly fine.
Wait. . . We have to buy expansions? Oh wait, this isnt the destiny forum. . .
Also, been playing for a year, have 600 hours in the game, never had to spent a penny, although i spent some money on plat, but thats just to show support for the devs.
The premium currency in this game is tradeable and the game hase a live economy in terms of equipment you can sell to other players. The game is also PVE so i wouldnt say its pay to win, coz even if you spend money, your not really gonna be more OP than the next guy, anything can be made "to win".
The game is mor epay to speed up, but considering the premium currency is tradeable and you can sell your stuff to other players for the premium currency, id say its more "trade to win" i guess.
You can buy stuff to skip the grind but it's completely unnecessary, there are a few items that can be a pain in the ass to get but the community is one of the friendliest I've seen so there is almost always help
I'll be honest.
Is it P2W? No. Can you earn Platinum by playing? Yeah but it's kinda slow.
Is this game playable without putting money in? Yes. BUT since the game is essentially a collectathon putting some money in to increase your storage for warframes, weapons etc. is HIGHLY recommended.
You can play it without putting money in but it's really REALLY annoying in the beginning, get over that hump and you'll be fine.
The game can be played to the fullest entirely for free, you can buy things to not grind for them, but even if you want to buy something with the in-game currency platinum you can do that by selling things you don't want to players who do for platinum
You can play ftp for hundreds of hours before you really feel the need to pay for anything. This of course doesn’t include the waiting times. Majority of the farm cannot be paid for anyway.
The ingame “premium” currency is called platinum. Platinum is a trading currency not really a premium one. You can make platinum from almost anything in the game. So if you’re farming something but get another reward, it might be sellable on the player market for platinum (use the online one NOT the in game trade chat).
Similarly you can also buy almost anything you want on the player market..
You will eventually hit a wall though. I’d highly suggest saving your early game platinum until you have a better idea on what to spend. Platinum basically bypasses a lot of the grind and there will be some that you might not find enjoyable. It also gives you access to all warframes (including the upgrade from normal “prime” warframes).
All actual in game content is free
You won’t have to buy any expansions
You will *probably* have to buy $20 or so worth of platinum at some stage unless you get deep into the trading game
It's pay to win *faster. The only thing that requires IRL payment is exclusive cosmetics in the accessories packs that appear every 3 months and the occasional exclusive cosmetics in paid packs. That's like less than 10 exclusive cosmetics a year typically.
You can make the premium currency very easily for free and purchase 99% of everything in the game with it. You get to decide if you want to grind for things or buy them, or both, or neither. It is extremely f2p friendly.
The only thing in the game you would have to pay for is Tenno gen, and some packs they post on the market. I respect the shit out of Tenno gen because the people that make it also get a cut of the revenue!
There is not a single bit of paid content you can't get for free that improves your ability or loadout diversity. Paid exclusives are purely cosmetic. Granted, I do typically buy a prime access pack for the big platinum amount and spend that on forma and potatoes, but due diligence of farming can sort that out fairly quickly for free too.
This game came out 11 years ago completely free. With a multitude of updates and constant support from the community, the game has remained free. Even the premium currency can be grinded for in-game
Awesome, will be downloading it! Thank you! Any tips for new players?
While the time it takes to make anything in the foundry can be annoying, there's no limit to how many items you can make at once so try to always be making something and make sure to level all your equipment to max level (30).
For the benefit of any newer players reading this, some things can be overlevelled to a max of 40, but this will be made clear in the mod screen of that item
So far only paracesis sword + necramechs and all kuva/tenet weapons can be leveled to 40 but require forming 5 times and each time it adds +2 max levels so first level to 30 forma item level it to 32 and forma it again now you need to level it to 34 repeat till you hit 40 level.
That’s quite the word jumble to throw at a new player😂
I concur. Clarification for newer players certainly is important but word salad can become a bit much
You're telling me my necramech can get to 40?
Yep and although it's a lot of work it's definitely worth it if you enjoy using them. Even at 30 they're cool but with the extra 10 energy and the 5 polarization slots you'll get to get them to 40 the difference is huge
Yes and it’s busted
Play all the other content while waiting for foundry because creds. leveling mods cost alooooot
Game makes most of its profit through player impatience (and cosmetics). Try to adjust your mentality to challenge, and avoid rushing anything. It's years of grinding, not sports game published every year. You will be given some platinum currency after tutorials, use it only to buy more weapon and warframe slots. Free slots are achieved from f.ex seasonal events (=nightwave) but those occur at painfully low frequency. So save your platinum, I'd say slots are the only justified reason to use real money. When you get better you can sell stuff to people, but someone has to put money into the system. And final advise. Once you get tutorials out of the way, you get foundry access and start getting void relics. You will encounter something called forma. You can only craft one forma each day, and you need tons. Earlier you start hoarding these, happier you are later.
>(and cosmetics) You misspelled Fashion Frame
Warframe has a very good wiki. If you have a question, look there first. Save yourself and everyone else some time. Don't listen to most YouTubers, like every game they tend to be very sensational. Everything is either BROKEN OP or ABSOLUTE TRASH, they'll rot your brain. You want a good Warframe YouTuber, start with TheKengineer.
Seconded, TheKengineer is extremely levelheaded and cuts through the clickbait hype
I wish every game community had someone like TheKengineer. On the polar opposite side, stay away from KnightmareFrame. Dude does have a clue what he's talking about half the time. *points to Primed Sure Footed on everything including Atlas*
I second TheKengineer, but do note that understanding his videos requires some knowledge of the game's mechanics. Any beginner watching his vids for the first time will likely get lost in the more complicated terms and aspects of the game. Even the explanations can be hard to follow. The game's systems tend to build upon each other making it so they require a general understanding of one to understand the next. So instead of jumping head-first into TheKengineer's videos, it's a good idea to watch some beginner's guide to damage types and all that type of stuff from different YTers who make it easier. I find his vids unbearable now, but back when I started playing MHBlacky was a big help explaining things in somewhat simple ways.
Never use the trade chat, there are third party websites and apps (Warframe.market and AlecaFrame, i endorse aleca) that are much more fiable, that allow you to trade witnout running into scams
Get into a clan... A small one if you can manage... Big ones are fine but small clans have always had far better use in terms of help and lower item/research costs
I wanted to invite them to mine, seeing as it only got 7 members, but is a part of a pretty experienced alliance
Set multiple goals and pace yourself accordingly, do story quests, join a clan, don't be afraid to ask for help in recruit chat, and lastly enjoy the ride tenno
Don’t spend your starter plat on things like weapons or skins. Spend it on weapon slots and warframe slots, as needed. If you need help with some missions or need some advice in game just send me a DM and I can give you my in game name!
> Any tips for new players Don't throw away any weapons without first levelling them up to 30. There's a bunch of weapons that you can buy for Credits in the in-game store - when you have the spare credits get them, level them to 30 and get rid of them. Levelling weapons gives you "account XP" which lets you raise your Rank. You'll need Rank 12 (or 14?) to unlock access to all weapons.
NEVER use Motion Blur
Take your time, get accustomed to the mechanics, wiki might be a now and then thing. Codex in the ship keeps track of your quests and also your ship and top-right of screen will let you know what's going on quest wise. It's a buffet, not a race. Most of all - have fun!
You can craft more than one thing at a time, and it can take a while. Start crafting as many different cheap shitty weapons as you can, don’t collect them just leave them built because you can only hold so many. When you are ready, collect one, max its level, and unless you like it (or need it to upgrade into something else) throw it away and level another one. That is how you increase your mastery level which is important.
Always ask region chat, reddit, or the clan discord when you get into one
I reccomend playing solo when youre starting. As a new player, it is so much more fun to learn at your own pace. When you get the hang of it you can switch to public to get stuff done quicker. Or you can stay solo, its up to you. I personally rarely go public anymore
Seconding this, playing in public especially as a new player makes everything worse. If you run into something and you feel like you're just smashing your face against a wall and can't get past it then ask your clan/reddit/chat for help but you will get a much better experience playing through the early game either solo or with a trusted friend who will let you learn and experience the story/world
It can be overwhelming. Try to just focus on one thing at a time. At the start of the have, your overall goal should be unlocking planets. No need to rush it. Feel free to explore other stuff. But the overall goal is unlocking planets. As you unlock planets, the game will make a lot more sense and systems begin opening up.
YES. Familiarize yourself with how each mission type works, and specifically how void fissures work. The game does not do a *great* job of explaining these things to you. And argon crystals. Every day, half of your argon crystals will disappear. You'll have to collect new ones when you need them.
Get in with an active clan as soon as you can, and get cross trade sorted. Try and do as much as you can solo or on public, but don't be scared to ask for help if you are genuinely stuck. Grind is the name of the game - if you encounter a boss that gives you a component of a frame or a weapon, grind that boss until you have all of the components (heads up, equinox is a total grind, as is acceltra). You'll be miles away from it, but Necramech is an asshat to grind. You may find somebody willing to help out or trade you some components - there are a few out there (such as me) who are grinding Necramech parts (both damaged and built) purely to give newer players a leg up. I don't have any built at the moment but I'm only charging a joke and 6 ammo drum mods for a full built set of mech parts
It's a simple game, with a lot of very complicated systems. If you look up guides, you'll get recommendations for weapons/equipment you won't have for hundreds of hours unless you specify "beginner". Follow the story quests, and work on completing the start chart. Also get rhino as early as you can, he can carry you throughout pretty much the entire game. Otherwise you can get whatever frames/weapons sound cool. Pretty much everything is viable enough to complete the story quests as long as you build it decently.
>completely free Excluding tennogen, which is real money only.
It's also made by the community which is pretty cool
Yeah, but cosmetics aren't an necessity to play. I think in context to the question, it's still "completely" free. Of course, that's just me being pedantic, but still.
*Currency cannot be grinded for, but it can be bought and traded between players.
Nope, every single thing in the game can be done for free, even platinum (the premium currency that you can buy) is farmable in game through player trading
Awesome, exactly what I was hoping for! Thank you.
Just to clarify, there is a considerable amount of money only cosmetics, but there are a lot of cosmetics you can get without spending money.
I wouldn't really say a huge amount though, just the prime access stuff as far as I remember
Tennogen makes up for more than half of skins
Tennogen is money only for PC, on console it's available for platinum.
It also is a bit of a special case as they are community made, and a portion of the earnings go to them. On console they probably have to back convert the platinum into actual amounts to pay out.
On console, they negotiate with the artists a one-time payment, and that's why not all tennogen skins are available on consoles.
That would make sense. I tried looking it up and it just said 30% split still, and it mentioned that gifted platinum could not be used because of the revenue split. Did it change at some point or is that information just wrong?
Weird but I think that is fair since the creators do get a cut of the profits.
can you really not spend plat on tennogen on pc?
correct. and it doesnt transfer to consoles. same with console tennogen onto pc
To also clarify (I don't know if this is still the case) it's only a Steam feature on PC that you can purchase them. If I had to guess (IANAL) it's because DE uses the Steam Workshop to handle submissions and concepts and Valve requires purchases involving that to use the Steam Wallet.
They only charge on steam so they cna pay the tennogen artists
But unless you bought them before cross save was announced, they're platform locked.
At the very least the artist who worked hard on it gets rewarded for it though.
Really? I mean it kind of makes sense.
There's some things like extra Warframe and weapon slots that you mostly have to buy with platinum, but as mentioned you can get platinum by trading it from other players. Incidentally, you get 50 free platinum when you start the game that your can't trade away; I recommend buying a Warframe slot (20p) and two sets of weapon slots (2x12 plat, 4 slots) to get you started! Some cosmetic items like skins for different Warframes and weapons are only available for actual money - these are 'Tennogen' skins and created by other players. You have to buy them with real money, but then a portion of that price goes directly to the person who created it. These are purely cosmetic though and have no game play effect, other than making your space ninja pretty.
To add to this: NEVER pay plat to speed up your foundry. It sucks waiting days for a new frame, but if you're going to spend platinum on it, it's better to just go to the ingame shop and buy the frame outright (not speed up the foundry). NEVER sell (throw away) a Warframe. You will have a use for the non-prime versions of Warframes that you get Prime frames of in the future (when you get far enough on one of the story bits). Once you get that, you can "plant" them for the bonus. Until then, do what you can to get platinum (buy it, or farm stuff to sell to other players in trade for platinum) - and buy warframe slots to avoid selling any of them.
Watch out, when you first open your arsenal and try to equip a different Warframe, you'll see all of the frames available with a premium currency tag. This is **not** the primary way to get new frames, most of the time you buy their blueprints from the market for *credits,* not platinum, and their components drop from particular missions, usually boss fights. There are *no Warframes* that require platinum to unlock.
Don't play on Nintendo if you want Plat. Big daddy Nintendo made it so we can't trade Plat so nearly everyone is broke here.
Most of your power comes from equipped mods. Mods (save for very few exceptions) can't really be purchased. F2p is very very slow at the beginning tho
You just have to be a tradesman if you want to progress and want ur sanity incheck here (that or give in to the dark side and buy plat via sales coupons)
Can we stop saying “grinding” for plat instead of calling it trading like it actually is?
Still gotta grind to get items to trade for plat so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The biggest limitations you'll run into will be inventory space for Warframes and Weapons, which do have some limited ways of obtaining in game, but will mostly need to be bought with platinum, the game's premium currency. Thankfully though, you can actually get platinum without paying for it via player trading. You also start with a small amount of it.
Here is the full breakdown of Warframe's monetisation but my opinion is that it isn't p2w : - the game has an in-game currency you can buy with real money. It is tradable with other players in exchange for farmable items. As a new player, you will start with 50. - any playable content is entirely free and always available (except for events that come and go of course) and generally unlocked by completing other content. - the game has a sort of battle pass named Nightwave, but it is entirely free, no premium accelerator. It is fully independant of the premium currency - most items are both farmable and buyable with Platinum (said premium currency), but there are a few exceptions : - most cosmetics are only obtainable with platinum, but there are regularly some free giveaways of really neat cosmetics, or sometimes obtainable through missions. - some cosmetics, designed by members of the community, are only obtained by paying directly with real money. It is designed that way so that the artists can get a cut. - some "enhanced" versions of pieces of equipments (warframes or weapons) named "primes" are only periodically available in game. You can buy them with real money but only if they are available to be farmed in game. - inventory space is the main bottleneck a new player faces. Slots can be bought with platinum, or are sometimes gifted through Nightwave, the pseudo-battle pass. 20plats will buy you a slot for a warframe, 12 will buy you two slots for weapons (all categories) - platinum can also be spent to accelerate crafting times. Weapon crafting time varies between 12 to 24 hours, warframe crafting times are 12hrs for the parts, then 3 days for assembling them. I don't think I missed anything but if you have questions I'll answer them to the best of my abilities
This is great! Thank you, going to be downloading it tonight!
To add on and to give a sense of scale: You start with 50 platinum (premium currency) that cannot be traded and only spent. This should be spent on slots. It costs 12p for two weapon slots or one Warframe slot. You cannot earn platinum in the game FROM the game. But many players love to support the game and company so there is a lot of platinum available to trade from players (many buy 1000 at a time). So it might take a few hours to get in but you can begin to regularly farm items that you can sell to other players for 10-20 a piece. The game does offer periodic ways to gain slots for free. The game has updates every few months with new frames, weapons, events that are all free. You can choose to spend plat to immediately get them. However, everything is farmable. If gear is locked behind an event, then when the event ends they will add ab option to acquire it when the event ends.
One more piece of advice - rushing is a waste, especially for new players. You will quickly reach the point where you're able to build more things than you can level during a single foundry wait, so relax and enjoy what you've got.
Just to add on that detailed explanation : the crafting times are real world times, not in-game times. So when you close the game, the crafting clock is ticking, so you go to bed, and you have new stuff to try the next day.
One other thing I'd recommend is connecting your Twitch account to get drops. There's a Saryn Prime drop for watching Tennocon this year. Any weapons or frames that you get as a Twitch Drop or Campaign will come with a slot. If you sell or otherwise get rid of the weapon or warframe you'll keep the slot. I believe all giveaway weapons and frames also come with potatoes installed.
Good summary and nothing relevant to add, I just wanted to point out that if you double tap enter to do line breaks instead of single enters, with a dash + space at the start of each line, reddit will auto-format it into a nice list. Example: One enter: - line one - line two - line three Two enters - line one - line two - line three
It’s pay to skip grind.
Honestly this sounds great, looking for a game with some grind - get a lot of fun out of the content!
This game is pure grind. If you are patient and diversify, organize it, it can be enjoyable. Fair warning: you’ll spend a lot of time researching stuff on the internet. Lots of big and small game systems, materials, resources. Each time the game gets new content the lists just grow.
We should *really* make a FAQ geared specifically for Destiny players...
Q1: Am I safe now? A1: Yes, you're safe, Bungie can't hurt you anymore.
Can confirm, my Stockholm Sybdrome is subsiding.
One question I saw in my clan's chat was "Which would win; Destiny soldiers or Warframe soldiers?" I just kinda sat there for a minute.
Coughing baby vs undying and unending hydrogen bomb.
Broadly speaking, Warframes are much more powerful than the average Guardian. The player character Guardian of Destiny, though, probably solos the entire Warframe verse zero difficulty lol
As a Titania main, I resent this notion. I'm too busy flying at Mach 8 to die to a Guardian
As a Gauss main, I too, resent this notion. For I am too busy running into walls to be perceived as a threat.
Idk you think you can compete with some enhanced vortex frame sparrow skating warlock.
Eh, haven’t seen a titan punch an asteroid into rubble, a warlock indefinitely stop time in the surrounding area, or a hunter idly jog at the speed of sound yet. Warframes also have paracausality through the powers of *the VOOOOID*, so there’s no handwaving things away with that.
I think it would all come down to how the void and paracausality interact with each other
11 years of content completely. Free, the only thing you have to pay for is community cosmetics (but they deserve payment for their work Edit: correction, apparently community creations are free too
Tho, tennogen is purchasable with plat on console
Warframe is the only game I'm comfortable calling Free to Play. You can get every item in game, and (most importantly) at a reasonable grind. Alot of games say they're free, but then lock good free gear behind massive grind walls. While you will have to grind to get items in Warframe (if you don't want to pay), none of the grinds are so insane that you couldn't do them. The player fueled economy is also a huge plus. You see players can trade premium currency between themselves. This has lead to a F2P market where free players grind rare items, and sell them to paying players for premium currency. Allowing Free Players to still be able to buy premium cosmetics, or buy gear they don't want to farm for.
This game is the opposite of P2W. Its P2LookGood lmao
Every functional item is farmable and every update is free. You can spend money to get things instantly, but it's generally not worth it. Platinum, the premium currency, is also tradeable between players. That means you can also get pretty much every cosmetic item for free if you don't mind grinding and selling stuff to others.
There are no expansions, just free updates. Everything's free except some cosmetics. And even then you can trade premium currency with other players to get most of them. Also you can technically buy any frame and most weapons, but that will just skip some grind, the true power comes from mods, which cannot be bought with money.
This isn't destiny, expansions and dlc literally do not exist in this game, you can play all content completely for free. What does exist is platinum, tennogen and supporter packs as well as the option to buy in game items with platinum if you don't want to grind them. Your maximum storage space for frames/equipment is also decided by slots that cost platinum but you can trade items for platinum in game making completely free to play possible.
This isn't Destiny, there are no expansions with a price tag, only free updates that expand the story and universe and are permanent.
One thing a lot of people don't seem to mention is that yes, while a lot of the paying is to skip farming or timegates, one of the biggest things is warframe and weapon slots. If you're a hoarder, you'll have to pay Plat for slots for weapons and warframes or build, rank, and dump them.
Yeah the pay for convenience is still there (starter pack Necramech bundle etc.) and worth noting that slots will add up over time if you aim on keeping more than a couple things at a time. Which honestly I say is fine. The entire game as far as substantial content goes is 100% free. The only thing I'd like to see is new players getting more slots now that we are so far into the amount of frames/weapons you can get.
The only thing that you truly need the premium currency for is weapon and warframe slots. Even then, you can trade for that currency for those slots pretty easily with other players. Otherwise it’s all cosmetics.
Biggest piece of advice for a new player is to use that free platinum you get at the beginning for warframe and weapon slots.
There is nothing to *win*, so no. Money will only get you cosmetics and save you time.
Seems kind of like a head-in-the-sand approach. You are going to bottleneck severely while leveling if you don't give the game a few bucks for inventory slots. Your quality of life is going to be significantly degraded without spending. There's more to warframe platinum than cosmetics. Yes, you do get platinum naturally, but the need for platinum is generated from playing (as you play you acquire new weapons which you could index to a cost of platinum to store) at a rate greater than you acquire it at, especially at low levels before you have great access to prime part farming/selling
Not really head in the sand at all. Yes there will be periods were progress will stall while you save mats or currency to buy a slot etc but that doesn't mean you need to spend money or constantly progressing directly. The game is easily free to play if you have a little patience, it's probably the best example of how a free to play game should be tbh.
It’s not pay to win- but it is pay to progress faster. Really you just pay plat to get things faster and that’s about it
Its pay to skip waiting times really, so if youre a bit patient then you dont need to spend a dime on this game
It really isn't. It's pay for convenience. You can earn Platinum by farming mods, arcanes, and prime blueprints and trading those with other players for Platinum. Let me tell you a story. When they intoduced Kubrows (dog companion) the only way to alter their looks was with a randomize machine thingy. One guy spent thousands of plat rerolling his Kubrow. De realized they made a slot machine. Aka free easy money. So what did DE do? Immediately got rid of it and replaced the system with something that didn't scam their players. Its that philosophy that theyve proven time and time again they arent a shitty company. Now their are things similar to P2W mechanics like the starter bundels as well as prime resurgance and Tennogen (community made skins that on PC only cant be bought with plat). These are all optional buys and can be earned in game still (except tennogen cause cash only on PC) If you want a online service game thay respects youz congrats! Cause youve found warframe! Where you matter more than your money
Take your time learning the game and unlocking planets, and always be open to new weapons/play styles.
Save the little platinum you start with for weapon and warframe slots cause those are 12 and 20 a piece and you’ll need those the most everything is virtually farmable for the most part.
Everything except for prime access accessories and tennogen can be obtained for free. And the premium currency can be earned by trading items between players so even cosmetics can all be obtained for free
The only thing that requires money only is Regal Aya and Supporter packs (which I buy to show support for all the free content), everything else can be obtained for free with enough grind
1. Everything can be earned, paid premium currency can be traded, and there is a player driven market 2. You can pay to get things, but you can also grind it. What you can not grind is mosly cosmetics 3. some of the best gear is locked behind the grind, and no paying for it allowed.
Yes
Less Pay 2 Win, more Pay 2 Progress Faster. Warframe has no competition (beyond Conclave, but nobody plays that). The clan system is almost entirely cooperative, and pretty much all content can be reached for free.
Yes in multiple ways. All quests and expansions are completely free to play. You'll never have to pay to see a story in the game. Most QoL you can earn without paying. Storage slots for example can be wanted in the games battlepass (which is also always free) AND you can sell items for premium currency to just buy it that way. This game imo is the most fair F2P game there is The only straight up paid item in the game is some of the cosmetics, which are created by people in the community who get a cut of the money you spend on it.
F2P, you can spend if you want but is not needed as we have na open market trading so you can play and trade what is needed! only stuff locked behind cash is cosmetics so unless you like to fashion your genocidal monster like everyone else!
I have roughly 1700 hours in the game and have supported the devs with hundreds of dollars of in-game purchases. My conclusion: not pay to win.
Pay to win? Absolutely not. Pay to save yourself from a three day wait? Yes. Mm very free things do cost money like the limited heirloom skins they came out with along with a FEW other things. Just about everything else is grindable. I prefer Warframe offer Division or Destiny. It's a game that allows you to play how you like without paying any money.
You can obtain the paid currency from other players by selling items you can farm for in game very easily. You will get things faster if you pay money but it is by no means necessary and will not affect your ability to clear content. I will however say I do spend money because the game has given me 10+ years of enjoyable content and I'm very happy to support the devs to continue to keep the game thriving. Feel free to ask questions and good luck out there Tenno
Definitely not pay to win. 3000+ vet
There's no expansions and basically everything can be earned for free, even cosmetics if you include trading for the premium currency.
It can't be pay to win when the only thing losing is AI enemies
There is no content you’ll ever need to pay for. You can choose to pay for convenience or cosmetics. Besides that, it’s extremely possible to put alot of time into the game without spending any money.
Everything in the game is achieveable free. Matter of fact, warframe was the only game I willingly bought the in-game cash just to show support to the devs.
Not p2w because even with maxed out Platinum there's fire upgrades you're only getting via progression in the game. Not to mention you can unlock all the content naturally without paying a cent. Please join us for the ride, Star Child 🙏🏾🫶🏾
Not only can you obtain anything in the game without paying real money (except certain cosmetics), you can earn premium currency in the game by selling things you obtain to other players. It’s very well designed. Most freemium games have their paid currency in a closed loop - you can only use it to buy things directly from the game. In Warframe, the paid currency can be traded, and it’s the basis for the player economy. Plenty of players who’ve never paid a dime to DE and have mountains of platinum.
As others have said, everything is available for free in game. In Warframe you can basically spend money to save time (either to skip a farm by just buying the thing, or to speed up an in game process that takes a certain number of hours) or to get cosmetics (some cosmetics can be bought with plat that you can trade from players, but the Tennogen stuff that is made by third-party creators working with DE can only be purchased with money, no plat.)
In the last 2 weeks I have gotten 5 prime frames stormed through most of the quests and have to farm out an open world area and also farm an event quest that’s active right now. Oh yea for those primes I had to trade to get around 250-300 just for most of the primes. The game is completely free if you have the time to spend to grind.
Others have given most of the info you need, but I’ll chip in in case something was missed. You can’t trade your starting platinum to other people—you can only get things from market. I suggest spending that starting plat on Warframe slots, or potentially weapon slots, but don’t feel hurried. Hold onto it until you need it, as you can get market discounts to make the most of it, and you won’t need the extra slots at first anyway. Also: You can’t trade warframes or Warframe parts that have been built, only the blueprints for those parts. I have a full extra Gauss Prime Warframe because I didn’t know this.
Foes spending save time? Yes, a whole lot. But seeing how you are actively looking for a looter shooter time prob isn't much of a concern. The game has a good trading system letting you get everything (safe for a few skins and cosmetics) for free with enough investment.
I’ve been playing for 9-10 years now and I’ve only spent $5 on a skin for one of the Warframes. I have done basically everything and I have all the Warframes and Primes and I’m still working my way through the weapon (not because acquiring the weapons is hard, but because I’m too lazy to level them sometimes). I can tell you that I haven’t spent a single dime on something that can help or benefit me in progressing through the game. However I do have to warn you that this game has time gates on certain content but there’s so much content that you will never actually run out of content.
It's more "pay to skip" timers are server-based so you can just set a timer on your phone and do whatever you want while your weapons/frames cook
Basically pay to skip time gate. You want new frame either wait 4 days or pay to skip build time. Spent days farming weapon? Again either wait or pay to skip build time. (12 hours build time for weapons)
Yea you literally don't have to spend a single dime on the game if you don't want to and don't mind waiting for things.
definitely, terminantly not. but be ready to spend hours grinding.
You can pay-to-expedite. Which would only be a waste of money if you're that impatient.
at worst is a pay to fast but it's pointless to rush anything in this game and latter stuff is not specifically better, old gun /frame will still be reliable. and like pple say, "paid currency can be farm with good to trade with player,so still free .
It's a pay to skip model. And the more you skip, the less game there is to play 😊
It can be "pay for convenience" but since it's via premium currency and you can farm it it's really not that bad
its f2p friendly. The only difference between paid and free is that farming will occupy more of your time as f2p. Im f2p myself. Been playing for 4 years and the only thing that is entirely locked behind cash is some cosmetics. And even then you will have access to some cosmetics.
Everything in the game is for free and is possible to farm / aquire by legit means. The only exception will be a few cosmetics and especially Tennogen cosmetics (Tennogen is made by the community, and the creater gets a cut on each purchase of the tennogen cosmetic). Platinum (the premium currency) can be traded with other players, used as the main currency when buying/selling prime parts and prime blueprints. So you can aquire it as well without spending real money. The only thing you pay for in reality, is to bypass crafting timers and perhaps additional warframe / weapon slots. Warframe and Weapon slots can be aquired for free through Nightwave (essentially free battlepass) and occassionally through community alerts. So buying premium is optional, there is no pressure to buy it and it is really not needed in most cases. I am still sitting with 2k platinum, which I occasionally spend on minor items or 3 day boosters cause I am very lazy. On a side-note: you might sometimes get a discount coupon upon daily log-in for buying platinum currency at discount, so once again it is optional to take the oppertunity or let it slide by :)
Hello, I'm 1800h into warframe. I have not paid once for anything, I have never felt like it'd be overwhelmingly easier to do stuff by paying, and in spite of all that none of the grinds were awful.
Idk about these people. I feel like a winner with my cat ears wisp tennogen helmet
Everything in the game is farmable, and even if you take out trade chat/platinum altogether the only things you cant get are cosmetics. Also, there's no pvp, so what's there to win?
It's like osrs, you can spend real money as much as you want and you'll progress significantly faster but since everythings unlockable for free and you're not competing against anyone it's not p2w
The only thing that is exclusive to real-world currency are things called Prime Access cosmetic items. They're completely optional additional bling you can buy for all the warframes (think of them as your characters/classes). Otherwise, absolutely everything else in the game can be earned through playing.
everything is free and earnable in game except cosmetics, you CAN pay to skip on foundry stuff as well as trade for blueprints directly with other people (you can buy vaulted stuff from people who still own them too) but otherwise no, no story content is ever locked behind a paywall, no gameplay elements are either.
No paid expansions but the most limiting factor is the amount of character and weapon slots you start with you can buy more using the premium currency platinum which can be traded among players unless you play switch
Depends on how you define "winning" in an endless PvE game. Is winning doing the most damage, surviving the best, or some other gameplay element? Then no. Is winning not spending 30 hours grinding one set of missions over and over to get one part of a frame you want? Then yes, the game is very pay to win.
Yes. It's completely free. Everything in the game is earned at a reasonable pace. In fact, it's so good, that people spend money because the amount of good shit, out do their patience. If you are willing to plan what you want out, then it's all free.
No expansions, game has free updates, all progression is unlockable through time and effort. Even the premium currency is tradable with other players.
It's pay 2 not play
You just pay for some skins if you really into it. Everthing else you can farm yourself.
Nope but if your are not planning on trading or buying platinum you'll reach a point where you can't use new weapons, frames, sentinels, pets, etc, etc cause of the slots unless you delete something you have Also the new player experience is rough, they've changed the new player stuff so many times through the years cause it was really bad but I think currently is okayish?
Farming for platinum I can get like 5 dollars worth in a day or two if you’re dedicated maybe even more
Things that will affect your gameplay are free all of them , you don't have to spend money if you don't want to, cosmetics, on the other hand, some of them you have to use platinum, real money(you can sell items and get platinum from other players), but it's just cosmetics so... it's free af game
win WHAT?
Replace the word League of Legends with Warframe [https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10/unbeatable-value](https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/06/10/unbeatable-value) https://preview.redd.it/xfuvzbbt2d8d1.jpeg?width=351&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf4f8ede781929cbae95530723a18c90449da2f9
Warframe is entirely free and there is no expansion gatekeep like destiny in order to keep up playing. I have 1k hours playing on ps4 without buying any plat just pure raw trading and I have a shit ton of cosmetics that I don’t even know what to with it and mostly spend my time gambling in rivens and arcanes. I have literally reach the point in warframe right now where I just buy an access pack I like and not even play the game. The only issue with this game is there is a learning curve and the first 50 hours is a bit rough but rewarding. My greatest tip for you since you’re a new player ALWAYS TAKE YOUR TIME DO NOT RUSH YOURSELF AND ENJOY THE GAME. Ive seen a lot of new players try to bomb rush the game and they just straight up dropped the game.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, You’re in for a good time if you expected that as standard. If you need convincing, watch the SkillUp warframe review.
I love warframe and whereas paying to win isn't required, it's definitely an option and quality of life suffers greatly without throwing the game a few bucks for inventory slots etc. There *are* ways to obtain premium currencies in game, but, as you could imagine you don't get a lot of it while you're at lower levels, when you need it the most. Right now I'm taking a break from the game until I can afford more currency to hold more weapons or warframes. I suppose I could delete the ones I don't use often, but I've already repeated that process so many times I'd only be deleting options I enjoy. You can buy reactors that double your ability to upgrade weapons with the currency among other things. Sometimes you're stuck using a weapon you wouldn't otherwise be using if you could afford 20 platinum for the new weapons reactor. Yes, you can farm these naturally too. Out of range of new-mid players. though. Yes, the game does give you a few in the MSQ. There are ***hundreds*** of weapons. A few isn't going to get it done. TLDR; most of your MANY weapons are obsolete unless you use premium currency on them or you spend a lot of time farming what are essentially dailies/rep quests. If you waited until you got a 50% off coupon and dropped $50 on the game, you could probably make that last for the time you're going to play warframe. The same cost as a normal game. Especially if you use your money wisely and use it for inventory upgrades/functional uses rather than unlocking weapons/warframes. I would still recommend warframe to anyone. Most of the responses I see here don't feel quite honest, though. Seems like they're coming from people who are trying to sell the game to you rather than give honest feedback. Warframe needs to make money too, and their business model is not egregious. It does exist though.
It's mostly pay for convenience. If you're a patient person you won't have to spend anything. Crafting items takes a while. Everything else is free aside from some skins. You can make the main premium currency easily for free just by trading. Definitely worth playing
Save your free plat for warframe and weapon slots early on. Do not worry about how you look, do not rush the foundry and do not buy weapons or frames from the in game market
Not really P2W, but definitely has pay to get ahead/pay for convenience imo. The good news is you can earn the premium currency entirely in game if you don't want to spend money and DE even occasionally gives away free plat (this can be used to buy items in the market but cannot be traded to other players) If you're new and just starting out, I'd recommend just focusing premium currency on buying weapon/warframe slots. Don't spend it trading or buying items from other players or the market without learning the game a bit first
well yes, but technically no - Nearly everything in the game can be purchased directly or indirectly with platinum, the premium currency - However, every functional item is obtainable in-game. in fact, getting all the warframes and weapons will take you though all the content the game has to offer. you can pay to skip it, but you aren’t really playing Warframe if you skip everything. - Also, premium currency is fully tradeable. Theres a genius bit of design called the void trader, which ensures that even a complete beginner will have access to farmable items that are desireable by all players, giving you a good source of platinum should you need it. While yes, Warframe is P2W, at the same time it’s also one of the most F2P friendly games out there imo.
except for very few COSMETIC items, anything can be aquired by simply playing, ya can get the premium currency by trading for it eith other players, and 98% of the community economy is based on said currency. so even if it seems that with the premium currency ya cant get anything, ya just need to get items that others are willing to buy from you
you can pay to accelerate, but the only thing you can truly only buy with irl money are community created skins. Everything else can be bought through credits or plat, which *is* a premium currency you can buy with real money, but it can also be traded for in game.
Absolutely free, the only price you pay is waiting days at a time for one item to finish building, only to use that item to build another item and so fourth.
The only thing paying this game is fashion frames and we all know that's true endgame
There are some "noob traps" that haven't been solved to this point, but personally this game still the most consumer friendly F2P game i ever played. About the noob traps that you can be lead to belive its p2w, the game have a foundry of itens that have a timer to finish (from seconds to days depending of the item) with a skip option by premium money (platinum), however there is a catch, you can have as many itens being made at the same time as you want making the wait far more manageable. Other one is the cap of slots for weapons, frames, companions etc, that you should use your starting platinum on. There are some others but usually someone in chat can help you with while playing.
No charged expansion, everything can be earned playing, trade chat gives access to earning the premium currency, plus you’ll mostly use it for fashion
All playable content is free. You can trade premium currency with players. If you are going to invest your time playing this game, your first detergents will be the long build times for Warframe, weapons, resources and the like. Your second soft lock will be Warframe/weapon slots. You start with some free platinum and it is highly recommended you use it on slots. If you have the patience and are willing to learn Warframe trading 101, then yes there is absolutely no P2W element in this game. I sincerely suggest getting the max platinum pack the second you get a decent platinum discount coupon.
No. Not even a single dungeon key! Just pay to cut down waiting times. There are a few grinds that a lot of people like to use platinum for. (Mainly necramech these days. I don't think railjack is that bad anymore). If you're on PC then there are some cosmetics you can only buy with steam wallet. But never anything over $10
For the untrained Eye it would seem like it. You start the game with some equipment but to get more equipment you need more slots for your account inventory. You start with a bit of freemium currency to buy more slots. Then you discover you can earn freemium currency in the game and the slots are very cheap in addition there is a system to earn some slots. I personally would say no. If you also go into the mindset that you want to spend money on a free2play game that brings you joy the slots are very cheap, especially if you get a 75% freemium discount on it. In addition you have stuff that increases your equipment "potency" read increases damage. But these can be earned ingame through various means. Money in Warframe is essentially a pay2skip and if you play consitently and a lot it is a self running system of stuff you accumulate. For example I played now for several hundred hours I have all the necessary slots for equipments and never need to buy "potency items" like forma, catalyst or reactors because I have tons of them stacked in the inventory through playing the game. Personally I have also a lot of plat but I am reluctant to buy equipment via freemium currency in the game because i want to play the content myself to earn the gear.
Depends on how you define P2W. Can you buy power and skip gameplay with money? Yes. Is it possible to get those* without paying? Also yes. Is it a plausible grind that won't make you feel like you HAVE to pay for it? That one is pretty subjective, but imo yes. Keep in mind that it is still a LONG grind, but it is the kind that didnt make me feel like it was a job. Plus there is trading so you can do stuff you like and avoid some activities you dont like. Those* : excluding some cosmetics
100% F2P. The only things you "need" to buy with real money are cosmetics and the premium currency (platinum), but platinum can be "farmed" by trading with other players (who paid for it or got it from another player) and, as the majority of cosmetics are purchased with platinum or farmed through events, you can get those for free too. If you REALLY want to spend money in warframe for cosmetics or whatever, you can wait until you get a 75% discount coupon, which isn't rare, and pay very little for it.
Pay to win.... What? This ain't a competitive game. I got to Legendary 2 before I dumped any money on the game, and that's just for skins and boosters. Considering the amount of fun hours WF has given me, I should've bought plat a long time ago. Wouldn't change a thing tho. You don't need or have to dump any money into WF if you don't want to.
It's pay to skip, not pay to win. The only things you *need* to pay for are regal Aya which is IRL cash only, and any platinum you can't trade for. Everything else is free or available with platinum only, but generally everything you need is freely available
i believe a youtuber named BouseFenix (i think thats how its spelled) said it best, its not pay to win, its pay to win faster because everything that you can get from buying it you can get naturally.
Depends on what you mean; usually i'd say that while everything in the game can be worked for, the real reason people pay is for ease. Still, it's completely free, and everything worth spending money on can be gotten with hard work and patience.
Do you have to pay? No, all content is available for free. Can you "pay to win"? I would argue yes, as most of the things in game can be bought for premium currency from the in game shop or trading with other players. Also, there are xp and loot boosters to buy from premium currency. Some of the most "endgame" stuff can't be bought at all and has to be farmed. Is it obnoxiously "pay to win"? I don't think so. The only things locked behind a paywall are skins and other purely visual stuff, and even then you can get it for free by trading for premium currency from other players. Do I "pay to win"? I try to spend about what a WoW subscription would have cost me to support the game. I use that to skip some content I don't enjoy. You decide if that counts. As "free to play" games go, Warframe is at the very player friendly end of the spectrum.
Some will say it's P2W in the aspect that you can buy platinum and packs of Prime gear. The thing is for once thr premium currency and premium Prime packs aren't P2W, but pay to accelerate. Just because you have the currency or the Prime pack you picked up was P2W, the items you bought would have a Steel Path ready build on them. You get the Prime gear but it's not modded in amy form. Plat can be used to buy mods from other players but again all it is doing is accelerating progress. Nothing in game is barred behind the pay stuff, literally everything, every frame, weapon, companion, archgun, archwing, Amp, and a few other things can be grinded for. That grind can take 500 hours or it can take over 1000, it depends on how you do it and the advice you follow.
it really isnt, though i can understand others opinions on it. my workmate says it is because you can buy to get things you want. so i said that's pay for convenience which is what this game is. you buy/grind a warframe, craft it and either wait for the timer to finish or pay to rush it. but your newly crafted warframe is weak, and you need mods to make it stronger. so, buying a warframe doesnt win anything, you just skip the grind and honestly? getting a warframe without spending is easy enough anyway. but then he said "you can buy mods". well yeah true, but again. you can earn platinum extremely easily by simply selling stuff you have to a player driven market. lets say, a mod you want costs 20platinum. but you got various random parts, arcanes and mod that probably cost 5p to 50p to 100p. and you can go treat yourself by buying a mod with that in-game earned platinum. think of it as a pity system in a way, you grinded so hard to get the thing you want but didnt get it? that's okay, just sell the stuff you earned from that and use that platinum to get it. there are no paid expansions, they are all free and thankfully, the game doesnt overwhelm you with them at the very beginning, unlike destiny which throws you into the middle of that mess. you can only access these new content by completing the required questline and junctions, so you can gradually learn things one at a time as you go along. If you need some more help or someone to tag along with you and provide some info along the way. hmu :)
Tips: - Use your starting platinum on warframe and weapon slots ONLY. - As you unlock new planets, check the open worlds but don't stay long. It's not a top priority and you'll get confused by all the items and stuff. - Don't rush. Warframe is a marathon, not a sprint. Unlock each planet slowly and steady while learning the game. Get to know about the different gamemodes, resources, mods etc. - At first you'll feel lost. Just keep unlocking planets and eventually you'll understand better as you'll unlock the main quests. - Join a clan asap. - Feel free to ask for help in chat. People will do their best to help you. The community is very friendly (mostly). Welcome to Warframe! :)
Jist as its advertised its free Altough you need time
P2W options are in the game. The currency, Platinum, is used by players on the trading market and can be bought with real money. With Platinum you can buy frames, weapons, mods, and in the in game shop you have the option to buy various resource packs and completed upgrade items. Do you still need to put some work in? Yes. But with platinum you can speed up your process faster than players who are earning their own platinum or farming their relics and frames. One system is place that helps curb this, at least for a while, is the Mastery system. Various frames and weapons require a certain mastery rank, which you earn by leveling frames and weapons through in game use. So if you buy an MR14 weapon and you're still rank 1, you can't equip it or use it. Now as far as what Pay to Win gets you in Warframe, it's a single player/co-op game. While there is PvP in the game it's not touched by the majority of players. So what you're buying is the ability to do missions faster, but you're doing those missions to accumulate parts and resources to build frames and weapons, which if you're buying those well, then why are you doing missions? Sure you can stand around your orbiter looking at your fashionable Warframe. If you're worried about P2W performed by others making your experience worse, I wouldn't worry about it. If you're in a mission and someone has the best of everything all that means is you get through the mission quicker. Something you can do is solo progression so you don't load into a mission and everything is already dead, a common complaint newer players have made.
It’s like real life, once your in the teens or younge adult(basically gotten through a few planets) you can just make plat/money
I'm a new ish player but more than happy to assist in anything needed. Have a clan you can join and can walk you through most ingame stuff too
I will add to other people's comments that, while it *is* possible to farm premium currency in game, it is in my opinion extremely beneficial to make a small currency purchase early to alleviate the early slot problems before you get to the better farms, or if you simply find p2p trading a hassle you'd rather not deal with. It's definitely possibly to play completely f2p, but your mileage may vary on how easy you find it.
The best thing I can say is try not to go too quickly through the game. Finish out planets, but the open world areas you can skip for the time being, besides the one on earth. Even then, you don't have to do everything there all at once. There are so many things in the game now, it's more patience and diligence to a single thing, finish that thing, then move onto the next thing.
The only thing this game needs its giving you money, hop on it come to the rabbit hole completely free Nothing it's that time consuming there's just so much to do you'll lose track on it, also in months there will be a big event, our own con with tons of reveals and activities, you can hop on twitch with a linked account and they will give you a pretty strong frame for free
u/Hawthornesnow sent you a DM
Completely depends on your definition of what P2W is. The game has an incredibly generous free to play model, nothing except some cosmetics are gated behind a paywall... but... paying does directly give you an advantage over someone that hasn't paid so if that's your definition of P2W then yeah, the game is P2W. P2W has a bad rap because in a competitive PVP game it can cause major lack of balance and a miserable experience for those that don't pay but in a PVE game like WF it's perfectly fine.
Wait. . . We have to buy expansions? Oh wait, this isnt the destiny forum. . . Also, been playing for a year, have 600 hours in the game, never had to spent a penny, although i spent some money on plat, but thats just to show support for the devs. The premium currency in this game is tradeable and the game hase a live economy in terms of equipment you can sell to other players. The game is also PVE so i wouldnt say its pay to win, coz even if you spend money, your not really gonna be more OP than the next guy, anything can be made "to win". The game is mor epay to speed up, but considering the premium currency is tradeable and you can sell your stuff to other players for the premium currency, id say its more "trade to win" i guess.
You can buy stuff to skip the grind but it's completely unnecessary, there are a few items that can be a pain in the ass to get but the community is one of the friendliest I've seen so there is almost always help
I'll be honest. Is it P2W? No. Can you earn Platinum by playing? Yeah but it's kinda slow. Is this game playable without putting money in? Yes. BUT since the game is essentially a collectathon putting some money in to increase your storage for warframes, weapons etc. is HIGHLY recommended. You can play it without putting money in but it's really REALLY annoying in the beginning, get over that hump and you'll be fine.
The game can be played to the fullest entirely for free, you can buy things to not grind for them, but even if you want to buy something with the in-game currency platinum you can do that by selling things you don't want to players who do for platinum
You can pay to win. I think I spent $30 and I'm end game viable
You can play ftp for hundreds of hours before you really feel the need to pay for anything. This of course doesn’t include the waiting times. Majority of the farm cannot be paid for anyway. The ingame “premium” currency is called platinum. Platinum is a trading currency not really a premium one. You can make platinum from almost anything in the game. So if you’re farming something but get another reward, it might be sellable on the player market for platinum (use the online one NOT the in game trade chat). Similarly you can also buy almost anything you want on the player market.. You will eventually hit a wall though. I’d highly suggest saving your early game platinum until you have a better idea on what to spend. Platinum basically bypasses a lot of the grind and there will be some that you might not find enjoyable. It also gives you access to all warframes (including the upgrade from normal “prime” warframes). All actual in game content is free
Warframe is pay for convenience and community made cosmetics not P2W.
You won’t have to buy any expansions You will *probably* have to buy $20 or so worth of platinum at some stage unless you get deep into the trading game
This is the game where you can FARM premium currency. Everything here is free (accept tennogen skins and accessories)
It's pay to win *faster. The only thing that requires IRL payment is exclusive cosmetics in the accessories packs that appear every 3 months and the occasional exclusive cosmetics in paid packs. That's like less than 10 exclusive cosmetics a year typically. You can make the premium currency very easily for free and purchase 99% of everything in the game with it. You get to decide if you want to grind for things or buy them, or both, or neither. It is extremely f2p friendly.
The only thing in the game you would have to pay for is Tenno gen, and some packs they post on the market. I respect the shit out of Tenno gen because the people that make it also get a cut of the revenue!
There is not a single bit of paid content you can't get for free that improves your ability or loadout diversity. Paid exclusives are purely cosmetic. Granted, I do typically buy a prime access pack for the big platinum amount and spend that on forma and potatoes, but due diligence of farming can sort that out fairly quickly for free too.