As a new player, what’s the best thing to spend platinum on? I think I start with 150. Can I buy a fun starting warframe with that? Or is 150 platinum basically like $.01 in real world money?
I’d recommend saving that 150 platinum for:
-Additional character/weapon slots, if needed
-“Potatoes” and/or formas, as needed (won’t be needed until you find a weapon or warframe that you really like)
The above cost something around 10-20 platinum each, if memory serves me correctly, so you can get some mileage out of that.
If you haven’t encountered them already:
Potatoes are Orokin Cells and Reactors, that go into weapons and warframes, respectively. They increase the Mod Capacity of the item. Only bother to use these if you a) have some spare laying around or b) this is a weapon/warframe that you’re set on using for a while.
Formas allow you to reset a weapon/warframe to rank 0 in order to add a new Polarity slot to it. Matching a Mod’s polarity with the slot allows it to be equipped at half cost.
And to answer your question, 150 platinum is roughly the equivalent of $10.
I did a quick tutorial, then tried the first mission (and died accidentally) so I’m VERY early in! :) I’m pretty sure I’m still in some sort of tutorial though. Haven’t heard a thing about Potatoes or Formas yet.
Thanks for the tips - will save it up then (or blow it shamelessly if I get scared off by the WF grind in the very near future.)
If you do end up deciding to spend platinum on a Warframe, I would suggest doing so on one of the more recent ones since they’re typically much harder to obtain. Off the top of my head, that would include:
-Nekros
-Mirage
-Limbo
-Mesa
-Chroma
-Hydroid
-Equinox was just added today, on PC, I don’t know the details but I assume it’ll be a fair bit of effort to get as well.
I’m sure there’s others, but that’s off the top of my head. Most of the other frames can be obtained through Alerts or just beating up on a world boss (Rhino is relatively easy to obtain*, for example, since you get via drops from the boss in Venus, which is the second planet).
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- assuming nothing’s changed in the past few months.
Inventory slots are the only items that have a tangible benefit and can only be obtained through the cash shop. Everything else is fluff, or can be picked up in-game.
It’s possible to spend a lot of money on this game, and some folks do. So much of the stuff in the cash shop can be easily earned in-game though, that I have to wonder about those people.
I bought 2K platinum back during the 2013 Steam summer sale, and still have over half of it. Mostly spent on inventory slots, though I also bought some color packs, and a few forma before they started dropping like rain.
Oh, I missed it earlier, but spend the starting platinum on frame and weapon slots for the reason I mentioned above. You can pick up reactors and catalysts through alert and invasion events.
This site is an invaluable tool if you’re looking for a particular reward, or just want to see what’s available at the moment. I don’t know if there is a console version though.
edit There are console versions, check the drop-down menu at the top to pick the one you want.
Downloading the update now. This is a pretty cool game, really. If only the “mid-level” maps were easier to find people to play with…
Yeah, it’s something the devs are aware of and want to address with the next iteration of the “Star Map” and a rework of the Void.
It’s pretty clear that there’s still some “headroom” in the game, because the potentially you can reach with modding is far higher than the top end of the mobs (except the scaling mobs in Void survivals and defences). At the moment, most high end players are all dressed up with nowhere to go (apart from said scaling Void survivals and defences, which is obviously just a stopgap).
It looks like more Trials and the “Sentients” are going to be the high end content the game requires. Once that’s in place and something is done about the mid level PUG-ing drought, and once the devs are happy with the systems, I have a sense that the game will be ready for official release and a proper marketing push.
The game deserves huge success IMHO, it’s a great game with frenetic combat, imaginative art design and lore, and a decent f2p model.
I just started playing this tonight, and have had really no exposure to it at all other than reading through this thread a while back. I actually really like the game so far. It’s very early days obviously, but It’s one of those games that I like almost immediately. I really like the ‘feel’ of the game, it’s very fluid, the weapons/aiming are great, and everything feels like it should and solid.
It seems very well put together, and even the early game is much more engaging (at least to me) than the usual starter quests in MMOs, building your ship back up, and missions being tied to that, just feels more tangible than a lot of the stuff you usually end up doing as a noob.
Pretty neat game, and it scratches my itch for a FPS, which I haven’t played in a very long time. The one thing I do wish, as I do in just about every F2P that I end up liking, is that I could just pay a sub, and get everything. F2P models really really take me out of games and pretty much destroy immersion. It’s especially a shame in this game, that has nice art direction and atmosphere.
I don’t think that would work in this game. A large part of the game’s content and progression is the crafting and acquisition of the various warframes and weapons. Some are obtained via boss drops, others are behind quest lines with their own story. In MMO terms, it’d be a little like having max level characters with all the raid gear as long as the sub was active. You could run around and PVP or work on trade skills, but largely you’d have circumvented the game.
Not a perfect analogy by any means since Warframe has mods, but if I had access to everything in Warframe I feel like I wouldn’t have much to play for, I’d be largely done with the game’s content.
Okay, in spite of what I said earlier, you guys convinced me to give this a try. I spent most of yesterday playing. I chose the Mag frame.
The game deals kind of janky, especially after the smoothness of something like Destiny. The animations and interaction with the environment for both the player and enemies are terrible. Perhaps the Parlour 2.0 system helps fix that, but I won’t see it for a few months.
Other than that, it’s a lot of fun. I like the mission structure, and random-ish levels. I’m still getting my head around the character progression, but reading the wiki helped with that.
So, y’all convinced me to try the game in spite of my earlier protestations. It’s fun, if a bit opaque. The tutorial missions were good, but the lack of info on what your choices actually mean while you’re making them (primary/secondary/melee weapons in particular) was a bit tough, especially since it looks like I’ll be stuck with those choices for a long while, and they don’t tell you how you’re going to get new ones unless you buy them from the store. The wiki is helping here, but that means getting out-of-game help, which is annoying.
The movement and animations of everything in the game (especially as they interact with the environment) is pretty janky, though. Perhaps the parkour 2.0 system fixes that on the player side, but that won’t be out for consoles for months. Compared with the smoothness of Destiny, for example, this looks and feels like an amateur effort.
Question: when the Quest selector lists “level 1-3” is that the level the frame you’re using, or Master Skill level?
Neither, it’s the mob level. The fact that you can’t relate your “level” to mob level is another opacity, but the planet unlock progression does more or less go with the frame/weapon level, kinda sorta. Mastery Rank is a side-issue, it’s more to do with how much stuff you’ve levelled up (weapons, frames, etc.), plus some minimum competence with the tests. A few weapons are locked behind MR, but the highest lock (the Dragon Nikana, a space katana) is MR 8 which isn’t too long to get to.
As starter weapons, level up the MK-1s to 30 and then get some “proper” weapons. The Braton is a good one to go for if you like auto weapons, Strun if you like shotties; the Orthos a good melee, secondary any really (Lex is pretty good). I would put potatoes (Orokin Reactors/Catalysts, they double mod capacity) in both your starter frame and these weapons, so you have some headroom for mods, the built-in headroom is a bit stingy; also you’ll probably have the starter things for a wee while. I’d recommend spending a little bit on plat to begin with (tenner or so) if and when you get a plat discount with the login “gift”. That way you can buy on the player market some of the essential frame and weapon mods I listed a few posts up.
The game is basically a rhythm of crafting, modding, player market and actually playing. You craft things, you level them for MR, see if you like using them. If you like using them, you lavish a potato and some forma on them (forma-ing requires restarting the level of the thing from 0). That way, you are always both ranking something up, and using the things you like for the more important/difficult missions.
Once you get over the “hump” of the middle planets (where the easy PUGs dry up and you start solo slogging a bit) the game gets very addictive as your modding efforts start to pay off and frames and weapons become really powerful; also as you start experimenting with more of the frames. I’d recommend you start doing the T1 Void missions with the keys you get as soon as possible - apart from anything else, the Void maps are beautiful, and have many secrets to explore (particularly the Exterminate ones, once you’ve exterminated, you can spend some time exploring for secrets, it’s quite good fun). Also, once you start getting Prime parts and good mods dropping, you start to move into becoming self-sufficient (because you can sell those bits and pieces for plat - usually enough to get the odd 12/20p for a weapon or warframe slot, or a potato or forma now and then) and no longer needing to buy plat (unless you want instant gratification of course).
I remember quitting this game last time because you reach a certain point where you can’t realistically progress without a guild. That and once you’ve basically maxed out your favorite couple suits, the grind comes out from behind the curtain.
Hmmm, not sure if I can agree with that. There’s some items that need to be researched in the Dojo, but not extensively. Or were you referring to aspects of the game outside of the Dojo? In any case, I probably have a free slot in my Clan before it hits the member cap for its tier if you want to jump in and grab some blueprints in the future.
You need a clan to gain access to the research-only clantech gear. This can be done solo if you don’t want to join someone else’s clan.
You don’t need a clan to run endgame content. Any mission can be pugged (most can be soloed), although an active clan may expand grouping opportunities.
Grind is a matter of perspective, on whether or not you’re enjoying the minute-to-minute gameplay. Warframe does have a problem in that the mastery rank progression encourages players to use weapons and frames they may not like in order to gain mastery xp. I’d like to see that aspect changed, though I don’t know how they’d do it at this point.
Are the PS4 and PC clans compatible at all? I can’t find a definitive answer just searching around.
That’s a good question. I would guess no since the consoles lag behind in terms of patch level, but I’m not sure.
When I played the hell out of this game it was PC-only, so I keep forgetting that it’s out on consoles as well. So I should clarify that my offer of a clan slot would be on the PC version of the game. :)
Well after some initial worries, I must say I absolutely love the new movement system, it’s far more dynamic in use in combat (IOW it’s become an integral part of combat for me in a way the older movement system wasn’t, unless one specifically practiced some things, which I was starting to a bit, but never really got round to getting thorough about it).
It’s not got the top speed for rushing from thing to thing that “coptering” at its best had, but it’s about as fast, on average, as average coptering (with average weapons) was. There are those few tricks with the older system that people who put some effort into practicing them are missing, but I think for new players (or returning older players) Parkour 2.0 is really intuitive, fast and fluid and enables you to scamper and leap about ninja style. Much, much better out of the box. And it seems to be a hit with the majority of the playerbase.
And it’s not that it doesn’t have some mastery ceiling either, it’s just that it’s intuitive to get some instant gratification with, and then practice is a matter of refinement and discovering emergent tricks utilizing architecture and mobs (rather than the set movement tricks of the old system).
On a related note, is anyone else actually playing this on the PS4 and not PC? Maybe I’m alone here :)