At this point, I have nearly 2000 hours in this game + mastery rank 31 and I have a few thoughts about it.

Generally speaking, I will recommend that anyone who can play free-to-play games and likes looter-shooters should try this game. If you're prone to spending money on cosmetics and in-game items - especially if you cannot spare the money, avoid this game. Do not launch it. There are endless money sinks and a lot of options to in terms of cosmetics.

This review will be about the phases of the game and the good as well as the flaws within. I will also provide some tips to remedy some of the flaws. There are no spoilers here.

This is a game where knowing someone who already plays it will help you immensely.

Starting the game is like a breath of fresh air in terms of gameplay. It has numerous progression systems to the point of being somewhat confusing (both good and bad). It has a lot of content.

The game has a story that every player plays through rather than endlessly rotating seasons with a weird catch-up mechanic so people don't fall behind.

The sounds are great, the graphics are amazing, UI design is variable. Story is all over the place. It is fun.

Main progression in the game - mastery rank (MR) - is achieved by leveling up gear you've not used before and then completing a mastery rank challenge.
The premium currency (platinum) is strictly speaking only needed for a single thing in terms of progression and that's buying equipment/warframe slots (if you want to keep them all). Platinum can be traded between players and even on low MRs can earn plat through trading, especially with some help.

The MR ranges below are overlapping on purpose.
Due to review length constraints I cannot cover everything.

While it has been years since I first launched the game and the introduction has been improved, it has since I played it for the first time remained a strong component of the game. You pick a character, you get a goal, you start kicking ass at once with an immersive tutorial guiding you through some of the basics of the game, introducing system after system. You keep going and finally confront the boss and then the game just dumps you into the world to figure out things for yourself.

There are two basic issues with the start and some tips to get you started:
- The module system (mods) are never explained. You get an objective telling you to insert mods into your equipment, but not how to increase the maximum mod capacity (your mod capacity is max(mastery_rank, warframe/weapon level)).
- You sort of have to figure out yourself how to progress through the game. It would be in my opinion good to have an overall quest directing players towards completing junctions at this point as this seems to be the biggest confusion. Also check the quests in the table left of navigation.

Other than that, it is a strong start.

Additionally, I'd advise new players to check the market for weapons and weapon blueprints they can buy. Once you hit mastery rank 4, get the Hek. If you can, join a clan as soon as possible.

This is where the biggest grind occurs. You will find yourself looking for resources, doing long runs of survival on various planets to get the resources you need, start getting some power and gaining experience with the game.

The game neatly encourages you to try everything here. You are through the mastery rank system and through the promise of different functionality encouraged to try everything. Weapons, warframes, companions, two types of combat in space (railjack and archwing), mess around with builds and more. You start injecting new abilities onto your warframes and it is an overall wild and great time.

This is also (without getting into details) where a lot of the difficulty of the game plummets due to new abilities that you unlock.

This is where you start doing a bunch of grinding for various late-game factions, be it the Vox Solaris or the Quills (do not google these, new players). You start collecting vaulted prime gear through trading and selling your own stuff as well as getting rivens for your weapons (special randomised weapon mods).

This is where in my opinion the biggest issues crop up in terms of longevity of the game, while the early-game may scare off new players, this is where long-time players get tired and understand that the developers have botched the math of the game.

There are in my opinion two problems in the game which both relate to a central issue.

This is where abilities either cease to be useful or become incredibly useful.
Any ability whose primary function is damage will generally not be super useful unless it can scale to meet late-game demands.
Other abilities may still remain useful if they can be used for incapacitating enemies or otherwise boosting/buffing.

So what is going on here? The issue is the damage formula for weapons and abilities, let's take a look at some examples.

First, let's take a look at how damage is calculated for an ability

base damage x %ability strength factor x any other potential buff

%ability strength factor typically does not exceed 3 (at 300% ability strength). As an example, the impact damage of Ember's fireball at max rank is 400-800, with 300% ability strength this becomes 1200-2400.

Now, let's look at how a weapon works, because it is not clearly explained in the game.

The average total damage formula is:
base damage x %damage increase factor x %elemental damage increase factor x crit factor x multi-shot x (any other buff such as Rhino's Roar)

You may see this expression and think "hold on, that's a lot of multiplication" and you are 100% right.
Let's plug in some real numbers here, this is what the calculation looks like without any buffs for my Kuva Tonkor (there's a serration hidden underneath the hovered riven mod, which is +165% damage):
https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2563332882
1078.4 * (1 + 1.65 + 1.65 + 1.128) * (1 + 1.65 + 0.9) * 8.92[warframe.fandom.com] * 1.8
This is roughly 330 k, an absolutely nonsensical number when you compare it to the number we had for Ember's ability above and it doesn't even include potential stacks you might have that increase the numbers even further. Also consider that fresh players deal two-digit damage, maybe three-digit damage, this is a damage dealing factor difference of 1000x if you also consider any buffs.

The result is that there are a handful of damage skills that can actually do things in the late-game, a minority of which do not use an exalted weapon (gear that is built-in into a Warframe).

My suggested solution would be that rather than a mod granting + %critical chance, it should grant +critical chance power which is then translated to %critical chance through a function that yields diminishing returns. This may be heresy to a lot of other veteran players, but trust me, it is for the best.

- Ticker should imo have a trans woman play her. Other than that, props for including her.
- Xaku - it is nice to have a frame referred to using they/them pronouns, but they also follow a trend of characters using those pronouns being unusual compared to many other characters. Just add another frame to remedy this.

The devs need to learn to sometimes make tough decisions for the longevity of the game.

Despite my complaints and provided you're not the kind of person who might burn thousands on microtransactions, yes. I also have some basic tips located here[tzer0.github.io].

[h1] Warframe, a Ridiculous Game[/h1] At this point, I have nearly 2000 hours in this game + mastery rank 31 and I have a few thoughts about it. Generally speaking, I will recommend that anyone who can play free-to-play games and likes looter-shooters should try this game. If you're prone to spending money on cosmetics and in-game items - especially if you cannot spare the money, avoid this game. [b]Do not launch it.[/b] There are endless money sinks and a lot of options to in terms of cosmetics. This review will be about the phases of the game and the good as well as the flaws within. I will also provide some tips to remedy some of the flaws. There are no spoilers here. This is a game where knowing someone who already plays it will help you immensely. Starting the game is like a breath of fresh air in terms of gameplay. It has numerous progression systems to the point of being somewhat confusing (both good and bad). It has a lot of content. The game has a story that every player plays through rather than endlessly rotating seasons with a weird catch-up mechanic so people don't fall behind. The sounds are great, the graphics are amazing, UI design is variable. Story is all over the place. It is fun. Main progression in the game - mastery rank (MR) - is achieved by leveling up gear you've not used before and then completing a mastery rank challenge. The premium currency (platinum) is strictly speaking only needed for a single thing in terms of progression and that's buying equipment/warframe slots (if you want to keep them all). Platinum can be traded between players and even on low MRs can earn plat through trading, especially with some help. The MR ranges below are overlapping on purpose. Due to review length constraints I cannot cover everything. [h2]Early-game (~MR1-8)[/h2] While it has been years since I first launched the game and the introduction has been improved, it has since I played it for the first time remained a strong component of the game. You pick a character, you get a goal, you start kicking ass at once with an immersive tutorial guiding you through some of the basics of the game, introducing system after system. You keep going and finally confront the boss and then the game just dumps you into the world to figure out things for yourself. There are two basic issues with the start and some tips to get you started: - The module system (mods) are never explained. You get an objective telling you to insert mods into your equipment, but not how to increase the maximum mod capacity (your mod capacity is max(mastery_rank, warframe/weapon level)). - You sort of have to figure out yourself how to progress through the game. It would be in my opinion good to have an overall quest directing players towards completing junctions at this point as this seems to be the biggest confusion. Also check the quests in the table left of navigation. Other than that, it is a strong start. Additionally, I'd advise new players to check the market for weapons and weapon blueprints they can buy. Once you hit mastery rank 4, get the Hek. If you can, join a clan as soon as possible. [h2]Mid-game (~MR7-15)[/h2] This is where the biggest grind occurs. You will find yourself looking for resources, doing long runs of survival on various planets to get the resources you need, start getting some power and gaining experience with the game. The game neatly encourages you to try everything here. You are through the mastery rank system and through the promise of different functionality encouraged to try everything. Weapons, warframes, companions, two types of combat in space (railjack and archwing), mess around with builds and more. You start injecting new abilities onto your warframes and it is an overall wild and great time. This is also (without getting into details) where a lot of the difficulty of the game plummets due to new abilities that you unlock. [h2]Late-game (~MR12+)[/h2] This is where you start doing a bunch of grinding for various late-game factions, be it the Vox Solaris or the Quills (do not google these, new players). You start collecting vaulted prime gear through trading and selling your own stuff as well as getting rivens for your weapons (special randomised weapon mods). This is where in my opinion the biggest issues crop up in terms of longevity of the game, while the early-game may scare off new players, this is where long-time players get tired and understand that the developers have botched the math of the game. There are in my opinion two problems in the game which both relate to a central issue. [h3]Oh no damage scaling[/h3] This is where abilities either cease to be useful or become incredibly useful. Any ability whose primary function is damage will generally not be super useful unless it can scale to meet late-game demands. Other abilities may still remain useful if they can be used for incapacitating enemies or otherwise boosting/buffing. So what is going on here? The issue is the damage formula for weapons and abilities, let's take a look at some examples. First, let's take a look at how damage is calculated for an ability base damage x %ability strength factor x any other potential buff %ability strength factor typically does not exceed 3 (at 300% ability strength). As an example, the impact damage of Ember's fireball at max rank is 400-800, with 300% ability strength this becomes 1200-2400. Now, let's look at how a weapon works, because it is not clearly explained in the game. The average total damage formula is: base damage x %damage increase factor x %elemental damage increase factor x crit factor x multi-shot x (any other buff such as Rhino's Roar) You may see this expression and think "hold on, that's a lot of multiplication" and you are 100% right. Let's plug in some real numbers here, this is what the calculation looks like without any buffs for my Kuva Tonkor (there's a serration hidden underneath the hovered riven mod, which is +165% damage): https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2563332882 1078.4 * (1 + 1.65 + 1.65 + 1.128) * (1 + 1.65 + 0.9) * [url=https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Critical_Hit#Average_Damage]8.92[/url] * 1.8 This is roughly 330 k, an absolutely nonsensical number when you compare it to the number we had for Ember's ability above and it doesn't even include potential stacks you might have that increase the numbers even further. Also consider that fresh players deal two-digit damage, maybe three-digit damage, this is a damage dealing factor difference of 1000x if you also consider any buffs. The result is that there are a handful of damage skills that can actually do things in the late-game, a minority of which do not use an exalted weapon (gear that is built-in into a Warframe). My suggested solution would be that rather than a mod granting + %critical chance, it should grant +critical chance power which is then translated to %critical chance through a function that yields diminishing returns. This may be heresy to a lot of other veteran players, but trust me, it is for the best. [h2]Other issues[/h2] - Ticker should imo have a trans woman play her. Other than that, props for including her. - Xaku - it is nice to have a frame referred to using they/them pronouns, but they also follow a trend of characters using those pronouns being unusual compared to many other characters. Just add another frame to remedy this. The devs need to learn to sometimes make tough decisions for the longevity of the game. [h2]Should you play this game?[/h2] Despite my complaints and provided you're not the kind of person who might burn thousands on microtransactions, yes. I also have some basic tips located [url=https://tzer0.github.io/warframe.html]here[/url].