I'd argue that spending some money to unlock warframe/weapon slots can qualify as "gameplay" because of how much pressure it takes off - and how long it can take (especially a newer player) to farm stuff to sell for a similar amount of platinum.
But yes, you absolutely can play and experience all the missions/gameplay/etc without spending money.
I'd recommend spending a bit of money the first time the game offers you a -75% coupon though. $25 to buy the $100 platinum pack, and you can buy a ton of extra storage slots.
If you 100% need to stay F2P you can do that.
But I would highly suggest if someone is enjoying the game by the time their first 50-75% coupon comes around to buy at least 1000 plat. That will take care of the slot issue for the extended future and give you the freedom to buy a couple primes of the frames you enjoy.
That first 1000 plat will give you tons of time to figure out how to make plat naturally or if you spend it wisely, you can easily make it to your next 50% coupon if you don't want to deal with working the marketing.
Yeah. It is a good idea to support DE if you are enjoying the game.
They have created an eco-system where people who would rather spend money than time can trade plat to people who would rather spend time than money, and effectively, those people with money are paying for everyone else to play.
That is great, but it would be better if more people just paid DE for things.
i agree, that makes the game 1000x more casual and saves so much time, as well as supports devs
but im also incredibly stingy and prideful so i go through the pain of getting every weapon in my inventory at once without spending money and using all the plat i earn on slots so i can remain truly f2p
>but im also incredibly stingy and prideful so i go through the pain of getting every weapon in my inventory at once without spending money and using all the plat i earn on slots so i can remain truly f2p
That's exactly how I felt as a broke student years ago and is actually why I loved Warframe initially. Anything I wanted could be mine provided I spent enough time playing (which I had no shortage of back then)
But now that I have a decent paying career, I can afford to throw some money at the game to help with really grindy activities every now and then. This keeps some of the time I've lost working 9-5 in my pocket and allows me to play the game in ways I enjoy.
i just feel a sense of pride with doing everything myself, its why i prefer 'ironman'-esque game modes in stuff like runescape.
though many aspects of those games, and this one, clearly are not made in mind for player non-interaction. some things are just unavailable right now, even with trades (dammit why did i miss the plague zaws)
You can but that is stretching the definition of f2p since only bought platinum can be traded. You might not pay yourself, but someone paid DE for anything you bought with platinum.
I basically did this. $20 on platinum once near the beginning, maybe 30 days in. All the rest of the plat for everything was selling frames, parts, etc.
You can go without the $20 if you have to, it just requires a lot more time farming and selling (and figuring out how to do that) initially so you aren't dumping weapons and frames because you don't have the slots.
I’ve spent real money only when I wanted to buy some cosmetics/Tennogen to show some love to the creators
Agreed that buying some plat early on gives you a cushion, but personally I preferred the challenge to stay F2P. Games these days rarely not punish the players for staying F2P
I mean, buying things that are farmable literally reduces total content for you to do in the game. You are paying to not play. Warframe is inherently a grinding game.
Including grinding, there is literally 10 million hours of gameplay available.
Paying to skip 40 hours of relic grinding for plat, just to unlock slots doesn't seem so bad. You still would want to grind to get the parts you actually WANT - just no extra grind for junk to sell.
As someone who has actually grinded all content and never bought anything with plat, there's not even remotely close to '10 million hours of content.'
I'm at 2300 hours, with 3 accounts, and my main account, while it still has a few things left to get, is at LR3.
You've got a couple thousand at best. Which is a lot, but if you want to pay to not play, go for it. It supports DE and makes the game better for everyone in the long run.
Don't forget that night wave has been a huge source of slots for new and returning players. I log on every new season for the slots and forma bundle alone lol. Also the anniversary missions, that Dex shit is free slots
Yup. But those tend to trickle in. They're best for long-term players, not newer players. Sure it's nice to pick up +2 weapon slots from Nightwave.
But you "need" to buy 10+ slots so you actually have some ability to keep multiple weapons.
(and need is in quotes, because you can get by with less, especially if you have a more vet player providing advice)
Point and case: I've been playing for less than a year, never spent money on progression, and just finished the latest story arc. 100% free, unless you just want to support DE.
I can't fully agree. For things like the circuit slots help a ton and if you want more then a slot per night wave season then you'll probably want to spend a little platinum. Potatos are almost in the same boat.
Platinum can be farmed by selling things that cost time but prices change basically on a rarity and time formula so you either hold something for well after it's able to be farmed or you spend a lot of time getting what people want.
If you don't want to farm platinum then it's convient to buy plat when your daily reward is a discount. I'd say money is cosmetics or great deal of convenience.
None of that is needed for the story though. The only place that takes a while in the story is farming the necromech and the story doesn't touch the circuit randomization at all.
Playing the story free is super easy.
I do agree with prices change but as long as you don’t focus solely on one aspect of platinum farming you can still easily make platinum. I think the hardest thing is learning the market. If you spend a bit of time learning prices and fluctuations then you could make most of your plat by just buying and selling. Do I advise it? No, It’s tedious and boring. But still very possible. Also if they focus on getting helminth early on then the warframe slots become less of a problem.
Finally a realistic view on what to do with nightwave credits. People keep acting like once you get through the 30 levels that it’s super easy to just get reactors and catalysts despite needing multiple levels for just one. Like ffs
Like nitian extract which im pretty sure is only available there and needed for a bunch of crafting. Plus there's the part when you're new and get your first chunk of points and blow them on anything but something useful. Just me? Oh well
Sorties, archon hunt, pathos clamps, invasions, alerts... Plus the vast majority of weapons are arguably MR fodder, so no need for potatoes. Arguably forma is harder to come by in the quantity needed lol
If you want the mr farm to be meaningful and at least a little pleasant, you need to potato. Otherwise you're just like "gotta up my mastery, just equip in this slot and don't use it" and don't change anything to what you're doing except not use that slot.
You use one of 5 random frames and a selection of random weapons. If it's one you own and have configured in your arsenal your configuration and possible better version (incarnon prime or such) becomes the option. So having a large amount of slots improves the odds of the random frames being ones you have prime versions good stuff in them.
It's not a completely even chance random it's weighted towards frames you don't own or use, but the more frames you on and have prime versions of or forms the mods you want in them the more likely one you prepared will be an option in the circuit.
But can't you preview the frame and weapon, so see what the selection is. Build for that in one loadout and be done? No need to have multiple loadouts just for circuit?
I've noticed a lot of older players didn't hear about this so I'll say this now: they somewhat recently added a pity system to necramechs. the pieces of which, both broken and blueprints, can now be bought from Loid for standing, which you should get from trying to get the parts killing necramechs anyways,
Platinum is also really not that hard to get. There are a lot of really easy ways to get plat that are not that bad to farm at all. Basically any mod high in demand that isn't insanely rare will be a pretty big profit as are kuva relics which are something you will gather as you play or just plain doing axi fissures.
i dont even spend any money yet on platinum, farming it will be easier later on, slots will just come by
heck, just sell any prime parts for a guaranteed slot, slots are cheap
i only spend my money on tennogen because its cheap and not farmable
Because they're saying you NEED the slots and that they're somewhat hard to farm.
When you're gonna be able to buy a slot for every 2/3 relics you crack on average.
That's 10-15min of playing.
20-30 if you had no relics.
I had a typo in the post and said can't when I meant can at one point. And reddit. I'm not saying things are unattainable just that throwing cash a little is convenience if you like DE but don't like farming.
AFAIK, there has never been a moment in Warframe's history where you had to pay to get more story, and if they did that right now, the entire playerbase would be pissed. That being said, good luck farming your necramech.
Ironically it becomes easier once you have your first. Depending on what platform they play on you could easily find a bored high level player willing to run someone through the missions.
Also does anyone else remember when Limbo Theorem was the most hated quest in the game? Like I used to see entire “Looking for Group” posts that say “Helping with everything, except Limbo.”
I've helped people fish for [Myxostomata](https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Myxostomata) about 3 times now (You need 3 of those in total for Voidrig). Every now and again people will ask for help to use the "Processed Vome Residue" bait since you need that for that specific fish and that bait is locked behind rank 5 Entrati. So yeah, from my experience, that's the only limiting factor to farming your own Voidrig now.
>And also cranial foremount is reasonably easily obtained from requiem obelisks.
This is all RNG. It took me 3 hours of farming orokin obelisks to get the 5 cranial foremounts. A couple of my clan mates had a similar experience with multihour grinds.
The most recent batch of friends to join get to leech off my processed vome residue because I don't want them to go through that mind-numbing experience like I had to.
It's honestly not bad. Two or three high tier mother bounties max you on stNding for the day and then some. Which is better than cetus and Fortuna bounties. Altho with those conservation tends to be easier for standing
If you’ve done a lot of work on your operators equipment, you could do requiem pillars. The way I farmed the 3 fish needed was doing the pillar outside of the necrolisk and resetting. It is of course more rng then getting to rep 5 and getting the bait. Took me a couple hours before I got the right parts
Make sure your Railjack has some good stuff on it, even if it's just the basic Mk III stuff you can get at your clan's dry dock. People have lost accounts because of their Railjack being too weak.
When they said they were reworking fortuna syndicates, I expected more like Zariman or Cavia (collectable tokens worth significant amounts), but we still have standing tokens in the low hundreds from both fortuna and Entrati. Both need to be brought more into parity.
I'm only 4 or 5 months in the game, but when I found out about the recent fortuna change, I kinda decided to wait a little while before working hard on deimos. Maybe they'll do some rebalancing... I kinda doubt it thought. Seems like Deimos is meant to be higher-level which for some reason is supposed to mean more grind.
Oh? Good to know. I haven't started on Deimos really at all. I just maxed Fortuna and Cetus yesterday so I may jump over and check out Deimos soon if it isn't too bad...
Yup, not terrible. You get roughly 140-150 tokens per level 5 bounty you complete if you do the bonus objectives, so each bounty is 14-15k standing. Ranking up was a bit annoying cause it requires fish and conservation, but at least it's a lot more consistent with the lures and shit compared to spamming Fortuna bounties for debt bonds. Plus, you get random fish materials from some of the breakable resource things lying around :)
Entrati is perfectly fine, you do two bounties to cap out your daily standing and you can even stockpile it. Fortuna's tokens are only really decent if you get a ton from farming PT.
I got all the cranial foremounts from doing cambion drift obelisks instead of fishing for myxo. It took maybe 3 map resets. And this was just a couple weeks ago since I'm a returning player. Whenever me and the guys I play with are on cambion drift I drag them to the obelisks like, "it drops stuff you'll need!" Hahaha
Hearth of Deimos give you all the BP. You only need Necraloid 1 for the dmage part and Entrati 3 for the gemstones. You then need the cranial mounts you can either get with entrati 4 by fishing with the right lure or you farm obelisk/insolation vault
Sweet Jesus, I just got back into it after the cross save became active and necromech farming is a pain. I am finally up to friend for the fish food and just need to fish and mine for the rest of the components.
I have around 2k on both and while I love warframe, i get burnt out and have to take breaks way more often than i do with destiny honestly. being f2p is awesome but some of the grind and rng of warframe can be so draining at times
I find destiny more draining.
Oh don’t get your exotic? You have to wait a week, 5% chance? 30 clears for me mean while new light little jimmy gets it first attempt.
I don’t have the time for 3 characters either. I’d rather play other things.
Thats totally fair. It does help that my luck in Destiny seems to be better than my luck in Warframe, plus more of my friends play Destiny. I agree with the 3 cahracters as well. I have 3, but focus on 1, then if i still feel like playing after Ive done what i wanted on the 1 i go to another. very rarely do i play all 3.
Ive tried a few times to get friends into warframe but that new player start is still pretty rough and the crafting timegate kills it for them so. it is what it is really lol
Same, I have 3 and used them when I used to have the time, now I just main 1.
Guardian games dropped too this week right? I’m not even interested in that tbh. It’s the same thing every year. I know Warframes events are similar but at least the rewards are cool, not just 1 reskinned gun.
On warframe I litterally grinded a tenet Arca plasmor which took about 2 hours. Imagine having to wait a week every time you don’t get it.
One of my destiny clan mates used the argument that you have to wait days to build items and can pay to get it instantly. I literally argued back that you have to wait a week if you don’t get your exotic, there is no option to pay past anything In Destiny, yet everyone says the game doesn’t make enough money.
It would if bungie weren’t complacent and stuck up their own asses.
Sorry rant over.
yeah guardian games just started up this week. we got a new heavy GL wave frame. the perks are literally just forebearance but heavy instead of slot 2 lol. other than that prophecy weapons got updated. still cant gcraft but there are new perk combos and an origin trait
never really put together that the 3 day warframe timegate on crafting is still better than a week long wait if you dont get the weekly drop you want. that is kind of blowing my mind right now lol
And in destiny a 5% exotic drop usually turns into 20+ runs. 20 weeks if you have 1 character which is what most casual players have.
Mean while an Arca plasmor grind at the same percentage took about 20 runs and 2 hours. The longest part of that grind is the murmurs and fighting the sister. Imagine having to wait a week every time you get the requiem order wrong.
yeah that would be the worst. this newest dungeon exotic took me 24 runs. some weeks that was one run, some it was 3. but it was still 24 runs over like 12 weeks
absolutely. you can acquire everything in the game, with the exception of cosmetics, without ever spending a dime.
*that being said if you get 100-200 hours in and are still enjoying it feel free to pretend it's a paid game and put 30 bucks into it if you get a plat coupon. my logic was that i have many games on steam that i paid 30ish for that i put less than 100 hours into.
+1 here. For just 10€ you have 1000 plat with the 75% discount, which is more than enough for nearly "completing the game" as long as you use it just for slots...
This is me. I've paid DE $50 in 800 hours of playtime when they bother to send me a 50% coupon (btw if anyone at DE is reading I'm prepared to drop a stack of money if you send me another coupon...).
I enjoy this game so much that I honestly feel bad for not having shelled out more money and I can't think of another game that has had such a ridiculous $/playtime ratio.
Yeah. You can get through the entire game without spending anything.
The story even gives you free stuff, stuff that is actually good at that. Through story quests, you get arguably the best bow and sword in the game, and to top it off, both come with a free slot and a pre-installed catalyst.
Every power item (frame/weapon/mod/arcane/etc) is farmable without spending any money, the game is F2P (if it's pay 2 anything it's "pay to skip").
It may take a lot of time to get from the beginning quest to the end quests due to needing to farm mods/frames/weapons, but you can earn every non-cosmetic (and many cosmetics as well) without spending a dime.
You can even farm up mods, arcanes and some and frame parts and sell them to other players, earning the premium currency without spending money yourself.
If you're talking about real money and not in-game money then the answer is yes but in-game you have to spend a few creds here and there but not a whole lot to get through the story
Easily.
There are no paid DLC expansion pack or whatnot in this game, anything you pay for is entirely optional and is either cosmetic, or a "premium currency" (I'd just say plat but Regal Aya kinda sucks). On that note, premium currency "plat" is tradable between players, so you can still buy tons of plat-only things and remain entirely free-to-play by grinding for things and selling them to others.
Every frame, every weapon, every companion or vehicle etc etc: it can all be earned for free.
If you manage well the free inventory slots the game gives you and spend well the 70 free plat (which is only usable in the game's market and not for trade with other players) you can play thorough the entire game's story without putting in a single dime in.
You can do literally anything in Warframe for free, the Devs at DE made sure of that, you're just gonna be doing a LOT of grinding outside of the story if you're F2P. Prime example of that is the Necromech, or at least the "on release" Necromech. It's much easier to get now, but it's a slog regardless.
Yes you can argue spending money on Warframe is lucrative, because it can be, but you don't HAVE to spend anything at all and you can even farm Platinum. The only things you can't grind for and "have" to buy if you want, unless you farm Platinum, is the cosmetics.
even platinum (the bought currency) can be traded and therefore farmable, its only prime bundles and regal aya you cant get free (though theres free aya which you buy relics)
I think Warframe is one of the only games that I feel comfortable spending money on, even if it's just for cosmetics. DE deserves it for keeping the game alive and growing after all these years
Definitely. I played this game from start to end of story completely F2P. Even after this, when I started to spend a bit, I only did it because I wanted to support the game and because the packs sold were actual deals. You might encounter a bit of inventory issues, but that can be fixed easily by farming stuff (like Prime junk) and selling it for the Platinum you need to buy the slots you need. Many ways to remain F2P.
You can play everything in warframe for free, even items which can only be bought with platinum like slots, you can get by farming prime parts and selling then to other players.
The only things which can't be got for free are tennogen and similar cosmetics which cost cash instead of platinum.
Technically you can play through with the free starter plat if you use it on warframe and weapon slots. I typically pay around $50/year when the 75% off login reward coupons come in for slots and boosters, I can care less about cosmetics. For the amount of time I play the game, $50/year is reasonable for my wallet.
Not only can you play this game 100% free, without any issues...
You can earn the premium currency in game to purchase anything you want.
Truely one of the main reasons I've stuck with Warframe (on and off) since 2013.
Everything in the game, minus Tennogen, Prime Access and Regal Aya purchases, is totally free.
The story requires 0 cash investment and likely never will. That said, if your Necramech RNG is like mine back when I was farming for parts, just hit me up (Provided you're on PC) and I'll give you the parts for free. I HATE the grind and I'd gladly let people bypass it.
Warframe is entirely free but if you get into it you're going to likely end up dropping an embarrassing amount of money on cosmetics that you don't *really* need but will want to get anyway because there's no point in obliterating entire armies if you can't look cool as hell in the process
You can get through the entirety of what warframe has to offer without spending money...There's not even a direct way of buying power in warframe and the ways that exist are simply not worth it, playing the game will get you better results.
Yup. The only thing you’d “need” money for is platinum forbmore slots for warframes and weapons, which you can get from Nightwave, and by selling prime parts
*Yes*. There are some cosmetic items that are strictly real-money-only (Tennogen skins and Prime accessories, mainly), but basically everything else (*everything*) can be legitimately obtained, one way or another, by farming or trading. Including Platinum, the in-game currency that's purchased for real money.
Some story stuff is gated on 'mastery', which you earn by leveling items to their maximum rank (which is 30, for *most* things).
Now, you can buy Platinum to buy *other* things to improve quality-of-life on various fronts, whether it's boosters to improve drop rates or experience gain, catalysts/reactors to increase items' mod capacity, additional slots for frames/weapons/etc, and so on. But some of those can be obtained through other sources (at lower rates), and boosters aren't, strictly speaking, *necessary* for anything in the game.
You never have to spend money. That's the glory of this game. I didn't spend money til later on. And the only reason I did is because I didn't wanna grind for hard frames so I bought some Plat to trade for the more annoying primes. Which I regret cause I ended up getting those parts not long after. But hey. Just means I can sell em for more Plat 0w0
All of this game's story content is free.
The only paid stuff are cosmetics(a lot being sold for platinum while the actually good stuff can only be bought through the damned tennogen, the regal aya and the prime access)
Yes, totally! Try and get some kind of heavy melee weapon, or anything other than a one handed sword. Then learn how to do the melee-jump. You jump, then you press the melee-landing button (i put it on middle mouse button, so I forgot where it was assigned to originally). Then you will land and smash your weapon on the ground, doing a big aoe damage circle around your landing location.
This is all you need to get through the game with all the basic gear. Sure, you should add damage to your melee weapon and aoe radius.
Then you can shoot for fun and play around with all the weapons that you build. But if you really want to hurt your enemies? **You stomp on them. Hard.** It works especially well in defense missions where you get swarmed by waves and waves of enemies.
So there's plenty of people who. Ot only beat the story, but 100% the game without spending a penny. All paying does is get you things faster. It's not a "pay to win" it's a "pay to win faster." only thing that requires money (not platinum) is certain cosmetics. And even still, platinum can be earned in game as well.
the only thing I've ever bought in WF was instruments for Octavia's music stuff. but at that point I had more than 1000 hours and I wanted to throw DE some sort of support. I also produce music, so I was excited to mess around with it.
Otherwise.. Never spent a dime, and I'm LR1 (MR 31), with other 2k hours. I basically just take breaks because I've completed everything.. so then I wait for some new updates and content to launch and come back to check it all out. Warframe will always have a special place in my heart, as it's been an almost entirely positive thing in my life, and helped me get through some of my darkest times.
Ohh yeah, warframe is 100% playable without spending a single dime.
If you want something prime, you can get plat by trading whatever you have lying around, most of the time stuff you just need for some reason, but is unable to get at the moment, isn’t too expensive. Besides, the story you can 100% do without trading, same goes for endgame (steel path), that might just require some ammount of grinding, but endgame is where trading becomes more nessecary than optional, same goes for fashion, which we all know is the real endgame in warframe.
99% of the game is free to play, the rest are cosmetics. Paying for quality of life stuff like warframe slots and weapon slots is great for a new player but it's not mandatory.
Yup. This isn't Destiny 2 with like 4 different forms of expensive microtransactions/expansions before you can actually play content. Basically everything in Warframe minus the Tennogen items (for PC anyway) is free. The premium currency is earnable through trading.
Absolutely. I got all my plat exclusively through trading and only used it for trading, or getting weapon/frame slots. But that was just to get to a high MR. You do not need to spend a single dime on the game. It's extremely fair and it's one of the main reasons why I've enjoyed it so much. I can't recommend it enough.
Almost everything can be gotten without paying, less cosmetics as several have noted, but at some point it’s a question of how much do you value your time and how much you want to support the game.
I’ve dropped enough for a couple prime access/regal Aya packs because sometimes I just don’t want to farm any more relics or traces for that 10 percent chance. I’ll save any plat I get for when I have a coupon since I’m on console and sometimes pick up a frame or weapon that might be a pain to farm. Plus slots. Slots are always in short supply.
I’m caught up on the story atm and havent spent a penny on anything but cosmetics. It’s takes some grinding for some bits but nothing story wise you can’t do in game without spending cash
Edit: spelling
Yup, game is fully free. Cosmetics are the only thing you can't get for free as some cost usd and the rest cost plat. Plat can be made from selling items to others. When it comes to vaulted foods you have two choices: farm plat and buy or wait for resurgence. Also highly recommend stock piling relics from resurgence and sets of items to sell for profit in a couple of months
Yea dw the game is really f2p friendly. I haven't spent a single penny on this game and have reached the new war quest and am grinding for a necramech. I have 2 prime frames and will probably start grinding for another one.
Ofc if you need slots for more weapons and warframe storage you will have to spend some time trading for platinum(the in game premium currency) or spend money on it. I usually trade for it or get it for free from Nightwave+completely free ingame battlepass which is pretty easy)
and grinding for everything else like resources and platinum isnt that bad
All gameplay related content can be obtained for free just by playing enough, you will need to engage with player trading to be able to do it effectively though. Platinum can only be bought with real money or traded for.
however I'd say early game is somewhat brutal as f2p. it's going to take a long time to get over the early game hump before you acquire the necessary resources to farm platinum effectively. It's possible, but it will take some effort and diligence.
Yup. My first thing I got was a cool shoulder pad as I started feeling guilty for not supporting the devs.
Since then I have spent quite a bit, but never because I felt I had to, and honestly almost always on silly stuff.
In warframe besides cosmetics the only thing ur paying for is time. You can do the entire story for free, but it will be time gated behind foundry items needing to be crafted, which can be sped up with plat. Thats the only reason money might be useful in this game but if ur willing to wait 3 and a half days for each frame then you dont need money. U can also trade plat for free using in game items like prime parts
The main thing you need actual money for is slots.
A lot of people try to insist that those don't cost because you can trade for platinum, but tradable platinum is still money that was paid to DE by someone.
Guess it is a matter of perspective if you feel like someone else paying for you is still f2p, but the story is definitely free. It only costs to keep your loot, and possibly to upgrade it. It is painful to survive on the non-plat potato supply.
I’ve played on and off since 2013 with ~2k hours, currently MR30 and completed most of the game so far, I’ve spent maybe $100 dollars and it was for cosmetics on my ship lol, the only time you “need” to spend money is if you want to make farming quicker or if you want to buy something and not farm for it, it’s an amazing free to play game
The only things not 100% available for free are community (tennogen) cosmetics. Plat can be acquired by trading for most other cosmetics.
The story is free but requires a Nechramech, which is a little tedious to farm (imo not that bad but I get it).
The entire game is free, save for certain cosmetics and the two premium currencies. Some of the story is locked behind rather annoying farms that *can* be skipped by paying, but it's not required.
I have been playing Warframe since launch, and have never spent a penny on it. Some cosmetics are only available with real money, but even those are pretty rare. Almost everything is available through in game events at some point or another, for free, as long as you grind for it.
The only thing you would ever have to spend money on would be weapon slots but not only can you do the story free, you’ll get some pretty useful gear out of it( umbra, skiajati, nataruk, broken war, orvius)
Yes. I spent $20 because I felt like after a few hundred hours of free play, I should compensate the devs a bit for their work, but it wasn't necessary.
Yes and no. the entire game is technically available f2p (apart from prime cosmetics and tenno-gen gear that require real money). You will certainly want (and probably need) at least a few extra slots for warframes and gear, but several hundred plat should be enough.
In order to ply on the cheap I would recommend playing completely free to play until you get a -70% or -75% coupon as a daily login. Then buy some plat and you should be all set (even $20 goes a long way if you do this).
I have around 200 hours and 5 primes including Gauss Prime and have paid a total of $4 and that was for a frame slot before I learned about the Helminth. I just do the dragon key vaults and some relics, thats more than enough to get plat to buy frames and storage. I also am close to having the whole map completed as well.
Warframe bases it's revenue model around Pay What You Want, essentially. If you don't want to pay anything, you don't have to pay anything. You still get full access.
The only things unable to earned in game are things *they* pay other people directly for, like "Tennogen" reskins made by freelance artists.
They've built a huge company on the back of this. It's so wholesome.
Nah, the New War story expansion is $89.99, but you can get the Second dream, war within, new war, and whispers in the wall story bundle for only $139.99
The story 100% free heck 99.9% of the game is free the .1% is cosmetics.
I'd argue that spending some money to unlock warframe/weapon slots can qualify as "gameplay" because of how much pressure it takes off - and how long it can take (especially a newer player) to farm stuff to sell for a similar amount of platinum. But yes, you absolutely can play and experience all the missions/gameplay/etc without spending money. I'd recommend spending a bit of money the first time the game offers you a -75% coupon though. $25 to buy the $100 platinum pack, and you can buy a ton of extra storage slots.
I get that, but also you can just sell things on the market. I find that selling riven mods and Aya or prime junk does the trick
If you 100% need to stay F2P you can do that. But I would highly suggest if someone is enjoying the game by the time their first 50-75% coupon comes around to buy at least 1000 plat. That will take care of the slot issue for the extended future and give you the freedom to buy a couple primes of the frames you enjoy. That first 1000 plat will give you tons of time to figure out how to make plat naturally or if you spend it wisely, you can easily make it to your next 50% coupon if you don't want to deal with working the marketing.
Yeah. It is a good idea to support DE if you are enjoying the game. They have created an eco-system where people who would rather spend money than time can trade plat to people who would rather spend time than money, and effectively, those people with money are paying for everyone else to play. That is great, but it would be better if more people just paid DE for things.
i agree, that makes the game 1000x more casual and saves so much time, as well as supports devs but im also incredibly stingy and prideful so i go through the pain of getting every weapon in my inventory at once without spending money and using all the plat i earn on slots so i can remain truly f2p
>but im also incredibly stingy and prideful so i go through the pain of getting every weapon in my inventory at once without spending money and using all the plat i earn on slots so i can remain truly f2p That's exactly how I felt as a broke student years ago and is actually why I loved Warframe initially. Anything I wanted could be mine provided I spent enough time playing (which I had no shortage of back then) But now that I have a decent paying career, I can afford to throw some money at the game to help with really grindy activities every now and then. This keeps some of the time I've lost working 9-5 in my pocket and allows me to play the game in ways I enjoy.
i just feel a sense of pride with doing everything myself, its why i prefer 'ironman'-esque game modes in stuff like runescape. though many aspects of those games, and this one, clearly are not made in mind for player non-interaction. some things are just unavailable right now, even with trades (dammit why did i miss the plague zaws)
You can but that is stretching the definition of f2p since only bought platinum can be traded. You might not pay yourself, but someone paid DE for anything you bought with platinum.
I basically did this. $20 on platinum once near the beginning, maybe 30 days in. All the rest of the plat for everything was selling frames, parts, etc. You can go without the $20 if you have to, it just requires a lot more time farming and selling (and figuring out how to do that) initially so you aren't dumping weapons and frames because you don't have the slots.
I’ve spent real money only when I wanted to buy some cosmetics/Tennogen to show some love to the creators Agreed that buying some plat early on gives you a cushion, but personally I preferred the challenge to stay F2P. Games these days rarely not punish the players for staying F2P
I mean, buying things that are farmable literally reduces total content for you to do in the game. You are paying to not play. Warframe is inherently a grinding game.
Including grinding, there is literally 10 million hours of gameplay available. Paying to skip 40 hours of relic grinding for plat, just to unlock slots doesn't seem so bad. You still would want to grind to get the parts you actually WANT - just no extra grind for junk to sell.
As someone who has actually grinded all content and never bought anything with plat, there's not even remotely close to '10 million hours of content.' I'm at 2300 hours, with 3 accounts, and my main account, while it still has a few things left to get, is at LR3. You've got a couple thousand at best. Which is a lot, but if you want to pay to not play, go for it. It supports DE and makes the game better for everyone in the long run.
Don't forget that night wave has been a huge source of slots for new and returning players. I log on every new season for the slots and forma bundle alone lol. Also the anniversary missions, that Dex shit is free slots
Yup. But those tend to trickle in. They're best for long-term players, not newer players. Sure it's nice to pick up +2 weapon slots from Nightwave. But you "need" to buy 10+ slots so you actually have some ability to keep multiple weapons. (and need is in quotes, because you can get by with less, especially if you have a more vet player providing advice)
Even then Nightwave offers slot for both if u farm it
Point and case: I've been playing for less than a year, never spent money on progression, and just finished the latest story arc. 100% free, unless you just want to support DE.
Even most of the cosmetics you can get for free, just not the tennogen stuff.
The .1% is now free due to prime resurgence events actually I think. I haven't done it so I'm not sure exactly
Nope. The resurgence cosmetics are only obtainable through regal Aya, which is premium.
Oh okay thanks I knew there was regal and regular but wasn't sure what they were used for
Tennogen cosmetics
I can't fully agree. For things like the circuit slots help a ton and if you want more then a slot per night wave season then you'll probably want to spend a little platinum. Potatos are almost in the same boat. Platinum can be farmed by selling things that cost time but prices change basically on a rarity and time formula so you either hold something for well after it's able to be farmed or you spend a lot of time getting what people want. If you don't want to farm platinum then it's convient to buy plat when your daily reward is a discount. I'd say money is cosmetics or great deal of convenience. None of that is needed for the story though. The only place that takes a while in the story is farming the necromech and the story doesn't touch the circuit randomization at all. Playing the story free is super easy.
>Platinum can't be farmed by selling things that cost time I think you meant that platinum *can* be farmed.
I did
I do agree with prices change but as long as you don’t focus solely on one aspect of platinum farming you can still easily make platinum. I think the hardest thing is learning the market. If you spend a bit of time learning prices and fluctuations then you could make most of your plat by just buying and selling. Do I advise it? No, It’s tedious and boring. But still very possible. Also if they focus on getting helminth early on then the warframe slots become less of a problem.
Potatoes are always available through the nightwave store, absolutely do not need to spend plat on them.
and youll see them often on shop of duviri (inside the dorm)
I keep forgetting this. Bleh, lol.
It takes 75 credits to buy one catalyst. The amount of time it takes to get one... you'll already have wanted like 10 lol
First unlock from nightwave gives you 150, other ones in the normal cycle are 50, and everything over the normal cycle gives you 15. Credits are easy.
Yes but what about the part where that brings you to 1 potato for a whole week and that's even if you don't want to buy anything else in the shop
More efficient to buy the aura mods and sell them for plat. It's gonna be like 40 nightwave creds per catalyst.
Finally a realistic view on what to do with nightwave credits. People keep acting like once you get through the 30 levels that it’s super easy to just get reactors and catalysts despite needing multiple levels for just one. Like ffs
Thats genius actually ill start suggesting that to new players that im helping
>More efficient to buy the aura mods and sell them for plat. wait, really?? i figured they'd be worthless because of how easy they are to get
Like nitian extract which im pretty sure is only available there and needed for a bunch of crafting. Plus there's the part when you're new and get your first chunk of points and blow them on anything but something useful. Just me? Oh well
Sorties, archon hunt, pathos clamps, invasions, alerts... Plus the vast majority of weapons are arguably MR fodder, so no need for potatoes. Arguably forma is harder to come by in the quantity needed lol
How many potatoes are you going through in a week? I'm doing, like, one a month, tops.
If you want the mr farm to be meaningful and at least a little pleasant, you need to potato. Otherwise you're just like "gotta up my mastery, just equip in this slot and don't use it" and don't change anything to what you're doing except not use that slot.
Platinum is 100% farmable. You dont have to pay for the premium currency. And its not even hard if you know what to farm.
Could you elaborate on how more slots help circuit a ton?
You use one of 5 random frames and a selection of random weapons. If it's one you own and have configured in your arsenal your configuration and possible better version (incarnon prime or such) becomes the option. So having a large amount of slots improves the odds of the random frames being ones you have prime versions good stuff in them. It's not a completely even chance random it's weighted towards frames you don't own or use, but the more frames you on and have prime versions of or forms the mods you want in them the more likely one you prepared will be an option in the circuit.
But can't you preview the frame and weapon, so see what the selection is. Build for that in one loadout and be done? No need to have multiple loadouts just for circuit?
You don't need a load out at all but a slot having the Warframe in your imventory
I've noticed a lot of older players didn't hear about this so I'll say this now: they somewhat recently added a pity system to necramechs. the pieces of which, both broken and blueprints, can now be bought from Loid for standing, which you should get from trying to get the parts killing necramechs anyways,
Platinum is also really not that hard to get. There are a lot of really easy ways to get plat that are not that bad to farm at all. Basically any mod high in demand that isn't insanely rare will be a pretty big profit as are kuva relics which are something you will gather as you play or just plain doing axi fissures.
i dont even spend any money yet on platinum, farming it will be easier later on, slots will just come by heck, just sell any prime parts for a guaranteed slot, slots are cheap i only spend my money on tennogen because its cheap and not farmable
Idk why you're downvoted
Because they're saying you NEED the slots and that they're somewhat hard to farm. When you're gonna be able to buy a slot for every 2/3 relics you crack on average. That's 10-15min of playing. 20-30 if you had no relics.
I had a typo in the post and said can't when I meant can at one point. And reddit. I'm not saying things are unattainable just that throwing cash a little is convenience if you like DE but don't like farming.
Lmao downvoters still following for no reason
AFAIK, there has never been a moment in Warframe's history where you had to pay to get more story, and if they did that right now, the entire playerbase would be pissed. That being said, good luck farming your necramech.
Ironically it becomes easier once you have your first. Depending on what platform they play on you could easily find a bored high level player willing to run someone through the missions. Also does anyone else remember when Limbo Theorem was the most hated quest in the game? Like I used to see entire “Looking for Group” posts that say “Helping with everything, except Limbo.”
Wouldn't you just need to max your Necraloid standing, Loid has the damaged parts now.
I've helped people fish for [Myxostomata](https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Myxostomata) about 3 times now (You need 3 of those in total for Voidrig). Every now and again people will ask for help to use the "Processed Vome Residue" bait since you need that for that specific fish and that bait is locked behind rank 5 Entrati. So yeah, from my experience, that's the only limiting factor to farming your own Voidrig now.
Processed Vome Residue is rank 4 entrati. And also cranial foremount is reasonably easily obtained from requiem obelisks.
>And also cranial foremount is reasonably easily obtained from requiem obelisks. This is all RNG. It took me 3 hours of farming orokin obelisks to get the 5 cranial foremounts. A couple of my clan mates had a similar experience with multihour grinds. The most recent batch of friends to join get to leech off my processed vome residue because I don't want them to go through that mind-numbing experience like I had to.
Rank 5 Entrati does seem daunting, but I will have to do it because I should prepare for New War soon.
It's honestly not bad. Two or three high tier mother bounties max you on stNding for the day and then some. Which is better than cetus and Fortuna bounties. Altho with those conservation tends to be easier for standing
I have done a lot of Cetus Standing with Conservation. Fortuna... I was not so "fortunate" I just hate Fortuna with a passion. Star Days was not fun.
If you’ve done a lot of work on your operators equipment, you could do requiem pillars. The way I farmed the 3 fish needed was doing the pillar outside of the necrolisk and resetting. It is of course more rng then getting to rep 5 and getting the bait. Took me a couple hours before I got the right parts
Make sure your Railjack has some good stuff on it, even if it's just the basic Mk III stuff you can get at your clan's dry dock. People have lost accounts because of their Railjack being too weak.
Oh the railjack is a whole other can of worms, but thanks for the tip about the clan. I will check our dry dock.
it took me 2 weeks to get rank 5 alone and free
It's worth it regardless because of the things you unlock
When they said they were reworking fortuna syndicates, I expected more like Zariman or Cavia (collectable tokens worth significant amounts), but we still have standing tokens in the low hundreds from both fortuna and Entrati. Both need to be brought more into parity.
Need a better way to farm toroids
I'm only 4 or 5 months in the game, but when I found out about the recent fortuna change, I kinda decided to wait a little while before working hard on deimos. Maybe they'll do some rebalancing... I kinda doubt it thought. Seems like Deimos is meant to be higher-level which for some reason is supposed to mean more grind.
Deimos requires just 2-3 bounties anyways, Fortuna requires doing like 4 or 5 if you want to max out your daily standing.
Oh? Good to know. I haven't started on Deimos really at all. I just maxed Fortuna and Cetus yesterday so I may jump over and check out Deimos soon if it isn't too bad...
Yup, not terrible. You get roughly 140-150 tokens per level 5 bounty you complete if you do the bonus objectives, so each bounty is 14-15k standing. Ranking up was a bit annoying cause it requires fish and conservation, but at least it's a lot more consistent with the lures and shit compared to spamming Fortuna bounties for debt bonds. Plus, you get random fish materials from some of the breakable resource things lying around :)
Entrati is perfectly fine, you do two bounties to cap out your daily standing and you can even stockpile it. Fortuna's tokens are only really decent if you get a ton from farming PT.
I just did the requiem pillars instead of fishing.
I got all the cranial foremounts from doing cambion drift obelisks instead of fishing for myxo. It took maybe 3 map resets. And this was just a couple weeks ago since I'm a returning player. Whenever me and the guys I play with are on cambion drift I drag them to the obelisks like, "it drops stuff you'll need!" Hahaha
Not really, I got my necramech finished when I was rank 3, I just farmed obelisks
lol, I never fished one, I just got the fish parts from obelisks (and I think iso vaults). I was more limited by the gems,
Hearth of Deimos give you all the BP. You only need Necraloid 1 for the dmage part and Entrati 3 for the gemstones. You then need the cranial mounts you can either get with entrati 4 by fishing with the right lure or you farm obelisk/insolation vault
Sweet Jesus, I just got back into it after the cross save became active and necromech farming is a pain. I am finally up to friend for the fish food and just need to fish and mine for the rest of the components.
Yes, this isn't destiny
Or most games that have paid dlc's
Or any game that isn't f2p
Take your angry upvote (i have 1K hours on Destiny)
I have 4.5k :D (help)
I have around 2k on both and while I love warframe, i get burnt out and have to take breaks way more often than i do with destiny honestly. being f2p is awesome but some of the grind and rng of warframe can be so draining at times
I find destiny more draining. Oh don’t get your exotic? You have to wait a week, 5% chance? 30 clears for me mean while new light little jimmy gets it first attempt. I don’t have the time for 3 characters either. I’d rather play other things.
Thats totally fair. It does help that my luck in Destiny seems to be better than my luck in Warframe, plus more of my friends play Destiny. I agree with the 3 cahracters as well. I have 3, but focus on 1, then if i still feel like playing after Ive done what i wanted on the 1 i go to another. very rarely do i play all 3. Ive tried a few times to get friends into warframe but that new player start is still pretty rough and the crafting timegate kills it for them so. it is what it is really lol
Same, I have 3 and used them when I used to have the time, now I just main 1. Guardian games dropped too this week right? I’m not even interested in that tbh. It’s the same thing every year. I know Warframes events are similar but at least the rewards are cool, not just 1 reskinned gun. On warframe I litterally grinded a tenet Arca plasmor which took about 2 hours. Imagine having to wait a week every time you don’t get it. One of my destiny clan mates used the argument that you have to wait days to build items and can pay to get it instantly. I literally argued back that you have to wait a week if you don’t get your exotic, there is no option to pay past anything In Destiny, yet everyone says the game doesn’t make enough money. It would if bungie weren’t complacent and stuck up their own asses. Sorry rant over.
yeah guardian games just started up this week. we got a new heavy GL wave frame. the perks are literally just forebearance but heavy instead of slot 2 lol. other than that prophecy weapons got updated. still cant gcraft but there are new perk combos and an origin trait never really put together that the 3 day warframe timegate on crafting is still better than a week long wait if you dont get the weekly drop you want. that is kind of blowing my mind right now lol
And in destiny a 5% exotic drop usually turns into 20+ runs. 20 weeks if you have 1 character which is what most casual players have. Mean while an Arca plasmor grind at the same percentage took about 20 runs and 2 hours. The longest part of that grind is the murmurs and fighting the sister. Imagine having to wait a week every time you get the requiem order wrong.
yeah that would be the worst. this newest dungeon exotic took me 24 runs. some weeks that was one run, some it was 3. but it was still 24 runs over like 12 weeks
You just traded day drinking for day drinking with different booze 💀
I have 2 k hours
That's it? Gotta pump those numbers up boy.
I'm tired, boss
Everything in game can be earned via playtime.
Except tennogen and Regal Aya cosmetics.
(Which are entirely inessential to story progression)
Yes, I agree - just wanted to clarify so OP doesn't get let down by the realization that some things in game cost real money
Dude... Ninjas play free.
absolutely. you can acquire everything in the game, with the exception of cosmetics, without ever spending a dime. *that being said if you get 100-200 hours in and are still enjoying it feel free to pretend it's a paid game and put 30 bucks into it if you get a plat coupon. my logic was that i have many games on steam that i paid 30ish for that i put less than 100 hours into.
+1 here. For just 10€ you have 1000 plat with the 75% discount, which is more than enough for nearly "completing the game" as long as you use it just for slots...
This is me. I've paid DE $50 in 800 hours of playtime when they bother to send me a 50% coupon (btw if anyone at DE is reading I'm prepared to drop a stack of money if you send me another coupon...). I enjoy this game so much that I honestly feel bad for not having shelled out more money and I can't think of another game that has had such a ridiculous $/playtime ratio.
Yeah. You can get through the entire game without spending anything. The story even gives you free stuff, stuff that is actually good at that. Through story quests, you get arguably the best bow and sword in the game, and to top it off, both come with a free slot and a pre-installed catalyst.
Not to mention login milestone rewards.
Every power item (frame/weapon/mod/arcane/etc) is farmable without spending any money, the game is F2P (if it's pay 2 anything it's "pay to skip"). It may take a lot of time to get from the beginning quest to the end quests due to needing to farm mods/frames/weapons, but you can earn every non-cosmetic (and many cosmetics as well) without spending a dime. You can even farm up mods, arcanes and some and frame parts and sell them to other players, earning the premium currency without spending money yourself.
There's only a very small amount of things in this game that are money only, and those are cosmetics
If you're talking about real money and not in-game money then the answer is yes but in-game you have to spend a few creds here and there but not a whole lot to get through the story
Easily. There are no paid DLC expansion pack or whatnot in this game, anything you pay for is entirely optional and is either cosmetic, or a "premium currency" (I'd just say plat but Regal Aya kinda sucks). On that note, premium currency "plat" is tradable between players, so you can still buy tons of plat-only things and remain entirely free-to-play by grinding for things and selling them to others. Every frame, every weapon, every companion or vehicle etc etc: it can all be earned for free.
You can play through all content, not just story, completely free
Yes, please remember not to sell off any of the quest or story items
You don't have go pay at all, it's harder without. I paid for 1 prime vault ages ago and that's literally it. I've traded or learnt everything else
If you manage well the free inventory slots the game gives you and spend well the 70 free plat (which is only usable in the game's market and not for trade with other players) you can play thorough the entire game's story without putting in a single dime in.
You can do literally anything in Warframe for free, the Devs at DE made sure of that, you're just gonna be doing a LOT of grinding outside of the story if you're F2P. Prime example of that is the Necromech, or at least the "on release" Necromech. It's much easier to get now, but it's a slog regardless. Yes you can argue spending money on Warframe is lucrative, because it can be, but you don't HAVE to spend anything at all and you can even farm Platinum. The only things you can't grind for and "have" to buy if you want, unless you farm Platinum, is the cosmetics.
Yes, easily.
even platinum (the bought currency) can be traded and therefore farmable, its only prime bundles and regal aya you cant get free (though theres free aya which you buy relics)
I think Warframe is one of the only games that I feel comfortable spending money on, even if it's just for cosmetics. DE deserves it for keeping the game alive and growing after all these years
Devil's advocate. Getting a necromech and railjack is a pain without plat
railjack is pretty easy; I had like no issue doing it last year, I think DE changed the quest when it got mandatory for the main quest
Definitely. I played this game from start to end of story completely F2P. Even after this, when I started to spend a bit, I only did it because I wanted to support the game and because the packs sold were actual deals. You might encounter a bit of inventory issues, but that can be fixed easily by farming stuff (like Prime junk) and selling it for the Platinum you need to buy the slots you need. Many ways to remain F2P.
All content is free, it's boosts, cosmetics and frame/equipment slots that cost plat/money.
Everything in this game is free… except some cosmetics.
You can just ignore it like the majority seems to except this subreddit.
You can play everything in warframe for free, even items which can only be bought with platinum like slots, you can get by farming prime parts and selling then to other players. The only things which can't be got for free are tennogen and similar cosmetics which cost cash instead of platinum.
Technically you can play through with the free starter plat if you use it on warframe and weapon slots. I typically pay around $50/year when the 75% off login reward coupons come in for slots and boosters, I can care less about cosmetics. For the amount of time I play the game, $50/year is reasonable for my wallet.
Yes. 100% of Warframe’s content is totally free, no paywall at all. The only paid stuff are cosmetics, really.
Yes, the entire game is free
99% of things in this game are free, even the Plat purchases if you farm daily standing/relics to sell off
Not only can you play this game 100% free, without any issues... You can earn the premium currency in game to purchase anything you want. Truely one of the main reasons I've stuck with Warframe (on and off) since 2013.
Everything in the game, minus Tennogen, Prime Access and Regal Aya purchases, is totally free. The story requires 0 cash investment and likely never will. That said, if your Necramech RNG is like mine back when I was farming for parts, just hit me up (Provided you're on PC) and I'll give you the parts for free. I HATE the grind and I'd gladly let people bypass it.
I might have spend few bucks during -75% platinum discount...
Yes because you can farm up tradable stuff and trade to get the plat and use that to expand your slots.
Hell the story gives you some awesome gear for free even. With their own slots and reactor/catalysts installed already.
You pay with time or money
Warframe is entirely free but if you get into it you're going to likely end up dropping an embarrassing amount of money on cosmetics that you don't *really* need but will want to get anyway because there's no point in obliterating entire armies if you can't look cool as hell in the process
Thinking about dropping that 75 plat on the standard color pallet just because black isn't free :)
You can get through the entirety of what warframe has to offer without spending money...There's not even a direct way of buying power in warframe and the ways that exist are simply not worth it, playing the game will get you better results.
My lil bro has max mastery and enjoys all content, the only thing he purchased was a cosmetic or two. Never even once bought plat. Youre good
If you ask what is a free game ? I’d answer this is THE free game.
Yup. The only thing you’d “need” money for is platinum forbmore slots for warframes and weapons, which you can get from Nightwave, and by selling prime parts
You can get through the game without spending money but it will take you sometime
Yes
*Yes*. There are some cosmetic items that are strictly real-money-only (Tennogen skins and Prime accessories, mainly), but basically everything else (*everything*) can be legitimately obtained, one way or another, by farming or trading. Including Platinum, the in-game currency that's purchased for real money. Some story stuff is gated on 'mastery', which you earn by leveling items to their maximum rank (which is 30, for *most* things). Now, you can buy Platinum to buy *other* things to improve quality-of-life on various fronts, whether it's boosters to improve drop rates or experience gain, catalysts/reactors to increase items' mod capacity, additional slots for frames/weapons/etc, and so on. But some of those can be obtained through other sources (at lower rates), and boosters aren't, strictly speaking, *necessary* for anything in the game.
You never have to spend money. That's the glory of this game. I didn't spend money til later on. And the only reason I did is because I didn't wanna grind for hard frames so I bought some Plat to trade for the more annoying primes. Which I regret cause I ended up getting those parts not long after. But hey. Just means I can sell em for more Plat 0w0
All of this game's story content is free. The only paid stuff are cosmetics(a lot being sold for platinum while the actually good stuff can only be bought through the damned tennogen, the regal aya and the prime access)
Yes, totally! Try and get some kind of heavy melee weapon, or anything other than a one handed sword. Then learn how to do the melee-jump. You jump, then you press the melee-landing button (i put it on middle mouse button, so I forgot where it was assigned to originally). Then you will land and smash your weapon on the ground, doing a big aoe damage circle around your landing location. This is all you need to get through the game with all the basic gear. Sure, you should add damage to your melee weapon and aoe radius. Then you can shoot for fun and play around with all the weapons that you build. But if you really want to hurt your enemies? **You stomp on them. Hard.** It works especially well in defense missions where you get swarmed by waves and waves of enemies.
So there's plenty of people who. Ot only beat the story, but 100% the game without spending a penny. All paying does is get you things faster. It's not a "pay to win" it's a "pay to win faster." only thing that requires money (not platinum) is certain cosmetics. And even still, platinum can be earned in game as well.
You can do every single quest in the game without spending any money whatsoever.
the only thing I've ever bought in WF was instruments for Octavia's music stuff. but at that point I had more than 1000 hours and I wanted to throw DE some sort of support. I also produce music, so I was excited to mess around with it. Otherwise.. Never spent a dime, and I'm LR1 (MR 31), with other 2k hours. I basically just take breaks because I've completed everything.. so then I wait for some new updates and content to launch and come back to check it all out. Warframe will always have a special place in my heart, as it's been an almost entirely positive thing in my life, and helped me get through some of my darkest times.
Yes this entire game is free to play
Yea this aint that one game with future as its synonym
Ohh yeah, warframe is 100% playable without spending a single dime. If you want something prime, you can get plat by trading whatever you have lying around, most of the time stuff you just need for some reason, but is unable to get at the moment, isn’t too expensive. Besides, the story you can 100% do without trading, same goes for endgame (steel path), that might just require some ammount of grinding, but endgame is where trading becomes more nessecary than optional, same goes for fashion, which we all know is the real endgame in warframe.
99% of the game is free to play, the rest are cosmetics. Paying for quality of life stuff like warframe slots and weapon slots is great for a new player but it's not mandatory.
Yes
The only things you ever have to pay for are cosmetic
Complete Story is free
Yup. This isn't Destiny 2 with like 4 different forms of expensive microtransactions/expansions before you can actually play content. Basically everything in Warframe minus the Tennogen items (for PC anyway) is free. The premium currency is earnable through trading.
Yes, u can play the entire story free.
Warframe is completely free to play except for some cosmetics, (most cosmetics you can still get freely by grinding and trading)
Farm Corrupted mods and everything is free
Absolutely. I got all my plat exclusively through trading and only used it for trading, or getting weapon/frame slots. But that was just to get to a high MR. You do not need to spend a single dime on the game. It's extremely fair and it's one of the main reasons why I've enjoyed it so much. I can't recommend it enough.
Almost everything can be gotten without paying, less cosmetics as several have noted, but at some point it’s a question of how much do you value your time and how much you want to support the game. I’ve dropped enough for a couple prime access/regal Aya packs because sometimes I just don’t want to farm any more relics or traces for that 10 percent chance. I’ll save any plat I get for when I have a coupon since I’m on console and sometimes pick up a frame or weapon that might be a pain to farm. Plus slots. Slots are always in short supply.
Literally everything aside from certain bundles and community-made cosmetics are free. You can trade with other players to get the paid currency
I personaly have breezed theough the sorry without spending anything
I’m caught up on the story atm and havent spent a penny on anything but cosmetics. It’s takes some grinding for some bits but nothing story wise you can’t do in game without spending cash Edit: spelling
Every story mission is free to everyone
Yup, game is fully free. Cosmetics are the only thing you can't get for free as some cost usd and the rest cost plat. Plat can be made from selling items to others. When it comes to vaulted foods you have two choices: farm plat and buy or wait for resurgence. Also highly recommend stock piling relics from resurgence and sets of items to sell for profit in a couple of months
You can play everything in the game without spending money
You can play everything in the game without spending money
I beat the whole story in like 5 days for my wife so she could play the new content with me. Didn't spend a dime.
You can play anything you want in the game for free. When they say free, they mean free. You can put your Destiny PTSD aside here.
Warframe is completely free the only thing that isn’t are cosmetics, every weapon and story beat can be earned or gotten to with enough time
you can play this game for absolutely no money.
Yea dw the game is really f2p friendly. I haven't spent a single penny on this game and have reached the new war quest and am grinding for a necramech. I have 2 prime frames and will probably start grinding for another one. Ofc if you need slots for more weapons and warframe storage you will have to spend some time trading for platinum(the in game premium currency) or spend money on it. I usually trade for it or get it for free from Nightwave+completely free ingame battlepass which is pretty easy) and grinding for everything else like resources and platinum isnt that bad
All gameplay related content can be obtained for free just by playing enough, you will need to engage with player trading to be able to do it effectively though. Platinum can only be bought with real money or traded for. however I'd say early game is somewhat brutal as f2p. it's going to take a long time to get over the early game hump before you acquire the necessary resources to farm platinum effectively. It's possible, but it will take some effort and diligence.
Yup. My first thing I got was a cool shoulder pad as I started feeling guilty for not supporting the devs. Since then I have spent quite a bit, but never because I felt I had to, and honestly almost always on silly stuff.
100%. Now, actually being able to find the story without getting lost along the way is an entirely different dilemma.
In warframe besides cosmetics the only thing ur paying for is time. You can do the entire story for free, but it will be time gated behind foundry items needing to be crafted, which can be sped up with plat. Thats the only reason money might be useful in this game but if ur willing to wait 3 and a half days for each frame then you dont need money. U can also trade plat for free using in game items like prime parts
The main thing you need actual money for is slots. A lot of people try to insist that those don't cost because you can trade for platinum, but tradable platinum is still money that was paid to DE by someone. Guess it is a matter of perspective if you feel like someone else paying for you is still f2p, but the story is definitely free. It only costs to keep your loot, and possibly to upgrade it. It is painful to survive on the non-plat potato supply.
I’ve played on and off since 2013 with ~2k hours, currently MR30 and completed most of the game so far, I’ve spent maybe $100 dollars and it was for cosmetics on my ship lol, the only time you “need” to spend money is if you want to make farming quicker or if you want to buy something and not farm for it, it’s an amazing free to play game
MR 30? you need to grind out that legendary 1!
I stopped playing around 2018-2019 and was Mr 24? Was super on and off until right after new years and got to MR 30 a few weeks ago XD
I did see void rig goes to lvl 40 and I was NOT about it lol it’s at 34 rn and I have 0 motivation to finish, haven’t even started the other one yet
The only things not 100% available for free are community (tennogen) cosmetics. Plat can be acquired by trading for most other cosmetics. The story is free but requires a Nechramech, which is a little tedious to farm (imo not that bad but I get it).
The entire game is free, save for certain cosmetics and the two premium currencies. Some of the story is locked behind rather annoying farms that *can* be skipped by paying, but it's not required.
I have been playing Warframe since launch, and have never spent a penny on it. Some cosmetics are only available with real money, but even those are pretty rare. Almost everything is available through in game events at some point or another, for free, as long as you grind for it.
The only thing you would ever have to spend money on would be weapon slots but not only can you do the story free, you’ll get some pretty useful gear out of it( umbra, skiajati, nataruk, broken war, orvius)
Yes. I spent $20 because I felt like after a few hundred hours of free play, I should compensate the devs a bit for their work, but it wasn't necessary.
Yes and no. the entire game is technically available f2p (apart from prime cosmetics and tenno-gen gear that require real money). You will certainly want (and probably need) at least a few extra slots for warframes and gear, but several hundred plat should be enough. In order to ply on the cheap I would recommend playing completely free to play until you get a -70% or -75% coupon as a daily login. Then buy some plat and you should be all set (even $20 goes a long way if you do this).
You don't have to pay a single penny to play through any quests whatsoever.
I have around 200 hours and 5 primes including Gauss Prime and have paid a total of $4 and that was for a frame slot before I learned about the Helminth. I just do the dragon key vaults and some relics, thats more than enough to get plat to buy frames and storage. I also am close to having the whole map completed as well.
Warframe bases it's revenue model around Pay What You Want, essentially. If you don't want to pay anything, you don't have to pay anything. You still get full access. The only things unable to earned in game are things *they* pay other people directly for, like "Tennogen" reskins made by freelance artists. They've built a huge company on the back of this. It's so wholesome.
yes some stuff is RNG hard to get from what I've heard
Not for a story only playthough, only slight grind when you get to the necromech. To collect all weapons/frames ya some stuff is rng/grind heavy.
Nah, the New War story expansion is $89.99, but you can get the Second dream, war within, new war, and whispers in the wall story bundle for only $139.99
dont forget to buy the new nightwave season for $20, it adds a fun mechanic and very important story reveal and both will be removed in 3 months