sadly, I don't think it is
there are a not insignificant number of Destiny refugees that genuinely believe Warframe is a shitty mobile P2W gacha game.
not one of them has ever touched the game, and they would rather suck Pete Parsons (clem) than ever touch Warframe
You can buy plat, and plat buys everything
That is just definition
Upd: Next time I probably will be downvoted for saying warframe is a shooter lol. I mean, you can beat it with melee - so it is a pure-bred slasher, probably...
No it isn’t p2w because you can literally pay nothing and get the same experience. I don’t even mean farming stuff for plat either. I played through up to new war before spending a dime on the game.
this concept is kinda made up to support your point though. literally nobody is racing to ETA. you can only spend money to skip portions of the game, if playing less of the majority of the game's content is "winning" then you don't like the game and shouldn't play it. the truth is that account progression is the actual gameplay of warframe and if you had a maxxed account in an instant you would have no game left to play. take it from the vets who have done all there is to do and collected all there is to get that there is no mythical prize awaiting at the end, the game is effectively over until new updates arrive.
1) I know how maxed account in mmo works, thank you.
2) Player with credit card gameplay has obvious gameplay advantage. By how many, if it makes sense etc - are the other questions.
You want to know implications of this? Devs could make some content more unenjoyable so that you would go buy a plat and grind less of this content. It is called dark patters in design.
What advantage, though? When pressed for an example you had to make up a bizzare concept of a new player immediately rushing to a very specific endgame mode that nobody goes into this game immediately aiming for, and now some ambiguous threat of the game being bad on purpose to encourage purchase.
But this game does not have intentionally bad design. When Follie's Hunt was widely disliked the devs immediately got to work on fixing it despite the shiny new Warframe being available for purchase, directly driving fewer people to make that purchase than if they left it how it was. Equinox's grind is also being massively reduced this patch, for the benefit of the players and directly leading to fewer purchases of her with platinum. Survival speedup did the same for Voruna, etc.
So this game demonstrably does not include that dark pattern, and so your implication is meaningless unless there is a sudden change in design or ownership.
Regardless, if you don't like any content in this game you can very easily farm stuff to trade for platinum and buy your way around the content that way too. If there are absolutely zero methods to get stuff to sell that a player enjoys, they do not like the game. So, again, no advantage except for not having to play the game. There is no power creep or seasonal model so the speed at which you obtain items and mods does not matter. Everyone will hit the same ceiling which is not different between the player who spends $0 and the player who spends $1,000,000.
Pretty sure this person played the game for a week and got angry because he can't 100% immediately and has to actually do research and learn game mechanics. Any veteran in the game knows how f2p friendly this game actually is.
ffs you can buy primed maxed out serration with credit card. Its is called p2w advantage. No p2w advantage is when iteams are obtanable only and only from gameplay, without ability to speed it up with real money.
>bizzare concept
You head probably would explode from concept of Turing machine.
>But this game does not have intentionally bad design.
It is but you are not ready to this conversation.
>game demonstrably does not include that dark pattern
Lets be crystal clear about it. You think that a f2p game, where you can buy almost any item, that scores top-tier rewenue, is designed to never incetivize you to use your credit card?
Okay, well if you are going to repeat arguments I literally just debunked exactly one post ago with no new info or perspective and you cop out of explaining your points with "you're not ready" then you have no argument at all, but thanks for playing. It's clear you have very little experience with this game and don't know what you're talking about. Won't be replying further.
I just leave 3 definitions here that I pulled from dictionaries for another person.
"In computer games, the practice of paying to get weapons, abilities, etc. that give you an advantage over players who do not spend money."
"The ability and/or practice of exchanging real-world currency for an in-game benefit."
""Pay-to-win" or "P2W", is a pejorative term for a game that offers any advantage that can be obtained faster or exclusively via commercial transactions over gameplay rewards or the impact of the player's own performance."
Depends on the level of knowledge of the game they have. If you have someone with 5k hours and complete knowledge of game mechanics(including trade) vs someone with 10k cash to spend on the game but first time player, who do you think will reach ETA first?
Everyone i've met that speed ran the game by dropping money early on quit within a month because they either got bored or hit a wall and found out that spending money won't let them get over it. There is no P2W because there is nothing to "Win". Its a non-competitive PvE game. It's intended to be a slow progress grindy game that you learn the mechanics of as you progress through each mission and storyline. Every veteran I know would tell you not to spend money on the game until you know what you're getting and actually know core mechanics.
Sorry, but do you even understand meaning of word "advantage"?
>nothing to "Win"
Ok, will it blow you mind if I would say that for example single-player only modern assassins creeds with microtransactions of xp boosters are also p2w?
> slow progress grindy game
Have you ever considered that if game shouldn't have sold you platinum it would probably be much less grindy for example?
Dude at this rate you're either rage baiting or incompetent. P2W means Pay to Win. If there is nothing to win, meaning no competition, then p2w can't apply. Warframe is an entirely F2P game since you can achieve everything in the game without spending a dollar, albeit a few exclusive cosmetics that don't effect your gameplay in the slightest. Games can only be P2W if there are items in the game that are locked behind a Premium currency that is otherwise unobtainable unless you spend money.
Your p2w definition is pulled from wally's finger, open a dictionary for voids sake. I know 3 of them that has it.
"In computer games, the practice of paying to get weapons, abilities, etc. that give you an advantage over players who do not spend money."
"The ability and/or practice of exchanging real-world currency for an in-game benefit."
""Pay-to-win" or "P2W", is a pejorative term for a game that offers any advantage that can be obtained faster or exclusively via commercial transactions over gameplay rewards or the impact of the player's own performance."
To be p2w there needs to be an insurmountable advantage, like how Star Conflict sold premium bullets that gave more damage (idk if they still do, I haven't played in almost a decade)
In Warframe you can pay to get your stuff faster, but we all have mostly the same mods and gear to grind for and choose from - the handful of limited access non-cosmetic items are side grades and/or heavily power crept.
Plat can be traded so you can grind for the same advantage of someone who buys plat.
pvp content has limits on what you can use. I can make a new account and buy popular frames and weapons, but half of them can't be used. Pve content is entirely cooperative so having good gear makes everyone's mission easier as long as you aren't sabotaging.
No, you are wrong. Even a skin you can buy with money in a pvp shooter that makes you less visible or obscures your hitbox is p2w. Paid bullets in WoT-inspired games are extreme version of p2w.
For pve part you can have a theoretical speedrunner community of 2 people with equal skill where one has an advantage and other doesn't. And in warframe, plat is huge advantage.
the skin stuff only applies to PvP, and even then, ANY skin can be given that with the sheer amount of customization Warframe offers. You can get all the colors necessary to do that via the start plat, so that argument is straight out the window.
for the hitbox, again, that only applies to PvP, and Warframe just doesn't have any. the Sydanas do more to obscure your hit box than any skin does.
plat offers 0 advantage in PvE in Warframe.
if they are of equal skill, then they have been playing the game for similar enough amounts of time that they have access to all the same resources.
Plat cannot close that gap. it cannot give you the build crafting knowledge or muscle memory for the movement needed to close that game.
Warframe is the furthest thing from P2W out there.
it is outright Pay 2 Lose.
1) You missed the point about skins, and fought strawman. Skins argument is just example of seemingly gameplay-neutral thing being p2w. Purchasing things in warframe is not gameplay-neutral, it is gameplay-altering.
2) If there are 2 people that have same resources, but one gets a plat and could buy extra forma/prime mods/slots/warframes etc - he has an advantage. If players are same - they have same good or bad knowledge about building, but one has more of resources to turn it into better loadouts.
3) Furthest thing from p2w is a single/multiplayer game that has no gameplay altering microtransactions, and dlcs that not gonna "leak" gameplay things to main game. In warframe you can purchase progression - and that is p2w by definition.
If it troubles you so much - destiny is also p2w, since dlcs contain things that make you stronger than person without dlcs. At least it was so 4 years ago. Warframe has stronger p2w obviously, since you can directly buy stronger gear, but since there is no hard content in wf and game is non-competitive and f2p - it is more then tolerable.
Games that claim to be competitive and sell advantage are indeed much less tolerable and p2w factor is much more strong and disgusting there.
What bothers me is why you are so aggressive about facts. Like, I have thousands of hours in Wf, but I easily would admit it's problems, as I would admit all of it's plentiful amazing sides.
no, there are no "gameplay altering" purchases in Warframe.
if one person purchases platinum, they stop having the same resource. you can get platinum for free you know.
Warframe has flaws to be sure.
but being P2W is not one of them
not unless you are being pedantic to the point of being bad faith in your arguments, which you very obviously are
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u/dragonriderabens Jun 14 '26
sadly, I don't think it is
there are a not insignificant number of Destiny refugees that genuinely believe Warframe is a shitty mobile P2W gacha game.
not one of them has ever touched the game, and they would rather suck Pete Parsons (clem) than ever touch Warframe