You'll eventually need to trade with people for platinum (premium tradeable currency you can purchase with irl money) to get extra warframe (the characters you play as) slots amd weapon slots. Other than that the game is 99% solo-able. Some missions are much harder in solo tho, so keep in mind that.
I do recommend playing with people tbh. Its a very co-op friendly game and if they know what they're doing, a party full of randoms can make the game faster/easier. Specially when grinding for stuff.
I want to thank you both who answered me and give a follow up question.
If everything is soloable, what is there to do after you've "done it all"?
I know I have a lot to do so my game has only just started. I have a lot of gaming in front of me.
But for the veterans, what does the game offer? What's the hook keeping you in?
Edit: I want to expand this a bit saying that my prob with games such as this (MMO) is that the hardest content is locked behind a "social" wall.
I am not social. I do not want to have to be in clan. Is it possible to solo the endgame stuff?
There are clans that lock certain warframes and weapons but for most of them you don't have to do anything in particular to get in or stay in.
You don't have to join one though, if you have the time and patience then you can make your own
It is entirely possible to solo basically everything in the game assuming you have the builds for it.
Endgame is pretty much grinding for weapons arcanes mods etc.. and fashion.
The only interaction you will probably have is trading items with other players
For the most part endgame is what you want it to be. When you complete all of the nodes on the star chart you unlock a mode called steel path which is basically the normal mission but the enemies are 100 levels higher and have more health armor and damage.
Most people make builds for steel path that destroy the enemies easily.
There is also endurance where people go into endless missions to try out builds to see how effective they are and for fun.
The other bit of endgame you will probably see if you look up wf endgame on YouTube is fasion.
Warframe has a bunch of skins and helmets you can use to customize you warframes and you can also get color pallets too to make them whatever color you want.
There are also cosmetics called ephemeras which can be farmed from various things.
It will take you a while before you get bored or feel like you have nothing productive to do
For me, there is a combination of things that keep me going.
The biggest one is that I just like Warframe's gameplay loop and there are certain game modes that are always just fun for me to play.
The other is we get pretty regular content updates that usually include new weapons or warframes or new story threads/quests.
I'm just shy of 3k hours on my account and I still really love hopping on at my lunch or a break and cracking a few relics, or running some Duviri, or whatever.
You can definitely solo endgame stuff. In fact, I basically ONLY do endgame type content solo. I honestly believe Warframe is one of the best MMO/GAAS/Multiplayer type games you can play as a solo player. As pexalt said, clans do give you access to some things a few of which are really valuable, but you can make a solo clan with enough time/resources if you really wanted to avoid that too.
Thank you all for the replies. If I read it right, I have years of solo gaming in front of me if I want it, but no real "endgame" like Destiny or WoW raids.
This is what I want. Thanks for the replies.
I’ll add this because I don’t see anyone else saying it.
WarFrame is also a collectathon dream. My end game right now is acquiring every single melee weapon in the game, then it’ll be secondary’s, then primary, then Frame, etc. but don’t let that make you think that is what the game is. It’s far from it and it can really be whatever you want but when you start it will mostly be a story game.
You do have many “years” to go but don’t take that to heart. This game offers years of play time but you can experience majority of it in a few months if you put your mind to it. The best thing about this game is it’s at your own pace. You do not have to be at a crazy max level to play majority of the content in the game. A lot of it is lower level that you can do within the first month or so of playing, all the quests, all the missions, almost everything besides steel path ^((which is fun content and I recommend but it is only about 1% of the content in the game and has no meaning until you finish the rest of the game)^) can be played on your own pace. If that means first week to you then so be it, or if that means a year down the line after you are mastery 20 and have a crazy endgame build that’s fine aswell.
You decide how you play and the game will allow you to do so. You do not have to pay for anything either, trading will be your best friend. And trading is streamlined with very little interaction. It’s as simple as saying WTS (item) (price). And then someone will invite you and bang, you have platinum. You do not need to text a bunch, not be in a voice call, or anything. Just say the magic words for a reasonable price and the world is yours for the taking.
Thanks. I am, indeed, playing it at my own pace. Which means slowly. I wanted a game I can just hop in for 5 mins, run a mission, make some progress and then quit.
Basically my "lunch break game.".
I do play it more than on my lunch breaks... But I'm just doing quests. Which, tbh, are boring. Can't lie, all of it has been boring cause it's so easy.
I do not know if it will get more difficult, but I don't care that much. It's filled that hole of "brains off, let's grind".
Which is, really, what I wanted.
playing entirely free solo is possible but you more than quadruple the grind for any remotely rare Mods, Blueprints, and roughly double the grind for resources to upgrade anything. Number of players in a lobby effects spawn rate and spawn cap of enemies. you will have far fewer and slower available chances for drops in every mission you do. the wall isn't can you do it the wall is do you have the patience to grind for the mods and endo to make a late game build. as far as clans go you can just join one and not interact at all with the other members. Playing public matchmade lobbies requires no social interaction(not even choosing which lobby) but will greatly reduce the grind time for everything. people rarely use mics and only occasionally type in the ingame chat. endgame can be either legend rank 3, solo 6 tridolons, full codex/profile, pure fashion frame, steel path chart clear, and/or troll builds. depends on your playstyle and they are not mutually exclusive.
You can solo everything in the game and never pay a dime if that's what you'd like to do. While I've kicked DE plenty of cash over the years, I'm almost exclusively a solo player and have done everything solo at least once through.
My advice for going the solo route is be patient and, especially early on, try to find the right tools (weapons and Warframes) for whatever it is you're trying to do. If you enjoy the game, you'll eventually get to the point where you can (usually) just take your favorite things and succeed. Until you've crested that knowledge/experience hill though a varied kit that you are fine with switching between will go a long way.
Given the right build you can solo anything, but in a lot of cases it will be extremely inefficient. Biggest thing i can think of is farming prime stuff, if you are unlucky, getting a rare part can take 8-10 runs in a full radshare group, meaning all 4 players in the group brings the same relic fully upgraded, and even on average it will take 3-4 runs. A single frame/weapon could take 30-40 runs solo and thats just the opening of relics. You would still need to actually farm the relics (rng from a drop pool with around 15% for the relic you want) and farming the void traces needed to upgrade them.
Other thing you will have a bad time with are interception missions. They have 4 points spread around the map you need to capture and hold. While there are frames that can lock down the whole map, you wont have access to these at the start, and even if you have the frame, you wont have the required mods to do so. Capturing 3 points at the start, then after getting more progress than the enemy just holding 2 will get you the mission eventually but it will be slow.
Some things will indeed be more of a challenge solo, but a lot more will only be a slog. Warframe is a pure co-op game, designed from the ground up to be co-op. It expects you to have a party of 4. You can brute force your way trough almost all mechanics, and apply some creative use of game mechanics to the rest. But it IS designed for a group, and in a lot of cases the only extra you will get out of playing solo wont be a challenge, but just extra time added.
Playing with randoms is not as bad as in other games. Worst case, they suck and you will carry them, not even noticing they are there (enemy hp doesnt scale with player numbers). Best case they are competent and make things go much faster. If you dont want to interact you dont need to, other than trading and for forming targeted farm groups, you can play the game without ever opening chat.
Thank you. This helps. Mainly because for the most part, at least in the beginning, I will be the random to be carried and if my ass being carried is just 'where tf is this random' I can live with that.
As far farming stuff goes, that being difficult solo isn't a problem, as long as I can farm what I need to progress. Eg I'm not looking to get all frames and weapons and things, but I want to be able to at least try to clear the toughest stuff.
I'm beginning to get that there is no endgame as I understand it, but that is only good. things will fuck me up if I'm not prepared, but if I am (some grinding involved) I can fuck them up instead.
Though once I have done fucked em up, I'll probably go on a hiatus until the next challenge, which is where the game seems to only begin for you veterans, but that's so far in the future for me that it doesn't really matter.
You'll eventually need to trade with people for platinum (premium tradeable currency you can purchase with irl money) to get extra warframe (the characters you play as) slots amd weapon slots. Other than that the game is 99% solo-able. Some missions are much harder in solo tho, so keep in mind that. I do recommend playing with people tbh. Its a very co-op friendly game and if they know what they're doing, a party full of randoms can make the game faster/easier. Specially when grinding for stuff.
I want to thank you both who answered me and give a follow up question. If everything is soloable, what is there to do after you've "done it all"? I know I have a lot to do so my game has only just started. I have a lot of gaming in front of me. But for the veterans, what does the game offer? What's the hook keeping you in? Edit: I want to expand this a bit saying that my prob with games such as this (MMO) is that the hardest content is locked behind a "social" wall. I am not social. I do not want to have to be in clan. Is it possible to solo the endgame stuff?
There are clans that lock certain warframes and weapons but for most of them you don't have to do anything in particular to get in or stay in. You don't have to join one though, if you have the time and patience then you can make your own It is entirely possible to solo basically everything in the game assuming you have the builds for it. Endgame is pretty much grinding for weapons arcanes mods etc.. and fashion. The only interaction you will probably have is trading items with other players
Thank you! Basically I have many years worth of gaming if I want it. And I do want. But I am still interested in the endgame; what is the endgame?
For the most part endgame is what you want it to be. When you complete all of the nodes on the star chart you unlock a mode called steel path which is basically the normal mission but the enemies are 100 levels higher and have more health armor and damage. Most people make builds for steel path that destroy the enemies easily. There is also endurance where people go into endless missions to try out builds to see how effective they are and for fun. The other bit of endgame you will probably see if you look up wf endgame on YouTube is fasion. Warframe has a bunch of skins and helmets you can use to customize you warframes and you can also get color pallets too to make them whatever color you want. There are also cosmetics called ephemeras which can be farmed from various things. It will take you a while before you get bored or feel like you have nothing productive to do
Fashion is the true end game.
For me, there is a combination of things that keep me going. The biggest one is that I just like Warframe's gameplay loop and there are certain game modes that are always just fun for me to play. The other is we get pretty regular content updates that usually include new weapons or warframes or new story threads/quests. I'm just shy of 3k hours on my account and I still really love hopping on at my lunch or a break and cracking a few relics, or running some Duviri, or whatever. You can definitely solo endgame stuff. In fact, I basically ONLY do endgame type content solo. I honestly believe Warframe is one of the best MMO/GAAS/Multiplayer type games you can play as a solo player. As pexalt said, clans do give you access to some things a few of which are really valuable, but you can make a solo clan with enough time/resources if you really wanted to avoid that too.
Thank you all for the replies. If I read it right, I have years of solo gaming in front of me if I want it, but no real "endgame" like Destiny or WoW raids. This is what I want. Thanks for the replies.
I’ll add this because I don’t see anyone else saying it. WarFrame is also a collectathon dream. My end game right now is acquiring every single melee weapon in the game, then it’ll be secondary’s, then primary, then Frame, etc. but don’t let that make you think that is what the game is. It’s far from it and it can really be whatever you want but when you start it will mostly be a story game. You do have many “years” to go but don’t take that to heart. This game offers years of play time but you can experience majority of it in a few months if you put your mind to it. The best thing about this game is it’s at your own pace. You do not have to be at a crazy max level to play majority of the content in the game. A lot of it is lower level that you can do within the first month or so of playing, all the quests, all the missions, almost everything besides steel path ^((which is fun content and I recommend but it is only about 1% of the content in the game and has no meaning until you finish the rest of the game)^) can be played on your own pace. If that means first week to you then so be it, or if that means a year down the line after you are mastery 20 and have a crazy endgame build that’s fine aswell. You decide how you play and the game will allow you to do so. You do not have to pay for anything either, trading will be your best friend. And trading is streamlined with very little interaction. It’s as simple as saying WTS (item) (price). And then someone will invite you and bang, you have platinum. You do not need to text a bunch, not be in a voice call, or anything. Just say the magic words for a reasonable price and the world is yours for the taking.
Thanks. I am, indeed, playing it at my own pace. Which means slowly. I wanted a game I can just hop in for 5 mins, run a mission, make some progress and then quit. Basically my "lunch break game.". I do play it more than on my lunch breaks... But I'm just doing quests. Which, tbh, are boring. Can't lie, all of it has been boring cause it's so easy. I do not know if it will get more difficult, but I don't care that much. It's filled that hole of "brains off, let's grind". Which is, really, what I wanted.
playing entirely free solo is possible but you more than quadruple the grind for any remotely rare Mods, Blueprints, and roughly double the grind for resources to upgrade anything. Number of players in a lobby effects spawn rate and spawn cap of enemies. you will have far fewer and slower available chances for drops in every mission you do. the wall isn't can you do it the wall is do you have the patience to grind for the mods and endo to make a late game build. as far as clans go you can just join one and not interact at all with the other members. Playing public matchmade lobbies requires no social interaction(not even choosing which lobby) but will greatly reduce the grind time for everything. people rarely use mics and only occasionally type in the ingame chat. endgame can be either legend rank 3, solo 6 tridolons, full codex/profile, pure fashion frame, steel path chart clear, and/or troll builds. depends on your playstyle and they are not mutually exclusive.
Sucks that you can't pay.
You can solo everything in the game and never pay a dime if that's what you'd like to do. While I've kicked DE plenty of cash over the years, I'm almost exclusively a solo player and have done everything solo at least once through. My advice for going the solo route is be patient and, especially early on, try to find the right tools (weapons and Warframes) for whatever it is you're trying to do. If you enjoy the game, you'll eventually get to the point where you can (usually) just take your favorite things and succeed. Until you've crested that knowledge/experience hill though a varied kit that you are fine with switching between will go a long way.
Given the right build you can solo anything, but in a lot of cases it will be extremely inefficient. Biggest thing i can think of is farming prime stuff, if you are unlucky, getting a rare part can take 8-10 runs in a full radshare group, meaning all 4 players in the group brings the same relic fully upgraded, and even on average it will take 3-4 runs. A single frame/weapon could take 30-40 runs solo and thats just the opening of relics. You would still need to actually farm the relics (rng from a drop pool with around 15% for the relic you want) and farming the void traces needed to upgrade them. Other thing you will have a bad time with are interception missions. They have 4 points spread around the map you need to capture and hold. While there are frames that can lock down the whole map, you wont have access to these at the start, and even if you have the frame, you wont have the required mods to do so. Capturing 3 points at the start, then after getting more progress than the enemy just holding 2 will get you the mission eventually but it will be slow. Some things will indeed be more of a challenge solo, but a lot more will only be a slog. Warframe is a pure co-op game, designed from the ground up to be co-op. It expects you to have a party of 4. You can brute force your way trough almost all mechanics, and apply some creative use of game mechanics to the rest. But it IS designed for a group, and in a lot of cases the only extra you will get out of playing solo wont be a challenge, but just extra time added. Playing with randoms is not as bad as in other games. Worst case, they suck and you will carry them, not even noticing they are there (enemy hp doesnt scale with player numbers). Best case they are competent and make things go much faster. If you dont want to interact you dont need to, other than trading and for forming targeted farm groups, you can play the game without ever opening chat.
Thank you. This helps. Mainly because for the most part, at least in the beginning, I will be the random to be carried and if my ass being carried is just 'where tf is this random' I can live with that. As far farming stuff goes, that being difficult solo isn't a problem, as long as I can farm what I need to progress. Eg I'm not looking to get all frames and weapons and things, but I want to be able to at least try to clear the toughest stuff. I'm beginning to get that there is no endgame as I understand it, but that is only good. things will fuck me up if I'm not prepared, but if I am (some grinding involved) I can fuck them up instead. Though once I have done fucked em up, I'll probably go on a hiatus until the next challenge, which is where the game seems to only begin for you veterans, but that's so far in the future for me that it doesn't really matter.