Destiny vs. Warframe - a quick comparison (not that quick) (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Friday, April 03, 2015, 16:30 (3328 days ago)

So a few weeks ago Korny posted about how Warframe is handling content and world persistence with aplomb that Bungie could learn a lot from. This piqued my interest in Warframe (a game I'd never previously heard of), and I've been playing for the last week. I'd say I'm sold on it, but the game is free, so I'm... freemium on it? Something.

The similarities between the games is striking. Incredibly striking. It's like, a year before Destiny came out, someone played Warframe on PC, decided Destiny should be as close to that as possible, and then turned the whole game inside out and upside down to mimic Warframe in every way that they could, resulting in - and seriously I apologize because this will be hard to swallow - a crappier version of Warframe that has better play control.

It's shocking to me how similar the games are. Point by point:

-First, it's free to play. The things you pay real money for are either shortcuts to things you can get in game without real money, cosmetic things (some of which you can also get without real money), or slots for holding more things (which you won't need for a while, and which you can also get without real money.. sometimes). When expansions come out, they're just patches to the main game despite adding loads of content, and they're free too. In Destiny, obviously, you pay for every add-on.
- Warframe is 3rd person, Destiny is 1st person. Neither is "better" but they're different in that regard.
- Here's the big plus one for Destiny: The feel of the player control in Destiny is fan-damn-tastic. Warframe... less so.
- In Warframe, during loading sequences your ship flies towards the camera rather than away from it like Destiny. Different but still oddly similar.
- BUT in Warframe you can steer your ship during loading sequences. Pointless, but fun!
- The main "level select" screen is your spaceship, just like being in orbit in Destiny. BUT it's also your vault, crafting, upgrading, marketplace, and quest hub, too, and you go there automatically at the end of every mission.
- You start every mission with full ammo and super energy. Also, each class has 4 supers. FOUR!
- And there's something like 23 classes.
- The social hub (the Tower, effectively) holds upwards of 30 players at a time. I think you only go there for a rare trader (like Xur?) and faction rewards. But there are several social hubs. Also, I never need to go there. People do, I guess, but I haven't gotten to the point where it's more than sightseeing.
- Speaking of factions, factions are a real thing that do real things in the game if you make friends with or piss off the faction leaders. Angry factions will send assassins after you during your other normal missions. Friendly factions give unique rewards to you.
- Instead of space magic, you're a space magic NINJA!
- Your guild has a real home in the game (called a Dojo, because we're all goddamn space magic ninjas) that can be unlocked and built up. The Dojo can research unique upgrades you can't get anywhere else, and it can also provide bonuses to the players. It is a real space in the game that you can design, decorate, and walk around in.
- Unlike the Grimoire, that requires you to find hidden ghosts to unlock unrelated cards that you can only read about online, Warframe has the Codex, which requires you to scan enemies and objects, and that, in turn, unlocks their codex card in the in-game codex, which is a thing in the game. Did I mention it's in the game? It's in the game.
- There are many different mission objectives. Sometimes, like Destiny, the objectives are simply to kill the boss of the level, but they are also sometimes (very unlike Destiny): Kill EVERYTHING in a level OR find X number of hidden loot caches OR protect a bomb from waves of enemies OR capture and defend 4 control zones OR hunt down, subdue, and capture X number of high value targets OR hack the computer to steal data OR rescue a guy and escort him to your extraction point. Some of the defend missions let you vote every 5 waves to complete the mission or keep going to try for a better reward.
- Up to Four player co-op in a single squad for all missions instead of 3. You are not forced to match-make.
- Stealth operations! You can sneak around and one hit kill people who don't see you! If they see you, they might set off an alarm. If they set off an alarm, you can hack (with an actual mini-game) the security terminals to disable the alarm. Also, there are cameras to disable or avoid, roving security droids, and secret passages to find.
- Oh yeah, hacking terminals involves at least 2 different types of mini games, unlike Destiny which involves holding the Square button and then tolerating Dinklebot's horrible VO.
- Crafting! Like, real crafting. Sure, you could spend 30,000 credits to buy that gun, but you could instead spend 15,000 credits to buy the blueprints for the gun and then build it yourself after farming up the requisite materials! Some blueprints are reusable, and some are single-use.
- 3rd person view makes melee more reasonable. You can run on walls, slide, jump, and climb your way up to enemies, and then chop them in half with your goddamn sword. I'm still not saying 3rd person is better because I like FPS games, but for varied melee combat, 3rd person is a huge help.
- It is possible to farm the things you need. Each planet has its own resource types that drop there. Run missions on that planet to farm the resources. Farm certain boss fights to get specific items they can drop (if you need them). So bullshit RNG maybe a Gjallerhorn will drop from this chest GODDAMNIT I have to wait another week to try again nonsense.
- One character, all classes. That's right - the armor you wear (your "warframe") determines your class. So your one character can be any class. No need for multiple characters or any of that bullshit swapping items to and from the tower nonsense.
- Upgradeable items. As your items level up, they unlock upgrade slots. You can then socket mods into those slots to make the items more powerful. You can also upgrade the mods. Some mods are so powerful that people will pay the special "real money only" currency in order to acquire them.
- Voice acting. It's a thing that exists in Warframe and it's a million times better than Destiny.
- Plot. OMG the plot. It's real! You feel like you're being thrust into the middle of an epic galactic conflict, because you are!
- World events that have an impact on the actual world. Every couple of months things will happen that allow the players a chance to change the game world permanently depending on whether they (as a group) succeed or not, See Korny's previous post for details. I don't know how to link to posts.
- 8 player raids instead of 6 players. I'm not sure more is always better, but I haven't done the raids yet so I can't speak to their quality. I did enjoy the Destiny raids the first time I played each of them, but I hate them now since I've done them so often that they feel like a chore.
- Huge maps with secret passages, security cameras, traps, moving platforms, and enemies and loot appearing in different places each time you run the maps. Like, each map is Vault of Glass big. I'm going to guess that it would take me 10 minutes to just run from one end of a map to another, assuming I knew how to get there.
- There's a minimap. It exists and is helpful. You can get mods to put enemies on there with radar, or loot caches. Your nav points show up on it.
- Space future grenades in warframe are better than modern grenades. This is a stark contrast to Destiny. Though in Destiny the players have grenades, and in warframe as far as I can tell only enemies have them.
- There are 3 planets to visit in warframe. Until you unlock access to the other 6. Each one has upwards of 10 missions to play on it. There are also more random missions called "void missions." You always pick and choose which missions to do next, and you know generally what the rewards will be going into it, so if you want item X, you can go specifically for that item with reasonable confidence of getting it. Each mission is tied to a specific map, but there are multiple maps for each planet. Destiny, on the other hand, has 4 planets, with upwards of 6 missions each, all of which take place in the same giant map (though often in different parts of it). In terms of overall space to explore, Warframe feels much bigger and much less linear (missions often present choices to the player - sometimes choices such as "escape now" or "kill all remaining enemies" as your final win condition).
- That being said, Warframe has no cognate to patrol mode, which is probably my favorite part of Destiny.
- Where Destiny has shaders, which are fixed 2 or 3 color "sets" you can wear, and which take up inventory space, Warframe simply gives you access to color palettes to customize your character's look to your liking. You can get more color palettes during holiday events or you can buy them for real money.
- Warframe has space combat where you fly through space and shoot things. Destiny does not.
- When comparing weapons in Warframe, it shows you actual numbers. Destiny does not.
- The mods in your warframe weapons can be removed and put into other weapons if you like. In Destiny, you only get the mods that come with your weapon, and you can't change them (except for iron banner weapons, which change randomly) or save them to use elsewhere.
- All new content is free in Warframe. All free, all the time. I think I mentioned that?

I have only played Warframe for a week, and these are the similarities I noticed. It is weird that the game is so much more in depth than Destiny while being so similar in so many ways. It really, eerily feels like Destiny is a Warframe rip-off in a lot of ways. I seriously don't think that's the case, but if Bungie wasn't Bungie with its reputation for being so creative and independent, I'd probably think it WAS the case.

TL;DR (and who can blame you): Destiny feels like it ripped off Warframe pretty badly, but it could benefit greatly from ripping it off even more. Warframe handles almost all of my complaints about Destiny really, really well.