I've been playing quite a bit of Warframe lately. I picked it up during the Global Game Jam earlier this year and, well, I've been having quite a bit of fun. I have a couple more missions on Pluto and have never been to the Orokin Void, but the grind is starting to set in. I've endured long grinds before (RF Online Shield Miller @ level 48), but every update seems to tack on more and more grinding.
Understand though, as of this writing, the game is in open beta so anything can change. I'm just not a fan of having to grind for items with a low drop chance against enemies that are simply bullet sponges. Well, it wouldn't be better if the enemies weren't bullet sponges, but still. Then you have the Dojo from Update 8 which added 20 weapons, a decent chunk of which take an obscene amount of time and resources to make.
Take Ignis, the flamethrower, for example (stats taken 5-30-13). To get the opportunity to make the weapon you need a chem lab:
Detonite Ampule 500
Plastids 10,000
Ferrite 20,000
Polymer Bundle 25,000
Credits 500,000
Research Time 3 days
Once you can craft it, then you need
Detonite Injector 2
Nano Spores 5,000
Ferrite 5,000
Forma 1
Credits 30,000
Build Time 24h
Now, this wouldn't be that much of an issue except for the following (no hard numbers here):
Detonite Ampule - 1 per drop. Uncommon
Plastids - 10-30 per drop. Uncommon
Ferrite - 50-100 per drop. Common
Polymer Bundle - 100-400 per drop. Common.
Nano Spores - 100-200 per drop. Common.
Detonite Injector - Crafted via purchasable blueprints. 12 hour build time after Chem Lab is built.
Forma - Randomly awarded from Void missions, Tier 3 login rewards, purchased with real money, or awarded as a blueprint for an Alert mission. 24 hour build time.
So, to get all the resources, you need to invest a huge amount of time. Now, the Chem Lab costs could be offset if you join a clan, but since I made my own clan, I can't leave (didn't know that beforehand) and there's no one I really play with to invite. This leaves me footing the entire bill if I decide to go for it. Since you have to build hallways, reactors, and other support rooms just to be allowed to build a Chem Lab, it effectively raises the difficulty of gaining those resources by what feels like an order of magnitude.
But I digress, since I have a whole arsenal of weapons to build, let alone use, I can at least keep the grinding interesting. And, before anyone goes off, Warframe is a Free-To-Play game, meaning they have to make money somehow. I understand it (well, not like an Economics professor level of understanding). The usual money crunch is when new gear is released in an update. Those new items are not available to non-paying folk for a few weeks; after which they'll start appearing as drops or Alert missions if the RNG gods smile on you.
One more thing, I have a strong...dislike towards Lech Kril. Stupid, camera flipping, drop hoarding, bullet sponge of a boss.
