When comparing Warframe vs Torchlight II, the Slant community recommends Torchlight II for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op RPGs on PC?” Torchlight II is ranked 1st while Warframe is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose Torchlight II is:
Much of leveling up is permanent, which not only gives a sense of connection to ones built characters but also means there is a large incentive to replay to make different builds.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Fast-paced, space ninja action
Warframes are essentially space ninjas that can move incredibly fast. Just running won't be enough, so you'll have to build momentum by sliding, jumping, and rolling. Each of these moves also help you dodge enemy attacks, while allowing you to attack. It takes a while to get used to the fast pace, but when you do, it feels incredibly satisfying.
Pro A huge array of weaponry
Warframe boasts over 300 weapons, split into 3 classes: Primary, Secondary, and Melee. Primary weapons are the big guns such as assault rifles, shotguns, bows, and grenade launchers. Secondary weapons are the sidearms, usually handguns, machine pistols, and thrown weapons. The melee weapons consist of swords (even katanas), hammers, fist weapons, scythes, and others.
Most of the weapons have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Simulor is a weapon which creates small balls similar to black holes, which pull in and kill enemies. Unfortunately, the range is very short, so you'll have to predict enemy movements and place the shots carefully. Another example is the Zarr, a massive canon, which has two firing modes, allowing you to use it as a canon or a shotgun. The downside is that you'll get damaged by your own explosions, so you have to always keep distance.
The weapons can also be upgraded, adding various elemental damage types such as radiation or corrosion. You can also improve other stats such as rate of fire, crit or reload speed.
Pro Great contact physics
Many online titles and MMOs feature combat with poor contact physics, so it often feels like you're not actually hitting the enemies. In Warframe, hitting an enemy with a hammer will make them fly and sliding at their legs will make them trip. This makes it feel more like a single player game than an online co-op game.
Pro You can choose your own play style
In Warframe, there are tons of weapons, both ranged and melee, that will let you fight however you like. Maybe you want to be a long-range sniper, or a massive melee beast with a huge hammer, or maybe you want to stick closer to the ninja tradition and use a sword and a bow. Whatever you prefer to play, Warframe has an option.
Pro Great selection of classes
In Warframe, you're able to play as one of the many Warframes, which are essentially character classes. You start off by choosing one of the three basic frames. Excalibur who specializes in swords and has an ability to equip an energy sword and shoot beams of energy. Volt who uses electricity to boost his damage, movement speed and attack speed. Or Mag, a frame specializing in magnetism and controlling the enemy. After that you can run missions to find plans for new ones, or purchase them with platinum (the real-money currency).
There are currently more than 30 basic Warframes and their "Prime" variants, which are superior versions of the basic frames.
Pro Incentive to replay due to limited respec system
Much of leveling up is permanent, which not only gives a sense of connection to ones built characters but also means there is a large incentive to replay to make different builds.
Pro Elaborate loot system
Loot in Torchlight II is varied and dependent on a wide array of circumstances. There are so many variables that come into play as to what a player will find that makes searching out better and better items a game in and of itself.
Pro Varied level design
Unlike the first title there are many areas to see in the game that all have different looks. Plus there are large open ares as well as close quarter caverns.
Pro Works on different OS's: Linux/Mac/Win
Torchlight II is a multi-platform game that works on OSX, Linux and Windows. Which is great for users who dual-boot as the game can be played no matter what OS is booted at the time.
Pro Well implemented and fun action-RPG combat
Torchlight 2 has all the typical RPG mechanics such as classes, loot, skill trees etc. However all the little touches and details come together to make playing the game really fun and a great balance between depth/complexity and being able to get started killing hordes of monsters. Killing monsters is very satisfying and the loot system keeps things very interesting without feeling like you're just grinding for better items.
Pro Well implemented co-op
You can team up with up to 5 other plays to take on the hordes together. There is also a PvP mode if you'd rather kill your friends instead of team up with them.
Cons
Con Crafting new equipment takes really long
The crafting system in Warframe involves very long wait times, varying from 12 to 72 hours. The wait times can be be skipped by paying platinum (bought in the in-game store with real money), but most of the time it's not worth it.
Con Can get repetitive easily
At the very core, Warframe is a game that needs a lot of grinding. You'll always be grinding for new blueprints, relics, materials, credits or just leveling your existing equipment. After a while some of the mission types such as defense (where you fend of waves of enemies), will get really boring. Then it turns out the blueprint or relic is really rare and you'll probably have to repeat that mission about a hundred more times. Coupled with the fact that there's no real progression outside the Mastery Rank, some players may quickly lose interest.
Con New content is poorly optimized
Warframe was released in 2012 and has received a lot of improvements over the years. This includes updating the old tilesets with new textures, which has caused a lot of performance drops. The prime example would be the Earth tileset update, which caused performance drops and made it unplayable to a lot of people, even though they could play normally before it.
Con Lacking in story
The characters are flat and the overall story is pretty boring/standard. While not unexpected for such a game it would have been nice to have something other than loot driving advancement in the game.
Con Limited respec system
Much like an old school dungeon crawler, there is little to no useful respec system here. You can respec the last three skill points used on a character, but that is it. This tends to lead towards plenty of skills in the skilltree that ended up going nowhere, which are just wasted points. Unless you know specifically where you will be putting each and every skill point for your build beforehand, no respec may have an impact on making a perfect build.