So, you’re lost. You’ve downloaded warframe, played a few missions, completed the first quest and now you have no idea how to progress. Well, never fear, this is what happens to nearly every new player in warframe. There is so much to do and next to no guidance on how to go about doing it. Hopefully, this list of the 6 things I think every new player should know will help you along on your warframe journey.
Join a clan
While this may not sound important, its surprising what a clan can do for you. For starters, you’ll need a clan to effectively be able to buy and sell things through sites like warframe.market. Clans are also a source for a lot of weapons and warframes that can be acquired through the different rooms in the dojo and above all else, clans are a great place to ask for help or to look for people to play with. The vast majority of the warframe playerbase are friendly, we all remember starting out too, if you can find a newbie friendly clan, you’ll be set.
Be wary of flawed mods:
What is a flawed mod?
A flawed mod is really just a weaker version of its not flawed self. They are most commonly found as drops from enemies in the earlier game. Flawed mods do however have some niche benefits.
A lot of experienced warframe players will tell you to not bother ranking up any flawed mods you receive. This does make sense to an extent, where if you are low on endo, it would always be better to rank up non flawed mods as these will serve you better into the endgame and most normal mods can be upgraded to far higher levels than their flawed counterparts. However, there are a few, rather niche admittedly, edge cases.
As you can see, out of these two serration mods with the same drain, the flawed mod offers an extra 10% damage compared to the normal version. Granted, in the majority of instances, this really won’t make a difference, but, in the early game when it can take a lot longer to rank up weapons or warframes and you only have a small amount of free mod slots, this could give you the edge you need.
You may also hear experienced players talking about the endo cost and how endo is wasted if you use it on a flawed mod.
This is true to an extent, because chances are, after you’ve unlocked the normal version of a mod, you won’t look back. But if the flawed version is the only one you have available, you might as well rank it up and make use of it now, and if it can be useful now, is it really a waste of endo? Also, there isn’t a finite amount of endo in warframe, there will always be more endo available, you just have to farm for it.
Spend starter platinum on slots
This is one thing nearly every warframe vet will agree with. You know that 50 platinum you get when you create an account, that it turns out you cant trade to other players, its HIGHLY recommended to spend that on 2 lots of 2x weapon slots for 24 plat, and 1 warframe slot for 20 plat, leaving you with 6 platinum. This is because the number of slots you are given at the start is quite simply not enough to effectively progress through the game, unless you don’t mind constantly selling and refarming and recrafting equipment. Now, you don’t have to listen to this, you are free to spend your plat on whatever you want, maybe get an early start on fashion frame. But bear in mind you will be making the early game exponentially more annoying for yourself.
DON’T buy the resource bundles for plat
Following on the value for platinum trend, you see all those tasty resource bundles – 3000 nano spores for 20 plat or 175,000 credits for 45 plat, PLEASE don’t buy them. While they may look attractive, I promise you’ll be able to farm all these resources faster and easier than you’ll be able to make that plat back. In a similar vein, try not to rush equipment that is being built in the foundry, the platinum it costs to rush it is vastly more expensive than waiting out the remaining time. While you’re waiting for that new weapon to build, do some other things, level up equipment you already have, work on clearing the star chart. Eventually, you’ll have so much stuff building, it’ll be completed before you’ve finished ranking the other equipment up.
Sell primed parts for platinum
After running some void fissure missions, you may have some spare prime parts and are wondering what to do with them, well good news, you can sell them to other players for some sweet plat. To do this, I would recommend going a site like warframe.market and searching for parts you have to get an idea of their price. You can also open trade chat in warframe and set up a filter for wanting to buy “WTB”, this will then only show messages with the phrase WTB in it, so now you just wait for someone to want what you have, decide if you like the price, and trade. You can also advertise it yourself if you are in a clan, with the phrase “WTS” the item name and then a platinum price you are happy with. However, beware of lowballers, if you dont feel comfortable selling at the price they’re offering, don’t do it, just move on.
Embrace the grind:
Now, Warframe is a grind based game, there’s no getting away from that fact. It’s a game whose entire principle revolves around RNG loot and mass material farming. If this sounds appealing to you, you’ll love Warframe. If it doesn’t, Warframe may not be the game for you.
On a more positive note, there are certain things you can do to make the grind more enjoyable. Things like, trying out whacky build combinations, listening to music, leaving a livestream on, for warframe content I would recommend Nosympathyy, a warframe partner who is always more than happy to share his knowledge with newer players and vets alike. You can also play together with friends – more people more fun – finding a clan and playing with fellow clan members is also a good way. And finally, taking a break. It took me roughly two years of coming and going to actually get into Warframe, if you find the game too confusing, as I did early on, there is nothing wrong with putting it aside and coming back to it later.
These are some of the things I have found important to show newer players to help them power into the endgame with as few headaches as possible. What do you think? Leave a comment below.