The Best Ways to Help Tenno Newbies
I’ve always been the sort of person who is just happy to help. I enjoy helping and assisting others. The desire to help others spreads into the video games I play. There’s a reason I normally play as support characters. And Warframe is one such game, even if I’m not playing a support Warframe. That’s a good thing, because the new player experience is rather hit or miss.
Anyway, here are a few ways you can help newbies and make the most of their experience.
Take it slow
Most newbie Tenno are quite slow. They haven’t mastered Warframe’s rather varied ways of travel. Heck, they may still be learning to bullet jump. So try not to be impatient with a newbie Tenno. Especially on larger maps. Jupiter for example is filled with a lot more large gaps and big jumps, and that can slow down a newbie quite a lot. Even more so if they can’t see objective markers. Because we all know that markers in Warframe are rather janky.
It might also be worth taking a newbie to a clan dojo with an obstacle course, so they can practice their mobility.
Don’t bring overpowered stuff
It’s always really tempting to bring your fully Forma’d Warframe with Kuva weapons or whatever. But newbies won’t appreciate it. I’ve heard the same story many times before, that a newbie is match-made with a veteran player, and doesn’t even get the chance to see an enemy, let alone kill them. Rather than being a nuke, play as a Warframe with support-like abilities. Trinity is an excellent example, since they can easily give energy to other players. Other useful Warframes are Rhino with Roar, Volt and Valkyr with their speed-booting abilities, and Protea, who can supply energy and health with ease.
Put yourself on their level
The nice thing about Warframe is that it’s easy to change your gear and your loadout. However, changing your loadout early on is pretty tricky, due to not having access to a lot of weapons. Sometimes you need to see and explain things from a different point of view, to help a newbie learn. Instead, help them farm for gear normally, but also look into using similar weapons to the newbie. An MK-1 Braton costs 15,000 credits and is great for seeing just what one can achieve with a starter weapon. This way, you can always show loadouts by using [Mod Config] on your weapons, to give a better idea of what mods are important or not.
Gift them some weapon slots
Another kindly thing to do with a newbie is to buy them stuff. However, I’d recommend not buying them weapons or Warframes. Most standard weapons are not worth buying with Platinum. And even if you do give them a weapon, they might want to delete it as a new variant of a weapon comes out. What you’re better off doing is sending them some Warframe or Weapon slots, which are always useful to have.
If you really want to give a newbie a weapon, then your best bet is to give them (or help them farm for) a Primed weapon or Warframe. Not only are Primed Warframes generally better, but they also come with more already-polarized slots. This means a low level player can fit more mods on their guns as they level up.
Alternatively, you can do what I like to do: give them an Ignis Wraith blueprint. Or, if they are not MR9 yet, give them an IOU for an Ignis Wraith blueprint when they are the right level.
Let them come to you
The best thing you can do though is let new Tenno come to you for help. Keep an eye on region chat and see if people need help. Or, one step better, invite a newbie to your clan, assuming it’s active. Not only will a newbie get more people to talk to, but being in a clan gives them access to a huge amount of new gear to work towards. There are also 5 (4 if they have Volt already) Warframes which are pretty easily accessible in the Tenno research lab.
At the end of the day, Warframe can be stressful for new players. However, if you help them through the early levels, that means they might just stick around for all the… quests and surprises later on.