5 Basic Things a Newbie Should Do in Warframe
Being a newbie in Warframe is difficult. There’s so much to do, so many things flashing at you, so many urgent things. Once you’ve gotten past Vor’s Prize, you’re basically left to your own devices, in a game that feels very unfamiliar. Luckily, there are plenty of things a newbie can do to get themselves started.
Follow the Star Chart
Unlocking planets is your best bet as a new player. Unlocking planets unlocks new resources and new missions to obtain Warframes. You also unlock various quests as you travel across the star chart. This process is somewhat slow, but you don’t need to do every single node, you can just make your way to the next Junction. It’s also worth doing quests as you get them, since early quests give access to new Warframes. But unlocking Junctions is the way to go, so you can unlock new planets and quests at the same time.
It’s worth noting that you don’t need to stay for a long time in many missions. It’s perfectly fine to extract at wave 5 in defense, or 5 minutes in survival, or just doing one excavator and leaving. There will be better places to do endurance missions later on, as you unlock more planets.
Spend your 50 free Platinum on 1 Warframe Slot and 2 sets of Weapon Slots
This is probably the best thing you should do with your starter Platinum. You almost always need more Warframe and weapon slots, and it’s possible that you don’t have much to trade to get more Platinum yet. These are hard to come by and aren’t always free. But you do need them, especially if you are aiming to increase your Mastery Rank.
As for early ways to get Platinum, I recommend opening relics and selling prime parts on Warframe.market. You can also do Maroo’s weekly mission for Ayatan Sculptures, but these aren’t quite as profitable.
Try some Nightwave
Nightwave is quite simple. You do the tasks listed and you earn rewards. As a new player, it’s likely you won’t be able to do ALL of a week’s Nightwave missions, but there are always daily tasks which are easy to do, and most of the weekly tasks are doable as well. Tasks like “do 3 Capture Missions” are common and crop up every week. Well, most weeks. The week in which I’m writing this, there aren’t any easy tasks. But normally there’s one or two simple tasks that you can do with ease.
Why should you do Nightwave? Because it can give you some strong rewards, like a Warframe slot or Forma. And in the Nightwave cred shop, you can also buy Aura mods which increase your Warframe’s mod capacity. There’s also Vauban parts, Nitain (which is a rare resource you need for building things) and Orokin Reactors and Catalysts, which double your Warframe’s or weapon’s mod capacity.
Get yourself the Serration, Hornet Strike and Pressure Point mods. And Point Blank too, if you want to use shotguns.
These mods are what make your guns stronger. While, sure, in late game content, these mods can be skipped, for the new player, these mods will make your guns kill things, and they will carry your ass through a lot of content. You also need to level up these mods, and it’s definitely worth investing all your endo into these mods. These mods can be equipped on any weapon and allow you to continue doing damage as you travel the star chart.
Most of these mods drop early in your adventures, but if you can’t find one, you can always ask in region chat to see if anyone will give the mods you’re missing to you. Most likely someone will see your message and help you out. Heck, I’ll give you one of each if you message Retvik in-game while I’m online.
Take your time
There is a lot to do in Warframe and it is a very dense game. However, you don’t need to rush and do everything in one go. Aside from the odd alert, pretty much everything in Warframe can be done at your own pace. And if you leave and then come back to the game, all your stuff is still waiting for you. So you can continue at exactly where you left off. Warframe is a marathon of a game, but there’s very little FOMO, and there’s always plenty to do.
So those are my five basic tips.