Since Ajay started playing warframe I decided to write a small guide for new players.
I personally did not have that much time to play the game since the Railjack update and can not give any information about that kind of content at all (I simply have not played it).
However, I can for sure give a few advices that might help getting started.
Yesterday I checked if the meta changes significantly in the past months... so I am at least 98% sure I wont write bullshit.
This small guide will contain basic descriptions and advices. There is a full guide for the game on the net but that easily is ~100 pages of content. Ill keep it shorter and most likely a bit less accurate. This is very rough and dirty guide but it might help to understand the basics of the game.
The general gameplay mechanic is that you should clear all starmap nodes for every planet. With that you unlock new quests, new items and new abilities.
You can rank up your character up to lvl 28 (currently). To qualify for a rank up you need to rank up your warframe and your weapons.
Every warframe can be leveled to 30, same applies to weapons, archwings, companions, hoverboards, archwing weapons,...
Every new item starts at lvl0... everytime you level A NEW weapon up for the first time you gain XP (Affinity) that is counted to your overall Mastery Rank (the level of your character). With other words if you want to increase your character level you first have to increase the levels of your items. The amount of XP you require for a lvl-up will increase. With increasing Mastery Rank you gain benefits such as access to better weapons, more inventory slots, loadout slots, the max amount of void traces you can have and much more. But maybe most important is that every MR (mastery rank) increases the starting amount of your mod capacity. At first your mod capacity of your items is exactly based on the level of the item. However if your mastery rank is e.g. 15 then a new level 0 item would start with a mod capacity of 15 instead of 0. That makes leveling items easier the higher your MR is.
The max MR to unlock weapons is 16. Once you reach that MR all weapons in the game are in theory available to you.
To increase your MR you have to pass a test each time.
These tests could be as simple as "kill 5 targets in 10 seconds" to jumping puzzles or complicated combinations of tasks. If you pass a test you rank up... if you fail you have to wait a day before you can repeat the test.
As an advice at this point you probably should visit the room next to Cephalon Simaris on the Merury relay. There you can practice the MR tests before you do them. It really helps to know what you are supposed to do before you risk failing a test.
Note: the XP gains per weapon/warframe will only count on the first time you level up an item. Once that Item is lvl30 the mastery icon is displayed on it. You can sell the item and level it again from 0 to 30 but the XP from the item will not be added to your Mastery Rank progress. IF you sell a weapon when it is lvl 15 and buy that weapon again later on the first 15 levels wont generate XP for mastery rank but rank 16-30 will count towards is. The game remembers what items you have leveled and how far you have leveled them.
Learn how to bulletjump.
This is the fastest way to move in the game and sometimes the only way to reach certain regions.
Alternative you can use my autohotkey script which puts the bulletjump to the window key (you can remap it to a different key).
Don't worry. The use of that script is not considered cheating as you are not able to do something that wasn't possible before... its just more conveniant now. The devs confirmed that the use of such scripts is allowed.
A good way of moving around the maps is using a combinations of bulletjump and gliding (right mouse button).
For some frames running is the better alternative since they are faster.
For all slow frames the bulletjump is the best way to move.
Solo play or public play?
My suggestion is to play the first few maps on each planet solo in order to get used to the design and map layout.
Switch to public play later because a team has more enemies to fight which increases your XP gains... can fight these enemies faster and if you stay close to the other players you get 25% of the XP that the other players earn.
Especially in defense missions or survival missions I would advice team play and staying close together. The XP gains make a huge difference.
If you ever get stuck with a mission because it is too hard... switch to public play. The other players will carry you through the content... generally speaking Warframe players usually are nice people which help another. The most of them will revive you when you are down even if that means to travel half the map.
Mission types are Exterminate (kill everything), Defense (protect a pod or a person), mobile defense (extract code from 3 consoles and defend them while the extraction is running), Arena (fights for points against another group), Assassination (killing a boss), Capture (capturing a NPC), Defection (escort survivors while being attacked), Disruption putting keys into consoles and defending them with increasing difficulty), Excavation (extracting resources from nodes until the nodes get destroyed), Hijack (protecting a moving artifact while your shields power the movement -> shield drain), Interception (keep control over 4 areas -> you should play as a team), rescue (free a prisoner), sabotage (destroy a station from inside), Spy (infiltrate and steal data without being detected) and Survival (stay alive as long as you can).
You learn how to play these types of missions automatically. Most are no big deal.
The game has 2 open world maps (as far as I know).
Cetus and Plains of Eidolon (Earth). They play a big role in endgame content but might turn out to be a good source of Endo early in the game.
You can finish bounties to get rotating rewards. The reward rotation is once every 8 hours.
Both maps are environmental cycles. Earth has a day/night cycle which changes what kind of enemies spawn during these types.
Cetus has a warm/cold cycle.
The cycles also have influence on the fauna. Since you can go fishing (you might have to later on) certain fishes are only spawning when its dark... or cold... etc.
On earth Eidolons (big machines) only appear during night. Later on Eidolon hunts might be the endgame activity you would want to play. It can be very difficult but also very rewarding.
It is possible to use archwings on both worlds which make traveling a lot easier.
Bounties and special events on the open world maps usually have a good chance to drop mods from the very few mod sets in the game.
Later on you will discover that these world have more to offer... I wont spoil that now.
I just mentioned the Archwings.
They are a requirement for specific missions and sooner or later you will have to craft one.
The components can be bought with platinum or... from clans.
Being in a clan by default is no bad idea considering that you usually get free access to MANY weapons and items which otherwise would not be available to you or very expensive.
Clans also give you access to trading stations and other features. Some clans have a trade tax on every market transaction... other clans don't. The clan that I am part of does not have any taxes.
As I had figure out getting into a clan can be a complicated procedure if you don't know someone who already has access to the clan.
Clans require to develop tech before they can let members buy weapons. So it might be worth investing a few resources from time to time (if it does not hurt your progress).
Speaking of resources.
Your most valuable resource is going to be platinum. The premium currency in the game which you can buy for real money but also can earn in the game by trading with other players (one more reason why you should have access to a clan).
But lets take a look at the other resources.
Generally speaking every planet has a specific set of resources which you can loot from enemies and crates.
So even when you are MR28 it might be a requirement to visit beginner levels and get loot from there. That is actually pretty good since no content becomes obsolete this way and experienced players can help new players.
There are some rare resources which are only available at certain worlds. Argon crystals are a rare drop from the Void. So you need to play that content if you need argon for crafting (many crafting components require argon).
Argon Crystals are also (I believe) the only resource which decays. It has a half life of 24 hours.
So if you managed to get 10 Argon and did not use them... one day later only 5 Argon will be left in your inventory.
Cryotics is a resource you can farm from Excavation missions (you might need much of it during a specific even).
Other rare resources can be earn from invasions (on the top right menu of the starmap).
Most important to improve your Warframe is the ability to improve your mods.
Mods can be infused when you are on your ship. That means you can improve the level of your mod and therefore the stats of it. This needs to be paid with Endo. Endo will be one of the most important resources in the game because the costs for every additional level increases. You end up with spending millions of Endo on high-end mods.
Endo drops everywhere in the game... but you can farm for it as well since certain missions have special Endo rewards.
You also would want to collect Ayatan treasures. There is a chance that an Ayatan statue spawns in your missions (unless its a defense mission or a kind of mission with a small map like interception). You can simply collect these statues. You also will notice that often in missions blue or orange keys drop from containers. These keys are used to increase the worth of the Ayatan statues. In the end a full upgraded statue is a multiple times more worth than a normal one without keys. You can sell the statues at Maroos Bazar (Mars) and get a good amount of Endo.
This of course leads to the question why so many players rush through the levels without exploring.
High level players usually have a loot radar mod installed. They see important loot on their minimap while they jump through the maps. Some see loot which is 40m away from them so it is no big deal for them to find special stuff.
As a beginner you don't have that option. Will you miss out content if you rush through a level just like the others? Maybe... most likely not. Most players in the game are nice people and help another. Most people will mark interesting discoveries. They (you too) can put a marker on special loot and random map spawns. So if you are in a team and other team members discover something it is very likely that they will put a marker on the object (G key). You should consider doing the same.
Stuff you might discover are Ayatans, Somacords, Kuva statues, System/faction info... special resources. There is a sentinel companion called "Helios" which can automatically scan some of these resources. I highly advice to use the chance to get a Helios early in the game.
One think worth to mention is that once a week you can visit Maroos Bazar and do a Ayatan Treasure hunt. Once finished you get a statue guaranteed. The hunt requires you to reach an area which you have to cross in a specific amount of time. Usually you just have to pass a few rooms or corridors. There are multiple layouts possible... so if you fail... start again until you reach the end. Use bulletjump + glide to pass the parkour.
When the other players rush through the levels how are they able to collect all the drops without slowing down and actually collecting all the stuff?
Yes, many players finish a map in 2-3 minutes.
There are multiple aspects to consider here.
- There are loot frames. Some Warframes have abilities which cause damage in a large area around the frame. Enough to kill normal enemies and to destroy loot crates around the player. These players wouldn't even need to bother about shooting, they only use their Warframe abilities to get the job done.
- When you use Companions (you will) there are two types... organic ones (simply speaking cats, dogs and invested creatures) and then there are hovering droids. A mod you should always use with the organic ones is called "fetch" because that is what the mod does... it will fetch all the loot around you. Droids can do the same. The mod for them is called "Vacuum". So all the loot in a certain distance around you will be automatically detected. When you upgrade the mod the distance will increase. This however wont work for Ayatan statues or other random items that are put into the game. These mods can be put directly on your companion so you wont sacrifice your combat abilities.
- Opening lockers is generally considered way too time consuming to even bother with it. The rewards are not good enough to waste that much time. Rushing through a map twice... just collecting the loot from dead enemies or cracked loot crates is faster and more rewarding than to open every locker in that map.
- There are special lockers in certain missions (e.g. there are 3 in every sabotage mission that you should loot in order to get extra rewards). Usually they have a slightly different look (a different glow color)... sometimes you might encounter heavy crates/lockers (this is very rare) with very special content like new landing craft components... or buffs. Usually these special crates/lockers are surrounded with a glow or a humming sound. They are very rare, even I have not seen many of them yet.
Selling mods.
You can sell duplicate mods on your ship.
My advice is not to choose the option to sell them for credits. Sell them to get Endo.
Only sell duplicates.
Do not sell golden mods... do not sell mods which belong to a mod set.
- Augur Mod Set
- Gladiator Mod Set
- Vigilante Mod Set
- Hunter Mod Set
- Tek Mod Set
- Synth Mod Set
- Mecha Mod Set
- Strain Mod Set
- Aero Mod Set
Even if you have duplicates of these mods... many other players are either lazy or did not have luck getting the mods through regular play and are willing to pay platinum if you sell the mods to them.
And since platinum is much more worth than Endo... don't just sell these mods on your ship. Sell them to other players if you have duplicates.
Many gold mods also have a specific worth to other players... even if you only get 5-10 plat for these mods... if you sell a few of them you can easily get enough platinum to buy more inventory slots. Some mods are worth hundreds of plat.
Some Riven mods even are worth thousands of plat if they have the right stats.
Trading mods with other players can be a good way to earn enough platinum for increase your inventory... or to get enough platinum to buy specific items/components/mods from other players if you never had the luck to get them when playing the missions.
There are two areas in the game where you can farm mods that players love to buy on the market. That are mod from the hidden vault doors on the Orokin Derelict ships and mods from the Halls of Ascension on Lua . There always will be people which would buy them for platinum since farming a very specific mod can take a huge amount of time.
Trading...
That's why you need a clan with a market console. You can sell the stuff that you don't need to other players... or you can get stuff that you never managed to get from other players. IF you want a Prime Warframe which currently is not available your chances are good that other players offer the required parts.
You also can trade your duplicate prime parts to other players if you are in need of plat.
However, prime part trading is something you might not want to do at the beginning.
Prime parts are certainly worth a good amount of platinum... but they are also required to earn Ducats.
Ducats are a currency used by the Void Trader. That is a guy who appears every 2nd Friday at one of the Relays to sell his special goods and he wants to be paid with ducats. The only way to earn ducats is to sell prime parts to him (or to watch the twitch stream on the Thursday before -> which rewards you with 200 ducats if you have linked your Warframe account with twitch).
He offers cosmetics, special variations of weapons... but most importantly he offers primed mods. Primed mods are the most powerful versions you can get... and also the most expensive ones. You will need dukats... many dukats to pay the void trader.
The offers repeat every few weeks. So missing out is not that bad. But I would say that using duplicate prime parts for the void trader is more important in the beginning than selling them for platinum.
When you have all the prime mods... then you reach the point where the void trader is not so important anymore. Then you can sell all the prime parts that you don't need to other players. The priority is going to shift.
Usually there is one dev stream on twitch. If you are luck you can win 1000 plat, or a prime access... or whatever else they offer. That is not my priority actually (the chances to win are low). However, often you get an ingame reward if you watched the stream for half an hour and usually there are limited time events right after the stream where you can earn good amounts of credits, Orokin catalysts/reactors and other very rare stuff. It is worth to play these missions after the stream.
Also worth to check are the invasions. You need to play 3 times the same mission to get a component of a rare component that. Usually that are wraith or vandal versions of weapons (which are usually better than their normal counterparts).
Sometimes these Invasions also reward Catalysts/Reactors/Exilus Adapters... if that happens you should play for sure. These items are ultra rare... especially when you are new to the game. Even later it is not easy to get hands on these items.
While playing the game you will notice that you get relics.
The drops are less random than you might think.
Behind every type of mission there are 3 possible loot pools. The A pool which offers the least valuable loot, B Pool medium content, C rare content.
For the most missions there is a AABC cycle.
That means for a defense mission that when you finish the first round you can select a reward from Pool A, when you finish the 2nd round you can select from pool A again, when you finish the 3rd round you can select loot from pool B and when you finish the 4th round you can access loot from pool C. So it is worth to keep playing defense mission for at last 4 rounds. Most players will stay for these 4 rounds and then leave.
Similar the AABC cycle translates into other mission types. For Survival the first 5 mins are Pool A, the next 5 mins are again Pool A, another 5 mins Pool B and after playing a total of 20 mins you can get rewards from pool C.
For Spy missions completing the mission grants you access to the A pool. Finding the hidden loot containers unlock a 2nd A pool reward, then a B pool reward and finally a C pool reward.
The Warframe wiki contains information which mission type has which 3 loot pools (which will change every few months because relics get vaulted).
Knowing the loot pools and the rotations can help to get the Prime items you want.
Vaulting just means that relics can no longer be earned and you can in theory not get your hand on certain prime weapons/warframes.
Every few months a few prime items get sent into the vault... and a few other items get released from the vault. This way there always is new stuff you can hunt for.
Relics you already own still can be opened even after they have been vaulted. So in theory you still get prime items that actually are not available anymore.
Vaulted items btw. increase their worth.
When stuff is no longer available and players want that stuff they are often willing to pay good amounts of platinum for it. It might be a good strategy to trade/sell prime parts only when other players can no longer can get their hands on them. Demand and supply.
Back to relics. They contain multiple items... each with a specific drop chance. You are able to invest void traces to upgrade the drop chances a bit if you are in need of a rare item in that relic.
It makes no point to upgrade a relic if you want an uncommon item from it.
Upgrading does not mean that there is a guaranteed chance to get a rare part. You might upgrade it to have a 50% drop chance for a rare part and then you still get a uncommon part only. If you need something specific you either try often enough or... try to find a player who had more luck and is willing to trade with you.
Out of memory I would say that it is worth to mention that the game has a reputation system that unlocks after a specific quest. You can not be friendly with all factions (you can be friendly with 4 of the 6 main factions). Certain factions will grant you access to very good mods that you can not get in a different way.
But you need to level up the reputation step by step and unlock new reputation levels by making sacrifices. A sacrifices could be 1 million credits... or a few resources... sometimes even some ultra rare stuff like a Orokin reactor/catalyst.
Once the reputation system is unlocked you gain access to emblems and reputation missions.
Emblem can be put on your Warframe as a cosmetic. Wearing a faction emblem is a requirement to earn reputation points. Some emblems have a % boot to the rep points earned.
Reputation missions grant rep points on completing them. Most reputation missions allow you to collect reputation tokens.
There is a set number of tokens in the missions you can find (just like Ayatan statues). Sometimes you can earn 10k rep points extra if you find the tokens this way. The reputation missions are usually play in teams... and usually players slow down a bit to find all the tokens. I would advise to play with a full team. 4 people searching the map is much more effective than searching alone.
Found tokens are automatically marked so that the other players can collect them.
There is a daily reputation gain limit which is directly linked to your MR. Increasing the MR also increases your potential reputation gain per day.
Tokens are not linked to this limit. Turning in these tokens should be done after the daily limited is reached.
Every faction has a different reward pool. You pay directly with reputation points.
Another activity in the game is called Sortie.
Only lvl 30 Warframes can play this content since its difficulty can scale pretty high.
A Sortie consists of 3 missions which all have to be completed to get a reward.
Only one sortie is available per day.
Rewards can reach from big amounts of Endo to Riven mods... Catalysts, Reactors... all the stuff that matters for endgame.
Since you start getting Riven mods there (mods with very high but random stats) you will start off with a riven mod capacity of ... dunno 15.
Once you have collected 15 riven mods you can no longer play a sortie until you either discard one riven mod to make room for more, sell a riven mod to other players, or increase your Riven capacity via platinum.
Riven mods are totally random.
They are for random weapons, with random stats, with random quality level.
I so far have not been able to get a Riven mod that fits my weapons or was worth using.
Riven mods can have positive and also negative stats (e.g. a stat which slows the fire rate).
Generally Riven mods which only have positive stats are less good than Riven mods which have a negative stat.
The negative stats cause that the other positive stats on the mod are much higher than they would be if only positive stats would be on that mod.
Other game modes to mention are Sanctuary Onslaught, Arbitration and Index.
Sanctuary Onslaught is an endless game mode where you are supposed to fight waves of enemies for 3-4 minutes and your combat efficiency is measured while the difficulty increases with each level. There also is an elite version of this game mode.
Arbitration is an endless endgame game mode which turns harder and increases your reward the longer you stay. Usually its a variation of Defense or Survivial mode. If you get killed in Arbitration you can not respawn. Your team members will have to collect specific items from enemies and revive you this way (which is not easy).
The Index is an Arena where you and 3 other players fight a group of NPCs. A dead player/npc leaves a token behind which then needs to be banked. The team which reaches 50 banked tokens wins.
You can hold more than just one token... the more token you have the higher your bonus score... and at the same time with every token your max health is reduced.
With other words... high risk... high reward.
The index requires you to do a wager... the lowest difficultly requires you to spend 30.000 credits. If you loose or if the time is up that money is gone. If you win you get 105.000 credits as reward (that is 75.000 credits profit). If you stay longer than one round your investment still will be the 30.000 credits but you profit might be higher since the 105.000 will be multiplied with each round you are able to win. The difficulty increases with every round.
Higher starting difficulties require higher wager... but also offer higher rewards per won round.
One last thing to mention is the importance of the Nightwave.
Nightwave is a sidestory telling radioshow giving you a bit background info about the game.
Nora Night wants you to do specific tasks each week and you can increase your nightwave level this way. Each level (of the 30) has a special reward. Reward could be cosmetics, resources, weapons, warframes, reactors, catalysts, umbra forma (the only source of umbra forma), item slots, Warframe slots.
Pretty good stuff overall.
There is a daily challenge for 1000 points, multiple weekly challenges for 4500 points each and two elite challenges each week for 7000 points.
10000 are required to lvl-up.
Once lvl 30 is reached you still can continue to lvl up and get nightwave credits as reward which you can spend to go shopping in a weekly rotating reward pool.
Important to mention here is that this is the only reliable way to get hands on a resource called Nitain Extract. This resource is required to craft a good amount of weapons and Warframes.
Nightwave should not be ignored.
There also is a catch up mechanic if you miss to play for a week. Old challenges from the weeks before get retrieved once you have done the challenges for the current week.
Gameplay wise it is worth to mention that damage types matter a lot.
There are Primary Damage Types
- Impact: Strong against Shields. Weak against flesh. Can stagger enemies.
- Puncture: Strong against armor. Weak against shields. Can reduce enemy damage output.
- Slash: Strong against flesh. Weak against armor. Can cause a bleed effect.
Elemental Damage Types
- Cold: Strong against shields. Weak to flesh. Can slow enemies.
- Electricity: Strong against robots. Weak to armor. Can chain lightning to other enemies.
- Heat: Strong against infested flesh. Weak to shields. Can cause burn and panic effects.
- Toxin: Strong against regular flesh. Weak to robots. Can cause a poison effect.
Secondary Elemental Damage
- Blast (Heat + Cold): Strong against machines. Weak against armor. Can knock down enemies.
- Corrosive (Electricity + Toxin): Strong against armor. Weak against shields. Can reduce armor effectiveness.
- Gas (Heat + Toxin): Strong against Infested flesh. Weak against regular flesh. Can create a toxic cloud.
- Magnetic (Cold + Electricity): Strong against shields. Weak against armor. Can reduce shield effectiveness.
- Radiation (Heat + Electricity): Strong against armor. Weak against Infested and Corrupted enemies. Can confuse enemies.
- Viral (Cold + Toxin): Strong against regular flesh. Weak against Infested flesh. Can reduce maximum health.
And then there is Void damage... but that is only important later on. I won't spoil that.
The choice of damage type can make stuff easier. e.g. Grineer are biological and therefore vulnerable to slash damage. Weapons which have a high slash damage as default value usually performing very good.
Some high-lvl Grineer will have strong armor... so you it would be perfect to combine slash damage to make them bleed and Electricity + Toxin in order to generate a Corrosive Damage which will weaken their armor. I am not sure if the meta is still correct but slash also was able to cut through armor.
Robotic enemies are more vulnerable to puncture and impact combined with magnetic or radiation.
Every weapon has different loadout slots... make use of them to create different damage builds. You can switch between the loadouts depending on the enemies you are going to fight.
What makes a weapon a good choice or a bad choice?
Difficult question but generally the damage types aswell as the amount of the crit and status effects.
The higher the crit chance/crit damage is the more you should invest here when you want to mod the weapon. Simply said the higher the crit chance is the more crit hits you will do... and the higher the crit damage is the more damage these crit hits will cause.
Status works a bit different since it applies a status effect to your target like bleeding. If you have a weapon with high status chance then try to create a status build. E.g. if you have a sword with a status chance of 30 and you apply mods which increase this value even higher (meanwhile possible up to 100%) then every hit with your sword might bleed out the enemies around you. This is how you generate much damage in the game.
Final advice. Use your Warframes abilities. They are pretty powerful.
How to use the attached script?
Download Autohotkey AutoHotkey and install the tool.
Extract the zip and run the wfscript.ahk.
The script will detect if warframe is running.
You can enable/disable the script with the pause key. Numlock closes Warframe.
Bulletjump works if you press the left windows key. If you have problems typing in chat because certain characters are written which should not be there you can activate Capslock or use the pause key.
LAlt will trigger a melee spin attack (very useful on some weapons)
(and i like eidolon : ) , i can only 9x1 tera or 4x3 (trio) )
