Introduction
Warframe can be an incredibly overwhelming game. As a new player, you’re constantly introduced to new systems and often times those systems don’t include a ton of explanation. In this guide we’ll be going over several Warframe beginner tips that will hopefully enhance your experience when you start playing Warframe.
Warframe Beginner Tips
The tips listed below are not listed in any particular order.
Buy Weapons For Credits
You will eventually level up your current weapons, and will naturally want to acquire more. You can easily get a few new weapons as a new player by heading to the market in your orbiter. From here, simply look for the weapons that are listed for sale for credits. If you purchase one of these you will not have to craft it. It is fully built and placed into your inventory, and you can equip and use it right away. However, be aware that you only have a limited amount of weapon inventory slots. Once they are full you will need to purchase more using platinum (the game’s real money currency).
What to Spend Your Starter Platinum On
When you first start Warframe, you’ll be given 50 starter platinum. With this platinum, it’s highly suggested that you purchase weapon and warframe inventory slots. You will be able to purchase 2 weapon slots for 12 platinum, and 1 warframe slot for 20 platinum. It’s recommended that your purchase 4 weapon slots and 1 warframe slot for a total of 44 platinum. Doing this will allow you to own 4 more weapons and 1 more warframe, which is huge for a new player.
Buying Blueprints
Another way to acquire weapons and companions is to purchase the blueprints from the market. When you view the market you will notice that some items cost the premium currency, platinum. You will nee to click on the item and then look for the purchase blueprint option.
This will allow you to purchase the blueprint for that item using credits. You can then go to your foundry and craft that item once you have the required materials. However, bear in mind that it will take several hours, and sometimes days in the case of a Warframe, to complete the craft. Therefore, it’s a great idea to always have items crafting in your foundry when you can.
Bear in mind that you can’t purchase every blueprint in the game from the market. You will need to farm quite a few of them for both warframes and weapons through various missions. You can, of course, purchase them with platinum as well.
Quick Way to See Where to Farm Resources
In order to craft your items in the foundry you’ll need various resources. A quick method of seeing where to farm is by checking your star chart. When you’re looking at your start chart you can click the option “resource drones.” From there, you can click a specific planet and then click the resource extractor icon. This will display the resources that drop from that planet.
Unstuck Command
If you every find yourself stuck in the wall, a hole, or fall through the map in a mission you can utilize the /unstuck command. Just type /unstuck in the chat and your warframe will be moved from the stuck location. This can save you from having to abort the mission and restart it.
How to Progress
If you get stuck and aren’t sure what to do or how to progress, simply clear the star chart nodes, junctions, and do quests. Clearing the star chart will reward you with mastery rank experience, and progress towards the next junction. Every time you complete a junction to another planet you will unlock various things, including quests and other progress points.
You can view you codex for quests and see which ones you have completed and which ones you still need to do. If you can’t begin a quest you will also see the pre-requisites listed there so you know what you need to do before you can begin.
You can sort your quests by story, side, and warframe quests. Completing main and side quests often times open up brand new systems in the game. Warframe quests will reward you with a warframe blueprint and means the farm that particular warframe.
Mastery Rank
Mastery Rank in Warframe, or MR, is an indication of how much total content you have experienced in the game. This is the level of your account. As you level up various Warframes and weapons you will be rewarded with Mastery Rank experience. You can view your Mastery Rank and the amount of experience needed by viewing your profile. This information can also be obtained quickly by hovering over your Avatar in the top left corner of the UI.
In order to increase your Mastery Rank in Warframe you will need to level up different items in the game. You will receive MR experience for leveling weapons, warframes, companions, and when you complete a star chart node for the first time.
Once you reach enough mastery rank experience you’ll be able to complete a mastery rank test. Successfully completing this test will advance you to the next mastery rank level. You will want to complete this test as soon as possible. This is because you can only complete one test every 24 hours, and leveling up your mastery rank will unlock the ability to use new weapons, unlock new quests, and tons of other benefits and systems in the game.
If you fail your mastery rank test, you will have to wait 24 hours before you can do it again. However, you can practice your tests ahead of time. You can do this by clicking on the mastery rank level up option and then selecting practice in the bottom right hand corner. You can also head to any relay and go to the Cephalon Simaris room to practice the tests. The test are lined up in stations on the right hand side of the stairwell. It’s highly recommended that you practice each level prior to actually attempting it. This will give you a much better chance at passing the test the first time around.
It’s also really important to point out here that you will not lose excess mastery points if you reach maximum points for a particular rank and haven’t advanced to the next rank. These points will carry over to the next rank. So, feel free to continue leveling your weapons, frames, and companions even if you’re ready for an MR test.
Auto Modding
As a new player, modding your weapons and warframes can be very daunting. There is an auto mod feature available that will automatically put mods into your weapons and warframes for you. It’s highly recommended that as you progress you begin to learn how modding works and not to rely on auto modding forever. However, in the beginning the auto mod feature can be super useful to help you get started.
To auto mod make your way to the Arsenal in your orbiter. From here select the upgrade option on one of your weapons or Warframes. Then, select the actions option at the bottom of the screen. The first option is called Auto Install. Click that option to automatically mod your weapon or frame.
Spend Your Endo Wisely
In order to rank up your mods and make them more powerful you’ll need to complete the fusion process. In order to do this you’ll need to spend endo and credits. Endo is a resource you’ll need a ton of, and obtaining a whole lot of it early on can be pretty tough. So, it’s highly recommended that you spend your endo wisely as a new player and not to splurge on unnecessary upgrades.
For example, there are several mods that have 10 levels of upgrades. It’s going to be very tempting to try to upgrade them fully. You going to want to resist this urge because the endo cost of fully upgrading them is crazy high for a new player. It is perfectly fine to not fully upgrade these mods early on. Upgrading them by a few levels will still give you a ton of benefit, and save you a ton of endo.
Nightwave & Free Rewards
Nightwave is essentially a free season pass for every Warframe player. You can access Nightwave by using the Nightwave menu in the bottom right of your screen, or by utilizing the Nightwave terminal in your orbiter.
At the top of the Nightwave menu you’ll see which rewards you can receive at which level. At the bottom you’ll see the tasks you will need to complete and how much experience they will reward. There are both weekly and daily challenges. As a new player you probably won’t be able to complete all the Nightwave challenges. However, there may be some you can do. It’s definitely worth checking each day and each week to see if there’s anything you can complete. As you progress your Nightwave levels there’s some pretty nice rewards you can receive.
Syndicate Experience
Once you reach mastery rank 3, you will be given access to a new system called faction syndicates. You can access your faction syndicate menu at the terminal in the front of your orbiter. From here you can choose a syndicate.
These are basically interest groups from different factions in the game. You can join them to be allied with them. This will allow you to rank up your reputation within that syndicate. This is important because there are some really nice rewards you can obtain from the syndicates as you rank up.
You can view the offerings of each syndicate by clicking on a syndicate within the syndicate menu and selecting “view offereings.” From there you can see what rank you’ll need to achieve to purchase a particular item. There are many different mods, weapon parts, and more from each syndicate.
The really nice thing about syndicate standing is that you can earn it passively. After you join a syndicate you will gain a percentage of your experience from missions towards the syndicate. Therefore, just by joining one and playing the game you’ll progress your syndicate standing.
Bear in mind, being allied with a particular syndicate will reduce your standing with one of their enemies. However, you can always ally with any syndicate you choose and obtain all the rewards from each one them.
The Duviri Paradox Quest
The Duviri Paradox quest is a quest that you will get very early in your Warframe experience. It’s very important to point out that you will have no idea what’s going on with this quest story wise if you choose to complete it early.
There’s several mechanics within Duviri that you’ll also be very confused about. If you choose to do this quest early, don’t stress about not knowing anything about it. You will learn as you progress more in the game. Simply complete the quest and move on.
However, completing Duviri early on can be pretty beneficial to a new player. Once you complete the quest you’ll unlock what’s called the circuit. Completing the circuit will reward you with all the components you need to craft a new Warframe. You will get to choose between 3 warframes each week, and it’s a great way to farm new warframes for a new player.
You’ll also get to experience new weapons and frames during the circuit. Every time you play the circuit you choose a frame and a combination of weapons before you begin. This allows new players to experience new things that they otherwise wouldn’t get to experience early in the game.
Make sure to check out our growing Warframe guide library for more Warframe guides.