How to Play Warframe to Survive in Those Initial Hours

By | June 20th, 2018 | Categories: Warframe

Warframe is a very popular, free-to-play third-person shooter for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 which is, like all the best games out there, easy to get in but hard to master. For that reason, we have set up this How to Play Warframe guide so we can help you to survive those initial hours in this game and move on to prosper and advance rapidly in the later stages of the game.

Warframe has been out for some five years now and it has, pretty much like every good game that has been on the market for so long, changed significantly. After numerous updates and expansions, this game can overwhelm both those that are starting in it for the first time as well as those who are returning to it after on a longer break. There is a lot to see and experience, so let us start with it.

Useless Tutorials

It should be stated at the very beginning that the Warframe tutorials are absolutely useless and by no means explain even the essentials of the game. If you want to master this game, you should refer to guides such as this one, or watch a multitude of YouTube “How to” videos that are out there. Official tutorials are, as the general consensus goes, a waste of time.

Walk without the Rhythm

The first thing you need to master in Warframe is the art of movement. The characters can be extremely fast, always moving in the direction where the mouse is pointing and being able to quickly change directions. Be warned that with the faster Warframes you may have a difficult time adjusting the mouse sensitivity because the view rotation speed will simply be mind-blowing. After mastering the running, one should learn how to slide. A nifty feature is the possibility to look left and right during the time the avatar is sliding, without changing the direction or the speed of the slide itself. Since the players can modify their characters on their own, they can focus to give their avatars more speed or health, depending on their own play style. The players that focus on creating exceptionally fast Warframes can end up with insane results.

While moving forward, sliding and eventually pressing jump, the avatar gets to receive a nice boost to the speed and perform interesting jumps and leaps into the air. It is also possible for specific acrobatic movements and performs attacks of “death from above” type that is very gratifying. I would say that the first hour of your gameplay should be focused on you practicing the movements within Warframe, testing all the different combos and possibilities that each of them can display.

Frame of Mind

Let us talk about some general tips for this game. The word Warframe describes suits of armor that the player wears, each of them having their own set of abilities, sometimes active, sometimes passive. Basically, every time you pick up another Warframe, you start playing a new class within this game. For the beginning, though you should not be stressing too much about all these details and simply focus on getting the feel for the general gameplay.

When starting the game for the first time, a player will be given a choice between three different Warframes – Volt, Excalibur, and Mag. In simplistic terms, one can define them as a balanced, tanky or casting Warframe, although their development in the game can significantly change their feasibility in different situations, taking them away from the orthodox class rules they usually adhere to. You also get to decide whether you take a bo staff or a sword, primary pistols, automatic rifles or a bow (this one can perform nice stealth kills) and so on. You shouldn’t fret too much about these choices since you can easily go back and test other options at any given time. As you start playing Warframe you will quickly obtain a lot of resources and gear components. By using the Foundry and blueprints you get from the in-game market you can craft new weapons, Warframe parts, and complete Warframes. Have in mind that crafting can take from 12 hours for guns up to 72 hours for wholesome Warframes. Of course, as in many other free to play games, you can speed this process by using platinum, which represents the real-world money in this game. The choice is yours.

Leveling the Gear

Every piece of gear you get in this game has its own level rank. As you play with these pieces of gear equipped, their rank will increase, improving their stats and providing that specific piece of equipment with more slots for installing modifications. As you get additional levels you improve your Mastery Rank score and the overall account level, which gives you a bunch of benefits such as unlocking new gear, will rise.

You can expect to gain Mastery Rank simply by sufficiently playing the game. Each time a player reaches a new level he will have to take Mastery Rank test. Careful, this one is on a 24 hours cooldown, so if you fail, it will take a day for you to be able to try again. Because of that, you should check out what you need to do exactly before you start on the test since a great deal of them is really hard to achieve.

Modding

Having obtained the gear that you need you’ll go to the next step, which is modding the gear. There are essentially hundreds of mods in Warframe which provide different buffs to different pieces of gear, with some being exclusively valid for a specific, unique piece of gear. You can add mods that will boost your health, shield or speed, all depending on your own preferences and the type of Warframe you are currently playing with. It is recommended to always improve on the strengths of specific Warframe, so if you have one that is innately quick, you should work on increasing its speed and maneuverability instead of increasing its health or shields. However, in the end, you alone will have to decide which setup will be the most beneficial to you and your playstyle.

Every mod drains a specific amount of energy from your power suit. The more powerful the mod is, the more energy will it drain. You can also manage the energy drain by using specific mod slots and by playing with the polarity mods you can cut the energy drain in half. You can also increase the power of your suit and upgrade it, thus enabling it to handle more powerful mods.

Farming and Clans

Like every decent free-to-play game, Warframe too relies heavily on farming. In order to continue the never-ending struggle to upgrade your suit, you will have to farm many different resources. Simply go to the planet that has the resources that you need and farm away. It is important to note that you can get all resources through farming, with the exception of Nitain Extract which can only be obtained by doing special Alerts. Important to note is that Argon crystals need to be used quickly after they have been picked up, since they start to decay 24h after they have been picked up.

It is recommended that you find a clan and join it in order to cut the research costs for many pieces of gear as well as Warframes. Handling all of this alone is not the best option, so make sure you find new friends and joined them in a clan.

Raiding

Raids in Warframe are called Sorties, and they are as close as this game will get to the standard MMORPG raids. They get unlocked after the player finishes The War Within quest and offer three missions per day that need to be completed in a specific order. Essentially, we are talking about normal missions with highly increased difficulty and much stronger bosses at the end of the fight. To pull this off, you will have to gather a team of four players with strong gear which provides for good DPS, good tanking and high survivability. You can either bring your own friends or simply hook up with random people in public matching.

The Nature of Warframe

Warframe is above else a game that requires fast responses and quick reflexes. It is not for those who like to sit around and ponder on their course of action in detail, but rather those that rely on their reflexes and to carry the day. They must be doing something right, since the game is still going strong after all these years and is also being expanded on a regularbasis. If you are a fan of fast paced shooter games, Warframe is probably one of the best possible solutions for you, especially since you do not have to pay to get in the game and test it out.

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