I've done The New War, a brilliant hours long cinematic story quest with some nice perspective shifts, and a great way to tie up the main narrative. For now. Needed a Railjack and a Necromech for that quest, the Railjack wasn't too much of a problem but I bought a Necromech, fuck that grind. 

Angels of the Zariman and a proper go at The Duviri Paradox next!

Been bouncing between frames and weapons for mastery but I did manage to farm Mesa Prime and I'm quite taken with her. Looks awesome as well. Fashion Frame is the true end-game.

Gunslinger. She buffs gun damage, shields you from incoming projectiles, and with her 4 she whips out dual exalted revolvers and aim-bots everything around her. 

Can't think of a specific sniper frame 'cept perhaps Ivara because of her 3? Definitely hard to use.

Good stuff. I think I got Ivara Prime from one of the Warframe stream Twitch drops, definitely didn't farm her. Would love the new Gauss Prime but we'll see, only managed to grind out one part so far. Dude looks seriously complex but also crazy good.

Yeah I think that's the first real difficulty spike when you're working your way through the star chart, unless you choose public and high-level randoms nuke him before you even get there that is. 

Farming that guy for Rhino was also my fist real moment of satisfaction with the crafting system. I crafted a Warframe!

Yeah that's a nice little breakdown, up to 11 mins for the scene-setting up to the game's start, and spoilers ahoy after that.

Warframe lore has some good stuff in there when you dig into it (and some genuinely confusing stuff). I was over a hundred hours in before I played The Second Dream and discovered the reality of the Tenno and the Warframes, and what a mind fuck that was. Seriously one of my all-time favourite story moments.

Destiny lore dude, Byf, has been dipping into Warframe lore over the years and has a playlist on his channel. The few I've watched were pretty good.

Awesome. Will watch for sure. Not that there's a way for folks to do it, but second play through of early quests where I can just rinse everything is good. The rhythm of the story works much better. Just banging through them and opening map. Good times.

I've been blasting through the missions as well atm. 'Cept these are all ones I haven't done, obvs. Focussing on those that unlock new tilesets and mechanics. Angels of the Zariman and Whispers in the Walls done this weekend, like Duviri though - you're not done when you've finished the story quest. There's a whole load more to get on with. 

For newer weapons, the bow you get from completing The New War has become my go-to for tougher content. It's stupidly strong. Managed to get a couple of prime melee weapons as well that are kinda brilliant. Just need to deep-dive on modding, there are so many synergies at play in this game I just know every weapon I have is sub-optimally upgraded.

Cernos is great, especially some of the variants, but the one from The New War is called Naratuk. The charge shot causes an explosion and it's good for both crit and status. I'm getting anything from 16k to 200k+ on a single shot depending on what effects proc and I don't have the best mod setup.

Yeah, I have dread. I have a bunch of bows. Don't have that one above though. Sounds great. one to keep an eye on next run through.

Yeah, rail jack was a thing when I was playing. I think I've done some of it, but it'll ask me to redo. That's fine. Necramexh I defo haven't done. It's gonna be weeks at least before I'm close anyway.

Deadlock protocol final fight against protea is some of the worst signposted gaming ever.

After finishing the main story of Duviri we jumped back in for the Circuit mode last night. Really cool stuff with heavy rogue-like leanings and super rewarding.

Every week there's a choice of three Warframes and you pick one to unlock. As you play runs of the Circuit you'll progress through ten reward tiers for that Warframe - full blueprints, an augment mod, etc.

It's a really nice way for new players to get their hands on some Warframes that might normally be unavailable 'til much later in the game, and/or be a pain to farm.

Have they done clean up of some of the open plan/world quests to make them a little smoother, or is my memory just hazy?

Cracking through the heart of diemos quest and it feels much more polished now.

Maybe I haven't hit the grind yet, but the steps through the basics are just cracking along nicely.

After a few weeks of being in that weird place between the end of the regular difficulty content and the beginning of the true endgame stuff, I've finally got most of the mods I wanted and a choice few high-tier weapons and levelled them all to the point that I can advance beyond Arbitrations, Sorties, Zariman bounties and the like. I mean, I'm still doing all that stuff as well 'cause like most of the content in this game it's both fun and rewarding.

Steel Path is the big one - a replay of the entire star chart but the enemies are 100 levels above their normal power, with increased armour, shields, resistances, and damage output. Then there's Steel Path difficulty for other activities like the open worlds and the Duviri Circuit. Then you've got Archon Hunts which reward more new items to ramp your power to crazy levels.

Was playing the Duviri Circuit on Steel Path difficulty last night, we bailed after 8 rounds with enemies at level 700 or so. Insane stuff. Unless you're modded right your weapons don't do shit, and at that level the enemies can hit for tens of thousands of damage at a time, making the use of advanced survival techniques like shield gating as well as mods like Rolling Guard essential. 

All these new mechanics and additions have added so much more depth to an already incredibly deep game that after hundreds of hours of playtime I'm feeling like a noob all over again and I kinda love it. I've got a grip on Arcanes although I don't have many of them, and right now I'm working on Archon Shards and Incarnon (evolving) weapons. And there's still so much more to see and do. 

What a crazy game.

Had to get a mate round the other night who's been playing it a lot but recently moved on to other things.
He explained that I can't do any of the story missions till I get a mech thingie, it's confusing.

Before all this though i Did do a story where I play as a drifter and got to choose a new frame from the beginner classes (volt, excalibur and mag) but I already had all these so weren't sure what to do so just rolled with excalibur and finished all that up.

So I have a choice between grinding for mech parts.

Increasing my standing with vent kids by doing skateboard tricks on a k-drive.

Or a railjack mission thats way too hard for me and I don't even remember how to get more repair gel (omni-gel) for repairs and I'm sure it requires more upgrades and a full team.

I really like this game but there's so much that's unexplained or just a pain to Google and find out.