Returning to Warframe. Goals?

[Patrity]

So I'm returning from a time where quests were relatively new and scarce. I'm currently working through the quests and junctions (I previously had every planet unlocked but some changes seem to have been made?) I received my archwing and am working on the Limbo quest at the moment.

I guess my question is, what should I be working towards?

How is the power balance right now? Is there a big meta among warframes/weapons?

wtf are all these dogs and cats?

 

Thank you in advanced guys!

[(XBOX)Skippy575]

I would say continue with the quests for now. Completing the trio of cinematic quests (The Second Dream, The War Within, and The  Sacrifice) will unlock some passive powers that help enhance the gameplay (I'm being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers, unless you completed TSD quest already).

After that head to the Plains of Eidolon on Earth to check out the kind-of-sort-of-endgame boss fights. If you were around for the Trials/Raids the arcanes that dropped there were moved to these boss fights. Beating the boss fights will also help you upgrade your passive powers.

Beyond that? There's a lot of new Prime frames and weapons to check out You could go hunt those down and look for new mods to upgrade them with. There's a new open world coming within the next month or so providing a lot of new stuff for people to do so be sure to stick around and check that out.

As far as the meta is concerned there's a lot of new stuff you'll have to just experiment with as you acquire new weapons and frames to find what you like. There are new mods for weapons called Rivens that allow you to change the stats on them to try and make them better. Like most of the game, getting better stats is all RNG based so if you're not a fan of RNG then I wouldn't recommend getting too heavily invested in Rivens.

I would highly suggest checking out Warframe Builder for testing out builds on weapons and frames. It'll help you create a build for a frame before you use it. Also check out the Warframe Wiki for all things Waframe related. It's handy and can go a little more in depth about gameplay mechanics and drop locations for mods and such.

Sorry for the wall of text! Hope it helps! 👍

[Arcainyx]

43 minutes ago, Patrity said:

...I guess my question is, what should I be working towards?...

Unlocking all nodes on the starchart is probably the best goal you could have right now.  There are a variety of reasons for that.  As Skippy575
mentions completing quests is also important.  The quests he lists give completion rewards that aren't possible to get anywhere else.

44 minutes ago, Patrity said:

...How is the power balance right now? Is there a big meta among warframes/weapons?...

There has been a meta for frames and weapons for a while now and it doesn't seem like that will go away any time soon.  What you want depends on what you enjoy using and what your purpose is for using something.  There is some play even the meta depending on those two things.

47 minutes ago, Patrity said:

...wtf are all these dogs and cats?...

Kubrows were introduced after Sentinels and Kavats were introduced after Kubrows.  Pets have a different set of mods than sentinels do.  Generally speaking the more important of these mods grant more survivability to pets depending on the frame they're paired with.  As an example you'll gain more if you pair a pet with Link Health with your 5000 HP Inaros than you will with a 1000 health Mag.  There are more differences than that and what you should use seems to come down to personal preference of the user and the loadout of what that person is using.

[Patrity]

Thank you both! Really helpful information!

[(PSN)Gibberish-Jack]

Oh man,  good luck!