History Warframe / TropesNToS

** The earliest Primes were ''very marginally'' superior to their non-Prime variants, whereas the newest Primes make their vanilla versions look like [[JokeItem Joke Items]] in comparison. Frost Prime, one of the first, has a minor boost in armor (a DumpStat at best), while the newer Volt Prime has a massive boost in the base stats of his original, especially the ever-important [[ManaMeter Energy.]] Burston and Sicarus Prime have a miniscule performance boost over their originals; Soma and Vectis Prime have ''double'' the clip of their originals for starters, along with large increases to nearly every valuable stat.

** Salacia (Mobile Defense) on Neptune plays this trope straight for Archwing equipments.

* NothingIsScarier: When Sentient units appear on the map, the background music stops, resulting in a minor case of this.

* NothingIsScarier: When Sentient units appear on the map the background music stops, resulting in a minor case of this.

* NewGamePlus: Once you finish the Star Chart completely, you can start the Steel Path: you start the Star Chart from scratch, with enemies having a 100-level boost (50-level in the case of Archwing) and having 250% HP, Shields and Armor. Your reward? [[AndYourRewardIsClothes an armor set]] [[spoiler:for the Operator]], two Ephemera and a bunch of emotes and decorations. Mods and resources have double the chance to drop in Steel Path. It is, however, [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagged]]; you can freely switch between normal mode and the Steel Path.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Justified or not, the Tenno and Lotus have commited more than one blunder in their war for the Origin System:

** During the Vox Solaris quest, Tenno try to help a down on his luck solaris Thursby in their own typical way (read -- raid some Corpus caches for loot for him to sell, most likely killing one or two Corpus goons while at it). [[spoiler: When Nef Anyo catches wind that Tenno are active in Orb Vallis, he sends his repo squad after Thursby, who end up quite literally tearing him into pieces.]]

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Played ''very'' straight. The [[SawedOffShotgun Tigris]], [[UpToEleven Hek]], [[GrenadeLauncher Corinth]] and [[AntiAir Drakgoon]] are known for being some of the best guns in the game. With careful builds, any of them can wipe out a room full of enemies in seconds.

** Internal and highly complicated. Early on, back in 200'''4''', Digital Extremes had drawn up a design document for a ''very'' ambitious game which they called ''Dark Sector''. Unfortunately they simply couldn't manage to successfully pitch it to any publisher in its state at that point, and so it went through multiple revisions until it turned into the ''VideoGame/DarkSector'' that was actually published in 200'''8'''. ''Warframe'' is [=DE=] going back to their original design document and finally designing the game they wanted to make all those years ago. [[http://archive.is/9aBdO This article explains it all in more detail]].

* NiceHat:
** Grineer Commanders have a pretty fancy ''pope hat''-esque thing going on. There's also Frost with his odd iceberg cap, Limbo with his top-hat thing, Harrow with his mitre and all Prime Warframes have an Orokin doodad hanging off their head.
** Headgear is also one of the primary means of differentiating general Grineer soldiers from each other -- shotgun-wielding Troopers and flamethrower-toting Scorches have wide and fairly flat caps with one 'eye', Commanders have the pope hat, normal Lancers have facemasks (or no mask), Napalms and Bombards always have facemasks, desert Lancers have hoods, etc.

** Occasionally, in Fortuna, Ticker will tell the player of Gara, and how she stood up to and slayed the Sentient war machine that became the Eidolons. Her analysis of this is as follows: "See, the value of stories isn't in telling you there are monsters, Stardust. It's in showing you they can be kicked square in the down-belows," a paraphrasing to Neil Gaiman's quote from ''Literature/Coraline'', in turn paraphrased from G. K. Chesterton. ("Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.")

* PiratesVersusNinjas[=/=][[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Ninja Pirate Cthulhu Robot]]: Settled with the Hydroid warframe, who is stated to be a combination of pirate and ninja, and a nice dose of Eldritch tentacles, as well.

* NowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: During ''The New War'', [[spoiler:you initially play as a Grineer soldier, a Corpus tech, Teshin, and then a mysterious drifter who is soon revealed to be an older version of the Operator who has no access to void powers (and by extension their warframes).]]

* NoHeroDiscount: Tenno must buy their own weapon blueprints, provide the materials and pay for them to be built at their Orbiter's foundry. This is Justified in side materials where it is explained that Ordis is skimming money off the top to pay for necessary maintenance and supplies.

* SuperPrototype: The ''Prime'' equipment (Excalibur Prime, Latron Prime, etc.) has vibes of this, being the original designs from the Orokin era as opposed to the derivative equipment that modern Tenno craft with their own hands using lesser materials. The power level of the Prime equipment varies wildly between items -- for example, the Reaper Prime and Sicarus Prime are generally considered to be VendorTrash, while the Boltor Prime and Soma Prime are generally used as the benchmark for all potentially-viable automatic rifles.

** The final segment, meanwhile, gives the player access to the Necramech "Snake", which they must maneuver back to the Heart of Deimos [[spoiler:so that the heart can be healed]]. [[AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent In direct contrast to the previous sequence]], the player has the ''enormous'' power of a [[MiniMecha Necramech]] at their disposal, allowing them to mow down practically ''everything they encounter'' with ease. Said sequence ends in a boss battle against a rogue Necramech [[spoiler:which is what killed the heart in the first place]].

* StunGuns:
** Corpus Prod Crewmen and Grineer Powerfists both use electrified clubs/shock prods to attack you. The Prod Crewmen don't do a whole lot of damage, [[{{Knockback}} but the hits have a high chance to make you stagger]], leaving you open to other attacks or followup strikes. Powerfists are just {{Glass Cannon}}s with the swing speed of a MightyGlacier -- huge warmup time, but they hit ''hard''. The Tenno can also use these in the form of the ''Prova'' baton -- devastating against Corpus, but usually less so against other factions.
** The Lecta is a Tenno-designed reverse-engineered Prova, converted into a [[WhipItGood Stun Whip]].

*** The Soma may be dolled up with the usual Tenno ornaments and made from futuristic materials, but it's still pretty much just a light machine gun. You don't need to be more accurate; you just need more bullets in the air per second.

** The New War so heavily changes things that you receive a warning before even starting the quest that you ''won't'' be able to leave the questline until it is complete.

** A meta example, but when the player start The New War, the game itslef will very bluntly ask you if you ''really'' want to go through with the quest, both because it is ''very'' emotionally heavy and, unlike all other prior quests (including the {{Wham Episode}}s that made up the previous cinematic quests), must be completed ''in its entirety'' before the player can move on to other missions. While other quests do warn you when you've reached a PointOfNoReturn, they've never included a content warning before.