Abyss of Dagath - Dev Workshop: New Player Path Improvements

[[DE]Taylor]

Hi Tenno,

This is one of our many Developer Workshops for Update 34: Abyss of Dagath. To see what other changes are coming in this Update, check out our other Developer Workshops here:

• Hydroid Rework
• Companion Rework
• New Player Path Improvements
• Accessibility + HUD Improvements
• Systems Changes and General QOL
   

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Abyss of Dagath - Dev Workshop: New Player Path Improvements

There is so much to cover in this Developer Workshop, so we’ll keep this brief! No values are final, and everything outlined is subject to change leading up to the release of Abyss of Dagath. We’ve done our best to communicate all planned changes, but the only way to understand their true impact is to play with them once the update is in your hands.

With that all said, get yourself a glass of greedy milk and maybe a snack, as there is much to go over!

• Removal of Flawed Mods and MK1 Weapons from Vor’s Prize
• Early Game Inbox and Junction Adjustments
• Universal Enemy Radar
• Quest Improvements 
• Including Waverider, Natah, and Vox Solaris
• Cetus Wisp and Necramech Acquisition Changes

 

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Removal of Flawed Mods and MK1 Weapons from Vor’s Prize

Flawed Mods 
Flawed Mods are a special variant of Mods that are only accessible via the Vor’s Prize Quest and were intended to be an early introduction for players to the Modding system. Over the years, we have come to understand that these Mods have the unintended effect of players investing Endo that would be better used in the non-flawed variants. 

As a result, we are removing Flawed Mods from Vor’s Prize and replacing them with the normal variants. Additionally, players who already own Flawed Mods will have them replaced with the normal variant with the launch of the Abyss of Dagath update -- excluding the April Fool’s Flawed Ammo Drum from 2016, of course. The conversion will maintain the Mod rank, so a Rank 3 Flawed Vitality will become a Rank 3 Vitality once the update launches. 

Any equipped Flawed Mods will be uninstalled with Dagath as well, so be sure to check your builds once the update launches if this affects you!

Adjusting for Increased Mod Drain
As Flawed Mods are being removed, we want to ensure that new players can still create their early builds and equip Mods onto their equipment. Since normal Mods have a higher drain than their Flawed variants, we’re approaching this problem in two ways:

Firstly, we’re adding 90k Bonus Affinity to the completion of the Vor’s Prize Quest, split up across the 6 missions. Each mission will earn new players an additional 15k Affinity upon first completion only.

Secondly, we’re reducing the base Drain for a few core Mods by 2. This will allow these Mods to fit into early game builds more easily, but also has the benefit of reducing their overall Drain at all ranks.

Here are the Mods that are being reduced from a Drain of 4 to 2 at Rank 0:

• Fast Deflection - new Max Rank Drain of 7
• Redirection - new Max Rank Drain of 12
• Enemy Sense - new Max Rank Drain of 7
• Continuity - new Max Rank Drain of 7

MK1 Weapons
Along the lines of Flawed Mods, the less powerful MK1 variants of the Braton, Paris, Kunai, and Bo will be removed from the Vor’s Prize Quest. With Dagath’s release, new players will be presented with the normal variants of these weapons.

Rest assured that all MK1 weapons will remain available for purchase with Credits in the Market!
 

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Early Game Inbox and Junction Adjustments

Updated Early Game Inbox Messages
Continuing with our plans for improving the new player path, we are updating the completion Inbox messages for the following Quests:

• Vor’s Prize
• Saya’s Vigil

Following the completion of Saya’s Vigil, we have also written a new inbox from The Business directing players to visit him in Fortuna.

Our goal is to direct our Tenno to Cetus and then to Fortuna in their early-game journey, as these two nodes are pivotal for later content, including Junctions and Quests. 

Junctions
Speaking of Junctions, we’re making the following adjustments to the Venus and Mercury Junctions:

Venus

• Removal of the “Collect 20 Mods” and “Apply 4 mods to a Single Warframe or Weapon” tasks
  • With the removal of Flawed Mods, the “Appy 4 Mods” challenge may become more difficult. Our goal for Junction tasks is to both teach new Tenno about the game, and guide them where to go next -- neither of these challenges quite fit that vision. 
• NEW TASK: “Complete Quest: Saya’s Vigil”
  • Similar to the Inbox changes, our goal is to direct new players to Cetus early in their journey!

Mercury

• Added Incubator Power Core to Junction rewards 
  • Howl of the Kubrow is a Quest unlocked from the Mercury Junction, which requires an Incubator Power Core to complete. The free path to this item was not available until the Mars Junction was completed, which we felt was confusing to many new Tenno eager to hatch their first furry friend.  

 

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Universal Enemy Radar

Players now have a Universal Enemy Radar set to 30m to help new players navigate through their missions. Warframe is more fun when you know where your foes are, and we felt that this important mechanic no longer needed to be tied to game progression.

Existing Enemy Radar Mods will simply add to the base Enemy Radar values!
ie. your Enemy Radar with Enemy Sense equipped would now be 60m!
 

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Quest Improvements

Waverider Quest

For those who didn’t grow up playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater (or if you’re like me, hitting the Gnasty Gnorc in Spyro the Dragon), the Waverider Quest may be a stopping point for you to acquire Yareli. Simply put: the gameplay requirements are not what you see in your average Warframe mission, being K-drive focused. While we love adding variety to our game, accessibility, and enjoyment is also an important factor -- especially since this is the free path to earning Yareli. 

With that in mind, we are making the following changes to the Waverider Quest:

• We’re reducing the number of challenges per page from 5 to 3, resulting in a whopping reduction of overall Quest requirements from 25 to 15 challenges!
• With fewer challenges overall, we’ve reworked the remaining challenges with the focus of making them simpler and easier to complete while still showcasing the breadth of gameplay available on your K-Drive!
• Hovering over a challenge will also provide you with a “how-to” description, offering more details on how to complete the listed objective!
• The 6th page in the comic will now be hidden until the 5 pages of challenges are complete. We don’t want players thinking there are even more tasks to finish when in reality, the final page is full of lore!

Below is a look at the Quest Challenges coming with Dagath -- please keep in mind that this is all still subject to change leading up to release! While many are familiar, we have reduced difficulty where we could and outright replaced challenges where we felt appropriate. 

PAGE 1:

• Kill 5 enemies with a Secondary Weapon while riding a K-Drive 
• Copter x 5
• Complete a K-Drive Race

PAGE 2

• Get 5 Headshot Kills with a Secondary Weapon while riding a K-Drive
• Noseplanker or Tailplanker x 5 
• Obtain 5 seconds of air-time on a K-Drive

PAGE 3:

• Frontside Rollout x 5
• Backside Rollout x 5
• Perform 3 x10 combos

PAGE 4:

• 5 kills landing with K-Drive
  • This works if you simply land on enemies or kill them with Slam Shockwaves! 
  • We are also buffing Slam Shockwave radial damage from 5 to 100! Direct impacts still deal 1000 damage, but now missed maneuvers will do as much damage as a bullet jump.
• Complete 2 different K-Drive races
  • This challenge is a rework of the “Earn X points in a K-Drive race” challenges, which were impossible to do for certain K-Drive races. 
• Keep a K-Drive trick chain alive for 10 seconds

PAGE 5:

• Kill 5 enemies while mid-air/during a trick chain
• Collect a total of 10,000 race points
• Earn 500 points in a K-Drive trick chain

Vox Solaris Quest
As we want to encourage new Tenno to venture to both Cetus and Fortuna, we’re reducing the overall difficulty of Vox Solaris with them in mind:

MISSION 1:

• Reduced enemy level from 6-8 to 5, matching subsequent missions in this Quest.
• Increased Drone Health and Shields from 3k to 8k, respectively.
• Reduced the number of required kills from 30 to 20.

MISSION 2:

• Reduced enemy level from 6-8 to 5, matching subsequent missions in this Quest.

MISSION 3:

• Increased Excavator shields from 500 to 3k to match Health values.

MISSION 5:

• Reduced enemy starting level to 7 from 9.
• Increased Coolant Tower Health and Shields from 3k to 10k, respectively. 

Natah Quest
This Quest is such an important stepping stone on your Tenno’s journey, so we are not planning on making sweeping changes. However, we have a few QOL tweaks to address Quest initiation:

• Reduced the MR requirement from 3 to 2, meaning Oculysts will now spawn in Uranus once you are MR 2!
• Updated the Uranus Junction challenge description to better indicate how to start this Quest. 
  • “Unlock this Quest via a special event in Grineer missions on Uranus. These events only trigger if you are Mastery Rank 2 or above.” 

Misc. Quest Changes:

• The Archwing: Reduced Odonata build time from 10 minutes to 1 minute.
• The Limbo Theorem:  Reduced Limbo Blueprint craft times from 12 hours to 1 minute. We are also reducing the number of Proof fragments required for the Theorem Blueprints from 3 to 1. 
• Saya’s Vigil: Removing the MR 1 requirement to access Saya’s Vigil as part of our other early game journey changes. 

This list is not extensive, as we do have other Quest changes we are working on with the hopes of releasing with Abyss of Dagath. Look to the official Update 34 patch notes to see all that’s changing on October 18!
 

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Cetus Wisp and Necramech Acquisition Changes

Another part of a Tenno’s path is improving their gear, especially once they’ve unlocked their Operator. In addition to the Focus Point acquisition changes (outlined in our Systems Changes and General QOL Dev Workshop), we’re making the following tweaks to improve player acquisition for Amps and Necramechs:

• Cetus Wisps no longer disappear! These are crucial crafting costs for many early-game Amps, and while we did add the ability to purchase this resource from Onkko at Rank 5 Quills, this change should improve player acquisition earlier on in their journey. 
  • As similar pickups like Scintillant and Toroids were added to the game, this timed mechanic for Cetus Wisps felt unnecessarily complicated in contrast. 
• Voidrig crafting costs are being changed to require Cambion Drift resources only. Some of the resources required investment in other Hub Syndicates and Railjack, adding further obstacles for players on their journey to their Necramech. The updated crafting changes are as follows:
  • Voidrig Casing - replaced Venerdo Alloy with 5 Cranial Foremount
  • Voidrig Engine - replaced Isos with 6 Cabochon Embolos
  • Voidrig Capsule - replaced Marquise Veridos with 50 Devolved Namalon
  • Voidrig Weapon Pod - replaced Charc Electroplax with 6 Trapezium Xenorhast
• Added Damaged Necramech Components to Loid’s Store for purchase. Players can purchase Damaged Necramech Casings, Engines, Pods, and Weapon Pods from the Necraloid Syndicate at Rank 1 for 2,500 Standing each. 
  • With the number of components needed to build your Necramech, the drop tables may not always be in your favour. Similar to Voruna and Citrine, we are adding the ability to purchase missing components directly from a vendor as a way to offset the grind.

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Whether you took the time to review the entire Dev Workshop, or skipped to the sections that were relevant to you most, thank you for reading! We’re excited for you all to get your hands on these changes and more with Abyss of Dagath on October 18th!

 

[Her_Lovely_Tentacles]

Will the new universal enemy radar also apply to Operators and Drifters?

[Voltage]

Overall, the many workshops are chalk full of nice things, but this small point is lowkey annoying:

2 hours ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Additionally, players who already own Flawed Mods will have them replaced with the normal variant with the launch of the Abyss of Dagath update -- excluding the April Fool’s Flawed Ammo Drum from 2016, of course.

Can we just either remove all Flawed Mods or make them all accessible? Needless exclusivity isn't necessary for a completed mod collection. I thought Primed Chamber taught us that already. We already have this issue from Steam Pinnacle Pack Rank 5 Equilibrium which is a retired DLC now. This is worse than that though as atleast those are tradeable.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Voltage

[BlindStalker]

2 hours ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Universal Enemy Radar

Players now have a Universal Enemy Radar set to 30m to help new players navigate through their missions. Warframe is more fun when you know where your foes are, and we felt that this important mechanic no longer needed to be tied to game progression.

Existing Enemy Radar Mods will simply add to the base Enemy Radar values!
ie. your Enemy Radar with Enemy Sense equipped would now be 60m!

As an Ivara main, I just wanted to ask a simple question in relation to these upcoming changes. Will Ivara get an updated, new passive, or stack with upcoming changes? Because Ivara's passive is an innate 20m Enemy Radar, built into her.

I don't mind everybody getting a "universal enemy radar"; but I want to know what happens in the case of Ivara's innate passive of 20m enemy radar. I just want to ask for an answer is all.

[Darthplagueis13]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb [DE]Taylor:

Secondly, we’re reducing the base Drain for a few core Mods by 2. This will allow these Mods to fit into early game builds more easily, but also has the benefit of reducing their overall Drain at all ranks.

Here are the Mods that are being reduced from a Drain of 4 to 2 at Rank 0:

• Fast Deflection - new Max Rank Drain of 7
• Redirection - new Max Rank Drain of 12
• Enemy Sense - new Max Rank Drain of 7
• Continuity - new Max Rank Drain of 7

RIP Flawed Flow

[[DE]Taylor]

3 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

As an Ivara main, I just wanted to ask a simple question in relation to these upcoming changes. Will Ivara get an updated, new passive, or stack with upcoming changes? Because Ivara's passive is an innate 20m Enemy Radar, built into her.

I don't mind everybody getting a "universal enemy radar"; but I want to know what happens in the case of Ivara's innate passive of 20m enemy radar. I just want to ask for an answer is all.

Ivara now has a passive Enermy Radar of 50m with this change!

[3mptylord]

5 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Overall, the many workshops are chalk full of nice things, but this small point is lowkey annoying:

Can we just either remove all Flawed Mods or make them all accessible? Needless exclusivity isn't necessary for a completed mod collection. I thought Primed Chamber taught us that already. We already have this issue from Steam Pinnacle Pack Rank 5 Equilibrium which is a retired DLC now. This is worse than that though as atleast those are tradeable.

They are removing Flawed Mods by converting them into non-Flawed Mods. Copies of Flawed Vitality will become Vitality. This is with the exception of the Flawed Ammo Drum because Flawed Ammo Drum is an April Fool's mod that is already unobtainable. It's just an "I was here 5 years ago" thing. 

I would prefer they were just made into untradable inventory decoration, personally - similar to the old Nora Credits. I like having a collection of "I was here" tokens. 

[Degaz3000]

4 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

As an Ivara main, I just wanted to ask a simple question in relation to these upcoming changes. Will Ivara get an updated, new passive, or stack with upcoming changes? Because Ivara's passive is an innate 20m Enemy Radar, built into her.

I don't mind everybody getting a "universal enemy radar"; but I want to know what happens in the case of Ivara's innate passive of 20m enemy radar. I just want to ask for an answer is all.

With the changes made Ivara's radar should increase to 50m, as if the passive counts as a mod increasing Radar

[3mptylord]

6 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

 

I imagine she will just have +20m more than everyone else because of her passive for a total of 50m. Mag also has a passive that just gives her free Vacuum range and it stacks with other sources of Vacuum range.

Taylor confirmed quicker than I could speculate.

Edited September 28, 2023 by 3mptylord

[Voltage]

2 minutes ago, 3mptylord said:

They are removing Flawed Mods by converting them into non-Flawed Mods. Copies of Flawed Vitality will become Vitality. This is with the exception of the Flawed Ammo Drum because Flawed Ammo Drum is an April Fool's mod that is already unobtainable. It's just an "I was here 5 years ago" thing. 

I would prefer they were just made into untradable inventory decoration, personally - similar to the old Nora Credits. I like having a collection of "I was here" tokens. 

I was there too, and it's still pretty dumb. Having a collection-based loot game with exclusives like this completely kills that vibe. It's why most people who get into the Codex end up completely dumping the venture of completion, because you simply can't. If they want to convert that Ammo Drum into a sigil cosmetic that looks like the mod or something, fine, but mod completion should be 100% available to all players starting any time. It's the fundamental upgrade system. It doesn't matter whether the mod is powerful or not. Part of what makes Warframe cool is when those old items become relevant (as Rebecca just said in relation to Dragon Keys on stream).

Edited September 28, 2023 by Voltage

[Nocxia]

Can we please keep the ones we got, and maybe just issue a new set via an in game mail? this may sounds weird but i used some of those mods as a baby tenno a fair bit till i got the real ones, and it would be nice to keep as a momento. maybe rerun the april fools event if new folks want to get them + ammo drum?

[3mptylord]

Just now, Voltage said:

I was there too, and it's still pretty dumb. Having a collection-based loot game with exclusives like this completely kills that vibe. It's why most people who get into the Codex end up completely dumping the venture of completion, because you simply can't.

Then surely the solution is to hide things in the Codex that are unobtainable? I don't see why it shouldn't be possible for collectors to reach 100% *and* I get to have a Glassmaker Credit souvenir at the same time. 

[BlindStalker]

11 minutes ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Ivara now has a passive Enermy Radar of 50m with this change!

Ah thank you Taylor for the reply. I just had a small follow-up question/clarification that I wanted to ask. So with these changes, does that mean that Ivara will get 50m + 30m on top, due to the extra universal enemy radar being added, equalling 80m total? (Before mods are added onto Ivara). I just wanted clarification so I don't misunderstand what is happening.

Edited September 28, 2023 by BlindStalker

[(PSN)LadyAmbush]

4 minutes ago, BlindStalker said:

Ah thank you Taylor for the reply. I just had a small follow-up question/clarification that I wanted to ask. So with these changes, does that mean that Ivara will get 50m + 30m on top, due to the extra universal enemy radar being added, equalling 80m total? (Before mods are added onto Ivara). I just wanted clarification so I don't misunderstand what is happening.

They said radar mods are added to it... So yes. Everything works the same as before they just included a based radar of 30.

Edited September 28, 2023 by (PSN)LadyAmbush

[Voltage]

2 minutes ago, 3mptylord said:

Then surely the solution is to hide things in the Codex that are unobtainable? I don't see why it shouldn't be possible for collectors to reach 100% *and* I get to have a Glassmaker Credit souvenir at the same time. 

Hiding things from players doesn't actually solve the problem, it just adds more educational hurdles to the game and opens the door to players missing things because the game doesn't tell you about it at all unless you already have it. Accessibility is a major selling point for this game. The more things left around that are treated this way, the more alienated players are from others based on start date. This is really no different than Cannonade, Ignis Wraith research, Primed Chamber, Solar Rail research, and other issues of the past. Cosmetics are one thing, but progressional completion should not have elements of exclusivity in them, even if the item is "not that powerful".

Aviator used to be in a similar exclusivity situation, and it was part of a Trinity Link nuke setup that only some people could enjoy, and was nerfed as soon as the mod was widely available. It's just crumby to do that.

[Verflair]

Can there also be a change made to the end of The War Within to more explicitly encourage new players to go see Onkko to retrieve the Mote Amp and get introduced to the amp system? As it is, the game does not currently point you towards him once you've unlocked the ability to use Operator Amps, and I've had plenty of friends get to The Sacrifice without the Mote Amp because the game doesn't adequately direct them to go obtain it from Onkko.

Alternatively, just give the Mote Amp as a reward from completing The War Within.

[DeeDeeLyla]

10 hours ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Universal Enemy Radar

Players now have a Universal Enemy Radar set to 30m to help new players navigate through their missions. Warframe is more fun when you know where your foes are, and we felt that this important mechanic no longer needed to be tied to game progression.

Existing Enemy Radar Mods will simply add to the base Enemy Radar values!
ie. your Enemy Radar with Enemy Sense equipped would now be 60m!

Amazing change
please please please tell me this will also apply to Operator / Drifter because they currently have no way of gaining any such radar whatsoever
(even with everything that gives radar applied on Warframe / Companion / etc.)

Edited September 29, 2023 by DeeDeeLyla

[Ambyli]

17 minutes ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Ivara now has a passive Enermy Radar of 50m with this change!

I feel like this will be very unnoticeable on top of mods being included, you can only see so far on the mini map before it becomes useless. Really want a passive rework for all the older frames, they need some love.

[DeeDeeLyla]

7 minutes ago, Ambyli said:

I feel like this will be very unnoticeable on top of mods being included, you can only see so far on the mini map before it becomes useless

Demolishers in Disruption say "Hello there!" especially when the map is no longer a mini-map

Also, vomvalysts and other examples

Edited September 28, 2023 by DeeDeeLyla

[Erra_Ral]

I spend a lot of time helping players through the early game of Warframe. Normally, I suggest that they stick to the star chart and ignore the open worlds usually until after the War Within, simply because the open worlds are content islands where what you get in them does not meaningfully increase your early game power, progression, or options as a new player. This is partially because all of the resources acquired there are unique to those open worlds, so effort spent in them is more or less localized to benefits within them, as opposed to doing star chart missions.

I've seen a lot of early players get metaphorically stuck in cetus, when honestly their time would be better spent ignoring it. Do you believe you've fixed this problem enough over the years?

 

[(PSN)Adeak]

KEEP FLAWED MODS!

Some of those are genuinely useful. Max-Rank Flawed Flow (+72% energy at 5 Drain) is actually much better than the regular version (+50% energy at 5 drain) for low-level builds that can't afford the extra drain yet.

Edited September 28, 2023 by (PSN)Adeak

[fo3nixz]

rip flawed mods, had sentimental value (that's why never deleted)

 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

12 minutes ago, (PSN)Adeak said:

KEEP FLAWED MODS!

Some of those are genuinely useful. Max-Rank Flawed Flow (+72% energy at 5 Drain) is actually much better than the regular version (+50% energy at 5 drain) for low-level builds that can't afford the extra drain yet.

If you're that low level, that extra 22 points of energy aren't gonna make a difference. You're arguably wasting an entire mod slot on slotting any version of Flow if you're so desperate for space that you can't spare the singular capacity point to slot rank 2 Flow over Flawed Flow.

Edited September 28, 2023 by (XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom

[Grav_Starstrider]

What's the new player path experience going to be for obtaining the Frost and Mag Prime Heirloom skins from 2024 and onwards? 🤔 

[(XBOX)RaeOvSunshyn]

3 hours ago, [DE]Taylor said:

With that in mind, we are making the following changes to the Waverider Quest:

• We’re reducing the number of challenges per page from 5 to 3, resulting in a whopping reduction of overall Quest requirements from 25 to 15 challenges!

A number reduction is not a solution to Waverider problems on Xbox. Unless you're also planning on divulging what the correct inputs are for controllers, and actually making them physically and functionally achievable, all you're doing is giving 15 challenges to fail instead of 25.

I had such high hopes for this... 😕