Original post on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/158hyju/
Tenno,
As we approach the release of the next major update, “Echoes of Duviri,” it’s time to share details on some updates you can expect. This Dev Workshop will not focus on the new playable content you can expect but on some of the balance improvements and Quality of Life changes we’ve made in response to player requests and feedback.
On July 27, players can expect adjustments to the following systems:
- Enhanced Damage Numbers
- Overguard for Warframes
- Cold, Impact, and Puncture Status Changes
- New Incarnon Acquisition
ENHANCED DAMAGE NUMBERS
Warframe is a numbers game, whether you’re Modding your Warframe or your Weapons to do as much damage as possible. With that in mind, we have introduced a new Enhanced Damage Number setting to properly communicate the impact of your attacks and increase the overall legibility of damage numbers in-game.
This new setting can be found in the Interface: HUD Category of your Settings Menu under “Show Damage Numbers.” You can cycle between the new Enhanced and the familiar Legacy systems or turn off damage numbers altogether!
For our visual learning Tenno, please enjoy a look at the Enhanced Damage Numbers in action with Lead Game Designer Pablo!
Overall Damage Number Changes:
Whether you are using Legacy or Enhanced Damage Numbers, these new settings will be available with Echoes of Duviri:
DAMAGE NUMBERS SCALE
Custom scaling of your damage number text size from 50 to 300!
This means Damage numbers will no longer scale with HUD scale setting as they used to. So you can customize the HUD and the number size separately.
COMPACT DAMAGE NUMBERS
This Toggle will shorten large numbers for legibility (i.e., 100,357 would be shortened to 100k)
COMMAS IN DAMAGE NUMBERS ON CONSOLES
This was initially released on PC and required extra work to get on consoles, but you can expect it now with Echoes of Duviri!
Enhanced Damage Numbers Setting
With this new setting toggled on, players can expect to see the following:
REFRESHED DAMAGE NUMBER APPEARANCE
A punchier presentation of damage numbers, with an updated font treatment to improve legibility. For reference of what this looks like in action, refer to Pablo’s video above.
PRIORITIZED CRITICAL HITS
Player damage output varies wildly from damage over time (DOT) from Status Effects to powerful Critical Hits. Previously all types of Damage were treated the same in the Damage Number cycle: Critical Hit Damage Numbers often disappeared quickly if many small DOT procs were happening concurrently. From a gameplay side, this had no impact on the damage done to your enemies, but it meant the true impact of your Critical Hits was only sometimes communicated to you as clearly as we would like.
Now, your Critical Hits will be prioritized over smaller damage numbers. Those smaller numbers will still appear but disappear sooner if higher-priority damage is done. Additionally, this prioritization system applies to Critical Hit Tiers as well, meaning Super Critical Hit Damage Numbers will linger longer than regular Critical Hits.
CUSTOM ABILITY DAMAGE TREATMENT
Since your Abilities traditionally cannot Crit, these attacks tend to have less oomph. Now Ability Damage has its own Damage Color so that it will stand out amongst the rest!
Like all other Damage Numbers, you can customize Ability Damage colors in the “Customize Hud Colors” menu (found in the Interface category of your Accessibility Settings).
MELEE DAMAGE NUMBERS:
With Legacy settings, Damage Numbers appear at the point of contact, often off-screen or otherwise obstructed by Melee attacks.
With Enhanced settings, Melee Damage numbers will now travel with you to improve visibility and will travel with the attack movement as well. Again, this is best illustrated in Pablo’s video for those who want to see this in action!
PLAYER OVERGUARD IMPROVEMENTS
With Duviri came the first instance of Warframes using Overguard, and The Seven Crimes of Kullervo solidified this mechanic as a part of various Warframes’ kits.
Now that players have access to Overguard consistently, we have made some adjustments to improve the quality of life in this new health state:
Consistent Proc Immunity
Due to the variety of sources of Overguard, there were occasionally inconsistencies in how it behaved regarding Proc Immunity. With Echoes of Duviri, all sources of Player Overguard will offer Full Proc Immunity while active.
Overguard Depletion Protection
Similar to Shields, Player Overguard will now offer a brief moment of invulnerability (currently 0.5s) once depleted. This window will prevent players with Overguard from being one-shot, as damage to Overguard will no longer carry over into your Health or Shield pool once depleted.
Upon launch, we will closely monitor feedback on this mechanic change to see if further adjustments are needed.
NOTE: This Overguard Depletion Protection applies only to Player Overguard, not Overguard seen on enemies.
Hit Impact Visuals
Similar to taking damage to your Health or your Shields, Overguard now has its own unique appearance when attacked. Damage will no longer cause blood splatters while Overguard is active, and we have added a unique metallic hit effect that better communicates having a layered shell protecting you.
Additionally, players will no longer flinch while taking damage with Overguard active.
(NOTE: This has no gameplay function other than looking cool)
STATUS CHANGES
With the variety of Status Effects in Warframe, certain types may be seen as less favorable than others. Cold, Puncture, and Impact tend to have a lesser impact on the battlefield, so we felt it was time to revisit the value they added to player kits:
Puncture Changes:
WEAKENED STATUS EFFECT BUFFS:
- Increased the debuff to enemy attacks from 30% to 40% on the first stack.
- Reduced the maximum amount of stacks from 10 to 5.
- Increased the per-stack debuff from 5% to 10%.
- Increased the total debuff at Max Stacks from 75% to 80%.
WEAKENED STATUS EFFECT ADDITIONS:
- Increases Critical Chance threshold on enemy by 5% per Stack, to a maximum of 25% at 5 Stacks. This is additive after Mods, not before. Does not apply to Abilities or AOE damage.
Impact Changes:
STAGGER STATUS EFFECT CHANGES:
- Reduced the maximum amount of stacks from 10 to 5.
- Increased the Mercy Threshold from 4% to 8% per stack.
Functionally, this allows for players to trigger early Mercy kills with less stacks required!
Cold Changes:
FREEZE STATUS EFFECT CHANGES:
- Increased the maximum amount of stacks from 8 to 9.
- Increased the additional per-stack Slow from 3.5% to 5%.
- Increased the maximum Slow effect from 75% to 90%.
- While we previously mentioned buffing Cold Slow Effect to 85% in our Citrine’s Last Wish update, we mistakenly only increased it to 75% instead.
FREEZE STATUS EFFECT ADDITIONS:
- Increased the Critical Damage taken by an enemy by 10% on initial Status Effect. Subsequent Stacks increase this debuff by 5%, up to a maximum of 50%. This is additive after Mods, not before.
NEW INCARNON ACQUISITION
With Echoes of Duviri, we are adding another batch of Incarnons to the Circuit ecosystem: Gorgon, Boar, Angstrum, Gammacor, and Anku!
Regarding the current Steel Path Circuit Reward Path rotation, we wanted to give players the fastest access to these new Incarnons post-launch. As a result, we are altering the current Steel Path Circuit reward rotation to ensure they show up next rotation (July 30th).
Here is the updated Offering Rotation Schedule for the Steel Path Circuit:
Week 1: Braton, Lato, Skana, Paris, Kunai (this week’s offerings)
*Week 2: (NEW) Boar, Gammacor, Angstrum, Gorgon, and Anku
Week 3: Bo, Latron, Furis, Furax, Strun
Week 4: Lex, Magistar, Boltor, Bronco, Ceramic Dagger
Week 5: Torid, Dual Toxocyst, Dual Ichor, Miter, Atomos
Week 6: Ack & Brunt, Soma, Vasto, Nami Solo, Burston
Week 7: Zylok, Sibear, Dread, Despair, Hate
New Incarnon Geneses Acquisition Method: Incarnon Market at Cavalero
In addition to acquiring these new Incarnon Geneses via the Steel Path Circuit Rewards, the respective Adapters will be available for purchase at Calavero with Platinum in the new “Incarnon Market.” Once the Incarnon Market is live on July 30th, it will remain accessible with the offerings regardless of what week’s rotation we’re on.
As previously discussed on Devstream 172, this experiment intends to offer players the option to acquire the new items instantly, should they desire, instead of waiting for the week’s rotation to return – while ensuring that the free acquisition path is not prohibitive for players. Only these *5 new Adapters will be available for Platinum via this experiment and will become available following the Weekly Reset on July 30th.
Purchasing these Adapters will earn you both the Adapter and the required Resources to Install them.
That’s all for now, Tenno! See you July 27th for the Echoes of Duviri and Wisp Prime launch!
A lot of unexpected QoL changes! The damage numbers look pretty cool, I love that they added an option to shorten them, with how silly damage numbers can get in Warframe this will be a nice improvement in readability. The status changes looks OK? Cold still probably won’t see much use considering it combines into Viral but improving Puncture procs is a welcome change for all IPS status weapons. As for the Incarnons, I wish they added a token system, maybe as a reward for rank 9, where after collecting X of them you can exchange them for any Incarnon you want. Having to wait 6 weeks to get a weapon you might want or shill out plat is pretty annoying, especially if they keep adding more and more weapons into the rotation.
Resident Cold enjoyer here with some thoughts!
I wouldn’t count out the Cold buffs, as there are some really good forced Cold weapons, like everyone’s favourite Epitaph. Hystrix is now the premier single-target primer since it’s Puncture weighted, and can mix Cold, Viral, and high Heat. Kompressa sees decent usage as a rapid Viral primer, so if you’re not running a heat inherit setup with it, you can slap Cold on it.
For primaries, Lenz and Mutalist Cernos are also both capable of Cold + Viral. This is functionally a straight buff to Lenz, which is nice.
There’s also some more niche setups. A viral/heat Gaze with Residual Malodor and the relevant Theorem for your frame’s mechanics can also rack Piercing, with some Cold stacks. I’ll have to test if minion master frames are capable of stacking Cold via Theorem Infection, although from memory minions don’t have noticeable SC.
For frames… Piercing Roar for a Support Frost? 🤔
True, I underestimated Cold mostly because I absolutely loath primers and prefer to just blow stuff up with raw damage and viral-amplified slash procs. It is a direct buff to Frost (and boy does he need one!) and can make using Sentinels with the cold procing beam weapon a little bit better (still would never use one over a Vulpaphyla).
There’s a few frames and weapons that do benefit from Cold as part of their raw damage strat. Notably any self-priming Encumber weapons and Citrine. Gaze and Dual Toxocyst are also big winners in this category as they rack up Puncture very quickly. Time to put the Tenet Cycron away, it’s finally time for Gaze meta 😎
Dethcube with its Energy Generator precept mod is actually pretty good with a weapon modded for Gas + Cold. A free source CC to help keep them alive and even works on Eximus (kind of RNG if it targets the correct enemy though). It will also leave a lingering Gas cloud for more assists going towards Energy Generator. I just wish they would change companions so that they either can’t die or will respawn after some delay. They don’t really offer any meaningful amount of damage, especially for how fragile they are at higher levels.
I just hope it doesn’t turn into Gloom/Shock motes CCing the entire map.