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Source: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1366781-abyss-of-dagath-dev-workshop-system-changes-and-general-quality-of-life/

Abyss of Dagath - Dev Workshop: System Changes and General Quality of Life

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 on October 18th. 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!

In this Developer Workshop, we will cover the following topics:

Focus Lens Conversion Buff

Nightwave Changes

Warframe Shield Changes

Base vs. Final Stats in Modding - Health / Energy / Shield / Armor Stat Overhaul

Break Narmer Mission Improvements

Archon Hunt Damage Attenuation Tweaks

Misc. Quality of Life Changes

Focus Lens Conversion Buff
Focus acquisition can take a significant time investment, especially for those who prefer more passive farming methods. Completing all of your Focus Schools acts as a long-term goal for many players, but we felt the need to mitigate the time investment slightly.

With Abyss of Dagath, Focus Lenses will offer greater conversion rates, as follows:

Regular Lens: 1.25 > 2%

Greater Lens: 1.75 > 3%

Eidolon Lens: 2.25 > 4.25%

Lua Lens: 3.25 > 5.5%

Additionally, all Convergence Orbs will offer a flat 5,000 Focus bonus to your equipped Focus School upon pickup.

Nightwave Changes

Nora Night has been gracing our airwaves since 2019, and word is she felt it was time for a little refresh. In the next Nightwave series, we’ve prepared some changes to keep Nora’s Acts fun, accessible, and as always, incentivizin’.

Permanent Weekly Acts
Dreamers, we all like our little habits and rituals. To reward the little things you do every week, we’re adding 3 Permanent Weekly Acts intended to be unlocked with regular Warframe gameplay:

Eximus Eliminator: Kill 30 Eximus.

Mission Complete: Complete any 15 missions.

Marksmen: Kill 500 Enemies.

With these new Permanent Acts, you can earn an extra 13,500 Nightwave Standing each week!

Note: since these are in addition to your weekly Act rotation, they are exempt from the Catch-Up pool.

Nightwave Act Audit
In the 4 years of Nightwave history, many Acts have come and gone. For the next series, we have done a complete Act Audit with the goal of reworking, removing, and adding new challenges to this system. Nothing like some spring cleaning!

We’ll go over a list of what is changing, but please keep in mind that this is not comprehensive or final. Everything, like life, is subject to change. As a reminder, these will not ship until the next Nightwave Series launches (unless otherwise specified).

Removed Acts
Throughout the Audit, we looked to revise as many Acts as possible to keep them fun and to keep the overall time commitment requirement low – however, we felt that certain challenges were best retired.

Here’s a list of what will be removed in our next Nightwave Series:

A Firm Shake: Shake the hand of a fellow Tenno using the Handshake Emote

Augmentation: Install an Augment Mod on your Warframe

Death from Above: Kill 10 enemies with ground slams

Enhance!: Pick up 8 Rare Mods

Grove Guardian: Kill 1 Silver Grove Specter

Hush: Kill a Kuva Thrall or Hound

Mad Lab: Plunder one of Alad V’s secret laboratories on Jupiter

Medic: Revive a fellow Tenno or a Companion

No Mercy: Mercy Kill an Enemy

Reanimator: Find and pilot a Fallen Necramech

Reclaimed: Clear a personal Kuva Lich Influenced Node

Stay on Top: Kill 20 enemies using a Necramech while hovering.

Reworked Acts
These changes keep the core intent of the Act in place but make it easier for players to complete them! Since these are all being changed from Daily to Weekly, they must wait until the next Series before we can implement them:

Ancient Obelisk: Activate 3 Requiem Obelisk on Deimos (was: 1)

Changed from Daily to Weekly

Hacker: Hack 10 Consoles (was: 8)

Changed from Daily to Weekly

Kleptomaniac: Open 30 Lockers (was: 20)

Changed from Daily to Weekly

Gatherer: Collect 4000 Resources (was: 1500)

Changed from Daily to Weekly

New Acts
Look for these Duviri-inspired Acts in the next Nightwave series!

DAILY:

Your Move: Complete a game of Komi in Duviri

Helping Hand: Rescue an animal in Duviri

Feed Me More: Feed the Maw 10 fish in Duviri

Salutations: Visit Acrithis in Duviri

WEEKLY:

Horsing Around: Fly your Kaithe for 1000 meters

Finely Tuned: Play 2 different Shawzin songs in Duviri

Beast Slayer: Defeat the Orowyrm

I Decree: Collect 10 Decrees in Duviri

Collector: Collect 100 resources from Duviri

Skeletons in the Closet: Kill 50 Dax enemies in Duviri

ELITE WEEKLY:

Perplexed: Complete 3 puzzles in Duviri

Elite Beast Slayer: Defeat the Orowyrm in Steel Path

Ceremonial Evolution: Evolve any Incarnon weapon in-mission 5 times

Vital Arbiter: Complete an Arbitration Mission

Revised Acts coming with Abyss of Dagath

While everything listed above is coming for the next Nightwave Series, the following Acts are getting changes that we felt reasonable to apply to the current Series! We took two different approaches in these revisions: a) to reduce the grind required to complete some Acts, and b) to expand the ways in which players can complete them!

Once Update 34 launches on October 18th, expect to see these changes from Nora Night:

Accelerator: Kill 10 Enemies while Sliding (was: 20)

Conservationist: Complete 3 different Perfect Animal Captures in Orb Vallis (was: 6)

Earth Bounty Hunter: Complete 3 different Bounties in the Plains of Eidolon (was: 5)

Earth Fisher: Catch 3 Rare Fish in the Plains of Eidolon (was: 6)

Earth Miner: Mine 3 Rare Gems or Ore in the Plains of Eidolon (was: 6)

Eternal Guardian: Complete 2 Void Armageddon missions (was: 3)

Everything Old is New Again: Complete 1 Transmutations (was: 3)

Glider: Kill 15 Enemies while Aim Gliding (was: 20)

Invader: Complete 6 Invasion missions of any type (was: 9)

Night and Day: Collect 10 Vome or Fass Residue in the Cambion Drift. (was: 15)

Night Terror: Complete 5 Nightmare missions of any type (was: 10)

Researcher: Scan 15 Objects or Enemies (was: 25)

Sanctuary Researcher: Complete 3 Scans for Cephalon Simaris (was: 5)

Supporter: Complete 5 Syndicate missions (was: 10)

Survival: Complete a Survival mission reaching at least 20 minutes (was: 30)

Venus Bounty Hunter: Complete 3 different bounties in the Orb Vallis (was: 5)

Venus Fisher: Catch 3 Rare Servofish in the Orb Vallis (was: 6)

Venus Miner: Mine 3 Rare Gems or Ore in the Orb Vallis (was: 6)

Animator: Retrieve the Ayatan Statue for Maroo in Maroo’s Bazaar

Previously was: Fully Socket 3 Ayatan Sculptures

Now Boarding: Complete 3 different K-Drive races in Orb Vallis on Venus or in Cambion Drift on Deimos.

Previously was limited to only Orb Vallis races.

Thrill Rider: Kill 20 Enemies while riding a K-Drive, Kaithe, Velocipod, Merulina

Expanding the eligibility of this Act to all of your trusty steeds.

Previously named “Surfs Up!”

The Hunt is On: Find 5 Syndicate Medallions

Players will no longer have to be the one to pick up the Medallion for this to count.

The Personal Touch: Place 1 decoration in your Orbiter or Dormizone

Only Orbiter decorating used to count!

Cache Hunter: Find 6 caches across any Sabotage missions

Previously was: “Find all caches in 3 Sabotage missions”

Saver: Pick up 15,000 Credits

Mission credit rewards will now count towards this Act!

Introductory Nightwave Screen
The first time you log in with a Nightwave Series available, a pop-up screen will appear highlighting various Series rewards, a brief description, and a button to visit the Nightwave menu!

We’re adding this to increase visibility of Nightwave for newer players who may be unfamiliar with Nora, and as a reminder when a new Nightwave has dropped!

Warframe Shield Changes
There are many avenues for Tenno to approach Warframe survivability – usually, it’s through increasing Health and Armor values, or making use of damage resistance features of certain Mods or Abilities, etc. For Shields, however, there is an incentive to do the opposite: the current meta encourages players to reduce Shield values as much as possible to make use of Shield Gating mechanics.

As Developers, we’re stuck in a strange position. On one hand, we see player ingenuity and creative ways of engaging with mechanics, but on the other, we see proof that Shields are not offering the same value to players as other survivability tools – to the point where you are rewarded for having the lowest Shield stat possible.

We want to change this so that Tenno are incentivized to increase their Shield stat instead of reducing it. To do so, we’re approaching this challenge in two key ways:

Firstly - we’re buffing Tenno Shields overall!

Previously: Tenno Shields offered a 25% resistance to all damage types.

Now: Tenno Shields will offer a 50% resistance to all damage types.

We’re also buffing a few Shield-specific Mods with Recharge rate in mind!
(values below are at max rank)

Fast Deflection: added -45% Shield Recharge Delay

Fortitude: increased the Shield Recharge value from +80% to +100%.

Also increased Chance to Resist Knockdown from +20% to +40%.

Vigilante Vigor: added -30% Shield Recharge Delay

These Mod buffs feed directly into the other half of our approach:

Secondly - we’re reworking Shield Gating!

Shield Gating was added to the game back in 2020 with Update 27.2.0 as a way to prevent one-shots, especially at higher-level content. We feel that this mechanic accomplished that goal, but the implementation of it had an unintended side-effect: players are rewarded for having the smallest Shield stat and fastest Shield Recharge stat to make use of the Full Shield Break mechanic.

As mentioned above, our intention is to offer players more benefits for having larger Shield values, so Shield Gating is getting a rework. The core mechanic is staying: when you lose all Shields, you gain a period of invulnerability. What is changing is how this period of invulnerability scales with the amount of Shields you have.

The changes outlined below are being made with that vision in mind:

Part 1 - Shield Gate Duration will scale with the amount of Shields you had upon Shield Break.

Previously: full Shields upon Shield break offered a 1.3-second window of invulnerability.

Now, depending on your Modded values, this window could be anywhere from 0.33 seconds (minimum duration) to 2.5 seconds (capped at 1150 Shields). To receive the original 1.3-second Shield Gate, players will now need around 325 Shields upon Shield Break.

You can see a full overview of the Gate Duration vs. Shields Depleted in the graph below:

Part 2 - Partially Depleted Shields do not have a separate Shield Gate Duration.

Previously: shield breaks on Shields that were not fully regenerated offered 0.33 seconds of Shield Gating.

Now, Partially Depleted Shields will be treated with the same scaling values outlined above. For example, if you had a max Shield value of 1200, but your Shields were broken with only 350 available, you would receive ~1.3 seconds of Shield Gating!

With these changes, the more Shields you have and the faster they regenerate, the more you’ll get out of the Shield Gating system!

Part 3 - We’re adding a new Corrupted Mod: Catalyzing Shields

With the changes to Shield Gating, we still want to offer players different ways to interact with this system without always having to Mod for the most Shields possible. To accomplish this, we are introducing a new Corrupted Mod: Catalyzing Shields.

This Mod will reduce your maximum Shields by 80% but will also change how Shield Gating Scaling works for your Warframe with a guaranteed 1.33 seconds of Shield Gating upon full Shield depletion. With this Mod equipped, Shield Gating duration will scale from 0.33 to 1.33 based on your maximum Shield values, regardless of what they are.

For example, if my maximum Shields are 100 with Catalyzing Shields equipped, I would expect the following Shield Gating durations:

100 Shields at Shield Break: 1.33s of Shield Gating

75 Shields at Shield Break: 1.0s of Shield Gating

50 Shields at Shield Break: 0.67s of Shield Gating

25 Shields at Shield Break: 0.34s of Shield Gating

10 Shields at Shield Break: 0.33s of Shield Gating

As a reminder, 0.33s is the absolute minimum duration for Shield Gating!

Since this is a new Corrupted Mod, it will be obtainable via Orokin Vaults on Deimos. We will run an Alert for this Catalyzing Shields Mod one week following Abyss of Dagath’s release to give players faster access to this Mod to test in their builds.

Part 4 - Decaying Dragon Keys are being updated to debuff both Shields and Shield Gating.

With revised Shield Gating, we felt it was important to update Decaying Dragon Keys as well. These Gear items are currently used to lower the threshold needed for Full Shield Breaks with Shield Gating, and while we love to see players finding unique interactions between various mechanics, Dragon Keys are intended to increase difficulty when equipped.

With that intention in mind, Decaying Dragon Keys now cap player Shield Gates to 0.33s maximum.

Part 5 - A few other details to cover!

Hildryn’s Passive is being buffed from 3s Shield Gating Duration to 3.5s Shield Gating Duration!

There are many variables that will impact the overall outcome of these Shield changes with Abyss of Dagath, and we’ll be keeping a close eye on player feedback once this is in the community’s hands. With this update’s release, you’ll be seeing many changes in your Arsenal Upgrade screens – both for Shield changes listed above, and the following overhaul:

Base vs Final Stats in Modding - Health / Energy / Shield / Armor Stat Overhaul
If you’ve spent any time invested in the deeper nuances of Modding, you may be familiar with “Warframe Math” – math that upon first glance doesn’t really make sense, but once you learn the inner workings of the game, it all comes together. While we can appreciate the value that complex systems offer to a certain subsect of players, there are other aspects of the game that should have clear and understandable outcomes. Namely: Shield, Health, Energy, and Armor Modding.

Pop quiz: what is 300 + 440%? If you answered 740, you may just be an Excalibur player.

Vitality (+440% Heath), Redirection (+440% Shields), Flow (+150%), and Steel Fiber (+110% Armor) come with large modifier values that don’t seem to match their outcome in-game. This is because these Mods apply their multiplier to the base stats of the Warframe – i.e., the stats you have at Rank 0. In the Excalibur example, a Rank 30 Excalibur’s Health stat of 300 earns an additional 440 Health from max rank Vitality (+440% Heath) since it applies to his base rank Health stat of 100, resulting in 740 total health.

In Abyss of Dagath, we want to remove this obfuscation by having Health, Shield, Energy, and Armor Mods apply to the stats of Warframes at their current rank. Continuing our Excalibur example, instead of Vitality always applying to Excalibur’s base rank 100 Health, it would apply to his Health stat based on his rank – namely, the stat you can actually see in your Arsenal. If your Excalibur were Rank 30, his Health stat would be 300, which means Vitality’s multiplier would be calculated off of 300.

With current Health and Mod values, additional adjustments are needed to make this revision work while maintaining game balance. By only changing where the multiplier applies, a Rank 30 Excalibur would receive an extra 1,320 Health from max rank Vitality, resulting in a total health stat of 1,600. This outcome is a significant buff, which is not the intention of this system change.

To remedy this, we are approaching this problem in two ways:

1 - We are reducing the overall multiplier for Health, Shield, Energy, and Armor Mods.

Since these now affect Max Rank Warframe stats, these Mods need to scale differently to maintain the status quo. Additionally, we wanted these new values to be as clear and understandable to all players as possible! Here are a few examples of these value changes:

Vitality: reduced from +440% to +100% Health

Redirection: reduced from +440% to +100% Shield Capacity

Steel Fiber: reduced from +110% to +100% Armor

Flow: reduced from +150% to +100% Energy Max

Note: these are not all of the Mods affected by this change. We share the comprehensive list further down in this workshop.

Doing some quick math, this means that a Rank 30 Excalibur (300 Health) with a reworked Vitality Mod (+100% Health, applied to the final Health stat) would receive 300 extra Health, for a total of 600. That, in contrast, is a nerf, which we also don’t want to do.

So, our next step:

2 - We are adjusting Warframe Health, Shield, Energy, and Armor values to keep the end result of the revised Mods as close to the original values as possible.

With this change, Excalibur’s Rank 30 Health stat is 370. With +100% Health from a max Vitality Mod, his resulting Health stat would be 740, which matches what it was originally.

While this path to the same result may seem a little complicated, the outcome matches our intention: we want players to be able to look at their Health, Shield, and Armor Mods, and be able to understand how they affect the stats they see in their Arsenal.

In addition to everything above, we are also increasing the base stat values for Warframes so that these revised Mods offer similar value for lower-ranked Frames. To do so, we reduced the amount of Health/Shield/Energy that Warframes earn per rank in half, and transferred the sum of that value to their base stats.

For Armor, this is the one stat that does not increase with your Warframe’s level (with some exceptions). Armor values across the board have been slightly increased to compensate for the Mod changes. We will only be listing Base stats for Armor changes, unless the Warframe has a different Armor stat at Max Rank.

Not to beat a dead Kaithe, but Mods will now be applying to the Max Rank stat instead of the Base Rank. You may look at these numbers and think “nerf” or “buff” depending, but the outcome is that total Modded values are the same, if not a little higher in some cases. Here are a few outliers before we get into the nitty-gritty of it:

Lavos, Nidus, Nidus Prime, and Kullervo all have buffs to their Armor values as a result of this change.

Ex: Nidus Prime’s Armor stat increased from 910 (current patch) to 1,050 (future patch) with max Steel Fiber Equipped. With all 3 Umbral Warframe Mods equipped, this buff results in a difference of 1198 Armor (current) to 1470 Armor (future).

Garuda and Garuda Prime’s received buffs to their Modded Energy pool.

ie. Garuda Prime’s Energy stat has been increased from 800 (current) to 896 (future) with max Primed Flow equipped.

Most Energy stats have received a slight nerf with Primed Flow, resulting in a difference of around 5-10 Energy Max with this Mod equipped.

To better contextualize how these numbers will look upon launch, we’ve also prepared a comparison asset using Excalibur:

These changes in action using Voidrig!

These changes in action using Odonata!

While there may be significant changes to Warframe Stats and Mod values as a part of this overhaul, the end result is that your Builds should mostly stay the same. The key difference is the added clarity of what your Health / Shield / Energy / Armor Mods do in your Upgrade screens!

Break Narmer Mission Improvements
Kahl’s missions are a great way to earn an extra Archon Shard every week, but there is no denying that playing the same 3 Break Narmer missions can get repetitive. After looking at Community feedback and reflecting on our own experiences after almost a year of this content being available, we’ve prepared some Quality of Life changes and a few ways to spice up these familiar missions.

General Kahl-ity of Life Changes:

Kahl see more!

Kahl now has Loot Radar and Enemy Radar. This will allow you to plan your offensive, and find key pick-ups to complete your Stock challenges faster!

Kahl go fast!

Kahl’s max speed and overall walking speed have been increased.

Kahl earn stock!

Added Stock Pickups to Break Narmer missions. 5 Stock Pickups will spawn per mission, offering 2 Stock each for a total of 10. These will appear on your Loot Radar and will respawn if the mission is replayed. Extraction is required to earn the picked-up Stock.

Expanding Kahl’s Garrison:
Kahl will now find additional weapons next to his fallen Brothers as a way to add more variety to his overall gameplay. Three different weapons will spawn randomly each time you play!

In Junk Run and Prison Break missions, you can find the following:

Ogris

Kundra (new shotgun found only in Break Narmer missions!)

Ignis

Tonkor

Grinlok

Jat Kittag

As for Sneaky Sabotage, since this mission has specific weapon restrictions, there are no plans to offer additional weapons to this mission at this time.

Archon Hunt Damage Attenuation Changes

Speaking of earning Archon Shards, Damage Attenuation (or “damage pillows”) may be a familiar mechanic for those who frequent Archon Hunts each week.

This was a hot topic, especially near the end of 2022. Since then, we’ve taken our time to assess player feedback and devise a plan to address it – and we’re finally at a place where we can execute it.

Damage Attenuation is one tool of many to increase enemy difficulty by limiting how much damage they take from player weapons, etc.

Our current form of Damage Attenuation has resulted in many weapons feeling lackluster due to the high attenuation values, and damage output was reduced significantly to balance out the post-attenuation modifiers – meaning that Archon fights felt like a slog if players did not use a limited set of optimal builds.

This is not a favourable outcome, so we are making the following changes:

1 - Maximum Damage Caps are increasing

Maximum Damage per Damage Instance has been increased

Maximum Damage Per Second has been increased

Our goal is to make big hits still feel like big hits, especially for low-rate of-fire weapons. We’re able to reduce the damage cap significantly because of the next change:

2 - Modifiers now apply before Damage Attenuation

Critical Multipliers (and other modifiers) applying post damage cap allowed for many of the One Shot builds to function, and for full transparency, we want to prevent One Shot Archon builds as much as possible. By changing where these modifiers apply, we can increase the Damage Caps to a much less punishing level for players.

Our goals with these changes are to:

Increase player damage output, thereby reducing the overall time to kill for Archons

Make “big hits” feel impactful by no longer throttling them to such an extreme degree

Encourage overall build diversity for Archon Hunts

Reduce the ability to use of one-shot builds

We’re excited to see what Archon Hunts look like for players with these changes with Abyss of Dagath releases. If we feel things are too fast now, we may pull back a bit. As always, values are subject to change, so keep an eye out on the patch notes for final values on October 18th!

Misc. Quality of Life Changes

Swap Incarnon Evolutions in the Arsenal
You heard it here! We’re adding the ability to swap around your Incarnon Evolutions in your Arsenal to reduce the friction for Incarnon testing and playing around with your builds.

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Note: You will still need to visit Cavalero to unlock each Evolution, but once that’s done, you can swap to your heart’s delight from the comfort of your Orbiter.

Steel Path Circuit Reward Path - New Riven Option!
For those who have acquired all of the Incarnons via the Steel Path Circuit, we want to offer you additional rewards for this game mode. With Drifter Opportunity Intrinsics at Rank 9, you will be presented with 3 Veiled Rivens in addition to the weekly Incarnon rotation for your Circuit Reward Path!

Just like the Incarnon Geneses, the order you pick the Rivens will determine what Rank you need to complete in the Circuit to earn them.

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!