Source: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1366784-abyss-of-dagath-dev-workshop-new-player-path-improvements/

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!