History of Gameplay Difficulty and the Elusive 'Endgame'

• Items awarded at 5 minute intervals are now shown in the HUD below the Lotus transmissions.
• Reward items now stack as you play - all rewards are given at the end of the mission.
• As you play and survive, you will receive items at these times:
  • 5m: Item from the first reward tier
  • 10m: Item from the first reward tier again
  • 15m: Guaranteed Void key (this is considered the second reward tier).
  • 20m, 25m, 30m+: Item from the third reward tier
• Void mission Prime rewards are awarded at 15 minutes only.
• Mission rewards are now split into three distinct tiers of enemy level, instead of being based on faction.
• Expect better rewards based on the enemy tier you are fighting:
  • Tier 1: Level 1-25
  • Tier 2: Level 25-45
  • Tier 3: Level 45+
• Void mission rewards are tied to the tier of the key.

New Damage Model 2.0! More information here: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/132366-information-on-damage-20/

Armour/Shield/Health/Damage curves have been modified. We've lowered the "bullet sponge" to high level enemies, but they now deal more damage. The armour curve was radically dropped. The health and shields curves dropped slightly as well. However, damage output went up.

Enemy Leaders AI – specialized enemy types that spawn with improved stats and ally support abilities.

New End-Game System - the Dark Sectors! The first of the end-game projects to ship, the Dark Sectors were an area of space once inhabited, cut off, that players can reconnect with by building Solar Rails! Building Solar Rails allows for expansion and dominance into the Dark Sectors of the Solar System.

• Enemies health is no longer capped at 65535.

The former 4 Ability Slots have undergone the following changes:

• All Warframes have had 2 Ability Slots removed. Any Forma spent on these slots will be refunded.
• All Warframes have had 2 previous Ability Slots converted to be blank polarities (unless otherwise Polarized).
• All Warframes purchased or crafted moving forward will have their abilities automatically viewable in the Arsenal.
• Abilities are all unlocked as a Warframe is leveled up.
• Abilities are all ranked up as a Warframe is leveled up.

Defense and Interception Mission rewards now stack! This removes the "inventory checkpoints" every 5 waves in Defense -- it's all or nothing now. The Reward Rotation for Defense and Interception has also been changed (to be like Survival) as Stacking Rewards is now in place. The Rewards now rotate through the reward tiers.

Enemy accuracy will now be affected dynamically depending on what movements players are doing. Sprinting, sliding, jumping, and wall-running will all decrease enemies accuracy, and the faster you move the better that penalty becomes.

Overshields have been added to Warframe! Overshields are an extra layer of protection on your existing shield that must be destroyed before your Warframe’s shields can be damaged.

• Overshields can be obtained when using Shield Restore items when you are at maximum shield capacity. Overshields cannot be regenerated, and this extra protective shield is noted by a color change (purple) in the UI.
• Overshields have a cap at 1200.

• Players now have 4 Revives available per Mission. Returning to your Landing Craft will refresh all Revives between missions.
• Players can no longer purchase Revives in the Arsenal.
• Revives used in Missions will have a small cost (approximately 10%) of experience for each Revive used. This is currently disabled, but will be activated in a future Update.

Sortie Missions are now available for all Tenno Mastery Rank 4 or higher!

• Sortie Missions are difficult endgame Missions for experienced Tenno that can be completed alone or with a group.
• Each Sortie Mission will have its own unique requirements or enemy modifiers, favoring Tenno that have a versatile arsenal.
• Players can access Sortie Missions through the Sortie Icon through the upper right hand corner of the World State Window in Navigation.
• Sortie Missions will change daily, and players must complete all three connected Missions to receive a reward from that Season's pool.
• Each Sortie Season will last for a period of 15 days before cycling in a new Season with an updated loot table.

Some Warframe Abilities can be broken down to 'do lots of damage in an interesting or stylish way', while others provide intense crowd control or essential AoE effects that can cripple or negate the opposition before they've had a chance to fight. It's an epic way to eliminate ground troops but against more notable boss-style enemies it can make a fight feel anticlimactic. On the other hand, a boss that's completely immune to Warframe Abilities can feel too strong -- almost unfair. What we want is a good middle ground – we also want things to be consistent.

If you have fought the Stalker post-Second Dream or his Acolytes on PC during Operation: Shadow Debt you may have already noticed that some Shadow units weren't affected by certain powers, and some were. It feels inconsistent, and that's because it is.

To help solve this problem we're going to slowly continue introducing Resistance and Diminishing Returns to of Warframe's notable bosses and boss units (example: Vay Hek and the Stalker). Currently there are some boss enemies that are just plain immune to certain powers. An example of this is Loki's Switch Teleport not working on massive bosses, simply because it'd break the arena, so an immunity of that nature would stay. Overall with Diminishing Returns, this doesn't mean that your Warframe powers will be completely ineffective against them, but instead the boss may have a heightened resistance to parts of it. For some Warframes it means using your powers as a valuable resource, while other more damage-oriented Warframes may not feel any change.

• Abilities will not affect players or enemies within a Nullifier bubble.
• Effects of an ability on both players and enemies will be removed when entering Nullifier bubbles.
• A Warframe's active abilities will be deactivated upon entering a Nullifier bubble.
• Projectiles spawned by an ability will be deflected when they encounter a Nullifier bubble. For example, Ember’s Fireball and Ash’s Shuriken will be deflected.
• Abilities that exist independent of their creator will not be deactivated if the Warframe enters a nullifier, but will be destroyed if touched by the bubble itself. For example, Frost’s Snowglobe will not disappear when Frost enters the bubble, but will be destroyed if the bubble comes into contact with the Snowglobe sphere.

Sorties were introduced in The Second Dream. They originally launched with 'Seasons' that rotated with set rewards. Since launch we iterated in several ways, including adding repeatable/non-repeatable rewards and more. Now we bring you more change with The War Within: Sortie Seasons are no more. We now have a set reward list of rewards that are always repeatable.

Bow and Sniper lovers rejoice! A new strategy for annihilating Nullifiers is now available. Nullifier backpacks are now equipped with Projector Drones that are deployed overhead. These Projector Drones are the power source behind the Nullifiers' bubbles, and determine the growth, size, and vitality of the bubble.

With the release of Plains of Eidolon, most weapons will have a form of damage falloff added, to reduce their effectiveness at extremely long distances. But don’t panic! This damage falloff will only be noticeable at extreme ranges (greater than 300m). Across all of our current tilesets, we were unable to find an unobstructed line of sight longer than 300m, so that is the point at which damage falloff will start.

Based on our assessment of all existing procedural tiles we’re extra confident that our current tileset-based gameplay will be largely unaffected. It is also worth noting that snipers will be able to fire 600m without experiencing falloff, to give them more of a purpose in this wide open terrain where long range weapons should thrive.

We sketched out Mastery Rank groupings of 0-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 and 13-15 for each weapon type with a minimum DPS and amount split between crit and status for each group. Using existing stats, weapons were sorted into the groups. If their stats were too high for their current MR it was raised along with any other properties to match.

Perfect accuracy and high fire rate is balanced by limited range and damage ramping up from 10% to 100% over 0.8 seconds when firing and decays back to 10% over 1 second after stopping. To help with ammo economy, Beam Weapons consume 0.5 ammo per trace - unless they are Flamethrowers.

As an overall change, Kuva Guardians are now easier to turn vulnerable, but will become tougher to kill once they are.

Previously vulnerability flow was:

• Operator Void Blast to stun, then Void Dash when stunned to disarm their Kesheg and turn vulnerable.

NEW vulnerability flow:

• No stun state required. Operator Void Blast OR Void Dash to disarm their Kesheg and turn vulnerable.

General Kuva Guardian Changes:

• Increased base Health from 300 to 400.
• Slightly increased the Fire Rate of their Twin Rogga.
• Guardian Health type is now in line with the rest of Grineer.
• Weaker against Heat and Viral but more resistant to Gas.
• Added a pulsing red glow around Kuva Guardians for a few seconds to depict when they are vulnerable (similar to the Teralyst).

We've all been in that sudden situation when you're Switch Teleported into an angry mob of Butchers happily thrashing at your face. Questions of 'how did I get here?', 'who done did that to me?' and 'why me, Lotus, why?!' are typically asked to oneself. The lack of warning or indication that a Commander Switch Teleport is about to occur can leave one confused and distraught, which is why we’ve made some changes to improve not only indication, but also ability to avoid!

• Increased the Commander Switch Teleport cast time to 2 seconds instead of being almost instant, and added a casting sound indication.
• Both Grineer Commander and his target will glow orange during his Switch Teleport cast.
• Bullet Jumping or dodge rolling can now break you out of the Switch Teleport. Previously the only way to avoid being Switch Teleported is to kill the Commander while he is casting.
• Switch Teleport now delivers a Knockdown Status debuff after being teleported (unless Modded to avoid or minimize Knockdowns).

Orb Vallis mission and Vox Solaris quest data showed that certain Terra enemy types were not on par with other Corpus enemies, causing an unintentional difficulty spike, especially noticed with lower level players.

In Hotfix 24.0.4 we reduced the difficulty of certain Terra Corpus enemies to improve the balance between Orb Vallis enemies. This change came mainly from low level/newer players finding it difficult to proceed within Orb Vallis. We still want to bring a level of challenge to those that want to take on higher level Terra enemies, thus the Elite Terra Corpus enemies have been added! These level 30+ Elite variants have higher Health/Shields and hit with harder damage.

NPCs now have about a second of delay before being able to perceive other players or NPCs that come out of invisibility, regardless of alert state. Previously, combat-state enemies would near instantly retarget in such cases. Seen in: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/ep76hd/can_we_add_a_very_small_delay_between_detection/

Based on feedback with the recent overhaul to Status Effects in Warframe Revised 27.2.0, the conversation of how Status Effects should react with Bosses or VIPS has started. Our first step down this road is starting with Kuva Liches. Currently, there are two special rules to this “Boss Status enabling”:

• No Status Effect will exceed a maximum of 4 stacks, with the exception of Impact which can stack up to 6 times.
  • Keep in mind there is a cooldown to how quickly you can stack up Impact Status Effects to avoid stunlocking the Kuva Lich.
• Radiation does not change the enemy’s Faction, and instead of increasing Damage done to enemies with stacks, it increases the Damage taken from enemies who have turned on him/her.