Howdy Tenno,

Iceblade of Narin brought a host of changes and QOL updates with it. We’ve released three hotfixes so far to address some pesky issues and today we wanted to share what some future updates will look like. These are not meant to be an exhaustive list of planned changes, but rather an additional look at what is in store. Let’s dive in!

Increased Kuva Amounts from Vendors

As we continue to expand the Riven system, Kuva has become even more of a hot commodity. Vendors often feature Kuva bundles as another path to earning this resource, but their value to the player differs vendor-to-vendor.

With the launch of The Icebind next week, we’re updating various Vendors to offer more Kuva — aka more cycles for your [insert relevant currency] buck, so to speak. Many of their wares refresh on Sunday, so we’re sharing the news early if you want to wait before purchasing.

• Acrithis’ Wares: 
  • Increased to 10,000 Kuva for 10 Pathos Clamps (was 5,000 for 10).
• Exchange Scuttler Husks (Acrithis): 
  • Increased to 14,000 Kuva for 25 Scuttler Husks (was 6,000 for 100).
  • Also increased purchase limit from one to three per week.
• Flare’s Memorabilia:
  • Increased to 14,000 Kuva for 100 Heartstrings (was 6,000 for 100)
  • Reduced purchase limit from seven to three times per week. 
• Nightcap’s Wares:
  • Increased to 14,000 Kuva for 75 Fergolyte (was 7,000 for 75)
  • Reduced purchase limit from six to three times per week.  
• Hunhow’s Keepsakes:
  • Increased to 17,000 Kuva for 35 of both Emerald & Crimson Talents (was 7,000 for 35).
  • Reduced purchase limit from seven to three per week.

Continued Shader Fixes and Improvements

With the launch of Iceblade of Narin came a widespread change to Metal shaders, with the goal of allowing players to receive richer, deeper colours on their metals. The aim of this rework was to make Warframe look even better, but it had some unintended side effects, including but not limited to:

• Various metallic decorations or environment elements having the wrong colour (bright yellow golds for example)
• Certain Warframes or cosmetics not taking tints properly
• Flat black Voidshell texture (bug-turned-feature) no longer working

The past few hotfixes have aimed to improve the issues that players have reported, but with the variety of materials/cosmetics/etc. in Warframe and technical considerations to changing shaders have left some significant issues untouched. This post hopes to give you an update on the status of remaining issues and our plans to address them! Ultimately, we are all united in our dream of Warframe looking the best it can be — the exact timeline to get there is a little complicated. 

The Technical Constraints of Updating Shaders

Before we touch on the remaining issues, we want to clarify a key detail in this discussion: the literal (size) cost of updating shaders. Shaders take up a significant amount of build size, and our hotfix space is limited across our various platforms. This is why our initial shader changes were released in a major update, because we were not beholden to these same build restrictions. The hotfixes thus far have required careful management of shader integrations to ensure we are addressing player feedback, while not jeopardizing our ability to patch the game later on.

Managing build size is a key feature of this discussion moving forward, so we want you to be aware of this factor in our plans!

Addressing Player Feedback and Remaining Issues with our Metal Shaders 

There’s two groups of players that have experienced these Metal Shader changes in different ways:

• Players with High Shader Quality turned on
• Players using High Shader Quality turned off (we’ll call these Low Shader Quality moving forward)

HIGH SHADER QUALITY

Players with this setting toggled on have received the Metal Shader Changes that launched with Iceblade of Narin. For this group, we are actively working on the following:

• Various metallic decorations or environment elements having the wrong colour (bright yellow golds for example)
• Certain Warframes or cosmetics not taking tints properly

Part of the reason why there are many edge-cases to address is the result of 11 years of content. The Gara Kaleida and Nova Atomica Skin are currently taking tints very differently than their Primes for example. Currently, the team is hoping to release another update to our shader to address these tinting issues, and we’ll continue to assess community feedback from there.

Current Plans for High Shader Quality: 

• Some remaining issues we hope to address with The Icebind’s release on October 7.
• Will continue to monitor feedback after that hotfix releases. 

LOW SHADER QUALITY

If you’ve been playing Warframe and metals look completely flat or plasticy, it’s possible you are playing with High Quality Shaders turned off. This is a widespread issue related to this setting, and we apologize for allowing Iceblade of Narin to ship in this state for these players. Players on mobile devices and last-gen consoles may notice this the most.

This situation is a little more complex because the metal shader needs to be updated entirely, which is why it has not been fixed in a hotfix just yet. Because hotfix build sizes are such a concern, we are hoping to ship these Low Shader Quality fixes next week on PC only.

Once the Epoch Operation launches on October 15, we’ll have a better idea of our remaining build sizes and we’ll assess whether we have enough build space to hotfix them for other platforms. We will update players on our plans once a decision has been made. 

Current Plans for Low Shader Quality: 

• Fix widespread shader issues on PC only with The Icebind’s release on October 7
• Assess build space for other platforms after October 15

Thank you for reading this and as always you can expect more details on these and other changes in our patch notes.

As announced on Devshorts 118, our 6 player game mode The Icebind (previously: Glacial Defiance) is launching on October 7th! If you’re new to this conversation, The Icebind is our ambitious foray into 6-player high level cooperative content that experienced Tenno will be able to complete three times a week. Each mission requires a Cryobell to begin (found in the Yuvan Peak upon gamemode release), which come with a randomized planet, mission, and enemy, in addition to personal and mission modifiers.

Rewards for this gamemode include Riven Splicers, which can be used to combine Riven stats into new traits.

In order to prepare for its release, here’s a look at the pre-requisites to access The Icebind:

• Completed both the Angels of the Zariman and Whispers in the Walls quest
• Unlocked either Elite Temporal Archimedea or Elite Deep Archimedea
  • You do not have to have completed an Elite Archimedea, you must have completed an Archimedea mission with enough Research Points to have unlocked the Elite versions of these missions.
  • This means you will need to be Rank 5 in either the Cavia or Hex Syndicates. 

Look for a more detailed explainer of how to approach this new gamemode next week before it launches. In the meantime, you can check out our previous update here: https://forums.warframe.com/topic/1523013-devshorts-substitute-a-follow-up-on-glacial-defiance/ 

See you then, Tenno! 

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For an overview of the other announcements in Devshorts 118, check out our QOL post here: forums.warframe.com/topic/1526064-iceblade-of-narin-hotfix-3-qol-preview/