Warframe Techrot Encore: All upcoming quality-of-life changes

Warframe's Techrot Encore is possibly the biggest Echoes update (i.e. one that comes after a major mainline story update). Generally, these updates tend to expand on the content founded by the major updates, but another emphasis is on quality-of-life changes and improvements to older legacy content.

On that front, Techrot Encore is the biggest update since Jade Shadows, bringing a whole host of changes that will affect new players and returning veterans alike.

In this article, we'll go over all these known QoL changes as outlined in Devstream 184 and 185.

Warframe's Techrot Encore patch will make Starchart progression much faster for new players

Some new player red carpet in order (Image via Digital Extremes)

The new player experience has always been one of the lacklustre things in Warframe. In this upcoming update, Digital Extremes is targeting some of these big roadbumps.

Easier Starchart pathing: The biggest of these changes is a redone pathing on planet nodes. Instead of some meandering detours you have to take in some planets, getting to the next junction will now require you to do fewer nodes now. No nodes or missions are being removed — only the critical path of progression is becoming straighter.

Loaner Necramench for The New War: The New War is a quest where many players hit a progression wall, particularly because it currently requires you to craft a Necramech. Farming Damaged Necramech parts in Isolation Vaults will no longer be necessary after this update, as this requirement is being removed.

Now, players can get a loaner Necramech during certain parts of The New War, kitted out with a build sufficient for dealing with the quest.

No more crafting open-world Archwing Segment: Players will automatically get an Archwing Launcher Segment upon completing The Archwing quest in Mars. This allows you to deploy your Archwing in open-world zones like Plains of Eidolon, so navigating these areas and grinding bounties will be much easier now.

Faster Rhino crafting: After you get the Rhino Warframe components, the Warframe can be crafted in 24 hours rather than 72.

Mod Capacity progression rework: Right now, a brand-new player will start their first weapons and Warframes with 0 Mod capacity. The Techrot upgrade is changing this. Here's how it will work:

The minimum base capacity for any rank 0 Warframe or equipment is 15.
Every two ranks on the Warframe or equipment increases the capacity by 1.
If your Mastery Rank is 16 or above, your base capacity is set to that number, meaning MR 30 players will still start with 30 Mod capacity with a new or freshly Forma'd weapon.

Devstream 185 also showed a change where "high-level crafting materials" are being removed from Archwing recipes. It's uncertain what this means, and whether this affects all Archwings or just the starter Odonata.

All other QoL changes coming to Warframe with Techrot Encore

Some of these changes are much bigger than expected (Image via Digital Extremes)

KIM System Improvements

You can revisit topics to learn alternate outcomes with a "Play All Conversations" feature.
You can accelerate the texts with a "go to next choice" option.
Your chosen partner from The Hex now has more spots to sandbox and idle inside the Backroom.

Defense Wave reduction

Warframe's Defense missions are getting a big upgrade, and now they will function the same way as they do in The Circuit. They will have three Waves per rotation rather than five.

Enemy quantity will be redistributed to be about the same as the old rotation.
Enemies will now seek out the defense objective more aggressively, which hopefully means no lingering and hiding enemies preventing the wave from advancing when you camp.

Easier Kuva/Tenet weapon Element switching

Elemental Vice, a new consumable, will be introduced in Warframe with Techrot Encore. This lets you alter the progenitor element of a Lich weapon on-demand, and is consumed in the process. Elemental Vice devised for the upcoming Coda Weapons obtainable from Infested Liches (Technocyte Coda), but it will work on Kuva and Tenet weapons too, which is particularly useful for melee Tenet weapons.

Omni Forma

Aura Formas will now be repurposed into Omni Forma, with about the same function but on all slots. Omni Formas will let you get a universal polarity on a mod slot, which can adapt to anything other than the Umbra Polarity.

Pseudo-Exalted rework

Pseudo-Exalted abilities will no longer pool its power from a stat-stick, and instead get their own modding platforms (Khora, Gara, Ash, Atlas). This will make your stat-stick Melee Rivens useless. But to offset this, a new Landslide-like combo framework will make casting and ramping up these abilities much easier.

If you're wondering which Warframes are better off after this, here are the biggest winners and losers of the Pseudo-Exalted Rework.

More Riven Capacity

All players are now getting 30 more Riven Capacity to start with, which will get rid of the early-game inventory management hassle for trying out multiple Rivens.

Disbanding Randoms

With Techrot Encore, Warframe will add a toggleable option to disband randoms after a mission concludes.

If you are queueing up someone on your friend list and the squad gets populated with two more players from public matchmaking, you can now disband the party without kicking your friend in the process. This will also persist through host migration, meaning you will retain your party of friends in that process.

Quick Select (Duplicate Select alternative)

A development preview (Image via Digital Extremes)

Instead of selecting Duplicates by hand to convert your leftover mods into Endo or Credits, a new Quick Select feature will let you clean your inventory in a faster and safer way. This has numerous safety-net fallbacks to prevent you from accidentally dissolving valuables, such as only selecting certain rarities, preserving the final copy of a mod, or skipping specific mod stacks.

Captura Improvements

The Captura mode is finally getting some love with Warframe: Techrot Encore. Here's some of the features and QoL additions:

You can save Captura settings in between sessions.
You can hide companions, sentinel, weapons, and other accoutrements.
More flexibility to hide UI.
Binding works on all screens.

Simplified Audio options

Volume slider options are being consolidated into fewer options for less clutter on the screen, so you can adjust things on the fly easier. You can still right-click on a specific slider to open up sub-options (such as separately adjusting the sound of your weapons, your abilities, and the weapons/combat sounds from ally weapon and abilities separately, and so on).

Bundle price adjustment

If you own an item within a Bundle on the Market, its price will now be adjusted accordingly. Note that this doesn't work for non-Platinum bundles.

Ancient Protector balance changes

Ancient Protectors are undergoing balance changes to no longer be as absurdly tanky. Namely, their Overguard buff duration is shorter — they don't get Overguard from their own abilities and don't grant Overguard to other Ancients.

Check out all the other Techrot Encore features here. The update drops March 19, so we'll learn more about it in the patch notes. Until then, stay tuned, and check out our other guides on the game.

Edited by Sijo Samuel Paul