In the space ninja TPS *Warframe*, several gameplay changes introduced in the latest update have sparked fierce backlash from users.
The changes instantly ruined carefully crafted builds, and the ammunition efficiency cap now makes it impossible to achieve infinite ammo with Riven.
Digital Extremes, the game’s developer and publisher, released Hotfix 44.1.3 on October 23.
This patch implemented the “removal and unification of the Riven property system,” “a 75% cap on ammo efficiency,” and “a fix for an issue where certain special effects triggered recursively when combined with elemental ammo.” However, these changes have drawn criticism from players on the official forums and elsewhere.
The game features a system where players enhance their Warframe, as well as their main, secondary, and melee weapons, by equipping Mods that alter stats or grant special effects. Among these, the Riven Mods are particularly powerful.
These are special Mods that can only be equipped on their corresponding gear and feature stat changes—including reductions ranging from one to four types. Players can cycle through these changes by consuming an in-game item called “Kuba.”
Although the process caps out after 10 cycles, the number of Kuba required per cycle increases with each attempt, and the specific stats and their adjustment amounts change accordingly. As a result, players often repeat the cycle until they’re satisfied with the results—a phenomenon users have dubbed the “Kuba Swamp”—and it’s treated as a kind of end-game content that requires a certain degree of compromise.
This Riven Mod features a system called “Riven Nature,” which adjusts the correction values based on usage statistics and power rankings for each weapon across all players. Regular adjustments were made so that weaker weapons used less frequently received larger corrections, while frequently used equipment received smaller corrections. However,With this update, the “Nature” system has been abolished, and the adjustment values have been standardized to a level equivalent to “Nature 1.2” under the previous specifications.
As a result, a variety of changes have occurred—ranging from the fun of figuring out how to make weak weapons usable with a strong Riven, to actual negative impacts where builds collapse due to a sudden spike in damage reduction, even though the drawbacks were previously tolerable thanks to the lower adjustment.
Additionally, by using the “Riven Splicer”—an item obtainable through the new game mode “Glacial Confinement” introduced in Update 44.1—players can now combine two specific stats to create a new stat.Since one of these new stats was “Ammo Efficiency”—which, with a certain probability, prevents ammo from being consumed when firing—it became possible to achieve “infinite ammo,” allowing players to fire continuously without reloading.
In this update, a cap of up to 75% was set on this “Ammo Efficiency” stat, and the mechanic was adjusted so that ammunition is consumed at a rate of one round in every four shots. Consequently, opinions such as “compensation for those who purchased Riven with in-game currency” and“opposition to a hasty nerf,” and “the impact of infinite ammo on the game.”
It goes without saying that players are deeply dissatisfied when builds they’ve painstakingly crafted—spending vast amounts of Kuba and time in pursuit of optimal stats—are broken by a change in game mechanics, and all eyes are now on how Digital Extremes will respond to this backlash.
