BruteInASuit
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Posts posted by BruteInASuit
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Hello everyone! I love Arbitrations, but my most pressing complaint about them is how frustrating the Arbitration drones can be. I came up with an possible solution for adding a more interactive entity that would provide a difficult challenge, but also be fun and interactive!
The Arbitration Obelisk
Instead of the current Arbitration drones for increasing difficulty, I suggest an obelisk that is sent down much like life support modules. They are a bit smaller than a Grineer Napalm so they are not hard to hit or notice. This obelisk has an Arbiters of Hexis design including the multiple faces which act as weak points. It could even just be a scaled up version of the current arbitration drone model! The mechanics are as follows:
1. When it first spawns, it has a warning noise and an indicator on the map like Vitus essence does. It is invulnerable and does not activate until a player gets within a certain distance, maybe a 10 meter radius.
2. Upon activation, the obelisk will increase the level of enemies within a 15 or 20 meters radius by some amount. Buffed enemies have a Vitus icon above them and reddish particle effects emanating from them like the Vitus Essence emblem (new Arbitration Honor exclusive ephemera possibility) and have the same energy tethers that current Arbitration drones have to mark them as priority targets.
3. The obelisk itself is immune to abilities and splash damage so it is not instantly vaporized by stray bullets or nuking abilities. It can only be damaged in the three faces at the top of the model, much like Thumper armor pieces. As each face is destroyed, the enemy buffs are increased along with the chance to drop Vitus essence. When the first face is destroyed, the enemies get a damage boost. When the second face is destroyed, the enemies get a small over-shield buff. When the third face is destroyed, the enemies gain a slow heal over time. All buffs will increase over time once they are active, regardless of how many faces have been destroyed. The rate is linear and not exponential. This may or may not have a cap, I'm not sure.
4. Enemies retain the level buffs after leaving the obelisk's range, but will lose the damage, stat, and Vitus essence drop chance buffs. This is so they don't get instantly melted and to cut down on missing rewards because an enemy walked out too far. This also makes them more of a lasting threat if left alone.
5. Destruction of the third face reveals a fairly durable energy core that can be shot at to completely destroy the obelisk and remove all the enemy buffs. Remaining enemies that lose buffs also lose the chance to drop Vitus essence.
6. Only one obelisk can be active on the map at one time, and they will tend to spawn relatively near where enemies are concentrated and near to current spawn points. Enemies within 50 meters will tend to move toward the obelisk. Another option is to have the obelisk float slowly and move around following the players where they congregate, more like a mini-boss than an emplacement.
7. An obelisk will be active until it is destroyed, meaning that it can be left alone to give more chances at Vitus essence and a more difficult challenge, or it can be destroyed quickly to be safe. Another alternative is to have the obelisk active until the rotation is over, but I am afraid this will lead to modes like Disruption and Excavation leading the meta for Vitus farming since you can control how long rotations last. I would much rather the duration be set by the player.
Concerns and Balancing
This system rewards increasing the difficulty with more Vitus essence while adding an opt-in/opt-out system for even greater reward at the cost of increased enemy damage and durability. This new system is almost much more interactive and rewarding than the current system. The point of having the enemies retain the level buffs when moving away from the obelisk is to keep the obelisk as an active threat instead of one you can just ignore by staying away from that side of the map (very pertinent in missions like survival). Adding overshields to enemies that usually don’t have shields is an interesting challenge too, and I think it would be fitting of the end-game type mission that I would love Arbitrations to be.
The main foreseeable negative of this system is that reviving downed players will not be possible without the original drones. This is why I suggest leaving the drones in, but removing the invulnerability buff and replacing it instead with a smaller non-scaling version of the obelisk’s buff. When tethered to a drone, an enemy will gain a flat stat boost and a slow regen that is limited to the first 5 or 6 enemies that the drone connects to. These buffs do not stack with the obelisk's buffs, enemies entering the range of the obelisk will disconnect from the drone. The drone will also be locked to these enemies and mimic Shield Osprey behavior instead of flitting around randomly. These should have similar spawn rates to current Arbitration drones. This solves the reviving issue while removing the feeling of impotence that comes with the invulnerability buff.
Another possible problem could be altering the Vitus economy and requiring a re-balancing of the Honors pricing. I think this can be solved by starting the Vitus drop chance lower than current arbitration drones, but allowing them to scale quite slowly and then capping off at around 8-10 percent per enemy. This would be accompanied by heavy enemy buffs, so it will be difficult to approach those rates, but players who can survive in those conditions do deserve that increased Vitus essence reward in my humble opinion.
Conclusion
To conclude, I think that this rework idea offers a unique mini-boss type experience that offers an interesting and engaging challenge while still keeping the player in mind with an opt-in/opt-out system. With the recent changes to status and armor, enemies at the higher end of the game have lost a little of their intimidation. I feel that a rewarding and challenging mini-boss fight that is customized by the players is a wonderful way to breathe new life into a very interesting mode.
I would love to workshop this idea with people who are interested! I'm looking for any constructive criticism, so please let me know what you all think!
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I love Gauss, but I wish he had some cool augments. In my opinion, augments are all about opening up new play styles and synergies within a Warframe’s kit. Here are some ideas for new augments where I just had some fun trying to create those new play styles and my reasoning behind them.
DISCLAIMER: All numerical values are arbitrary and only exist for theoretical purposes. If anything seems overpowered or under-powered, it is because I hate math almost as much as I hate nullifiers. Almost. Balancing suggestions are welcome!
Slipstream: Redline Augment. Allies in affinity? range when reaching 100% battery gain 50% (or 100%?) of buffs for 100% of remaining duration. For each buffed ally, 25%? of remaining Redline duration is added (includes self, so total bonus is 100%, but even solo you get a nice 25 percent duration boost). Allies can opt out of this buff with a backwards dodge roll.
Encourages Gauss to play relatively around team to give benefits and buff his own duration. This lets Gauss act as more of a team player with his buffs while still being able to be as mobile as he needs to be. Once the buff is on your teammates, it lasts until the instance of Redline is ended, so no need to worry about camping near your team! Furthermore, this is team friendly because you can opt out of it like Volt's Speed or Limbo's Banish, in case you don't want to be firing and reloading at LUDICROUS SPEED.
Kinetic Capacitor: Kinetic Plating augment. Damage absorbed while past the Redline is added to the seeking bolts emitted. When Kinetic Plating ends or is deactivated, the accumulated damage is released in a radial heat proc (base 10m radius). Proc could ignore LoS? Could it be balanced by making damage absorbed able to drain the overcharged battery from 100%, or is that excessive?
The added damage could be based on the type of damage absorbed. This means that you could add any of the damage types that are absorbable by Kinetic Plating, which makes the bolts a really nice extra AOE threat simply by running around--something Gauss players love to do. This augment still requires intelligent management of battery and damage taken, since the accuracy and frequency of the bolts is determined by battery level
Thermal Aggregate: Thermal Sunder augment. Thermal Sunder is limited to 4 instances, but can be recast, with the oldest instance being replaced. While past the Redline, every enemy affected by Thermal Sunder adds some duration to that instance of Thermal Sunder when it dies. Some percentage of enemy HP is added to the damage over time it does as well. Passive: +30% strength for Thermal Sunder.
This idea interests me because it represents a more defensive option for Gauss which is ideal for modes like Interception or Excavation. Setting up zones of damage and crowd control and then managing them fits Gauss’s gameplay loop in these modes, rewarding his dashing between objectives to keep his battery boosted. The passive on this augment makes it so that player's can choose to mod for range if they want to without crippling their Thermal Aggregate's damage output. On top of that, along the same lines as Limbo, increasing the duration of Thermal Sunder also replenishes its radius. So, much like a beautiful garden, the work you put into maintaining and fueling these 4 instances, the more goodness you get out of it. Except instead of fruits and veggies, it is thermal death.
Mach Accretion: Mach Rush augment. Casting Mach Rush for at least 0.75 (possible one full second) seconds grants Gauss a short movement speed bonus (base 25% speed for 10 seconds) but can be refreshed. The speed bonus gained and duration is increased by longer casts of Mach Rush. The buff can reach a maximum of 75% for 30 seconds (not sure about the values here). Continuous Mach Rush casts add more duration and speed to the buff than short casts. Long casts might be harder to do, but worth it when you can pull it off because the bonus will be higher and last longer. Short casts allow for a quick burst of speed that is easy to pull off.
This is a cool augment because it allows speed demons like me to drop Sprint Boost, Rush, and other sprint speed mods to open up more options for builds while keeping that blistering speed. I am unsure of whether or not this augment should scale with duration like his other abilities, because I’m afraid it would lead to some crazily unplayable speeds when you throw in other speed buff sources. The idea behind this augment is that you can consolidate all your speed mods into this augment, saving you some slots. This means that it constantly has to reward you with some movement speed, but I want to have to work for it a little bit. This is why the buff is based on finding clever opportunities to Mach Rush continuously for a nice enduring buff, but you also gain a respectable bonus from the ability's basic usage. So, the trade is losing permanence in speed buffs (from mods) in exchange for higher speed buffs that require a touch more management to optimize--exactly what Gauss is all about.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post! I had a lot of fun writing this, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. I would love to hear some feedback on these ideas, so suggestions and discussion are welcome!
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As you can see in this screenshot from my friend on the mission, my Kuva Lich Ogg Moss spawned (for my friend it showed as a generic sort of Agor Rok, which is strange) and caused my friends to disconnect and me to fail the mission. This is strange since the objective was nearly full health and was being healed by Venari. I was the host in East USA and my friends are in Europe. The strange issue is that Ogg Moss is one that I vanquished the previous night, so I have no clue how it is coming around to help me (she's a good sport?). I have seen others with this issue where Kuva Lich allies spawning cause connection issues. Please let me know if there is any other information required.
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As you can see in this screenshot from my friend on the mission, my Kuva Lich Ogg Moss spawned (for my friend it showed as a generic sort of Agor Rok, which is strange) and caused my friends to disconnect and me to fail the mission. This is strange since the obj was nearly full health and was being healed by Venari. I was the host in East USA and my friends are in Europe. The strange issue is that Ogg Moss is one that I vanquished the previous night, so I have no clue how it is coming around to help me (she's a good sport?). I have seen others with this issue where Kuva Lich allies spawning cause connection issues. Please let me know if there is any other information required.
Thank you in advance for you consideration!
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Here is my entry for the contest, inspired by my favorite frame.
Spoiler
This was made with Photoshop and composited Captura shots only. Good luck to all Tenno, all the entries I've seen look amazing!
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Suggestion for an Arbitration Drone Mechanic Rework
in General Discussion
Posted
Thanks, that's what I was going for! I love gameplay mechanics that put the power in your hands when it comes to choosing what rewards you want to work for. Since the no-rez change, I've found that Arbitrations feel less like an endgame challenge and more like another farm. I think it could serve both purposes this way, and be a lot more fun while doing it! This combined with the scaling changes and the objective healing changes makes it more viable to bring whatever frame you want to Arbitrations, with the added bonus of having a boosted frame option available for you should you so desire.