[PC] C̶̹̃h̴̊̍̐͜i̶͓̩͛̽m̸̨̈́͘e̴̤̒ŕ̸͉͋̕å̸̙̭͕: Update 23.10 - Arbitrations: Lethal Alerts Feedback Megathread

[Borg1611]

I didn't realize the non-revivable aspect of the defense guy was a thing the first time I did it. It seems like that makes yet another mode where the number of exceptional frames for that mode is very low, which is counter intuitive to a mode where you added these random bonuses to try to get people to play random frames instead of meta frames (unless you happened to random a meta bonus). Do you want people to play these random frames? Is playing them meant to be an additional challenge with no additional reward? As I mentioned before, I think the random bonuses need to be changed so that whatever frame comes up has bonuses specifically tailored to making that specific frame decent in end-game content rather than hoping you win the random bonus lotto and get a bonus for something you care about. Being able to order the defense guy to follow and stay to place him in a strategically defensible position could also make is less critical to bring frames with better abilities to either reduce his damage taken or keep things from hitting him.

To people arguing about the rewards being fine or not, I'd like to point out there are missions in which you can gain 400 endo in about 2 minutes. That would be 2000 endo in 10 minutes. Just because you see a larger number doesn't mean you're getting more per time spent. The rewards in this mode are consistently endo, but they don't give a larger potential amount per time spent. I still have primed mods and umbra mods I can level, so endo is not a useless reward to me, but this mode isn't more rewarding compared to others, even to someone like me. Some people seem to be getting deceived by the larger numbers without considering the additional time spent and are acting as if we're now on some whole new level of endo potential per time spent when we simply are not. They also tend to release new modes with lackluster rewards at first because they'd rather increase them then have to nerf them after a release, so I'd expect they may even be intentionally low to start with as they collect data and see how people react.

I also still think/agree that dealing with spawn rates and old problems specific to different tilesets that this mode shines a spotlight on should be the biggest priority to fix. Perhaps it's a good thing since it could get you to go back and finally fix them in the base tilsets/modes rather than just for arbitrations. IE: spawn issues in solo survivals or waiting on power cells in excavations, particularly when solo are not new problems. Pathing issues are not new problems. If that's not something you're willing to do, I would say limit arbitrations to tiles with fewer issues as a few people mentioned (and still increase the spawn rates for survival and excavation, maybe just lock it in at what you'd see in a 3 or 4 player game or something). 

[MartinVole]

Honestly, one of the things I'd do is remove non-endo rewards and place them in the store. Getting anything but endo/ayatans is a miracle, and it is a diminishing reward as you stock up. Currently sitting at over 600k here on endo.

[Very_Melon]

People who die in the first 70% of rounds/minutes/whatever should be removed from the game. People who die after that should be removed after the next reward is earned.

There's enough leeches as is.

[Very_Melon]

People who die in the first 70% of rounds/minutes/whatever should be removed from the game. People who die after that should be removed after the next reward is earned.

There's enough leeches as is.

[Czin]

On 2018-10-12 at 3:30 PM, [DE]Marcus said:

and there is no reviving once you have been downed.

Sneaking in a retcon to what was previously stated during devstreams is not ok. It is not even clearly stated in the patch notes, we knew we couldn't use revives, but not being downed was not advertised.

[GDSK-NXS]

I think most of the complains have already been said, and I sadly don't have the time to read more than a page, but for a personal take on these issues I guess I could give it a try now that the mode is "fresh":

1) Availability: As said above having to hope for a good mission type is bad. Everyone and their mothers are aware that obviously some of those modes are NOT going to be played a lot. Surprise! making them "harder" won't make them more appealing, nobody wants to babysit a mentally challenged reject from a test tube as it makes it's long way to the exit (defection), protect a rambo-like "soldier" who neer takes cover and actively asks to be put down for good (defense), or protecting some console made out of porcelain. Just accept that these modes are not popular and stop pushing them to the unwilling spotlight.

Either have one of every game mode at the same time, or just stop giving anything that isn't survival.

2) Modifiers: One life, again as said above, only brings forth with incredible boldness the problem of instant death out of left field. It is mildly frustrating on a normal mission, but here it is outright maddening. The level of the enemies doesn't help a lot with that particular subject either, but it can usually be bypassed by the simple and single fact that you can be revived. That's no longer an option. On top of this you subject NPCs to the same rules, give damage and ability nullification to enemies, random useless bonusses to frames nobody wants to play, and wouldn't even use with a 3000% strength modifier, and then on top of that choose maps that are not even fine tuned in pathfinding and spawning. The difficulties for the game modes in particular are all over the place, one is good (x2 interception), but some are effy (like 3' excavation defense, 75% on survival, defense NPC) and some are atrocious (50% console health and instant death on defection).

You can make shield gating a thing or let people be DOWNED but not REVIVE (after dying while downed). This should go for the NPCs too. The bonuses should either be specially tailored to each warframe or weapon (ex: critical chance, critical damage, damage, multishot, status chance, range, reach, duration, strength, efficiency, shields, health, armor, casting speed, speed, firerate, projectile speed, or a combination of them with reduced effects) or give an additional reward for each cycle to players who play with these handicaps (because that's what they are, let's be completely honest here). If the defense NPC doesn't die instead of going down, I can take it as fair. The console health is a problem though, it's placements were never the brightest (talking about the misshaped map), but they were not the worst either, so I think that to make it a more popular mode I would increase the rate of eximus spawns in it. In defection, I would instead add 2 more teams of kavor, probably further from B and C respectively, so that everyone has a group to protect. I am not a fan of extending a mission's length so I'm not sure about the excavation bit, but I could see the drill giving buffs to enemies around it, let's say, in a radius of 15-30m, perhaps a "second life" similar to the corruption effect in fissures. The drones I think should be changed, probably to a bonus like that of ancients that happens to also grant ability immunity. I could take them being invulnerable or CC inmune, but noth both at the same time. Finally, pick a selection of maps and REFINE THEM for the pathfinding/spawning issues, don't just "patch" them momentarily before they break again in a unsuspecting way a week later, take one of them, look at it really hard, address the issues with it, work consistently to FIX THEM, and THEN add a gamemode that focuses on tile variation. This was already an issue back when ESO rolled out, and I remember multiple bitter losses at disgusting spawnrates and spawn placement, pathfinding making enemies basically stand still around a corner and stuff like that.

3) Rewards: Just, why did you put those useless modes in there as "rare rewards"? Because yes, obviously, they are not "useless" by it's literal definition, and you NEED an incentive for players to GRIND the new mode, apparently, since the endo rewards are even inferior to that which can be farmed outside of this game mode, but they are useless in the bigger picture, even more so than the reduced endo rewards. Nobody will ever use most of the mods for any other reason than to mess around on earth, which will happen problably only once in their entire warframe experience, and while Endo is at an ever increasing cost with all the Primed mod releases (Looking at you, Umbra Quest and Baro Anniversary), it's just not EFFICIENT to do it this way, and as everyone knows, that which isn't efficient won't be used. And that's without addressing the fact that it takes twice as long to even get a reward to begin with!

If your desire for this mode is to just be "the place to farm endo" then make endo drop in bigger quantities (TWICE), or FASTER. Put the mods on the relay store, they are not needed in the drop tables, and are not wanted there either. I personally would drop full ayatans instead of empty ayatans in the reward, so that people don't have to go scavenge hunt for stars after playing a few arbitrations for the rest of their lives.

That's about all I have to say about this mode. All in all, I'll probably play it until I get the rewards and never touch it again until it has something else to offer.

[TheLordOmega2]

My main complain is defense being terribly slow and boring (20+mins for 10 waves is both really common and NOT OKAY).

An indicator for when your current loadout matches the bonus would clear any confusion for variants.

More varied bonuses wouldn't hurt either, +duration, +range, +efficiency, maybe even +armor to make some frames viable

The drones feel a bit cheap, especially them being immune to powers (and ESPECIALLY to exalted weapons)

[MistressMoonpaw]

4 hours ago, mikakor said:

i do take these missions seriously, and i STILL Need endo, so NO, these rewards are not an insulting joke, thanks.

then obviously you dont know how to farm endo, you can easily get five times the endo in the same time span with less effort. Just do the tier 3 Rathuum (i think its called) mission with a nekros and slash dmg, the one where you fight the executioners before you can fight kela de thyme. Thats where you get endo. Or the old school variant Excavation where you get relics ontop of endo.

[Guest]

So far, teams that I end up in, wish to extract immediately when the option presents itself.

This can be seen as quite logic, since many just want the mission reward to get the arbiter special offers a.s.a.p.

It does feel a bit wierd.
Not quite like warframe anymore.
As if... estranged.

There is no explanation to why the Tenno have only 1 life.
And... shouldn't this mean that the player actually dies at that point?
Losing everything and being forced to re-start the game anew?

Because now technically, that Tenno is 'dead'.
Or at least lose their warframe, as it is being destroyed, and transference is lost.

I'm overthinking things a lot.
And I haven't started touching 'bleedout' 'dead' and swirling in the void after the operator 'dies' and then... returns to life?

I dunno, just thinking too much again.

Now about the arbitrations.
Can't say for sure.
But something makes it feel off.

Also, I was hoping for a 'what we know challenge'.
Not with immortality linking drones in play.

Having done one with Revenant makes it clear just how destructuve these are.
300% extra damage, neat.
29 stacks to shield myself.

But turns out, the 'immortal' targets don't become dazed.
Resulting in them going rambo, and forcing revenant to recast his shield, after each encounter with 5 enemies (dodge rolls included).
As they aren't affected, but empty your layers of protection like snacks.

I still believe in something more fitting to warframe (and the lore) that could have been made.
It feels like a forced, and missed opportunity.
Not the content we needed to fill an empty stomach.

I still prefer MOT hour long runs over this.
Guess it's just not my kind of cookie.
At least... not the way it is now.

It reminds me too much of beast of the sanctuary, I think.
Good for getting those rarities.
Then having no reason to return to them after all is done.

Ah well, nevermind
Ramblings of an overclocked brain.

[-_MEDBEDb_-]

Arbitrage Interception mission type is out of ANY sanity boundaries. It is like having a lot of free time doing something that is really doubtful to be counted as _valuable_

 

So, its like you're doing 1 wave of interception with 'Speedva' with 3 more players for 5 minutes and then you think - hey, wait... what?  To get 10 waves you have to complete 9 waves more by 5 minutes each, which is 45 minutes... for ayatan sculpture?

 

DE, are you trolling us, players who opened all Star Chart ? Why? 

[Fallen_Echo]

I would like to request to remove stephano from the elite alerts. Its a map what has frequent problems with enemies getting stuck everywhere.

 

Also it would be lovely if the drones would either have a cap (3-4) on shielded targets or dont grant power immunity to themselves because currently its pointless to have all the bonus power strenght on most frames because they simply cant utilize it.

[Fallen_Echo]

1 hour ago, Very_Melon said:

People who die in the first 70% of rounds/minutes/whatever should be removed from the game. People who die after that should be removed after the next reward is earned.

There's enough leeches as is.

Okay first of all as soon as you go down you have 1 minute before the akf timer kicks in and you dont get anything from onward, second this gamemode doesnt give you anything for the wave you died in. You only get the final reward for completed rounds.

[Ventasis]

Defense rotations being every 10 waves is incredibly slow. Every time a defense arbitration pops up you basically have to wait till it expires. 

I recommend reducing it to 6-7 waves. 

[DawnoftheWhiteFury]

Excalibur Umbra doesn't seem to benefit from Excalibur related Arbitration boons. I brought Umbra into an Arbitration that had a 300% Strength buff for Excalibur but I didnt notice a difference in damage output of his powers. Does he have his own, or is this a bug?

Edited October 13, 2018 by DawnoftheWhiteFury

[(XBOX)The Neko Otaku]

There's very little for variety for rewards with the only thing being endo and mods with only a 3% drop rate. Why not add bundles of 50 to 100 void traces and kuva to the c rotation since there's already plenty of ways to aquire endo. Maybe add some peculiar mods to the drop tables as well since eso is already has enough in its tables as is.

[Sunder]

3 hours ago, ArkThanatos said:

its a good idea that was poorly executed 

Disagree

It's a lazy handicap done in attempts to beef up difficulty. It's more of an annoyance than anything.

[Wynn]

Day two so far nothing but Endo a thing I am not in need of I just want any mod to drop at this point, Spending hours on the alerts to just get endo is not fun how did anyone think the drop tables was ok.

 

[Bl00dRedRage]

For the love of god make the defense rotation only 5 waves. 10 is way too much, so much so people prefer to leave after the first 10 waves. 

[ArkThanatos]

54 minutes ago, Sunder said:

Disagree

It's a lazy handicap done in attempts to beef up difficulty. It's more of an annoyance than anything.

oh i agree its a lazy way to increase difficulty, but i keep having these drones get stuck in some maps (namely survivals) and you cant kill them because they are in the roof or some crap and the rest of the mobs are in the way face tanking.

though the staticore buff does help with killing them (8m blast radius) 

the drones need to change on HOW just are, make them bigger for one. when a shotgun misses most pellets at near point blank thats not really a good thing, weapons such as staticore and arca plasma are good against them but i mean thats creating a meta in a game where there should be absolutely NO meta ever

Edited October 13, 2018 by ArkThanatos

[Borg1611]

I did a defense just now so I wanted to add a couple things:

The bonus was for Loki. Three of his four abilities do not scale with power strength at all. His 4th scaling with power strength isn't that impressive as it does a static amount of impact damage. I think this reinforces my earlier point that you need to have different bonuses for different frames. Power strength is not universally important or the best choice for every frame to make it more viable at higher levels. Loki's bonus should be survival related and/or duration. edit: Or range for his 4. 

I also noticed that as Gara, my 2 was able to destroy drones, which I think is a good thing, but it seems like exalted weapons should also destroy them if what other players are saying is accurate and they do not. AoE abilities you don't have to target should ignore them, that makes sense, but targeted abilities and melee range abilities should still hit them (as Gara's 2 already seems to do). 

Also, the defense guy can walk through Gara's wall, which wasn't that big of a deal since he was protected by my 2 and I only bothered doing one reward rotation so they didn't even do enough damage to him to get past his shield, but it is kind of odd. I guess it makes sense if you don't want him to get stuck when following someone, but I think you should be able to order him to stay so you can hide him behind some kind of barrier if you want to. 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Borg1611

[Ailyene]

Writing from inside Round #44 of solo Interception...

First, the rewards are really terrible speaking as a veteran.  I've only gotten one mod so far after over 2 hours in this mission (20 rotations).  I already have like a literal million Endo gathering dust, I feel like the rewards are aimed more at early-to-mid game players that don't have all their mods maxed yet.  I'd be much more interested if Kuva were available as a reward.

Well, the difficulty also seems tuned for early/mid-game players too with the maximum enemy level being like ~160 after 44 rounds of interception.  But I thought this was supposed to be aimed at veterans, this is just an easy mode Sortie with 3x+ the length.

My opinion on how things can be improved is that the non-endo/ayatan rewards should be more common, currently the odds of getting Endo/Ayatan are around 88~92% per round.  This means it could take over a hundred hours of farming to get a desired mod, especially with some defense locations taking 20m+ per rotation.  (The missions are also not equal right now)

I'd like it if dead players were resurrected at the end of each round too, as there's no point continuing at this point if half the squad is dead.

The Warframe/Weapon bonuses are also largely irrelevant for most missions, maybe make it apply to an entire class of weapons/more than one Warframe.  (Why is Mk.1 Braton in that list even?)

Also I feel there should be some way to solo extract out of all game modes (Survival/Extraction).  Some people just don't have solid 30m+ to invest and I don't want to have to be forced to choose between cutting my run short or taking them hostage.

Well, that's what I've thought up while watching the meter tick up for the 44th time.

 

Edit:

End result of 60 rounds: 2/3 mods are repeats, 9 Orta to join my 200+, and 35k endo to join my ~1 million.  There is a distinct lack of things I can buy with Vitus Essence as well...   Overall just kind of disappointed, probably not a game mode I'd be interested in or enjoy with these rewards and repetitive gameplay.

Edited October 14, 2018 by Ailyene

[PETI258]

I am disappointed.

First of all I don't see any logic behind making these alerts only playable for those who have cleared all the starchart missions (an MR restriction would have been much better).
Second the rewards are very very very bad. Dropping the same items on A,B and C rotation only some minor chance changes doesn't make this gamemode playable.
Third the mods after a day that they have been introduced costs less then some of the mods can be found on PoE after a year eg: Augur Secret has a 2.08% and 4.76% drop chance in a 5 stage mission and can be finished within 15 mins while you only get a 2% and a 2.5% chance for a specific mod drop spending around 20 mins. Considering PoE is accessible by almost anybody and this Hexis one is suppose to be an "elite" mission the rewards not justified at all.
Forth the AI stuck in various places, hide behind covers for eternity or just dumb and starts escaping these are annoying game mechanics that should have been fixed long time ago.
Fifth the players who have cleared the whole starchart can easily earn 1k endo every 3 mins. So giving roughly 1.5k with a 90% drop chance after spending 10 mins on a mission which can be failed in a split second is a bad design.
Sixth why limit them to play only once/hour.
Seventh the Virtual Essence should drop differently: A - 1, B - 2, C - 3 (honestly not many of the players have stayed beyond 30 waves/mins)
Last but not least it's the same old mission we had enough playing already only its a bit more harder and much less rewarding.

So if its not getting a serious rework I am going to skip this grind I will just traight up buy the mod and I will be done with it.

[Sacronian]

In the new lethal alerts even if you die, you will still be counted ineligible for rewards even though there is nothing you can do about it. My friend had died on a lua defense lethal alert and died on wave 14. I continued to solo the mission until wave 20 and at the end he told me he was ineligible for the rewards, and thus did not get 1,600 endo and vitus essence for completing 20 waves. It would be nice to see this changed because it's inactivity that you have no control over and players who die in the lethal alerts should still be able to get the rewards.

[LSG501]

Might as well add my feedback here as well...

Biggest issue for me is honestly I just don't 'want' to play it.  A 'slightly' higher level mission which requires twice the time to get 'rotation rewards' with no revives, not even by team mates (not that level 60 is exactly hard), and an excessively high bias towards endo/ayatan (same issue as ESO and the vandals....) just doesn't seem 'fun' to me.   In truth I feel the exact same way about eso, I just don't 'want' to play it even though I still need to finish off my focus trees....

My 'first experience' of arbitrations literally had a speed volt spamming their 2 thanks to I'm guessing a 300% power buff....that was not fun imo. 

As to the event, it's meh in my opinion.  Frame and weapon buffs aren't going to change the 'meta' for endgame long runs for most people and it would also seem that you need the specific version mentioned to actually get the buff rather than all variants....which is fine if you're a hoarder but not if you only keep the best variant of each weapon or frame. 

The new shield drones were the most annoying thing, not hard, just annoying as they aren't killed by things like dex pixia (had a titania buff so....) even though they're now basically treated as a normal weapon (at least let me shoot them if I'm using a 'gun').  Not to mention the way they can interact with an ancient (not experienced it personally) which causes them to be basically 'immortal'.

100% nullification of damage by warframe powers doesn't make the game harder, it just turns it into a run and melee/shoot game... if that's the type of game we wanted to play there are better options out there than warframe.  Most of us came to warframe because of the warframe and their abilities not to play call of duty (or similar) in space so please can you start taking that into consideration when doing new 'mission types'....

I honestly do not see any reason for 10 minute/rounds for rewards, they should have been left at 5 rounds/mins like normal imo.  I think I'd rather see shorter rounds but with a faster ramp up of enemies while also allowing your team to revive you (no self revives), especially if the rewards are going to stay as they are.  Also don't agree with losing all our loot if we die outside our rotation rewards either.

Rotation rewards just aren't 'fair', endo is needed for some people but personally I'd rather just have a higher drop rate in the mission itself rather than it basically being the bulk of the rewards... if this is supposed to be 'end game' then the rewards should also be 'end game', kuva, rivens things like that imo.  You could have added in faster focus gain or something too.

It's restricted to one run per hour.... we've been asking for 'end game content' for ages and you give us something we can do once per hour....actually who am I kidding, I've been wanting the star map to have a 'high level mode' for ages and I'd rather have that over this 'once every hour' mission type thing.  Some of us want higher level content but don't want to do 'endless' missions, arbitrations doesn't change anything for those of us who would basically like to play the star map, just with harder enemies.....

I might feel different if I go in with clan mates rather than a public group but I doubt I'll be doing much of it, I sure won't be rushing onto the game every night to play arbitrations lets put it that way.  Odds are I'll do enough to get a few things from the guy in relay and then it will sit gathering dust.

 

edit, the morning after posting lol: I've only seen power strength or weapon damage buffs, is that it, if it is why is there no increase to armor or health etc as a modifier?

Edited October 14, 2018 by LSG501

[ReshyShira]

Here's my idea to overhaul arbitrations, as in their current form they come off as rather boring, repetitive, and not as challenging as players were led to believe.  It doesn't give what Veterans really want (access to really high level enemies to fight) but rather goes in the opposite direction of making extremely long, boring games that are everything people hated about endless modes but even more so.

Arbitration Difficulty Levels:
Arbitration enemies are currently sortie-level only, which isn't anything we haven't already done before, just the missions take far longer and the rewards can be far less.  So here's my idea:  Make Arbitration tiers that scale rewards and drop rates in conjunction with their level tier:  Level 100-200, Level 200-300, Level 300-400, Level 400-500.  This allows players who really want a challenge to jump straight into the deep end without needing to spend hours letting enemies slowly level up.  Furthermore, rewards from the tier should increase respectively, for example at Tier 1 (level 100-200) you might get 1 Vitus Essence per rotation, but at tier 2 (level 200-300) you might get two Vitus essence per rotation, as well as having increased odds of getting rare stuff off the drop tables.  Arbitration levels can scale theoretically endlessly, like regular missions, and scale their rewards appropriately, though players cannot start at a tier higher then 4.

Variable Durations:
Arbitrations currently take wa too long to complete and scale very slowly in difficulty.  This  will retain the current ABC rotation cycle, but take half the time to get to that level (5 waves, 5 minutes, etc. per rotation).  After the A rotation, enemies should have scaled +33 levels since the match started, on B they should a level of +67 from their base, and by the end of rotation C they should enter the next tier at +100 levels.  Once you have gone through a lower level rotation, the game will load the next higher-level rotation, improving the drop tables accordingly as well as starting the level up cycle all over again.  This means that enemies will very quickly gain levels over the course of match, rather than a very gradual increase in levels.  So, over the course of an hour long survival (ABC-ABC-ABC-ABC) enemies will have gone from level 100 to level 500 in that time.

Return Bleed-outs:
Currently in Arbitrations, you die instantly without any revives in Arbitration, this is fine and all but it causes several issues in that you can just straight up die because you didn't immediately refresh your shield buff when it ran out.   I'd recommend reintroducing the Bleed-Out times to allow some level of forgiveness in the game mode, but in conjunction with the very large increase to enemy level scaling.  Furthermore, with the bleed out timers being your primary means to be revived it gives a mod such as Undying Will a niche when it is otherwise not very useful.

Arcane Revives:  
Similar to returning bleed outs, I believe Arcane Revives ought to be included as your secondary means of reviving.  Arcane revives right now are in a place where they rarely ever matter since you get 4 revives at the start of each mission, if you make your base revives start at 0, and then be increased by your arcanes up to a maximum of 2 revives this I think would make really testing your end-game equipment matter more as Arcanes matter more.

Earning Revives:  
After each rotation, any players who are currently dead are given the option to lose that rotations rewards and respawn, or to keep the rewards and drop from the game (So if they die in the middle of Rotation B, they keep their Rotation A reward if they respawn, but not the B reward).   At the end of each Tier everyone gets a free revive, and if players have dropped the game temporarily opens up so that people looking for the newly achieved tier can join this game that's been in progress for a while.  DE should also prevent the Anti-AFK from activating for dead players who are still actively watching the game/chatting.  

Better Reward Tables/More uses for Vitus Essence:
Right now the drop tables for Arbitrations are the kind of things you don't need:  Endo.  While Endo is a nice if you have mods needing it, by the time players can access it they likely don't need that much Endo anymore.  However, the sculptures are slightly better as a drop, as they are a form of Endo you can trade, so I'd recommend dropping all of the raw Endo drops in favor of the sculptures.  But, besides for Endo rewards there should be a decent amount of other types of reward between the current Niche mods.  
Some examples that come to mind are:  Any Vaulted Relic, Kuva, fully-built Forma, a rare chance at Orokin Reactor or Catalyst Blueprints, a rare chance at a fully-built Exilus Adapter, Rare chance at Arcanes, Ducats, or more elaborate things like a chance at a mod from an Arbitration Mod Set or special Arbitration Weapons (like how ESO has the Lato and Braton Vandal).  Failing that, rewards could simply be solely given in Vitus Essence and instead revamping what can be done with Vitus Essence.
Right now Vitus Essence has a very limited pool of things that it can purchase.  If the reward table itself isn't meant to be enticing, then what you can exchange Vitus Essence for should be.  
Some examples of what Vitus Essence could be used to exchange for things beyond what I mentioned in the drop table suggestions (Such as Vitus Essence to Kuva or special Arbitration mods/weapons), to things such as being able to buy random riven mods, Arbitration Armor set for your Warframe, Arbitration Cosmetic set for your Operator, Pet/Sentinel Cosmetics, Arbitration Sydana, 3 day Boosters, or something more unique, such as a special Umbral Forma that creates the Umbra mod polarities?

 

Specialized Arbitration Arenas:
Right now Arbitrations does what ESO does, it just reuses old maps to try and make something new-feeling and falling flat because it's just the same thing as always.  Replacing the recycled maps we've all seen before with something entirely new (or using older deprecated maps with a new furnishing) would be an interesting change of pace and may make room for more experimentation.

Edited October 14, 2018 by ReshyShira