My perception / how arbitrations should've been

[Tyreaus]

12 hours ago, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

it was purely that these drone feel like a) something that was never mentioned prior to release, I keep (relatively) up to date with WF news but I don't recall seeing anything. b) a fake tach-on to falsely hinder the playstyle we come and stay here for.

The presentation is a bit of a tack-on, I admit, but I feel like hindering the playstyle was the entire point. Granted there are some interactions (i.e. exalted weapons) that don't jive too well for what I think they were trying to do, forcing players to adopt alternate strategies isn't that far-fetched. Nullifier bubbles just about do the exact same thing, just to different extents.

12 hours ago, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

Okay so essentially it's a case of wanting all of it 😉

The mention of Orb Vallis was to provide some context as to the intensity and rewarding style of gameplay (enemies being chucked at you, all sorts of different CC, ranged gunfire) which started to hurt early on. I think you've drawn a false equivalency in that I'm talking about the action, the pace etc, rather than specifically the gamemode. I guess from that point we should talk that arbitration would be great on the open world areas, or that we go back to larger maps on SO/ESO, and rotate factions within the current round/wave. Maybe it's time for some of these newer enemies to make it into the mainstream tilesets? Albeit in some kinda modified form?

I also regard DE very highly in the optimising of their game engines and having seen the Orb Vallis pre-nerf, I noticed no real framerate drops even when the screen was in chaos and I'm only running a dated/modest little desktop at the best of times hehe

I draw the comparison only because of the information initially provided, which mechanically sounded more like ESO when you said you were hoping for Orb Vallis stuff. My bad on that.

Personally, if people have fun in OV, maybe that's just what Arbitrations should be: an area in Orb Vallis with open world units from Grineer, Infested, and Corpus. There's a few reasons why:

1. The problem with nuke frames trivializing things, which I think Arbitration drones are meant to combat, is that they can cover a tile and kill through walls. The size of the map doesn't change that: it's Orb Vallis's lack of walls that helps fuel the challenge.

2. It's easier to take the AI and design for existing Infested, Grineer, and Corpus units and put them together. Having them cycle means Grineer and Infested units need an overhaul to get to the level of excitement and quality as Corpus. Not that it's impossible, but it's a lot of extra work when mixing them together probably works just as well.

3. AI overhauls would be needed to get the new units working on smaller tilesets. Why not just leave them in their natural habitat and save the trouble? All three factions have spawn and traversal methods in open world environments so none need a work-over in that sense. Everything else becomes a numbers game with levels and spawns, which could be tweaked to ESO levels if desired (but still keeping Arbitrations its own monster).

4. It provides a trade-off: bunching together means more enemies ready to kill you and easier revivals, but you can spread out to lower enemy density yet run the risk of going down being it.

5. There's a huge opportunity to scale difficulty outside of levels: new enemy types as levels go on. They do this to a degree already, but it's not really enough. Mixing factions leaves no excuse for them not to throw in some Sentients, or a boss unit or two later on. The mode is all the reason for them to just go nuts.

That's my personal take, at least.

As for optimization, I've had some issues on the standalone client, but switching to Steam seems to have helped. Not a clue why...

Edited November 24, 2018 by Tyreaus

[mac10smg--Toa_of_Green]

On 2018-11-22 at 4:31 PM, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

Remove the arbitration drones, i'm not salty, just not a fan of artificial difficulty.

Um...

On 2018-11-22 at 4:31 PM, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

Starting enemy level, potentially higher than what we can spawn in simulacrum 160ish, or maybe at least post sortie level, starting 100ish.

 

[W4RM3CH4N1C]

11 minutes ago, mac10smg-ToaOfGreen said:

Um...

 

Please feel free to read the entire thread to provide you with some context.

[W4RM3CH4N1C]

11 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

Personally, if people have fun in OV, maybe that's just what Arbitrations should be: an area in Orb Vallis with open world units from Grineer, Infested, and Corpus. There's a few reasons why:

1. The problem with nuke frames trivializing things, which I think Arbitration drones are meant to combat, is that they can cover a tile and kill through walls. The size of the map doesn't change that: it's Orb Vallis's lack of walls that helps fuel the challenge.

2. It's easier to take the AI and design for existing Infested, Grineer, and Corpus units and put them together. Having them cycle means Grineer and Infested units need an overhaul to get to the level of excitement and quality as Corpus. Not that it's impossible, but it's a lot of extra work when mixing them together probably works just as well.

3. AI overhauls would be needed to get the new units working on smaller tilesets. Why not just leave them in their natural habitat and save the trouble? All three factions have spawn and traversal methods in open world environments so none need a work-over in that sense. Everything else becomes a numbers game with levels and spawns, which could be tweaked to ESO levels if desired (but still keeping Arbitrations its own monster).

4. It provides a trade-off: bunching together means more enemies ready to kill you and easier revivals, but you can spread out to lower enemy density yet run the risk of going down being it.

5. There's a huge opportunity to scale difficulty outside of levels: new enemy types as levels go on. They do this to a degree already, but it's not really enough. Mixing factions leaves no excuse for them not to throw in some Sentients, or a boss unit or two later on. The mode is all the reason for them to just go nuts.

That's my personal take, at least.

I gotta say, I can definitely get onboard with the ideas presented, I mean the idea of bringing in sentients having "boss waves" etc is really what I'm getting at and sounds awesome! Lets be scared when a secondary alarm goes off at completely random intervals

The AI overhauls would be time consuming for sure, but also I wonder if there isn't templates etc which could be ported over given the random tile generation capacity we already have, coupled with invasions/crossfires etc I'm still imagining arbitrations on the normal tilesets, and I think given careful selection alot of the open world enemies could potentially exist and function well on a vast majority of the tiles. That or as you say, a well selected cordoned off section of the open worlds to work within etc

A small rant about all of this. This is supposed to be for anyone who's completed the entire star chart, it's supposed (was supposed to be??) to be one of the highest difficulty modes and yet having to jump over enemies and run through mobs just to shoot the little guy hovering round the corner, just seems "off" to me, as always, we're all entitled to our own opinions and for many it provides a much needed diversity.

As mentioned it was more that I got "woken" up by the enemies in Vallis and we were genuinely being kept on our toes and laughing it was so much fun, the Devs clearly have the tools to create those kinds of gamemodes we want to go back to regardless of rewards, once in a while it's a good idea to just be bold and say "what the hell lets just give them what we got" hehe

I know this might be unpopular but I don't feel this should ever have been a mode which caters to the normal casual non-hardcore playerbase, and further to that someone mentioned only requiring rivens for this type of endeavour but once again I feel that's just 100% not true and players have been doing high level runs for years with a huge variety of tools without rivens, if it's satisfies those folks just say simply "no rivens or arcanes" just vanilla powers and weapons/mods but where would you draw the line?

In essence I've always felt DE created this cornucopia of different abilities they need to get creative with how the enemies deal with us, I was dead against nullifiers, but since their various changes I now find them a threat and not nearly as much cheese because we have a couple of ways of dealing with them, i.e. high RoF to the sheild itself or quick accurate shots to the drone, or drive into the bubble and kill the dude, it's variety.

At the moment the drones stop all incoming dmg to all connected mobs, I would suggest they give them a heavy dmg reduction/armour buff, increased HP, proto-oversheilds/proc resistances etc etc have them intensify auras, have them change the elements you need to deal with them or the mobs they are harbouring anything to add variety and again, keep people on their toes.

and again just to recap the enemy level was more just to give us more than a tickle for the 1st 40mins of the mission, straight in at the deep end, give us no real rhythm to get into.

[mac10smg--Toa_of_Green]

18 minutes ago, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

Please feel free to read the entire thread to provide you with some context.

Still not realizing the contradiction? Raising the level IS artificial difficulty.

Oh, and that 'context'? Completely lost on me.

I happen to not be one of those vets that 'freaking loved' the so-called difficult Fortuna enemies because they were literally no different to normal enemies besides just being more annoying.

Whether the enemy is level 60 or 600 is immaterial, because they will never be a threat in the fun sense until they get reworked from the ground up, and God knows when that will happen, if ever.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

The AI overhauls would be time consuming for sure, but also I wonder if there isn't templates etc which could be ported over given the random tile generation capacity we already have, coupled with invasions/crossfires etc I'm still imagining arbitrations on the normal tilesets, and I think given careful selection alot of the open world enemies could potentially exist and function well on a vast majority of the tiles. That or as you say, a well selected cordoned off section of the open worlds to work within etc

I doubt there are templates, at least for the things that make Orb Vallis enemies unique (Corpus unit drop-ins, MOA leaps - that sort of thing that doesn't seem to translate too well to "walls everywhere").

As for Starchart maps, ehhhh maybe, but again a lot of it comes down to the amount of cover and space. Realistically, that's what's caused issues with the Arbitration drones. As you mentioned:

1 hour ago, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

having to jump over enemies and run through mobs just to shoot the little guy hovering round the corner, just seems "off" to me

This is only a problem because they're hovering around a corner. Take that, put it in open plains, and you'd probably have nowhere near the same issue. Same sort of philosophy with this.

It's also just a time issue. If they were to work through new AI for everything before launching an overhaul, how long would we have to wait? And would the payoff really be that worth it? It might be better in random tilesets, perhaps, but if we're waiting the better part of a year or so to get it and it's only marginally better, is all that time and effort and frustration with current Arbitrations really worth it? (Keep in mind that the longer it is in its current state, the more of a reputation it acquires, for better or worse, so faster changes tend to be better on that front)

As you said, though, you could also rework the Arbitration drones. I'm more partial to throwing it into an open field to give it a little more uniqueness compared to ESO and other endless modes, but that's a paltry thing.

[W4RM3CH4N1C]

2 hours ago, mac10smg-ToaOfGreen said:

Still not realizing the contradiction? Raising the level IS artificial difficulty.

Oh, and that 'context'? Completely lost on me.

I happen to not be one of those vets that 'freaking loved' the so-called difficult Fortuna enemies because they were literally no different to normal enemies besides just being more annoying.

Whether the enemy is level 60 or 600 is immaterial, because they will never be a threat in the fun sense until they get reworked from the ground up, and God knows when that will happen, if ever.

I'll apologise upfront if i was stand-offish I felt your first post hardly served much more than to just take a select cutting to suit a quick quip.

Just to re-iterate, I feel that making enemies do more dmg and take less, along with stronger CC skills etc isn't the same as the arbitration drones in that they "arbitrarily" (in my opinion) stop all damage to all affected enemies, it's a specific gate rather than an slope to killing enemies.

I didn't say all people enjoyed the orb experience, this was purely my take on it, with a fair few hours in game I wanted to share it and open up the debate.

So the real question to kick it back to you, instead of stating where you think someone is incorrect in the terminology or stating what you didn't like, could you propose a potential solution? You mentioned something need reworking from the ground up, what would you envisage? Is there not a possible "half-way" house in terms of improvements that could be made which would make you happier in the short-term?

[(PSN)AllOrNothinDays]

The only thing that bothers me about the 1 life thing is arcanes. I wish they would be how you got an extra life. It's just weird to have the exra life provided by maxxed arcanes do nothing for you when you're far into the game but if they gave you that extra life in arbitration then that would make some sense to me.

[W4RM3CH4N1C]

10 hours ago, (PS4)AllOrNothinDays said:

The only thing that bothers me about the 1 life thing is arcanes. I wish they would be how you got an extra life. It's just weird to have the exra life provided by maxxed arcanes do nothing for you when you're far into the game but if they gave you that extra life in arbitration then that would make some sense to me.

See then you could argue that maxed arcanes would be almost a requirement by that point, and you'll get those who would argue they don't want to have to do Eidolons or stare at trade chat for hours on end. I mean we all know that ANY Pos arcane will do the job and will cost pittance but in the same way I would understand the point.

I would be akin to saying you could only join if you have "X mod" on your weapons.

I still think 1 revive is fine but a bleedout timer/team revive should be possible, or at least I'm feel certain they mentioned that was how it was going to be in one of the devstreams talking about it.

[Atsia]

4 minutes ago, W4RM3CH4N1C said:

See then you could argue that maxed arcanes would be almost a requirement by that point, and you'll get those who would argue they don't want to have to do Eidolons or stare at trade chat for hours on end. I mean we all know that ANY Pos arcane will do the job and will cost pittance but in the same way I would understand the point.

I would be akin to saying you could only join if you have "X mod" on your weapons.

I still think 1 revive is fine but a bleedout timer/team revive should be possible, or at least I'm feel certain they mentioned that was how it was going to be in one of the devstreams talking about it.

I can't say I remember that since every showing of Elite Alerts before they dropped had the one life rule with no bleedout.

[ranks21]

since arbitrations I have spent roughly about 2 hrs of playtime on this non evolving game, Fortuna just killed whatever enthusiasm I had for the game.

When devs gets over zealous in what they've been getting away with over the years (nerfing to please the newbs) it has left the game stagnant and boring. I have had my share of warnings for criticizing and soft bans for speaking on these kind of topics<> guess the truth really hurts.

 For us long time players, that have played really great games like Crysis, Battlefield (franchise), metal gear (franchise) skyrim just to name a few, before  playing Warframe knew the potential of this game. Boy were we ever so wrong. warframe is that house/building that has the frame work done but there is no walls or roof to complete the job.

too many unfinished projects (jack of all master of none). Just complete one aspect of the game, weve waited 6yrs. we have followed and supported your game for 6 yrs now, and all we ever wanted was a true high level kick you in the gut, oh sh!t warframe is badass mode, but at this point I don't think they could ever achieve that standard. it has become literally the game that could've been.

if you have spent atleast 1 year with this game, you'll know the only constant is nerfing and they are great at it now. nothing out of the ordinary in terms of being new. the formula is now set in stone and it's time to take the "beta" tag off we know how it's gonna end up, good for an hr or two maybe a day after release then a string of nerfs guised as hotfixes unintentionals blah blah. Failed!

I am searching my memory for good points and the ones that comes to mind is, Prologue at the start of the game(still no follow up), melee 2.0 and still searching for any other good points but its hopeless. I'm an old school gamer, played a lot of great games, but I cant say anything truly on the + side when it comes to warframe after 6yrs when it comes to fun and satisfaction I have had too many disappointments. remakes after remakes. I truly hope they figure out what they want to do with this game, whether it will be pet simulator or mining/ fishing simulator or live up to their title as Warframe ninja warriors.

 

ps: convince me on the latter.

 

[(XBOX)Arbalestier]

Forgot to respond simply because I don't bother coming back to the forums for weeks at a time but reviving people is the easiest chore in the game until you get to endurance levels of stupid arbitrary-inflation.  By that point you have some form of stun on the team, or an operator who can cloak and revive,or a Vazarin passive who can revive for you unless the team is useless and dying more than four times in a span of five minutes.  You get 4x revives on the frame and another 4x on the operator for those of you who don't run Vazarin.  This is usually ignored on Xbone as all I see are auto-revive spammers, and I intentionally leave them to die if they do that.

So no, a single life makes support Trins and Obis useful, and the no revive doesn't count for a competent Nidus player or gasp, someone using the Sacrifice mod on sentinels.  Get people to stop playing poorly and start rewarding people for playing strategically or at least without some form of meta crutch.

I also advocate disabling Nidus' passive and the Sacrifice mod in Arbitration.  Also to fix all forms of contact or spread power damage because people with Gara and Mag can still apparently hurt the drones with powers.