Apparently DE will implement some changes to Arbitrations, what would you like to see?

[--END--Rikutatis]

This was mentioned in last night's prime time. Arbitrations might get some changes, including more rewards added to the pool. What would you like to see changed to give the game mode more longevity?

Honestly, I'm not too concerned with the rewards, endo is perfectly fine for me to max and sell primed mods for plat. Some exclusive looking cosmetics like faction armor would be cool though. 

But what I really, really want to see is the challenge level increased. It's just so disappointing that this game mode that was supposed to be for veterans starts at a lower level than even sortie 3/kuva flood and the enemy levels scale MUCH slower than in regular starchart endless missions (in Arbitrations at the 3h mark enemy levels are still below 300, in a regular endless mission they'd be at 1.2k+). Like, honestly. Just give the enemies a starting level of 100, let them scale normally and make the reward rotations be the regular 5 min / 5 wave / etc. intervals; those changes would make Arbitrations my favorite game mode by far. 

 

Edited January 18, 2019 by --END--Rikutatis

[Loza03]

Hm.

Well, I'm personally comfortable with how they work as a challenge.

For rewards, I'd like to see more meaningful-looking cosmetics. Armour sets and a syandana, as well as mods in the same vein as the current ones.

[SafeRoom]

I myself would like to see Weapons/Weapon Skins added to the reward table. That & Armor Pieces & Syandana's too.

[NightmareT12]

Honestly? I suggested it on the Devstream topic: Wouldn't mind some new Prime items there that will never be available in PA. Magistar, Nami Solo, Archwing stuff, etc.

[DrBorris]

The Arbitration meta is, IMO, really bad. It is just to grab a tanky Warframe and shoot. CC Warframes are beyond dead in that mode because most of them need their CC to stay alive. So, crazy idea, have the abilities of the Warframe that you have on rotation (the 300% boost) ignore the drones. Yes, this would lead to some Mesa and Saryn cheese if people got lucky, but that is a fair price to pay. As it stands you generally just ignore whatever Warframe gets the boost unless it is a tanky Warframe to begin with.

And as for weapons, their meta is basically "something that can hit drones easily". Which is, shock and surprise, a small niche. Again, unless the weapon that gets the boost i something you would already use, you are not going to really care. So give weapons the same treatment as I proposed for Warframes, weapons on rotation ignore the effects of the drones.

This would make it so the gear you had on rotation for the Arbitration actually encourages you to step outside what you generally use rather than be ignored by the vast majority.

And I know you aren't forced into the tanky Warframe AoE meta, but Arbitrations are so heavily biased towards that you put yourself at a major disadvantage.

 

Inb4 "muh challenge"

[LordPantaloonsthe3rd]

I sum up my thoughts on what I would like to be done here

but the short version is:

1. Remove frame power and weapon power boosts completely- Obviously

2. Raise the starting level- Though this is a minor complaint as 60 is still loads better than starchart levels. Going back to 80 like it was before it was released would be nice but staying at 60 wouldnt be a bad thing as the enemy level would still pick up quicker than anywhere else outside of eso.

3. Remove the nuke and knockdown from drone explosions- It does too much damage and the knockdown gives the already hard pressed AI an even harder time of fighting us.

4. Have the invincibility affect from the drones taper off after a drone dies instead of disappearing immediately- For example, after a drone dies any previously affected enemies could have damage/status resistance that reduces over time say 15-20 seconds, starting at 95%-ish and reducing over time. This would make it so you actually still have something tough to fight after they lose their invincibility.

5. Add modifiers like you get on sorties that change every reward rotation- For example, elemental/physical resistances, disable primary/secondary/melee weapons, environmental hazards, reduced energy/health and more eximus units. There could also be shield/health drains, armor decay, temporary ability locking(like simaris does in ESO). Rotations of specific enemy types like an all Grineer heavy rotation consisting of only gunners, bombards, napalms and nox, or an all Ghoul rotation, or Corpus Terra units, or an all Corpus machine rotation with Raptors, Hyena packs, Ambulas and jackals.

[-Temp0-]

I would really like to see.

REWARDS.

For once.

Just once.

[IceColdHawk]

16 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

The Arbitration meta is, IMO, really bad. It is just to grab a tanky Warframe and shoot.

That's unfortunately also due to how arbitrations scale. You can stay for way too long until enemies start to get dangerous to an Inaros. I mean, you could still take him and do a full ABC rotation and leave but if you intend to get the most out of rotation C, you gotta work harder than pick an undying frame once they fix the scaling.

About what i want for arbitrations? More good rewards such as Kuva, a resource that you can NEVER have enough of (which means endless replayability) and ALSO make it harder, let enemies scale faster but reward us EVERY interval and not every second like it is now. So people don't have to sit half an hour in a survival just to get 1 rotation C reward. More difficulty, less tedium. Please. Thanks.

[Amhiel]

I would ask for just 2 things, one important, the other not so much. 

The important one: reasons to play it. That is, probably interesting exclusive varied rewards. Endo is good but unless I'm in dire need of it because I just acquired a new primed mod to max I don't have any reason to go back there. 

The not so important one: 5 minutes/waves rotations, even if it means reducing a bit the quality of the rewards (maybe create a new type of ayatan sculpture for the game mode). The 10 minute rotation fail to keep the engaging in the mission enough to keep you going specially when the expectation of the reward is not so great. We need those endorphines pumping. 

And that's it. Tweaks to the mechanics, AI, enemies etc. Are welcome but I think the first step is making people want to play it and stay in it. 

[Teridax68]

As others have already mentioned, more minor changes I'd like to see:

• The starting level raised to 100.
• The enemy level scaling significantly increased. Increasing enemy levels by 1 every 36 or even every 18 seconds would allow us to reach level 200 or 300 enemies within the first hour of an Arbitration, respectively, which I think would fit the mode much better than its current pace.
• Removal of the blast/knockdown to Arbitration drones -- it's fun to blow up crowds of enemies, but currently this just makes the mode even easier when it's meant to offer one of the toughest challenges in the game.
• Fully starred Ayatan sculptures as part of the reward table, if only as part of rotation C or beyond.
• Significant Ayatan Star drops.
• The option to directly purchase Ayatan Stars and sculptures for some equivalent amount of Vitus Essence, which would make the mode much more consistently replayable for fashion frame purposes (also Endo farmers, though Rathuum's likely to still be more efficient).

Beyond that, though, I think Arbitrations as they currently exist aren't really conducive to a real challenge, and mostly just constrain the challenge they offer to a small selection of frames, usually tanky frames. There is rarely, if ever a reason to pick a squishy frame into the mode, and Arbitration drones themselves invalidate more ability-reliant frames, rendering overstatted frames like Inaros more viable by default, despite the resulting playstyle being significantly less interesting.

Because of this, I think Arbitrations need to be expanded, by giving the player access to a gear item that would enable a configurable "Arbitration mode" in regular play. It could work as follows:

• The Gear item would be infinitely reusable, and would spawn a console the player could use to access their difficulty settings.
• The player would earn some proportionate amount of score, special currency, etc. relative to the difficulty they're imposing upon themselves, which they could spend at the Arbitration vendor, display on a leaderboard (which the Gear item could present as well), etc.
• Some example options:
  • Setting enemy levels against the user only (this basically means the player deals less damage and takes more damage).
  • Disabling revives.
  • Inflicting the user with any number of Sortie, Nightmare Mode, or Dragon Key modifiers, with the exception of the Radiation Hazard and Radiation Elemental Enhancement to avoid griefing. If the player has a Dragon Key already equipped, they automatically gain points from that.
  • Disabling the use of Gear items other than this one.
  • Randomly spawning Arbitration drones into the mission that only the user can see or experience, and which would affect enemies just like in Arbitration missions (which shouldn't affect enemies once it's destroyed, as mentioned above).
  • Disabling advanced parkour maneuvers such as double jumps, bullet jumps, wall jumps, and wall latches.
  • Causing the user to fail the mission if an alarm is triggered, other than the Survival alarm.
  • Disabling all of the user's equipped mods and arcanes.
  • Disabling the player's damage and status on anything other than a headshot (with maybe the exception of bosses whose weak spots are elsewhere).

There are quite likely many more ways to implement difficulty in this way, but the general idea here would be to give players access to a full set of configurable options that would affect only them, so that they could make a challenge for themselves in any mission, and also earn bragging rights in the process.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Teridax68

[(PSN)Killjoy20]

I would like to see the ability to choose your warframe but the ability is a one time use item that is bought from the Arbiters with the Vitus Essence

[(PSN)TheThirdLie]

On 2019-01-18 at 10:15 AM, IceColdHawk said:

That's unfortunately also due to how arbitrations scale. You can stay for way too long until enemies start to get dangerous to an Inaros. I mean, you could still take him and do a full ABC rotation and leave but if you intend to get the most out of rotation C, you gotta work harder than pick an undying frame once they fix the scaling.

About what i want for arbitrations? More good rewards such as Kuva, a resource that you can NEVER have enough of (which means endless replayability) and ALSO make it harder, let enemies scale faster but reward us EVERY interval and not every second like it is now. So people don't have to sit half an hour in a survival just to get 1 rotation C reward. More difficulty, less tedium. Please. Thanks.

Or just take Mesa and find a high ledge... no tank needed. 😄

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

I'd like to see them rotate faster than 1 hour....

 

[Elementalos]

On 2019-01-18 at 6:55 AM, DrBorris said:

The Arbitration meta is, IMO, really bad.

So much this. Warframes and the cool stuff they can do is one of the main things that makes this game stand out and yet this supposed endgame challenge is set up to disable huge chunks of that.

There has to be a better solution to CC chains and room destroying abilities than essentially just turning off Warframe skills. 

 

Normalizing the reward rate also feels super important. Might be a little unbalancing with the current reward system but I feel like having to wait 10 minutes per feels too slow and it makes acquiring rotation C stuff feel tedious. Not hard, tedious.

[Arcira]

There isn´t really much they can do by a revisit. Most of the reasons why endless runs like arbitration don´t feel fun or accomplishing have actually nothing to do with the game mode itself rather than other things like scaling, damage and overpowered warframes. For those who say there are no rewards ... maybe you should rethink your definition of rewards. Endo is next to kuva the only thing you could see as some kind of progression system. And the mods are quite powerfull.

Anyway Arbitration is far from perfect for example the average time for rewards need to be adjusted. Excavation and Interception are the most efficient mission types. I think the time for survival and def needs to be reduced drastically. And the drones are a pain for anything that isnt a tank.

And for those who want "more difficulty" .. nothing in this game is difficult if you have the access to a decent team. There won´t be any changes beside inflated prices on the trade chat because casuals can´t get rewards with a reasonable amount of effort. Adaptation is already at a average price of 90p far to much for a more or less mandatory mod.

Maybe what people mean with "rewards" is a better progression and modding system. But as I said that´s nothing you can achieve by reworking a gamemode. Because of that I´m kinda sceptical there will be much of an improvement.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Arcira

[--END--Rikutatis]

21 minutes ago, Arcira said:

...

And for those who want "more difficulty" .. nothing in this game is difficult if you have the access to a decent team. There won´t be any changes beside inflated prices on the trade chat because casuals can´t get rewards with a reasonable amount of effort. Adaptation is already at a average price of 90p far to much for a more or less mandatory mod.

Honestly, at this point all I'd like to see is for enemy levels to scale at the same rate as they do in normal endless missions and for the starting level to be around 80. That's it. It will make absolutely no difference for public matches squads, they never stay longer than 30 min for the most part anyways. It makes no sense whatsoever that a game mode that was described by the devs as a challenge for vets has enemy scaling MUCH slower than regular Starchart missions. People who don't like bullet sponge enemies and one shot kills can extract while it's still safe and those who enjoy that kind of high enemy level difficulty can have access to that content without having to spend 4 hours inside a Starchart mission with no meaningful rewards whatsoever. Allowing enemy levels to scale at a normal rate instead of this dumbed down version won't affect the gameplay of casuals at all. 

[Arcira]

16 minutes ago, --END--Rikutatis said:

Honestly, at this point all I'd like to see is for enemy levels to scale at the same rate as they do in normal endless missions and for the starting level to be around 80. That's it. It will make absolutely no difference for public matches squads, they never stay longer than 30 min for the most part anyways. It makes no sense whatsoever that a game mode that was described by the devs as a challenge for vets has enemy scaling MUCH slower than regular Starchart missions. People who don't like bullet sponge enemies and one shot kills can extract while it's still safe and those who enjoy that kind of high enemy level difficulty can have access to that content without having to spend 4 hours inside a Starchart mission with no meaningful rewards whatsoever. Allowing enemy levels to scale at a normal rate instead of this dumbed down version won't affect the gameplay of casuals at all. 

Sure faster scaling would be a fine with the current version. However what most people actually mean by "more challenge" is better rewards and I agree with them this should be the case. However the current system is very easy to abuse. I can see this might be a reason DE is hesitating to implement scaling rewards. And if you don´t get better rewards is there more of a reason to do a 4h arbitration run?

Edited January 23, 2019 by Arcira

[Akimbo]

Nerf Saryn, remove drones. Let's face it, drones exist because of OP AoE frames like Saryn and not being able to balance content around them. Spamming effects which disable what makes Warframes cool and unique...is not cool. Arbitrations are "get tanky, bring AoE guns". Remove the boosts to warframe power too.

Reduce the reward cycle back to standard instead of double - this is the biggest turn off for basically everyone I speak to. It makes Arbitrations slooooooooooooow.

Host migrations, people leaving due to dying "too early". Not sure what can be done about this.

Real rewards. Elite alerts were touted as "for veterans", but all they offer is a 98% chance at disappointment and a 2% chance at a 'meh' value mod.

DO NOT LOCK MORE CONTENT BEHIND ARBITRATIONS. Please, for the love of god, don't make them arbitrary if I want to actually work for new content. They are so boring and slow.

We continually get new modes which don't offer rewards that justify playing them. Arbitrations take this to the extreme.

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by Akimbo