Arbitration drones, AKA tank favouratism

[Ghigog]

I don't make a forum post unless something really bugs me, and I've noticed recently that although I COULD use CC frames on arbitration missions, I would simply feel stupid for doing so. A lot of CC frames, like Nyx, Nova, Khora, Hydroid, even Frost, rely almost entirely on CC to survive. At the moment, it feels like 50% of group enemy spawns come with a drone. That means, that in a normal arbitration survival, there will always be a large portion of enemies that are free to do whatever they like to you.

The argument that one should focus the drone first does not apply any more. The idea of guiding the player by giving them an order in which to kill enemies in works in theory when it comes to ancient healers and energy eximus, because it's optional. But the drone FORCES us to seek it out, even if it's behind a wall, hiding in a corner, or even hiding behind other flying enemies. And when it's shot down, there is usually another one there to take its place right after.

I don't yet have enough experience as a game designer to confidently say this, but what a pain in the butt! And judging by a lot of other posts, a lot of people aren't having fun either. Something must not be right here.

The result of this unfortunate decision is that, as usual, people are just going to take tank frames. Chroma, Rhino, Inaros, you know the ones; the ones you see in almost every mission nowadays.

What weapons should we take to dispatch them? Yet again, we are free to choose whatever we like, but unless you take an AOE launcher or a shotgun, you're a fool. Why would you bother trying to hit this small, erratically moving target with a sniper from a distance, which is often half covered by many tileset's low ceilings (good for CC frames!), or waste time emptying mags from mid range, keeping your eyes off the ground-level enemies, when you can just walk into a group of enemies with Chroma and Arca Plasmor it away? Are these arbiters of hexis really adding difficulty if they're just making one type of play style more frustrating to use than another?

The biggest slap in the face is when you kill the drone, it kills the group of enemies it was protecting. That sucks! I wanted to kill those enemies. Maybe I wanted to use a certain ability on those enemies. Think Nyx, Nidus, Hyldrin, Trinity, Etc. If they don't die, the blast knockdown affects my aiming. Maybe I just wanted the satisfaction of killing them myself.

 

I like the idea of having a priority list of targets, but I DON'T like the idea that, in a game about customizing your playstyle, you are being "suggested" to play a certain way. This is a problem evident is so many different areas, but especially evident in arbitrations. Difficulty should be more FUN!!!


What's my suggestion to fix everything? Honestly, just reduce the spawn rate. Simple as that. I think the drones are a neat idea, and force you to think differently about a series of targets. If 50% of enemies are untouchable, then you won't be doing anything but looking for those damn drones all the time. If they spawn at, say, 15% chance, then you only have to deal with a few groups being protected, and they're also a lot more impactful. If you like, you can buff their range to offset this change, but not too much!

Another way of fixing it would be to simply let it be affected by abilities. This honestly seems so obvious to me, but I don't have the experience of having designed this game for several years, so I understand there must be some issues. Imagine a Limbo rifting the drone, making it instantly useless until it comes out of it again. Or a frost, slowing it down so that its enemies run out of its radius. Or a Nyx, an Ivara, a Khora, (CC is still useful even if they're all still immune to damage!) a loki teleport (when's the last time you used this ability?) an Oberon smite, to apply radiation proc... basically, it makes CC frames viable again! Hooray!!!

So am I an idiot? Or does this sound like a more fun way to play arbitrations? Yes I suppose this turns the difficulty down a bit, but if you're forced to use a tank frame, then difficulty means nothing to you!
 

There are already so many (better) user suggestions going around reddit, such as this one by u/littleowen92 which i think is very creative:

 

Until then, back to using Chroma...

 

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by Ghigog

[GinKenshin]

I can survive just fine using nova with the right build. Tank frames aren’t needed, you just need to be able to move and attack at the same time. It’s less tank favoritism and mid AoE weapon favoritism imo 

[Ghigog]

It's not that Nova CAN'T be used, but it's simply so much easier to take a tank. Also, that the drones themselves are lame. That's the nature of this post.

[(NSW)Fiftycentis]

2 hours ago, Ghigog said:

loki teleport (when's the last time you used this ability?)

Actually, an hour ago to make all saturn six fugitives close and capture in one go (too bad I can aim while using abilities on switch, it makes bullet jump/decoy/teleport tricks impossible)

Jokes aside, I never had problems with drones because I usually bring an ignis, or atm I'm in love with catchmoon, so I have a solution for them.

And like you I don't like that killing the drone automatically kills the group it was covering. I would love a thing like the different drones

Edited March 27, 2019 by (NSW)Fiftycentis

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

That different colored drones suggestion does sound great compared to what we have now. And it'd make us have to use different damage sources depending on the drone.

[Lazarow]

I would like to see the arbitration drone have different variations and effects applied to enemy units and the suggestion you have provided is seemingly reasonable compared to having a tiny drone that makes enemies immune to any type of damage. The current way I play arbitration is just stick to survival which is the best in my opinion and I use Inaros with lots of health, some armor his negotiation Swarm augment and Adaptation with Magus Repair on my operator to restore health fast after charging his 4th ability to generate scarab armor. For weapons I pick whatever for Primary, for secondary I use Catchmoon kitgun and for melee I use Glaive prime or in better cases I use Cassowar as I have a +range riven and primed reach so it hits a lot of enemies in a hoard including the drone, the catchmoon for open tiles that have high ceilings and for smaller and cramped tiles I just swing my melee at whatever moves. Tank frames have been what a lot of players use for casual and arbitrations, chroma and rhino are especially good as they provided damage increase while inaros can take a lot of heavy hits and dust them off.

[(PSN)death404]

Polearm Zaw with a long reach makes easy work of the drones. 

My only complaint was having to either quick melee or jump to a stance by equipping melee. No longer an issue w the new melee system.

I love that the drones explode, personally.

[(PSN)Mono-Pop]

5 hours ago, Ghigog said:

I don't make a forum post unless something really bugs me, and I've noticed recently that although I COULD use CC frames on arbitration missions, I would simply feel stupid for doing so. A lot of CC frames, like Nyx, Nova, Khora, Hydroid, even Frost, rely almost entirely on CC to survive. At the moment, it feels like 50% of group enemy spawns come with a drone. That means, that in a normal arbitration survival, there will always be a large portion of enemies that are free to do whatever they like to you.

The argument that one should focus the drone first does not apply any more. The idea of guiding the player by giving them an order in which to kill enemies in works in theory when it comes to ancient healers and energy eximus, because it's optional. But the drone FORCES us to seek it out, even if it's behind a wall, hiding in a corner, or even hiding behind other flying enemies. And when it's shot down, there is usually another one there to take its place right after.

I don't yet have enough experience as a game designer to confidently say this, but what a pain in the butt! And judging by a lot of other posts, a lot of people aren't having fun either. Something must not be right here.

The result of this unfortunate decision is that, as usual, people are just going to take tank frames. Chroma, Rhino, Inaros, you know the ones; the ones you see in almost every mission nowadays.

What weapons should we take to dispatch them? Yet again, we are free to choose whatever we like, but unless you take an AOE launcher or a shotgun, you're a fool. Why would you bother trying to hit this small, erratically moving target with a sniper from a distance, which is often half covered by many tileset's low ceilings (good for CC frames!), or waste time emptying mags from mid range, keeping your eyes off the ground-level enemies, when you can just walk into a group of enemies with Chroma and Arca Plasmor it away? Are these arbiters of hexis really adding difficulty if they're just making one type of play style more frustrating to use than another?

The biggest slap in the face is when you kill the drone, it kills the group of enemies it was protecting. That sucks! I wanted to kill those enemies. Maybe I wanted to use a certain ability on those enemies. Think Nyx, Nidus, Hyldrin, Trinity, Etc. If they don't die, the blast knockdown affects my aiming. Maybe I just wanted the satisfaction of killing them myself.

 

I like the idea of having a priority list of targets, but I DON'T like the idea that, in a game about customizing your playstyle, you are being "suggested" to play a certain way. This is a problem evident is so many different areas, but especially evident in arbitrations. Difficulty should be more FUN!!!


What's my suggestion to fix everything? Honestly, just reduce the spawn rate. Simple as that. I think the drones are a neat idea, and force you to think differently about a series of targets. If 50% of enemies are untouchable, then you won't be doing anything but looking for those damn drones all the time. If they spawn at, say, 15% chance, then you only have to deal with a few groups being protected, and they're also a lot more impactful. If you like, you can buff their range to offset this change, but not too much!

Another way of fixing it would be to simply let it be affected by abilities. This honestly seems so obvious to me, but I don't have the experience of having designed this game for several years, so I understand there must be some issues. Imagine a Limbo rifting the drone, making it instantly useless until it comes out of it again. Or a frost, slowing it down so that its enemies run out of its radius. Or a Nyx, an Ivara, a Khora, (CC is still useful even if they're all still immune to damage!) a loki teleport (when's the last time you used this ability?) an Oberon smite, to apply radiation proc... basically, it makes CC frames viable again! Hooray!!!

So am I an idiot? Or does this sound like a more fun way to play arbitrations? Yes I suppose this turns the difficulty down a bit, but if you're forced to use a tank frame, then difficulty means nothing to you!
 

There are already so many (better) user suggestions going around reddit, such as this one by u/littleowen92 which i think is very creative:

 

Until then, back to using Chroma...

 

 

For a lot of Arbitration content I use a melee Saryn. 

When it comes to the drones, if the situation is precarious and I can’t get a clear shot without risking my life, I swap into my operator.

Get close in void mode and remove the drone with fire from my X2X.

It can really kill the flow of a fight, but removing the drone almost always kills the entire pack it was protecting. So it’s valuable enough for me to keep doing.

[(PSN)thecoolman575]

Honestly the enemy damage is nerfed so hard in arbitrations that you don’t even need to run tank frames you can go with anything if you just want to go to the C rotation

The best tank in the game is the Ancient Healer specter it gives 90% damage reduction and immunity to status and knockdown so I can use the zarr without worrying about killing myself, and the enemies can’t even kill it because they don’t scale properly and I could just use protective dash if the specters health gets low

It sucks for frames who mainly affect the enemies though they are mostly not useful in arbitrations I agree with decreasing the spawn rate or making them affected by powers

But overall going 1 hr on mot survival is way harder than going 1 hour on arbitrations and the enemies on mot don’t even have immunities

 

 

[umadgurl]

I don't really have problems killing those drones with my Vectis. And even with my rattlegut it's more than easy to kill em.

But I agree that the Anti-CC from drones affects CC-heavy frames too much. There's ought to be better ways to similiarly affect all frames

[Kontrollo]

Tanks and AoE weapons are favoured by this design, no question.

However, the drones aren't that much of a problem, and I've brought CC frames into Arbitrations before. Encounters like Profit-Taker or Eidolons put a lot more pressure on Warframe choice than these.

 

The drones are fine considering the environment/design space the devs have to deal with (read: they're probably as good as we can hope for).