Arbitrations Revisited

[OmegaComplex]

I've always thought that the best thing to do with arbitrations would be to cut the wave/time back down to 5, give players a bleedout timer, but they permadie if not revived.

And for pities sake change how the drones work, complete damage immunity for the enemies in their radius is just scummy. Mabye change it so that targets become a tempory eximus unit? or something similar atleast.

Otherwise its just way too much time and effort for such a small reward.

[TGDM]

So... What about revisiting Arbitration mission design so that they are all relatively equal in regards to time spent vs reward? Personally I won't bother going into one unless:

• Faction: Infested (or to a lesser extent, Grineer)
• Mission: Excavation or Interception

Defense and Survival feel awful for time spent. Corpus feels like just extra layers of tedium. Corrupted kind of have the same problem as Corpus, though mostly only because of Nullifiers.

Even when it's a pretty easy Infested Excavation arbitration I still find it taxing to stay longer because of how long you go between rewards. While accruing more Endo than I can ever use is nice, it does start to wear down on me when the drops I'm after never show up :V

[-Dabi]

Good changes but:

1) What about solo revive option? Or some sort of picking up revives in advance (like timer mission inside a mission - clear to get a revive)? As a solo arbi player, it would be a really nice addition.

2) What about adding an option for +300% power? Instead of always having a strength bonus, why not let us users choose 1 of 4? Or at least between range/duration/strength? I think it would open up further and also allow users to play different frames (the ones that are boosted). Same for weapons too maybe? 100% status or critical chance / critical damage boost / fire rate / blast radius / etc? These kinds of addition would bring in some variety and fun.

3) Argungun Rivens price? Would be nice to know early so people can start working on it...maybe? 

Looking forward to cosmetics. Hopefully purchasable Ephemera Blueprint. Thank you. 🙂 

 

[darkbrick]

using ivara in arbitration defence.. yea right..

[Canadian321]

Seems like the system has potential, but a few issues.

If there is no "opt in" system or manual pickup for Resurgence Burden then I'll probably be accidentally picking up things that debuff me because my teamamates are bad or out of their depth. Maybe leading to more elitism? Maybe just more mandatory Phoenix Renewal Oberon.

In my experience people die in Arbitrations because they simply can't handle the level of enemies that they're at. This will just mean they die again if they get picked up and that level will approach quicker because of increased scaling. This change seems to primarily affect the people that just oopsie'd their way into being dead which is fine.

Kind of a separate issue but these changes do nothing to changed that Arbitrations are a huge time sink, 10 minutes per interval on average, and that's just not fun. To speak nothing of the huge variable of whether a good mission is up on rotation, screw Defection. Archgun rivens not being behind rng grind and instead regular grind is cool though.

[Borg1611]

I did most of my arbitrations solo to not have to deal with migrations. I only did them long enough to get some mods I wanted. 

After all these months and all the feedback you received about why people didn't like the mode... these are the primary changes?

It doesn't address the lackluster random buffs system which is ignored half the time because you give a buff to a frame that doesn't make it worth taking either because it doesn't need or care about strength or because it's too fragile even with that buff or that frame doesn't have meaningful utility in whatever kind of map is up.

It doesn't address the duration vs. reward issues from one map type to another.

It doesn't address years old issues on various tiles like garbage spawns or lack of power cells for solo players.

Not impressed. 

[Chaemyerelis]

More rivens......yay.....😐

[jxfireruby]

Revival should be limited e.g. 5 per person. The pickups better be optional to pickup, I shouldn’t be punished because a stupid player comes in unprepared. 

[(PSN)ShikiAoi]

Nothing about Def arbitrations taking a lot of time, why dont reduce the drop to 5 

[Hellamina]

Please don't make the rotations shorter. This is a mode that rewards you for actually being able to concentrate for longer than five minutes at a time. It's the only mode that allows this. If people want the C tier rewards they can buy them all with plat except the ephemera. You only need to go to the first rotation of something for Vitus Essence as a 100% guaranteed drop.

 

While I'm not happy about this new revive system that I don't plan to use, I'm glad we're getting the scaling up. It should make it more interesting much quicker in missions.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

Arbitrations take too long, and the enemy density isn't there. Reduce to 5 min or 5 waves and increase the enemy density 100%. I want to be overwhelmed. Also reduce the arbitrations drones to 1. That's all I need. 

[(PSN)demishock]

DE, I have a lot of feelings about this. The tl;dr version is: Please reconsider this. I think you're trying to fix the part of this mode that ISN'T broken.

The long version:

There is a joke between me and my (two) friends who play Warframe that I am basically the bullet-jumping shambling corpse of our squad. I go down more in missions than both of the others, combined, because I studied at the Leeroy Jenkins school of gaming and I favor rushing headlong into danger and relying on strength over survivability...

...when I have understanding people around to res my fool ass.

Perma death is literally the entire point of Arbitrations, and I think it's fantastic! Me! The queen of being constantly dead! The ever-looming threat of mortality forces people like me, who generally favor a more "lol oops" method of playing, to actually have to strategize and gear differently and pay closer attention.

And the result of that has been that I have been dying with a little less frequency in other mission types.

Essentially, Arbitrations are forcing me to, as the kids say, 'git gud'. And it's fun!

What you seem to be trying to do here, though, is take Arbitrations and turn them into some sort of weird Index hybrid. If I wanted to do the Index, I'd go do the Index. If I wanted to get res'd, I'd go play any other mission type. I think, rather than making revival possible in Arbitrations, all you really need to do is stop treating death like a mission failure state. Meaning, if the point is to play until you die, then you should do away with extraction and let people play until they die, and then keep whatever resources they've collected along the way, rather than losing them like you would in a mission fail scenario. That way, it would become more of a resource farm in addition to the wave prizes, which I think makes the time between wave prizes less obnoxious. Throw in some new mod drops from the Arbitration drones and you've got yourself a party. (For context, the last time my friends and I ran an Arbitration, we were in a corpus mission, managed to rack up a decent chunk of oxium, and then the last one of us standing had to run to extraction in Operator void mode so we'd all get to KEEP said oxium. It was VERY STRESSFUL.) If someone wants to leave before their death occurs 'naturally,' they can let the enemies overcome them and peace out. [ETA] Or, at the very least, stick with the Index-leaning theme and give players the option of entering "Instant Death mode" or "Burden Revival Mode," like how the Index has different risk tiers.

Is this going to solve the host migration issues? No. But host migration issues are not unique to Arbitrations, and if you're using that as one of your primary reasons for this change, you're not really fixing the root of the problem. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've gotten booted from ESO due to host migration, either by disconnect or because the efficiency ran out while I was on the loading screen. But I digress.

All I really see you doing here is taking something that was fresh and unique and turning it into a mission just like any other mission, and it's kind of bumming me out.

You mentioned that this change would "shift the mission balance in favor of players" but as is frequently and unfortunately the case, this only shifts it in favor of players in a SQUAD. Anyone who solos Arbitrations is going to suffer from this. Anyone who plays with randos is likely to suffer from this. I understand that the overall attitude of the devs is "Warframe is a multiplayer game so we should always balance toward multiplayer" buuuut maybe, like... don't always do that???

Reading through all the reactions to this post make me wonder why DE doesn't straight-up poll us about changes like this. Propose change. "Does this sound like a good idea? Y/N." Rather than having to rely on someone to (I hope) read through everything and try to tally how many people are in favor and how many are opposed. My overall sense after reading through this thread is that people aren't loving it.

I have a whoooooole separate rant about Riven mods, but I'll save that for another thread. @__@

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this.

[kyori]

3 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

Expect a few new cosmetic rewards as well

May I know why nowadays cosmetics are locked behind extreme low drop chance as opposed to previously able to be bought with plat? 

Even new weapons are locked behind extreme low drop chance... I wonder why this change eh...

[AetherMcLoud]

Yeah, not sure if this is a good idea if using those resurgence things actually makes you easier to kill, like holding points in index.

 

Why would I risk my life and my arbitrations rewards for a random blueberry?

 

Just let people leave the mission on death with rewards intact. The goddamn UI even tells you "you will keep mission rewards and XP" yet YOU LOSE THE REWARDS if you click that button.

[Damocles]

The problem with arbitration is dragged out mission duration, poor rewards (let me know when Kuva can be redeemed), and the lack of incentives to put up with color blind bots. Those things are a big FU to all warframe abilities which makes whatever frame you choose to be irrelevant. Everyone uses tanks, because of these immunities, which by your definition of GAME BREAKING, fits the cake because "If I want to bring a warframe that will do something, it has to be Tanky Rhino, Tank Hildryn, Tank Inaros, Tank Nezha" which is no different from your Itzal vs k-drive problem!

I personally don't like the idea of revives. I will personally see to it that I INTENTIONALLY DIE so that the FU drones will start spawning debuffs for my team because I'm a toxic player! You can probably see where this is going. I will afk the lobby and debuff troll everyone in arbitration because that's the way you've designed it. 

Host migration is an entirely different issue. These spaghetti patches wont fix problems like

1. Losing all credits and progression in index due to host migration
2. Doors not opening because your host is desynced
3. Bypassing ESO reset as client
4. Sentinel's Regen and its primed variant doing nothing when host migrates
5. No sentinel, or pet, when you rejoin a game you d/ced from
6. Simply not loading into the game after host migration and you're permanently stuck flying your (cosmetic only, function-less) ship
7. No longer able to deploy your archgun because despite not having used it, the 5 minute penalty is activated on host migration
8. Laggy host despite changing the acceptance rating below 250
9. Seemless weapon switching (even after melee 2.999999999) you cannot pull out exalted weapons fast enough because host hasn't loaded it yet
10. Lack of damage numbers or latent damage numbers due to host processing being backed up.

Sorry if this seems a bit rude, but a wake up call is necessary for when a bad game design is getting worse! But I can say that making the enemies scaling normal is perhaps the only right direction you're heading down, and I appreciate that!

[QuietCricket]

75-100 endo for each point i'm contributing with and i'd be all for it.

[Strontium-Dog]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)demishock said:

If someone wants to leave before their death occurs 'naturally,' they can let the enemies overcome them and peace out.

...then you will need a "suicide" button because tanky frames are...well tanky...and being overcome may take a while.

[kotex073]

Not liking the revive idea at all, this might work in a premade group but not in public sessions.

This only means more solo sessions, i see this as a step in the wrong direction.

[Kimimoto]

4 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

The most polarizing of these issues is Arbitrations’ lack of revives.

Why are you making this game mode easier? Can the starting level finally be 100 now, instead of starting sortie levels? Level 60 is too easy for veterans, being able to revive teammates is too easy for veterans. Why is this game mode being brought in the opposite direction of what it should be?

I think I know why, stop listening to the community they're not looking for endgame. Do what your vision was from the start in-terms of difficulty.

[Hi_Im_Chuckles]

*cracks knuckles*

Where do i start... 
(TL;DR at the bottom)

Firstly, arbitrations are not endgame missions, the enemy level off the start should be higher, the enemies should scale normally (honestly noone knows why this wasnt right off the bat). 
Secondly, The problem with arbitrations is that it is not challenging but instead annoying because of the drones. 

''The most polarising of these issues is the lack of revives'' I cant even comprehend this.

First of all: The no revives thing makes no sense in on itself when regular endless missions are harder and they have revives, it doesnt make it any harder just annoying and limits the frame choice to Inaros or wukong because these frames dont care for random ticks of damage that 1 shots every other frame.
Most people that die are low MR players that dont understand the concept of endgame mission means hard mission (but i digress, if they want no revives fine let em have no revives).
however the pickups must have an option to be picked up i refuse to be crippled permanently because some noob died right off the bat.

Secondly: The issue is the invincibility drones they are nullifiers on steroids, rare things in the game are as annoying and anti fun, at the very least nullifiers have a set range of protection and can be damaged by exhalted weapons.
If you want Juggernauts so badly just make a higher % of Eximus spawns (dont overdo it to sortie level though, theres a limit to things)

Thirdly: Rewards. Stop being scared to rewards the players i dont know an easier way to put this.
The game mode is supposed to be for veterans, ayatans are fine, what isnt fine is endo especially when you get 3x the ammount in Arena for the same time spent.
The reason people dont play arbitrations is because they take so god damn long my clan mates and I only play (if we do) when there is either Excavation or Interception for a reason.
If the rotations were normal (5 mins, 5 waves, etc...) we would be fine even if we get 40% of the ammount of a reward we'd get for 10min, 10wave, rotations. 
Which is a good segway to my next point.

Fourthly: Actual rewards, give us a reason to play them. Endo, Endo, Endo, and 2 useful mods... who is this gamemode for again?
Give us actual reason to play this because as of now, we get the 2 mods, seeding step and some vitus and Bam, Never have to play again. 
The rewards we want are built forma, Kuva (cca 3000, which is just under 1 roll), Endo that scales key word here scales with the duration of the mission (and larger ammounts, as of now doing arena is 1.67x faster and over 3x as fast with a booster to get endo), Rare mods, even Veiled rivens why not, honestly why not?.
cosmetics like syndanas and armor are also a great idea for the Vitus vendor.
Hell, put umbral forma in the vitus endor i guarantee you all veterans will be spamming arbitrations then.
Releasing umbral forma crossed the point of no return meaning there is no reason why we shouldnt have more.

''we will be adding a new reward mentioned long ago - Archgun Rivens''   HAHAHAHAHAHAHA do i really even have to say anything?
First of all noone plays archwing, the gamemode is boring and unrewarding, everyone agrees on this and i mean everyone. (okay i admit, like the conclave there might be those 30 players out of 51,000,000 registered who actually like and play it).

Secondly, give us a good reason why is there a 90 riven cap?
Whats the point in adding rivens in general when we are at capacity?

Considering you can use archguns in normal missions now i understand the appeal however

TL;DR:
- Increase enemy level 
- change or better yet remove arbitration drones (replace them with higher eximus spawn %)
- change rotations to every 5 instead of 10 i cant stress this enough
- give us actual and meaningful rewards 
- Tweak rivens

 

hopefully DE might see it and we dont get this:
new update: 
-literally nothing we want gets implemented
-wisp parts drop on rotation C of arbitrations
-arbi drones now have rotating damage immunity like the proffit taker
-abilities now go on cooldown if overused like ESO
-we still dont get actual endgame ever since void keys got murdered

[zekkzekk]

my problem with arbitrations isn't people dying. for the most part players are smart enough to prepare for that. instead the drones are so bad for gameplay. i'm not going to complain about them making enemies immune to damage or warframe abilities. i will comment about how killing drones makes clearing trash enemies futile. when i'm playing arbitrations i'm not killing enemies, i'm killing drones and exclusively drones because they do such insane quantities of burst dps to everything they were previously protecting moments ago. this isn't fun. i was warframe because it's a hordeshooter and cleaving through many enemies is fun. looking for and shooting a single bomb that's floating above a horde's collective head isn't what kept me playing this game.

[Stoner]

Funny I and a lot of people really like the no revive mechanic.............. It felt different. Now it'll be worse and have to grind to get your squadmates revived... I dont like it

[Guest]

I've been sitting at 90/90 rivens for over a year, and I don't even have rivens for all the things I'd like them for.  What the heck am I going to do with archgun rivens?!

[-JT-_-R3W1ND]

2 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

These pickups function similar to Index points (otherwise known as “Financial Stress”), debuffing the players who carry them. 

So you're saying that not only do I have to take care of the weak, untrained members of the random group (if we're talking about host migration), but I'm also getting a debuff for my efforts, not an award? Sounds legit.

I'm sure everything they're gonna do to help, risking their lives. It will be especially helpful to know that if I am the only one who is ready to help, I will have to carry all five sacrificial stones around my neck. Simultaneously.

 

2 hours ago, [DE]Connor said:

Since this shifts the mission balance in favor of players, we plan to compensate by making enemies scale at the rate they do in other mission (instead of the reduced rate of scaling that Arbitrations have now).

Oh, i have so many questions here!

1. Does anyone on your team know that your scalping system is broken a little less than completely? This is especially true for the armor. Don't get me wrong, personally I don't care at all. I can handle it.

Current Health = Base Health × ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )² × 0.015 ) This is your formula. What does it mean? Let's take Heavy Gunner as an example. Base LVL8, 300 HP

LVL8    —        300  HP

LVL60  —     12464 HP

LVL80  —     23628 HP

LVL100 —    38388 HP

LVL120 —    56748 HP

LVL140 —    78708 HP

LVL160 —  104268 HP

So, lvl60-80 mean dispersion in numbers is twice as high. But is looks like only quater, or only 20 levels.

And dont foget about armor! Check this out, wiki now have cute feature! EHP calculator at every page! So, from 140000 EHP at lvl60 we are going to 2000000 at lvl160. Wonderful, isn't it?

2. It seems to me that when someone made a decision to reduse level growing, he had that as a reason. Or me and my friends are the only ones who stop because this mode is surprisingly tedious and you have statistics about the long runs for a few hours? Are you sure you're up for it?

3. Is this mode really so rewarding that no alleviation is possible without drawbacks?

 

So, to summarize.

Those who have gone through this mode without problems get more troubles with outgoing and incoming damage without anything in return, except a difficult moral choice. Should I revive this poor Tenno, who died three minutes after starting this mission? Is it worth the time? And in the end, am I ready to die in the process?

At the same time, people for whom this mode presented some difficulties (as probably should be) get a unique opportunity to die once or twice by accident. In exchange for a significant worsening of conditions for them and as a result - the reduction of the award (long run -- more C rotation).

Honestly, i don't think permadeath is a problem in any way. It was fun, after all. Maybe I'll feel a little better knowing I might die. Or I'll lose the pleasure of knowing that I was working at the limit and won. And someone will lose the opportunity to think that their defeat is just an accident.

 

[(PSN)demishock]

32 minutes ago, Strontium-Dog said:

...then you will need a "suicide" button because tanky frames are...well tanky...and being overcome may take a while.

That's fair. I tend to go on Saryn because she's who I'm most comfortable playing these days. Would not be opposed to a self-destruct button of some sort, especially if it ragdolled you to hell and back like when you wipe out on your K-drive, haha. My main point was that I think if we're going to have a mission type built around the death mechanic, then it shouldn't be treated as a fail when you do, eventually, die - however that death occurs.