Squishy Casters added to Arbies, Gunplay for ESO?

[Drasiel]

While many people claim Warframe has no endgame it does have endgame activities.

So we're on the same page here's what I consider endgame activities:

• Soloable:
  • Sorties
  • Arbitrations
  • Elite Sanctuary Onslaught (ESO)
  • Kuva Farm
• Multiplayer:
  • Orb Fights
  • Eidolons

We're only going to be talking about the soloable activities. Right now Sorties and Kuva Farming is accessible to the play styles of both nukers and gun enthusiasts. This is great. However, ESO  is so heavily biased that it requires a no line of sight nuking frame in the party, or equipped if you ever intend to solo. This isn't my playstyle I don't like playing that way I enjoy kitting myself out for maximum survival and gunplay, powers are for emergencies. Thus I don't enjoy playing ESO. However,  I was okay with this, use the right tool for the job right? learn how to play the opposing playstyle and just grit your teeth and bear it.

Then came Arbitrations and I was actually super psyched for them. Finally, a game mode that catered to my kind of play style. Squishier casting frames weren't really able to participate, which was fine because you need to use the right tool for the job,  learn how to play the opposing playstyle and just grit your teeth and bear it. Then everything changed when the fire nation attacked When the Arbitrations Iteration 1 changes took effect. With permadeath mitigated by the revive towers, this reopened the door to the squishier casters and I was extremely disappointed. Now, this frustration isn't because other people are now enjoying "my activity". My frustration stems from the one item where my playstyle was desired being changed to open it to other build styles while ESO that caters to power spam has not been changed to accommodate players with my or similar playstyles.

If Arbitrations get to be opened up to non-tanky frames why can't ESO be adjusted to allow gunplay to get to roundC.

[ExcaliburUmbra]

I feel that the base premise of this topic is flawed, no offense. Arbitrations weren’t specifically designed to cater to “gun only” players, despite what the existence of Arbitration drones would have you believe. Depending on the mission type, nuke/caster frames are perfectly viable and often can make things go much faster. 

EDIT: Also if I recall right, the addition of the revive towers was more to address the issue of hosts leaving after dying then making more frames viable. 

That being said, I’d love for ESO to be changed to accommodate more frames and loadouts. Maybe the addition of more lenient efficiency requirements at first, or maybe addressing the (often map-dependent) spawn rate issues and giving us a constant flood of enemies to batter away at. Currently it’s a rather boring mode, especially when you have a Saryn in the group or are soloing.

Edited May 9, 2019 by FrostPrime

[Drasiel]

12 hours ago, FrostPrime said:

I feel that the base premise of this topic is flawed, no offense. Arbitrations weren’t specifically designed to cater to “gun only” players, despite what the existence of Arbitration drones would have you believe. Depending on the mission type, nuke/caster frames are perfectly viable and often can make things go much faster. 

EDIT: Also if I recall right, the addition of the revive towers was more to address the issue of hosts leaving after dying then making more frames viable. 

That being said, I’d love for ESO to be changed to accommodate more frames and loadouts. Maybe the addition of more lenient efficiency requirements at first, or maybe addressing the (often map-dependent) spawn rate issues and giving us a constant flood of enemies to batter away at. Currently it’s a rather boring mode, especially when you have a Saryn in the group or are soloing.

You are right they weren't designed to cater to gun only they were designed to cater to tanky endurance style builds. Which is the other half of my play style I mentioned with:

Quote

I enjoy kitting myself out for maximum survival and gunplay, powers are for emergencies

There is a light focus on guns for arbies though. The power immune drones need to be taken out with weaponry.

I agree the intent of the change likely focused on the Host migration issues but the end result still allows squishier frames to enter the mix since they can now be revived. Instead of having to adapt or change their playstyle they can now rely on others to pick them up when they overextend themselves. Perhaps this is an Unintended consequence? The warframe landscape is complicated and sometimes end results don't match with intent.

 

I've been trying to brainstorm ways ESO could be more accommodating

• Reduce/ giant Tile Size
  • There are several tiles that are unnecessarily massive this spreads out the spawns making group kills harder and causing lots of travel time between enemy clusters draining excess stability
• Review Multi-level tiles
  • There's a few of these that just end up draining massive stability Some tiles like the kuva ones have complex tunnels to navigate to get to the lower areas where the enemies cluster and the spawns seem to divide themselves between up and down in opposition to wherever you currently are.
  • The Orokin moon tile with the big golden thing in the center spawns most enemies off in a little side room unless you are fighting infested you have to go find that room or you will lose up to 50% of stability.
• Give Bonus Stability for weapon kills.
  • Right now you have to kill enemies at a rate that is not even sustainable with amprex or Ignis wraith. Giving a bonus to weapon kills would even out the disparity between NLS nukers and shooty shooty bang people.
  • AoE weapons will also be better at group kills and since they can headshot as well there is no point in separately trying to accommodate high accuracy slow fire weapons with a headshot bonus.
• Reduce the Range of ranged enemies
  • The range parameters for enemies seems to be the same for standard missions where there is a mix of tiles to move through and non-endless spawns, it is easy to be effective both defensively and offensively In this setup. When you are trapped in one tile with endless enemies ranged enemies make survival a bit of a pain unless you are constantly nuking enemies, which further reinforces the power spam meta.
  • Reducing range would also help on the bigger and multi-level tiles. Shorter range means enemies have to come closer bunching up for better group kills and reducing stability wasting travel time. You can get a feel for this when you fight infested in ESO they are the only faction that really comes to you.

[ExcaliburUmbra]

Great ideas for sure, and I am certainly on board with anything that addresses the tileset issues that plague the mode. Bonus efficiency for headshots is something I was thinking about as well, but you’re right in that there are many AOE weapons that would utilize that to completely outpace single target weapons.