Suggestions for Improvements to Arbitrations Mode

[(PSN)Maunstre]

Dear DE;

Arbitrations has a lot of potential that is not being realised - to be both challenging and rewarding to play. Arbitrations / Arbies fails on both these facets due to being slow to ramp up and slow to reward. Arbies gives less challenge than Mot and offers less rewards for the same time invested. Arbies' slow reward dole-out has been a point of contention since its introduction and despite its intent to provide veterans a chance to flex by giving a more direct route to L100+ it's fallen short there, too. Currently Arbitrations only have one challenging aspect and that is as a test of patience (which is rather innappropriate for a game that is built on high-octane movement and rewards).

I believe that all of Arbies' issues could solved very easily, and that would be by implementing the following:

1. Reduce reward intervals to match those of regular gameplay - one reward per rotation instead of 1 per 2 rotations
2. Have enemies scale at double the speed of regular game modes

As an alternative, if the current pace of rewards is non-negotiable, please at least make the rewards worthwhile with:

1. Double / x2 rewards: each rotation gives two rewards, chosen according to the drop table (ex: x1 endo drop + x1 ayatan)

Bringing Arbitrations' reward rotations to be on-par with the rest of the game would help make the mode feel less of a disrespect of players' time, and ramping up the enemy scaling will in essence keep (and improve) the intended challenge that the mode is trying to employ. Arbies will give rewards and ramp up in challenge exactly the same as it currently does, just at x2 speed. Experienced players that are already able to strip-mine Arbies for everything it's worth will still reach the exact same limit of gains, just faster. The mathematical hard-cap of rewards versus absurd enemy stat scaling still remains the same. If the concern is the plat market, still the gains versus risk are the same.

I firmly believe this change will help make Arbitrations feel more worthwhile both in rewards and in engagement. The problem of Arbritation Drones is easily fixed with a shotgun, or the AI pathing getting a drone stuck on geometry far enough away that it does not engage with a bullet and therefore no further drones spawn. Speaking entirely of personal experience, as Arbies currently stands I can sit in Arbies survival for an hour and I'll be utterly unbothered by the level-based "challenge" of this mode. I could keep going, but I'd rather leave after an hour because I'm bored out of my gourd and would rather do something else. The slow dribble of rewards doesn't help. Even with infinite C rotations, in order to GET there I must invest at least 30 minutes to shoot for that 2 - 3% drop chance for one of the few mods I am missing, and if I can bear to sit around for another 30 minutes, I will only get three more attempts at that 2 - 3% drop chance.

I would love to play Arbies more. As some who is missing less than 20 items in the full codex, I've played everything WF currently has to offer into the dirt and I like it. But I still play for rewards, and Arbies is unrewarding despite the glimmer of promise of a potential challenge. It isn't worth the time investment in its current incarnation. Friends who also have invested 1,000s of hours into the game feel the same - they avoid Arbies entirely due to the terrible time-versus-reward investment required. Anything worthwhile is locked behind both a terrible drop chance and an absurdly high time investment requirement.

Please consider the suggestions above. Personally I think it will improve Arbitrations as an experience and that players will be more likely to engage in Arbies regardless of mission type instead of waiting for Infested Excavation.

Thank you for reading!

[K4RN4]

15 minutes ago, (PS4)Maunstre said:

Arbies gives less challenge than Mot and offers less rewards for the same time invested.

How did you compare the rewards and come to this conclusion? MOT gives relics, while Arbies give Endo/Statues and Points you can use to buy stuff. I am really curious as to how you compared these. 

[(PSN)Maunstre]

1 hour ago, K4RN4 said:

How did you compare the rewards and come to this conclusion? MOT gives relics, while Arbies give Endo/Statues and Points you can use to buy stuff. I am really curious as to how you compared these. 

The two are different on a couple levels; time investment, personal challenge, in-game rewards, and "worth" of in-game rewards. Mot gives rewards once every 5 minutes and gives a guaranteed relic of Neo and higher eras. Relics, especially Axi era, can be sold for plat, cracked for Prime parts that can be sold for plat, sold for ducats to buy things from Baro that can then be sold for plat, or built into a new item (assuming you don't crack forma). Everything Mot gives rewards-wise is a guaranteed 10%+ drop chance and can be sold. An intact Axi relic can be sold for 5 - 10 plat on PC if it's in sustained rotation. A radiant Axi relic in rotation can go for up to 40.

In terms of time investment, Arbies gives rewards once every ten minutes / every two rotations, already this is a loss. In terms of rewards Arbies gives Endo - which can't be sold, and sculptures and mods - which can be sold. Prices for the mods range pretty heavily. 50 plat for an unranked mod from Arbies seems to be the average on PC, which is rather surprising for something with such a low drop chance for such high time investment. A fully socked sculpture below Anansa hovers around 15 - 20 plat on PC.

How much endo itself is worth is dependent on the player, I think, and where they are in the game. Speaking personally I'm not hurting for Endo all that much and if I was, there are multiple ways to get it; melting mods, selling sculptures to Maroo, playing Rathuum, and passive gains by playing any other mode. If we're speaking purely by endo-gain-per-hour, Arbies is the best, and if upping the reward drop rate would be inadvisable in the face of this endo gain, I would still think it would be counterbalanced by the speed of enemy level ramp up. If a player can only last 60 minutes in Arbies as it is right now due to being able to deal with enemy stats, they're only going to last 30 if enemy scaling is moving at double speed. Their reward drop gain will be the same in both cases theoretically. (Same goes for Vitus Essence gain, and speaking of Vitus, whether or not there is anything of value to buy from the Arbiters depends on the player. I love cosmetics, but speaking entirely to personal taste I can't say the cosmetics in their shop are worth buying. I'll grab the mods and let the essence build in my inventory afterwards.)

Arbies is unrewarding both in terms of reward drop and just how unengaging it is as a mode. Challenge and engagement are their own rewards. Drones aren't all that exciting. Invincible enemies aren't exciting, they're a temporary annoyance and if I can get the drone stuck on a wall not too far away, enemy invincibility isn't going to be an issue at all. Arbies is meant to be "difficult" but I can't say it honestly "feels" difficult, not in terms of testing player ability at any rate. Arbies' sole difficulty is in asking patience from the player in a game that operates at and builds the player expectation of high-speed, and that's kind of a crappy challenge. Mot at least goes at regular speed with the added challenge of enemies dealing x3 damage.

[PrismaCat]

using player determined market values to dictate "value" is a slippery slope and a bad faith arguement - by this logic everything in this game sucks because i could just go do rush missions and make 160 plat an hour and evertying else needs buffs because in an hour of that i could buy a maxed rank 10 mod so buff everything, its just not logical. i do agree with you that arbs are not worth the time, as vodyanoi gives more endo by a huge amount, and with the recent disruption nerf, even bounties give more. given the removal of all standard rewards, arb is actually worthless to do, not because of a lack of endo but because you can get other things WHILE getting more endo elsewhere. that's just bad design for a mode that is suppoed to be "endgame" and "high tier scaling". vodyanoi can be accessed by a mr2 with a nekros and nothing else, and there they can enjoy 25k endo an hour. Meanwhile arbs give half that.

 

other solutions:

have arbs maintain their standard rewards, similar to fissures - i like this idea the most.

nerf vodyanoi and excavators. this would feel bad but probably make more consistency in play.

have all arbitrations reward at set intervals that scale to the game mode, survival could be 5-7, defence 5-7, disruption 4, excavators 3, etc. while halving the rewards, to increase consistency

 

The issue is not that 'we want more endo' its that arb is not even worth doing compared to content added in 2016.

Edited September 7, 2019 by PrismaCat