Why Arbitration Drones are a superior mechanic to Nullifiers.

[Lutesque]

1 hour ago, Loza03 said:

You don't even need an amp to be able to kill one in less than a full tank of void beam energy, so no not really.

So you say.... And yet I do have an Amp yet still find myself running empty before they die.... 🤔

1 hour ago, quxier said:

Things in this game looks amazing.... unless you want to play a game. I keep the settings "low" because of "overwhelming" effects (and because my pc is not good enough).

Me too... Although for the Orb Valli's I have to turn them up again so that the Snow doesn't blind me.... 

Apparently it's a lighting thing.... 

 

[UUDDLRLRBA_START]

On 2021-01-12 at 6:00 PM, Joezone619 said:

i would like to see a change to nullifiers to be more like the drones, where they dont just disable all your stuff, they just make them useless, they "nullify" them.

They'd work more like the Corpus Combas then.

[BDMblue]

I don’t see anything wrong with nullifiers. Like have we seen some of the CC DE #*!%ed up and gave to frames. Almost every single one can turn off a room of enemies or more for an infinite amount of time.

 

I honestly think that all factions need something to deal with are powers. Nothing is more dry then playing a game with a player who CCs or kills everything in the map before you see it. Think how bad defences are to play...

When I play with large aoe cc/damage frames I’m so happy when a nullifies shows up to give me a brief period of joy before the waiting simulator starts again.

[Bakaguya-sama]

3 hours ago, BDMblue said:

I don’t see anything wrong with nullifiers. Like have we seen some of the CC DE #*!%ed up and gave to frames. Almost every single one can turn off a room of enemies or more for an infinite amount of time.

I think you missed OP's point. His main complaint is that Nullifiers turns off all the buff on Warframes. He prefer the Arbi drone mechanic where it only grant ability immunity and doesn't strip Warframes of buffs.  

But I agree with you. Warframes has too many map wide nuke/cc that turn it into a dull waiting game (ignoring 5hr+ endurance runs which extremely few people do). I think every faction should get their own Nullifier/Arbitration drone mechanic to shield them from being perma stunned/ insta killed from beyond sight.  

[TheGrimCorsair]

On 2021-01-12 at 5:12 PM, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Nullifiers:
 

• Instantly remove all warframe buffs just by barely brushing up against the frame.  Go around a corner or have one spawn in a closet behind you and touch you with their bubble and even abilities that take all kinds of prep time to set up are instantly turned off.  This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen in a game.  Any game.
• Aren't supposed to have their shield go through terrain, but still frequently do.  This lets them turn off your abilities without you even seeing them sometimes.
• Have damage-gating on their shields so that harder hitting weapons are negated almost entirely.
• Shield respawns almost instantly after you take it down unless you kill the drone.
• Aside from shooting the damage-gated shield the only counterplay available to this awful mechanic is shooting the drone.  The drone has a very poor hitbox, is almost entirely immune to AOE damage like an airburst round blowing up right next to it, seems to have a huge amount of DR, and is hidden on the wrong side of the bubble most of the time because heaven forbid it just sit at the top of the bubble.
• Also, just as a nice hearty "#*!% you." to the player, the drone has probably clipped through the ceiling or nearby wall.

Arbitration drones:

• Do not turn off your powers, they just make it so you can't kill enemies without killing them first.  
• Only work on targets within range.  No disabling your survivability buffs through the goddamn floor.
• Their main defense is that they're small and harder to hit, meaning skill is involved in taking them down rather than arbitrary fire rate requirements or praying the hit box for the nully drone actually works this time.  It won't.  You're going to shoot right through it.
• You just shoot them.  Or melee them.  No insane damage gating.  No weird hitbox that barely functions.  No AOE immunity.  You just kill them before engaging whatever they were protecting.

I see people give Arby drones a lot of crap, but people seem to have gotten used to nullifiers.  I've been playing for 3 years.  I still can't stand nullifiers.

Arbitration drones effectively remove every single warframe that relies on doing things to enemies and not on self-buffs from the game and heavily devalues any weapon that isn't an area-of-effect attack, turning the game into even more of an AoE spamfest than it already is.

Ergo, they are flatly inferior to Nullifiers in their design which have a myriad of ways to be dealt with that involve a variety of decisions to be made to counter them both in mission and at gear selection, while also providing those tactics a level of risk that varies from 'frame to 'frame.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

4 hours ago, TheGrimCorsair said:

Arbitration drones effectively remove every single warframe that relies on doing things to enemies and not on self-buffs from the game and heavily devalues any weapon that isn't an area-of-effect attack, turning the game into even more of an AoE spamfest than it already is.

Ergo, they are flatly inferior to Nullifiers in their design which have a myriad of ways to be dealt with that involve a variety of decisions to be made to counter them both in mission and at gear selection, while also providing those tactics a level of risk that varies from 'frame to 'frame.

Pretty much anything that works on a Nullifier shield OR Nullifier drone also works on Arbitration drones.  There are several things that work on Arby drones that do NOT work on Nullifiers or their drones.  Arby drones are also not damage gated.  Both protect other enemies from "frames that do things to enemies" but only one of them doesn't completely invalidate frames with self-buffs.  Only one of them can turn off your buffs before you even know it's there by touching you through terrain.  It's not the Arby drone.

The math there looks like Arby drones are obviously superior, but it is a matter of opinion.

 

4 hours ago, Bakaguya-sama said:

Warframes has too many map wide nuke/cc that turn it into a dull waiting game (ignoring 5hr+ endurance runs which extremely few people do). I think every faction should get their own Nullifier/Arbitration drone mechanic to shield them from being perma stunned/ insta killed from beyond sight.  

The importance and therefore strength of any given enemy should be directly proportional to how many of them are on screen at once.  If we were only dealing with 4-6 enemies at a time I would agree that we should have more Fireballs and less Infernos.  More Tether Grenades and less Vortexes.  More enemy immunities and more required mechanics for each unit than just click/dead.  But the game that DE has designed is one that straight up requires dozens of kills per minute for several game mechanics, and encourages that same kill speed for the poor reward structures to be worth it. 

With very high kill speed you can run a defense round in about 3-4 minutes and you get 1 relic for that.  Would you rather it take 10 minutes for that same relic?  Think about the relic system.  You might run 10 rounds/missions to get a specific relic then run a mission to open that relic and still not get the reward you wanted.  11 missions done for what might be 15 ducats.  There is a reason speed murder is the meta in this game and a lot of it is the reward structures.  That speed meta combined with poor enemy design and worse enemy AI means that instead of 5 decent opponents on screen at once we get 15ish fodder enemies and 5ish pressure units if the spawn cooperates.  With that many enemies at once and the mechanical need (with things like survival and ESO) or desire (for faster reward gain) to speed through them it's no wonder the community leans hard into nuke metas.  Especially since DE keeps designing things with this exact gameplay loop in mind, regardless of the lip service they pay to different gameplay styles.

[TheBrsrkr]

It's the difference between a hard cap and a soft cap to power, and both are direly needed. Everyone likes soft caps, but they're hard to balance and hard to make fair. No one like hard caps, but hard caps are only put in place (if a dev team is compotent) when power scaling gets so high soft caps are trivialized. I still hate nullifiers as much as the day they came in, but they're still needed as much as the day they came in if the game wants a future. 

[cute_moth.npc]

Arbitration drones invalidate some Warframes that are reliant on Exalted weapons in order to function where using the exalted weapon wouldn't be at all "nuking" or skipping the content, and combined with the death penalty it does strongly push Arbitrations into using a tank and spamming aoe or melee.

Titania is affected particularly harshly by this, she has to exit Razorwing and become extremely vulnerable. Even a frame like Mesa who can't use regulators can still keep her defensive bonuses. The drones sort of really mess with which warframes you can even play without being a possible burden to your team.

Any frame relying on CC to have a survival option will be left helpless against a crowd of protected enemies, while any frame that relies on stealth instead will be unaffected.

I don't really agree that they're great design. They are okay for their game mode but the design is extremely lopsided in how certain frames are punished minimally or at least get to keep their defensive options while others are punished so heavily that using them isn't even a good idea.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

21 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

It's the difference between a hard cap and a soft cap to power, and both are direly needed. Everyone likes soft caps, but they're hard to balance and hard to make fair. No one like hard caps, but hard caps are only put in place (if a dev team is compotent) when power scaling gets so high soft caps are trivialized. I still hate nullifiers as much as the day they came in, but they're still needed as much as the day they came in if the game wants a future. 

I honestly have no idea how anyone could believe that Nullifiers of all things were a major deciding factor in the success of this game.  Especially in the face of all the unaddressed complaints the community has that's causing DE to slowly lose players.  And considering both give absolute protection to the enemies around them, I fail to see how one counts as "soft" just because it doesn't remove warframe buffs.

 

12 hours ago, Grey_Days said:

Arbitration drones invalidate some Warframes that are reliant on Exalted weapons in order to function where using the exalted weapon wouldn't be at all "nuking" or skipping the content, and combined with the death penalty it does strongly push Arbitrations into using a tank and spamming aoe or melee.

Titania is affected particularly harshly by this, she has to exit Razorwing and become extremely vulnerable. Even a frame like Mesa who can't use regulators can still keep her defensive bonuses. The drones sort of really mess with which warframes you can even play without being a possible burden to your team.

Any frame relying on CC to have a survival option will be left helpless against a crowd of protected enemies, while any frame that relies on stealth instead will be unaffected.

I don't really agree that they're great design. They are okay for their game mode but the design is extremely lopsided in how certain frames are punished minimally or at least get to keep their defensive options while others are punished so heavily that using them isn't even a good idea.

Unlike damage gating mechanics and barely-functional hit boxes, killing the drones while using a frame like Titania is still down to player skill.  I've run Arbies with Titania.  When I encounter a drone while in RW I reposition before turning it off (since the drones don't just turn her RW off like a nullie bubble, which also leaves her extremely vulnerable with the addition that you might not be prepared for it.) and once I'm in a good spot I pop out, shoot the drone 2-3 times and pop back in before anything is even near me.  Meanwhile, Nullifiers and their bubbles are inconsistent with whether RW works on them, especially nullifier capture targets.  Sometimes you can damage the bubble, occasionally you can't.  Sometimes the enemy itself becomes immune to your Pixias if you popped the bubble with them.

The point you make about CC frames being harmed more by them than other frames is valid, but this is an issue with farm more than drones and nullies considering how many enemy units ignore CC these days.

[cute_moth.npc]

4 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

I honestly have no idea how anyone could believe that Nullifiers of all things were a major deciding factor in the success of this game.  Especially in the face of all the unaddressed complaints the community has that's causing DE to slowly lose players.  And considering both give absolute protection to the enemies around them, I fail to see how one counts as "soft" just because it doesn't remove warframe buffs.

 

Unlike damage gating mechanics and barely-functional hit boxes, killing the drones while using a frame like Titania is still down to player skill.  I've run Arbies with Titania.  When I encounter a drone while in RW I reposition before turning it off (since the drones don't just turn her RW off like a nullie bubble, which also leaves her extremely vulnerable with the addition that you might not be prepared for it.) and once I'm in a good spot I pop out, shoot the drone 2-3 times and pop back in before anything is even near me.  Meanwhile, Nullifiers and their bubbles are inconsistent with whether RW works on them, especially nullifier capture targets.  Sometimes you can damage the bubble, occasionally you can't.  Sometimes the enemy itself becomes immune to your Pixias if you popped the bubble with them.

The point you make about CC frames being harmed more by them than other frames is valid, but this is an issue with farm more than drones and nullies considering how many enemy units ignore CC these days.

Respectfully, I have 42% of my playtime on Titania and the only consistent bubble you can't target the Corpus unit underneath with is if you get one as a capture target. I am not sure if that's a bug or not, but the performance against normal nullifiers is extremely consistent. Being penalized for touching the bubble is fair because it's a player mistake that will affect any Warframe. Regarding the bubbles working through walls when they're not supposed to, that's also fair but maybe it's just an indicator that they need to polish this mechanic.

The entire Arbitration mode was supposed to be "down to player skill" which was the intent of the drones, but instead they basically require no additional skill or effort if you choose a method like using melee or a launcher on them, while simultaneously making the game mode very dangerous to play for a select few Warframes who don't have an appropriate toolkit to deal with it. I will also play Titania in Arbitrations by checking the tile set ahead of time to make sure I won't be stuck in any tight corridors, but do you really think a mechanic that punishes Warframes this unevenly is an example of good design?

It really isn't. It's basically the same thing with Shadow Stalker, constantly pulsing a skill canceling effect is intended to make it so you can't nuke him but at the same time it affects different Warframes with extreme variance in how much more difficult it makes the encounter. Arbitration drones were created to solve one problem but introduced more issues at the same time and they push the game mode into a specific meta.

[TheBrsrkr]

57 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

I honestly have no idea how anyone could believe that Nullifiers of all things were a major deciding factor in the success of this game.  Especially in the face of all the unaddressed complaints the community has that's causing DE to slowly lose players.  And considering both give absolute protection to the enemies around them, I fail to see how one counts as "soft" just because it doesn't remove warframe buffs.

 

The game has changed quite a lot since Nullifiers were implemented, both in scale and substance. Back then, we still had keys instead of relics and 40 wave T4 survival were the norm. In those times, game play was nonexistent becuase some nuke frame was sitting on or near spawn and just hit 4 with a buffer and energy feeder until everything died. Guns also did ~60k DPS and none of the available content even came near to having 80k health. Nullifiers allowed the enemy to at least give a modicum of difficulty to the game at that point,sincr you can't auto one shot them by pointing in their direction, and you can't CC them for literal minutes because they nullify your powers. A brute force solution to the problem of player power. 

 

Over time, many frame reworks have been redone, and power is not what it used to be. Content has gone up in scale and variancr, and 60k DPS is considered par for the course now. Damage itself has been changed st the factions are far more distinct and variable. It seems like Nullifiers are so bad now because the things they were put in to counter no longer exist for the most part. And because of this, they got nerfed twice already, once by increasing the shrink of the bubble based on damage, and once more by adding a weak spot for hard hitting slow weapons to instantly collapse it with. All in all, if you're paying attention they're not a problem. You just seem to not understand what "absolute protection" means. Like the OP said, you can just shoot the drones. You can't just shoot a nullifier. All the problems described are bugs, not features of the nullifier. It fulfills its role, and does what it's supposed to do. 

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

23 minutes ago, Grey_Days said:

Respectfully, I have 42% of my playtime on Titania and the only consistent bubble you can't target the Corpus unit underneath with is if you get one as a capture target. I am not sure if that's a bug or not, but the performance against normal nullifiers is extremely consistent

While I will fully agree that it happens on the cap target far more often (it's pretty much guaranteed to happen for me.  I think it's intentional since warframe powers inexplicably don't work on them at all.  That's another thread.)  I have had it happen on non-cap target nullifiers.  It's not frequent, but it does happen.  

 

25 minutes ago, Grey_Days said:

Regarding the bubbles working through walls when they're not supposed to, that's also fair but maybe it's just an indicator that they need to polish this mechanic.

Pointing out that there are mechanics I think are better, and the thread in general, was meant to accomplish the point that Nullifiers need a rework.  One where you don't round a corner and lose all your buffs instantly.

 

26 minutes ago, Grey_Days said:

basically require no additional skill or effort if you choose a method like using melee or a launcher on them

Launchers flat out do not work on Nullifier shield drones.  If they hit the bubble they bounce off.  The drone hitbox barely functions and I say this as someone with zero issues hitting the Arbi drones.  Nullie shield drones are immune to AOE from explosions that happen near them.  If they aren't and I'm mistaken then they also have extremely massive, ridiculous damage gating because I have tried to pop even low level nullie drones by hitting them with air burst rounds from extremely high damage weapons with zero effect.  The fact that it's such a PITA to damage nullie shield drones is part of my issue with them.  

 

30 minutes ago, Grey_Days said:

do you really think a mechanic that punishes Warframes this unevenly is an example of good design?

The point I was making is that, in my opinion, it's less uneven than dealing with nullifiers.  I do think counterplay should be available at all times through fair mechanics, but I think Arbi drones offer more fair mechanics than Nullies do.  We're just going to have to disagree on this.  I can reliably deal with Arbi drones in any frame I take.  I barely consider them over other factors.  I have specifically planned loadouts around the annoyance and imbalance that Nullifiers create where they can just straight up remove any and all warframe powers.  Strangle Dome?  Gone.  Reservoirs?  Gone.  Take a bunch of time using Growing power, Empower and Pax Bolt to get your Renewal high enough to deal with very high level enemies?  Oop, nullie bubble through a wall, or the floor, or the ceiling, or they spawned into a closet behind you that you just cleared out.  Time to set all that back up again.  That feels a LOT more punishing to specific warframes to me than "I can't kill this thing with exalted weapons and now I have to use one of my other 3 weapons to kill it."

 

37 minutes ago, Grey_Days said:

It's basically the same thing with Shadow Stalker

I think the whole Stalker faction is laughably designed.  "I was not programmed to be able to jump for some reason, so if I get stuck on a low ledge I will hard spam my ability to instantly teleport you to within melee range of me with no cooldown or limitations of any kind."  I've played games designed by high school students with more balance and thought than that.  I don't even want to bring something as atrociously designed as the Stalker into this.  Comparatively, I think even Nullifiers are balanced when you look at something as unbelievably poorly designed as the stalker.  It is shocking how bad and cheap his move set is.  

 

2 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

All the problems described are bugs

That and the poor design, but we're obviously not going to agree here.  Protecting enemies from getting instantly nuked and being permanently CC'd is fine.  They remove all your buffs by brushing up against them.  They can spawn on your flanks because of DE's amateurish spawn mechanics and hit you before you know they're there because, and I know this must not be obvious by how many people keep chanting "just pay attention." but there are other enemies on the map shooting at you.  You literally cannot look everywhere at once.  Having something just spawn into a closet you just cleared out and then touch you for 0.2 seconds should not remove all your buffs.  You're not going to convince me that this is good gameplay, good design, or in anyway the fault of the player for not being able to see in a full sphere around them with magic vision.  

And just the fact that there are so many issues that ARE bugs fully warrants a thread discussing the issues of Nullifiers.  The only role they fulfill is being an example DE's lazy "good enough" game design.  The fact that you even acknowledge that it's a brute force response to player strats is evidence enough of that. 

And as a side note, if the grind levels and drop rates weren't so awful in this game, people might be willing to use a different strat than "murder as fast as possible until the devs nerf it."

[TheBrsrkr]

4 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Tat and the poor design, but we're obviously not going to agree here.  Protecting enemies from getting instantly nuked and being permanently CC'd is fine.  They remove all your buffs by brushing up against them.  They can spawn on your flanks because of DE's amateurish spawn mechanics and hit you before you know they're there because, and I know this must not be obvious by how many people keep chanting "just pay attention." but there are other enemies on the map shooting at you.  You literally cannot look everywhere at once.  Having something just spawn into a closet you just cleared out and then touch you for 0.2 seconds should not remove all your buffs.  You're not going to convince me that this is good gameplay, good design, or in anyway the fault of the player for not being able to see in a full sphere around them with magic vision.  

The giant iridescent blue or gold bubble dissolves your buffs when you touch it? Aww, maybe it would be good to avoid it then? A suggestion then would be don't stand in the spawns. Most tilesets are 50x50m,and even in the cramped ship areas the rooms are big enough for you to see them. Yes, them clipping through the floor and killing your powers and the weak spot not working at tomrsis a problem, but literally all the other problems you have are caused by you not avoiding them. If you death with the Nullifiers the same way you deal with the drones, this entire thread wouldn't exist. They're a massive target, their aim and damage is terrible and when you see them they're pretty much moot. They'll only approach you slowly, if at all, because they have sniper rifles and can do almost nothing to you if you don't mess it up yourself and blunder your way in.

 

You complain about not being able to look everywhere at once, but they're literally the most noticeable enemy in the entire game, take up the most space and approach you the slowest. A quick glance in any cardinal direction will tell you if there's one there or not because the bubble literally takes up a fifth of a standard tileset. That's on you if you don't notice, not the game. 

 

And you could have made a thread about the issues with Nullifiers if you want. The entire of the thread could be "DE FIX UR NILFRS WEAKSPOT DON'T WORK AND THEY TERK MY BUFS!! 1!!1!" and it would STILL be a better thing to make than this, because all this shows is that you can't come over your shortcomings as a player in a) not literally standing in a spawn room b) not noticing a giant glowing bubble on the map because someone is shooting at you, which is ALWAYS happening and c) not understanding that "just being able to shoot" literally everything in the game to death in less than a second is bad game design and will be much worse than having to spend a few seconds taking down a giant obvious bubble. If you want to talk bugs, talk bugs. 

25 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

 The fact that you even acknowledge that it's a brute force response to player strats is evidence enough of that. 

And as a side note, if the grind levels and drop rates weren't so awful in this game, people might be willing to use a different strat than "murder as fast as possible until the devs nerf it."

And do you know why the devs don't design content like that and have to use brute force and anti cheese tactics to rein in power? Because every time they tried to make grind better like with Bounties, old Arbitrations and diverse farming areas, you didn't leave Hieracron or Ceres or any afk drinking fountain farm until they made it better than the farm, which destroys the gating of content necessary to make ANY game survive. Warframe players always throw away long term goals for short term gratification, and any time DE tries to take it from them they whine and complain that they can't anymore. That doesn't mean current drop rates are fair or DE is some perfect company that never makes mistakes and makes WF out of the goodness of their hearts. It means you are actively and persistently enforcing player behavior that discourages them from doing any such thing. A nuke frame gets nerfed because literally only one person can play when you're doing it? Move on to the next nuke. The same people who cry about farming for hours for one thing will later come back and say there's nothing to do when they get it. The same people who complain about not going back and fixing old content will complain that there is no new content. The same people who complain about game breaking bugs complain when game breaking abilities and weapons get nerfed. "Murder as fast as possible" is always a player's solution to every problem, and do not pretend that if the devs waved their magic wand and fixed every drop rate to a level you agree with they would stop. They would continue until the have thousands and millions of resources and items and then complain that there's nothing to do with them. And we know this will happen because it has happened before and will happen again. 

[cute_moth.npc]

1 hour ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Pointing out that there are mechanics I think are better, and the thread in general, was meant to accomplish the point that Nullifiers need a rework.  One where you don't round a corner and lose all your buffs instantly.

Launchers flat out do not work on Nullifier shield drones.  If they hit the bubble they bounce off.  The drone hitbox barely functions and I say this as someone with zero issues hitting the Arbi drones.  Nullie shield drones are immune to AOE from explosions that happen near them.  If they aren't and I'm mistaken then they also have extremely massive, ridiculous damage gating because I have tried to pop even low level nullie drones by hitting them with air burst rounds from extremely high damage weapons with zero effect.  The fact that it's such a PITA to damage nullie shield drones is part of my issue with them. 

The point I was making is that, in my opinion, it's less uneven than dealing with nullifiers.  I do think counterplay should be available at all times through fair mechanics, but I think Arbi drones offer more fair mechanics than Nullies do.  We're just going to have to disagree on this.  I can reliably deal with Arbi drones in any frame I take.  I barely consider them over other factors.  I have specifically planned loadouts around the annoyance and imbalance that Nullifiers create where they can just straight up remove any and all warframe powers.  Strangle Dome?  Gone.  Reservoirs?  Gone.  Take a bunch of time using Growing power, Empower and Pax Bolt to get your Renewal high enough to deal with very high level enemies?  Oop, nullie bubble through a wall, or the floor, or the ceiling, or they spawned into a closet behind you that you just cleared out.  Time to set all that back up again.  That feels a LOT more punishing to specific warframes to me than "I can't kill this thing with exalted weapons and now I have to use one of my other 3 weapons to kill it."

I think the whole Stalker faction is laughably designed.  "I was not programmed to be able to jump for some reason, so if I get stuck on a low ledge I will hard spam my ability to instantly teleport you to within melee range of me with no cooldown or limitations of any kind."  I've played games designed by high school students with more balance and thought than that.  I don't even want to bring something as atrociously designed as the Stalker into this.  Comparatively, I think even Nullifiers are balanced when you look at something as unbelievably poorly designed as the stalker.  It is shocking how bad and cheap his move set is. 

I don't know how to do multi quotes sorry so I had to chop it up a bit..

The launcher comment was not for the Nullifiers, it was for the Arbitration drones.

"Use one of my other 3 weapons to kill it" is downplaying. You're not just being forced to switch weapons. You're being forced to switch off your defenses as well which is literally the thing you're complaining about with Nullifier bubbles (suddenly shutting off your skills) and the reason Shadow Stalker is also so annoying.  Titania has to switch, hope she isn't knocked down or that the drone isn't in a tight corridor, then reactivate her skills and set up Razorwing Blitz again with 4 extra casts if she's using it.. This is the same as having to set up Renewal again except on top of that you're also risking having to have your team resurrect you because you're playing in an instant death mode with basically no defenses turned on whenever you have to take out a drone. How is losing your Renewal "a lot more punishing" than that?

Yes I do think they need to fix the bubbles going through walls, but Arbitration drones are a mechanic that strongly encourages specific setups to counter them and has mechanical interactions that are detrimental to gameplay as well.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

4 hours ago, Grey_Days said:

You're being forced to switch off your defenses as well which is literally the thing you're complaining about with Nullifier bubbles

I'm just going to point out that this only really applies to Titania, Hildryn to a lesser extent, and Limbo.  That's it.  Every other frame can keep up their defensive abilities while shooting a nullifier drone.  Other frames with exalted weapons like Excalibur, Baruuk, etc, can all still shoot regular weapons while their exalted is out.  Given the sheer amount of play time you have on Titania it would make sense that you have such a skewed perspective.  But even with those frames, you aren't "suddenly" losing all your buffs.  You're realizing you need to turn them off in order to deal with the drone and you time to reposition and deal with it.  If your first instinct on seeing a drone is to turn off RW in the middle of a pack of enemies, that's on you.  The drones don't turn your abilities off.

As for using RW Blitz and the setup required there, you cast RW then your other abilities, which means you're incrementally stepping up your defenses.  With something like Reservoirs or Renewal or Xaku's guns, you would be doing prep work then casting the ability.  There's an important difference in the order of casting there.  Titania is defenseless as long as it takes to shoot the drone, and can do so on your own terms in the positioning you choose.  That's very different from suddenly having all your defenses stripped and being left holding the bag while you try to get better positioning and get your abilities back up.  If you don't understand that then there isn't a discussion to be had here.

 

4 hours ago, Grey_Days said:

Arbitration drones are a mechanic that strongly encourages specific setups to counter

I have literally everything in the game.  I've run arbies in dozens of different frames with different weapons.  Drones were never an issue for me.  Yet I will specifically avoid certain frames or weapons, or make sure I have certain weapons equipped if I'm going into harder content that I know will have nullifiers.  

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

6 hours ago, TheBrsrkr said:

The giant iridescent blue or gold bubble dissolves your buffs when you touch it? Aww, maybe it would be good to avoid it then?

Oh good, you're going to go straight to being condescending so now I don't have to read any of the crap that you wrote.  Especially since your very first point ignores the fact that you can't avoid something you can't see because it's coming through a wall or freshly spawned on your flank.  I guess I'll just spin the camera around 24/7 to make up for my lack of magic eyesight.  You would see those points if you would learn to read because I already made them.  You chose to talk down to me instead of addressing how an enemy spawning on your flank or having a bubble go through a wall doesn't negate your worthless point about "just avoid the bubble durr."

[TheBrsrkr]

3 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

Oh good, you're going to go straight to being condescending so now I don't have to read any of the crap that you wrote.  Especially since your very first point ignores the fact that you can't avoid something you can't see because it's coming through a wall or freshly spawned on your flank.  I guess I'll just spin the camera around 24/7 to make up for my lack of magic eyesight.  You would see those points if you would learn to read because I already made them.  You chose to talk down to me instead of addressing how an enemy spawning on your flank or having a bubble go through a wall doesn't negate your worthless point about "just avoid the bubble durr."

All of which are things I addressed in the thing you didn't read because you feel like somehow something literally everyone else in the thread does all the time requires "magic eyesight" instead of paying attention. Address your flaws as a player first, then address the flaws in the content you play. And stop standing in the spawn area if you have a problem wog enemies spawning on you. 

[cute_moth.npc]

15 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

I'm just going to point out that this only really applies to Titania, Hildryn to a lesser extent, and Limbo.  That's it.  Every other frame can keep up their defensive abilities while shooting a nullifier drone.  Other frames with exalted weapons like Excalibur, Baruuk, etc, can all still shoot regular weapons while their exalted is out.  Given the sheer amount of play time you have on Titania it would make sense that you have such a skewed perspective.  But even with those frames, you aren't "suddenly" losing all your buffs.  You're realizing you need to turn them off in order to deal with the drone and you time to reposition and deal with it.  If your first instinct on seeing a drone is to turn off RW in the middle of a pack of enemies, that's on you.  The drones don't turn your abilities off.

As for using RW Blitz and the setup required there, you cast RW then your other abilities, which means you're incrementally stepping up your defenses.  With something like Reservoirs or Renewal or Xaku's guns, you would be doing prep work then casting the ability.  There's an important difference in the order of casting there.  Titania is defenseless as long as it takes to shoot the drone, and can do so on your own terms in the positioning you choose.  That's very different from suddenly having all your defenses stripped and being left holding the bag while you try to get better positioning and get your abilities back up.  If you don't understand that then there isn't a discussion to be had here.

 

I have literally everything in the game.  I've run arbies in dozens of different frames with different weapons.  Drones were never an issue for me.  Yet I will specifically avoid certain frames or weapons, or make sure I have certain weapons equipped if I'm going into harder content that I know will have nullifiers.  

Claiming you do not have to turn your abilities off is irrelevant. You do, if you want to kill the drone. It's similar to if you were literally forced to walk into a nullifier bubble each time one appeared in order to destroy it. It's not a "skewed perspective" to recognize that. There is also a difference in the "order of casting" but choosing to turn off Razorwing is the same thing as having your defenses stripped and being left holding the bag when your drone is in a tight corridor full of enemies and you have to keep going on the objective.

Comparatively, I can just lay down a Cloak Arrow and sit there on Protea while they pass, taking them out with leisure. They disproportionately affect varied Warframes and introduce problems and meta tactics of their own. That's my final answer, they're flawed in design while Nullifier bubbles are literally just flawed with bugs. If you wanted  to look to them as a good model and point out their benefits, I have to point out their detriments.

Literally just ask for Nullifier bubble bugs to get fixed, but please leave the mechanics of Arbitration drones inside Arbitration. Thank you for the discussion.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

Just now, Grey_Days said:

Claiming you do not have to turn your abilities off is irrelevant. You do, if you want to kill the drone.

You get to pick when though.  How do you not understand that?  Getting to choose where you're vulnerable in order to make the enemy vulnerable is tactically advantageous over having defenses turned off on the enemy's tempo.  It's a massive advantage.  You're not being forced to walk into the nullifier bubble, because you get to decide your positioning when you turn the ability off.

And again, you're literally arguing about your main frame and 2 others.  No other frames have to turn off their defenses or offenses in order to deal with the drones.  And you're only talking about one ability on your specific frame of choice.  Titania's Spellbind and Tribute don't get turned off or have to be turned off to shoot the drone.  Literally just Razorwing.  Looking at the whole warframe roster there are pretty much no abilities outside of Titania and Hildryn's 4 and most of Limbo's kit that have to be turned off in order to deal with Arby drones.  And you can take Hildryn off the list if you're running the augment for her 1 and remember to cast it before casting her 4.  2 frames.  Titania still has her other abilities up and Limbo is only out of the rift long enough to take the drone down.  Again, on your tempo, not the enemy's.

I'm like 90% sure you only have the opinion you do because you're a Titania main and hate the idea of actually having to exit Razorwing at any point in the mission.  That's not a valid argument.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

14 minutes ago, TheBrsrkr said:

literally everyone else in the thread

Given your lack of reading comprehension this isn't a surprising take.  Your continued insistence that I "pay attention" to bubbles that can literally come up through the ground at random is also not worth reading into, which is why I didn't read any further past that.  

[cute_moth.npc]

2 minutes ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

You get to pick when though.  How do you not understand that?  Getting to choose where you're vulnerable in order to make the enemy vulnerable is tactically advantageous over having defenses turned off on the enemy's tempo.  It's a massive advantage.  You're not being forced to walk into the nullifier bubble, because you get to decide your positioning when you turn the ability off.

And again, you're literally arguing about your main frame and 2 others.  No other frames have to turn off their defenses or offenses in order to deal with the drones.  And you're only talking about one ability on your specific frame of choice.  Titania's Spellbind and Tribute don't get turned off or have to be turned off to shoot the drone.  Literally just Razorwing.  Looking at the whole warframe roster there are pretty much no abilities outside of Titania and Hildryn's 4 and most of Limbo's kit that have to be turned off in order to deal with Arby drones.  And you can take Hildryn off the list if you're running the augment for her 1 and remember to cast it before casting her 4.  2 frames.  Titania still has her other abilities up and Limbo is only out of the rift long enough to take the drone down.  Again, on your tempo, not the enemy's.

I'm like 90% sure you only have the opinion you do because you're a Titania main and hate the idea of actually having to exit Razorwing at any point in the mission.  That's not a valid argument.

I make the argument because it's literally a mechanic that punishes Warframes that rely on debuffs, CC, and actual player skill based abilities that just happen to be "ability damage" like Dex Pixia or Wukong's staff and invalidates them for the duration of the mechanic, and it does so disproportionately for varying frames, particularly ones like Titania at the top of the list. It's not a sparkly diamond like you're claiming because it's not buggy like Nullifier bubbles.

And yes, you honestly do want to stay in Razorwing for the entire mission when it's an instant death mode and leaving it means losing 50% evasion, your tiny hitbox and even your Aerodynamic / Aviator buffs if you're grounded. It's not even about power, I have weapons that are straight up more vicious - it's literally survivability.

Both mechanics are S#&$ty band aids to try and deal with the game balance they've created, please stop pretending that it's okay to kick some frames in the teeth so that others can feel better.

Also, you can put your motes off to the side of the "pathing" for enemies and nullifiers will walk through them way less often ^^;

[(PSN)jaggerwanderer]

Using Titania for Arbitration, I just switch to operator mode to deal with the drones. Way less hassle. Though that can also be said about nullifiers as well. One can just switch out, run into the bubble, kill the guy, and go back to the warframe.