Where do I even find Arcana Isolation Vaults?

[Steel_Rook]

I've wrapped up all three basic Iso Vault alerts (again, because I'd done them all multiple times last year) and expected to see Arcana Isolation Vault bounties pop up in Mother's list. Nope! The Wiki has barely any information on where to find them, but I ran across a random article on I think GameRants or some such telling me they're only available from inside the Cambion Drift. Ignoring questions such as "how do I matchmake for them" - I still can't find these things. I've pieced together that different versions of Mother have different Bounty lists (a decision I DO NOT understand), but I still can't find the Arcana Bounties. All I see are regular Isolation Vault Bounties. Weren't the Arcana ones supposed to have better rewards and deeper levels or some such?

I'm thoroughly confused right now as to how this system is even supposed to work. I managed to track down a post by Megan around January, I think, outlining how the new Arcana Bounties are supposed to work. However, having never played the old ones, I couldn't follow what the changes were meant to do. I thought - from descriptions late last year - that they were supposed to be chained together somehow, pushing us deeper and deeper. Am I supposed to run just the regular Iso Vault bounties multiple times like back around release? I don't get it. Because the regular ones say "Open 3 vaults for best reward." How do I accomplish this? Do I just run three of the same bounty?

I'm used to Warframe being confusing, counter-intuitive and poorly explained. I was a Railjack early adopter, after all. But Arcana Isolation Vault bounties make me feel like I'm being punked. Like they don't exist, but someone's messing with me telling to keep looking, they're really there. What the hell?

[FrostedMike]

You have to do a regulkar isolation vault first. Only then the arcana vault will be available and only from the same instance of Mother. If you started a regular iso vault from the Drift, the arcana bounty will be available from the exact same place after completing the iso vault. If you started from the Necralisk, you will have to remember which instance of Mother is which but it will still be available.
All you got to do is complete a regular iso vault bounty first and don't leave the Drift.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

Iso = mech bounties/vault popping = 2-3 rolls at loot

Arcane = non mech bounties  = 4-5 rolls at loot.  

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Only Iso Vaults are available from the Necralisk.  NOT arcana....

You CAN drop directly into the Cambion Drift and start Arcana bounties if you go to the correct mothers (the same as the iso moms).   This part....if you have NEVER done an arcana you probably have to do the normal Iso vault to first unlock them.   After you unlock and run an Arcana bounty it will ALWAYS be available (when your out in Cambion Drift).

-There are 3 tiers of iso/arcana bounties.  (They have different reward pools which you can see whenever you are at a mother and looking at her bounty board, they also rotate the mods inside every 2.5 hours).

-Each tier of Iso Vault can only be ran ONCE while you are in the Drift.   After that you have to extract and re-enter if you want to do more.   Some people run all 3, some people only do tier 2-3 or tier 3.   The ONLY reason to run iso vaults are for mech parts (not mech weapons),  and matrix's.   (In MY opinion iso vaults have a way higher chance of dropping matrix than arcana).   (ps:  there are 3 type of matrix, they all drop in all three tiers of iso/arcana.   Tier 3 is suppose to give x4 matrix.   I often get less matrix than they say you should...)

-Arcana bounties(once unlocked) can be ran ENDLESSLY while in the Drift.   You can do any tier, any order, as many times as you want.

-Arcana have 4-5 loot rolls is THE best place to farm mech mods, mech weapon parts,  Arum Spinosa(tier 2),  Sporothrix(tier 3), SCINTILLANT, You do get a few matrix but like I said Iso Vaults are better for that i think........         As far as the scintillant.....whenever you underground no matter what type of bounty your in,  when you get to the "rooms" take the time to look UP.   Look for bright blue thing floating around in the air.   Those are free scintillant.  (You might need a mech to grab them??).   I see them in Isol Vault bounties... but I see them even more in arcanae.... maybe because I run those more...  

-Tier 1 is the mom/tunnel closest to the necralisk

-Tier 2 is under the cliff along the "gutter" on the far left of the map,  right under that starting point over there..

-Tier 3 is over by "The Abcess" 

You may have to unlock each tier.   Honestly I dont remember having to run arcana to unlock them.   Only the Iso bounties.   So finish Iso 1-3 and you should be good on arcana....

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What to look for when at a mother to find the arcana bounties.....  Mom have the normal bounties for mom tokens....  then you should see the bounty on its own called Isolation Vault....   If you have "unlocked" the arcana that bounty should be right next to the Isolation Vault bounty....  They have wierd names like Research or Delicacies.

Once you run the iso vault for a tier while out in the drift, the iso bounty for that tier will no longer be in the list of bounties for mom.  So the arcana bounties are the only thing left, besides the normal mom token bounties....   

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I hate the fact DE made objectives scale with squad size...... Going in a squad is suppose to make things easier.   Playing solo in the tunnels is boring,  but it beats having to pick 40+ flowers or kill a bazilion more infested to collect things.    Arcana begs to be played by warframes with killer movement abilties like Wukong.   

But enjoy the bazillion infested arcanes you will get down there lol.....       Arcana + Orphix literally made me super rich.  I made 3k plat selling mech mods, mech weapons, Arum/Sporo weapons..  I spent ALOT of time down there.   I love those tunnels, but man they need more objective types and some of them need to die horribly in a fire like flower picking.......

[Acersecomic]

Do one Vault, then choose the Arcana vault from Mother while in the open world. It's very stupidly made, I know.

[(PSN)NAJNIR]

Lets start with that Cambion Drift is split into 3 sections with 3 diffrent Iso Vaults. When you complete one of these vaults you should be able to accept Arcana Isolation Vault bountie from mother in the corresponding region. 

[Steel_Rook]

29 minutes ago, FrostedMike said:

You have to do a regulkar isolation vault first. Only then the arcana vault will be available and only from the same instance of Mother. If you started a regular iso vault from the Drift, the arcana bounty will be available from the exact same place after completing the iso vault. If you started from the Necralisk, you will have to remember which instance of Mother is which but it will still be available.
All you got to do is complete a regular iso vault bounty first and don't leave the Drift.

Oh... OK, so I HAVE to finish a regular Iso Vault first, before I can attempt the Arcana vaults? That seems really odd, especially since people always seem to just run off back to the Necralisk afterwards. It also kind of undermines what I thought the original spirit of the changes was - that is to say, the ability to run Arcana bounties without doing regular Iso Vaults first. I guess they dropped the requirement down from running all 3 in one day to running just one, huh? Guess that's the bit I wasn't able to follow. Probably explains why Mother's Iso Vaults tell me to unlock 3 vaults for best rewards - they're telling me to run the same Bounty 3 times.

Why call them Arcana Isolation Vault bounties, then? If it's just the same Iso Vault bounty multiple times, then why the separate name? And if they come in sets of 3, why even bother having the original Iso Bounty as a "gate?" Why not just mix all the objectives together into a 3-stage Bounty ala Tridolons and let us not always start with the one mission objective we're likely to have run the most and thus be most tired of?

Either way, though - I get what you mean now. Thank you.

[Steel_Rook]

6 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

What to look for when at a mother to find the arcana bounties.....  Mom have the normal bounties for mom tokens....  then you should see the bounty on its own called Isolation Vault....   If you have "unlocked" the arcana that bounty should be right next to the Isolation Vault bounty....  They have wierd names like Research or Delicacies.

That might explain why I couldn't find them, then. I was looking for something called "Arcana" or at least "Isolation." If they have ad-hoc names, then chances are I mistook the Arcana bounty as a regular Mother bounty. Is there any specific identifier I can use to tell an Arcana bounty apart from just a regular bounty of the same level range? Anything in the title, text or thumbnail? I think that might be what's confusing me.

Question, then: If Arcana Bounties can only be started while inside the Cambion Drift, how does one "matchmake" for them? Simply going into an open Plains squad matches me with people doing mining, fishing, conservation and such - probably not looking for high-level repeating Bounties. I expected to see Arcana Bounties in Mother's list in the Necralisk simply because that allows me to pick a mission BEFORE matchmaking. Even the Exploiter Orb has a bounty like that, but you're telling me Arcana bounties don't?

 

7 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

As far as the scintillant.....whenever you underground no matter what type of bounty your in,  when you get to the "rooms" take the time to look UP.   Look for bright blue thing floating around in the air.   Those are free scintillant.  (You might need a mech to grab them??).   I see them in Isol Vault bounties... but I see them even more in arcanae.... maybe because I run those more...

I've found a grand total of ONE Scintillant in Isolation Vault Bounties so far, and you don't need anything special to grab it. It's literally a model-swapped Cetus Wisp. It seems to me like Scintillant is fairly rare in Isolation Vaults, though it may be that I'm just missing it. I might try running a few Arcana Bounties, then. Do those also have Necramechs in them? I find high-level Necramechs to be an absolute pain in the ass to fight. If those don't exist in Arcana, then I shouldn't have an issue running them solo.

 

7 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

I hate the fact DE made objectives scale with squad size...... Going in a squad is suppose to make things easier.   Playing solo in the tunnels is boring,  but it beats having to pick 40+ flowers or kill a bazilion more infested to collect things.    Arcana begs to be played by warframes with killer movement abilties like Wukong. 

Off-topic, but I personally like this level of balance. It ensures that going solo or in a small team doesn't feel like "playing the game wrong" by saddling me with a massive amount of pick-ups to gather alone. In general, I'm a huge fan of difficulty and complexity scaling with team size. Railjack 3.0 seems to be going in that direction, instituting AI crews which amount to "bots," who get replaced as people join your crew. I understand this feels like disincentive for larger teams, but the larger team size typically makes shorter work of those objectives than an individual player can do even with the reduced numbers. It's a neat counterpart to clans, I think, where larger clans pay higher Research costs but have more people to contribute.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

7 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

That might explain why I couldn't find them, then. I was looking for something called "Arcana" or at least "Isolation." If they have ad-hoc names, then chances are I mistook the Arcana bounty as a regular Mother bounty. Is there any specific identifier I can use to tell an Arcana bounty apart from just a regular bounty of the same level range? Anything in the title, text or thumbnail? I think that might be what's confusing me.

Question, then: If Arcana Bounties can only be started while inside the Cambion Drift, how does one "matchmake" for them? Simply going into an open Plains squad matches me with people doing mining, fishing, conservation and such - probably not looking for high-level repeating Bounties. I expected to see Arcana Bounties in Mother's list in the Necralisk simply because that allows me to pick a mission BEFORE matchmaking. Even the Exploiter Orb has a bounty like that, but you're telling me Arcana bounties don't?

-No special identifiers.  Im pretty sure tunnel bounties are always below the normal bounties...   You will either see 2 bounties at the bottom of moms bounty board or just the 1...  

-Matching...yeah thats a good reason why the arcana bounties SHOULD be in necralisk....   You either have to go into the drift in public... or do an Iso Vault first....    You could always go into the plains  with Public on,  then leave the squad... then start the bounty...   even then you may get people joining you before u start it lol.   

7 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

 Do those also have Necramechs in them? I find high-level Necramechs to be an absolute pain in the ass to fight. If those don't exist in Arcana, then I shouldn't have an issue running them solo.

Arcana are mech free.    Thats how I describe them to people now.   Mech side/non mech side lol.   

 

[Steel_Rook]

3 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

Arcana are mech free.    Thats how I describe them to people now.   Mech side/non mech side lol.   

Good, good. I'll see about running a few of them on my own, then. Be a decent way to level my Voidrig while waiting for Railjack 3.0. Thank you kindly :)