The Arsenal Divide: Changes & Follow Ups

[(PSN)robotwars7]

31 minutes ago, deucich said:

I guess you're not considering (preferable) solo players. Arbitrations have weaker enemies, but there is much less room for a forgiven mistake since your first death would be the end of a mission loosing all the loot as well

that's why I run a Sacrifice + Primed Regen Sentinel build; though of course the trick is to keep moving a lot so that your Sentinel doesn't get killed. it's by no means a perfect solution, but if you get downed early one and take out enemies with your pistol before they get your sentinel you *might* be OK. it's happened before, but it's not really reliable. better than nothing? absolutely. 

[BunnyHunny94]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb (PSN)robotwars7:

that's why I run a Sacrifice + Primed Regen Sentinel build; though of course the trick is to keep moving a lot so that your Sentinel doesn't get killed. it's by no means a perfect solution, but if you get downed early one and take out enemies with your pistol before they get your sentinel you *might* be OK. it's happened before, but it's not really reliable. better than nothing? absolutely. 

There is no downed state in arbitration.

[TeaHawk]

On 2021-06-22 at 8:09 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Why: This change is rooted in the depth of the new items we’re putting in Steel Path with this Update, and the hope some players had about being able to earn the Galvanized Mods before they even arrived on the Steel Path. Since Arbitrations also require a completed Star Chart, but are a step up in difficulty from that base Star Chart, we thought (and so did many of you) that they’d be a good stepping stone for earning some of the new Upgrades! 

 

You could have simply added these mods to Arbitration while keeping them available through SP. 2 different ways of acquisition is not bad at all.

[(PSN)TONI__RIBEIRO]

Not lowering mod drain on blood rush?

[(PSN)robotwars7]

16 minutes ago, BunnyHunny94 said:

There is no downed state in arbitration.

ah.. forgot about that. shows what I know about Arbitrations lol.

[XennethKeisere]

On 2021-06-22 at 2:02 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Primary and Secondary Merciless Arcanes:

- Reduced MERCILESS Arcanes Duration from 6 to 4 secs
Why: We’re simply continuing to balance these (even after posting)! In practice, we felt lowering it was a better start given the pace of true Merciless enemy killing!

 

If I may put in my $0.02 here -- this change was unnecessary and should be reversed.

When I saw this Arcane, I saw an opportunity for guns like Trumna, Quellor, etc. (Guns with very long Reload time) to get a nice boost for regular play. The timer being reduced to 4 seconds pretty much dampered that possibility heavily; Trumna for example, has a Reload Speed of 3.8 seconds with the Arcane active. Meaning, assuming the last bullet of Trumna killed an enemy, you have 0.2 seconds to kill an enemy after reloading to maintain the Arcane. Even if you added Primed Fast Hands, these weapons referenced still take over half the timer just to reload.

I strongly urge you reconsider this "rebalance". That is all.

 

[L3512]

On 2021-06-23 at 4:02 AM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Primary
- Galvanized Scope - Mod Capacity reduced from 14 to 12
- Galvanized Aptitude - Mod Capacity reduced from 14 to 12
- Galvanized Chamber - Stack count increased from 4 to 5. Mod Capacity increased from 14 to 16

Shotgun
- Galvanized Acceleration - Mod Capacity reduced from 14 to 12
- Galvanized Savvy - Mod Capacity reduced from 14 to 12
 Galvanized Hell - Base Multishot increased from 80% to 110%. Mod Capacity increased from 14 to 16

Secondary
- Galvanized Crosshairs - Mod Capacity reduced from 14 to 12
- Galvanized Shot - Mod Capacity reduced from 14 to 12
- Galvanized Diffusion - Base multishot increased from 80% to 110%. Mod Capacity increased from 12 to 14 (Normal barrel diffusion is 11, secondaries a cramped for space as it is.)

Why: We reviewed feedback about build and Mod options when it comes to Mod Capacity, and felt it was a good idea to change Mod Ranks. Overall we’ve lowered the required Mod Capacity as a whole per category by 2. 

Wait what?

[SuperBernas99]

On 2021-06-22 at 7:10 PM, ScionNinja14 said:

What do you mean why. How are people supposed to get mods to kill steel path enemies by farming the steel path which they can't kill enemies in? Makes perfect sense to me to put it in between steel path and normal star chart

I dont know if u never played SP but its not that hard, u can kill enemies all the same

[UdsUds]

3 hours ago, (NSW)Glaive-012 said:

And I just got 300 Steel Essence.....

how many mission / hours does it took you to get  300? I barely got any..

[master_of_destiny]

Let me follow the through line to this game, over several years.  I'm doing this, so that we can understand exactly why the community would be angry, and why those who suggest "it's endgame" are totally missing the point.

 

DE released a bunch of content.  It was gated by MR to some extent....but generally just pumped out.  This meant that people with a low MR and high MR often had access to the same weapons...and given the absolutely insane structure of them once you got the Tigris Prime you had very little reason to grind for anything else.  Remember, this was back when pizzas didn't exist, eHP scaling was insane, and people had to play as a team because enemies could curb stomp you.

Now, things changed.  DE stated their goal was to support player choice.  Fantastic, but how?  Well, that'd be rivens.  The stated goal was that weaker weapons would be buffed up, so you could take even the "bad" weapons to high level content without a problem.  Onward to a new future....until you realize that the same haphazard balance came to rivens.  That is to say, the rivens sometimes buffed weapons to the moon and other times they made a weapon meh.  There was very little balance.

Introduce the operator.  Introduce the rather substantive buffs associated.  Introduce arcanes.  All of these items offer creeping increases to power.  None of them are game breaking....barring something like invisibility+melee.  That said, the "endgame" endurance run was now possible with cheese strategies and instant kill weapons (covert lethality).  DE recognizes that the melee system is broken.

Introduce melee 3.0.  This removes some of the greatest cheese, but basically buffs everything to usable levels.  Note, this was the goal of rivens...which have now become arbitrage based on a desired outcome of usage rather than an outcome of equal viability.  Well, melee is uniformly awesome.  There are even some edge cases that can break animations...you know, when the game itself isn't breaking them.  Yeah, 8 years in and it's still a buggy mess.

 

Now we have a proposed future.  It seems to be built upon ultra fast killing to maintain buffs...of course this means that any high damage but low fire rate guns are sat out in the cold.  It also seems like there's only a focus on the horde shooting...because apparently that's the only way that this game "should" be played.  Does anybody at DE really check the statements that they make, and measure against the past.  Rivens didn't balance things.  Arcanes required an insane buffing to make them not "abused when double stacked."  Now we've got power creep mods with much higher costs, another grind to unlock things, and all of this in service to grinding out bullet sponge enemies for that slight bit of power...to make the grind for those items easier.  

Seriously, WTF?  This isn't about endgame.  Endgame most definitely isn't about player choice.  All of this is predicated upon DE playing their own game...and it seems like they "balance" based only on final state.  Yeah, goody.  Another 30-40 hour grind so that I can "feel good" after a miserable trip there.  Why even try at this point?

 

 

Now, I do reserve the right to change opinions.  That said, both sides of the debate here are insane.  This is not for veterans.  It is not to give us a reasonable balance.  It is to generate another RNG grind...and it's really depressing that the logic seems to be to give the barest minimum buff that would be tolerable.  It's not power creep if it's barely noticeable, right?  Oh...  By the way, it's also not worth arguing about if we claim it's only for the steel path knowing full well that this "optional" game mode will soon hide content behind it in excess of being the only source for umbral forma.  Yeah...an optional challenge mode my aching back side.  That's my anger.  Something promised as fun will now be a grind...because this game needs more of that.  

[FuriousRat32]

Sacrifice mod doesn't work anymore in arbi, unless they've changed this recently. I tested it with primed regen, and it didn't work.

2 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

that's why I run a Sacrifice + Primed Regen Sentinel build; though of course the trick is to keep moving a lot so that your Sentinel doesn't get killed. it's by no means a perfect solution, but if you get downed early one and take out enemies with your pistol before they get your sentinel you *might* be OK. it's happened before, but it's not really reliable. better than nothing? absolutely. 

 

[SECURATYYY]

On 2021-06-22 at 2:09 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Why: This change is rooted in the depth of the new items we’re putting in Steel Path with this Update, and the hope some players had about being able to earn the Galvanized Mods before they even arrived on the Steel Path. Since Arbitrations also require a completed Star Chart, but are a step up in difficulty from that base Star Chart, we thought (and so did many of you) that they’d be a good stepping stone for earning some of the new Upgrades! 

 

100% agree that the mods should be more accessible prior to starting Steel Path. I don't think this change hits the mark.

Arbitrations require a completed star chart, as does steel path. They're both unlocked at essentially the same time, and have similar difficulty. Moving the mods to arbitrations means you have to farm that instead of steel path. You all wanted to encourage more steel path, but this change works against that idea. It's playing a different game mode entirely, and removing the 'good stuff' from Steel Path.

The new mods are cool, but totally not required to do steel path. Arguably it would be less taxing for newer players as the base mods (that preform just as well) cost less endo. If we move the new mods to arbitrations, then what do we have to look forward to in SP aside from arcanes? I'm not sure this is a good change, but I am 100% sure the mods are not a requirement to do SP. They should be left in SP as the reward for doing SP. You want the good stuff, gotta earn it.

Not sure if you'll see this as I know you're busy. You all get a lot of flak from the community, but I think you all are doing a great job. Thanks.

 

PS- Make Catapult part of Grendel's base ability pls ty pls pls

PS+- Could we move augments into the Helminth system? Sit in chair, tweak ability, doesn't require a mod slot.

[Leon_Von_Comarre]

This has probably been suggested a hundred times already, but maybe consider changing the condition on Berserker Fury to On Kill rather than On Melee Kill? The goal of this seems to be to make players use their whole kit, and the current implementation with the reduced buff duration seems to punish that, since if you switch of your melee to use your range options, you're likely to lose all your speed buffs when you swap back. Allowing your guns to activate the berserker buff could let AOE or high damage single target guns act as a primer for your melee, and reward swapping back and forth when your buff runs out.

[yong5636]

 

중재는 강철 의길 보다 싫습니다.
이유 인즉, 잠수 하기엔 더할 나위없는 조건이 있기에 중재를 하는것 자체 켜놓고 시간 때우기 일뿐입니다. 

따라서 켜놓고 잠을 자 버리기에 딱 이죠. (스펙터와 오공 분신이 다 잡기 때문)

그리고 이미 사람들은  바이터스 에센스가 가득함.

강철의 길 "스틸에센스"는 여기저기 많이쓰고 없지만(쿠바및,움브라 포르마)

 

 

[Xyngrr]

Thanks for responding to some of our criticisms and concerns.

The move of the new mods from steel path rewards to the arbitration shop is good, but only half of what is needed. I feel it should exist in both locations so those that can already run steel path effectively are not punished for having done so, while those not yet geared up for it can get them from the arbitration store in preparation for SP. Multiple avenues leaves it to the player which flavour of difficulty increase best suits their playstyle.

The changes to mod drain are helpful, but more is needed. As has been pointed out already, one of the reasons melee has an advantage over guns is the increased modding capacity across the board due to the increase from stances. Both melee weapons and Warframes have a slot that increases capacity instead of reducing it. I suggest the weapon exilus slot be universally unlocked and used for this purpose on guns to equalize the base modding capacity potential equal with melee options. While this does increase power creep on guns themselves, it's required to level the playing field and does not nerf melee in the process. Also please make the arcanes are available from the shop as well or ensure enough acolytes spawn so as to propagate the arcanes at a reasonable rate, as the arcanes are half the equalization battle here. 

The mods being 'on kill' conditional both encourages a single strategy approach to maintain their usefulness and limits their usefulness to the envelope the weapon can already operate in. To expand on that, you must kill with the weapon that can gain the buff which means due to the timers being shortened you will likely be using it exclusively and not swapping weapons to soften a target then finish with the desired weapon. Further, if you need the buff to kill you can't get it with the weapon that needs it, and if you can kill then the weapon does not need the buff and it's just power creep that lets you delete mobs up to a higher level. The buff also still has a finite ceiling on it due to not scaling in tandem with the challenge it's being set against, so it becomes a binary win/lose modifier at higher levels, essentially pushing the current useful envelope higher but not softening the cap of the bubble at all. This creates a buff difficult to get when it's needed, harder to maintain as difficulty advances, and brutally punishing when it fails to refresh for the players and playstyle that need it most. With all due respect, in this instance you need to step back from the ' give half an advantage for twice the input ' mantra you've been using to mitigate power creep, as the point of the buff is to improve the use of lesser effective weapons and build diversity in late game content. 
There is a solution here that does fill the stated aims, but while it's a bit complicated to setup it would level the playing field and reach the goal. With the prospective galvanic system in place, there will be up to three timers running on a player - primary kill timer, secondary kill timer, and combo kill timer.
The Combo timer should be moved to the frame instead of being reliant on melee, and weapons increment and key off it differently on an individual basis.  Melee kills add to the combo kill stack to increment the multiplier as current with multiple kills required to increase the multiplier, while primary and secondary kills directly increase the combo tier per kill ( counting as multiple melee kills ). Melee weapons gain buffs from the multiplier as current, while gun Galvanic mods directly key off the multiplier tier itself for their buffs. This change lets you kill with any melee or gun and use the benefits on any other in your loadout, while simultaneously adjusting combo increment for the relative difficulty of the kill due to weapon used to make it. It encourages using melee to buff your guns, or using your guns on softer targets at range to buff your melee for the heavy next to you. Additionally, provides a more focused purpose for the holstered weapon reload mods as losing combo time to reloading can be subverted by swapping to melee and using it while the guns passively reload without losing your timer. 
This also affects the Naramon focus in the same step, so to address that the combo timer detente Naramon provides should change to exactly offset the nerf you've made on blood rush and condition overload or it would remain the de-factor focus school for high level content. This does three things - removes Namaron as a requirement for high level content, reverses the nerf to melee for those that choose this school while keeping it's theme, and encourages diversity in allowing other schools to be viable for non-melee centric build as it would no longer be required for universal combo timer maintenance. Indirectly, it also would encourage melee centric players to run more combo maintenance mods and trickle down power levels by way of modding choices. More melee power, or longer combo stamina becomes a relevant choice that affects all your loadout and lets the player tailor for their desired playstyle. This paves that way for the combo counter mods to be pared down and moved to the frame instead of being melee only as well.
I've gone on longer than intended with a suggestion to re-frame your galvanic mods, but it sort of came together as I was writing it so I left it as is.

The initial glaive and Kuva Nukor damage reduction is good. I've been running into glaivestorms alot lately, so it's a needed change. Can you perhaps buff the regular nukor a bit? I really want to engage more Grineer with surprise inflation mechanics, it's eternally amusing. :)

Thanks for reading. 

[SmokinDice]

1 hour ago, SECURATYYY said:

PS+- Could we move augments into the Helminth system? Sit in chair, tweak ability, doesn't require a mod slot.

ohhh ho nonono, that my friend would be the SMART solution! we dont allow smart solutions in here, come on. instead we get invigorations!

[ME4TMAN]

Auntie Rebecca (@[DE]Rebecca), so far "on paper" the update is ok but as some of our fellow nieces and nephews have pointed out, I also feel that the new Galvanized Mods should stay in the Steel Path Honors due to resource grind reasons. As such I have a table to prove my point.

 

	Arbitrations Vitus Essence	Steel Path Essence
Main drop sources	Arbitrations drones	Acolytes
Main Drop amount	One	Two
Main drop sources drop chances	3% chance	100% chance
Main drop sources spawn rate	Every three minutes, No change after update	Every five minutes, resets after acolyte defeat after update, Four to seven minutes before update
Main drop sources spawn location	Usual enemy spawn point; does not spawn in arch-wing and arena missions	Near host player location; does not spawn in arch-wing and arena missions
Rare Resource drop booster increase	YES	YES
Double Resource booster increase	YES	YES
Additional drop sources	End of round Rotation in mission	Steel Path Alert mission completion
Additional drop sources drop chances	7% chance per rotation reward, 100% after round completion	100% chance
Additional drop sources amount	Three as rotation reward, One after rotation completion	Three
Additional drop sources limitations	7% Chance per rotation	Five random missions per day
Mission selection(s)	One random endless mission per hour	ANY unlocked normal star chart missions
Mission selection(s) limitations	Till next mission reveal, one hour timer	Does not spawn in arch-wing and arena missions

 

As such, the compromise to appeal to most people is to have the Galvanized Mods available in both the Arbitrations Honors and Steel Path Honors with the latter having at a discounted price due to the slight harder work needed to smack the acolytes. Auntie Rebecca and Uncle Steve, please consider as those people will complain about the grind later if the update released as planned.

 

To those weak people who say Steel Path mission hard, I share link to weejio where one of our fellow nephews prove you can finish mission even with basic setup;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri-KDzoGSPQ

[T-Shark69]

Any plans to change skills in  Madurai that extend the duration of the buffs from the new mods and arcanes, or make them lose stacks one by one? Naramon does smth similiar for melees. 

[HolySeraphin]

I don't know if anyone already noticed, but putting the mods in Arbitrations solves the endo cost problem. Because you get a lot of endo and ayatan statues as rotation rewards.

[EdDiesel]

Game play mechanics that incentivize semi and burst shot weapons or single target weapons would be a welcome addition.  I would not agree entirely on simply boosting its damage over others weapon types because the majority will just use those weapons instead since they hypothetically will be stronger and possibly clear faster than aoe weapons.

Gameplay mechanic suggestion:

For example, heavy units that spawn randomly not guaranteed with special shield that can only be destroyed with timed shots and players cannot enter to melee the unit. The shield capacity limit could have A meter similar to the one used in the new RJ mission Volatile.  If you fire at weak point with high fire rate or aoe weapons the meter will quickly move off the required target point and simply do nothing to shield however, well timed single or burst shots are just enough not to push the meter away from weak point which  cause the shield to burst on first try.  As level increases several successful attempts may be required to burst the shield.

[BunnyHunny94]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb EdDiesel:

Game play mechanics that incentivize semi and burst shot weapons or single target weapons would be a welcome addition.  I would not agree entirely on simply boosting its damage over others weapon types because the majority will just use those weapons instead since they hypothetically will be stronger and possibly clear faster than aoe weapons.

Gameplay mechanic suggestion:

For example, heavy units that spawn randomly not guaranteed with special shield that can only be destroyed with timed shots and players cannot enter to melee the unit. The shield capacity limit could have A meter similar to the one used in the new RJ mission Volatile.  If you fire at weak point with high fire rate or aoe weapons the meter will quickly move off the required target point and simply do nothing to shield however, well timed single or burst shots are just enough not to push the meter away from weak point which  cause the shield to burst on first try.  As level increases several successful attempts may be required to burst the shield.

You are suggesting mechanics which do not work in multiplayer scenarios within a game that does not constantly push actual teamplay.
 

[Radagosh]

yeay another dead drop in a rotation full of dead drops - just add them to the shop please even if it's for an insane amount like 50 essence

[SuperBernas99]

''Primary and Secondary Merciless Arcanes:
- Reduced MERCILESS Arcanes Duration from 6 to 4 secs''

 

Wow, this is a great way to curb this arcane even before releace, at least we still have the other to chose from

[Almagnus1]

So the stated goal of the update is to unify the arsenal and make it so we have a bunch of good choices...

But the real problem with this approach is that instead of just bringing up the primaries and the secondaries, DE is also nerfing the melees which means that all that's going to happen is that the melees will trade places with the primaries and the secondaries.

If DE was serious about solving this issue, they'd introduce the galvanized mods, wait and see how it shakes out with the playerbase, and then adjust with data on what the players do and then take action against the melee mods IF IT WAS WARRANTED.  The last thing any of us want to see is something getting nerfed out of existence when it really didn't need to be in the first place.

[Paranoicon]

So, since I've been following this thread for a good handful of days, I'm seeing a lot of fair takes buried among a lot of passive-aggressive (or proper-aggressive) posts. Might as well try and unearth those for the sake of good discussion.

1. Galvanized Mods should be made available on both the Arbitrations Store and the Steel Path Store.
   • I'd imagine that, if this ever comes to happen, there'll be a disparity in costs, with the Steel Path requiring more Essence since it's easier to farm than Virtuus.
2. "On Kill" conditionals should be changed to something that doesn't have such a strong positive feedback loop. Keeping them as-is will ensure that weapons that already struggle to get kills, in whichever mode it is, will continue to struggle. Meanwhile, weapons that don't struggle (or don't struggle as much), will become even more preferable.
3. The time it takes to fully build a Melee Weapon, versus a Firearm, is not commensurate. Primarily because Melee Weapons have stances, which boost the max capacity of the weapon, allowing for more mods. Meanwhile, Firearms can be fully forma'd and still struggle for mod capacity. Adding something that can bring these caps to a more even position would be ideal.
   • I would think that if this is done, it'd be the Arcane Unlockers that do it. Or at least I'd hope so, because, otherwise, it's just inconsistency for the sake of inconsistency, or worse, incovenience.
4. Increase the drops of Virtuus Essence from Arbitrations Drones.
   • From my personal experiences with the game mode, it's either feast or famine, so this change would be certainly appreciated.
   • Hand in hand with this, a few people have suggested allowing the purchase of certain items (Mods, primarily) from the Arbitrations rotation drop tables, from the Arbitrations Store. While I'd prefer if the purchasable items were removed from the droptables, I would personally be fine if they were just put in the store.
5. Allow players to pick between a variety of Arbitration missions, instead of forcing them to whichever one is active at the time.
   • It seems pretty obvious some folks really do not like certain endless scaling modes, which I understand, because that's my case with Defection. I dislike it so much, I keep forgetting it exists. In any case, more choice is rarely a bad call.