The Arsenal Divide: Changes & Follow Ups

[(NSW)M1tchster]

On 2021-06-22 at 7:18 PM, Casardis said:

This. Allow us to grind before tackling Steel Path through Arbitration, but if you're doing well enough, you can grind Steel Essence and get the rest of the mods instead.

Please don't lock it behind a separate grind that has MUCH LESS reliable resource gain compared to Steel Essence, and more restrictive options (only one mission type per rotation).

EDIT: I wouldn't have mind this decision if Arbitration wasn't in its current state. If it had the same resource philosophy as Steel Path with Incursions and more than one MISSION/FACTION option per rotation (remember Steel Essence can be farmed on literally any mission in the Star Chart), it would be a decent decision.

If Arbitration remains unchanged, I believe the mods should be in both shops instead. Heck, you can even make them more costly in SP and MUCH LESS costly in Arbitrations to balance out the current disparity in Essence farm. However, I would prefer an Arbitration revision to bring that in line with SP in terms of fun + consistent essence rewards.

EDIT 2: I wrote this on Twitter but here are my new proposed changes, if the mods stay in Arbitration. I would rather see this happen so we can expand on an older, existing content.

  Reveal hidden contents

EDIT 3: Concerning "On-kill" effects. I was wondering if it's possible to please both sides of the party without breaking this function too much. Here's the idea I have:

- AoE Weapons = On-Kill only
- Single-target weapons = On-Kill + On-Hit with % chance to trigger, double % if lower fire rate. This isn't unprecedented since you've done that with Hemorrhage and Internal Bleeding.

I am tired of these suggestions... No matter what route DE chooses someone will complain. I like the arbitration drop rate personally; I already grinded 100s of vitus, it is not that time consuming. Your suggested changes basically render all the time previous players spend playing arbitrations completely valueless as vitus would be over 10x easier to acquire.

 

Warframe players should realize DE is trying to cater to their fanbase as best as possible. It's not always realistic to appease everyone. I am happy with these changes as they will encourage people to play arbitrations for the mods and SP for the arcanes.

[(PSN)AbBaNdOn_]

Arbitration newb here...

So you get 1 vitus per round and have a 6% chance of vitus drops from drones which show up multiple times during a round?? 

But this is all some stupid no respawn extreme endurance mode so the deeper you go the more vitus you earn per round or ?? 

[(NSW)M1tchster]

21 minutes ago, Jesterof_Chaos said:

Except that type of map wasn't an option. As others have said, the choice you have for maps with Arbis is one per hour. Meaning if it's a bad map, you can either try your luck, or wait until the next rotation and try again. Not every player can play for hours and wait until the optimal map, mission, and faction show up. Even then, now that they've waited until the perfect situation if available, those farming on SP have gotten a lot more essence.

This is basically why I've been on about the drones drop chance bump of 3% is being terrible.

 

But hey I'm just a scrub trying to argue best for all and not the select few that don't need to farm anything since they've already have a stockpile or will just buy it.

I wouldn't say this is best for all. It's better for new players (which usually just quit playing once they have the strongest content anyways). And remember this content is more aimed for players a bit further in the game anyways. These mods are not even remotely necessarily for guns to perform well, even in steel path.

 

Best for all would be reducing the costs of some of the items in the arbitration store. For me however the costs of the mods seem reasonable since they stay with you permanently, but a slight drop in price is reasonable. Some other items like kuva should be cheaper.

 

Do you really like just being handed new content instead of earning it? Nothing is freely given to you in warframe, and for many that is what makes it fun.

[FuriousRat32]

24 minutes ago, (NSW)M1tchster said:

I am tired of these suggestions... No matter what route DE chooses someone will complain. I like the arbitration drop rate personally; I already grinded 100s of vitus, it is not that time consuming. Your suggested changes basically render all the time previous players spend playing arbitrations completely valueless as vitus would be over 10x easier to acquire.

I fully agree with you, vitus farming, if done properly is more efficient than steel essence farming. I've traded 2500 vitus twice already for kuva since I've started running arbitrations. And let's be honest here, arbitrations provide a more interesting mission compared to the steel path counterpart, and they're not harder or easier, they're different. 

 

43 minutes ago, Jesterof_Chaos said:

Except that type of map wasn't an option. As others have said, the choice you have for maps with Arbis is one per hour. Meaning if it's a bad map, you can either try your luck, or wait until the next rotation and try again. Not every player can play for hours and wait until the optimal map, mission, and faction show up. Even then, now that they've waited until the perfect situation if available, those farming on SP have gotten a lot more essence.

This is basically why I've been on about the drones drop chance bump of 3% is being terrible.

 

But hey I'm just a scrub trying to argue best for all and not the select few that don't need to farm anything since they've already have a stockpile or will just buy it.

No one forces you or anyone else to run arbitrations one after another, if you like the map and feel like running go for it, if not, there's plenty of other stuff to do that would make using your time efficient.

The only thing that I might be ok with is reducing the cost for kuva in the arbi shop.

The increased drop chance for vitus drops seems more than enough.

[(PSN)Alphonso-Alonso]

1 hour ago, Ghost1598 said:

5 vitus essence for 40 min defense currently

what a complete joke, this is pathetic. You're literally scamming our time

I got three whole vitus essence for 17 minutes of survival and about a dozen vitus drones killed that dropped zero. I could’ve gone for 20 minutes but... I wanted to do something fun instead.

 

But hey, they buffed a 3 percent drop to a 6 percent drop. 
 

how... charitable.

[Jesterof_Chaos]

I give up. I'll get the mods eventually, when ever I get around to it.

You all can keep your narrow meta and walled garden to yourselves, and be happy about it.

I'd just had really hoped DE would have made actually fixes to firearms instead of adding more grind disguised as "fixes".

[(PSN)Alphonso-Alonso]

34 minutes ago, FuriousRat32 said:

No one forces you or anyone else to run arbitrations one after another.

Oh, sounds like someone knows how to get 20 vitus essence without playing a tedious game mode!

Go on, tell us your strat.

[(PSN)Alphonso-Alonso]

4 minutes ago, Jesterof_Chaos said:

I give up. I'll get the mods eventually, when ever I get around to it.

You all and keep your narrow meta and walled garden to yourselves, and be happy about it.

I'd just had really hoped DE would have made actually fixes to firearms instead of adding more grind disguised as "fixes".

Too late. It’s happening and we are all in this together. Miserable.

[TheLexiConArtist]

5 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Oh, also:

"All status effects done to allied units under the aura will have the status effect applied to the Ancient instead. Currently this aura can only be dispelled by  Psychic Bolts,  Chaos and through  Radiation procs. This includes the capabilities of bosses, Stalker, and Nullifiers.

An Ancient under the effects of Confusion will turn hostile to nearby units and stop applying its mitigation aura for the duration of the proc. This in turn prevents the Healer from generating health through allies, and makes said allies more vulnerable."

Setting aside warframe-ability sources for a minute, let us not overlook the fact that Radiation is a bit of a lose-lose decision when it comes to Ancients. You cut out the mitigation aura (including the Healer's 'I heal by absorbing damage from others instead of taking it' bug), yes, but you also subject yourself to a damage malus because that Radiation you're using to source procs is also their biggest resistance.

[FuriousRat32]

16 minutes ago, (PSN)Alphonso-Alonso said:

Oh, sounds like someone knows how to get 20 vitus essence without playing a tedious game mode!

Go on, tell us your strat.

If you've payed attention to what I've written in the post you quoted from, I've said that arbitrations provide a more interesting type of mission compared to the steel path counterpart. This is my opinion, if you feel like arbi is a tedious game mode like you said, don't run them.

But I suggest you try different arbitrations and with premade squads, it's better, makes you more dependent on your squadmates.

As for the strategy, as I've mentioned in a previous post, there's more than one squad setup, for more than one mission type arbi, and almost all of them can be run efficiently, whether for vitus farming or rotation farming.

[(PSN)Oracle-Raven]

Great changes overall.

Too bad the arbitration drones make the game mode super boring and uninteresting by forcing players to use Warframes that don't get completely screwed over by them.
Doesn't make the game mode more difficult or engaging, only makes it feel like more of a chore to snooze through.

[(NSW)M1tchster]

55 minutes ago, (PSN)Alphonso-Alonso said:

Oh, sounds like someone knows how to get 20 vitus essence without playing a tedious game mode!

Go on, tell us your strat.

The mods will be tradable as well if you find the game mode tedius. It's fairly easy to farm vitus as it is if you're patient. One strategy is to not simply farm the game mode, just peek and see if there is a fun and exciting buff and mission type just to play and experiment with unique builds. The amount of vitus you'll farm along the way having fun will surprise you.

[Behradmansouri]

Make it so that, just like arcane revives, when these gun arcanes are above rank 3 they add 10 more mod capacity to your gun. This brings the maximum drain possible on guns in line with those of melee weapons, fixes the high demand for forma with the new mods and increases the incentive to farm these arcanes.

And of you want to in the meanwhile you can get to making gun stances.

[Snake]

On 2021-06-22 at 1:02 PM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Bonus: Beam Weapon Mods! 
4) General Beam Weapon Mod Change:
Ruinous Extension and Sinister Reach are now slottable in the Exilus slot and their text changed from "+X Range" to "+X Beam Length"
Why: While we are in the revision process for all things Mods, some well reasoned suggestions made it aboard! 

BTW - Thanks for this.

[(PSN)IndianChiefJeff]

3 hours ago, Jesterof_Chaos said:

I give up. I'll get the mods eventually, when ever I get around to it.

You all can keep your narrow meta and walled garden to yourselves, and be happy about it.

I'd just had really hoped DE would have made actually fixes to firearms instead of adding more grind disguised as "fixes".

Honestly, I was holding out the slightest hope for DE to do the right thing & buff at least a portion of the arsenal. My fragment of hope was obviously misplaced.

DE cares more about tweaking Riven stats & dispositions than they do about anything else. There was no intention of direct buffs for weaker weapons, no implementation of a universal combo counter that benefits every weapon class, no changes to emphasize weak points or the crippling of enemies, not even Condition Overload variants for our guns.

All of this continues to prove how tone-deaf DE is & will continue to be. The community has a better fundamental understanding of the game mechanics than almost the entirety of DE's staff combined. There's no greater insult than the apathy they hold for those who disagree with them.

DE was at some point rightfully lauded as a company that actively listened to their fanbase, that revolutionized communication via devstreams & such, but now they're trying to sink their only successful project in the ocean faster than the Lusitania. If even the slightest criticism is enough to invoke tears, then DE will continue to lose whatever goodwill they have left with the community.

I apologize for this mess of a tangent, but nothing infuriates me more than pathetic efforts to resolve multi-faceted dilemmas. This isn't a one-and-done issue, DE has to go the extra mile & consider every angle of the problem. They can't sweep a problem like this under the rug when this game clearly has an identity crisis. Is it a stealth-action game? Is it a horde shooter? Is it a cover shooter? Why do we need mechs & pets? Why are AoE weapons so effective? Why are sniper rifles & bows so lackluster? It's just one thing after another, and they seem to forget that they've put themselves into this situation by following so many different trends without emphasizing depth.

[Casardis]

5 hours ago, (NSW)M1tchster said:

I am tired of these suggestions... No matter what route DE chooses someone will complain. I like the arbitration drop rate personally; I already grinded 100s of vitus, it is not that time consuming. Your suggested changes basically render all the time previous players spend playing arbitrations completely valueless as vitus would be over 10x easier to acquire.

 

Warframe players should realize DE is trying to cater to their fanbase as best as possible. It's not always realistic to appease everyone. I am happy with these changes as they will encourage people to play arbitrations for the mods and SP for the arcanes.

I admit that some of my suggestion may be too much, but I doubt it's fair to discard all of them by just saying "I'm tired of it." I've already grinded 180 essence for all mods. However, there are many times I have to wait or go through a bore due to 1 mission per hour, compare to the variety found in Steel Path. On tope of that, I might spend 30-40min in one mission to get only 11 essence, while another one that I spent 30 on gave me over 50 (both times with a booster). That disparity may need addressing in Arbitration, especially solo spawn, and my suggestion could be a band aid to cover that. Thankfully they are buffing the gain.

If you don't like my suggestion to gain Vitus easier, that's fine, and I'd even agree with you to some extent, but what do you think of my suggestion to add more choices\variety in mission per hour, maybe 2-3? Would you say no to more option on a mode that you seem to have fun with? Also what about having the mods in the rotations AND the shop? This won't really make the value of Vitus to none, since it actually encourages playing while being actively rewarded with Vitus, should your RNG be unlucky with rotations. They did that with Orphix Venom and a lot of people liked it.

At the end of the day, I'd be fine with Arbitration in its current state to farm for Galvanized Mods, but I'd rather have them expand the mode by giving us more missions per rotation. Your criticism of my suggestions seem to single out the Vitus gain, but that's not my entire post. 

3 hours ago, (NSW)M1tchster said:

The mods will be tradable as well if you find the game mode tedius. It's fairly easy to farm vitus as it is if you're patient. One strategy is to not simply farm the game mode, just peek and see if there is a fun and exciting buff and mission type just to play and experiment with unique builds. The amount of vitus you'll farm along the way having fun will surprise you.

Let's compare it to Steel Path. If I'm not doing Incursions, I still have the entire Star Chart ahead of me to get SE. If I do Incursions, I have 5 missions per day that vary from "endless-type" to "rush-type". Getting a small fraction of that QoL through more missions per rotation, while keeping it concise to promote matchmaking, might be more "fun" than "peek and see every hour" (which I'll still be able to do, but may be able to "play" more often than "peek" thanks to having more selections). It will also be better for people who can only play during certain time of day.

EDIT: Trimmed down my post from stuff that could be seen as unintentional melo-drama. Sorry if you saw my post before my edits, and may have interpreted that way.

[iPathos]

5 hours ago, (PSN)Joshua_Badhan said:

I try to communicate my thoughts as eloquently, precisely, and politely as I can, but this post shall be an exception as I really have nothing more than an anecdote to illustrate my point.

It is pointless to address The Arsenal Divide if DE continues to perpetuate inconsistent standards.

I'm a PS4 player, and I took a break from the game for a few months so that there would be something for me to do. I logged back on about a week ago, and was leisurely making my way through all the changes in the 3 or so major updates I missed and I noticed that Creeping Bullseye now provides the same amount of critical chance as Primed Pistol Gambit. I thought "sweet a, novelty crit buff on sidearms that would only be used for crit memes and realistically useful on 3 or 4 weapons!", and went to modify my Twin Grakata build and was amazed by the fact that I couldn't exploit the "unintended function" of equipping it with both Creeping Bullseye and Primed Pistol Gambit.

I then went to check if Bloodrush still provided 60% critical chance scaling with combo up to a 660% increase, and if True Steel/ Sacrificial Steel still provided 120%/220% critical chance doubling on heavy attack, and then went to see if I could use both Bloodrush and Sacrificial Steel on the same weapon. Lo and behold, these mods were "Not functioning as intended" and could be used simultaneously on ANY melee weapon! Imagine my shock!

But I still wasn't done, I then went to check on my Amprex, Argonak, Grakata, Paris Prime, Atomos, and Spira Prime, of which I so disgracefully abused the "unintended feature" of building them with Point Strike or Primed Pistol Gambit AND rivens with critical chance and was so surprised that I was still able to take advantage of this "unintended feature"!

You guys should totally get on board and abuse this absolutely not intended mechanic of the game!!

Unfortunately, your points here are rooted in misunderstanding. Creeping Bullseye was buffed, but it is now intended to be a separate mod to PPG so as to synergize better with Hemorrhage. Blood Rush is meant to be usable with mods like Sacrificial Steel and True Steel, because its bonus only applies to the weapon's base critical chance - not the modded one. While it may add a huge amount of critical chance in the end, it is far and away a lesser amount than is generally understood to be added from the wording of the mods.

 

Also, when was the combining of critical chance rivens and standard critical chance mods ever considered to be anything other than "normal behavior". The overuse of the phrase "unintended mechanic" here unfortunately gives your post near no credence, let alone the misunderstanding of how and why these mods were changed.

 

Now, I agree consistency would be a nice change looking at the things they've decided on lately - I fully agree. But basing such a vehemently-worded response to this on either unfounded statements or misunderstandings does not help your case. 

[iPathos]

3 hours ago, TheLexiConArtist said:

Setting aside warframe-ability sources for a minute, let us not overlook the fact that Radiation is a bit of a lose-lose decision when it comes to Ancients. You cut out the mitigation aura (including the Healer's 'I heal by absorbing damage from others instead of taking it' bug), yes, but you also subject yourself to a damage malus because that Radiation you're using to source procs is also their biggest resistance.

How is it lose-lose when it entirely nerfs the crowd's resistance to damage and passive healing? Sure, it's the damage type they're most resistant to - they still take damage from it and you also get the benefit of removing their biggest boon. I struggle to fathom how this could be a lose-lose, at worst it's a tradeoff.

[ShogunGunshow]

Guess I'm lucky I have like 170 Vitus Essence left over from when I was farming for Adaptation.

[(NSW)M1tchster]

1 hour ago, Casardis said:

I admit that some of my suggestion may be too much, but I doubt it's fair to discard all of them by just saying "I'm tired of it." I've already grinded 180 essence for all mods. However, there are many times I have to wait or go through a bore due to 1 mission per hour, compare to the variety found in Steel Path. On tope of that, I might spend 30-40min in one mission to get only 11 essence, while another one that I spent 30 on gave me over 50 (both times with a booster). That disparity may need addressing in Arbitration, especially solo spawn, and my suggestion could be a band aid to cover that. Thankfully they are buffing the gain.

If you don't like my suggestion to gain Vitus easier, that's fine, and I'd even agree with you to some extent, but what do you think of my suggestion to add more choices\variety in mission per hour, maybe 2-3? Would you say no to more option on a mode that you seem to have fun with? Also what about having the mods in the rotations AND the shop? This won't really make the value of Vitus to none, since it actually encourages playing while being actively rewarded with Vitus, should your RNG be unlucky with rotations. They did that with Orphix Venom and a lot of people liked it.

At the end of the day, I'd be fine with Arbitration in its current state to farm for Galvanized Mods, but I'd rather have them expand the mode by giving us more missions per rotation. Your criticism of my suggestions seem to single out the Vitus gain, but that's not my entire post. 

Let's compare it to Steel Path. If I'm not doing Incursions, I still have the entire Star Chart ahead of me to get SE. If I do Incursions, I have 5 missions per day that vary from "endless-type" to "rush-type". Getting a small fraction of that QoL through more missions per rotation, while keeping it concise to promote matchmaking, might be more "fun" than "peek and see every hour" (which I'll still be able to do, but may be able to "play" more often than "peek" thanks to having more selections). It will also be better for people who can only play during certain time of day.

EDIT: Trimmed down my post from stuff that could be seen as unintentional melo-drama. Sorry if you saw my post before my edits, and may have interpreted that way.

My comments were specifically on what I disagreed with, which may have come off critically. I do think you raised some good suggestions.

I am happy with a reasonable increase in drop chance from drones, as DE is implementing. I do agree more active mission types to choose from would be great, maybe even having separate warframe buffs on them. Even making vitus essence guaranteed after waves wouldn't hurt.

Adding galvanized mods to steel path rewards might be possible as well, but implementing it in a way that doesn't become exploitable might be tricky. Due to the power of the mods they can't be too easy to obtain, as it would hurt the trading economy badly.

 

Adding the mods to both stores seems reasonable as well but I do like the way this may encourage grinding both modes individually; Specifically arbitrations for the mods and sp for the arcanes.

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

A simple thread, I want to put forward the notion that Digital Extremes isn’t going to solve the Arsenal divide with arcanes and mods, and are instead just playing with fire.

Once upon a time, melee was buffed into the state it’s currently in, this was done by changing a plethora of base stats, and also the introduction of evidently ridiculous mods. While the mods did a lot to raise the overall power level of melee, it was the base stats that determined what was usable.

Weapons like Fang had their crit chance increased from 5%.
 

The heart of my point, there are no shortcuts when it comes to balance. DE is going to have to go under the hood and put in the hard work.

It wouldn’t need to all happen at once, every couple of weeks or months they could rebalance a new group of weapons. Even if it’s as small as 10 weapons at a time. 
Because if 10 new weapons become viable, to me that’s the same thing has getting 10 new weapons.

It’s the least amount of work they can do for the most yield.

Or hell, just take some weapons from the bottom. Rework 100 1.5 disposition weapons. I mean heck, I would do it for you for free.

 

This is my addition to the discourse around this situation. This isn’t in feedback because I want to actually see what the community thinks about this issue.

[.durandle.]

DE can you please let us also get the mods as drops in steel path like the initial annoucement

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

9 hours ago, (PSN)AbBaNdOn_ said:

Arbitration newb here...

So you get 1 vitus per round and have a 6% chance of vitus drops from drones which show up multiple times during a round?? 

But this is all some stupid no respawn extreme endurance mode so the deeper you go the more vitus you earn per round or ?? 

 

Hello. In case no one has answered you. Yes you get a a Vitus Essence per rotation. Then you can get Vitus Essence as a drop from the Drones, it will be 6% when the update happens, at the moment its 3%. You can also get it as a reward from each Rotation, 3 Vitus Essence, at 7% for A, B and C rotations. For comparison, Endo is usually the highest reward from A, B and C rotation, Adaptation is like 2%. 

The Vitus Essence chances don't increase the longer you go, sorta, I suck at maths, but with Rotation C, the 3 Virus Essence reward is third highest chance, and Arbitrations follow an AABBCC - then C endlessly. You are still more likely to get Endo or a sculpture. 

Ideally you just want to have a good team with you, and kill Arbitration Drones as fast as possible whilst getting through rotations fast too. 

Hope you give it a chance and have fun! 

[DrivaMain]

5 hours ago, (PSN)IndianChiefJeff said:

DE cares more about tweaking Riven stats & dispositions than they do about anything else. There was no intention of direct buffs for weaker weapons, no implementation of a universal combo counter that benefits every weapon class, no changes to emphasize weak points or the crippling of enemies, not even Condition Overload variants for our guns.

They just did add a CO Variant of our guns with these new Galvanized Status mods, but you need the flawed "On Kill" condition to start the buff. So if you kill a guy, your gun gets the CO buff for the duration.

[PraetorGix]

En 22/6/2021 a las 15:07, .Khaos. dijo:

Why, just why...

Well, the grind division at DE deemed necessary to add more grind to the upcoming added grind. Steel essence is already on many player's inventories so they figured they should put these questionable mods somewhere where you basically need to start from zero to get them. Also, the RNG sub-department noticed that buying from Teshin didn't lead to the same levels of disappointment that you would get from receiving a fourth copy of Galvanized Savvy when you want a Galvanized Chamber, so they added 100% more RNG to the system!