The Arsenal Divide: Changes & Follow Ups

[H.S-Argen]

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Since The Arsenal Divide Workshop launched on Friday, we’ve been busy developing, testing, and reading responses. We have some preliminary changes to share with everyone! We’re posting in a separate thread to highlight the changes, and will do all necessary cross posting in the originals to keep them up to date.  This means that June 22 onward has the latest information on The Arsenal Divide! 

so i have a question, seeing that you looked at the feed back what about the helminth system and extra ranks.
are you realy not gonna do anything for the players that already subsumed extra frames past rank 10?

 

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

Moved all Galvanized Mods to Arbitrations from Steel Path. 

is this gonna be in the shops or as rotation rewards?
(kinda also want to know before i get shafted again farming beforehand like i did with steel essence)
and if possible also the prices if its in the shop?
when the new update drops i would rather want to be fighting queen pins than farming arbis T_T

 

 

[Grav_Starstrider]

1 hour ago, LeonardBlyx said:

I mean the game has 12+ different damage types, if you are so keen on incentivizing variety, adding variety to combat would benefit more. Put some new enemies on steel path maybe. Drones that require blast damage to crack their armor first so that you can normally kill them. Shield drones that gets disabled by magnetic damage. A necramech like enemy that is impervious on its turret form but gets disabled by gas damage perhaps. A big enemy that has a weak point that spins so fast that you need to slow it down with cold damage. This kind of mechanics would incentivize weapon variety, adding to numbers is not adding variety. 

If the mechanic I mentioned above existed, Catchmoon wouldn't need to be nerfed this much, or Bramma, or Xoris, or other "Everybody uses weapon X so nerf" because you would have to use your whole arsenal. 

This is how you do challenges that reward choice and preparation. Make something that's difficult under normal circumstances, but has 1 (or 2 or more options, perhaps only partially effective) specific option(s) that you can utilize to reduce the severity of challenge (or for greater sense of reward, eliminate challenges entirely).

An option for making gunplay more relevant, in addition to this workshop's updates, would be to refine certain enemy behaviors and mechanics, so that certain enemies are more resistant or susceptible (or even strengthened!) by certain physical/elemental damage or procs in unique, logical ways, as well as to guns vs melee,  to a greater degree than the current "weak to / strong to X, and because of Y you'll want to proc Z against them, even though Z does the exact same thing to everyone else" system.

Give us enemies that incentivize specific elements OR specific weapon types, who are otherwise difficult to handle, to reward preparation and switching to things. Shouldn't be impossible without the things, since "sword only" or "rifle only" are both challenges presented in game, and player play styles, but it'd be neat to lean into this kinda design, rather than hosing down enemies in the same way.

[DrivaMain]

Why not make them available both at Arbitrations and Steel Path? It give players a choice.

[KosmicKerman]

I’m not thrilled that the farm for the new arcanes and the new mods has been split into two completely different missions. Before you could just run SP missions and make progress on both arcanes and galvanized mods. Now players will have to farm both mission types. This is particularly less desirable when arbitrations are limited to one mission per hour. This may not be a big deal for people who regularly play with friends but arbitrations are a complete crap shoot with random teams (public or recruited) due to the joy of host migrations. Not to mention that now you are forcing players to play a mission that disables warframe powers to farm mods to make guns worth using AND arbitrations ELIMINATE PLAYER CHOICE by forcing a mission type on players. Not a fan of this game design philosophy. 

[RivaAurelius]

16 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Weapons come with progression. Not all weapons should be viable otherwise you water down the arsenal and make choices even less meaningful. You don't need melee to survive the entire Steel Path starchart. There's plenty of abilities and weapons that can aid you in missions. Eclipse, Vex Armor, Roar, Amp, Seeking Shuriken, Snowglobe, Mass Vitrify, Whipclaw, Reservoirs, Toxic Lash, Venom Dose, Shock Trooper, Shields, Catchmoon, Tombfinger, Sonar, Molecular Prime, headshot multipliers, most sniper rifles, Synapse, Convectrix, Phantasma, Epitaph, and Kuva weapons just to name a few.

Melee is being nerfed but not really by a whole lot to be quite honest. There's plenty of non-melee abilities that work in the Steel Path. Maybe start building your weapons properly if you are struggling.

Something I see most players do (to name a few):

• Passing on is 55% final damage from Primed Faction Damage mods
• Stacking like multipliers and having diminishing returns on builds (Heavy Caliber)
• Using the wrong elements for the mission
• Choosing lower end/lower progression weapons which do not perform well in their given mission

I still don't see the problem with these mods being locked behind Steel Path. Again:

Weapons come with progression, sure, but the mods in question came with progression too (or at least they used to). If this was truly about player "progression" then they wouldn't be nerfing mods that (at least used to) be rewards for dedicated, hard working players. Blood rush had a right to be as strong as it was because of how it used to be attained. Also you are not being consistent, you say melee isn't being nerfed by a whole lot because there are "non melee abilities" that are viable. This does not change the fact that melee IS being nerfed. Also, I feel like you didn't really read my entire reply, because I went on to say that I would be relying on warframe abilities. I already build my warframes and weapons "properly", but isn't the point of this whole bloody idea to encourage diversity in our builds, weapons and playstyles? You're kind of proving that this whole idea isn't working with just that one line, because if this idea was working, it would negate the idea that building "properly" is necessary. There would be a variety of builds that could work on one weapon that would be effective depending on playstyle, there would be a variety of weapons that would be effective depending on playstyle. This move by DE is encouraging new metas to arise, and you don't seem to realise that. After this update drops, people will be looking at the best build to use on the best weapon, with the best frame, to acquire the new mods and clear new content. Because there will be no newfound diversity of play. There will only be a new meta. 

Edit: I'm not a fan of these mods being put into arbitrations either. I was more fine with these mods being steel path rewards than the alternative. Because I know I'll be able to acquire them without much hassle. But arbitrations is so bloody boring. Also, as someone who builds "properly" most of the time, and constantly researches and adheres to the meta, I am bored of doing so. It offers very little uniqueness or diversity of play, and that gets stale fast. 

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

1 minute ago, (XBOX)Cash201293 said:

I don’t understand why some players want the mods we need to kill enemies in steel path to be earned in steel path. Please make it make sense to me. 

Because like I stated, I want to what mission I like when I want to. With the upcoming buff to Steel Essence rewards from Incursions (from 3 per to 5 per, meaning a guaranteed 25 essence per day if you do all 5), Steel Essence acquisition should be fine, and most importantly, consistent.

Compare that to Arbitrations, where if it rolls a mode I don't enjoy, then I need to wait a full hour to have a chance to get a mode I like.
Arbitrations also have additional restrictions that make it un-fun, such as Survival's reduced life support. You have drones which say no to your abilities and make enemies invincible. Couple that with enemy spawns being terrible solo across all of the game modes and you have an un-fun mode.
SP enemies might be a lot beefier, but at least I have lots to kill.

As for needing the mods to kill enemies in SP, you have guns that can do it fine right now. Toss in a frame with a self buff or enemy debuff and they have decent performance. Fast kills per second is only a requirement for survival and defense. In all other misions you can take it a bit slower.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Awh man, I know it was an unpopular view, but I personally preferred the new Arcanes dropping from Steel Path, not Arbitrations. 1. You can select your own mission types whenever you want/can, and not be stuck to one that rotates every hour. 2. Now I assume they will also compete with Arbitration rewards, where as they would have been undiluted in Steel Path. 3. I find more people playing Steel Path. I often have to solo SP and Arbitrations, but preference wise, always more fun to play with others. 4. The main criticism, was that we where receiving a reward that is intended to help us complete the very same task we receive the reward from... and sure that makes sense, it does sound kind of odd, especially if we use rhetoric or hyperbole... but its a really common gameplay loop everywhere. Like the simple act of playing the game, increases your skill and knowledge making it easier. You struggle to get the reward in SP, initially, you get it, you get excited because you go in next time and find it easier. 

That being said, I am mindful of the idea that I have a lot of Arcanes, time, and thought playing the game, so may be underestimating how hard SP is... but eh, and this is anecdotal, but I see more people struggling with Arbitrations than Steel Path, because sometimes the fail conditions can be harsher/certain mechanics around defence, arby drones getting caught/stuck) so I always felt the idea of it being a "middle difficulty" in this specific regard, odd/slightly disingenuous and more about dunking on latest changes. 

Alternatively, if this means more people will actually do Arbitrations, then that will be nice too. So that could be fun. 

Everything else sounds pretty good! 

[----Legacy----]

3 hours ago, [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! 

 

I'd dare to say it's mostly because The Steel Path is permanently available for players to get essence any time while arbitrations are only endless modes available once per hour, making Vitus Essence much harder to obtain in great amounts than Steel Essence, resource of which some players may still have huge stocks from the days when Steel Essence dropped from eximus units.

Because of that, i guess people simply stops bothering with arbitrations quickly and now you're just trying to push everyone towards an underplayed mode.

At that point might as well make Teshin offer Steel Essence for conclave standing (only to players who have completed the base starchart) at a decently efficient rate to see if it manages to lure people in there. Perhaps Vitus Essence too but that one isn't tied to him.

[RivaAurelius]

1 minute ago, ----Legacy---- said:

I'd dare to say it's mostly because The Steel Path is permanently available for players to get essence any time while arbitrations are only endless modes available once per hour, making Vitus Essence much harder to obtain in great amounts than Steel Essence, resource of which some players may still have huge stocks from the days when Steel Essence dropped from eximus units.

Because of that, i guess people simply stops bothering with arbitrations quickly and now you're just trying to push everyone towards an underplayed mode.

At that point might as well make Teshin offer Steel Essence for conclave standing (only to players who have completed the base starchart) at a decently efficient rate to see if it manages to lure people in there. Perhaps Vitus Essence too but that one isn't tied to him.

May start grinding vitus essence so I can buy everything I need to on day one. I got nothing else to do in game rn *shrugs*

[R34LM]

Galvanized mods moved to Arbitrations drop or shop?

 

Gonna say I hope they are in the shop and not drops...i don't prefer farming there, due to the extra bogus mechanics added on. Plus the lack of mission choice 

[-JT-_-R3W1ND]

3 hours ago, [DE]Rebecca said:

2) Galvanized Mod Properties:

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

I love how most of ppl are ignoring this. I'm not sure 12 is ok enough, but 16 is just memeing. What was "the test" resulting in this?

Why you calculating this as "total redused by 2". Show me please the build using ALL of this same time. Just curious, what is not the part of the game — rivens, or exilus mods.

 

[RivaAurelius]

Just now, -JT-_-R3W1ND said:

I love how most of ppl are ignoring this. I'm not sure 12 is ok enough, but 16 is just memeing. What was "the test" resulting in this?

Why you calculating this as "total redused by 2". Show me please the build using ALL of this same time. Just curious, what is not the part of the game — rivens, or exilus mods.

 

Wow I didn't even notice this. Why on earth are they bumping it up to 16? 

[(XBOX)TheMadCash]

12 minutes ago, -JT-_-R3W1ND said:

So, you just don't play SP? That's expains alot.

I do. But majority of GUNS fall short to melee in SP. I don’t understand how my point was missed in my earlier comment.

[R34LM]

9 minutes ago, RivaAurelius said:

Wow I didn't even notice this. Why on earth are they bumping it up to 16? 

Regular split chamber is 15 drain. If you put it in a polarized slot it'll still be the same amount of drain at 8

[(PSN)TONI__RIBEIRO]

21 arcanes x 6 =126

So we gotta farm 10,5 hours to get 126 arcanes from acolytes that spawn every 5 minutes or so, my question is can we have them on steel path store so we can get the ones missing because we will get duplicates and a system like orphix venom store would be ideal here. 

[Almagnus1]

IMO DE should not nerf the melee mods (or for that matter) touch melee.

If the changes are good enough, I'm going to stop using melee because I WANT to use primary and secondaries and I really don't want DE forcing the decision.

What's the point in having primary and secondaries take the place of melees by flipping the issue on it's head?

Why can't DE just bring primaries and secondaries up to the level of melees?

Why does it feel like almost no one that makes balance decisions at DE plays the game?

[wizardeiges]

Sure hope you're putting the mods in the arbitration shop because the arbitration rotations are already heavily diluted with terrible arcanes. 
Once you get the mod from a rotation then it becomes a worthless filler drop after that.

PLEASE add the mods to the arbitration shop for vitus essence.

Should make them untradable too so new players can't just buy their way into a easier steel path without having to play the game since these mods are supposed to be for steel path usage.
 

[RivaAurelius]

3 minutes ago, Almagnus1 said:

IMO DE should not nerf the melee mods (or for that matter) touch melee.

If the changes are good enough, I'm going to stop using melee because I WANT to use primary and secondaries and I really don't want DE forcing the decision.

What's the point in having primary and secondaries take the place of melees by flipping the issue on it's head?

Why can't DE just bring primaries and secondaries up to the level of melees?

Why does it feel like almost no one that makes balance decisions at DE plays the game?

Why don't more people just understand this in general? Balance isn't created by inverting an issue, but by creating actual balance, which this update does not do.

[Scar.brother.help.me]

6 minutes ago, Almagnus1 said:

Why does it feel like almost no one that makes balance decisions at DE plays the game?

Same feeling bro

[EdDiesel]

3 hours ago, kinoko_takenoko said:

I don't like Steel Path because of its lack of coordination, but I hate Arbitrations even more.
(The stage where you can only choose one random point, the system where one mistake is game over, the system where you can only play one mission at a certain time, the drones that are hard to attack, everything.)

Arbis is fun. I play it all the time with randoms and we do fine. If someone dies its not game over necessarily and I find it fun trying to revive them because it adds a little bit of challenge. As long as their not dying every couple seconds and going afk often. Drones are a tad bit hard to hit but nothing anyone can't handle. The main issue is with vitus essence drop chance. Without boosters it does not feel rewarding enough. Also the rotating missions limiting access to mission I can see being an issue for players. I do not personally mind. Just can't run it like a regular in and out star-chart mission going for 5 minute runs rinse and repeating. It was not designed to be that type of mission.

[Reitrix]

Galvanised Mods being on Arbitrations makes absolutely zero sense. 

- Can only do it once per hour. 
- Endless Defense or Survival only. 
- One single mistake at any point (AKA getting one shot arbitrarily by a toxin cloud that previously didn't even dent the health bar) and your run is a failure.
- Drone spawns are irregular and inconsistent. 
- Essence drops are inconsistent. 
- Difficulty spikes immensely, due to certain Leech Eximus units that start spawning frequently fairly early on that simply drain your entire energy bar on spawn(Y'know, the thing that a lot of Frames require to not be one shot) by virtue of simply existing somewhere on the map.
- Death in a squad is an actual burden to your squadmates. 

Compare all the above nonsense to running the very first Earth Exterminate SP node for 2 - 4 guarenteed Steel Essence. If i die to the Acolyte, i can simply stand up and finish the mission to try again immediately with a different strategy. 
Can also do the alerts to generate Steel Essence consistently. 
Dying in a squad scenario doesn't place a burden on them in order to revive you. You can just revive yourself or be revived by normal means. 

And finally, it made perfect sense that you would do early Steel Path Missions to get the Mods that you need to do later Steel Path Missions where that power bump is required. 
It makes no sense to be funneled into an awfully balanced Endless mode to painfully grind Vitus Essence to get the mods that you only need for late Steel Path missions. 

When i read the first workshop that put the Galvanised Mods on Steel Essence, i celebrated and immediately began progressing Steel Path. I cleared Earth last night and got my statue.
Only to find out today that I'm being forced into Arbitrations in order to progress in an entirely different game mode. 

If you feel they should be available outside of Steel Path, sure put them on the Arbitration shop. 
But leave them in the Steel Path shop as well so we have a choice as to how we go about acquiring them. 

[TheFBD]

5 minutes ago, Almagnus1 said:

IMO DE should not nerf the melee mods (or for that matter) touch melee.

If the changes are good enough, I'm going to stop using melee because I WANT to use primary and secondaries and I really don't want DE forcing the decision.

What's the point in having primary and secondaries take the place of melees by flipping the issue on it's head?

Why can't DE just bring primaries and secondaries up to the level of melees?

Why does it feel like almost no one that makes balance decisions at DE plays the game?

Exactly. There is simply no reason at all to nerf melee when you want to buff guns to be an alternative to melee. Except when you're afraid that your "buff" sucks and players will just ignore it... then you have to nerf melee and force guns down players throats.

[(PSN)Frost_Nephilim]

3 hours ago, (NSW)MegaCoolRulez said:

if newer players will have a hard time to get them?

Yeah man! Why add the strongest items to the hardest game mode? Why would you make newer players struggle to get the best equipment?

In what world do games do such a thing?

 

Jokes aside, while idc much for the change, it still sp NEEDS some loot drops imo. Honestly the smeeta kavat trick helped me so much with tolerating steel path because building up steel essence is a whole nightmare. I use my steel essenence for kuva and even after 200-400 rolls on my weapons in total from all that kuva, im still 2 good stats short on most of those weapons, and 1 stat short on the rest.

Now im going to be getting half to 1/4 of the steel essence i was able to get before. 1/8 even

 

Thats a big punch to the gut. If not add the mods add void relics imo. Something that i can be happy to see during the 6 hours instead of after. Seeing my smeeta kavat proc its boost twice or more got me so excited and left me wanting to play it again, wondering "what if it will happen again or what if it procs even more times than that last run?!" Helped kill off some of the games feeling of repetition with neat rewards. Coming from someone who only really plays endless missions that are all about repeating.

Hope thats not just me

Edit: we do have new arcanes there so thats still a treat

[EdDiesel]

25 minutes ago, (PSN)slightconfuzzled said:

Awh man, I know it was an unpopular view, but I personally preferred the new Arcanes dropping from Steel Path, not Arbitrations. 1. You can select your own mission types whenever you want/can, and not be stuck to one that rotates every hour. 2. Now I assume they will also compete with Arbitration rewards, where as they would have been undiluted in Steel Path. 3. I find more people playing Steel Path. I often have to solo SP and Arbitrations, but preference wise, always more fun to play with others. 4. The main criticism, was that we where receiving a reward that is intended to help us complete the very same task we receive the reward from... and sure that makes sense, it does sound kind of odd, especially if we use rhetoric or hyperbole... but its a really common gameplay loop everywhere. Like the simple act of playing the game, increases your skill and knowledge making it easier. You struggle to get the reward in SP, initially, you get it, you get excited because you go in next time and find it easier. 

That being said, I am mindful of the idea that I have a lot of Arcanes, time, and thought playing the game, so may be underestimating how hard SP is... but eh, and this is anecdotal, but I see more people struggling with Arbitrations than Steel Path, because sometimes the fail conditions can be harsher/certain mechanics around defence, arby drones getting caught/stuck) so I always felt the idea of it being a "middle difficulty" in this specific regard, odd/slightly disingenuous and more about dunking on latest changes. 

Alternatively, if this means more people will actually do Arbitrations, then that will be nice too. So that could be fun. 

Everything else sounds pretty good! 

The arcanes will still drop in SP from acolytes. Its the mods that moved from Teshins store to Arbi store which allows players to gear up through arbis before heading into SP if they want to work on progressing their guns prior with the new mods to get them up to par.

[TheFBD]

22 minutes ago, ----Legacy---- said:

Because of that, i guess people simply stops bothering with arbitrations quickly and now you're just trying to push everyone towards an underplayed mode.

This is the sad truth.