Wouldn't it be nice if... [Rivens were Balanced?]

[DrBorris]

Imagine a world where every weapon was within a margin of error balance wise with each-other after equipping a Riven that you worked hard to get good stats on. Something that would actually let you use any weapon in late-game content at an even footing. Wouldn't that be nice?

 

Explained with a with (crude) picture...

 

Those of you with god-roll high disposition Rivens, would you be willing to give those up for a system where Rivens were balanced? I know it is hypothetical, but if DE made the magic happen and had a Dev Workshop on how they plan to rework Rivens to make them 'balanced' would you go down kicking and screaming or would you accept it? Do you think that it is a fair trade to lose your god-tier Rivens for the betterment of Rivens as a whole? Or do you think the work you put into your Riven is something sacred, in a sense, something that DE should never touch because of the time you spent on it?

 

And please don't respond with "that's impossible" because A) that's not the point of this thread, it is a hypothetical and B) nothing is impossible, you're just not being creative enough. In this hypothetical case, how would you respond?

Edited October 9, 2018 by DrBorris

[Loza03]

This was the idea, it just didn't work out that way.

That's not to say it shouldn't be the ideal though. I'd like for some of my lesser-used weapons to get rivens that can make them viable.

[GnarlsDarkley]

24 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

if DE made the magic happen and had a Dev Workshop on how they plan to rework Rivens to make them 'balanced' would you go down kicking and screaming or would you accept it?

I would embrace it and start using Rivens.

To be noted: I have a crit/dmg Riven for Rubico which I don't use b/c I can't stand the weapon

[(PSN)Ozymandias-13-]

30 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

This was the idea, it just didn't work out that way.

This. They were originally introduced as an idea to allow any weapon to be as viable for content as inherently more powerful weapons so that there was more weapon diversity options. Really, all it did is make most players farm or trade for Rivens for the weapons they already liked or ones that are already powerful make them even more powerful. Because power creep...

I'd definitely give up uber Rivens for everything to work out more balanced. Decently modded and equipped players are already too powerful for most content, and high end players tend to complain about the hardest content we have since it's either boring or not hard enough. 

I still dream of the enemy scaling rework that was mentioned so long ago so that everything can finally be balanced around that. I still dream.

[LSG501]

IIRC The initial idea was to 'balance' weapons to make them all roughly equal, the idea was sound but DE decided to take 'popularity' into consideration when defining the riven disposition which gave us the screwed up mess we have now.... 

Now would I be happy if my only good rivens (and I'm not on about lanka etc either, although I do have a rubico riven) were to get nerfed in a riven rework, hell no and I haven't even paid plat for any of mine but at the same time I wouldn't mind if they brought others 'up' to parity.  In essence I'd be ok with them making weak weapons/rivens stronger while keeping existing strong 'meta' rivens, ie like for lanka, the same.

 

What I think they should have done at the beginning is use the card as the 'basis' for a the buffs so you have your stats, then each weapon has a 'multiplier' which affects the buff for that weapon, meaning they could have had different dispositions for stock, vandal/wraith and prime based purely on their actual performance.  They also shouldn't have taken popularity into consideration which is basically the main issue we have right now. 

[GnarlsDarkley]

3 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

but DE decided to take 'popularity' into consideration when defining the riven disposition which gave us the screwed up mess we have now.... 

no. The problem is that DE just doesn't update Rivens anymore (last time was beginning of 2017 iirc) b/c all "godly Riven" owner would scream so loud, you could hear them outside of the game/forums

Edited October 9, 2018 by GnarlsDarkley

[DrBorris]

14 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

Now would I be happy if my only good rivens (and I'm not on about lanka etc either, although I do have a rubico riven) were to get nerfed in a riven rework, hell no and I haven't even paid plat for any of mine but at the same time I wouldn't mind if they brought others 'up' to parity.  In essence I'd be ok with them making weak weapons/rivens stronger while keeping existing strong 'meta' rivens, ie like for lanka, the same.

So you would rather be special and have more powerful weapons than everyone else than have Rivens be an even playing field. 

In other words you don't think Rivens should be balanced due to the time investment that people have already made, even though in a balanced system your Riven would still have a use. 

Correct me if I am making the wrong assumptions. 

 

Okay, different opinions add to discussion. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by DrBorris

[Synpai]

Very much yes, but there are just so many problems with rivens it hurts.

Does this mean we take the RNG out of acquiring them? (which I'm not sure why existed to begin with)

Do we still have to roll them? If yes, how does one handle the negatives and positives? (Negatives with no effect vs 2 positives vs 2 positives with a negative vs 3 positives vs 3 positives with a negative)

Do we take the limit off? (remember that "experimentation" that they were supposed to provide? yeah I'm dang near always at Cap 90/90 with how many zaws and new weapons we get that are interesting and weapons I hope to get interesting).

 

I mean even if they balanced the percentages perfectly you'd have disparity with the stats or at least how they're perceived by the player (channeling damage vs raw damage). 

[LuckyCharm]

Can only hope that after melee 3.0 we get a rivens pass since at that point all weapons will have recieved their base changes.  

[LSG501]

54 minutes ago, GnarlsDarkley said:

no. The problem is that DE just doesn't update Rivens anymore (last time was beginning of 2017 iirc) b/c all "godly Riven" owner would scream so loud, you could hear them outside of the game/forums 

IF DE had set rivens purely based on their performance we wouldn't even need to be having a conversation about a rebalance because they'd be balanced already, but because DE didn't do that and included popularity we have the situation we have now where we have 'godly rivens' that demand several thousand in plat...which in turn makes the likelihood of any rebalance unlikely.

 

47 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

So you would rather be special and have more powerful weapons than everyone else than have Rivens be an even playing field. 

In other words you don't think Rivens should be balanced due to the time investment that people have already made, even though in a balanced system your Riven would still have a use. 

Correct me if I am making the wrong assumptions. 

 

Okay, different opinions add to discussion. 

You misread it or it wasn't as clear as it could be... I would rather not have the 'good rivens' nerfed to balance rivens out (same as I would assume anyone who's paid several thousand for a riven) to correct the mess that DE caused.  I'd rather they balance rivens by increasing the 'non godly rivens' and in essence bring the baseline UP rather than taking others down, change the disposition by all means just don't change the stats negatively.  Now that isn't to say they wouldn't need to get round to doing a balance pass on the enemies to compensate for the potential increased damage output from a riven but considering how much we keep asking for that anyway it's not exactly a bad thing. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by LSG501
clarity/spelling

[DrBorris]

1 hour ago, LSG501 said:

You misread it or it wasn't as clear as it could be... I would rather not have the 'good rivens' nerfed to balance rivens out (same as I would assume anyone who's paid several thousand for a riven) to correct the mess that DE caused.  I'd rather they balance rivens by increasing the 'non godly rivens' and in essence bring the baseline UP rather than taking others down, change the disposition by all means just don't change the stats negatively.  Now that isn't to say they wouldn't need to get round to doing a balance pass on the enemies to compensate for the potential increased damage output from a riven but considering how much we keep asking for that anyway it's not exactly a bad thing. 

Okay, I think I get where you are coming from now.

 

One thing with 'balancing' Rivens is that in order to have them be useful on every weapon, any weapon with a (good) Riven would be better than the best weapon in the game without a Riven. The difference may be minuscule, but you'd have to get some boost out of your Tigris Prime Riven. So, while your Tiberon or Sicarus Riven may have its stat values (drastically) reduced, it should still be a 'good' upgrade and be well worth the mod slot. Unless you wanted to set the new bar at the "godly" their for Rivens that is, so basically making every weapon with a Riven the same level as Kohm with a Riven, but I hope we can agree that is a bad idea. There is a happy middle ground somewhere.

Just because something is nerfed, it does not mean it is useless.

[(PSN)Onder6099]

Redneck question: Is balance something like to one shot any enemy on any level with every weapon?

[LSG501]

11 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Okay, I think I get where you are coming from now.

 

One thing with 'balancing' Rivens is that in order to have them be useful on every weapon, any weapon with a (good) Riven would be better than the best weapon in the game without a Riven. The difference may be minuscule, but you'd have to get some boost out of your Tigris Prime Riven. So, while your Tiberon or Sicarus Riven may have its stat values (drastically) reduced, it should still be a 'good' upgrade and be well worth the mod slot. Unless you wanted to set the new bar at the "godly" their for Rivens that is, so basically making every weapon with a Riven the same level as Kohm with a Riven, but I hope we can agree that is a bad idea. There is a happy middle ground somewhere. 

Just because something is nerfed, it does not mean it is useless.

No matter what the stats are if they're lowered it makes it worse than what a player 'paid for' which will upset many players, plus in all likelihood another weapon will just take it's place.  

As I've said already the issue is down to the initial dispositions being based on popularity, if DE hadn't screwed up with this bit and and just based it on the weapon stats we wouldn't even need to be considering this topic (outside of fringe weapons).  

The problem DE have created for themselves if they ever try to rebalance (unlikely imo as it's a nice little earner due to plat for DE) there will be complaints etc from players who have invested in their rivens via (especially) plat and kuva so to prevent this issue my suggestion basically leaves leave the 'god tier' weapons as they are but increases other weapons to bring them to 'parity' in performance terms.  It's not a perfect solution but it's likely easier to change the enemy scaling than it is to appease players who've spent thousands of plat on a riven only to see it get nerfed by a rebalance. 

[DrBorris]

13 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

No matter what the stats are if they're lowered it makes it worse than what a player 'paid for' which will upset many players, plus in all likelihood another weapon will just take it's place.  

As I've said already the issue is down to the initial dispositions being based on popularity, if DE hadn't screwed up with this bit and and just based it on the weapon stats we wouldn't even need to be considering this topic (outside of fringe weapons).  

The problem DE have created for themselves if they ever try to rebalance (unlikely imo as it's a nice little earner due to plat for DE) there will be complaints etc from players who have invested in their rivens via (especially) plat and kuva so to prevent this issue my suggestion basically leaves leave the 'god tier' weapons as they are but increases other weapons to bring them to 'parity' in performance terms.  It's not a perfect solution but it's likely easier to change the enemy scaling than it is to appease players who've spent thousands of plat on a riven only to see it get nerfed by a rebalance. 

Are their complaints more valid than mine? Like, I hate the Riven system. IMO, it is complete garbage and an insult to Warframe as a whole. I know I am a bit extreme in this view, and I partially can appreciate Rivens as a band-aid, but they could be sooo much more. It does not seem fair to ignore one portion of the communities opinion in favor of another.

 

Also, if someone complains that their Riven that still makes a weapon end-game viable is sh!t just because the numbers are lower than what they used to be, I can't help but question their motives or logic. "It isn't fair" is an argument that can be made on both sides, which is why I would rather have DE ignore everyone's opinion if they do decide to re-balance Rivens and make it the best system they see fit. No matter what would happen or if nothing happens, some people will be upset.

[LSG501]

4 minutes ago, DrBorris said:

Are their complaints more valid than mine? Like, I hate the Riven system. IMO, it is complete garbage and an insult to Warframe as a whole. I know I am a bit extreme in this view, and I partially can appreciate Rivens as a band-aid, but they could be sooo much more. It does not seem fair to ignore one portion of the communities opinion in favor of another. 

 

Also, if someone complains that their Riven that still makes a weapon end-game viable is sh!t just because the numbers are lower than what they used to be, I can't help but question their motives or logic. "It isn't fair" is an argument that can be made on both sides, which is why I would rather have DE ignore everyone's opinion if they do decide to re-balance Rivens and make it the best system they see fit. No matter what would happen or if nothing happens, some people will be upset.

Ok so you're basically coming at this from a 'biased' standpoint because you don't like the riven system.  I agree the riven system has A LOT of issues (I hate the rng as much as the next guy) but it's in the game and we can't change that.

Your entire approach to 'fixing' the riven issue totally ignores the viewpoint(s) of those that do like the system and/or have invested heavily into it just to make a system that YOU are happy with....

IF DE were to rework the rivens they can't really take your approach because it could actually hurt their bottom line.  The players grabbing these high plat rivens are in one way or another helping the plat economy so by changing things in a way that negatively impacts these types of players DE could actually end up alienating the players that are helping financially support the game, either by trading items to newbies who have just bought plat or even buying the plat themselves.   Hence why I suggested bringing thing UP to parity (along with changes to enemies) rather than taking a nerf the rivens approach like you are suggesting, rivens will still get their necessary balancing but it will not upset the players that have invested into the current rivens because essentially the 'god tier rivens' wouldn't get changed.  It would be even better if the changes were done based on weapon performance rather than popularity too. 

In all honesty rivens aren't needed, the original intention was a good idea but it was implemented poorly and imo without a long term 'viewpoint' (arguably a regular trait of DE decision making) and as shown with recent releases of prime weapons with the usual power creep I suspect it's not going anywhere any time soon. 

[(PSN)guzmantt1977]

2 hours ago, DrBorris said:

So you would rather be special and have more powerful weapons than everyone else than have Rivens be an even playing field. 

I have a grand total of one unveiled riven for a weapon I don't even own. I have no stake in the riven game, but I am very hesitant to agree with what you proposed, and moreso with their counter proposal (I'll show why in a bit).

 

What you basically proposed was to nerf the best, most expensive rivens, after countless people have spent countless plat (read money) on them. That's a recipe for disaster. 

 

1 hour ago, LSG501 said:

I'd rather they balance rivens by increasing the 'non godly rivens' and in essence bring the baseline UP rather than taking others down, change the disposition by all means just don't change the stats negatively.  Now that isn't to say they wouldn't need to get round to doing a balance pass on the enemies to compensate for the potential increased damage output from a riven but considering how much we keep asking for that anyway it's not exactly a bad thing. 

The counter proposal is just as bad. Trying to "fix" the overpowered nature of the best rivens by bringing everyone else up to that level won't lead to people losing out on their investment (though I'm willing to bet that we'd see people screaming about the loss of their "exclusivity", or rubbish to that effect). What it'll do is completely trash the balance of the game. I'm fine with some people being ridiculously overpowered to the point of being unkillable death machines in all normal modes of play. That small cadre often beg for an increase in difficulty in the game so that they can find some challenging situations. Do you think it would be a good idea to create that widespread ennui for everyone? I certainly don't. 

And rebalancing the enemies is just a way to say "make everything harder please", which is all well worth good for people with good rivens, but not for people who don't have them. Which means that a game that famously doesn't explain stuff to newbs will also be that much harder for them to get up to higher levels of play. And please recall that the main way to get them for ourselves is to play that higher level content in the sorties. 

 

 

So no, neither one of your suggestions is particularly appealing. 

[MechaKnight]

Rivens as they are now are bound to create extremely powerful and profane god-tier grandfathered artifacts, since the last time I saw riven dispositions getting changed in the patch notes there was a disclaimer that all previously rolled rivens would keep their stats preserved as they are. Riven mods proved that using mods as a band-aid solution for balance will not work effectively for large swathes of content because some of the enhanced weapons would stealthily creep their way into establishing a new meta tier.

[LSG501]

1 hour ago, (PS4)guzmantt1977 said:

The counter proposal is just as bad. Trying to "fix" the overpowered nature of the best rivens by bringing everyone else up to that level won't lead to people losing out on their investment (though I'm willing to bet that we'd see people screaming about the loss of their "exclusivity", or rubbish to that effect). What it'll do is completely trash the balance of the game. I'm fine with some people being ridiculously overpowered to the point of being unkillable death machines in all normal modes of play. That small cadre often beg for an increase in difficulty in the game so that they can find some challenging situations. Do you think it would be a good idea to create that widespread ennui for everyone? I certainly don't.  

And rebalancing the enemies is just a way to say "make everything harder please", which is all well worth good for people with good rivens, but not for people who don't have them. Which means that a game that famously doesn't explain stuff to newbs will also be that much harder for them to get up to higher levels of play. And please recall that the main way to get them for ourselves is to play that higher level content in the sorties.  

 

To be fair we never needed rivens to kill everything on the star chart (or even sortie level) with ease, the enemies have been in dire need of a rebalance for a considerable amount of time prior to the release of rivens.   I already said my solution isn't perfect but it's a lot fairer than nerfing existing rivens, that some people have paid lots of plat, for because of DE's poor decision/judgment/planning when it came to the initial dispositions. 

[Buttaface]

Rivens are fine and working as intended if they are making DE more $$. If there is a way for DE to change them to make them even more $$, would be fine with it. There is nothing wrong with the riven system otherwise because rivens, like Lunaro or this or that syandana, are wholly OPTIONAL content, and will have little if any impact on making players more powerful or better generally.

Rivens are vanity items for bored vets, the equivalent of cosmetics for weapons. Any other view of them is error based on experience from other games. Rivens are wholly unnecessary to do any content. They are fun to fiddle with and trade, but have negligible impact on playing the game and the game's damage structure otherwise. Threads like this seem to be premised on other than these FACTS.

[Gravitus123]

I wish.The big problem now is that people have spent so much platinum on certains rivens for godly weapons that if DE does actually change the system and ends up nerfing rivens people are gonna completely lose their minds

[TheKazz91]

Personally I'd love to see rivens get a rework. Here are the changes I'd make:

1. Remove the random element from the strength of all the effects. So what effects you get is still random but their strength is calculated based on your MR, the weapon's disposition and whether you have 1 2 or 3 positive effects and whether it has a negative trait or not. If you roll crit chance on a 4 star disposition at MR 20 you're gonna get the same +250% crit chance as your MR 20 buddy with a 4 start dispostion riven. 

2. Because rivens now scale with MR (which gives players a reason to keep MR farming after 15-16) remove the MR requirements for rivens. If you're MR 10 and have a good riven you can use right then and it will get better as you keep progressing to MR 25. 

3. Make riven refinement a keep an roll process rather than a completely random roll then keep crap shoot every time. Basically if you want +crit chance, +damage, -accuracy riven and you roll +crit chance, +status duration, and +zoom then you can lock in the crit chance with say 1000 kuva then reroll the other 2 stats. This way you can build a riven to fit into the build you're making rather than making a build around the perfect riven you dumped 200,000 kuva into and 4 hours rerolling. 

4. Some but perhaps not all weapons would get effects unique to that weapon that will never show up on other rivens. These could be flat additive boosts (either to the base ammounts or added after other mods like maiming strike) or full on weapon augments that change how the weapon behaves. 

5. Add more unique possible effects like energy or heath regen, effects like combustion beam, head shot chaining, crit damage on head shots, ability strength on kills, fire rate on reload Etc. 

I think that these sorts of changes would make rivens worth the tine investment almost no mater what weapon they are for as the strength of the effects is calculated meaning that it is possible to tweek the numbers or weapon specific effects until it is possible for a viper to actually a viable weapon up there with say a tigris. As crazy as that sounds. 

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

Idk how I feel about that