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Can someone give me bullet points on why rivens are so terrible?


Hypernaut1
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On 2018-10-27 at 4:59 PM, Hypernaut1 said:

My bullet points why they're not bad for the game are

• gives weaker weapons a chance to be useful in sortie and other high end missions. I don't think the point was to make strong weapons weak in comparison, just to give us more options. So yes, that tiberon will still be awesome, but I'm not gimping myself heavily by taking my 4 forma Gorgon with an awesome riven. That's how the game USED to be. If you saw anyone with anything but the meta, they weren't going to be doing optimal damage. Rivens eliminated that for the most part.

-> This was not achieved with Rives though. If you observe the trade chat, people are not looking for X Rivens, it is filled with "WTS/WTB" meta Rivens. It was the case back then, it is the case now. The only difference is the composition of those meta weapons, which changed over time - and this is very important - not due to Rivens, but weapon passes this year. In one year of existance Rivens could not shake up meta as much as a simple balance pass did in 2018. They failed, because even with 300% it is pointless to boost base 5% crit or status. This bullet point is an alternative fact.

• it's an excellent time and resource sink. As a vet I can always use kuva and I always have a use for kuva. As a vet rivens are STILL a relevant reward. If I dont use it, i can sell it. I think it's one of the best end game mehanics in Warframe. It gets me to try forgotten weapons and try to make them beastly. Before rivens I had 10 weapons that iwould cycle with no real reason to revisit rank and dump weapons. Before rivens balance pass  I wouldve never dusted off my cyclon again, or my serata. 

-> Kuva was created solely for Riven system, saying it is an exsellent ressource sink is stretching reality beyound its limits. Other, truely stockpiled ressources remain untouched. Being invested in Riven system is a subjective opinion. I do not care about them. I do not farm for Kuva or recycle Rivens. I have more fun doing other activities. While Rivens indeed have (unreasenobly high) value on the market, I do not value them this high. And I fixed a typo in this paragraph.

• makes modding interesting again. Before rivens I pretty much copy pasted a crit or status build onto every weapon. Rivens haven't solved all modding issues, but it's become a bit more dynamic now. My zenith has an insane fire rate thanks to a riven. I would've never really discovered that without them. I have weapons with 2 different rivens that change how they play, yet both are effective (I'm at cap now though, so I need to decide which one to get rid of soon). 

-> Modding is the same. Everyone still strives after crit dmg/chance, base dmg, multishot or status and stack those as high as possible. The fact that you do not try different mod set ups on your own, if a Riven does not shove those stats up your as...stonishing eyes, just shows your narrow minded concept.

• its broken up the meta a lot compared to before. Before rivens many loadouts looked exactly the same. A boltor,soma, gammacor, etc. There still are popular weapons, but they aren't as ubiquitous as they used to be. It's far more interesting now to see someone bring an awesome buzlok to a sortie and ask them what Riven they have than seeing the same old copy paste builds made popular by a tuber in every mission. My Arca is still an awesome shotgun, but I can do pretty much just as well with my Boar prime. I don't feel forced to use the meta like i how I used to feel forced to use a boltor prime in high end missions.

-> Weapon balace pass did shake up the meta, not Rivens. Amprex, Sicarus P., etc became more popular after the weapon pass. Additionally, as disposition was not adjusted to new stats, those weapons retained strong disposition despite newly elevated stats. Furthermore, some new mods like Hunter Munitions or Condition Overload created more new builds then Rivens ever could. Your credit goes to the wrong recipient.

Here are my answers to your bullet points. Not only do you distort cause and effect, you also make several generialized statements without the right to do so. And of course you present some alternative facts to back up your position.

Edited by ShortCat
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45 minutes ago, ShortCat said:

Here are my answers to your bullet points. Not only do you distort cause and effect, you also make several generialized statements without the right to do so. And of course you present some alternative facts to back up your position.

I respect your opinion.... But WHY add this? Why not just state your points. 

If I'm being a hypocrite then sorry, but I don't get why there needs to be an aggressive attack on my character. 

Seriously.... I'm not even going to bother to respond to your points now. There are others that know how to do it.

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1 hour ago, DrBorris said:

Ehhh, fine, it is a "progression" of sorts. But that brings me back to the whole "linear" thing.

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I have thought about it a bit and kinda of want to pull back as labeling it as "linear" because honestly it is more logarithmic... (ignore the axis labels, I just googled an image)

log_standardisation_fig_3.jpg

What I am more worried about, with Rivens as opposed to everything else, is the variance of progression.

Good-and-bad-fits2.png

There is statistical progression in Rivens, but it is so gosh darn inconsistent. Some people get what they want in five rolls, some in twenty, and then there are people that go 300+ (my Clan Warloard is at around 350 on their Vectis Riven I believe). This kind of inconsistency does not exists (to such a high degree) as with every other form of power progression, which we can both agree Rivens are. I wish I could calculate that difference, but I have never been too great with the nitty gritty of statistical analysis.

I have said it so many times no, I want something to work for. I want to know that every Kuva I earn is getting me closer to my end goal. As it stands farming Kuva doesn't feel rewarding because I know that the 3k Kuva I just farmed only has a chance at getting me closer at where I want to go.

So far this is just my opinion, but here is why I think it could be a bit more objectively said that Rivens shoud not be so much RNG.

It is a similar feeling to a game being pay to win. It just doesn't feel good to know that the time you put into something isn't respected because someone can just buy their way to more power than you can ever get. Now swap "pay" for "get lucky". Both of these things are something the player, in-game, cannot control. I can't work for better luck.

 

Here is what I wish Rivens were...

  • You spend your initial Warframe journey in the "glorious imbalance of initial weapon progression". You watch reviews for weapons on YouTube, check stats, and target a certain weapon that you think will make you more powerful. Some people min-max their way through this, some smell all the roses, and most fall somewhere in between those two points.
  • Then you hit around MR15 and that whole idea of weapon progression is gone. You have peaked power and most everything is "mastery fodder", the joy of trying new things kinda dies.
  • Now imagine that Rivens were more readily available and more actively customizable. Rivens are no longer something rare and cherished, they are everywhere, but they take work.
  • Now every weapon you rank up could be as powerful as your peak, you actually care about trying/ranking new weapons up because if you like the "feel" of the weapon you know you can get a Riven for it and make it a beast.

If I knew I could get a Riven for X weapon and make it as powerful as my Tigris Prime than I sure as hell would be putting a lot more thought and testing into each new weapon I rank up. If I did not have to depend on getting lucky to bring this weapon up to a certain power, I would be much more likely to put the time into the weapon itself.

 

I know this is a major department from what Rivens are now, it basically flips the whole thing on its head. Where now you get a Riven and that makes you want to try a weapon, the suggestion would mean you get a weapon and then want to get a Riven for it. But this flipped relationship would be, IMO, far more healthy for the "meta" of the game. If everyone could maximize RIvens then the whole "meta" weapon scene would die off. Getting a new MR4 weapon would not feel like DE gave you a "useless" weapon because you know that if you like it, you can reasonably make it more powerful. Just throwing a number out there, requiring 8 hours of of grind to maximize a single Riven seems fair. Keep in mind with a system like this you would probably be grinding more Rivens for more weapons (and a simplification of stats would mean a higher Riven capacity).

I almost imagine Rivens as potatoes on steroids, if you put in the work for any weapon you can be guaranteed it will be one of the best. And while this is a very different system, I think it would far better fill that gap than what RIvens are now, even if Rivens as they stand do still have some positive merits.

 

I rambled a lot more than I normally do, probably has to do with having too much coffee today, sorry about that.

Ok, I kind of see where you're going. In my opinion, it could be an additional system. Rivens could be the lottery type system and your system is one where you have a guaranteed progress with work. 

I get what you're saying. It would be cool if I didn't have to wait for a riven to drop to turn my skana into a guaranteed beast, a true mastery of the weapon. If DE did create a system like that, the grind would be measurable. 

Both system could work together though. I once played an arpg where you could combine duplicates of a weapon to strengthen it unlimitedly. It also had RNG stats weapons. Both systems worked together great. I could make my first sword as great as my latest, but it obviously took tons of work and dedication, but it made you feel connected to that weapon.

IMO there is an excitement you get from RNG that you can't get from just rote static progression. I would like both systems though. It's not that one is better than the other.

Edited by Hypernaut1
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2 hours ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Who said otherwise?

So, in effect, you're saying that the market already operates at a high volume of low price trades, correct?

In that case, would you expect a dramatic decrease in Riven value if it became marginally easier to obtain Rivens (but not necessarily easier to obtain good stats)?

Does the expected value of the Riven not also correlate with the probability of rolling a great weapon?

For example, Shotgun Rivens are valuable because there are relatively few Shotguns and many of them are very powerful.

Wouldn't allowing a Kuva-driven re-roll of the weapon itself (not just stats) therefore improve the expected value?

Was this wisdom ever called into question? Given the increasing roll cost this seems like common sense.

1. Many post at least implicated that the prices seen by the spammers in trade chat were actual prices at which these rivens were regularly traded, which is simply not true. You in particular were among those discussing 20k plat rivens as if they were of significance and saying that people are not already buying plat to buy rivens. They do. I had to wait more than once for people to buy plat to buy my rivens and my trades are with very few exceptions (mostly Rubico rivens) below 1k. 

2. Considering the price of plat I wouldn't exactly call a couple of hundred plat a low price, but yes, cheaper rivens swap hands more frequently. You can already get unrolled rivens for most weapons in the game for less than 50 plat, there is even a number of rivens for weapons that are actually quite decent that are less than 20p. It is just a number of exceptional weapons that actually fetch high prices.

3. The top end of rivens would be less affected by an increase in availability of rivens since it depends on getting decent rolls (and recognizing a good roll), not just the riven for a specific weapon, but a noticeable increase in rivens would absolutely decimate the lower end of the market since the supply would increase without a matching increase in demand. Most players have some rivens and use them already, you wouldn't get this imagined bulk of players coming out of nowhere buying rivens left and right just because the prices for ok-ish rivens go from 50 to 25p - people already do that. Especially your given example of a singular trader with high value items getting replaced with 100k(!) people trading mid range items is so far off the mark that it isn't even worth debating, the player numbers don't allow for that.

4. That is exactly what I said. Veiled rifle and shotgun rivens are more expensive than their pistol and melee counterparts because you can expect an item with higher value more frequently. That is what the term expected value refers to.

5. If you could reroll the riven to be for another weapon the supply for niché weapons would dry up, again wreaking havoc on the lower end of the market with little impact on the upper end. This is the opposite of what DE's stated intent for rivens was. This would be like riven transmuting but cheaper and transmuting already creates a demand for bad rivens for useless weapons, this would just increase this dynamic and funnel rivens for weaker weapons to stronger weapons.

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7 minutes ago, SirKnum said:

1. Many post at least implicated that the prices seen by the spammers in trade chat were actual prices at which these rivens were regularly traded, which is simply not true. You in particular were among those discussing 20k plat rivens as if they were of significance and saying that people are not already buying plat to buy rivens. They do. I had to wait more than once for people to buy plat to buy my rivens and my trades are with very few exceptions (mostly Rubico rivens) below 1k.

In that case, you misunderstood the point I was trying to make, which was that trading volume is proportionally more important than individual value. I'm not trying to suggest that Riven traders only trade at obscene prices, but I used that as an example to illustrate how even if you assume absurd prices at a frequency where price could potentially matter it still comes up short. This was for the purpose of countering the idea that a price decrease for overall Rivens would necessarily be a bad thing for the trading economy.

7 minutes ago, SirKnum said:

2. Considering the price of plat I wouldn't exactly call a couple of hundred plat a low price, but yes, cheaper rivens swap hands more frequently. You can already get unrolled rivens for most weapons in the game for less than 50 plat, there is even a number of rivens for weapons that are actually quite decent that are less than 20p. It is just a number of exceptional weapons that actually fetch high prices.

To be perfectly clear, I'm not complaining about prices (though I do find the 20k outliers to be alarming and potentially risky for DE's reputation). My only point is that making improvements to the RNG would not actually be "antithetical" to the purpose of Rivens as is typically suggested.

7 minutes ago, SirKnum said:

3. The top end of rivens would be less affected by an increase in availability of rivens since it depends on getting decent rolls (and recognizing a good roll), not just the riven for a specific weapon, but a noticeable increase in rivens would absolutely decimate the lower end of the market since the supply would increase without a matching increase in demand. Most players have some rivens and use them already, you wouldn't get this imagined bulk of players coming out of nowhere buying rivens left and right just because the prices for ok-ish rivens go from 50 to 25p - people already do that.

Quantify decimated, please. Are you talking a 50% decrease in value? 90%? Whenever the subject of lower profits come up I only ever encounter this sort of vague doomspeak, so it's hard to understand the alarm.

Also why are we concerned about an increase in demand if the existing supply of Rivens isn't yet capable of satisfying the demand? It's not like the market is even remotely approaching saturation, or else the aforementioned outlandish prices shouldn't be possible in the first place.

7 minutes ago, SirKnum said:

Especially your given example of a singular trader with high value items getting replaced with 100k(!) people trading mid range items is so far off the mark that it isn't even worth debating, the player numbers don't allow for that.

How so?  Warframe has a massive player population, with only a select few really getting into trading Rivens with any sort of regularity or dedication. I believe this has less to do with the outlandish 20k prices that occur on occasion (though rumors of those transactions do sour the reputation of Rivens somewhat) and more to do with the relative difficulty of acquiring Rivens in the first place. Many of the players I know simply don't bother because the RNG is way too unforgiving.

Wouldn't alleviating the RNG related to acquiring Rivens create more player exposure - and thus interest - in participating in the market? Only players who are interested in Rivens are likely to buy them, and making it easier to find Rivens should get more players interested, no?

7 minutes ago, SirKnum said:

4. That is exactly what I said. Veiled rifle and shotgun rivens are more expensive than their pistol and melee counterparts because you can expect an item with higher value more frequently. That is what the term expected value refers to.

I thought so, and I'm just confirming. That was the same conclusion I had reached previously, but you were disagreeing with other points I had raised so I wanted to get some verification from you.

7 minutes ago, SirKnum said:

5. If you could reroll the riven to be for another weapon the supply for niché weapons would dry up, again wreaking havoc on the lower end of the market with little impact on the upper end. This is the opposite of what DE's stated intent for rivens was. This would be like riven transmuting but cheaper and transmuting already creates a demand for bad rivens for useless weapons, this would just increase this dynamic and funnel rivens for weaker weapons to stronger weapons.

Then, would you agree that Rivens are poorly designed for satisfying DE's stated intent (bringing less-used weapons up-to-par, so we're on the same page) in the first place?

To clarify, my previous argument was aimed strictly at whether or not making Rivens less random was necessarily incompatible with the ultimate purpose of Rivens as a source of profit. IMO, while prices might be thrown into disarray there is no concrete reason to believe that Rivens would be come less profitable for DE specifically. The supply of Riven is not actually satisfying the demand, so increasing the supply should allow them to satisfy more of the demand - even if individual prices drop due to Rivens becoming easier to acquire.

If we are instead going to focus on the official PR purpose of Rivens, I think that opens the gates to a whole different sort of discussion about Disposition and the interaction of Rivens with weapon stats. For example, I'd say that:

  • Disposition really ought to be applied on a per-weapon basis (i.e., Tigris has a different Disposition than Tigris Prime). Rivens could still be universal between variants, with the stats modified through a weapon modifier (similar to how RoF mods get 2x stats on bows, but in reverse).
  • Disposition ought to be decided by weapon base stats and not usage statistics, given that usage is also affected by relative rarity (for example, Dread/Despair/Hate where the weapons are reasonably comparable yet Despair/Hate have much better Disposition simply because they drop much less often).
  • Rivens really ought to modify weapon base stats instead of offering classic percentage boosts. Using the standard stat bonuses means Rivens disproportionately benefit weapons which are stronger by default even with Disposition in play. Modifying base stats would also actually allow weapons to be modded differently, rather than weapons really only benefiting from Rivens which match their strong suits.
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Please read this and then come back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

The demand is met, that is how the prices are what they are right now. If the demand was greater than the supply the prices would increase. And your 100.000 fold increase in people trading would mean that out of the 40 million registered accounts across all platforms only 400 could be trading high priced rivens and would bring all ever registered accounts across all platforms into the fold of trade chat. Do you see how both numbers are not even remotely within the realm of possibilities?

Next thing is you are asking for concrete numbers on an unspecified increase in supply among hundreds of items traded at fluctuating prices, how is that even supposed to be anywhere within reason without being just as far out there as the rest of your theories?

And where would the added exposure to rivens come from just because they would drop more frequently? Players are aware of rivens and what they do - the number of participants in this thread alone is a good indication - they are already exposed, tons of players are already using the internal and external trading platforms, and the barrier to entry is very low as riven trades start as low as 5 plat. The low end market exists, you wouldn't magically create a huge market on top of the already existing one. Coming back to the article linked at the start of this post you should be able to follow me when I say that this increase in supply will lead to a significant reduction in prices unless met with an equal increase in demand for which we have no evidence that his would happen.

Your hearsay argument "but I and some of the people I talked to would totally buy more" is flawed on many levels, let's start with the premise that people would enter the market if prices would drop: No, they wouldn't. How would they even know that prices have dropped if they are not already participating and hence would be informed about prices?

Then there is bias: Did a significant number of people actually state that? Or are you just thinking that because they did not disagree and hence your confirmation bias brought you to the conclusion that they agree? And are you certain they will follow through? I can't count the number of times people in another F2P game have told me they would never buy something from that company again just to show up with the newest thing they offered for sale the next week. There is a massive difference between what people say in the heat of the moment and general behaviour patterns. A price drop from low to miniscule is now somehow supposed to change the behaviour of a large number of people.

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2 hours ago, SirKnum said:

1. Many post at least implicated that the prices seen by the spammers in trade chat were actual prices at which these rivens were regularly traded, which is simply not true. You in particular were among those discussing 20k plat rivens as if they were of significance and saying that people are not already buying plat to buy rivens. They do. I had to wait more than once for people to buy plat to buy my rivens and my trades are with very few exceptions (mostly Rubico rivens) below 1k. 

The truth of the matter on this is that we don't fully know what is or isn't true on what got sold and for how much.

Has a riven been sold for 20k plat? Most likely.

Was that riven sold to a person who purchased 20k plat to do so? I,personally, doubt it.

Should a person who sold a riven for 20k plat be nervous? ...As a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Using the argument that adjusting Rivens would be bad because it lowers the game's revenue is one place where false argument rears it's head as it pertains to Rivens. 

As to the rest, I think any decisions regarding rivens made as a measure to ensure their market viability is bad for a number of reasons.

  1. Slots are limited→ People will always be encouraged to sell/discard excess
  2. Rivens have inconsistent attributes and number of lines → Uniqueness creates rarity which can enhance value
  3. Kuva farming for rerolling is about the least effective use for Kuva if DE wanted to rake in tons of revenue→ They could more easily sell it in lots or make it tradeable.

 

Rivens aren't going anywhere... As long as they exist as-is we are going to be saddled with the same concerns and complaints (whether valid or not) if all else remains static.

For my part, I am in an entirely different camp as it regard Rivens....I take no significant issue with them outside of their deep RNG and the effect it has had on player behavior. 

I view those as a persistent issues even once transparency and relevant competition become the norm... Riven.Market does alot to alleviate some of this imo.

The bigger issue to me isn't so much with Rivens and has everything to do with Attributes.

...We need soft caps, hard caps, and diminishing returns on all of them.

  • With caps you wouldn't need to fiddle with dispositions.
  • With caps you wouldn't need to worry about the item's ability to be an outlier.
  • With caps you don't have to constantly balance to the middle because everything is stuck inside the parameters you designated to begin with.
  • With caps, people have to either diversify their builds or deal with diminishing returns. 

Simply put, imo, caps (if done right) can encourage people to do the same things in new ways without seriously diminishing the performance of folks who want to maintain the status quo mod methods.

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8 hours ago, Hypernaut1 said:

I respect your opinion.... But WHY add this? Why not just state your points. 

If I'm being a hypocrite then sorry, but I don't get why there needs to be an aggressive attack on my character. 

Seriously.... I'm not even going to bother to respond to your points now. There are others that know how to do it.

It was a short summary of your OP, tl;dr written in the same tone. Providing questionable arguments may have many reasons, like strong bias towards Riven system or wrong logical conclusions. Initially, I had this impression about you. But only now I am saying, with a loud voice - you are a hypocrite, a troll.  If you want an agressive attack on your character -  you are a coward who is dodging a discussion with "I am offended excuse" (it is not like I am the first one saying this). I hope you are not crying in a dark corner, because a stranger somewhere on the planet hurt your feelings. Grow up.

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On 2018-11-06 at 7:34 AM, Hypernaut1 said:

Anyone that's left Warframe over rivens were playing for the wrong reasons to begin with. Win/win

There is no wrong reason to play warframe. There is no wrong reason to play any game, but when the fun gets taken out of the games with poop mechanics, then it is time to leave that game. When you get enough hours in the game, you'll eventually see just how bad the game is designed.

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