Are Riven Mods Warframe loot box/gacha game?

[Eruyt]

In light of the recent changes and work DE is putting on Riven Mods.

"We are going to try doing this because we think it will allow fairer trading to occur with a standard baseline. Because Rivens vary in stats, we expect subjective value discussions to still take place." (DE) Rebecca

It is clear that DE is woried/or concerned about how players are trading/useing/exploiting this system and is working towards a solution that is fair for the players and viable for the lifespawn of Warframe.

I would like to know what we (Tenno) think about this system and the monatization that is involved on it.

So my Questions are:

Do you consider the Riven Trade a form of monetization in Warframe?

Would you compare it to a loot box/gacha system? (what is a loot box?)

 

I AM NOT A MEMBER OF DE! I AM ONLY ASKING THESE QUESTIONS AS A TENNO!!! OUT OF CURIOSITY AND WILL TO KNOW WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THIS SUBJECT!!!THX!!!😘

Edited April 8, 2019 by Eruyt
typo correction

[Fishyflakes]

Yeah so Rivens are the slot machine and Kuva is the casino coins basically.

So all those people who buy every Prime Access can do something with the thousands of plat they aquire AS WELL AS give those riven mafia guys a way to make thousands of plat too.

[Rekkou]

Technically no, because they're not the one monetizing it. Players are the one that monetizes it, DE simply gave them the currency.

[DerGreif2]

35 minutes ago, Eruyt said:

Do you consider the Riven Trade a form of monetization in Warframe?

No. It was a try to make not meta weapons stronger but it failed because it made the OP weapons even stronger and created a power creep so that we dont have a challenge anymore.

36 minutes ago, Eruyt said:

Would you compare it to a loot box/gacha system? (what is a loot box?) 

No. A loot box is a one time only thing and you have to live with it. Riven mods can be rolled endless with Kuva that is not buyable. All in all it's a time sink and the player started the riven price drama. It's the fault of the players only that it escalated. So no. Not lootboxes.

[5H4DE]

Not even close (I still dislike rivens and I'd rather DE give us an alternate method to boost weak weapons).

[5H4DE]

1 minute ago, Jinzanami said:

so since its not a classic overwatch lootbox then its not one ? theres nothing free about it, time is money and getting them is so costly on that currency and you can get them for money too, its bs.

By that logic everything RNG related in every single videogame is a bloody lootbox.

[Aldain]

Not really, the systems are vaguely similar but as you can't directly purchase Rivens (from DE, players are a different beast) or Kuva it is slightly more consumer friendly than a Gacha game or lootboxes.

The player market functions no differently than any other market that has random elements. Also:

2 minutes ago, TheRealShade said:

By that logic everything RNG related in every single videogame is a bloody lootbox.

Don't bother arguing with that person, they have their head in the sand and have a tendency to de-rail threads with unrelated tripe like this. Better to just ignore them.

Jinzanami has done this all before, just trying to save you some time.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Aldain

[DrBorris]

While Rivens may not explicitly be loot boxes, they are a slot machines that you can purchase from other people. It is still borderline gambling, and while you aren't necessarily gambling real money you are gambling your time away (which to many like myself feels like poop). News flash, just because it isn't a loot box it doesn't mean that it is okay. There are many, many other forms of predatory game systems, loot boxes are just the most common/discussed.

And no, please don't respond with "but the rest of the game is RNG..." because, while chance is a core part of Warframe, the expected amount of time that it takes a player to get a thing is considerably more consistent than Rivens. It isn't going to take on player ten more hours than another to farm a new Prime thing or a new Warframe. I think even Ephemera have a tighter expected "time to get" than good Rivens.

 

Also, it is hilarious that you will see people say "DE can't/won't change Rivens because they make them money!" then you will see other (or the same) people say "Rivens aren't a form of monitization!"

Like... what?

[dEjAvU5566]

For rolling attributes, it's a slot machine, but you pay the entry fee with time, not money.

So not the typical gacha game.

[Nukesnipe]

I made a thread ages ago on my idea to allow rerolling of specific stats, but DE won't do anything about it.

They're not loot boxes, because you can very easily get a riven for the exact weapon you want.  Rivens are stronger on off-meta weapons, and because those weapons are off-meta, their rivens will be cheaper.  My Glaive riven cost 85 plat compared to the 400 I paid for a Sybaris riven, for instance.  Additionally, you can ask specifically for unrolled, unranked mods, as people have put less investment into them (Kuva and Endo, both of which are resources that are tedious to grind), they'll be asking less for them.  Shop smart, don't think that because one idiot wants 5k plat for a CC/CD Nagantaka riven, it's worth 5k plat.  People are stupid and think that big numbers are always good, don't buy into it.

[DerGreif2]

5 minutes ago, Jinzanami said:

false, you're going to the extreme here.

let me educate you how the Rivens system work,

lets say you want to get a lanka riven for eidolon hunt without spending any real money  :

first you need to sacrifice a black goat to rngesus (duh) and pray for ---->

a riven to drop from sortie (rng on the reward + rng on the class of the veiled riven)

for your unlock to be a lanka riven [rng again]

and then you need to farm the most boring resource in the game to use it in a lottery for the perfect stats (another whole level of rng 🤪]

will they're not a classic lootbox they still a cancer on ever level and dare say more than lootboxes because in most cases they only used for skins will Riven system is a core mechanics that effect the way you play the game.

You cant include a plat market that is managed by the players and intend that its DE fault. You dont need rivens for anything so you are not in a disadvantage if you dont have a rubico riven. It's simple as that. No lootbox in Warframe besides modpacks that noone even buys.

[(XBOX)Almighty Deity]

Rivens aren't loot boxes since they can only be obtained through sorties, or from other players. They're a flawed system as they don't actually fix fundamental flaws with most weapons. It's a band-aid on a broken arm. The closest "fix" players get is prime variants, which only compound the problem with rivens being scarce.

   The sweaty mafia are a symptom of a larger problem, but they were breaking the rules as well for using bots to check trade chat for steals.

   The easiest way in my opinion to fix the problem with rivens is an in-game way to actively post items for sale while seeing the average rate. Not an auction so much as a shop. If more people can sell the value of the most expensive would likely nosedive.

[IntheCoconut]

I guess technically, I'd say yes, Rivens are like loot boxes.

But, I personally don't participate because I find Rivens completely and utterly unnecessary. I haven't experienced anything in the game where not having a Riven prevented me from completing the content. The game is easy enough and overly trivialized by potatoes and forma as is. I already one-shot everything without rivens.

I also feel like Warframe deviates quite a bit from the "traditional" monitization methods of loot boxes.

1. Spending money is completely optional. You can trade other players for plat, which isn't usually an option for other games that have loot boxes. In Warframe, you can earn Rivens without ever spending real money. In most other games, if you want loot boxes, you have to open your wallet.

2. You can directly buy the Riven you want from other players. Loot boxes in other games often do not give you this option. In other games, lets say you want a specific item, most of the time you just have to keep opening boxes, acquiring a bunch of junk you don't want, in the hopes that eventually you'll get what you were after. That is still how Rivens work, but at least if someone else has what you are looking for, you can buy it from them directly instead of playing the RNG game.

So yes, technically I still see them as loot boxes, but I still think that they have the potential to be more advantageous to the player than most other loot-box systems. The problem right now is that a select few players are intentionally manipulating the market to be unfair to everyone else but themselves, and this is a serious problem. Luckily DE is looking into it, and I hope they can find a solution.

Edited April 8, 2019 by IntheCoconut

[-CdG-Zilchy]

1 hour ago, Fishyflakes said:

AS WELL AS give those riven mafia guys a way to make thousands of plat too.

Pretty obvious they are selling plat for real money to players. There's no other reason to need hundreds of thousands of plat.

[DerGreif2]

Just now, Jinzanami said:

before the Tiberon prime was released, the price for its riven was going for 30p average and 50p at most, fast forward to Tiberon Prime release with was the most powercreep weapon the game have ever seen, and the price jumped to 2k and beyond

And it's the player fault. DE is not regulating the market. You can sell a riven for 30000 plat just because there is a guy stupid enough to pay that price. In that case it's the same. No one that is saint would buy a tiburon riven for 2k. Deal with it. It's the stupidity of the players that makes that possible.

[Nukesnipe]

6 minutes ago, Jinzanami said:

no man you can do that please dont spread misinformation like this, theres hellish layers of rng if you want to get something you want for free, theres no freaking way that you going to say : i want a rubico riven today and then buy Rifle riven and unlock it and get what you want, no way that is the case with most of the players, it should never been trade able, it was suppose to be a crutch to weak weapons and not another sets of hands for meta weapons, its a plague and needs to be purged, no way around it .

I have no idea what you're trying to say.  Is English your, like, fourth language?  If not, please go back to elementary school.

2 minutes ago, Jinzanami said:

its totally DE fault dont dance around it and ill prove this to you with facts.

before the Tiberon prime was released, the price for its riven was going for 30p average and 50p at most, fast forward to Tiberon Prime release with was the most powercreep weapon the game have ever seen, and the price jumped to 2k and beyond 

please look at me with straight face and tell me how DE have no hands on controlling the market.

just because you dont need it does mean you cant have it, and DE design it in way that you need a 1 in 5000 chance to get what you want to shell some cash and get it from another lucky player after you spent ton of time farming and farming with no result.

Tiberon was a bad gun.  Tiberon Prime is freakishly good.  A riven for a bad gun jumps in value when its Prime version turns out to be really good.  Wow, who would've thought!  Don't forget that Tiberon had the harshest disposition nerf ever, at a full 0.2.  When the gun became more popular, they reduced the disposition so it falls in line with other rivens.  Wow, gasp.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

Just now, Jinzanami said:

indeed people fail to relize this, theres a reason why we have the negative plat problem and theres 3rd party sites that sells plat for real money, its a plague.

They need to be banned plain and simple, it's against the TOS and it costs DE money when people don't buy plat from them.

[Yamazuki]

8 minutes ago, TheRealShade said:

By that logic everything RNG related in every single videogame is a bloody lootbox.

How are rivens actually any different? For loot boxes, you open a box and get a random cosmetic/piece of gear out of a variety of options depending on the loot box you open. For rivens you unveil a riven and get a random Riven out of a variety of options depending on the riven you unveiled. You can't even use the "you can get them for free" argument either, a lot of modern games give out loot boxes for playing too (League, GW2, etc), never mind the fact that an item that provides you with a random reward doesn't require cash for it to be considered a loot box.

It's much easier to explain how they are different, and the only difference between loot boxes and rivens are their appearance; most games have them look like an actual box with loot in them, where as DE made them look like fancy purple cards. Even relics by definition are loot boxes, but there aren't as many complaints about those for fairly obvious reasons; the average person doesn't really have problems with RNG or even loot boxes, it's more of the excessive multiple layers of RNG most games have now, in addition to the small chances of getting what you want.

Traditionally, loot boxes are simply a copy+pasted RNG system from MMORPGs, as MMORPGs relied on RNG drops from mobs to get people to keep playing, just instead of killing things you either pay cash or spend x time to get loot boxes. They all have fancy animations and delays as a means to play psychological tricks to get people to play more (or spend more/both).

[zoffmode]

Yup. As someone who actually plays gacha games (without whaling), riven rolling definitely has the same feel and fun factor as gacha. It's actually technically worse than actual gacha games though since you can also sell your rivens for huge profit which makes it clear gambling. It's not even just Kuva. People straight up buy trash rivens and reroll them or buy veiled rivens and open them hoping for Rubicos. 

I do love my rivens and enjoy rolling them though. Big part of the game for me. I don't want them gone.

[-CdG-Zilchy]

1 minute ago, Jinzanami said:

they know that very well but done jack about it, they created the cancer and they have the cure, but since the c cancer is profitable then why bother ?

Pretty much.

[(XBOX)Almighty Deity]

2 minutes ago, Jinzanami said:

the riven mafia was DE own making you people need to stop patting DE in the back on every chance, it was a scandal and they allowed it to happen.

they claimed that they removed a slot machine because it was used so much and it was never they're intention but they let a bigger and nastier one to linger to this day

total hypocrisy .

Riven are not lootboxes, they're straight up gambling .

I never patted them on the back for their lack of action on stuff like this. I've been fairly consistent on this an on moderation issues.

The riven mafia, as much as I hate giving them the satisfaction of mentioning them, have from my understanding, broken game rules that had others suspended for on this topic.

Rivens are a bad system prone to exploitation. Kuva is a often unrewarding grind. The reroll system needs dramatically overhauled but that likely won't happen because of how much players invest in "good rolls". As bad and half-baked as the current system is, it really can't be fixed. The backlash on either side would be catastrophic.

The problem with what you said is that the kubrow skin roll required plat. You can't directly or indirectly purchase kuva. It's a horrible grind, but it's no more of a slot machine than grinding for a rare mod on paper. You can't reasonably blame DE for a 10k plat day 1 god roll battacor riven. Though a good solution is increasing the odds of getting rivens for new weapons for a month and making them untradable in that time.

[541K4T]

25 minutes ago, Nukesnipe said:

I have no idea what you're trying to say.  Is English your, like, fourth language?  If not, please go back to elementary school.

English is my 3rd language and I clearly understood what he meant to say. Didn't realise native speakers uses different configuration of words.

25 minutes ago, Nukesnipe said:

Tiberon was a bad gun.  Tiberon Prime is freakishly good.  A riven for a bad gun jumps in value when its Prime version turns out to be really good.  Wow, who would've thought!  Don't forget that Tiberon had the harshest disposition nerf ever, at a full 0.2.  When the gun became more popular, they reduced the disposition so it falls in line with other rivens.  Wow, gasp.

DE should have adjusted it's disposition at the very launch. There is no logic behind having same disposition on prime & non-prime variants. and 0.2 is DE being cautious, it should have been 0.8 IMO. Same goes for Gram Prime.

Edited April 8, 2019 by 541K4T

[(XBOX)Almighty Deity]

2 minutes ago, Jinzanami said:

Kubrow furr slow machine was harmless and effected nobody gameplay.

Rivens are total cancer and they use your time as currency and eventually your money, why do you think meta weapons rivens sells for 2k and above ? 

if you dont get a lanka riven after you bought 10 Rifle Riven then what you gonna do ? and even if you get a lanka riven after those 10 lootbox Rifle riven then do you think you will get the perfect stats taht easly ? you will roll and roll and roll with require boosters to save your sanity and if you dont get what you want then you will realize you wasted your time and money and you should've bought that crap for 2k and be done with it.

its unethical and gambling and more harmful to the game and the players than Rivens, no body ever heard about Kubrow/Kavat furr mafia with prove my point that Riven system was designed in a way that allow it to bring all kind of disease to this game and the devs know this but done little no thing about it .

DE are the at fault here, Riven system are core mechanics and thanks to it we never get Damage 3.0 because it fuked the balance in this game .

The kubrow problem was that it was a plat sink. It doesn't matter if it's cosmetic or not. It removed plat from the economy and directly led to someone spending a ton directly to gamble.

I don't care about god rolls, but their value is determined by the community not DE.

If I buy and unveil 10 rifle rivens specifically for a weapon and I don't get that weapon I still have 10 rifle rivens to either try out, sell, keep, or transmute. I got what I paid for.

I buy boosters to save on time fishing, mining, and resource drops. It's not hard to earn 200p for a 30-day, and it isn't outlandish a price. Kuva isn't high on my priority with them.

Rivens weren't designed in a way to be a disease. They were stupidly designed to fix a problem that won't be fixed without actual weapon overhauls. The community is treating them like they're needed.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. DE should fix it, but won't because many would lose the value in their items and quit. Blame the community for the outlandish prices, and blame DE for not thinking it through.

[ExcaliburUmbra]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)Almighty Deity said:

Rivens weren't designed in a way to be a disease. They were stupidly designed to fix a problem that won't be fixed without actual weapon overhauls. The community is treating them like they're needed.

I completely agree. Rivens are optional for completing every single piece of rewarding content in this game, yet whenever a disposition change occurs you have the inevitable flood of posters freaking out about how DE is “nerfing x weapon”.

If Rivens disappeared tomorrow and were replaced by augments/buffs for needy weapons, I wouldn’t even be mad. Sure, I spent a lot of time farming Kuva but I invested into the system knowing the risks of doing so, and how superfluous it is in the grand scheme of things. 

[(XBOX)Almighty Deity]

2 minutes ago, OmegaZero said:

I completely agree. Rivens are optional for completing every single piece of rewarding content in this game, yet whenever a disposition change occurs you have the inevitable flood of posters freaking out about how DE is “nerfing x weapon”.

If Rivens disappeared tomorrow and were replaced by augments/buffs for needy weapons, I wouldn’t even be mad. Sure, I spent a lot of time farming Kuva but I invested into the system knowing the risks of doing so, and how superfluous it is in the grand scheme of things. 

The community can be nasty. Rivens are meant to change, and buying one for a recently released prime shows the mentality of the community. People shouldn't buy what they can't afford to lose.

Augments are a touchy subject, and arguably as lazy of a change. They only eat up more slots, compounding the issues of said weapons. I'd say a near total overhaul is needed on most weapons, especially Grineer ones, but that requires work. Work I'm certain won't occur over new content. Many just aren't fun to shoot, and most have crippling issues that make even a max disposition riven useless.