Break the Riven Market [feedback/discussion?]

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

greetings tenno , I am on xbox/pc/switch platforms and i state this following proposed feedback with the background of watching 3/4 of the platforms markets and sales

Rivens & Obtainment 

I might get salt or not, unsure but I've discussed this prior with others and they said it had some  merit points. think of this as constructive feedback my fellow tenno. 

Rivens themselves as they are are nothing more then a secondhand loot box, pay irl money for plat to buy some. roll it, then sell it, then repeat. which is sad the point for rivens was to be an equalizer between weapons. not to create highly overpowered weapons and thus why riven nerfs happen

lets start off with the arbitrations dropping arch rivens. as the pool is limited , the % drop chance and rate is constant and always present , which should keep riven prices in realistic costs and factor down to a massive quantity of the constantly being emitted by players who do them in high volumes.

in retrospect the method of normal rivens requires sorties or a lotus alert, this by comparison is a horrid implementation. 

now you may ask why?

1. common drop that is infrequent /rare 
2. once a day per player
3. HUGE pool (rifle, pistol, shotgun, kitgun, ect) 

this causes a low % of each riven  pools on the market , and a trickle influx of new ones. granting those with them to keep bumping the price due to greed or market competitiveness ,even monopolizing rivens and purposefully  gating them from users with specific MR (beyond the scope of the built in rivens restrictions)  leading to some nefarious actions on some people/clans ect 

 now at this point some are speculating and or contemplating to argue that, but you can hold that as speculative towards nature of humanity to try to gain control or  manipulate the market, ect. this happens IRL and of course ingames. so lets not name names or those behind it and place that as realistic forethought as it happens and is done behind the scene, and what not. (thanks) 

I'm not sure if my fellow tennos understand economic systems or things of this nature in minor and macro scales , but lets start with a basics

quantity vs quality and investment based on those 

as it stands right now in warframe rivens are minimal pools with a few injections of new ones at a time , but overall minimal changes that remain in stable upsale values

this causes the quantity to be small , so then the product (rivens) should be refined and a quality product to purchase 

however this is not the case. you will see the same price for a garbage role, unrolled, god-rolls at times , meaning the market is not following this basic principle and is chaotic due to how trades are offered. and due to the small pools riven prices are inflating at high rates as time progresses

prices offered vs sale price

we see people offering a riven cost of 1000p or 2000p which is IRL USD $ equivalent  ~50$ - ~100$  or more (this is a highly inflated) 

realistically for an ingame item that is player to player sale obtainable is a ridiculous amount for a basic booster type addon. now if you talk most people buy lower then whats offered by a bit.

realistically the original riven price sales ranges were 10-300p with minor fluxs dependent on stat changes (when it 1st was started /observed)

and now drastic sale price inflation is due to (wallet warriors/ market manipulation / monopolization/ price escalation) 

I wondered at these prices, and I have asked riven sellers price base points and why. answers on these are as follows

"I paid this price for it and dont what to get a lower price" 

"small amount or people are not selling them so i can charge higher" 

"with its minor buffs I feel it should be worth more then I paid"

"people dont know better , so I charge what I think I can get" 

and plenty of others echoing these in some form or fashion 

at this stage in Warframe, rivens are almost like an investment or money bond , people pay X price and presume if rolled right resale for x value multiplied by amount Y

which is fine as in a freemarket this type of sale strategy is common , the issue is zero depreciation value of said rivens and or low risk

rivens have 3 core restrictions (Rank to trade , rank to use , player held capacity ) , now prior factors of how many rolls or how good the roll is,  used to affect price negotiation to vary but now roll value isn't seen as much of a issue anymore or a factor.

this means the overall price factor of rivens exponentially grows without any negative,this can be artificially lowered by DE nerfing a weapon , or artificially increased when de buffs a weapon ,  this is the only real Risk factor for buy/selling rivens, risk factor is the amount of risk  vs reward of buy/sell a product, rivens with powerful dispositions on powerful weapons carry higher risk 

example was castanas + trinity 
highly overpowered and was were youd see a prior price of 40p jump to 1000p+ 
then it was nerfed and those who bought them were unable to resell for those prices, they lost money on that investment.

the problem is however people dont want to lose any investment funds and forcibly try to keep selling at that point and dont due to this we get a lack of sales and overall lack of those circulating with leads to lack of plat being purchased to then buy one, then the sales loss directly in developers pocket ,with a few wallet warriors here n there buffering the loss randomly at times 

this is not a stable nor a good economic structure for the developer or the players at large and is further hampered by how we trade or offer trades

Fixing Trades? 

to solve this plenty have suggested the auction market idea , similar to how you go to market open up a sales stall virtually and place an item on sale with a set value or BID 
then you are also able to see what others offer said item for and can do better price comparison or sales competition 

this is not a bad idea but needs graphs and other such tools for players to make better use of. an example of this is gaiaonline  its a 2d avatar game were they do such a market style. which could be a good template for our own if its to be done. i am using this as an example of an effective market setup , presumably it would also be nice if warframe had a de staff members well versed in economy handling this or watching moderating it also

Spoiler

the problem is market /trading needs its own designated system as its a rather large chunk of player to player contact and requires a better interface

secondly the overall way of obtainment of rivens needs to be more like how arch rivens are obtained. through survivals, through endless missions with challenges ect

as that would further expand the pool , and as riven quality is not even taking into account much that means a quantity increase would lower the price and overall create influx of plat to bu said lower rivens, as if they are more affordable people will purchase them , and then purchase riven slots and stimulate market growth and further player and developer profit opportunity for more frequent sales

warframe market does this as a nice start https://warframe.market/

but it needs to be ingame and easy to use and view statistics, past, sales, patterns, ect.  

Loss and Redevelopment 

If we were to overhaul, not only the market method , but also the riven dispersal rate then this will anger a bunch of players who paid high or want higher returns of items for resale investments they have/horde/ect.

But the sad truth is, markets are not meant to be perfect means of profit, sales risk of loss and over investment is a factor you should take into account, this is what causes bankruptcy and such IRL. in the game it just means you lose out on plat or money you paid to get that, and hopefully not your home and livelihood, this brings us again back to risk/reward assessment,and why a better trading system and implementation is required to better help players make more educated buy/sell sales and profit. 

The goal /benefit would be that the riven pools in ALL areas would grow at a highly accelerated rate effectively breaking the market set prices and forcing many to lower prices to a reasonable rate, which expands and allows more players to have them and be buying them. and further stimulate more player sales and plat sales.

another thought as our trade tab needs more to it is perhaps de could even make a console hub dedicated to it in liset market and or on the menu tabs that brings up a menu hub with current trade offers and sales, market statistics and graphs.

I state this feedback and to be constructive,  as warfarme has been getting many much needed improvements and overhauls in these last few years.  the way we trade has slowly been touched, but i think its about the time be got out of this trading stone age we've been stuck in and improve the process as a whole. and further create better opportunities for players to obtain rivens in a constant and better method outside of sorties. 

~Best regards , as always

Mako

Edited April 22, 2019 by (XB1)EternalDrk Mako
clean up grammar /bad auto-correct

[(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako]

pasting into devstream post

[Showerwalker]

I feel like AH is out of the question for DE, for reasons they themselves never explained for years and probably never will, leaving only player's assumptions echoing with each other.

And whether or not those assumptions are true, that at least having a proper price-checking system in the game would be very welcome, if not effectively solve the entire issue. It can be implemented like this:
 

Spoiler

 

*either in some chat or a terminal*

type in: [Weapon-Name]

Displays: [Weapon-Name] -- Lowest-Price, Average-Price, Median-Price, Highest-Price. (and whatever is already available in the riven trade report given by DE)

 

A larger portion if not all of the absurd riven trades happens under the fact that the player were given no reference to justify the price. And by letting everybody (instead of releasing it in a horrible format on a site that only some players visit) know more about riven price trending can solve the problem. And at this point AH can be left to the players like warframe.market that DE for the life of them won't do.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Showerwalker

[Im_a_fat_boy2]

DE need to do something about ridiculously priced rivens

A redesign of how rivens work, remove uniqueness, increase supply of rivens and make it easy to roll the stats you want

This should send the prices crashing and would be a bonus to be able to trade on warframe market cos it’s no longer unique 

[Atsia]

On 2019-05-02 at 8:05 AM, Showerwalker said:

I feel like AH is out of the question for DE, for reasons they themselves never explained for years and probably never will, leaving only player's assumptions echoing with each other. 

IIRC. they've said they don't want to do an auction house, one of the reasons being they want trading to have the player to player direct interactions.

[(PSN)FriendSharkey]

Somewhere in Universe A, Rivens work on the basis of being a blank slate until you stick it on the weapon you wanted it for and then beat the riven's challenge and wallah...You had said riven for said weapon....

[SECURATYYY]

Give us more kuva, or lower the cost to reroll, or both. Boom, solved.

36 minutes ago, (PS4)FriendSharkey said:

Somewhere in Universe A, Rivens work on the basis of being a blank slate until you stick it on the weapon you wanted it for and then beat the riven's challenge and wallah...You had said riven for said weapon....

^this works too

[Showerwalker]

8 hours ago, Atsia said:

IIRC. they've said they don't want to do an auction house, one of the reasons being they want trading to have the player to player direct interactions.

That's a pretty weak argument on their end, considering trade chat is notoriously anti-human and caustic, added that you have a high chance to get ripped off (especially if you're a new player), and 90% you spend in trading is looking at scrolling texts or 100% because no-one is selling and buying your stuff.

Path of Exile is facing the same issue, and the excuse given is the same - "player interactions" while in reality it's a 'buffer', a 'speed limit' on trading because a too efficient trading method will break the economy, and trivialize player progression. I believe this is more or less what DE had in mind when looking at AH, it's the realistic impact it has, not player interaction that's so 'charming and welcoming', if that's true we wouldn't be using this 1000 years old chat system, or have the buggiest hubs of the world. I requested for In-game riven price checking, is to have the report given by DE (and the benefit with it) to be available to everyone, that at least, while not make trading more convenient, would at least make it less caustic and atrocious pricing-wise. ie. the major problem with rivens.

EDIT: then just as warframe.market we'll have to wait for another riven.market or something to popularize.

Edited May 4, 2019 by Showerwalker