Kuva Weapon Rivens + Disposition Process Changes

[(XBOX)Skylar McCloud]

On 2019-11-07 at 10:14 AM, [DE]Connor said:

Greetings Tenno!

We hope you’re having fun Vanquishing Kuva Liches left and right on PC (update coming to consoles in the near future, stay tuned for updates!)

As this new system was mostly aimed at experienced players with a wide arsenal, the Kuva weapons earned from Liches are top-of-the-line statwise. However, most were based on older weapons that didn’t see as much use by players at higher Mastery Ranks. As a result, players who equip a Riven on one of these Kuva weapons may notice a slight discrepancy.... Rivens have lowered stats on Kuva weapons, because they have a different disposition.

This is a change we have wanted to make regarding Rivens for awhile, and Kuva Lich weapons presented the perfect opportunity to make it a reality. This change was meant to appear in The Old Blood: Update 26.0 patch notes, but was unfortunately missed during the Mainline madness - and for that we’re sorry! It’s a complicated change to convey in-game, so thank you for being understanding while we update UI across the game to reflect the changes.

Going forward, weapon dispositions will be tuned per weapon, instead of per weapon family. For instance, this means a Kohm Riven will have a disposition of 1.4 on a regular Kohm, but only a disposition of 1 when applied to a Kuva Kohm. 

This has exciting implications for the future of Riven disposition changes! In the past, new Prime weapons would cause the usage of a weapon family to increase dramatically, forcing us to reduce dispositions for the entire family. With individual dispositions, we’ll be able to set new dispositions for Primes and other upgraded weapons right at launch, leaving your current Riven build unaffected.

We have always balanced dispositions based on the most powerful variation of the weapon in its respective family - now that this is no longer necessary, expect to see us increasing the power level on many lesser variations of weapons in our next set of disposition changes, scheduled for December. These increases will not be huge, as we don’t intend to make any base variants explicitly better than their upgraded counterparts, but it will offer a more appropriate boost that isn’t influenced by a more powerful weapon that you may not own yet.

Speaking of our next set of disposition changes, The Old Blood also introduced Melee Phase 2. Now that the weapon power balance has been redistributed, Melee Rivens will soon be affected as part of Prime Access rebalance schedule….. but not quite yet. To give players time to experiment, and to give ourselves a more reliable set of usage stats, we will start Melee Riven changes in the following revisit, scheduled for early next year.

Thanks for reading!

Xbox is still having Issues with linking Veiled Rivens. When you link a veiled riven it doesn't show the challenge. it say "you will need to prove yourself" It's been like that since the Saints of Altra update. Has there been anything said about that being fixed?

 

[HolySeraphin]

4 hours ago, Kboy2608 said:

Total time for normal tiberon to bust out 210 bullets: 210/9.09 + [(210/30 -1)* 2.26] = 36.67 s
Total time for tiberon prime to to bust out 210 bullets: 210/7.38 + [(210/42 -1)*2] =  36.45 s
=> As you can see, the difference is very small 
=> This part  "Yeah, prime loses on these stats and it still has -19% lower fire rate, but +40% magazine size and +12% reload speed, which affects DPS, and considering that both have very low magazines (42-30), you will be reloading a lot. So even though the regular Tiberon has a better riven in this scenario, the Prime will surpass it on the DPS run simply because it will be able to fire more bullets for longer periods of time, and reload faster" is bullsh*t
=> The normal tiberon clearly outperform tiberon prime in terms of dps.  Not to mention you did your math based on a riven that strongly benefit the most superior stats of tiberon prime, CD. If you use another stats combo on riven (dmg, multi or sthg) the difference is even bigger! 

Hm...

Yeah, you're right regarding DPS in this scenario where the riven dispo is 1.44 vs 0.85. I guess it comes to utility then, because Prime has semi and full auto mode.  Thanks.

I did some math on Pyrana and Prime just because I was curious. To fire 120 bullets and reload normal takes 52.7 seconds while Prime is 46 seconds, although the damage difference, crit chance and status chance are small so a stronger riven will make regular better. Although that if you do manage to keep the akimbo buff the difference will be smaller, although this will probably not come into play during high level missions.

I guess having a riven does make the base counterpart, strong, if you indeed have a riven for it.

[HolySeraphin]

If had to compare the riven market to something in the real world, it would be a stock market, and it is not a good thing. The stats are too much unstable, and usage is not a good factor when adjusting their numbers, because it is a neverending cycle of buffs and nerfs. There's also the problem with prime becoming worse for riven users (as we saw with my discussion on this thread). 

As DConagher said, changing the numbers of the weapon itself would be better, but I think that normal variants would still surpass their prime counterparts. If you do buff the  weapons it would increase the power creep without solving the issue, because even if the prime has +20% DPS, a difference of 0.2 on riven disposition would still be enough for the regular version to surpass the prime version, because they are based on the regular stats of normal mods. (1.0 dispo gives 90% multishoot on rifles, for example). 

Personally, the difference between disposition numbers are too high. 0.5 may give 45% multishoot while 1.44 gives  129.6%. You could solve the difference between normal, primes and variants if you prevent players from putting rivens on the regular versions if there are variants, but there could be sidegrade variants and this would decrease variety, but it would keep gear progression. 

Another solution would make it so that the riven gets a negative stat if put on the normal version, and one that directly affects DPS (so no -zoom). So let's say that you have a +Critical Damage and +Damage on your riven. If you put it on Tigris it gets a -reload speed, but only for the normal version, Tigris Prime gets only +Critical Damage and +Damage. Considering that higher disposition also increases the negative stat, even if normal versions get higher rivens, their negative stat would be huge as well (-75% fire rate or -50% reload speed, for example)

But this suggestion is only if the weapon has a variant, otherwise the riven works as normal (so it stays the same for Corinth, or new weapons, these might get a negative stat, but it isn't guaranteed).

[Sylonus]

41 minutes ago, (PS4)Tekikko said:

I haven't read any constructive criticism of how to improve the rivens, only veteran players who want the system to remain as it is because they have learned how to make platinum from it.

Yeah, this is a pretty incorrect statement, there are lots of alternate solutions being suggested here, I'm also a vet, the last thing I want is for the riven situation to stay the same, I agreed with the guy a few pages ago who suggested flattening and simplification, personally I think RNG and thus the slot machine that is rivens should be taken out altogether, and it to become a more "build-a-bear" type of system, and balance not being based on use except in extreme cases, (I support Catchmoon's riven Dispo getting nerfed, for example, but not the nerf to the weapon itself).

Plenty of people like myself have criticized this system without saying we want it to stay the same, we just think this particular change is a bad one.

[(PSN)Laertide]

1 hour ago, Sylonus said:

(I support Catchmoon's riven Dispo getting nerfed, for example, but not the nerf to the weapon itself)

The catchmoon was OP even without the riven from the beginning. So, I agree with the nerf of the weapon, They should have done it before.

In my opinion, if you play warframe only with a couple of weapons because they are OP, and fewer warframes, you are not experiencing the game as you should be, but it's my opinion.

DE nerfed catchmoon? No problem, i'll use another secondary until disposition goes up, and then i'll find a good use for the catchmoon again.

To be honest I grew tired of it and stopped using it before the nerfing.

1 hour ago, Sylonus said:

Plenty of people like myself have criticized this system without saying we want it to stay the same, we just think this particular change is a bad one.

I think nobody can predict the future. Therefore only in a year (after the fourth disposition change) we will be able to tell if it is a good or bad idea, not now.

However, criticizing without bringing alternatives means not wanting to change.

 

Finally, I would like to conclude by recalling that the DE has clearly written that after the rebalancing of the melee weapons, the one for firearms will take place. So I don't see where the problem will be.

Surely, thanks to constructive criticism, they will be able to do a good job.

[Sahysa]

So I had written down hours of stuff when I found out about this yesterday.  But I have managed to compress it to these points as to not get bogged down in weapon balance theory.

Update 22.12 outlined how weapons are balanced by tiers reflecting their mastery requirements.  Variants of weapons are naturally in different tiers. Many weapons lost their niche in the update but my point here is that the better weapons are supposed to be better because of where they lay in the game’s progression spectrum.  Giving them voice in the riven design makes little sense unless there is an ulterior motive….

Weapon quality is an overall outcome of soft stats and hard stats.  Rivens selectively add stats. They fight an uphill battle when affecting usage: only adding hard stats, being rare and random, and needing to be slightly overpowered in order to stand out enough to be used. 

Weapon balance and riven balance are inexorably linked.  It only makes sense that they be balanced per weapon on paper.  But it only truly applies to the high end players and weapons. However they are treated both as reactive adjustment and as objects of value.  This causes wildly different responses from players when they are changed. I don’t know why DE does this to themselves.

I do not like this change because it seems like complexity for the sake of complexity.  Adjusting rivens at all feels like playing chicken with expectations. It would just be simpler and easier to communicate to buff the underperforming weapons.  Dispo reductions could be minimized by formulaically putting a cap on how good weapons can perform and sticking to it in house to minimize the power creep.

There is nothing wrong with the change, it just increases the amount of work one must do to pick weapons and DE must do to balance them while ultimately changing nothing but enabling the creation of powerful new primes that can't use by being too week don't need riven mods.  In this way it is a good thing but its just a bandage for the problems of over disposed rivens in the first place.

It has to be nerfed somewhere to prevent the Gram issue from happening again.  This single post is an announcement that all new weapons will have "balanced" dispositions, taking the wind out of the economy.  The most significant change to Riven balancing since the quarterly dispo revisions is forgotten from the patch notes.  Even justified, someone has got to admit the optics of this are absolutely devastating.

[DConagher]

2 hours ago, Sahysa said:

...The most significant change to Riven balancing since the quarterly dispo revisions is forgotten from the patch notes.  Even justified, someone has got to admit the optics of this are absolutely devastating.

This^ 

[Aldain]

On 2019-11-07 at 10:14 AM, [DE]Connor said:

Going forward, weapon dispositions will be tuned per weapon, instead of per weapon family.

Holy cow, a way for non-prime weapons to actually keep up with their prime counterparts rather than be useless because a prime version of the weapon exists.

That unrolled Akstilleto riven I have might actually be worth something to me now.

[Morthal]

Or you could just do the job right the first time. Hire a real team of QA testers and play high level content ( lvl 300+ ). If no, then clearly all of these changes are simply to cause a false conflict, to which at some point DE will be selling the solution. Please don't be the typical mobile game company and join the likes of EA.

[Goodwill]

28 minutes ago, Morthal said:

Or you could just do the job right the first time. Hire a real team of QA testers and play high level content ( lvl 300+ ). If no, then clearly all of these changes are simply to cause a false conflict, to which at some point DE will be selling the solution. Please don't be the typical mobile game company and join the likes of EA.

That ain't content mate. That's just E-Prime with a few extra 0s.

[MythicPulse]

As someone who has invested large amounts of forma in a variety of weapons, who has repeatedly sold my old basic versions of weapons when primed versions came out because of riven family usage, this is a horrible flipping idea.

I have been using a Karak Wraith as one of my favorite primary weapons for nearly a year, I got a riven, rolled an amazing +crit chance / + status chance number, and invested 5 forma into it... And I sold it *yesterday* because I have a shiny new Kuva Karak that I am happy to have, from a system that I really like.

I also sold my Tonkor, again, after many forma invested built around my riven, because of the new Kuva Tonkor I just picked up.

And my current lich has a Kohm, and, you guessed it, I was going to sell my basic many-forma-invested Kohm too, because this is another one I have a riven for.

...

I'm not genuinely furious.  I'm just upset that this change is going to happen.  I can understand the thought process from DE... But I don't have to like it.  It's a very minor punishment for players who have large investments in their guns.

[VVVVVVEmersonFisioVVVVVV]

i will update Destiny 2, DE is killing their own game. Whats the point of grinding the mr15 gun if the mr5 is better? First melee 3.0, now they will kill guns.

 

Rivens exist to balance guns, but bruh, we grind for the best. Or everyone shud be mr16 with kraken and the 1.55 dispo riven.

 

90% of ur stuff is poorly developed, much better to fix the base guns. Give vanilla weapon high CC + low SC and prime with high SC + low CC and so on...

 

And now we have whips that are shorter than blades 🤯🤯🤯

[(PSN)Laertide]

11 hours ago, HolySeraphin said:

There are players that indeed don't accept DE's mistakes and only see the good

I'm not saying that everything that DE does is good. Warframe has a lot of problem, and I think that Rivens make the game worse. IT was only a easy way to temporary fix the problem of unbalanced weapons.

So every move that goes toward the reduction of Riven impact on the gameplay, is a smart move, in my opinion, but only if DE is really going to balance firearms as they promised...

[HolySeraphin]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Tekikko said:

I'm not saying that everything that DE does is good. Warframe has a lot of problem, and I think that Rivens make the game worse. IT was only a easy way to temporary fix the problem of unbalanced weapons.

So every move that goes toward the reduction of Riven impact on the gameplay, is a smart move, in my opinion, but only if DE is really going to balance firearms as they promised...

I wasn't talking about you in this case, just some players in general. 

[ZarakkiZenn]

On Kuva weapons and the 5 forma rule...

The only way to justify this is if it actually buffs the weapon somehow. Say the Kuva Ogris starts with 3 in the chamber but gains a round per forma. The Twin Stubba, for instance, has atrocious accuracy (closer to 5-7 as opposed to the displayed 36), gaining accuracy and flight speed per forma investment would entice players, thus hiding the resource consumption and time investment for the sake of... let's call it "veiling" instead of "hiding".

Regardless, 5 forma seems exaggerated. 3 perhaps, but 5? I see.

[HolySeraphin]

Just now, ZarakkiZenn said:

On Kuva weapons and the 5 forma rule...

The only way to justify this is if it actually buffs the weapon somehow. Say the Kuva Ogris starts with 3 in the chamber but gains a round per forma. The Twin Stubba, for instance, has atrocious accuracy (closer to 5-7 as opposed to the displayed 36), gaining accuracy and flight speed per forma investment would entice players, thus hiding the resource consumption and time investment for the sake of... let's call it "veiling" instead of "hiding".

Regardless, 5 forma seems exaggerated. 3 perhaps, but 5? I see.

Or it could give the elemental bonus with each forma. So only 10% at the beginning, increasing by 10% with each forma, up to +60% at 5 forma. This would reduce RNG and give a proper reward for those who use forma.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

How many more times are we going to get nerfed before you do ANYTHING about enemy scaling?  It's getting really, really annoying.

[DarkRuler2500]

If you are speaking of "weapon family" will you also combined the single-handed weapon rivens and their akimbo variants (e.g. Lex and Aklex, Stubba and (Kuva) Twin Stubba)? Because those splits are rather annoying.

[tarfeef101]

You'll have to be careful not to make this so drastic that "worse" versions of weapons don't end up being better due to disposition. 

i.e. a normal karak + riven shouldn't outperform a kuva/wraith with an equally good riven.

I feel that if that occurs, that kind of "cheapens" primes/vandals/wraiths, etc.

[Gaz_TTV]

You  deleted my previous comment. Here I'll  say it again DON'T DO THIS

[jamisongbj]

Please fix what it shows when you go to upgrade the mod.  For example, my riven for the quartakk shows the stats for the regular quartakk even though I'm upgrading the mod while it's equipped on the kuva quartakk.  The stats look considerably better until I go back to the regular mod screen and I'm left with a little "buyer remorse".

[Xepthrichros]

On 2019-11-11 at 11:46 AM, (XB1)TehChubbyDugan said:

How many more times are we going to get nerfed before you do ANYTHING about enemy scaling?  It's getting really, really annoying.

The hint here is that you are not supposed to do high level content.

[Drivrius]

So, if  I understand correctly a Prime/Vandal/Kuva/Wraith weapon version might, given a good Riven of course, be inferior to the vanilla version?

 

Not sure I like this idea, then again vanilla weapons getting the short en of the stick because their superior weapons are popular was not fair.

 

On the other hand, these are RIVENS we are talking about, the only people stuck using vanilla weapons are the ones who likely don't have Rivens to begin with...

 

This is odd to say the least, these changes help no one really, I mean by the time you get a decent pool of Rivens, with good enough rolls to make them viable on your weapons, you've long moved on from most vanilla versions and once a new version is out you'll get the new one and put the riven on that one.

 

I mean lets say I have a Riven that allows me to get 100% status chance on my Corinth with 4 60/60 mods and Corinth Prime is released but because of the lower disposition I can no longer reach 100 status chance with the same 4 mods.

 

Rather then have a time where I could enjoy 100% status on my brand new Corinth Prime before riven dispositions are changed we have a brand new Prime weapon that may not be worth getting or might need another riven to be able to compete with the vanilla one. Of course the idea might be to promote multiple rivens per weapons in the same family.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

10 hours ago, Xepthrichros said:

The hint here is that you are not supposed to do high level content.

The entirety of the game is a joke before high level enemies.  The game is not balanced in any aspect.  They would have to nerf us into the dirt for sortie and under level content to not be a joke, and they need to stop nerfing us if we're "allowed" to do over sortie level content.

[(PSN)Raccune]

On 2019-11-07 at 11:47 AM, Totterson said:

So you guys will be able to ensure all of the newest equipment comes pre-nerfed on disposition. Great. It's exciting alright.

To be fair, every new weapon is more powerful than the weapons from a few years ago. DE staff have mentioned that. In past dev streams a global weapon rework is something they have mentioned in passing.

 

The following is my personal opinion: If every single new weapon was released at 0.5 disposition, then players would choose favourite weapons based on personal preference and NOT on riven disposition giving them any advantage.