Would you be OK with DE reducing Kuva costs if you could no longer trade rolled Rivens?

[zuraja]

Rivens in general remind me of the godawful loot system Diablo 3 had at launch where literally everything was built around the auction house.

[Murox]

The Kuva must flow.

[Richeatue]

We don't need the kuva cost reduced, we need some system in place where we can't just sink like 20 hours of kuva farming into the same riven with absolutely nothing to show for it. 

[Nichivo]

*looks over at his god rivens, then looks back*

They could delete them all tomorrow, and it would make zero difference to me at all.

They could also make it possible to lock in a stat, and continue to re-roll others at an increased cost, and it would make no difference to me at all.

The only thing I would miss about them is the little mini challenges to open them, even if they are not a challenge it's still something different to do.

Improved, or gone, really doesn't matter. With the one exception mentioned they do not excite me.

 

[Yamazuki]

I personally would just prefer an alternate Riven system alongside the current Riven system. The current RIven system could simply not be changed, while the alternate method would simply right from the start not be able to be traded, and not be able to have certain stat combinations. Eliminating the possibility of being as over powered as Rivens currently are, and being used for actually specializing a build removes the need to balance the system entirely around RNG, as the op stat combos is why Rivens will most likely never have the RNG reduced as stated by DE before. The new system can instead just be something you just progress through over time, and can even be a major resource sink.

Rivens still being overpowered means they still have their use and probably still keep their absurd pricing, especially since it would also be a means to skip progressing your own mod(s).

On 2020-07-01 at 8:52 AM, Hypernaut1 said:

I don't get this logic. Let's kill something that players are obviously interested in and value highly, even though it's not even needed? 

The prices of Rivens tells DE that people love Rivens. You guys that are jealous over riven prices are the minority. Clearly. 

 

It's possible to have profited from Rivens and still not enjoy them as they are. I have managed to roll good rivens for various weapons, as well as selling quite a few of these over priced rivens to people, as well as the 1k+ unrolled rivens. Not long ago I even profited off of some Youtuber telling people to buy rivens for some melee weapon that I had several of, the price for this weapon went up 4x for no reason other than a simple video.

I simply don't like Rivens as they are entirely due to Rivens being Warframes equivalent to end-game progression. A lot of the supplementary rewards are even tied entirely to getting Kuva. When you do Arb, you're getting Endo and Kuva/Rivens. When you're done with NW you just get Kuva. The recent additions provide Kuva/are Kuva themed. Upcoming content involve rewarding Kuva. When you have plat, all you have to really buy are Rivens and maybe be lazy with new Warframe/Weapon releases; cosmetics are released so infrequent they won't ever drain your plat if you actually play and is why I donate things frequently as I'm not interested in sitting on a pile of never going to be used plat.

Rivens are essentially just gambling, you give up your time in hopes of winning, but you lose most of the time by design, you're meant to lose; after all, Rivens, admitted by DE, can come with broken stat combinations and "have" to be balanced by RNG, limited supply, and not much participation. I don't consider gambling to be a good form of end-game, and that's why I want it changed, or at least an alternative, as I don't care about grinding, so long as I am actually rewarded consistently and not when I happen to get lucky. I lack the rush people get out of being lucky, I feel more relieved than any genuine enjoyment.

As for their prices being high, that has absolutely nothing to do with people being interested in them, and all to do with the complete lack of options when it comes to Rivens. When you want a Riven for a weapon, you have absolutely no choice but to get lucky, or buy it from a rather small section of the player base. 

[SilentMobius]

Personally I'm not so bothered by riven trading per-se. I am bother by temporal arbitrage as it's a net loss for people who actually want to play the game.

IMHO all (non-plat) items should have a one-time trade flag. If you earned it, you can trade it, if you want it, you can buy it but you have to use it, no one can "corner the market" nor profit from not actually playing the game.

Then we can have offline auction houses because once temporal arbitrage is done, as long as plenty of historical price data is available it's impossible to manuipulate the market.

Then the only things that would determine price are direct supply and direct demand, not artificial friction and arbitrage

Trading should be for the benefit of people who play the game, not those who spend their time chosing to drain value out of the people who are playing the game.

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

On 2020-06-30 at 5:30 PM, (PS4)Kakurine2 said:

To make it less rng why not let us lock in stats after so many rolls.  The catch being once you lock in stats the riven is bound to you.

So after 20 rolls lock a stat in. 25 rolls after lock a second. 30 rolls after a third. 40 rolls after lock a fourth negative stat to boost the other 3.

Maybe if you wait x days the kuva costs can go down.

I dont see how binding rivens to a specific player helps anybody.

On 2020-07-01 at 7:22 AM, Ikusias said:

Riven trading is an issue due to the rampant scamming that it encourages, with sellers boasting about ripping off morons and newbies by paying few plats for rivens that end resold over 1k.

no one at De ever dared to critique the situation

This is one of my peeves. 

On 2020-07-01 at 10:27 AM, Acos said:

The argument for reducing the Riven trade goes as such: Does DE have a moral obligation to prevent players from spending hours upon hours farming their game for "god-tier" Riven to then sell to another player for 1,000+ Platinum (which is a rough equivalent of about $50.00, although not really given the frequency of Platinum discounts), which could be argued as a form of pay to win? Is it okay for DE to profit off the situation they created, and is it fair to the "free to play" players to be at a unique disadvantage unless they shell out $50.00 or spend as much time playing RNG lottery? 

This thread assumes that it isn't okay to expect players to play Riven Lottery RNG or otherwise shell out 50 to 100 USD for an in-game advantage, and attempts to find solutions to an apparent problem. 

Elaborate on your perceived minority; It has not been my experience that players enjoy spending 1000's of platinum on the Rivens & I'm curious as to why you think they do? Rivens are priced the way they are due to their rarity, not because people just really like spending platinum on things. 

Does DE have a moral obligation? No.

First of all, people need to understand that the people who actually buy rivens North of 1k (several thousand, in some cases) generally make their plat from trading. 

You can easily make several hundred plat farming prime sets whenever prime access drops, a few thousand if you farm enough sets. A riven doesn't necessarily equate to someone spending 50/100/200 etc dollars. 

I can *kinda* see the "pay to win" argument but I feel like it would be a stretch to say rivens are pay to win but being able to buy other mods isn't. 

 

And I dont want to come off like a smartass but I think the fact that people do buy, sell, and trade expensive rivens is evidence enough that they like doing it. 

 

[Hypernaut1]

41 minutes ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

And I dont want to come off like a smartass but I think the fact that people do buy, sell, and trade expensive rivens is evidence enough that they like doing it. 

 

Rivens are such an optional power boost, I don't see how people can convince themselves that there are 1000s of players begrudgingly paying 1000s of plat for Rivens for weapons that largely don't even need them. The market is booming because most players enjoy it.

It's an equal opportunity market. You have to be extremely unlucky to have never unveiled a meta riven or two. With that meta riven, the average player can easily sell or trade to get what they want. Why do some players want to kill that market? I've never read a good reason. 

 

[Flyshlee]

No. Kuva costs are negligible. They'd have to cut the price down to like 10% to make this worth it.

[Angwah]

25 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

It's an equal opportunity market. You have to be extremely unlucky to have never unveiled a meta riven or two. With that meta riven, the average player can easily sell or trade to get what they want. Why do some players want to kill that market? I've never read a good reason. 

No, it's not game content. It's a stupid lottery system, that's what it is. Oh, I definitely question just how healthy it is for your game when players are exchanging that sort of RL cash, as it is just an open invitation for all sorts of warped and toxic behavior, but that is just a secondary concern to just how messed up the current riven system is as actual, honest game content I can engage with as a player.

To get a specific combination of 3 positives, 1 negative you have 0,0000074% chance. Even if we are happy with at least 100 combinations, that is still only 0,00074% chance. 

Together with cracking eggs and collecting Arcanes rivens are the late game content available. Now, the math for collecting arcanes through actual Eidolon hunting is quite revealing as to what a frustrating and crappy gaming experience that is, but at least you get something every run you do, and besides, it is a whole bunch of orders of magnitude more sane than the riven jackpot.

Simply put, there is no game content here. You can spend hundreds of millions of kuva and get nowhere. There is no progression, no game loop, nothing, nada, bupkiss. Just put kuva in it, and roll the dice against odds which are so miniscule they boil down to pure, dumb, stupid luck.

So no, this is not okay. 

And another thing: I wanna play a space ninja. That's what this game is supposed to be. Space ninja, not space trader. The egg cracking, the arcanes, the rivens, all the late game content heavily relies on trading. In a game which doesn't even have an auction house to facilitate that somewhat. It's all third party content to buy and sell your stuff, to get an idea of pricing, and chat parsers and all kinds of idiotic hoops you have to jump through. It just the ideal playground for scammers and ripping off people as basically there is zero game support and security for the trading part.

Another reason why relegating the late game to playing the market is really very much not okay.

 

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

1 hour ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Rivens are such an optional power boost, I don't see how people can convince themselves that there are 1000s of players begrudgingly paying 1000s of plat for Rivens for weapons that largely don't even need them. The market is booming because most players enjoy it.

It's an equal opportunity market. You have to be extremely unlucky to have never unveiled a meta riven or two. With that meta riven, the average player can easily sell or trade to get what they want. Why do some players want to kill that market? I've never read a good reason. 

 

1) I agree. I dont buy that people feel that much pressure to buy rivens. 

2) that kinda touches on the point that there are ways to get good rivens without reaching for your wallet. You'll eventually get lucky from sorties. And you can sell items to make plat. Its amazing how people love to pretend you can't get plat without paying money for it. 

3) I've seen people go off about rivens because they want the shiny best stuff but don't want to actually work for it, either fighting RNG, getting a job, or grinding trade chat. So they get butthurt about it. 

[Hypernaut1]

1 hour ago, Angwah said:

No, it's not game content. It's a stupid lottery system, that's what it is. Oh, I definitely question just how healthy it is for your game when players are exchanging that sort of RL cash, as it is just an open invitation for all sorts of warped and toxic behavior, but that is just a secondary concern to just how messed up the current riven system is as actual, honest game content I can engage with as a player.

To get a specific combination of 3 positives, 1 negative you have 0,0000074% chance. Even if we are happy with at least 100 combinations, that is still only 0,00074% chance. 

Together with cracking eggs and collecting Arcanes rivens are the late game content available. Now, the math for collecting arcanes through actual Eidolon hunting is quite revealing as to what a frustrating and crappy gaming experience that is, but at least you get something every run you do, and besides, it is a whole bunch of orders of magnitude more sane than the riven jackpot.

Simply put, there is no game content here. You can spend hundreds of millions of kuva and get nowhere. There is no progression, no game loop, nothing, nada, bupkiss. Just put kuva in it, and roll the dice against odds which are so miniscule they boil down to pure, dumb, stupid luck.

So no, this is not okay. 

And another thing: I wanna play a space ninja. That's what this game is supposed to be. Space ninja, not space trader. The egg cracking, the arcanes, the rivens, all the late game content heavily relies on trading. In a game which doesn't even have an auction house to facilitate that somewhat. It's all third party content to buy and sell your stuff, to get an idea of pricing, and chat parsers and all kinds of idiotic hoops you have to jump through. It just the ideal playground for scammers and ripping off people as basically there is zero game support and security for the trading part.

Another reason why relegating the late game to playing the market is really very much not okay.

 

So... Just ignore Rivens if you hate them so much? How do other people enjoying Rivens affect you? That's the beauty of this game, you get to choose what you participate in for the most part. Rivens are just one system that's there if you are interested in it. You don't need it. It's purely optional and not a requirement in any way.

I'm not going to go back and forth with you if you are going to insist it takes 100 million kuva to get a good roll. That's ridiculous. I have over 100 Rivens and I've never taken more than 20 rolls to get something good enough to replace a standard mod. The "God roll" is supposed to be rare. It's supposed to give players something to chase. Not only that, it's a luxury. There is absolutely no need for a "God roll" riven. 

There is progression. Your Rivens become better over time because you get to select the better roll. ( A good change DE made to the system) My Riven collection today is stronger than when I started. I'm not going to buy into your hyperbole. It's random when you may get a better roll, but you will definitely get something that makes a weapon better over time.

Yes, Rivens are ok. Rivens reinvigorated the game at a time when vets truly had nothing to do. It's self sustaining content that's been here for years and players are still trading like crazy. The late game doesn't require Rivens at all. Warframe doesn't even have an endgame. You get items and rank them. That's all there is to Warframe. It's lateral progression after a certain point. MR is about completion, not power.  

If you regulate your late gameplay to playing the market, that's your choice. For me, after earning 10k plat I rarely look to the market at all. Late game Warframe is really just about completing your own personal to do list. 

[-Kittens-]

On 2020-06-30 at 6:07 AM, Jarriaga said:

Reading through test cluster posts, I saw someone posting that they are against increased Kuva in hard mode because more Kuva means indirect profit by increasing your Riven roll frequency, thus in turn increasing your chances of rolling a high-value Riven for sale. This is an argument that is 100% centered around Riven dealers taking a scattershot approach that hurts non-dealers as well.

So if the argument is "More Riven profits if Kuva is scaled or boosted", then what if DE made rolled Rivens non-tradable? That way you can't make plat out of hard mode Kuva by increasing your chances of rolling something as said roll will only be able to be used by you.

And if that sounds extreme, then what if hard mode Kuva nodes introduced a new "Refined Kuva" resource? Refined Kuva lets you roll a Riven at half the normal Kuva requirement, but if you do, you can't trade that Riven anymore. That way there is no increase in Kuva for dealers and they keep the ability to trade rolled Rivens, but they can't profit off of Hard mode Kuva as using said Kuva is an opt-in choice.

Punishing players who want to roll their own Rivens because of a Riven trading mafia is not the way to go in my opinion. 

Poll added> https://linkto.run/p/C5BKFXYQ

The answer is gilded rivens where you lock your stats, (not the value of the stat, just the stat itself) for 35K kuva per stat, including your negative. This yellow riven is then untradable and your own little slice of heaven, and DE can finally actually balance both rivens and weapons based on best usage, and utility rivens will actually become a thing.

 

This will never happen because DE is committed to a system that encourages greed and grind and player satisfaction is supposed to gained through "the warframe experience" and "endgame is fashion", which as a game designer of 20 years I can tell you is the S#&$tiest of all endgames, which is why in every other game with progression like this, church and state remain separated for all of time and space, aka Monster Hunter, Guild Wars Killing Floor, etc.

[-Kittens-]

1 hour ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Rivens are such an optional power boost, I don't see how people can convince themselves that there are 1000s of players begrudgingly paying 1000s of plat for Rivens for weapons that largely don't even need them. The market is booming because most players enjoy it.

It's an equal opportunity market. You have to be extremely unlucky to have never unveiled a meta riven or two. With that meta riven, the average player can easily sell or trade to get what they want. Why do some players want to kill that market? I've never read a good reason. 

 

Your supposition is both anecdotal and incorrect.

[paulogabbi]

riven is nothing more than a fancy lootbox, but De don't remove it because the riven market is the place De make the most money

[Jarriaga]

1 minute ago, -Kittens- said:

The answer is gilded rivens where you lock your stats for 35K kuva per stats. including your negative. This yellow riven is then untradable and your own little slice of heaven, and DE can finally actually balance both rivens and weapons based on best usage, and utility rivens will actually become a thing.

That is indeed a viable solution.

2 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

This will never happen because DE is committed to a system that encourages greed and grind and player satisfaction is supposed to gained through "the warframe experience" and "endgame is fashion", which as a game designer of 20 years I can tell you is the S#&$tiest of all endgames, which is why in every other game with progression like this, church and state remain separated for all of time and space, aka Monster Hunter, Guild Wars Killing Floor, etc.

I don't like to be cynical about DE's intentions, but I'm starting to question why they allow the Riven market to be what it is.

[Hypernaut1]

14 minutes ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

1) I agree. I dont buy that people feel that much pressure to buy rivens. 

2) that kinda touches on the point that there are ways to get good rivens without reaching for your wallet. You'll eventually get lucky from sorties. And you can sell items to make plat. Its amazing how people love to pretend you can't get plat without paying money for it. 

3) I've seen people go off about rivens because they want the shiny best stuff but don't want to actually work for it, either fighting RNG, getting a job, or grinding trade chat. So they get butthurt about it. 

2) personally, as a newer player, I found it hard to justify buying plat because it was so easy to earn from just playing the game. Ignoring the RNG of Rivens, I can literally go directly after a plat goal by farming prime parts and mods. Without being a hardcore trader, Ive earned over 10k plat. My guess is that players that spend 1k+ plat on Rivens probably earned most of it through trade. Without anything to really spend plat on, it's only reasonable to think that excess plat will go towards luxuries like Rivens. 

5k plat to me is no different than trading a rare mod. I'm sure that there are many players that feel the same way. Plat had no dollar value to me. 

I truly don't think people are begging, stealing and borrowing to buy Rivens. 

[-Kittens-]

12 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

That is indeed a viable solution.

I don't like to be cynical about DE's intentions, but I'm starting to question why they allow the Riven market to be what it is.

They aren't cackling around the office as they roast dead babies, but the amount of metahumor and chuckleyucks thrown at player grind and dissatisfaction during livestreams has all but disappeared because as the last two expansions have shown, you most certainly can use up all your player derived goodwill, and it is most certainly a precious and finite resource.

[Hypernaut1]

25 minutes ago, paulogabbi said:

riven is nothing more than a fancy lootbox, but De don't remove it because the riven market is the place De make the most money

If that was the case... Why is it so bad?  If Rivens are a cash cow for DE, then it's GENIUS.

A system that players benefit from, isn't forced AND generate tons of income... How is that a bad thing? It's a win/win if anything. 

1. It doesn't force a player to spend real cash. In fact, Riven trading probably discourages a lot of players from ever buying plat in the first place. You can be a free player, sell rivens for 200p easily and earn enough to buy forma, catalyst, slots, cosmetics. It's not a matter of if, but when. You really don't need to be that lucky to make decent plat from rivens. Even unveiled Rivens make plat. 

2. So DE is making money, but also allowing free players to make plat. How is that not a win/win? Even if you are MR 30, an unveiled riven is STILL valuable. It's practically a plat gift at this point.  There is no other online have I know of that allows completely free players to earn premium currency at the rate you can in WF. 

3. Without a riven, you can still mod most weapons to be more than viable in all current content (steel path will change that probably). So you have a system where you can easily compensate even if you don't take part in it. 

 

[Hypernaut1]

23 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

Your supposition is both anecdotal and incorrect.

And what facts do you have? There are some players saying Rivens are killing the game and some say it's not. DE is the only one with the facts and data.... And they seem ok with how things are going so far. I haven't even seen them hint at any issues they have internally with Rivens. In fact the last things I've heard then say was "definitely no stat locking" not even a compromise. 

[taiiat]

why change anything about this at all? there's nothing wrong with the costs.

if anything is a problem, it's just that the ways to acquire the Resource other than Disruption are very Timer based, where you just stand around waiting rather than doing something.
and the ever present 'content islands' problem that Warframe tends to create for itself time and time again.

32 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

and "endgame is fashion", which is the S#&$tiest of all endgames

which is why in every other game with progression like this, church and state remain separated for all of time and space, aka Monster Hunter, Guild Wars Killing Floor, etc.

indeed, 'endgame is fashion' directly translates to 'endgame is nothing to do'. even if that means collecting new Cosmetics, that's a pretty creativity bankrupt scenario to allow one's self to create. means giving up and deciding that there isn't anything else to do.
not that games have to have 'infinite grinding' or anything, as 'grinding' is far from the only way to give Players something to do that lasts a while. creative outlets or just the Gameplay itself being interesting enough that most Players are content with playing just for the sake of... really goes a long way.

i think you're saying that these games separate Cosmetics and Stats, or something of the like? some of these do that for sure (Monster Hunter not quite so much, not 1st party atleast, but via the power of Modding can fit that bullet, yes) and that's generally a preferable thing to do, surprising hopefully nobody indeed.

[-Kittens-]

29 minutes ago, taiiat said:

Monster Hunter not quite so much

As of the last update 85% of all armors come in a layered version, and by EoL that number will be 100%.

[-Kittens-]

39 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

DE is the only one with the facts and data

Untrue; and also I'm not sure why you'd consider your opinion of "who cares about rivens" to be unilateral because there's a pool of about 80 weapons that depend on rivens to be worth a damn, and that's after two game wide balance passes.

[Hypernaut1]

15 minutes ago, -Kittens- said:

Untrue; and also I'm not sure why you'd consider your opinion of "who cares about rivens" to be unilateral because there's a pool of about 80 weapons that depend on rivens to be worth a damn, and that's after two game wide balance passes.

So who else has the facts?

What weapons DEPEND on Rivens? Some weapons are just weak by design, but there are tons of alternatives in this game. No player is forced to use a weak weapon that needs a riven to be viable. There are powerful bows, melee, snipers and secondaries. If a player chooses to play with a weak weapon that's their choice, you can't complain about choosing to do something the hard way. Also, weak unpopular weapons usually have cheap Rivens anyway.

[-Kittens-]

1 hour ago, Hypernaut1 said:

So who else has the facts?

Hi i think anecdotal opinion is facts

Anyone familiar with game's code and memory timing tools, actually, used to be a subreddit devoted to it.

Also your opinion is yours and your premise of cheap versus effective is also wrong as hell. Sound like you haven't done the faintest amount of research other than "meh, rivens", nevermind that for your premise to hold any weight at all DE wouldn't be doing quarterly balance passes on both rivens and weapons. Your theory craft simply doesn't hold any objective merit.