I really hope they "revise and revisit" rivens at some point.

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

Im not gonna get my hopes up for stat locking or anything like that. But:

1) i feel like the "floor" of dispo should be raised at least a little. There are very few rolls that are even worth the mod slot (if at all) once a weapon gets down to .5 dispo, or close to it. At least make it .7? Or something.

 

2) theres no in game explanation of how good a roll actually is or what it might be worth. 

3) i think kuva farming is one of the most aggravating farms in the whole game. Ive literally gone through 100k kuva on a riven before still not had a good, let alone "god" roll. Unlike other farms where you at least get other stuff if not the specific item you want, you end up with basically nothing in this situation and not being any closer to the goal either. 

I feel like its the only system in the game that hasnt really changed at all since i started playing like 904 days ago. 

[ReddyDisco]

remove rivens tbh

[Voltage]

43 minutes ago, ReddyDisco said:

remove rivens tbh

That would just straight up spit in the faces of invested players instead of making the system enjoyable. You don't need to remove Rivens. I know it's a popular opinion because most people don't care, but there are many changes DE could make that would result in a healthy endgame modding option for luxury purposes.

[KosmicKerman]

12 minutes ago, Voltage said:

That would just straight up spit in the faces of invested players instead of making the system enjoyable. You don't need to remove Rivens. I know it's a popular opinion because most people don't care, but there are many changes DE could make that would result in a healthy endgame modding option for luxury purposes.

And those luxury users will complain that the game is too easy. Obviously, the game is easy without rivens but I find it particularly rich that many, if not most, people who complain that the game is too easy also cling to everything that contributes to power creep. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I think many people who say they want a harder game are really looking to re-experience what the game felt like when they were new players. And while I think there are changes DE can make to improve gameplay, it won’t give those people what they are looking for. 

[ReddyDisco]

21 minutes ago, Voltage said:

That would just straight up spit in the faces of invested players instead of making the system enjoyable. You don't need to remove Rivens. I know it's a popular opinion because most people don't care, but there are many changes DE could make that would result in a healthy endgame modding option for luxury purposes.

The whole idea of riven dispo connected to popularity and nothing else is wrong, not like increasing a trash weapon's dispo will automatically make people want to play it more.

you say ppl will get hurt if these RNG based lottery purple cards are gone, but is it better to be hurt once than being hurt every 2months when riven dispo nerfs happen over and over again?

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

7 minutes ago, ReddyDisco said:

The whole idea of riven dispo connected to popularity and nothing else is wrong, not like increasing a trash weapon's dispo will automatically make people want to play it more.

you say ppl will get hurt if these RNG based lottery purple cards are gone, but is it better to be hurt once than being hurt every 2months when riven dispo nerfs happen over and over again?

I have had 2 rivens get slightly nerfed in this update.

Thats better than having all of my rivens removed from the game.

 

Are you gonna refund all the plat people spent on rivens? Lol. I dont understand why some people seem to think "just remove them entirely" is the only acceptable improvement to the system. Imagine if we applied that logic to other aspects of the game. Why fix x or improve y when we can just remove it.

[ReddyDisco]

9 minutes ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

I have had 2 rivens get slightly nerfed in this update.

Thats better than having all of my rivens removed from the game.

 

Are you gonna refund all the plat people spent on rivens? Lol. I dont understand why some people seem to think "just remove them entirely" is the only acceptable improvement to the system. Imagine if we applied that logic to other aspects of the game. Why fix x or improve y when we can just remove it.

when the foundation itself is improper no amount of ducktape or band aids are gonna keep the building from collapsing

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

1 minute ago, ReddyDisco said:

when the foundation itself is improper no amount of ducktape or band aids are gonna keep the building from collapsing

It's not improper nor collapsing, though. You're just exaggerating or upset at rivens for some reason.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

23 minutes ago, ReddyDisco said:

The whole idea of riven dispo connected to popularity and nothing else is wrong, not like increasing a trash weapon's dispo will automatically make people want to play it more.

you say ppl will get hurt if these RNG based lottery purple cards are gone, but is it better to be hurt once than being hurt every 2months when riven dispo nerfs happen over and over again?

That's exactly what it does and why it was implemented. 

People are looking for Stug rivens, I've seen them. 

I'm using a Harpak because I unveiled a riven for it. 

I have Kronen Prime with a riven, but I also use a Serro, Korrudo, and Jat Kittag, Twin Rogga and Mara Detron as well.

[Jarriaga]

I don't think there's a solution for the Riven issue that respects their design intent.

Capping the lower end at 1 is more than enough for most good/great weapons to utterly devastate most weak weapons at 1.5 disposition.

Then again, the highest end for the worst weapons can be increased to, say, 3.5. But this would be nothing more than straight-up powercreep and you would then get people complaining that good, new, and Prime weapons at 1 get utterly trashed by standard/old variants at 3.5.

 

[BornWithTeeth]

1 minute ago, Jarriaga said:

I don't think there's a solution for the Riven issue that respects their design intent.

Capping the lower end at 1 is more than enough for most good/great weapons to utterly devastate most weak weapons at 1.5 disposition.

Then again, the highest end for the worst weapons can be increased to, say, 2.5. But this would be nothing more than straight-up powercreep and you would then get people complaining that good, new, and Prime weapons at 1 get utterly trashed by standard/old variants at 2.5.

 

 I feel like it's a bit of retroactive justification to claim that the purpose of Rivens was always intended to be 'Give a chance for weak or unpopular weapons to receive powerful upgrades'.

 

I was there when Rivens were introduced, and it took months before DE had the disposition system working. It was something which did not cross their minds even once before launching them. Rivens were absolutely not introduced into the game with the idea of being strictly best for non-meta weapons. It is blindingly obvious that the real, actual purpose of Rivens was always, always to create infinitely mutable, randomly generated and re-generated, potentially highly desirable buffs which can be traded and can be continuously worked on. 

[ReddyDisco]

33 minutes ago, (PS4)Madurai-Prime said:

It's not improper nor collapsing, though. You're just exaggerating or upset at rivens for some reason.

did i sound upset? wasn't my intent, was using a wrong metaphor it seems. what i meant to say is they need a look at and rebuilt from ground up rather than a temporary fix which they seem to do for most things nowadays 

[ReaverKane]

2 hours ago, ReddyDisco said:

remove rivens tbh

Not going to happen tbh... Imagine all the plat refunds on riven slots...

But yeah, it should be reworked from the ground up. At this point its not really doing its job of balancing weapons, and its responsible for the most toxic aspect of the community (the riven market stuff).

[Jarriaga]

1 hour ago, BornWithTeeth said:

I feel like it's a bit of retroactive justification to claim that the purpose of Rivens was always intended to be 'Give a chance for weak or unpopular weapons to receive powerful upgrades'.

Is it? Let's review what the very first Riven introduction feedback dev workshop thread from November 14th 2016 (2 days after their introduction to the game with TWW) says

Quote

We want to give players something unique to them that can speak to their wider Arsenal. We want to give new life to the Arsenal in a non-static way.

Riven Mods were added to incentivize end-game players to revisit old weapons and to change up their play style. We’re all familiar with blazing through missions to the Extraction Point, but this system gives players new challenges that require them to test the creative limits of their Arsenal in their quest to Unveil their new Mods. Yes, meta weapons are in the selection pool, but Riven Mods are not needed to make this gear (like the Tonkor or Synoid Simulor) more powerful. What they can do is add an interesting buff to a comparatively underpowered weapon in order to encourage players to think outside of that meta box.

This is why we have prevented players from choosing what weapon the Riven Mod will be for; if we didn’t, we would end up with millions of Soma Mods and none for the Gorgon. The exponential Cycling costs are there to encourage players to try the existing stats before they embark on the journey to the ‘perfect roll’. For those of you who want to find the best Mod possible, that avenue is available to you, but that is not the goal behind this system.

Doesn't seem like historical revisionism to me..... As for what you said on the other hand:

1 hour ago, BornWithTeeth said:

I was there when Rivens were introduced, and it took months before DE had the disposition system working. It was something which did not cross their minds even once before launching them. Rivens were absolutely not introduced into the game with the idea of being strictly best for non-meta weapons. It is blindingly obvious that the real, actual purpose of Rivens was always, always to create infinitely mutable, randomly generated and re-generated, potentially highly desirable buffs which can be traded and can be continuously worked on.

Now THAT is historical revisionism. From the very same thread:

Quote

In the past 3 or so days since The War Within has been released, our community brought up some very pertinent points concerning this system. The first is trading, and the lack of UI indication of how many times a Mod has been Cycled and the Weapon it is for, which will soon be added to both Veiled (after the initial Unveiling) and Unveiled Mods. For example, a Cycled Lanka mod will appear as Lanka Riven Mod until it is unveiled again.

Your commentary about meta weapons has been taken to heart as well, and we will be tweaking the algorithm to account for 'Riven Disposition'.

'Riven Disposition' is the way in which power level of Mods is attuned to the weapon it is generated for. Mastery Rank and Stats will factor into this attunement, so you can expect to see more powerful Rivens for less used weapons and vice versa.

This modification will also affect existing Riven Mods to reflect our desire to give new life to ‘discarded’ weapons in a unique way, and not increase the power of the top tier ones. 

What you claim contradicts what is on record in that thread from Reb. Care to cite a different official source that backs-up your claim? Or does it only exist within the realm of historical revisionism? 

You can argue that the current iteration system as we know it is something new, but claiming that disposition did not even cross their minds once before launching the system when there WAS a balancer at play day 1 is willful ignorance at best, or a blatant and intentional lie at worst. 

The initial day 1 "limiter" was which weapons generated Rivens. Rifles only at first while they tested the waters. But disposition as as concept was unveiled 2 days later and then added 4 days afterwards. This means that disposition was a reality within a week of Rivens existing, not months. 

[Leqesai]

3 hours ago, ReddyDisco said:

remove rivens tbh

[BornWithTeeth]

@Jarriaga

Please review that thread. That's DE talking several days after the launch of Rivens, acknowledging the many shortcomings of their design, and talking about how they were only then recognising the need to introduce Riven Disposition. In other words, if they considered balance issues before launch, those considerations did not affect how Rivens worked on launch.

On launch, Rivens did not have Disposition, and the Disposition system would not be working properly until, if I recall, late November/December. In addition to which, DE's official statement on it is...look, if I'm looking for a tool to dig holes with, and the salesman keeps trying to tell me a rake is what I need, I'm gonna give that salesman a bit of a look. Rivens did not launch as a way to help non-meta weapons because Rivens did not launch with any kind of balance mechanism attached. Instead, Rivens launched as I described: semi-randomised, mutable, rollable, tradable buffs. They launched as whalebait, and as a new form of core engagement, as a perpetual activity: whatever else is going on, you can always farm Kuva, because you can always roll a Riven.

 

Now, one can definitely argue that this was not a cynical move by DE, just a short-sighted one. I get that. But it was dumb. It was not clever. I remember the feeding frenzy in trade chat the week after War Within, it was a bit nuts.

 

And, yeah. Even to this day the most pricy Rivens are, despite Disposition, still for weapons which are already broadly powerful and have a respectable degree of Crit/Status/damage to build on.

[(XBOX)Tribal Souljah1]

1 hour ago, Jarriaga said:

I don't think there's a solution for the Riven issue that respects their design intent.

Capping the lower end at 1 is more than enough for most good/great weapons to utterly devastate most weak weapons at 1.5 disposition.

Then again, the highest end for the worst weapons can be increased to, say, 3.5. But this would be nothing more than straight-up powercreep and you would then get people complaining that good, new, and Prime weapons at 1 get utterly trashed by standard/old variants at 3.5.

I guess in one edit you said 2.5 and then 3.5, but bring it in with 2 as a cap and leave the bottom as .8 - 1 and I think you can make a respectable argument balancing out weapons that are suboptimal with fun mechanics with ones that can just decimate.  As mentioned in another thread like this, I kinda like goofing off with the Torid, but it's really not that great of a weapon.  I feel the same about the Braton in that it feels like a rifle and not a gimicky weapon, but its on the verge of utterly useless.  Investments in top tier weapon rivens would actually be worth the time and effort.  

I don't think there's a sure fire solution, but I'd like to see something new other than nerfing based on weapon usage.  

[Hayrack]

Riven mods are basically an RNG chance to powercreep a weapon. Always were, always will be. The claims about their purpose to "balance" weaker weapons are pure grade BS, I realised that the moment I learned about them. Admission and embrace of powercreep would be more sincere, so either unlock Riven stats in 500, -500% range, or get rid of Riven system.

 

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

3 hours ago, ReddyDisco said:

when the foundation itself is improper no amount of ducktape or band aids are gonna keep the building from collapsing

Gross exaggeration.

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

1 hour ago, BornWithTeeth said:

@Jarriaga

Please review that thread. That's DE talking several days after the launch of Rivens, acknowledging the many shortcomings of their design, and talking about how they were only then recognising the need to introduce Riven Disposition. In other words, if they considered balance issues before launch, those considerations did not affect how Rivens worked on launch.

On launch, Rivens did not have Disposition, and the Disposition system would not be working properly until, if I recall, late November/December. In addition to which, DE's official statement on it is...look, if I'm looking for a tool to dig holes with, and the salesman keeps trying to tell me a rake is what I need, I'm gonna give that salesman a bit of a look. Rivens did not launch as a way to help non-meta weapons because Rivens did not launch with any kind of balance mechanism attached. Instead, Rivens launched as I described: semi-randomised, mutable, rollable, tradable buffs. They launched as whalebait, and as a new form of core engagement, as a perpetual activity: whatever else is going on, you can always farm Kuva, because you can always roll a Riven.

 

Now, one can definitely argue that this was not a cynical move by DE, just a short-sighted one. I get that. But it was dumb. It was not clever. I remember the feeding frenzy in trade chat the week after War Within, it was a bit nuts.

 

And, yeah. Even to this day the most pricy Rivens are, despite Disposition, still for weapons which are already broadly powerful and have a respectable degree of Crit/Status/damage to build on.

You took no hostages.

[Jarriaga]

1 hour ago, BornWithTeeth said:

@Jarriaga

Please review that thread. That's DE talking several days after the launch of Rivens, acknowledging the many shortcomings of their design, and talking about how they were only then recognising the need to introduce Riven Disposition. In other words, if they considered balance issues before launch, those considerations did not affect how Rivens worked on launch.

On launch, Rivens did not have Disposition, and the Disposition system would not be working properly until, if I recall, late November/December. In addition to which, DE's official statement on it is...look, if I'm looking for a tool to dig holes with, and the salesman keeps trying to tell me a rake is what I need, I'm gonna give that salesman a bit of a look. Rivens did not launch as a way to help non-meta weapons because Rivens did not launch with any kind of balance mechanism attached. Instead, Rivens launched as I described: semi-randomised, mutable, rollable, tradable buffs. They launched as whalebait, and as a new form of core engagement, as a perpetual activity: whatever else is going on, you can always farm Kuva, because you can always roll a Riven.

 

Now, one can definitely argue that this was not a cynical move by DE, just a short-sighted one. I get that. But it was dumb. It was not clever. I remember the feeding frenzy in trade chat the week after War Within, it was a bit nuts.

 

And, yeah. Even to this day the most pricy Rivens are, despite Disposition, still for weapons which are already broadly powerful and have a respectable degree of Crit/Status/damage to build on.

Several days? Just 2. 

And yes, we can agree that the initial implementation was short-sighted, but the fact only rifle Rivens could be generated within those 2 initial days while they tested the waters indicates that concerns did exist, and they ultimately committed towards favoring older/weaker weapons.

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

2 hours ago, Jarriaga said:

I don't think there's a solution for the Riven issue that respects their design intent.

Capping the lower end at 1 is more than enough for most good/great weapons to utterly devastate most weak weapons at 1.5 disposition.

Then again, the highest end for the worst weapons can be increased to, say, 3.5. But this would be nothing more than straight-up powercreep and you would then get people complaining that good, new, and Prime weapons at 1 get utterly trashed by standard/old variants at 3.5.

 

1) im not gonna pretend i have a perfect answer for what the low end of riven dispo should be, other than higher than it is now. If virtually no roll can compete with a primed bane mod, for example, because the dispo is so low, then that tells me the weapon itself is too strong. Allegedly anyway.

2) some weapons, lets pick on stug for example, are just trash and even if the dispo was up to 3 it wouldnt actually make them viable. I think the issue that needs to be looked at then is the weapons themselves. 

There are an awful lot of trash, no good, do not ever use weapons in this game.

[Jarriaga]

14 minutes ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

1) im not gonna pretend i have a perfect answer for what the low end of riven dispo should be, other than higher than it is now. If virtually no roll can compete with a primed bane mod, for example, because the dispo is so low, then that tells me the weapon itself is too strong. Allegedly anyway.

2) some weapons, lets pick on stug for example, are just trash and even if the dispo was up to 3 it wouldnt actually make them viable. I think the issue that needs to be looked at then is the weapons themselves. 

There are an awful lot of trash, no good, do not ever use weapons in this game.

No comments on your first point.

As for your second point, trash compared to what? It's an MR2 weapon. It's not meant to even itch an MR8 weapon. Stug's mechanics prevent it from ever being good even with a 10,000% boost. If Stug was an MR8 weapon I'd be with you, but it belongs to the DE-defined weakest performance bracket as per the 2018 weapon balance pass, which tied performance to MR brackets.

Weapon tiers have been a thing in stats-based games ever since the first Final Fantasy on the NES. Your first sword is not meant to compete with the final sword. Rivens exist to narrow-down the gap, but there is a limit stats alone will never compensate, and even then the game itself is not balanced around them.

We've had this this discussion several time before, and yet you still use the Stug as an example of a "bad weapon" as if it was a difficult to farm, high MR, late-game weapon.

[taiiat]

it's all a mess ofcourse, we all know it.

• increasing the minimum to 0.7 would help.... somewhat.
• giving Players the information that they need to know without having to know of 3rd party sources of data that's collected in we don't talk about it ways, is just such an obvious one but apparently it's not important enough to deal with, so i'm not convinced anything will ever happen if basic stuff like this is seen as not worth resolving.
  • yes, more than kappas out of 5 is needed, sorely so - knowing where your Stats landed within the possible ranges is so crucial. even thesedays i still encounter someone once in a while that doesn't know that Riven Stats can vary. this is just so stupid, the game lying to Players so much is such a major component of why those Players end up disgruntled and acting poorly. when you treat people poorly they're certainly not going to treat you back a whole lot better, are they.
• this is also affected by other factors in the game, like the horrible mistake of tying Weapons to an arbitrary hierarchy, then still complaining about Players' lack of diversity and such. what a disgusting thing to try to paint onto the Players when the game is just as much at fault of the same thing.

[BornWithTeeth]

56 minutes ago, Jarriaga said:

Several days? Just 2. 

And yes, we can agree that the initial implementation was short-sighted, but the fact only rifle Rivens could be generated within those 2 initial days while they tested the waters indicates that concerns did exist, and they ultimately committed towards favoring older/weaker weapons.

So, my argument here is basically the following principle: You can tell what a thing is for by looking at what it was designed to do.

By that logic, yeah, Rivens do kinda sorta promote diversity of weapons? You can get a Riven for a weaker weapon which artificially boosts that weapon up one tier and makes it viable in content in which it would natively struggle.

 

However, what Rivens are actually good at is being perpetual content. They are semi-randomised, and can be rolled indefinitely. They provide buffs! Maybe, and you can't control that but you can always roll again. Because they are doubly randomised (once to roll which weapon it's for, and then again for its stats every subsequent roll) a useful Riven is a resource which is both scarce but renewable, and the renewable part depends on players putting in time and effort. Any given Riven might be useful for you, or might be highly valuable in trade, so for many, many weapon categories it's always gonna be worth either rolling it or looking for a buyer. The existence of a thriving market for them means that the engagement is driven from the community side as well, and by second order effect it encourages trading of other items.
             The entire thing runs on Kuva, and by now there are a rake of ways to get Kuva. You can hit Siphons and Floods, or you can do Arby's and spend Vitus Essence/Steel Path and spend Steel Essence. The important thing about it is that it's got no defined finish line. You can always be working on a Riven. You can always farm a bit more Kuva, because you never know what one more roll might achieve.

 

   So, to discuss mechanics and how that works, the mechanics which DE implemented to make Rivens more of a balancing agent (Riven Disposition, mostly) were implemented hand in hand with changes to how Riven rolling worked. When Rivens were first introduced, they were unbalanced!...they were also a nightmare to roll, with ever increasing Kuva costs, and they always flipped to the new stats. So, while DE have worked on Disposition, they also changed how rolls work, so that every roll is a choice between keep old stats/accept new stats, and they capped the roll cost at 3500 kuva.

 

Basically, the most core mechanical element of Riven mods is not "They make weak weapons better." It is "They're randomised, but you can always roll it and see if you get something better."

 

 

So, yeah. Rivens may act to help out weaker weapons, but their true purpose is to be an extremely long lasting engagement tool. Any changes which players suggest to make them better at the former will not be implemented if they would impair the latter.