Has the 0.5 Riven Disposition for new weapons actually done anything good?

[saghzs]

Ever since DE introduced the 0.5 dispo limit for new weapons, it has basically killed all excitement i had for new weapons.

Rivens are a big part of the game, like them or not, and a lot of players use them. But 0.5 dispo rivens have to be basically perfect to even be worth replacing something.

Now, the weapon is either good and you maybe use it, or its bad and you immediately forget about it. At least when new weapons had a dispo of 1.0 the bad ones had some fun in them too, in seeing how much you could get out of them with a riven. And the already good weapons were really refreshing, having something new take the top spot, even if its just for a few days or weeks was fun.

As for the economy surrounding the rivens, I don't think it has changed all that much. People for some reason still buy rivens for new weapons, and tend to still pay a lot for them in the first few days. All I've noticed is that it dies down a lot faster, just like the weapons fade in to obscurity a lot faster.

 

 

If only there was some way.. hmm.. some way for DE to have sizeable chunk of players test new weapons and at the end maybe fill out a survey of what they thought about it. That way they not only could introduce weapons at an approximate dispo, but also maybe buff/nerf some weapons directly, before release.

If only...

 

[(PSN)thegarada]

I think DE want to avoid the “always nerf” perception the player base has. If it is 0.5 it can only go up. Realistically, I think they should have settled around 0.75.

[NecroPed]

I think it would probably help prevent players from spending so much plat on a riven that's more than likely going to change as soon as players have had a chance to use it. Prices for rivens are touchy and sometimes quite excessive. New rivens are generally going to be more expensive than older rivens and if the disposition changes appropriately after finding out how powerful/weak the weapon is, the prices can drastically change in an instant, causing frustrating to players who may feel like they've wasted their plat on something that was good but now isn't, or someone who undersold something that wasn't great but became powerful.

It makes sense to test the weapons and get statistics to use to decide on riven disposition. You could say that the test branch would work for this, but I feel we need statistics from the masses for the disposition to be appropriately decided.

[saghzs]

2 minutes ago, NecroPed said:

I think it would probably help prevent players from spending so much plat on a riven that's more than likely going to change as soon as players have had a chance to use it. Prices for rivens are touchy and sometimes quite excessive. New rivens are generally going to be more expensive than older rivens and if the disposition changes appropriately after finding out how powerful/weak the weapon is, the prices can drastically change in an instant, causing frustrating to players who may feel like they've wasted their plat on something that was good but now isn't, or someone who undersold something that wasn't great but became powerful.

It makes sense to test the weapons and get statistics to use to decide on riven disposition. You could say that the test branch would work for this, but I feel we need statistics from the masses for the disposition to be appropriately decided.

Anyone spending plat on rivens for new weapons should be well aware that the dispo can change, up and down. I don't think that many people actually "waste" their plat thinking that this will be something they'll have forever.

 

The test cluster could 100% be used to at the very least approximate riven dispos. There are.. around 1000? 1500? players on that list currently. If just half of them gave feedback about the weapon balance. I think it would result in a much better outcome than just giving all weapons exactly the same dispo, be that 1.5 or 0.5. And those dispos obviously won't be final, once everyone else gets their hand on to those weapons DE will have a lot more data and can adjust further. But they probably won't have to adjust by more than 0.2-0.3 in total.

[NecroPed]

11 minutes ago, saghzs said:

Anyone spending plat on rivens for new weapons should be well aware that the dispo can change, up and down. I don't think that many people actually "waste" their plat thinking that this will be something they'll have forever.

 

The test cluster could 100% be used to at the very least approximate riven dispos. There are.. around 1000? 1500? players on that list currently. If just half of them gave feedback about the weapon balance. I think it would result in a much better outcome than just giving all weapons exactly the same dispo, be that 1.5 or 0.5. And those dispos obviously won't be final, once everyone else gets their hand on to those weapons DE will have a lot more data and can adjust further. But they probably won't have to adjust by more than 0.2-0.3 in total.

Yeah, and you could put the fault on the player for not considering it. But, the changes are likely going to be far more drastic if we guess the disposition before seeing how the weapon is used. If we start low and climb we have the time to get an appropriate disposition. People often don't like change(the bigger the change the bigger the reaction when it's not well received), and I think if we avoid as many drastic changes as possible more people will be pleased with the end result. 

I feel like time in the hands of the masses is the key part in choosing an appropriate disposition. And I think the test branch should be utilized for more game changing features rather than something based off of statistics that will come with time either way(on top of this the test branch is used for specific new features and changes, and most players are going to be directed towards those features and as a result wont necessarily be playing the game the same way or using the weapons the same way they would use them in Warframes proper release). On top of this, the weapons themselves could change from test branch > release. Making those statistics from test branch potentially redundant. Then needing another test? It just seems more appropriate to me to start at a low baseline and tweak from there. 

[DrivaMain]

Rivens will never be "good" until DE tame the sheer randomness of it. It's just a slot machine madness.

[Tiltskillet]

38 minutes ago, saghzs said:

Anyone spending plat on rivens for new weapons should be well aware that the dispo can change, up and down. I don't think that many people actually "waste" their plat thinking that this will be something they'll have forever.

 

The test cluster could 100% be used to at the very least approximate riven dispos. There are.. around 1000? 1500? players on that list currently. If just half of them gave feedback about the weapon balance. I think it would result in a much better outcome than just giving all weapons exactly the same dispo, be that 1.5 or 0.5. And those dispos obviously won't be final, once everyone else gets their hand on to those weapons DE will have a lot more data and can adjust further. But they probably won't have to adjust by more than 0.2-0.3 in total.

I honestly think they don't have the time and maybe not the background expertise to sift through that kind of feedback, particularly since some of it would be foolish or dishonest.  I really do mean dishonest, and even moreso if people know new weapon dispos can be manipulated.  Leaving aside simple bias--there's actual money involved.

DE is using (largely) wiki-balancing by usage on the live game because it's a  savings in time and effort.  And as long as they start out at the dispo floor, it's much safer than using the feedback of a much smaller population over a much shorter period of  time.  

 

[saghzs]

10 minutes ago, NecroPed said:

I feel like time in the hands of the masses is the key part in choosing an appropriate disposition. And I think the test branch should be utilized for more game changing features rather than something based off of statistics that will come with time either way(on top of this the test branch is used for specific new features and changes, and most players are going to be directed towards those features and as a result wont necessarily be playing the game the same way or using the weapons the same way they would use them in Warframes proper release). On top of this, the weapons themselves could change from test branch > release. Making those statistics from test branch potentially redundant. Then needing another test? It just seems more appropriate to me to start at a low baseline and tweak from there. 

I have to disagree with you in this.

I feel like the test cluster is the perfect place to test approximate balance. The results from it don't have to be final, but at least skewed towards the right direction. And it would give DE and the players valuable information on further improving the test cluster as a whole, if they did one every.. month or so, whenever new weapons release.

Just take the Deimos Arcana test cluster as an example, it was an absolute mess, we didn't even get proper patchnotes. Half the feedback was completly ignored, and the other half was acknowledged but they had no time to make any major changes.

Weapon and riven stats are easy to change, its a simple number adjustment. There won't be any fundemental flaws that could possibly take weeks to fix.

For all i know they could even run the test cluster over 1 week and each day adjust the numbers slightly.

[saghzs]

5 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

I honestly think they don't have the time and maybe not the background expertise to sift through that kind of feedback, particularly since some of it would be foolish or dishonest.  I really do mean dishonest, and even moreso if people know new weapon dispos can be manipulated.  Leaving aside simple bias--there's actual money involved.

DE is using (largely) wiki-balancing by usage on the live game because it's a  savings in time and effort.  And as long as they start out at the dispo floor, it's much safer than using the feedback of a much smaller population over a much shorter period of  time.  

You're most likely correct.

But you have to start somewhere, so why not start simple. Just adjusting numbers based on feedback. No major gameplay changes or anything.

And i don't think there is any real possibility of players cheating a system like that. The test cluster has 1000-1500 or so players on the list. Getting enough people together to actually influence the results in a meaningful way would be incredibly hard, if not impossible.

[TARINunit9]

40 minutes ago, saghzs said:

Anyone spending plat on rivens for new weapons should be well aware that the dispo can change, up and down.

They should, but they don't! And because they don't, yes, the 0.5 dispo mandate has had a meaningful change after all. Because I haven't heard of any big dispo change uproar in weeks, whereas before the change it was pretty much constant

[saghzs]

1 minute ago, TARINunit9 said:

They should, but they don't! And because they don't, yes, the 0.5 dispo mandate has had a meaningful change after all. Because I haven't heard of any big dispo change uproar in weeks, whereas before the change it was pretty much constant

 

Thats why I vaguely mentioned the test cluster. If we had one before every weapon release to approximate the riven dispo, it could potentially satisfy everyone.

The people that don't like dispo changes won't have them as much, because most weapons already are within 0.2-0.3 of their final dispo.

The people that like experimenting with new weapons have a reason to get rivens, because they won't all be 0.5 dispo.

The people that enjoy seeing how much they can get out of the most overpowered weapons will have their fun.

[NecroPed]

2 minutes ago, saghzs said:

 

Thats why I vaguely mentioned the test cluster. If we had one before every weapon release to approximate the riven dispo, it could potentially satisfy everyone.

The people that don't like dispo changes won't have them as much, because most weapons already are within 0.2-0.3 of their final dispo.

The people that like experimenting with new weapons have a reason to get rivens, because they won't all be 0.5 dispo.

The people that enjoy seeing how much they can get out of the most overpowered weapons will have their fun.

I feel like any worthwhile amount of time spent in the test branch for riven disposition is honestly a waste of time and a waste of the test branch itself. 

[saghzs]

1 minute ago, NecroPed said:

I feel like any worthwhile amount of time spent in the test branch for riven disposition is honestly a waste of time and a waste of the test branch itself. 

Rivens are a very big part of the game. I don't think it would be a waste of time. Specially considering that so far DE hasn't really done.. anything with it.

They ran it 3 times in almost a full year. There's plenty of opportunities to run smaller scale tests, like riven/weapon balancing.

It would also give them valuable expirience for future, bigger scale tests.

And it would make players feel like they are actually contributing to active decision making, instead of just being bugtesters a few times a year.

[Tiltskillet]

15 minutes ago, saghzs said:

You're most likely correct.

But you have to start somewhere, so why not start simple. Just adjusting numbers based on feedback. No major gameplay changes or anything.

 

Sure, they should totally do that.  I think the test server population could be used as much better resource for balancing new weapon -stats-, for instance.  But if you want to start simple, keep dispo out of it.

 

19 minutes ago, saghzs said:

And i don't think there is any real possibility of players cheating a system like that. The test cluster has 1000-1500 or so players on the list. Getting enough people together to actually influence the results in a meaningful way would be incredibly hard, if not impossible.

 I'd say that we shouldn't underestimate the ability of a highly motivated minority to dominate a relatively indifferent majority.   What percentage of those 1500 people do you think are actually giving specific and useful  feedback now on the power level of every new weapon?

[saghzs]

2 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

 I'd say that we shouldn't underestimate the ability of a highly motivated minority to dominate a relatively indifferent majority.   What percentage of those 1500 people do you think are actually giving specific and useful  feedback now on the power level of every new weapon?

It would probably require at least 500 people, probably more.

And even then, what are they gonna change it by? 0.2? 0.3? Not like it wouldn't be obvious if half the playerbase thought a weapon deserved 0.7 dispo while the other half put it at 1.3

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Yea, it prevented warframe Karen's from going like this:

"I logged in and my trumna riven has lower stats! wHaT gIvEs DE!?"

[saghzs]

Just now, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Yea, it prevented warframe Karen's from going like this:

"I logged in and my trumna riven has lower stats! wHaT gIvEs DE!?"

 

17 minutes ago, saghzs said:

Thats why I vaguely mentioned the test cluster. If we had one before every weapon release to approximate the riven dispo, it could potentially satisfy everyone.

The people that don't like dispo changes won't have them as much, because most weapons already are within 0.2-0.3 of their final dispo.

The people that like experimenting with new weapons have a reason to get rivens, because they won't all be 0.5 dispo.

The people that enjoy seeing how much they can get out of the most overpowered weapons will have their fun.

 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 minutes ago, saghzs said:

 

 

They probably wanna see real time data from the actual game, not a small handful of biased testers....

[saghzs]

1 minute ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

They probably wanna see real time data from the actual game, not a small handful of biased testers....

How exactly are the people on the test cluster biased? They are selected randomly.

[NecroPed]

Just now, saghzs said:

Rivens are a very big part of the game. I don't think it would be a waste of time. Specially considering that so far DE hasn't really done.. anything with it.

They ran it 3 times in almost a full year. There's plenty of opportunities to run smaller scale tests, like riven/weapon balancing.

It would also give them valuable expirience for future, bigger scale tests.

And it would make players feel like they are actually contributing to active decision making, instead of just being bugtesters a few times a year.

I feel like it would be a waste of time since the same result can be obtained from having the weapons in the actual release. And the test branch could be utilized for game changing features and systems that need testing before potentially breaking the game. 

Rivens themselves do not need testing to know that they are working. We simply need the statistics from the weapons usage and nothing more. I don't feel like we need a test branch for this. And if we are going to be having more test branches I think it should be utilized for more game changing aspects. Riven disposition isn't that game changing, and as such shouldn't be a priority over something like the Steel Path changes. 

Since it's entirely statistic based I don't see how this would necessarily give them more experience for future tests compared to testing an entirely new feature or drastic change such a Steel Path changes. I think handling potentially game breaking features provides far greater experience than simply adjusting some numbers.

I also already feel like I am helping contribute to active decision making for warframe, while they didn't necessarily explicitly listen to me, a lot of what I said has been implemented or elaborated on. 

We've also had a global pandemic the last year, which causes delays and problems. It's not very ideal circumstances to be putting out updates let alone putting out tests all the time alongside it. 

[saghzs]

1 minute ago, NecroPed said:

Rivens themselves do not need testing to know that they are working. We simply need the statistics from the weapons usage and nothing more. I don't feel like we need a test branch for this. And if we are going to be having more test branches I think it should be utilized for more game changing aspects. Riven disposition isn't that game changing, and as such shouldn't be a priority over something like the Steel Path changes. 

What gamechanging aspects would you like to see then?

Want a repeat of the test cluster from deimos arcana? Which did basically nothing.

We don't get enough updates per year for this kind of use.

 

And De needs expirience with the test cluster.

[NecroPed]

7 minutes ago, saghzs said:

What gamechanging aspects would you like to see then?

Want a repeat of the test cluster from deimos arcana? Which did basically nothing.

We don't get enough updates per year for this kind of use.

 

And De needs expirience with the test cluster.

Railjack updates. Lich changes. Corpus lich variants. Companions 2.0. Next set of melee changes (IIRC they're not finished with the melee rework?). Dojo changes (there are substantial posts of peoples dojos being ruined or breaking as a result of updates and given the amount of time and resources people put into it a test on this type of stuff could save a lot of heartbreak), planned content that I don't know about. So much. All of which would require more attention than adjusting some values.

Edit: Archwing rework, Fortuna expansion (third boss still yet to come?). So much that will need more attention than some numbers.

I think they did pretty well considering the small time frame, the lockdowns, the forums bugging out and not showing test subforum until relogged (I didn't know what they wanted tested until the last day due to this). A lot of feedback was clearly taken into consideration. And considering how much feedback they had to sift through they did a great job as far as I'm concerned. 

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

10 minutes ago, saghzs said:

How exactly are the people on the test cluster biased? They are selected randomly.

Bias is a part of human nature, and is clearly shown on these forums when it comes to nerfing anything. I haven't even been here 5 years like other people, but I have examples out of the wazoo if you want to pretend like you have no idea what I'm talking about.

And like someone else said, they want to see actual real time usage. 

They want to see what every single player is using. 

If you introduce a new weapon, then even disregarding youtubers and chat on the forums, you only use in-game data....and see 25% of the playerbase rapidly flock to the kuva Bramma....the dispo is gonna get nerfed.

25% of the entire playerbase is much larger than 25% of a test group.

[DrivaMain]

40 minutes ago, saghzs said:

How exactly are the people on the test cluster biased? They are selected randomly.

You forgot warframe tubers are in the fray and gets guaranteed entry. So yes, there are some bias among the testers. 

[tipsy_princess]

1 hour ago, saghzs said:

How exactly are the people on the test cluster biased? They are selected randomly.

and that's one of the huge problems about test cluster isn't it. what's the point of feedback from random people without experience in game. or from warframe youtubers who a) do not represent community at all b) disconnected from actual game not less than devs.

take people who have no clue about anything and base balance on their playthrough data and meaningless feedback ain't gonna do well by design.

2 hours ago, saghzs said:

If only there was some way.. hmm.. some way for DE to have sizeable chunk of players test new weapons and at the end maybe fill out a survey of what they thought about it. That way they not only could introduce weapons at an approximate dispo, but also maybe buff/nerf some weapons directly, before release.

 

	and that just as last nail to poor balance coffin. surveys always trash.