Riven Mods Revised

[Voltage]

Riven Mods are a complex system filled with many layers of randomization, investment, and mechanics which have not been adjusted for many years (for the most part). Every part of this system deserves a full review to feel healthier for players as this system definitely offers the most depth and time investment if you get into farming for high quality items within this part of the game. Additionally, this system would be suitable for less maintenance from Digital Extremes to manage going forward much like the comparison in developer maintenance of automated Sorties versus Nightwave seasons.

Part I: Acquisition, Weapon Selection and Inventory Management

There are currently limited places to reliably earn a specific type of Riven Mod:

1. Archgun Riven Mod: Arbitration Honors (35 Vitus Essence)
2. Companion Weapon Riven Mod: Cephalon Simaris (100,000 Reputation)
3. Kitgun Riven Mod: Sorties (2.00%), Palladino (Weekly chance for 10 Riven Slivers), Teshin (Every 8 Weeks for 75 Steel Essence), Daily Tribute Milestone, Sporadic Alerts, Nightwave Ranks
4. Melee Riven Mod: Sorties (8.14%), Palladino (Weekly chance for 10 Riven Slivers), Daily Tribute Milestone, Sporadic Alerts, Nightwave Ranks
5. Pistol Riven Mod: Sorties (7.61%), Palladino (Weekly chance for 10 Riven Slivers), Daily Tribute Milestone, Sporadic Alerts, Nightwave Ranks
6. Rifle Riven Mod: Sorties (6.79%), Palladino (Weekly chance for 10 Riven Slivers), Teshin (Every 8 Weeks for 75 Steel Essence), Daily Tribute Milestone, Sporadic Alerts, Nightwave Ranks
7. Shotgun Riven Mod: Sorties (1.36%), Palladino (Weekly chance for 10 Riven Slivers), Teshin (Every 8 Weeks for 75 Steel Essence), Daily Tribute Milestone, Sporadic Alerts, Nightwave Ranks
8. Zaw Riven Mod: Sorties (2.00%), Palladino (Weekly chance for 10 Riven Slivers), Teshin (Every 8 Weeks for 75 Steel Essence), Daily Tribute Milestone, Sporadic Alerts, Nightwave Ranks

My proposition is to combine all Riven Mods categories into a single Veiled Riven Mod item. The weapon chosen is still random, but within the category of the weapon a player installs the Veiled Riven onto and completes the challenge on. This translates to keeping the healthy diversity in Rivens across the game, but players have more reliable farming for Veiled Rivens and increased chances to unveiling Rivens for a specific weapon category. With the proposed changes, the above list translates into this:

Veiled Riven Mod:

• Arbitration Honors (35 Vitus Essence)
• Cephalon Simaris (100,000 Reputation)
• Sorties (27.90%)
• Palladino (Once a week for 10 Riven Slivers)
• Teshin (Every 2 weeks for 10 Riven Slivers) [I changed this to match Palladino for consistency]
• Daily Tribute Milestone
• Sporadic Alerts
• Nightwave Ranks

Note: This change would also allow for the easy introduction of Archmelee Riven Mods or similar cases.

Mastery locks could lose the randomization from 8 to 16 and be a fixed value at Mastery Rank 16. I feel these items are for later stages of the game and don't need a range of Mastery locks that are arbitrary.

For inventory management, Veiled Riven Mods would act much like Railjack Wreckage as of Update: 30.2.0. Veiled Riven Mods will stack in your inventory infinitely with no challenge associated with them. You may choose to identify a Veiled Riven Mod's challenge which will then consume a Riven Mod slot in your inventory. Unidentified Veiled Riven Mods will not consume Riven Mod slots. This allows players to ensure that 100% of their Riven inventory is solely made up of unveiled Rivens or Veiled Rivens with challenges being completed. This also allows players to play Sorties indefinitely with no worry of the cap limiting their participation.

Riven transmutation changes:

• Reduce transmutation cost from 4 Rivens down to 3
• To help with weapon selection, transmuting three mods of the same weapon sub-category reward the player with a random Unveiled Riven for that same weapon sub-category. For example, transmuting two Boltace and an Ohma Riven would give you a guaranteed Tonfa Riven. Two Rivens of the same sub-category will not gaurentee weapons from that sub-category (i.e. two Vulkar and a Grinlok Riven will not gaurentee a sniper Riven whereas two Vulkar and a Vectis would.)

Dissolving Rivens should reward the player with Kuva that scales with the roll count of the Riven instead of Endo scaling with Mastery lock and roll count. Unveiled Riven Mods could dissolve into ~6,000 Kuva.

Part II: Rolling

Rolling Rivens would work closely to the current system with fully randomized attributes and the choice between the previous or next roll. However, I propose that in order to keep fully randomized mods and have them healthier to invest into, the costs be reduced to a flat cost of 2000 Kuva per roll. This cost would not scale and be apparent from the first roll until infinity. This makes unrolled Rivens and 100 roll Rivens equally valuable for rolling for stats from players. This is still a 43% cost reduction from the current 3,500 Kuva per roll cost on 10+ roll Rivens.

The larger change I would like to see here are the possible attributes that can be rolled. Weapons should be allowed to roll for all stats in their given category. It is inconsistent that only some weapons can roll -impact/puncture/slash, -projectile speed and weapon range. To top it off, Archguns can roll faction damage, without there being any faction damage mods for them. By having a consistent Attributes pool across weapons, players can roll with broader expectations for positive and negative attributes and not be limited to very few per weapon. This is already the case with hit-scan secondaries rolling -projectile speed and select elemental weapons rolling -physical damage (i.e. Battacor with -slash). Range could be added to beam weapon attributes and scale off the base stats of Sinister Reach (12m), Ruinous Extension (8m) and Ballista Measure (This mod would need to be fixed first and set to a fixed number of meters for consistency). Range could be added to AoE weapons in the form of blast radius and scale off Firestorm and Fulmination (Blast radius would follow suit with a fixed number of meters for consistency between all weapon range modifiers). Faction damage can remain on Archguns, but this can be remedied with vanilla 30% faction damage mods being added to the weapon category that can be earned normally through the game.

@DrivaMainsuggested a fantastic idea of allowing players to roll the weapon in which their Riven is for. This would be helpful for people who get lucky with stats on an otherwise bad weapon as well as people who are just not lucky with the Riven they actually want.

Note: The Riven would be locked to rolling for that weapon category as some attributes are dependent on the weapon category (i.e. Combo Duration).

Part III: Modification and Manipulation

Here is where I would like to see new mechanics added. Stat-locking is a commonly requested feature as it reduces the time it takes to reach the highest quality of Riven Mod, but that would seriously undermine the rest of the system. All the changes proposed in this thread make Riven Mods easier to obtain, easier to roll, and give more diversity into good stats. Randomization is what makes this system unique, but the chances you have to randomize and improve your stats would be increased with the suggestions above to work towards a healthier (and still randomized) system. Undermining the randomization defeats the purpose in my perspective, and there are better ways at keeping Riven Mods a healthy experience for players. Getting to the final destination faster isn't necessarily good for the game in any area.

What I propose for a new mechanic is the ability to manipulate the features of your Riven with Kuva and Riven Slivers. These features would be the Riven Mod polarity and the magnitude of Riven attributes within their stat range. Allowing players to progress on the quality of their stats and polarity after they have stats they like would be enjoyable for players to get the most out of the system. When changing attribute stats, players would be allowed to add or subtract stat percentages at a rate of +/- 10% of the current value bound by the minimum and maximum possible stats of the weapon. The name of the Riven would change if the magnitude of the highest stats change order.

Part IV: Disposition and Systemic Consistency

The reception of disposition from players has been poor over many years as weapons lose or gain attribute magnitude on Rivens the playerbase owns. There are 2 more favorable approaches to disposition than the current system that I support DE to investigate:

1. Removing disposition is the option which feels most suitable to me. Players would not have to worry about tampered items or investments made to their account. Digital Extremes would not need to maintain a pseudo-balance multiplier that does not actually influence what weapon Rivens players strive towards. Weapons that are innately overpowered would need to be addressed from the root of the problem and Riven mods should not be a reflection of the lack of action on this front.

2. Tighter disposition range is the second best option with a consistent expectation on where a weapon falls in disposition. The current range of 0.50 - 1.55 can become 0.75 - 1.25. Instead of weapons placed across this spectrum, disposition can have 3 different fixed values that reflect the following:

• 0.75 (Low) - Weapons DE find are popular but not mechanically imbalanced (i.e. Rubico Prime, Kronen Prime, etc. Not weapons such as Kuva Nukor)
• 1.00 (Neutral) - Variants of vanilla weapons (Prime, Kuva, Wraith, Vandal, etc.)
• 1.25 (High) - Unique/vanilla weapons (This includes Proboscis Cernos, Mutalist Cernos, Mutalist Quanta, etc.)

This allows Digital Extremes to place weapons at predictable dispositions when new content launches and remove the situation of changing player inventories down the road.

If Disposition is to stay, the weapon UI should reflect disposition numerically as a multiplier in place of the currently vague circles.
Example: Aksomati Prime

Part V: Trading

The way Rivens are traded is consistent with other items. However, I feel these mods are late-game and too cheap in trading tax. Over the years, Credits have become much easier to accumulate by the millions. I propose Rivens have a 100,000 Credits trading tax on unidentified/Veiled Rivens with or without an identified challenge and 1,500,000 Credits on identified/Unveiled Rivens. Consistently trading Rivens should come with a bit of gameplay commitment as well as a reflection of the power to be consistent with Primed Mods and legendary Arcanes. Tier 5 rarity mods (Riven Mods) should be more expensive to trade than Tier 4 rarity mods (Primed Mods) for consistency.

Conclusion:

Riven Mods have many layers within them, and these layers could interact better to make the system healthier while still retaining their nature as randomized mods. These suggestions and ideas come from someone who finds Rivens to be their endgame and invests heavily into the system. New content would become more appealing from the invested Riven user if changes were made to benefitting player emotion when diving into this system. The economic influence of Rivens and the income generated from them would still remain with these types of changes. Rivens require healthier randomization and these are the places to start.

[bnuy]

I agree with all of these changes, except for a few.

2,000,000 credit trade tax for a single riven is absurd, much too high for a riven mod, this punishes people for buying non-perfect rivens, and changes it so people would only really want to buy unveiled rivens if they have perfect stats. (outside of high tier traders)

MR16 is much too high of a requirement. We get our first riven mod after completing The War Within to the best of my knowledge, which is doable at MR5. You should not be punished for simply completing the main quests at the speed you're meant to, the mastery lock should be MR8-10 at the very most, not MR16.

[Voltage]

11 hours ago, scam said:

2,000,000 credit trade tax for a single riven is absurd, much too high for a riven mod, this punishes people for buying non-perfect rivens, and changes it so people would only really want to buy unveiled rivens if they have perfect stats. (outside of high tier traders)

For consistency, I feel Riven Mods as a tier 5 rarity mod should have a higher trade tax than a tier 4 rarity mod (Primed Mods). This is consistent with tier 4 Arcanes (Energize, Grace, Barrier, Epidemic and Contagion) having the same situation. I changed it to 1,500,000 Credits, and that seems to be a reasonable middle ground that really isn't much for a single trade. It is definitely absurd if you plan on consistently trading, and that should come with a gameplay commitment. This also discourages scalping to an extent.

11 hours ago, scam said:

MR16 is much too high of a requirement. We get our first riven mod after completing The War Within to the best of my knowledge, which is doable at MR5. You should not be punished for simply completing the main quests at the speed you're meant to, the mastery lock should be MR8-10 at the very most, not MR16.

Mastery Rank 16 is only 27.11% of the current Mastery in the game. It is definitely fair for an item released as an "end-game option" in the mod system. It is healthy for progression to have these items locked until later on. Players who complete the War Within could be given a demonstration of Rivens and explained that this power cannot be unveiled until Mastery Rank 16.

[Cerikus]

23 minutes ago, Voltage said:

-snip-

Great post. I think I can easily agree with 100% of what you said. And I wish this would happen.

There is one huge issue though. This would make the rivens a good system, instead of a bad one, and I think it is DEs intention to have rivens the way they are, because it makes money. 

Infuriating system > less people have patience to interact with it > less good rivens in the game > higher rarity > higher plat prices > $$$

I have lost all hope for riven rework a long time ago. DE has created a well disguised slot machine, which is understandable, and I don't see them changing it any time soon.

[Voltage]

6 minutes ago, Cerikus said:

Great post. I think I can easily agree with 100% of what you said. And I wish this would happen.

There is one huge issue though. This would make the rivens a good system, instead of a bad one, and I think it is DEs intention to have rivens the way they are, because it makes money. 

Infuriating system > less people have patience to interact with it > less good rivens in the game > higher rarity > higher plat prices > $$$

I have lost all hope for riven rework a long time ago. DE has created a well disguised slot machine, which is understandable, and I don't see them changing it any time soon.

With my suggestions, it would still remain a massive influence in the Platinum economy and still make lots of money. If anything, having a healthy randomized system encourages players to spend more and not less. The way players usually attempt to make Riven feedback is loads of "just give me less RNG so I can get it done faster". The point of my thread here is emphasis on feeling good about your progress and to incline players to continue sinking resources into the system. The way Warframe is successful is through meaningful grind, not just having less.

Rivens have already gotten cheaper over time with more good rolls circulating around player inventories. That is inevitable and shouldn't be considered. What I did consider however is the problem stat-locking introduces where it heavily upsets the system and devalues the mechanics of a randomized mod. Rivens would be better as a "healthier random" instead of "less or no random". I want to propose ideas that benefit the developers as well as the emotions of players who use the system.

[DrivaMain]

Great post, but the elephant in the room which is the riven unveiling RNG hasn’t been touched in the OP. There should be a way to introduce a way to influence or guaranteeing a chance to get a Riven Mod for a desired weapon. Possibly allowing the use of the upcoming riven ciphers. Allowing you to use this once a week item to get a riven you want without flooding the market.

New Riven Cipher Tooltip  :  Use this item on a Riven Mod to instantly unveil the riven mod for a weapon of your choice.

Now you may be asking? Why? Need to remind all of you that riven unveiling chance gets lower every time a new unique weapon is released. As of Update 30.2.2 Warframe has 68 Unique Rifle Weapons. This number will get larger as new weapons gets introduced. So if the far future Warframe has 120 unique rifle weapons, the odds of getting a specific rifle riven are 1 out of 120. 

 

[Voltage]

37 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

Great post, but the elephant in the room which is the riven unveiling RNG hasn’t been touched in the OP. There should be a way to introduce a way to influence or guaranteeing a chance to get a Riven Mod for a desired weapon. Possibly allowing the use of the upcoming riven ciphers. Allowing you to use this once a week item to get a riven you want without flooding the market.

New Riven Cipher Tooltip  :  Use this item on a Riven Mod to instantly unveil the riven mod for a weapon of your choice.

Now you may be asking? Why? Need to remind all of you that riven unveiling chance gets lower every time a new unique weapon is released. As of Update 30.2.2 Warframe has 68 Unique Rifle Weapons. This number will get larger as new weapons gets introduced. So if the far future Warframe has 120 unique rifle weapons, the odds of getting a specific rifle riven are 1 out of 120. 

This was touched on in OP in an indirect way in the beginning. The reason I did not go for a system that allows players to heavily influence their weapon outcome is because it would create a stale and saturated Riven pool across the playerbase. New and powerful weapons are the only 2 which get attention by most players when diving into Rivens. It is already hard enough to find unwanted weapon Rivens with decent stats, and this would escalate the issue. In my proposed system, you would still get much more chances at the weapon you want as the Veiled Riven you earn is not gated to a specific category of weapon. Your proposal of one gaurentee per week is still risky business especially when you could hoard these items and saturate a Prime Access, major updates or similar instances.

Like stat-locking, letting players choose the weapon they get undermines the core system and is unhealthy for the game as a whole. It is healthy that most people aren't only unveiling Kronen and similar weapons back to back.

[DrivaMain]

13 minutes ago, Voltage said:

This was touched on in OP in an indirect way in the beginning. The reason I did not go for a system that allows players to heavily influence their weapon outcome is because it would create a stale and saturated Riven pool across the playerbase. New and powerful weapons are the only 2 which get attention by most players when diving into Rivens. It is already hard enough to find unwanted weapon Rivens with decent stats, and this would escalate the issue. In my proposed system, you would still get much more chances at the weapon you want as the Veiled Riven you earn is not gated to a specific category of weapon. Your proposal of one gaurentee per week is still risky business especially when you could hoard these items and saturate a Prime Access, major updates or similar instances.

Like stat-locking, letting players choose the weapon they get undermines the core system and is unhealthy for the game as a whole. It is healthy that most people aren't only unveiling Kronen and similar weapons back to back.

While that may be a valid point, we still can’t deny that the unveil system is getting more and more unhealthy overtime. Also, removing specific category riven mods also introduced another problem. Instead of dealing with 68 unique weapon, you now deal with more than 200 unique weapons.

If Once a week item is a no go. Maybe we should introduce a new monthly item instead that allows guaranteed chance. If again, that is not feasible, another solution would be let us reroll the weapon name of the riven mod. Say we can spend 5 riven slivers to re-roll the a Seer riven, after the roll it becomes an Akjagara riven.

[Voltage]

8 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

While that may be a valid point, we still can’t deny that the unveil system is getting more and more unhealthy overtime. Also, removing specific category riven mods also introduced another problem. Instead of dealing with 68 unique weapon, you now deal with more than 200 unique weapons.

What about this? I just thought of this while reading your comment:

2 hours ago, Voltage said:

Riven transmutation changes:

• Reduce transmutation cost from 4 Rivens down to 3
• To help with weapon selection, transmuting three mods of the same weapon category reward the player with a random Unveiled Riven for that same weapon class. For example, transmuting two Boltace and an Ohma Riven would give you a guaranteed Tonfa Riven with a higher chance to get a Kronen Riven. Two Rivens of the same category will not gaurentee weapons from that category (i.e. two Vulkar and a Grinlok Riven will not gaurentee a sniper Riven whereas two Vulkar and a Vectis would.)

To comment on your point:

8 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

If Once a week item is a no go. Maybe we should introduce a new monthly item instead that allows guaranteed chance. If again, that is not feasible, another solution would be let us reroll the weapon name of the riven mod. Say we can spend 5 riven slivers to re-roll the a Seer riven, after the roll it becomes an Akjagara riven.

Rerolling the weapon should be a thing. I think that is an excellent idea. This would also be nice for people who get lucky stats on an otherwise terrible weapon. I will add this to the post and mention you. Obviously you can't roll a melee Riven outside of melee, but allowing players to roll within their weapon category for something else would be good.

[DrivaMain]

21 minutes ago, Voltage said:

Riven transmutation changes:

• Reduce transmutation cost from 4 Rivens down to 3
• To help with weapon selection, transmuting three mods of the same weapon category reward the player with a random Unveiled Riven for that same weapon class. For example, transmuting two Boltace and an Ohma Riven would give you a guaranteed Tonfa Riven with a higher chance to get a Kronen Riven. Two Rivens of the same category will not gaurentee weapons from that category (i.e. two Vulkar and a Grinlok Riven will not gaurentee a sniper Riven whereas two Vulkar and a Vectis would.)

I have no objection to this. As long as I don’t have to deal more than 100 weapons in the riven unveil pool.

[PublikDomain]

Making Rivens stackable like Wreckage is an interesting idea... That'd be a really good way to go about it.

6 hours ago, Voltage said:

Stat-locking is a commonly requested feature as it reduces the time it takes to reach the highest quality of Riven Mod, but that would seriously undermine the rest of the system.

Rivens absolutely need stat-locking. Players can already get whatever combination of stats they want as long as they put in the effort or pay for them. They'd be able to do this under all of your proposed changes, too. Given enough effort or money any Riven will end up being "perfect", so the only difference between having stat-locking and not having stat-locking is that with it players have a way to make measurable progress towards their goals. Stat-locking doesn't get rid of the RNG, it gives you checkpoints to make the RNG bearable. Rolling a Riven 100 times and getting nothing better than when you started is utterly demoralizing. It doesn't even need to make getting specific stats faster or cheaper, I'd happily pay a premium to have some agency and know that my efforts aren't being completely wasted.

And why would stat-locking undermine the Riven system, but not the ability to buff the stats you roll? Both would allow players to work towards "perfect" Rivens, and if anything I'd think being able to improve your stats would undermine it even more. With that kind of system you could move directly towards getting perfect stats, but with just stat-locking you'd have to keep rolling to find more favorable numbers.

[(XBOX)Shodian]

22 minutes ago, PublikDomain said:

Rivens absolutely need stat-locking.

They absolutely do not.

[Voltage]

3 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

Making Rivens stackable like Wreckage is an interesting idea... That'd be a really good way to go about it.

Rivens absolutely need stat-locking. Players can already get whatever combination of stats they want as long as they put in the effort or pay for them. They'd be able to do this under all of your proposed changes, too. Given enough effort or money any Riven will end up being "perfect", so the only difference between having stat-locking and not having stat-locking is that with it players have a way to make measurable progress towards their goals. Stat-locking doesn't get rid of the RNG, it gives you checkpoints to make the RNG bearable. Rolling a Riven 100 times and getting nothing better than when you started is utterly demoralizing. It doesn't even need to make getting specific stats faster or cheaper, I'd happily pay a premium to have some agency and know that my efforts aren't being completely wasted.

And why would stat-locking undermine the Riven system, but not the ability to buff the stats you roll? Both would allow players to work towards "perfect" Rivens, and if anything I'd think being able to improve your stats would undermine it even more. With that kind of system you could move directly towards getting perfect stats, but with just stat-locking you'd have to keep rolling to find more favorable numbers.

Stat-locking heavily undermines the randomization of Rivens which is the core system. Manipulating the magnitude of your stats does not do this. The problem with the stat-lock argument is that it boils down to players wanting to get good stats faster. Reducing grind isn't how Warframe has successful content, meaningful grind is. I'm tired of reviewing systems and just dumbing it down in terms of time investment and calling it a day. It's a cheap way to change a system. The only way to balance stat-locking is have an absurd cost to locking a stat (like 500,000 Kuva per stat potentially scaling). The idea in of itself isn't good for the game nor is it good for DE. It's way too easy to just roll 1 attribute at a time and lock it in as it is to roll for a specific set of 4 stats (3+/1-). Likewise, grades really aren't important compared to the inherent roll combination.

Theres no measurable progress in most of the game's drop table. Riven Mods work in this same way and I think it's fine, especially when they are a luxury arsenal item that's meant as an "end-game option" to modding that I quoted earlier. The randomization is good, but the way players feel about the system as a whole can be alterered to give people more chances at rolling.

[Oorel]

Id rather not get into my small issues with your proposal. I generally like it and wouldn't mind it being added.

I had the opportunity to farm the high yield Steel Essence missions when it dropped from Eximus, I would really like to get back to such a good kuva farm again. Granted it was possibly too effective, but its left me wanting to at least see a pretty drastic change to roll cost and/or kuva drop-rates in general. Your solution is good I think.

[Voltage]

36 minutes ago, Oorel said:

Id rather not get into my small issues with your proposal. I generally like it and wouldn't mind it being added.

I had the opportunity to farm the high yield Steel Essence missions when it dropped from Eximus, I would really like to get back to such a good kuva farm again. Granted it was possibly too effective, but its left me wanting to at least see a pretty drastic change to roll cost and/or kuva drop-rates in general. Your solution is good I think.

Feel free to nitpick :)

I agree partially. The way it was farmed was terrible (Eximus dropping it), but the gains made rolling feel more reasonable. It would be nice if DE could rework Arbitrations and Steel Essence drops to be in a mid-point between  now and that previous farm. I still think a static roll cost of ~2000 Kuva is healthier than a scaling cost peaking at 3500, and that makes Kuva farming feel slightly better as well.

[ShortCat]

With suggested changes Rivens would still infuse an unhealthy ammount of power creep into the game and still favor the more wealthy players.

My Riven system suggestions:

1. Riven boon/curse stat range & Disposition are removed; stat values on Rivens for all weapons are based on regular mods. Curses should still increase possible boon values though. However…
2. …Rivens cannot be stacked/equipped together with base mods, if they share the same stats. In other words – Rivens should become a combination of several base mods and replace them in weapon builds.

I suggest to transform Rivens into “combined mods”.
Those changes would maintain Rivens as weapon upgrades by freeing several slots, without introducing rampant power creep potential. At the same time, more stat combinations would become desirable, due to the stat stacking restriction, thus alleviate soul crushing RNG on stat rolls.
This change would also eliminate the need of frequent stat/disposition adjustments thereby reduce accuring workload on developer side, relieve server strain as well as respect player investments.

[Voltage]

4 hours ago, ShortCat said:

With suggested changes Rivens would still infuse an unhealthy ammount of power creep into the game and still favor the more wealthy players.

My Riven system suggestions:

1. Riven boon/curse stat range & Disposition are removed; stat values on Rivens for all weapons are based on regular mods. Curses should still increase possible boon values though. However…
2. …Rivens cannot be stacked/equipped together with base mods, if they share the same stats. In other words – Rivens should become a combination of several base mods and replace them in weapon builds.

I suggest to transform Rivens into “combined mods”.
Those changes would maintain Rivens as weapon upgrades by freeing several slots, without introducing rampant power creep potential. At the same time, more stat combinations would become desirable, due to the stat stacking restriction, thus alleviate soul crushing RNG on stat rolls.
This change would also eliminate the need of frequent stat/disposition adjustments thereby reduce accuring workload on developer side, relieve server strain as well as respect player investments.

I'm not a fan of this suggestion for many reasons.

Firstly, this idea would create inconsistencies within the modding system. Mods only have restrictions when sharing the same naming family. Would you disallow 60/60s from builds where a Riven has an elemental or status chance? Vigilante Armaments? It would create a deep rabbit hole that's more punishing than promising.

Secondly, this doesn't exactly change the outcome of Rivens. All this does is change the stats that result in the optimal Riven. This also heavily disrespects and undermines player Riven inventories across the board.

Additionally, removing randomized values removes a large chunk of the core system which I disagree with. Part of the uniqueness of a Riven is the randomized stat. Removing a chunk of that isn't something I agree with.

Lastly, Rivens really aren't that much powercreep. They squeeze more damage out of a given weapon, but power ceiling problems are related to innate mechanics. Nukor being way too powerful is due to a multitude of imbalances like hidden microwave status and a 75% chaining damage multiplier. If power problems exist in the weapon system, those issues need to be addressed separately. Mods like Blood Rush and Berserker are what need attention, not the player with +critical damage on their Kronen Riven.

[PainTako]

1.5 million credits for a unveiled riven is far too crazy. Sure, you and I might not have issues with credits but not everyone has millions upon millions of credits stocked up from the days of old or farm credits. Many people only stick around the one million mark. Sure, I get the reason why 1.5mil tax is decent, it attempts to remove scalpers (it won't), and it puts incentive into playing the game. But trade tax is not the way to go. Scalpers exist because of high demand and low supply. To remove scalpers you remove the awful RNG or rivens so a normal player has a path to get a good riven, not a riven for a good gun, but a riven they want with decent/good stats. And no, if you want to say "making them easier to roll does that" it doesn't. Flip a coin until you hit the same side 5 times in a row. It could take you 5 coin flips, it could take you 500. Roll three d20's and try to get a nat 20, nat 19, and then a nat 1. Here is a great site to roll dice so you can realize how awful it is. Doesn't matter if you reduce the cost, doesn't matter what you do to the system unless rolls are literally free and even then it's absurd to keep clicking a button over and over.

 

 

[LuckyCharm]

I feel that if we're arguing for consistency sake with a lot of it then stat rolls should be consistent per weapon. If its going to roll 100 damage then it should always roll 100 without negative modifiers. It makes it a lot easier to check your goals before hand for what stats you want to aim for and whether its worth getting particular stats on your riven  for example some weapons may reach 100% status now with a good roll, but might miss out with a lesser one. You have calculate the cut off line at the moment when if it was normalised itd be simple to work out

[PublikDomain]

8 hours ago, Voltage said:

Theres no measurable progress in most of the game's drop table. Riven Mods work in this same way and I think it's fine, especially when they are a luxury arsenal item that's meant as an "end-game option" to modding that I quoted earlier. The randomization is good, but the way players feel about the system as a whole can be alterered to give people more chances at rolling.

I don't really think Rivens should even be a "luxury arsenal item", they should be a normal part of any high-end build anyone can get and play with given a reasonable amount of effort. They're certainly luxury items at the moment, and that sucks. Rivens are power, full stop, and gating that behind abysmal RNG or your wallet is gross. Rolling Rivens shouldn't be some soul-crushing RNG slog or money sink, they should be as normal as Forma or a potato. You should be able to spend a week or two working on a Riven and get somewhere with it.

8 hours ago, Voltage said:

It's way too easy to just roll 1 attribute at a time and lock it in as it is to roll for a specific set of 4 stats (3+/1-).

Are we talking about the same stat-locking? I don't mean locking a stat on the mod once and it never changes again, I mean every roll you pick which stats you want to leave alone and you roll everything else. Every stat you choose not to roll increases the roll cost of the entire roll by some amount. Some examples of costs:

Formula / # Locked	0	1	2	3	3-stat average
Roll × (1 + Locked)	3,500	7,000	10,500	14,000	324,333
Roll × (2 ^ Locked)	3,500	7,000	14,000	28,000	397,833
Roll × (3 ^ Locked)	3,500	10,500	31,500	94,500	803,833

If we had stat-locking that used the first formula it'd take you about 8 rolls on average to see the first of three desired stats on a Melee Riven (~27k Kuva). Then you could roll with one stat locked, and it'd cost you 7k per roll over 11 rolls on average (77k Kuva). Locking two would raise the cost to 10.5k per roll over the next 21 rolls on average (~220k Kuva) to find the third. Even if you make 50k Kuva/hr that'll still take you about 6.5 hours of grinding just to get three of the stats you want, which sounds pretty reasonable to me for one Riven.

Compare that to just rolling blind like we do now, maybe using your proposed 2k/roll cost. The cheapest formula would get you about 160 rolls and the most expensive would get you about 400. Your chances of getting any two specific stats are 1 in 253, so you'd probably find find something close enough to your desired stats to settle. So is this really all that different? The only difference is that with stat-locking you're much more likey to at least find something you want, while rolling blind you might not find anything at all and have flushed all that "meaningful grind" you did right down the toilet.

[Voltage]

4 hours ago, -dicht.Akemi- said:

1.5 million credits for a unveiled riven is far too crazy. Sure, you and I might not have issues with credits but not everyone has millions upon millions of credits stocked up from the days of old or farm credits. Many people only stick around the one million mark. Sure, I get the reason why 1.5mil tax is decent, it attempts to remove scalpers (it won't), and it puts incentive into playing the game. But trade tax is not the way to go. 

I was just pointing out the inconsistency between mod rarity and trade tax when examining Riven Mods. I did not say that it was an attempt to remove scalpers. What I said was that it discourages them to an extent. That extent realistically isn't much, but the notion of trade tax consistency and slight gameplay commitment for frequent traders seems like the healthiest approach. I'm not sure why the facts I presented regarding the rarity tier of Rivens and the inconsistency in trade tax is overlooked here.

I enjoy how Rivens currently work. This post is meant to be my experiences with Rivens and changes I would bring to the table to give more chances at the dice roll while still maintaining their core as a randomized mod system. I understand there is a huge following in this game for reducing grind, gameplay and RNG wherever possible, but I would not like to take these factors away from Rivens or heavily reduce them. What sets Rivens apart from general mods is that these factors make the mods highly unique, collectible, impactful and different. Slowly turning Rivens into just another mod variant would really devalue what the system has defined itself as over the last 5 years.

[deothor]

Voltage used good constructive feedback. 

It's super effective!

DE devs used hide!

DE devs used evade!

Volate feedback has missed

Voltage feedback has landed into feedback trashbin

 

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

About the thread: I remember i made some maths regarding kuva farming and non-boosting players had to threat this game close to full-time job to use 'reroll' function beyond 10th roll. Setting the reroll price to flat 2k would punish non-boosting players a bit, as they usually stopped trying with rolls before kuva price winded up even close to 3,5k... Unless they had solid weapon riven. So in a long run 2k-a-pop is cheaper for heavy rerollers, but hurts low-roll casuals.

 

In this case I don't mind 2k kuva price, but we need better variey with kuva-rewarding missions and maybe better kuva rewards to boot. 

 

Also regarding riven trade prices you suggest. That will push players to spam mindnumbing index.. Or even worse fortuna spider. Doesn't enhance gameplay, just adds a grindwall.. Not a terrible one.. just annoying i guess.

[Voltage]

3 minutes ago, deothor said:

In this case I don't mind 2k kuva price, but we need better variey with kuva-rewarding missions and maybe better kuva rewards to boot. 

Definitely. I think the old Steel Path Kuva return was a bit much, but having a slightly toned down version of that return applied to current Steel Path, Arbitrations, Kuva Floods, and various missions across the game (Grineer Railjack, Bounties, etc.) would be appreciated.

[deothor]

6 minutes ago, Voltage said:

I think the old Steel Path Kuva return was a bit much,

I disagree. It was fine.

What wasn't fine was.....is.... statstick Khora and her billions and billions of damage. That stuff should have been adressed long long time ago, like in the first month of her coming live. Remove her from equation and suddenly old SP feels much more balanced.

Instead, DE decided to just Omae wa mou shinderiu Steel Path, making it into boring bounty, only sweetening the deal with umbra forma.

I believe old SP needed fixes (like requirement of 1h endless for more drops), but was much better base for difficult content, than what we have now. But i might be just weird.

 

[Xylena_Lazarow]

10 minutes ago, deothor said:

It was fine.

A meta of "3 hour survivals or GTFO" was not fine. I was not the only one to choose the latter.