Riven Mods Revised

[deothor]

@Xylena_Lazarow please read the last part. I also believe minimum 1hr requirement for eximuses to spawn as... idiotic, but the base of what SP could turn into was better, than another window with bounties. I did explain it badly.. so.. eh.. nvm, my bad.

 

If eximuses spawned in constant number since the start, the whole issue with incredibly long missions would have been resolved. or maybe make eximus spawnrate jump much quicker, like 10-20 minutes. But 1 hour was definitely a bad decision. 

[DrivaMain]

4 hours ago, PublikDomain said:

You should be able to spend a week or two working on a Riven and get somewhere with it.

A week or two in my opinion is too short. If we want to get a middle ground with Riven Traders who cares about profit we need to make at least a month or more. Allowing impatient players willing to spend plat to get it. I propose a bad luck protection in the form of a milestone system. Here’s how it works :

After a set amount of rolls you can select one stat you want on a riven. The value however are still random. Here are my numbers of rolls required

• 100 rolls
• 300 rolls
• 600 rolls
• 1000 rolls
• … and so on.

The given stat can be locked or unlocked.

So if you want a +3/-1 Riven you need around 3.5 million Kuva. Assuming we get 12.000 kuva per hour we need to grind Kuva for at least around 291 hours. That’s like 2 months of grinding assuming a year long play time is 1000 hours. If you’re a no life who has 8 hours daily playtime you have to grind for 38 days for one perfect riven.  That’s just one riven mod. 

 

 

[PublikDomain]

45 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

If we want to get a middle ground with Riven Traders who cares about profit we need to make at least a month or more.

Do we care about meeting in the middle with Riven traders? I certainly don't. Game mechanics shouldn't prioritize or IMO even consider the profits of a small subset of the playerbase over the accessibility of the system for everyone. The game is meant to be played, not make Riven traders plat. Though I get the feeling DE thinks a little differently.

50 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

I propose a bad luck protection in the form of a milestone system. Here’s how it works :

After a set amount of rolls you can select one stat you want on a riven. The value however are still random. Here are my numbers of rolls required

• 100 rolls
• 300 rolls
• 600 rolls
• 1000 rolls
• … and so on.

The given stat can be locked or unlocked.

Would you ever need to reach that number of rolls? You've got decent odds of finding any two given stats in the first 100-200 rolls, and bad luck protection at the first milestone would get you the third. We're all more or less talking about the same amount of Kuva.

53 minutes ago, DrivaMain said:

So if you want a +3/-1 Riven you need around 3.5 million Kuva. Assuming we get 12.000 kuva per hour we need to grind Kuva for at least around 291 hours. That’s like 2 months of grinding assuming a year long play time is 1000 hours. If you’re a no life who has 8 hours daily playtime you have to grind for 38 days for one perfect riven.  That’s just one riven mod. 

Are we saying this as a good thing or a bad thing? Because that sounds absolutely insane...

[DrivaMain]

Just now, PublikDomain said:

Are we saying this as a good thing or a bad thing? Because that sounds absolutely insane...

If we want to get every player on board on this change, yes. Riven traders will instantly shut down the idea on making rivens better if it hurts their revenue.

 

1 minute ago, PublikDomain said:

Would you ever need to reach that number of rolls? You've got decent odds of finding any two given stats in the first 100-200 rolls, and bad luck protection at the first milestone would get you the third.

I don’t believe it. One user pointed out there are 43 thousand possible combination in a riven mod. I heard some players who rolled a riven more than 100 times and still do not get a desirable stats.

Spoiler

After unveiling a specific riven there are about 48K possible combinations of positives and negatives.

To be exact, one specific result comes down to 0,00245%.

Now, obviously more than 1 possible combination will be acceptable, but consider this:

You need more than 400 combination to be acceptable to push the odds above 1%. 

Which is... ludicrous. And in case you are wondering, 'god rolls' are much, much tighter than that.

Lets say we accept the typical god-roll attributes Damage, Multishot, Crit Chance and Crit Damage as positives (4 total) and up to 11 possible negatives (e.g. Status Duration, Magazine Capacity, Ammo Maximum, Flight Speed, Reload Speed, Recoil, Zoom, Damage vs X *3, None)

Yes, I know, for some weapons other positives and negatives are acceptable, but hey, we got to start somewhere! And to broaden our range, lets say we also accept 2 positives.

Anyway:

Possible combinations with 2 positives = #positives * (#positives-1) * #negatives/2 = 4*3*11/2 = 66

Let add the number of combinations with 3 positives =#positives * (#positives-1) * (#positives-2) #negatives/6 = 4*3*2*11/6 = 44

So, a Riven with the 4 classic god stats with either 2 or 3 positives, with or without a negative (10 possibilities and 'none') are about 110 combinations out of 40.756. And some of those negatives would be no-goes, so this range is already wider than a proper god roll. Yikes. For reference, a range of six to 7 possible positives and 11 negatives are needed to get to odds of around 1%.

And all of this is starting from an unveiled riven we actually want...

Nope, this RNG is way, way out of wack...

 

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, DrivaMain said:

Riven traders will instantly shut down the idea on making rivens better if it hurts their revenue.

Why is protecting their revenue worth sacrificing the accessibility of the system for everyone else? I don't care if the Riven traders aren't on board, they're not on board with anything. Especially if the "compromise" we'd need to make looks like working two months at your 9-5 just to get one item. That's a disgusting waste of time.

1 hour ago, DrivaMain said:

I don’t believe it. One user pointed out there are 43 thousand possible combination in a riven mod. I heard some players who rolled a riven more than 100 times and still do not get a desirable stats.

For a melee Riven there are what, 23 possible positive stats?

https://www.mathsisfun.com/combinatorics/combinations-permutations-calculator.html

Out of a pool of 23 stats where the order doesn't matter and there are no repeats allowed, the chances of getting any 3 specific stats is 1 in 1,771. Getting just two is 1 in 253. Including negatives certainly makes those odds worse, but more negatives are livable and you can explore the range of negatives much faster since the pool is 1 in 20-whatever-ish.

[ShortCat]

15 hours ago, Voltage said:

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.

I thought it was pretty obvious when I wrote base mods. Elemental bonus on Rivens is based of 90% elementals and Vigilante mods are already allowed to work with with base mods.

15 hours ago, Voltage said:

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.

What outcome do you mean exactly?
The optimal Riven could have many facetes with this system, since stacking is not a thing and players would have the opportunity to slot 3 utility stats in one mod slot without losing on damage.
Since there is no more disposition, there are no changes, so player investments are preserved. Or are you reffering to g-rolls that go for several 10k plat, which might become less desireable? Are we arguing in favor of the general playerbase or in favor of few fortunate traders here?

15 hours ago, Voltage said:

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.

What is so unique in random stat ranges exactly and why is it the core sytem? As if there is a seizable difference if your Riven has 10% more or less damage. Lastly, you complain about RNG, yet when 2 RNG factors are removed you dislike it.

15 hours ago, Voltage said:

Lastly, Rivens really aren't that much powercreep.

If I started playing yesterday, I might even believe this.

[PainTako]

22 hours ago, Voltage said:

I'm not sure why the facts I presented regarding the rarity tier of Rivens and the inconsistency in trade tax is overlooked here.

  Using that idea then Amalgam mods should be ~2 million trade tax while a requim mod that is higher rarity than that should be 2.5-3 million. So all those players who need that one requim mod that they haven't gotten in an hour of running the relics should just fork over 3 million credits to buy it off of someone. If that doesn't answer your question I don't know what will.

22 hours ago, Voltage said:

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.

Reducing god awful RNG does not take away the unique, collectible, impactful, and different how rivens can be. Some people have suggested that they become just another mod, but that's dumb. The system should allow people to get the riven they want, if someone wants a joke riven and have -flight speed because haha funny projectiles then go ahead. As I'm sure you know, and practically everyone else, by far the best stats for a riven is simply put CC CD Multi -Zoom. If that doesn't show there is a core problem with the game's stat system then I don't know what does. If a weapon has such terrible crit then it's elemental mods. If you want to have multiple rivens for the same type you can sub one of the stats for a huge boost to faction because of how strong anti-faction stats are. There is an inherent problem with rivens that causes most to be almost worthless. The only reason people stick with a sub-par riven is because the absurd grind it can take to get one you want (via you rolling), or the absurd cost of someone who has it.

Your options for farming kuva is undeniably bad, you either go do floods and siphons, do kuva survival that isn't really that worth, or you sit down in a steel path farming acolytes and hoarding drops until you get the elusive 2-3x smeeta buff so each essence you pick up is worth 8-16 each. Which means you can walk away with nearly 200 essence an hour. But, none of those are really enjoyable. At most SP survival might be enjoyable to some, but that has it's own discussion because it's more solo oriented now as opposed to team oriented in the old system.

From there all you do is click a button to roll, pick your preferred stat tree, then repeat until 0 kuva. Sure, it's a loop. But it's not a very enjoyable one. This means you might be spending literal hours to get nothing, or you might spend 1k kuva on your new riven and magically get one of the best stats possible, or you might even unveil an amazing stat roll already. Yeah it's great when it works, but most people don't enjoy sitting down for hours to get literally nothing. Everything else in the game gives you at least something for farming them for hours. Even liches will give you a weapon that can slightly increase your damage, or an entirely new weapon, meanwhile if you get nothing better than what you had you have gotten nothing. If you do steel path then sure you got riven slivers. But even me casually playing now days I have plenty, and normally when I claim my one free riven a week for 10, I get another 10 before the next week. So aside from the resources it's a useless grind. I could go on about how disconnected certain activities in the game are but that's not what this thread it about.

Maybe you like the potential soul crushing rng, or hey who knows maybe you just buy your rivens, but most don't like the current system because of the factors I stated and probably more. Such as how certain weapons just feel awful unless you get a riven, and how it actually lets more weapons be usable since most have just one awful stat but a riven can make them good because of their dispo. While a certain few weapons are broken with a riven. This is also ignoring certain "pinnacle activities" such as PT speedruns that absolutely demand rivens on the best weapons because of how strong they are with the riven, and in the case of zenith how awful it is without one. Or how DE added rivens with the entire purpose of [they are meant to fix bad weapons since we don't want to rebalance them]. Or...

While I agree on several factors that you stated such as making them easier to obtain and making rolling easier; if you think potentially hours of time investment into a single mod and getting nothing in return for all the time invested is good game design, then we will never agree and there is nothing more to say that is constructive or a good use of time from either of us.