Rivens Disposition Levels for Primed Counterparts

[JackFraust]

Riven Dispositions should NOT be lowered for Prime weapons. I just got the new Hystrix Prime and when I saw the Riven Disposition, I was quite appalled. Hystrix (non-prime) has a Riven Disposition of 4 (1.2x) while Hystrix Prime has a Disposition of 1 (0.5x). I have the perfect riven mod (IMO) for Hystrix that boosted Damage, Punch Through and Magazine Size, but it's now completely useless on Hystrix Prime.

On my Hystrix, the riven gave +2.3 Punch Through, +198.2% Damage and +41.9% Magazine Size; while on my new Hystrix Prime, it gives +0.9 Punch Through, +82.6% Damage and +17.5% Magazine Size; not even half of the stats in comparison. Hystrix Prime is barely better than Hystrix (going by base stats alone, less than 33% increase), but when a riven is introduced, Hystrix Prime is completely inferior. Why should I use Hystrix Prime when Hystrix is FAR superior solely because of the riven?

Prime weapons need to have the same exact riven disposition as their normal variants!!! This applies to EVERY prime weapon. Prime weapons are SUPPOSE to be better than their normal variants, but rivens blow that out of the water because of their differences in dispositions. No one wants to get a new prime weapon and forma it 5+ times just to find out that it ended up equal to or weaker than the normal version they already put the work into (essentially making the prime weapon affinity fodder).

[ArcticHelix]

"Solely because of the riven" well my good sir rivens arent everything in warframe and the sooner you realize that the sooner you'll not make a post like this

[Tyreaus]

All Rivens for new weapons start at 0.5 so DE can increase it once the usage stat numbers come in.

As DE explained, if they start from the same disposition, everyone flocks to it, then meets disappointment later on when dispositions drop. Cue masses of frustrated players.

The current system is far from perfect either - how Rivens themselves work makes that happen - but it's at least less noisy.

Also where does this idea that Rivens count towards balance come from, anyway? Far as I've understood DE, it's like Invigorations: something to _hopefully encourage players to pick up less-used weapons. They're not balance patches. (I'd figure, if they were, they'd be something like flat or base increases, not percentile.)

[BR31]

Yeah it's unfortunate, hope eventually they are going to increase the rate of  buffing the dispo for underused primes.
It's rn 0.2 or 0.3 in some cases every 3 months for weapons like panthera prime , so can take a year+ to come where it belongs.

I also disagree with a statement about rivens like invigorations. Or that rivens don't matter.
There's literally a whole system and endgame grind of a resource , which is used only for them . 
They were changed and updated more than any other system in a game. Very vapid changes to my liking, but the quantity is quite insane. 
Gamemodes changed because of the kuva farms.  

And the initial introduction was made with an intention of balancing, just being lost along the way . 

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

3 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

 

As DE explained, if they start from the same disposition, everyone flocks to it, then meets disappointment later on when dispositions drop. Cue masses of frustrated players.

 

 

so instead of frustrated players 6 months later when the Dispo gets nerfed from overuse

we get frustrated players immediately on weapon release and less motivation to use the new gear

 

Either way you get pissed off players

but I'd argue the former scenario is better, because at least people get to have fun with the "new content". and months later when the nerf does hit, the sting will be less because we've moved on to the next new content drop.

 

 

[Pakaku]

4 hours ago, JackFraust said:

Why should I use Hystrix Prime when Hystrix is FAR superior solely because of the riven?

That's the whole purpose of riven dispositions, to encourage people to use the original over the new toy with way better stats if they have a riven for it. It's great in my case, too, since I've put a lot of work into my Hystrix, so I don't need to restart with the Prime.

So no, Hystrix is not far superior to Hystrix Prime, that's only when you factor in your riven.

[Tyreaus]

1 hour ago, (PSN)haphazardlynamed said:

but I'd argue the former scenario is better, because at least people get to have fun with the "new content". and months later when the nerf does hit, the sting will be less because we've moved on to the next new content drop.

You mean like the bunches of people who had fun with, say, AoE weapons? Kuva Nukor? The people making "don't nerf, just buff" threads since antiquity?

Unfortunately, that's just not how the playerbase takes those sorts of changes. Yeah, it's disappointing that Prime weapons and the like don't release with better dispositions. But it's just that: disappointment. You do things like set high disposition values, followed by a nerf, and you get fury instead.

Issues with the current system tend to be on the rarer side. Meanwhile, before the change, I recall quite a few threads bemoaning nerfs to weapons because their disposition was decreased. Of course, chances are, DE has records about all that. They likely have a much better idea about what causes more issues, far beyond what us laypeople can see or claim.

2 hours ago, BR31 said:

Yeah it's unfortunate, hope eventually they are going to increase the rate of  buffing the dispo for underused primes.
It's rn 0.2 or 0.3 in some cases every 3 months for weapons like panthera prime , so can take a year+ to come where it belongs.

Would certainly like them to boost dispositions a bit more often, as well. There might be a limit due to scope (lots of weapons to go through), but I'm sure they could even target a few outliers with greater frequency. After all, when something is a fresh release, and not super different from its regular counterpart, we can probably expect the disposition to go up. We might not want to jack it up from the get go, lest some crazy exploit or unforeseen combination pops out of the woodwork, but a few pre-emptive nudges is most likely safe and gets the ball rolling a little early.

I also don't believe they don't matter, at least as a system and source of entertainment. I simply don't believe they (at least ought to) factor into a weapon's balance considerations, even if that was the initial intent. Partly because it's heavily based on use rate, and while use rates can hint something is or isn't balanced, it's neither conclusive nor accurate enough to make design decisions on its own. Hello, Octavia. Mainly because, with all the acquisition hurdles and RNG associated with it, you probably don't want to build content with the expectation a player has or can readily acquire a Riven. Otherwise, the usable equipment list becomes even smaller than it is now, and you end up with a lot more headache from players trying to make things work.

So I consider it more of a "bonus" system. It's involved, complicated, probably should be balanced in its own right, but not something that helps dictate whether an item is balanced or not.

[Tiltskillet]

5 hours ago, JackFraust said:

Prime weapons need to have the same exact riven disposition as their normal variants!!! This applies to EVERY prime weapon. Prime weapons are SUPPOSE to be better than their normal variants, but rivens blow that out of the water because of their differences in dispositions.

It will be better after a couple of dispo passes, so probably 5 months, lol.  

I understand the issue, but I disagree that primes have to come out with the same dispo as their base variants.   There are various ways they could make that system better without ditching it completely...but they all have downsides.  More work and bad looks being the major ones.  Not that the current system doesn't have downsides either, as you've discovered. 

Fundamentally, dispo is kind of an awful way to balance things, period.  I believe DE uses it because they're not good at tuning or don't want to concentrate on doing so, and prefer to crowdsource it to some degree for these optional mods.   Ironically though, being bad at tuning or reluctant to do it makes dispo worse rather than better.

Some of the problem in this case is that DE was especially conservative with the Hystrix Prime upgrade.  (A cynic might suspect they figured Khora Prime would be a very popular Access even with a weaker sidearm.)  Where it's most dramatically improved is status chance...but most people undervalue status because calculating its benefits is complicated and not handled well by Overframe and Warframe Builder.

 

[JackFraust]

1 hour ago, Pakaku said:

That's the whole purpose of riven dispositions, to encourage people to use the original over the new toy with way better stats if they have a riven for it. It's great in my case, too, since I've put a lot of work into my Hystrix, so I don't need to restart with the Prime.

So no, Hystrix is not far superior to Hystrix Prime, that's only when you factor in your riven.

If this was true, then what is the purpose of making a primed variant of specific weapons? If rivens were to actually encourage players to use non-prime versions over their "seemingly" better prime versions, then there would be absolutely no point in making a prime variant, because then the primes would in-turn become the unused versions. Non-primed weapons are meant to be replaced by their primed variants; that is the whole purpose of making prime weapons. Otherwise, they're just making a duplicate of the same weapon, but with a more glorified look; and if that's the case, they can just make it a skin instead of a whole "new" weapon. There is NO reason why prime weapons shouldn't be released with riven dispositions (exactly) equal to their non-primed versions.

[Pakaku]

2 hours ago, JackFraust said:

If this was true, then what is the purpose of making a primed variant of specific weapons? If rivens were to actually encourage players to use non-prime versions over their "seemingly" better prime versions, then there would be absolutely no point in making a prime variant, because then the primes would in-turn become the unused versions. Non-primed weapons are meant to be replaced by their primed variants; that is the whole purpose of making prime weapons. Otherwise, they're just making a duplicate of the same weapon, but with a more glorified look; and if that's the case, they can just make it a skin instead of a whole "new" weapon. There is NO reason why prime weapons shouldn't be released with riven dispositions (exactly) equal to their non-primed versions.

Because primes are stat buffs, they make money, and the game doesn't revolve around rivens. Not everyone has a riven for a particular weapon, either.

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

4 hours ago, Tyreaus said:

 

Unfortunately, that's just not how the playerbase takes those sorts of changes. Yeah, it's disappointing that Prime weapons and the like don't release with better dispositions. But it's just that: disappointment. You do things like set high disposition values, followed by a nerf, and you get fury instead.

 

 

*shrugs* I guess I'm not the playerbase then

cause when stuff goes down, I don't get furyied (for reasoning I already stated about already having the fun and ready to move on)

my impression, is the majority of the super angry backlash about Dispo nerfs was fueled by the toxic Riven Mafia type players who vastly overprice Rivens and lose their "investment". -and I don't think we should have to care about them

[(XBOX)Vergil]

First off, rivens are a terrible system. They exist to give DE massive amounts of money for some crazy 4k plat nataruk/laetum riven (that barely does much) and to bandaid fix weapons by slapping 400% damage and 200% mulitshot on it. 

They should all have a base value of 1 and DE should just actually buff weapons that needed that 1.5x or whatever disposition. God knows what justifications people who play this game have for the most sought after thing being a meta weapon riven that barely changes its stats anyway. 

 

And before anyone says that's broken, I'd like to point out that pretty much no one has ever used a stubba or furis over a bramma despite one having around literally 3 times the riven stat of the other. It doesn't do anything but encourage people to go for insane godrolls on a better weapon they were already going to use anyway. 

[DarcnyssWolfe]

I mean just sit on it for a  year and change. Part of DE thinks their primes are still game changers from back in v10 or so. Most primes are now either about base stat +15% or less now and utterly pointless vs the base/alt+a decent( and not even close to top tier) riven. 1.0 riven disposition should probably be based on current standard/prime mod values, as approptiate. Currently even 1.0 primes vs 1.5 base can be fairly disapointting, let alone the introductionary 0.5.

[Pakaku]

On 2022-09-19 at 12:18 AM, (XBOX)Vergil said:

They should all have a base value of 1 and DE should just actually buff weapons that needed that 1.5x or whatever disposition. God knows what justifications people who play this game have for the most sought after thing being a meta weapon riven that barely changes its stats anyway. 

And before anyone says that's broken, I'd like to point out that pretty much no one has ever used a stubba or furis over a bramma despite one having around literally 3 times the riven stat of the other. It doesn't do anything but encourage people to go for insane godrolls on a better weapon they were already going to use anyway.

I got an interesting roll for my Furis riven, and it's actually semi-viable now. Obviously not the kind of nuke that the Bramma is, but the Riven makes a surprising difference. The disposition is why that's possible, and even if DE bothered to balance weapons, they would not make the Furis on par with higher-MR weapons.