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Now is the perfect time to rework Rivens!


PhreazerBurn
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Rivens never really succeeded in their intended purpose. That purpose is offering player-determined modding flexibility and giving weaker weapons a boost. Now more than ever rivens aren't doing either. There are a number of additional issues with the riven system, as well. 

The most significant of those issues is accessibility. Most players cannot afford a good riven. They cannot afford the platinum for one that already has good stats, and they cannot afford the million kuva it would take to roll good stats on a "trash" riven.

Rivens currently do not do enough for weak weapons to make them viable. A weapon with a 1.45 riven disposition (excluding the new incarnons...more on that later) is generally awful and cannot be saved by a relatively minor multiplier in stats. Rivens would need a far greater magnitude than currently to salvage something like the Kogake Prime or the Ballistica Prime.

The crazy thing is that the weapons with really unfavorable dispositions often aren't that great to begin with. Just a glance at the market tells the story. Any weapon with a 0.6 dispo that you can buy a trash riven on for 10p is not actually that good a weapon...often not in the top 20 of its type and certainly not meta-level. Generally weapons in this category wouldn't even be significantly  improved by a well-rolled riven. Their dispositions should be much more favorable.

The greatest hurdle towards addressing rivens will always be the understandably extremely vocal minority who are major players in the riven market and have hundreds of thousands or even millions of platinum tied up in it. I'm just going to say now that the only solutions in getting the riven system to be a functioning part of Warframe are going to make these few players very upset. The riven market is demonstrably ridiculous. Look at ANY other warframe, weapon, mod, or item. The most valuable of them are in the low hundreds of platinum. Rivens routinely have functional valuations in the thousands or more...which is crazy.

So how do we fix this?

Well, I would say that the true core problem with rivens is the RNG tied to getting the stats you want. Kuva takes a long time to farm, but if you want a weapon with 3 specific positive stats and 1 benign negative it will on average require you to spend weeks or months farming the kuva it will take for the hundreds or thousands of rolls to get it right. That is unreasonable. 

Instead, I think the solution is to let us lock stats once we roll ones we like. This let's rolling rivens become a productive process rather than making it a lottery.

I think that takes care of the biggest problem with rivens but there are others. Unlocking rivens is often...dumb. While undetected and sliding with a hobbled dragon key equipped kill 17 enemies with headshots that are a minimum 100m away...that's not exactly a fun task or effectively training you to do something new. Its probably time somebody went back and cleaned up the worst of these and added some new ones. It would be a great opportunity to teach players about USEFUL skills they might not currently utilize.

A recent but rather urgent issue with rivens is Incarnon weapon disposition. There are currently rivens with extremely favorable dispositions on pinnacle tier weapons. Its been hinted that this will be addressed at some point, but its sort of a joke on a system that was already pretty laughable. However, that is the main reason I suggested at the outset that this is THE time to fix rivens. There is already going to be a major shake-up in the riven market. Why not take this moment of instability and use it as an additional incentive towards moving things in the right direction now?

So now I have a favor to ask. I realize this is a controversial topic, and I'm pretty sure that in this essay I've said something at least minor that you disagree with. But PLEASE don't let this topic get bogged down in nit-picking. If you are the world's biggest Ballistica Prime fan, please don't derail the thread over the fact that it was one example in one part of this issue. I think that the vast majority of us agree that the riven system is in terrible shape. Let's focus on how it can be improved. If, however, you think the riven system is currently in an ideal position I would like to hear that side of things. Thanks in advance for keeping this discussion productive.

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The issue with your idea is that your explanations of why rivens don't work is exactly the reason why they do work. Rivens with low dispos are low because the usage of that weapon became very high. This means the rotation of weapons is working as intended and previously unused weapons became the dominant weapons. 

Allowing for the stats to be locked would actually defeat the purpose of the riven system. Being able to observe different weapons that gained higher dispo means that we are less inclined to stay with only a few weapons. At that point, the only weakness of the weapon would be poor modding for the given mission.

Lastly, very high damage numbers are often viewed as the only way a riven'd weapon setup is viable. People often forget that exploiting enemy weaknesses are far more important. However, players that adhere to exploiting weaknesses often observe weapons far differently than others. I say that to say this: what makes a weapon weak to you? That question makes a huge difference between how rivens will work. 

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You say accessibility is the most significant issue, but I honestly disagree. That's the only thing keeping them from becoming watered down power systems like everything else in the game. Once upon a time, Arcanes were in this position, and it really made them feel worthwhile and worth the grind. That's still the case with a very few select Arcanes, but in general, Arcanes are a much more accessible upgrade and lost their status of a late-game upgrade.

Locking stats has been suggested many times, and every thread I will say the same thing. Fast-tracking players to rolls they want (or that they think they want because of hype and current market prices) doesn't actually improve the system in any aspect. You're just watering down the point of the randomization instead of re-approaching how it behaves with your gear. The core problem with Riven Mods is Disposition. Disposition gate-keeps how strict the attribute combinations are to be worth slotting on a weapon. If you removed Disposition, players would still want the better rolls, but a non-perfect roll would be much more viable to slot while they upgrade their mods. This also brings down the power ceiling on outlier weapons, hurts stat-sticks (which need to just be removed as well), and returns the excitement for Prime/Variants for players who like Rivens. Removing disposition wouldn't make any significant impact on what players are using. Kuva Bramma, Glaive Prime, and several other weapons are proof of this point. Weapons need innate changes (like Arca Plasmor/Catchmoon changes, Kuva Bramma's ammo pickup override of 1, Shedu's nerfs over the years, Melee Range changed from percentage to absolute values, etc.) to see players change up their gear.

One of the mistakes DE made with Rivens as well is giving into the demands for players to get more slots. The original way Rivens behaved was that you had so few mod slots that you would look for your favorite weapons or the ones you wanted to boost the most, and then refine your inventory. Catering to the hoarding of general Warframe inventory management is what leads people to become very greedy with how many Rivens they want, how many good ones they want, and promote the mindset of necessity when it comes to their weapons. I am like this too by the way. If I had only 30 Riven Slots (or 60 with Master Rank 30), I would be pushed to only own Rivens on the weapons I really felt need them for my use, and cycle out my inventory when something else catches my attention.

1 hour ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

The issue with your idea is that your explanations of why rivens don't work is exactly the reason why they do work. Rivens with low dispos are low because the usage of that weapon became very high. This means the rotation of weapons is working as intended and previously unused weapons became the dominant weapons. 

"Previously unused weapons becoming dominant" specifically applies to an oversight in mechanics, such as Kuva Hek against Archons before damage attenuation changes, Faction Damage sources from separate weapons interacting with Heat DoTs, stat-stick weapons/Incarnon bonuses, weapon passives/Amalgam Mods such as Ripkas or Furax before it was changed, etc. Players will gravitate towards certain gear purely on their innate characteristics. The only time players will look for a Riven on a weapon that was previously ignored is because of an oversight with the way Riven Mods are applying to completely unrelated weapons and mechanics. If DE suddenly removed the Heat Inherit functionality, people would throw Tysis away. The same would apply if DE removed stat-stick Rivens. People would just throw Amphis in the dumpster.

Disposition has categorically failed to balance anything in the last 7 years. Even when Scoliac was a monster, DE had to make massive changes to the melee system as a whole to properly address that. The same has gone for other weapons and interactions over the years. Lowering the disposition on Kuva Hek wouldn't have improved Archon Hunts, and increasing the disposition by +0.20 on a 3 month old Prime weapon doesn't make it relevant for those who already own the base version with a much higher disposition, unless said Prime has an innate passive that makes it compelling over the base version in every way, such as Pyrana Prime.

Edited by Voltage
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Except Rivens are doing exactly what they were made to do.

They do, in fact, help weaker weapons solely from the ability to condense 2-3 mods into a single slot. Paired with all the other upgrade systems we've gotten since their addition and they're still a relevant layer in improving such weapons.

And the cost aspect is irrelevant as everyone can get their desired Rivens for free or if one insists on skipping that part of the RNG they can just buy a bad roll of their desired weapon for cheap. As for the Kuva cost the system was intended as an "infinite" grind for players with nothing else to do; if someone can't afford the Kuva then the system literally wasn't for them. So needing to take weeks or even months to grind out the Kuva for a Riven you're satisfied with is as intended for the system.

 

The problem with stat locking is that to preserve the whole "infinite" grind aspect the locks need to be behind some substantial grind themselves. Which likely then increases negative sentiment around Rivens from those who the system isn't even intended for in the first place. But that then creates a problem at the top end of players who do grind for Rivens currently thus locking stats would probably need to make them untradeable. At which point most players are just going to be upset at an update that doesn't help any of them.

Honestly the only thing that Rivens might need fixing with is acquisition of specific Rivens either through more categories (like how Zaws are their own type) or more opportunities to get Rivens in general. As getting one for any specific weapon steadily becomes a far greater grind as more weapons get added.

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3 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

Rivens with low dispos are low because the usage of that weapon became very high.

And they had the misfortune to come out before Incarnon Genesis weapons, which has apparently has made DE retreat, at least temporarily, from the idea of lower dispos reflecting higher popularity and higher power.

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11 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

And they had the misfortune to come out before Incarnon Genesis weapons, which has apparently has made DE retreat, at least temporarily, from the idea of lower dispos reflecting higher popularity and higher power.

That's because Incarnon Genesis was the most exemplary proof that Disposition is flawed in the way it's supposed to work. It's no different than new Prime weapons being functionally DOA for months in the last few years for those who want to use Rivens.

Edited by Voltage
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15 minutes ago, Voltage said:

That's because Incarnon Genesis was the most exemplary proof that Disposition is flawed in the way it's supposed to work.

Are you saying from your viewpoint?  Or are you going a step further and guessing that's what DE thinks?

If we're guessing about motivations,  mine is that DE is some combination of.

  • Bored with the headaches of dealing with dispo four times a year
  • Playing with using dispo to push certain weapons even if they're both popular and powerful, to in turn promote specific  content.  And, possibly, stimulate engagement with the riven system.

If so, I think we'll see  more  dispos above 0.5 on some or all new weapons.  Whether it's overt, or more of the sneakier "Adapter" method they used for Incarnon Genesis.

 

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4小时前 , PhreazerBurn 说:

Rivens never really succeeded in their intended purpose. That purpose is offering player-determined modding flexibility and giving weaker weapons a boost.

My k. seer reached 100% crit and status because of a riven. I would say riven is OK.

And to be honest I haven't paid attention to the entire riven thing for god knows how long. I would say riven has a really low priority of rework for most people except those who would pay 2k plat for a glaive prime riven.

引用

Instead, I think the solution is to let us lock stats once we roll ones we like. This let's rolling rivens become a productive process rather than making it a lottery.

Never going to happen. 

Edited by RichardKam
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21 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

Are you saying from your viewpoint?  Or are you going a step further and guessing that's what DE thinks?

If we're guessing about motivations,  mine is that DE is some combination of.

  • Bored with the headaches of dealing with dispo four times a year
  • Playing with using dispo to push certain weapons even if they're both popular and powerful, to in turn promote specific  content.  And, possibly, stimulate engagement with the riven system.

If so, I think we'll see  more  dispos above 0.5 on some or all new weapons.  Whether it's overt, or more of the sneakier "Adapter" method they used for Incarnon Genesis.

Just from my viewpoint of course. I just see that DE put themselves in a hard place with Incarnons, because they are a variant upgrade without changing the actual weapon itself, therefor they've pinned themselves with "well this would follow suit, but then we'd be nerfing Mk1-Braton Disposition which is kind of dumb". Because you've upgraded an old base weapon without adding a variant, you've created the perfect example of why Disposition just doesn't work.

Edited by Voltage
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1 hour ago, Tiltskillet said:

Are you saying from your viewpoint?  Or are you going a step further and guessing that's what DE thinks?

If we're guessing about motivations,  mine is that DE is some combination of.

  • Bored with the headaches of dealing with dispo four times a year
  • Playing with using dispo to push certain weapons even if they're both popular and powerful, to in turn promote specific  content.  And, possibly, stimulate engagement with the riven system.

If so, I think we'll see  more  dispos above 0.5 on some or all new weapons.  Whether it's overt, or more of the sneakier "Adapter" method they used for Incarnon Genesis.

 

Great points gents.

@Tiltskillet, your second point about pushing certain weapons falls right in line with the new incarnon series, which also supports a bit of what @Voltage was discussing regarding innate weaponry. For me, my loadouts have seen a big change in weapon variety that has me choosing weapons that fit the frame and mission type a lot more than just my usual go-to weapons. Between alt-firing Incarnons, faction bonus weapons, innate ability weapons, stat triggers, stat sticks, hard hitters, beam monsters, etc, there's now a LOT to choose from that, eventually, I think would relieve DE of even toying with dispos anymore because everything will settle into an ideal spot. The reason is fading and faster than I think we realize. 

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1 hour ago, RichardKam said:

And to be honest I haven't paid attention to the entire riven thing for god knows how long. I would say riven has a really low priority of rework for most people except those who would pay 2k plat for a glaive prime riven.

This is my experience too. I honestly think the focus on the numbers is more of an "I see low numbers, so that means it's bad", rather than what the actual performance of the weapon is. If the values of a low disposition riven are enough to help change the dynamics of the weapon, for example, managing to reach 99% crit from a 15% crit weapon, then you now have yourself a massively buffed weapon. 

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I think they should make rivens similar to how incarnon effects work in part.

Incarnon effects give flat bonuses along with unique effects.

If rivens gave a mix of flat bonuses (before mods) , special effects (like impact to slash, reload increasing fire rate or Parkour boost) and percentage bonuses (like we have on rivens right now) it would help with making weapons viable without making them too OP.

Here is an example.

Lets take the braton,

Flat 5% crit chance increase  ,

Headshots have chance of 50% to return ammo to magazine ,

+87% cold damage

Now it' s something that is worth having , and improves things for the base braton.

for the braton vandal we have ,

flat 2% crit chance increase , 

headshots have a 30% chance to return ammo to magazine ,

+50% cold damage.

it's still good but gives a leg up to regular braton.

The numbers are only for representation of course , it is also going to be pretty chaotic to implement this now , with rivens already existing and the player base having invested in it.

maybe it could only apply to new rivens or ones that get re rolled after the changes.

There will need some evaluation and tweaking to get the stats just right.

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Rivens are there to drive an extreme end-game grind for a close-to-evergreen reward with diminishing returns that self-selects for those players who can be bothered.

They are a cherry on top that players can chase as little or as much as they want.

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Rivens do make it possible for a player like myself, who hate running the same weapons as everyone else and who despises the incarnons, to actually use all kind of weapons in endgame content.

No content is tough enough that it requires riven-modded weapons. Far from it. They are a option for min-maxers and those who want to approach the endgame with something different. You can ignore the riven system without being blocked from anything else in the game.

Rivens are easily attainable. Even as someone who spends plat I have to sell or delete a lot of rivens.

The randomness of rivens is enjoyable to a lot of players, me being one of them, and more importantly, from a business perspective, keeps players grinding and buying plat. Don’t underestimate how many players out there who don’t engage in the market other than as buyers.

Tl;dr: A riven rework is not realistic from a business perspective nor does it align with every player’s desire.

Edited by (XBOX)Killahead
typo
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I do not believe rivens need a rework. Especially in the current landscape of all power options we now have available to us.

> Rivens are a one-of-a-kind mod; practically an NFT of the mod world. Your own unique personalized power.

  • Rivens give room for flavor to the weapon. Especially if it's a weapon you really like.
  • Rivens and the requirement to roll them will be valued differently by everyone.
    • You might be someone who thinks you need a "Godroll" for it to have value.
    • You might be someone who has mastered that weapon and you need specific stats to work with the limited slot count
    • You might be someone who enjoys experimenting with mechanics people don't usually see at face value and need a special combination of stats to bring your Frankenstein gun to life.
  • Rivens mods are the only mod that can give you more value-per-slot than any other mod and even circumvent sacrificing slots for other things you may have wanted. It's practically a blessing for turning your favorite weapon into your very own personalized version.
  • Even at it's worst (dispo 0.5, cheapo roll), a 'mediocre' riven can still potentially outperform any single mod.

It's the one mod you can customize around what arcanes you choose, what helminth skill you subsume, what archon shards you add, or what ever other augmented power choices you make for your warframes. 

This is why I am always in awe at people who go great lengths to exercise some kind of anti-riven activism. I get people hate rolling rivens, hate farming KUVA, hate playing slot machine, and hate dealing with disappointment. But when haven't games been RNG at every level for the sake of great(er) power? Warframe is literally farming, RNG, and the journey to more power.

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14 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

Instead, I think the solution is to let us lock stats once we roll ones we like.

there it is! I knew that would pop up somewhere. look, in an ideal world we'd have stat locks, but DE make too much money of of Riven-based plat sales and need players to keep farming Kuva too badly for that to ever happen. if the vast majority of the playerbase stopped buying and using Rivens in protest over this, we might see that change, but obviously it's never gonna happen.

14 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

Unlocking rivens is often...dumb

challenges aren't really an issue now since Riven Ciphers exist, and while you only get one a week, for people who don't care about Rivens much, they likely aren't in any rush to unlock them anyway. in the case of the hardcore Riven trader, I imagine they'd just do the easy ones and save their Ciphers for the tedious ones anyway. ultimately, less people do the harder challenges nowadays so DE might think they aren't worth changing.

14 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

Incarnon weapon disposition.

one solution could be making it so Rivens have less or no effect on the Incarnon modes, it'd just be some number tweaking, and I think Incarnon modes would still be plenty OP without them, but I don't know how people would feel about that.

14 hours ago, PhreazerBurn said:

Why not take this moment of instability and use it as an additional incentive towards moving things in the right direction now?

because it would be convenient for us, and DE can't have that. ultimately, the current system works very well on their end, so if it ain't broke... 

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vor 16 Stunden schrieb PhreazerBurn:

Rivens never really succeeded in their intended purpose. That purpose is offering player-determined modding flexibility and giving weaker weapons a boost. Now more than ever rivens aren't doing either. There are a number of additional issues with the riven system, as well. 

The most significant of those issues is accessibility. Most players cannot afford a good riven. They cannot afford the platinum for one that already has good stats, and they cannot afford the million kuva it would take to roll good stats on a "trash" riven.

Rivens currently do not do enough for weak weapons to make them viable. A weapon with a 1.45 riven disposition (excluding the new incarnons...more on that later) is generally awful and cannot be saved by a relatively minor multiplier in stats. Rivens would need a far greater magnitude than currently to salvage something like the Kogake Prime or the Ballistica Prime.

The crazy thing is that the weapons with really unfavorable dispositions often aren't that great to begin with. Just a glance at the market tells the story. Any weapon with a 0.6 dispo that you can buy a trash riven on for 10p is not actually that good a weapon...often not in the top 20 of its type and certainly not meta-level. Generally weapons in this category wouldn't even be significantly  improved by a well-rolled riven. Their dispositions should be much more favorable.

The greatest hurdle towards addressing rivens will always be the understandably extremely vocal minority who are major players in the riven market and have hundreds of thousands or even millions of platinum tied up in it. I'm just going to say now that the only solutions in getting the riven system to be a functioning part of Warframe are going to make these few players very upset. The riven market is demonstrably ridiculous. Look at ANY other warframe, weapon, mod, or item. The most valuable of them are in the low hundreds of platinum. Rivens routinely have functional valuations in the thousands or more...which is crazy.

So how do we fix this?

Well, I would say that the true core problem with rivens is the RNG tied to getting the stats you want. Kuva takes a long time to farm, but if you want a weapon with 3 specific positive stats and 1 benign negative it will on average require you to spend weeks or months farming the kuva it will take for the hundreds or thousands of rolls to get it right. That is unreasonable. 

Instead, I think the solution is to let us lock stats once we roll ones we like. This let's rolling rivens become a productive process rather than making it a lottery.

I think that takes care of the biggest problem with rivens but there are others. Unlocking rivens is often...dumb. While undetected and sliding with a hobbled dragon key equipped kill 17 enemies with headshots that are a minimum 100m away...that's not exactly a fun task or effectively training you to do something new. Its probably time somebody went back and cleaned up the worst of these and added some new ones. It would be a great opportunity to teach players about USEFUL skills they might not currently utilize.

A recent but rather urgent issue with rivens is Incarnon weapon disposition. There are currently rivens with extremely favorable dispositions on pinnacle tier weapons. Its been hinted that this will be addressed at some point, but its sort of a joke on a system that was already pretty laughable. However, that is the main reason I suggested at the outset that this is THE time to fix rivens. There is already going to be a major shake-up in the riven market. Why not take this moment of instability and use it as an additional incentive towards moving things in the right direction now?

So now I have a favor to ask. I realize this is a controversial topic, and I'm pretty sure that in this essay I've said something at least minor that you disagree with. But PLEASE don't let this topic get bogged down in nit-picking. If you are the world's biggest Ballistica Prime fan, please don't derail the thread over the fact that it was one example in one part of this issue. I think that the vast majority of us agree that the riven system is in terrible shape. Let's focus on how it can be improved. If, however, you think the riven system is currently in an ideal position I would like to hear that side of things. Thanks in advance for keeping this discussion productive.

Yes. and with popular weapons they hardly make any sense at all. Because I hardly notice any difference in the game between Riven and good mods.
There are already useful rolls, but in the end it doesn't matter!
In addition to useful rolls, I want LEGENDARY stats like:
unlimited ammo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
xx-xxx% more aoe range
and many other significant stats!

Because I don't want my Ogris to be a joke for April 1st and I have to use another weapon 90% of the time because I don't have any ammunition for it!

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20 hours ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

The issue with your idea is that your explanations of why rivens don't work is exactly the reason why they do work. Rivens with low dispos are low because the usage of that weapon became very high. This means the rotation of weapons is working as intended and previously unused weapons became the dominant weapons. 

Allowing for the stats to be locked would actually defeat the purpose of the riven system. Being able to observe different weapons that gained higher dispo means that we are less inclined to stay with only a few weapons. At that point, the only weakness of the weapon would be poor modding for the given mission.

Lastly, very high damage numbers are often viewed as the only way a riven'd weapon setup is viable. People often forget that exploiting enemy weaknesses are far more important. However, players that adhere to exploiting weaknesses often observe weapons far differently than others. I say that to say this: what makes a weapon weak to you? That question makes a huge difference between how rivens will work. 

I disagree. If it was "working" and not just *trying to work* the differences in stats between high and low dispo would be enough to make weak weapons compete with good ones and a lot of times, not every single time, but a lot of times, that just isnt true. 

"But eccho! If you use bane mods and like 10 forma and boost damage and strip armor and align the stars just right and hit up up left right b a start 10 times in 1 second you can still kill stuff"

 

Yeah okay. But why bother if other weapons dont need that much help to be just as effective if not more so.

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On 2023-11-13 at 4:54 PM, Tiltskillet said:

And they had the misfortune to come out before Incarnon Genesis weapons, which has apparently has made DE retreat, at least temporarily, from the idea of lower dispos reflecting higher popularity and higher power.

This could be a great thing. I honestly think the incarnon project was the result of riven usage data, and/or internal riven attribute tests on the current incarnon weapons. If so, then maybe we would only see two dispos in the future: moderately high and moderately low, auto attributed based on Incarnon adapter equipping. This would work very well because the weapon would now have two "high powered" variants, making either option even more variable for SP combat. 

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