Streamlining rivens (a bit)

[Tynged]

Hi! I wanted to chime in and provide some feedback to address the riven situation and its overencumbering (imo) RNG nature. Sorry if this topic was discussed in depth before.

This feedback is coming from the perspective of a person who doesn't play the game enough to know the nuances of its economy. But seeing how many systems of Warframe have been streamlined over the past several updates, I thought it is time for the rivens to get some long-overdue QoL too.

So, numbers first. According to the wiki (correct me if the numbers are wrong), for guns there are 24 positives and 19 negatives to roll from (elemental damage and Punch Through can't be negatives), with 2-3 positives being included in a riven and up to 1 negative. Disregarding the stat value increments (65.4 in one case, 63.2 in the other etc), that amounts to 40756 stat variations on a riven. Rolling the one and only god tier (whatever that means) riven with perfect everything is roughly 0.0025% (1 in 40756).

And now onto my proposition. I would like a Riven Catalyst to be introduced to the game. It functions as a resource/item that you can expend upon rolling a riven to get 1 stat with 100% probability on the next roll. Say, I really want to roll a riven with Fire Rate. I open the riven rolling window, choose the catalyst with the right stat in an inventory prompt, click roll, and a riven with all random stats BUT Fire Rate falls into my hands.

I don't know exactly how the wiki calculated that 40756 amount, since combination formulas gave me a different result, so I can't apply the logic further and make an example of how well a catalyst like this will improve the odds. But it is safe to say that rolling a riven for a desired 2nd or 3rd stat with one good stat already fixed is miles better than rolling all 3 at random. It is not a groundbreaking change across the board, but it is nice.

The ways to acquire said Riven Catalyst can be aplenty, varying from bosses to syndicates, the possibilities are limitless here. Making them too easy to obtain will trivialise the whole riven market, while making farming too difficult would defeat the whole purpose of such a mechanic.

I think that this new addition would make the riven side of the game healthier and more engaging, rather than being a mind-numbing resource sink.

Edited January 1 by Tynged

[Voltage]

I think the best course of action with Rivens is to honestly leave them alone, because changing them 8 years later would not make them anything but just closer to another mandatory weapon mod. With the way power creep has been going, the only appeal Rivens are having these days is their affect on extremely dated mechanics that DE haven't bothered to update (such as manipulating IPS weighting or rolling for attributes the weapon can't mod for normally).

Edited January 1 by Voltage