Are rivens strong - do we need disposition in the current power level?

[Berzerkules]

2 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

as someone who never really cared about Rivens for anything other than niche underrated weapons that I happen to like, such as my Prisma Grinlok, I'd be happy to see them scrapped altogether and watch the forums burn as the "Riven mafia" and their salty trader friends howl and scream at the loss of their easy plat. 

 

This some bs right here.

Just imagine the backlash DE would get from completely removing all rivens. DE would get blasted on every social media platform. The forums would be the least if their concerns because only a miniscule percentage of players ever make it here. 

I sure would be a spectacle to watch DE shoot themselves in the foot while it's in their mouth but I personally don't want to watch that and I definitely wouldn't take pleasure in it. 

[Xzorn]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

I'm not going to change your mind on how you feel about Riven traders, but the barrier to entry has never been lower, especially with free tools like Alecaframe and Altair. You're free to make this "easy plat" yourself. 

 

I enjoyed when the damage system was more complex. I still have a previous perfect roll Synapse Riven I bought for 50p.
CC / CD / Cold / -%Puncture. This allowed it to use Corrosive + Viral + Hunters + Faction. Being pure Elemental it just melted.

It went from killing two lvl 160 Napalms per mag to killing 8 per mag.

I always had a soft spot for Corrinth but shotgun status wouldn't let it work so when I saw the changes I grabbed a 60p CD / Punch-Through / Heat.
Finally got that Doom pump-action shotgun to play and not suck.

[0_The_F00l]

Rivens were a partially failed experiment to reduce the power difference between popular and not so popular weapons (and power is usually proportional to popularity , though not always) 

Incarnons are more successful, in that regard as they affect the base stats , if rivens did that then the disposition would make more sense.

I have many weapons that work well with rivens , I have just as many that work well without weapons and some that actively reduce the output.

So in that regard they are not a completely failure but doesn't quite hit the mark.

[ReddyDisco]

I have nothing good to say about rivens, incarnons are a much better way to buff older and weaker weapons to be relevant again. Every since second generation incarnons were added i stopped bothering with rivens, hope they keep expanding this system.

[quxier]

18 hours ago, Aldain said:

Honestly if I could go back in time and have DE make Weapon Arcanes and Incarnons first instead of Riven mods I would in a hearbeat.

Both of those are much more healthy and practical ways of empowering things (especially Incarnon boosts on older weapons) than the RNG that are Riven mods, and I say that as a guy who has a Quellor Riven that makes it much more fun to use for me.

Incarnon Adapters has similar issues with low disposition rivens. Some stats are weak. Why we even have 0.6 or 0.8 range boost?

17 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

The disposition wasn't created because other boosts didn't exist....they are there to stack and make builds off of.

The dispo is there so when everyone flocks to a bramma, the dispo goes down....and since no one even knows the Harpak exists....the dispo goes up. 

But, for example, lowering Brama and increasing Harpak doesn't mean that people will go to Harpak. You go for AoE bow then you want AoE bow or at least AoE weapon.

17 hours ago, Voltage said:

19 hours ago, trst said:

Except they're still doing what they were originally intended to do? They make weaker weapons better (this is an undisputable fact as a Riven on a decent dispo weapon condenses 2-3 mods into one slot) while stronger weapons don't need a Riven in the first place. Plus regardless of their performance they exist as a time/resource drain for players who want to min-max while having nothing else to work on which is another of their original purposes.

Removing Disposition still accomplishes "what they were originally intended to do" without punishing players for wanting to use new weapons or adding needless maintenance for DE staff every Prime Access.

+1

17 hours ago, trst said:

17 hours ago, Voltage said:

Removing Disposition still accomplishes "what they were originally intended to do" without punishing players for wanting to use new weapons or adding needless maintenance for DE staff every Prime Access.

I wouldn't be so conclusive. You didn't mention that Rivens would become instantly useable on new equipment, make new variants feel like direct upgrades for Riven users, stats would become much easier to balance and more streamlined as predictable bonuses with relative expected performance gains, and players would not feel coned into a "meta set" of stats because the Disposition is so low that there is no room for more niche stats.

Sure they could still serve the original purpose without dispositions but it then pushes into the other issue of players feeling forced to get Rivens for anything new. No longer could players refuse to touch the system over them not being worth using on new weapons/variants as they'd then always be a substantial upgrade to everything. It's just like the friction the Shard system created with players feeling like they can only use Tau Forged Shards or nothing at all and creating their own issues out of that belief.

And especially with the gripes players have with the Riven market we would only see yet more issues out of that with every Riven becoming powerful out the gate. All in all Rivens being usable immediately would result in a load of issues thanks to players loving to create problems where there are none.

It depends on what you will do. On normal (non steel path) I haven't once thought I need riven or some super boost. They would be useful but not always necessary.

17 hours ago, UnstarPrime said:

Disposition is the fundamental point of Rivens: weapons that players aren't using get up to 3 mods worth of buffs in a single slot to enhance their power, and weapons that plenty of players are already using get much smaller buffs to the point where a Riven is much less worth the effort.  In this way, Rivens attempt to level the playing field and promote greater weapon diversity, and while it certainly isn't a perfect solution to the problem, it is a fairly effective one.  Removing Disposition would throw that entire benefit in the trash.

As I said, buffing bad weapon to the level of better weapon is not good enough. Why bother with worse weapon, rolling rivens etc when you can have good weapon with maybe some gimmick or traits?

16 hours ago, sly_squash said:

•  
• Starting all new weapons at 0.5 (worst) dispo is really dumb
  "Yay I got a Grimoire riven!  Can't wait for 3 years from now when the dispo finally climbs to something usable!"

Literally me :(

16 hours ago, sly_squash said:

It's one thing to put limits on the best weapons to ensure rivens don't make them insanely overpowered. 

Is that really possible? If not rivens we have probably dozen of methods to do this.

16 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

Rivens with low dispo can be quite strong if they allow you to go above certain thresholds, like crit chance reaching just above the next crit tier

That just mean you are quaranted 1 level of crit. Having e.g. 102% crit chance means you will have only 2% chance to get next crit. Having just e.g. 80% crit is enough.

16 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

or reducing your crit chance to zero (like -crit chance phenmor, felarx or laetum),

That's just like 3 weapons from hundreds?

16 hours ago, Fred_Avant_2019 said:

 

When a completely new weapon comes out, with new mechanics and all sorts of quirky stuff, you never know exactly in advance just how strong it is before you've got it in your hands, so alright, fair enough I can see the argument, but in the case of primes it's kinda bs, because unless the prime greatly alters a base mechanic, adds one or drastically changes base stats, there is no specific reason the riven shouldn't be much lower than 0.10~0.2 dispo when compared to the base weapon's riven dispo.

+1

14 hours ago, Merkranire said:

Did someone put out a video about Rivens or something?

edit: Hm, looking through the topics it may just be me when faced with coincidence

No. I've just recently finished Duviri/Whispers (new pc that can handle it). I have bunch of Slivers. I had been doing lots of rivens in recent weeks. However most of them are for weapon that I don't like/use OR are weak (mentioned Grimoire). Doing all that stuff for naught makes wonder about power & stuff.

11 hours ago, Voltage said:

13 hours ago, (PSN)robotwars7 said:

I'd be happy to see them scrapped altogether and watch the forums burn as the "Riven mafia" and their salty trader friends howl and scream at the loss of their easy plat. 

Whenever I read comments like these, I just assume it's written out of envy towards those who simply know how to trade. "Easy plat" is any item in the game that you understand pricing and demand for.

It's really interesting that there's a common perspective to look at players into these kinds of items in this manner, but the comments are always written in an obnoxious manner to oppose this labeled crowd of individuals that represent a minority on a spectrum of all kinds of players.

I'm not going to change your mind on how you feel about Riven traders, but the barrier to entry has never been lower, especially with free tools like Alecaframe and Altair. You're free to make this "easy plat" yourself. 

I wouldn't say it's "easy plat" but it's heavy depended on RNG. For example unlocking riven into something powerful after just few "tries" and selling them for hundreds or thousand doesn't seems fair for me. I'm ok some doze of randomness but not to this point.

 

[Aldain]

30 minutes ago, quxier said:

Incarnon Adapters has similar issues with low disposition rivens. Some stats are weak. Why we even have 0.6 or 0.8 range boost?

Yes, but there is one thing that they do that Rivens fail at.

They actually modify the baseline stats, a Braton Incarnon slotted onto the Braton can do more for the weapon than any Braton Riven ever could as an example.

They're also not RNG locked and can have their bonuses changed out if one selection isn't working for the player, rather than rolling like a maniac with Kuva getting +20% reload speed 12 times in a row.

Edited February 9 by Aldain

[CephalonCarnage]

If you wanted to "fix" rivens without going crazy like removing them altogether then there are other options.

Start new weapons at a dispo of max of either 2 or whetever its non-prime version is. Then make those weapons with 1 dispo get such bad stats they are unusable. Make them even roll 0% every time. This means the rivens for the super meta weapons that are trading for hundreds of plat become worthless. This means the riven market starts to become something to help A-tier weapons and below. You can even increase the stats on them, maybe offer additive bonuxes instead of the trash multiplicitive ones, or even give a bonus stat per dispo (ie dispo 5 gets you 5 stat buffs, 4 gives you 4 etc).

Right now, all rivens are "trash tier" or "god tier" depending on the weapon. You can easily see which ones just by looking at trade chat and there are only a handful in that meta category. Losing them would benefit rivens as a whole, and would make the large number of good-but-not-god weapons more prevalent.

Edited February 9 by CephalonCarnage

[(PSN)Sentiel]

As many said, the current Riven system is severely flawed towards new weapons, especially Prime versions of already existing weapons. Often, the stat increases between the normal and Prime versions of the weapon are not enough to justify switching from a high Riven Dispo to a low Riven Dispo (e.g.: Phantasma Prime).

I personally never bother with low Dispo Rivens unless I REALLY like the weapon and it REALLY needs a Riven, which is usually to counter a inherited design flaw of the weapon, like extreme Recoil for Archguns with no -Recoil mods, slow reload, or the lack of good Punch Through mods for Secondaries.

If DE introduced more interesting mods like they did with the Recent 60% Radiation ones, a lot of the low Dispo Rivens would lose their value because even the little QoL they offer wouldn't be worth the price and RNG.

[Xzorn]

14 minutes ago, CephalonCarnage said:

Right now, all rivens are "trash tier" or "god tier" depending on the weapon. You can easily see which ones just by looking at trade chat and there are only a handful in that meta category. Losing them would benefit rivens as a whole, and would make the large number of good-but-not-god weapons more prevalent.

 

The Riven trade community has always been weird with what they think are "god tier" rolls.

For instance, it was established that +3 and -1 was the best because it gave the most numerical values despite the weapon's stats. If you have a weapon with 50% Crit and x3 Crit damage you generally wanted those two stats at their highest rolls. 3rd stat didn't matter. In many cases +2 / -1 was better.

Players consider my 7yr old Multishot / CD / -Slash Torid Riven trash tier these days and wouldn't have bought it before Incarnon either. All despite Torid having always been an amazing weapon. Multishot being both a damage and status multiplier, I always used it over the CC / CD one which I sold.

Best to just buy 60-80p Rivens you know are good and sell the mob the stats they want for stupidly high prices.
Imagine paying 5k for like 30% Damage increase with the current defense scaling. I was shooting level 2,400 enemies 2 days ago and couldn't tell.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Sadly, the one bad thing about Incarnons is they dip right back into 4/5 and 5/5 disposition weapons like my 9 yr old Torid.

[UnstarPrime]

4 hours ago, quxier said:

As I said, buffing bad weapon to the level of better weapon is not good enough. Why bother with worse weapon, rolling rivens etc when you can have good weapon with maybe some gimmick or traits?

If you're asking this question I'm guessing you won't relate to this, but hopefully it will shed some light on how others play and think differently.

Sometimes there are weapons a person loves, but due to power creep or simply the fact that they've advanced to more demanding content, those weapons no longer kill at a rate that is enjoyable or effective.  For example, I absolutely love the way the Bo feels to use, I love the wooden clack sounds it makes, and there's a sort of nostalgic pleasure to it because it was my first melee weapon that I used for so many hours when I first started playing Warframe.  However, even with the introduction of Incarnons, there was no bo-type weapon that was anywhere close to being as effective as high-end weapons like the Innodem*.

With a Riven, however, I was able to bridge that gap and make the weapon I loved "good enough".  It still wasn't as powerful as the Innodem, but it was the difference between an A and an A+, which was fine by me.  And in spite of still being less effective, playing with a Rivened Bo made me happier than playing with a more powerful weapon would have.  And isn't that the point of Warframe: to bring joy to the user's life?

There are so many reasons to love different weapons in Warframe that don't have anything to do with their power, and generally speaking, Rivens allow players who love a less powerful weapon to be able to play up-to-date content with that weapon.  Personally, I like that outcome, as it means more players are having better experiences, and it also means I see a greater variety of weapons being used by players in my missions, which makes things more interesting for me.

 

*until the Whispers in the Walls update, that is, when Melee Influence finally gave Bo Prime a viable build.

[Voltage]

15 hours ago, Xzorn said:

I still have a previous perfect roll Synapse Riven I bought for 50p.
CC / CD / Cold / -%Puncture.

Do you have a picture of it? I would love to see it 👀

[(XBOX)zThulsaDoomz]

As much as I find rivens useless, I say keep them.  Lots of people believe they're the end all be all, and that's perfectly fine. 

It's easy Plat for me, so it's a win for all involved. 

[Xzorn]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

Do you have a picture of it? I would love to see it 👀

 

Ah, not what I remember. I'm getting old I guess. Oh well. It was still a good grab at the time.

Spoiler

When I saw Gorgon had an Incarnon I was ready to finally make use of this but sadly, still lack luster.

Spoiler

 

Edited February 9 by Xzorn

[GrimMyfanwy]

Throwing my two credits in on the riven system.
There is a simple fix to the riven system, unfortunately simple does not mean easy, which is why I guess DE has avoided it (I say "avoid" and not "not realized" because there can be no way they haven't seen this solution).

They need to curate rivens.

What I mean by this is they need to decide a baseline damage output for weapons, this would be slightly higher then the DPS (let's say 10% for example) of the highest weapon of a class (sniper, launcher, automatic, etc.) out there. In this calculation they must determine the best mod/arcane loadout for the weapon in its best form (i.e. incarnon) to determine it's top output. Then they must do this for every weapon in the game. From these number then then calculate the disposition of every weapon in the game by comparing the weapons top output to the top output of the best in the weapons class.

The stats of the riven would be predetermined by what the weapon needs most to bring it in line. 

Rivens would therefore become static and not needed to be rolled

For example:

Top weapon output of semi automatic class weapons is 1 million DPS. 

Mid-tier semi-automatic puts out 250,000 DPS in top form.

Bottom tier semi auto puts out 50,000.

Rivens for these weapons would increase the first by 5%, the second by 420%, and the third by 21000%; bringing them all in line for 1.05 million DPS

They would only need to change the disposition if the weapon gets a new state (e.g. a new mod or arcane, an incarnon form) or if a game system changes (e.g. nerfs or buffs to all launchers)

While what I just suggested would be balanced and easier to maintain, it has in it several inherent flaws that make it unviable:

Too big of a change- This new system would disrupt the loadouts of every player who uses rivens in the current system a massively dramatic way

Removes the main need for Kuva- Kuva's purpose would have to be reworked or it would just need to be abandoned as far as rivens go.

The workload to do this would be massive- I suspect this is the main reason a systemic change like this has not been implemented, even after years of them never getting the system right. DE is more than willing to abandon systems with only lip service changes (e.g. Dojos, Railjack, conclave, The New War, Duviri, etc., etc, ad nauseum) than expend the effort to salvage said systems.

So, instead, they profligate the system, making it so easy to get rivens no one care about them anymore. 

So to answer the original posters questions: Yes they are, no we don't, and that is why things will not change.

 

P.S.: In economics I learned an interesting factoid: a high GNP is indicative of a strong economy, but governments then decided that a high GNP was the ONLY indicator of a strong economy, and so employed methods to artificially inflate their GNPs to show how strong their economies are, regardless of if it is true or not, This is similar to how riven dispositions are determined. A weapons power will make it popular, but the reverse is not true, a weapon will not grow in power no matter how popular it is, but yet it is the popularity of a weapon that DE uses to determine a rivens disposition rather than it's strength.

[Raikh]

Rivens have a metric ton of design issues but I think for this particular one it would simply help if the minimum disposition was higher than it is right now.

0.5-0.6 is simply too low. It either turns out to be not worthwhile to run them or you need an incredibly good roll to make it work. If Rivens couldn't go below 0.75 or even maybe a bit higher  at 0.8-0.9 we wouldnt so easily reach a point where the Rivens could be devalued entirely just because they get some Disposition adjustment. And this isn't a market issue entirely, that is just a really stupid part of it and quite degenerate tbh but it generally just sucks if you spend a ton of time and resources on a Riven and suddenly its not worth slotting anymore because your weapon became too popular.

They fail hilariously at balancing weapons, starting with their acquisition and worse than actual gacha rng. So they should just make them a proper endgame grind/reward that is a benefit for everyone, just that its a little more interesting for not quite as meta weapons. Balancing slightly more around power would also help. Incarnons still run around with plenty of high Dispo Weapons and given how they are acquired its not even surprising not many are crazy popular despite their power, but that just shows how flawed the system is at its heart.