How I would have implemented Riven Mods

[polarity]

(values are just for example).

Clem sells them.  For kuva.

He has a listing like this:

Quote

Blank Riven Mod for:

Tonkor                     100,000kv
Synoid Simulor        100,000kv
Dread                       90,000kv
Soma                       80,000kv
...
...
...
Mk1-Braton            5,000kv
Mk1-Paris              4,000kv

On your ship's mod menu you have a couple of new menus:
 

Quote

 

Add stat to riven mod (values vary by weapon depending on how useful each stat is for that weapon):

damage                100,000kv
multishot                90,000kv
crit chance            80,000kv
...
...
...
punch-through        6,000kv
reload speed          5,000kv
magazine size        5,000kv

 

(There could also be options for a pair of stats, one positive and one negative, at a reduced cost, and linked together in the following menu at reduced cost too.
Also an option to remove stats at a cost, in case you change your mind)

Quote

 

Rank up stats on riven mod (again, values vary by weapon depending on how useful each stat is for that weapon):

+damage                5,000kv (for the first point, doubling for each of 10 sucessive points, just like regular mods)
+crit                        4,500kv
+reload speed        1,000kv

 

You'd still have the mod's rank, as an additional multiplier of values, as well as MR factoring in too.

• Kuva would primarily come from it's current source, but it would also drop in small amounts from any mission, gradually increasing as mission level does, in a similar way to credits or endo (so that players would have a small stockpile to work with, by the time they complete TWW).
• It could also come from alerts, sorties, and it could be gambled at The Index.
• You could buy a pack of riven mods for 3 random weapons, with random stats (some of which you may choose to remove and replace, with kuva), for plat.

Why would I do it like this?

• To achieve all of DE's goals, but without completely abandoning fairness to players.
• To allow players to have the exact stats they want, on the exact weapon they want, but with a considerable time investment required, and at a cost that may be equal to that of dozens of lesser weapons, with less valuable stats.
• To ensure that the work that a player puts in, is reflected in the reward that they receive.
• To allow players to gamble, but only by choice.
• To give the player control over the outcome.  Not luck.

Edited November 20, 2016 by polarity

[luanle21]

reducing rng for riven mods

at the cost of extra resource grind.... well ill be honest its a fair trade, i like it. the thing is however developer usually hate doing non RNG related content unless it is absurd on the player effort

[Arkvold]

3 minutes ago, polarity said:

• To ensure that the work that a player puts in, is reflected in the reward that they receive.
• To allow players to gamble, but only by choice.
• To give the player control over the outcome.  Not luck.

Regardless of whether your idea is crap or not, I would support it over the current system solely because of these fantastic thought-processes that governed it.

[polarity]

I tried to leave in a way for DE to get plat sales out of it, and I believe that riven mod packs could well do that, as players could get 100 plat from the sale of prime parts, and end up with a mod that may be worth a lot more (perhaps randomised stats on the mod packs would in fact be a very bad idea, because it would bring gambling into the game, due to the possibility of a 100 plat outlay potentially giving a perfect tonkor mod worth several thousand plat, or millions of kuva.  Lottery chances and levels of return are part of the current problem).

Edited November 20, 2016 by polarity

[marshmellory]

although the idea is okay, the kuva costs are little bit extreme. to buy a mod for a good weapon i will need to do 666 capture runs on rusalka to get enough endo. in order to add a damage stat, i will have to do another 666. in order to rank up that damage stat to rank 10, which with the numbers you have defined will take 5x2^10 = 5.12 million kuva, i would need to do over 34,000 capture runs.

so total, in order to get a tonkor mod with just a maxed damage stat, i would need to do 35.5 thousand capture runs which is basically an impossibility unless i do nothing but farm kuva 24/7 for two months. maybe tweak those numbers a bit?

[djternan]

11 minutes ago, polarity said:

I tried to leave in a way for DE to get plat sales out of it, and I believe that riven mod packs could well do that, as players could get 100 plat from the sale of prime parts, and end up with a mod that may be worth a lot more (perhaps randomised stats on the mod packs would in fact be a very bad idea, because it would bring gambling into the game, due to the possibility of a 100 plat outlay potentially giving a perfect tonkor mod worth several thousand plat, or millions of kuva.  Lottery chances and levels of return are part of the current problem).

There's the possibility of getting a legendary core from Endo packs so I'd say they don't have a problem with that sort of lottery system.

[Katinka]

35 minutes ago, polarity said:

To achieve all of DE's goals,

Are you sure you are doing that?  I thought one of the goals was to bring a breath of fresh air to older, less used weapons and encourage people to give them another shot.  Hence random weapons, as otherwise people will just gravitate to the weapons they already use and the stats they already want but more of it to gain more power and push the limits further.  Instead you get random stats for a random weapon and maybe find out that you actually find weapons more comfortable with some reload speed and that you can bring your Burston Prime to the Sortie.  A part of Riven was to encourage use of different weapons and different stat boosts, which this wont do as no matter how cheap you make one theing or how expensive another people will just see it as a need to farm instead of a reason to settle for something less.

15 minutes ago, djternan said:

There's the possibility of getting a legendary core from Endo packs so I'd say they don't have a problem with that sort of lottery system.

Is there?  I know they said there would be from the Core packs that were going to come with the new Market but then they didn't actually release those Core packs because of Endo and concern regarding gambling with Pt purchased items had been expressed so I thought they scrapped the idea of a chance at Legendary Cores from Pt bought Endo bundles.

[djternan]

58 minutes ago, Katinka said:

Are you sure you are doing that?  I thought one of the goals was to bring a breath of fresh air to older, less used weapons and encourage people to give them another shot.  Hence random weapons, as otherwise people will just gravitate to the weapons they already use and the stats they already want but more of it to gain more power and push the limits further.  Instead you get random stats for a random weapon and maybe find out that you actually find weapons more comfortable with some reload speed and that you can bring your Burston Prime to the Sortie.  A part of Riven was to encourage use of different weapons and different stat boosts, which this wont do as no matter how cheap you make one theing or how expensive another people will just see it as a need to farm instead of a reason to settle for something less.

Is there?  I know they said there would be from the Core packs that were going to come with the new Market but then they didn't actually release those Core packs because of Endo and concern regarding gambling with Pt purchased items had been expressed so I thought they scrapped the idea of a chance at Legendary Cores from Pt bought Endo bundles.

I guess I'd have to look it up to know for sure.  I thought they implemented it.

[Xzorn]

This is a token system. I really don't get why Token systems are popular.

They lack any thrill of getting that special drop or even better twice in a row.

It's all measured in time no matter how you look at it.

 

[Borg1611]

I would have definitely preferred a crafting system to the RNGfest that they implemented. Unfortunately, I highly doubt they'll completely redesign the system. At best we'll just get minor tweaks to the RNG. 

4 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

This is a token system. I really don't get why Token systems are popular.

They lack any thrill of getting that special drop or even better twice in a row.

It's all measured in time no matter how you look at it.

 

In the current system there's no guarantee you'll EVER get anything you want out of it. There are just way too many combinations on top of a huge time investment to even get a base mod and the resources to try to re-roll the mod.That's why people hate excessive RNG. It's a hopeless system that tries to pressure people into just giving up and buying what they want instead of getting it by actually playing.

A crafting system like the OP proposes would offer real choices and customization so you can play your way rather than just hoping you get something for a weapon you actually want to use. I don't find RNG exciting at all. It's obnoxious and annoying. If I know what I want to get, excessive RNG is just a potentially hopeless barrier to actually getting to try the ideas I have. 

It's why in a game like PoE many people turn to trade to bypass the horrid RNG. They have builds and ideas they want to try, but normal gameplay infrequently gives you the things you want in a reasonable amount of time. In D3 when they killed trade, they ended up having to dramatically increase your chances of finding what you want to keep people interested even temporarily. People don't want to use random crap they happened to find or be forced into a build because you only happened to find items for that build. Many of them know exactly how they want to play and want to get what they need to play that way ASAP (and have something to do after they get it). 

Getting to actually control what you're getting so you can test out your own ideas and not just grind away, hoping you'll someday get to try them is 1000x better. I wish more game devs would realize that and stop forcing excessive RNG into all our games. Give people more things to do with the things they want to do them with, don't treat them like gambling addicts, dangling a carrot just out of reach. 

TLDR: There is zero excitement in the current Riven system for most people. Only sadness. Actually getting to try the things you want to try is a lot more exciting and fun than chasing infinity endlessly and hopelessly. 

[Xzorn]

12 minutes ago, Borg1611 said:

-snip-

 

You don't get anything if you don't invest the time to get it.

If you understand probabilities you'd know how ridiculous it is to try and compare the systems in terms of what you get when they're the same. One simply puts a marker out there for you instead of you doing it yourself. A Token system averages your probabilities for you, most often above what the avg of an RNG system has because they have you hooked watching a little progress bar or number going up.

What you feel and what you get are two different things. A Token system might make you feel like you're getting something but on average you're not.

The trade system in this game functions in the same way you point out for PoE, so I don't get why you compare them and Diablo3 didn't make it easier to get what you want if you actually want high end gear. They made it easier for casual players to get "good enough". Try ranking the leaderboards and you'll see how drastic the difference between high end and casual actually are. Just like Diablo3, if you want good enough in this game, use whatever you get. If you want 90% perfect rolls then get ready to spend more than a week before you see even a slight upgrade in stats. Cuz that's how Diablo3 actually works.

Riven mods aren't strong enough to "Test your ideas" either. They open build options but not ones that aren't already there to begin with. You can further specialize a weapon or bridge two builds together. You can't really make a weapon do something it can't already do with normal mods.

[Borg1611]

 

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

The trade system in this game functions in the same way you point out for PoE, so I don't get why you compare them and Diablo3 didn't make it easier to get what you want if you actually want high end gear.

My point was to demonstrate that people do not like RNG and go out of their way to get around it. Even in so called "loot-hunt" games, most people just skip the loot-hunt when possible because that's not what most people are interested in. Many of the people who don't go the trade route slam their head into the RNG wall for awhile then just quit after realizing it's hopeless. That's the entire point. Most people do not like excessive RNG. 

D3 did make it easier for you to get what you want via actually playing yourself, I didn't mean that it made it easier compared to trading for it. I also never suggested that you got perfect rolls instantly, but when you're farming paragon you eventually stumble or re-roll into higher end versions of the gear. The stat ranges aren't as crazy as they were in vanilla. Pushing high end Grifts is more about luck (easier grift) and higher paragon levels than it is a struggle to get gear. None of that is really relevant though, my point was just that people demanded other ways to mitigate RNG after trade was removed because most people do not like hopeless RNG.

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

Riven mods aren't strong enough to "Test your ideas" either. They open build options but not ones that aren't already there to begin with. You can further specialize a weapon or bridge two builds together. You can't really make a weapon do something it can't already do with normal mods.

I assume if their stated intentions are actually true and their main focus was making old weapons competitive, they'll continue iterating on the power levels so they can bring other weapons to a level that's useful in higher level missions. Otherwise they went to a lot of effort and pissed off a lot of people for no reason at all. If they don't then I can just completely ignore the system since it won't really serve much of a purpose anyway. 

They could have added much more interesting affixes or something rather than just making us chase higher numbers of multiple existing affixes while hoping you don't get a useless affix or even a negative stat roll. It reminds me of the crutch legendary crap we got in D3 where they just tossed in a bunch of items that buffed numbers and pretended that things were changing when it was really just an increase in numbers while doing the same exact things. 

If it were up to me I would have not done the Riven system at all. Buff the base weapons to make them useful/competitive with current higher end weapons and add a more interesting system that actually offers something new rather than just higher numbers. They've made it clear they're not going to abandon it though, so the only real point of my feedback in Riven threads is to let them know I'm not a fan of horrid excessive multi-layered RNG. If you're going to give me these mods I would have preferred a way to control what I get. If I'm going to stick a big stat buff onto a crap weapon, just let me pick the weapon and what stats would make it passable (if anything would). 

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by Borg1611

[Enno69]

6 hours ago, Borg1611 said:

 

If it were up to me I would have not done the Riven system at all. Buff the base weapons to make them useful/competitive with current higher end weapons and add a more interesting system that actually offers something new rather than just higher numbers. They've made it clear they're not going to abandon it though, so the only real point of my feedback in Riven threads is to let them know I'm not a fan of horrid excessive multi-layered RNG. If you're going to give me these mods I would have preferred a way to control what I get. If I'm going to stick a big stat buff onto a crap weapon, just let me pick the weapon and what stats would make it passable (if anything would). 

 

I agree. Tbh I didn't even open my first riven mod because I can't complete the aimeglide challenge, but I support your idea : wanna buff an older weapon, do it, don't wait for RNG to give you this possibility.

[Xzorn]

9 hours ago, Borg1611 said:

-snip-

Just about your entire first post was an attempt to directly compare results of one system to another when the only real difference is how you feel about them.

You use comparisons like "way too many combinations and a huge time sink", "Hopeless system"  when the fact is nothing changes except how you feel about it.

D3 GRifts only result in luck once you've hit the plateau of your gear.

Before the "fixes" you could perform very well with yellows, in fact many BiS were Yellows, this is besides the fact most players don't realize the system was skewed against you so it didn't matter how good your gear was. Now you need Ancients in every slot. Completely overpowered set bonuses allow casual players to ignore the variation in stat difference but still make them quite critical to high end players. You don't stumble onto new gear either. You straight up grind for it because you hit a wall where the only progress you can make is getting better rolls. Your gear rolls are actually MORE important once you've hit 600 Paragon and have nothing else but +stat, meaning that 0.5% CHC or 2% CHD you're missing amounts to a lot of missing damage, even the secondary resist stat makes a huge difference. Perfect rolls are amplified and become ever increasingly important the higher your paragon is,

They added Riven instead of buffing weapons to give you something to do and even when they add new weapons they don't get the stats right sometimes. So it doesn't seem like there's a 100% win either way. At least this way, there's something to do and Multi layered RNG has been in this game for a while now + wait walls. The Riven system didn't add anything new, it's just more obvious, exactly how Diablo3 has fooled you into thinking it's loot is easier when it's actually no different than it was, you might be able to enchant a stat but now you need 10% Ancient rolls, with proper stat rolls on 1 out of god knows how many scrap legendaries and sets.

[Borg1611]

3 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

Just about your entire first post was an attempt to directly compare results of one system to another when the only real difference is how you feel about them.

You use comparisons like "way too many combinations and a huge time sink", "Hopeless system"  when the fact is nothing changes except how you feel about it.

If you're suggesting a crafted/progression system is no different than the RNG cluster of fail that is the current system, I don't know what to tell you, but you're wrong. The time difference in actually getting what you want would be extreme. The current RNG system makes it perfectly possible that you will never, ever get what you want out of it. A crafted system that lets you pick and choose what you want would let you get exactly what you wanted in X amount of resources. 

The difference is much more substantial than how you feel about them. The difference is one system is a hopeless RNG failfest where you can easily perpetually fail for YEARS because of the excessive amount of RNG involved in the current Riven system and the other lets you guarantee you get exactly what you want. Sure, they could make the resource costs so extreme that it takes you years of farming to actually finish a single weapon, but people would be able to more easily see how awful and stupid that is and demand it be changed. In the current system, the lucky minority who got something useful are defending the system as fine while the other 99% of people are doing the math and wondering what on earth DE is thinking. The number of possible combinations is insanity and you hardly ever even get a chance to get another combination let alone one for a specific weapon you'd actually want to use. The system is clearly designed as a plat sink in its current format rather than a system you're meant to succeed with on your own. The current system hides the insane chances and hopes you don't realize how terrible your odds are, the crafted system would be transparent and straight-forward. 

Though, again, if it were up to me I wouldn't have done the riven system at all. They can give us more things to do AND buff the crap weapons. The thing to do doesn't have to be a super long and hopeless grind to try to make a crap weapon less awful so you can then go use it in the same things we're already doing without them. 

The only way they'll be able to salvage the RNG version without a complete re-work is by removing a lot of the terrible stat possibilities so that re-rolling into a useful combination can be done more reliably (on top of the bad luck protection they proposed for sorties). I wouldn't be surprised if it always remains awful outside of trade though. They knew exactly what they were doing. They had to have calculated the odds of getting a decent mod for a specific weapon on your own. 

Also, I've always been against the excessive time gates in this game whether it be Baro or limited time event mods or the prime vault, so it's not like I'm only opposed to awful time-gates in this system and am ignoring the others. I've posted feedback on those as well. 

[Xzorn]

22 minutes ago, Borg1611 said:

-snip-

 

You obviously don't understand the concepts involved. It will never be easier or take less avg time unless DE wants it to.

...And no, they obviously can't give us anything long term to do cuz the game turns into a salt mine over players who can't get what they want right away. They complain about extreme RNG and actually have no idea what they're talking about nor could they ever without knowing the variables involved. It's pure ignorance to try.

You can say it doesn't feel good, it's boring or you don't like it but don't go saying crap like hopeless, extreme, excessive, failfest, ect. Because simple fact. It's 8 days old and no one has the numbers or knowledge to say those things.

[Borg1611]

1 minute ago, Xzorn said:

You obviously don't understand the concepts involved. It will never be easier or take less avg time unless DE wants it to.

 

Yes, I do understand the concepts involved. What you seem to fail to recognize and that many people are not happy with the amount of time it would take to get a specific Riven mod (or unhappy about various other aspects of the system), hence dozens of threads and reddit posts letting DE know we are not happy. 

 

2 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

It's 8 days old and no one has the numbers or knowledge to say those things.

Except that you do have numbers. You have the number of weapons. You have the number of potential affixes, or at the very least a large list of potential affixes. People are already making spreadsheets. We may not know the exact weights a particular mod has at rolling stat x, y or z or the chances of getting 2 vs 3 etc. assuming all stats are not weighted equally, but we absolutely know that a mod for a given weapon currently has an enormous number of possible combinations. If stat rolls are weighted, they tend to be weighted against getting something good, which would just make it even worse. Many people are already making educated guesses at the max possible rolls for particular stats at particular dispositions, though we may not have an accurate list of the exact stat ranges for every stat yet (but we do know that for whatever reason they broke from tradition with the rest of the game and didn't make them fixed values, adding onto the possible RNG). 

It doesn't matter if it's only a week old. You can still look at the enormous number of potential combinations and say, wow, that's too many, especially when given how rare they are or were from sorties. Even if we got one guaranteed every 3 days (which their proposed improvements wouldn't even give us one that frequently), you'd still be facing extreme odds at getting one for the right weapon with the right stats. 

It's very clear that the odds at launch were extreme and horrible, we don't need to wait months to know that. It's not clear how much they'll improve them, but we're letting them know we want them to.