The Second Stream Podcast: The War Within Reactions, New Mods, Player Feedback [Spoilers]

[[DE]Drew]

In this spoiler-heavy recording, we go over some behind-the-scenes information from DevStream 83. We also discuss initial reactions and feelings from The War Within before covering new mods and finishing with some comments on how to handle upset players. Enjoy!

Guests: 
Bwana - https://twitch.tv/Bwana
Momaw - @Momaw
StallordD - https://youtube.com/StallordD
wgrates - https://twitch.tv/wgrates

 

Also available on iTunes & Google Music!

[Bread-Bad]

What is your initial reaction to the Cycle changes for Riven mods?

I don't think I can answer this with a yes, somewhat, etc...

[Neah]

Spoiler

Yes.

Will we see Kuva actually be obtainable reliably? I don't mean nodes with good spawns and a cap, but passively just by playing normal missions.

Say the Kuva Fortress with Survival missions that grant Kuva per time survived, about 50-75 per minute? The Dev workshop that suggests Siphons appear on planets near the Fortress is nice, but right now even though the Fortress is a beautiful tileset, but doesn't serve much purpose which is a shame.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Neah

[AM-Bunny]

Congrats to @Momaw for the appearance. Nice to see a forum member there.

Edited November 21, 2016 by AM-Bunny

[Sarge_Tarmus]

Cannot you repair all the bugs, and then ask? There are still players (including me) who cannot complete TWW and even play this game, because you still did not repair whitescreening bug!

[-HAKUNA-YOUR-TATAS-]

I still feel some of the lesser used weapon's Riven mods aren't strong enough to drive us to choose them over the meta weapons.

Otherwise...  Keep up the great work.  =)

Edited November 21, 2016 by sushidubya

[trunks013]

No totaly nowhere question this time ?

[Kinetos]

Question about disposition and variants, do variants of the same weapon have their own dispositions? For example Braton and Braton Prime? Cernos and Rakta Cernos? 

[LascarCapable]

My first Riven mod was terrible, but my following Riven mods were pretty awesome. Got a Zarr Riven Mod and a Sybaris Riven mod : two weapons I really like, and the stats weren't bad at all as well. :)

About the Riven Disposition, the base idea is good in my honest opinion, though you might want to look at some values. Some weapon probably do not deserve such harsh stat reduction despite being widely used, and some probably didn't deserve any buff as well (Warframe still hides a lot of hidden gems when it comes about weaponry). Soma Prime is the first exemple that comes in my mind : while it's widely used as well as being easy to use, it tends to pack more issues than the usual "top tier weapons". Its riven mod stats were pretty severely reduced. Also, you might want to only apply the stat reductions to everything that would really add to the weapon's DPS : there's no point about nerfing an utility based riven mod giving recoil reduction or zoom for exemple.

The new reroll cost feels nice. I have nothing to add.

[Bachus]

3 minutes ago, D20 said:

The new reroll cost feels nice. I have nothing to add.

The fact that the price still rises without capping makes rerolling a grindfest royale. i think a capped price at 1000 or so maybe little bit higher would make riven rolling less of a pain.

[SilentCynic]

1. Do you like seeing being-the-scenes information on DevStreams?

Mostly yes. Granted, it's absurd to expect every last bit of information, every experiment and idea, to be shown and paraded, but DE could very much benefit from more explanation as to its motivations for certain choices and design routes. Furnishing such reasons fosters discussion and the exchange of ideas, rather than merely debating the symptoms and results. Steve's reasoning regarding Riven mods during DevStream 83 was quite welcome.

4. How would you rate your first Riven mod(s)?

Quite poor. A mediocre (at best) Torid mod, followed by two disappointing Burston mods and a Death Machine Rifle mod to round out those good vibes.

5. What is your initial reaction to adding Riven Disposition to normalize Riven power a bit better?

The initial changes are in the right direction, and the adjustments brought Riven mods closer to their intended purpose. There is, however, still a long way to go - things like "strong" disposition (thus weak/unpopular) weapons having notably stronger penalties strikes one as an odd choice, on the face of it. Furthermore, weapons might require further differentiating and passes to accurately assign dispositions (The Sybaris is currently deemed to be just as strong as the Tonkor, for instance).

Edited November 21, 2016 by SilentCynic

[Kethus]

I'd be all for showing as much behind the scenes as you can, but the answer "spill all the beans, show all the secrets" implies stuff being shown before they are shown ingame. If it's after the game then sure, show everything, I still want to see what was the original tenno concept mentioned in Devstream #4.

[Hyacinth]

For the explanations about riven. here.

Mods make weapons stronger. It shouldn't be paired with RNG. It can wither down heavy-grindy players.
Solution:
Okay, Make a riven mod somewhat RNG with 2/3/4 lines of different buff/debuff or whatever.
Then for example i get +Damage/-recoil/-ammocapacity, ill use the kuva to reroll it BUT, i can choose a stat to retain. ill pick the +damage (costs more kuva per stat you want to retain) so it will be another set of RNG to the 2
lets say it goes +damage(cuz i picked this one to retain)/+multishot/-Electric damage) so ill reroll again but this time ill pick the +damage/+multishot etc..

You get the point. It will take me long to get my perfect riven mod but still its not far from achieving. Unlike what you did now which can take forever for "unlucky" tennos. if only you know how hard we grind kuva since update and we still didn't get anything good from our hardships because of this "RNG".

That is just my suggestion and i'll just leave you guys with this.

[Sarkkhan]

My first Riven was for the Sentinel Laser Rifle and my second was for the Deth Machine Rifle which feels pretty bad.  Suggestion:  use the current reduced Kuva cost to cycle a mod for the current weapon, but allow players to use the old higher cost to get it to roll to a different weapon entirely.  Follow up Suggestion:  Instead of the Riven mods just being a block of stats, what if they were actually new abilities for the weapons.  Something to give them a new niche.  That would really differentiate game play.

[xXDeadsinxX]

I honestly don't really like the riven mod system. Damage 3.0 isn't in the works at the moment and you gave us this riven mod system which I don't like. Either buff the weapons themselves or just do damage 3.0, these are bandaid mods. 

[KingTaro]

1. Do you like seeing being-the-scenes information on DevStreams?

Yes! We need more of Sheldoning around, spill all of it! (Ok, I won't mind if you hide like 10%. A surprise here and there can be exciting)

 

 

3. Do you agree with the initial Cycle changes for Riven Mods?

I'm curious about the reset system. Each time we re-roll, are we able to choose from all the previous re-rolls or only between the new stats and the last one? Would certainly be interesting to be able to chose from all the previous rolls each time we re-roll.

 

5. What is your initial reaction to adding Riven Disposition to normalize Riven power a bit better?

It's certainly going in the right direction. However, I'm not sure if there is a noticeable difference. 
If you got a Boltor Prime with its best Riven mod vs Braton Prime with its best Riven mod, how well would Braton compare to Boltor?

Edited November 21, 2016 by KingTaro

[Kracken]

1. Do you like seeing being-the-scenes information on DevStreams?

Any information you are sharing with us is/was always fun. BUT... whats the fun when you reveal all secrets !?
you have to hide few things ;)

2. Is there a part of Warframe's development team that you'd like to see as guests more often on DevStreams? (Can choose more than one)
Animations, Q&A and concepts.

3.

Do you agree with the initial Cycle changes for Riven Mods?

Good start. RNG is still bad ...

4.

How would you rate your first Riven mod(s)?
Somewhat bad...
At first it was WOW... and then... what can i do with this thing? I got a Riven with a unrealistic/non-existent stats.

5.

What is your initial reaction to adding Riven Disposition to normalize Riven power a bit better?
currently we have 3 levels of Riven Disposition . imo we should have 5.

[Brasten]

1. Do you like seeing being-the-scenes information on DevStreams?

Here are my thoughts on the behind-the-scenes information. Story stuff you need to keep on lock down. It's part of what got The War Within into such a mess. It's going to be hard but you're going to need to start divorcing the story elements from major games systems.

It's game play impacting systems that you need to discuss with the player base before hand. Things like the Rivens. We are now 4 years into Warframes development, it is past time to really have the core systems cleaned and on lock down. Many long running "free" games don't make changes to core systems as often as you folks do. League of Legends, Defense of the Ancients, Runescape, Maplestory, Dungeons & Dragons Online... and those are just the Free ones, not even talking about WoW or EVE-Online. You also need to finish many of the side projects you've started, example of Archwing being in a deplorable state.

You need to be talking to us about where those items are in your "item tracking" process. Yes dynamic lighting is cool and all, but that's stuff you can drop on us without warning and make us go ooh and aww. Art is cool, its what we buy to play Fashion Frame, but at the end of the it is the play of the game that keeps people around. If you just want to make digital art, open a movie studio and compete with Pixar and DreamWorks.

You have a tendency, as all people working on projects do, to show off the "cool stuff" that's got your really excited at the moment. However that leads you to the No Man's Sky problem that The War Within suffered from. Too much talk about things you wanted to do, not things that were being finalized that week. Talk to us about things that are heading for the release candidate.

2. Is there a part of Warframe's development team that you'd like to see as guests more often on DevStreams?

My vote was QA. Partly because the player base often feels like we're your QA department, or at least the secondary QA. As we run our faces into all the small things internal QA end up missing (due to just the nature of complex programming). It would be good for the player base to understand that for each "bug" we find, QA is finding and crushing those really nasty "is will make your computer explode in fire" ones.

Another reason to get some QA representation on the stream is to explain to a twitchy player base why things you've talked about didn't make it out on time. Even if its just a short segment of "things QA found these last two weeks." A "best/worst QA screen shot of the Week," would likely do most of the time. Especially things related to game mechanics and interactions between systems.

3.

 

 

Do you agree with the initial Cycle changes for Riven Mods?

The reduction in the cycle costs are a start, but the uncapped scaling needs to go ASAP. When you stop and do the math on how Players can get Kuva you're asking players to commit to ever escalating time investment. And not like just the normal grind against random item distribution. You have the internal numbers to look at average play times and Kuva spawn rates, monitor Rusalka:Senda. Watch that mission node and the average play time per Kuva. Then run the math out for 10, 20, 30 rerolls on a single Riven mod. Do consider if this is an acceptable thing you're asking your veteran players to do, running a single mission, that many times, for that many hours of in-game play.

The escalating costs also work against other flaws in the Riven system: the capped number of Riven Mods, and the stat generation system. The point is to encourage long time players to keep rolling the Rivens to see what they get. An ever increasing cost discourages that and encourages players to seek only the absolute best roll of modified stats and stick with it, discarding anything that isn't optimal stat adjustments or big numbers of those stats. And I'm not just talking about larger numbers, I'm talking about the Stat line item that's being changed. In the current system even a small Base Damage increase looks better to keep than an absolutely massive +Stat Duration one, because there's no gartue you'll ever roll the +Damage again and trying to do so will have an increasing penalty of time cost.

Worse the system is still putting useless rolls, such as +Crit% and +CritDamage on a Miter, on weapons that literally cannot use them. Combined with the ever increasing Kuva Costs, its just awful design.

 As I posted before I'd much rather see other general system Resources brought in a CAPPED cost to help with modifying and cycling Riven Mods. This creates a Resource Sink, and uses the Resources as the proxy tracker of the casual "I'll eventually run across a better mod" farming style of the Pre Mods2.0-Update7 random Mods.

• Cap the Kuva Costs
• Use other Resources (Capped) as part of the Cycling process. biasing of stats, preservation of rolls, even adjustment of the weapon with enough.

5.

 

What is your initial reaction to adding Riven Disposition to normalize Riven power a bit better?

The Riven mods as present, executed, and on its current refinement just don't do what you want them to with weaker and off meta weapons. The Disposition is a good idea but executed in the wrong part of the process. This needs to be a modifier when the mod is attached to the weapon. Doing this allows you to assign very low end weapons in a Family set (example Bratons) a very high Disposition for that Riven. A Braton Riven added to a Braton MK-1 should have better stats due to Disposition than that same mod attached to a Braton Prime.

If this starts getting too complex, an alternative would be to make the Riven very weapon specific, such as MK-1 Braton Riven only be attachable to a MK-1 Braton. Then using other Star Chart Resources in a process to change the weapon. Using, for example the Construction costs of the weapon you want to change it to. Increasing the costs and/or number of steps if the weapon isn't in the same family, or is of greater "Disposition". Adjusting the Mod's weapon in this way would play into recalculating the Stats based on the Weapon its now being assigned to. Again, allowing better control over how the Rivens interact with both Top end and externally Low end weapons.

 

Edit: About *spoiler* Trade

Spoiler

The increasing costs of the Riven mods has a devaluing effect on Rivens that are not near-perfect for their weapon. The more re-rolls a Riven has the lower its value. Until it has those perfect stats.

Non-perfect Rivens with more rerolls have less value than a fresh Riven. This is another reason to cap Kuva costs.

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Brasten
A point about *spoiler* and Trade

[Roboplus]

1) If it's not a story spoiler, it'd be nice to know about.

2) No? None of the above? Which department handles gameplay balancing and mission pacing?

3-5) Rather than remove damage mods and retool all weapons to create a balanced, diverse experience, you left it to RNG and unbalanced things even more. I am still stunned.

[Cray]

2. I like the idea of seeing more from multiple departments. Sound, concept art, textures, modeling, level design, UI, coding, the works.

3. The changes are a good start, but we need more. Infinitely increasing costs are not a good idea. After a point, it'll be far easier and cheaper to get a fresh mod for that weapon and start from scratch, which really feels like a bit of a punishment. "You've had enough bad RNG, time to melt this riven down and get a new one."

 

5. While I like the idea, I'm worried about what will happen a few months down the road. What if a weapon with a strong disposition suddenly becomes part of the meta? Will everyone who invested in rivens for that weapon have to suffer a nerf just because the weapon became popular?

On a tangent, I feel like maybe rivens weren't the way to go here, that simply buffing the weaker weapons to reduce the disparity between top and bottom tier would have achieved the same effect with less salt.

Edited November 21, 2016 by DeltaPhantom

[trunks013]

Keep up the good work with the podcast ! i like that ^.^ 

[Dousei]

For the first question I actually like to no what you guys have going on but I still voted to keep it secret and safe. 

[Sannidor]

Riven mods are (still) a mistake.

Even if grinding Kuva and costs of re-roll improved, the main problems are still here:
 

- Riven mods acquisition: even if getting endo two days in a row guarantees different reward, each player can last forever in a loop: endo, endo, lens, endo, endo, catalyst...

- We can NEVER get Riven mod for the weapon we like as reward from sorties so trading is pretty much mandatory.

- Nerfs to Riven mods for top tier weapons did not hurt them that much, buffs to trash weapons don't make them useful outside of few initial planets.

- 15 mods limit seemed like anti-hoarding safety measure but it can't exist if Rivens for primaries, secondaries and even frames are introduced.

 

I remember Steve praising idea of having "stuff to do" instead of just chase for power, I remember Scott not being fond of creating a grindwall. What changed?

There are other ways of encouraging players to buy platinum. Let us get tennogen cosmetics without using Steam, stop repeating this can't be done. we're not idiots.

I wonder if your income was worth breaking Warframe even more. It's obvious you profit from purposely creating OP weapons but it does not have to be equal to abandoning existent content and hyping power creep.

If main purpose of Riven mods was to make weak weapons stronger, they obviously fail to do that but create lots of problems on top. 

[mirx]

I would like to see about the future of the Physx particles, because there is a lot of powerfull gpus that can easily handle the old physx (apex turbulences), it just need a couple of tweaks to ensure that the users will have the maximum performance posible using those effects.

I really miss those old effects, but im not saying that the particle system (Flow) is bad, just if I have to decide between Flows and Apex turbulences, the answer is obvious.

 

[Antiphoton]

2. Is there a part of Warframe's development team that you'd like to see as guests more often on DevStreams?

I would like to hear more from the people in charge of balancing / tweaking / reworking warframes. (Is that Scott's team?)