Riven mods: It isn't the amount of grind, but how you do it

[PerishedFraud]

TLDR Riven's are great but the way you get them is unreasonable at best and downright sadistic at worst. All of us can help by simply pointing out what's wrong instead of crying about it.

The reason riven mods are hated by the community is nothing more than RNG. The people who support rivens have more often than not failed to experience the full wrath of the faulty system.

Very few people are actually against the idea of rivens, and many agree that they bring more to the game. The mods themselves are not a bad thing.

The end results of working for a riven are wonderful, and people generally seem to support this...

...But, the way to get there is incredibly unreasonable. It is perhaps the worst-designed system in the game.

The cost of riven mods, considering how much rerolling you'd have to do, is ridiculously high if kuva intake is considered. Even with a booster, it's still ridiculously high. It's unreasonably high. Is it really reasonable to farm kuva for hours and hours and hours and hours and still potentially get nothing?

This is the other problem. The system is literally just RNG. There is no goal, there is nothing the players can do to help. The only option is to keep rolling. Maybe three times, maybe five hundred times, who knows? Of course the luckier people won't complain. Neither will those who prefer farming or buying plat, then purchasing powerful rivens. 

But what about the people with more than 100 rolls and still nothing? Where does there effort go? ...usually to the forums, where they rightfully call rivens horrible.

There have been many suggestions regarding this. A system with much higher costs where you can pick what to do, maybe? Keeping stats on rivens while you roll? Resetting the roll counter?

No matter the amount of suggestions and complains, absolutely nothing has changed so far and there is no indication that it will. 

People seem to be forgetting that DE does, in fact, listen to the playerbase. Rivens are a horrible system with a great premise. There needs to be more than a few complaint threads. Actual criticism is required, and loads of it. The community, from what I've seen, definitely wants to improve what we have, and yet interest is dying out?

The goal is perfectly clear. Farming for ages for a riven is fine, but the fact that said riven can simply refuse to be farmed indefinitely is not. We need a set goal, we need progression, not RNG.

As a side note, here's what I'd do about it: Keep the rolling. For every mod, you can manually choose the result you desire. As you roll, stats that match with the result will be kept, until you are left with what you wanted. Example: you pick status duration, reload speed and flight speed. Your roll is recoil, status chance and flight speed. The flight speed will be kept through further rolls while the other two stats will keep getting rolled, until you get your result. I'd also add an option to infuse mods with kuva to increase the stats they have to their cap, as opposed to the ludicrous, raw RNG that we have now.

Perhaps that would help? Perhaps not. Either way, please try to remember that it's us that can make a difference, by pointing out exactly what is wrong, providing positive feedback, and not simply complaining or bragging, as many seem to do.

 

Edited March 7, 2017 by BeeOverlord

[Shirafunes]

My biggest problem i never get the bloody thing all i get is lenses, i think i can retire as an tenno and live of selling lenses for the different factions.

 

RNGesus hates me apparently.

 

[PerishedFraud]

2 minutes ago, Shirafunes said:

My biggest problem i never get the bloody thing all i get is lenses, i think i can retire as an tenno and live of selling lenses for the different factions.

RNGesus hates me apparently.

At least sortie tables have, in fact, improved. With addition of Anasas and boosters and removal of 2K endo, things seem to be looking up. It's nice to see that the devs are actually paying attention to sorties, and I do hope they work more on it (forma and lesser lenses, really?)

Meanwhile, rivens haven't received a single change other than capping their cost (at what is still absurdly high).

Edited March 7, 2017 by BeeOverlord

[Shirafunes]

agreed i must say i would never pay 2000 plat for a mod. but i think it's hard to balance out since riven mods needs to be hard to get. so it feels more special to get the right Rmod with the right stats.

[Ginthus]

I can agree that there needs to be some incentive to farm kuva, atm its like you said that all your effort farming kuva just goes out the window when you reroll the riven into a useless one. There needs to something like the relic system, sure you didnt get that shiny you wanted but atleast you got something right? ie forma, dukats or potential plat from selling prime parts.

[PerishedFraud]

1 minute ago, Shirafunes said:

agreed i must say i would never pay 2000 plat for a mod. but i think it's hard to balance out since riven mods needs to be hard to get. so it feels more special to get the right Rmod with the right stats.

It does! The very focus of this is not saying rivens need less work involved, but rather a set goal. 

When some people can get the perfect riven immediately and others can work for a month and still get nothing, you know something is wrong.

A system where everyone can get a great riven with enough work is better, right?

[Shirafunes]

1 minute ago, BeeOverlord said:

It does! The very focus of this is not saying rivens need less work involved, but rather a set goal. 

When some people can get the perfect riven immediately and others can work for a month and still get nothing, you know something is wrong.

A system where everyone can get a great riven with enough work is better, right?

yeh it sounds great on paper but idk how to make it work in practise because you dont want riven mods to be just a meh thing

[MightyHatchet]

11 minutes ago, BeeOverlord said:

TLDR Riven's are great but the way you get them is unreasonable at best and downright sadistic at worst. All of us can help by simply pointing out what's wrong instead of crying about it.

The reason riven mods are being both hated and loved by the community is nothing more than RNG.

Very few people are actually against the idea of rivens, and many agree that they bring more to the game.

The end results of working for a riven are wonderful, and people generally seem to support this...

...But, the way there is incredibly unreasonable. It is perhaps the worst-designed system in the game.

The cost of riven mods, considering how much rerolling you'd have to do, is ridiculously high if kuva intake is considered. Even with a booster, it's still ridiculously high. It's unreasonably high. Is it really reasonable to farm kuva for hours and hours and hours and hours and still potentially get nothing?

This is the other problem. The system is literally just RNG. There is no goal, there is nothing the players can do to help. The only option is to keep rolling. Maybe three times, maybe five hundred times, who knows? Of course the luckier people won't complain. Neither will those who prefer farming or buying plat, then purchasing powerful rivens. 

But what about the people with more than 100 rolls and still nothing? Where does there effort go? ...usually to the forums, where they rightfully call rivens horrible.

There have been many suggestions regarding this. A system with much higher costs where you can pick what to do, maybe? Keeping stats on rivens while you roll? Resetting the roll counter?

No matter the amount of suggestions and complains, absolutely nothing has changed so far and there is no indication that it will. 

People seem to be forgetting that DE does, in fact, listen to the playerbase. Rivens are a horrible system with a great premise. There needs to be more than a few complaint threads. Actual criticism is required, and loads of it. The community, from what I've seen, definitely wants to improve what we have, and yet interest is dying out?

The goal is perfectly clear. Farming for ages for a riven is fine, but the fact that said riven can simply refuse to be farmed indefinitely is not. We need a set goal, we need progression, not RNG.

As a side note, here's what I'd do about it: Keep the rolling. For every mod, you can manually choose the result you desire. As you roll, stats that match with the result will be kept, until you are left with what you wanted. Example: you pick status duration, reload speed and flight speed. Your roll is recoil, status chance and flight speed. The flight speed will be kept through further rolls while the other two stats will keep getting rolled, until you get your result. I'd also add an option to infuse mods with kuva to increase the stats they have to their cap, as opposed to the ludicrous, raw RNG that we have now.

Perhaps that would help? Perhaps not. Either way, please try to remember that it's us that can make a difference, by pointing out exactly what is wrong, providing positive feedback, and not simply complaining or bragging, as many seem to do.

 

I have many points of disagreement with this

1. I like rivens but I don't care for RNG. You said that is why people love it, but never gave any support for that.

2. If you got nothing ood after 100 rolls, maybe you should change your standards. Are you trying to get the perfect riven?

For me rivens makes so-so weapons sortie viable and you know some weapons are fun for a variety of reasons i could be how they look or they have a cool mechanic.

But, If they can't smash a bombard's face then I ain't putting down my boltor prime or soma prime (I have rivens for both btw).

[PerishedFraud]

Just now, Shirafunes said:

yeh it sounds great on paper but idk how to make it work in practise because you dont want riven mods to be just a meh thing

Their cost still needs to be high. Only without the chance to get absolutely nothing for your work.

Many people seem to think locking stats from rolls is a great idea. This is because you'd still have to spend a large amount of time until you get your perfect combo. (roll to get 1, lock, roll to get 2, lock, etc). I myself am more a fan of larger kuva costs to directly tweak the riven. This would still involve appropriate farming but none of the rng deception.

Title of the thread says it all really, farming alot is fine, but not when you can potentially get nothing.

A great example for this is the pacifism defect. The 3rd stage involves large amounts of effort, but no RNG. It has a set goal for you to reach.

[Blade_Wolf_16]

2 minutes ago, Shirafunes said:

agreed i must say i would never pay 2000 plat for a mod. but i think it's hard to balance out since riven mods needs to be hard to get. so it feels more special to get the right Rmod with the right stats.

2k is a lot too much anyway. I've never seen anybody sell Rivens for more than 500-750 plat (for Soma, Simulor, etc.) in the trade chat. It's not logical that some Rivens are sold 1 to 3k while some are sold for less than 40 (some people coud even try to give them for free just to get rid of those).

I even saw a guy on the forum selling a Strun Riven for 2 or 2.5k, and the stats weren't even better than mine and I got it for 175 plat. 

[Shirafunes]

Just now, BeeOverlord said:

Their cost still needs to be high. Only without the chance to get absolutely nothing for your work.

Many people seem to think locking stats from rolls is a great idea. This is because you'd still have to spend a large amount of time until you get your perfect combo. (roll to get 1, lock, roll to get 2, lock, etc). I myself am more a fan of larger kuva costs to directly tweak the riven. This would still involve appropriate farming but none of the rng deception.

Title of the thread says it all really, farming alot is fine, but not when you can potentially get nothing.

A great example for this is the pacifism defect. The 3rd stage involves large amounts of effort, but no RNG. It has a set goal for you to reach.

Oh so you think like most japanese MMOs have where you like enchant a weapon to make it more powerfull but theres like 60% chance of it to fail?

[(PSN)lhbuch]

I agree with you. The system has huge amounts of grind and RNG coupled in the same process. Grinding might not be a problem if grinding means progression somehow. You play over and over but you are going somewhere. 

With rivens there are a possibility that you wil grind and grind almost forever but there is no guarantee you are going to reach an objective. This is extremely frustrating.

[PerishedFraud]

5 minutes ago, MightyHatchet said:

I have many points of disagreement with this

1. I like rivens but I don't care for RNG. You said that is why people love it, but never gave any support for that.

2. If you got nothing ood after 100 rolls, maybe you should change your standards. Are you trying to get the perfect riven?

For me rivens makes so-so weapons sortie viable and you know some weapons are fun for a variety of reasons i could be how they look or they have a cool mechanic.

But, If they can't smash a bombard's face then I ain't putting down my boltor prime or soma prime (I have rivens for both btw).

RNG is why people don't love it. It's hard to see where you got this wrong...

Now here's the thing. Everyone wants a perfect riven. What you're saying is an argument I hear quite often. But you do realize what you're really saying, right?

"Instead of trying to improve this bad system, just don't use it."

or maybe "Instead of trying to get better in this bad system, just deal with what you have?"

It's literally going against improvement. Why?

We as players shouldn't complain, but we should try to provide feedback to improve the game! 

Edited March 7, 2017 by BeeOverlord

[(PSN)drpunk-yo]

7 minutes ago, Shirafunes said:

agreed i must say i would never pay 2000 plat for a mod. but i think it's hard to balance out since riven mods needs to be hard to get. so it feels more special to get the right Rmod with the right stats.

There's hard to get and then there's hoping on RNG to get the veiled riven, hoping on RNG that the task to unveil riven isn't too bad, hoping on RNG that the unveiled riven is for a half decent weapon and then hoping on RNG to give you some decent stats.

I dunno but 2000 plat for something decent out of that RNG nightmare almost sounds cheap to me.

[PerishedFraud]

6 minutes ago, Shirafunes said:

Oh so you think like most japanese MMOs have where you like enchant a weapon to make it more powerfull but theres like 60% chance of it to fail?

Somewhat. I once played an MMO where you could upgrade weapons to 10. Weapons would get larger chances to fail upgrades or even go down levels as you reached 10, but you could get items (no money involved) to assure it would succeed. It was work but you could eliminate the RNG.

By comparison, what we have now is "keep rolling and hope you randomly hit 10, oh and the scale goes to -20 too"

Edited March 7, 2017 by BeeOverlord

[Sziklamester]

I am massively against the rivens because I see them as an overhyped overpriced and overcreeped mods which not makes real differences just boost the already good weapons.

Still think they should take consider to balancing the old content and update the out dated items and frames because the game is constant changing and not seems there is any end goal for the devs or aim to finish the game in some point.

Rng is needs for them to keep us busy and possibly make us pay for stuffs if not bear with grinding so for them is a win win situation and those whom annoyed not really annoys them. Progression would be nice but that is not the main point for them.

[PerishedFraud]

1 minute ago, Sziklamester said:

RNG is needs for them to keep us busy and possibly make us pay for stuffs if not bear with grinding so for them is a win win situation and those whom annoyed not really annoys them. Progression would be nice but that is not the main point for them.

You aren't wrong, but there's an easy solution (that was mentioned already).

Instead of a random amount of work for rivens (that is more often massive than not).

There should be a large amount of work for rivens, for everyone, without rng.

Paying 500p for a great riven? Sure, but you know the player worked for it instead of being lucky.

Getting a great riven? Shouldn't be rerolling N times, rather farming for a set amount of time (probably lenthy, but justified)

[Ghogiel]

If the system is going to change> Any mechanic that would lessen the RNG by an order of magnetude would be antithetical to rivens. So locking in or choosing a specific stat, probably will never happen. So some other ideas are needed.

Also DE doesn't change things, even if extremely egregious, if it will hurt players who have invested a lot of plat into a system or players who have farmed or put in the work. See mutagen samples and hema research, the main reasoning given as to why they didn't change it was because it would be unfair to players who had invested time already to unlock it. Same should hold true for players who invested thousands of plat and/or hours into the riven system

 

 

[IceColdHawk]

I can't really get behind the "Rivens are too much RNG so i don't like them" mentality. I wonder how these people survive warframe at the first place unless they bought their way through. They are not even necessary for anything.

I see them as surprise mods that can give joy to those who get a lucky roll. Part of that randomness is what makes every riven mod unique. If i could just pick my own stats, my rivens would end up with +dmg, +multi and -zoom all the time. That would make things too easy for what rivens are capable to do.

BUT, and here comes the but(t), farming kuva is extremely annoying. You go in, sometimes searching the whole map out for a kuva siphon and then you either ignore everything and get the clouds or you try killing guardians despite them respawning, while getting roasted by grineer. No one wants to bother with god mode and stunlocking enemies that will even respawn. On top of that, enemies spawning right in front of you. All that pain for a bit of kuva that probably doesn't even give you a good roll. 

Though, i'm sure this could partly be fixed by introducing kuva farming in endless missions with SCALING rewards that get better the higher you go. Incentivizing vets to go for long runs again and also to try out their maxed gear while also getting actually rewarded for that effort. Perhaps kuva fortress endless missions? That would make sense and incentivize people to go play there. Even though i wish to have rewarding endless missions on every map.

[Chroia]

53 minutes ago, BeeOverlord said:

The community, from what I've seen, definitely wants to improve what we have, and yet interest is dying out?

Posting/upkeep requires effort.
Effort requires motivation.
Motivation requires the belief that the effort will pay off.

Yes, DE listen to the community. And this is wonderful, when it pans out (- and expressed by outpourings of ':D' posts).
When they hear the community and act in the opposite direction than requested (and no rationale provided)? Not so wonderful.
More critically, unless there is some kind of feedback, even something as small as 'we've heard and are thinking about this (along with the sixty thousand other things on our plates currently)', the perfectly reasonable assumption is that they didn't hear. This kills the motivation to give feedback.
Counter-proof: Look at any time they explicitly ask for feedback about things, and how much of it that generates.
(Even with the 2nd Stream podcast. People who don't listen to it will (flat out say that) they're just there because there's a feedback poll.)

Given that, and the fact that - since increasing the min/max disposition coefficients of the strongest and faintest - literally nothing's been said anywhere I've seen about Rivens, beyond 'oh yeah, melee rivens coming Soon(tm)' some 3? devstreams ago.

No response -> 'Ah. So, this is set in stone, then.' -> motivation dies off -> feedback dies out.

-----

While I agree that the way Rivens are now is entirely terrible, consider 2 things:

1) It's the only truly endless grind content that exists in the game, as evidenced by 100+ roll rivens.

2) Adding any determinism to Riven mods; makes them "craftable" - which raises the expected baseline floor of stats that all players can achieve.
This will pretty much necessitate balancing the game for rivens. Consider the impact that that will have.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Chroia

[Volinus7]

Warframe players are masochists who enjoy 5-9 hours in survival and some even think that keep random roll through binomial distribution is a form of steady progression. I don't blame them for being sadistic at this point, S devs coupled with M players...

[Vox_Preliator]

7 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

I can't really get behind the "Rivens are too much RNG so i don't like them" mentality. I wonder how these people survive warframe at the first place unless they bought their way through. They are not even necessary for anything.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's the way that they embody everything I hate.  I love how one man's Serration is perfectly identical to another man's Serration.  One man's Opticor is perfectly identical to another man's Opticor.  That everything is static is one of the reasons I got into this game in the first place.  Very, very little is outside of your reach in a sensible amount of time.

Rivens are basically what drove me away from Borderlands, and what keeps me away from most MMORPGs: completely random loot.  Oh, and the random stats includes damage.  I'd be alright with rivens if they were just utility stats, but right now they suffer from the same problem the modding system does, with borderline mandatory things.  You're probably not going to use a Rifle without including Serration, why wouldn't you use a Riven that's just Serration and Split chamber in one over one that offers accuracy and mag size?

That and that it's an awful "progression" system.  Because it isn't a progression system, it's a lottery.  You might get 100% damage and multishot on your second roll, you might get minus 100% damage and multishot on your ninety-ninth roll.  I live and breath for progression, and if most of the rest of the game is comparable to a marathon, Rivens are a treadmill:  Chances are, you ain't going anywhere.

[(PSN)Loto-Drandel]

Overall, the grind for Rivens AND Kuva can be overly taxing, Kuva being the worst of the two; Rivers can take a long time at some points due to RNG; also, not having much space for Rivens (15 max WITHOUT paying platinum) can make it rough as well at some points for those who like to use various weapons; for example, I main marksman and assault rifles so I use Soma Prime, Boltor Prime, Latron Prime, Latron Wraith mostly, along with Braton Prime; for shotguns, I'll use Vaykor Hek, Boar Prime, Tigris Prime/Sancti Tigris (depending on mood), and Strun Wraith; i also main automatic sidearms, so Aksilletto Prime and Aksomatis have been my go-to, followed by Euphona Prime, Lex Prime, and potentially AKLex Prime (when it comes to PS4); I also use Synoid Simulor, and plan to use Vaykor Marelok, Telos Boltor (possibly), Telos Bolto (need rep first), and other potential weaponry that strike my interest (and maybe rekindle interest in weapons such as Brakk, AKBronco Prime, etc); so that's a lot of Riven mods to go for; and the ONLY way to get Rivens WITHOUT platinum is to farm Sorties (which you can only do once a day) so being restricted on how to acquire them is NOT really fair for those who don't do Sorties or struggle in them; 

I feel they should make them potential rewards in high tier missions as well (Level 30s or 40s missions, maybe even rewards from spy, survival, defense, etc); my opinion though

 

The Kuva costs in my eyes are WAY TOO HIGH; I farmed for 3 hours with a resource booster, acquired about 20-30 thousand kuva, all burned for re-rolling a mod 11 times to get the right stats (and still didn't get the right stats)

Edited March 7, 2017 by (PS4)Loto-Drandel

[Atekron]

33 minutes ago, Volinus7 said:

Warframe players are masochists who enjoy 5-9 hours in survival and some even think that keep random roll through binomial distribution is a form of steady progression. I don't blame them for being sadistic at this point, S devs coupled with M players...

Yep we really are, the highest score on event leader board is 12000. You need to evacuate 3000 survivors for that score. How is it even possible to do 3000?!

[(PSN)CelasVictor]

Spend Kuva to lock a stat.
Fixed.
NEXT.