Rivens Are Not The Answer

[DSpite]

18 hours ago, Doubleplus said:

Rivens are a bad solution to underpowered weapons that do not fix them in the slightest

 

1. Random Nature

So if you want to use an underpowered weapon, you have to pray to the RNG gods you get a mod specifically for it. Then once you do, through sheer luck or trading, you now have to reroll it over. and over. and over. until you finally get good stats that weapon that arent offset by negetive stats. Stats that are usually just multishot and damage. Which brings me to the next section

2. Time Investment isn't Worth It

Not only do you have to farm kuva to roll it over and over and over again, the high capacity cost requires at least one forma. Even then, ultimately you've just spent a ton of time turning a bad weapon into a mediocre weapon, when you could've been turning a good weapon into a great weapon. Example, I love the kraken, and I recently got a riven for it. I rolled and rolled and rolled until I got what I thought was good in the form of multishot and heat damage. I then plugged into warframe builder only to discover even if formad it five times to put it and the very best mods I could get, its damage output wouldn't be up to snuff. Which again leads me to the next problem with using rivens to fix underpowered weapons

3. Disposition doesn't Actually Close the Gap Between Good and Poor weapons

Disposition sounds like a great idea in theory. Lesser used weapons get better stats, more used ones get less than great stats and things theoretically even out. In practice however, all it really does is make poor weapons lukewarm while making already good weapons reach new heights. After all multiplying 8 by 2 is more than doing 4 by 3.

4. Rivens Discourage Actual Buffs

So now we are in a position where, when DE wants to buff an underpowered weapon, they now have to take Rivens into account. Why would DE want to risk making an underpowered weapon an alright weapon without rivens and an overpowered weapon WITH them? They wont nerf the rivens people have either because people have invested in them. So in essence, rivens have now made things WORSE for underpowered weapons. 

1) Rivens don't exist to make bad weapons "the same tier" as the good ones, they exist to close the gap for people that like non-meta weapons and want to use them in higher missions then they currently go now. Under ZERO circumstances EVER should ALL weapons suddenly be able to go 2 hours into Endless, because THAT is not standard game play.

2) Then don't do it. What you seem to want is "all weapons to be able to do level 100+ enemies" EASILY. Not happening, because level 100 enemies are again, NOT standard game play,

3) Since nothing in this game is set in stone, DE can alter "disposition" values whenever they want, so your statement makes zero sense, anyway, and once again, your idea of bad seems to be "can't kill level 100 Bombards in seconds", which I have to assume, since you keep giving ZERO indication of what is "high level" and I can already take a normal Braton to 60+.

4) Not all weapons should be equal, and not all weapons should be allowed to be made equal. Normal mods are more then enough for Star Chart use and Level 60+ enemies. Rivens just make that number go even higher. Since we only face higher levels then those in high wave Endless, I still fail to see why DE needs to make a starter weapon be able to compete with a Syndicate locked, MR12 weapon just because you want them to.

[redeyedtreefrog]

Gonna throw in my two cents here:

Do rivens solve the fact that some weapons are incredibly underpowered? yes.

Do rivens allow ANY weapon to be viable? No. (Example: seer. lato.)

Are rivens the embodiment of ultimate power creep? Yes.

All told, I can't say I agree with rivens. They're also incredibly expensive, but to me, there's only a select few weapons which I like enough that I would actually consider buying a riven for them (I bought a riven for sobek, and don't regret it, and I'd definitely consider buying a riven for javlok or twin rogga, or lesion/serro if/when melee rivens come out). So in the end, there's only a few rivens which I'd actually be inclined to spend insane amounts of platinum/kuva on for a "perfect roll". My main gripes about rivens are that the only way to get them outside trading is completely random, and that you can still get rivens for weapons such as the tigris, tonkor, dread, etc. These weapons don't NEED rivens. But for rivens to exist, they'd need to exist for all weapons (otherwise where would you draw the line?). the fact that you can get a riven for tigris that ekes a bit of extra damage out of it if you put it in as a replacement for a 60/60 status mod is kind of disappointing, because it means that there are some people who, realistically, you will never be as powerful as. Power Creep at its most obvious.

Anyways, on to what a lot of people dislike about rivens: on some weapons, no amount of rivens can resurrect them from the grave of comparative uselessness. Again, I mentioned the seer and lato as prime examples. First, it should be noted that both of those can be obtained very early (lato is a starter weapon, and seer drops from vor). Second, in a PvE game like this, with a fairly linear progression chart, it should be expected(and the traditional game framework requires) that bad items exist. It gives you something to work towards. If you're handed the most powerful weapons (or weapons on par with other top-tier ones) at the start of the game, it doesn't give you a clear goal on what to do. Do I like and/or agree with power creep? No. Of course I want my sobek to be viable forever, because I love it to death. But a degree of power-creep is necessary for almost any game to function.

tl;dr: rivens are a bit of a hit-and-miss system that is pretty fun, has some flaws, but also some features the devs probably put in on purpose, but are perceived as flaws by players.

EDIT: in reply to number four: DE has stated that rivens WILL be adjusted based on weapons; in essence, they've stated that if a weapon gets buffed or nerfed, rivens will be adjusted accordingly.

Edited June 7, 2017 by redeyedtreefrog

[Eric1738]

I personally think Riven is an OK solution, the biggest problem is how much grind it requires(RNG is fine IMO, ya call me heretic.). It really feels like how I farmed fusion cores back in 2013. Over time, it becomes easier and easier to get those cores. As long as DE gradually makes Kuva farming more diverse and easier, I incline to say Riven is fine.

[UltimateGrr]

Total weapon parity will never happen.  It can't happen, actually, or the game will die.  Imagine if every Branton Mk1 was as competitive as a Soma Prime, if every Sobek was as viable as Tigris Prime.  Would you bother going through the effort of collecting the parts and crafting the Primes if the guns we handed you in the first 20 minutes of gameplay were just as viable as the guns you spent a week grinding relics and parts for?

Only if you really liked the looks, since cosmetics would be the only reason to even bother.  It's not like they'd influence your game play at all.

So if weak weapons have to stay weak to encourage players to get successively stronger weapons, how do you bring weapons like the Stradavar, which have unique character, and make them competitive in higher play with out breaking the flow of weapon progression?

19 hours ago, Doubleplus said:

So now we are in a position where, when DE wants to buff an underpowered weapon, they now have to take Rivens into account. Why would DE want to risk making an underpowered weapon an alright weapon without rivens and an overpowered weapon WITH them? They wont nerf the rivens people have either because people have invested in them. So in essence, rivens have now made things WORSE for underpowered weapons. 

Rivens aren't factored in to game balance at all.  Rivens are only balanced against other Rivens, because the random nature of the stats makes it impossible for DE to plan anything resembling balance around them, and the system as a whole is largely self balancing around the current meta.  DE can safely buff weaker weapons if they want, because once that weapon becomes popular the Riven system will drop the Disposition of the weapon, and weaken all new Rivens entering the system.  It's just the more weak weapons you buff, the less incentive players have to get new stuff beyond MR fodder, which harms player retention.

[(PSN)AtomicEyekon]

The 1BIG thing that bothers me with the  Riven  system is when you go to roll the Riven it's pure 100% nonnegotiable slot machine you have absolutely no control whatsoever what happens to your mod you have the choice of either keeping your mod or getting the new mod oooooooo -_- but wait what if there is one good stats I want to keep on my old mod.is there nothing whatsoever I can do to keep that one stat( the answer is no) so I guess I will potentially waste this nice Riven and kuva to keep rolling and rolling in hopes to get something good because that's reassuring and what we all want

[Guest]

21 hours ago, JSharpie said:

Rivens weren't really just for buffing old weapons. They're something to work towards now in a game where many of us have completed everything. Also, it sounds like you want Rivens removed, which won't happen. So what exactly are you suggesting?

Looking forward to a riven is like looking forward to winning the lottery...  Chances are slim to none that you're actually gonna get what you want in the long run.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, (PS4)AtomicEyekon said:

The 1BIG thing that bothers me with the  Riven  system is when you go to roll the Riven it's pure 100% nonnegotiable slot machine you have absolutely no control whatsoever what happens to your mod you have the choice of either keeping your mod or getting the new mod oooooooo -_- but wait what if there is one good stats I want to keep on my old mod.is there nothing whatsoever I can do to keep that one stat( the answer is no) so I guess I will potentially waste this nice Riven and kuva to keep rolling and rolling in hopes to get something good because that's reassuring and what we all want

There's a key difference between rivens and slot machines though.  While rivens are completely random every single time, regardless of how many times they're rolled or the results of those prior rolls, slot machines are programmed to pay out a jackpot every so often, with the chances going up after a certain period of not winning.

[ScribbleClash]

3 hours ago, DSpite said:

1) Rivens don't exist to make bad weapons "the same tier" as the good ones, they exist to close the gap for people that like non-meta weapons and want to use them in higher missions then they currently go now. Under ZERO circumstances EVER should ALL weapons suddenly be able to go 2 hours into Endless, because THAT is not standard game play.

2) Then don't do it. What you seem to want is "all weapons to be able to do level 100+ enemies" EASILY. Not happening, because level 100 enemies are again, NOT standard game play,

3) Since nothing in this game is set in stone, DE can alter "disposition" values whenever they want, so your statement makes zero sense, anyway, and once again, your idea of bad seems to be "can't kill level 100 Bombards in seconds", which I have to assume, since you keep giving ZERO indication of what is "high level" and I can already take a normal Braton to 60+.

4) Not all weapons should be equal, and not all weapons should be allowed to be made equal. Normal mods are more then enough for Star Chart use and Level 60+ enemies. Rivens just make that number go even higher. Since we only face higher levels then those in high wave Endless, I still fail to see why DE needs to make a starter weapon be able to compete with a Syndicate locked, MR12 weapon just because you want them to.

You toss away the simple implication that has been made: Rivens will lead to less re-balancing or a halt of such for weapons.
I also do wonder, who defines standard gameplay? Is it you? Where do you get that this is standard? And what gives you the idea that it should never change? (This in relation to 1 and 2, also a pointer to 3, as you technically debunk yourself there by saying "nothing is set in stone")

All weapons should be able to compete on the same level, given they've had appropriate time-investments. MR-locked weapons do this by the requirement of grinding weapons. Lower MR could easily do this through rivens or a different system.

The issue is overall performance should be likewise for two weapons on different dispositions when using their Rivens at best capacity.

Style, variety, fashion or just the simple affection to a certain weapon should be reason enough to make weapons roughly the same in performance.

 

I am not saying we should have all weapons be the same in performance by default. To actually get the most out of the "content" of weapons, the option to improve lower weapons could be tied to your MR or another/an additional mechanic. In essence, my idea would be that you can invest time on the weapons you like after your reach a certain point, making currently powerful weapons better from the get-go, but additional time invested evens it out eventually.

Rivens in my opinion were a huge letdown. They should not have been stats in my opinion, but rather something like augments currently are.

-edit-

Also: Rivens slow down or even stop the progress of Damage 3.0

Edited June 7, 2017 by ScribbleClash

[mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa]

20 hours ago, rapt0rman said:

Y'know you can trade rivens right? And I'm not even talking about plat, people are totally willing to trade around rivens for low tier underused weapons. Spectra rivens for kraken rivens, and so forth. It's not like they're some god-tier meta weapon rivens that they'll only part with for thousands of plat.

Also your entire argument is based on the assumption that everyone has an identical mindset to you and plays warframe as some sort of efficiency simulator, and only uses soma prime because blah blah blah efficiency blah blah.

I like the spectra, I like the kraken, gorgon, karak, ogris, dera, ect. And I have rivens for many of them, either with a little luck or through some normal, civilized trading.

"Yada yada efficiency simulator yada yada."

I guess you don't care why people are using soma. You're right: the better way to argue about something is not to care about other people's opinion and create strawmans after strawmans.

The soma (and the prime version) has high precision, no recoil, and a smooth noise. And it makes enough damages to kill enemies. This makes it the most pleasant riffle to use, full period. Can a riven change the noise of my telos boltor? Can a riven prevents my screen from trembling  when I use a gorgon? And even if such a riven exists, why should I care since I already have a soma prime? Why should I spend real money on a -recoil gorgon riven when I can just take my soma?

OK, so I'm using soma because  "I play warframe as some sort of efficiency simulator". Thanks, you opened my eyes. I'll immediately stop using my soma, i'll use some unpleasant noisy crap instead and I'll try to see the game through a trembling screen. No doubt this will be awesome. Now let's talk about shotguns. What are the meta-shotguns again? Oh yes, tigris prime and, to a lesser extend, strun wraith. I can't stand any of those two weapons; probably I'd like both with enough +reload speed, but right now I don't touch those shotguns. I use sobek, kohm, and drakgoon instead, like any person who "play warframe as some sort of efficiency simulator" (sobek is so awesome, no one uses it because it's like cheating). And the fact stand, getting a usable riven for sobek is as hard as getting a +reload speed riven for tigris. I don't have any of those anyway, instead I have rivens for useless junk I'll never use or craft again like single viper or talon or penta ("Penta is awesome!"... Oh wait, I can't stand this weapon, there's no way I'll reroll my riven to make it usable, there's no way I'll use a penta again even with a god riven).

I could spend real money to get a sobek riven. Wait, no, I won't do that because it isn't worth it. Even If I was willing to do that, it wouldn't make the sobek more used since i'm already using a sobek instead of a tigris prime. I was responding to someone talking about the effect of rivens on underused weapons, this is why I didn't take trading into account.

You get at most 6 riven per month, there are 300+ weapons and a normal player uses less than 30, and most of the riven aren't usable anyway. Hence you'll never see a usable riven for an underused weapon you like. Full. Period. Trading for riven won't change anything about underused weapons, since no one will ever buy a riven for a weapon he's not already using.

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa

[Mudfam]

55 minutes ago, mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa said:

 Trading for riven won't change anything about underused weapons, since no one will ever buy a riven for a weapon he's not already using.

You make some good points, and maybe I'm misunderstading you here, but I have to strongly disagree with this particular statement. For me that's exactly what rivens do, or rather would do if they're weren't just an exercise in extreme player cruelty.

I tried to use rivens for what they were supposedly intended, to fix flaws in weapons that I wouldn't otherwise use. Long reload times, high recoil, poor damage etc.

Yes, I traded for these rivens. I utterly despise trading, but I see it as necessary evil. I got everything else through playing, but consider that for a newer player half the frames are vaulted and only acquirable through trading.

Ultimately though your point still stands. I have over 50 rivens and many more I've gotten rid of, I've invested literally thousands of rolls into them and never got anything actually worth using. I have 2 rivens that I actually use, I bought both of them and they're both for weapons in the current meta. Those underused weapons I hoped to use are still gathering dust.

This is the most unrewarding and frustrating system I've ever encountered by far in my many years of gaming. It just transforms the current lack of balance in weapons in to an even greater lack of balance, now as endless grinding for a lottery with impossible odds and a marginalising trading meta.

Rivens could accomplish what they're supposed to, and add a tonne of value of the game, with just some simple tweaks and above all a fix for the completely atrocious unchecked RNG, which currently only highlights existing problems. There's a total lack of intentional design here, making the most prominent "end game" feature we have something you either happily abuse or get completely shafted by.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Mudfam

[rapt0rman]

3 hours ago, mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa said:

"Yada yada efficiency simulator yada yada."

I guess you don't care why people are using soma. You're right: the better way to argue about something is not to care about other people's opinion and create strawmans after strawmans.

The soma (and the prime version) has high precision, no recoil, and a smooth noise. And it makes enough damages to kill enemies. This makes it the most pleasant riffle to use, full period. Can a riven change the noise of my telos boltor? Can a riven prevents my screen from trembling  when I use a gorgon? And even if such a riven exists, why should I care since I already have a soma prime? Why should I spend real money on a -recoil gorgon riven when I can just take my soma?

OK, so I'm using soma because  "I play warframe as some sort of efficiency simulator". Thanks, you opened my eyes. I'll immediately stop using my soma, i'll use some unpleasant noisy crap instead and I'll try to see the game through a trembling screen. No doubt this will be awesome. Now let's talk about shotguns. What are the meta-shotguns again? Oh yes, tigris prime and, to a lesser extend, strun wraith. I can't stand any of those two weapons; probably I'd like both with enough +reload speed, but right now I don't touch those shotguns. I use sobek, kohm, and drakgoon instead, like any person who "play warframe as some sort of efficiency simulator" (sobek is so awesome, no one uses it because it's like cheating). And the fact stand, getting a usable riven for sobek is as hard as getting a +reload speed riven for tigris. I don't have any of those anyway, instead I have rivens for useless junk I'll never use or craft again like single viper or talon or penta ("Penta is awesome!"... Oh wait, I can't stand this weapon, there's no way I'll reroll my riven to make it usable, there's no way I'll use a penta again even with a god riven).

I could spend real money to get a sobek riven. Wait, no, I won't do that because it isn't worth it. Even If I was willing to do that, it wouldn't make the sobek more used since i'm already using a sobek instead of a tigris prime. I was responding to someone talking about the effect of rivens on underused weapons, this is why I didn't take trading into account.

You get at most 6 riven per month, there are 300+ weapons and a normal player uses less than 30, and most of the riven aren't usable anyway. Hence you'll never see a usable riven for an underused weapon you like. Full. Period. Trading for riven won't change anything about underused weapons, since no one will ever buy a riven for a weapon he's not already using.

 

Except no, none of this changes anything. Once again, your premise only works if everyone has the same mindset as you... which we don't. People like different things, it's ok.

And by that same logic I have no intention of telling you not to play how you like. You're 100% perfectly allowed to use soma prime as much as you want, I genuinely don't care. You're allowed to not like anything else as much as you want, I don't care.

Meanwhile rivens will still exist, and will still be extremely useful for the people that do like to use other weapons.

The point I'm trying to make is the reasons you don't like rivens aren't inherently wrong, but they have nothing to do with anyone else. It doesn't matter how many "full periods" you add after opinions.

Edited June 7, 2017 by rapt0rman

[mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa]

1 hour ago, rapt0rman said:

Except no, none of this changes anything. Once again, your premise only works if everyone has the same mindset as you... which we don't. People like different things, it's ok.

And by that same logic I have no intention of telling you not to play how you like. You're 100% perfectly allowed to use soma prime as much as you want, I genuinely don't care. You're allowed to not like anything else as much as you want, I don't care.

Meanwhile rivens will still exist, and will still be extremely useful for the people that do like to use other weapons.

The point I'm trying to make is the reasons you don't like rivens aren't inherently wrong, but they have nothing to do with anyone else. It doesn't matter how many "full periods" you add after opinions.

For the record, this is the sentence I was answering: "so, the purpose of Rivens is to incite players to use various mid-tier weapons because they got a Riven on it instead of playing the meta-weapons".

I doesn't work. This is not my opinion, this is a cold fact. How many weapon had an average riven disposition six month ago, and now have a strong disposition? The answer is "0". Because player don't use midtier weapons more with rivens. The only changes in dispositions (if there are any) are due to the nerfs/buffs. This is not a matter of my mindset vs your mindset, and even if it was, your mindset is the minority. Players aren't playing mid-tier weapon more thanks to rivens, this means the incentive to play mid-tier weapon isn't strong enough.

You may either assume the system is working perfectly, either try to understand why it doesn't work. Without randomly throwing "you play warframe as an efficiency simulator".

 

3 hours ago, Mudfam said:

Yes, I traded for these rivens. I utterly despise trading, but I see it as necessary evil. I got everything else through playing, but consider that for a newer player half the frames are vaulted and only acquirable through trading.

I have no probem with trade. Actually, I think abysmal drop chances are OK, if they are complemented by a good trading system; the idea being: you're not supposed to do everything by yourself, this is why trading exists. Maybe you won't loot the thing you want, but you'll drop something, and you'll be able to exchange this something with what you want. And the abysmal drop chances give a sense of rarity to some items, and make the moment you get a rare drop awesome and unique.

Riven don't have an abysmal drop chance per se, but there's rng inside rng; in the end, the chances of getting a riven you're actualy willing to use are abysmal.

What's missing in warframe is, you guessed it, a good trading system. Lurk at the trade chan, check if you have the thing someone need, contact the buyer, invite... At least 10 minutes, and you get maybe 50-100 plat. Less than 3-6 euros (1-2 euros if you take discounts into account). This isn't worth my time. I'd rather spend those 10 minutes in a mission, or do something else than warframe. It's a shame, since really like fissures and I have all the prime parts you may want, but those prime parts will never go on the market and will never be used by someone who actually needs it (this is why trading exist in the first place, because different people like to do different things).

It's more or less the same when you buy riven: you spend 10 minutes and a few euros, you get a riven for your midtier weapon of choice... and in the end it isn't better than your meta-weapon. And you could have spend those 10 minutes having fun in a mission with your meta-weapon. (or you can buy a riven for your meta-weapon and pay the price of a whole video game... lol, no).

 

In the end, I have only 1 riven I actually use. It's a zhuge riven, +heat +cold -damage to infested. Maybe I have no idea how to build a zhuge, but it isn't as efficient as my soma. The zhuge is silent, I use it in spy missions with Ivara, so there's that: it's not completely useless. I suspect heat/cold isn't very good on zhuge (zhuge is a status weapon, so you have to add elemental damages in the form of 60/60 mods anyway), but I won't reroll it anymore; I'm keeping my kuva for the case I loot a riven for a weapon I actually use. I have other rivens for weapons I may "potatoe" and use someday; nothing good enough to make me spend a potatoe right now. I have seen enough rivens and rerolls to know most of them aren't as good as Acid Shell or any weapon-specific mod (and none of the riven changes the gameplay of the weapon). At first I was excited with the rivens, now it's just "meh, Yet Another Skinner Box, whatever. With a drop chance so low, obviously I'm not part of the target audience - i can't make 10 reroll/day".

This is how the riven system works for most people, this is why unused weapon don't see more use even with riven.

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa

[Liminal]

Yeah, Rivens should have never existed. But they do now, and they won't ever be removed.

What was the proper solution? A thorough rebalance of every single weapon. But alas, that was too much work.

So we're stuck with this system that "won't ever be used for balance" despite it being the only thing that can (if you're incredibly lucky) make certain guns viable.

Sadly I don't think you can even modify what stats Rivens affect now simply because of the huge backlash they'd get.

[rapt0rman]

@mplokijuhygtfrdeszqa

Well as far as I can tell, NO dispositions have been altered due to a change in usage yet, so that isn't a reliable metric. There have been a few changes, but mainly brand new weapons with dispositions way stronger then they should have been have been nerfed, euphona prime and aklex prime for example (because meta weapons with strong dispositions are problems that actually need to be culled, as opposed to nerfing rivens for underdog weapons just because they got a little bit more use, which wouldn't actually be helpful at all)

And of course the system isn't working perfectly, I'll gladly take any quality of life upgrades they decide to give to rivens to make them work better. But it's not that rivens can't solve the problems the "majority" have with non-meta weapons, it's that NOTHING can solve those problems short of making every weapon into the soma prime... or I don't know deleting every weapon that isn't the soma prime? Either way, meta is and always will be a problem of mindset, and I'll gladly be part of the minority.

Edited June 7, 2017 by rapt0rman

[Iccotak]

In my opinion, Rivens are just a way to push the numbers in the game. I don't use them because I don't play to level 100+ enemies.
There is no real end game so I focus on the current parts of the game that matter.
I play the game because I see the potential it has but I understand that it is a work in progress.
My concerns are for aspects of the game such as;  
-Enemy variety to increase combat variety 
-Tile set designs
-Boss fights 
-NPCs
-Story (Main, Side quests, etc.)

I am looking at the meat and bones of the game.

[(PSN)fullblast35]

I have nothing against any opinion, i just have something against opinions about something being bad and no recommendation or alternative.

[(PSN)AllOrNothinDays]

Rivens were just a way to get plat thrown around but the burnout it encourages will ruin DE in the end.