Riven: Defeating the point

[tinyranitar]

When I first heard about Riven mod after a long hiatus (wasn't there when Riven was introduced), I thought it would be fantastic mechanic of game balancing itself. 

Strong weapons when used a lot > weaker rivens
Weak weapons when used a lot > much stronger rivens

What if the weapon is not underpowered but just not popular? Once it's used enough time due to popularity because of its busted Riven, it'd gain popularity and get a lower disposition and balance itself out. Eventually, most weapons will have similar roof no matter where their floor is. 

However, it's only the case for a first time. If I get this correct from my researches, DE has only rebalance Disposition ONCE. This left weapons like the Tiberon Prime which was good on its own, or Kohm and Sicarus or even to an extent, Lanka to get ridiculously strong Rivens and get away with it because the balancing is not in effect. I understand that it might enrage people who spent tens of thousands plat on their Rivens, but that's on them because EULA said contents can be changed without prior notice, AND we were given the information that Rivens can be changed anyway. 

As of now I feel like something that was supposed to balance the game, broke the game even more kinda defeat the purpose (insert "you were supposed to defeat the dark side, not join them" meme here). I know it's too much to ask for an immediate fix, but can we have more regular disposition update?

[(XBOX)AbroadGem64683]

Same

DE used it as a way to balance weapons automatically

What they don't realize is that strong weapons still have good rivens

And  mr 5 weapons (kohm) end up being the strongest,

no balance , just slightly more controlled chaos

[Firetempest]

DE has mentioned (it was either in a dev stream or some dev tweet I cant remember) that the Disposition balancing had gone on too long without updates. And to expect possible changes in the future. So its a big case of the Soon™

[tinyranitar]

3 minutes ago, Firetempest said:

So its a big case of the Soon™

It's always a big case of SoonTM

[Cazzzz]

Although I do agree that disposition needs some fixes, there are many reasons DE has put it off.

I do agree that some weapons already possess a lot of power (especially post-rebalance), but as a clannie of mine has put it "Rivens can make any weapon good, and any good weapon better." For starchart-level missions, it's more than possible to run whatever you like just for the fun of it. It only matters when it comes to things such as late-game sortie, or Eidolons (Which only hold a sniper meta due to minimal falloff and point targeting).

Additionally, some weapons have only gained meta and popularity due to the rivens themselves. This is also apparent in the Sniper case, where Lanka and such weapons clock 1k+ on the market, but that's only because they show the most benefit from a riven vs. without.

Another factor is the changing meta and gameplay mechanics. Snipers relative to Eidolons, but another case of this was the Scoliac meta pre-melee nerfs. As the game changes so will the unpopular weapon choices. This usually follows with Prime releases as well. It's hard to manage the disposition of a weapon that underperforms in a non-Prime variant, but is buffed in a prime variant. The power spike from the riven remains constant, but becomes more apparent due to bigger numbers. People only notice a superb weapon if they see it in action, and a new prime always brings a light to a weapon that didn't have it before. My Fang Prime outperform most of my other melee weapons due to a riven, a build I got help testing, and a playstyle built around them. VERY few weapons are just "Unusable", with or without rivens. 

As it is, I would anticipate a rebalance on disposition eventually, because a changing meta demands new stat bolsters, but DE has made pretty clear they have a lot more going on in the balancing world to focus on. If they continue to do rebalancing, or reworks (as they intend to for melee) it's a waste to bother changing it now if they are going to need to reconsider everything a second time shortly after.

Tl;dr, riven disp needs changes, but if you are worried about weapon power so much, I'd keep an eye on DE's plans for reworking the whole systems, and not just the disposition, because neither are quick fixes and a lot has to be taken into account. It's why they released rifle rivens by themselves to test the system before letting other weapons have them.

[Chewarette]

Rivens should have never been a straight increase of weapons stats, that's all.

They are not manageable as they are today. Their purpose is failed : Godlike weapons have S#&$ty rivens, tier 2 weapons (aka already really good weapons) have great rivens, trash tier weapons have god tier rivens but they'll never surpass tier-2 (because that 5% crit 5% status will still suck even with +400% increase).

Rivens should have been something entirely different. Rivens bonuses should have been additive instead of multiplicative and with predefined sets, this way you could have changed a status weapon to a crit weapon. A high-rate/low-damage weapon to a low-rate/high-damage weapon. Whatever.

But I agree with the post, the Disposition should be adjusted very often. Like, monthly. I don't think that would work fine though, because anyway, people will use weapons not based on their intrinsic power-level, but based on their Rivens (a huge chunk of the playerbase will consider a weapon "unplayable" if they don't have a Riven for it). You can't balance Rivens based on Rivens influence on the playerbase, that's an infinite loop.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Chewarette

[tinyranitar]

9 minutes ago, Cazzzz said:

Additionally, some weapons have only gained meta and popularity due to the rivens themselves. This is also apparent in the Sniper case, where Lanka and such weapons clock 1k+ on the market, but that's only because they show the most benefit from a riven vs. without.

That's exactly the intended point, making mediocre weapon good. It's just very poorly executed

[ShortCat]

15 minutes ago, tinyranitar said:

That's exactly the intended point, making mediocre weapon good. It's just very poorly executed

This was never the intended point of Rivens. It waws a cover up excuse for infinite slot machine or a carrot on a stick, thus Rivens could never achieve those goals. I will shamelessly plug in my comment from the DevWorkshop thread at the tmie Rivens went life. Most of my concerns became reality.

On 2016-11-15 at 1:36 PM, ShortCat said:

This system does not allow creative builds, though. Currently, Riven mods are not more than stat stacking. They don't allow new or creativ builds, they just push weapons further in what they already can do. Riven mods do not allow non status weapon to become such. However, it highly favors semi-crit weapons with additional crit chance, and crit is the current meta.

As I understand it: top tier weapons will get small buffs; trash tier weapons will get strong buffs. This means all weapons with Riven mods will operate around some kind of benchmark. I see several tremendous issues with that:

• How will you decide what is a strong weapon and what not, as well as how corresponding stats should look like? Will you do it manually, or with some algorithms? This requires steady monitoring and adjustments, just like Warframe before Riven mods.
• What happens if a weapon falls through this net? When will you react and revisit it? This is the same situation current arsenal is in right now, due to lack of balance measures.
• How are we supposed to give feedback to any weapon, if any drawback or short comming can be ironed out by a Riven mod? Obviously you cannot fix bad base stats right now, but this is a direct feedback loop to simple stat stacking and build limitations Riven mods still provide.
• If any weapon will have a potential to be top tier, the current situation, where a player with one such weapon can suck all the fun out of a game will not change. Now we just add Braton to S.Simulor or Tonkor. ( I am exaggerating here, but the direction is still the same)

Honestly, I do not see you achieving this goal. "Riven mods ecosystem" requires the same amount of monitoring and adjustments Warframe's arsenal needed before. Now, the complexity will be doubled. And even if you should succeed, is the ammount of work required not the same it would take to just revisit what Warframe currently has? The only difference would be, that the whole arsenal would be a valid choice, not selected 15 weapons at a certain time.

 

[tinyranitar]

1 minute ago, ShortCat said:

This was never the intended point of Rivens. It waws a cover up excuse for infinite slot machine or a carrot on a stick

As of now it's a carrot on a stick, but at its ideal it's meant to rebalance the game

[RX-3DR]

I think basing Rivens off popularity was always a terrible idea just because the entire dynamic can be changed from a single mod being added to the game.

With the new MR tier system that they did with the weapon rebalancing a few months back, they should adjust the Riven system to primarily scale off the MR Requirement of the weapons rather than a relatively arbitrary rate that pays no consideration to how the weapon actually performs. It is quite ridiculous that weapons on the same MR can have extremely wildly variable Disposition when they are adjusted to be within the same range of DPS and functionality. There are even some low MR weapons that have ridiculously low Dispositions like the Hikou Prime, placing it in a deeper pit than it already was in with weaker stats.

If they don't try to push away from this loop, they would have to constantly rebalance Riven dispositions to ensure that new weapons aren't going to end up having an extremely strong base combined with a ridiculously high Disposition. That would be pretty frustrating for both their end and ours since it is going to be a Disposition Rollercoaster for a few months each time something affects the popularity of weapons.

[ShortCat]

7 minutes ago, tinyranitar said:

As of now it's a carrot on a stick, but at its ideal it's meant to rebalance the game

Base stats and how current modding system expands them are to blame. There is no mod that adds 15% base status, thus there is no such Riven as well. DE neglected its mod system long time ago, with a propper adjustments it could bring much needed diversity. Hence, Rivens could never rebalance the game due to how stats on those mods work.

[Midrib]

Yeah I don't think the Riven disposition being changed is going to shape out like what most people expect it to.

Balance is important, there's no doubt about that, But Weapon balance in this game has always been inconsistent and broken since i could remember, be it the Acrid or the Boltor Prime days or even the Synoid Gammacor. 

So really it isn't an issue that was brought on by Rivens, its always been there. So even if Disposition is changed, its not going to rebalance the game, that gap will always remain because a Lanka will beat out most weapons out there regardless if its riven modded or not, because that's how ridiculous the power gap is.

Not to mention the negatives it brings a long. It discourages investing in the system due to how inconsistent it'll become. and I'm not even talking about Market investment in this situation, just normal Player time investment into the system.

Why would I invest in an Azima Riven and put my time and effort into farming ridiculous amounts of Kuva to roll it if one day it becomes Flavor of the month and my investment loses value. While Yes, the hype will die down after a while, the weapon will still have accumulated a larger and more dedicated following, so it will always be at a low value just because the weapon is popular regardless of the reason why it is that popular. 

Which is what happened to weapons like the Ack & Brunt, Sonicor, Staticor, Akbolto, Jat kittag, Venka and what will happen to a lot of weapons just because they have a following, not because they are too strong, but because they are fun. that's the main issue when you start balancing around popularity and not actual power.

It's one of those situations where there is a lot to lose for DE and not much to gain.

You could lose potential revenue from the system.

You could ruin a system that a lot of people enjoy playing with.

You could lose the trust of a lot of customers. DE's lack of stance on the disposition aspect of the Riven system gave off the impression that it is safe to invest into popular weapons. Similar to the Chroma situation but a lot bigger because of how the system functions. There's over 40k possible combinations when it comes to Rivens, so getting a riven mod that you want is like Winning the lottery, undermining something this rare by making it affected by the general public's behaviour is a big no no in my opinion.

All that just for an attempt at making the game balanced, which won't work because the issue with balance is so much bigger than the stats on your gun. The game's combat system itself is inherently flawed.

[send_Nidus_pls]

vor 52 Minuten schrieb ShortCat:

Base stats and how current modding system expands them are to blame. There is no mod that adds 15% base status, thus there is no such Riven as well. DE neglected its mod system long time ago, with a propper adjustments it could bring much needed diversity. Hence, Rivens could never rebalance the game due to how stats on those mods work.

aren't there some augments doing this? maybe this stat could be added to the slotmachine? ^^

[tinyranitar]

1 minute ago, Midrib said:

Yeah I don't think the Riven disposition being changed is going to shape out like what most people expect it to.

Balance is important, there's no doubt about that, But Weapon balance in this game has always been inconsistent and broken since i could remember, be it the Acrid or the Boltor Prime days or even the Synoid Gammacor. 

So really it isn't an issue that was brought on by Rivens, its always been there. So even if Disposition is changed, its not going to rebalance the game, that gap will always remain because a Lanka will beat out most weapons out there regardless if its riven modded or not, because that's how ridiculous the power gap is.

Not to mention the negatives it brings a long. It discourages investing in the system due to how inconsistent it'll become. and I'm not even talking about Market investment in this situation, just normal Player time investment into the system.

Why would I invest in an Azima Riven and put my time and effort into farming ridiculous amounts of Kuva to roll it if one day it becomes Flavor of the month and my investment loses value. While Yes, the hype will die down after a while, the weapon will still have accumulated a larger and more dedicated following, so it will always be at a low value just because the weapon is popular regardless of the reason why it is that popular. 

Which is what happened to weapons like the Ack & Brunt, Sonicor, Staticor, Akbolto, Jat kittag, Venka and what will happen to a lot of weapons just because they have a following, not because they are too strong, but because they are fun. that's the main issue when you start balancing around popularity and not actual power.

It's one of those situations where there is a lot to lose for DE and not much to gain.

You could lose potential revenue from the system.

You could ruin a system that a lot of people enjoy playing with.

You could lose the trust of a lot of customers. DE's lack of stance on the disposition aspect of the Riven system gave off the impression that it is safe to invest into popular weapons. Similar to the Chroma situation but a lot bigger because of how the system functions. There's over 40k possible combinations when it comes to Rivens, so getting a riven mod that you want is like Winning the lottery, undermining something this rare by making it affected by the general public's behaviour is a big no no in my opinion.

All that just for an attempt at making the game balanced, which won't work because the issue with balance is so much bigger than the stats on your gun. The game's combat system itself is inherently flawed.

While I do agree that depends on usage alone would be foolish as you said because some weapons are merely used for aesthetic or fun to use (i.e. Ack and Brunt, Hikou Prime, etc...), I still think disposition should be looked at. Not just based of usage, but also strength in general. It doesn't take much to know that the Branton doesn't hold a candle to most other auto rifles.

And for balancing frequency. Maybe not once per month but once per quarter should be more like it. Even if something became "the flavour of the month", it will have time for its popularity to die down eventually, making investment in it less of an issue. 

Investment is exactly what I was going about too. People are TOO invested in Rivens, simply because of how make and break it is. The current system allows people to sell it for 10k plat, which is insane. It should be relied less on and while I do agree that my idea still relies on Riven to make them good, Riven should just be an overall improvement and not a deal breaker mod. 

[(PSN)vl_Monarch_lv]

DE just needs to man up and do a rebalance. There will be some that cry, but they were just the ones killing the system anyway. 

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

"It will enrage players who spent a lot of plat but I don't care"-op

 

I disagree with OP and would like to not see entire riven collections that people have spent many hours and thousands of plat on, destroyed on a whim.

 

Yes. EULA exists and everyone knows about the riven dispo system but "can" doesn't automatically mean "should. 

[(XBOX)ECCHO SIERRA]

26 minutes ago, (PS4)vl_Monarch_lv said:

DE just needs to man up and do a rebalance. There will be some that cry, but they were just the ones killing the system anyway. 

Do you want DE to pull a bungie and nerf everything that stands out until everything feels dumbed down and mediocre?

[Marvelous_A]

1 minute ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

"It will enrage players who spent a lot of plat but I don't care"-op

 

I disagree with OP and would like to not see entire riven collections that people have spent many hours and thousands of plat on, destroyed on a whim.

 

Yes. EULA exists and everyone knows about the riven dispo system but "can" doesn't automatically mean "should. 

Were you there when DE gut Tonkor and Synoid Simulor? That was good time the weak whined and mourned their loss and the rest of us just got over it and carried on.

[(PSN)vl_Monarch_lv]

1 hour ago, (XB1)ECCHO SIERRA said:

Do you want DE to pull a bungie and nerf everything that stands out until everything feels dumbed down and mediocre?

Did I say that? Could have sworn I said "rebalance".

Kind of like how they said they would in the beginning...

[Miser_able]

Unfortunately the last time disposition was changed the community backlash was huge. Everyone was going on and on about how "DE ruined their rivens" 

[Hypernaut1]

Meh. Rivens got me to enjoy several lower tier weapons in high end play. They're a success to me. I don't follow the meta.

What more do you people want?

[tinyranitar]

50 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Meh. Rivens got me to enjoy several lower tier weapons in high end play. They're a success to me. I don't follow the meta.

That's the thing. Those weapons deserved it. Tiberon Prime? Not so much

[Bao]

5 hours ago, ShortCat said:

Base stats and how current modding system expands them are to blame. There is no mod that adds 15% base status, thus there is no such Riven as well. DE neglected its mod system long time ago, with a propper adjustments it could bring much needed diversity. Hence, Rivens could never rebalance the game due to how stats on those mods work.

Might want to double check your facts. Look up Entropy Burst, base 20% status chance. 

[-AiLuoLi-]

59 minutes ago, Hypernaut1 said:

Meh. Rivens got me to enjoy several lower tier weapons in high end play. They're a success to me. I don't follow the meta.

What more do you people want?

Except riven was supposed to make weak weapons strong to catch up to top tier weapons, not make strong weapon straight up op. Some strong weapon like lanka,opticor,tiberon prime,pyrana prime,sicarus prime, etc, got 4-3 disposition which makes them broken. Weak ass weapon with 5 disposition can never hope to catch up.

[tinyranitar]

Why are people making it sounds like I want to straight up nerf Riven? The point of the post is to ask for more frequent Disposition adjustment. 

People rioted during Synoid Gammacor change. I personally put 5 formas on it. 

People riot during Ash change. People always riot during change. 

What I am suggesting isn't even change. It's something that's meant to be, but people got too hung up on it. Riven was supposed to be balance this way.