I see many posts and comments disparaging the riven system in Warframe, definitely moreso than praise for, so I figured I would throw my two cents into the void.
The overall sentiment against rivens existing is based on the fact that the rolls/weapon/type are random, that they are expensive to obtain good or “god” rolls (in both platinum and kuva), and that they are subject to decreased stats in the event of a disposition nerf to said weapon. I can see that all of these points are very valid, however my take on the riven experience has been quite different.
I enjoy that they offer an (extremely) long term goal to get certain rolls on rivens you have and to obtain rivens for specific weapons you want. Personally, I never buy good rolls unless the price is low like the weapon is unpopular. For many, I get them with intent to reroll until I happen to get lucky, and I usually have at least three that I am in the process of rolling.
Another point is that the rivens themselves are not needed at all, fun to have, but not needed. Therefore it is literally no detriment to ignore the system completely.
In regards to the disposition of certain weapons decreasing, and therefore making rivens less useable, correct me if I’m wrong, but disposition can go back up as well, it is not a permanent thing, and the riven has the same “stats.” In my eyes, it just makes me want those really good rolls more.
Another thing rivens allow are fun and wacky builds like the negative projectile speed stug, or even making less powerful weapons worth giving a shake. I now like the Glaxion vandal quite a bit after scoring an amazing riven for cheap, and it shreds steel path now!
On the dark side of rivens, people are generally pretty greedy with prices for good rivens, however this has the upside that if you unveil a decent riven, or roll it a few times, for a weapon that you don’t care about, you can get a decent chunk of plat usually. Using riven.market or warframe market to sell means you just wait for buyers and don’t even have to deal with trade chat.
Speaking of trade chat, rivens offer an infinitely many sources of commerce, as there are always new rivens being unveiled, always rolls you might want, and occasionally new weapons or mods/upgrades making old weapons relevant again, it adds to the finite amount of items like frames, weapons, and standard mods that can be traded.
To sum everything up, I enjoy the riven system quite a bit for many reasons, maybe it is because I am used to games with the grind for the .001% item and enjoy the chase. The feeling when you do roll a riven and get the three good positive and one harmless negative or the actual “Groll,” makes all the kuva and time worth it to me. I am interested to hear people’s thoughts on the Riven system in general but more interestingly, people’s thoughts on my reasons for enjoying the system.
TLDR, Rivens are fun to me, rolling them, selling them, grinding kuva. I think the system is good for the longevity of trading, and does a good job of enabling wacky builds and making less viable into viable. I also don’t mind disposition nerfs as good rolls are still worth slotting, and disposition can go back up.
Thank you for reading.
If rolling was a better system than just a slot machine, and they weren’t gated behind such an annoying grind process of acquiring them, and I was able to actually acquire a riven for a specific weapon I wanted, I’d agree. As it stands, the riven pool is too diluted and it’ll only get worse as more weapons are added, making getting a riven for a weapon you want even harder, further increasing their asinine prices.
The rolling system is awful as it’s just a slot machine of mostly useless stats you don’t need, and they take far too long to acquire. I have like over 200 riven slivers and I haven’t even played that much since they added them to eximus’ drop tables, and yet I can only spend so many a week to get random rivens before the game stops me.
To me the problem is that the weapons which should benefit from riven the most don’t get the much needed fix because the base stats are too low to benefit. Incarnons are definitely doing a better job at fixing the bad/non-meta (since not all non meta weapons are bad) weapons.
However they’re insanely fun on the overlooked weapons. My Basmu and Mutalist Cernos rivens bring me a lot of joy tbh.
I definitely agree with that, they can make the weapons viable, but the meta is the meta, and even the little buff from low disposition makes meta weapons that much better.
I think it would be cool if they widened the disposition spectrum, so that lower disposition weapons are roughly the same, but the higher disposition would be a larger bonus than it currently is.
Remove the extreme RNG gambling system of upgrading them, the extraordinarily high plat values put on each of them that created a toxic marketplace around them and I’m maybe going to agree with you. It’s not a bad idea in itself, it’s just terrible execution frankly that completely missed their original purpose (at least the one DE was talking about, dunno if they had other less obvious agendas and this is a success for them).
I am used to games with the grind for the .001% item and enjoy the chase
The reason I stuck with warframe in the first place is that it never had something like that, all weapons are equal and once you have them you have them for good. Warframes, weapons, mods all have fixed values, even kuva/tenet weapons have a simple upper limit of 60%. Rivens are the only exception and I think this is why I feel like they don’t belong here.
Yep. I dislike the layers upon layers of RNG that are “fixed” by a toxic marketplace.
Shards are a much better system. I would rather we get a version that works on weapons and have Rivens replaced.
Manually assign slot counts and/or types to weapons. Yes, it would take a day or two of someone who has thoroughly played the game going through and assigning them, but it’s better than the dynamic system.
Worst case, assign slots based on disposition and refund socketed shards if it goes down.
Rivens are indeed fun but I personally don’t enjoy them. I’d enjoy Rivens if it wasn’t for the Disposition changes and the fact all new weapons start at 0.5, which makes a lot of stats, especially the highly desired ones, useless.
People still flock to them and I never understood why. Whenever a new weapon drops any Riven for it will go for a exorbitant amount of plat but it can’t offer any tangible benefit with 0.5 Dispo.
As for the changes in Riven Disposition. As long as it’s damage related, I don’t mind a shift of 0.1 or 0.2 once in a few months, but if there’s other stats involved, like fire rate or recoil, even the smallest Dispo change will make the weapon feel different. Changing the way a weapon feels and handles is big problem for me, even if the Dispo would actually get a buff.
For example, I have a Riven for Mausolon with -Recoil. I like the weapon but the recoil is giving me motion sickness and there’s no way to reduce the recoil other than with a Riven. A decrease in Dispo means I get more recoil and that makes the weapon less usable for me.
Kuva, RNG, and their prices are still annoying at but I find these much more manageable then the Dispo system.
Whales gonna whale. If you’ve got a ridiculous amount of money in your pocket who cares if you’re dropping 10-100$ on a riven?
That’s great for you and you are entitled to your opinion.
However, I would argue that we don’t want a system to turn unviable into viable, we want good weapons. Viable is really easy, I can technically take any weapon into exterminate and eventually win, provided a subsumed dispensary for ammo. That’s what viable is, and it sucks.
Rivens don’t need to make the weapon meta, but they should at least bring it closer to the meta. Rivens don’t do that well because meta weapons can use Rivens too and ultimately Rivens are multiplying the base stats and functions (or lack thereof) so even the wide differences between high and low disposition aren’t enough to bridge that meta gap.
This post is cool and all but why is your name “Lubricated snake”
That’s just my calling card.
