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Design Topic #2: RNG

Should we adjust the RNG to represent THC probability more accurately?


  • Total voters
    35

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
I don't think players who complain about missing repeatedly are saying they want a more accurate RNG spread, they are complaining that the system is punishing them too much for misses. This is going to happen in any system where the player has few actions and they tend to be decisive.

MRY

Isn't this supposed to be a tactical game? The player needs to have *some* way to positively affect their accuracy in combat. Otherwise it's just math and resource consumption; boring.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss Well, you and I have different views on this, obviously. In my opinion, the question is always whether you can accommodate the imperfect player, in part so that the game can help educated him to become a better player. Simply writing off players as a lost cause (with the resulting irrational negative reviews to follow) strikes me as neither a great business model nor the right way to behave toward others. Of course, the accommodation cannot compromise the game's core, which is why I'm averse to solutions that would meaningful change the RNG.

Grampy_Bone Sure, so things like aimed shots, cover, flanking, incapacitants, etc. should all be featured. I didn't think we were discussing that, but instead the question of how (and whether) to address players' frustration with missing shots they were "supposed" to hit. I think the "harried" feature is a neat one, I just don't think it's responsive to Vince's question. And I think the "dodge pips" isn't a bad idea, but it strikes me as fundamentally changing dodge into a regenerating energy shield, a function better covered by regenerating energy shields.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Sure, so things like aimed shots, cover, flanking, incapacitants, etc. should all be featured. I didn't think we were discussing that, but instead the question of how (and whether) to address players' frustration with missing shots they were "supposed" to hit

That's the thing, that's what I think that player frustration with misses actually is.

To use Civ as an example, they never want a spearman to kill a tank. If you manage to tech up to tanks against an enemy in the stone age, you should just win.
 

Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
3,559
I am not sure the RNG is actually the issue here. People are not upset because they are missing 70% THC. They are upset because they are losing the game and would rather blame the RNG than get better.

To test that claim, imagine this:
- Put a casual player in a simple 1-v-1 tutorial fight where the results are rigged, but the player doesn't know that.
- The player attacks first with a 70% THC and whiffs three times in a row.
- Now the enemy takes their turn and blasts the player with three hits in a row, nearly killing them.
- The player attacks again. Hit, hit... crit! The enemy is dead and the player has made a miraculous comeback.

Now how many casuals do you think would come out of a playtest like that and say "man the RNG in your game is fucked". My guess is none. They won't care about the three misses in the beginning because they got the overall outcome they wanted, which was to win the fight. If you agree with that assessment, then I say tampering with the RNG is off the table.

Instead I would look at your encounter design (which I know is something you guys are good at). AoD is not a terribly difficult game once you get a feel for it -- and I say this as someone who is not amazing at games or fond of really punishing difficulty -- but I would say that Teron is the most difficult and then it became progressively easier. And you're not alone there -- most games are paced this way -- but I think it's actually the opposite of what you want.

I think your content should be easiest in the beginning of the game because this is when the player is the least experienced and invested in the game. Since AoD is more intense than most RPGs it's really easy for a casual to start the game, get their ass kicked a couple of times, then ragequit / refund / negative review. But what if you ease that player in, let them get a few wins under their belt and dive into the story? Then as the difficulty ramps up I think you will see the player work harder to meet the challenge, because they trust the system better and want to advance the plot.

And if they aren't engaged by that point, then they will probably just stop playing, which is still better for you because 1) they are too far in to refund and 2) if someone stops playing because they are disinterested -- as opposed to angry -- they are less likely to write a spiteful review.

This doesn't disservice your hardcore fans either like a rigged RNG would. They will breeze through the early areas to get to the meat of the game, at which point they will start getting the challenge they want.
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
1,301
Grab the Codex by the pussy
In my opinion, the question is always whether you can accommodate the imperfect player, in part so that the game can help educated him to become a better player. Simply writing off players as a lost cause (with the resulting irrational negative reviews to follow) strikes me as neither a great business model nor the right way to behave toward others. Of course, the accommodation cannot compromise the game's core, which is why I'm averse to solutions that would meaningful change the RNG.
You can't accommodate them without compromising the core design because the average gamer has no tolerance to frustation. I wish things were different, but most players don't have the patience to learn to rules, even less to try different builds.
 

sin

Educated
Joined
Jan 31, 2018
Messages
23
Location
Poland
If your THC is 70%, you'll still hit 7 out of 10 and miss 3. The only question here is should you be allowed to miss all 3 in a row?
I will refer only to system without forcing misses after hitting a fixed (based on current THC) number of times in a series, as otherwise sounds to me like a bad, bad idea.
Needless to say, if a player misses even 20 times in a row with a 70% THC, he will rage quit and will never ever believe that the system worked as advertised (i.e. 70% THC).
I do realize that's only an example, but let's stick to it just for the sake of discussion. This scenario has actually ~0.00000000349% chance to occur with regular 70% THC, which is one in 28,679 million, while for instance winning a Powerball's Grand Prize (based on quick google search) is around one in 292 million. So yeah, one can miss 20 times in a row with 70% THC, but that's like one hundred times less likely to happen than literally winning on a lottery. Of course, there are things less likely to occur, like for instance Bethesda publishing a noteworthy RPG, but hey, come on. ;-)

I can agree that there are situations, where RNG just fucks you up, even when you do everything perfectly. But that's one of the beauties in challenging game and I strongly believe that was your target - to create RPGs with great story, setting, writing with difficult, yet rewarding combat. IMHO, implementation of RNG shenanigans would kill some magic in it, but since I have a a little thing for gambling, my view might be skewed. Obviously, it would be ideal to attract some mainstream casuals with adjustments here and there to increase sales, but we all know they would whine about numerous aspects of the game, that we, RPGs autists, simply love.
So in my opinion just stick with the original RNG, and don't mess with THC in series, Gauss got it cover anyway.
 

ciox

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
1,279
Only missing many times at the maximum precision cap (usually 95%) with a weapon that shoots very rarely per turn has made me feel the sting of butthurt, anything lower and I'm prepared to miss. IMO just leave the RNG alone and allow a feat or something that allows players a THC up to 100% so they can focus their resources on raising THC and getting the feat if that's what matters to them.
 
Joined
Jan 18, 2018
Messages
1,301
Grab the Codex by the pussy
MRY, just so it doesn’t look like I wasn’t being paying attention to your previous post. I think the best way to attract new players is to improve the graphics, the art direction, the animations, the tutorial, the way the information is presented, the start of the game, etc. You need to assume that the player doesn’t have a clue what a cRPG is about to teach him the basics in the most accessible manner. We tend to underestimate how hard it is to learn the basics if you are not used to it.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
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Jan 10, 2007
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1,870,144
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Searching for my kidnapped sister
"Easiest in the beginning" is NOT GOOD. At least among Codexers.

Who among here complain of killing rats in the beginning? Because that's what "easiest in the beginning" translate into real game design.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
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Nedderlent
thinking into the past instead of the future

This would indeed be a major problem, unless ITS sneaks it in :troll:

The only question is whether to allow long missing streaks
For the record, I've never encountered this problem in AoD, unless three misses on a high percentage count as a streak. Which they don't. It's a fluke and flukes are the spice of life,or something like that.
 
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Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
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Apr 18, 2007
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Denmark
The only question a game dev should be asking themselves is, is this gameplay feature/mechanic fun and engaging to the player?, or does it fuck with the player expectation and therefore an annoyance overall?

I like numbers, I do, but I would sometimes much rather have 5 categories of "skill" with headers which translates into benefits for the player.

I.e. Novice (0 - 33 % hidden THC) - Trained (33 % - 66 % hidden THC) Skilled (66- 85%+ hidden THC) Expert (always hit + small bonuses added in combat) - Master (always hit + large added bonuses in combat)

Now, would a person who mastered weaponry really be missing shots in close or medium proximity? No, that's extremely unlikely. In real life, sure, it happens in terms of different conditions, but what purpose does it really serve in a game? Yeah ok, you leveled your gun skill, now you have 5 % more chance to hit, so what? What does it matters? Is that fun? Is it fun missing at 95 % in terms of gameplay? No, and it adds nothing, it's just a frustration, and it encourages save scumming.
Tying combat complexity to THC is bad design, and it creates a large frustration. Skilling up weapon skills shouldn't depend on the THC in order to create complexity, and fun.

A game is not real life, and therefore a game always has to take certain liberities to ensure that the game is actually FUN and enganging for the player. That's the trade-off. I would rather have reliability than RNG in my game in terms of combat, because it opens up more strategic and tactic choices. If I cannot depend on the choices I make, then what's the point of it? You lose all combat complexity and is just left with frustration and RNG regardless of your character build and professions.
 
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Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
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As per my prior post, I really think that "I want to know what to expect" is really the wrong route here. The whole reason to have an RNG is permit the unexpected -- there are at least three things it provides (the ability to gamble on a high-risk, high-reward option when it's the only hope you've got; the thrill of an unexpectedly good result [e.g., enemy missing you with a point-blank burst, critically hitting and killing your foe]; the panic of a well-laid plan going awry due to chance). It's true that the frustration of missing your own point-blank burst is extraordinary, but the idea that the frustration stems from an honest belief that the game is cheating seems implausible to me. Instead, I think "CHEATER!" is simply an emotional reaction to the fact that something bad unexpectedly happens to the player for no good reason -- e.g., the player took a conservative, low-risk, low-reward option to finish an opponent off and still missed. As long as there is any random chance, there is a chance of such a thing happening, and the player's reaction will be resultingly foul if the consequences are high enough.

The only ways to address this are: (1) remove bad RNG results for player (yikes); (2) remove RNG entirely (losing the upsides described above); (3) give the player something when he has a bad roll. As my prior posts indicates, I think #3 is the way to go. But what to give? IMO, an achievement is the simplest answer because it's totally extrinsic and can't break anything. Because TNW is a serious setting, I wouldn't recommend in-lore options (e.g., early on you meet some guy from Lady Luck's Jilted Swains who mentions that his elite club's benefactor makes a point of letting in those cursed with a string of unfortunate events, and then in the Habitat you find the club and can get in if you have enough unlucky die rolls), but you could do some kind of extrinsic thing (like the golden die option). But I think having it "outside" the RNG is the key. Trying to adjust the RNG itself just feels weird. It's better to have the game acknowledge you got screwed and offer some offset.

You don't add complexity, depth and overall fun to combat, by relying on "the unexpected" though, that's the main point. Expect the unexpected? Is that really fun, though? Does it create an enganging and complex combat system and does it have replayability?

Instead of having to rely on RNG, why not rely on actual benefits and downsides and pick and choose thereafter? If I want to KNOW that I will be able to hit ALL my shots, then I choose that and forego other options, that's strategi and tactic meaningfulness. The solution is, past a certain point, you give players exactly what they expect, but you add a few strategic layers on top of it.

If you decide to specialize fully in weapons, then that's your choice, and you espect certain things from that. The game should not cheat you out of that, that is where the frustration comes from. You give up all other options to specialize in something, which is why you don't want unexpected negative outcomes, because you made a concious choice to avoid something like that.

It's just not fun, that's the main point.

Invisible Inc. is perhaps the best example of how to make a great combat game without relying on to-hit chances, because the combat itself it balanced around adding new features and shit when you skill up your combat skills, instead of just adding 5 % more thc.
 
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Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
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Apr 18, 2007
Messages
5,559
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Denmark
always hit

This is decline, there's always the chance a bug banzais into your eye at the exact wrong moment, just as an example. "Luck" is always a factor.

No it's not decline, because real-life is different from a game within a closed set of rules and parameters, as it should be. You're playing a game to have fun, which is why things such as "luck" and "rng" really have little place other than to just LOLWAT effect, which is kind of retarded. Reliability first and foremost, never unexpectected dumb shit and waste of my time.

I have enough RNG in my real life, I don't need it in my games, also, which I play to enjoy myself :)

Also part of why games such as hearthstone gets so much rage from players, because of the fucking RNG effect from alot of dumb cards. It basically invalidates player skill, agency and tactics and strategy, because the game just goes, LOL FUCK U, HERE, have a loss. Fun? Not in the slightest.

Games have the luxury of actually removing luck and rng, why not embrace that in some form? Real-life blows ass exactly because of the inequality and bad luck/good luck "mechanic" and it sure as shit isnt fair.

Part of the fun building a character in an rpg, at least for me, is knowing what my choices do and what consequences and effects they might have on me and the world. If I cannot rely on the numbers and skills and they didnt mean anything and everything was just rng, then why do it? everything is just random shit anyway, no point.
 
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MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
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Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
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California
You don't add complexity, depth and overall fun to combat, by relying on "the unexpected" though, that's the main point.
"Overall fun" is very subjective, but I think the nearly universal fondness for games of chance in various forms (card-based games, dice-based games, any form of gambling) would tend to weigh against your point. From my own experience, I have a huge number of fond memories of "lucky" outcomes in various games over the years, and even a few fond memories from unlucky rolls: for instance, the point-blank misses in X-Com are a wryly amusing recollection at this point.

Chances enables plays to take calculated risks -- going for high-reward, high-risk options when necessary, hedging with low-reward, low-risk approaches when that's all that's needed to win. I think you can make fun deterministic combat (I love Hex Empires, for instance, it's my go-to time-waster, I certainly like chess and checkers, Telepath Tactics always looked nifty to me), and obviously most games that I played growing up (i.e., non-RPGs) didn't use chance, and it's not like Contra would've been more fun adding RNG elements to it. But I guess I'm of the view that it does add something fun, especially when the outcome of a bad roll isn't an irrevocable loss with no upside, but some kind of interesting alternative path in figuring out how to mitigate the bad luck. At its worst, the RNG simply invites save scumming, with is terrible.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Why the fuck do we have two threads having the same discussion

I am playing a game to have fun, and part of the fun is challenge and variation, having your plans not work out, adapting to situations. I'm perfectly fine with setting everything up then having a 90% hit miss - that's often the start of interesting situations, as long as the THC is not rigged or broken.

Building my character to have 90% THC instead of 60% is consequential enough for me.
 

Flint

Novice
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
24
The answer depends mainly on the number of random events happening in the main portion of the combat (before the mop-up). I think that the New World game will benefit from some amount of RNG straightening. Games that can get away with 'true' randomness are usually either wargames, because a lot of units generate many random events during the battle which allows a law of averages to kick in, or games like D&D4 with a lot of HP and plentiful healing so even some bad rng streak does not kill the chances. But if battles are short and damage high a few bad RNG events can completely wreck you.
 

Flint

Novice
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
24
As for the method, Dota 2's seems to me like the best one. It is the most subtle and hard to exploit.
 
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Joined
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Messages
2,930
please just simulate a new die roll every single roll. No bag of numbers or decks of cards or other shit like that. I don't want to be able 100% predict the next action, that is really decline. I dislike chess and other deterministic games because they are logic puzzles, and that becomes tedious to me.
 

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