Editorial Unpredictability and Control in Turn-Based Combat

I get what he's talking about, but this just feels weird:

I ask this honestly, is this really a thing? There are really people that defends this argument?

Well, he's right that the existence of "good rolls" and "bad rolls" in a system can keep people trying again and again, in hopes of getting better rolls. Maybe with no randomness they'd just give up.

Of course, in some cases they SHOULD be giving up, rather than trying to cheese their way through with 3 consecutive critical hits or something.

The whole "bruises their sense of themselves as competent people" thing is totally though

Cannot remember last time I played any fully predictable game. Maybe in HoMM3 blessed units always do max damage - it was easier to plan movements in such case.

By the way, where's my fully predictable (and with high player responsibility ) Legends of Eisenwald? It should be released a month ago, but afaik even demo isn't out yet.

This would have avoid a lot of butthurt in AoD
(including my own)

In theory this sounds good, in practice we shall see.
But he should have made an abstraction layer to number generation. That way he could make it an option (between exact and random) and please both crowds.

Plenty of FPSes are fully predictable. In fact randomized bullet spread is a pretty new thing.

I mean turn-based games. Games that depend on your reflexes are never fully predictable (in the sence this article means).

In FPS I can remember randomized aiming (not bullets themselve) was great in Deus Ex, it created tension.

I'm just saying, you know Quake with rail guns is fully based on player skill, there is no randomness to it.

Actually there are random spawn locations, but very little randomness.

'New' as in 'Doom'?




A nice article overall.

It's tone is a bit too pro-deterministic for my taste, but it still gives fair consideration to randomness and does highlight where it's nigh indispensable.

I don't see enough evidence that is randomized and not a set pattern.

For instance, CS has a set pattern. The top level players have it memorized and adjust their aiming accordingly.

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just a heads up

Doom source code has long since been released.

Besides, it's not like RNGs were any sort of novel idea at the time Doom was in production. Doom has all kind of randomization in it - random damage, pain chance, probably some AI routines - what sense would it make to hardcode chaingun pattern?

Of course, RNGs are at best pseudo-random, but when properly initialized that's good enough.

I like my games not being too random. It always gives such a shitty feeling when you have a great encounter, just to be ruined by luck, either coming from the players or the GM.
Sure, I can secretly adjust it on the fly if I'm the GM but it still feels like shit.

For "generic" strategy games ? I dont think so. For "puzzle-strategy" ? Perhaps. I can at least imagine myself in a game where i know there is a specific and singular solution, yet i am unable to see it. I would be somewhat disappointed with myself.

This sounds very similar to the retarded argument that J.E. Sawyer made about randomness.

No, clever opponent is not the source of unpredictability here. It's not like a bad chess player will be predictable, more like the opposite actually (who might do the stupidest blunders as well as good moves). Whereas in, say, tic-tac-toe, the game is pretty predictable no matter how amazing the players are.

Unpredictability in a deterministic game depends on good game mechanics first and foremost, cleverness of your opponent is very much secondary in that regard.

"Sinister design"? Remind me never to touch their games. Fuck your chess with my dice.

It's a weighted random, no player regardless of skill can spray a 30 round ak clip and hit the same point, but they can get a pretty tight grouping, which imo is pretty close to perfect in regards of a skill vs luck implementation

Some of my friends used to run around with AWP without scope and one shotted everyone since they somehow knew where the center of the screen was (Something I never got to correctly guess without crosshairs).

Wouldn't painting a tiny dot on your screen do the trick pretty easily?

That's what I did....

I really dislike randomness during "routine" actions (any combat specialist should always hit a normal foe), but have no problem with abilities that are random in design (such as an option to decrease your chance to hit in exchange for increased damage).