Randomness in RPGs

[whitesphere]

I think you're failing to get the gist of my argument.

The fact of the matter, is that I retried several times, using save/load states, as I said several times now, taking into account various factors that might change the hit rate.

At the end of the day, there are only two possibilities :

1.) The random distributor, or variable range of any given action equation, of the game is extremely over-sensitive. Bad game-design.

2.) The box that gives the player the information of hit-rate prior to action doesn't reflect the actual hit-rate. Bad game design.

You're not getting around that. You might think that's okay, and that it's fun to play with a game that might kick you in the balls unexpectedly. I don't. I consider that flawed game design. If I wanted that, I'd be playing Yahtzee, not Playstation.

There are such things as degrees of randomness.  I imagine a Tactical combat system is far more sensitive to randomness but I'm not talking about games like that at the moment.

In most RPGs I've played (never a tactical combat based one), I can perform an attack with certain equipment/levels/etc and be assured it will do roughly the same amount of damage each time, against the same opponent.  There is some randomness, but it never rises to the degree where I can't depend on most abilities.  I tend not to select the abilities that have high odds of failure.  

The games I've seen never explicitly say "This skill has a high rate of failure," either.  I learn that by trying the ability against certain opponents and seeing what happens.  

Now, I agree if I were to play an RPG where the results were SO random that I couldn't depend on anything, I wouldn't bother playing it.  

To carry through the football analogy:

I don't expect football to be played on a completely regular grass field, insulated from all weather and air temperature/speed/pressure variables.  The playing field definitely has a degree of randomness, and it's expected the players and coaches must compensate for them (on very windy plays, they probably do less passing).  This is part of the game.

However, if the randomness were so high that a normal pass might cause the ball to bounce off 3 players heads and end up in the endzone, scoring points for a side, that would be silly.  The randomness would be so high the game would solely be based on luck.

RPGers like to have some measure of control, but I think we accept there is some degree of randomness.  I imagine real life combat is the closest thing to raw chaos anyone is going to see.  Computer-based representations of it must have some degree of uncertainty to represent this.

If I wanted to play something with no randomness, I'd break out the chess board, not play a computer-based RPG.  

 

[Ralpf]

I have played the game plenty, the percentages come out fine....just because you have a string of bad luck doesn't make it bad and a flawed test (and using saved states is a flawed test) doesn't change that. The game has to generate random numbers if it is going to have a percentage based hit rate, period, and (true) random number generation simply isn't doable on a game console, so it has to be faked (http://www.random.org/randomness/ The Psuedo-Random Number Generators part is what is important to this discussion), that is what you run into when you play the game in a way that isn't meant to be played and run a test you were never supposed to run (the results you got were to be expected anyway).

I may have been wrong on the emulator thing, it just popped into my head when I was typing, but it also shouldn't be disregarded out of hand, the emulators are never perfect, they just aim for good enough to not be easily noticeable.

 

[Wavelength]

I think Randomness really has its place in role-playing, and in gaming in general.  When done well, it means the player will have a unique or at least somewhat different experience based on how the numbers roll - or in the case of battle, it will create interesting situations that the player can react to.  Too often, it's not done well, and it's simply there for its own sake, creating more frustration than excitement and making the player feel like she doesn't control her own fate.

I love seeing the RNG in elements like item creation, minigames, skill usage, or even plot branches (although your own actions should still be contributing to the overall result more than the RNG does).  There are times where it's great to have in battle, too, but I'm a strong believer that if you can't articulate a good reason why misses/dodges - or even critical hits - make your battle system better, then you should seriously consider removing them entirely.

In both VX Ace games I've released, I've set every character and enemy's hit rate to 100% and evasion rate to 0%.  It's a guaranteed hit every time, unless the characters have states applied that give them a chance to miss or evade.  I couldn't justify having default percentages to miss or evade, because they added so little to the strategy of the battle and simply lengthened the battle without making it more interesting.

I also felt that the default Critical Hit system took too much control out of the player's hands, modifying it in both games by reducing the Crit bonus, increasing the base probability, and basing Crits off of a single stat for the user and target (as well as introducing a few skills that let you, for example, automatically Crit on your next turn).  In one of these games scoring a Critical Hit grants a "Crit Point", and getting five Crit Points gives the character a free turn where their stats are massively increased and skills cost 0.

In the other, many skills have "Crit Effects" such as freezing the target or restoring HP to the user if you score a Crit with the skill.  This makes things even more elegant because instead of having a separate RNG roll to determine (with a fixed probability) the chance of a certain effect, you as the player have some power to control your destiny by investing in equipment that boosts that stat or using a skill that lets you automatically Crit the next turn.

My friend TheHonorableRyu at the RPG Maker Pavilion made a few posts that I really liked in a similar discussion about when random results enhance or harm a video game.  Among a few of my favorite excerpts:

I'm currently playing through Legionwood 2, a commercial VX Ace game that I got with the recent RPG Maker Humble Bundle. Similar to the Wizardry series on the PC, the creators were inspired by the high degree of randomness and dice rolls from tabletop RPGs and placed them into their RPG video game. In general I think this is a dubious idea because part of the fun of tabletop RPGs is the story the DM and players create out of what happens--the actual in-character role-playing elements. Even if you're losing the dice rolls you can make the most of it by telling a dynamic story around it with other people, whereas single player RPGs and most all video games in general lack this element.

So in Legionwood 2 I'm finding a lot of the bad kind of difficulty, where the player can do everything right and still be punished for random things beyond their control, where the player can make the exact same choices and get wildly different results that make the difference between whether just saving and reloading is the best strategy.

I don't think most would rather save scum over ancillary things in general. But I do think there can be this tension where the more the player really cares about the results of a RNG the more they are likely to either save scum or just become dissatisfied with or stop caring about the system. Even if a game is still playable there's other things a player might care about, such as unique or missable items or events or units/characters, access to certain classes or skill trees, whether something is worth their time, whether something will affect the experience over long stretches of the game, etc.

A player might not care that much if the RNG says that their item craft may result in one of a number of random consumables, be it one that restores 54 HP, or 38 HP, or 12 HP and 6 MP, or 10 HP and 10 MP, each with its own flavor text. In that case, the variation may very well add interest, shaping how the player will have to adapt to their changing circumstances. The same could be said if they're dice rolling for starting player character stats and if they get lucky on most of the stats they might not care that much if one or two random stats are low and are randomly at 12 instead of 11, 13, or 14 or some other arbitrary number.

But I can definitely think of situations where a player may be likely to either save scum or stop caring about the system you've designed, even if the game is still playable. Just a few examples:

• The player has a big time investment in harvesting rare crafting materials and knows that the RNG determines whether their craft will result either in an item they can get elsewhere in a shop or a rare item they scarcely can get anywhere else.
   
• The Wizardry series on pc is heavily inspired by D&D, and Wizardry 7 had dice rolls for generating your starting character's stats. While a lackluster roll wouldn't necessarily make the game unplayable, all it did was make your characters suck more (more misses, less damage given, more damage taken--not very interesting) and--worst of all--delay their ability to change to job classes best suited for their race by possibly dozens of hours, since each class has certain stat requirements that the player character might not reach even after dozens of level ups due to the randomness of how per level stat bonuses are applied. You better believe that players re-rolled to get the stats and hence the classes they wanted, which unfortunately was a huge time-waster because you had to recreate another character and rename and reallocate starting traits before you'd get another chance at a dice roll. What player would want cruddy characters by choice except for the challenge of it, and in that case why not handle that aspect through difficulty settings rather than a RNG? I just created a new account in Sryth and it flat out tells me that "You'll also be randomly determining your character's Melee Rating (combat ability) and Stamina Points (health). Having high scores in these two statistics is extremely desirable. You should aim for scores of 25 or higher for both of these stats," but in the case of Sryth rerolling is easy and expected, so the randomness is balanced by a significant degree of player control.
   
• In Pokemon an individual Pokemon's max stats depend upon "IVs"--a random number between 1 and 31 (worst to best) for each stat that determines that stat's growth rate. Most players who simply want to complete the storyline quest don't care about IVs; they may as well not exist. But because IVs actually matter in competitive battles, most players who battle competitively will save scum to get high IVs when capturing or breeding Pokemon they want to use, or will by common agreement use game-altering tools or simulators where available such that all Pokemon in battle will have max IVs.

 

[Harmill]

I agree with pretty much everything you said.

In the other, many skills have "Crit Effects" such as freezing the target or restoring HP to the user if you score a Crit with the skill.  This makes things even more elegant because instead of having a separate RNG roll to determine (with a fixed probability) the chance of a certain effect, you as the player have some power to control your destiny by investing in equipment that boosts that stat or using a skill that lets you automatically Crit the next turn.

This is a good example of how I think RNG should work most of the time. This is an RNG check that the Player has some amount of CONTROL over. It's not a randomly chosen 30% success rate that cannot be changed - it's a success rate that the Player can choose to improve through equipment choices. I have similar skills in my game that give extra effects with critical strikes. Moreover, it sounds like you've made this more "core" to the game than just one random skill that has a Crit Effect, so it has more meaning with your game.

 

In both VX Ace games I've released, I've set every character and enemy's hit rate to 100% and evasion rate to 0%.  It's a guaranteed hit every time, unless the characters have states applied that give them a chance to miss or evade.  I couldn't justify having default percentages to miss or evade, because they added so little to the strategy of the battle and simply lengthened the battle without making it more interesting.

Everyone should do this IMO. I've played countless RPG Maker demos that needlessly dabble with player hit rate and enemy evasion and they clearly don't test it enough to notice the frequent 2-3-4 miss-streaks (or they play test and they somehow find it tolerable.).

Dabble with enemy evasion if you are doing so with a SPECIFIC intent. And then reflect on your own intent and ask yourself if this is only going to draw out battles with little gain, or worse, provide players with frustration.

For example...look at Final Fantasy X. There are enemies that naturally have a TON of evasion. Like, Auron probably has a 0-5% hit rate against them. This sounds HORRIBLE in most circumstances, but the game uses Accuracy and Evasion as core stats right beside Strength and Defense, so you'd notice that Auron has low Accuracy while Wakka has really high Accuracy. Wakka pretty much has 100% hit rate against those same enemies. And the enemies that Auron is intended to target have 0 evasion, so Auron should never miss against his intended targets. This is an Accuracy/Evasion interaction that the developers created to help define roles and the very fact they are core stats and not static values tied to weapons means they are easier for the player to understand and rely upon.

 

[GrandmaDeb]

ISTM that if a game element is a pinch point of sorts - and battles usually are since you can die or since they culminate a long effort with no saves or since they come out of the blue - ISTM that these pinch points ought not to be very random.


I have to agree with you on the battle thing.


Accidentally missing my target (or repeatedly missing!) after working a long time just to get the chance to battle the boss just because of some dice roll (and not some special state) is just the game maker throwing his weight around, lol.

 

[Evil Overlord]

The time has come! Go, my fell legion! Show these fools what it means to truly have power to be feared! Let the people's desperate cries fill the air!

 

- Chimera -

 

 

HP: 838 MP: 132

 

ATK: 201 DEF: 160

 

INT: 67 AGI: 139

 

[Ruby]

I want him... ;____________;

Come here little cutie!

And it really depends on where the randomness is coming from. I think a little of it (if you don't have a strong story) may help with creating a more full environment.

 

[Bukarett]

I use 

 

three balls on this adorableness! One for each head!  This animal is a huge random creature, the best kind!

 

[That Bread]

I love randomness in RPGs... now where do we stop? Well I say when you're satisfied yourself, I personally like a surprise every battle encounter.

Ah ha! A chimera I will use the two against you!

 

 

[Bonkers]

It depends on the element.  If we're talking about something like Earth Bound's native 255 chance drop for better quality items, it tends to get a bit out of hand.  Randomness in an RPG is fine so long as it doesn't detract from the fun of playing and make the experience into pointless grinding.

*throws pokeball at Chimera*

 

[slimmmeiske2]

I'm not a fan of randomness, nope.

Throws

at the Chimera.

 

[DarkstarMatryx]

I can see maybe a character having 100% random attacks and such. But it's very situational.  If the randomness makes the player feel they have absolutely no control over the battles then it's bad. but random levels or even to some degree whether an Ice spell randomly freezes while it deals damage is fine to me.  But random drops seem wrong as something to powerful could be gained too early and unbalance the game and if drops never contain anything of value then it to some degrees makes the battles feel more fruitless and grinding than I might get that rare item helping to make things feel a little more worth doing.   

Blast you chimera take a 

  to the snake head.

 

[kj3400]

Randomness is not really fun. If I die because a random attack crits me, I'm not gonna want to play. especially if I can't do anything to stop it (throws

) Random items are fine only if they're dropped in tiers (i.e. earlier drops are low level items, end game drops are powerful items).

 

[Alkorri]

I like randomness because it keeps things interesting and relieves tedium. If by random you mean the player getting hit by a honking meteor out of the sky, then no - this borders on ridiculousness.

Have my last ball, Chimera! 

 

[Dalph]

A chimera is in truth a random mess of different animals so it's scarily appropriate to this thread:
 
*tosses 3 balls at the Chimera*

 

[DarkstarMatryx]

I agree with the no super attacks out of nowhere, but if a boss crits on a char that has been hit or is low level then it seems fair to me if it ko's them even if you didn't expect them to be the targeted character.  I mean if you can predict all your enemy to much and take all the randomness out of a fight then where is the challenge at all? You might as well put it on the easiest mode possible and try to walk through it or maybe just read a fantasy book versus playing a game where some level of unpredictable behaviour is needed to make an enemy unique from all the other enemies you will face.  

Now take this love ball 

  and like it foul beast.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Throws another loveball!

But yeah still no fan of randomness

 

[Ralph]

The Chimera is now annihilated! Please report back to the thread!

 

[kj3400]

Edit: oh.

 

[Onomotopoeia]

*facepalm*


I wanna unsub this thread. Gosh. People throwing all their balls around ... seriously, people!