I don't think RNG belongs anywhere. If anywhere, it's fine when it comes to looting, upgrading, and sometimes build such as an evasion heavy build to encourage misses. Most MMORPGs are p2w with terrible RNG, so I can't recommend any particular game that does rng well.
The ideal would be a healthy mix of drops that occur during battle and after the battle. A dragon might lose a scale or two during battle, some might even cut off a horn or a claw. A spirit won't lose anything during battle - it's a spirit, but it might leave something after it's dead.
Aggro ( or whatever other stat that affects the distribution of loot) should also be stacked differently on different monsters - a newly awoken bear will most likely go after the one who woke it up, but some vengeful skeleton will probably try and haunt someone who killed it. That type of distribution will more likely promote different PVP behaviors around boss fights - some might want to sneak up on a boss and try and steal the last hit, and some might want to be the first ones to the boss. It's logical that the aggro decreases the further away you go.
Damage and control during battles
It's nice to have some type of randomness during battle, like a sword that does slightly different damage every time. It's perceived as boring to always see the same numbers. A weapon should deal base damage between x and y, not a constant of y.
CC should depend on resistance, and not the chance. If a skill has a description that it “ freezes target” it should freeze the target. Other things like slippery floors should work at a chance, but have to account for resistance. A mage specializing in ice, won't slip on the ice they’ve cast.
Bosses' and monsters behavior
Monster and bosses' behavior should be somewhat randomized. A herd of creatures will not necessarily mean that all individuals in that herd behave the same way in the same situation. Some bunnies are skittish, and some aren't. Time of year should also affect general behavior to an extent.
Monsters should not have fixed spawn, if they have been exterminated they shouldn't spawn in the same spot.
We would like to see bosses with both random and scripted attacks, one should learn the mechanics, but shouldn't be able to predict every step a boss does.
Gear and enchanting
Gear that is dropped in the world ( apart from the coolest gear there is) should have random everything, random stats, random tier, and random enchantment abilities. Craft gear on the other hand should allow for “exact” crafting if someone is willing to put in resources and time. A master blacksmith will be able to craft the exact sword with the exact stats they desire.
Enchanting should scale in difficulty and the gear should get unusable upon failure.
An example of a great gear system that was named is Metin 2, the same game was brought up as an example of good loot distribution.
Craft
A linear progression - the more you craft the better you get... with some added spice would be nice. A beginner alchemist should be able to craft everything on the beginner list, but might also attempt to craft some more difficult potions. His rate of success might be lower since he doesn't have the required experience.
//If anyone feels like I forgot to add something feel free to message me on discord
In short, I think RNG is best served to facilitate memorable big events like high rolls on gear or enchanting. It is the weakest when applied to player versus player interaction like chance based CC.
Gathering
Random rare materials when gathering can be a fun dopamine hit. If the base material I'm gathering is worth something, the hits feel like bonuses while the misses feel like the expected result.
Farming
Farming a boss or an area for a specific drop can be a fun activity, as long as that item is not something essential I can't do without and the drop chance is low. If the drop I'm after is gatekeeping me from some aspect of the game and I'm on my 1000th attempt, frustration will quickly mount. Powerful rare drops are fine as long as they are not the baseline and there are other paths to power. If something essential needs to have a grind barrier, I would much prefer the grind being a steady progression type instead of a chance based one.
Example: Acquiring a basic freehold should be a quest/resource investment instead of a 0.01% drop from a dragon. However, a "Dragon Sanctuary" freehold that is better or more specialized over the normal freehold is an okay rare drop from said dragon.
Gear from bosses, dungeons and quests
Either RNG or not is fine, but a mixed approach is probably the best. Acquirement-wise some drops could be guaranteed while others could be a thing I have to farm. Stats-wise I'd like some named drops that are always fixed that people can build around, and some totally random attribute/stat combinations that lend to high rolls and build variety.
Gear from crafting
Very little rng. Maybe small quality increases, so that crafters can sell the top rolls as premium items, while a low roll on legendary gear won't feel like a waste of materials. But I would be happy with just the RNGless recipe system.
Combat
In PVE, RNG is fine in AI behavior. Otherwise, all RNG when it comes to combat is just another chance to artifically frustrate the player. The player should not be punished for doing the correct action at the correct time by just having the action randomly fail. This is especially true for PVP.
All chance based attributes like accuracy, dodge and resist chance should be replaced with either active abilities or percentage based reductions.
Enchanting
This is a pure slot machine and I'm not sure I like it. It can produce memorable good moments, but it can also be an another luck based barrier on gameplay. Just like with farming, as long as being viable in pve/pvp doesn't require top 1% luck I'm tentatively okay with this. But if I'm stuck infinitely rolling and failing an overenchant that everyone has I'm not going to be happy.
Which systems do you feel utilize RNG the best?
Mob drops. If mobs drop the same thing, in the same quantity each time, then the game feels very artificial, thus lacks immersion.
RNG helps to bring immersion by making the game feel more organic.
Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
In almost all systems, especially reward systems, as a main feature which determines what the person gets.
Good example of it is the Great Vault in WoW's Shadowlands which effectively is a power upgrade system which is purely a lottery, and as such breads tones of bad emotions, and some people even quit game over it.
What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
Only those where RNG is a supportive function which helps make a given system feel more natural, i.e. mob drop.
Sadly, these days RNG is being used as the main function of many systems to prolong gameplay, and effectively to force people into staying in the game for longer, which is an utterly toxic, and destructive game design.
Simply put, I do not like unregulated or unmitigated rng. I understand and can respect rng when it provides variety and novelty, but do not like when it takes control out of players hands.
I especially do not like rng in systems like crafting and upgrading gear (anyone who has experienced a crafting failure at the highest % chance of success will understand my rage), and I absolutely hate unmitigated rng related to combat.
Victory in combat should be decided based on skill, game-knowledge, and preparation including time invested into gearing up and character build choices. It should not be dependent on dice-rolls. I can respect things like critical chance as combat rng because it is a stat players have control over when they choose how to build their character and it often comes with trade-offs at the expense of other stats. I do not respect when bad game design implements gear or abilities that do things like "1% chance to deal 100,000 damage to attacker after taking damage" as a hyperbolic pvp example. Another example for pve would be when random boss abilities overlap and leave players with no viable option even if players made no bad decisions in the fight..
Some randomness in loot generation is to be expected, but I despise when there is a possibility that someone can do something an infinite number of times and never get their desired outcome because of rng. I would much rather rewards be based on skill, and investment of time and resources than completely on rng. I would much rather be able to make consistent progress towards a goal than have a 0.01% chance of getting it instantly. I hate when I never know if I will ever get what I'm looking for or get it as my next loot drop. I might appreciate the randomness if I get what I want on the first try, but that chance will not feel worth it when I have not gotten anything good after the next hundred attempts.
Players should be able to build towards an objective rather than just hoping it will eventually happen. At the very least I think things like looting, crafting, upgrading gear should have a system that would eventually guarantee the desired reward after so many attempts. (Preferably with crafting, players should be able to invest enough resources into a craft to reduce the chance of a crafting failure to 0%.)
There are multiple ways to implement systems that guarantee players get the rewards they want even while having rng. Things like a pity system, in which players can select exactly what they want from the loot table and if they do not get that specific piece of loot it will eventual become guaranteed to be their next drop even if it takes hundreds of attempts. Or a token system, in which every time players compete specific content they get a token, and can eventually exchange x number of the tokens for a specific piece of gear that drops from that content. In both systems players get random loot, and if they get what they want they can move on to different content, but even if they don't get what they want players at least know they will eventually get what they have invested time into.
TL;DR - I hate when rng decides the outcome in combat, and do not like when rng makes it possible to never get a specific piece of gear even after an infinite number of attempts.
1
Options
TarlachMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I enjoy rng in enchanting, drops, and farming/breeding.
I do not overly care for rng in crafting but I do enjoy procs in crafting when something special has a chance of happening. You basically are making something and it has rng chance to be more then base item.
I disslike RNG since my luck is basicly 0.
IM even banned from looting in my guild becouse my luck is so bad XD
Atleast have some token system that you can trade for the items you want.
And for all of us that played Lost Ark, no RNG on gear upgrade! (enchanting, adding gems etc are ok)
Crafting higher quality items should be based on crafting skill.
For raid content:
No RNG that makes your whole raid wipe for no reason.
Some RNG on NPC pathing is ok.
For gathering:
RNG for getting rare items is ok and i actually prefer it.
There are already plenty of excellent lengthy suggestions, more well thought out than I could brainstorm—so I'll just add one suggestion that I didn't see in my search results:
A system similar to Monster Hunter's for targeting specific body parts:
e.g.
A wyvern that frequently uses its tail to attack making it effectively too difficult to hit, so the tail becomes targetable during short windows of recovery—if destroyed, not only does the mob no longer use that method of attack, but there is a much greater success rate in normal and High Quality/Rare drops from the tail.
Edit: perhaps the tail is always hittable by manually aimed abilities and can only be attacked by lock-on abilities while it's recovering and not flailing about.
RNG damage and mastery - I love RNG on damage, especially when combined with a "Mastery" stat that reduces the randomness of the damage (increase minimum only please, don't bring down the max damage) as mastery increases. At maximum mastery, I feel comfortable with a 15% difference between max and min RNG on damage. That said 100% Mastery (0 RNG) should not be possible - combat becomes really formulaic if that happens.
Boss Attack patterns - When the order of all attack patterns are pre-scripted it gets boring, HOWEVER I still want a story to the way a boss fight progresses.
Enchanting - Magic is wild and uncontrolled, it makes total sense here.
Rare Spawns/Events - RNG is meaningful for rare spawns, not so much for common spawns.
Lightning Strikes, Chaos. And they can strike twice. Electric/Lightning abilities and also "Chaos"/"Darkness" abilities are thematically consistent with high RNG.
Loot - rolling for loot is really fun, but I appreciate minimum-guarantee systems for really rare stuff. I think it's fair if the minimum guarantee loot isn't as powerful as the rolled loot, it prevents the feeling of being stuck.
Critical Hits - feels better when player agency increases the chance of landing crits, rather than raw RNG. (Example: sleeping enemies are 50% more likely to take critical hits, or wet enemies are 20% more likely to sustain critical hits from ice spells)
Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
Action Combat Hit/Miss Rolls - Feels really bad on skill shots that clearly landed. HOWEVER, you can apply it as random deviation from where the reticle is aimed (e.g. in shooters, some guns spray randomly around the reticle).
RNG vs Player Agency -
When the outcome of an event is determined the moment a player initiates a dice roll, this is really unsatisfying due to lack of player agency. For most forms of RNG, please consider how players can exert agency on the dice:
Two distinct game design patterns worth considering here: proactive and reactive choices for players. Proactive choices (before the dice roll) are more satisfying against high-occurence rolls. Reactive choices tend to be more situational (low occurence rate). That's what makes these plays feel good.
What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
Hearthstone - pushed the RNG dial too far. Lessons learned: When too much RNG is added to outcomes, players lose agency. Make RNG events far and few between, then they can be designed with significant impact - otherwise it's a mess that doesn't feel rewarding.
Tactical Strategy - FAIR RNG IS ALWAYS THE FRIEND OF THE LOSING TEAM. When all hope is lost, having RNG options gives a losing team a hope to re-equalize the scales. On the flip side, the team with a winning advantage should be able to use their advantage to mitigate the consequences of a dice roll. So it's a good idea to build in some RNG last-resort options for losing teams.
Roguelites - Exceptional luck is usually met with exceptionally diverse RNG from enemies - to increase both the challenge to the player, but also to maximize the use-case of the advantage that the player has gained.
In my experience, this should be the motto of the God of Fate (RNG):
"Fate is not a death sentence. It is a question begging an answer."
It would be interesting that the concept of RNG evolved or improved in AoC, luck is always a factor that helps both the gameplay, the economy, and many other things but that has been so static over time that practically unbeatable.
If some things not only depended on the RNG but rather on other factors that would add to the RNG to "improve it" then not everything would depend on the RNG.
For example :
- If to improve something important I need certain materials, it would be as simple as saving gold, go to the market and buy it, as all MMOs do, BUT what would happen if those materials are only obtained by completing an achievement/mission that has a very high level of difficulty and for which only people with dedication and skill could get them? The RNG would be there but at the same time there would be the player's dedication and skill to get those materials.
In the same way it could also be said that exploration could play a big role for the RNG as some "unique" materials could be obtained only by exploring unique places.
The RNG is often simple, as simple as going to the market to buy what you need, get lucky and that's it, I think it's time to improve that and spice up the RNG.
General loot should be a mix of definitive loot and additional loot.
It would also be perfect if it makes sense to some extent.
Time and effort should always yield some results and not depend on total randomisation.
Additional factors such as skills/experience/items can play a role in being able to remedy less luck/ to increase luck in crafting/gathering, if implemented as mechanic for dedicated players which focus a lot on the skill (should be more seen as an addon of appreciation for lovers of crafting to lift them up from normal crafters)
RNG should always consider players with gambling addiction problems, and limit possibility of abuse
If possible, make RNG a positive experience rather than a frustrating one (don’t just think about UI, but also about UX 😉)
o E.g. RNG can be a bonus on top of the regular game, but does not hinder progression of endeavours
o Give people the feeling: wow this was soo cool, I didn’t expect that
o Definitive loot - Organic: Teeth, Hide, Hoof, Organs, Scale, etc. (Things that are actual parts of the organism)
--> Amount can vary, due to broken elements/the fight
o Random loot – Material/Armor/Currency-Shards: Item 1 (10%); Item 2 (5%), etc.
--> Part of a carried sack or chest, insides of a stomach, etc.
o Global loot 0.1% – A fun mechanic, that gives a chance on everything
Crafting
o Can have a chance to break while crafting
Chance should be able to be mitigated, by additional skills or items part of the craft
o Can have a chance to create better versions of a product
Chance should be able to be increased, by additional items or skills part of the craft
Gathering
o Wood chopping
Definitive loot – Normal wood
• Amount 5-10
Random loot – Good quality wood, rare inhabitant such as insect/critter
Global loot 0.1%
• Could be because there is a chance of a hidden chest/someone hid something in the crown, etc…
o Fishing
Fish caught yes/no
• Fish Type 1 (89%)
• Fish type 2 (10%)
• Fish type 3 (1%)
Quality
• Normal (89%)
• Good (10%)
• Excellent (1%)
Global loot 0.1%
• A MUST for fishing - its just the hope of a fisher to get something amazing
IF, In game casino
o 100% RNG, but should be more like a game without real life implications
All currency that is “lost” could be obtainable as a grand jackpot for everyone
o Maybe a mechanic of access limitation
Max 1-2h per day
o Maybe everybody gets 5 daily tickets to play
I enjoy RNG when it comes to drops but not when it comes to enhancing those drops, I'm much more likely to spend 40 hours grinding for a weapon than I am grinding materials for a hone to fail. I'm also much more likely to grind 60 hours for a guaranteed hone than I am to grind 5 hours for a CHANCE to succeed.
RNG has its place in MMO's I just prefer them as drops instead of hones.
RNG stats on dropped or crafted items. Being able to find a better weapon or armor of the same type because it rolled better stats keeps me excited to loot monsters that I know won't necessarily drop higher tier items than what I'm currently wearing.
I hate:
RNG success rates. If I have the required materials to craft or upgrade my items, I want it to succeed. I'm happy to grind for more materials if needed, but don't make it random.
Crafting
o Can have a chance to break while crafting
Chance should be able to be mitigated, by additional skills or items part of the craft
o Can have a chance to create better versions of a product
Chance should be able to be increased, by additional items or skills part of the craft
I feel that a lot more people than not overlook the aspect that the best games involving RNG in over-enchanting (and the key word there is the "over" in 'over-enchanting') involve a mechanic or system wherein your gear/potions/buffs/etc off-set a "zero-control" factor, in these processes. The best games allow you to augment your chances in such a process as over-enchanting. That said, I've seen plenty of examples in this thread of games that did *NOT* include such a mechanic - and I'm certain such an oversight has to leave a very bad taste in the mouth.
So long as we can do things to increase the chances of success wherein RNG is a factor in over-enchantment, then it feels like a reasonable and welcome system. Guaranteed success has it's place in a game wherein your gear is not entirely obtained by looting - but I really like that Intrepid's Creative Director has the experience of having played different games wherein the development decisions have been outright WRONG or mis-guided, in removing the element of Risk vs Reward; The Nodes in-and-of-themselves are a wonderful aspect to AoC - but I also want that factor of uncertainty in an "ideal MMO".
Crafting
o Can have a chance to break while crafting
Chance should be able to be mitigated, by additional skills or items part of the craft
o Can have a chance to create better versions of a product
Chance should be able to be increased, by additional items or skills part of the craft
I feel that a lot more people than not overlook the aspect that the best games involving RNG in over-enchanting (and the key word there is the "over" in 'over-enchanting') involve a mechanic or system wherein your gear/potions/buffs/etc off-set a "zero-control" factor, in these processes. The best games allow you to augment your chances in such a process as over-enchanting. That said, I've seen plenty of examples in this thread of games that did *NOT* include such a mechanic - and I'm certain such an oversight has to leave a very bad taste in the mouth.
So long as we can do things to increase the chances of success wherein RNG is a factor in over-enchantment, then it feels like a reasonable and welcome system. Guaranteed success has it's place in a game wherein your gear is not entirely obtained by looting - but I really like that Intrepid's Creative Director has the experience of having played different games wherein the development decisions have been outright WRONG or mis-guided, in removing the element of Risk vs Reward; The Nodes in-and-of-themselves are a wonderful aspect to AoC - but I also want that factor of uncertainty in an "ideal MMO".
Augmenting your chances does not affect the general perspective of anyone I know towards OverEnchanting odds. RNG is RNG.
My 112 FS in BDO obtained entirely trying to upgrade from TRI to TET starting at 60 is my counterpoint to this.
Augmenting your chances does not affect the general perspective of anyone I know towards OverEnchanting odds. RNG is RNG.
My 112 FS in BDO obtained entirely trying to upgrade from TRI to TET starting at 60 is my counterpoint to this.
Do you, by any chance, have any data on how people might react to a system where there's some item that removes the rng from OE entirely, but to get that item you have to pay more money-time than you would have if you'd just risk the failure of OE?
Cause I understand that people are afraid of and dislike RNG for multitude of reasons, but what if risking that rng was less pricy than having a sure way to OE smth.
And as a flipside of that, what if the default system of OE was "go do this super difficult time-consuming task and you can OE your stuff", but there'd be some shifty way of doing that but at a lower cost and with a risk to fail.
Augmenting your chances does not affect the general perspective of anyone I know towards OverEnchanting odds. RNG is RNG.
My 112 FS in BDO obtained entirely trying to upgrade from TRI to TET starting at 60 is my counterpoint to this.
Do you, by any chance, have any data on how people might react to a system where there's some item that removes the rng from OE entirely, but to get that item you have to pay more money-time than you would have if you'd just risk the failure of OE?
Cause I understand that people are afraid of and dislike RNG for multitude of reasons, but what if risking that rng was less pricy than having a sure way to OE smth.
And as a flipside of that, what if the default system of OE was "go do this super difficult time-consuming task and you can OE your stuff", but there'd be some shifty way of doing that but at a lower cost and with a risk to fail.
I have some data from BDO itself and their current flows of development.
They have consistently had to introduce more and more 'guaranteed enhancement' options for players, to the point where I now believe that for at least one character per account, you could achieve BIS PEN gear in at least four slots without ever interacting with the RNG.
Reason 'overwhelming demand' apparently. All such items are not-sellable, character bound. I don't see anyone actually attempt higher level enhancement at all anymore. This was also the case on their EU servers for accessories to the point where high level accessories did not even exist and they had to consider methods to solve it because the higher level grind areas are not POSSIBLE without at least a few high level enhanced accessories, but so few were willing to do it that the supply dried up for a few months.
I don't have sufficient specifics because they don't like to share them, obviously. Just know that it has been repeatedly affecting and changing their design. Could be that the game is too old and they have to 'give people a chance', but they could just 'do that by handing out more items to help with the enhancement'.
They tried that for a while. A LONG while. It doesn't work very well because if they hand out 1000 Cron Stones (use between 56 and 150 for one free enhancement where your gear doesn't risk downranking), then even with the standard odds, some people will burn through all of those and still have no upgrade done.
To those people, you gave them nothing at all. (I'm not complaining here, I don't even use that system because like I said, Enhancing is for people who want to lose money, and gamblers)
Reason 'overwhelming demand' apparently. All such items are not-sellable, character bound. I don't see anyone actually attempt higher level enhancement at all anymore. This was also the case on their EU servers for accessories to the point where high level accessories did not even exist and they had to consider methods to solve it because the higher level grind areas are not POSSIBLE without at least a few high level enhanced accessories, but so few were willing to do it that the supply dried up for a few months.
Yeah, this is the biggest thing I hate about mmo pve design (at least in most cases I've seen so far). It's usually all based on "unless you get this OP gear - ya ain't clearing shit". I think FF14 might be a bit different in this, though I'm not completely sure cause I haven't looked into its ultimate fights too much.
And I understand that there's a limit on how many mechanics you can put into one boss to make it super difficult w/o just pumping a shitton of hp/atk into it, but damn do some companies not even try. I really hope the genre shifts away from that type of difficulty increase before we get to VRMMOs, cause I cannot be bothered to flop my hands around for hours just because some devs couldn't come up with a way to make a boss hard w/o trillions of hp. I already experienced that in SAO vr demo that came out a few months ago. My hands were dead after just a few hours of boss runs.
Reason 'overwhelming demand' apparently. All such items are not-sellable, character bound. I don't see anyone actually attempt higher level enhancement at all anymore. This was also the case on their EU servers for accessories to the point where high level accessories did not even exist and they had to consider methods to solve it because the higher level grind areas are not POSSIBLE without at least a few high level enhanced accessories, but so few were willing to do it that the supply dried up for a few months.
Yeah, this is the biggest thing I hate about mmo pve design (at least in most cases I've seen so far). It's usually all based on "unless you get this OP gear - ya ain't clearing shit". I think FF14 might be a bit different in this, though I'm not completely sure cause I haven't looked into its ultimate fights too much.
And I understand that there's a limit on how many mechanics you can put into one boss to make it super difficult w/o just pumping a shitton of hp/atk into it, but damn do some companies not even try. I really hope the genre shifts away from that type of difficulty increase before we get to VRMMOs, cause I cannot be bothered to flop my hands around for hours just because some devs couldn't come up with a way to make a boss hard w/o trillions of hp. I already experienced that in SAO vr demo that came out a few months ago. My hands were dead after just a few hours of boss runs.
Unfortunately that's not even the case.
Once again I will remind that I can and will rag on BDO all day every day, no problem, but this is not a point where the game falls short. There is content for people who cannot get higher. It is often MORE fun than some of the higher grind content.
What is missing is the sense of progression. The 'worry about being ganked by a powerful foe' means little because BDO TTK is like 5 seconds if ganked in the open world by even a semiserious player, and the arenas tend to balance things more.
The solo-PvE enemies downscale in strength if you leave them alone long enough (they are instanced per player) but still give the same rewards.
They made it entirely possible that you basically never NEED to actually get gear particularly high in order to do anything much. But if you aren't progressing gear, you aren't progressing much, so people still complain... or stop playing.
For example, I realized I made a contradiction. I gave an example of 'trying to upgrade gear' and then said I don't interact with the system. Because it's for losing money. Sometimes I just lose the money (since I use BDO as case study, and because I don't need high gear for anything of importance).
So I do the standard 'roulette'. 'All my gear is TRI, I don't think I'll be fighting anything too strong for a while and this month's event is boring, I'll try to upgrade every slot.'
That 112 FS came with 'All my gear downgrading to DUO. All three weapons, four armor pieces, complete loss of 2x TRI accessories. I just 'calculated where I could let my power drop to and still do what I do' and stopped there.
PvE in BDO is laughable, but that's a story for another time.
PvE in BDO is laughable, but that's a story for another time.
Yeah, and that's my problem with overall mmo pve. It's either super easy but obviously not rewarding enough because of that, or it's super hard but relies on you having the peak gear just to even come close to clearing it even w/o you showing some high level of mechanical skill. I wish games went for a mechanical skillcheck and had gear progress meaningful somewhere else. For me that "somewhere" would be pvp, because I like gear difference in pvp rather than gear equalization, but I know that a lot of people get really butthurt over that so maybe something else would be better.
In other words, "devs, make games harder w/o relying on boss hp/atk stats".
PvE in BDO is laughable, but that's a story for another time.
Yeah, and that's my problem with overall mmo pve. It's either super easy but obviously not rewarding enough because of that, or it's super hard but relies on you having the peak gear just to even come close to clearing it even w/o you showing some high level of mechanical skill. I wish games went for a mechanical skillcheck and had gear progress meaningful somewhere else. For me that "somewhere" would be pvp, because I like gear difference in pvp rather than gear equalization, but I know that a lot of people get really butthurt over that so maybe something else would be better.
In other words, "devs, make games harder w/o relying on boss hp/atk stats".
Unfortunately, again, the problem is the 'weird opposite' in BDO.
BDO damage from PvE is almost ENTIRELY a mechanical skillcheck. This means that whether or not a boss or enemy group can kill you relies on three things.
1. Does it have at least one attack that functionally can't be evaded at all.
2. Do you have insufficient defensive gear and/or too low evasion to luck out of not dying to this move
3. How long can you persistently keep up the mechanical skill to dodge everything else, if you happen to have low attack and will take a long time to kill it.
Lots of people quite enjoy BDO PVE when they are learning the game. But because many things are 'within the range that a regular person can see, react to, and avoid damage', skilled players literally just dance around the enemy entirely because it's such a high mobility game. Classes that can block just have to block in the right direction and attack in the enemy recovery frames.
BDO PvE fails due to the lack of status effects involved and actually lack of importance of gear stats other than the 'DPS check' and the 'do you get oneshot/combo'd to death off one touch' check. They could do considerably better, but it's one of their core promises that players 'won't need to have friends or a group in order to enjoy the game's content'.
There are no 'builds' in BDO relative to gear. There were about 2 or 3 as the gear available in the game went through different stages, but they gave up on that a long time ago. That's why their RNG upgrades are so 'important to those who want to make progression', and at the same time so utterly pointless.
BDO PvE fails due to the lack of status effects involved and actually lack of importance of gear stats other than the 'DPS check' and the 'do you get oneshot/combo'd to death off one touch' check. They could do considerably better, but it's one of their core promises that players 'won't need to have friends or a group in order to enjoy the game's content'.
There are no 'builds' in BDO relative to gear. There were about 2 or 3 as the gear available in the game went through different stages, but they gave up on that a long time ago. That's why their RNG upgrades are so 'important to those who want to make progression', and at the same time so utterly pointless.
But you said that some areas are impossible to farm w/o OEd gear pieces. Or did you mean that it's only possible to those who can perfectly dodge literally every hit from the mob, which is such a miniscule number of people that it's unimportant? Though imo having oneshots as the main "skillcheck" is also kinda meh when it comes to features.
Also, it's more of a personal gripe with the current action combat design, but I find the "dodge or block" skill checking so damn dull
BDO PvE fails due to the lack of status effects involved and actually lack of importance of gear stats other than the 'DPS check' and the 'do you get oneshot/combo'd to death off one touch' check. They could do considerably better, but it's one of their core promises that players 'won't need to have friends or a group in order to enjoy the game's content'.
There are no 'builds' in BDO relative to gear. There were about 2 or 3 as the gear available in the game went through different stages, but they gave up on that a long time ago. That's why their RNG upgrades are so 'important to those who want to make progression', and at the same time so utterly pointless.
But you said that some areas are impossible to farm w/o OEd gear pieces. Or did you mean that it's only possible to those who can perfectly dodge literally every hit from the mob, which is such a miniscule number of people that it's unimportant? Though imo having oneshots as the main "skillcheck" is also kinda meh when it comes to features.
Also, it's more of a personal gripe with the current action combat design, but I find the "dodge or block" skill checking so damn dull
I know it's hard to visualize because most people never think a game can be designed quite as poorly as BDO is in specific ways, but yes, that's what I'm saying.
I took my mid-geared character to fight some enemies in a new area that I don't have the 'recommended Attack Power' to kill, fought one group for around 10 minutes (I have just enough evasion to not die to them if I don't get combo'd), beat them (this is terribly inefficient, but kind of fun).
Then I took a step further into the area, got stunned by some totem or something while engaging the next group and died within 1.5s before I could take another action.
In order to do sufficient damage to these enemies I would need to OE four accessories, and change my current TET Evasion Belt so that I no longer HAVE the giant evasion boost, which means I would kill them faster instead of having to worry about 'did my RNG evasion roll work against this thing'.
The game is based around 'can you kill this enemy group in 2x skills and then efficiently move to the next group to do the same thing?' There are places where this isn't true (which are in turn more fun), but those grindspots are inefficient in terms of earning power, so you 'have to' OE your gear.
Or do what I do, ignore the entire thing. As noted, BDO doesn't require it to play, it requires it to 'progress'. It's honestly pretty casual friendly if what you want is to turn off your brain, or if you literally don't care about 90% of its systems. That just happens to include the enhancing process. If Ashes is designed such that 50% of content is unavailable without OE gear but the other 50% is the fun stuff, then that's fine with me too, but in Ashes I'd NEVER Roulette, whereas in BDO it's 'a way to pass the time in an otherwise flat game'.
When I think of TTRPGs, I think of the relationship between the DM/GM and the players. A simple campaign run by a player who is trying to stay strictly to the rules and loot tables can make for a fun game, and the variance in the RNG is kinda nice. That said, I truly appreciate when they run a game where they curate some of the loot based on the group, randomize some of the loot to support a variety of participants, and provide some stuff that can be made into great things with great effort--or sold for a king's ransom to fund future operations!
One major feature I'd love to see is a system I described a while back, Battle Based Looting, where the loot that is dropped by the adversary is directed by the means used to defeat it, from the types of weapons and damage it is dealt, to the condition of their body or equipment if the fight goes extremely long and attacks are fairly destructive. It may be possible to kill an armored warrior with cold, venom, and attacking their spirit directly, in order to preserve their equipment; using physical force, fire, lightning, and acids would destroy a lot of the equipment by comparison.
So let me list my experience regarding RNG. I have been playing Korean MMORPGs for around 14 years now. That is korean exclusive. Each and every one of these had RNG tied to most of their systems.
Before I begin my long wall of text, I need to ask the question. If AoC is designed already to have winners and losers, high risk vs high reward, and the constant possibility of you being robed etc. Why punish the "already losers" with further negative RNG? No one wants to be a complete loser. Enhancement RNG:
- Imagine average Joe farms for a week, half of his farm gets stolen. Then with that half left he also fails his enhancement with no progression in any way. Do you think average Joe will want to continue playing?
- Just for the information above, I did make people uninstall games in easier environment than AoC wants itself to be. You can make player experience absolutely miserable just with this high risk vs high reward, and it feels like AoC is taking it to a higher level.
- I have already had my "rant" in the previous topic regarding this. This is the one system probably every single player will interract with, so I ask the question why would you even consider this having a negative experience?
- I still cannot see how negative RNG, overenhancing or anything like that will improve player experience. At worst make it that there is no negative RNG, only neutral(fail with pity system) and positive(success).
- This is our vertical progression, and the one system we get the most emotional about if it just does not work out, and oh boy I have enough experience of it not working out.
- Just how many people have I seen leave games because of RNG in vertical progression, including myself at one point.
Aion, this game had it is korean standard you succeed you go up 1 level, you fail you go down 1 level. Once you tried to do the +10 to +15 path, every fail between +11 and +14 sent you back to +10 directly. I cannot explain how many times I have failed +14 items, and then failed back down to +3 or even +0. The system was shit and unforgiving, and yes hundreds of thousands of people left the game because of this shit system and this was even without item destruction, imagine if that was the case also. We add on top of that the manastone(gem) system, which was the same you put in 5 gems in a row then fail the 6th and you have no more gems in your gear. Weeks, months of grind for not just no result, but possible negative result.
ArcheAge, ooooooooh boy, just how many celestial items have I seen break in this game, this game was literally better before it's enhancing scrolls were implemented when the only way for you to get better quality gear was through multiple crafting procs. But there was one difference between that and crafting, you could not break/destroy your item while crafting.
Black Desert Online, I probably was one of the biggest neckbeards in this game when it was released. This was my first MMORPG where I knew I am going to nolife it and play 18 hours a day. But then again, RNG was kicking me in the balls. Up until this day I have never managed to click a PEN, back in the days before p2w was a thing I was making multiple 40-50 stacks on my Kzarka longsword trying to get it to +12-13-14, at the end I just gave up and just force-enhanced it. Basically my entire savings since launch till that drop disappeared. Meanwhile my guild mate "accidentally" double clicked on enhance and both were success.
Lost Ark, very up to date situation. Me failing to get 4 succesful enhancements in 1200 materials, while my guild mate gets 18 succesful enhancements in less than 400 materials. The only thing that keeps me playing this game is that there is at one point 100% success rate.
- NO ONE likes negative progression, you need no survey, no data, no systemic review to know this. No one plays a game of progression to walk backwards.
- It has been said that gear is going to play a part in player strength. But as I have explained in the previous topic, the difference in strength should come from knowledge and build diversity. No one should be "better" because they happened to have a lucky day.
- So many possibilities, complex systems are being told by Steven. Different skill builds, different secondary classes, different stats, different weapons, different armor builds, different seasons affecting you. It just sounds foolish to add a RNG based vertical progression on top of this, that would very likely just spit into the face of these complex systems.
- If there was any gear that should make the difference it is the world boss loot/crafted items vs your regular BiS after world boss.
- And with that we arrive at our item destruction phase in enhancement, this feature is probably the worst and most lazy feature of all games I have played. Some people try to convience people that it is needed for constant demand and avoidance of possible stagnation.
- You can fix this constant demand by requiring identical item/crafting resources as needed material to repair the so called item. This brings constant cycle of work between gatherers-processing-crafters. At the end no item was destroyed, and everyone is needed. You can even "manipulate" this by how fast the gear breaks.
- This would also create a much higher competition over world bosses, as by my theory you would require to kill these bosses to repair your world boss items. But this is a very baseline idea, I am sure it can be polished.
- Overall, enhancing RNG causes much more trouble than joy, and I just simply cannot see how RNG could be implemented into this system in a relatively good way. Quest RNG
- REMOVE THIS, I still have PTSD from when I was leveling with my friends and we had to waste our time because quest items would not drop, or someone got it while the others did not, and the worst case was when only dropping 1 for 1 person at a time so we had to do 6 times the work. Gathering RNG
- Gathering RNG is the perfect example of how RNG should work.
- There is no negative RNG, you either get something or you may get something better with a low chance.
- It is just the perfect line between too much and too little.
- You just do your work for the sake of your progression, with a possibility of good dopamine. Loot RNG
- Basically same as gathering.
- You do your work, and there is the possibility for a rare drop.
- Though since I come from BDO, I wish some of those super rare drops had a pity system on them.
- What I hope that the so called world boss drops are not going to be frequent. I really do not want to see a guild running in full boss equipment a month or two into the game. I wish these items would be like really rare, that requires constant effort from a guild or guilds to farm. I also don't like the idea of Steven, where world bosses have a small chance of dropping actual gear. I think it is enough dopamine, effort to just kill the boss and get its valuable materials. This would also exclude the possible stupid RNG of dropping the same weapon over and over again. Crafting RNG
- I am open-minded to crafting RNG.
- The only thing I do not want to see is high-end absolute RNG.
- Maybe add stat RNG when craft is finished(?) → Trading possibilities for items that have your desired stats or have master crafters have the ability to change stats in a RNG manner, but at one point acquiring the desired stat no matter what.
- There are just so many possibilities when it comes to crafting RNG.
Aion, some of the best weapons needed weeks, months of grinding for materials to get a single chance at crafting. Then on top of it you had a 20% chance to proc the best, and in some cases if there was no proc the item was basically worthless.
ArcheAge, I have never managed to craft a single Delphinad piece. While I have had guildmates who 1 tapped a single craft all the way into the Delphinad proc that was needed for Ayanad in the next patch before T3 hasla weapon was the norm even. OG ArcheAge players will understand this pain.
Combat RNG
- I have such mixed feelings regarding this, where I want a combat with no RNG and just pure skill. But no RNG in combat is just the invitation of stagnation, so I know deep inside it will never happen.
- Then there needs to be considered if we have tab-target or action combat PvP? If there is tab-target then stat RNG plays a much bigger role, if there is action combat then player movement plays a much bigger role.
- If there was one thing that should highly be considered is that every defensive stat should have the possibility to be perfectly countered.
Aion, in the early days clerics could build so much magic resist (or block) that it would be always higher than the enemies' magical accuracy (or accuracy). Hence this era was named "Magic resist patch". I just mention this for the sake of "I cannot believe this even existed". Before 4.0 patch in Aion, there was a 1% chance you just directly resist anything regardless of stats.
Black Desert Online, I wonder if any game has gone beyond more **** than BDO has. I am looking at you evasion ninjas. Where you simply just could not build enough counter stats to even have the chance of beating your opponent, even though it was fully action combat and you literally slammed your entire combo into someone on the ground, but they just take no damage because "evaded" while CC-ed.
- Honestly, I personally am just so fed up with these bad game designs, that I accept anything as long as I have the possibility to win and not auto-lose because of unreachable numbers.
- I wanted to go into so much deeper details in the crafting and combat section, but without having much at our hands, it would be just a waste of effort.
- All in all, effort should always be rewarded at the end of the day... or stolen by a group of PKers.
- Loot drops, farming is a lot of fun as long as the odds don't get to crazy (Shiny hunting is not fun).
- Used as a mechanic to differentiate damage types (ie: Lightning having a larger variance but higher potential than Ice or Fire).
- Experimentation with crafting. I want the base chances to be pretty well set, but if I want to push things the risk vs reward is fun.
- In game casino mechanics are obviously fine since that's the whole point.
- Percentage based combat mechanics like Crit or Saving Throw.
Disliked
- Base crafting. I want to be able to plan out what I'm going to make.
- Anything involving real money. I want to know what I'm buying, no boxes or packs.
- Too heavy on RNG. When taken too far, and things feel 100% random, it dissolves any sense of agency for me.
1
Options
mcstackersonMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2022
I don't care too much for rng.
When it comes to progression, i don't think content should be hard locked behind an rng system. This is an opinion i have formed while playing lost ark and haven't tested it but I don't think you should have to rely on RNG to progress your character to a point where you can participate in an activity. If rng is involved, i think there should be a reasonable way around it if you are horribly unlucky. If i apply it to ashes, I think overenchanting is fine as long as it's not required.
In combat, i don't like RNG playing a role outside of abilities where RNG is supposed to be part of it, like the wand of many things. Doesn't feel good if you did everything you were supposed to but lost because you got unlucky.
I welcome RNG when it comes to enchanting, crafting effects from proficiency (poorly made->masterpiece), mob spawning.
One of the least realistic things I remember about crafting in WoW that wasn't decided by RNG, that arguably should have been IMO, was a grinding crafting system. I found myself skinning tons of higher level mobs just for enough material to make a single piece of leather armor, and after making it, the exact same item was produced every time, as if I wasn't a craftsman, but a factory. I think that the system of making crafting revolve around a grind of farming hundreds of mobs and producing the exact same item every time needs a change. I'd like to see a craftable items system in Ashes revolve around a rare mob-spawning RNG system where finding a single strong mob with a guaranteed drop-rate and taking it down with a group in an area of lower level mobs is all that is needed to craft the gear, and the proficiency and talents of the craftsman alter the quality and attributes of the gear.
What i'm getting at is that crafting should not be a "kill quest" of many of the same mob if it is meant to be an immersive experience, and no craftsman should reasonably make the same exact piece of armor either. One of the reasons I'm so excited to play this game is because of how immersive it sounds. It almost seems like I won't even need to try at roleplaying for immersion because it will come naturally as I invest myself into my character and the world around AoC. I'm hoping a profession system like this can be something that I can look forward to using during my time playing.
1
Options
DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2022
I'm not sure I think RNG for rare mob-spawning is a bad thing - but it doesn't fix the problem you describe for WoW.
To fix that WoW problem, we should be able to add components to the items we craft in order to add the stats that we want. Similar to Cooking or Alchemy.
RNG for finding those components can be OK, sure.
And, yes, the core of RP is just interacting with others from the character perspective rather than the player perspective. And it's easy to do that in a dynamic world which makes character interests similar to player interests.
"Wasn't there a Py'Rai city here a while ago? What happened to it?"
"Who is the current Monarch of this region?"
I think RNG in the world makes things more reaistic and makes the in game economy more stable overall. For rng to effect mob spawn locations and type gives more people an "average" chance to find something worth having/selling. Less guilds hoarding every spawn location and all that, but still gives guilds and players with communication networks the upper hand, as they can tell each other where what they are after is. I think it promotes the social aspect that this game is going to have to have to survive
Comments
Drops from bosses and monsters
The ideal would be a healthy mix of drops that occur during battle and after the battle. A dragon might lose a scale or two during battle, some might even cut off a horn or a claw. A spirit won't lose anything during battle - it's a spirit, but it might leave something after it's dead.
Aggro ( or whatever other stat that affects the distribution of loot) should also be stacked differently on different monsters - a newly awoken bear will most likely go after the one who woke it up, but some vengeful skeleton will probably try and haunt someone who killed it. That type of distribution will more likely promote different PVP behaviors around boss fights - some might want to sneak up on a boss and try and steal the last hit, and some might want to be the first ones to the boss. It's logical that the aggro decreases the further away you go.
Damage and control during battles
It's nice to have some type of randomness during battle, like a sword that does slightly different damage every time. It's perceived as boring to always see the same numbers. A weapon should deal base damage between x and y, not a constant of y.
CC should depend on resistance, and not the chance. If a skill has a description that it “ freezes target” it should freeze the target. Other things like slippery floors should work at a chance, but have to account for resistance. A mage specializing in ice, won't slip on the ice they’ve cast.
Bosses' and monsters behavior
Monster and bosses' behavior should be somewhat randomized. A herd of creatures will not necessarily mean that all individuals in that herd behave the same way in the same situation. Some bunnies are skittish, and some aren't. Time of year should also affect general behavior to an extent.
Monsters should not have fixed spawn, if they have been exterminated they shouldn't spawn in the same spot.
We would like to see bosses with both random and scripted attacks, one should learn the mechanics, but shouldn't be able to predict every step a boss does.
Gear and enchanting
Gear that is dropped in the world ( apart from the coolest gear there is) should have random everything, random stats, random tier, and random enchantment abilities. Craft gear on the other hand should allow for “exact” crafting if someone is willing to put in resources and time. A master blacksmith will be able to craft the exact sword with the exact stats they desire.
Enchanting should scale in difficulty and the gear should get unusable upon failure.
An example of a great gear system that was named is Metin 2, the same game was brought up as an example of good loot distribution.
Craft
A linear progression - the more you craft the better you get... with some added spice would be nice. A beginner alchemist should be able to craft everything on the beginner list, but might also attempt to craft some more difficult potions. His rate of success might be lower since he doesn't have the required experience.
//If anyone feels like I forgot to add something feel free to message me on discord
Gathering
Random rare materials when gathering can be a fun dopamine hit. If the base material I'm gathering is worth something, the hits feel like bonuses while the misses feel like the expected result.
Farming
Farming a boss or an area for a specific drop can be a fun activity, as long as that item is not something essential I can't do without and the drop chance is low. If the drop I'm after is gatekeeping me from some aspect of the game and I'm on my 1000th attempt, frustration will quickly mount. Powerful rare drops are fine as long as they are not the baseline and there are other paths to power. If something essential needs to have a grind barrier, I would much prefer the grind being a steady progression type instead of a chance based one.
Example: Acquiring a basic freehold should be a quest/resource investment instead of a 0.01% drop from a dragon. However, a "Dragon Sanctuary" freehold that is better or more specialized over the normal freehold is an okay rare drop from said dragon.
Gear from bosses, dungeons and quests
Either RNG or not is fine, but a mixed approach is probably the best. Acquirement-wise some drops could be guaranteed while others could be a thing I have to farm. Stats-wise I'd like some named drops that are always fixed that people can build around, and some totally random attribute/stat combinations that lend to high rolls and build variety.
Gear from crafting
Very little rng. Maybe small quality increases, so that crafters can sell the top rolls as premium items, while a low roll on legendary gear won't feel like a waste of materials. But I would be happy with just the RNGless recipe system.
Combat
In PVE, RNG is fine in AI behavior. Otherwise, all RNG when it comes to combat is just another chance to artifically frustrate the player. The player should not be punished for doing the correct action at the correct time by just having the action randomly fail. This is especially true for PVP.
All chance based attributes like accuracy, dodge and resist chance should be replaced with either active abilities or percentage based reductions.
Enchanting
This is a pure slot machine and I'm not sure I like it. It can produce memorable good moments, but it can also be an another luck based barrier on gameplay. Just like with farming, as long as being viable in pve/pvp doesn't require top 1% luck I'm tentatively okay with this. But if I'm stuck infinitely rolling and failing an overenchant that everyone has I'm not going to be happy.
Mob drops. If mobs drop the same thing, in the same quantity each time, then the game feels very artificial, thus lacks immersion.
RNG helps to bring immersion by making the game feel more organic.
Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
In almost all systems, especially reward systems, as a main feature which determines what the person gets.
Good example of it is the Great Vault in WoW's Shadowlands which effectively is a power upgrade system which is purely a lottery, and as such breads tones of bad emotions, and some people even quit game over it.
What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
Only those where RNG is a supportive function which helps make a given system feel more natural, i.e. mob drop.
Sadly, these days RNG is being used as the main function of many systems to prolong gameplay, and effectively to force people into staying in the game for longer, which is an utterly toxic, and destructive game design.
I especially do not like rng in systems like crafting and upgrading gear (anyone who has experienced a crafting failure at the highest % chance of success will understand my rage), and I absolutely hate unmitigated rng related to combat.
Victory in combat should be decided based on skill, game-knowledge, and preparation including time invested into gearing up and character build choices. It should not be dependent on dice-rolls. I can respect things like critical chance as combat rng because it is a stat players have control over when they choose how to build their character and it often comes with trade-offs at the expense of other stats. I do not respect when bad game design implements gear or abilities that do things like "1% chance to deal 100,000 damage to attacker after taking damage" as a hyperbolic pvp example. Another example for pve would be when random boss abilities overlap and leave players with no viable option even if players made no bad decisions in the fight..
Some randomness in loot generation is to be expected, but I despise when there is a possibility that someone can do something an infinite number of times and never get their desired outcome because of rng. I would much rather rewards be based on skill, and investment of time and resources than completely on rng. I would much rather be able to make consistent progress towards a goal than have a 0.01% chance of getting it instantly. I hate when I never know if I will ever get what I'm looking for or get it as my next loot drop. I might appreciate the randomness if I get what I want on the first try, but that chance will not feel worth it when I have not gotten anything good after the next hundred attempts.
Players should be able to build towards an objective rather than just hoping it will eventually happen. At the very least I think things like looting, crafting, upgrading gear should have a system that would eventually guarantee the desired reward after so many attempts. (Preferably with crafting, players should be able to invest enough resources into a craft to reduce the chance of a crafting failure to 0%.)
There are multiple ways to implement systems that guarantee players get the rewards they want even while having rng. Things like a pity system, in which players can select exactly what they want from the loot table and if they do not get that specific piece of loot it will eventual become guaranteed to be their next drop even if it takes hundreds of attempts. Or a token system, in which every time players compete specific content they get a token, and can eventually exchange x number of the tokens for a specific piece of gear that drops from that content. In both systems players get random loot, and if they get what they want they can move on to different content, but even if they don't get what they want players at least know they will eventually get what they have invested time into.
TL;DR - I hate when rng decides the outcome in combat, and do not like when rng makes it possible to never get a specific piece of gear even after an infinite number of attempts.
I do not overly care for rng in crafting but I do enjoy procs in crafting when something special has a chance of happening. You basically are making something and it has rng chance to be more then base item.
I disslike RNG since my luck is basicly 0.
IM even banned from looting in my guild becouse my luck is so bad XD
Atleast have some token system that you can trade for the items you want.
And for all of us that played Lost Ark, no RNG on gear upgrade! (enchanting, adding gems etc are ok)
Crafting higher quality items should be based on crafting skill.
For raid content:
No RNG that makes your whole raid wipe for no reason.
Some RNG on NPC pathing is ok.
For gathering:
RNG for getting rare items is ok and i actually prefer it.
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
A system similar to Monster Hunter's for targeting specific body parts:
e.g.
Edit: perhaps the tail is always hittable by manually aimed abilities and can only be attacked by lock-on abilities while it's recovering and not flailing about.
When the outcome of an event is determined the moment a player initiates a dice roll, this is really unsatisfying due to lack of player agency. For most forms of RNG, please consider how players can exert agency on the dice:
Two distinct game design patterns worth considering here: proactive and reactive choices for players. Proactive choices (before the dice roll) are more satisfying against high-occurence rolls. Reactive choices tend to be more situational (low occurence rate). That's what makes these plays feel good.
In my experience, this should be the motto of the God of Fate (RNG):
"Fate is not a death sentence. It is a question begging an answer."
If some things not only depended on the RNG but rather on other factors that would add to the RNG to "improve it" then not everything would depend on the RNG.
For example :
- If to improve something important I need certain materials, it would be as simple as saving gold, go to the market and buy it, as all MMOs do, BUT what would happen if those materials are only obtained by completing an achievement/mission that has a very high level of difficulty and for which only people with dedication and skill could get them? The RNG would be there but at the same time there would be the player's dedication and skill to get those materials.
In the same way it could also be said that exploration could play a big role for the RNG as some "unique" materials could be obtained only by exploring unique places.
The RNG is often simple, as simple as going to the market to buy what you need, get lucky and that's it, I think it's time to improve that and spice up the RNG.
General loot should be a mix of definitive loot and additional loot.
It would also be perfect if it makes sense to some extent.
Time and effort should always yield some results and not depend on total randomisation.
Additional factors such as skills/experience/items can play a role in being able to remedy less luck/ to increase luck in crafting/gathering, if implemented as mechanic for dedicated players which focus a lot on the skill (should be more seen as an addon of appreciation for lovers of crafting to lift them up from normal crafters)
RNG should always consider players with gambling addiction problems, and limit possibility of abuse
If possible, make RNG a positive experience rather than a frustrating one (don’t just think about UI, but also about UX 😉)
o E.g. RNG can be a bonus on top of the regular game, but does not hinder progression of endeavours
o Give people the feeling: wow this was soo cool, I didn’t expect that
Examples:
--> Amount can vary, due to broken elements/the fight
o Random loot – Material/Armor/Currency-Shards: Item 1 (10%); Item 2 (5%), etc.
--> Part of a carried sack or chest, insides of a stomach, etc.
o Global loot 0.1% – A fun mechanic, that gives a chance on everything
Chance should be able to be mitigated, by additional skills or items part of the craft
o Can have a chance to create better versions of a product
Chance should be able to be increased, by additional items or skills part of the craft
o Wood chopping
Definitive loot – Normal wood
• Amount 5-10
Random loot – Good quality wood, rare inhabitant such as insect/critter
Global loot 0.1%
• Could be because there is a chance of a hidden chest/someone hid something in the crown, etc…
o Fishing
Fish caught yes/no
• Fish Type 1 (89%)
• Fish type 2 (10%)
• Fish type 3 (1%)
Quality
• Normal (89%)
• Good (10%)
• Excellent (1%)
Global loot 0.1%
• A MUST for fishing - its just the hope of a fisher to get something amazing
IF, In game casino
o 100% RNG, but should be more like a game without real life implications
All currency that is “lost” could be obtainable as a grand jackpot for everyone
o Maybe a mechanic of access limitation
Max 1-2h per day
o Maybe everybody gets 5 daily tickets to play
Thank you for consideration!
RNG has its place in MMO's I just prefer them as drops instead of hones.
RNG stats on dropped or crafted items. Being able to find a better weapon or armor of the same type because it rolled better stats keeps me excited to loot monsters that I know won't necessarily drop higher tier items than what I'm currently wearing.
I hate:
RNG success rates. If I have the required materials to craft or upgrade my items, I want it to succeed. I'm happy to grind for more materials if needed, but don't make it random.
I feel that a lot more people than not overlook the aspect that the best games involving RNG in over-enchanting (and the key word there is the "over" in 'over-enchanting') involve a mechanic or system wherein your gear/potions/buffs/etc off-set a "zero-control" factor, in these processes. The best games allow you to augment your chances in such a process as over-enchanting. That said, I've seen plenty of examples in this thread of games that did *NOT* include such a mechanic - and I'm certain such an oversight has to leave a very bad taste in the mouth.
So long as we can do things to increase the chances of success wherein RNG is a factor in over-enchantment, then it feels like a reasonable and welcome system. Guaranteed success has it's place in a game wherein your gear is not entirely obtained by looting - but I really like that Intrepid's Creative Director has the experience of having played different games wherein the development decisions have been outright WRONG or mis-guided, in removing the element of Risk vs Reward; The Nodes in-and-of-themselves are a wonderful aspect to AoC - but I also want that factor of uncertainty in an "ideal MMO".
Augmenting your chances does not affect the general perspective of anyone I know towards OverEnchanting odds. RNG is RNG.
My 112 FS in BDO obtained entirely trying to upgrade from TRI to TET starting at 60 is my counterpoint to this.
Cause I understand that people are afraid of and dislike RNG for multitude of reasons, but what if risking that rng was less pricy than having a sure way to OE smth.
And as a flipside of that, what if the default system of OE was "go do this super difficult time-consuming task and you can OE your stuff", but there'd be some shifty way of doing that but at a lower cost and with a risk to fail.
I have some data from BDO itself and their current flows of development.
They have consistently had to introduce more and more 'guaranteed enhancement' options for players, to the point where I now believe that for at least one character per account, you could achieve BIS PEN gear in at least four slots without ever interacting with the RNG.
Reason 'overwhelming demand' apparently. All such items are not-sellable, character bound. I don't see anyone actually attempt higher level enhancement at all anymore. This was also the case on their EU servers for accessories to the point where high level accessories did not even exist and they had to consider methods to solve it because the higher level grind areas are not POSSIBLE without at least a few high level enhanced accessories, but so few were willing to do it that the supply dried up for a few months.
I don't have sufficient specifics because they don't like to share them, obviously. Just know that it has been repeatedly affecting and changing their design. Could be that the game is too old and they have to 'give people a chance', but they could just 'do that by handing out more items to help with the enhancement'.
They tried that for a while. A LONG while. It doesn't work very well because if they hand out 1000 Cron Stones (use between 56 and 150 for one free enhancement where your gear doesn't risk downranking), then even with the standard odds, some people will burn through all of those and still have no upgrade done.
To those people, you gave them nothing at all. (I'm not complaining here, I don't even use that system because like I said, Enhancing is for people who want to lose money, and gamblers)
And I understand that there's a limit on how many mechanics you can put into one boss to make it super difficult w/o just pumping a shitton of hp/atk into it, but damn do some companies not even try. I really hope the genre shifts away from that type of difficulty increase before we get to VRMMOs, cause I cannot be bothered to flop my hands around for hours just because some devs couldn't come up with a way to make a boss hard w/o trillions of hp. I already experienced that in SAO vr demo that came out a few months ago. My hands were dead after just a few hours of boss runs.
Unfortunately that's not even the case.
Once again I will remind that I can and will rag on BDO all day every day, no problem, but this is not a point where the game falls short. There is content for people who cannot get higher. It is often MORE fun than some of the higher grind content.
What is missing is the sense of progression. The 'worry about being ganked by a powerful foe' means little because BDO TTK is like 5 seconds if ganked in the open world by even a semiserious player, and the arenas tend to balance things more.
The solo-PvE enemies downscale in strength if you leave them alone long enough (they are instanced per player) but still give the same rewards.
They made it entirely possible that you basically never NEED to actually get gear particularly high in order to do anything much. But if you aren't progressing gear, you aren't progressing much, so people still complain... or stop playing.
For example, I realized I made a contradiction. I gave an example of 'trying to upgrade gear' and then said I don't interact with the system. Because it's for losing money. Sometimes I just lose the money (since I use BDO as case study, and because I don't need high gear for anything of importance).
So I do the standard 'roulette'. 'All my gear is TRI, I don't think I'll be fighting anything too strong for a while and this month's event is boring, I'll try to upgrade every slot.'
That 112 FS came with 'All my gear downgrading to DUO. All three weapons, four armor pieces, complete loss of 2x TRI accessories. I just 'calculated where I could let my power drop to and still do what I do' and stopped there.
PvE in BDO is laughable, but that's a story for another time.
In other words, "devs, make games harder w/o relying on boss hp/atk stats".
Unfortunately, again, the problem is the 'weird opposite' in BDO.
BDO damage from PvE is almost ENTIRELY a mechanical skillcheck. This means that whether or not a boss or enemy group can kill you relies on three things.
1. Does it have at least one attack that functionally can't be evaded at all.
2. Do you have insufficient defensive gear and/or too low evasion to luck out of not dying to this move
3. How long can you persistently keep up the mechanical skill to dodge everything else, if you happen to have low attack and will take a long time to kill it.
Lots of people quite enjoy BDO PVE when they are learning the game. But because many things are 'within the range that a regular person can see, react to, and avoid damage', skilled players literally just dance around the enemy entirely because it's such a high mobility game. Classes that can block just have to block in the right direction and attack in the enemy recovery frames.
BDO PvE fails due to the lack of status effects involved and actually lack of importance of gear stats other than the 'DPS check' and the 'do you get oneshot/combo'd to death off one touch' check. They could do considerably better, but it's one of their core promises that players 'won't need to have friends or a group in order to enjoy the game's content'.
There are no 'builds' in BDO relative to gear. There were about 2 or 3 as the gear available in the game went through different stages, but they gave up on that a long time ago. That's why their RNG upgrades are so 'important to those who want to make progression', and at the same time so utterly pointless.
Also, it's more of a personal gripe with the current action combat design, but I find the "dodge or block" skill checking so damn dull
I know it's hard to visualize because most people never think a game can be designed quite as poorly as BDO is in specific ways, but yes, that's what I'm saying.
I took my mid-geared character to fight some enemies in a new area that I don't have the 'recommended Attack Power' to kill, fought one group for around 10 minutes (I have just enough evasion to not die to them if I don't get combo'd), beat them (this is terribly inefficient, but kind of fun).
Then I took a step further into the area, got stunned by some totem or something while engaging the next group and died within 1.5s before I could take another action.
In order to do sufficient damage to these enemies I would need to OE four accessories, and change my current TET Evasion Belt so that I no longer HAVE the giant evasion boost, which means I would kill them faster instead of having to worry about 'did my RNG evasion roll work against this thing'.
The game is based around 'can you kill this enemy group in 2x skills and then efficiently move to the next group to do the same thing?' There are places where this isn't true (which are in turn more fun), but those grindspots are inefficient in terms of earning power, so you 'have to' OE your gear.
Or do what I do, ignore the entire thing. As noted, BDO doesn't require it to play, it requires it to 'progress'. It's honestly pretty casual friendly if what you want is to turn off your brain, or if you literally don't care about 90% of its systems. That just happens to include the enhancing process. If Ashes is designed such that 50% of content is unavailable without OE gear but the other 50% is the fun stuff, then that's fine with me too, but in Ashes I'd NEVER Roulette, whereas in BDO it's 'a way to pass the time in an otherwise flat game'.
One major feature I'd love to see is a system I described a while back, Battle Based Looting, where the loot that is dropped by the adversary is directed by the means used to defeat it, from the types of weapons and damage it is dealt, to the condition of their body or equipment if the fight goes extremely long and attacks are fairly destructive. It may be possible to kill an armored warrior with cold, venom, and attacking their spirit directly, in order to preserve their equipment; using physical force, fire, lightning, and acids would destroy a lot of the equipment by comparison.
Read more about Battle Based Looting here: https://www.reesehollandgames.com/battle-based-looting/
Before I begin my long wall of text, I need to ask the question. If AoC is designed already to have winners and losers, high risk vs high reward, and the constant possibility of you being robed etc. Why punish the "already losers" with further negative RNG? No one wants to be a complete loser.
Enhancement RNG:
- Imagine average Joe farms for a week, half of his farm gets stolen. Then with that half left he also fails his enhancement with no progression in any way. Do you think average Joe will want to continue playing?
- Just for the information above, I did make people uninstall games in easier environment than AoC wants itself to be. You can make player experience absolutely miserable just with this high risk vs high reward, and it feels like AoC is taking it to a higher level.
- I have already had my "rant" in the previous topic regarding this. This is the one system probably every single player will interract with, so I ask the question why would you even consider this having a negative experience?
- I still cannot see how negative RNG, overenhancing or anything like that will improve player experience. At worst make it that there is no negative RNG, only neutral(fail with pity system) and positive(success).
- This is our vertical progression, and the one system we get the most emotional about if it just does not work out, and oh boy I have enough experience of it not working out.
- Just how many people have I seen leave games because of RNG in vertical progression, including myself at one point.
- NO ONE likes negative progression, you need no survey, no data, no systemic review to know this. No one plays a game of progression to walk backwards.
- It has been said that gear is going to play a part in player strength. But as I have explained in the previous topic, the difference in strength should come from knowledge and build diversity. No one should be "better" because they happened to have a lucky day.
- So many possibilities, complex systems are being told by Steven. Different skill builds, different secondary classes, different stats, different weapons, different armor builds, different seasons affecting you. It just sounds foolish to add a RNG based vertical progression on top of this, that would very likely just spit into the face of these complex systems.
- If there was any gear that should make the difference it is the world boss loot/crafted items vs your regular BiS after world boss.
- And with that we arrive at our item destruction phase in enhancement, this feature is probably the worst and most lazy feature of all games I have played. Some people try to convience people that it is needed for constant demand and avoidance of possible stagnation.
- You can fix this constant demand by requiring identical item/crafting resources as needed material to repair the so called item. This brings constant cycle of work between gatherers-processing-crafters. At the end no item was destroyed, and everyone is needed. You can even "manipulate" this by how fast the gear breaks.
- This would also create a much higher competition over world bosses, as by my theory you would require to kill these bosses to repair your world boss items. But this is a very baseline idea, I am sure it can be polished.
- Overall, enhancing RNG causes much more trouble than joy, and I just simply cannot see how RNG could be implemented into this system in a relatively good way.
Quest RNG
- REMOVE THIS, I still have PTSD from when I was leveling with my friends and we had to waste our time because quest items would not drop, or someone got it while the others did not, and the worst case was when only dropping 1 for 1 person at a time so we had to do 6 times the work.
Gathering RNG
- Gathering RNG is the perfect example of how RNG should work.
- There is no negative RNG, you either get something or you may get something better with a low chance.
- It is just the perfect line between too much and too little.
- You just do your work for the sake of your progression, with a possibility of good dopamine.
Loot RNG
- Basically same as gathering.
- You do your work, and there is the possibility for a rare drop.
- Though since I come from BDO, I wish some of those super rare drops had a pity system on them.
- What I hope that the so called world boss drops are not going to be frequent. I really do not want to see a guild running in full boss equipment a month or two into the game. I wish these items would be like really rare, that requires constant effort from a guild or guilds to farm. I also don't like the idea of Steven, where world bosses have a small chance of dropping actual gear. I think it is enough dopamine, effort to just kill the boss and get its valuable materials. This would also exclude the possible stupid RNG of dropping the same weapon over and over again.
Crafting RNG
- I am open-minded to crafting RNG.
- The only thing I do not want to see is high-end absolute RNG.
- Maybe add stat RNG when craft is finished(?) → Trading possibilities for items that have your desired stats or have master crafters have the ability to change stats in a RNG manner, but at one point acquiring the desired stat no matter what.
- There are just so many possibilities when it comes to crafting RNG.
Combat RNG
- I have such mixed feelings regarding this, where I want a combat with no RNG and just pure skill. But no RNG in combat is just the invitation of stagnation, so I know deep inside it will never happen.
- Then there needs to be considered if we have tab-target or action combat PvP? If there is tab-target then stat RNG plays a much bigger role, if there is action combat then player movement plays a much bigger role.
- If there was one thing that should highly be considered is that every defensive stat should have the possibility to be perfectly countered.
- Honestly, I personally am just so fed up with these bad game designs, that I accept anything as long as I have the possibility to win and not auto-lose because of unreachable numbers.
- I wanted to go into so much deeper details in the crafting and combat section, but without having much at our hands, it would be just a waste of effort.
- All in all, effort should always be rewarded at the end of the day... or stolen by a group of PKers.
- Loot drops, farming is a lot of fun as long as the odds don't get to crazy (Shiny hunting is not fun).
- Used as a mechanic to differentiate damage types (ie: Lightning having a larger variance but higher potential than Ice or Fire).
- Experimentation with crafting. I want the base chances to be pretty well set, but if I want to push things the risk vs reward is fun.
- In game casino mechanics are obviously fine since that's the whole point.
- Percentage based combat mechanics like Crit or Saving Throw.
Disliked
- Base crafting. I want to be able to plan out what I'm going to make.
- Anything involving real money. I want to know what I'm buying, no boxes or packs.
- Too heavy on RNG. When taken too far, and things feel 100% random, it dissolves any sense of agency for me.
When it comes to progression, i don't think content should be hard locked behind an rng system. This is an opinion i have formed while playing lost ark and haven't tested it but I don't think you should have to rely on RNG to progress your character to a point where you can participate in an activity. If rng is involved, i think there should be a reasonable way around it if you are horribly unlucky. If i apply it to ashes, I think overenchanting is fine as long as it's not required.
In combat, i don't like RNG playing a role outside of abilities where RNG is supposed to be part of it, like the wand of many things. Doesn't feel good if you did everything you were supposed to but lost because you got unlucky.
One of the least realistic things I remember about crafting in WoW that wasn't decided by RNG, that arguably should have been IMO, was a grinding crafting system. I found myself skinning tons of higher level mobs just for enough material to make a single piece of leather armor, and after making it, the exact same item was produced every time, as if I wasn't a craftsman, but a factory. I think that the system of making crafting revolve around a grind of farming hundreds of mobs and producing the exact same item every time needs a change. I'd like to see a craftable items system in Ashes revolve around a rare mob-spawning RNG system where finding a single strong mob with a guaranteed drop-rate and taking it down with a group in an area of lower level mobs is all that is needed to craft the gear, and the proficiency and talents of the craftsman alter the quality and attributes of the gear.
What i'm getting at is that crafting should not be a "kill quest" of many of the same mob if it is meant to be an immersive experience, and no craftsman should reasonably make the same exact piece of armor either. One of the reasons I'm so excited to play this game is because of how immersive it sounds. It almost seems like I won't even need to try at roleplaying for immersion because it will come naturally as I invest myself into my character and the world around AoC. I'm hoping a profession system like this can be something that I can look forward to using during my time playing.
To fix that WoW problem, we should be able to add components to the items we craft in order to add the stats that we want. Similar to Cooking or Alchemy.
RNG for finding those components can be OK, sure.
And, yes, the core of RP is just interacting with others from the character perspective rather than the player perspective. And it's easy to do that in a dynamic world which makes character interests similar to player interests.
"Wasn't there a Py'Rai city here a while ago? What happened to it?"
"Who is the current Monarch of this region?"