What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
I don't think enough games use the Runescape/Borderlands Loot table system. I really enjoy when a boss/npc has a specific loot pool (along with world drops. [Very rare, 1/10000 usually]) I love the freedom of knowing X boss has a 1/126 chance to drop X item, I love knowing I can kill that boss on respawn over and over and over until I get the drop that I'm looking for.
Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
Things like crafting/enchanting. I'd rather have a core set of materials needed and spend the time gathering them rather than continuously pumping rolls over and over waiting for a big craft.
RNG of course evokes quick and strong aversion among many of the MMO audience. It has been, in the past, wrongly utilized to extend player suffering and force them to perform arduous tasks that they have no interest in. However, woven into specific systems in moderation and care, it can be healthy and overall positive.
Good RNG:
• A player can grind a dungeon out on their quest to get a gear drop unique to the area.
• Killing a specific rare on a daily lockout for a chance at an uncommon cosmetic.
• Going out of their way to find caravans to defend partially in the hope of encountering something uncommon for an achievement.
• World events popping up outside of a set schedule or location, giving life to the world and encouraging exploration and reaction.
•An occasional bonus material or non-critical item from doing activities the player already wants to do.
Bad RNG:
• Unforgiving RNG tied to gear acquisition, where bad luck results in no gear for X time period. (e.g. WoW weekly chest)
• Dedicating a lot of work to some progress bar or other metric only for it to provide nothing of use at all after hours of labour.
• Overlapping challenge or boss RNG that leaves no room for a solution.
• Important milestones tied to RNG without the option to grind in further attempts.
• RNG clearly existing for the purpose of artificially inflating active player counts, demanding that players log in and do something boring if they want to get something they need to have fun later.
I'm aware of the enchanting idea where you can supercharge an enchant with increasing risk of failure and item destruction, but this will only negatively impact the poor and average player, letting the gold-rich repeatedly enchant a stack of items until it works. If perhaps there is some other system tied to this, limiting attempts or requiring personal effort rather than just purchased gear/enchants, that may be a compromise.
Use RNG where it won't cause undue aggravation. Let it largely be a nice surprise, not a serious let-down that a player can't quickly enough come back from.
I am okay with Loot RNG... however, regarding gear, rares should be really rare drops, like below 5% drop chance, epics should really be epics, below 1% drop chance, and legendaries should have below 0.005% drop chance. Of course these should also be craftable with the proper materials which should have garantied drop chance, but the mob/boss difficulty and spawn time should reflect the rarity of the material.
I am NOT okay with overly abused enchanting RNG mechanics (which is usually used by Korean games to get your gear to +20) which is used to get that IRL $ for better enchanting rates. Rather than enchanting + on your gear, you should be able to enchant different effects on it. Each rarity of gear should have a specific enchanting slot number. Common 1, rares 2, epics 3, legendaries 4.... or something like that. The enchanting should have guaranteed success. The materials for enchanting should have a low drop rate from mobs, but high of fix rates from bosses world bosses.
You know where I think RNG doesn't belong?When I am out collecting raptor teeth for a quest and the raptor I just killed drops 0 teeth, even though it just ripped me to shreds with a mouth full of them... make it make sense 😂
Pity systems are cool. In general, the chances of getting an item should be directly related to how useful it is.
For gear etc... Put a pity system in place definitely.
I think it's fine NOT putting a pity system in place when the item can drop from multiple places. Like a rare skin that could drop from a whole family of monsters found across the whole continent. No need for pity, as you could drop it without even trying. The main point of the pity is to respect the player's time.
rare animal spawns (If it wasn't for Cash Shop ruining Dragon's Prophet I would still be playing it also did gliding mounts really well look into that)
I LOVED this game. I remember how satisfying it was to get one of these rare dragons that had very random spawn times and locations. Also, I remember going to some kind of challenge tower for the first time, getting carried by my guild. We did 20 floors and stopped. I got a dragon egg from the chest on floor 20, and I've been told one guildmate had cleared over 2000 floors trying to drop that specific egg xD It also had good rolls on the stats!
The whole dragon gameplay was so good. Capture, mounting, fighting alongside them, having them fight in arenas xD
I will keep my comment brief, I would like for there to be items that can drop from anything, and they be rare items and its completely RNG. Like breaking a barrel and a legendary falls out. I would like the items to be special in some way. Like one item could start a quest that would have other wise never been started. So that way one single dude could vastly change the world because he killed a random mob. It dropped an item from the "RNG" loot pool and it happend to be a ring that starts a quest. Player completes quest and once he does every node at stage x gets a new npc giving out a world quest. This quest could be to support the ring finder in defeating a dragon that doesn't happen until the quest chain is complete and that could be as complex as taking the node to the next stage. This would make a world quest center around a single player. That would be cool.
My take on RNG, is that I like it but in small dosages. If there is always the same amount of success every time you perform a task then you only ever need to do something once. It also gives you a reason to explore/clear an area multiple times for the sake of not just physically exploring but also exploring everything monsters have to offer. However, I start to dislike RNG the more we stack RNG chances on top of RNG chances to complete an end task. Is the content loop being created a meaningful content loop to the player(s) in the game.
I acknowledge that this is a theory based off the artisan systems that has not be fully completed. Here is a scenario to be able to craft an epic item and get it enchanted:
RNG luck to obtain the recipe for crafting the item
RNG luck to gather the materials needed for crafting the item
RNG luck for it to be crafted at a high quality.
RNG luck for any items that might possibility be used to increase the probability of a high quality successful crafting.
RNG luck to get the materials you need for your desired enchant
RNG luck to obtain an item/items to increase your chance of successfully enchanting (or removing chance of failure)
In this scenario, for a single item, I just dipped into 6 levels of RNG for just making that item. Now I will admit some of these RNG items might be less severe as I acknowledge that "Epic" resources, like an ore, might be more attainable from higher level resource nodes. If these multiple layers of RNG are used for all 16 equipment slots for a single armor set, this is a lot of RNG that you go through.
One of the crafting systems that I enjoyed, although rudimentary, was Ultima Online [UO]. Their system removed some aspects of RNG through the crafter's skill, not through the use of items possibly found through another RNG source such as crafting/enchanting scrolls to reduce failure chance. In UO, when you first gain enough blacksmithing skill to craft a longsword, you have the ability to lose all materials and not make a sword, make a poor quality or a normal quality version of the sword. As you obtain Max Skill (Grand Mastery) of blacksmithing you remove the chance completely of never destroying or making a poor quality version of the weapon and access high chances of making "exceptional" items. If you can increase your skill through magical means, you could guarantee that you will always craft "exceptional" longswords.
So the skill of the crafter removes aspects of the RNG machine. This puts more power into the players as it rewards player's choice of mastering artisan skills to the maximum and placing points into appropriate skills for this effect.
Which systems do you feel utilize RNG the best? Where do you feel RNG does not belong? What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
Crafting should have rng system in place mitigated by adding additional material/ skill in order to get better quality item. That way when someone whose a master armourer can make better armour than a novice crafter. So adding like a Quality stat to items would be acceptable and having better/ different stats based upon what materials you have also goes hand in hand with that. If you craft something out of rare gems and metals it should be better stated. And if you put more mats into something I think it would be more likely for a better outcome item, like you have more to work with in case something messes up.
Thane Hrothmir Runeforge, Son of Orik, Son of Hrothgar, Current Runeforger and Thane of Clan Runeforge Dünhold Discord Dünhold Website
I like rng in general, but too much of it can be bad. It depends on the context, but I generally think of rng in loot context.
If you want an item drop that has a low chance to drop and then it has rng stats, that can be a bad experience. If its just a low chance to drop with fixed stats, that's better. If an item has a decent chance to drop or a way to farm for it and has rng stats, that's fine and provides a gameplay loop.
Say bosses have a loot table and drop 2 items, it would be nice if each drop was in its own pool. Like one of the drops was a melee piece and the other was a ranged piece. Something like that. There's still rng, but you wont only get melee pieces for months on end. And on top of that, if the same boss also has a low chance to drop a rare item(whether its cosmetic or legendary item) that's separate from the 2 other items, I like that as well.
I don't know if this applies to this game, but 2 other rng systems I really like are the knockout design and drop protection. Knockout is where there's a fixed loot table of items you are working towards, usually cosmetics as you want all of them. The knockout means that you wont get duplicates until you have acquired everything on the list. This allows for farming without punishing the player as you will get what you want in time. It just might take a bit. And then the drop protection is a increased chance on successive runs for the item to drop. Basically if you want an item that has a low drop chance, every time you do the event, it increases that drop chance. Destiny 2 is a good example for both of these systems and what I'm referencing. There's cosmetic loot boxes that work on knockout design(I'm pretty sure they do at least) so you will slowly get all of the cosmetics. The end raid bosses have a low chance to drop the exotic weapon, but each time the raid is done, it has a higher chance to drop. Though I think it caps at a certain %.
Honestly, one RNG element that got introduced in the declining stage of World of Warcraft which I actually enjoyed was getting RNG upgrades to Quest Items introduced in the Warlords of Draenor expac, boosts to rarity, specifically, were the upgrades that were added. When completing a quest with a mediocre reward, having the occasional quality upgrade hit my monkey brain with the happy juice and it meant I'd either sell it to a vendor for more than I expected, or that I could actually make use of the upgraded piece when I hadn't expected to receive an upgrade. If quests are the key way we develop our gear during the leveling experience, having small chances to upgrade the quality or stats or whatnot of the gear we receive can lead to really nice little moments. Maybe this sort of RNG could be expanded upon with additional optional objectives which can improve the chances for rewards to upgrade or providing additional currency rewards (think, 20/20 X Enemy Slain with additional objectives of taking on tougher enemies in the area, or taking out an additional percentage, like an additional 10 enemies slain will visibly unlock that additional objective) that can encourage players to go above and beyond in their quests, or to stick around and help out another player finish their quests to chance upon an additional quest objective for added chances to boost their rewards.
I love input rng in arenas and anywhere else possible. Tons of input rng. I want no output rng. There is no need for rng in twice output.
I have buffs and debuffs which constitutes combat. Input rng gives solid game play and decisions. Output rng has no balance, no requirement and no support in my current builds.
If we switch to rng combat then mu combat concepts will be changed because I am not wasting abilities and skills on buffs and debuffs for miss and accuracy if one can miss by a dice roll. Would rather max damage and healing so when rng wires we get max effect rather than a fucked up combat system with little Comprehensive reason.
1.
Input rng = the snow.
Toon turns water to ice. Properly and damage change.
Shoots ice
Ice freezers the opponents due to stats.
2.
Input rng = snow.
Toon turns water to ice. Property and damage change.
Shoots ice
Misses target due to output rng.
There is no need for two lots of rng. I have not stated base damage numbers or weapon damage numbers for the builds due to the input rng of weather and seasons etc.
Output rng can not be accounted for in this way. You could build an Attack for 10 mins of mini game and get nothing due to rng output.
Either get rid of input rng or keep output rng away from my combat builds. We do not need both in place.
RNG is great to keep gameplay fresh and exciting, but if applied with a heavy hand I think it can pretty much ruin a game.
Example: When a spell deals 50-60 damage rather than 55 every time. In this situation and with a small range, this serves to keep combat a little more fresh. However, if an attack did 0-110 damage, players will quickly become frustrated, even if the average result is the same. Pressing a button and expecting an outcome only to see a big fat ZERO is probably the worst thing to happen.
Similarly, on WoW's release, a tank's taunt could randomly miss or be resisted. This affects your entire raid and is dependent entirely on RNG, with no control over the outcome at all. Not good.
In general, if a reasonable worst case scenario means that the game is not fun, it should be reworked.
Which systems do you feel utilize RNG the best?
Damage is the most widespread version of healthy RNG. I mentioned it above, and I like it. Most of the time people enjoy a good back-to-back-to-back critical hit that just blows something up
RNG loot is good and exciting, but I advocate for some form of "bad luck protection" because people on the low-end of the bell curve can end up with a horrible game experience. I experienced this two years ago in WoW when I went months into a new expansion without a weapon upgrade past max level.
I think RNG cosmetic rewards are good, and bad luck protection for those are probably a little overkill. Either have them be entirely deterministic (100% obtain rate after a set task) or completely RNG based.
Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
RNG doesn't belong in areas that it has high impact with low player interaction. The former example of "taunt missing" is exactly that. CCs and important stuns shouldn't randomly miss.
WoW had RNG upgrades to loot a few years back, and it was universally hated. When looting a piece of gear, it could randomly upgrade. The RNG made the actual "BiS state" so unlikely to achieve that people just stopped trying.
I've been bashing my head through Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection on the hardest difficulty lately. Sometimes the chests will give you golden armor, significantly improving your chances. Sometimes those same chests will pop out an enemy that turns you into a frog, often times dooming you to death. This can be pretty frustrating.
I'm skeptical of the enhancement systems being able to damage your weapons. I think a button with a set chance for an actively negative outcome is very easy to do wrong. If a fully enhanced weapon ends up being "necessary" in terms of the meta, then it could become a huge frustration point.
Steven has talked about being able to obtain "very rare resources" to guarantee a positive outcome. I could see that ending up being "grind these resources for over 50 hours for your endgame weapon or risk getting fucked over". Or maybe the system is very generous with a small chance of negative outcome. That means that most people are fine without those guaranteed-upgrade-tickets but a select few will be fucked, making those people feel like they're especially unlucky.
And what does this system actually add? It adds a hypothetical "increased sense of reward for being exceptionally lucky or hardworking". It's a tradeoff: frustrate many players in return for rewarding many players. AOC is already making that decision in many places due to its philosophy of "allowing players to lose", so maybe it should be a bit less harsh in some areas, especially when it's an RNG mechanic.
What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
Hearthstone is amazing when it comes to RNG. Others have mentioned it. It does an amazing job at communicating the extent of the randomness, and rewarding players who can understand what their risk and likely outcome is.
I play many roguelite games like The Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire, Noita, Risk of Rain, Gunfire Reborn... The list goes on. A fundamental aspect of these games is RNG: being able to enjoy the power of good luck, and being able to struggle through bad luck for an unlikely win. The thing that separates the good games from the best games are the ones with significant RNG but are tuned just right to allow a skilled player to pull at every thread possible, allowing them to bring victory just within reach. Bad luck can be frustrating, but the knowledge that victory is possible with enough skill is a big driver for improvement.
Side note: this is why I really disliked Hades, even though most people loved it. By the time I was good enough to beat the game without taking much damage, the game had given me so many max HP upgrades that my increase in skill was pointless. It buffed up players so much through the course of playing the game that the state of "I'm getting unlucky but I know this is still beatable if I was better" never happens.
For MMOs, I enjoy getting rare materials from normal resource nodes, like gems from an ore node.
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FantmxMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
RNG should not exist in crafting. As a crafter levels and gains experience they should gain more control over the end product.
RNG should be limited on loot drops. If you can see the mob wearing an item you should be able to loot it however there could be other items available.
Leveling skills can have some RNG but that should come with a hard ceiling.
RNG should not exist in crafting. As a crafter levels and gains experience they should gain more control over the end product.
Not at all? This is a game, is every crafting going to "win" at powerful crafting? how is the economy working in a game like this if there is nothing more valuable than the other. This view is nothing but weak unless you state a system that determines quality.
Also, say if the crafting system was a simulator, where you were actually crafting it, precisely, then the rng is with the human controlling as we're not all equal in real skill, precision, perception and reaction levels.
In my opinion, RNG can be a fun mechanics, when it doesn't oppress and/or enslave.
Oppression happens when something locked behind RNG is perceived as a requirement, a neccessity:
A player feels obliged to repeatedly try at that RNG mechanics, even when it is not fun to them. A "second job" kind of feeling.
It usually happens when there's an expectation that everyone is going experience all of the content of the MMORPG, akin to a single-player game, and some of this content is locked behind certain RNG-based milestones, such as Gear Tier.
Ashes' ideology seems to be that not everyone will experience all of the content:
Unique legendary items that only a few will ever wield
Highly limited flying mounts
Bosses that may never appear at all on certain servers, or might appear only for a short time and then fade from existence forever.
And also that access to the main game content is not going to be strongly gated:
For example, capability to productively participate in sieges even with low-level, low-equippted character.
In my opinion, as long as this ideology is always at the forefront and visible to all players, as long as its promotion manages to sufficiently break the implicit expectations honed by years of treadmill-based theme-park everyone-is-the-chosen-hero endgame-is-where-the-game-begins MMOs - then most of the typical RNG mechanics will not result in oppression.
Enslavement happens when completionism / FOMO / gambling vulnerability are exploited:
Sparkly achievement board that keeps reminding you which RNG-based achievement you haven't completed yet.
Loot box with the newest cosmetics, including the obligatory super-rare golden-tinted version, be it an ingame achievable loot box or a shop item.
RNG-based "get rich fast" schemes, such as greatly improving gear with over-enhancements.
This is just off the top of my head.
A game can be successful and fun to play without resorting to these types of sickening manipulation.
Specific RNG Areas
Drops
It sure is exciting to get a rare item / resource drop during your adventure.
It is even better when we have a free market, and when in need - there's always an alternative of buying.
Even better so when useful / valuable items don't only drop from the highest end bosses, but can be obtained across the board; When getting a rare drop from a low level monster is not a toss-away (who cares for lvl10 Extremely Rare Sword, if it's worse than lvl20 one from the shop), but a valid trading opportunity (perhaps the Umbrella Sword, while appropriately low in damage, is the only item in game that lowers fall damage by 90% - niche, but valuable to some), so that everyone can experience the excitement.
Although specific monsters better have specific drops table - none of that "any monster can drop anything level-appropriate" nonsense (I recall GW2 does that), that is the kind of RNG that makes everything feel homogenous.
Item stats
I am personally rather bored when same gear drops / crafts with randomised stats - I'd rather have less item drops and more uniqueness.
An item has a name, and I want to know exactly what that name represents.
In my view, randomised stats are a cop-out when game designers lack imagination to make equipment qualities actually interesting.
With randomised stats, instead of "Oh gosh, it's THE item" I get a "Hmm probably trash stats again... oh wait, these are actually ok, huh". Item drops stop being exciting.
Monsters - Spawn Location / Movement / Combat Behaviour
Well done randomisation of monster spawns and movements adds incredibly to the immersion.
For all the good and realistic monster behaviour Monster Hunter: World has, even that game did get rather monotonous when I was doing a dozen of the same encounter in a row for materials, and the monster would always start off in the exact same spot on the map, and follow the same route.
Combat behaviour is a bit more complicated:
I think some scripted events / reactions are perfectly fine and make sense (For example, turtle hiding into a shell after a burst hit), but some randomized spice is also needed for fun encounters: Will it hit with a tail or slap with a paw? Do I dodge or duck? Gotta stay on my toes to not miss the visual signs.
Player Combat
On one hand, some randomness can be fun to break the mould of an encounter, to create an exciting upset - a massive crit here and there, a low-chance RNG-based stun that unexpectedly took out the mage and created an opportunity to strike.
On another hand, the more "competitive" the encounter is - the less fun it can be for participants when random chance affects the outcome.
For example, the glorious old shooter Team Fortress 2 features plenty of combat RNG in its standard form on public servers, however all competitive TF2 leagues have RNG-based mechanics such as random crit, damage spread, and pellet spread, strictly disabled.
Obligatory, #savetf2
Perhaps, some more competitive / organised PvP encounters in Ashes (8v8 arenas, big yearly competitions, mayhaps even castle sieges) could feature less RNG than more casual / open world ones.
It would also be interesting if amount of possible RNG varied from class to class, so that players could choose how much of it to deal with, at least on their side. Going from classes with fully consistent skill effect, to high RNG proc- and crit-based classes.
Quests
Fetch quests (e.g. Node resource request)
Sure, these can be randomised, who even cares.
Random monsters to kill, random materials to bring, random quantities depending on NPC's current mood and weather, whatever your soul desires.
Story / Lore quests
I imagine we want people to receive consistent lore, so randomisation of such quests seems odd.
RNG quest acquisition
Could work for some subset of quests, for example:
Only small amount of people receives a certain quest, at random (e.g. 1% chance to receive it when talking to a certain NPC)
A quest event spawns rarely, at random time, and at random or semi-random location (unlike GW2 where vast majority of map events are on a precise schedule, which makes the world feel more repetitive than if it had no events at all)
As an example, I quite liked Skyrim's random events. Some of them were just random passersby on the road, a man with a cow, some prisoners being escorted, no real need for action - but a little piece of background lore. Some started massive quest chains, like a Boethiah cultist attacking you, and you taking a peek at their holy book. Made the world feel alive. Won't be quite the same in an MMO, as you can't generate these events for each player separately, but perhaps a similar sense of randomness and living world can be recreated.
Tavern games and such
As long as it doesn't degrade into a "get rich fast" scam, and bets are limited in size and frequency - sure, why not.
It's like a poker night with friends, where everyone bets a dollar to make it more fun.
I love a good critical hit. Even if I'm probably not going to win a PVP fight, a chance for unexpected DPS gives me hope.
Unexpected world drops are also awesome. Even a small chance at getting something unexpected and valuable makes grinding through monsters feel worthwhile.
I'm less enthused about RNG on dungeon drops. If there's a set of armor that my class needs, I don't want to run the same dungeon over and over until the boss finally drops the piece I'm looking for. Please provide a quest line or collectable currency or something that guarantees eventual success.
Most items will be crafted and not dropped. There is no need for tokens or guaranteed success because it would destroy risk/reward and crush the economy.
1) I think gear RNG only belongs in gear systems with horizontal progression.
When it comes to gear enchanting +X amount, I think that type of RNG should only exist if the gear system has horizontal progression. Specifically --> when players have a reason to own multiple types of equipment suited to different encounters. For example, different armors with abilities like: 20% more damage against fire monsters, damage reduction from insect monsters, immunity to poison, or immunity to being frozen. In this situation, an enchanting system with gear breaking is fun because it's about choosing specialization. There's a lot of majesty in owning a +10 Double-Weed-Killer Fire Scythe that you can bust out when farming in the plant dungeon.
On the other hand, in the case of vertical gear progression, where you have one best-in-slot set of gear for every situation, upgrading and breaking gear is simply not fun. It's your only path forward to getting stronger, and that makes bad RNG just frustrating.
2) Every monster should feel like a piñata because it has multiple special rare drops.
This was something that Ragnarok Online did so well. In addition to a variety of already existing rare drops for monsters, every monster in the game also had a 0.01% chance of dropping its own special card that could be slotted into equipment to apply special stats and abilities. Even a lot of the weaker monsters had cards that were useful in the endgame. It was really great for the economy because new players could acquire valuable cards to make money early on, but most importantly it made every monster feel worth killing. Emotionally, it made farming monsters for items feel less like a chore and more like hitting a piñata.
I favor a good amount of RNG in MMOs. It becomes a bit toxic when gearing is solely tied to RNG. I enjoyed when WoW would use RNG for most look, but important gear pieces were purchased using tokens/currency dropped from bosses. I feel like that's a good way to balance the flow of loot so people can work towards something rather than constantly spinning the RNG roulette.
I think RNG in other areas could be interesting, such as with crafting/enchanting. Your skill and experience with a certain type of crafting could determine the odds of a favorable outcome.
As long as there are ways to manipulate the odds in your favor, I think RNG works really well.
In light of the dev update video from today, yours truly would certainly welcome seeing RNG influence the weather on Verra, as opposed to it being on a scheduled cycle!
In light of the dev update video from today, yours truly would certainly welcome seeing RNG influence the weather on Verra, as opposed to it being on a scheduled cycle!
I think they're going to go beyond that.
BDO has weather that crosses the macro-map, as well as groundwater effects when it rains, and so on. I don't know if this is a good fit for Ashes, but it's quite plausible that they are just going to simplistically implement actual meteorological models across Verra (I can do these, and I have an idea of how they would be done for games, and one of the mentions relative to the wind indicates it would be possible).
So I wouldn't ever expect weather to be cyclic or directly scheduled at all. In short, programming 'real weather sim' at the level required for an MMO is actually pretty 'easy'.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
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MissionCreepMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It's funny that the devs asked about RNG and this discussion is 99% about loot.
This needs to be separated into two separate questions.
I think for standard mob PvE, full unadulterated RNG is fine.
For PvE against bosses and anything that can one-hit-kill or TPK or CC-lock or ruin your day and make you ragequit (legitimately), full RNG is NOTokay.
Hit streak breakers for the NPC and miss streak breakers for the PC's
For PVP with no meaningful consequences (friendly challenges, brawling, whatever) go full RNG.
For PVP with consequences, RNG should be minimized a lot, there should be hit AND miss streak breakers.
(How much you want to add in player skill is a whole other thing)
In general I think RNG is fine for crits, you can do that 10 times in a row or fail to do it 10 times in a row and it's no big deal.
But for hitting or missing completely, it's very frustrating.
And for any serious CC it should be avoided. (1 second of root is fine to suffer through, 1 second of Stun due to bad RNG is not)
For side quests, full RNG.
For any quest with an important reward (augments, etc) or a story advancement, less RNG.
For crafting, well this is tricky.
I think no RNG for standard items and standard materials.
For more powerful items, when RNG produces "failure"
1) Failure produces a good (but not amazing) item of real value, you shouldn't fail completely
2) Failure causes you to lose some (but not ALL) of that materials, like 10% of them.
3) Failure causes you to lose most of the materials (say 25-50%) but you get a cumulative bonus on the attempt. This bonus can lead to 100% success rate.
Any craftsman IRL who fails will get a little better with each failure, and learn something.
The harder it is to get the materials, the harder it should be to lose them with nothing to show for it.
And also imagine something like adamantium or some magical substance like a unicorn horn, or dragon scale or whatever. Those things are resilient, they're not going to just disintegrate because you made a mistake in your workshop, the whole reason you use them is because they are special and not fragile.
RNG for enchanting/upgrading weapons is one of the worst feelings when it doesn't succeed over and over. I would much rather have a certain number of resources needed, then you meet that goal, craft the weapon. No RNG procs in crafting.
It is a poor gearing system as well, if you don't get the correct proc you don't have the item you need/want. If there are random stats on weapons/gear, let us allocate points.
RNG is good for dropped loot, not crafting high end weapons/gear imo.
RNG for crit is a decent mechanic, auto crits are boring, it is actually fun when you see that big crit for damage, or heals. But not making it something you rely on to succeed, more like a happy bonus.
Like many others have mentioned already, the worst part about RNG is when it when it comes with multiple layers. Having to jump through hoops just to fall on the finish line is extremely frustrating.
RNG can definitely be exciting without leaving you frustrated.
Q: Which systems do you feel utilize RNG the best?
A: I think RNG in gathering/professions etc. is fine and it feels good. If I get 5 or 6 ore from a mineral vein and every now and then I get a diamond, that's fun as long as that diamond isn't 1 in every 100th vein. However I should be able to improve the odds by increasing my mastery with experience and/or wearing artisan clothes.
In PvE content, having bosses and monsters moving and using their abilities in an unpredictable but telegraphed manner and then having to react and adapt your movement and abilities accordingly, is by far the best approach in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good DPS benchmark boss, but it can also lead to toxicity and balance issues. When boss uptime is somewhat out of your hands and there's no "optimal way" to complete a dungeon or grind an area, it just feels better. There is still going to be room to adapt and improve.
Q: Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
A: This is the big one. I don't think too much RNG belongs in the progression of your character. While RNG can be fun and exciting, especially when it comes to loot/gear. I think it's better coupled with some sort of pity system. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours grinding for rare items in games without getting an inch closer to my goal, and it feels horrible. The only reason I kept going is because I had already invested so much time that I needed something to show for it. These systems leads to most people burning out sooner rather than later.
There is also nothing worse than failing to craft or trying to upgrade an item over and over, even worse if it downgrades during the process. Perhaps even let me pick what stats my crafted item will receive.
Character growth is of course an important aspect of an MMO, and I think marginal increases locked behind RNG can probably work. Especially if those act as gold sinks to combat inflation and still give players a sense of progression. Although I'm still going to complain whenever I fail my "not really necessary upgrades"!
While RNG in PvE content is fine, I don't think it belongs in PvP.
First of all, it's hard to balance. The classic one is critical hits (which I still think belongs in any game.)
The biggest problem is whenever you trade high damage vs. crit and you "accidently" end up critting 2-3 times in a row to delete the other player. It feels good, except when you're on the receiving end and it results in having to buy new peripherals.
When it comes to defensive stats like a baseline chance to dodge/parry/block, I'm also not a fan.
It doesn't feel good when your stun is resisted twice in a row thanks to the opponents 10% to resist.
On the other hand, if my opponent actively avoided my stun because he assumed that I would use it, I'm just going to admit that I got outplayed.. Actually, he was just lucky.. Extremely lucky.. I'm still better than he is...
Q: What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
A: Any system where even with bad luck I can still tell that I am progressing towards my goal.
TL:DR
A progression-system that has RNG should never leave you empty handed. Time invested should never be completely wasted.
For PvE-combat RNG that forces you to adapt is great.
However in PvP combat, "accidental" critical hits or dodges that decides the outcome are boring.
I don't want RNG involved in increasing the power level of my current gear. It would feel awful to get a sick new sword from a raid boss only to have it be bricked from a window that says you failed in upgrading it.
Within our guild we found members to quite quite split on the topic;
Some felt RNG is ok with loot drops however they would like to minimise it in crafting as it really is a time waste mechanic when your gear breaks/disappears on upgrade after spending days grinding materials. At the very least there should be a way to decrease the RNG using methods that require effort.
However others felt that RNG is crafting was required in order to keep the market from being flooded with items and the economy destroyed.
Overall we believed that effort should overcome RNG. Especially given the recent rise of designs in games that seem to frustrate the player's progress in order to get them to spend more money. This drives players away in the long term and sacrifices Key Accounts for the company.
To me RNG should be balanced around investment.
If you choose to bet on your luck while there is way to assure the outcome your are looking for , don't complain if you are short of it.
For the stats of equipments it should depend on the way you get it , boss loot , quest or crafter.
If a piece of equipment is a rare drop of some boss , it should have some base stats with some added RNG bonus points that will not be game changing for most of the players, but may interest the some of them to get the perfect stats.
For the economy it has also some interest.
In quest reward, RNG has not his place in it , to my point of view.
In crafting, gathering and processing , it is the place where you can really play around the implementation of RNG based outcomes.
Has said before, investing should narrow the effect of RNG , and the artisans activities should be where it has the biggest impact.
Gathering with well made tools and the appropriate equipment should have better outcomes than gathering with low quality tools without appropriate equipment.
Processors could be key players of a healthy economy.
By recycling "trash" equipments , they take risk on their investment, and so a RNG based reward could be a good incentives to those professions.
Crafting of finish goods , should be , to me , the place where the most investment from the player will be needed.
If the artisans lvl and his tools have some impact on the RNG outcome of his creation, I think, some ressources could be add to aim for the exact outcome you are looking for.
That ressource could be a extra outcome of the action of processing raw materials.( yes I feel like processing is a bit lacking in incentive to be played )
Conclusion the greater the risk/(investment) the greater the reward!
Comments
I don't think enough games use the Runescape/Borderlands Loot table system. I really enjoy when a boss/npc has a specific loot pool (along with world drops. [Very rare, 1/10000 usually]) I love the freedom of knowing X boss has a 1/126 chance to drop X item, I love knowing I can kill that boss on respawn over and over and over until I get the drop that I'm looking for.
Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
Things like crafting/enchanting. I'd rather have a core set of materials needed and spend the time gathering them rather than continuously pumping rolls over and over waiting for a big craft.
RNG of course evokes quick and strong aversion among many of the MMO audience. It has been, in the past, wrongly utilized to extend player suffering and force them to perform arduous tasks that they have no interest in. However, woven into specific systems in moderation and care, it can be healthy and overall positive.
Good RNG:
• A player can grind a dungeon out on their quest to get a gear drop unique to the area.
• Killing a specific rare on a daily lockout for a chance at an uncommon cosmetic.
• Going out of their way to find caravans to defend partially in the hope of encountering something uncommon for an achievement.
• World events popping up outside of a set schedule or location, giving life to the world and encouraging exploration and reaction.
•An occasional bonus material or non-critical item from doing activities the player already wants to do.
Bad RNG:
• Unforgiving RNG tied to gear acquisition, where bad luck results in no gear for X time period. (e.g. WoW weekly chest)
• Dedicating a lot of work to some progress bar or other metric only for it to provide nothing of use at all after hours of labour.
• Overlapping challenge or boss RNG that leaves no room for a solution.
• Important milestones tied to RNG without the option to grind in further attempts.
• RNG clearly existing for the purpose of artificially inflating active player counts, demanding that players log in and do something boring if they want to get something they need to have fun later.
I'm aware of the enchanting idea where you can supercharge an enchant with increasing risk of failure and item destruction, but this will only negatively impact the poor and average player, letting the gold-rich repeatedly enchant a stack of items until it works. If perhaps there is some other system tied to this, limiting attempts or requiring personal effort rather than just purchased gear/enchants, that may be a compromise.
Use RNG where it won't cause undue aggravation. Let it largely be a nice surprise, not a serious let-down that a player can't quickly enough come back from.
I am NOT okay with overly abused enchanting RNG mechanics (which is usually used by Korean games to get your gear to +20) which is used to get that IRL $ for better enchanting rates. Rather than enchanting + on your gear, you should be able to enchant different effects on it. Each rarity of gear should have a specific enchanting slot number. Common 1, rares 2, epics 3, legendaries 4.... or something like that. The enchanting should have guaranteed success. The materials for enchanting should have a low drop rate from mobs, but high of fix rates from bosses world bosses.
Pity systems are cool. In general, the chances of getting an item should be directly related to how useful it is.
For gear etc... Put a pity system in place definitely.
I think it's fine NOT putting a pity system in place when the item can drop from multiple places. Like a rare skin that could drop from a whole family of monsters found across the whole continent. No need for pity, as you could drop it without even trying. The main point of the pity is to respect the player's time.
I LOVED this game. I remember how satisfying it was to get one of these rare dragons that had very random spawn times and locations. Also, I remember going to some kind of challenge tower for the first time, getting carried by my guild. We did 20 floors and stopped. I got a dragon egg from the chest on floor 20, and I've been told one guildmate had cleared over 2000 floors trying to drop that specific egg xD It also had good rolls on the stats!
The whole dragon gameplay was so good. Capture, mounting, fighting alongside them, having them fight in arenas xD
I acknowledge that this is a theory based off the artisan systems that has not be fully completed. Here is a scenario to be able to craft an epic item and get it enchanted:
In this scenario, for a single item, I just dipped into 6 levels of RNG for just making that item. Now I will admit some of these RNG items might be less severe as I acknowledge that "Epic" resources, like an ore, might be more attainable from higher level resource nodes. If these multiple layers of RNG are used for all 16 equipment slots for a single armor set, this is a lot of RNG that you go through.
One of the crafting systems that I enjoyed, although rudimentary, was Ultima Online [UO]. Their system removed some aspects of RNG through the crafter's skill, not through the use of items possibly found through another RNG source such as crafting/enchanting scrolls to reduce failure chance. In UO, when you first gain enough blacksmithing skill to craft a longsword, you have the ability to lose all materials and not make a sword, make a poor quality or a normal quality version of the sword. As you obtain Max Skill (Grand Mastery) of blacksmithing you remove the chance completely of never destroying or making a poor quality version of the weapon and access high chances of making "exceptional" items. If you can increase your skill through magical means, you could guarantee that you will always craft "exceptional" longswords.
So the skill of the crafter removes aspects of the RNG machine. This puts more power into the players as it rewards player's choice of mastering artisan skills to the maximum and placing points into appropriate skills for this effect.
Which systems do you feel utilize RNG the best? Where do you feel RNG does not belong? What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
Crafting should have rng system in place mitigated by adding additional material/ skill in order to get better quality item. That way when someone whose a master armourer can make better armour than a novice crafter. So adding like a Quality stat to items would be acceptable and having better/ different stats based upon what materials you have also goes hand in hand with that. If you craft something out of rare gems and metals it should be better stated. And if you put more mats into something I think it would be more likely for a better outcome item, like you have more to work with in case something messes up.
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If you want an item drop that has a low chance to drop and then it has rng stats, that can be a bad experience. If its just a low chance to drop with fixed stats, that's better. If an item has a decent chance to drop or a way to farm for it and has rng stats, that's fine and provides a gameplay loop.
Say bosses have a loot table and drop 2 items, it would be nice if each drop was in its own pool. Like one of the drops was a melee piece and the other was a ranged piece. Something like that. There's still rng, but you wont only get melee pieces for months on end. And on top of that, if the same boss also has a low chance to drop a rare item(whether its cosmetic or legendary item) that's separate from the 2 other items, I like that as well.
I don't know if this applies to this game, but 2 other rng systems I really like are the knockout design and drop protection. Knockout is where there's a fixed loot table of items you are working towards, usually cosmetics as you want all of them. The knockout means that you wont get duplicates until you have acquired everything on the list. This allows for farming without punishing the player as you will get what you want in time. It just might take a bit. And then the drop protection is a increased chance on successive runs for the item to drop. Basically if you want an item that has a low drop chance, every time you do the event, it increases that drop chance. Destiny 2 is a good example for both of these systems and what I'm referencing. There's cosmetic loot boxes that work on knockout design(I'm pretty sure they do at least) so you will slowly get all of the cosmetics. The end raid bosses have a low chance to drop the exotic weapon, but each time the raid is done, it has a higher chance to drop. Though I think it caps at a certain %.
I have buffs and debuffs which constitutes combat. Input rng gives solid game play and decisions. Output rng has no balance, no requirement and no support in my current builds.
If we switch to rng combat then mu combat concepts will be changed because I am not wasting abilities and skills on buffs and debuffs for miss and accuracy if one can miss by a dice roll. Would rather max damage and healing so when rng wires we get max effect rather than a fucked up combat system with little Comprehensive reason.
1.
Input rng = the snow.
Toon turns water to ice. Properly and damage change.
Shoots ice
Ice freezers the opponents due to stats.
2.
Input rng = snow.
Toon turns water to ice. Property and damage change.
Shoots ice
Misses target due to output rng.
There is no need for two lots of rng. I have not stated base damage numbers or weapon damage numbers for the builds due to the input rng of weather and seasons etc.
Output rng can not be accounted for in this way. You could build an Attack for 10 mins of mini game and get nothing due to rng output.
Either get rid of input rng or keep output rng away from my combat builds. We do not need both in place.
Example: When a spell deals 50-60 damage rather than 55 every time. In this situation and with a small range, this serves to keep combat a little more fresh. However, if an attack did 0-110 damage, players will quickly become frustrated, even if the average result is the same. Pressing a button and expecting an outcome only to see a big fat ZERO is probably the worst thing to happen.
Similarly, on WoW's release, a tank's taunt could randomly miss or be resisted. This affects your entire raid and is dependent entirely on RNG, with no control over the outcome at all. Not good.
In general, if a reasonable worst case scenario means that the game is not fun, it should be reworked.
Damage is the most widespread version of healthy RNG. I mentioned it above, and I like it. Most of the time people enjoy a good back-to-back-to-back critical hit that just blows something up
RNG loot is good and exciting, but I advocate for some form of "bad luck protection" because people on the low-end of the bell curve can end up with a horrible game experience. I experienced this two years ago in WoW when I went months into a new expansion without a weapon upgrade past max level.
I think RNG cosmetic rewards are good, and bad luck protection for those are probably a little overkill. Either have them be entirely deterministic (100% obtain rate after a set task) or completely RNG based.
RNG doesn't belong in areas that it has high impact with low player interaction. The former example of "taunt missing" is exactly that. CCs and important stuns shouldn't randomly miss.
WoW had RNG upgrades to loot a few years back, and it was universally hated. When looting a piece of gear, it could randomly upgrade. The RNG made the actual "BiS state" so unlikely to achieve that people just stopped trying.
I've been bashing my head through Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection on the hardest difficulty lately. Sometimes the chests will give you golden armor, significantly improving your chances. Sometimes those same chests will pop out an enemy that turns you into a frog, often times dooming you to death. This can be pretty frustrating.
I'm skeptical of the enhancement systems being able to damage your weapons. I think a button with a set chance for an actively negative outcome is very easy to do wrong. If a fully enhanced weapon ends up being "necessary" in terms of the meta, then it could become a huge frustration point.
Steven has talked about being able to obtain "very rare resources" to guarantee a positive outcome. I could see that ending up being "grind these resources for over 50 hours for your endgame weapon or risk getting fucked over". Or maybe the system is very generous with a small chance of negative outcome. That means that most people are fine without those guaranteed-upgrade-tickets but a select few will be fucked, making those people feel like they're especially unlucky.
And what does this system actually add? It adds a hypothetical "increased sense of reward for being exceptionally lucky or hardworking". It's a tradeoff: frustrate many players in return for rewarding many players. AOC is already making that decision in many places due to its philosophy of "allowing players to lose", so maybe it should be a bit less harsh in some areas, especially when it's an RNG mechanic.
Hearthstone is amazing when it comes to RNG. Others have mentioned it. It does an amazing job at communicating the extent of the randomness, and rewarding players who can understand what their risk and likely outcome is.
I play many roguelite games like The Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire, Noita, Risk of Rain, Gunfire Reborn... The list goes on. A fundamental aspect of these games is RNG: being able to enjoy the power of good luck, and being able to struggle through bad luck for an unlikely win. The thing that separates the good games from the best games are the ones with significant RNG but are tuned just right to allow a skilled player to pull at every thread possible, allowing them to bring victory just within reach. Bad luck can be frustrating, but the knowledge that victory is possible with enough skill is a big driver for improvement.
Side note: this is why I really disliked Hades, even though most people loved it. By the time I was good enough to beat the game without taking much damage, the game had given me so many max HP upgrades that my increase in skill was pointless. It buffed up players so much through the course of playing the game that the state of "I'm getting unlucky but I know this is still beatable if I was better" never happens.
For MMOs, I enjoy getting rare materials from normal resource nodes, like gems from an ore node.
RNG should be limited on loot drops. If you can see the mob wearing an item you should be able to loot it however there could be other items available.
Leveling skills can have some RNG but that should come with a hard ceiling.
Not at all? This is a game, is every crafting going to "win" at powerful crafting? how is the economy working in a game like this if there is nothing more valuable than the other. This view is nothing but weak unless you state a system that determines quality.
Also, say if the crafting system was a simulator, where you were actually crafting it, precisely, then the rng is with the human controlling as we're not all equal in real skill, precision, perception and reaction levels.
In my opinion, RNG can be a fun mechanics, when it doesn't oppress and/or enslave.
Oppression happens when something locked behind RNG is perceived as a requirement, a neccessity:
It usually happens when there's an expectation that everyone is going experience all of the content of the MMORPG, akin to a single-player game, and some of this content is locked behind certain RNG-based milestones, such as Gear Tier.
Ashes' ideology seems to be that not everyone will experience all of the content:
And also that access to the main game content is not going to be strongly gated:
In my opinion, as long as this ideology is always at the forefront and visible to all players, as long as its promotion manages to sufficiently break the implicit expectations honed by years of treadmill-based theme-park everyone-is-the-chosen-hero endgame-is-where-the-game-begins MMOs - then most of the typical RNG mechanics will not result in oppression.
Enslavement happens when completionism / FOMO / gambling vulnerability are exploited:
- Sparkly achievement board that keeps reminding you which RNG-based achievement you haven't completed yet.
- Loot box with the newest cosmetics, including the obligatory super-rare golden-tinted version, be it an ingame achievable loot box or a shop item.
- RNG-based "get rich fast" schemes, such as greatly improving gear with over-enhancements.
This is just off the top of my head.A game can be successful and fun to play without resorting to these types of sickening manipulation.
Specific RNG Areas
Drops
It is even better when we have a free market, and when in need - there's always an alternative of buying.
Even better so when useful / valuable items don't only drop from the highest end bosses, but can be obtained across the board; When getting a rare drop from a low level monster is not a toss-away (who cares for lvl10 Extremely Rare Sword, if it's worse than lvl20 one from the shop), but a valid trading opportunity (perhaps the Umbrella Sword, while appropriately low in damage, is the only item in game that lowers fall damage by 90% - niche, but valuable to some), so that everyone can experience the excitement.
Although specific monsters better have specific drops table - none of that "any monster can drop anything level-appropriate" nonsense (I recall GW2 does that), that is the kind of RNG that makes everything feel homogenous.
Item stats
An item has a name, and I want to know exactly what that name represents.
In my view, randomised stats are a cop-out when game designers lack imagination to make equipment qualities actually interesting.
With randomised stats, instead of "Oh gosh, it's THE item" I get a "Hmm probably trash stats again... oh wait, these are actually ok, huh". Item drops stop being exciting.
Over-Enhancement
Monsters - Spawn Location / Movement / Combat Behaviour
For all the good and realistic monster behaviour Monster Hunter: World has, even that game did get rather monotonous when I was doing a dozen of the same encounter in a row for materials, and the monster would always start off in the exact same spot on the map, and follow the same route.
Combat behaviour is a bit more complicated:
I think some scripted events / reactions are perfectly fine and make sense (For example, turtle hiding into a shell after a burst hit), but some randomized spice is also needed for fun encounters: Will it hit with a tail or slap with a paw? Do I dodge or duck? Gotta stay on my toes to not miss the visual signs.
Player Combat
On another hand, the more "competitive" the encounter is - the less fun it can be for participants when random chance affects the outcome.
For example, the glorious old shooter Team Fortress 2 features plenty of combat RNG in its standard form on public servers, however all competitive TF2 leagues have RNG-based mechanics such as random crit, damage spread, and pellet spread, strictly disabled.
Obligatory, #savetf2
Perhaps, some more competitive / organised PvP encounters in Ashes (8v8 arenas, big yearly competitions, mayhaps even castle sieges) could feature less RNG than more casual / open world ones.
It would also be interesting if amount of possible RNG varied from class to class, so that players could choose how much of it to deal with, at least on their side. Going from classes with fully consistent skill effect, to high RNG proc- and crit-based classes.
Quests
Sure, these can be randomised, who even cares.
Random monsters to kill, random materials to bring, random quantities depending on NPC's current mood and weather, whatever your soul desires.
Story / Lore quests
I imagine we want people to receive consistent lore, so randomisation of such quests seems odd.
RNG quest acquisition
Could work for some subset of quests, for example:
As an example, I quite liked Skyrim's random events. Some of them were just random passersby on the road, a man with a cow, some prisoners being escorted, no real need for action - but a little piece of background lore. Some started massive quest chains, like a Boethiah cultist attacking you, and you taking a peek at their holy book. Made the world feel alive. Won't be quite the same in an MMO, as you can't generate these events for each player separately, but perhaps a similar sense of randomness and living world can be recreated.
Tavern games and such
It's like a poker night with friends, where everyone bets a dollar to make it more fun.
Unexpected world drops are also awesome. Even a small chance at getting something unexpected and valuable makes grinding through monsters feel worthwhile.
I'm less enthused about RNG on dungeon drops. If there's a set of armor that my class needs, I don't want to run the same dungeon over and over until the boss finally drops the piece I'm looking for. Please provide a quest line or collectable currency or something that guarantees eventual success.
When it comes to gear enchanting +X amount, I think that type of RNG should only exist if the gear system has horizontal progression. Specifically --> when players have a reason to own multiple types of equipment suited to different encounters. For example, different armors with abilities like: 20% more damage against fire monsters, damage reduction from insect monsters, immunity to poison, or immunity to being frozen. In this situation, an enchanting system with gear breaking is fun because it's about choosing specialization. There's a lot of majesty in owning a +10 Double-Weed-Killer Fire Scythe that you can bust out when farming in the plant dungeon.
On the other hand, in the case of vertical gear progression, where you have one best-in-slot set of gear for every situation, upgrading and breaking gear is simply not fun. It's your only path forward to getting stronger, and that makes bad RNG just frustrating.
2) Every monster should feel like a piñata because it has multiple special rare drops.
This was something that Ragnarok Online did so well. In addition to a variety of already existing rare drops for monsters, every monster in the game also had a 0.01% chance of dropping its own special card that could be slotted into equipment to apply special stats and abilities. Even a lot of the weaker monsters had cards that were useful in the endgame. It was really great for the economy because new players could acquire valuable cards to make money early on, but most importantly it made every monster feel worth killing. Emotionally, it made farming monsters for items feel less like a chore and more like hitting a piñata.
I think RNG in other areas could be interesting, such as with crafting/enchanting. Your skill and experience with a certain type of crafting could determine the odds of a favorable outcome.
As long as there are ways to manipulate the odds in your favor, I think RNG works really well.
I think they're going to go beyond that.
BDO has weather that crosses the macro-map, as well as groundwater effects when it rains, and so on. I don't know if this is a good fit for Ashes, but it's quite plausible that they are just going to simplistically implement actual meteorological models across Verra (I can do these, and I have an idea of how they would be done for games, and one of the mentions relative to the wind indicates it would be possible).
So I wouldn't ever expect weather to be cyclic or directly scheduled at all. In short, programming 'real weather sim' at the level required for an MMO is actually pretty 'easy'.
This needs to be separated into two separate questions.
I think for standard mob PvE, full unadulterated RNG is fine.
For PvE against bosses and anything that can one-hit-kill or TPK or CC-lock or ruin your day and make you ragequit (legitimately), full RNG is NOTokay.
Hit streak breakers for the NPC and miss streak breakers for the PC's
For PVP with no meaningful consequences (friendly challenges, brawling, whatever) go full RNG.
For PVP with consequences, RNG should be minimized a lot, there should be hit AND miss streak breakers.
(How much you want to add in player skill is a whole other thing)
In general I think RNG is fine for crits, you can do that 10 times in a row or fail to do it 10 times in a row and it's no big deal.
But for hitting or missing completely, it's very frustrating.
And for any serious CC it should be avoided. (1 second of root is fine to suffer through, 1 second of Stun due to bad RNG is not)
For side quests, full RNG.
For any quest with an important reward (augments, etc) or a story advancement, less RNG.
For crafting, well this is tricky.
I think no RNG for standard items and standard materials.
For more powerful items, when RNG produces "failure"
1) Failure produces a good (but not amazing) item of real value, you shouldn't fail completely
2) Failure causes you to lose some (but not ALL) of that materials, like 10% of them.
3) Failure causes you to lose most of the materials (say 25-50%) but you get a cumulative bonus on the attempt. This bonus can lead to 100% success rate.
Any craftsman IRL who fails will get a little better with each failure, and learn something.
The harder it is to get the materials, the harder it should be to lose them with nothing to show for it.
And also imagine something like adamantium or some magical substance like a unicorn horn, or dragon scale or whatever. Those things are resilient, they're not going to just disintegrate because you made a mistake in your workshop, the whole reason you use them is because they are special and not fragile.
It is a poor gearing system as well, if you don't get the correct proc you don't have the item you need/want. If there are random stats on weapons/gear, let us allocate points.
RNG is good for dropped loot, not crafting high end weapons/gear imo.
RNG for crit is a decent mechanic, auto crits are boring, it is actually fun when you see that big crit for damage, or heals. But not making it something you rely on to succeed, more like a happy bonus.
RNG can definitely be exciting without leaving you frustrated.
Q: Which systems do you feel utilize RNG the best?
A: I think RNG in gathering/professions etc. is fine and it feels good. If I get 5 or 6 ore from a mineral vein and every now and then I get a diamond, that's fun as long as that diamond isn't 1 in every 100th vein. However I should be able to improve the odds by increasing my mastery with experience and/or wearing artisan clothes.
In PvE content, having bosses and monsters moving and using their abilities in an unpredictable but telegraphed manner and then having to react and adapt your movement and abilities accordingly, is by far the best approach in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good DPS benchmark boss, but it can also lead to toxicity and balance issues. When boss uptime is somewhat out of your hands and there's no "optimal way" to complete a dungeon or grind an area, it just feels better. There is still going to be room to adapt and improve.
Q: Where do you feel RNG does not belong?
A: This is the big one. I don't think too much RNG belongs in the progression of your character. While RNG can be fun and exciting, especially when it comes to loot/gear. I think it's better coupled with some sort of pity system. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours grinding for rare items in games without getting an inch closer to my goal, and it feels horrible. The only reason I kept going is because I had already invested so much time that I needed something to show for it. These systems leads to most people burning out sooner rather than later.
There is also nothing worse than failing to craft or trying to upgrade an item over and over, even worse if it downgrades during the process. Perhaps even let me pick what stats my crafted item will receive.
Character growth is of course an important aspect of an MMO, and I think marginal increases locked behind RNG can probably work. Especially if those act as gold sinks to combat inflation and still give players a sense of progression. Although I'm still going to complain whenever I fail my "not really necessary upgrades"!
While RNG in PvE content is fine, I don't think it belongs in PvP.
First of all, it's hard to balance. The classic one is critical hits (which I still think belongs in any game.)
The biggest problem is whenever you trade high damage vs. crit and you "accidently" end up critting 2-3 times in a row to delete the other player. It feels good, except when you're on the receiving end and it results in having to buy new peripherals.
When it comes to defensive stats like a baseline chance to dodge/parry/block, I'm also not a fan.
It doesn't feel good when your stun is resisted twice in a row thanks to the opponents 10% to resist.
On the other hand, if my opponent actively avoided my stun because he assumed that I would use it, I'm just going to admit that I got outplayed.. Actually, he was just lucky.. Extremely lucky.. I'm still better than he is...
Q: What RNG-based systems or features have you enjoyed the most?
A: Any system where even with bad luck I can still tell that I am progressing towards my goal.
TL:DR
A progression-system that has RNG should never leave you empty handed. Time invested should never be completely wasted.
For PvE-combat RNG that forces you to adapt is great.
However in PvP combat, "accidental" critical hits or dodges that decides the outcome are boring.
Some felt RNG is ok with loot drops however they would like to minimise it in crafting as it really is a time waste mechanic when your gear breaks/disappears on upgrade after spending days grinding materials. At the very least there should be a way to decrease the RNG using methods that require effort.
However others felt that RNG is crafting was required in order to keep the market from being flooded with items and the economy destroyed.
Overall we believed that effort should overcome RNG. Especially given the recent rise of designs in games that seem to frustrate the player's progress in order to get them to spend more money. This drives players away in the long term and sacrifices Key Accounts for the company.
If you choose to bet on your luck while there is way to assure the outcome your are looking for , don't complain if you are short of it.
For the stats of equipments it should depend on the way you get it , boss loot , quest or crafter.
If a piece of equipment is a rare drop of some boss , it should have some base stats with some added RNG bonus points that will not be game changing for most of the players, but may interest the some of them to get the perfect stats.
For the economy it has also some interest.
In quest reward, RNG has not his place in it , to my point of view.
In crafting, gathering and processing , it is the place where you can really play around the implementation of RNG based outcomes.
Has said before, investing should narrow the effect of RNG , and the artisans activities should be where it has the biggest impact.
Gathering with well made tools and the appropriate equipment should have better outcomes than gathering with low quality tools without appropriate equipment.
Processors could be key players of a healthy economy.
By recycling "trash" equipments , they take risk on their investment, and so a RNG based reward could be a good incentives to those professions.
Crafting of finish goods , should be , to me , the place where the most investment from the player will be needed.
If the artisans lvl and his tools have some impact on the RNG outcome of his creation, I think, some ressources could be add to aim for the exact outcome you are looking for.
That ressource could be a extra outcome of the action of processing raw materials.( yes I feel like processing is a bit lacking in incentive to be played )
Conclusion the greater the risk/(investment) the greater the reward!