Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)
Game Design: How Much RNG is Too Much RNG?
#2
Hearthstone. The decks are ordered by RNG, a large chunk of cards effects are dictated by RNG, and the cards you get from packs is decided by RNG. There's even an entire mode where you make your deck by choosing 1 of 3 randomly chosen cards for each card. Not knowing your opponent's deck or hand might be considered RNG as well.

Even with all of this it's still largely skill-based. Some might say that the unpredictability makes it even more skill-based, being able to weigh your risk and having to adapt to the current situation, considering all the possible outcomes and what is more or less likely, that's all skill.
I admit that a lot of the time you can get screwed over by RNG, the most unlikely things can happen, you can get super unlucky, but the majority of the time the legitimately best players come out on top.

I also find that the RNG aspect is what makes it fun. Yogg-Saron is a card that came out in the latest expansion, when you play it it casts a completely random spell for each spell you played that game. If you played 10 spells, it'll cast 10 random spells. This is SO unreliable and is not competitively playable since a lot of the time it can cause you to lose the game, even if you were winning. But it's one of the most fun cards in the game, at least for me.
Other smaller things like an Ogre Brute hitting face for lethal instead of the 7 minions your opponent has in play, that sort of stuff is just great. It's not 100% fair, skill-dependant gameplay, but it's so so fun because of how insane stuff can get Smile



Not sure where I was going with that, but basically a game needs to be designed for RNG to work with it. Sometimes developers put the aspect in there to shake things up a bit, while ultimately it can just make the game no fun at all if you get the wrong result. RNG should be there to make the game fun, not frustrating.
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down. -Mary Pickford
Reply


Messages In This Thread
RE: Game Design: How Much RNG is Too Much RNG? - by puggsoy - 05-14-2016, 09:18 AM

Forum Jump: