Next gen MMORPG's will need more honest RNG/Dice Rolls

BruceYee

Exactly what the title says.

The lack of legit randomness with every outcome being so predictable is IMO a big part of current(and past) MMO and overall game design flaws. Being able to look up youtube videos for exact instructions to complete tasks or meta builds is IMO very boring. Hitting mobs 100% of the time is so unrealistic that even though my mind knows it's just a game stops being interested after a while. Metas... I'm not even going to get into metas...

When I say "Honest RNG" I mean RNG needs to be EXACTLY the same as rolling the damn dice in the street not manipulated like it is now for various reasons. Various reasons in games like Hearthstone and MTG Arena include things like algoritms that maximize BOOM factor for Twitch views or to make defeats so unrealistically painful that the loser spends money to become more powerful.

I've been playing Magic since 95'ish and gambling since 2000. I've played hundreds or maybe even thousands of in-person Magic duels with people and the card draws do not ever come out the way they do in MTG Arena. Sometimes both players go on for a very long time pulling nothing but garbage that it's almost expected. Why does that never happen in Arena? Cause when they were designing the game probably felt people would get bored so intentionally manipulate what should be honest draw patterns. Gambling on highly rigged slot machines is sometimes more reasonable/realistic than the same old pattern algo that they use in games. When you do something over and over for years and years you recognize patterns and the RNG patterns in games needs a lot of improvement. It is almost like they decide to go with the lowest/simplest outcome route algo every single time.

Manipulated RNG not only applies to card games but also loot drops. Why is it so controlled? Why is everything locked behind an internal cooldown. The obvious answer is that they want to keep you playing longer = more money but that is extremely boring design and tbh outdated to the point where it should be put down forever. I'm not saying make every game like a roguelike but come on..

People here dream about next gen tech that will one day grace our beloved MMO genre but how about just creating games that are filled with so much randomness that it would be like starting a new adventure each time you log in cause you have no idea what will happen. You could always incorporate a proper win/loss type system with the right vision that wouldn't scare away those afraid to lose progress. Maybe Morhaime or Koster can come up with something seeing as they have decades of game design experience. Maybe they can start by creating the most 'realistic dice roll system ever created in games'? I can see that as some useful tech instead of doing the shallow gfx threadmill losing millions just to please those with the most expensive systems.

The games we've been playing for decades for the most part have the same types of progression. We start weak, improve, become strong and in between the routine is for the most part almost always the same cept for slight design differences. We've done the same thing over so much that when games like Fortnite or Darkest Dungeon comes out the slight variation to the progression routine causes those games to be largely successful simply because they aren't like what we've played for years/decades..

I still play older MMO's and will never stop but you'd think for all the need in the gaming industry to come up with the 'next big game' they'd at least try to innovate a bit more here and there.. Sometimes less is more and you must go back to be able to move forward blah blah blah.. Bring back the wonder of randomness that existed in DND and Magic and add it to modern/and or future games via HONEST dice rolls. Do NOT time gate me or put internal cooldowns on things to squeeze an extra 10 cents. The positive impact of allowing RNG to flow freely without manipulation will generate more praise and wealth for the FIRST developer brave enough to do it that seas will part and mountains will crumble. The End.

Cryomatrix

You will get people who bemoan the RNG then. I like a little randomness, PoE is RNG within RNG, but i can see people not liking it. 

It cuts both ways to be honest, it is a feature some people like and others dont

BruceYee

Rhoklaw said:

RNG is fine, but the problem with game developers is they sometimes abuse it. For instance, if you've ever played X-Com series or Battletech, you could be aiming at something with a 90% chance to hit and still end up missing way more than 10% of the time. I know RNG isn't a set standard of %'s but the law of averages should still exist to some degree and some games just don't reflect that. I think developers like to show one thing, but hardcode something completely different, usually resulting in a much more difficult game play.

I used to play table top D&D using the Ice Crown ruleset for determining critical hits. I liked the idea of being able to kill or be killed with critical hits.

What you wrote about Xcom is what I'm talking about - shitty rng. I think the all time worst is Talisman for PC & mobile. The game itself is fun but the dice roll outcomes are always the same which is obviously rigged against you and completely unrealistic. It's always either ez mode or rigged in games but never realistic. The casino game 'craps' would cease to exist if real life dice rolling functioned how dice rolls and RNG does in games.

When I imagine a MMO with dice rolls I think turn based with all the features other MMO's have just everything determined by dice rolls. Which is why the dice roll rng being as realistic as possible is the most important part.. THAT is the tech someone should create.

Open world mob fights, crafting, roaming bosses, group bosses all outcomes determined by dice making the encounters 'fresh' each time. Add that masterfully created rng dice roll tech for loot drops as well and it'll be a game where you may win nothing and lose badly or win lots and become very rich in a single session. Devs want people hooked on their games then the euphoria of winning so much in a 5 minute play session without internal loot cooldowns or locks would have players heading back for more like people do IRL to the casino.

Theocritus

I don't really have a problem with RNG, it's that we don't get to see what the rolls were that is the problem...Lets take XCOM2 for example......IT says I have a 95% chamce to hit and have missed 5 straight times...Well what did I roll those 5 times? One of the nice things about playing D&D was we could see exactly what was rolled. The turn based games especially, i want to see what was rolled.

If a game says I have a 95% chance to hit does that mean it is using a legitimate RNG system that has a grid of say 100 numbers and 95 of them will give me a hit, or is it just floating numbers out of the air and the chances really are totally random?

[Deleted User]

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cameltosis

I'm afraid I'm not really sure what it is you are after. I've read the OP through a couple of times but I'm still not clear.

Most of the time, it sounds like you want a better random number generator to be developed for computers, and you want this because you feel like the rng isn't close enough to real life dice rolls.

That's fine, but I gotta say that I feel like rng's are pretty good. Even looking at XCOM (played through 2 again recently), the streaks of misses, or streaks of hits with low accuracy, seem to match my experiences playing games like Risk or Monopoly.

As for the rest, it sounds like you want more randomness in general added to MMORPGs.

As with all game decisions, you can't take it by itself, the randomness needs to serve a useful purpose, otherwise it just pisses off the players.

In a game like LotRO, randomness in things like hit chance, parry / block / evade, crit chance etc, these all serve to introduce tough situations at awkward moments. If the boss crit's your tank, the healer then is put under pressure and has to make a choice whether to blow a big cooldown, or save it and hope to muddle through.

The randomness by itself is shit, but paired with a combat system / skill setup that gives the player lots of options about how to overcome difficult situations, it works really well. In fact, it is only through the randomness that the depth of the combat mechanics is allowed to shine, without that randomness, every fight would be too predictable.

If I were to take an action combat game, the sort of randomness that worked in LotRO would just be super irritating in something like ESO.

An action combat game focuses it's difficulty on the action, i.e. the physical actions of the players. Success or failure is about accuracy, click speeds and reaction times, not about decision making, probabilities and stats. So, you want to always hit if you aim correctly, you want to always block if you time your block right. If you add randomness on top of the action combat, it just adds unnecessary frustration and diverts attention from what the combat is supposed to be about.

As for using randomness to just change what sort of content is available, I can understand the desire for more variety in MMOs, but don't underestimate the desire for predictability amoungst the playerbase. Predictability allows players to plan out their evenings, which is a great comfort to many of us. It also allows us to measure our own progress more successfully - if it took me 60 seconds to kill something yesterday, and 55 seconds to kill it today, I can see that I've gotten better and that makes me feel good.

BruceYee

cameltosis said:

I'm afraid I'm not really sure what it is you are after. I've read the OP through a couple of times but I'm still not clear.

Most of the time, it sounds like you want a better random number generator to be developed for computers, and you want this because you feel like the rng isn't close enough to real life dice rolls.

That's fine, but I gotta say that I feel like rng's are pretty good. Even looking at XCOM (played through 2 again recently), the streaks of misses, or streaks of hits with low accuracy, seem to match my experiences playing games like Risk or Monopoly.

As for the rest, it sounds like you want more randomness in general added to MMORPGs.

As with all game decisions, you can't take it by itself, the randomness needs to serve a useful purpose, otherwise it just pisses off the players.

In a game like LotRO, randomness in things like hit chance, parry / block / evade, crit chance etc, these all serve to introduce tough situations at awkward moments. If the boss crit's your tank, the healer then is put under pressure and has to make a choice whether to blow a big cooldown, or save it and hope to muddle through.

The randomness by itself is shit, but paired with a combat system / skill setup that gives the player lots of options about how to overcome difficult situations, it works really well. In fact, it is only through the randomness that the depth of the combat mechanics is allowed to shine, without that randomness, every fight would be too predictable.

If I were to take an action combat game, the sort of randomness that worked in LotRO would just be super irritating in something like ESO.

An action combat game focuses it's difficulty on the action, i.e. the physical actions of the players. Success or failure is about accuracy, click speeds and reaction times, not about decision making, probabilities and stats. So, you want to always hit if you aim correctly, you want to always block if you time your block right. If you add randomness on top of the action combat, it just adds unnecessary frustration and diverts attention from what the combat is supposed to be about.

As for using randomness to just change what sort of content is available, I can understand the desire for more variety in MMOs, but don't underestimate the desire for predictability amoungst the playerbase. Predictability allows players to plan out their evenings, which is a great comfort to many of us. It also allows us to measure our own progress more successfully - if it took me 60 seconds to kill something yesterday, and 55 seconds to kill it today, I can see that I've gotten better and that makes me feel good.

I just want it to be closer to real dice rolls - that's it. As it is now in games like LOTRO you improve your character by 'building' them and at the certain point you reach the end and you are supreme. When you are supreme you rely on things that are set in stone in various situations like you described with the healer having to save the tank but that is the end of the line because there is no randomness to keep things fresh and exciting.

We've done that before in literally every MMO we've played with those "oh shit" moments. A little variety would be nice with a little more realistic randomness in the design but the easiest avenue is almost always used which is tank is low damage, healer just heals, dps gets called out for not doing enough damage and now I'm just ranting..

I played about an hour of MTG:A last night and pretty much almost every match has the exact same draw pattern that is nothing like my draws when I play in real life. I understand it is designed to keep people's attention online but the difference between the online draws and real life draws are IMO too different to really even be the same game. It feels like the entire match is being manipulated because it is being manipulated... I can't count on infinite number of hands how many times opponents or myself just surrender a watch in MTG:A because both people know exactly how the draws will be in the next few rounds..

Everything you wrote I understand and agree with completely. This thread was just plea for someone to make better rng and have the courage to implement it into a game. I personally think the "annoying" part can be avoided if the rolls are genuine(not manipulated) and if the entire system is designed properly.

Amaranthar

cameltosis said:

(skip)

 - if it took me 60 seconds to kill something yesterday, and 55 seconds to kill it today, I can see that I've gotten better and that makes me feel good. 

That was just the RNG. 

Amaranthar

BruceYee said:

cameltosis said:

I'm afraid I'm not really sure what it is you are after. I've read the OP through a couple of times but I'm still not clear.

Most of the time, it sounds like you want a better random number generator to be developed for computers, and you want this because you feel like the rng isn't close enough to real life dice rolls.

That's fine, but I gotta say that I feel like rng's are pretty good. Even looking at XCOM (played through 2 again recently), the streaks of misses, or streaks of hits with low accuracy, seem to match my experiences playing games like Risk or Monopoly.

As for the rest, it sounds like you want more randomness in general added to MMORPGs.

As with all game decisions, you can't take it by itself, the randomness needs to serve a useful purpose, otherwise it just pisses off the players.

In a game like LotRO, randomness in things like hit chance, parry / block / evade, crit chance etc, these all serve to introduce tough situations at awkward moments. If the boss crit's your tank, the healer then is put under pressure and has to make a choice whether to blow a big cooldown, or save it and hope to muddle through.

The randomness by itself is shit, but paired with a combat system / skill setup that gives the player lots of options about how to overcome difficult situations, it works really well. In fact, it is only through the randomness that the depth of the combat mechanics is allowed to shine, without that randomness, every fight would be too predictable.

If I were to take an action combat game, the sort of randomness that worked in LotRO would just be super irritating in something like ESO.

An action combat game focuses it's difficulty on the action, i.e. the physical actions of the players. Success or failure is about accuracy, click speeds and reaction times, not about decision making, probabilities and stats. So, you want to always hit if you aim correctly, you want to always block if you time your block right. If you add randomness on top of the action combat, it just adds unnecessary frustration and diverts attention from what the combat is supposed to be about.

As for using randomness to just change what sort of content is available, I can understand the desire for more variety in MMOs, but don't underestimate the desire for predictability amoungst the playerbase. Predictability allows players to plan out their evenings, which is a great comfort to many of us. It also allows us to measure our own progress more successfully - if it took me 60 seconds to kill something yesterday, and 55 seconds to kill it today, I can see that I've gotten better and that makes me feel good.

I just want it to be closer to real dice rolls - that's it. As it is now in games like LOTRO you improve your character by 'building' them and at the certain point you reach the end and you are supreme. When you are supreme you rely on things that are set in stone in various situations like you described with the healer having to save the tank but that is the end of the line because there is no randomness to keep things fresh and exciting.

We've done that before in literally every MMO we've played with those "oh shit" moments. A little variety would be nice with a little more realistic randomness in the design but the easiest avenue is almost always used which is tank is low damage, healer just heals, dps gets called out for not doing enough damage and now I'm just ranting..

I played about an hour of MTG:A last night and pretty much almost every match has the exact same draw pattern that is nothing like my draws when I play in real life. I understand it is designed to keep people's attention online but the difference between the online draws and real life draws are IMO too different to really even be the same game. It feels like the entire match is being manipulated because it is being manipulated... I can't count on infinite number of hands how many times opponents or myself just surrender a watch in MTG:A because both people know exactly how the draws will be in the next few rounds..

Everything you wrote I understand and agree with completely. This thread was just plea for someone to make better rng and have the courage to implement it into a game. I personally think the "annoying" part can be avoided if the rolls are genuine(not manipulated) and if the entire system is designed properly.

So much depends on the game design that the answers are going to be different per design. 

I do agree, though. I don't like games that have a formula that doesn't change at all. 
I do want a degree of "formula" expectation, but I also want that randomness you are talking about tossed in there. 
Not just Crit Hits/Misses (which should be rare and maybe even based on a previous set-up such as "stun"), but also on a range of results. Say something like "expected result +/- 20%. 

Content randomness is a biggie, I think. I mean, why is it that once you go to a Room, every time after, almost everything is the same. MOBs, treasure and furnishings locations, traps, etc. Nothing changes without a game update. That shouldn't be. 

I don't know if anyone remembers my concept of "Dungeon AI", probably not. 

Ungood

RNG depends on the game, some games are built around a lot of RNG/Dice rolls, and all that, and for some, it really works. 

But this discussion reminds me of something that happened with DDO.

Now DDO, is your core Dungeons & Dragons game, with Thac0 (To Hit AC 0) and AC (Amor Class), and you roll to hit, for every single hit. Your weapon has a fixed damage based on it's type, + Modifiers like Strength, and Magical Bonus, so you also roll to Damage every single hit.

Ok.. so we all get this, and this worked pretty well from level 1 - 10, when the game started. As they added levels, going up 20th, this also added a huge amount of Power Creep, and then with Epic levels, even more Power Creep, and then, well as the game expanded, content packs, trait lines, etc, etc.. all in all .. just more Power Creep.

Well as the power Creep went on, building for AC became pointless, as the Mobs, were given such amazing ThacO's, that the d20 system simply was not going to work, and players needed to go like super all in for AC if they wanted to bother tanking at all, this of course gave rise to the Pajama Tank, which was a tank that used things like Dodge, Evasion, Damage Reduction, Displacement,  and other means of damage avoidance as a defense to tank with, as opposed to using AC.

So. Turbine had to revamp the whole system, tossing in what would be a whole bunch of "House Rules" to the game, they went from a d20, to a d100, to give a boarder a chance to hit and miss, making AC viable again, they added in stats like Physical Resistance Rating.

The irony that DDO, a game built on the D&D rule system, of ToHit/AC, went and revamped their whole System to make it more involved and dynamic, while other more modern MMO's are making their systems simpler.

Wizardry

RNG is already the factor in combat design,it just varies from game to game and of course some have no rng but few.

I have witnessed rng imo all out fail and imo the reason is not allowing enough time in between rng rolls so the exact same outcome happens sometimes 3x in a row with odds of a million to 1.

Such lazy rng is witnessed within Blizzard's hearthstone game and the fail imo happens often although "probabilities" are not an accurate predictable result they give us somewhat of an expectation within reason.

I have given hints in many posts that FFXI has simply the best rng design of ANY game let alone any rpg/mmorpg.This is not just fanbois talking,i really look at this stuff a LOT and do my homework.

Another game i love Atlas sadly has no rng,it does however have very good AI,but it is a different kind of combat so i accept no rng and perhaps even prefer it.

However in mmorpg's i believe we do need really good rng.However i want to emphasize a point that EXACT rng is NOT the best option.The simple reason is we expect SOME form of realistic result.An example is if you were attacking a VERY slow large VERY inferior foe ,the chance of missing would be nearly impossible.
Anotehr perhaps easier example is if yo uwere standing 5 feet in front of a soccer net,how many times would you miss,ZERO times right?If yo uwere standing 5 feet in front of a hockey net how often would you miss,maybe less than 1%?

So to cut it short FFXI has formulas that basically allow you and the foe to miss a LOT if the situation allows it,example a vast difference between you and foe.However even if you were level 1 and the foe 99 there is still a chance to hit albeit very small and may result in zero damage.

Wizardry

So my point is that RNG is not the only factor,you also have a roll to decide HOW MUCH damage happens when you do hit.FFXi goes one step further and actually has partial hits because obviously in realistic combat there is a HUGE difference from sticking your sword directly into the gut and just grazing a foe with your sword...right?The same goes for magic,a direct hit should be more damage than a near miss.

Long winded point made short,realism is far more important than just rng but imo they should both exist depending on the game.

Wizardry

 I want to also touch on something since you mentioned MTG a game i also played way way back in the 90;s and loved it.
Something i have always detest is games that allow ANY possibility of cheating and MTG does that.Players should NOT be able to touch their cards and if you have ever watched people doing card tricks on the internet or live,you'll know why.

I always wanted to ask Brian Kibler if he EVER cheat with his cards but of course that would taint his entire image so i very highly doubt he would ever answer me honestly anyhow.
I am pretty sure a few people have been caught on the big scene but how many have actually cheated over the years nobody knows?
Let me put it this way,if you ever watched Brian's championship win he is shuffling those cards like a man possessed by the devil.Why do you think that is?

So obviously i no longer play MTG and also do not play online because i simply don't like Planeswalkers or some of the OP cards.Hearthstone has now hit that exact same power curve,creating too many op cards ruins games but devs do it to create sales.

Theocritus

Maybe part of the problem is the way the attacks are worded? We only get a hit or miss response, when really it could have been parried, blocked, dodged, fumbled, fizzled, stunned, etc etc etc...but all we get is "miss"

Amaranthar

remsleep said:

RNG when solely used to drive up cash shop sales (BDO looking at you...) is the worst.

The epitome of predatory game design.

I mean when you design a system of upgrading that revolves around "stacking failures" - and each failure requires gear repair (where a cash shop items increases gear repair by 5x)

You can see where that is going.

Or making gear stronger with stones that are best obtained from "melting $30 cash shop costumes".... again it's pretty obvious where that's going.

 
Or having non-stop events that fill up player's inventory with so many event/drop items that require more inventory space - and then sell over 120 additional slots in cash shop.

Same with weight - trash loot weighs a ton - because pearl abyss wants to sell weight increase for each character.

etc... etc...

Can you play BDO gimped without buying anything - yes - but it will suck

The allure of cash shop is just far too great and the fact that pearl abyss has been able to build a new office that cost over a billion speaks volumes 

Perhaps due to a complete lack of alternative, quality gaming? 
The way I see it is that games are almost completely centered around level grinding, for actual levels, gear, notoriety, or whatever else is designed to play for. 
Where's the adventure in that? The mystery? The discovery? The excitement? 
The only thing gamers play for is that tiered after tiered advancement, forging games of racing past those tiers. 
Buying a quick "pass" seems like a "win."

And yet, many gamers don't want that game style. But still wait for a quality alternative. 
That's why some of us state bluntly that we want a change is play design. And I think most of the rest want that too, they just haven't formed the thought completely yet. 

TwistedSister77

Balderas Gate 3 demo by the CEO... he kept rolling like crap and dying a few times.  Seemed very frustrating and drawn out.

With MMORPGs you and opponents have offensive and defensive stats that can be spec'd, plus CC, plus evasive/immunity skills(often times).  Adding RNG (besides critical hits), would be very frustrating to the strategy.

Amaranthar

TwistedSister77 said:

Balderas Gate 3 demo by the CEO... he kept rolling like crap and dying a few times.  Seemed very frustrating and drawn out.

With MMORPGs you and opponents have offensive and defensive stats that can be spec'd, plus CC, plus evasive/immunity skills(often times).  Adding RNG (besides critical hits), would be very frustrating to the strategy.

But it also adds a component of danger and risk that's missing in most games. 
So what is gained by adding RNG effects? 
- That feeling of danger 
- The risk can cause players to want to play with others, and with that you get "friends you can count on", especially when attempting something challenging
- "Challenge", something that is missing from games with knowable solutions 
(And here's where my "Random but weighted AI" helps, along with my "Dungeon AI")
- Better adventure
- Fame for real accomplishments

Where is the Victory if there is no Defeat? 

I'm not saying All The Time! But especially with top end content, it should be tough to accomplish. Or there's no accomplishment at all.