The New World Design Poll #2: RNG
The New World Design Poll #2: RNG
Community - posted by Infinitron on Wed 30 May 2018, 22:50:47
Tags: Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game; Iron Tower Studio; Vince D. WellerVault Dweller is running another community poll to help determine a design element of The New World. This one seems likely to be more controversial than the previous one. We've all seen clueless newbies complain about the random number generator in RPGs, especially when they miss an attack several times in a row. Vince is wondering whether he should do something to address such complaints. Before you call heresy, you might be interested to know that The Age of Decadence apparently already did this! But it could go even further. Here's the explanation:
"My THC was 70% but I missed 3 times in a row, which can only mean one thing – the game is horribly broken" is one of the most popular complaints, so let’s talk about it. Let’s start with what 70% THC really means. If you attack long enough, you will reliably hit 70 out of 100 times. It does NOT mean that you’ll reliably hit 2 out 3 times, but that’s what many players expect.
The solution seems to be simple: rig the RNG to deliver what the player expects (or at least avoid what everyone hates – missing 3 times in a row despite seemingly high THC), so I have two questions for you:
1) Should we rig the RNG to meet players’ expectations?
2) If yes, how? Meaning what should we aim it? What outcomes should never ever happen when your THC is 70-80%?
Keep in mind that both your party and the enemies will use the same system. Remember that awesome turn when your enemy missed you 3 times in a row? Well, if you won’t be able to miss 3 times in a row, neither would your enemy. Choose wisely.
While you’re thinking, here is how our RNG works. It draws numbers like cards from a deck, meaning you can’t draw the same card twice until the deck is out of cards and reshuffled. We round up, so if you draw 17, for example, you cannot get numbers 11 to 20 until the deck is reshuffled. This approach ensures that if your THC is 70%, you’ll miss 3 times and hit 7 times. If it's 63% though, you're not guaranteed to get 63 out of 100. Each 10 rolls you'll get 6 guaranteed hits, 3 guaranteed misses and 1 can go either way.
Ideally, your misses would be spread out evenly but as bad luck would have it, sometimes you’d line up your 3 misses in a row and then hit 7 times in a row. Nobody ever complains about hitting 7 times in a row, but missing 3 times does tend to agitate some folks.
To be fair, nobody wants to miss 3 times in a row IF your skill is high enough – this simply isn't fun, especially if the enemy hits you every time. So we can count consecutive misses and once you hit 3, the next roll is on us and it's a hit! The hit card will still be removed from the deck, so you won’t be able to draw it twice, i.e. we will simply spread out your misses evenly but won’t give you free hits or help you win.
So the question is, should the RNG in The New World be adjusted to represent to-hit chance probability more accurately? You can respond to the poll there or right here in our Iron Tower subforum.The solution seems to be simple: rig the RNG to deliver what the player expects (or at least avoid what everyone hates – missing 3 times in a row despite seemingly high THC), so I have two questions for you:
1) Should we rig the RNG to meet players’ expectations?
2) If yes, how? Meaning what should we aim it? What outcomes should never ever happen when your THC is 70-80%?
Keep in mind that both your party and the enemies will use the same system. Remember that awesome turn when your enemy missed you 3 times in a row? Well, if you won’t be able to miss 3 times in a row, neither would your enemy. Choose wisely.
While you’re thinking, here is how our RNG works. It draws numbers like cards from a deck, meaning you can’t draw the same card twice until the deck is out of cards and reshuffled. We round up, so if you draw 17, for example, you cannot get numbers 11 to 20 until the deck is reshuffled. This approach ensures that if your THC is 70%, you’ll miss 3 times and hit 7 times. If it's 63% though, you're not guaranteed to get 63 out of 100. Each 10 rolls you'll get 6 guaranteed hits, 3 guaranteed misses and 1 can go either way.
Ideally, your misses would be spread out evenly but as bad luck would have it, sometimes you’d line up your 3 misses in a row and then hit 7 times in a row. Nobody ever complains about hitting 7 times in a row, but missing 3 times does tend to agitate some folks.
To be fair, nobody wants to miss 3 times in a row IF your skill is high enough – this simply isn't fun, especially if the enemy hits you every time. So we can count consecutive misses and once you hit 3, the next roll is on us and it's a hit! The hit card will still be removed from the deck, so you won’t be able to draw it twice, i.e. we will simply spread out your misses evenly but won’t give you free hits or help you win.
