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Reduced Reliance on RNG (from the perspective of a game maker)

Posted 2021-11-27 14:05:26
Neither the stats nor the dice rolls affect how much damage you or your opponent deals. It mean if you bite or crush with successful dice roll, your damage is not higher (you just inflict bleeding in these cases). Neither your level affects how much damage you deal.

I'm a relatively new player and assumed my lead's level would have something to do with the damage output/input but is this is indeed true, then I find it an odd design choice and probably the key source of why people feel like level and stats don't matter in a fight. If the damage output stays fixed whether or not there is a level gap, then how much damage you or your opponent is able to deal comes down to luck of the dice.

Personally, I would suggest adding a modifier that reduces damage done when the attacker is significantly lower level than the defender, with possible stacking depending on how large the level gap is. For example, if the cutoff for triggering the modifier was every 3 levels, and your lead was lvl 15, a lvl 12 opponent would get a small portion of their damage output shaved off, a lvl 9 opponent would get twice the amount and so on and so forth.

Of course, this would also probably have to affect the lead wolf as well for balance's sake, making it more difficult to battle opponents on higher level than you. If this was the case, one solution could be to implement a barrier that prevented the game from spawning enemies that would be impossible to beat (the modifier would leave your lead at, say, only 0-20% of their base attack power, whatever number makes the most sense given everything else.)

Depending on where the numbers would lie, it might also be sensible to prevent the spawning of enemies that couldn't possibly defeat your lead to prevent rng dishing our explore experiences where you can just plow through every battle encounter. This would probably also have to be considered with the trophy item drop rates in mind.

This might mean having to rework the effects of the Lucky foot, but I'm running short on time for writing this and can't really think about if or how right now. Just wanted to share some thoughts as this info surprised me a bit!
Beastface
#43489

Posted 2021-11-27 14:53:46 (edited)
TBH, just not having the enemy levels swing all over the place would probably help as well if we're talking about balance. -5 or +5 levels seems like an appropriate limit in terms of what your lead wolf is going to take seriously as a threat. A level 1 coyote should be an instant-win nuisance.

The problem with that comes in wrt how the Lunar Event is structured, though, because higher level players will almost always get the 2 Lunar Tear reward for always running into enemies that are level 15+. And, as you say, there's the issue of how much more difficult battling could get. It's an obnoxious slog at the moment, so making it more obnoxious seems like maybe a step in the wrong direction.

I don't have any good solutions for it, either, admittedly - aside from tearing it down and starting back over again - but I will say this: removing the stupid bleeding proc from level 1-5 enemies sure would be a big step in the right direction.

DogBlud
#24586

Posted 2021-11-27 15:24:35
I can not agree more with that latest statement. It (bleeding first turn, low level opponent) is especially unbearable when one runs into hour's luck of "every enemy bleeds me first turn," or "every enemy resists my hits," because dice

Tala, I swear I am following the, "pay attention," advice, but when I get luck streaks of bleed first turn, I am not inclined to keep interacting with the site, let alone battling.

The idea of 20 percent more or less damage would at the very least make sense and give the player a direct understanding of what they are about to deal with... instead of Currently: wherein I heal from 39 to 50 and drop a Lucky Foot because I expect things like bleeding first turn from level 6 opponent (to my level 20) and situations akin to that example.

Zeraki
#26932

Posted 2021-12-12 10:01:53
This, This whole thing. Ive been complaining since the start of how broken the rng is here. People say 'well do this or do that' when i try to say its broken at its core and isn't fun. Rng has its place, but not when you can get absolutely wrecked by a level 1 at level 20. forget to heal? yeah that's right. That level 1 just got great rolls and killed you even though your lead is a total 1k stat and level 20 because f*ck you.'

This is not a fun system, and its annoying how many people are blind or ignorant to this. its sad this thread is over a year old and the bear minimum has been done to fix the issues. Battling is still not fun and its still 100% based on rng. You can only bite or latch something so many ways. Im not a gave dev, but I know when something is broken or flawed at the foundation.. This game is flawed at its foundation.

Shadowflare
#8939

Posted 2021-12-12 11:16:32 (edited)
Did you put modifiers into consideration? Moves with modifiers don't have exact 50% chance to be positive, especially biting which has 33% chance (without lucky foot) of successful roll regardless of level difference. However, latching should have 66% chance of success for level 20 lead against level 1 enemy as it's strength based move when your lead has strength trained normally.

Dżanek
#24018

Posted 2021-12-12 18:30:07
Even with modifiers, the fact that a level 1 can beat a level 20 is stupidly broken. The fact that a level 10 has as much chance of beating a level 20 as a level 20 is broken. the game, as I have been saying, is broken at its core. The reliance of rng is a bit to far. I shouldn't have to worry if I have enough hp against a level 5 at level 20. something doesn't add up there. Its like if I were playing WoW, and i go into a dungeon that i over level easily but still get pummeled because 'haha rng, did you account for this?' I shouldn't have to account for anything when I out level and out stat a enemy. Stats have 0 bearing and what kind of attack you do means absolute jack shit because rng is the same no matter what.

That's the issue. No one seems to understand or get the fact that the rng of the fighting system needs to be reworked. yes its been working but it isn't fun. If the devs want the game to be more popular and accessible, they need to fix some of the fundamental game play issues the system has. That being RNG. Im sorry but there is no reason for me to get my face smashed in by a enemy 15 level lower because rng chooses to say 'fck you.' The modifiers mean nothing if I get bad rolls.

Even better is when you roll a 4-6, and get a 'you damaged x enemy for 0 damage'. Oh yeah, that is also a thing. But people go 'oh thats this or that.' When it is in fact not correct, broken and incredibly angering. I get the game shouldnt be a cakewalk, but I never once feel like my level or stats truely matter, even at level 20. all level 20 does is *allow* me to fight higher levels because I have a higher health pool. Thats it. you could be level one with a level 20 health pool and the results are the same no matter what. its not about your stats, its about how much damage you can output before rng has its way. Clearly something is wrong if we havea  thread that was made a year ago, and it has 27, going on 28 pages of people talking and fighting over this. But it wont get fixed because the vast majority of the 'core' people dont see any issue with it.

Shadowflare
#8939

Posted 2021-12-12 19:31:06
I'm just gonna come out and say they've been in nearly every thread I've seen in this subforum with some variation of 'no ur wrong' and only vaguely disingenuous arguments for why, so I think you can safely ignore the rebuttals.

DogBlud
#24586

Posted 2021-12-13 01:58:30 (edited)
First off, I know my post is long and overly serious, but I'm passionate about the battling side of WD. So bear with me lol.

Since my last post, I've replaced my first lead. I'll admit it's put some things in perspective for me. My previous lead had 95 strength at level 19, and very frequently, he lost fights. Usually 1/2 were losses, and any fights above level 15 were almost guaranteed to be fails. Since getting my new lead, who has 285 strength (literally x3 my previous,) I can actually kill stuff now.

The RNG isn't as severe as it was and it's not like all battles are solely tipped by it. But they frequently are, and when they are, it's VERY obvious who's going to win usually no further than the first 2 moves. If I lost against a level 17-20 or a bear, fair enough. But some of these enemies are less than half my level, for god's sake.

When a level 15-17 enemy has fewer stats than my lead, I will go first. Common sense will then tell me that a level 7-10 of that same enemy, I should always go first. Right? Because they aren't going to have higher stats than the higher level, that's crazy. Apparently not, because lower levels will go first regardless, because as Shadowflare said, screw you. There should be absolutely, positively, no reason a lower level of the same enemy should be any stronger than the higher one, randomized stats or not.

And it's not that RNG is the only problem - battling is also just... empty. A good portion of battles I'm in are landslides. Either A. I spam latch until it catches, then click the same button until bleed, then release and spam wait until win. Or B. They go first and bleed on the first couple turns, then proceed to take 20-30% of my lead's health each subsequent miss on my part. I try resting, but that's a 50/50. If it doesn't heal, that means forfeiting immediately.

That's not battling, that's mindless, repetitive dice rolls of boredom. And I won't trust arguments on modifiers or whatever either. I've tried working with that stuff, it ultimately doesn't matter. (I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm only proven right more often than not.) RNGesus doesn't care about the forethought I put into each move, it only cares about trolling me. I'm glad I finally got the level 20 achievement, so I never have to aim for it again.

TL;DR: The battling in WD needs a serious, MAJOR rehaul.

Whirligig
#11137

Posted 2021-12-13 02:16:12
Big agreement with all of the above.

It wounds me that there is practically no benefit to a lead that isn't super strong. The difference between my 300 wis/smarts lead and the 300 strength one was like night and day. 'Modifiers' are fine and good and all, or whatever, but you are basically just locked in to one playstyle that rewards 1 stat primarily, and it isn't even really all that consistent about that, either.

DogBlud
#24586

Posted 2021-12-13 05:43:16 (edited)
My purpose of asking a question was checking the knowledge of battling. It's hard to make any changes in battling RNG that would satisfy the players even if those were positive, they might still complain about potential fails. The battling system is like black magic - you don't know what's going on, it either succeeds or fails, you hope for the best. Players fight enemies without realizing that they sometimes roll a biased dice, which has 6-dot face replaced with 1-dot face so they roll a dice with two 1-dot faces. And they don't know ways of balancing such a biased dice into their favor. Another new thing here is that some players might get disappointed finding out a positive dice roll doesn't improve damage dealt. I think the problem of broken RNG is not that how much you fail even though you have a good lead but the fact you don't know what the odds are.

Hunting RNG used to be proposed to change. In the beginning of this thread you might read feedback about broken hunting RNG. The following posts: [#140671], [#142875], [#149164], [#150725] indicated that even a hunting party with 100% proficiency and synergy could fail on critter trail in the easiest biome. There were arguments like stats barely mattered, no improvement, that most users used to believe including me because I've also completely had no idea how the hunting chances used to work, it was like black magic - you don't know what's going on, it either succeeds or fails, you hope for the best. And what did devs do about this? They overhauled the hunting system, which has ceased the negative feedback about hunting RNG in this thread, even though the hunting chances have been nerfed for 100% proficient and synergistic hunting parties with NBW-like stats - contrary to requests in this thread to remove potential fails for trained hunting parties. Players stopped considering hunting RNG broken because the hunting chances are displayed. We started realizing that leveling up hunters improve the chances better than we used to think. We learnt about the seasonal cap that explains why even critters in the easiest biomes can fail. We don't have to speculate unknown anymore.

And I think the battling RNG should be explained better before making any changes in battling mechanic. Devs should make us easier to understand how battling works without having to search among user-made guides. Not everywolf knows about the information displayed when hovering over dice icons. I still don't know the bleeding chance from enemy attacks. Devs should display the RNG first then wait for further feedback before making any overhaul.

Dżanek
#24018

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