Reduced Reliance on RNG (from the perspective of a game maker)
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Posted 2022-05-21 16:18:01
Total energy used: 14. You are about to bleed out. The Bald Eagle has won this fight. The Bald Eagle attacks with its beak for 2 damage. [Rolled 1 – 1] You bite the Bald Eagle for 3 damage. You are wounded and have lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle is badly wounded and has lost 4 HP. The Bald Eagle cuts you with its talons for 1 damage. [Rolled 6 – 1] You bite the Bald Eagle for 3 damage. It writhes in pain. You are bleeding and have lost 3 HP. The Bald Eagle is wounded and has lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle attacks with its beak for 3 damage. [Rolled 3 + 0] You try to bite the Bald Eagle but miss. You are bleeding and have lost 3 HP. The Bald Eagle is wounded and has lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle cuts you with its talons for 2 damage. [Rolled 4 – 1] You bite the Bald Eagle for 3 damage. You are wounded and have lost 3 HP. The Bald Eagle is bleeding and has lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle cuts you with its talons for 2 damage. [Rolled 1 + 0] You try to rest but the Bald Eagle rushes at you and attacks for 2 damage! You are bleeding and have lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle is wounded and has lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle cuts you with its talons for 3 damage. [Rolled 2 – 1] You bite the Bald Eagle for 4 damage. You are wounded and have lost 3 HP. The Bald Eagle is bleeding and has lost 2 HP. The Bald Eagle cuts you with its talons for 2 damage. [Rolled 5 – 1] You bite the Bald Eagle for 3 damage. It writhes in pain. You are bleeding and have lost 1 HP. The Bald Eagle attacks with its beak for 3 damage. [Rolled 1 + 0] You try to bite the Bald Eagle but miss. You are wounded and have lost 2 HP. |
 Mustang 🐎 #3314 |
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Posted 2022-05-22 16:47:05
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 Whirligig (Hiatus) #11137 |
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Posted 2022-05-22 20:17:31
The same type of enemy can have different modifiers/stats/idk so even if you think you can succeffuly snarl at prey opponent it doesn't mean it will work. Once you're at 0% energy you can as well as quit battling, because your lead (or at least mine) will throw max 2hp damage to an opponent. Enemy at lvl 1 can still have opening move against lvl 20 lead BECAUSE OF IT'S HIGHER STATS (???) or some other magic mushrooms idk. It can make you bleed at your first turn so even if you win against lower level enemy you practically have to bathe in healing salves to keep going. Oh, and also, game punish you from time to time for actively playing, because once your lead retires you have to grind all over again and you NEED to battle to do so – lucky for you if your new lead has high stats, but as we established before, they don't matter at all. Also the monthly event requires battling from you as well so if you want that fancy apps you have to suffer through a grind. I'm *this* close to just quit the game and see from time to time if the battling system got updated. The whole discourse has been going on for over a year now and nothing improved in terms of RNG balance. |
 🍄 𝕗𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚎 #28599 |
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Posted 2022-05-22 20:34:15
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 Lionel #34199 |
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Posted 2022-05-23 02:03:25 (edited)
The thing about stats is, not everyone's going to be able to have a lead wolf with 450-500+ stats at level 1, strength being the main. Players that don't have high-statted leads (and basically every new player, period) will be losing fights constantly. It should be 'I've maxed out my lead, they'll finally be strong!' not 'I just bought a good wolf, therefore I win. :)' Using a regular NBW as a lead is basically a death sentence, battle-wise, because they can NEVER be good. (Unless you pay for a billion guarana and lucky feet.) I ran my first lead's life out fully, and my god, how excruciating it was with his pitiful strength. My win-loss ratio would make anyone cringe. But how could I have done anything about that? I started with a crappy wolf that rolled crappy stats. That's not my fault, but the battling punished me every turn anyway for something out of my control. I can't help enemies one-third my level RNGing better stats and basically auto-winning. (And yes, I know I could have just retired my lead early, but that should NOT be the solution. It would be very unfair to new players to expect that.) My new lead does much better, but there are still times where the battle ends and I'm left going ??? because I managed to lose. Unless it's a bear, high level leads should not be outmaneuvered or outperformed by significantly lower level enemies. My battles should not be determined by whether I bleed or not, because RNG decided it didn't like me a particular turn. The RNG aspect needs to be toned down. I should go into a fight with an enemy less than half my level and be confident I will win. There should be NO question. If I'm going to lose a fight, it should be through my own error. I fought a bear, I fought something much higher level, I didn't use the right moves. Not doing the same formula that works a good portion of the time, but sometimes doesn't just because. There isn't anything I can improve there. My ability to learn from my mistakes is taken away, because there WAS no mistake. Just RNG being RNG. If the battles weren't limited through exploring with energy, the RNG wouldn't be so grating. But the battles are limited, so each win is more impactful. Which also means that each loss for stupid, unfair reasons are also more impactful. |
Whirligig (Hiatus) #11137 |
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Posted 2022-05-23 08:27:07
This doesn't solve the issue of starter leads, but I think the game would benefit a lot from being clearer about its battle mechanics so that players know what is optimal for successive leads. For instance, strength is by far the most important stat because it gives you bonuses on latch/crush, but it's also extremely non-obvious to a new player. (Not everyone knows you can hover over the dice to see bonuses, and more importantly, with a starter lead you're probably not going to get the +1 strength bonus so you just won't know it exists.) So if you want to make battles easier for yourself, it's good to specially breed your heir for high strength and give them full strength bonuses from pup and adol training. But this is not documented anywhere in game and a lot of people just don't realize it. I didn't realize it myself until I was on my third lead and Dzanek happened to explain it in a forum post. (Of course I'm not saying that everyone has to breed their heir for strength; some people breed for lore, others prefer using NBWs for heritage/breeding purposes. But that's basically a challenge playstyle. I feel like a lot of people do this unknowingly and then are understandably frustrated at how challenging battles are.) |
Lionel #34199 |
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Posted 2022-05-23 08:39:36
My wolved could be smart and thanks to that know what weak points of enemy are so they can bite harder. Or be agile and so have additional buff to it's dodge ratio. But it doesn't. I changed my lead recently and I lost my barely-here joy of playing, because currently my lead has 648 total stats and 104 strenght. She'll be dead before she'll be able to thrive in a battle. I barely can participate in Lunar Event because almost every battle is either lost or I need 2 healing salves before I can continue and I'm already out of them. And it's all because I can't safely go against weak enemies, because lvl 1 osprey can make me bleed on a first turn. I wouldn't be angry at a game if my loss would be out of my own stupidity. But it hardly ever is. |
🍄 𝕗𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚎 #28599 |
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Posted 2022-05-23 08:44:12
Strength is still the god stat, but I'd recommend having either smarts or agility as your lead's secondary stat. (I like smarts because it also helps for pup training, but a lot of leaderboard wolves swear by agility) |
Lionel #34199 |
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Posted 2022-05-23 08:47:36
Battle with lvl 6 lunar badger (my lead is lvl 15) [Rolled 4 + 1] The Lunar Badger lunges at you, but you dodge and take no damage. [Rolled 2 + 1] The Lunar Badger makes a swift dash before you can react. Your opponent has the first move. + 1 is due to high agility or so the game said. So even if I had + 1 to my rolls due to high agility I lost my opening move (and all the buffs I could get with it) just because the dice rolled so. Yay. What a joy. What a fair system. |
🍄 𝕗𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚎 #28599 |
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Posted 2022-05-23 20:23:23
Oof one shall not discuss the bear quest... *shivers* A true horror, that one. I absolutely agree. I never realized what stats affect - and I still don't completely get it. I never even knew you could get stats from battles for a while there! (Though when you have a 60+% chance to lose to any enemy above level 13, it's hard to ever notice a stat increase. You'd have to actually win the battle for that.) I would have loved to know strength is the main thing to go for from the beginning, which I think I also learned from Dzanek by complete accident. Really made me realize my 1st lead was a noodle-limbed weakling. ;-; Never knew for months that dice rolls were even a thing. Not that I pay attention to dice rolls now... I don't understand how they work, like, at all. And the fates will decide how the fight will go anyway, so what will be will be. You can't really sway a fight your way. The only exception to that is resting to get rid of a bleed. It would be nice if you could see how many stats the enemy has, maybe with a first move. And it could show your stats too, so you could determine how the fight could go off that. At least then you could see how much your opponent will clap you and you could save yourself the trouble. @🍄 𝕗𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚒𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚎 I would love it if other stats had a stronger impact. Having strength be the only one that truly matters forces everyone to play the same way, which makes battles stagnate further. I want a high-speed wolf that can attack before the enemy, potentially multiple times; I want a high-agility wolf that can dodge the enemy's attacks; I want a high-smarts wolf that crits due to knowing where enemy weak points are; I want a high-wisdom wolf that can calculate what the next enemy move will be and react beforehand to get the edge. Yes, I also want a high-strength wolf that can brute-force through enemies too, but I don't want that to be the only option. We need variety and more than that, consistency. If something works for a level 15 Cougar, it should work for a level 1 Cougar too. No more RNG dictating a fight from the first few moves - the only thing it should do is a rare chance to dodge or crit, with the odds to do these or outsmart them able to be manipulated through stats. (And would be percentages we could clearly see, instead of needing to guess.) And I don't like having to rely on bleed. It sways battles way too much, either for or against. If I'm fighting an enemy my level, I want to have a fight I'll need to think through. Not spam the same buttons and have one side or the other be wiped in ten seconds. There's supposedly going to be a talent tree eventually, and I hope that it's sooner rather than later. I'm crossing my fingers that'll mean battling in general will change when that's added. Battling could be super fun and if it becomes engaging, it'll certainly entice more players to stick around. And make players less exhausted from constant battling during the Events, but maybe that part's just me. :'v I'm blabbing on now, I apologize. |
Whirligig (Hiatus) #11137 |