Reduced Reliance on RNG (from the perspective of a game maker)
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Posted 2022-05-24 02:19:42
Imagine you're a normal player with common sense, having some basic knowledge about RPG games. You encounter an enemy. Before starting a battle, the only information about the enemy is the level so you expect that the difference between levels determines the chance of winning the battle. You join the battle when based on the information you have (only the enemy's level) you feel you can win. You have buttons that represent certain actions, interacting with them you determine the course of the fight. After clicking a button, a text is displayed about what happened along with a dice icon next to it. You realize that when the dice has 1-3 dots, it's red and a bad event takes place. Otherwise, the dice is green and a good event takes place. You conclude that you have 50/50 chance of rolling good/bad events. What happens when you have only 17/33% chance of rolling good events when you expect 50%? You go to this thread, throw a support and post some argumentation about broken RNG and level difference having no matter. And that's how this thread has received pages of support from owners of low stat wolves, where most of them don't mention anything about stat relevance or modifiers. Tala's Archive provides in-depth information about how hunting works: which stats should be trained for certain hunters, what affects the hunting chance and even updated information from the latest Development Update about sending multiple hunts at once and travelling penalty. When you send out a hunt, hunting chances are displayed for certain trails and when you hover the pointer as you click to choose a trail, you get additional information that the chance doesn't assume personality clashes. Since hunting started displaying the chances, this thread stopped getting feedback about its RNG. Contrary to hunting, there's no information about how battling works in Tala's Archive, neither it can be found anywhere in the game. While fighting, you can hover the pointer as you click to make a move for more information about the move (such as which starting moves reduce dice rolls) but there's no reason for you to hover the pointer over a dice icon, which is the point of the issue because this is the only place where you can learn that stats matter during battles. |
 Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 09:23:07
If the game rewards you in the form of making things easier for you after going through alot of frustration in the beggining, that's not a good game design imo. |
 Datrandomcat #11515 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 09:48:26
Wolvden is intended to be a long-term breeding sim where you see improvement over time. What's the best way to reward multi-generational breeding without inducing player frustration in the short term? For example, I think the intended gameplay arc (without using outside studs or buying pups) is something like this: Your starter lead (starting with 200 stats) may reach 800 stats after a long and full life. She doesn't have an optimized stat build and is still getting her ass kicked by high level bears. She pairbonds with your pack's best finisher and gives you an heir in the low 400s, that reaches 500 stats after pup + adol training. When she ascends to pack leader, battles will be somewhat tougher in the short term, because you're going from 800 to 500 stats. But of course she has a 300-stat starting advantage over your first lead, and is better optimized for strength, so once she hits max level she'll be significantly more powerful than your first lead. That's satisfying. You can see improvement over time, and you're rewarded for your efforts in raising the parents + breeding. Her children will be even more powerful than she is. I think it's a good long-term gameplay arc for a breeding sim. It makes sense that a starter lead can't accomplish everything so the player has further goals for future generations. But it doesn't do much to ease the new player's frustration when they're 3 months into the game, they have a max level starter lead, and they're still getting destroyed by high level bears and birds. |
 Lionel #34199 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 09:59:04 (edited)
Also, due to Lunar battles especially, it's really really frustrating to have a lvl 20 NBW who still frequently loses battles to low level enemies and constantly loses against high lvl ones. I think before Lunar event it was okay, no great tragedy unless you were grinding for stats/LB anyway. But now again, very Not Fun. (Maybe battles could be made easier, with extra rewards depending on how well the fight goes for you and how easily you win? Idk) I also feel with a lead nearly as good in battles as it gets, you should not have to use as many lucky feet as is currently the case. Bleed is... a bit much imo especially considering how much harder everyone with a less "perfect" fighter gets hit with it by comparison. And yeah everyone having to prioritize strength is kinda boring. Stats do make a huge difference but the system and huge amount of RNG involved could do with a lot of improvement in my eyes. |
 🐾Alymiell🐾 #18317 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 11:13:59
Maybe I'm missing some appeal here- it's fun to see yourself no longer having to worry about the things you first worried of and be capable of tackling newer and bigger challenges, but the problem is that it just doesn't feel like it actually matters to level up if bottom tiers still unreasonably best you- I mainly care that my hunters are high statted enough so that I don't starve to death, but I don't care about battles when it feels like I have such a little control of it in the first place. It's not like the battles on the sister site are better designed per say in terms of controll since you are also spamming buttons, but the cost of battling is way less heavier. Your HP is per specific battle, you don't need to expend resources for it and there is a stark energy maximum cut, nevertheless you don't either loose hp randomly. Besides, you have other ways to gain experience through encounters, while for WD so far it's strictly through one way, and your chances of claiming actually good nbw's depends on it, where LD it's another bar completly. Per say I don't particularly struggle with battles here, but I just find it annoying more than anything I guess, if this made sense. |
Datrandomcat #11515 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 12:38:23
Per say I don't particularly struggle with battles here, but I just find it annoying more than anything I guess, if this made sense.Same. I came here and didn't struggle too much. First lead struggled against desert wolves and could not even with arctic wolves. Fair. When they gave enemies abilities in that one update, I hoped we would get similar ability access within three months. Didn't happen. A lot of the enemies became Fearless, which for me personally, was kinda no fun. I like stacking Bleed to get easy Rest and Fearless threw a wrench in that (note, not a complaint). The amount of Fearless Opponents has gone down so I am cool with that now. Mind you, a lot of the first Battle Overhaul was simply allowing us to see what affects the rolls by hovering. We Happy Few had to throw it in peoples' faces to get them to see what to do. Like 24018 (Dzanek), I think Tala's Archive needs to display all the stat weights for fighting, as it does for mutations and hunting now. Second lead was not Str/Wis. Was Agi/Str. Pretty nice not getting hit for 7 or 8 damage 'cause Str only says "hit me hard if I don't latch," - but latch is like stun and free damage if successful and feels good so I got Str again, but wasn't getting Speed so no first turn for me. Third lead got dad's chaser stats and I believe it was muskox and poor black bears I farmed to get above 300 strength. Having 3 stats around 300 was nice. That was Felicity. Finally joined people doing lead restarts because pup training and adole trainin' be op (overpowered), yo. Ioa has had both. She's Strength/Speed mix and I find I can deal with being hit for 7 or 8 dmg if I can get my latch. Agi farming is funner than Str farming for the same reason: bears latching me = not fun. but fair. I agree about Instant Bleed Application feeling like the anti-fun particularly as we can not do the same. Lunge only skips the Opposition's turn. If Lunge did Instant Bleed Application, I might be okay with it staying. As it stands now though, Bleed is very much a battle swayer. I know we're afraid of making the combat too skill-based, but this is not WoW with 6 month update cycles. This is a team who does their best to provide an experience and has their bug fixes on the front page, which is what drew me in. Let's not copy D&D - go for LoL style instead 'cause you can pull off something satisfying. And remember to We Happy Few those stat weight tutorials, please. The research has been done. Time to be Fearless. |
 Zeraki #26932 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 20:33:08
That's the thing, while I agree there should be proper explanation for how battles work, there's still clearly something wrong with the RNG. A level 1 should NEVER roll better stats than a level 20. A level 1 should NEVER move before a level 20. Because if getting a wolf to level 20 doesn't guarantee you can defeat the lowest levels you can fight, then what on Earth is the point with grinding to reach that level? I might as well just stay level 10, it doesn't make a huge difference that way. People don't want to be able to steamroll a max-level bear the first turn, we just want RNG to stop dictating how random fights are gonna go. And yes, RNG DOES dictate a lot of fights. It is not just a stat issue. Read my post on the previous page. I, someone with a wolf that has 287 strength, which isn't low, nearly got decimated by a level 1 Cougar. Why? Couldn't tell you. I didn't sit there spamming wait or something, I was really struggling. To an enemy that I've easily killed the higher levels of. Can any of you really tell me that almost getting killed by a level 1 Cougar but easily defeating a level 15 Cougar is just because of my stats? That there was no RNG swaying the fight whatsoever? Stats matter, but clearly there is something wrong here. It's not a black and white situation where it's just new players not understanding, or people just not having enough of whatever stat I say is best, or stats don't matter at all and RNG is the only thing that sways fights. If I can win against a level 15 just fine and almost lose to a level 1, that means that either the level 1 rolled better stats than the level 15 or that somehow the level 1 managed to roll better attacks than me almost every turn. Both things are because of RNG. Surely those of you who treat the RNG debate as simply a misunderstanding can recognize how there's something not right about that? Progression in this game doesn't make much sense when you can literally buy a wolf that has 500+ stats at birth. The idea of the typical 'Levelling up = getting stronger' clashes with this idea of 'I must 'prestige' now, basically restarting but at an advantage.' You level up and can fight higher levels, but when players can have a LB wolf and sweep everything that way, enemies also need to have the ability to get much stronger through randomized stats (more RNG) to give them a challenge. Which is fine for those with wolves that can handle it, but not for those who are just starting out. Those two concepts don't mesh well when there's only a max level of 20, because that means that enemies seem to be designed to cater to both ideas, therefore aiding in making it a sweep one way or the other. Am I making any sense? I still maintain that there is an RNG problem and that's my main issue, but I do think battling needs to be reworked in general. I really would like the biomes to be different difficulties the way hunting is, then the lower-stat leads could go to easier areas and the LB leads could go to more challenging areas. With incentives to move 'up' in difficulties and to stop what appears to be a drastically randomized stat pool for enemies at all levels. Don't think that'll happen though, people are too set in whatever place they explore. (Including me.) I don't know, just my opinion on the whole matter. |
 Whirligig #11137 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 20:48:27
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Datrandomcat #11515 |
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Posted 2022-05-24 21:49:36 (edited)
Small edit 'cause small explanations aren't as satisfying. That is also to an extent why I bolded the bits about instant, random bleed we can get from the enemy first turn, but not apply the same to them instantly. The current full system is quite demoralizing. ...And I was trying to say while I did not fail to understand the system a bit initially, I also seek more than only strength when engaging in combat as it related to what others had mentioned previously. |
Zeraki #26932 |
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Posted 2022-05-30 03:28:23 (edited)
 Tell me why players should be motivated to play? After dealing with this BS, its my impression that any investment beyond FTP, why would anyone pay money for this level of frustration?  Edit: Level 9 badger against a level 17 Player, 3/4 energy, full health. Of course I lost the battle, the badger was hitting me well above what I was hitting him, even though he was level 9. |
 Mustang 🐎 #3314 |