Dev Discussion #41 - RNG

My main opinions on this can be found here in my discussion of why Drops should be based on 'in battle RNG' instead of post-battle RNG , so that can be thrown directly into the analytics or data pile.

I also dislike RNG determining whether or not a status or CC effect is applied in a binary way and would prefer RNG to always be a matter of degrees, across all systems other than 'hit or not hit'. Even in Action mode (if that's being done in that way).

Lots of extensive discussion about that was probably in one of the bigger threads from last year.

RNG on Enhancing/Enchanting was covered in previous situations.

I'll accept and support RNG in mob behaviour, particularly in battle, anytime.

I honestly can't think of other situations in which RNG comes up, probably because I don't play games with a lot of it, for very long, so I will probably have more to say when other people post and remind me of all the other places that RNG can be applied poorly that I disagree with.

I think dmg rng (within limits of course) is fine and could somewhat prevent dps toxicity.

Imo overenchantment rng is fine because it brings high risk to a high reward.

Drop rng is amazing. Have mobs drop 6 different things with each thing being valuable, but with one or two of them dropping very rare and being very valuable because of that.

Boss respawn timer rng is great (again, within limits). Make people wait for it to spawn within some time period, which makes people pvp for the respawn spot in order not to miss the farm itself.

Those are the obvious ones that I like and could remember right now.

The main one I dislike is probably quest drop rng. You can tell me to kill 10k mobs and I'll be fine with it, but only if each mob drops the quest item.

I don't think RNG belongs in hard CC when it comes to a binary 'hit or miss'. It's a 'lose a turn' button and takes away from the ability to prepare and strategize. I therefore think hard CC and RNG should be more about 'duration' and whether the max or min duration occurs, and to also implement 'resist' options to all classes in order to increase the tactical interplay while keeping the 'adaptability' and 'thrill risk' that some people like rng in hard cc for.

CC Is always a risk reward option, when built properly. You risk doing less damage now, to affect the flow of the fight and 'hopefully' get more damage or take less damage later. Not only that binary hit or miss is difficult to balance on a gear level. I'd rather not 'stun' and 'anti stun' be the be all end all meta, but that's what it becomes in almost all games that have such gear, and stun mechanics.

I highly recommend the team go through these threads the community has already had a large discussion on this particular topic.:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50615/try-to-limit-the-amount-of-braindead-and-anti-fun-cc-that-is-stuns-there-are-better-alternatives/p1
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50899/crowd-control-should-not-be-based-on-rng/p1

As for RNG in other areas I dislike: crafting failure (I preffer crafting have mostly skill based systems with some room for rng for high quality results), gear breakage rate, experience point gain, and ability activation (no fizzles! accuracy missing is fine, but randomly punishing a player via longer cool downs or damage for just trying to use their ability is an unacceptable mechanic.)

Areas I like RNG: encounter tables for gathering (especially if you can influence the rng somewhat through your skill), RNG in mob ai, and RNG in accuracy (I am technically fine with this, just don't make accuracy a gear choice), Tavern Games,

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I don't care about those types of system. I don't mind them, but for a lot of people and in a lot of situations, they don't help as much as 'having some additional direct control'. If the droprate is low enough to start, it causes an increase in player dissatisfaction because RNG is strange and streaky.

Without going into a bunch of statistics, I'll repeat what I always say.

"If you tell 1000 people to flip a coin ten times, the chances of one of those people getting all Heads or all Tails is 1 in 1000."

And the 'theory' you can draw out from that...
"It is not extremely unlikely for one person to 'fail' every time at a 50/50 drop, 10x. It is also not extremely unlikely for a different person to get the drop 10 straight times."

MMOs always operate on the 'thousands of players' scale.