Goonhub
06-28-2021, 10:49 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-28-2021, 10:50 AM by cyberTripping. Edited 1 time in total.
Edit Reason: stinky typos
)
When people say "RNG bad" they're not saying that SS13 should play out the exact same every single round. This isn't some NES game speedrun where the internal workings of the game have been honed down to a fine point and the single player has total control, it's a game that goes on for hours involving upwards of 50 people causing chaos. Things fundamentally cannot happen the same way twice. I don't think they're even saying that rand() calls or whatever Byond uses should be removed. What people are actually saying, or at least, should be saying, is "Agency good".
Player agency is a critical part of a game feeling good to play, particularly in freeform games like tabletop rpgs or, of course, ss13. People like feeling like they are the arbiters of their own fate. Here's the important trick: People like feeling that way, but it doesn't mean it has to be totally true.
If you're playing D&D, and your team is whittled down due to tactical mistakes that wouldn't have been an issue with slightly better rolls, you're going to feel pretty alright about the loss. Sure, you lost to RNG, but it was ultimately because of your own choices. In contrast, if your team lost to an otherwise completely normal fight where they did nothing unusual, as a result of the players rolling incredibly poorly and then the enemies getting a perfect 20-20 crit out of nowhere, youre going to feel a lot worse.
The point of this dumb rambling post I guess is that RNG checks should be tethered to things the player has control over, or at the very fucking least, the illusion of control, or partial control. Arbitrary flat chances for something to happen, unweighted by any other variables, feel like that second class of DnD example: You did nothing wrong and got punished for rolling bad. Tying what would be a flat chance to other variables brings it closer to the first: Sure you rolled bad, but considering the way you went about things, you were bringing the risk upon yourself. The same exact sequence of events can feel any number of ways based on how the underlying mechanics are viewed by the player, and I think the salt generated by disarm is a fine example.
anyways sorry for the rambling text, tl;dr: [flat chance] rng bad = agency good
Player agency is a critical part of a game feeling good to play, particularly in freeform games like tabletop rpgs or, of course, ss13. People like feeling like they are the arbiters of their own fate. Here's the important trick: People like feeling that way, but it doesn't mean it has to be totally true.
If you're playing D&D, and your team is whittled down due to tactical mistakes that wouldn't have been an issue with slightly better rolls, you're going to feel pretty alright about the loss. Sure, you lost to RNG, but it was ultimately because of your own choices. In contrast, if your team lost to an otherwise completely normal fight where they did nothing unusual, as a result of the players rolling incredibly poorly and then the enemies getting a perfect 20-20 crit out of nowhere, youre going to feel a lot worse.
The point of this dumb rambling post I guess is that RNG checks should be tethered to things the player has control over, or at the very fucking least, the illusion of control, or partial control. Arbitrary flat chances for something to happen, unweighted by any other variables, feel like that second class of DnD example: You did nothing wrong and got punished for rolling bad. Tying what would be a flat chance to other variables brings it closer to the first: Sure you rolled bad, but considering the way you went about things, you were bringing the risk upon yourself. The same exact sequence of events can feel any number of ways based on how the underlying mechanics are viewed by the player, and I think the salt generated by disarm is a fine example.
anyways sorry for the rambling text, tl;dr: [flat chance] rng bad = agency good