Guild Wars 2

ens.9854:

Eurantien.4632:

Do you think removing RNG would favor bunkers too much? If I don’t know what you roll I can’t prepare for it. If I see you use a certain signet or elixir and the affect is not random then I can be prepared to defend against it. How do you kill me now when you can’t get that lucky perfect shot?

This is the kind of situation I’ve been referring to, props for pointing it out. Players who want RNG removed would say that you either need to bring an “anti-bunker” build, or bring another player to kill him (assuming equal skill).

What do you do, then, if you are in a losing situation? It becomes impossible to make that clutch, risky play, where your roaming thief solos their bunker, unless you are literally banking on your opponent making a game-breaking mistake.

Exactly. It seems everyone else is arguing it takes away from player skill. However, if you take away RNG then the bunker becomes invincible. They are skilled too and a roamer (also skilled) won’t be able to beat an equally skilled player without luck. I think that takes away from player skill. Also, if this is about player skill then why not be skilled enough to handle any RNG situation. Oh, the engi turned invisible, better use fear. Oh, the engi got stability better just pound him and hope he dies. If he just gets one or the other I don’t have to adapt and anyone can make the proper move everytime. I would argue that RNG promotes player skill.

ens.9854:

I think it is absurd to think that this game could hold up if skill were all that mattered. It is not demanding enough compared to physical sports. The controls are not tight or responsive enough compared to other games. For example, snap interrupts, where you change targets and immediately press stun, are impossible because there is a delay between when you change targets and when you will actually target that person.

I also think it is absurd to say that randomness is out of hand; when crit rates are “balanced” at the 40-60+% chance, this is anything but random, it is statistics. There is no 1 in 100 chance that you just win or lose. Nobody uses a build that has +60% crit damage and only a 10% crit chance, even though there is a chance it will outperform all other builds. By the same token, nobody makes a build that will only survive if somebody misses half their crits. Why? It would be too unreliable. GW2 is not about what happens in individual encounters, although there are specific builds that try to maximize this specific outcome.

Why? I think what may be the problem, and i’m just going off you comparing gambling to this game. Is you dont WANT this game to be an E-Sport. Perhaps you enjoy the casual play style of the game. The reason people are upset is because it was advertised as an E-Sport. In a competitive sport you remove as much chance as possible. Also, i dont get your first paragraph at all or what point your trying to make. Are you saying this game could never be competitive without the rng because there is delay in when you change targets and click abilitys? This makes no sense please elaborate.

Also crit rates are not really the leading problem. The problem is abilitys that say "will cast either spell A, B, or C. You have no idea what clicking the button will do. Your leaving it to chance. Example used in op post even. Engineer healing potion will give either protection, regeneration, or swiftness. These are all very different boons. if you were using it to catch up to someone and got protection…this would do you no good. If you were snared and getting beat on and used it to absorb some damage and got swiftness..it would not be as ideal. Too many abilitys like this leave less about strategy and more about praying for that lucky 7. You toss an elixer so you can invis and escape but it gives you stability and you get pelted down. Random mechanics like this are frusterating for the player using them and can not be planned around. You cant build strategy around an ability that has a 1 in 3 chance of doing what you want it to do. look at elixer X, it used to give plague, juggernaut or tornado…now plague is removed but you still have no idea what your ULTIMATE ability will do….and one is cleary better in most cases than the other. This is the problem.

Eurantien.4632:

ens.9854:

Eurantien.4632:

Do you think removing RNG would favor bunkers too much? If I don’t know what you roll I can’t prepare for it. If I see you use a certain signet or elixir and the affect is not random then I can be prepared to defend against it. How do you kill me now when you can’t get that lucky perfect shot?

This is the kind of situation I’ve been referring to, props for pointing it out. Players who want RNG removed would say that you either need to bring an “anti-bunker” build, or bring another player to kill him (assuming equal skill).

What do you do, then, if you are in a losing situation? It becomes impossible to make that clutch, risky play, where your roaming thief solos their bunker, unless you are literally banking on your opponent making a game-breaking mistake.

Exactly. It seems everyone else is arguing it takes away from player skill. However, if you take away RNG then the bunker becomes invincible. They are skilled too and a roamer (also skilled) won’t be able to beat an equally skilled player without luck. I think that takes away from player skill. Also, if this is about player skill then why not be skilled enough to handle any RNG situation. Oh, the engi turned invisible, better use fear. Oh, the engi got stability better just pound him and hope he dies. If he just gets one or the other I don’t have to adapt and anyone can make the proper move everytime. I would argue that RNG promotes player skill.

Heres some things to consider. For one, if two “equally” skilled players are fighting over a point…it will come down most likely to whos traits/profession is better at handling the 1on1 situation. But i can garantee it will almost NEVER be a stalemate.
Also, how are you being skillfull by the engineer not getting what he wanted? That took no skill on your part, nor did it on his…it was random. He got the buff he didnt want. You being able to react to a players skills simply suggests you are prepared to handle whatever the engineer can do. If the engineer had an ability that always invised and an ability that always gave stability, you would make the same decisions no? It would be just as unpredictable for YOU because you have no idea what the engineer will do….but heres the problem. Its unpredictable for the engineer too. He had no control over what happend and thus did not make a choice out of skill but gambled in hopes of …whatever he thought might work best in that scenerio.

This isnt a healthy form of randomness or necessary. You actually prove why its NOT necessary with your post.

Zinwrath.2049:

This isnt a healthy form of randomness or necessary. You actually prove why its NOT necessary with your post.

The engineer can react accordingly to what he gets as well. Either one of the elixir S skills is a great way to kill someone.

Eurantien.4632:

I would argue that RNG promotes player skill.

Depends on what kind of RNG you’re talking about.

On one hand, you have a game like Tera. I haven’t played it in a while, but around the time I quit the game was pretty much dominated by RNG. RNG knockdown chains, RNG staggers and microstuns, RNG resist chance on all crowd control in the game, RNG cooldown resets, just RNG everywhere. In that game, you could and would lose fights literally because of RNG and nothing else.

On another hand, you have a game like Aion where things like paralysis and silence godstones meant you could chain those effects on enemy players with any and every hit with no hope of retribution from the other guy. Very, very bad.

On yet another hand, you have a game like WoW where things like brain freeze and fingers of frost, while arguably somewhat overtuned, are both well designed RNG procs that immediately open up opportunities for a team to capitalize and switch strats up on the fly, forcing the opposing team to react. The key, of course, is that such procs are very visible and obvious, meaning that the opposing team does actually have a chance to react and do something about it if they’re quick enough and attentive enough.

Somewhere inbetween lies GW2. There are certain RNG elements that are okay and make matches more dynamic, and then there are some RNG elements that are random simply for the sake of being random – i.e. engineers, some forms of unintended condi application, and some other things.

RNG can promote skillful play if it’s smartly implemented and properly moderated. Unfortunately, in many MMO’s, it isn’t – at least not across the board.

Eurantien.4632:

Zinwrath.2049:

This isnt a healthy form of randomness or necessary. You actually prove why its NOT necessary with your post.

The engineer can react accordingly to what he gets as well. Either one of the elixir S skills is a great way to kill someone.

Ya, but with burden. For example like used in the OP comment. I am downing a gaurdian and i throw out my elixer to give myself stability so he cant knock me back, but instead it gives me invis. So i get knocked away, someone rezzes him and i die.

Visa versa, i want to kill him and i get stability..i kill him.

You could say “well you have to react to the situation”, but the situation was not controlled by me. I threw out a 50/50 gamble that i would kill him by using one of my abilitys that does not specify what it will do everytime. And it came up the wrong side. So theres no way to build strategy around the ability, instead i use it and cross my fingers as like you asid. Both abilitys are powerful…but only when they work when you need them. If my ability does not do what i want it when i click it, it does not help me.

So in this situation, we robbed the players skill to make a tactic, and replaced it by a coin toss. One of the sides will help me, the other not as much…or not at all. This is the problem.

EDIT: I’d like to add your original point shows how you can adapt to the already existing randomness which is “you dont know what skills the player has or when/what he will use”. This is good because its controlled by you and the players actions and choices. You are rewarded for your victory for your knowledge and preperation and understanding of the enemy your fighting.

In this situation with the gaurdian though, there is no tactics…a man is standing over you flipping a coin to see if you’ll die. As the gaurdian your hoping it says tails and he gets invis and you bought yourself some time. But you cannot adjust to stability…your dead off a coin toss because the PLAYER using the ability got lucky. This is not a satisfying feeling for the gaurdian in this case cause they know they died to a coin toss..not because the player out played them.

ens.9854:

From a purely GW2 perspective, it is silly to say things like crit rates, etc are RNG and pure chance.

Take a step back. Suppose you play thief and 1/4 times your entire backstab combo crits and makes you an 80% favorite to win that fight. It becomes a strategic decision; is the upside high enough that you are willing to fight it out the other 3/4 of the time? Do you need to be guaranteed victory when you crit to make the build worth it?

You want GW2 to boil down to single encounter dynamics, but it is much deeper than that. Adding pure defense is one way to mitigate the effects of RNG, and blocks/blinds/evades can often completely stifle them; but ultimately how often these are used effectively is just another statistic to be taken account of.

Chess, I think, is a terrible example, most games end in draws! There is certainly an element of luck; there is no way to choose the best strategy at the start of the game; so maybe you choose a strategy or openning that turns out to be a huge underdog. Can you still win? Yes of course, but it will be much more challenging, or you can choose to be safe and play for a draw. It is the same in GW2, maybe something unpredictable happens and you are a huge underdog for no reason related to skill or strategy; do you fight it out or try to retreat? It’s things like these that make every game different.

And I think enough is enough on the sporting examples; anybody who has ever played a sport at a decent level knows that “lucky shots” do exist. Sometimes they coincidentally make that perfect choice. Over the long haul, statistics will win out.

The RNG we are referring to would make your chess example look like this:

The match starts, and a third person takes 2 dice, one for each opponent.
He rolls both, and depending on the outcome, each opponent has to play a certain strategy.

Interesting discussion going. If I may add to this by quoting from a reddit thread on the same topic by another user:

“The less a player can control an event, the less impacting the event should be on the outcome of the game.”

In the case of the engineer’s elixir example of stealth vs stability, and knowing how important these two abilities are when used, I think the randomness here in the elixir is not necessary.

Contrarily, RNG in small impact outcomes, eg a chance to leech life on critical, I think are alright.

So will you also take the thief improvisation trait and make that not RNG? If a thief can reliably recharge venom. Grant that to allies and get double hits with venom. Then recharge it again! If you thought thieves were OP before…

The context with which I thought about the elixir was that since whether the engineer gets stability will determine if he gets the stomp off; having such little control over such an impactful outcome is not conducive.

In the context of the thief’s trait Improvisation, whether the thief gets its venoms recharged will determine if he gets the enemy down is indeed an impactful outcome. Seen this way, it is true that the RNG should be removed. However, would it be valid for me to state that having recharged venoms is a separate and additional concern of having a possibly too powerful trait, rather than just that of whether the RNG should be removed?

In any case, I find skills/traits that give high payoffs with a chance aren’t really favored, and pretty much making them quite useless. And as such, random outcomes for them should be removed so to increase their viability in player builds.

Conversely, while Glyph of Elemental Power is a weak event/outcome with small control by the player, nor is it favored as a skill at all. Hmmm…

Honestly, I haven’t given the quote enough thorough thinking, but just thought it would be a nice way to explore this problem.

Chriswck.6490:

The context with which I thought about the elixir was that since whether the engineer gets stability will determine if he gets the stomp off; having such little control over such an impactful outcome is not conducive.

In the context of the thief’s trait Improvisation, whether the thief gets its venoms recharged will determine if he gets the enemy down is indeed an impactful outcome. Seen this way, it is true that the RNG should be removed. However, would it be valid for me to state that having recharged venoms is a separate and additional concern of having a possibly too powerful trait, rather than just that of whether the RNG should be removed?

In any case, I find skills/traits that give high payoffs with a chance aren’t really favored, and pretty much making them quite useless. And as such, random outcomes for them should be removed so to increase their viability in player builds.

Conversely, while Glyph of Elemental Power is a weak event/outcome with small control by the player, nor is it favored as a skill at all. Hmmm…

Honestly, I haven’t given the quote enough thorough thinking, but just thought it would be a nice way to explore this problem.

The venom comment doesnt really apply. Obviously if removing rng created an OP side effect on an ability, you would nerf or change the ability as well…not just be “oh crap…guess this abilitys op GG!”. So its not even a problem that needs addressing as the solution is more than obvious.

But as to your comment. Life siphon and crit have been considered healthy in other similiar types of games. I think the ’procs" on effects while definitly give a random chance that isnt under the players direct control arent as impactful or toxic as clicking an ability and having the result of that directly make or break an encounter.

We could go on to compare elixer X giving you either the warrior ultimate rampage, or the elementalists ultimate tornado (used to give necromancer plague, now only does that in water…randomly). These are two very defined abilitys that will often have a completely different effect on the outcome of the fight considering why the ultimate was used in the first place. Because you dont know what you will get you can never plan on it, you simply click it and hope its what you wanted..and if not, deal with the lesser effect. This kind of RNG is uncomfortable because it frusterates the player and there is no way to plan around it.

Crits however you can easily build a 40% range of crit to where its somewhat reliable that you WILL crit around half of the time. Over the course of a fight due to probability you will most likely crit about 40% of the time in one battle if your crit rate is 40%. This of course has the chance for a random fluke situation where you crit for much less or more…but its somewhat controlled and will be less obvious unless the lack of crits is extremely severe.

So i think the first real goal would be to change abilitys that have no defined outcome, as your tossing a coin that may land heads or tails…or in some cases on its side. This is an obvious change that needs to happen because of the reasons listed through out this thread. As for % on hit/crit. I think for the most part these are ok…but some toning down on them definitly needs to happen as there are far too many to the point its a bit ridiculous. Especially the “% chance to do X during a crit” Its a chance upon a chance and i think thats something that should have little presence in a competitive game.

Zinwrath.2049:

…

So i think the first real goal would be to change abilitys that have no defined outcome, as your tossing a coin that may land heads or tails…or in some cases on its side. This is an obvious change that needs to happen because of the reasons listed through out this thread. As for % on hit/crit. I think for the most part these are ok…but some toning down on them definitly needs to happen as there are far too many to the point its a bit ridiculous. Especially the “% chance to do X during a crit” Its a chance upon a chance and i think thats something that should have little presence in a competitive game.

Most, or all, of the % on hit/crit are small impact events, and thus are okay. I heard from others that in another MMO, there is a sigil-like upgrade that gives player a tiny chance to one-shot an opponent. Now, that’s problematic.

I see the chance-on-chance differently though. To me, it’s just a smaller chance to do X on hit. So long event X is not impactful, I think it’s alright. The reason I think why the developers made these chance-on-chance traits is to scale back the effect of such event X. With the decision process going:
1, We would like to have an effect on critical
2, But given that when a player is highly speced for critical, the effect would trigger more often than we’d like, we will scale that back
3, Hence, we add a percentage chance on top of that to reduce the frequency of it triggering
4, Then, if we have a 50% chance to apply bleeding on critical hit specced at 50%, its simply a 25% chance to apply bleeding on all hits.