In Defence Of Randomness

[@GMTK]

“Randomness is a really powerful tool in the game.... designer’s arsenal” ;)

[@cybrandir]

I instantly thought of your video when I saw this video pop up :)

[@ArchitectofGames]

What other word could I have possibly used????

[@duncanclark8933]

@@ArchitectofGames "Hi. I'm Mark Brown, and this is Beep Boop Chef's Sauce Pallette."

[@matthewsantos422]

Wait I thought you guys were the same person

[@BenReillySpydr1962]

@@ArchitectofGames Is "Defence" the British spelling of "Defense"?

[@ganmaal8642]

- "Hidden role games like Secret Hitler" - shows picture of current german parliament

[@Atlessa]

Had to pause and take a deep breath at that to not laugh out really loud (my fiance is already sleeping...)

[@nilsmuller-cleve6769]

That one kind of triggered me.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

That sounds like a dumb joke.

[@amunak_]

7:43

[@Max_G4]

Yea, that's unfitting. It's not really a secret of who the Hitler in there is.

[@This_Justin998]

Goodness Cube World, what a tragedy. A great case study in why you shouldn't make artistic or design decisions in a vacuum. So many mechanics that just shouldn't have even made it past concept phase. Designers need people in their lives to tell them "No, that's actually a rubbish idea tweak it or get rid of it."

[@stevy9lives]

I was so disappointed with cube world, coming from the hype af beta all those years back. aesthetics and character control I loved, but the region locked items system was one of the stupidest game mechanics i've ever witnessed, the game could have become the new terraria if it was done right but unfortunately, i dont think its going to get updated anymore :/

[@TheFernandinho]

Honestly this new version of cube world is the least of thr problems it had. The major problem was it not getting updates for months and when they came, it was most bug fixing updates. The reason for that is because the developer (Wolfram was his name if I aint mixing something) was protective as hell with his project, only letting certain people work in it, like his wife or closer friends. This lead to the game having less devs than it should and it feel like a abandoned game even when it launched. His protectiveness got as far as not wanting to launch it on steam when the game was at its prime, making a lot of people impossible to buy (since it was only in dollars) and a instable site (which got hacked some times too) Wolfram changing the whole game progression was a "clever" idea, since making a game like cube world was before is much more difficult and demanding, but made the game worse. The cherry on the top is that, even when the game was in ruins, the most he did (with that enormous ego) is launching on steam like nothing happened... (like a "gift")

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

i played cubeworld "back in the day" and i liked it, it definitely had potential. i liked the idea of endless leveling and defeating stronger and stronger enemies. but the content-limit was reached way to fast. i really hope something like it would come out with more goals. and more things to level up. but keeping it in the endless style and of course a nice blocky world... jumping of a mountain with this gliding thing was actually really awesome

[@MrCyclique]

Binding of Isaac is the game that made me understand how fun randomness can get

[@lordecircojeca2039]

When randomness has an aspect of decision making attached to it, it's even better. See Slay the Spire. The cards you're given are totally random, but you get to choose one out of three.

[@ThePC007]

@@lordecircojeca2039 I'm pretty sure there's an item in Isaac that spawns two items in every treasure room, but you only get to choose one. I always found it odd that that wasn't the default, as it'd probably be much more fun than just getting something at random, but then again, at some point, you get to dice roll your way out of bad item spawns so I guess that's kinda similar.

[@Mewseeker]

@@ThePC007 That's because it is sold in shops. If you understand the value of getting more choices and can get more of those choices, you go for it.

[@buttonasas]

Binding of Isaac is the game that made me hate permadeath games with procgen.

[@TheNitroG1]

@@buttonasas There is distinction to be made between permadeath and roguelike. permadeath you are accepting that your character will face a specific set of challenges they may have random elements to them but the framework is there. Roguelike you are accepting that everything with be random including the difficulty. The only preparation available is to learn what rules other people have used to generate success. as an example Diablo III in hardcore is a permadeath game there is some randomness but you will have the same areas every time the bosses will be the same you can make plans on what will likely or definitely happen. Where as enter the gungeon or binding of isaac are roguelike, you may not even have the same skills available to you from one attempt to the next. Defense and offensive power will be wildly different from one attempt to the next for both you and the enemies.

[@barbaricrenaissance]

In Into the Breach the map layout is what actually helps the player, not the enemy spawning location. The maps are not randomly generated, but hand-picked by the devs among all the possible combinations: in the game there are around 200 layouts to avoid unwinnable situations. To complete the picture, there is also a hard limit on the overall number of spawns depending on difficulty and number of enemies present on the map. Of course, this doesn't affect the excellent point made in the video, Into the Breach is still great at using randomness to generate a scenario in which the player has complete control, using telegraphed attacks. "Each turn is a puzzle with perfect information" to merge the Architect's old video with a quote from Matthew Davis (Into the Breach Design Postmortem, GDC 2019) that I used as the centerpiece of my own video on ITB.

[@barbaricrenaissance]

@@yaccobb5 The devs said they discarded the maps that didn't work from all the possible ones by trial and error. I guess they tested the more reasonable layouts of buildings and mountains. But in general testing what works was the spirit of the whole 4-year development process kzbin.info/www/bejne/an2nkq2Zq7-qsKs

[@revimfadli4666]

Randomized puzzle with perfect information... Sounds like a Dicey Dungeons turn (Other than you choose you lose, that is)

[@1996Pinocchio]

If randomness was not essential to games, we would've gotten rid of card shuffling and dices long ago.

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

@ true, we suffle and use dice, because playing in the same space means we share information, on computer games one player can hide anything from the others and the game can hide anything from the players, rpgs could get rid of dices but them the game would depend to much on the opinion of the game master, and wouldn't be as immersive

[@TheNitroG1]

many games do not have a random element at all. checkers, chess, mancala, Sudoku, tic-tac-toe, mahjong, connect four, shogi, hangman. basically anything that doesn't involve a dice or cards. Many video games have a direct path with set items to collect and enemies to conquer, removing randomness creates a benchmark for skill. so it is not essential to games it's only essential to certain games. referred to as "games of chance"

[@anon8740]

I know this is a nitpick but it's infuriating me. DICES!? It's dice for plural, or a die for singular.

[@Ghorda9]

@@TheNitroG1 mohjong has randomness in what tiles you get.

[@helgenlane]

Randomness in games is supposed to simulate randomness in real life. Chance to hit exists because no person is able to hit the target at the same place absolutely every time in every situation. The more control players have over the game, the less randomness there is. Random bonuses are always fun, but random negative effects... They should be predictable. Players should not get screwed over by rng, but they should have an option to "take a gamble".

[@joeykeilholz925]

Esp in competitive games, embracing randomness is kind of a life lesson in itself

[@Randomness65535]

t. Chaos Knight main

[@ResonantFrequency]

@@Randomness65535 More like deterministic knight these days.

[@revimfadli4666]

@@ResonantFrequency statistically predictable knight?

[@Art_Izon]

The irony is that the most optimal way to win any randomness-heavy game is to mitigate the effects of that randomness as much as possible. Randomness is also the enemy of mastery, so there's that.

[@Cassedy3]

Exactly. Like stacking DoT damage (guaranteed damage) in Darkest Dungeon or using beam weapons (which never miss) in FTL

[@akuma8984]

what about the most optimal way to have fun?

[@revimfadli4666]

Not 'enemy' as in "more randomness means less mastery", but as in "(usually) gives the player a challenge to overcome & master" just like most video game enemies? I'd argue that a low/moderate amount of randomness which still gives the player(s) lots of opportunities for agency would test their skills instead, especially improvisation, adaptation, and understanding, instead of rote memorization. Isn't that what modern roguelikes do?

[@bryceop]

I think people should really take a more mathematical view on how randomness is. The best function of randomness is that it can uncover otherwise unlikely parts of the game state. If you have two human players, then they're really only ever going to see game states that line up with their styles of play and their personalities. But having some randomness in the system can be a subtle push out of otherwise monotonous states.

[@JohnDoe-ys1vb]

"but only if your like is an even number" **Looks at 1.2K labeled like button and sweats profusely**

[@Snozzer]

Don't mean to be a party pooper or a "r/woosh" victim, but if you hover over the ratio bar below the likes, it shows you the numbers.

[@kelmirosue3251]

@@Snozzer I actually didn't know that. The more you know. Also some people are on mobile that might not be able to see it (as far as I know of)

[@wakkjobbwizard]

Kelmir Osue I always use KZbin on mobile. The app is great. It always confuses me when I find people who DON’T use it on mobile.

[@thinkublu]

@@wakkjobbwizard -Better quality video on my desktop -able to use the same headphones I use on my pc as I listen to something in the background while I do something else

[@MercuryA2000]

@@wakkjobbwizard Lets me use my phone for other things. Plus I like opening a million tabs.

[@egg9033]

I thought XCOM 2 was about just blowing up cover with grenades and hopping that flanked 99% shot hit for once.

[@CowCommando]

Or using blade master and upgraded grenade damage for basically guaranteed damage. Basically minimizing the randomness.

[@FinetalPies]

I think there's an important piece missing from RNG discussion, and that is what random means. My favourite functional definition is "sufficiently difficult to predict". Because we call the actual number generators pseudo random, but actually almost everything we experience in the day to day as random is pseudo random, we just weren't able to fully understand all the input variables. Also, the subjectivity of "sufficiently" makes a lot of sense. Someone RNG manipulating Pokemon isn't experiencing randomness, but casual players are. Just because the system can be predicted doesn't necessarily make it less random for the people who aren't going through the effort to do so. This also means that scripted events can be random, the first time the player experiences them, even more random than a dice roll which a player has a decent understanding of the odds on. Ultimately the distinction between "RNG" and "randomness" isn't really appreciated (I blame speedrunners, but also forgive them)

[@YTHandlesWereAMistake]

7:00 have to disagree about poker because poker in a dry environment without “characters” is not real poker. There isn’t an insta-win mechanic in poker, even having a royal flash from turn 1 is not giving you a real win - you have to play it out correctly, and actual poker is not so much about reading the odds, it’s about reading the competition’s behavior. It’s a game about players, not about the game’s mechanics.

[@helloofthebeach]

Indeed. When you have a royal flush, your goal isn't to say "Ha! I win the hand!" It's to con as much money as possible out of the other players before you reveal your win. Poker's actual victory condition has nothing to do with any specific hand, but collecting all the money on the table. Getting a royal flush makes that easier, but if you play it poorly you can end up with nothing to show for it. It's why poker is a great game and video poker is trash.

[@arandombard1197]

@@helloofthebeach Ironically, Royal Flush ends up being a terrible hand as it becomes obvious you probably have a monster hand. It's easy to see you have a high chance of getting a straight or a flush, or a high pair which then results in a fold from most players. Even if you value bet, they aren't to be cautious about betting a lot.

[@damianr9667]

One thing that I think is very notable about good rng is simple: No BAD RNG: im going to use Enter the gungeon as an example. there are practically no bad items that are worse than not having them. if an item is completely outclassed when you get it, well it might have a synergy that boosts a good gun!

[@lazerninga]

Still fairly new and bad at it myself, but there is some bad RNG to deal with I’ve observed. This is more of an issue for early attempts but you can just whiff the chests and not get guns. Had a couple attempts where I had just starting gun because even shop didn’t have guns. Doubt that does much more than slow a better player down on the first bosses since you get guns immediately after. Just frustrating when you’re new and are determined not to quick reset.

[@Mewobiba]

That's kind of a separate topic I think, more "no useless loot". Having an RNG with the possibility of bad outcomes can create a lot of tension, and that can often be a good thing. Sometimes you want to create frustration or fear or disappointment in games, and an RNG that can give you bad outcomes can help with that. In tabletop roleplaying, bad rolls have gotten my character to lose limbs or act against their morals and that's been dramatic in a way that a non-random system (or a system with only positive outcomes of RNG) hasn't managed to be for me.

[@JohnThems]

And then here comes the Rat and exploding chests to punish you for having bad RNG.

[@steveh1474]

@@lazerninga if you dont get a single gun on a floor, the boss will always spawn a gun on the pedestal when you beat him. so the trick then is to learn to beat the first floor bosses with only your starter pistol, and you can guarantee youll always make it to the second or third floor on EVERY run. just getting that far will greatly increase the chance of beating the whole run. all it takes is one super powerful item to carry you!

[@lazerninga]

Steve H Bruh, I said that. I also wasn’t really complaining, I was just pointing out that there are frustrating low rolls.

[@safe-keeper1042]

"nerds still playing Chess when Chess 2 has been out for years" xD xD xD

[@seanthebluesheep]

For anyone who enjoyed this joke, please, please check out Fitz Thistlewitz. There are only a few videos but they're transcendent, and incredibly consumable.

[@williamsmith6921]

you still play chess 2? noobs. store.steampowered.com/app/1349230/5D_Chess_With_Multiverse_Time_Travel/

[@the_void996]

Who needs regular chess when you have 5D chess?

[@Bacony_Cakes]

Don't worry, the RCT and SPORE communities have got you.

[@bigmonkey1254]

wait, people still aren't playing Kreigspiel?

[@exudeku]

*laughs in Darkest Dungeon, Gacha Playing and some PTSD games that will make you pray for RNGsus for bountiful rolls*

[@ArchitectofGames]

Apologies for my voice this episode, I was feeling a little under the weather on recording day but I'm all good now! Want to give money to me instead of medical service professionals because let's be honest who needs them? video game youtubers are way more important: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames Want to tell me off for insulting lifesaving public service workers or for making controversial statements in a cynical bid to increase traffic to my twitter? You know where to go: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

[@zebrorn5068]

Dont worry about your voice fam, i didnt even notice even after i read ur comment :)

[@thundervaart]

*insert salty answer because you stated, that you're worth more than the medical service professionals and I'm too dumb to read the rest of your comment and understand the sarcasm which in fact plays in your hands since I'm commenting on your video*. Also: Obligatory "unsub" statement. This is getting to meta xS

[@tomsko863]

Any chance you could put the game title of the game when you flash it on the screen? I know it's in the video description but it'll still take me time to figure out what game is what.

[@luevott]

Ironic that in the Chess-example you show Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, who both played in last years FIDE World Fischer Random Championship, and are proponents of _introducing_ randomness into chess!

[@firockfinion3326]

"Sixty percent of the time, it works every time."

[@AM-we1es]

5:25 Well, those exist, they're called paradox grand strategy games, and they're quite interesting and successful

[@MonstraG55]

Con-pope he really says "..4x games". I wouldn't call hoi4 a 4x game. At least it lacks 'explore' part.

[@polopo212]

paradox are filled with RNG, so Millard is still right

[@TheRevanM]

They are not balanced though. EU 4's starting nations require very different approach in many situations.

[@NicoNoInteresa]

ah paradox games, the "strategy" games about gathering mana

[@brandonlyon730]

@@NicoNoInteresaNot in victoria 2.

[@meikahidenori]

It's why d&d is popular. The Rng makes it interesting and surprising. Without it it quickly becomes a chore to play

[@wakkjobbwizard]

meikahidenori nerd

[@lvd8122]

Well, i think dnd is popular because it is just infinitely more open then any programmed game

[@jamesvereker4638]

butterpastor if you clicked on this video about game design, you’re a nerd. We are all nerds wtf u on about

[@helgenlane]

Replace rng with people dictating whatever they want and you just get yourself a collectively improvised story. Some people actually do that, bunch of weirdos. TTRPGs are fun because they are not about players, they are about characters. You can play and min-max however you want, but in the end you are just watching the story of your character. We, people, love telling stories and it's so much more fun when you can make choices in that story.

[@ashtongiertz8728]

@@helgenlane no, what you'll get is a bunch of people arguing with one another about what they're capable of doing.

[@TheBordener]

The maps of Into the Breach are actually not random. In their GDC talk I think they mention it at the end during an audience question.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

Yep, the 8x8 maps are handcrafted! Guess which maps get selected for each region on each playthrough is random, though. And the AI - it comes up with the best and second-best move, then randomly picks one, I think

[@helloofthebeach]

Once you've played the game enough, you can definitely start to notice patterns in the maps, just with different tilesets and a few other modifications based on region. The game is much less random than it first appears, since even most of the actual RNG things like enemy moves are strongly weighted, allowing experienced players to attempt to bait enemies into counterproductive moves. That was a drawback though, because although the situations are semi-random, the _kinds_ of decisions the players have to make ends up being limited. A game like FTL still offers more varied experiences, at the price of having much more potential bad randomness.

[@ogre7699]

It can be fun sometimes, with the right approach. Darkest Dungeon once set up the exact moment I fell in love with the game, entirely through random chance. It was a long crawl through a dungeon, and I ended up losing Dismas somewhere in there. In a secret room, inside of a chest, quite a bit further in, was his head. Dismas’ Head is an item that doesn’t generate a random name, nor is it something you get after you lose your first Highwayman, but in this context, the game itself was mocking me and my futile efforts to try and cut away the corruption that has now run rampant within the area. The bloody stars aligned to make that happen, and it was perfectly done. What would’ve been a good item find, was turned into a whole other experience for me.

[@SoftlyAdverse]

6:38: "most competitive games don't have the absurd number of possible game states that, say, chess does" This claim is weird because it's very obviously and straightforwardly false. The number of possible game states in chess is untold magnitudes smaller than for the vast majority of competitive video games. The number of possible configurations of 10 characters in League of Legends, Dota, Counter-Strike, or the many more characters of Starcraft 2 on a vastly more granular playing field makes the number of possible game states in chess look like a piddling rounding error. Even comparable games like the Heroes of Might & Magic series, which also uses a fairly limited number of tiles dwarfs chess hugely. Same goes for Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone by virtue of the vast number of different cards that can be positioned in play and on hand at any given time.

[@hokedo]

r/iamverysmart Maybe?

[@Survul]

@@hokedo Why? He's right.

[@ICountFrom0]

I find the key to randomness is being able to mitigate the effects.

[@jenbooob]

Another thing about terraria's world generation is that each biome has essentially a fixed position. The snow biome always generates on the same side as the dungeon would which is always generated on the opposite side of the world as the jungle. The desert biome spawns on the same side as jungle with the underground desert being generated, while smaller deserts can generate on the other side as well, although they will not generate with the underground part of it. The space, surface, underground, cavern, and hell layers are fixed at specific y coordinate ranges as well. The main randomness in the world gen is in the positions of the biomes relative to the center of the world, the layouts of the caves, dungeon, temple, and sky islands, and the placement of structures and other such things in the underground/cavern/hell layers.

[@123goofyking]

My stance: Yes, RNG is good for games. But it's when you start to emphasize skill, that the effect needs to be minimized. (See: TF2 bullet patterns) BUT if the game is very forward about being random (like dice and card games) I give them more leg room because that's the point of them. My biggest pet peave is in Pokémon. Some moves having a 30% chance to flinch and just take away your turn completely is just stupid. Players can win by just being lucky and straight up not even let the opponent do anything because of RNG. (Imagine playing 1v1 Uno with increased reverse and skip cards)

[@animarthur5297]

You mention the random bullet patterns but not the random crits?

[@123goofyking]

@@animarthur5297 Crits in general is obvious. But people rarely if ever think about the bullet spread

[@ashtongiertz8728]

Bull. Games don't have to be shafted into "skill-based" and "RNG based". TF2 has a high skill ceiling, yes, but the impact of that skill ceiling is less pronounced than one might think. TF2's design had a major focus around pacing; that is, controlling the flow of the game. Choke points, Ubercharge, forward spawns, and even the rate players respawn are all designed to give the team currently doing well the advantage. People who are against RNG in TF2 look at the way the classes fight, but fail to realize that the environment the classes fight in plays just as big a role, if not a larger role, in TF2's gameplay. TL:DR; The impact players have on TF2's gameplay isn't as big as the high skill ceiling implies

[@MartinPurathur]

@@ashtongiertz8728 Random crits themselves have an increased chance of occurence if you've done damage to enemies recently. They assist steamrolls, not break them

[@ChillinGames]

i always liked how the board game Pandemic handled its problem for randomly generating outbreak cards (event that suddenly makes everything harder). there are 7 outbreak cards and instead of shuffling them into your draw pile, you split your draw pile into 7 decks then shuffle in into each and pile them back into one. this means, at worse, you can get 2 in a row but even if that happens, you know you will have 1/7th of the deck to recover.

[@Ultraclocked]

Great video as always. Keep it up! I'll share some more info about Warframe for those who don't know much about it because I've played it a lot. The game does RNG fairly well. The player is given a lot of control in more ways than you mentioned. For instance, you can manipulate the drop chance of certain items (Prime parts) and see exactly what part you're gonna get and how rare it is. Also, the devs have a publicly available document with the drop rates for every item. Talk about transparency! And to go even further, there is trading in the game and they let you trade Platinum (the premium/paid currency). So, not only do your rare items have value but you don't need to grind one particular item or mission type like crazy. Just do what you enjoy doing, trade what you get for Platinum and buy the thing you don't want to grind for from the market or other players. It's a very well thought out and player-friendly system in many ways.

[@zachariahm.kemper7406]

I just found out a old high school friend is a patron of yours

[@dalemonshateu6948]

That was the most uncalled for rick roll

[@Thunder-Sky]

"only if your like is an even number" ah crap, it's being rounded to the nearest hundred right now, I can't see the ones digit....

[@AndrewWallick]

Loved the Eternal CCG shout-out! It's a highly underrated game

[@a-blivvy-yus]

I got involved in a quite heated conversation about randomness in boardgames about a year ago where the "input vs output" thing had been the topic of a video which someone had posted. The video basically created a sliding scale of "good" RNG to "bad" RNG, with input randomness being a spectrum from good to bad but the final pixel-thin line of the "bad" end of the spectrum was "output randomness". This was, of course, complete idiocy and I pointed it out as being so. Somehow, there were people arguing that no, the person was right. Randomness is good when it's not *ARBITRARY* and when there are good tools to *MITIGATE* the impact of the RNG on the outcomes. Whether it's input or output randomness is almost entirely irrelevant to those factors, so while it's useful to understand how the different types of randomness behave, it's not a good tool for measuring "how good" a game might be in the way some people have used it.

[@TheDsasadsad]

Thank you for the video You've demonstrated what makes random in games fun. As a somebody who played Korean MMORPG and spent real money back in the day they would be the worst example of random

[@Talon_24]

The last time i was this early, my pseudorandom generator was seeded with the timestamp 0

[@Dorumin]

Just pull a DST and skip the generator altogether, and make your seed Date.now() the actual output

[@rashkavar]

If you want an excellent example of RNG done right, check out the retro game Randomizer communities. I'm personally a player of the A Link to the Past Randomizer, so most of my examples will be about that, but the same standards apply to other examples in the genre. (They're mostly retro games because they're typically hacked versions of an original game with a well established speedrunning community, and it's way easier to make a SNES game do whatever you want than a PS4 game. Dark Souls has one too, though.) The core principle is that you take a game that handles progression through hunting down items that act as keys to access new areas. Metroidvanias, Zelda games, things like that. Then you scramble where those items are. "Terrible idea," you say. "It'll never work!" Let me finish. You don't *just* randomize everything. You look at what areas each item opens, and you position them such that they can't be locked by themselves. In ALTTP, there's a cave in which you need the hookshot to get over several pits to get to 3 chests, and you need either the hookshot or the Pegasus Boots (which allow you to sprint really fast, and jump backwards by running into something - this is called a bonk, and is usually a mistake) to get a 4th. The Hookshot will never be found in the 3 chests that are over pits too large to jump, because it is required to get them. It can be in the 4th chest, in which case you'll need to find the boots and bonk across the pits to get it. There's added complexity to it as well. Swords, shields, armour, strength enhancing gloves and the bow and its silver arrow upgrade are all "progressive" items, meaning you always find the weakest version first, and then level them up. This allows a sword to be locked behind a place that requires a sword to access, the better gloves to be locked behind a heavy rock, etc. There's multiple logic rulesets, because something that's completely inaccessible to a player not versed in the game's many glitches and sequence breaks can be totally accessible to players who know how to break the game. (Indeed, there is an option to use no logic rules for item placement at all, and every time the community has worked together to solve such a seed, a solution has been found.) There are additional options as well. An enemy randomizer, dungeon keys being scattered around the world, even a couple of variations of randomizing what door goes to what location. But the thing that makes it great is that it removes the bad RNG from the game. There's a minigame in ALTTP we call Dig Game - you pay a dude 80 rupees and he gives you a shovel and 30 seconds to dig around this big empty field. There's 1 item there that's actually unique, and you can dig up a fair bit of money in the process. In the base game, it's a heart piece, and it's completely random how many tries it takes. When I was a kid, I spent more than 2000 rupees trying to get that heart piece, and eventually gave up and decided that would be the one thing I wouldn't get in the game. Instead, every seed determines a number between 1 and 30, and that is how many times you have to dig before finding the item. (Very new players will probably struggle to get the in the last 5 digs or so, but it's not unreasonably challenging.) And the thing that makes it competitive is that everything is the same. If one person has to dig 28 times to find that item, everyone playing that seed will have to dig 28 times. Every item, enemy, door, etc will be the same for anyone who plays that seed. When Agahnim fires a mixture of deflectable attacks and unblockable attacks, everyone will get the same sequence. When fighting Ganon and he teleports a random number of times before becoming vulnerable, even if it's 30 teleports, it's 30 for everyone. It's not traditional speedrunning - every seed you play is different, so even the best players have times that could be upwards of half an hour better or worse than their average, and a high score on a leaderboard is largely a matter of being lucky enough to roll a good seed. Instead, you play races - everyone downloads the same seed and plays at the same time. Or you do what I do - play using settings that encourage more complex problems to solve, but without the high difficulty settings, and just enjoy it as a puzzle game. I don't have the dexterity to be even remotely competitive with people who do the races, but it's still a fun game, and stays pretty fresh because it's a new puzzle every time you play.

[@christopherg2347]

Randomness is a tool in the toolbox. And like any tool, it can be used well or poorly. You may be able to hammer a nail in with the handle of a screwdriver, but why not use the hammer instead? Randomness can be mitigated, by having a lot of rolls. X-COM and Age of Wonders Planetfall use the same basic combat mechanics. But since AoW:P has repeating attacks (3 seperate attack rolls) and the Grace Mechanic, the randomness is way less punishing. Poker tournaments are not done with Brackets or "2 out of 3" win elimination, because that would given Randomness too much of a impact.

[@Wylie288]

Its not a tool its a requirement. Without other players, aka the biggest source of randomness in any game, there is no game.

[@christopherg2347]

@@Wylie288 Please tell that to a game like Journey from 2012. There are no required tools, except for your design choices.

[@Lucitaur]

So what you are saying is the less RNG the better? Ok!

[@revimfadli4666]

@@Wylie288 are you saying that deterministic platformers, rythm games, or any other deterministic single player games aren't games? Or are you just talking about game theory's definition within another, sometimes-not-overlapping context that is video games?

[@revimfadli4666]

Yep, having multiple separate rng rolls instead of binary hit-or-miss not only averages things out closer to the expected value(approaching gaussian distribution), but also reduces things like "10% chance to miss 3 shots in a row" to just 0.1%, and most of the time when you miss you at least hit with one bullet

[@robin9793]

Me: *Playing a game while listening to this* Adam: “Secret Hitler”

[@dondashall]

I finally got around to playing Wasteland 2 recently & loving it. The jamming mechanic is a really good example of randomness. I should hate that mechanic seeing how annoying it is & in the beginning I certainly did. Bu as I keep playing I don't really. I mean I always respond with a "of course" every time it happens, but it actually is a good way to keep tension up and disrupt plans. I think one of the reasons why I don't hate it as much is because unlike in many games where this kind of stuff applies to you, but not the enemy - guns will jam for anyone.

[@SilverstarStream]

Fantastic video. Lots of solid examples of how randomness is used well across a bunch of different games. I've recently written a paper about randomness in games for the Probability and Statistics course I'm in now, so I've been thinking about all the concepts in the video quite a bit. Though, something you touched on in the video that I hadn't fully thought through was how output randomness can be a really good feature if it's used well. It's definitely something I've internalized and something I indirectly stated in the paper, I just wish I had vocalized it a little better.

[@Thunder-Sky]

I like the additions that the second axis you introduce bring to this discussion! Thank you!

[@chriswahl1337]

Like the crit reference in Dota, I do know that in Heroes of the Storm, for every loot chest you open that doesn't have a legendary, it increases your odds of getting a legendary in subsequent chests.

[@TheDemigans]

The problem I have with XCOM isn't it's randomness, but it's RNG seed. The seed is meant to stop save scumming as every time you do the same move you'll get the same results due to the seed staying the same. However if you change your moves, like moving one block left or right, then the outcome also changed with it. The seed has three problems: You don't know what the seed is beforehand. The seed can be a 'bad' seed, where all high-chance hits across a turn are lowered. The seed can have trouble shifting away from where it is, making a 'bad' seed stay bad. Since the outcome of a shot is modified if you change the order of shots or movements taken, you can test how a seed reacts to change. I noticed that whenever I had a bad seed (most extreme: about 8 shots of 99% hit chance all missed against a flanked enemy) that the enemy would melt one of my guys. The one that did it would often be across the map and firing at someone in full cover. So I tested it out: If you have a bad seed and aim for a target where you have a LOW hit chance you suddenly have a very high chance to both hit and score a critical hit. To me this is a problem. The player is taught to continuously be in cover, minimize hit-chances by the enemy and maximize his own hit-chances on the enemy to win. But the bad seed is relatively common, which turns it all on it's head. On top of that the enemy AI will take potshots that you would never take because the chance is too low, which will ineviteably lead to a molten soldier whenever a bad seed hits. Since you don't know when you've got a bad seed until your turn is pretty much over you can't plan for this or anticipate. Worse is that your entire party might be wiped out in a few turns because you keep shooting those 90+% chances while your enemy will happily have some random aliens in bad positions take a low-chance potshot. This might be gone in XCOM2, I don't know. But since I discovered this with a few test saves during bad seeds I just can't get myself to play it. RNG should give you some agency. Cone Of Fire in shooters for example gives you a lot of control, making the player decide when the randomness of his shots becomes unacceptable and stop shooting to let the COF shrink again. It's a constant trade-off between the chances to hit, your aim and the potential health your enemy might have left that dictate how much you keep shooting.

[@CartyCantDance]

Did.... Did you call warframe a "shooter/grinding simulator?" *sniff* never have u heard more beautiful words in my life. He mentioned warframe in one of his videos!

[@JacobKinsley]

People who've never played warframe: it's a grindy game People who've played it: it's not a grindy game People who have played it a lot: yeah it's actually a very grindy game

[@night1952]

@@JacobKinsley It's nothing but grinding lol

[@vleessjuu]

14:00 (Dota pseudo-randomness). I disagree with the phrasing "that's not how the maths should work". Randomness can take many forms. Independent and identical random variables (i.e., without memory; often abbreviated as i.i.d.) are just a sub-class of random processes. Making random variables dependent on previous draws is just a different kind of random process, but still random nonetheless and with different maths (called Markov chains in this case). The idea that all random draws SHOULD always be independent is silly and has been holding back game design for way too long. Just because that's how dice work, doesn't mean that's how video games should work. Memoryless randomness has its place, but more often than not it's just more frustrating than it needs to be.

[@pfeilspitze]

Yes! Permutation randomness is way better than frequency randomness. That's why we moved from dice-based games to card-based games. And in a computer we can do so much more of this than is practical to maintain in real-life -- the most you can reasonably do in a physical game is a set for global stuff and one per player. But with computers we can have these sets for individual agents and mechanics, too. It's not *one* bad dice roll that people complain about. It's missing a bunch of 80% shots in a row that mean all your planning that *should* have worked didn't.

[@revimfadli4666]

Isn't that how "conservation of luck" or "gambler's fallacy" work? If satisfying it makes the RNG fun, then why not?

[@pfeilspitze]

@@revimfadli4666 That's a good way to argue it -- if people expect it enough that it's a well-known fallacy, then following it is a good way to not have people complain about your randomness.

[@GG-671]

Thx for this vid, RLY opened my eyes on the subject of RNG. That its not as simple as a mechanic made just to piss people off or a way to add more fluff in storytelling. Hope to see more vids and i just subscribed;)

[@esWhistler]

I'd say a good short way to say when randomness is good in casual conversation is that it's good when it forces the player to adapt their strategy accordingly, not something that you cant react or plan for

[@The-Apothekari]

me playing hearthstone: "Rng is pretty nice at keeping games from getting stale~" me playing mmos: "i have ran this raid 100 times, just drop the little pet dog already! TT_TT"

[@1996Pinocchio]

I feel like I have watched this video before.

[@MrWhygodwhy]

Game Makers's Toolkit released a very similar video about 3 months ago. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqisZpVjrLd_n8U

[@Lishtenbird]

@@MrWhygodwhy Ah, that would explain the feeling...

[@1996Pinocchio]

@@MrWhygodwhy Oh right, that's it!

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

What are the odds of that?

[@jellyfisch4238]

I'm surprised that FTL wasn't mentioned. Almost all of it is random and when you start it feels horribly random and unfair but as you go on you realise how to manipulate this randomness to finally beat the game.

[@Caspenar]

Man I just love your channel so much. Always informative and insightful, seriously top of the line stuff, again.

[@justaguy9681]

Thanks for the new video Spelunky man

[@alecchristiaen4856]

Controllable output is why I always give clerics a crossbow in Baldur's gate 3. The cleric's main range option (excluding limited spells) is the Sacred Flame cantrip, but the hit chance is a dice roll from the enemy, not the player. In order to increase the chance of hitting, I'd need to immobilize them or debuff their Dex Save. It's much easier to give a crossbow to the cleric and let them shoot from the high ground, which increases chance to hit.

[@starscorpia4005]

As an avid fan of random bullshit in games which makes not only for fun rage compilations but also very nice surprises at times i have to say boy do i love random drops in games sometimes i just wander and get one of the best weapons ever 2 minutes into the game

[@jasonqorbin587]

I learned to like X-COM and it's randomness when I realized that there was an important "real life" lesson in it all: Every now and then you will do all the "right" things and still not get the outcome you want. No one taught me that as a kid and X-COM had to pick-up the slack after I had already gotten to adulthood.

[@EricTalwin]

Very good point good Sir! This illuminates the fact that most of us were raised in what's called a Meritocracy which can be very crudely summed up in that who ever is the most qualified and who has the most "success" deserves the power, fame, and rewards of society and are, in short, "worthy" people. Generally this social philosophy requires the belief that everyone is capable of the same kind of success if they only "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" when things get hard (which was traditionally a term that ment doing an impossible to do alone task). If luck, chance, or randomness are taken as real and the idea that some people enter or get hit with no win scenarios or suffer sevear enough handicaps that they can't succeed at no fault of their own we start to feel a sense of guilt or compassion that challenges the idea that Merit is the sole metric for worthiness, which threatens the groundwork for a lot of our systems. It often takes an enormous set back or death of loved ones for some people to relize this reality of life, and in time can help us redefine what success really means if we learn to accept it. Sadly we have been taught the merit based system so well that we begin to dismiss the suffering and misfortune of others as something they brought on themselves rather than listening to our usually innate desire to lend some assistance or serve in some fashion to lessen their suffering. I do not wish to sound condescending in anyway with this explanation I mealy made it simple to hopefully be clear to those who have not studied the subject by using layman's terms and obviously their is a lot more to the idea than I put forward. I wish you all the best.

[@pfeilspitze]

Life lessons are fine in short games. But if I'm *playing* something for a long time I want it to be less shitty than real life. But I know that game journalists keep telling people that games aren't supposed to be fun...

[@Lilliathi]

@@EricTalwin I know this is two years late, but that's not meritocracy. In a meritocracy whomever is best at the job is hired, not whomever has a piece of paper that says they're most qualified. The paper is merely a piece of evidence to corroborate one's claim to merit. If in practice, the person holding the paper doesn't produce results, they should not be promoted (or even fired) under a meritocratic system. No one who supports meritocracy thinks everyone is capable of the same kind of success. The bootstraps thing has nothing to do with meritocracy, but work ethic, which is only tangentially related.

[@johanna9599]

:28 immediately starts writing comment about Landlords game and how the original author intende- oh mY GOD, SOMEONE ACTUALLY BROUGHT IT UP.

[@ChincerDante]

into the breach resist mechanic is an example of great randomness ,you are never counting on it because the chance is quite low, that means it always feels great when it happen rather than it feels bad when it doesnt if a player is expecting something to work and it doesnt because if randomness, it feels horrible,like when a 95% chance to hit fails twice, but if you dont expect anything and get something good it feels even better than having known before hand

[@ashadeofblue6815]

11:17 good sales pitch i wanna buy it right now

[@alexhardison7175]

Love the one step from eden gameplay, not gonna lie I would love a video dedicated on that game, or at least having it used as a foundation for a topic you decide on

[@EmyriadGames]

Aw, so glad to see a shoutout to Eternal! The best digital CCG!

[@Team_Orchid]

As someone that Nuzlockes Pokemon frequently, it would be so much more boring with no randomness to it. Crits provide a reason to look at how much damage my opponent is doing, rider effects provide something to watch out for, and that's before the fact that I get random Pokemon to use. And with all this I've found that you can beat every main region (aside from Aloha) without losing a Pokemon even when the RNG decides to hate your guts...assuming you don't get complacent or do something crazy like completely ban items in battle.

[@discursion]

The best kind of randomness is that of a worthy adversary.

[@grimtygranule5125]

RNG is normally fine. It's just when it's solely RNG that decides whether the player succeeds or fails that it gets kinda bad. The Xcom series is the most obvious gameplay example. There's always a chance your most accurate soldier will miss multiple high chance to hit shots and die solely because of RNG. Although Xcom has certain quirks that actually alter the chances in your favor when not on the highest difficulty... In the tabletop dice game D&D it's completely random. There's a non-zero chance that your character will get all ones for an entire battle, but get a 20 as soon as the fight ends when they "inspect the strange door" to find out it's a normal door. And then there's _gambling._ Don't get me started on loot boxes. They are designed solely to prey on children and sustain CSGO and TF2's economy. That's it.

[@monkydance2880]

0:57 bruh you coulda just walked away from that

[@someonehandsomewithoneeye]

16:50 You're way overdue on the 200 subs video man

[@Verminator4]

It's simple really. If randomness results in an outcome not in my favour, it's bad. If it results in an outcome that is in my favour, it's good

[@iota-09]

Controllable output randomness: weapon spread and spread per shot in battlefield. Just put yourself at a distance in which the maximim spread of the gun(according to how you'll shoot) makes for a guaranteed 100% probability of hitting, and you won't feel the rng even a bit. ...until you're lagging or aiming like crap of course.

[@Michaentus]

-Randomess needs to constrained Darkest Dungeon devs: Im gonna pretend I didnt heard that.

[@otooandoh9556]

Hey Adam! Been watching your videos for a few years now (around 2017) and I just wanted to say keep up the good work. You’re definitely the 2nd best game design channel on KZbin behind gmtk. You’re tied with design doc in my eyes. Great work!

[@glorytoarstotzka330]

I was expecting a conclusion or a summary at the end, a bit more than "you should get players to play your game with randomness to determine if it was a good idea or not"

[@iota-09]

Now that's a bit like throwing a kid in a pool and waiting to see if he drowns to tell if that was a good way to teach him how to swim though no?

[@anthonynorman7545]

It seemed liked there should have been another 3-5 min on the video

[@Road_to_Dawn]

8:42 “Really, Commander? **sigh** Probing Uranus…”

[@Beastinvader]

On bad randomness being something you can't see coming or do anything about... This explains why people love Civ5. Your start position, neighbours, resources, barbarians, etc are all to some extent random. But they all impact your play. A stronger army in case you encounter a strong player or barbarians. An expansionist foreign policy if you find yourself squashed or with few resources. Not being quite sure just how aggressive or friendly a neighbor is as well (in Civ5 all AIs personality traits have a small element of randomness). All of this keeps the game alive and fresh every time. You never know quite what to expect, but you are usually able to prepare for bad luck. It's the

[@zchen27]

One of the rules I go by with being a GM is "your encounter sucks if the only way to progress is to spam the same skill roll until you get a passing score."

[@Brent-jj6qi]

Seeing Factorio and especially rimworld in here is pretty cool.

[@kurichan142]

When you mentioned lying about crit chances, it struck something in my Fire Emblem-raddled brain. So Fire Emblem has a level-up system (gain exp, level up, all that jazz), and when you level up, all of your stats have independent chances of increasing. These stats vary based on a bunch of variables, such as the character's class, the character's stat caps (they can't go above them), and also the character themself (certain characters have higher growths in certain areas than others). In one of the earlier games (the fourth, Genealogy of the Holy War), there was something in place known as "dynamic growths" (idk if that's the official term, but that's how I saw it described so that's what I'll call it). In essence, every time a character doesn't level up a stat, their chance of increasing it later increases by 10% of their current growth rate (e.g. if a unit has a 60% to level up a stat and fail, it becomes 66%. Fail again it it becomes 72.6%, then 79.82%, etc etc). It would then reset to its original value upon leveling up the stat. That said, since growths can change between level (e.g. class changing), a unit could *theoretically* have a 0% growth in the stat (or even a negative one), but the bonus persisted from previous level ups, so an armor knight with 0% res could miraculously get a point out of nowhere. Lying about chance also reminds me of hit/crit chance RNG in every game starting from the 8th (Sacred Stones). Basically, instead of rolling once and dealing with it, the game rolls twice and takes the average, and if *that* number if less than equal to the probability (e.g. 50 and 10 average to 30 which is less than 45%), then you would hit/crit (whatever it is that was being rolled). It skewed probability to make higher than 50% chances more likely than stated and chances less than 50% less likely than stated. It made the game feel a lot more fair, since a 99% is *basically* a 100, but you aren't missing 1/100 times, but rather 1/10000 or so.

[@MapleFried]

That Chess 2 joke made me laugh harder than it probably should have; well done, Adam.

[@BertTF2]

I found it funny that you put the Dicey Dungeons wheel in there while talking about randomness even though it's guaranteed to land on black every time

[@fizzlebeef165]

X com the "misses a 99% percent shot multiple times and you reveal 18 enemys at once which kills your entire squad and makes you restart the entire game so you rage quit and never play it again" simulator

[@ashtongiertz8728]

All these comments about the frequency of improbable failures in Xcom makes me wonder if the devs made a mistake that caused the game to measure probabilities backwards. That is, the game thinks a person's 99% accuracy means they have a 99% chance of missing their target, rather than hitting them.

[@marekdolihal3941]

I was not expecting that rickroll in the middle of the video

[@Phlebas]

In any RPG I play, my first character is usually some sort of bland lawful good fighter-type, mostly because if I'm new to a series, I find it kind of difficult to play a cybernetic space wizard without having any grasp on the lore that makes that sort of character possible. But for all subsequent playthroughs, I use randomness right on character creation. I actually have a scientific calculator next to my desktop and I use it to generate random numbers for setting up my games. So I let it decide everything like gender, class, race, and starting abilities. Even character appearance to some extent (I'll tweak it if the RNG makes them hideous, because it usually does).

[@erikwexler75]

Great video man. I really dig it.

[@Ramsey276one]

My take to improve/flavor older board games? Roll Banking! Choose how many turns you want to roll and roll them ahead of time, use poker cards or paper to keep track. Then each turn, choose one of those rolls! I'm writing up games with that mechanic expanded further. But that's a nice house rule for Ludo and such, eh?

[@Ntony65535]

It's kind of funny how you ended up developing the lingo quite similar to the one used in Systems theory for describing dynamical systems - there we consider a process that evolves over time, where you have some ways of influencing it (inputs) and some ways of observing it (outputs). And depending on how much of either you have, you're looking for the ability to bring the system's state wherever you want. So, if you can push the states to an arbitrary point, that's called controllability, while when you can always determine what the state is right now based just on what you can see in the outputs - that's observability.

[@BasementMinions]

Great breakdown of this subject in a more accessible format. :)

[@crusaddy]

14:54 that jab at Cube World

[@frostybro9217]

Hey I Love your videos, but I was wondering if you could put a caption in the corner of what game your showing gameplay from? Sometimes they look fun but I can’t identify them.

[@iota-09]

Same, pls do if possible

[@anthonynorman7545]

+

[@Lunaetix]

Really good idea. Was there one in this video that you aren't sure about? Maybe I could help :)

[@mikegrapefruit4987]

5:53 except that one time where i created a large singleplayer map and ended up spawning right next to the crimson, blocked only by a single, tiny living tree... which was actually quite fun! since id played a bunch of worlds already it forced me to set up base kinda far from the spawn and gave me lots to do, like making a bed to fix my spawnpoint away from that scary spot!

[@MegapiemanPHD]

Someone actually mentioned Chess 2, never thought I'd see the day.

[@cecillewolters1995]

Is 'rock-paper-scissors' a random game? My friends say it is, I always argue that it is a psychological game.

[@majorfallacy5926]

7:44 i see what you did there

[@nevanada2961]

The new update to scrap mechanic, the survival mode does well with rng. The map is randomly generated... mostly. The begining is designed so that the player has access to what they need, but anything beyond that is random

[@dokvald]

Shows Grim Dawn when he mentions randomized maps. Grim Dawn's map is tailor made. ((it does have slightly randomized pathing through the map by opening and closing some routes but the map itself is static)It also does have a randomized dungeon added via DLC in the late game but that's very much not the standard GD experience.)

[@dokvald]

P.S. Grim Dawn is fantastic if you enjoy ARPGs at all go play GD (it's expansions are also well worth it)

[@zerg230]

2:08 - shows Chaos Knight implying that he is random, but was just made more uniform with his 4 sec crit cd. Great video tho!

[@doublenikkel]

He made a whole video on randomness without mentioning Mariokart. I'm impressed.

[@Feliprins]

In a way all that was said was that randomness exists as a way to limit the capability of the player of making choices, while you can argue that as a opportunity for something unexpected one could also argue that as the game not allowing your decisions based on arbitrary dice... its a matter of how much one values control and player agency and how much one values chaotic and unexpected twists, I value the former rather more than 'get screwed cuz your luck is not gud', certain genres CANNOT work well with randomness, usually the higher a competitive game the less of can hope on dice, even the concept of randomness in card games is based on making a deck that eliminates it to the best extent possible (making randomness as just a negative that justifies the power of a certain card which must be worked around) randomness works on games where one needs to make less decisions i would say... those who need to make a lot of decisions and always pray can get quite frustating no matter which type of randomness...

[@Azure_Sandora]

I have no real issue with RNG, and just yesterday I was telling my lover about why the RNG is why I love Turn Based Combat. But I also respect people who don't like that sort of thing.

[@X-35173]

I haven't played Leagye of Legends in a few years but I always thought the 4 dragons were a great example of reactable input RNG. Basicslly what kind of dragon spawns is unpredictable, but not only is the dragon an optional neutral objective that you can choose to attack or ignore, but it also tells you what type it will be before it spawns toast low both teams time to plan accordingly. (different kinds give different permanent buffs). Foe those who don't play league the buffs are Fire: atk and mag power up Earth: bonus damage to map objectives Water: bonus health and mana regen Air: increased mobility If any of this is no longer accurate please correct me if you play.

[@richbuilds_com]

The calculation at the end is spot on! Independently verified ;-)

[@05Matz]

I like games with well-designed randomness and feel like they get an unnecessarily bad name. I only disagree with one thing here: It is NEVER OK to lie about the outcome chances of an event (unless the game's UI itself is _supposed_ to be an unreliable narrator attempting to deceive the player). If you use streak-compensation modifiers (or another type of filtering) instead of true probability, that's OK; but you need to EXPLICITLY factor it into displayed probabilities and mention the current streak-compensation modifier in your 'to-hit modifier breakdowns' or similar. Randomness in games is an awesome tool, but you need to use it with integrity -- if you display any sort of X-COM-style hit-percentage indicator, it needs to be _perfectly_ accurate and complete to the best of your abilities (if you use physics-based ballistics like the old X-COM games, you might have issues calculating this, which gets you a partial pass [though with the brute force computing power available today you should be able to just simulate about a thousand shots and display the average], but if you use D&D-style hit chances like the new games you have no excuse for inaccuracy). If you are running a game that involves both hidden information _and_ output randomness, this obviously becomes more complicated, as I guess you would need to break down all the _known_ modifiers going into the final chance, and maybe provide a question mark, "(approx.)" or other indication that the readout is approximate/based on incomplete information.

[@otrikas]

imo you are right in games like XCOM. Meanwhile his DOTA 2 example with Crit rate is fine. It evens out RNG for competetive play. While you could argue its still shit because its luck based and you dont know the exact change while they display A chance. There are tons of mechanics a player should not know about because it makes games more fun but with the knowledge how they manipulate, for example hit rate of enemies in Uncharted, they actually go down when you are low on HP, you would hate it because it might feel undeserved.

[@jonathanfaber3291]

Kingdom hearts lore isn’t that complicated until Nomura retcons things...