The Random Variable

from Elemental Forums

Hopefully the devs take something positive from this.  I'll explain what I mean by the random variable throughout the post.  Bear with me.  

 

I love all kinds of strategy games, both turn based and real time, or even a combination of the two.  But I think one of their greatest FLAWS, is that after awhile they become boring, repetitive and predictable, so that you can't keep playing it anymore and so you just go looking for the next big title.  Some people might keep playing it almost endlessly, but not a huge majority of people that bought the game.  Maybe its just human nature to keep desiring a new experience but maybe its something else.  But this gamer syndrome empties out people's wallets quite effectively.  Maybe its a marketing strategy to make a game slightly shallow to get the gamer to crave their next title.  Who knows?  God forbid they would actually make a game that people could play for years or more?  And actually get something out of their $49.99 rather then 10 hours worth of gameplay and shiny pixels.

 

Whether it be Sins of the Solar Empire, or command and conquer, or Kings Bounty: Armored Princess.  Game of the year or decade, doesn't matter.  Their flaw is that once you get a strategy down, you keep doing it because its the best strategy to follow, and every new game you play, you will grind through that SAME strategy or path.  Over time this becomes routine, and the game is no longer fun.  There are no alternatives and not enough depth.  Only choice is to play a different faction but afterwhile you get into the same rut until there are no more factions to play.  And you quit.

 

In command and conquer, you choose the same build order for your base, in sins you choose the same research order and conquer planet to planet, or in Kings Bounty, you just keep moving from one monster to the next and one island to the next.  In the same order.  Because why would you want to do it differently, if doing it differently would make you a worse player?  In competitively play, you simply wouldn't.  But this inevitably leads to boredom, repetition and predictability.

 

I became competitive online in real time strategy games of all types, and I would practice alot with one strategy, and win with it ALOT, but it got boring, because every new game I would do the same thing.  Maybe the only random variable to the game was how the enemy responded to me, then things got a little stirred up, but other then that, it was becoming repetitive.  The game could have received a 10/10 for all I care, sure, it was a blast in the beginning when all was new, but it got predictable.  There was nothing in the background to fear, that could happen outside my control.  I had EVERYTHING under my control except the other player.  Other then that there was no other fear, or other thing that could pop up and threaten my victory.  There was no unknown.  This is a mistake.  You get no more "OH SNAP" moments and thrills, it just becomes routine.

 

Take a great game like Anno 1404 or you can call it Dawn of Discovery.  Great game, but after you start a new game, you do the same thing.  You build a market place, you build houses, then you build the next thing and the next thing.  It becomes PREDICTABLE.  YOU KNOW what's going to happen next, there are no SURPRISES.  Boredom, repetition and predictability are the death sentence for these games, and they happen way too often.  You hear the same stupid lines in the market place, "Come buy dates, come buy dates", over and over again.  The peasants move in the same scripted path, and they don't act random.  Or in other words, they don't have a soul, and you said you wanted to give this game a soul.  I've yet to see a developer studio have the boldness to create such a game.

 

Anno has a quest system which is nice, but they are not randomly generated, they are the SAME quests.  The guy from the blacksmith still wants me to find his daughter in the town, or something like that.  And he gives me the SAME quest reward.

 

Anno has natural disasters but they hardly do that much damage or stir things up that much.  At least its something to spice things up.

 

I guess there are alot of gamers that like to stay within a comfort zone, maybe that's what it is.  But it deadens a game and makes it have no replay value.  There needs to be features in the game that add some random variable to each and every new game you play.  Like give players a new way of starting the game, through building their town, researching, etc.  Find ways for players to take many different starting points, that can all have their own unique benefits and consequences.

 

And not just the "diplomacy path", or the "Economic path", or the "military path", but a different choice of a house or a different technology that you can choose to take a different path.  So for example, you have 3 choices of a tech, pick one, and the other two are gone, and that takes you on a unique research path.  Make more for more replay value.  Or 5 different houses to make your city look rich and diverse.  Etc etc, you can do this in every aspect of the game.

 

I know there is modding, but modding alone doesn't change game mechanics or the foundation.  It doesn't change the heart of the game.  Just the surface.  And if you could, well, not everyone can mod, so like 5% of your customers will be able to do that.

 

So to sum it up, Elemental could be improved quite a bit if you worked on the foundation of the game to cut down on chances of boredom, repetition and predictability, to make it feel fresh and interesting through every playthrough.  Introducing a huge amount of random variable elements to the game in the form of features or background things.

 

To say that every game will be new, because the map is newly generated, doesn't make the new game feel much different.  The choices in how the character builds his town will remain the same, his objectives will probably be the same.  The way he builds his assault army will be the same.  Take one town and the next, and the next.  Same strategy, same old same old.  But I guess hes in a different spot this time, so that should make it a little more stimulating.  "Rolls eyes"

Think about what I said.  Everyone here has a different perception and will take what I said differently.  Hopefully I got my message across and when I finnally get the finished version of this game, I won't find myself getting bored because the game is shallow and short on features, running through endless repetitive things and being able to predict what happens from one moment to the next.

Thanks for reading.

31,962 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I have just learned to play the board game Agricola. It is a game of strategy and what you describe above sums up the difference between the "basic" game (family version?) and the "advanced" game.

 

Sword of the Stars tackled the problem by having a tech tree that changed each game, I think Elemental is doing something similar.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree.  I loved being surprised by the AI doing something really different.  It sound like the mix of maps, races, random events, techs, marrage and offspring decisions, and magic schools and books (not to mention the modable content which sounds like it could change in a way to give you a very different game each time you play.

For me, I would like to see a game (I don;t expect this to happen-way to much programming work) where every spell or battle or so on worked the way it should 90 or 95% of the time.  But every now and then (randomly) allow for a rare event to occur.  Rare enough to be surprising.  For instance every time a mage tries to send a fireball there is a 1% chance that it does twice damage, 1% chance that it does half damage, 1% chance (due to an unexpected flux in the shard) that the entire opposition is destroyed (unless somehow protected by fire magic), and a 1% chance that the mage casting the spell would be destroyed.  Or when summoning something to add you, allow a small chance of getting something really amazing but possibly an equally small chance of getting something useless or maybe uncontrolably dangerous.

I can understand that a lot of players would not like this (to be unfairly penalized for something seemingly out of their control) but for me, it is often these types of surprises that keep me comming back to a game.  Also, this sort of stuff can make the outcome of any battle uncertain (and therefore exciting).  And, on rare occasions when things go your way, these rare events could turn the tide of the game a let an underdog win (a hallmark of many fantasy themes).  It will be games like these that I will tend to remember fondly years from now.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


I guess there are alot of gamers that like to stay within a comfort zone, maybe that's what it is.  But it deadens a game and makes it have no replay value.  There needs to be features in the game that add some random variable to each and every new game you play.  Like give players a new way of starting the game, through building their town, researching, etc.  Find ways for players to take many different starting points, that can all have their own unique benefits and consequences...

 
...So to sum it up, Elemental could be improved quite a bit if you worked on the foundation of the game to cut down on chances of boredom, repetition and predictability, to make it feel fresh and interesting through every playthrough.  Introducing a huge amount of random variable elements to the game in the form of features or background things.

 

I agree with your sentiments on this, many players indeed dislike randomness as it can sometimes give your opponents an advantage arbitrarily. Personally I love having the hand of fate occasionally draw for/against me it gives me a chance to adapt and reconsider my strategy.

One way to please both sides would be to have the random events etc as options in the pre-game setup.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting bleeba, reply 2
I agree.  I loved being surprised by the AI doing something really different.  It sound like the mix of maps, races, random events, techs, marrage and offspring decisions, and magic schools and books (not to mention the modable content which sounds like it could change in a way to give you a very different game each time you play.

For me, I would like to see a game (I don;t expect this to happen-way to much programming work) where every spell or battle or so on worked the way it should 90 or 95% of the time.  But every now and then (randomly) allow for a rare event to occur.  Rare enough to be surprising.  For instance every time a mage tries to send a fireball there is a 1% chance that it does twice damage, 1% chance that it does half damage, 1% chance (due to an unexpected flux in the shard) that the entire opposition is destroyed (unless somehow protected by fire magic), and a 1% chance that the mage casting the spell would be destroyed.  Or when summoning something to add you, allow a small chance of getting something really amazing but possibly an equally small chance of getting something useless or maybe uncontrolably dangerous.

I can understand that a lot of players would not like this (to be unfairly penalized for something seemingly out of their control) but for me, it is often these types of surprises that keep me comming back to a game.  Also, this sort of stuff can make the outcome of any battle uncertain (and therefore exciting).  And, on rare occasions when things go your way, these rare events could turn the tide of the game a let an underdog win (a hallmark of many fantasy themes).  It will be games like these that I will tend to remember fondly years from now.

I don't think it would be too bad if there was a good in-game reason for the randomness, such that you couldn't actually call it random, as people tend to dislike things that just happen because they can happen. For example, you could introduce astrology into the game, and have certain planet alignments cause changes in the way things work, i.e chaos spells might be augmented whilst nature spells could cost more or some might even be disabled. Or semi-permanent eclipses that cause total darkness, making it impossible for most units to battle, unless some spell, device or natural ability exists. The possibilities are huge and varied.

You might have cataclysms be caused if a certain chain of events occurs, say for example due to too much earth-shaping magic, firestorms, bombardments, earthquakes and other destructive spells that target the land, the planet becomes a waterworld, so only floating, flying or magically preserved cities and units can survive.

Otherwise I think the OP's suggestion is vitally important, and this game has a chance to make it a real possibility.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I've always been suspicious of over-randomization and come up with a Rule Of Doubling: If an element of the game is randomized, then the other aspects of the game depending on that element should be left in the player's control. Why? Because while people should definately have to react to unexpected situations if the game is to be fun, they should be able to decide how to react, and impliment those steps. For example, if the resources you wind up with at the start of the game are randomized, you should be able to decide with little random interference what mining structures you are able to build-- i.e. that portion of the tech tree. Otherwise you just have to roll the dice until you get techs that let you make use of the cards you're dealt.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Of course you can let them choose how they react, nobody said you take full control away, they do have options, but the random elements add challenge and surprise to the game.  There has to be order in the foundation.  The whole game's foundation is not based on chaos.  What I was saying, is that when you have solid foundational system in place, like the quest system, like the create a character system, and all those basic fundamental systems in place.  That the GAMEPLAY contains random variables AS YOU PLAY THE GAME.  Were not talking extreme randomness here, but realistic randomness.

1. Random generated map

2. Random resources

3. More alternative paths to follow in game progression that are effective yet are different when it comes to strengths and weaknesses.  For example, you won't always have to build cities, or you could just go around gathering magic, or you could do something else.  Different building types within the same type, like having different houses or different workshops with different attributes to give yourself a different city every time.

4. Random neutral monsters

5. Random bonus techs

6. Random world events and disasters.

7. Plagues and units falling ill and needing a cure.  Could be part of a random quest.

8. Critical strikes

9. Ambushes, assassinations, rebellions and betrayal

10. Fires

11. Random bonus items

12. Random bonus spells that don't appear every game the same.  So apart from the normal spells you get random bonus ones to pick up

13. Huge variety of different building types and even some bonus buildings that don't become available every game.  They are randomized bonus buildings.

14. Random dungeons.

15. New faction appearing

16. Secret AI Alliances forming

17.  When you spread death magic or life magic, you could get a bonus item, randomly.  Or a bonus character, etc.

 

You could add to this list, but this is what I'm talking about.  With some surprises, it adds life and replayability to the game.  It's essential.