Reduced Reliance on RNG (from the perspective of a game maker)

For a little preface, I've been making games for about 4 years now, and have a great deal of experience with coding and programming both with gamemaking and in general, particularly in procedural generation. I also have succesfully created and administrated roleplay games where stats and dice rolling are a common feature, as well as the fact I am about to complete a business degree.

TL;DR RNG usage with minimal ways for players to affect the outcome leads to a lack of investment in the results, ergo leads to a lack of investment and enjoyment in the game.

The basic premise of including RNG in a game is to prevent it from being too predictable, and therefore too easy to "game" the system, meaning that players will lose interest because it feels like once you've "cracked the code" there's no more reason to play. By still allowing players to face challenges that are created by RNG, it means that even skilled players or players with the right strategies can still enjoy challenge in the game.

HOWEVER, RNG fails when it is the only source of challenge in the game. It works best when it is paired with ways to "counter" the results of the RNG; in a good RNG balance, the challenge should not be in trying to get good luck, but rather in building the stats, skills, and gaining the resources in order to skew the RNG odds in their favor, or even be able to guarantee almost certain success. This is why games like D&D, etc, include skill modifiers, rather than simply making you roll a flat d20 for every single skill.

On an important note with D&D, it also leads to more immersion in the game, more investment in the character you play (in the case of Wolvden, this would be your wolves), and more desire to "perfect" your build. In games where you can choose where your skills are developed, you can even develop an attachment to the character by putting thought into what skills they would build and why, from a roleplaying perspective: in the case of Wolvden, this would have perfect oppurtunity with the stats earned from certain roles.

However, at the moment, the benefits of stats and proficiency are simply too low for players to feel reason to pursue them. I've heard numerous people state "I would be level 15, but battling is just too hard" or even state they simply don't battle because of it. You can also see it in cases where instead of investing time into developing a strong herbalist, due to the RNG involved in gathering herbs, players instead create a meta of getting "easy" diseases in order to prevent the more difficult ones. Even though the intentions are good to create a challenging game that can't be quickly "beaten," instead it creates a meta where the game isn't played as it was intended at all.

So, how do you use game design to rebalance RNG?

• Players should be able to influence the outcomes in a significant manner. This does not have to be available to them from the get-go, and in fact it should be something that takes time and effort to pursue. However, the fact that being high level when battling still only raises your modifier by a mere one or two points, even when facing enemies who are level 1, is clear that this isn't balanced correctly.
• For this particular route of correction: add "temporary boost" items that affect a specific skill. Single-use items (similar to the lucky foot) that affect specific areas--such as reducing damage, increasing your attack damage, or increasing the odds of landing an attack. This should be enough to guarantee rouhgly 75-80% chances of success in its specific skillset. (There are math formulas I can provide for calculating this if anyone is interested.) This can be applied across all skills currently: apply it to a scout before scouting, and their next scout will have increased discovery. Apply it to a hunter, they will have better odds. Et cetera.
• OR make the ceiling of the modifier be much higher, and simply make enemies be generated based on the wolf's stats & level. This has been implemented very well in games like Skyrim, where the attack and defense of enemies generated is directly tied to the player's level. This is why you can see those joke videos where players with very high levels from noncombat skills, such as sneaking and lockpicking, be oneshotted very easily by random bandits.
• Skills influence should be more transparent. There shouldn't be guesswork if your wolves are going to do well in a hunt. A quick little "# % chance of success" would suffice before starting a hunt.

There are other suggestions that are also popular which help balance this; the main ones are a multitude of the herbalist related suggestions. I'll close by saying: reducing RNG doesn't make a game easier, just as increasing it doesn't make the game harder. By using game design that requires more effort on the player's part in order to achieve success, it increases the likelihood of players enjoying the challenge, rather than feeling frustrated because they have limited control over the results.

Yes please! The over-reliance on RNG, particularly in the battling system, has been a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game since the start of testing. It got to the point where leveling up my lead wolf during testing was a chore, and I grew extremely frustrated with the lack of predictability in battles. My lead wolf would lose battles to enemies much lower level than him, and I never felt as though there was anything I could do to increase his chance of victory since the battle system is pretty much entirely RNG. The lack of player agency that this provides has made this game’s battling system my least favorite aspect. Additionally, since the player’s success is almost entirely determined by RNG, it’s incredibly difficult have a defined gameplay experience that does not feel frustrating or unfair.

In the past few years that I’ve been learning about, designing, and helping develop my own games as a student, the importance of consistency and clarity, especially in core game mechanics, has repeatedly been emphasized. I do not feel that the battling system is consistent in its current state, as players could just as easily lose to any given enemy as they could win against them. There is nothing that the player themselves can do to ensure a victory; they just have to hope that the dice rolls in their favor. Additionally, the actual effectiveness of the player’s moves is unclear and unpredictable.

In my opinion, if such an RNG-reliant system is necessary, players should be granted information that can help make it much more strategical. For example, attacks can much more clearly display their percentage chance to hit or how much damage they will do so players can decide which move would provide them the most benefit if it’s successful. This way, they can weigh their options and decide which random chance they would like to try. Without this foundation of knowing how much your attacks will actually benefit you, the battles feel frustrating and unpredictable. My ideal situation would be a battle system where success is not determined by RNG, though I know this would be difficult to achieve. I would enjoy if enemies were RNG-based, such as if their stats or HP were randomized, but the player’s actual success would be based so much more on the their skill and their wolf’s stats/level than it would be on a simple dice roll. ^^

You've clearly put a lot of thought into this, well done. I 100% agree with you. I'm not a game maker, but I've played enough games throughout my life that I generally understand what things can be very good or very bad for a game.

The level of RNG in WD, all around, is awful. It's undeniable. In pretty much every aspect, it discourages the player from particularly caring about progression. The game acts as though it's important to level up and get stronger through proficiency and stats, but it actively fights that idea by having so much RNG, that any progression ends up moot.

Why get my herbalist to 100 proficiency if nothing really happens when I do that? What's the point of getting my lead to level 20 when he won't be able to defeat a level 1? Why bother care about hunting when, even at full synergy and high levels, they're still likely to fail? There needs to be some degree of actual ADVANCEMENT. There are slim differences, but overall, nothing really changes. When you fail at something, you should be able to think, "Okay, what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen again?" With such excessive RNG, you can't do that, because there isn't anything you can improve. You just have to try again and hope the dice roll favors you.

I want to be clear on behalf of everyone who likes a challenge: Working hard to get better just to lose time and time again by literal random chance is NOT FUN. That is NOT difficulty, it's frustrating and obnoxious. There's a reason I stopped battling at level 11 - it's too irritating. It's like climbing a hill without any reward at the top. One might say the exclusives are a good incentive, but for me, it's not enough to struggle through fight after fight, fail after fail, just to get there. It feels like pulling teeth. Even fighting level 1s, my lead's HP completely drains and I lose. I should be able to feel some accomplishment by wiping out level 1s at higher levels. That's the point of leveling, to get better and floor enemies that are weaker! Levelling doesn't really matter anymore if RNG is going to be dictating everything anyway. Why exactly should I care to get my stats up if it's random? 9999 in each stat, still lose for no reason. Latch alone only seems to work about 10% of the time - why doesn't a speed stat dictate if you're able to grab them? If something like that is already in place, I don't see it and it's too weak in comparison to the RNG.

Some randomness is good - as you said, it spices things up and keeps things from being boring. But too much just makes me lose all interest in trying anything. Because in the end, whether your stats are 20 or 20000, you seem to have the same odds. It shouldn't be that way. We all love that feeling of accomplishment. But having such random chance on everything ruins that feeling of accomplishment, because you'll still fail anyway. And again, not because of anything you did. Because some random number decided for you to fail. It makes you not want to put in effort anymore. And when that happens, care of the particular game begins to wane.

I think I've squawked enough for this thread lol, I just felt passionate about it. I can see something great in the battling and such in WD, but the RNG just needs to calm down. If they can tweak things to be more balanced, it could become very fun indeed.

This ended up WAY longer than I intended, I'm sorry.

TLDR; Support 100%!

I think this is a brilliant idea. I hit level 15 with my lead yesterday but it was hard - and I hate how random the battling is. 

Support, so much support. Battling is just so, so frustrating here as there is literally no skill involved - it’s just ‘mash the latch button, hope it doesn’t fail, oh look it’s missed 6 times, I’ve been KO’d by something ten levels below me’. Stats should matter more than they do, even if it’s only something relatively simplistic like high strength wolves deal more damage, high speed means more success with latching, etc. 

Absolute 100% support.

I second all the RNG issues already voiced by other players - battling, hunting, overall game experience feels frustrating and unrewarding with the amount of fail coded to happen due to random chance, even when you work hard on your wolves there is barely any actual improvement and its very discouraging. The game doesn't offer enough stability to motivate users to actual long-term effort investment. 

100% support!

Don't really have anything else to say, my opinion has already been voiced by everyone else!

(Battling is so frustrating, my alpha's getting destroyed by lvl 1 coyote packs)

ALL THE SUPPORT!

Thank you for posting this. I have trouble trying to articulate why I don't find this game challenging but at the same time don't want to reduce difficulty. It's not difficulty that I want nerfed, it's the reliance on RNG. It's having my choices and stats seeming to have no influence over the outcomes that I want tweaked. The problem is RNG creates the illusion of challenge but doesn't allow you to cleverly overcome/workout a path to a victory.

I want the game to take work to progress in but it feels like my choices don't matter just that I login everyday and click a few buttons to progress. Even so, my lead still gets her tail handed to her by lvl 1 opponents in battle. My 100% proficient hunting team at 100% synergy still were getting injured 3 or more times a day (until people started using fleas to get around that, only then did staff take the percentage of OW down). My herbalist at 100% proficiency still takes a long time to make cures and still only brings back 1 or 2 random herbs (the same as she did at lvl 1 and 0% proficiency). Pups can still die at RO with 100% survival chance because the way the dice roll calculates at RO drops the percentage. I am just a button clicker at RNGs mercy. And the RNG gods hate me.

The game is new so I am hoping that I have more influence over the game the more I raise my stats but I am not seeing too much evidence to support this. 

I am not trying to bash anyone. Making a game is difficult and I couldn't do it. I have a lot of experience playing games but none building or managing one. So, no disrespect to the design team, you guys are awesome! You have put a lot of work into this game so far and I can't wait to see what you have planned from here. 

Absolutely 100% support with reasons stated by other users! I appreciate the thought and time that went into your argument, and agree that RNG needs to be adjusted or at least reworked. 

God yesss 100% support

I'd love for Wolvden to be more battle driven as of right now there's no point to do battles other than for your daily or leveling but even then most people stop around the 10 mark since at that point it just gets too tedious to bother leveling and the number of salves you have to go through to keep getting exp at a reasonable pace to man and don't get me started on how a lvl 1 cougar can just bleed your wolf first turn and nearly kill you despite you being lvl 15