It is an in-game algorithm that produces random numbers. It is used in game design to determine random events such as the chance at landing a critical hit or picking up a rare item. In a similar way to balancing loops, or any other game, it is important to strike the right balance with random number generators.
Geoff Engelstein, MIT physicist and award-winning game designer, is credited with coining the distinction between input and output randomness. For example, drawing a hand of cards before taking your turn, or rolling a dice before choosing your move. Loot boxes are an example of output randomness more on that in a moment.
As ever, the Holy Grail of game design is balance. Games designers may limit output randomness in order to give players a better sense of control. Equally, too much input randomness can prevent the gamer from being able to make any plans or decisions that have a meaningful impact over time, leaving the game feeling, well, too random. At their most simple, loot boxes are a type of virtual treasure chest, which contain a selection of random virtual items of varying importance and rarity, that are only revealed once the chest is opened.
The types of random items in the chest can be anything from cosmetic items like additional characters, outfits, tools, and weapons, to prizes allowing players to unlock extra levels, gain new skills or receive performance upgrades. Importantly, there are now tools to help you, the player, better understand how loot boxes work and how you can manage your use of them.
Drop rates refer to the probability of winning different types of virtual in-game items contained in the chest. A rolling die is a closed system of its own that really has nothing to do with the greater game system. In chess, for example, players have some limit to the number of turns they can look ahead. Beyond that point, the events that occur are indeed unpredictable for that player. However, players can and do learn to look further and further down the possibility tree as they get better at the game.
Part of the skill of chess is being able to explore that ever-increasing possibility space and come out with more predictive ability. So while chess does have unpredictability , it does not have randomness. Interestingly, while these two types are certainly distinct enough from each other to warrant the classifications, they do technically exist on a continuum. Without going into much detail on it, it should be noted that irresponsible use of input randomness — where the player has very little time to respond to the new information, or where the game generates problems of wildly varying difficulty match to match — causes similar problems as output randomness.
Strategy games are engines that allow us to understand them. We play a game, we win or lose, and we make connections. For evolutionary reasons, we find this process enriching and entertaining. In a shallow game, there might not be very many of these moments, whereas a very deep game can continue delivering these moments for decades if not lifetimes. How do we achieve that depth?
Well, the first way, which all game designers already understand, is emergent complexity. In order to create complexity, we design our games so that they generate complex emerging situations throughout play. However, unleash these two forces on each other on a chessboard, and the amount of possible situations that could emerge is huge. The second method for achieving depth is, as far as I can tell, not understood by most designers today. This method involves being aware of complexity effectivenes s: the amount of correlation between a state, and the history of past states.
A strategy game only has a finite number of states throughout a match. From what I can find, it seems that the average number of moves in a chess game is somewhere around 40, for example. If your game is a continuous series of events that lead deterministically from one to the other, then you are maximizing the amount of unique situations that can occur. I think this idea is counter-intuitive to many, who think that random events occurring somewhere in there must increase the amount of unique situations.
However, the opposite is actually the case. Having a system be entirely deterministic causes your emergent complexity to be maximally effective. This is because each emerging situation is given the maximum amount of contextual nuance by all of the events that came before and after it.
In the deterministic game, the current game state has ties to every part of the entire timeline. Because of that, it is being pulled into a more complex and more unique shape. What this is illustrating is the way that context, when deterministically related, provides meaning to a game state. Of course, even highly random games do have some deterministic elements that do provide some context to game states. So if your Reaper ended the match with just one health point remaining, at the start of the next battle they would have one health point.
The most profound ramification of this new rule was that now, every single point of damage mattered. This rule ended up being a really oppressive one, and it was removed in the very next patch, but it reminded me how important setting these kinds of thresholds can be. I think that strategy games should strive to find ways to have a binary win condition, if possible notably, two-player games that resolve in a score have a binary win condition.
Not every single point of value matters; you only need to get over a certain amount of value in order to win. By the late game, when two players are left and vying for first place, there will usually only be one, possibly two fights left that determine the outcome. And again, HSBG battles are very random!
But in a HSBG match, you do many of these, and another very good absorption mechanism in the game is how damage is dealt to players. The stupid version of this game would be one where each surviving creature deals its damage to the opponent after winning a battle. Eurogames tend to have lots of these, so I recommend looking to them for more inspiration. Thanks for reading! This article was made possible by my Patreon Patrons. Consider becoming a Patron and get early access to my design prototypes, special Discord roles and a bunch more.
For many players, output randomness is the most frustrating of the two. Missing crucial shots or attacks in a game can make players feel like the game is cheating them or screwing them over.
This is because humans are just terrible with numbers. In fact, some games will do some behind the scenes trickery to make sure the outcome of your choices is not purely random.
This is because our brains are wired to expect that outcome. Game online through Combine all 5 codes and enjoy 5 years of unlimited access to PlayStation classics or share them with your gaming buddies and family.
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