[edit] Randomness and Luck is good for this game

bbigler

Think about every board game ever invented and you'll find that luck is purposely built into the game. There are dies to roll, cards to shuffle, wheels to spin, coins to flip; this all introduces randomness into the game so that it is not the same every time you play it. Sometimes luck goes your way and sometimes it doesn't. If this game had no luck in acquiring covers, then everyone's rosters would be practically the same based on their time spent in the game, giving you no advantage over similar players. PvP would be absolutely boring as you play the same team over and over and over. PvE placement would only be determined by ideal clearing times as everyone could clear at the same speed.

So, let's stop complaining about getting covers through RNG because this random nature keeps the game interesting. For example, because of RNG, Nick Fury was my 1st fully covered 4*, so I champed him and started using him a lot. It was fun because I never used him much before and he was fully powered. As I champ more 4*s, even the middle tier ones, I gain more variety in gameplay, which keeps the game interesting. I discover new teams that I've never had before and start kicking butt with them. That's what I like about the game. If I could choose the covers that I wanted instead of relying on random pulls, then I would've never used Nick Fury and only played with just a few of the top characters, which reduces the variety in gameplay and makes the game a little boring.

Variety is the key to a good game. I've developed several games and I purposely put variety and luck into the game so that there's more than one way to win it. That's why we have required characters for events, random token draws and new character releases; it keeps the game interesting. But some people are obsessed with obtaining only the very best characters, so they get frustrated when they can't get what they want because of the RNG token pulling. I say to accept and embrace the randomness; I say to be patient as the covers you want will eventually come; I think we should focus more on discovering new team combinations and be happier with the roster we already have. That is my approach and it helps me stay engaged in what can be a monotonous game.

fmftint

bbigler wrote:

PvP would be absolutely boring as you play the same team over and over and over. PvE placement would only be determined by ideal clearing times as everyone could clear at the same speed.

Ummmmm......
You just described this game EXACTLY

StarScream

I disagree about randomness and luck being essential. BTD5 has zero randomness and very little luck outside of a few upgrades. That was a great game during its heyday.

Nellobee

Chess.
A lot of games have chance, but not all. A lot of games have skill as a factor, but arguably not all (War, for example).

firethorne

The game Go is at least 2500 years old, and is a game of pure abstract strategy, with no element of luck, or hidden information. Chess is another similar example, and can be traced back 1500 years. It is absurd To say an element of random luck is essential when we have clear exceptions standing the test of time for over a millennium.

MarkersMake

Randomness and luck is present in every match, in the initial board layout and the subsequent gem drops. That's your variety, that's (largely) where you want it to be. That's what lets a lower-tier team occasionally punch above their weight and achieve a goal that would otherwise be out of their reach.

The complaints about RNG in MPQ are largely confined to the 5* tier, where the sample size for each individual is small (randomness is only a good thing over large sample sizes), and the only path to progression is *entirely* RNG-based. That is not good game design.

You said that you recently champed a 4*, and appreciated the randomness of Nick Fury being your first one. Four stars can be obtained through RNG (tokens) but also through predictable progression (PvE/PvP, champion rewards, crash rotation). That is good game design, with randomness that adds variety to a predictable basic progression.

Consider MMORPGs: levels and skills are predictable and progressive. Weapons and armor (often random drops from raid targets) add variety between characters. It is important to have both reward paths to keep players with identical inputs (time, playstyle, etc) from having results that are too divergent.

acescracked

Checkers!!

Dragon_Nexus

Thing is we're talking about video games, and randomness in game design is often a bad idea.

thisone

I run table top games.

If I told my players, roll a d20 you only get to advance if you roll 10+. And had some players at level 11 and some at 5, even though they are all playing the same adventure I'd be an awful DM. But this is exactly what 5* progression is like OP.

Yes I like to keep my players on their toes, random encounters can be so fun. But artificially stopping their progression with rng? Not so much.

jredd

randomness and luck can still be part of the game even with some elements of self determination and eliminating wasted covers. (colourless covers)...

...

acescracked

thisone wrote:

I run table top games.

If I told my players, roll a d20 you only get to advance if you roll 10+. And had some players at level 11 and some at 5, even though they are all playing the same adventure I'd be an awful DM. But this is exactly what 5* progression is like OP.

Yes I like to keep my players on their toes, random encounters can be so fun. But artificially stopping their progression with rng? Not so much.

Your comparison is off. What you described above is just to have fun. MPQ's rng progression is clearly to generate revenue. Pay walls in free to play mobile games are legendary. MPQs current 5* rng progression appears to have worked out nicely for them on the financial front. A ton of players have ponyed up the $$$ to have shiny 5*s.

Totally free progression in a free to play game is specifically designed to be slow. MPQ decided to do the rng method to slow\encourage buying.

carrion_pigeons

RNG does certainly contribute to interest under certain circumstances, but let's not pretend that randomness is inherently more interesting than non-randomness. Randomness contributes interest to exactly the extent that it contributes variety. That means that a very small amount of randomness goes a very long way, most of the time.

The current LT system does contribute variety, in the way that people enter the 4* and 5* tiers, and also in the way that it affects who can be champed when, once a person is at that point. Those are fine. Some people might pull a bunch of Elektras while another opens a bunch of Icemans, which kinda sucks for the Elektra one, but he has the option to use that character and compete with it, and odds are he'll find ways to use that character and it will contribute to that player developing strategies around what he has opened. What isn't fine is that some people get to use LTs to enter the 5* tier at all, while other people don't. That's not variety, that's just randomly-gated progression, which is horrible. When one player opens Elektra and the other player opens Black Bolt, that's not cool. Those players stop seeing each other in PvP entirely. The opportunity to compete at all is prevented.

Heroics contain a miniscule chance at opening a 4*, and that's okay, because the odds of someone progressing into the 4* tier via heroic tokens are impossible, so why not let people get an occasional thrill out of them? Compare to LTs, which are not just *a* good way to enter the 5* tier, but the actual *only* way. Suddenly, it isn't about giving people a thrill. It comes back to variety: there's no alternatives for how to play the game at this point. You don't get to make any choices or have any opportunities to adapt, because there's only one way forward, and the way is grinding everything as much as possible in order to maximize your number of pulls, since sheer volume is the only way to mitigate bad luck.

broll

aesthetocyst wrote:

The necessary element of randomness that spices up gameplay is ....

... the tile drops.

Having some randomness via tokens is fun. And in the long run, the prevalence of fixed rewards, and sheer volume of tokens, evened out the results. All players that played progressed. The randomness of the token portion of the cover flow just shook it up a bit, so we weren't all literally progressing in the exact same manner, winding up with the exact same rosters.

No one is complaining about tile drops or randomness in regards to 1* - 4* distribution. At least, no one should be. If they do, smack'em.

Tying the highest tier in the game solely to RNG is not necessary. It's imbalancing. It's soulkilling. It's moneygrabbing. Collectible games are widespread and plentiful. I've played several and have secondhand knowledge of many others. MPQ is the only one that I know of to hide the endgame behind RNG, with no other means of access, or at least a guaranteed "failsafe" path of access.

Agree except the 1* - 4* comment. 4* is still way too tied to RNG. Not as badly as 5* but still too much. SCL 7 & 8 helps, but it's still a lot of RNG to even get to the top tier RNG you are complaining about.

bbigler

Nellobee wrote:

Chess.
A lot of games have chance, but not all. A lot of games have skill as a factor, but arguably not all (War, for example).

Yes, I realized Chess is all skill and war is all luck, but I'm looking at the majority of games. Games that become predictable, like many FPS missions, get boring over time and you quit.

broll

bbigler wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

Chess.
A lot of games have chance, but not all. A lot of games have skill as a factor, but arguably not all (War, for example).

Yes, I realized Chess is all skill and war is all luck, but I'm looking at the majority of games. Games that become predictable, like many FPS missions, get boring over time and you quit.

That completely depends. An FPS done correctly is all about actual PvP (not what this came considers it ) and that randomness is what keeps playing the same map over and over again fresh. it's one of the reasons I'd love to see them at least attempt a true PvP mode.

Crnch73

I think from a pure numbers standpoint, here is the issue: when randomness takes place, it has to be done in higher volume. Sure, you can roll a die and that is a rand-mod-6 (plus one). However, think of a board game where you roll the die 10 times and never get to move. How often would you keep playing the game when your progress is halted no matter what you do?

I have played my fair share of video games throughout my life, and I have written crude software to make simple games. I have written code that simulates Monopoly. There are plenty of fun games that do (and plenty that do not) rely on some randomness. But you get to roll the dice every turn, and something generally happens as a result of that roll. And when you play a game, for example, where you create a character and have to earn weapons and armor. Usually, if you get items that you don't want or need, you can use them to earn levels towards a new item. Nothing goes to waste, and yes... selling a 4* cover you can't use because you got the same color over and over and over... that is going to waste for 1000 ISO. But if I pulled a helmet in a different game, I could usually try to forge it with other items and work towards a better helmet. Or sell it for XP.

The mechanics of this game probably worked much better with a small character pool. Now that we have 5 tiers, and soooo many characters in total, the randomness needs to be tweaked. I have my ghost rider at 4/5/0, but I keep getting red covers (up to 20 reds for him so far). Rather than sell them for 1000 ISO, there should be a mechanic where I can use each subsequent red cover to earn a "dot" on my ghost rider, and every 5 "dots" means I can turn that into any color I want for that character. That allows for RNG to still take place, but does not make you stand completely still after hours of play.

TL;DR Randomness is ok when in high volume to make up for wasted time, either by making drops more frequent or covers/tokens less expensive. We need a new system to make sure covers aren't wasted, because anything 4* or above is solely reliant on RNG. It takes more time to earn the wasted cover than it would 1000 ISO.

Calnexin

bbigler wrote:

Think about every board game ever invented and you'll find that luck is purposely built into the game.

Not every one. Try Puerto Rico. Or Diplomacy. Or Chess.

Maybe not Diplomacy. You tend to lose friends.

Randomness is not required to make a game. It evens the playing field. Some games overuse it to the extent that it drowns out any sense of strategy. Others sprinkle it in, relying on largely average results but affording an opportunity for dramatic play.

As others have already eloquently stated, the randomness in this game is in tile drops, and that allows for plenty of dramatic play. Randomness in the meta seems wrong. Most games allow you to progress with effort. That's certainly there in the form of Iso, but you're capped on any given character until the dice favor you. The only reason it's there is to coerce sales. It's gambling. Buy enough tokens so the odds favor you when you start pulling that lever.

In fairness, it's gotten a lot better. The introduction of 4* covers in SCL makes that tier accessible to anyone who has been putting in effort and does already have developed lower-tier rosters. The random path to the endgame is really just 5* at this point. I went from zero useable 4* to 9 champs in ~ 5 months, but it wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't been putting in the time - champing 3*, farming 2*. That part wasn't random at all. Doing that removes randomness on those tiers by making the RNG pull irrelevant. When every cover is useful, you always gain.

moss04

MarkersMake wrote:

Randomness and luck is present in every match, in the initial board layout and the subsequent gem drops. That's your variety, that's (largely) where you want it to be. That's what lets a lower-tier team occasionally punch above their weight and achieve a goal that would otherwise be out of their reach.

The complaints about RNG in MPQ are largely confined to the 5* tier, where the sample size for each individual is small (randomness is only a good thing over large sample sizes), and the only path to progression is *entirely* RNG-based. That is not good game design.

You said that you recently champed a 4*, and appreciated the randomness of Nick Fury being your first one. Four stars can be obtained through RNG (tokens) but also through predictable progression (PvE/PvP, champion rewards, crash rotation). That is good game design, with randomness that adds variety to a predictable basic progression.

Consider MMORPGs: levels and skills are predictable and progressive. Weapons and armor (often random drops from raid targets) add variety between characters. It is important to have both reward paths to keep players with identical inputs (time, playstyle, etc) from having results that are too divergent.

I can provide some context to "divergent" results:

I am in an alliance where, for several months, I was playing about the same amount as another alliance member. During that time they literally got a 5* cover every 3 to 4 tokens on average and I was averaging around 8% and had a couple long streaks without a cover, one of them lasted 38 tokens before I finally got a 5*.

Fightmastermpq

The best games use randomness to vary the gameplay, but the game is balanced so that you can alter your strategy based on the random events that happen to you to emerge victorious without getting lucky. Games that are frequently determined more by the roll of the dice than from strategy don't stand the test of time for me.

From a video game perspective this game lacks repeatable content. I try to say this every time it comes up hoping that it catches on and starts to resonate with the devs (although it hasn't in over a year, but I'm still trying). Luck-based progression is fine if you have a mechanism to overcome poor luck through repeated play. Think about a RPG dungeon crawler type game with randomly generated item drops. Someone could get lucky and have that OP weapon drop their first time, or they could keep playing that dungeon over and over 24/7 until they finally get that item they have been hoping for - it works because they can keep trying. In MPQ you can't keep trying. You basically get 1 LT pull per event and that's it. If you didn't get the cover you wanted you wait until the next event - meanwhile the 15% of the population that DID get that cover progresses past you and there is nothing you can do to catch up (except spend a boat-load of cash).

Imagine how terrible Zelda would have been if instead of walking up the steps to the Master Sword you got another shovel - the Mr. Fantastic of Zelda items - and had to continue on until the next dungeon fighting without it. You talked to your 7 friends and 1 of them got the Master Sword - all the other various items ranging in usefulness, but none as longed for as that Legendary Master Sword. Would you ever buy another Zelda game if your progression had been randomized like that? Probably only if you had the ability to redo that dungeon for another shot at the Master Sword, or knew you could catch up to that 1 friend if you just kept trying, but not if you got one shot at it and then the game suddenly become more challenging for you as you had to try to continue to progress without it - hoping there would be an event later that would give you another shot at it.

dsds

There is a huge difference between a board game and MPQ. A board game is meant to be played many times over in a span of one day. MPQ is meant to be played once over the span of months and years. You don't need that much RNG to make it replayable as it isn't supposed to be replayed.

1.) The fact that new characters get added every 2 weeks and that you can advance and use different characters makes it very replayable in terms of matches.
2.) Also don't forget there is a weekly boosted list, essentials, etc, that make it interesting and different.
The above 2 points is enough reason that the matches are replayable and different.

Pure reason for RNG is because gambling is addictive and it gets people to spend. If someone is on a streak, they may buy more to continue the streak. If someone is not on a streak, they may buy hoping to break the drought. Pure and simple, it's greed. It's like selling items at a store and one customer gets it at x price, while another gets it at y price. It's ridiculous and needs to stop.

bbigler

broll wrote:

bbigler wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

Chess.
A lot of games have chance, but not all. A lot of games have skill as a factor, but arguably not all (War, for example).

Yes, I realized Chess is all skill and war is all luck, but I'm looking at the majority of games. Games that become predictable, like many FPS missions, get boring over time and you quit.

That completely depends. An FPS done correctly is all about actual PvP (not what this came considers it ) and that randomness is what keeps playing the same map over and over again fresh. it's one of the reasons I'd love to see them at least attempt a true PvP mode.

Yes, PvP in FPS is not predictable, but PvE in FPS is, that's what I was referring to.