Bad luck protection

[Omnires]

This thread is all about RNG and what kind of systems could be in place to help people with below average luck. Because I don't know about you but one of the things I hate most about games is when they force RNG to get things you need without any sort of bypass or safely net for people who unlucky. In fact, it is one of the main reasons why I stop playing some games. Because I spend to much time and energy trying to get something and never do because of bad luck. It is why I tend to lean more to skill based things rather than luck based things in games. But there are a few games that are aware that not everyone has good luck and so put bad luck protection systems in their game.

From what I know Em-8er is going to be largely a skill based game. But unless all the drop rates are 100% all the time you can't rule out the idea of someone never getting the drop that they need just because they are unlucky. In some games it as simple as coding in somewhere that loot rewards never repeat until the person has gotten one of every possible drop from that enemy. Or make to so if you kill a boss or do an event X number of times you can just pick the reward you want out of every possible thing in the loot table. This why people who are playing with their friends are not going to be left behind just because their friends all got the thing and weeks later they still haven't, and it is not do to lack of trying. There are a number of other explains of bad luck protection in games.

So what are some ideas for bad luck protection that Em-8er could have? And what are your thoughts on bad luck protection and games the that have bad luck protection built into them?

Personally I love it when games have bad luck protection in them, as someone with below average luck in videogames, it helps me a lot to play at a normal pace. Because in games without bad luck protection, no matter how fun the game maybe, there comes a point where I just quite because I can never get the thing i want/need no matter how well I play. And it can really hurt your soul when everyone you know has gotten a thing in only like hand full of tries and has gotten more than one of them, while you have been spamming it for months and never got one. As if the game is coded to never let you have it. So yes, I'm all for ways to bypassing the RNG systems in games, and no the market is not an option unless the prices for things is always fixed not hyperinflated (that is even if the thing you are looking for is tradeable in the first place).

edited for grammar​

 

[liandri]

Bad luck protection? Just slap one of these on your frame. She'll be right mate.

The only game I know of clearly that has bad luck protection is Raid: Shadow Legends, and I'm not making a bad joke. For higher tier heroes, you have to unlock shards, which you rarely get in game or can buy with real-world money. If you open a certain number of shards without getting a purple-tier hero, the chance goes up, and continues to increase until one drops, then resets. Goes for higher tiers as well I believe.

For a skill-based game, there's a catch 22 if drops depend on player skill. The more skilled players will be rewarded with better drops, which result in them playing better, resulting in more drops. So in an event, a lower skilled player would get worse drops. I like how most games level this out by the rewards being based on your actions during an event. If you capture some objectives and kill 100 guys, nice rewards. If you come in last second and get 2 kills, here's a bottle cap. But to RNG.

I like your idea of being able to choose a reward from the table. It would incentivise players to do events because they can get what they want consistently, and it would also control the market since there is a reliable way to procure something.

You could also go for a token system (no, not Firefall spin to win, more like Kanaloa boss weapons). Each event you get a random drop and a token based on how well you did. With enough "battle tokens" you can visit the Quartermaster on the station and requisition specific items/upgrades. Perhaps resources you collect can feed into this. It would guarantee certain effects and stats, but would be increasingly more expensive for each attribute you want.

RNG shouldn't apply to resources and gathering too much. It should be location, world tier and THMP-R stat based. If you want rare resources and artifacts, you should look for them and the game should provide them when conditions are met, but in a way that discourages people camping certain spots for them (eg. WoW/Runescape world hopping).

As for hyper-rare items (eg. Brontodon King pet in FF), 100% RNG or the most insane-hard. Vanity items should be obtained through luck and strife.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

Yeah the Raid:SL is good example of a method for Bad Luck Protection especially since that game gives you so many ways to acquire shards for free via effort. Sure whales will always get a ton more instantly without effort, but that only really annoying in RSL because the marketing in that game into enticing players to be a whale is so incredibly annoying. Constantly blaring in your face.

I'll be okay with BLP here that can be brought with $$ as long as it isn't marketed as aggressively as RSL does it.

 

[Pandagnome]

In super mario kart when you get go past a question mark on the floor you get an item on your screen that goes through every kind of item possible until you hit another button.

Could be you need good timing and some luck makes me think how some get the lightening or red shells all the time. I did get many red shells and those were very good but that lightening turned everyone into micro karts and when you got that it was superb seeing them unable to make a big jump and turn into a pancake after running them over oop


Cannot remember what game it was when i was playing and did much crafting we had these special items you put to give a 100% chance to protect chances of creating / upgrading an item.

So an example was upgrading my cat into a super cat but the chance of that is 2%
when i attach a special gem that chance increased to 100% but it was a 1 time use gem as it breaks after use.

Crafters could build these gems and it can take time with a very rare reusable bp and sometimes gems are dropped as end of mission rewards too those tend to happen in group rather than in solo gameplay.

Anyways that is a way to have a much better chance of getting an upgrade... couldn't something similar be applied for getting the item of choice in the end of mission reward?


In Warframe everyone rushes like crazy as if they have diarrhea and rushing to the space toilet.
My rewards are better when exploring and taking my time because sometimes i find the hidden Ayatan treasures and also able to locate a unique resource for a bp.

Happen often in public games, and its why playing solo can be good. The annoying part in the public games is when they all get to the end of the mission point. Then a timer kicks in, and when it runs out ends the mission where ever i am at and miss out on improving my reward chance

Lets say you have got many many poop items or resources etc and yet the one your after is still not there hmm. What if you could combine all those poops, break it into something and with the power of a higher % chance either get a rare or legend item

So as an example having 1000 - 4000 melons and destroying those to turn into 1 gold banana chance 50% or a silver banana % 80

If it was 5000 - 10,000 melons your gold banana chance could be 70% and silver banana % 90

Now lets say you got 2 silver banana's you could turn that into a gold banana guess the process could be longer but at least its another way of aquiring what your after.

 

[Omnires]

I remember in this one JRPG I played many years ago (I think like the late 90's maybe) one of the bad luck protection systems would trigger one of the goddesses of the world to show up to you and give you a gift. They worked the system in such a way that it lined up with the lore of the game too. Having a goddess come down from heaven to give you a hand. I always liked little things like that where the devs try to holistically link game systems into the lore of the game.

Although now that I think about it some games even have bad luck protection on player life. For example, in some games just because your character's HP hits zero doesn't mean they die. This is because going by how their HP dropped it could go past zero into negative numbers and you'll still be alive. This is because of other stats like Will Power also counted to your health but only when you are down to like one HP, the greater your Will Power stat the greater the odd of your character surviving attacks that would otherwise kill them. The idea was to stop people from getting one hit killed by bosses, as some of the bosses are gods. As long as you didn't take another hit while in state you could keep fighting and healing. Although because your health was in negative you had to first heal enough get back to 1 HP. And when you like -400 hp you need to does 401 healing to get back to 1 hp before something else hits you. The system acted like the plot armor some people have in movies where they can fight off death itself if they just had a strong enough will and refused to give up. lol

Anyway, one from of bad luck protection in games is an NPC who has all the drops from the boss and/or event they you can buy from. But only if you trade them other things equal to the thing you want. So if you kept only getting common drops from the raid you could trade in those drops for high tier thing you want. As long as the exchange rate for things is not to high this is also a good way to bypass RNG. Although it is not perfect because some games make the exchange rate way to much that no person could do it in a reasonable time. So it is always a good idea to think before hand what is the max number of runs someone needs to do to get the top tier stuff from the event/raid if for some reason they only got the most basic things from it.