RANDOM NUMBER GENERATION: THE DEATH OF THE CRITICAL HIT

That's ridiculous.

It's like quitting because "I am way too underleveled to fight this boss and cannot statistically beat it," or "This boss is unwinnable for story reasons," or "This combination of characters I am using cannot beat this boss."

Sometimes there are just variables that make a situation impossible. Any game that provides even the slightest bit of randomization provides this possibility. I am absolutely certain there is a game you like that provides such a possibility.

author=LockeZ
But... but that's just a perfect example. The fact that Freecell does that to you sometimes always made me just never play it. That problem makes the game absolutely unplayable to me. If it had randomly been unwinnable twice as often, I'd still have never played it. If it had randomly been unwinnable half as often, I'd still have never played it. The rate makes no difference. It's still unplayable.

If it happened less often, then I'll grant that obviously I would have played the game for longer before the first time I encountered the bug. But I still would have encountered it eventually. And at that point, I would stop playing.

Yeah this is just whining. I bet you just sucked at freecell and THOUGHT most of the scenarios were unbeatable.

author=WolfCoder
I'd love to see an RPG video game with critical failures. Oh you did more than just miss, hahahaha!

Fallout, and Fallout 2 even more so. During the prize fight with the Mike Tyson analogue I caught a break when he failed critically and knocked himself down. Unfortunately, I suffered a critical failure at the end of my next turn as well. Great scene - One boxer misses and falls on the mat. The other guy kicks him a few times before slipping and knocking himself unconscious.

Actually Kaempfer, real random numbers are different from numbers you perceive are random. This is actually a common effect when you compare numbers you told someone to randomly write down vs. actually rolling dice. Unless you do statistical tests to show that something returns some % of the time with a very low degree of error, it could really just be luck/unluck.

When writing random numbers, humans are much less likely to write three consecutive numbers in a row than a single die would actually roll.

I am a rogue and I hate you

Well if you have a 33% chance to crit you'd still have a 33% chance to crit under my idea. You just wouldn't crit 20 times in a row. Or dodge 20 times in a row.

But, far more importantly, neither would the enemy.

If you want to only apply this to parts of the RNG that favor the enemy, then okay. But realize that even with a 33% chance to crit, if you just use straight RNG, you can still theoretically never crit for the entire game.

Edit: Karsuman: Nothing you just said is specific to my idea at all, it's all still just bitching about randomness in general. Which is fine, but don't take it out on my idea to put a ceiling on randomness. Take it out on randomness. I was just using a d20 as an example of how to implement the "shuffle" RNG mechanic, I wasn't saying anything about whether d20 is a good system.

author=LockeZ
Edit: Karsuman: Nothing you just said is specific to my idea at all, it's all still just bitching about randomness in general. Which is fine, but don't take it out on my idea to put a ceiling on randomness. Take it out on randomness.

It has everything to do with your post. Your post is about introducing a control mechanism that makes an entire mechanic (chance-based rolls: crit/miss/dodge) pretty much meaningless. It also gives the player oddly abusive information: If you crit with your first action, you know that you will not get another crit for 19 more attacks and are at risk for missing with one of those shots. It is pre-ordained; it is also really stupid.

Shinan: games like Magic: The Gathering or even generic cards games require interfacing with your opponent - e.g., Counterspell whacks my Fireball. They have one less Counterspell and I have one less Fireball. But their is a ton more psychology then that; if they have three more Counterspells what are their priorities and what are they going to use it against? How many cards do they have in their hand? Do I have cards that allow me to see their hand? Sure, their is bad luck, but in the long term - that is, games against many players - if you play well, you will win more. Much more.

The traditional RPG mechanic that Lockez suggests fails because it subtracts from making relevant decisions rather than add. If you know a skill has a low hit rate and an enemy has a high dodge rate, it might be wise to not use that ability, but it also might be worth the risk if the enemy is a sufficient threat. What Lockez suggests kills the personality of battles and allows the player to forecast decisions based on a fundamentally meaningless occurence that happens for the hell of it. A degree of luck is a part of what makes games exciting and killing it to replace it with something this lame is pointless. Might as well remove it in its entirety and start from there.

Hiding information from the player is silly. =)

Additionally, I give this more of a pass with extremely complex systems myself (MtG, wargames) due to the added layers of psychological/mechanical complexity. Their are tons of decisions you can make with one card/piece well beyond the initial step.

All we are talking about here is a very simple mechanic of chance-based rolls that alter the inevitable result directly. Most video game rpgs don't do anything other than 'x3 damage' with criticals.

author=Karsuman
Hiding information from the player is silly. =)

Unless it is story-related.

Back to the topic, I highly value the existence of crits/misses because I then I often have a chance to win, making the outcome of the battle insecure. Fully non-random games (though exceptions such as chess exist) is for paranoid freaks.