Thought this was an interesting discussion in light of all the RNG debate happening around Goblins vs Gnomes (go to 7:40 minute mark)
In a nutshell, Brode feels that the idea that randomness is diametrically opposed to skill, with more randomness always resulting in a decrease in skill, is essentially bogus. In particular, Randomness has one big advantage in adding skill to games, and that's the fact that it introduces many more situations into games that players won't have encountered before--better players will deal with unexpected situations than worse ones, and on average this will raise their winrates.
He points to the example of Chess as how too little randomness hurts a game. Chess has no randomness at all, meaning games can play out identically to each other if players simply make the same series of optimal moves throughout the early game, and as a result Chess has essentially become a game of memorizing shitloads of openings (a problem which pushed the famous chess master Bobby Fischer to actually propose a version of chess which would randomize the positions of pieces)--at the highest levels it goes beyond that, but for the vast majority of players the number one thing they can do to improve their play is memorize openings and positions.
I think he makes some good points, and to build on them I'd say that there are good kinds of randomness and bad kinds of randomness in a game like Hearthstone.
Good kinds of randomness are ones where players can either influence the odds by their in-game decisions (so that the RNG becomes a calculated risk rather than a simple coinflip) and/or where the RNG gives them a different set of choices than I would otherwise have had, but they still have to choose when to play. Examples of good kinds of RNG would be cards like Webspinner or Ysera (give you random cards, but you still have to decide how to play those cards for best effect), and cards like Mad Bomber, Ragnaros and Sylvanas (where their effect is random, but extremely dependent on board state, giving players all sorts of ways to alter the odds of an outcome through in game decisions).
Bad RNG cards are cards which have an entirely random effect that players don't really influence in any way. For example, Nat Pagle. Its essentially flipping coins for you and giving you a benefit every time it lands on heads..
I can definitely see how a card like Webspinner will in the long run help differentiate good players from bad ones, because the good players will do a better job of incorporating and getting value out of unexpected cards. Whereas its hard to see how Nat Pagle does anything to add skill to the game.
In The Goblins vs Gnomes expansion, I honestly think they seem to have more good RNG than bad RNG. That is, the RNG seems designed to introduce more unexpected situations into constructed gameplay, but in a way that generally seems designed to reward players who make better decisions.
Unstable Portal, for example, is super random. It can pull anything from a wisp to deathwing to other class specific cards. Obviously on a game by game basis, that means sometimes you'll get lucky with it and sometimes unlucky (You'd much rather get that 7 mana deathwing than a wisp that effectively cost you 2). But it also means that over time, its going to be a lot more valuable in the hands of someone with a deeper overall understanding of the game, because they'll have a better idea of how to get value out of any given random card in whatever situation they happen to be facing. (Btw, I also think Unstable Portal is going to be a great and very competitive card--your odds of getting a 1 drop or wisp are pretty low, if it pulls a 2 drop its effectively a wash, and anything higher and the value is outstanding--90% of the cards in the game would be amazing if they were costed 1 less, and thats effectively what Unstable Portal gives you, with the randomness being the downside in exchange for the value--it may as well read "Draw an Undercosted Card" which is an obviously outstanding effect).
How hard can it be to understand that some limited RNG enhances the game, but a lot of RNG is just frustrating? This argument comparing "no RNG at all" against "some RNG" to conclude that "the more RNG the better" is immensely dumb.
There is some strategy to dealing with a situation in which webspinner gives you minion X instead of Y.
There is no skill involved in a Ragnaros coinflip winning the game, or a Deathlord summoning Ysera on turn 3. A lot of major tournament games were decided PURELY through Rag RNG. That's the bad kind of RNG.
Blizzard is making the mistake of releasing completely broken and overpowered cards, and then "balancing" them by adding RNG, which doesn't work at all.
How hard can it be to understand that some limited RNG enhances the game, but a lot of RNG is just frustrating? This argument comparing "no RNG at all" against "some RNG" to conclude that "the more RNG the better" is immensely dumb.
I don't think they've concluded that "the more RNG, the better". Brode specifically told Gabe Kibler that the cards they'd previewed were selected because they were especially random and crazy, and even so less than half of them have RNG effects. I mean, one of them is literally a vanilla 3/4, which is as unrandom as you can get.
But I do think that we should expect that every Hearthstone expansion will include a certain percentage of cards with RNG effects, and that Blizzard will try to ensure that some RNG cards also have enough built in value that they show up in competitive play (like Webspinner does).
Dunno I'm not that convinced. RNG is already plenty in the game, if they added 0 cards that involved RNG in the expansion the game would still have too much RNG on its cards. RNG from solely being a card game(starting hand, mulligan and topdecking) is more than enough to the game's health.
Dunno I'm not that convinced. RNG is already plenty in the game, if they added 0 cards that involved RNG in the expansion the game would still have too much RNG on its cards. RNG from solely being a card game(starting hand, mulligan and topdecking) is more than enough to the game's health.
How many cards with RNG effects even see much competitive play? Webspinner, Knife Juggler, Animal Comapnion, Sylvanas, Ragnaros, Ysera, Brawl, Lightning Storm, Soulfire...that's pretty much it. A lot of classes don't have any random cards at all in any of their competitive decks. I don't think a few more cards with RNG elements is going to turn the game into nothing but coinflips.
I still thin Ragnaros is a bad RNG card. For a card that costs that much, it can win/lose on coin flips too often
I don't mind Ragnaros, because its effect is heavily influenced by board state, meaning that for both the person playing him and the person playing against him there are a lot of different decisions built around playing the odds and taking calculated risks with him.
The argument that planning around RNG increases skill is correct (up to a point, of course). So over a lot of games, a good player will be able to use the RNG to their advantage more so than a bad player. The problem is variance. These types of cards add a ton of variance, and it makes things like a single Bo3 in a tournament setting much less meaningful. I think for a while it won't be a problem, it will take months and months for the meta to settle due to the number of cards. Once it does and people are operating on razor thin margins and reads far in advance like they are now, the randomness will be brutal.
I dont know if I like the poker and hearthstone comparison at the beginning.
In Poker(holdem) you can control your RNG.
In hearthstone you cant.
If I get a 7-2 I muck it, new hand new game next hand.
In hearthstone if you dont like your starting 4 cards, you muck it and then still have the chance of bad RNG after the muck, which forces you then to play the entire game with that hand. Now thats the beginning game RNG.
In-game RNG, and snowballing RNG is what makes this game frustrating. Simple example.
Board: you have a, Leper Gnome vs Knife Juggler. You opponent lays down a minion. This 50% that is about to happen will change the ENTIRE game. Your 2/1 has the ability to trade with the 3/2 next turn and therefore reduce 3+ damage.
I dunno more RNG cards, might make the game even more volatile than it was before. When I play Hearthstone, I feel like a gambler a lot of the time(repeating in the my head please no, please no)
When I play poker, I try my best to play AROUND the RNG, rather than playing WITH the RNG in Hearthstone. I think thats a pretty big difference
I'm actually kind of confused how they can make a card like Unstable Portal, yet think a card like Far Sight is actually decent. Maybe it's just a case where new cards are objectively better than older ones to make sure they're played.
On November 11 2014 07:48 killa_robot wrote: I'm actually kind of confused how they can make a card like Unstable Portal, yet think a card like Far Sight is actually decent. Maybe it's just a case where new cards are objectively better than older ones to make sure they're played.
Well, for one they are class cards so while comparable in terms of value, they are not direct alternatives to each other, and secondly on Far Sight a player pays the extra mana to have a certain amount of control on what they draw, in that it has to be from their deck.
On November 11 2014 07:48 killa_robot wrote: I'm actually kind of confused how they can make a card like Unstable Portal, yet think a card like Far Sight is actually decent. Maybe it's just a case where new cards are objectively better than older ones to make sure they're played.
Well, for one they are class cards so while comparable in terms of value, they are not direct alternatives to each other, and secondly on Far Sight a player pays the extra mana to have a certain amount of control on what they draw, in that it has to be from their deck.
Yeah, like Fireball will always deal 6 damage, and Mortal Strike won't. But in return, mages don't have weapons.
On Far Sight. The problem here is that Far Sight works kind of counter to the idea of overload in Shaman decks. Shaman has cards that can be really cheap because they have overload and they have some cheap spells in their arsenal as well. So with all the shaman decks running 2 lightning bolts and 2 earthshocks, and maybe even forked lightning or other cheap spells as well as Flametongue totem, etc., Far Sight becomes incredibly weak.
You're paying 3 mana to have a relatively high chance of drawing a 1 or 2 mana cost card from your deck. And you still have to pay for the added Overload of those cards.
A 2 mana, cost 2 less Far Sight would be much better. A 1 mana, cost 1 less Far Sight (like Flare, also OP) would probably be a staple in many Shaman deck.
There's another distinction that I think you miss, which is that good RNG is RNG that isn't critically important. RNG is bad when it instantly decides whether the game is win or lose, and although that will always be with us (key topdecks, for example), we don't need to increase it with cards like Ragnaros. Ragnaros is a huge offender, in my mind, because he rarely comes down to anything less than a 50-50 coin flip between hero and critical card. That's simply ugly, and it feels gross when you win or lose a game just because the odds didn't work out in your favor.
The best RNG by far is the different-types-of-positive RNG, such as you get from Ysera and Spare Parts and even just from the draw each turn. The worst kind is that which has obvious better or worse results, because then you can just end up cursing your bad luck.
On Far Sight. The problem here is that Far Sight works kind of counter to the idea of overload in Shaman decks. Shaman has cards that can be really cheap because they have overload and they have some cheap spells in their arsenal as well.
Yep, exactly right. Sure, the only thing more awesome than 1x Fire Elemental is 2x Fire Elemental in one turn, which the card makes possible (etc etc), but unfortunately it's just really unplayable with the overload mechanics meaning that already on average Shaman cards are lower mana cost when played than their actual worth. It's a card to allow a tempo swing later on, but Shaman already have this factor inbuilt.
I don't get this guys complaining about Ragnaros RNG. You can play around it, save a removal for big units or fill the board with small minions. It's not because in some games you get very unlucky that the RNG is bad. You should analyze the outcome of several games together. That's way different from "Battlecry: give your other minions windfury, taunt or divine shield (at random)". What's the point of such card?
On November 11 2014 10:27 MarcoBrei wrote: I don't get this guys complaining about Ragnaros RNG. You can play around it, save a removal for big units or fill the board with small minions. It's not because in some games you get very unlucky that the RNG is bad. You should analyze the outcome of several games together. That's way different from "Battlecry: give your other minions windfury, taunt or divine shield (at random)". What's the point of such card?
Rag will often 50/50 on the turn it is played and the game is decided on a coin flip. -> bad RNG where there is nothing you can do to win because it is a very large swing either way.
The battlecry will give you an advantaged depending on how it rolls out and how your adjust your strategy once you cast it. -> good RNG because you get control after the random effect and your strategy depends heavily on what happens and you are in control of how the game flows from there.
On November 11 2014 10:27 MarcoBrei wrote: I don't get this guys complaining about Ragnaros RNG. You can play around it, save a removal for big units or fill the board with small minions. It's not because in some games you get very unlucky that the RNG is bad. You should analyze the outcome of several games together. That's way different from "Battlecry: give your other minions windfury, taunt or divine shield (at random)". What's the point of such card?
Rag will often 50/50 on the turn it is played and the game is decided on a coin flip. -> bad RNG where there is nothing you can do to win because it is a very large swing either way.
The battlecry will give you an advantaged depending on how it rolls out and how your adjust your strategy once you cast it. -> good RNG because you get control after the random effect and your strategy depends heavily on what happens and you are in control of how the game flows from there.
You start your game decisions just when Ragnaros enters the field? When I said you can play around it, I'm saying that you can be already prepared to it when it is played. Instead of using a Hex in a Black Night save it to Ragnaros. If you are at 8 health and there is one minion on the field, the game is 50/50, of course, but you could had avoided this situation before. The random battlecry I mentioned is bad RNG because it is not that reliable to fit in some strategy of a deck, this card just exists to create "awesome" situations, but not in a solid strategy to win. About your argument of getting control after the random effect, what you would think about a spell that reads: "Fill the both sides of the board with random minions". Adapting to the outcome of that is strongly related to skill? Is this a good RNG?
EPT
