Recently there has been a trend of games taking the approach that rng is fun for the simple sake of it, because random is fun and fun is random.....obviously.....
Is RNG appropriate in competitive games? when, and why?
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As you may or may not know, I am a somewhat competitive gamer. I like to play on hard difficulties, and I like to be challenged. If a game I'm playing with the goal of being competitive or seeking that tough obstacle doesn't knock me back a few paces every now and then, then I have to ask what was the point of it all? But this doesn't mean I like my games to RANDOMLY kill me. That's just cheap. That's just bad design. That's just head scratching.....and what was the point it other than to make me want to whole-heartedly embrace the worship of Khorne and want to obtain my enemies skull?
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This is an entirely different matter when it comes to multiplayer, competitive gaming. But to answer this question we must look a bit more in depth. I'm aware I'm somewhat of a niche weirdo who likes my games to treat me rough – but in a multiplayer game all bets are off, regardless of genre. You are playing against another human, someone just as smart, just as determined and just as competitive. So, is there a place for RNG (Random Number Generation – a term synonymous with both "luck" and "randomness" in gaming depending on your saltiness level) in a competitive multiplayer game?
It depends on several factors, and the first one I will discuss is impact and player agency. Obviously, there's a certain level at which we say, "this is fine" and then a level where we start to get frustrated – which can eventually lead to someone ending their sessions on a game, and It's a frankly weird notion people have that "random equals fun". This might be true for some, but certainly not for all, and only to a certain degree of variance. You might argue "so play a different game" and this is a perfectly valid argument – but obviously not the one we are entertaining here. After all, if we took that approach to all games then audiences for games would be quite small as every player found their own exact niche within their tolerances, and what gamer wants nobody to play against? For example, a title such as Hearthstone or Company of Heroes 2, can have a level of RNG so completely polarising it can utterly undermine your efforts in a game and make it feel like you are playing a simulation. What were you supposed to do when a paladin played 3 mage spells and killed you? Or when the enemy plane crashed onto your tank and instantly kills it after being shot down? These events become especially frustrating when we consider the impact of them – its not a matter of a bad event happening and you adapt around it, it's a total loss of control in the game and removes player agency entirely.
