To RNG or not to RNG

[gadjung]

I think that the base problem (that overlaps with RNG) might be in another place :

Game is about escaping a planet - this is the only true 'win' = build ship and escape planet. It's not build a thriving colony that will survive anything storyteller will throw at You like sim-city.
By definition players should go for leaving planet - trying some other strategies, different paths of development, some melle-only etc., BUT in reasonable pace with target of researching and building ship.
So by this definition game is not suitable at all to most of problems that ppl are complaining INCLUDING rng (others are storytellers scaling, wealth accumulation in colony, pawn amount).

In 'designed' run i think half or even three-fourths of events would not happen, because there would be no time for that in game, because player would be already off-planet (maybe in slower tribal scenarios it would give a longer 'story' due to research penalty).
So :
- there would be less raids (less chance for FF blowing off your legs or stray bullets hitting brain because of RNG)
- less mad animals (as above, less squirrels tearing off your eyeballs because of RNG)
- less social fights
- less injuries (less chance that doctor will cut off your arms because of RNG)
- in general less events that might trigger 'RNG-bullshit'

So if chance for hitting neck is 0,1% per bullet shot and You have game play with total of 20+ raids with pawns shooting on both sides this gives lots chances for this event to happen.

Good example (that i think someone mentioned but in different context) is drop of equipment in mmos :
- something drops at 1% on monster kill, it's low, but if you grind long enough it'll drop, even multiple times.
So some players basically grind themselves into this RNG events, and instead of random low RNG chance it feels that's happening often.

And the rest of mentioned points keeps and strengthens it : players are attached to pawns, have different styles of gaming (i myself in total of 1k+ hours sent maybe 5 ships) and have different approach to random negative events or 'forced' setbacks in game, see that mostly RNG caused that so they put blame on it (kinda correctly)

From my perspective, RNG is ok. There's no other way to handle that. And it's working well.

[East]

Based on rimworld play, I think that I can have a relatively common language to interpret, but it is very scary to talk about the intricate meaning of this subject in other languages. Even if I make a whiny voice at all, please be patient.

1. Should the game have a such a thing as bad luck outcomes that's not induced by some obvious, non-pressured, voluntary player decision? Or should I make a universal design standard that nothing bad ever happens unless the player actively induces it or makes some clearly-traceable mistake to cause it?

A weak level of bad luck would be acceptable. But if I can not touch my hand and get big punishment by a single bad luck, I object. Let's think about the tornado.I can not take any action that a tornado crosses the base. However, I criticized the Tornado at B18 and proposed an alternative to the basement that could reduce the power of the tornado. I had to pay for the high cost of a high-strength ceiling, but I suggested a space to avoid that tornado. Even if you build a costly basement, you will not be able to completely avoid the tornado. It is very important that my effort and my preparation can reduce the damage to less than a certain level. The unfortunate result is that if there is a way to reduce that to some degree I am in favor.Who died as an RNG? I can make death a very low probability in a variety of ways, and if there are various ways to supplement a person, I agree. It is not funny to prevent the damage unconditionally. But if you do not make a mistake, I think you should be able to prevent it with at least 75% reduced damage.


2. Should I just ignore some classes of player feedback as simply not linking up with what RW is? Are some players worth leaving alone to try to make a game that's different from the usual assumptions? Even if it leaves them pissed off because they intepreted a story generator as if it were a skill test?

Let's say something universally. Listen a lot. Establish clear standards and central values. And it is your ability to utilize it.
If you have enough time, persuade them, and if not, set a limit. In fact most players are silent. And if you do not need it, more most will be silent. And only those who speak only what you want to hear will remain. There is a feeling in the 1.0 patch notes message. However, I think there is a necessary story for silent people.

3. Should players be able to consistently avoid losing people/resources even at high difficulty? At any difficulty?

no. And yes. Once I can resist, I think it is necessary losing people / resources at high difficulty . I think that the current world of rimworld. I think the charm of rim worlds is a constant threat. There is a game called Space Engineer. It is a game that can make huge airships. There are also weapons. But I think that the game is really limited game. It is just a game to make. Even if you make a Death Star, there is no crisis that Death Star will deal with. Rimworld builds people's abilities, builds defense lines and interacts. It may be fun just for that, but it is a pleasure to hammering (A hammer called crisis.) there and testing it all. This is also the last escape attack. The raid forces enormous damage. But I see the community enjoy it.The production of spacecraft on the B18 was so boring and uninteresting that many people ended up just clearing the game as the base size grew.But now no one declares victory without the final battle. Rather, I think I need more of these general risks and other big challenges. Under certain conditions, non-continuous and big jump.

4. Is there a way to set expectations (relative to the whole game, or relative to a given difficulty level) to encourage players to accept some degree of randomness to game outcomes? Or will they always reject this randomness and demand to be rewarded in accurate proportion to their skill/effort?

Of course, if you are expected to lose it randomly, you can avoid it if you can avoid it. If a person has damage from an unpredictable situation, he will overestimate the damage unconditionally and make the worst assumption. If you can not overtake. (Save)
First, it is necessary to create one road that can not be completely avoided. People will accept if they understand that it is predictable and necessary randomness. (ex.Drop our base , AI-core travel) The risk to caravan is random, but if it is for ai-core, you will accept the crisis and prepare for it, and you will also take damage in the process.
Second is to make sure and strong rewards. It is a high risk high return.
Third, randomness is an option. Providing both randomness of A and randomness of B
The fourth is to make insurance. In the worst case, there are also several ways to prepare for it. Of course, the insurance costs will be considerable.
The fifth is to divide randomness. If we start with low risk of randomness and continue the action, we will gradually increase the risk intensity of randomness. Conversely, if you put a term, its strength goes down.
The sixth is to increase the choice with a few hints.
The seventh is to seek ways to increase the hint with silver or specific technology and equipment.

Do not apply the above methods one at a time, but apply several at the same time.

[Grimelord82]

What a topic. Thanks for 1000+ hours of game. Thanks for having a game that is so easily mod-able. I play this largely as a meditative base builder, re-load on even basic mistakes/rng diseases (prior to 1.0 at least).

1. Should the game have a such a thing as bad luck outcomes that's not induced by some obvious, non-pressured, voluntary player decision? Or should I make a universal design standard that nothing bad ever happens unless the player actively induces it or makes some clearly-traceable mistake to cause it?
It's interesting to have both types of events, but I think there should be ways to mitigate the RNG elements from the player side.
From a flavor/story perspective I think it's important to make a real distinction there. This both teaches folks how to play/lets them mitigate it, and helps set expectations. Further up this forum for example, someone lists Muscle Parasites as needing 300% total tend to remedy. The game doesn't tell us this, so I've only ever treated them with my most common medicine at the time. If the tool-tip for the disease said "This needs a great deal of high quality medical attention" (to be vague) or "This needs 300% total tend to be remedied" (to be clear)..I would be damned driven to go get some Glitterworld meds to cure it, because now I know there's a solution that gets the pawn up quickly. Given many colony states, it might not be possible to go get medicine right then. Some diseases can be blocked with Penox, some can't. That gives real utility to going caravaning, because keeping everyone on Penox takes Colonists x 12 Neutroamine a year, or some such. It's a choice we don't have to or can't make, but we're punished for it, sometimes.

2. Should I just ignore some classes of player feedback as simply not linking up with what RW is? Are some players worth leaving alone to try to make a game that's different from the usual assumptions? Even if it leaves them pissed off because they interpreted a story generator as if it were a skill test?
People being what we are, negative reactions hit us harder than positive ones. We'll always moan about bad RNG while ignoring the good RNG. It's a cognitive bias. So take it under advisement, but not as a 100% opinion.

3. Should players be able to consistently avoid losing people/resources even at high difficulty? At any difficulty?
No to #1. Maybe to #2, if the breadth of your setup allows it. A longer description of each difficulty and what it changes wouldn't hurt.

4. Is there a way to set expectations (relative to the whole game, or relative to a given difficulty level) to encourage players to accept some degree of randomness to game outcomes? Or will they always reject this randomness and demand to be rewarded in accurate proportion to their skill/effort?
See question 3. I personally love a detailed description, but understand some folks don't like to read paragraphs.

Reading through this topic, I'm surprised that a few things haven't come up. But I'll reinforce what some have said before I get started on that.
Tynan, please don't compromise your vision of the game to appease those that are really negative. You have more data on how things interact than anyone. Set the RNG where you want it to be.

That said...here's something inherently supported by the game, and I absolutely love it: folks have modded the ever loving hell out of it. If you set up your RNG a certain way, that's the vanilla experience (and that's great). Give modders the tools and info they need to change as much as they can to how they see fit and create new branches.
Example 1) Medieval Times for B18 and previous iterations added better low level armor. It is also one of the few mods that took advantage of pawns having more than stumps at the ends of their arms, which the vanilla game does not. There is a variety of boots and gloves which protect/enhance ability.
You know what I did with this? I had a castle full of heavily armored mace swinging brawlers to slam into Infestations. In B18 where you could set up 2 ranks of pawns, I'd put shooters behind them.
The armor gave me a new way to deal with a vanilla issue. It also heavily mitigated damage from small arms fire, but never felt overtuned.
Everyone walked around in steel plated boots or better.
Example 2) I will definitely download a 1.0 mod at some point that tweaks miss chances so that a gun going off by my tough brawler's ear doesn't shoot their eye out. I feel they should be more likely to get shot if in melee with the enemy, instead of guarding an ally. Sometimes they'll do both at the same time, which means it should be a 50/50 or maybe just 25/75 they get shot on a critical miss.
Example 3) I'll probably always have a Recycling style mod, because otherwise there is low utility in stripping pawns after early game. It keeps haulers and dogs occupied. Dogs are actually useful in 1.0 even without mods, so I try to keep a pack around now.
Example 4) It would be a largish re-factor of the ThingComp def, but I'd totally get a mod that let me select Dusters, Material , Quality x5 instead of Material first. It would make caravans so much easier to put together. As is, I'm stuck with limiting on base creation to certain materials to get a similar effect.

Something of a vanilla/mod inconsistency highlighted below:
If the game allows you to control an issue in event X, make sure it allows you to do so for Y and Z as well. Example mod: Animal Logic/Better Pawn control/Pick up and Haul. At home base, I can create zones and policies with different haul levels in different stockiples to control who consumes what, whether animal/prisoner/etc. I should expect the same on Caravan. My muffalo don't get into my Fine meals because the pawns restrict it. Pawns don't eat kibble with other stuff available just because they have some in pocket from training their bonded dog.

[Scavenger]

People constantly complain about rng in games. Most of my experience outside of starcraft is in shooters. When I played counterstrike, people complained about the rng of first-shot accuracy on the weapons. In Rust, people complained about the weapon spread and loot spawns on weapons and locations. Currently, in fortnite, people complain about the weapon spread of assault rifles and shotguns. These complaints are always understood by good developers to be bullshit. Valve has done nothing to change csgo, Garry and Helk have changed Rust for the better with the same rng mechanics still in the game, and fortnite has added a first-shot accuracy mechanic while keeping the "rng" of weapon spread. Supposed "RNG" is an integral mechanic to all games - not just shooters - that allows for greater skill depth than a solved game could. Poker is a boring card game that still competes in the era of skyrim and world of warcraft solely due to its "RNG".

I played a game of rimworld yesterday on naked brutality where the first person I recruited went insane within a day and scratched out my starter pawns eye. I decided to kill that pawn for hurting my starter pawn and then spent then next year struggling, and eventually dying, because I didn't manage to get another pawn and got food poisoning & raided. Annoying? Yeah, but that's part of it. I was down early game and if I could have pulled through, it would have been awesome. If I'm going to win every time I play Rimworld, I'd rather be playing Skyrim where constantly winning isn't so boring. I think contextualizing the game as a story generator is a fun way to approach it, but my reason for playing the game - as someone who generally sticks to competitive multiplayer games - is completely for the challenge and development of skill in the mechanics of the game (which, coincidentally, seems to mesh well with a story generator-styled game). I enjoyed FTL, a similar game, for about 5 hours after I figured out how to beat it 80% of the time and lose to rng 20% of the time. I'm well into 500 hours in Rimworld and think the game is only getting better with each update. RNG is core to any GREAT game that's more than just a 10 hour call of duty campaign romp. I would hate to see Rimworld change from its intended design to cater to people that want to play Win Simulator. If people are upset about dying to "RNG friendly fire", something that only happens if you create the conditions for it, they should be playing on an easier difficulty - and you, the developer, should not design the game around someone that wants to win, rather than to accept the conditions of the game they're playing.

^all of this, this is gold.

[dearmad]

Tynan,

Please consider the ego and hubris of the complainers who always start off: "I was playing RANDY EXTREME and..." You know what Tynan, at this point, WHO CARES WTF just happened in their game!? It was RANDY RANDOM, or even CASSIE EXTREME imo is another feedback almost not worth paying any attention to at all.

IMO gamers today are too coddled and the entire culture of PC games/Video Games just serves up the win w i n WIN W I N N I N G routine. BLECH!

Ask people who play the current crop of boardgames about why they love your game so much. It is a rare breath of fresh air in that atmosphere of RNGs catering to always make me the winner without any real effort.

I turned to Rimworld for the very reason of it being a risk management game. This doesn't mean you can get rid of all risk, but you manage it. It's a lot like Blood Bowl in this way. Some days you will NOT win no matter what happens as you roll all 1's... SO be it. I don't want repetitive I WIN scenarios all day long with Rimworld. I want the challenge!

So my guy in plasteel armor gets one shot in a game... I'll manage. Or maybe I won't and my colony will die. That's life on the Rim.

[Crow_T]

A bit OT:

Regarding losing pawns- an interesting trend that has been happening in entertainment is the idea that no character is safe or precious, see GoT or Walking Dead. It's kind of cool that Rimworld treats characters the same way. Plus, there are always opportunities to get new pawns, I've never seen that as an issue, and I rarely accept pawns blindly.

[Nitrovore]

Nooo, don't take my RNG away!

In all seriousness, one of the things that keep me coming back to this game time and again is the chance, always there, for everything to turn around in an instant and the new challenges associated with recovery.

For context, I've a good 300 hours sunk into this game. I don't claim to be the most experienced player here by any means, but I know the situations people are talking about. I've seen the freak 0.1% shots hit. I've gotten colonies where more than half the members are incapable of something basic like hauling or fighting. I've lost multiple colonists in an instant to lucky hits from rocket launchers and the like, suffered plague before getting a single doctor or any meds and had my best fighters have serious breakdowns just before a raid.

You know what? If it weren't for that stuff I'd find this game boring as hell.

I mean, think about this game for a second. Most of the time, at a given moment, absolutely nothing is happening. Most game ticks go by on full fast forward, the pawns following the priorities you set like some sort of idle game. It should be boring. But it isn't. There's a certain joy to seeing everything work properly, and that only comes because you know that things could stop working properly at any moment. Then, when it does fall apart, you've got to hop out of the rut you were in, gather up the survivors and rebuild (or lose, but if losing wasn't a possibility than winning would be meaningless).  The unpredictability makes it worth sticking with and keeps it from just being more of the same.

A few days ago my current colony got into a fight with some mechanoids. This was before the charge lance nerf and RNG was in a wrathful mood, so even though the hit chances never left the single-digit percentages and my pawns were fairly well armoured we ended up losing two limbs, a foot and a kidney. Since then, the kidney - deficient pawn has died of a disease he'd otherwise have made it through, while caravaning (ironically, to recover an excellent charge lance from a quest). Now, when he died I wanted to give him a proper burial, so I hit "settle", made him a sarcophagus, dumped a few caravan items on the ground there to get the weight down so we could move, and headed home with the rest.
No sooner do we leave then we get a chased refugee event. I accept - but wait, where is she? Then I realise she's on the map I buried dead guy on, that no-one else is on but I forgot to delete. I have her grab the LMG I'd ditched and take cover behind the sarcophagus, she shoots her attacker down, and long story short she makes it to our proper base a few days later.

Now here's the thing. In 300 hours of play, a good half of which was after caravaning came in, it had never once occurred to me to scatter some weapons on an empty map for the refugees. It never would have occurred to me had that pawn not lost that kidney to a charge lance shot that had a tiny chance of hitting. Experiencing some failures leads to playing the game in whole new ways that keep it interesting - I've a dozen more stories at least along those lines.

Now if we ditch RNG, we'd presumably end up in a state where perfect play = no deaths. I've seen some people directly advocate for this. But honestly if we got that, I'd probably be incentivised to play deliberately worse, or on crazy settings like sea ice extreme, so things aren't so damn methodical. Because as much as frustrating as it can be to lose a pawn you've been through 20 game hours with, it's not half as annoying going through those same 20 hours without any real gameplay - just letting it play itself almost (had that experience a while back when I selected too low a difficulty by typo).

Now obviously, some people here will disagree with me, and I've no issue if Tynan wants to add some sort of optional anti-RNG mode, similar to the permadeath/commitment option we have now. Some people will use and some won't. But if there's some attempt to remove big, game changing RNG like brain hits and the like entirely, you can bet the first mod I'll make when 1.0 comes out will be to bring it back!

[Copperwire]

In as much as there is story in RW, much of it is tied to wealth.  RNG is just how we see wealth executed.

Death spirals occur very often because you lose your defenses (pawns, turrets, etc...) and that loss does not drop your wealth significantly.  It tends to create a predictable "story" - RNG takes your defences, before next attack you cannot replace, game over.  This tends to happen many hours into the game.  While it is a story ... it is not necessarily a good one.

Pawn replacement is one of the issues.  While you can lose 2-4 pawns to RNG in a single encounter, you are VERY unlikely to be able to replace more then 0-1 before the next fight, training, pacifism, and neg-traits aside.

Again, this brings up a central issue - all the events that can break you are fights and there are no events that can make you to balance.  Randy dropping some milk is something, sure.  That said, it does not come close to balancing out a 15 pirate drop who all have Molotovs and frags that land in your living room.

For instance, there is no event where you are getting close to launch and 5 guys with real gear show up and offer to join your colony in exchange for room on the ship.  No trader shows up and offers your 5 uninstalled turrets for your muffalo herd.  There is no sickly grandma that shows up with 2 doomsday rockets and offers them for you taking her in.  While adversity is an element of story telling, stories that have it tend to also have windfalls that make it possible to end with something like victory.

Basically, if your going to have big negative range, you may well need big positive range too.

I suspect a lot of the ... not fun ... in the "story" could be smoothed out by changing the wealth values of just about everything so that things with defensive value get more emphasis and the fact that it is the start of winter so you have a freezer of veg and a barn of hay sitting there less predictably brings the doom spiral.

Once I became very aware of how much wealth IS the enemy, I have certainly learned to do all sorts of silly things to "hide" and "avoid" it.  That said, dismantling wood work benches when they are not in use, carefully microing the number of cooked meals, the amount of stone block made, mining only the amount you will immediately use, keeping high value goods that are being saved for later perpetually in a caravan (launchers, lances, bionic parts etc circling from spring to fall in a caravan which is one guy with plants enough to forage and 10+ muffalo for defense), making a "dead mechanoid" vault as your savings plan (because corpses have no value and components and plasteel brings the reaper), and all the other behaviors in that catagory are not "fun" or "good story".

Next logical step is gaming the loss system - taking in/recruiting crap pawns on purpose so you can get them killed so that the RNG gods look favorably upon your sacrifices.  Me, as a person, I have no desire to play that way.

Beyond that, random raids with no clear motive or consequence for the raider is not really story.  It is more like a tower defense mechanic then a "story-teller".  Destroying the pirate bases near you does not reduce their raids, now or during launch.  The local savage tribe has no RNG where it decides that losing 100's of people is enough and maybe they should sue for peace.  Your triumph against the local tyrant does not cause other settlements to choose to join your cause.  You never figure out where the mechanoids are coming from so you can send drop pods there and burn their stuff.  Again, positive outcomes to surviving besides survival.  Broader, meaningful, story.

Of the many combat options in the game, which are interesting an varied for the most part, there are only 4 at the research tree's end - and you end with far less options then you had the rest of the game.  There are no end game traps, or melee weapons.  The charge weapons are basically a SMG and a Bolt Action on steriods.  There is no endgame shotgun or sniper or assault rifle or turret etc.  Feel free to throw hellfire at me.  Only give me the tools to dance with it.  Cause guys who can invent the tech to go to space who know that waves of centipedes may come to stop them not being able to invent a way to fight them off effectively besides kiting them with snipers is not a good story.

Launch itself ... so .... our 100+ hour story basically has to end with making a doom fortress and fighting a battle where RNG may well screw you.  Just make sure permadeath is on cause that is where the fun is, yeah? (Me, I leave load/save on exclusively for end-game, because ... job, wife, and I do want to learn from failure - only I can't afford 100+ hours for each "learning experience".)

I am all for story.  I am all for RNG.  Please consider that what is needed is the width for better story and maybe that includes more positive RNG to make that work.

[sscamc]

Is the anger reaction a consequence of caring about characters, or them being not easy to replace? Nobody minds that much when a marine dies in StarCraft because they're replacable. But either for story or gameplay reasons, people do tend to at least care about when people in RW die. Which sounds like a design success. But it also creates this anger reaction in some circumstances.

For me, it's less about any kind of attachment to the characters and more of an issue of investment and replacement. If a marine in StarCraft dies you just order another one and that's that. With a pawn in Rimworld, there could be a huge investment of in-game resources (spending lots of silver to make them better with bionics, high-quality weapons and armor, etc.) or time (training them to be your best researcher/doctor/whatever) behind that pawn. And there's no barracks to go to to order a new pawn, it could be a while before you find someone with the skills to replace whatever function they had in the colony. Now, to have to go through such a setback all because RNG said that their power armor helmet suddenly didn't matter for that one bullet from a poor quality autopistol at 17% durability is not fun, nor is it a good story IMO. If that pawn died to something that felt more fair, like if a raider had a really powerful weapon to counter their armor or if they were overwhelmed and swarmed due to bad positioning, that'd be better and for stuff like that I usually wouldn't reload.

Should the game have a such a thing as bad luck outcomes that's not induced by some obvious, non-pressured, voluntary player decision? Or should I make a universal design standard that nothing bad ever happens unless the player actively induces it or makes some clearly-traceable mistake to cause it?

I'd say that there should be no insurmountable bad luck outcomes, the game-ending kind, that don't directly result from the player's actions. Obviously you still need threats against the player, otherwise what's the point? But they need to offer some form of recourse for the player mitigate or avoid the damage. For example, a raid should be powerful. Enough to destroy some turrets and seriously injure some colonists. Maybe a few of them lost some limbs in the carnage, maybe one dies from blood loss or an infection because your medic had too much to do and too little time. Maybe someone outright died in the fighting. The thing is, the player should have had ways to mitigate this damage: The guy who got KO'd by a sniper shot to the heart should've been wearing armor, if he was he would've been badly hurt but alive. Make sure to have enough armor next time. The guy who bled out did so because your only doctor was busy and would still be alive if you had more, make sure to have enough medics next time. There should always be some way for the player to fight back, and minimize (while still never totally erasing) losses. If a 20-person, well-equipped raid comes and steamrolls your 5-person colony and there's nothing you can do then that's not fun, and doesn't make for a good story.

I think this should only apply to the totally random events out of your control, though. If that huge over-powered raid came because you offered safety to a chased refugee then I'd say yes, that game-ending raid was more fair. You knew of the risk, you knew the raid would be stronger than normal (Though the game itself never actually mentions this on its own AFAIK. This should be made clearer for newer players.), and you chose to take the gamble on a new pawn and lost. For another example of good vs bad, crashed ship parts are very annoying to deal with but also give the player ways to mitigate the damage. The player chooses all the rules of engagement in that scenario: When to wake it up, where to position their defenses, how to prepare, etc. They can fight back, and their success or failure rests solely on their ability to deal with it. Now, on the complete other end of the spectrum, tornadoes. I know they've been removed, thank goodness, but they represent the absolute worst that a random Rimworld event could be IMO. There is no counterplay. There is no preparing. Randy rolled a 7 and now half your base dies, gg no re. That kind of unfair punishment with no recourse should not happen to the player and be avoided unless they did something to cause it.

Of course this is just my two cents, but I hope this feedback helps in some way. I made this account just to share it because as much as I love Rimworld, it's kind of stuck in limbo for me at the moment. The easier difficulties are too easy and uninteresting, but the harder ones don't give me the feeling of dangerous but counter-able threats without random dumb luck forcing me to reload. I've tried them all but there doesn't seem to be an in between for me. I really wish I could enjoy this game in permadeath (or commitment mode, or whatever you changed it to), but in its current state I just can't, and it really sucks.

[cactusmeat]

to me, the rng in rimworld is usually fine. the real issue is that rng is the scapegoat.

Usually when I lose a pawn to some lucky shots, I'm left not knowing when I will get a suitable replacement, and having less people means less difficult caravan quests, less security at home from mech ship parts, drop pods, raids, and manhunters. having to wait until another raid comes, survive a fight where they potentially outnumber and outgun you to hope that even one of them not only gets downed but not killed AND is a useful pawn...Losing even one good pawn starts a downward spiral that often means the colony is in serious trouble.

Most of my colonies are played on cassandra or pheobe, rough or hard. Never had more than 15 colonists. I have a rule that I can load a previous save only 3 times, after that I don't play that colony. I try to only load things which I could have influenced like the results of a caravan ambush or raid, and not loading when a poison ship lands on my crops, or a toxic fallout and cold snap kills the map.

I can't speak for people who play extreme but I imagine having less control when the odds are stacked forever against you is potentially frustrating.

So pretty much I have to say RNG is good in moderation, without any RNG each game of rimworld plays exactly the same. RNG should not exist where the player should have total control over that aspect of the game.

Also if a prisoner or colonist is ever beaten to death by their friends I load the game. It feels wrong.

[Jumper]

1. Should the game have a such a thing as bad luck outcomes that's not induced by some obvious, non-pressured, voluntary player decision? Or should I make a universal design standard that nothing bad ever happens unless the player actively induces it or makes some clearly-traceable mistake to cause it?

This is what makes rimworld what it is, its the randomness and brutality much like real life. Your life isn't guided just by decisions you make. Other factors come in to play, sometimes you will be lucky and something will go well in your life through nothing you did just right place at the right time and equally something bad can happen in the same way. Its a worrying trend these days that people think its their right to win and everything should always work out like a movie. If that's the sort of game you want Telltale games do a pretty good range of interactive stories that might suite them better.


2. Should I just ignore some classes of player feedback as simply not linking up with what RW is? Are some players worth leaving alone to try to make a game that's different from the usual assumptions? Even if it leaves them pissed off because they interpreted a story generator as if it were a skill test?

You are never going to please everybody. I would say the vast majority would never want this change. This game got so popular due to it having the crazy stories, with the highs and lows. RW is what it is and from the first game I was hooked after a manhunting squirrel killed one of my colonists and my nudist colonist shot his friend in the head in a friendly fire incident. From this point I was hooked. I am just taking a week off work and will spend the majority of it playing RW as the stories are just so gripping you come back for more.

3. Should players be able to consistently avoid losing people/resources even at high difficulty? At any difficulty?

If you don't lose any people what is the point. It just becomes a farming/research game until you build the ship. Might as well be a mobile game where you come back every hour to see what you need to click on next. The danger and potential loss of your beloved people is the heart of the game for me.


4. Is there a way to set expectations (relative to the whole game, or relative to a given difficulty level) to encourage players to accept some degree of randomness to game outcomes? Or will they always reject this randomness and demand to be rewarded in accurate proportion to their skill/effort?

Again this is the movie mentality. Some people cannot cope with anything but the perfect ending, Most Hollywood movie work with the same old formula, the good guys always have to win. In that vein look at game of thrones, it has become insanely popular because it hasn't followed the tried and trusted method of keeping everyone alive. Things always working out for the good guys and the happy ending. (I know we haven't seen the end)
If you take out the random element you will turn RW into Farmville or the sims, don't get me wrong those games have their place but this isn't what RW is to people. And if you have players who crave that straight forward play maybe they should look elsewhere. Changing something that major about the game because of a few people moaning is very much the tail wagging the dog.

Game difficulty feels right, if they don't want bad things to happen play on the easiest level on phoebe. That would be pretty straight forward. 

with the few game players complaining about losing a person. What is the point of the game without this, why bother with raids ? This is very much the kill box mentality, set it up sit back and wait for the win.... BORING !!
Losing a person and then a new magical person turns up 5 minutes later is pointless. It takes the jeopardy from the game, if I lose someone I want to feel that loss. I want the colony to struggle like you would in real life.

Please Tynan don't rip the heart from this game due to a small number of moaners. Have belief in what you have created. It didnt sell over a million copies by being a by the numbers snoozefest with no struggle.

[Jumper]

Tynan,

Please consider the ego and hubris of the complainers who always start off: "I was playing RANDY EXTREME and..." You know what Tynan, at this point, WHO CARES WTF just happened in their game!? It was RANDY RANDOM, or even CASSIE EXTREME imo is another feedback almost not worth paying any attention to at all.

IMO gamers today are too coddled and the entire culture of PC games/Video Games just serves up the win w i n WIN W I N N I N G routine. BLECH!

Ask people who play the current crop of boardgames about why they love your game so much. It is a rare breath of fresh air in that atmosphere of RNGs catering to always make me the winner without any real effort.

I turned to Rimworld for the very reason of it being a risk management game. This doesn't mean you can get rid of all risk, but you manage it. It's a lot like Blood Bowl in this way. Some days you will NOT win no matter what happens as you roll all 1's... SO be it. I don't want repetitive I WIN scenarios all day long with Rimworld. I want the challenge!

So my guy in plasteel armor gets one shot in a game... I'll manage. Or maybe I won't and my colony will die. That's life on the Rim.

NAIL ON THE HEAD !!!!!!!!!!! 

[Greep]

Eh, and how many people on randy extreme actually complain about the randomness?  So far I've seen it to be almost exclusively medium-rough players in the 1.0 thread, which is probably why the thread was made in the first place, otherwise who would care     Mostly people higher up complain about A.I. exploits, pathfinding, hunting being a death trap, that sort of thing lol.

[mndfreeze]

In as much as there is story in RW, much of it is tied to wealth.  RNG is just how we see wealth executed.

Death spirals occur very often because you lose your defenses (pawns, turrets, etc...) and that loss does not drop your wealth significantly.  It tends to create a predictable "story" - RNG takes your defences, before next attack you cannot replace, game over.  This tends to happen many hours into the game.  While it is a story ... it is not necessarily a good one.

Pawn replacement is one of the issues.  While you can lose 2-4 pawns to RNG in a single encounter, you are VERY unlikely to be able to replace more then 0-1 before the next fight, training, pacifism, and neg-traits aside.

Again, this brings up a central issue - all the events that can break you are fights and there are no events that can make you to balance.  Randy dropping some milk is something, sure.  That said, it does not come close to balancing out a 15 pirate drop who all have Molotovs and frags that land in your living room.

<lots of other stuff quote snipped>

So much all of this. I sometimes feel as if the design of RimWorld isnt about stories, it's about masochistic punishment on repeat.  It feels like this isn't a game about story quite a lot of the time because stories usually have really low *AND* really high points.  RimWorld for the most part is just low points.  Its death, destructions, starvation, etc.  It's a slightly overpowered raid hitting you and burning down your crops that you desperately need,  then having the storyteller decide that since you didn't lose a bunch of people that it's now time for a cold snap, toxic fallout, 2 mental breaks, cannibalism, the rest break or starve, game over.  "game over" is not a good story for most people, but especially when it feels completely out of the players control.  I game to play, not to watch.  If I wanted to have something dictated to me I would go watch a movie or read a book. 

More positive RNG would lead to better stories IMO.  Proper RNG would mean that sometimes a bunch of crazy GOOD events would happen too of the same value as the bad ones, and yeah maybe your play through was super easy that time, but it would balance out with the super bad.  The epic level stuff as it stands is pretty much bad, bad, with a side of bad and a dusting of baaad on top.

I'd love to see things like positive RNG on stuff for example, lancer critical fails its shot and one shots its pal centipede for example. When the type of bad RNG people are complaining about happens its usually because its colony ending or killing the fun to an extreme level they don't want to play anymore, but the good events that happens are generally minor they hardly offset it except in specific circumstances.  I feel the RNG was actually better on things before a lot of nerfs happened.  Like traders fighting on your map for example.  Nerfed because easy gear/weapons, but that was actually RNG in your FAVOR occuring.  It also could be a life saver from a huge raid happening.  I don't really understand the mentality that people have about all the mechanics in this game needing to somehow lead to struggle and suffering in order to have a story.

[kchou94]

I feel like the current direction is great.  RW captured my interest as a unique game that focuses on storytelling.  I never have approached the game from a min-max, perfect-run standpoint, because I have always enjoyed how RW forces players to adapt to consequences, whether they be RNG based or not.  For this matter, I rarely savescum.

The beauty of RW that I think some people overlook is that it intends to be a self-balancing game.  The nature of the adaptation/ramp-up system allows for bad stuff, but it also gives breathing room when things go south.  Sure, I may lose a great pawn due to some reason or another, but I believe this fits in line with the atmosphere RW is trying to convey.  And when I do lose that pawn, I know that the storytelling system will balance the gameplay around that.