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To use or not use RNG in combat?

Mercury Gate · 2018-03-28T21:17:00

Here is the scenario I have pertaining to a combat system I am jotting down on paper. The attacker has 100 soldiers each with 1 attack point and 3 health points. The defender has the same. All the player has to do is press a button and combat is all computed then the player is just shown the results. From my current example, I would have the attacker's soldiers do 100 points of damage to the defender resulting in 33 defenders being killed. The same happens to the attacker's soldiers. This continues until both sides defeat each other at the same time and it ends in a draw. I feel if I introduce a random factor, the battle could get lop-sided and the smaller side could not recover So I thought I would ask the community for their opinions of the very simple combat scenario. The game concept I am designing deals with combat from outside the actual conflict. Sort of like a coach and a sports team. You give orders and watch as your units perform them. The game does start small, with 100 to 200 soldiers (all the same) and could grow to larger numbers as well. I was just wanting to get a system in place for small conflict that could scale into larger ones. Each side has a unit type (soldier) a unit quantity (100). The player give the order, and the computer does the rest. After both players give their orders, the results are computed instantly. Keeping all things equal, Attack power, defensive power, etc. (I need a baseline) What would be the best way to determine damage? Static numbers, or RNG numbers? To use or not use RNG in combat?

Game Design and Theory Game Design Learning Environments Advice

Started by Mercury Gate March 13, 2018 05:53 PM

10 comments, last by kseh 6 years, 3 months ago

kseh

3,998

March 28, 2018 09:17 PM

13 hours ago, Eimantas Gabrielius said:

Although you know your horseman is strong enough, you can't be sure you won't be beaten by 5man. And if there wouldn't be RNG, I only have to do the math and ensure my win. Is this interesting ? Then I would prefer go do math instead of playing game

Presumably, the unit type that you're producing at whatever point in the game will cost sufficient resources that loosing that unit will be undesirable. As a player, if you realize you're in the above situation with only a 50% chance of winning a battle, would you really attack? What about with a 75% chance? You still end up doing the math in your head to make the yes/no decision to proceed. And that math reduces to, "is my unit strong enough to win? "

To me, with either random chance or known result I think you end up with the same thing. What I want though (personally) when I play a strategy game is to know that my choices are the driving factor in whether I win or loose.