Game Design: How Much RNG is Too Much RNG?

[Koh]

Another one of those big game design conundrums we developers must face.

For the unware, RNG is an acronym for Random Number Generator.  When talked about for games, it's referring to the randomness of whatever aspect of the game.

There has to be some aspect of randomness involved to make more unique situations and progression, and keep things fresh and unpredictable.  However, there are several instances in several games where players feel cheated out of their victory, simply because the RNG prevented them from succeeding.

A couple of examples I can provide are...

The Janken Mini-Game in Sonic Advance.

I didn't show it in this video particularly, but the potential for losing because of the RNG should be clear.  It is entirely possible, and has happened to me quite a few times, for the panels in hand to all end up as the same sign.  If all that remains are panels with signs that win over all of yours, if you only have those 3 panels left, it's a forced RNG game over.

Puyo Puyo series.

Of course, competitive active puzzle games like Puyo Puyo, Columns and Tetris just to name a few, are rooted in RNG to some degree, where the dropsets are randomized.  The good news is all active players are subject to the same RNG dropset (except in Tetris Friends, which is stupid).  The bad news is, the potential is very high for it to never give you the color you need when you desperately need it, even if you have a good setup prepared for counter attacks.

What can developers do to offset the random factor with the player skill factor?  Is there any way to have a game rooted in randomness and not have it feel entirely against the player?

[puggsoy]

Hearthstone. The decks are ordered by RNG, a large chunk of cards effects are dictated by RNG, and the cards you get from packs is decided by RNG. There's even an entire mode where you make your deck by choosing 1 of 3 randomly chosen cards for each card. Not knowing your opponent's deck or hand might be considered RNG as well.

Even with all of this it's still largely skill-based. Some might say that the unpredictability makes it even more skill-based, being able to weigh your risk and having to adapt to the current situation, considering all the possible outcomes and what is more or less likely, that's all skill.
I admit that a lot of the time you can get screwed over by RNG, the most unlikely things can happen, you can get super unlucky, but the majority of the time the legitimately best players come out on top.

I also find that the RNG aspect is what makes it fun. Yogg-Saron is a card that came out in the latest expansion, when you play it it casts a completely random spell for each spell you played that game. If you played 10 spells, it'll cast 10 random spells. This is SO unreliable and is not competitively playable since a lot of the time it can cause you to lose the game, even if you were winning. But it's one of the most fun cards in the game, at least for me.
Other smaller things like an Ogre Brute hitting face for lethal instead of the 7 minions your opponent has in play, that sort of stuff is just great. It's not 100% fair, skill-dependant gameplay, but it's so so fun because of how insane stuff can get

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Not sure where I was going with that, but basically a game needs to be designed for RNG to work with it. Sometimes developers put the aspect in there to shake things up a bit, while ultimately it can just make the game no fun at all if you get the wrong result. RNG should be there to make the game fun, not frustrating.