Some thoughts on tuning, and the broken RNG

[TROY]

OK, yes, I went there... the RNG in this game is either totally, completely broken, or it is SO warped against the player as to be sadistic. I can't tell you how many times I've failed over and over at something that I had a better than average chance at success of.  I've silently endured this because I love the game so much, but I have finally been brought to voicing my opinion by two recent glaring incidents.  I just spent an entire day of game time doing nothing but lighting fires with sticks, over and over, to get my skill up. (Don't judge me, it was a blizzard outside) Several times when the chance of success was at 70% I failed 3 times in a row. Do you have any idea what the odds of this are? Once, with a chance of 85%, I failed 4 out of 6 times. two fails before each started fire. Ridiculous? you bet!.  I finally got my skill up to Master level, with a 95% chance of success, AND THE NEXT FOUR FIRES I LIT EACH TOOK TWO MATCHES TO START. Thats a 50% failure rate, with a proclaimed 95% success chance. Thats Bull crap.  OK, so, still, I'm simply fuming to myself in silent agony about this RNG thing, and i go outside to the fishing hut. I'm a few catches from level two, and I'm looking forward to it, so I wont break as many lines anymore. I catch 3 fish, and tada! I'm level two! Yay!, only an 8% chance of breaking my line now! I broke 4 lines catching the next two fish.... Please fix this.

[sarudak]

Normally I would say this is normal RNG rage and standard congnitive bias. However I did have one time where outside of the Dam I failed over a dozen attempts to start a fire that had 70% chance including one time I had a 95% using accelerant. The odds of it happening approached one in a billion so I think there might actually be an issue here. I could not start a fire until I restarted my game.

[TROY]

19 minutes ago, sarudak said:

Normally I would say this is normal RNG rage and standard congnitive bias. However I did have one time where outside of the Dam I failed over a dozen attempts to start a fire that had 70% chance including one time I had a 95% using accelerant. The odds of it happening approached one in a billion so I think there might actually be an issue here. I could not start a fire until I restarted my game.

Normally, I am not prone to rage, and I have played this game for nearly 350 hours. Im not basing my complaint on just one or two instances, nor am I moaning because I lost a character because of this issue. In fact, although I did state that I had "finally been brought to voice", I did post about this same issue, over 8 months ago. It is something that has been happening for a long time, consistently and repeatedly.  I've kept track of it, so there is no cognitive bias either.  I have never figured out the actual odds of it, but I know the chances, with a true random system, are extraordinarily small. I mean, seriously, 4 failures in eight attempts, with a stated 95% chance of success???? Now, I admit, THAT doesn't happen routinely, but I OFTEN have to try 3 or even 4 times to light a fire when my chance of success is 75%. There is most certainly something wrong with that. The breaking of four lines with an 8% chance of break, whilst catching two fish: that was the straw that broke the camels back.

[cekivi]

That's an interesting problem... I've experienced hard to light fires but nothing quite that bad. Remember though that the odds of failing to light a fire three times in a row at 75% chance should be around 1.5%. Which isn't zero but it also shouldn't be overly frequent either.

Also, welcome to the forums @TROY

 

[MarrowStone]

Heh, i remember one time i checked my journal after running out of matches and counted the attempts at 73 percent, 11 times. XD

I also dont like this new skill system with how your percentages dont slowly raise anymore but rather jump up all of a sudden.

[RustyNumbat]

It would be nice to see modifiers after certain failed attempts. For example you failed to start that fire, but in real life you will often still have perfectly good wood and even tinder ready to go. Maybe the match simply blew out. So having your next fire start attempt either be much easier, or already have tinder and wood ready to go, would be an excellent way to overcome this "silly" sort of failure state.

 

Also seriously, who takes five hours to absorb life saving information from a survival book? I think these items should take 1 hour to read but merely give a small bonus to start with, and allow the player to start gaining EXP and levels in that skill. To show they have new knowledge and just need to get actual practice at it.

[hauteecolerider]

12 hours ago, RustyNumbat said:

Also seriously, who takes five hours to absorb life saving information from a survival book? I think these items should take 1 hour to read but merely give a small bonus to start with, and allow the player to start gaining EXP and levels in that skill. To show they have new knowledge and just need to get actual practice at it.

This. I would like to see skill levels go up faster following each hour of research, but you still have to use the skill to gain the benefit of reading the book.

So I read The Frozen Angler. Should it make me an expert fisherman? No. But I should be able to go out and gain experience and skill more with each catch after wasting precious daylight reading the darn book. 

And no, I typically don't use the lanterns for reading or crafting after dark. Sorry, when it's dark, it's time to sleep. 

[MarrowStone]

So in other words, every fire increases your chance very slightly, and the books enhance that multiplier?

[cekivi]

31 minutes ago, MarrowStone said:

So in other words, every fire increases your chance very slightly, and the books enhance that multiplier?

That would actually make for a really nice and nuanced skill system 

Like some others have pointed out, practice shouldn't make your skill abilities shoot up in jumps. That doesn't make much sense

 

[TROY]

2 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

This. I would like to see skill levels go up faster following each hour of research, but you still have to use the skill to gain the benefit of reading the book.

So I read The Frozen Angler. Should it make me an expert fisherman? No. But I should be able to go out and gain experience and skill more with each catch after wasting precious daylight reading the darn book. 

And no, I typically don't use the lanterns for reading or crafting after dark. Sorry, when it's dark, it's time to sleep. 

This is a fantastic idea. The books should be researched 1 hour at a time, and then you go practice the skill to get the benefit of research, and the next five or ten uses of the skill should get a bonus to how much they add. Awesome idea! And, I totally agree with wasting lantern fuel to craft. I'm a 10 hours of dark sleeper.