Is 'Missing' the worst game mechanic ever invented?

[Nooblet]

That's stupid, but for something like XCOM I'm not sure you can fix it when accuracy is so important to the game and it also needs to look good. They could animate the aliens dodging, but that's just more costs to pile on to the game's development.

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You can totally fix it, infact it's been fixed in Xcom like games that have come out later by totally dropping the overall % chance of hit. Phantom Doctrine and Phoenix Point are proof of this. In Phantom Doctrine there are no misses, every attack hits and damages...but how much damage it does depends on how much dodge/stamina the target has left (on top of how much armour they have).

In Phoenix Point, you get manual aim with 2 concentric circles, everything inside the outer circle has 100% chance of being hit, but the parts inside the inner circle has a 50% chance of being hit.

Mutant Year Zero still has the overall % chance to hit thing as Xcom but it makes sure that anyone who's in immediate vicinity of you has a 100% chance of being hit. All these three games do it better than Xcom 2, though they did come after Xcom 2.

 

[Gush]

Deterministic turn based combat is almost always shallow and bland, so I completely disagree. Take a look at the significant flaws in a combat system like Banner Saga's and you'll see why things like dice rolls are so commonplace.

As people have said numerous times, turn based games rely heavily on abstraction and most of your complaints come down more to misunderstanding that abstraction due to the lack of visual representation/feedback than actually having a decent critique of the rulesets of games like this.

You can't simply look at missed point blank shot as your character sitting for several seconds with a gun to the enemy's head and somehow not hitting, in the context of the game world those events are occurring much quicker and the "miss" is a general catch-all for a move being dodged, botched or whatever circumstance would lead to the attack not hitting in some way that goes beyond simply missing a static target.

Also, the chance to miss doesn't ignore player agency, it merely accounts for character vs. character stats in a number driven genre. Your agency is fully present in making the shot, but external factors can intervene and disallow that shot to be made optimally based on, again, the greater context that's being overridden visually by abstracted animations and whatnot. It's not all that different from lining up the perfect headshot in an FPS and having an enemy swerve out of the way at the last second, the language that it's being presented in is the only arguable point of dissonance here.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

What I don't enjoy is missing six shots in a row with my high accuracy hunter character because the RNG gods didn't smile. The game actively disregarded my choices while resolving that situation.

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That's just how probability works. It's not "RNG gods" or disregarding your choice

80% accuracy doesnt mean you're going to hit 8/10 shots.

 

[Fredrik]

I can enjoy hitting that thing if the game requires my brain cells to work in order to hit that thing. Any kind of puzzle - like minigame mechanic could achieve that. What I don't enjoy is missing six shots in a row with my high accuracy hunter character because the RNG gods didn't smile. The game actively disregarded my choices while resolving that situation.

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Only problem is that eventually you wouldn't need those brain cells, it would just be muscle memory and an annoying repeated action sequence and you'd know that you'll land a direct hit every single time, with every character - Would that be fun?
Personally I like the "Oh Yes! A critical hit!!" and "No! I missed! And I was so close!!" situations. :)

 

[Deleted member 46489]

Op sounds like a spoiled child

Misses are a perfectly fine mechanic in games that are not fully real time combat or have a heavy rpg flavor



That is how pokemon works

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Thanks for personally attacking me for the crime of expressing an opinion on a video game forum. You must be fun at parties.

 

[QisTopTier]

I just imagined a Pokemon game where in order to hit an attack you have to hit the right space on a roulette wheel. That sounds terrible.

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That is how pokemon works

Thanks for personally attacking me for the crime of expressing an opinion on a video game forum. You must be fun at parties.

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This sort of reply is exactly why I said that. No one is out to get you.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

It is though.

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It is not though.

There are entire games whose rules and mechanics can only exist because they are turn and stat based and not everything will be hitting everything all the time. There are character classes or whatever based on the gamble that the move is strong but less accurate.

It might have started as a limitation - like how the original Metal Gear became a stealth game because of how many enemies they could put on the screen - but it evolved into its own design philosophy/genre/whatever you want to call it.

That's just how probability works. It's not "RNG gods" or disregarding your choice

80% accuracy doesnt mean you're going to hit 8/10 shots.

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Plus, there is a lot of missing context. Fallout 2 has penalties for range and lightning for instance, so even a character with high PER and Guns stats will miss frequently during a night fight, then there's the overall stats of the enemies being shot at...

 

[Deleted member 896]

See, I don't think you enjoy actually 'missing' during a combat encounter. What you presumably enjoy is the uncertainty and tension that mechanic brings to combat encounters. And you enjoy figuring out ways to handle that uncertainty.

My argument is that there are better, more engaging ways of injecting that uncertainty into combat encounters, without relying on a 'missing' mechanic that disregards player agency.

You know the most fundamental element of dice rolls in board games? YOU roll the dice. You get the agency. The physical act of rolling the dice, deciding their speed and direction (roughly), gives you the psychological satisfaction that you're atleast partly in control. You don't just attack or defend. You roll the dice. But in a video game, you just choose attack, and the game rolls the dice. How many people do you think would enjoy board games if the game master rolled the dice in secret every time and just told them they missed?

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i don't know. It's just kind of weird to me that you're so focused on this when there are already a wide range of options available. Everything from twitch action games with little to no RNG to pure menu turn based games with more interactive turn-based games in between (I.e Mario RPG games). Like, is it fun when I miss? Not necessarily. But it seems pretty intuitive in terms of how the game works. Like if I take a shot from point blank range and another shot from across the map it makes sense that the latter will most likely miss and the former will most likely hit, right? You're saying you want a chance to control the actual outcome of the dice roll without it being pure RNG. And I mean I guess that's fine as a preference but I can't imagine it's something every designer is going to go for. Sometimes that's just part of the game.

Chess isn't chess if you introduce RNG beyond the initial draw of white or black. Poker isn't poker if you make it so that it's not based around Randolph shuffled cards. There's a lot of room in between here.

 

[Sanctuary]

That's just how probability works. It's not "RNG gods" or disregarding your choice

80% accuracy doesnt mean you're going to hit 8/10 shots.

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The odds of missing six times in a row with an 80% (or higher) chance are extremely low, even if the only real guaranteed chance to hit is 100%. Missing a few times in a row with a high chance to hit isn't uncommon, but it does stand out when you see it happening at a frequency that is a lot higher than what you normally see. Even if you want to use the argument that it's just a bias towards remembering misses, and excluding all of the times you hit with a lower than average chance, it still doesn't explain why one game would have this effect much more than another if they are both following similar rules.

It's also not very helpful to explain to the OP why they are "wrong" when someone is telling them they just don't understand "the way the game works" when they clearly have at least a good idea on how their character should be built. It doesn't explain exactly where they made a mistake, if they even actually made one at all and that it isn't more than just RNG.

Perception is a factor, but it's also a significant part of any subjective experience.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

It's also not very helpful to explain to the OP why they are "wrong" when someone is telling them they just don't understand "the way the game works" when they clearly have at least a good idea on how their character should be built. It doesn't explain exactly where they made a mistake, if they even actually made one at all and that it isn't more than just RNG.

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Does he though? He first complained he missed the ants while being close to them. Nothing wrong with missing during a melee?
Now he is complaining about missing 6 times in a row even though he built a character around shooting. Not enough context. Who he was shooting at? Where? Fallout 2 is not just rolling a dice to try to get a lower number than his Guns skill. Its going against the opponents stats and there's environmental modifiers, plus equipment modifiers. You are going to miss (or do shit damage) if you are attacking Centaurs or Deathclaws on your first hour of the game, for instance.

 

[Deleted member 46489]

That is how pokemon works

This sort of reply is exactly why I said that. No one is out to get you.

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I know that. I don't have any kind of persecution complex. I enjoy learning new things via discussion, and am always happy to accommodate opinions that vary from my own.

I also know that you're an impolite and judgmental person, and I'm happy I don't know you in real life.

 

[AuthenticM]

yes

 

[oneils]

I tend to agree, its mainly why I always feel unsatisfied when playing crpgs. Lots of rpg fans tend to appreciate die-roll based style gameplay. However, I am not a fan. I prefer action-style rpgs. I guess its a difference in taste on how you prefer to role-play.

 

[KcebAnier]

Its a relic of old rpg design where everything is reliant on luck.

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Actually it's a remnant of real combat where you are reliant on luck.

 

[Deleted member 56752]

You can miss In real life too

 

[Deleted member 8674]

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Lol

 

[Deleted member 49535]

Sekiro is legitimately hard.

What I find hard to comprehend is people being mad about abstracted combat systems that include a chance of failure. It's not bad design, you can't just always succeed to maintain some internal logic in the system.

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If you think I dislike that system because it makes games hard you have no idea what you're talking about. I love hard games, and I play pretty much everything on the hardest difficulty available if I'm experienced in the genre. Games with this kind of mechanic tend to be easy these days anyway, not the opposite, JRPGs are an example of that.

Failing because RNG is not a game being hard, it's a game being bad. When you can't do anything to prevent that bad RNG the game is as brainless as if it was easy, it's simply more punishing. This is why in Fallout I don't mind it as much. When you start the game you can choose one of the weapon skills as one of your main ones, and it will make you barely miss if you combine it with good perception.

On the other hand, Pillars of Eternity doesn't really offer you anything to overcome this problem on its hardest difficulty. I put 17 points on Perception and I was still missing a lot. It's just dumb. I could maybe tolerate this when I was younger, but now that I'm 30, losing against a boss or whatever because the game rolled a number instead of another (and not because I made a mistake) is not something I want.

Another example of bad game design is being attacked from behind when the game is not designed for that. SMT Noctune on its hardest difficulty comes to mind. When you get to the world map every enemy is stupidly strong (because the game was never balanced around that difficulty). If you get attacked from behind it's 100% an autolose even if you start the fight at full health, you die before you get a single turn to make any decisions. That's bad design, not a game being hard.

Mentioning Sekiro is especially nonsensical since every Soulsborne game is extremely fair to the player, and you can beat anything with the right amount of skill and understanding of the game mechanics, without the game suddenly deciding for you that this time you will lose because of RNG.

 

[Timelord19]

Missing sucks, but when the enemy misses and let you live because of that? That shit is dope.

Bless my Micaiah in Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn dodging two 75% hits at 2 hp.

 

[Musubi]

I enjoy dice roll systems. It's fun to find ways to completely abuse a rule set for a game. Like in Dragon Age Origins you could do builds with a thief that were like nigh invincible even on the hardest setting.

 

[Reddaye]

Fallout and Fallout 2 were specifically designed to simulate pen and paper roleplaying in a computer game. The original intention was to use the GURPS system, but due to licensing issues they had to develop SPECIAL instead.

This is a round about way of me explaining that it's an intended mechanic meant to achieve a certain design goal. I don't personally think it's a bad mechanic because it's a roleplaying game designed to simulate pen and paper rules. If you don't like that style of gameplay you're better off not playing those kinds of games.

PnP roleplaying is all about dice rolls and numbers. I'd say Fallout 1 and 2 do a fantastic job of simulating those kinds of game systems, but leaving the math in the background in a way only video games can achieve.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

I'm not against it as a rule. But there's so many more interesting and meaningful ways to add variance that I'd rather they explore other options rather than always defaulting to the least interesting options.

 

[gblues]

I think it basically comes down to two common leaky abstractions:

- visualization shows it should be a clear hit, but game declares it a miss (Xcom, Morrowind)
- units have a huge power imbalance but the weaker unit wins thanks to RNG (Civilization's tank-destroying spearmen is a classic example)

Basically there is only so much that can be simulated and as a result, probability gets skewed (or at least perceived probability—humans are bad at comprehending probabilities).

Player agency isn't a thing in these games. Yes, you get input into the system, but you don't control the system.

Any system where the inputs 100% determine the outcome is the literal definition of deterministic. The entire point of the genre is to simulate the non-determinism of actual combat, so if you can't cope with that non-determinism, then the genre isn't for you (and that's okay!).

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Plus, there is a lot of missing context. Fallout 2 has penalties for range and lightning for instance, so even a character with high PER and Guns stats will miss frequently during a night fight, then there's the overall stats of the enemies being shot at...

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Yep, I would be much more agreeable with OP's position if he wasn't talking about classic Fallout mechanics.

Definitely not against some of the suggestions being made for other games, but Fallout has very specifically thought out mechanics when it comes to accuracy/miss chance and targeting, and practically the entire combat system is built around those choices of how far you're going to fire from and what specific body part you're going to attack.

The odds of missing six times in a row with an 80% (or higher) chance are extremely low, even if the only real guaranteed chance to hit is 100%. Missing a few times in a row with a high chance to hit isn't uncommon, but it does stand out when you see it happening at a frequency that is a lot higher than what you normally see.

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Well we are talking about Fallout 2 here where there's a lot of factors that go into that hit chance.

 

[-Tetsuo-]

Nah its fine

 

[Shodan14]

On the other hand, Pillars of Eternity doesn't really offers you anything to overcome this problem on its hardest difficulty. I put 17 points on Perception and I was still missing a lot. It's just dumb. I could maybe tolerate this when I was younger, but now that I'm 30, losing against a boss or whatever because the game rolled a number instead of another (and not because I made a mistake) is not something I want.

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This kind of gameplay is about managing risk, something we all do countless times every day without thinking about it. It's fine to not like it, but it's a perfectly valid gameplay abstraction.

Some people, me included, enjoy a simulation-based experience where a universal set of rules applies to both you and the NPCs.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

Definitely not against some of the suggestions being made for other games, but Fallout has very specifically thought out mechanics when it comes to accuracy/miss chance and targeting, and practically the entire combat system is built around those choices of how far you're going to fire from and what specific body part you're going to attack.

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Crap, I completely forgot about that somehow. You can have decent stats and still miss localized attacks for obvious reasons.
(until you break the game, of course, but, ya know)

OP complaints aren't without merit, but there's a lot more that goes on than the simplistic "game randomly decides I fail" argument implies.

 

[justiceiro]

Like in real life, you can always miss. Even if you are pro. Even if you are face to face. Miss is not a "created mechanic". Its a replication of real life.

It the same thing with critical hit and one hit kill odds in weapons.

 

[Sanctuary]

It is not though.

There are entire games whose rules and mechanics can only exist because they are turn and stat based and not everything will be hitting everything all the time. There are character classes or whatever based on the gamble that the move is strong but less accurate.

It might have started as a limitation - like how the original Metal Gear became a stealth game because of how many enemies they could put on the screen - but it evolved into its own design philosophy/genre/whatever you want to call it.

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So games that are still using the same kinds of mechanics that were found in some of the earlier PC RPGs after the likes of Zork and early NES RPGs are now doing it not because of a limitation, but because it's considered its own style? In what way has there been much evolution going on? Until AI actually becomes good enough to make decisions in video games, RNG will still be used as a crutch like it currently is. It's used in an attempt to simulate character (not player) skill and chance. There isn't much more it can do yet, or at least not economically enough for most home PCs, and especially consoles. I also never mentioned hitting all of the time, or even implied it for that matter.

I also just remembered the last game where I actually did have an issue with RNG: Dragon Quest XI on Draconian. Normal mode was mindlessly easy, and Draconian changed it up enough so that at least the random trash fights wouldn't be quite as boring initially, but it was a different story when it came to a few of the bosses. Once you've actually learned what the bosses are capable of, you would have a much better understanding on what to prepare for, but sometimes you really did have to use very specific setups or counters which could be considered pure luck if you just so happened to have that on your first attempt.

The bosses also not only gained increased damage and health, but they also gained additional attacks per turn. This would lead to some truly stupid RNG that could wipe your entire group where it was out of your hands unless you left to level up, came back with old information or simply rolled the dice again and hoped for the best. I don't care about dying and learning a fight, but it is tiresome when you hit a fail state just to some random one-rounding bullshit, which could happen a lot in that game even when you knew what to do.

 

[Professor Beef]

Thanks for personally attacking me for the crime of expressing an opinion on a video game forum. You must be fun at parties.

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having hung out with him a few times, i can determine that yes he is a blast at parties

 

[Deleted member 5621]

So games that are still using the same kinds of mechanics that were found in some of the earlier PC RPGs after the likes of Zork and early NES RPGs are now doing it not because of a limitation, but because it's considered its own style? In what way has there been much evolution going on? Until AI actually becomes good enough to make decisions in video games, RNG will still be used as a crutch like it currently is. It's used in an attempt to simulate character (not player) skill and chance. There isn't much more it can do yet, or at least not economically enough for most home PCs, and especially consoles. I also never mentioned hitting all of the time, or even implied it for that matter.

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Please explain to me how Disgaea Ninjas are a crutch and not a valid playstyle within the design of a turn based game with stat checks to see if moves connect. How the design of the class like is not an evolution and an innovative use of the limitations of said style.

Please tell me how para-confusing pokemons isn't a deliberate style of play and is just a remnant of early RPGs trying to simulate PnP.

Please tell me how random generated stat check games like Devil Survivor or Cosmic Star Heroine are the same limited systems of 80s videogame RPGs and not evolutions of said systems.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

Maybe rpgs and turnbased strategy isn't for you.

 

[Sanctuary]

Please explain to me how Disgaea Ninjas are a crutch and not a valid playstyle within the design of a turn based game with stat checks to see if moves connect. How the design of the class like is not an evolution and an innovative use of the limitations of said style.

Please tell me how para-confusing pokemons isn't a deliberate style of play and is just a remnant of early RPGs trying to simulate PnP.

Please tell me how random generated stat check games like Devil Survivor or Cosmic Star Heroine are the same limited systems of 80s videogame RPGs and not evolutions of said systems.

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Now I don't even know what you're arguing about. Designs based around a limitation remove the limitation somehow?

 

[Deleted member 5621]

Now I don't even know what you're arguing about. Designs based around a limitation remove the limitation somehow?

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No, I am answering your questions:

So games that are still using the same kinds of mechanics that were found in some of the earlier PC RPGs after the likes of Zork and early NES RPGs are now doing it not because of a limitation, but because it's considered its own style? In what way has there been much evolution going on?

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With examples.

 

[RPGam3r]

So glad Bethesda took this series over and made it much more enjoyable experience to play (same with their TES titles for that matter with Oblivion going forward).

 

[Gush]

So glad Bethesda took this series over and made it much more enjoyable experience to play (same with their TES titles for that matter with Oblivion going forward).

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[grand]

RPGs shouldn't have accuracy. That's a funny one lol

 

[Hailinel]

How dare a game based on percentage chances and stat modifiers demand I MISS!

lol. It just happens in games like this. If you want your attacks to have a 100% chance of hitting every single time, play Fire Emblem Heroes.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

You can totally fix it, infact it's been fixed in Xcom like games that have come out later by totally dropping the overall % chance of hit. Phantom Doctrine and Phoenix Point are proof of this. In Phantom Doctrine there are no misses, every attack hits and damages...but how much damage it does depends on how much dodge/stamina the target has left (on top of how much armour they have).

In Phoenix Point, you get manual aim with 2 concentric circles, everything inside the outer circle has 100% chance of being hit, but the parts inside the inner circle has a 50% chance of being hit.

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It's not really a "fix" when it's a worse, more artificial and convoluted solution than the original.

 

[Duffking]

Turn based combat isn't meant to be taken literally, generally. That's why you can miss, in "reality" the thing you're aiming at isn't stood dead still and is moving, dodging etc as well. It's basically that or everything is incredibly simplistic.

 

[Mirage]

I think it basically comes down to two common leaky abstractions:

- visualization shows it should be a clear hit, but game declares it a miss (Xcom, Morrowind)
- units have a huge power imbalance but the weaker unit wins thanks to RNG (Civilization's tank-destroying spearmen is a classic example)

Basically there is only so much that can be simulated and as a result, probability gets skewed (or at least perceived probability—humans are bad at comprehending probabilities).

Player agency isn't a thing in these games. Yes, you get input into the system, but you don't control the system.

Any system where the inputs 100% determine the outcome is the literal definition of deterministic. The entire point of the genre is to simulate the non-determinism of actual combat, so if you can't cope with that non-determinism, then the genre isn't for you (and that's okay!).

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The funny part is Xcom weighs actually weighs RNG in your favor on most difficulties.

Gamasutra - Jake Solomon explains the careful use of randomness in XCOM 2

 

[tenderbrew]

the worst mechanic ever?

thats an easy no
there are plenty of worse mechanics

 

[SpiritSlayer]

You know pokemon has missing right?

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That is how pokemon works

This sort of reply is exactly why I said that. No one is out to get you.

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I know how Pokemon works. Been playing since Gen 1.

 

[Traxus]

To fully appreciate the early Infinite Engine games and their like you should at least have a passing familiarity with the D&D rulesets they're based on. There's a reason these games originally came with instruction manuals the size of your head, packed with awesome lore and details about the systems at work behind the scenes.

Honestly, taking D&D dice rolls from the tabletop to the television screen was never ideal. Something is lost in the translation, abstracting the roll and dungeon master's reaction behind canned hit/miss animations. But these sorts of PCRPGs include some of the greatest games ever made so a little effort to appreciate the context will definitely be rewarded.

 

[GiantEnemyCrab]

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Funny, I just started XCOM 2 and that made me mad all over again, ha ha

 

[Nooblet]

It's not really a "fix" when it's a worse, more artificial and convoluted solution than the original.

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Not convoluted at all, I think it's pretty ingenious and it completely avoid the issue that Xcom 2 has.

 

[Emergency & I]

I like it personally.

 

[Deleted member 5725]

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*looks deep in the alien eyes*
"Aaaaaaarrrggghhhhh!!!"
*empties all rounds into thin air*

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Has anyone ever shown the data for how their 90% X-Com hits/misses panned out over a game?

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.180478-Liveblog-Sid-Meiers-GDC-2010-Keynote-Speech

"10:52 Meier told a story about how one player said that the odds of the battles in Civ felt off to him. The odds said the player had a 3 to 1 chance to win and he lost, which felt wrong because 3 is such a bigger number than 1. "How could I lose? I've got a 3!" Player psychology can be counterintuitive to mathematics and probability."

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The closer to 100% or 0% some get, the more it's decided as "never" or "always"...when it isn't.

 

[RPGam3r]

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No terrible image is going to change my opinion that Fallout under Bethesda is better off than it was.

 

[Mib]

Think of it this way. The less skilled your character is with a gun, the more likely they don't know how to handle one and will make a mistake. For example guns ahve kickback and they may let the kickback move their hand so that they miss. Or they didn't know how to properly maintain their gun and it doesn't work cause of that. The more skilled you are, the less likely you are going to make some dumb mistake. Or even that they aren't skilled enough that they fumble and give the person time to duck.

(yeah, turn based rpgs that rely on chances to determine if you hit or miss do require some imagination on your part. in real life with pen and paper RPG a good dungeon master can fill in that <- the group I play with has one and he'll usually explain away your misses and he doesn't just rely on you goofed up even if your skill roll rolled bad. Sometimes the armor just managed to stop you or the character you were going for managed to duck or your gun misfired).

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That would be rad, but that's usually not the case. If my character missing corresponds to a skill or attribute (ie. low aim/lack of experince or unsteady hands/agile enemies), I'd love that. But when it's just a low flat percentage chance removed from my character's actual abilities, it feels cheap. It can work if I'm building up from nothing, but if the game let's me make a marksman with high accuracy and still gives me middling or bad hit chances on what should be easy or impossible to miss shots, it makes my character feel weak and my stats meaningless.

With abstractions, something like Fire Emblem or Advance Wars, where you position right next to them for an attack and transition to a screen that shows you a good distance apart makes sense because it shows that the movement map is itself an abstraction.

X-COM requires me to assume the entire encounter is an abstraction, but the only thing it implies to be abstracted is the passage of time and the specific nuances of the actual actions themselves. There's nothing abstracted about the space itself. Guile shot at point blank range, full stop, and there's no version of those events that allows him to miss without whipping the gun towards something else.