What is RNG supposed to achieve here?

[Wonz]

We've been looking for desert goggles blueprint and both of us were already through our 2nd fishing rods. You'd see more fish lying around if we didn't have to cook them because we didn't expect to stay here for that long.

Not only we've been doing it for quite a while but the rate at which we can fish has been decreased greatly due to the weird fish quantity mechanic only adding to frustration.

Why at random some people should get blueprint withing just a few tries while others would have to spend days on it? What's the point of it? That's how RNG works.  Can't it be just guaranteed after 5 tries? According to other people I'm unlucky but how often this is happening is convincing me the that the chance is very low.  

[Cheggf]

I have always ignored the oasis completely because it sucks, then one time I decided to fish for the goggles and spent literally the entire summer fishing for them without getting them, so I went back to ignoring the oasis completely because it sucks. 

[Mike23Ua]

The game is supposed to have a little edge of unpredictability to it, because DS and DST are Rogue-lites, actually sold and advertised under this category (it’s actually because of DS/DST that I managed to find my favorite “Genre” of video games so thanks to DS I’ve discovered games like Spelunky, Spelunky 2, tainted grail, slay the spire, Enter the Gungeon, & Gunfire Reborn.)

These games all have to have a layer of unpredictability (in how worlds generate, or your odds of obtaining a specific item in a specific way..)

While yes at times RNG in DST can damn right suck (try having a triple MacTusk camp and not getting a single tusk or tam from them all Winter..)

Its exactly this RNG that makes me love the game.. because I CANT just always go to this one hospital upstairs bathroom and find a shotgun by a dead nurse Zombie in the bathtub.

Yes.. sometimes RNG it really sucks in DST, but without it- The game comes a boring always predictable slog of Do this, this & this..

And that’s not, and never has been my type of game.

The more unpredictable RNG curveballs the game can throw at me the better!

Which is why I loved Shipwrecked and Hamlet where chopping trees, mining rocks, searching vases etc had a “Chance” for a mob to jump out and attack me.

DST has RNG in its Tumbleweeds you can actually bust these open and get attacked by frog, angry bee, or even spiders..

But it’s not crunk to 11 like the DLCs are.

Regardless.. without this RNG (which again can sometimes suck..) DST would no longer be a Rogue-Lite & would no longer fit the Genre I fell in love with and was introduced to by DS.

[Wonz]

On 8/9/2023 at 11:45 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Yes.. sometimes RNG it really sucks in DST, but without it- The game comes a boring always predictable slog of Do this, this & this..

If we weren't bored thanks to RNG then i don't know. 

Good it gated us from doing things as boring as bossfight and then progressing with other content like ruins and challenging other boss, clicking that puddle is way more exciting.

Fella you're getting legit insane to defend RNG in this form. 

Occasional enemy or bonus while doing guaranteed stuff is whatever but we came for the blueprint and there was no way to obtain it.  

[pyroisshy]

The oasis pond is just one of the many uinintutive, terrible game features that klei refuses to properly rework even though they want to make the game more approachable to new players. kleis approach is character reworks and item buffs, instead of tackling the core issues that turn new players away from the game

[goatt]

pseudo rng, pseudo rng, pseudo rng.

pseudo rng achieves exactly the same goal as rng, but gives better experience than real rng.

 

(real computer generated rng is not absolute rng anyways)

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Wonz said:

If we weren't bored thanks to RNG then i don't know. 

Good it gated us from doing things as boring as bossfight and then progressing with other content like ruins and challenging other boss, clicking that puddle is way more exciting.

Fella you're getting legit insane to defend RNG in this form. 

Occasional enemy or bonus while doing guaranteed stuff is whatever but we came for the blueprint and there was no way to obtain it.  

I literally got it on the first fishing attempt just as summer was starting in my most recent world.. that’s no joke either,  however.. unless your doing a lot of stuff in the desert the goggles aren’t actually all that vital to your survival anyway cause you can just you know… not go in the desert during Summer?

I say this as one of the Xbox players who had the Xbox exclusive crash of trying to go in the sandstorm in Summer had no Sandstorm and the game crashed & powered off your Xbox.

If your not a fan of RNG that’s fine, but even though I got the desert goggles early in, what my world was nearly completely absent of was Gears sources, there was only enough Clockwork in both the Surface & Cave, to craft a single Ice Box, and by the time Summer rolled around I was short 2 Gears for crafting an IceFlingoMatic. 

Before you ask any questions- no I hadn’t messed with world settings, and no.. no other players had joined my game world.. it was just my good luck to get the blueprint, and bad luck to have a world generate lacking gears..

So what ended up happening is I spent several game days in the desert using those googles doing nothing but opening Tumbleweeds until I could finally FINALLY get the two Gears needed in crafting a Flingo Machine.. and during this time I had to rely on Cooked Cactus Flesh to stay topped off in Hunger & Sanity, while also fighting off the occasional hound wave.

The TL:DR it forced me to play the game in a different way.

[Capybara007]

A game will give you a random challenge or situation and you the player have to make the best decision according to that random situation youve been put in, that is good rng

This is not good rng, it just wastes your time

[chirsg]

You can unlock potatoggles before desert goggles. It's pretty funny.

[lenship2]

3 minutes ago, chirsg said:

You can unlock potatoggles before desert goggles. It's pretty funny.

even better, get brightshade helm before desert goggles for max efficiency

[chirsg]

4 minutes ago, lenship2 said:

even better, get brightshade helm before desert goggles for max efficiency

Is it though? It's really hard to slough through the moonstorm without potat

 

[EATZYOWAFFLEZ]

On 8/9/2023 at 4:45 PM, Mike23Ua said:

The game is supposed to have a little edge of unpredictability to it, because DS and DST are Rogue-lites, actually sold and advertised under this category (it’s actually because of DS/DST that I managed to find my favorite “Genre” of video games so thanks to DS I’ve discovered games like Spelunky, Spelunky 2, tainted grail, slay the spire, Enter the Gungeon, & Gunfire Reborn.)

These games all have to have a layer of unpredictability (in how worlds generate, or your odds of obtaining a specific item in a specific way..)

While yes at times RNG in DST can damn right suck (try having a triple MacTusk camp and not getting a single tusk or tam from them all Winter..)

Its exactly this RNG that makes me love the game.. because I CANT just always go to this one hospital upstairs bathroom and find a shotgun by a dead nurse Zombie in the bathtub.

Yes.. sometimes RNG it really sucks in DST, but without it- The game comes a boring always predictable slog of Do this, this & this..

And that’s not, and never has been my type of game.

The more unpredictable RNG curveballs the game can throw at me the better!

Which is why I loved Shipwrecked and Hamlet where chopping trees, mining rocks, searching vases etc had a “Chance” for a mob to jump out and attack me.

DST has RNG in its Tumbleweeds you can actually bust these open and get attacked by frog, angry bee, or even spiders..

But it’s not crunk to 11 like the DLCs are.

Regardless.. without this RNG (which again can sometimes suck..) DST would no longer be a Rogue-Lite & would no longer fit the Genre I fell in love with and was introduced to by DS.

The problem with the rng in oasis fishing is it doesn't give you a problem to solve or a unique gameplay experience, but just... makes you waste time. That's what makes good and bad rng. If there was an alternative method to get desert goggles (or their effects), then maybe the fishing rng could be justified. But in its current state it is just annoying.

[Mike23Ua]

13 minutes ago, EATZYOWAFFLEZ said:

The problem with the rng in oasis fishing is it doesn't give you a problem to solve or a unique gameplay experience, but just... makes you waste time. That's what makes good and bad rng. If there was an alternative method to get desert goggles (or their effects), then maybe the fishing rng could be justified. But in its current state it is just annoying.

But there is!! Both the Potato Helmet from the Eye of the Storm update, and the Brightshade Helmet from the From Beyond update have the effects of Desert Goggles.

What I'm not understanding though, is why you see them as being of such importance? I mean unless you plan to live in or spend a lot of time in the desert in specifically the Summer Weather Season ONLY.. you can just.. Avoid going into the Summer Desert? 

I may be being a bit biased here though because I play on Xbox which once upon a time had a Xbox exclusive bug that caused the game to freeze and crash your Xbox when you stepped into the desert turf biome.

Ive had to actually sail AROUND this Biome to avoid my console powering itself off, and to make matters worse- Because it was an Xbox exclusive bug it was harder for Klei to track down and locate what was causing it.

So… unless there’s a very specific “thing” you need to do in the desert biome in Summer, you can just avoid going there ????

[_zwb]

55 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

So… unless there’s a very specific “thing” you need to do in the desert biome in Summer, you can just avoid going there ????

Because there's a boss with almost useless drops who can also destroy your base if you don't go kill her or pay tributes regularly.

And astroggles & brightshade helms are locked behind the boring long questline of celestial champion, you aren't getting those in first summer unless u speedruning or tampering with world settings.

[Mike23Ua]

18 minutes ago, _zwb said:

Because there's a boss with almost useless drops who can also destroy your base if you don't go kill her or pay tributes regularly.

And astroggles & brightshade helms are locked behind the boring long questline of celestial champion, you aren't getting those in first summer unless u speedruning or tampering with world settings.

Antlion won’t destroy your base unless your just standing around in it doing nothing.. and in fact as someone who has NEVER killed Antlion I can tell you with utmost certainty that you can use her Surface Sinkholes & Cave Quakes to your advantage.

One such example is Sinkholes will instantly mine resources for you, so you can literally just put on a helmet and then run around over the forest of trees or boulders you want chopped.

Sinkholes start at only 2, but the longer you DONT appease her (over multiple summers by the way..) it can increase to up to 7 at once.

Sinkholes will also Instantly mine Lunar RiftCrystals without you needing to use any sort of mining tools & waste resource to break them apart, all you have to do is see the visible on screen shaking dirt and then guide your character over to a spot you actually WANT to be hit by these Craters/Boulders.

Ive used this strategy to also run bravely dead center of a group of Brightshades and have Antlion do all the work for me.

Her “destroy base” is only as effective as YOU let it be… 

Assuming of course that your “base” doesn’t take up the entire world, and I find it highly highly HIGHLY unlikely you’ll have a biome spanning base fully built up by the time the first summer starts.

[_zwb]

12 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Snip

The problem is those sink holes last a full in game year, yes she can't really destroy your base but not being able to expand your base is just as bad(assuming you're in base when it happens, if you aren't it's not that much of a threat). Also having to run out your base every so often is annoying, you might be just enjoying your own thing and the ground starts shaking, pausi whatever you're doing.

I one I forgot to mention is that people often base in oasis desert as a solution to wild fire, so the goggles are required.

[Mike23Ua]

11 minutes ago, _zwb said:

The problem is those sink holes last a full in game year, yes she can't really destroy your base but not being able to expand your base is just as bad(assuming you're in base when it happens, if you aren't it's not that much of a threat). Also having to run out your base every so often is annoying, you might be just enjoying your own thing and the ground starts shaking, pausi whatever you're doing.

I one I forgot to mention is that people often base in oasis desert as a solution to wild fire, so the goggles are required.

I mean at this point your describing the whole game..

Do you stay in Base when Deerclops spawns? Or when Firehounds Spawn? What about when 3 Spider Queens decide they want to move in and your not Webber?

Unless your just a god at combat in the game, a lot of times the solution is going to involve running away from base.

I don’t know about you but I NEVER bring Firehounds into my Base… or have a fridge & crockpots with food in them when Bearger spawns for that matter…

Also the Sinkholes don’t last an entire year, they’re exclusively tied to Summer and Summer Alone, which is why before I knew “Antlion” existed I had just assumed that the ground beneath my feet was just getting so hot that it was collapsing in on itself.

[goatt]

On 8/9/2023 at 4:45 PM, Mike23Ua said:

These games all have to have a layer of unpredictability (in how worlds generate, or your odds of obtaining a specific item in a specific way..)

While yes at times RNG in DST can damn right suck (try having a triple MacTusk camp and not getting a single tusk or tam from them all Winter..)

Its exactly this RNG that makes me love the game.. because I CANT just always go to this one hospital upstairs bathroom and find a shotgun by a dead nurse Zombie in the bathtub.

Yes.. sometimes RNG it really sucks in DST, but without it- The game comes a boring always predictable slog of Do this, this & this..

RNG has benefits and downsides. Benefits and downsides are 2 separate things, and they don't need to be mixed up as one package.

There are many different ways to implement RNG to harness its benefits while significantly reduces its downsides.

 

"While yes at times RNG in DST can damn right suck (try having a triple MacTusk camp and not getting a single tusk or tam from them all Winter..)

Its exactly this RNG that makes me love the game.. because I CANT just always go to this one hospital upstairs bathroom and find a shotgun by a dead nurse Zombie in the bathtub."

That of what you said above describes exactly the downsides of RNG. I understand you love that extreme version of RNG, i.e. the downside of RNG, maybe that's why you look at it as an upside. But unless punishing players with extreme randomness of RNG is the goal of the design, this creates frustrating gaming experience for most players. I'm not invalidating your passion of RNG. But the bad experience of extreme RNG to many other players shouldn't be overlooked.

Without the current form of RNG, the game can still provide lots of unpredictability.

 

The benefits and flaws of RNG should be discussed separately. An improvement in RNG for the experience of the game won't take away what you love about the game.