I often hear a lot of whining about rng in the game, such as cards that produce random other cards, target random targets, etc. and how that reduces the influence of skill on the game.
But for me, I think the amount of rng in the game (card draws and deck building notwithstanding) makes the game more fun. In fact, I think it makes it a lot more fun. For starters, rng doesn’t truly overshadow skill. A skilled player will sometimes complain if it wasn’t for that ‘one’ instance of rng, they would’ve won.
When in reality, there were already dozens of rng elements that led up to that final rng moment that did end in their defeat. It wasn’t just that one card, it was the entire match that led up to that moment. But losers tend to focus only on one card or one play in order to invent a narrative to themselves that this game is rigged.
But rng is more fun for me–whether it made me lose or win. I feel a dramatic sense of tension because I know, even if I’m ahead, at any moment the opponent might pull off an rng play that will turn the whole game around. That tension is exciting. Conversely, the excitement of pulling that one rng move that turns things around for you is also exciting.
Call me a good sport, but even when an rng play leads to my defeat, I accept it and call it a good game on my part until I lost. I also think to myself man how relieved that other person must’ve been to have that rng play work out for them. And I leave w my dignity.
RNG adds an element that closes the gap between skilled and unskilled players, adds excitement to otherwise set-in-stone game results, and never truly hinders pro players. So, rng isn’t that bad, it actually makes the game more fun. Fight me.
A bit of RNG is fine. What people don’t like is when there is too much of it. Because then it is not about who has the best strategy, it’s about who gets lucky.
I get that my post was kind of long, but it would help if you actually read the whole thing. lol
I like rng in both the cases where it causes me to win and when it causes me to lose. In the roughly 2 years I’ve been playing this game, I have yet to observe it having ‘too much’ rng.
Think of it this way, even if there were no cards with random effects, rng would still beat skilled players sometimes because of at least one variable: drawing cards. Each card draw is rng. Even a skilled player will lose if they have luck bad enough to cause them to make the worst draws ever.
But the majority of cases are obviously not like that. In my experience, true skill is seldom completely overtaken by rng. If a player is truly good at the game, on average, they’ll still win more than lose.
As a cursory response to when I said ‘fight me,’ that’s more for sarcasm than anything else, because I know that forum goers are generally aggressive people. lol
Sounds like “RNG” is the cool pariah of the month for people to light their torches and wave their pitchforks over. RNG gets less consistent and sometimes worse over time. It just depends on what the developers will load the pools with as time goes on. If Mage gets a bunch of spells like Glacial Mysteries or Forbidden Flame, then that will “balance” RNG.
It’s a fun mechanic and it was one of the defining elements of the game for me when I was deciding on playing this over Magic: the Gathering.
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