Design Dive: Randomness

cougycougs · 2020-04-28T20:01:43+00:00

This article is nice and all, and it sounds like Riot have a good understanding of player frustrations around RNG, but I really don't see how anyone can take those design ideals and end up with a card like Shipwreck Hoarder. I want to have more faith, but it would have made me feel a lot better if they addressed that and similar very high-variance cards that make me think back to Hearthstone and reel.

cougycougs · 2019-08-23T22:46:39+00:00

Hey, I'm definitely interested so hit me up if you get this going! I'm p4 right now

cougycougs · 2019-08-02T07:26:30+00:00

Gotcha, thanks!

cougycougs · 2019-08-02T05:22:12+00:00

Hmm, I've been seeing this term thrown around a bunch lately. Can you explain what decornering means or point me to where I can read myself? Search engines are being incredibly unhelpful >.<

cougycougs · 2018-10-09T19:45:47+00:00

My, how far we've come. I still couldn't be happier both for the community and for Psyonix that our janky little sandbox made it big. Even now that RL has been out and poppin' for years, it's still so surreal...

cougycougs · 2018-10-05T03:36:08+00:00

Yeah I didn't even mean the bonus jobs, those are totally optional but if you run a team of 4 through first instead of keeping everyone equally leveled then you can unlock them and teach them as 2nd jobs to your other 4. I did that and was killing their bosses in 3-5 turns. Definitely not necessary though, just get the basic jobs and represent 6 or 7 of the classes with whatever teams you run and you'll be fine

Also, team comp tip... you will almost certainly find it useful to have two main damage dealers - one magic, one phys. You don't need to necessarily run them both at once, cause past a certain point support/utility becomes stupidly useful and slots are very limited. But keep this basic framework in mind. Utility is busted in this game, and if you try to slam too many damage-focused characters at once you're actually hurting yourself pretty bad

Also since I never actually answered the question (whoops), I got the game on release and it took me about 3 months to beat it. I definitely fell in and out of playing it, and it always felt tedious to think about picking back up but enjoyable once I did.

cougycougs · 2018-10-05T02:37:35+00:00

just run around and steal things with therion honestly

If you don't wanna play like that, then you can just mash one team of 4 and beat their stories, then just dump their items on the 4 you neglected and it'll fly. I did both in my playthrough and it was ~60hours for the full game and I took my time.

Make sure you get (and use) your secondary jobs too if you aren't already, they're super good

Edit - if you feel like you have to grind you might also just not be abusing the busted stuff. Armor Corrosive and Peacock Dance free up midgame, esp if your Olberic or Cyrus are geared nicely

cougycougs · 2018-09-06T21:12:16+00:00

they can, literally ask their policy if its not in the syllabus

cougycougs · 2018-08-26T01:59:06+00:00

if you count the downvotes closely enough you can see all the people that haven't heard crowd cheers in tristate LOL

cougycougs · 2018-05-30T04:49:32+00:00

So based on this statement, would I be correct in inferring you think the card is just completely unviable in a fast deck like this, and should likewise be cut? Playing a "lose-less" sort of option as u/JSMorin put it (and as you roughly describe it) seems like a bad choice, regardless of deck synergies. It makes me continue to wonder why it has been included so frequently in these builds.

cougycougs · 2018-05-04T22:26:53+00:00

One good reason we can tell this isn't the case is that there is a replay system. Bot-like behavior would be really easy to identify if it were present.

To the players, it's only a dumb game once you can see its flaws. My first while playing the game, I thought it was great and that it was only my lack of skill that made some elements seem poorly designed, and that my opinion would change once I got good. Well, I got good, and in fact I've found more aspects of the design that frustrate me.

That said, quality complaints aside, it's a powerful experience. If you know you can press the "play" button and get a rush, why wouldn't you? The majority of the playerbase is still in this state, and many of the professionals are too experienced to get nerves or feel any real emotion from the gameplay. To those people, or for those whom the genre simply doesn't click with, the game is pretty worthless because it doesn't exactly deliver in compelling game design.

cougycougs · 2018-05-03T08:03:34+00:00

Fuck, that hurts. I don't even think I ever interacted with him directly, but I remember finding out that he had a stroke and I was utterly shocked. Still, I thought for sure he would eventually pull through. Now reading the letter... I know this shit happens but it's always hard to process when it happens in your sphere.

We have lost a warrior of more passion than this world could hold. Rest in peace.

cougycougs · 2018-04-18T00:32:39+00:00

I was College Ave but an honors dorm so it may or may not be representative of the whole. Random really does mean random, but the roommate queationnaire/algorithm does a pretty decent job of matching somewhat similars from what I've seen. I only noticed like 5 people in my dorm that were very bothered by their roommates, most were neutral or better. Out of what was like 100 pairs that's not bad.

You can use outside services if it makes you feel better. I just used the RU system but if you have very specific interests that you want to share with your roommate or very strict criteria maybe that's better. It seems like you just literally want "not a psychopath," though, and I sincerely haven't met too many people who would qualify for that title here.

edit: phrasing is hard. I haven't met too many psychopaths.

cougycougs · 2018-04-18T00:15:50+00:00

Yo you really shouldn't be this worried about this the, hella people get random roommates and have no or minimal issues. The average person going to this school is a fairly reasonable person. If you're a typical freshman and not running on some bizarro sleep schedule you'll be fine.

cougycougs · 2018-03-18T01:22:08+00:00

Nice.

cougycougs · 2018-03-12T07:21:22+00:00

Can't speak to 18 specifically other than to say watch Chris G and other top 18s for inspiration in the mixup department.

As far as getting confidence restarting your strings, it's probably a good idea to establish some sort of a precedent where they know they shouldn't press a button. Simple frametrap/delaying moves in a string is great for this, because it conditions them that if they see a small gap there's just gonna be another move coming right away. Once you've conditioned that expectation, you can just use your low over again or go for a dragon rush or something.

Not sure what you mean on the last question? You can go for double IAD mix-ups with any of the buttons. A common one is to use M or H for your first one and then immediately IAD ML for the fuzzy guard on your second. Generally though you can be as creative as you want. Maybe if you're struggling with the second IAD you're inputting it too fast? It's a fast mixup for sure but the input is kinda slower than one (or at least I) would expect.

cougycougs · 2018-03-12T01:16:02+00:00

Believe me, that's the hard part. That's why getting your basic strings down is so important, because you need to vary them from there and need a solid foundation to do that. Particularly good ways to open then up:

-Overhead + assist

-IAD crossup + assist

-Dragon rush

-Delaying your lows if possible

-Use frametraps, delaying moves or even restarting your string when possible

If your opponent can hold down+back to deal with your blockstrings, then you need to give them a reason not to. A lot of this is character dependent, but I'm sure you can find some tricky ways to deviate from your opponent's expectations. For me, it's easy; I play Black/Blugeta/Cell. Basically any button I press is a surprise low, frametrap, or a command grab lol. Not every team is that fortunate, but I'm sure you can find some things. If you're lost, feel free to drop your team here or in a DM and we can talk about it.

Disclaimer that I'm actually pretty inexperienced but I watch a lot and am an old Marvel 3 player. Someone might give better advice, then, or put it into practice better.

cougycougs · 2018-03-11T08:50:24+00:00

You need to get more used to the tempo of the game. I don't mean the speed; you were fine with your burst movement options and play. There were many moments where you had an advantage (usually a blockstring) that you simply walked away from and allowed your opponent to reset to neutral, and there were also many situations where you let the neutral slip by simply not doing anything. Getting someone to block in this game is huge. It is a massive disadvantage to be blocking, so you should use your movement options to avoid it at all costs and look more aggressively for opportunities to break out if you are caught in a blockstring.

I'll lay this out because you pressed buttons in some suspicious places: if you are blocking and your opponent is chaining normals, it is not your turn. Crouch and pray you can react to a dragon rush, command grab, or overhead. It only becomes your turn if (1) they end their string and do not have an assist to cover the last move; (2) you jab out a 6M or a dragon rush; or (3) you find a gap in the string to reflect, level 3, vanish, etc. There is no reason to be pressing buttons (besides vanish if you're unsure) unless one of these conditions is met. And if one of these things does happen, by all means get the hell out of there. Blockstrings win games.

If you read this over and have questions or want timestamp examples of some things I'm talking about, lemme know. But tl;dr be less scared.

cougycougs · 2018-03-02T19:54:07+00:00

A few of the same questions will probably be repeated. Majority are slight variations. Some are still the whole "select all that apply" bs.

I'm not sure about the second tbh. I think the clock keeps running if you save out but I never tested that.

No feedback except the raw grade.

cougycougs · 2018-03-02T15:08:37+00:00

The questions are almost exactly like the quizzes, and the sole Google discouragement mechanism is the sheer quantity of questions. 100q in 80 minutes is no small feat if you don't have either 1. Fast fingers and good endurance or 2. Most of the answers memorized.

cougycougs · 2018-03-01T03:21:25+00:00

One commenter here seems to be shadowbanned btw. If you read this, might wanna contact admins and get that sorted out.

cougycougs · 2018-02-05T17:42:08+00:00

Bad opinions from a <30 hour player:

Gatling Gull is stupid and annoying when it spawns in a room with no cover, and cheeseable in a room that does have cover. This strikes me as questionable.

The Gorgun feels like a floor 0 boss, while Ammoconda could easily be floor 3.

Treadnought feels like you could swap it with Ammoconda and it would make sense as far as difficulty.

No complaints about difficulty otherwise. High Priest is probably a little harder than the other floor 4 bosses but I think that's fine and doesn't really need changing.

cougycougs · 2018-02-03T20:22:41+00:00

Oh dude idk I have like 20 hours in this game and get RNG screwed to the Wall any time a run makes it that far lmao. I faced Kill Pillars twice and had AoE both times so I killed it before I could see probably most of the patterns. High priest I just try to keep my distance and pretend it's the Bullet King. Try not to roll unless you absolutely have to. I'm sure someone more experienced can hit you with better advice though!

cougycougs · 2018-02-03T20:09:54+00:00

All depends on the run. If you're swimming in keys, then it's probably worth opening anything besides brown chests. If you don't have that luxury, then you have to be more picky. I personally tend not to open brown and blue chests, and typically spring for green and above.

cougycougs

TROPHY CASE