Why does 343 LOVE the RNG?

[Cortar]

I should change the title to the Forerunners because the vast majority of RNG* weapons are from the Forerunners. This is obviously because the majority of weapons that 343 introduced into the game are Forerunner weapons, but this begs the question, why?

 

First lets take a look at all of the forerunner weapons:

 

Boltshot#

Scattershot#

Binary Rifle#

Light Rifle

Suppressor#

Incineration Cannon#

Pulse Grenade

 

I have marked with a # symbol which ones are subject to the RNG. Now obviously the most startly weapons marked are the sniper and rockets. All forms of sniper rifles in this game are subject to some form of "kick" meaning, if you are standing still and shoot, your cursor will jump in a certain direction afterward. For some reason, the Forerunner gun is subject to the most random "kick"

 

Beam Rifle always kicks upwards, with a slight variation of about 5 degrees in either direction

Sniper Rifle only kicks straight up or to the right, at most 10 degrees right from the vertical

Binary Rifle has a possible kick radius of about 90 degrees, it can kick from the upper right to the bottom right, and any direction in between

 

The Incineration Cannon, or IC is also surprising. From launchday until this morning, I always thought the IC's secondary explosion is a set pattern, but after messing around in Forge, its possible to notice that the direction of the secondary explosions are not set and instead are random.

 

Both shotguns, the Human Shotgun and the Scattershot are subject to RNG at each shot (which is nullified if you are close enough) but even the casual observer can notice that the SS is very true to its name and that its shots indeed scatter much more than the Human Shotgun outside of confirmed kill range.

 

For the last category, the sidearms, the Boltshot is the only one that really is RNG based, the Magnum does have bloom, but careful timing will negate that, nothing can negate the random spread of the BS.

 

Halo 4 as a game, has many more uses of the RNG than in past Halo games. Now, even the power weapons you get are subject to it because of the POD system. Even some of the maps have random elements in that some are almost symmertical, but not quite, Exile, Abandon, etc.

 

Why does 343 love the RNG? I don't know, maybe because it lowers the skill gap and makes the game more accessible to newer players, but this is only a guess.

 

*RNG stands for Random Number Generator, which makes just means "random"

[Bloody Initiate]

I don't think randomness ALWAYS lowers the skill gap.

 

I don't disagree entirely with your assertion, just with the broadness of it. For exampe plenty of people argued that random BR spread was BS because it wasn't consistent, except a skilled player accounts for the unreliability and doesn't expect it to perform perfectly at the ranges in which its spread becomes inconsistent. It's a different type of skill, but it's still a skill, and the best players could both learn and memorize consistent spread AND account for inconsistent spread. Thus random didn't automatically lower the skill gap, because the best players know when their weapons are at their best and when they're not.

 

I could go on, and in fact I did write a longer post but it got very close to ranting about unrelated topics, likely because I should get off the internet for the night. What it comes down to is: The best players consistently come out on top, not due to one thing but due to many. This includes memorizing consistent features, accounting for potential randomness, and perfecting a lot of different tricks which frequently shouldn't be in the game (various button combo glitches, etc.), but as long as they ARE in the game the best players make sure they have them down to a science.

 

Often random DOES lower the skill gap, often it instead adds a new dimension to the game which the pros master, or quite often it makes no difference at all (Like how a rifle kicks doesn't matter that much because you aren't going to fire it until it's ready anyway. You may have to, but those situations are already unlikely to go your way). What random really represents is unpredictability, and no one predicts everything perfectly 100% of the time anyway. Acting like you can is a bit unrealistic, and a bit unfair considering they probably just put the RNG in these places because they thought it made the game more interesting.

[Jamesw01]

Cant we just play and be happy whats wrong with everybody

[The Ninja Style]

Cant we just play and be happy whats wrong with everybody

that this game has potential and they are messing it up with stupidity

[Bloody Initiate]

that this game has potential and they are messing it up with stupidity

 

Agreed completely.

 

What people with few complaints don't understand is that those of us WITH complaints want to play Halo 4 and have fun too, and our definition isn't even that different, it's just that we like to think we can do something about it by publicly pointing out flaws. They also don't understand how upsetting it is to like something enough that you want to like it more, but you just can't because of how badly it was done.

[Cortar]

Cant we just play and be happy whats wrong with everybody

 

Im just pointing something how that doesn't make sense. Why would 343 introduce a ton of new weapons that rely on the RNG more than normal?

 

Also, if everyone was completely happy and didn't complain this forum would be boring. Imagine, every thread would be like "Omg I love this game!" "[POLL] How awesome is this game? Really Awesome or SUPER Awesome!?!??" etc

[EvoSigma]

If you really hate RNG then you shouldn't play mass effect 3. I don't complain about it much as I know it could be a lot worse....

[Cortar]

If you really hate RNG then you shouldn't play mass effect 3. I don't complain about it much as I know it could be a lot worse....

 

I only played through the M3 single player campaign, the multiplayer didn't seem very fun to me.