How Should Output Randomness be Handled in Turn-Based Combat?

Chance based events are a commonplace in video games. From chance to hit enemies to the chance of convincing someone to give you an item, developers love to add chance and probability into their games. There is a subset of chance base events called output randomness, which includes events that occur after the player makes a decision in the game. For instance, let’s say you are playing a tactical game such as Fire Emblem. You send a unit to attack the enemy, and the unit misses their strike. You chose to attack the enemy, and then the game decided that you missed. Commonly seen as bad practice, output randomness can frequently frustrate the player as it can easily serve to destroy the player’s strategy because of bad luck. Given that developers still use output randomness in their games, it obviously is not all bad. Output randomness can simulate real world events that can happen. Sometimes a soldier will miss shooting their arrow, and sometimes people will not haggle down their prices no matter how convincing you are. While these are fair and realistic, it can still be aggravating to players.

Now that we got that background out of the way, let us get into the real meat of my question. So, how can output randomness be handled in a way that both players who enjoy the random chance of bad events and be minimal/non-existent for players who hate it? Let’s dive in with three different examples of how developers handle output randomness. And for the sake of discussion, let us assume we are talking about games where units are permanently lost when they fall in battle. There is a whole other discussion to be had about whether making a perma-death mechanic optional ruins the integrity of a game series or not. We may tackle that another time, but not today!

The Unforgiving Nature of Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon is a roguelike, turn-based RPG where the player controls parties of units to travel through dungeons that are not to be taken lightly. In the turn-based combat during dungeons, characters have a chance to miss/receive critical hits/die. However, the game autosaves after every action that happens. Therefore, players will have to suffer the consequences of missing no matter what. Turning off the game to restart will not stop the consequences. When it happens, you have to deal with it as the player.

Obviously, this is the most extreme implementation on the unforgiving spectrum that I have personally seen. This game does not care about those who will get angry from bad luck. It knows that it wants to be hardcore and punishing, and its mechanics back that ideal up. While I do not think their choice is objectively wrong, I do not believe that there is anyone who would argue that this choice pushed some people away from the experience. With that being said, let us travel to the other end of the spectrum.

The Brute Force approach of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

For a short description in case you are unaware of the franchise, Fire Emblem is a tactical RPG where you move units on a grid. You select your units to attack the enemy units, and are given a chance to hit and chance for a critical hit. Obviously, you can miss or not get a critical hit if the numbers are not 100% (good luck even trying to get critical to 100%). This can easily frustrate players that have their strategy completely ruined by a character missing on a 97% chance to hit. While people do miss their attacks in a real battlefield due to various circumstances, it can be rage inducing to lose a battle because of one bad luck roll. The older Fire Emblem games also had a perma-death mechanic which means that all units lost in battle were gone forever. This means players would either reset the game to try the map again if they lost someone they did not want to lose, or suffer the loss for the rest of the game.

In the tenth installment in the Fire Emblem series, Radiant Dawn allowed a Battle Save Mechanic on its Easy difficulty. This allowed players to save before performing any action they wanted. Therefore, they could theoretically reset the game again and again until the result of the encounter they were on yielded them a victory. This eliminates the output randomness in its entirety, thus creating a new issue. If players can simply reset before any action they take until they get the result they desire, what is the point of having any output randomness at all? It could be argued that players could simply not do it and roll with any punches. The issue with that view is that tactical games are usually very strategy oriented, where players have to outwit the enemies to come on top. The knowledge that a player could win just by cheesing the battle save mechanic makes the feeling you would get from beating it legitimately lesser. A major core fantasy of tactical games are about overcoming obstacles, and feeling like a genius from outsmarting opponents. That all goes away when the same victory can come from brute forcing a win.

I want to be sure to mention that this battle save mechanic is only available in Easy Mode. In Normal and Hard modes, you only can save after each map is completed. Therefore, you would have to restart the entire battle if something goes haywire during your current attempt. This approach leans closer to Darkest Dungeon (though way less extreme) as the player can lose up to 2 hours of progression in a battle if they lose at the very end. While I personally like this approach way more than the Battle Save mechanic, it is a huge reason why many people I know stayed away from Fire Emblem series until something like battle saving or a mode that eliminates perma-death was created. I bring the Battle Save mechanic up as a theoretical implementation for a game in its entirety; not just in the “Easy Mode” of the game. Now let us move to a game that lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

The Error Correction Approach of Fire Emblem: Three Houses

In Fire Emblem’s latest installment, Three Houses, they have a mechanic called Divine Pulse. One way Three Houses eases this issue is through its Divine Pulse mechanic. Divine Pulse allows players to step back in time as far back in the battle that they desire to try again a set number of times per battle. This allows players to re-strategize during the same battle after a series of unfortunate events. One interesting way they implement this mechanic is that performing the same actions in the same order again will yield the exact same result. So, you cannot just go back to right before you selected the attack and keep trying until you hit. If your unit missed the first time, they will keep doing it again. This promotes players to truly rethink their strategy without losing out on a lot of progress like if they had to restart the battle all over again. It gets rid of the option to brute force the same sequence until the player wins as it will always end up as the same result.

Final Thoughts

So, what is the best strategy for dealing with player frustration with output randomness. Do we dismiss it and tell players to suck it up like Darkest Dungeon? Do we allow players to beat the randomness through determination like Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Easy Mode)? Do we do a sort of hybrid like Fire Emblem: Three Houses?

The obvious and unhelpful answer would be that it depends on what you are trying to say with your mechanics. If you want your game to feel frustrating and unforgiving, obviously go the direction of Darkest Dungeon. However, I will try to answer it through the lens of appealing to both audiences.

I think the best approach is something similar to Fire Emblem: Three Houses. While a game that takes Radiant Dawn’s approach of allowing anyone to reset to their hearts desire would theoretically be the most inviting to everyone, it could potentially undermine both the tension and rewarding feeling players receive from playing tactical games. An approach like Three Houses gives those who want that tension and challenge a slight break if something absolutely drastic would happen during their battle. This means players still do get a chance to retry a few times in a battle if something crazy happens, thus stopping them from having to reset their progress. Having the option to go back on a few mistakes per battle is a strong middle-ground approach in my opinion, as it still gives difficulty and tension to the fights while giving a bit of leniency to crazy unforeseen bad luck events.