ceasefire

As a general rule, I think a lot of people complaining about RNG in General Forums/Blogs/other sites are idiots. I notice a lot of the top players in battlegroups/servers/the world rarely complain about RNG, it's mostly the mediocre players and the terribles who cry about it nonstop. Based on my playing semi-professional Poker, I see this mentality in that game as well.

Basically, the way it's laid out, you have games like WoW, Poker, and Backgammon versus games like Chess, Starcraft, and Counterstrike. In the former, there are random elements added to a skill-based game. When you have 5000 people enter a tournament for such games, the most skilled players will generally have the best results, although this varies from event to event. So if you were to run the WWI one hundred times, Council of Mages might have won forty of them, and placed from second-fourth in the other sixty but never really finished last (these are hypothetical numbers pulled from my rear end).

Compare that to a game like Starcraft or Chess, where there are zero to very few random elements. The best players will always win. And consequently, games like Starcraft (I'm Korean, but let's exclude South Korea from SC) and Chess do not have big worldwide audiences. Sure, a country like Russia or Korea might have some fanaticism for Chess and SC, respectively. But neither game is really fun to watch because the outcome is almost predetermined.

In Poker, almost everyone feels they are "running bad," at some point. The list of endless QQ bad beat stories I've heard stretches on for years, and most of the people complaining are bad players who haven't really grasped the small edges that top players push for cash. Most of the MTT (tournaments like the WSOP) pros push every small edge in the beginning to acquire a huge stack, then try to flip for it with another big stack. So while you have the amateur crying about losing "yet another flip with AK vs underpair," the top pro realizes once you take a huge stack you can basically raise with impunity and take blinds + antes with little to no resistance.

In WoW, the scrubs in the 1700-2000 bracket complain constantly about RNG. "We would have beat him if my Kidney Shot hadn't resisted! He is an Orc so I lost!" In actuality, the reason the team lost has far less to do with RNG and far more to do with skill. Though I played on a 2300 Gladiator team, If I was to play fifty skirmishes with the top 2v2 on my battlegroup (Vorrent and Reflex, the former is a very e-famous druid), I think my team would probably win two or three games, possibly less. Themaximum upper limit I would put on our team's wins is probably 10 out of 50. Why? Because they are undoubtedly superior at the small things in game (GCD management, mana management, kiting) that separate the cream of the crop from the very good.

Gurg asked for instances where RNG determined a 3v3 game in an MLG or other such event. Most replies weren't able to directly address the issue because there are very few situations where RNG determines the winner. Why were Serennia/Neilyo able to place well in two tournaments in a row? Why are the same teams consistently at the top of the tournament realm ladders?

Lately, the amount of crying concerning counter-comping and RNG is getting depressing and borderline sickening. People claim Priest Mage Rogue has unwinnable matchups, then we see a Korean team sweep literally every comp and counter-comp out of the building. People are so set in a narrow-minded "this is the right strat, I'm too good to change" mindframe that they have to pretend to hate this beautiful, well-balanced game to justify their own failures.

You can't like WoW and play it without accepting the base fundamental rules governing the game. Do you want to remove the combat table, turn Parry/Dodge/Block into activated abilities? Do you want to remove the resist mechanic completely from Arena, and give players a pool of 3 resists to draw upon for the whole game? Give improved hamstring/mace stuns on a timer to players? If such changes were implemented, I guarantee your ratings won't jump from 1600 to 2200. It's not RNG that's holding you back. Such changes would actually let the experts carve out even bigger edges against you. It's retarded to hope PvE and Arena get completely separated when you're not even on the tournament realm (I'm not, and I love using PvP/PvE gear in different elements and the WoW combat system and the game in general).

Finally, the comparisons to real life sports (by people against RNG) are some of the stupidest/most asinine failures of logic I've ever seen. Because of physics, wind resistance, grass length, grass texture, and human temperaments, Sports have far, far more RNG than any video game. Give a player the chance to kick a ball from the same box one hundred times in a row and each ball will go in slightly different directions.

You want to compare an improved hamstring proc, or Mace Stun, to the variables involved in hitting a home run?

1. The catcher's signal
2. The pitcher's pitch
3. The hitter's nervousness/adrenaline
4. The swing the hitter takes
5. The wind
6. The ballpark
7. The call of the strike zone
8. The footing of the hitter
9. The pitcher
10. Wind resistance on the ball.

I hit a Hamstring. I can either slow, or have a 15% chance to immobilize. Chipper Jones hits a baseball, insert millions of potential outcomes.