This Game Feels Wrong

[Kirin]

I'm not a certified PhD holding video game scientist, but unlike Mini Metro, I feel like my ability to get a high score is affected much more by the RNG spawning than my skill as a player.
Sometimes, it all goes well, and I am given a perfect city, where all the roads are driven by a single color car, and I can just sit back on fast forward and only worry about new spawns. Other times, a destination will spawn immediately off a road currently used by a different color, and I have to accept that eventually that building will be the death of my city.
I also find myself restarting a map over and over again simply because the first destination has its road on the wrong side, and I don't think my first road should have to wrap around its destination in some silly spiral. I could just... not do this, but there's no consequences for it, and it results in a higher score than if I just accept that I need to start off by wasting a dozen roads going further than I would otherwise.
The only way to control spawns is to sprinkle roads... well, everywhere. This doesn't feel intentional, mostly because it's ugly as sin. I'm also fairly certain my goal here is to keep traffic flowing, not micromanage every acre. There's no indication of where a building can spawn, or where a house can spawn, that's something you can only learn by playing more than I'd like to right now, with how RNG-dependent my score is.

I DON'T GIVE A ♥♥♥♥ ABOUT YOUR SCORE
I DON'T CARE IF YOU SCORE HIGHER THAN ME
THIS IS NOT A THREAD ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT A SCORE IS HIGH OR LOW
THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT RNG
IF YOU JUST WANNA BRAG ABOUT YOUR SCORE, SCREAM GIT GUD, AND DENY THE FACT THAT RNG IS THE MAJOR DECIDING FACTOR IN A HIGH SCORE, LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK

[LotusBlade]

So what exactly is your question? Cus any game with random generation fully depends on random generation, be it Binding of Isaac, Monster Train, Lobotomy Corporation or Demon Crawl.

Sometimes it just perfectly creates shops and houses so you can simply separate it all and reach 2500-5000 score, but winning game (which happens near 8000) still takes skill, since you won't just be able to block everything manually. Turning bad generation and spare roads into right decisions grants victory.

Reached 5000 several times, but every lose was deserved since i knew what exactly caused it, which helped to avoid same mistakes later. Sadly, bugs happen a lot (cars jam / stopping moving all of the sudden). If devs will fix those problems, game will become easely winnable.

[Kirin]

Originally posted by LotusBlade:

So what exactly is your question? Cus any game with random generation fully depends on random generation, be it Binding of Isaac, Monster Train, Lobotomy Corporation or Demon Crawl.

Sometimes it just perfectly creates shops and houses so you can simply separate it all and reach 2500-5000 score, but winning game (which happens near 8000) still takes skill, since you won't just be able to block everything manually. Turning bad generation and spare roads into right decisions grants victory.

Reached 5000 several times, but every lose was deserved since i knew what exactly caused it, which helped to avoid same mistakes later. Sadly, bugs happen a lot (cars jam / stopping moving all of the sudden). If devs will fix those problems, game will become easely winnable.

I never see what I did wrong that resulted in a loss. It's almost always because things spawned in places where I simply don't have the tools to deal with it.
House and shop of a new color on opposite sides of town, no option for motorway for 2 weeks, of course the run dies.
One color house on an island, another color across a river... 1 bridge to try and figure out how to get off the island and across the river. Of course the run dies.
No tunnels, but the only way to access this building for the next 2 weeks is a tunnel that the game just won't give me.
I never felt like Mini Metro was asking the impossible of me, but it seems like all my runs of this game end because the game is asking the impossible of me.

[guth]

Originally posted by Kirin:

I feel like my ability to get a high score is affected much more by the RNG spawning than my skill as a player.

I agree it's very much affected by RNG, but not quite for the same reasons you give. Or at least not primarily. My problem is that once you've figured out how to get high scores (i.e. to separate everything as much as possible, not only by color, but by individual malls), the score you'll get is very much determined by how many motorways you get. If you get many motorways you can separate everything and get 20,000+ scores, and if you don't, you're screwed. And how many motorways you get is 100% determined by luck. There needs to be a good balance between skill and luck, but sadly it's not balanced at all in this game, imho.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Kirin:

I never see what I did wrong that resulted in a loss. It's almost always because things spawned in places where I simply don't have the tools to deal with it. House and shop of a new color on opposite sides of town, no option for motorway for 2 weeks, of course the run dies.

Why would it? The first few weeks are very lenient with how many houses are spawned vs. how many cars you need - often times, you can completely ignore individual houses that spawn in bad locations, or do some unhealthily long roads until better options arrive. Plus, most of the map is unobstructed, and the traffic is low enough to be mindless about just allowing everything to use the same road and save a ton of blocks.

Bad starts require heavy restructuring during the midgame, but I don't think I've had a single "Doomed to fail early" start outside of bad river spawns - which can usually be prevented by blocking areas with extra roads.

Originally posted by Kirin:

One color house on an island, another color across a river... 1 bridge to try and figure out how to get off the island and across the river. Of course the run dies.

Block those areas with roads.

Originally posted by Kirin:

No tunnels, but the only way to access this building for the next 2 weeks is a tunnel that the game just won't give me.

Which map would that be?

Overall though.. yeah, there is a LOT of rng in how things are spawned in the map, and they do cause the difficulty to fluctuate widely, but there is also a LOT one can do to navigate the landscape, especially during the earlier parts of the match.

It just comes down to building what is required at the moment, and restructuring things over time as new opportunities and problems come up. There is a lot to be said about the later parts of the game, but I believe that if you have trouble in the earlier parts, then that's probably at least partly based on mistakes that you make, or false assumptions that lead you down the wrong path.

[Kirin]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by Kirin:

I never see what I did wrong that resulted in a loss. It's almost always because things spawned in places where I simply don't have the tools to deal with it. House and shop of a new color on opposite sides of town, no option for motorway for 2 weeks, of course the run dies.

Why would it? The first few weeks are very lenient with how many houses are spawned vs. how many cars you need - often times, you can completely ignore individual houses that spawn in bad locations, or do some unhealthily long roads until better options arrive. Plus, most of the map is unobstructed, and the traffic is low enough to be mindless about just allowing everything to use the same road and save a ton of blocks.

Bad starts require heavy restructuring during the midgame, but I don't think I've had a single "Doomed to fail early" start outside of bad river spawns - which can usually be prevented by blocking areas with extra roads.

Originally posted by Kirin:

One color house on an island, another color across a river... 1 bridge to try and figure out how to get off the island and across the river. Of course the run dies.

Block those areas with roads.

Originally posted by Kirin:

No tunnels, but the only way to access this building for the next 2 weeks is a tunnel that the game just won't give me.

Which map would that be?

Overall though.. yeah, there is a LOT of rng in how things are spawned in the map, and they do cause the difficulty to fluctuate widely, but there is also a LOT one can do to navigate the landscape, especially during the earlier parts of the match.

It just comes down to building what is required at the moment, and restructuring things over time as new opportunities and problems come up. There is a lot to be said about the later parts of the game, but I believe that if you have trouble in the earlier parts, then that's probably at least partly based on mistakes that you make, or false assumptions that lead you down the wrong path.

"block with roads block with roads block with roads"
it's very ugly to do so, it feels like I am cheating because the game won't play fair. And then what do I do when I need all those roads because destinations and houses are distant? just fail, the only possibility when that happens is failure.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Kirin:

"block with roads block with roads block with roads"
it's very ugly to do so, it feels like I am cheating because the game won't play fair.

It's not required, just makes things more consistent.

Originally posted by Kirin:

And then what do I do when I need all those roads because destinations and houses are distant? just fail, the only possibility when that happens is failure.

Maps are pretty small at the start of the game. If a map if of the type that benefits from blocking, then it's not also of the type that is prone to spawning things far away from each other. It can't since the water is the negative space that you're blocking for.

But if that worst case scenario happens, you can just delete the blocker roads. Since no cars use them, they'll be returned for reuse immediately.

[Kirin]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by Kirin:

"block with roads block with roads block with roads"
it's very ugly to do so, it feels like I am cheating because the game won't play fair.

It's not required, just makes things more consistent.

Originally posted by Kirin:

And then what do I do when I need all those roads because destinations and houses are distant? just fail, the only possibility when that happens is failure.

Maps are pretty small at the start of the game. If a map if of the type that benefits from blocking, then it's not also of the type that is prone to spawning things far away from each other. It can't since the water is the negative space that you're blocking for.

But if that worst case scenario happens, you can just delete the blocker roads. Since no cars use them, they'll be returned for reuse immediately.

Usually the moment I delete any blocker roads something terrible spawns and I just give up because it's easier to try for good RNG than it is to just "deal with it" and wind up not getting a better score.
My ability to improve as a player is limited by how reliant I am on getting motorways at the end of the week, having shops and houses spawn in decent locations, with the exits pointed in decent directions.
I'm hesitant to carry out a bad RNG run when I know just restarting and hoping for better spawns is the only way to actually improve my high score, because I got that high score mostly with the help of good RNG.
And do not assume I am quitting all the time at the start, often it is only by the 7th or 8th shop when I see I simply have no chance of beating my old high score, and thus no incentive to bother continuing.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Kirin:

Usually the moment I delete any blocker roads something terrible spawns and I just give up because it's easier to try for good RNG than it is to just "deal with it" and wind up not getting a better score.

I mean you're now what... at 4 layers of bad rng back to back?

Originally posted by Kirin:

My ability to improve as a player is limited by how reliant I am on getting motorways at the end of the week, having shops and houses spawn in decent locations, with the exits pointed in decent directions.

Not really. At the high end, it seems like it's all about number of high ways since they're so impactful, but house spawns and shop directions somewhat even out over the course of the game. In the average run you'll have some shops that are positioned well, and some that aren't. The game's lenient enough that it's not necessary for everything to line up.

And just to check, you do know you can change where houses have their exits, right? That sentence makes it sound like you think you're stuck with their exit points.

Originally posted by Kirin:

I'm hesitant to carry out a bad RNG run when I know just restarting and hoping for better spawns is the only way to actually improve my high score, because I got that high score mostly with the help of good RNG.

And do not assume I am quitting all the time at the start, often it is only by the 7th or 8th shop when I see I simply have no chance of beating my old high score, and thus no incentive to bother continuing.

Those are the situations that really improve your play though. When things are difficult, not going to plan, and you have to improvise. If you're only playing to get good rng, then yeah, better scores rely only on rng - because you've stopped improving.

But overall... if you don't like the element of rng... fair enough. It's certainly not for everybody. What you've said so far does not sound to me like you're highly optimized and like achieving new high scores is at the mercy of rng though. There's probably plenty of stuff you can improve if you treat each run as a learning exercise, not as a rush to a new high score.

[Kirin]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by Kirin:

Usually the moment I delete any blocker roads something terrible spawns and I just give up because it's easier to try for good RNG than it is to just "deal with it" and wind up not getting a better score.

I mean you're now what... at 4 layers of bad rng back to back?

Originally posted by Kirin:

My ability to improve as a player is limited by how reliant I am on getting motorways at the end of the week, having shops and houses spawn in decent locations, with the exits pointed in decent directions.

Not really. At the high end, it seems like it's all about number of high ways since they're so impactful, but house spawns and shop directions somewhat even out over the course of the game. In the average run you'll have some shops that are positioned well, and some that aren't. The game's lenient enough that it's not necessary for everything to line up.

And just to check, you do know you can change where houses have their exits, right? That sentence makes it sound like you think you're stuck with their exit points.

Originally posted by Kirin:

I'm hesitant to carry out a bad RNG run when I know just restarting and hoping for better spawns is the only way to actually improve my high score, because I got that high score mostly with the help of good RNG.

And do not assume I am quitting all the time at the start, often it is only by the 7th or 8th shop when I see I simply have no chance of beating my old high score, and thus no incentive to bother continuing.

Those are the situations that really improve your play though. When things are difficult, not going to plan, and you have to improvise. If you're only playing to get good rng, then yeah, better scores rely only on rng - because you've stopped improving.

But overall... if you don't like the element of rng... fair enough. It's certainly not for everybody. What you've said so far does not sound to me like you're highly optimized and like achieving new high scores is at the mercy of rng though. There's probably plenty of stuff you can improve if you treat each run as a learning exercise, not as a rush to a new high score.

I don't feel like I'm improving when my best runs feel like the product of sheer luck and my worst turn out to be the same.

[Kirin]

also you cannot change or move the exit on destinations, which is what I was talking about. Starts seem to almost always have the first destination point away from all the houses.

[Tyrael Raven]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by Kirin:

Usually the moment I delete any blocker roads something terrible spawns and I just give up because it's easier to try for good RNG than it is to just "deal with it" and wind up not getting a better score.

I mean you're now what... at 4 layers of bad rng back to back?

I don't at all mean to be rude, but that's exactly his point and I don't think he's wrong, I'm not sure if you're intentionally being obtuse but you seem to understand exactly what he means but you're just straight up just pretending that RNG is irrelevant.

The daily the other day where no bridges spawned and it was literally impossible to move forward is a great example. You can sit here all day and go off about how everyone just needs to "make better choices" and "git gud" basically but not recognizing that's not actually possible in some situations due to the RNG - there ARE literally unwinnable situations that come about completely regardless of player fault.

[LotusBlade]

Let's change question course to better understand a problem. Author, how far are you reaching in scores on average?

[Kitsunin]

I just wanna say that I feel completely the same. I've even gotten infinite scores. The game just doesn't have any depth relative to mini metro. Once you pass 2,000 points there's basically one shape of road that works and it's not even like the strategy to get that type of road is very interesting. Motorways are way too much more powerful than every other choice.

There's no gradual ramping of difficulty, either. Once you get past the 2-4k point area it's just you have one traffic jam and lose, or you keep going indefinitely.

EDIT: I don't agree with the specifics though. I don't reset early because I find that bad luck in the beginning is unimportant relative to aggregate luck over the course of a run. I can almost always get a minimum of 3k points.

[Kirin]

Originally posted by LotusBlade:

Let's change question course to better understand a problem. Author, how far are you reaching in scores on average?

A little under 1k, some maps are easier than others, and I usually get more than 1k on them.
What really broke me was when I got really good RNG on LA and was magically handed a 2.7k score. Didn't feel like I had really earned it, and I've never gotten anywhere close since.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by Tyrael Raven:

I don't at all mean to be rude, but that's exactly his point and I don't think he's wrong, I'm not sure if you're intentionally being obtuse but you seem to understand exactly what he means but you're just straight up just pretending that RNG is irrelevant.

Not at all. RNG is what makes or breaks the game later on. But he was talking about the earlier parts of the game and his examples are essentially situations that statistically hardly ever happen. He's talking about a topic that has merit, but what he's saying makes it seem to me like his particular problems lie elsewhere - at least partially.

The one exception being...

Originally posted by Tyrael Raven:

The daily the other day where no bridges spawned and it was literally impossible to move forward is a great example. You can sit here all day and go off about how everyone just needs to "make better choices" and "git gud" basically but not recognizing that's not actually possible in some situations due to the RNG - there ARE literally unwinnable situations that come about completely regardless of player fault.

...this kind of situation, which I've acknowledged earlier.

And this just confirms it to be honest:

Originally posted by Kirin:

A little under 1k, some maps are easier than others, and I usually get more than 1k on them.
What really broke me was when I got really good RNG on LA and was magically handed a 2.7k score. Didn't feel like I had really earned it, and I've never gotten anywhere close since.

Not to be elitist, but a little under 1k isn't a score where the rng adds up to a disaster. If you're playing well, your lower average score can easily go beyond that.