Why is this game heavily RNG/Luck based?

[PossessingSpirit09]

Basically, my progress is pretty much decided by the weapons I get in the first few levels. It's the difference whether I blow past the first boss, or not even got to him.

Call me a scrub/NOOB, but I hold onto my opinion that it's too RNG based for its own good.

[Shrike]

Main design philosophy behind the game was that all things work and that you are not luck dependent like in other similar games. You can win with an upgraded pistol.
Same with the items, you can upgrade unending varied combinations of items (with exceptions of GPS and such) and it can all work. Its really not luck based

Blue weapons are very strong and power curve is very flat, it all depends on movement and weapon handling. Some people even say picking up legendaries is not worth it over upgraded blues.

You can get carried by being lucky but its really not balanced around that.
Maybe try look at some other peoples footage, stand still to shoot, aim for headshots and move well around enemies, that is the key to the game. If you find yourself reliant on heavy luck to progress, maybe the difficulty is just set too high. There is no shame in turning it down a bit - thats why its for!

[Awesomer]

almost all roguelites/roguelikes are the same way, rng plays a part but it all comes down to skill.

[Crisp]

git gud

[PhilGraves]

Definitely some luck involved in the early game, where you hope to find a weapon you can work with. But as you become more used to the multiple systems --weapon handling, cover usage, stat picking, items and rarity flagging etc-- it feels more like a conscientious flirtation with risk versus reward.

Do I pick the cheaper SMG that has a pretty standard output? Do I instead blow all my credits on a risky gun like the armageddon? Should I keep the Orb of Fire? Which of these stats best suits my need at this moment?

When it comes down to it, there is a general amount of credits you will find (the scavenging and credits stats CAN affect this, but you have a conscious power to improve those in many games) and there are ways to guarantee a few weapons and items you like will appear for your class. The rest comes down to polishing your ability to handle your weapon types, how to avoid or mitigate enemy fire, knowing when to make strategic choices instead of investing immediately, and how to accept risk for not-always-guaranteed reward.

It is true that there are many systems to understand and more to learn about how the game functions, but making observations on your runs is key. It is a roguelike. Die, learn, rinse, repeat has always been in the DNA.

The community has been very open in sharing information, and the Devs are working to further clarify the many systems at play. But ultimately the game is a challenging but fair experience that you can tweak to your current comfort or blow out of proportion to absolute slugfest if you want the challenge.

If you aren't satisfied, at least it was cheap. If you want to stay the course, you will improve.

Rip and Tear, til it is Done.

[HealthBar]

When I had been playing on 100%, I used to think the game is too randomized as well, and the weapons you get early decide everything. I had the same mindset as you did.

But I still kept playing the game for at least 100 hours of gameplay on 200%. Leveling up all classes to Prestige 1 & Level 25 finally gave me an insight to how to overcome luck.

Please keep in mind that this post will be quite long, because in order to claim why this game isn't heavily luck-based, it's unavoidable to explain a number of strategies/tactics available in-game.

Starting Pistols

• Class-exclusive starting pistols, such as the Kaida Model H, PPQ-H Laser Pistol, Master Chief, Coil Pistol, and TEC-9 are worth the Upgrade Kits.
  
  
• The former 3 are damaging and possess good movement stability, while the Coil Pistol is the go-to for the Breacher, and the Rogue class, especially the Sniper, can work around the downsides of TEC-9 until it's upgraded to full-auto.
  
  
• Cycling 3+ weapon slots with mouse wheel is difficult at times, and the pistol will always act as a hole if you don't upgrade it. If you do, even when you whip out an pistol accidentally, it will still give you a fighting chance. But if you have a primary weapon with great ammo/heat management, you don't need to upgrade your pistol.
  
  
• You can beat the first boss with an un-upgraded pistol and a fair amount of effort, so saving Upgrade Kits until the first boss possibly drops a weapon crate can be a good idea.

Starting Items

• Pistols still lose against groups of enemies, so I recommend having starting items which can be exploited before you finally engage.
  
  
• For Guardians, Stun Grenades and Tomahawk work well; enemies inflicted by stun will stand still, letting you single-out enemy(ies) with a Tomahawk.
  
  
• For Rogues, almost anything will work except class-shared ones, although their starting items have better synergy with their Class Talents rather than other starting items. Smoke Grenade is useful even for the Sniper, because the class is frequently forced to stand still.
  
  
• For Commandos, their starting items are for filling up the gaps, rather than providing offensive methods. The item with the best universal application is the Stim Pack, which provides firepower and mobility. Anything except Hard-Light Cover works for two classes. Although Plasma Grenade has no synergy with its classes, unalerted enemies damaged by it will clump up towards the explosion, rather than tracking you, so it also works as a distraction. Or, you can yield the Grenade to your Demolisher in Co-op.
  
  
• For Specialists, the Engineer will have a much better time with Missile Drone and Guardian. Meanwhile, the Demolisher can carry Acid Grenade and Composite 4. Enemies damaged by the Acid Grenade will immediately rush to your location, and that's when you place C4s on your position.

Starting Modules

• No matter what your goal is I recommend taking at least 1 Module for mobility; some bosses such as Fighter Jet and Last Defender are a mobility-check, and each Loop cycle takes away approximately 100 Move Speed.
  
  
• For Guardians, they are actually okay to take other Modules instead; Riot Guard is very durable, and it starts with Soft Point ammo and Warcry, which slow down bosses. Meanwhile, since Breacher is the fastest among all classes, it is almost free from strain of mobility upgrades.
  
  
• For Others, Switch Position, Press The Attack, Overdrive is a good pick.

Power Tokens

• For Items, unless you own a mouse with a lot of Thumb Buttons and Index Buttons or your left hand is lightning-fast, I don't recommend prioritizing a lot of Active items.
  
  
• I use Logitech G502 which gives me 2 Thumb Buttons and 3 Macro-Assignable Buttons, so I can use up to 7 Active items without using my left hand.
  
  
• Consider guaranteeing Lightning Boots, because it gives you Move Speed bonus even after recycled.
  
  
• Consider guaranteeing an AI summon, because you'll benefit a lot in the second stage of the final boss (a.k.a Disco Room).
  
  
• For Weapons, consider guaranteeing Blue weapons which also unlock special ammo upon pick-up. Tactical Observer and Spectre offer Soft Point, SPAS-12 unlocks Incendiary, Pressurized Impaler grants Slug. I highly recommend acquiring Soft Point, because it lowers the mobility threshold for dealing with certain enemies, and you can stunlock most enemies with rapid-fire.

[Lmaozeroni]

Just fully upgrade the flak gun and you'll make it through

[Nachtmahr]

Tbh it feels rigged. Like as soon as you enter the military base, the game seems to downgrade your luck. Just got killed in the second level of the base after the space world again, because all of a sudden all of my weapons were jammed and the 7% chance of doing 80% less dmg upped to 50+%, at least that's how it feels. I almost had everything in other roguelikes by my current playtime and i already feel burned out and cheated by this one, sorry. Runs are too similar and bosses need some balancing and you cannot upgrade your character on a pad, otherwise you activate your items when picking a skill or, even worse, activate the next upgrade kit when it is on the A button, even if you want to upgrade other weapons (switching item position also does not work because pressing left opens your weapon stats menu). The game also often locks your aim, so sometimes you cannot move the curser behind you anymore or not far away... or it simply disappears. Just because 2% of players can somehow faceroll the game with 100h of playtime doesn't mean it is balanced or fair. Still a die roll. Nope nope

[Shrike]

Jamming is always the same % and has an internal cooldown, there is no change in luck on higher levels. Military bay is just very hard as it should

[BlackjackGT]

You can use the Token system to decently increase the odds of getting (via drops or crates or vendor kiosks) your favorite weapons and items, and decrease the odds of getting some of the ones you don't like to use.

For me part of the fun/challenge is improvising with the weapons and (often powerful) items a game session drops for me, and then upgrading them. That's how the game stays fresh for me after closing on 200 hours.

Maybe if I had my druthers I would use FMJ-9 and Enforcer Carbine and nothing else, just I think that would get boring. :) I adored Arrowhead's Helldivers, but I would get tired of watching players use their favorite laser rifle and pew-pew-pew, never trying any other weapon in the game.

I wouldn't mind maybe some separate skirmish mode where we could maybe pick one favorite weapon at the start? Maybe some year. :)

P.S. I'll admit I still hate the crossbow weapons and refuse to use them. I've read the beta update does something to finally make those more appealing, but I'll believe it when I see it. :)

[Jazman2k]

Originally posted by BlackjackGT:

For me part of the fun/challenge is improvising with the weapons and (often powerful) items a game session drops for me, and then upgrading them. That's how the game stays fresh for me after closing on 200 hours.

This is the reason why this game is so addicting. To quote Crysis 1:

"Adapt. Engage. Survive."

I admit that sometimes I would like to choose my own setup, but did I have fun when I got to upgrade my rail shotgun into fully automatic one.

[Nachtmahr]

There is not much to improve when you get killed by strange design decisions and as the changelog stated: "don't argue with the devs". Not the best attitude but for example, when the final boss catches you with his shotgun blasts because you were dodging his orbital laser or you get hit by his spawning drones and you play with slowed movement when hit, then it is almost always a guaranteed death. Of course it should be hard and challenging but it should be hard without being unfair. Even with the raider i often die because of that, especially when you cannot move at all, seems the amount of slowdown depends on the amount of damage you take.

[The wanderer]

I barely have 27 hours in the game, and i can reliably reach the military base on breacher and sniper, and have beat the game with the riot guard. Luck is a factor yes, but not to the degree you make it out to be. Tokens are your friend, use them.

[|_|HeaT]

it's not luck based. it may seem that way if you don't understand the systems or if you don't make the right plays and your execution is off. study the geometry, use the proper angles, kite efficiently. eventually it will all click.

-HeaT

[Bravo]

Luck is a huge factor in the game and generally it just boils down to getting or not getting a lucky set of rolls. If you are lucky (I don't mean class specialty Divine Legendary weapon lucky) you breeze through mid to later parts of the run, if you are not, the game is a slog to playthrough, you are handicapped (carrying upgrade kits and heart core for half if not entirety of your run) and will likely fail the run, feeling like you didn't do enough, when you did the best you could do out of what little (in comparison to a lucky run) was available to you.

Personal skill, meta knowledge, proper equipment selection, delusion of gunshop appearance making your playthroughs reliable - only makes up for half of your run the other half is either luck or balance abuse (like 1st floor weapon rerolling or unlimited upgrades Coil shotgun/Tactical Observer). Sure, all classes normal 145% playthrough completion can be achieved by simply playing the game, but then there is also postgame (loops and increased terror level due to high sum total of your class levels) and challenge modes completion which is incentivised by class unlocks - and suddenly you start longing for things that could make for a viable build material, which is only available through sheer luck alone.
Add to all of that the fact that there are essential class level unlocks that are only achieved through grinding and it will be no surprise that some would find the game repulsing in some aspect or the other.

If I were to change something, then I would add guaranteed attachment rolls (1 rare or 2 common), conditionally guaranteed gunshop and boss variant spawns, due to how I don't find wasted weapon upgrades/fighting with garbage rolled form crates/no apc and no slime boss runs as "alternative ways for having fun".
If any of the suggestions are "too broken" then what's likely going to be the reason is the absence of balance across outcomes of equal probability.

[RiftRipper]

Originally posted by Brav♂:

Luck is a huge factor in the game and generally it just boils down to getting or not getting a lucky set of rolls. If you are lucky (I don't mean class specialty Divine Legendary weapon lucky) you breeze through mid to later parts of the run, if you are not, the game is a slog to playthrough, you are handicapped (carrying upgrade kits and heart core for half if not entirety of your run) and will likely fail the run, feeling like you didn't do enough, when you did the best you could do out of what little (in comparison to a lucky run) was available to you.

Personal skill, meta knowledge, proper equipment selection, delusion of gunshop appearance making your playthroughs reliable - only makes up for half of your run the other half is either luck or balance abuse (like 1st floor weapon rerolling or unlimited upgrades Coil shotgun/Tactical Observer).

The way you try to play the game is what is leading you to believe it's overly based on luck. You aren't supposed to carry around upgrade kits or the Heart Core for more than one non-boss floor. If you promptly use these items, you'll find that the extra power they give you will be plenty to reach the next form of upgrading yourself - even if you have weapons that may not appear to complement your current class.

Do not underestimate the different weapons and items in this game; I completed my first 205% difficulty run with a loadout that I didn't feel good about at all.

And STOP with that "first floor weapon rerolling" BS. You are going to hurt your enjoyment of the game if you keep wasting time trying for "perfect" (there is no such thing) outcomes rather than playing the game. This applies to other roguelikes as well.

EDIT: Oh, and remember to use your supply tokens wisely. With these, you can effectively plan a loadout ahead of time (even when you're short on stores). Even when I use all 4 of my supply up tokens, I typically find AT LEAST 2 of the items I was trying for during the run. These eliminate a large portion of the game's luck factor outside of legendary items, which cannot receive supply tokens (but are also nowhere near necessary for success).