We generally talk extensively about player skill when it comes to gaming, and for a good number of reasons! As you already know, gamers are given ample opportunities to showcase their expertise and proficiency in what they play. But then a bomb named RNG drops, and one thinks to himself, ” What is RNG in gaming ?”. So, read along to get to know more about it!
RNG is short for Random Number Generator and is an essential part of many popular games that you know today. Agreed that a game should let players brag about their skills and build them up with time, but you will also notice that this gets monotonous at one point in time. Hence, RNG in games is important, which you will read about later in this article.
RNG gaming has had its fair share of lovers and haters amongst the gaming community. Some gamers enjoy having it in the games, while others despise it. Both are reasonable as it is a subjective matter. People who are more into building up their skills by working hard are not among its biggest fans. Anyways, let’s get into the main topic, what is RNG in gaming, before you decide which demographic you belong to.
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What Is RNG In Gaming?
As we all know, games have at least some amount of the unexpected, that is, randomness! Randomness is what keeps the world fresh and fun. The same is the case with games. It induces a sense of surprise and anticipation among the players while they are enjoying their favorite game.
RNG meaning in video games has evolved into any randomized outcome that might incur in gaming. So, if anyone complains about RNG, they are complaining about luck. If you think about it, humans have had plenty of reasons to generate random numbers for a while now. Sure, we can have random people spouting off random numbers. But, people have biases, conscious or not, towards specific numbers.
History Of RNG:
You might still be thinking, ‘ What is RNG in gaming ?’, but let’s first talk about its history. Over the course of civilization, tools like dice have been created for getting random outcomes. But did you know that not even the numbers generated by dice are genuinely 100% random? Dice are physically imperfect, and even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be a terribly efficient way to generate random numbers.
Without going way deep into maths, numbers generated by computers aren’t entirely random either. The sequence can eventually repeat if the randomness comes from a set algorithm. The quest for genuinely erratic phenomena that could be used as a basis for random numbers led to the development of ERNIE in the 1960s.
ERNIE is short for Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment. Whether it is particles of Neon gas or atmospheric noise, truly random number generation uses a natural, unpredictable phenomenon for generating random numbers.
Why Do You Use RNG in gaming?
RNG is predominantly utilized to give variation. Algorithm-constructed levels in games sure don’t give you the essence of playing a human-designed version of the game. But, it sure will provide you with heterogeneity! Without randomness, we would not be playing games like Minecraft with extremely huge worlds with randomness.
By getting rid of the capacity to reencounter the same level repeatedly and memorize every feature of the stage, players are inevitably compelled to master the game’s background methodology. This inevitably prepares them for anything the algorithm might bring up at the moment. Randomness is also a sturdy measure to mediate a multiplayer game.
Types Of RNG:
We can generally classify RNG into two types:
Output Randomness-
It is more likely to disrupt your plans, and it is not because of strategic ineptness but just unfortunate probability.
Input Randomness-
Here, the unforeseeable initial scenarios can sometimes hugely control the probability of winning. The perfect tuning of input and output randomness is necessary for a pleasant gaming experience.
See Also: Top 24 Word Game Apps for Android and iOS [Updated 2021]
Types Of Games Using RNG
- Some games make no use of RNG at all, some incorporate it sparingly, and some are RNG heavy! You must know what is RNG in gaming? Talking about the first type, let us take the example of the Rocket League. Outside of spawn locations, randomness plays no role in a player’s game experience, as it is purely based on physics. In this case, luck might sometime affect the gamer’s performance. But this luck is never created out of their method of playing.
- Talking about the other end of these games, the RNG-heavy games like Hearthstone have completely embraced randomness, in fact, more than any other! The Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End is a card that casts a random spell for each spell you have already cast in that game.
Although the randomness in the RNG-heavy games is the main reason for their outstanding appeal, it can be off-putting for those gamers who value pure skill and strategies while playing. This creates a challenge for the developers to balance the amount of randomness or freshness in the game to awe the audience/players while also maintaining the demographic of players which values skillful competition over anything.
See Also: How classic games make smart use of random number generation
Conclusion:
What does RNG mean – this was a mysterious question with no answer before you had read this article. But with this perfect guide, you must now know what is RNG in gaming. The dominance of gaming in today’s world has led to developers working on all kinds of minute details. The developers’ response enables them to incorporate real-life effects into the games.
Since RNG is essential to enhance a gamer’s playing experience, you can expect to see more RNG-heavy games in the future. Although a company can develop the best games without using the concept of RNG at all, the game starts getting predictable at a point in time, leading to a bland gaming experience. Hoping you learned a lot from this article!
