LimitlessUnits.com blog of Tony Huynh, Video Game Designer

Low Skill Cap and Luck (RNG) in World of Warcraft PVP

Wow is built and designed around the casual player
WoW is built from the ground up to be accessible to new players. Blizzard’s VP of game design Rob Pardo described the design philosophy of World of Warcraft as the “donut design.” This is where the outside of the donut consists of the casual players, while the center is where the hardcore players reside. WoW is a game built for casual players with enough depth to draw in the hardcore players. When Blizzard designed the Player-Versus-Player (PVP) system for WoW, this design philosophy carried over and resulted in the inclusion of the global cooldown and luck or random number generator (rng) as WoW players call it.

Neilyo 14.5 Part 1

Neilyo 14.5 Part 2

The global cooldown
While reaction times and the number of inputs does play a factor in World of Warcraft PVP, it is greatly limited by the built in one second global cooldown between inputs. This places a lowered skill cap on how fast a player needs to input commands to be competitive. There are exceptions to this as certain abilities are off the global cooldown, but for most cases this holds true. It does not matter if you have an amazing ability to input commands at a very fast pace, you are limited to the artificial limit imposed.

StarCraft is a good example of a game without such a skill cap. For elite StarCraft players the number of inputs per minute is something to brag about. Some of the players can consistently achieve as high as 500 inputs per minute. These players constantly practice and strive to improve their inputs per minute and their ability to micromanage multiple units.

The global cooldown also lessens the mistakes that players can make. Because a WoW player is limited by the global cooldown and can only input so many commands per minute they are less prone to make mistakes because there are simply fewer decisions and inputs necessary. This makes the game much more accessible to players who are simply incapable of entering 500 commands per minute. The global cooldown supports the casual player by making the game easier for them to be successful. The great advantage of this is that it makes World of Warcraft PVP much more popular and accessible to more people.

Luck gives PVP greater accessibility and helps turn the casual player into the hardcore player
Luck (rng) is a difficult balance in a game like WoW. Too little and the game becomes stale and inaccessible to novice players, too much luck and players become frustrated. However, luck supports the design tenant of the donut by giving less skilled or out-geared players a chance to win or at least make games close.

Luck is valuable because beginners will enjoy the game more when luck allows them to occasionally win against a more seasoned or better-geared opponent. Conversely, if WoW did not have a luck component, a less skill opponent would never win and this constant negative reinforcement will drive away many novice competitors. It is necessary to reward novice players occasionally to keep their participation and push them to get better at the game. For example, the poker variant Texas Hold’em is popular and maintains its popularity because the game rewards new players and keeps them interested in the game by allowing them to win on occasion through luck alone.

Neilyo Interview

Luck increases the skill cap
Without luck (RNG), WoW PVP involving two equally skilled opponents or teams would be a pre-scripted affair whose outcome would be predetermined from the start. The game would play out something like this. The attacker begins with an attack and from then on each player might as well read off of a script and perform the best possible move in succession until the conclusion of the match. While WoW gives players the illusion of a lot of options, there is almost always a best move or path at any given time. If both sides play “perfectly,” the race, class and spec of the characters or the teams’ combination of classes determine the game because certain classes or team matrixes simply outclass others. The only time this pattern can be broken is through human error. For all the negativity that luck in the game of WoW receives, the game without it would be a very straightforward experience without much deviation.

For WoW, luck has the very strange property of actually increasing skill cap. Players need to be able to react to broken patterns not only from human error but also from bad luck. Players need to switch to a different track or branch in the previously mentioned script to adjust for attacks or defensive measures that fail due to bad luck. This keeps matches from degenerating into a stale affair. If a Rogue’s kidney shot (a move that stuns the opponent) fails due to being randomly dodged, he needs to adjust his next series of moves for his now interrupted stun lock. Another example, this time involving a team, is if a Druid’s cyclone, a spell that incapacitates another player, is resisted, the team must now communicate and coordinate another member to use a different ability to continue the incapacitate effect on the opponent. Luck forces teamwork and emphasizes adjustment to failed attacks.

Luck mitigates some of the balance issues
WoW is a far cry from being balanced and with so many abilities and classes and team combinations possible it likely never will be. Luck helps to mitigate some of these issues by giving lower tier classes or class combinations a chance against higher tier class or team combinations. Let’s say a Warrior, Warlock and Druid team dominates a Rogue, Mage and Priest team (whether it does or not is immaterial to this discussion) luck can help to turn the tide and the dominated team can actually pull off a win over the dominate team. When a weaker class matrix can occasionally overcome a dominant one, it helps to mask the fact that the game is not balanced.

WoW’s shift to the hardcore
Games over the course of time tend to eliminate luck and cater more and more towards the hardcore. WoW is not the exception to this rule. The shift to a lessened duration of stuns instead of an outright resist percentage and the removal of Mace induced random stuns are examples of this.

Conclusion
The World of Warcraft design philosophy of catering to the casual player is supported by the global cooldown and built in luck element of PVP combat. These pillars of the design keep the game popular and accessible to a wider audience and mask many of the balance issues in the game. Luck also has the effect of spicing up the game and increasing the skill cap as players and teammates must adjust to failed attacks. Lastly, if you are a hardcore player that does not like luck in your games, the World of Warcraft has already changed in your favor and over time will continue to move in this direction.

Tags: accessibility, blog, casual gamer, Comparison, donut design, game design balance, game play, gameplay mechanics, global cooldown, hardcore gamer, limitless units, limitlessunits, limitlessunits.com, Low Skill Cap and Luck (RNG) in World of Warcraft PVP, low skill skill, luck, luck in pvp design, MMO, mmorpg, player versus player, PVP, pvp balance, pvp mechanics, random number generator, riposte101, RNG, rng in wow pvp, tony huynh, video game design, video game education, World of Warcraft, wow, wow pvp mechanics, wow skill cap

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 5:33 am and is filed under Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Low Skill Cap and Luck (RNG) in World of Warcraft PVP”

RandomNaab says:

April 3, 2009 at 4:57 pm

A well put together article, however, there are quite some silly examples in it. Obviously anyone that has ever played WoW on a higher level than the casual gamer despises the RNG, but removing the global cooldown will lessen the skill required for certain classes. Classes not capped by rage or energy (mainly mages, warlocks and retribution paladins, but really anything with mana) Since they’ll be able to just spam all of their buttons until they’re out of mana. (no this will not add up to 500 apm simply because it’s not an rts game and 500 apm is not required. Counterstrike doesn’t have 500 apm that doesn’t make it any less of a game or esport).

Comparing WoW to starcraft as an esport and as a game in general will obviously make WoW look terrible. RNG, though present (Shooting up cliffs and of course the initial scouting), is obviously way less established in starcraft, so in that sence you’re bound to be upset by WoW. However I believe that when pitted against eachother in a Best of 3 or Best of 5 match the more experienced WoW team will always win, mainly because luck can only get you so far.

In short, RNG is awful, global cooldown is required and starcraft is the best esport ever.

-RandomNaab
Bizmark says:

April 6, 2009 at 1:44 am

Well thought out – but I’d have to disagree about Global Cooldown. WoW is not shy of it’s use of macro’s and GCD helps limit this. Some classes rely on using certain attacks more (or as often as possible) where-as others usee less attacks less often.

The situation being Mage/Rogue Versus Priest (in a classic RMP melee/caster/healer setup). A priest relies on picking when to use his attacks/heals and the other 2 would rely on bursting out as much as possible to kill a target before he can get one of those attacks off. Without GCD, instant cast classes would make casters or people with ability cooldowns incredibly inferior. GCD makes instant casts adhere to the strict DPS charts just like regular spells. Should an instant cast do as much damage as a full cast? No. Why? Because it requires no setup and is uninteruptable in the classic sense, and no thought of position is required to initiate it. Melee is different in this case, since you don’t ‘cast’ punching someone in the face in different ways :p.

RNG can be a pain, but i think positioning and arena design play a bigger part in competative WoW – and that’s where the skill comes in.

WoW’s skill cap means a class can do certain abilities and can react in different ways in different situations… and based on your class and race there is definately a “best” course of action you can follow. This means you opponent is also aware of the next move you will make… so doesn’t the actual playing of it become pointless? Not really – generally the player in the better position will win because they are aware of the outcome of their situation on level terms, so they force their opponent into a position they dont want to be in, but are equally aware that they have no choice but to do. It’s no different than spamming grenades in a DM game to force an opponent down a certain corridor that you want them in. 2 people both have awesome aim – if one happens to get to the biggest gun and has the most armor first then the under-dog has to out-position them to win. WoW is no different.

Biz.
AVerniks says:

October 16, 2009 at 1:17 pm

As for me, everything is fully satisfied.
Lorencohop says:

December 11, 2010 at 4:46 pm

Is it possible to contact administration?
Thank for all
billymadsion says:

February 10, 2011 at 5:36 am

I used to have alot of respect for these high rated players, i myself enjoy the pvp especialy arena in wow and my highest achieve was in the 2100ish bracket. Trying to always improve my game i would read alot about stratagies and check out the diffrent websites dedicated to arena. To my surprise a player named neilyo showed up on my server about 8months ago and i was shocked to say the least, his 3v3 was sitting in the 2700ish bracket far above anyone from our server. I was fasicnated and wanted more information from him and started talking to this player. too bad i found out he used speed and gcd hacks the entire time on our server. there were even posts on the old forums before they were converted of him flying around in arena matches going through walls etc etc. so remember if u want to be on the top, you have to cheat.
diablo 3 accounts says:

July 24, 2011 at 5:57 pm

Luck plays way too much into the game now, arena matches can take up to 30 minutes now, what kinda bs is that? Yes, im rehasing but RESILIENCE KILLED THIS GAME!
Momikayavoimb says:

May 6, 2013 at 5:08 pm

sms softbank 009 gauge strings
グッチバッグ通販 & brumble
ヴィヴィアンウエストウッド 01 golden bronze
chrome hearts
マークジェイコブスバッグ
 パンドラ
 pandora
レイバン偽物
Carlita Keaney says:

May 18, 2013 at 2:35 am

Good post. I be taught something more difficult on totally different blogs everyday. It should all the time be stimulating to learn content from different writers and follow slightly something from their store. I’d prefer to make use of some with the content on my weblog whether or not you don’t mind. Natually I’ll provide you with a link on your web blog. Thanks for sharing.