A lucky novice can beat a pro. You end up with a lot of pissed off gamers. While randomness in a fighting game may sound like fun to you or me, some competitive gamers are understandably turned off by the idea of losing to lady luck.

Imagine if people took a straight competitive game, like chess, and added something like random power-ups. In the mind of chess fans, this completely defeats the purpose of chess.

As we mentioned earlier, random number generators are algorithms. But as you know from your many years of math experience, two plus two always equals four.

Where does a video game get its variables from? It has to look for naturally changing local values. There are many ways for a computer to generate random numbers.

In some cases, these numbers are actually predictable enough to manipulate. For many people, RNG is great for keeping games unpredictable and fresh.

RNG can be good. Should every Minecraft world be the same, or should every item you find in Diablo be identical every time you play?

RNG offers variety and can keep things fresh. But many competitive gamers feel that RNG undermines skill.

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Gelbin Mekkatorque is a great example of a card with a substantial element of RNG. Which invention Gelbin will summon, and which minions will be affected by those inventions, is all determined by RNG.

The card has the power to turn the game to a player's advantage, but offers little guarantee that that player will be the one who summoned him.

With a myriad of possible spells it could cast, the end result can leave the user in a better or worse state, but how it accomplishes it is unpredictable.

Overall, a little RNG can add a lot of fun to a game, but too much can add a lot of frustration. Some players will intentionally choose to introduce elements of RNG to reduce boredom, or simply to see what happens.

However, the uncertainty of RNG elements causes many players to avoid them whenever possible, preferring guaranteed effects which can be relied upon to achieve their intended goals, and RNG options are often considered to be slightly poorer than their average effect, due to the undesirability of their randomness, which also makes planning for their use much harder.

To compensate for this, RNG-heavy effects often offer superior benefits to less unpredictable alternatives, to encourage their use in-game.

However, if such elements offer too large an advantage, victory may begin to feel arbitrary and unimportant, determined more by the roll of an electronic dice than by actual player skill.

The exact degree and balance of RNG in games is an ongoing design consideration for developers, as well as an area where understanding of the underlying mechanics is of great significance for ensuring the satisfaction and enjoyment of the community.

The primary form of RNG within the game is card draw. Each card that is drawn is selected randomly from the player's deck. While a skilled player can construct a deck that is likely to provide useful cards, which cards will be drawn is generally beyond the player's control.

A bad streak of undesirable cards can easily ruin a player's chances of winning a game. On the other hand, a lucky streak of ideal cards can spell victory against formidable opponents.

RNG or luck is commonly perceived by inexperienced or frustrated players to be a dominant force in Hearthstone , and it cannot be denied that the draw of a single card can at times spell victory or defeat for the player.

However, other players contend that Hearthstone is primarily ruled by skill and deck construction, with luck playing a notable but far from overriding role in determining the winner of matches, pointing to the consistently high success rates of certain players as evidence that the game is ruled by ability above luck.

One common complaint is that a single instance of RNG has caused the player to lose a game. However, this is almost never accurate: when all sources are taken into account, the average match contains dozens of instances of RNG, all of which conspire - in combination with players' skill and decision-making - to produce the results seen in-game.

For example, a player who is defeated by an opponent who topdecks Reno Jackson may point out that that single instance of card draw caused their opponent to win instead of lose, and thus claim that the entire game of Hearthstone comes down to nothing but RNG.

However, they are forgetting the dozens of instances of card draw leading up to that moment, the initial coin flip to see who goes first, as well as all the random effects on the player's cards, which were required in combination in order to bring about the situation in which the player almost won.

The selective nature of the human mind means players often remember the RNG that lost them the game while forgetting the many instances which did not, and this is especially true when RNG is the final stroke in deciding the outcome of a match.

Ultimately victory is possible only through the combination of a large number of suitable outcomes - and the range of possible outcomes is itself defined by the players, through the cards they include in their decks, and the choices they make during each match.

While RNG does still decide many games, the luck margin is much smaller than it often appears. He points out that the timing of RNG can be highly significant, stating that randomness that occurs before decision-making is "generally good for introducing more problem solving", and can increase the skill factor by requiring players to respond creatively to the new situation: experienced players will be able to adapt to the outcome of RNG, while less-skilled players may struggle.

As a result RNG can increase the skill factor in a game, rather than taking away from it. Brode also points out that it takes skill and good decision-making to create the opportunities for RNG to save the player.

RNG is an ongoing subject of debate among players. In a late survey on Reddit, RNG was by far the word most frequently used by players to describe what they disliked about Hearthstone.

The class's Hero Power, Totemic Call , summons a random totem out of a pool of four possible types. The RNG effect becomes less pronounced as more totems are summoned, as the power cannot summon additional copies of the same totem.

There are also many cards which feature a strong element of RNG in the form of random effects. For a full list, and tips on handling RNG in Hearthstone , see random effect.