TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 1,989
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
"If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?"
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When Firaxis's XCOM remake came out a constant complaint in the comments was that its random number generator was clearly cheating against players. Someone would miss a 95% chance, or God forbid a couple of them, and confidently declare that Jake Solomon was personally tweaking the probability to fuck with them.
Of course, that wasn't the case. As we later learned, the XCOM games do massage the math, but they do it in favor of the player—especially on lower difficulties. True randomness feels unfair, so XCOM cheated on our behalf. Which worked for most people, if not the ones in the comments section. I guess there's always a chance someone will think they're being hard done by even when you push the odds in their favor. It's probably got like a 95% chance of working.
Adhoc, the developers of Dispatch, followed the example set by Firaxis. Their superhero comedy's dispatching minigame, in which you assign heroes to jobs that best suit their abilities, gives a percentage chance of success based on how well you've selected your squad—matching their abilities to the challenges they'll face. Adhoc's directors, Nick Herman and Dennis Lenart, discussed this at a GDC talk.
"We knew that there were some tools to mitigate these frustrating experiences, like missing a 99-percenter," Herman said. "As any hardcore XCOM fan knows, one of the tricks Firaxis implemented was to secretly boost the numbers behind the scenes so that it felt fair, even if it was unearned. Those guys are pretty smart, so we thought we'd do the same."
Adhoc tested different variants before finalizing the version that shipped. "This is going to make so many people sad," Herman said. "We landed on anything that had over a 76% success chance would automatically succeed. Sorry!"
That was only the case until you had a winning streak, however. "After the player benefited three times from this boost," Herman went on, "we removed this auto win and gave them true odds again. As soon as they failed above 76% we enabled the three auto wins again to guarantee they didn't have a string of bad luck and complained that the game wasn't fair."
Lenart picked up the story from there. "On the other side of that, any percentage between one and 14% was always bumped up to a flat 15% chance at success," he explained. "With these sys...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
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Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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GamesRadar+
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Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
When Firaxis's XCOM remake came out a constant complaint in the comments was that its random number generator was clearly cheating against players. Someone would miss a 95% chance, or God forbid a couple of them, and confidently declare that Jake Solomon was personally tweaking the probability to fuck with them.
Of course, that wasn't the case. As we later learned, the XCOM games do massage the math, but they do it in favor of the player—especially on lower difficulties. True randomness feels unfair, so XCOM cheated on our behalf. Which worked for most people, if not the ones in the comments section. I guess there's always a chance someone will think they're being hard done by even when you push the odds in their favor. It's probably got like a 95% chance of working.
Adhoc, the developers of Dispatch, followed the example set by Firaxis. Their superhero comedy's dispatching minigame, in which you assign heroes to jobs that best suit their abilities, gives a percentage chance of success based on how well you've selected your squad—matching their abilities to the challenges they'll face. Adhoc's directors, Nick Herman and Dennis Lenart, discussed this at a GDC talk.
"We knew that there were some tools to mitigate these frustrating experiences, like missing a 99-percenter," Herman said. "As any hardcore XCOM fan knows, one of the tricks Firaxis implemented was to secretly boost the numbers behind the scenes so that it felt fair, even if it was unearned. Those guys are pretty smart, so we thought we'd do the same."
Adhoc tested different variants before finalizing the version that shipped. "This is going to make so many people sad," Herman said. "We landed on anything that had over a 76% success chance would automatically succeed. Sorry!"
That was only the case until you had a winning streak, however. "After the player benefited three times from this boost," Herman went on, "we removed this auto win and gave them true odds again. As soon as they failed above 76% we enabled the three auto wins again to guarantee they didn't have a string of bad luck and complained that the game wasn't fair."
Lenart picked up the story from there. "On the other side of that, any percentage between one and 14% was always bumped up to a flat 15% chance at success," he explained. "With these sys...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?