Randomness in Rewards - Some (Additional) Brief Thoughts

Randomness in reward systems is something that comes up sometimes when discussing various topics especially those related to WoW. The last time I wrote an article explicitly discussing randomness was many months ago and while it has shaped many suggestions prior to and since then, I feel I wasn't clear enough when making my point of how I think randomness should be used in a reward system. This especially became apparent more recently when discussion of loot box systems intensified and while I said my piece on that particular type of microtransaction, I still didn't make the connection regarding how the random chance to earn some rewards could be addressed. This is because gambling with real life money for entirely random rewards, while a concerning issue, is not the only one that needs to be considered. In this article, I'll briefly express more specific thoughts on where, in my opinion, randomness has a place in a reward system; feel free to skip to the end for a summary.

In the aforementioned article, I mentioned that having consistently worthwhile rewards in addition to the random rewards can help to alleviate the frustration of not earning the latter type of reward. This is an ideal I take very seriously and is the basis of my Valor gear upgrade suggestion since most endgame activities are intended to award Valor and by doing so, one can rationalize not earning Titanforged upgrades since eventually, their gear will be upgraded as much anyways. However, while evaluating the discussion on loot boxes and considering future article topics such as one involving how the Legendary gear system in the next expansion could work, I found there's another way to design around randomness in a reward system and I had already made suggestions on how to utilize it in a way.

The idea is to provide a viable, consistent alternative that provides players with a choice between taking a random chance or something specific. I am able to articulate this better thanks to some criticism I read on loot box systems that specifically mentioned that the critic in question would rather buy goods outright at a premium instead of having to deal with the frustration of not getting what they want. I think this can be adopted in some reward systems like with Legendaries where one could choose between a random Legendary or spend a bit more effort to earn a Legendary of their choice. It is also compatible with my other idea of having decent consistent rewards since the choice between random and specific can be added.

The Summary So Far

This article isn't exactly impressive since I basically spent several paragraphs to express an epiphany I've had for a while. The following consists of my current ideals of how to handle randomness in a reward system:

• Rewards that involve random chance have an upside and a downside. The upside is when one earns the reward, causing positive feedback. The downside is when one fails the earn the reward, causing negative feedback.
• While there's some benefit to intentionally causing negative feedback due to certain psychological experiments, I think dampening the consequences of that feedback will still yield a similar effect. This is specifically in the interest of reducing other detrimental effects such as upsetting players who don't appreciate the psychological manipulation.
• One way to do this is to provide some worthwhile reward consistently in addition to the highly desired reward randomly. This effectively replicates such operant conditioning with a safety net to protect against the frustration of failure.
• Note that this approach will likely require several iterations to get right since opinions on what is a worthwhile reward can vary wildly. Vigilance and aggressive tuning is highly recommended and if all else fails, try to overshoot the rewards a little bit.
• Another way to do this is to provide a relatively costly alternative to earn a highly desired reward. The ideal situation is one where players determine whether it's better to go for the random chance or toil through the alternative method. Factors that make the alternative method more costly could include a relatively time-consuming task or the like but this discussion probably warrants its own article. Needless to say, making the alternative method (nigh) impossible or unreasonable to accomplish makes it pointless.
• There's probably other ideas out there but the two options above are broad in scope and in some cases, intertwine. If I can think of more, I may or may not write articles about it.

Hopefully this provides some clarity on how I think randomness in a reward system should be handled. I wanted to get it out now while I felt inspired to actually write it, meaning this is more of a "bonus" article of sorts and there should be another one on the way soon.