(en) 83% of gamblers quit right before they would have hit (100% + (70% + (30% x 4))) x 2 Splash Damage

Last year I wrote about how I adore SMT V’s combat so much. It’s so tactical! Analyze, plan ahead, and carefully execute. To me, the fights are fun because it’s like a high-stakes puzzle game, and it’s only your careful thinking and planning that made victory happen.

But the combat in SMT V, and all other similar RPGs, is not like a math problem. It’s not a deterministic engine that goes the same way every single time; turn-based combat games always has some random factor to it. Your 10 ATK character attacking a 5 DEF enemy won’t deal 5 damage all the time. Sometimes it’ll be 4, sometimes 6, or even 3. Just a lil’ bit of randomized variance. Tack on some more stat numbers to randomize in the back of it, and you’ll have a critical hit system and hit/miss accuracy. These spice up the combat because it keeps things from being too predictable, forcing you to constantly reassess and adapt.

But that’s the game working out the randomness for you in the background. You only get to set up your game plan, while the game will quietly roll a dice and decide whether your plan works or it goes to shit. Instead, what if it was you who proactively embraces the randomness? What if you, as the player, just went bold and said “my plan is to have you roll me a dice, and then let the result of that roll decide who gets fucked in the ass.”

That’s just gambling.

~~~

A few months ago MiHoYo released a turn-based combat game called “Honkai: Star Rail” and I really like it. The Weakness Break mechanic, in my opinion, carries the combat’s strategic gameplay big time. It’s basically just an elemental weakness system that’s pretty simple by itself, but I think it’s executed pretty well. Simple enough for it to become not confusing, but also not too simple for you to just ignore elemental weaknesses and power through with stat numbers alone.

But, just like Genshin and Honkai Impact, the usual “each character only gets to do 3 actions” thing is here. On their turns, each of your character can do a basic Attack, a special Skill, or an Ultimate (though each characters also have different Talents, which are passive skills, and these work in big ways). This is how MiHoYo forces you to pull new characters, because if you don’t, you won’t have new actions to play with hahah. But I digress, I think this system fits well enough. Don’t want my mobile turn-based game characters to know 40 different skills each anyway.

One small let down is… characters that aren’t healers or buffers (in other words, damage-dealers) are rather basic, and plays basically the same. Skill is always a better damage dealer than Attack, but it takes a skill point so use Attack if you want to save it for another character. Ultimate gauge charges when the character attacks or gets attacked, but it doesn’t charge when it’s full, so use it when it as soon as possible, unless the enemy is almost dead and you want to save it for the next wave of enemies (or the enemy is almost weakness-broken and you want to save the Ultimate to help break their next weakness gauge. Same difference).

Enter Qingque. Maybe it’s my own fault for never pulling the gacha so I don’t have many characters, but at this point, Mahjong Queen Qingque is the best character in this game. All because her main gimmick is risking it.

Let me explain about skill points first: you get one by using a basic Attack, and lose one by using a Skill. You can have 5 points at max, and these points are shared by your party members, so you’re always balancing who and when gets to use their Skill. Now, let me explain about Qingque’s gimmick: she has mahjong tiles in her hand, and wants to make a 4-of-a-kind by collecting four identical tiles. If she has less than 4 tiles in hand, she will draw one on an ally’s turn, but if she still doesn’t have a 4-of-a-kind with her hand, her basic Attack will discard one that’s not the same as most of her tiles. If she manages to make a 4-of-a-kind, her basic Attack gets upgraded to a stronger one with added bonus of 70% more damage and becoming a splash damage (= also slightly damages adjacent enemies). After that, her hand is cleared again, and the cycle begins anew.

Now here’s my favorite part: her Skill isn’t an offensive action. Her skill allows her to reshuffle some of her tiles without ending her turn, though it will still cost 1 skill point every time this skill is used. It’s random; there’s no guarantee that you’ll draw a 4-of-a-kind by wasting all 5 skill points in a single turn (though in my experience it’s never that bad–3 to 4 shuffles will almost always gets you a 4-of-a-kind). BUT! Hear this: each shuffle of the hand gives her a ~30% damage boost that can stack up to four times. Important caveat: you can’t shuffle if Qingque already has 4-of-a-kind.

That promise of an upgraded attack and stacking damage boosts makes you a gambling addict. You start using basic Attack for all your other character just to pile 5 skill points for Qingque and let her gamble it all.

It doesn’t stop there. Remember Ultimates? I said before that most damage-dealers’ Ultimates play the same: just use it when it can be used; keeping the Ultimate energy gauge full is just wasting potential energy. Not with Qingque. See, her Ultimate deals all-target damage with 120%~200% of her attack power, which isn’t amazing, but is pretty good damage (for comparison, the main character’s single-target Ultimate damage can deal up to 500% of their attack power). But the Ultimate has a side effect of turning Qingque’s hand into a 4-of-a-kind instantly. Dealing Ultimate damage and getting a guaranteed upgraded attack on the next turn is great, right? Yes, but it also causes you to consider the timing of her Ultimate by various factors:

If you manage to pull Qingque in gacha four more times and unlock her Eidolon Level 4 passive, the game will tell you to gamble even harder… because each shuffle of the hand will now have a slight chance of giving Qingque a special state called Autarky, which will make her do her attack twice for this turn (though the second one will be a bit weaker than the first). This means that if you manage to get both Autarky AND 4-of-a-kind using your risky skill-point-wasting shuffles, you’ll be dealing massive damage.

Random chance can be a dangerous thing to play with. God knows how many people got frustrated by X-COM from having their units miss a “90% chance to hit” shot. But I think MiHoYo got it right with Qingque. Though random, you never feel too unlucky since she gets 4-of-a-kind pretty frequently. Even if you’re a risk-averse person, the promised positives that the shuffles dangles in front of your face tugs on your gambler’s heart and makes you eager to take the chance.

All in all, Qingque is a well-designed character because her gimmick is just so fun. The only bad thing I can think up is that her Eidolon Level 4 passive shouldn’t be locked to Eidolon Level 4 at all. It should either be available from the start or just be level-unlockable, but just with weaker effects (and let it be stronger by unlocking her Eidolon level).

So get Qingque and spend materials to upgrade her. Best character ever. But don’t learn mahjong. It’s just poker with math.