The Slice is Right

[Esmoire]

The thing is pre-randomness and post-randomness are very different things. There is pre-luck (say, a game randomly generates a dungeon layout), or post-luck (a game where you can attack, but miss). Generally, going from our case studies and observation in the industry, generally players are more frustrated with the latter unless the post-action randomness creates pre-action randomness the player can respond to, say, getting another turn after an attack has missed to try again. Generally output randomness is what frustrates players, though it's not that simple for a lot of design/psychological reasons I won't get into. A lot of people way smarter than me in either industry has written about it so you can always look it up; GMT recently did a video on it that tries distills it in a way non-developers can understand.

I think The Slice Is Right is built on something leaning towards pre-luck randomness. It is good the bamboo does not have a preset pattern for the way they are cut, because it keeps people alert, engaged, and observing. While there is a component of reflexes and thus you can be put into a more difficult position based on where you stand, we can reasonably accept that time it takes bamboo to rise and be cut is a reasonable amount of time to find somewhere to stand for when it falls. When people go into it, this is the kind of luck they are more intent on handling. Meanwhile, for the time being I will assume the Daigoro failstate is random or at least indecipherable relative to what is acceptable, and a different kind of randomness from the bamboo.

I think it makes more sense for something like Any Way The Wind Blows, where barring a fault in implementation that makes some areas way safer to stand in, it is fundamentally post-randomness. I would like if the kind of randomness was kept discrete between activities, rather than having a moment in an activity that has a very different kind of randomness, so different GATEs can play up to different kinds of skill sets or user abilities. The Slice Is Right on a fundamental feels like a reflex-based challenge augmented by your ability to observe changes in geometry, and I think it should hone that rather than distort it. The Daigoro cup segment is kind of this sudden turn-based chance minigame which stands out as a discrete activity that differs from the core fundamental reflex-based aspect of the GATE. It would make more sense to have something where, for example, there was one cup with MGP, and two cups hiding a bomb, and you had full control over yourself, and after the cups are lifted you still have time to respond and test the skills the game hinged on up until that point

Do not take my analysis as a sign of severity. Gold Saucer is a goofy consequence-free place, though as with anything, it can be improved and definitely think it would be improved if the random failstate was taken out of this GATE.