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Random Encounters Vs. Fixed Encounters Vs. Visible Enemies on Map

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
What happens is that the player trains quickly but cannot abuse the system.
That's the same in both systems due to increasing xp requirements per level. You just traded time spent fighting for time spent walking back and forth. Which is even worse, because at least the fighting might involve some skill in optimizing the battles in some way.

Anyways, random encounters should never be something you seek out to gain xp or loot. That's what the exploration is there for. Boss encounters and rooms full of treasure. If the player is looking for an infinite repetitive source of power to milk, either the game design or the player have failed. The random encounters should be obstacles on the way to the best sources of power, and their xp/gold rewards are merely a failsafe crutch for players too incompetent to get past them to the good stuff.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,980
The only jrpgs I know of that don't give diminishing returns for grinding are ones that don't use strict levelling systems, like FF2j, FFT (job class xp actually gets easier to acquire the longer you grind) and some other obscure things. For anything classic like FF6, Chrono Trigger or whatever, the xp enemies give scales quadratically and so does your requirement. Either that or they do the diminished reward for being overlevelled thing. Either way, you go from needing 1 battle to gain 5 levels to 5 battles to gain 1 level to 500 battles to gain one level... unless you move onward. This is why in speedruns for games like that, people tend to skip most of the combat until very late in the game just before something they can't cheese quickly, and then win some fights against something they CAN cheese quickly to skyrocket their level in a very short period.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
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The only jrpgs I know of that don't give diminishing returns for grinding are ones that don't use strict levelling systems, like FF2j, FFT (job class xp actually gets easier to acquire the longer you grind) and some other obscure things. For anything classic like FF6, Chrono Trigger or whatever, the xp enemies give scales quadratically and so does your requirement. Either that or they do the diminished reward for being overlevelled thing. Either way, you go from needing 1 battle to gain 5 levels to 5 battles to gain 1 level to 500 battles to gain one level... unless you move onward. This is why in speedruns for games like that, people tend to skip most of the combat until very late in the game just before something they can't cheese quickly, and then win some fights against something they CAN cheese quickly to skyrocket their level in a very short period.

This is true. My memory is probably failing me, as it's been like 6 years since I last played a game like Final Fantasy VII, if not more. I remember the game being fairly easy, but that may have been probably my fault. I didn't leave an area until I absolutely drained it of exp.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
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I like the option too, but in the end it just makes me feel like I am supposed to keep the game balanced because the devs sure didn't D:

Agreed, developer-easy-mode.

didn't leave an area until I absolutely drained it of exp.

Well, there's the problem right there.

I quit playing FFVIII 10 mins in give or take, when i noticed id been healing/drawing on the intro "boss" for 10 mins or something. Juss sayin' :shittydog:
 
Last edited:

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Random Encounters make the game more challenging
As in challenging to keep playing, sure.
It depends on the game.
There's one part which is easier to achieve with random encounters. Hand-placing a hard encounter at the beginning of a game is just stupid (you can place it outside the road of course), with random encounters it makes more sense. Random encounters make the beginning, especially, of games like Bard's Tale or Disciples of Steel challenging because you can face unbeatable groups of enemies as well as beatable ones, so you're not stuck but have to be very careful. That's cool, it's yours to figure out when to fight when to (try and) flee or finally fight some group of enemies.

Roaming from the last beatable hand-placed encounter to the next one is fun too but it's a different thing, so why not having both.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
Patron
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I guess you're right, it can be done well, providing a cool aspect to the game, but this is by miles and miles the exception. Most of the time I, and others I'm sure, put up with (excessive) random encounters because the game is good.
 

Vorark

Erudite
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
1,394
What is truly annoying is when encounters are visible but basically unavoidable. I remember trying the 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII and enemies were spawning right in front of the PC. The hell was that? Not to mention the combat was slow as molasses.
 

adrix89

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
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700
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Why are there so many of my country here?
Random Encounters and pretty much all fodder encounters work when it comes to attrition through a series of battles where they have a real valuable cost of resources.
Otherwise its just pointless grinding.
Your better off with fixed encounters with actual depth in them.

Off course the dirty secret is that pointless grinding is what they are really about.
 

Somberlain

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Mar 5, 2012
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Location
Basement
I like visible enemies on map the most. Random encounters are perfectly fine if there are ways of managing them with items or character skills, for example.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
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11,324
Location
Flowery Land
What is the first non-blobber RPG to have visible encounters on the local map anyways? Earthbound and Chrono Trigger are commonly cited as early examples, but I know at least one obscure (and weird) jRPG (Idea no Hi, March 1994) did it a year before them.
 

Max Stats

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 26, 2016
Messages
1,091
What is the first non-blobber RPG to have visible encounters on the local map anyways? Earthbound and Chrono Trigger are commonly cited as early examples, but I know at least one obscure (and weird) jRPG (Idea no Hi, March 1994) did it a year before them.

Ultima's always had visible encounters, but you didn't get whisked away to a separate screen for the fights until, what, U3? And then only until U5 and then from 6 on just kept it on the main map. Count or discount is as you will.
 

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