Dungeon Encounters: Infinite vs. Finite number

[jonthefox]

Consider two options.

Option 1: the dungeon has, potentially, an infinite number of encounters. If a player wanted to keep fighting and not complete the dungeon, they could. Or, after a player completed the dungeon, if they wanted to keep fighting in it for as long as they could survive, they could do that. A small variation on this option is keeping everything the same, except disabling encounters once the dungeon has been completed.

Option 2: the dungeon has a finite number of encounters. Whether these encounters are random, visual, or whatever - after X number of encounters (could be 5, could be 10...could be 20....dev's choice), the player will not encounter anymore enemies in the dungeon except for the boss or any other unique, mandatory encounters that are integrated into the dungeon.

Which option do you find preferable? Does your answer change from the perspective of a developer vs. the perspective of a player? What are the pros and cons of each? And finally, would your answer change if game balance was not at all a consideration? What I mean by this is -- some people might favor unlimited encounters, so that the player always has an opportunity to grind and get stronger if they feel they need or want to. But in a world where the game was somehow, magically, perfectly balanced - would you then favor only a fixed number of encounters?

Looking forward to hearing people's thoughts!

 

[Kes]

Could you just clarify something for me, and that is exactly what you mean by 'finite'.

No, I'm not being sarcastic, but for example in my current project there are a fixed number of visible enemies. Depending on the particular dungeon, there might be 15 - 20 of them, and they do not respawn if you change maps within the dungeon. So you work your way through to the boss and going back (if you chose to walk out to check you've got all the loot) you won't fight the enemies again. You could say, therefore, that these were finite. However, if you leave the dungeon at any time they respawn, so you could go back in and fight them all over again. In which case, they become infinite.

 

[taarna23]

I don't really have a preference either way, but I do know random encounters (as is usually the "infinite" option) can get tedious. Especially if you complete a dungeon and now need to fight your way out. My current project falls under finite, although if you complete a dungeon and return to it, the regular enemies will have returned, but not the boss and/or final treasure.

 

[jonthefox]

@Kes hmmm....that's an interesting point. To me, that would fall under the encounters being "finite" - because there's a finite number of encounters the player can experience either before the boss, or before they leave the dungeon. It's simply that after leaving the dungeon, the counter "resets." Perhaps that is the best of both worlds--providing a cap to the number of encounters in a dungeon, while still offering the player the option to return to these encounters, as many times as he or she wishes.

 

[Cythera]

I personally use on-map encounters that respawn after X amount of time when you defeat them - so, infinite encounters in a way? I do this for 2 reasons:
1. Every player wants to play a different way - some want to grind and level up to crazy levels; that's fun to them. So, farm away!
2. On-map with respawn counters is a better option for me and my game than random encounters. Both are infinite, but I find random encounters - especially high rates - can discourage exploration.
Exploration is definitely something to consider when going 'infinite encounters'. If you're putting emphasis on exploration, have some mechanic in place to prevent constant battles that will discourage players from exploring. Just a side note there! :3
I'm not a huge fan of finite encounters. Simply going back to my other point: every player wants to play a different way. Unless it's crucial for your game to have limited encounters - first thing that comes to my mind in this situation would be a shorter, more challenging game where grinding levels would absolutely destroy your balancing - you typically don't want to be limiting how a player can, well, play your game.
My stance on the matter really doesn't change if I'm dev or player, since I'm ultimately making the game I want to play.

 

[KakonComp]

Always been a fan of doing Option 02 with a chance to leave and re-enter a dungeon if you felt like you had to grind, but bonus points if you don't have to.

Even more bonus points if the player wants to fight extra battles anyway, for whatever incentive you provide.

 

[LovelyFlower]

I do not like finite instances as sometimes those are poorly designed. That is, players get unlucky with drops or attacks and find they don't have enough materials to last htem for rest of the story.

Or if they forgot to accept a quest and the monster can no longer be found in the wild

 

[TheoAllen]

As a player, I prefer infinite encounters. That way I could battle it out as many times as I like. And grind as much as I like.

As a designer, it is a hard choice. Although I always go back to infinite encounters because that is the core design I like. I will just try to make it's not frustrating enough to have infinite encounters for the players.

 

[LovelyFlower]

With inifinite encounter I think you have to make sure paths arent clogged with monseters so players arent frustrated when they backtrack.

 

[Sigony]

The constraints make the game.
So what kind of game are you going to make? That determines what constraints you choose.

The player will eventually get from point A to point B if they persist, the only thing that differs is the constraints. There's many reasons as to why you'd add certain constraints, and it stems mostly from the experience the player has, and secondarily from the constraints that the developer is under (time, budget, scope, skill).

In a dungeon, you are constrained by SOMETHING. With either choice, you must understand the set of constraints, and the game that a set of constraints makes the player engage in, in their own minds.

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With unlimited encounters, it might be how many times you can heal, how many enemies you can defeat before your ability to heal runs out, and can you get to the target of the dungeon within those constraints. ​

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This considers the constraints of MP, HP, and the shortest path that the player takes to their goal.​

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Is there any skill, meaning can you make blunders, can you gain advantages if you possess enough skill, or any other trait, like curiosity, persistence, etc?​

If you have a fixed number of encounters in a dungeon, then the constraint of a limited number of encounters is something around which you can make a game.

For example, let's say you rank the player on how well each fight goes, and this determines the drops and exp they get. And if they don't reach a certain threshold, they don't get a particular goal. So, the player thinks... "hmm, how can I maximize my performance in each and every battle such that I get at least x result, considering the limited tools at my disposal, how can I improve my odds?"​

 

[Dororo]

In the root of all RPG (D&D), you got both.
You have mostly predefined encounters AND a table for random encounters to roll each X rounds.
Why so?
Again: RPG are HP management games -the challenge is to complete the dungeon before the party lose his last HP. Monsters are there to deplete your HP or your wildcards.
You'll usually meet the given, finite monsters hosted in rooms.
But...
If you take the wrong path, you explore the thing badly, if you backtrack too much or spend time into sillyness, you encounter random monsters that deplete a bit your resources. And such encounters are infinite - you can die of getting lost and meet a lot of random monsters.

Random monsters doesn't move the plot onward and as experience is computed AFTER the dungeon, not just after each combat, you don't get any benefit to fight random beasts around - they usually drop nothing too. They are just a punishment.

RPG simplified the thing for coding issues, but practically speaking you should fight given "plot" monsters to proceed, and try to go fast enough to trigger the less possible random fights. So, both is for me the ideal scenario.

 

[duty]

Based on your description, I'm voting for finite dungeon encounters, but maybe put some kind of arena or battleground feature into the title. If the player really enjoys combat, they have the opportunity to get as much as they can stand.

 

[gstv87]

google FTL or Invisible Inc.
infinite combinations, but always towards a pre-determined ending.

in both cases, you objective is to get to the final boss, but each time you play you'll find different challenges, so no two games are the same.
any unlocks or secrets you discover along the way, are kept, and more often than not that's the point: beat the game, unlock a new character, try it again with that character, unlock a new one, etc.
on top of that, the difficulty setting, making the individual enemies more or less challenging.

 

[cekobico]

Why not both and let the players decide?

Make on-map evented encounters that dies on defeat. Fighting these hand-placed troops should give you enough exp to level up for the main boss of the dungeon.
Then at the end of the dungeon (or at the save point one would conveniently place before the boss room), make an event that can turn on/off invisible random encounter for those who want to get stronger or just farm/grind stuffs.

That way everyone wins.

 

[Richard John S]

I like both myself. Option 2 is a good option if you don't want things to get too tedious and grindy. However, an area could feel pretty empty when all of the encounters are done with. I think option 2 where encounters reset/respawn over time would be pretty cool. That way it wouldn't be too grindy or too empty.

 

[Tiamat-86]

option 2 + whistle skill to force encounters past the area limit

edit: breath of death 7 did this style well. was an indie game on xbox360

 

[ghorba96]

I kinda like a mix of both options, for example:
Your party is in a cave where you can find 2 types of monsters, slimes and bats, they both are infinite as they respawn after a while. BUT, if you check all the nooks and crannies, you can find the mother slime and the alpha bat, which are optional minibosses (which can either spawn immediately as soon as you enter the dungeon or after you kill a certain amount of specific monsters), and if you manage to kill them, you can stop the respawn of the other monsters. So the decision is up to the player, if he wants he can keep grinding, otherwise he can decide to stop the respawning

 

[Seacliff]

Both have massive pros vs cons.

A Finite number enemies sounds like a great idea for an anti-grinding mechanic. A lot of RPGs get criticized for relying on numbers more than strategy, so this could be a step to encourage players to work out their team composition and equipment more than increasing their raw numbers. However, nothing but a little waste of time is preventing the player from fully healing themselves after every other encounter.

On the other hand, Infinite encounters allows a dungeon to always be at least somewhat threatening, at the very least they're good when you don't want the players to simply get to the dungeon boss in peak condition, and can encourage resource management. Players will have to decide when to fall back, or when to push forward. However, this just opens up to repetition and the ability to grind.

You can layer different mechanics to get around either one, but if you're designing the game with traditional RPG mechanics, these are inevitable with the two approaches.

 

[SoftCloud]

I do either circumstantially. Sometimes it's better to have respawning of enemies. My current project deals with time, so, if a dungeon is revisited then perhaps in a day the enemies will respawn, maybe even a couple days. Part of the reason I like having a finite number of on-map encounters is that I can show various dead versions of enemies. Allows for a bit of solidity.
If say the protagonist fights a bandit, at the end of combat, the sprite can be replaced with one that was stabbed in the stomach and left to die. Conversely, the infinite method is great for farming XP, especially if respawning is done when map shifting or a short wait period. I honestly like both.

 

[KoldBlood]

Personally, it doesn't matter to me which one is used as long as the encounter rate isn't too high with an infinite system or you are able to beat the boss at your current level if you beat most of the enemies in the finite system. A fun combat system always helps too.

Lately, I've been kicking around the idea of using a mix of both systems in my current project. Currently I use a visual encounter system that respawns enemies upon leaving the map. My concept is the for the player to be able to locate a specific object within the dungeon (such as a monster nest, magic circle, crystal, etc) and destroy it to stop encounters from respawning after defeat. Destroying this object would award the player with experience (and maybe even other resources) equivalent to defeating the monsters manually which should circumvent the under leveled player problem and would add some incentive to seek out the object but allow players who didn't want to bother to still ignore it and complete the dungeon normally. Furthermore, players who wanted to grind could still continue to do so or defeat the enemies first then destroy the object for bonus exp. I think it would also encourage dungeon exploration and could make treasure gathering easier if the player wanted to eliminate the enemies first. Lot's of cool choices for the player in this type of system I think.

The actual object used in this system could be tailored to just about any theme to fit with the theme of the game or even change depending on the dungeon or specific enemy types in said dungeon. Additionally, you could have the object require the player to possess a certain item, complete a mini-game, or even fight a mini-boss to destroy the object.

Of course, all of this is just speculation at this point as I have not yet tested the system and it would obviously need balancing but I think it sounds like a cool idea.