Random encounter or visible sprites for battle?

[Azurose]

For me, this bleeds into tedium. I just want to cross the map from A to B. But, I've got 5 monsters in the way, a chokepoijnt that guarantees I have to fight at least one of them, and nonsense all over the map for "kiting" the enemies so I can actually cross. It turns a room 15 tiles across into a 38 tile journey. A 5 second crossing into a 22 second one.

Then, we multiply that by 100 rooms. Suddenly I've spent 2200 seconds (36 some odd minutes) just DODGING enemies. Suddenly, I've walked 3800 tiles.

For me, "Doing the same thing over and over and over and over again" isn't "engagement". It is "tedium".

Games like "Earthbound" know of this tedium, which is why if you're too powerful, enemies run away from you to "clear a path". It's also why you can hit them in the back and "win combat instantly" in that game. To avoid tedium and burn out of a game with over like 300 rooms in the whole game.

It's why I like random encounters better. Equip the item that makes encounter rate 0, and now I don't have to deal with kiting, I don't have to worry about choke points, I don't have to waste time on tedious crap.

Unless I'm actually in the room to "fight the monsters", then any "engagement" with how I encounter them is meaningless. Because, if I want to fight the monsters, I'm not going to waste time kiting them or anything else. I'm going to run straight into them. Every time. All the time. But, if I'm trying to avoid the monsters, than simply turning them off is better than "kiting" them. Because, the entire reason I want to turn them off is to save time to get to what I'm trying to get to.

As in, "dodging" monsters really doesn't "add" anything to a game unless there's a reward for actually doding the monsters. If the reward is "you don't have to fight them", but it takes you twice as long to dodge them as it would have to just fight the ones in your way (mash attack to win or spam most damaging skill, which is like 5 seconds of combat)... then what was the point of having the "on screen encounters" in the first place?

I mean, when the options are "you can get randomly attacked every step" or "you have to spend 4x longer to cross this room than you normally would have", I don't really see it as "control" or "freedom" or even "fun". Especially when the "randomly attacked every step" game typically comes with an item or an option to just "turn the encounters off".

The entire premise of "visual encounters" rests on the argument of "you don't waste time in battles you don't want to engage in", but it always conveniently ignores, "turn off encounters in the random encounter system", as well as the refutation of "you waste time in the overworld instead of in combat instead. You're still wasting time doing something unfun, but it's a choice of WHICH UNFUN thing you want to waste that time on instead".

Hence, my argument of people just saying, "I prefer vomit to excrement" in terms of reasoning for using Visual Encounters most of the time. Like... really? Neither one is something anyone wants to deal with... but... somehow one is "better than the other".

Edit: Nvm.

I respect your opinion. Was not making an argument for either. Merely sharing a preference, really.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Azurose

I wasn't saying you didn't respect my opinion.

What I was saying was this:

Not only because it gives more control and freedom on when to engage so players aren't met with scenarios they do not wish for, or have to "gamble dice roll" to get out of,

Is dubious at best in terms of "factual information" or even "a sound line of logic for a specific opinion". So, I took some time to dispute "control and freedom".

but also because I feel like dodging on map sprites adds to the "fun" of dungeon exploration. It's an extra bit of engagement.

And this is just your personal opinion, so I added my own personal opinion to contrast how the thing you find "fun" and "engaging" can be "not fun" and "not engaging in the slightest" to someone else. I just added multiple paragraphs of the logic behind the opinion I hold.

When it comes to game design, it's fairly important for devs to know why players feel the way they do about things. Not all players will feel the same about all things.

You say, "It adds to the fun of dungeon exploration" and "it adds to engagement". How? What about it is "fun" to you, and can you explain why it's fun? What about it is "engaging"? You may not be able to explain "why" right now. If you can't, then that's your homework. To try to figure out why you find that content engaging and why you find it fun. Because, I don't know why you find it engaging or fun.

All I have is my baseline assumptions of you has a player to "guess" why you find it fun and engaging... which basically just boils down to, "the reasons you find it fun could be actually done better". If those reasons are incorrect, then you simply explain how they're different.

We all have opinions. The things we feel. But, we can change how we feel or understand what we feel better by having to examine the reasons we do feel that way.

The questions I have put to you are just these:

1. How is kiting and dodging and spending extra time crossing rooms "fun"?
2. What about the system is "engaging" to you when there are X, Y, and Z things that would normally be tedious after a bit of time.
---
My question for all those who like the "On Screen Encounters" because they can "avoid combat" is just this:

"How often do you actually dodge/avoid combat in such systems?"

Because the answer to that would be very important for game design. Namely, whether or not there's a better option than "designing" the on screen encounters (and all the dev time that entails).

 

[Ahuramazda]

As a old school RPG player I prefer random encounters over on Map, but Ill play games with either version.

In my game I use random encounters, but the player will always know when the next battle is going to happen due to part of the games HUD when exploring.


The player has full control over how difficult battles are and how often they will occur, ranging from every single step (for when you really feel the need to EXP grind and dont have time for "random" battles) all the way to 50-99 steps per battle so you can explore large chunks of areas between battles.
(Does this technically constitute on-screen battles since the player always knows exactly when another encounter will occur?)

 

[ZombieKidzRule]

"How often do you actually dodge/avoid combat in such systems?"

I will answer from my own experience. It depends entirely on the game. But most often it is for a few reasons including, but not limited to:

• I don’t think I’m strong enough for a particular area, but I want to get through it anyway. Usually because I am replaying and I know I want to get somewhere specific at a specific point.
• I am hurt, can’t satisfactorily recover in that area, and I want to avoid more encounters.
• My resources are limited and I want to conserve them.
• A particular enemy is very strong or just a total pain in the butt to fight so I want to avoid them.
• I have someplace I want to get through and I don’t want to engage in additional encounters at that time.
• An enemy has the ability to do something particularly nasty and I want to avoid that. Like drain levels, destroy equipment (I’m looking at you Rust Monster), disease, curse, reduce attributes, disintegrate/instant kill party members (looking at you Beholder), or anything else that I either can’t immediately undo or it would be a pain in the butt to undo.

These are just the ones that immediately come to mind.

I can think of a few games where I ran away from certain enemies or hid out of sight until they wandered by.

Now, some of these might not be necessary based on game design, but a developer putting situations like these into a game doesn’t necessarily make it a bad game or bad design. It just means that I, as a player, might have to do a work around based on my preferences and needs at the time.

And in my opinion, a developer putting super difficult enemies in a game isn’t a problem as long as it doesn’t stop the player from progressing. If a player wants to try fighting something they shouldn’t then that is on them. If there isn’t any chance of the party actually dying then that seems less like a game and more like an experience to me.

In my opinion, not every player should be able to beat the game regardless of their choices. But that doesn’t mean that winning should only be possible in a few limited builds or strategies either. If I choose a less optimal build, I should still be able to win by making other good decisions and using superior strategy.

Just my opinion based on my experiences.

 

[Tai_MT]

@ZombieKidzRule Those are very valid reasons to want to avoid combat. But, my question is more "how often do you need to do this in games?".

From my own personal experiences, that answer is "almost never". Frequently because:
1. I am overleveled regardless of developer intention or my own intention.
2. Combat design typically allows me to "brute force" most combat situations so most monsters aren't really a threat.
3. I have an excess of resources from monster drops, chest drops, and just spending money on consumables.
4. My party composition has already been optimized by the time combat "gets dangerous", so it no longer "is dangerous".
5. It's faster and just more efficient to kill everything on the screen. Even if it's 1 XP, that's 1 XP I didn't have before. It's also one Potion I didn't have before, and one 1 GP I didn't have before. See a penny, pick it up. Double it. Double it again. Double it another 6 times and you've got a million dollars and the IRS crawling all up your butt. The only thing lost is time, and when you become powerful, you aren't losing much time in exchange for a lot more power and resources.

Basically, I understand the reasoning behind why the system exists, and my question is more "how often are those things actually issues to warrant its existence?".

I more question the "agreed upon" solution to those issues. After all, much as I prefer "random encounters", even it is deeply flawed and its "solutions" to some of those problems are... pretty bad. Like... nightmare level bad.

 

[ZombieKidzRule]

@Tai_MT Again, I think it depends entirely on the game. Probably my favorite game, or at least in my top 3, is Wizardry 8. I have played it on and off since it first came out and I probably have more than 2,000 hours over the years. And in that game, I still avoid enemies. If I had to guess, I would estimate about 10% of my time is spent avoiding them At different parts of the game.

But I know of players who do Speed Runs, which is still insanely popular for such an old game, and they avoid encounters a lot more because of how they want to play.

What would be really cool is if a game could have a toggle switch in settings that allow the player to choose between visible or invisible enemies. Thinking about it, I don’t think that would necessarily be that difficult to implement.

Now I have another thing to add to my list to experiment with!

 

[LostFonDrive]

For me, this bleeds into tedium. I just want to cross the map from A to B. But, I've got 5 monsters in the way, a chokepoijnt that guarantees I have to fight at least one of them, and nonsense all over the map for "kiting" the enemies so I can actually cross. It turns a room 15 tiles across into a 38 tile journey. A 5 second crossing into a 22 second one.

Then, we multiply that by 100 rooms. Suddenly I've spent 2200 seconds (36 some odd minutes) just DODGING enemies. Suddenly, I've walked 3800 tiles.

For me, "Doing the same thing over and over and over and over again" isn't "engagement". It is "tedium".

Games like "Earthbound" know of this tedium, which is why if you're too powerful, enemies run away from you to "clear a path". It's also why you can hit them in the back and "win combat instantly" in that game. To avoid tedium and burn out of a game with over like 300 rooms in the whole game.

It's why I like random encounters better. Equip the item that makes encounter rate 0, and now I don't have to deal with kiting, I don't have to worry about choke points, I don't have to waste time on tedious crap.

But you can have an item that blocks encounters with a visible encounters system too? Something that makes them run away/disappear. Using a repel in Pokemon vs using a Holy Bottle in Tales, not much difference really

 

[Tai_MT]

But you can have an item that blocks encounters with a visible encounters system too? Something that makes them run away/disappear. Using a repel in Pokemon vs using a Holy Bottle in Tales, not much difference really

You can, but how many games do that with a visual encounter system? At that point, as well, aren't you just "engaging in redundancy"? If you want to avoid creatures, you no longer have to dodge them, just turn them off... which then invites the question of "why are they on screen at all to dodge?"

 

[miragewolf]

Enemy sprites on map! The only thing I dislike about Octopath traveler 2 was it had random encounters (and at quite a high rate even with skills that reduce chance of encounter).

I dislike visual encounters when enemies are placed in very narrow corridors or have extreme fast running speed, example would be xenosaga 1.

 

[Oggy]

Im generally fine with either. I wouldn't ding a game for using either or. I would ding a game for forcing too may encounters, like low step counts or on map encounters that are always unavoidable.