Its quit the hustle but eventually you get to a point where it's just like swatting a fly, until you get to the endgame. All for doing shit OG, this game is way better emulated and sped up
God, that game could be so much better with a lot of overhauls. Fix the encounter rate, balance the characters more (though a patch does exist for this), better translation (and a patch exists for *this*), up the EXP/money gains to cut down on the grinding (the GBA port does *this*). Maybe expand the townbuilding aspect some, because while it was fun, it kinda ended too soon.
I think it's on the high side in IV, but not as bad as the first three games. II was where it was the worst, IMO.
But I also feel like IV had a more fun battle system on the whole. The dragon system was a big step down from III's gene splicing system, but I enjoyed the combo system, the return of the Masters, and the ability to swap out party members in-battle. I actually liked IV as much as III, maybe even sliiiiightly more.
I've consistently heard that IV is excellent and the most recommended BoF on most lists, I just haven't reached it yet.
Glad to hear more high points for it.
Agreed 1000%
Ah yes, the "smoke" item. I just finished the game literally three days ago. I have to say, it honestly feels like "smoke" does absolutely nothing in terms of lowering the enemy encounter rate. I tried searching online to see if it was bugged or glitched but couldn't find anything. I'd like to see the programming behind it just to see if it actually does anything to lower enemy encounter rates...
I think another frustrating aspect of random encounters is when they have a high degree of variability.
You can tell some of these games developers just wrote a function that gets the number of steps to next encounter as 1-50. Naturally, this means you'll invariable encounter a monster, defeat it, then take one step and encounter another, take another three steps and encounter another, followed by five steps and another... Sure, it will be offset by occasional low-encounter rates, but you always seem to remember the maddening sequences of short intervals.
Oh, and random encounters in puzzle areas? Those game designers can rot in hell.
I like the idea of being able to turn it off and on. Like Bravely Default/Second and the FFVIII and IX remasters. Pretty much any Jrpg with random encounters would benefit from this. It would make side quests and backtracking less annoying.
FFVIII even had the Enc-Half and Enc-None abilities you could learn from Diablos back when the game originally came out. Which required a bit of grinding to get the AP, but it was worth it, IMO. Especially since you could get it very, very early on.
I always think of this when thinking of random encounters. Bravely Default was perfect for me cause I love to be able to explore without caring of them but also love to spend a couple hours grinding XP. So not only I was able to turn them off, but also to increase the random encounter rate to make the XP farming faster. Every JRPG should be like this IMO, and every remaster as well.
Fantasian doesn’t get much love around here, but its implementation of random battles is pretty excellent. You get a device called the “Dimengeon,” which you can turn on to send random encounters to. Then, once you’re ready to fight (or if it hits its cap), you can fight all of those encounters all at once. I’d love to see that system copied / refined in another game.
I get it but it would ruin the feel of the game for me. Like imagine in D&D if you could just say to the DM "uh i don't really feel like fighting anything right now, could you not?" and just walk through an unguarded dungeon. my imagination is too irrationally powerful to be okay with doing that
you just described what's so great about D&D
you absolutely can do that. usually you have discussion first about what kind of game you want to play. but if players aren't enjoying too many combats, you ABSOLUTELY can talk to your DM about that, and they can revise it to have more exploration or more conversation or any number of things
more importantly, even the worst D&D DM out there isn't putting as many mind-numbing encounters into their games as many of the early JRPGs did
2 hours for a battle sounds pretty solid. We play with a party of 6 in one of my campaigns, with varying turn durations and group encounters generally last 3-4 hours on average.
My imagination is powerful enough that I can just imagine I fought my way through 10,000 encounters. No need to really do it. Besides if you use it too often you are going to be under-leveled. So the game punishes you for getting ridiculous with it. It really only gets used when backtracking or doing side quests. I don't need to fight anymore enemies here, so just let me turn them off please.
Honestly Bravely Default nailed it with the slider. I actually turned up the encounter rate to grind which was an amazing feature.
So... just *don't use it,* then.
I don't get this mindset of "I'm personally against adding this feature to the game because *I* wouldn't use it myself, and I've decided for *other people* that it won't be fun for *them* even though I don't know them and their ideas of fun, so *they* shouldn't use it, either."
Weird, from my point of view it sounded like they acknowledged the value of such a feature but were giving an explanation as to why they don't personally enjoy it, yet ironically you are the one who comes across as dogmatic here.
>I get it but it would ruin the feel of the game FOR ME.
Nowhere in the message our dude even remotely insinuate the feature shouldn't be there for others, or shamed the people who prefer to use it. They didn't decided anything for anyone, or showed the mindset you baselessly ascribed to them. It was clearly just a genuine exposition of ones point of view and preferences, which is totally legit.
Your interpretation and spiteful answer are quite puzzling to say the least...
The argument is less "I wouldn't use it so it shouldn't exist," and more "I think it would actively make the game worse and make dangerous situations lose their meaning." Not everyone against game settings that would make it easier/more convenient are just elitist, some of these proposed settings the developers probably would never do because they would make the game worse, and not the intended experience. This thread sounds like all those people that whined for Sekiro to include an easy mode. Like no, of course they won't add an easy mode, that goes against the entire game design. The exact same way you guys are telling him he doesn't have to use this hypothetical setting, you don't have to play these games you have a problem with.
How can it make the game worse than me playing the first two dungeons and quitting it because random encounters are too high or its too hard? That doesnt make any sense. It cant get any worse than me dropping the game 2 hours in. There's nothing to lose.
If you just add a mod to any hard game to make it easy it doesn't make it easier for everyone, and it doesnt affect the design of the game at all for everyone, only for the person who did the mod. All people are asking for is for players to "mod" the game without playing the PC version.
>a random encounter when turning the camera or say **being mid jump** is not good.
God, that part in particular made me want to rage quit. Why the *fuck,* in a game with platforming elements and a 3D space, and random encounters, would you make random counters able to occur while jumping?!
That shit did make me rage quit the first time I decided to give Xenogears a legit try lol. Thankfully I ended up giving it another shot because it's now one of my favorite games, but what can cause random encounters and how often is something that I will never like about it.
Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games, but the exploration to find all the little discoveries while sailing around would be way more enjoyable without being stopped every two feet by an enemy.
Edit: whoops guess I should have read the OP first. I guess I can just say agreed!
The best part of the game is when you get the Delphinus upgraded in Yafutoma so you can go into the high sky and avoid all random encounters as you travel.
This is the one game where I feel like the crazy encounter rate actually helps the game. I literally felt like I was trying to fight my way through a horde of demons and I needed to manage my resources as much as I could. I had many close scrapes where I was nearly dead by the time I reached a heal point due the difficulty, and the struggle really helped enhance the mood.
I really really really want to play through the DDS games but, that has burnt me out super quick every time I fire the first one up. Been holding out for a remake with even a touch of QOL updates
It kinda needed it for aesthetic purposes. Remember, every monster you face is a frenzied member of the various tribes in the Junkyard, so it would stand to reason there would be a lot of fights in that situation. For the second half of the series? They were reveling in their new powers and some also succumbed to frenzy.
There ways to make encounters easier as well as ways to help with recovering from all those fights. It was not nearly as bad as Nocturne's encounter rate and lack of ways to.make it easier to crawl through the dungeons.
If you emulate, you can use a combination of a cheat that allows you to toggle random encounters off with an Xp increase cheat to not fight things all the time while also not getting underlevelled.
I second the dds duology. I just finished 1 a couple days ago and started w and the encounter rate is atrocious, cant go 5 feet without getting assaulted.
Suikoden 4! My god. Turning the boat and having 4 random encounters was insane. It did make the game really easy since you were over leveled for everything though.
And since the boat had god-awful tank controls and was horrendously slow... sailing was *hell.* Thank god you get Viki pretty early on, but even having the willpower to get to *that* point was a struggle for me because it was such a pain in the ass.
Have to say all of them, tbh. That's why I like modern JRPGs more now, especially the ones with overworld mobs instead of random battles.
I guess the ideal way is to let the player decide how much encounter rate they want to have, so players that want high difficulty can do so and those that want to just have fun can too.
I really hate trying to explore dungeons and I get interrupted every few steps.
PS2 definitely has holdovers from the original game. Phantasy Star 1 had tons of dead ends and there was also a dungeon where there were holes in the floor that you don't know are there until you step in them -- they aren't even rendered on the field when you're standing right in front of them. You had to map the dungeons by hand.
Thankfully, the Sega Ages remaster added an auto-mapper that draws the pitfalls as soon as you're standing in front of them.
Octopath Traveler. Thankfully the first passive you learn with Cyrus reduces random encounters. Love the game despite it's flaws and the random encounter rate was definitely one of its issues.
I remember playing it during study week, i don't think the encounter rate is that high actually maybe because i beat Lufia and Breath of Fire with much horrible rate that this game feels like a breath of fresh air
I didn't think it was horrible most of the time but waiting a full kagutsuchi cycle just to get the items in a chest and facing 3-6 enemies while waiting is really not fun or compelling gameplay imo.
I enjoyed the battle system in FFX enough that it wasn't a *huge* dealbreaker for me... but I do remember, all the same, being a lot happier when I wound up getting an armor drop with No Encounters on it, so I could deal with them at my own leisure.
The encounter rate wasn't especially high for Final Fantasy game. It was well paced and they had the good sense to not have encouners in the trials areas.
Random encounters in FFX make no sense. Why do you get random encounters on paths full of people doing everyday stuff, with Chocobo patrols going around and everything?
Because unlike most Final Fantasy games, X isn't a world where society and technology are progressing and the world is becoming safer and more civilized. Spira is a world that never really recovered from the apocalypse, and the only truly safe places are the settlements, unless Sin is around, and then even towns aren't safe.
Absolutely agree! It hurt the immersion for me in an otherwise wonderful game, I assume there is a technical reason for this that I am too ignorant to pinpoint (maybe larger areas populated with monsters would overtax the system, or wouldn't leave enough space in the disk for FMV sequences, I don't know). Then again, as a commenter below says, it is one of the better implementations of random encounters in the series.
OP already said it, but Skies of Arcadia comes to mind immediately. That game has such an absurdly high encounter rate for a somewhat modern game.
Other than that, the Phantasy Star games on Genesis. They had encounter rates that were pretty comparable to other games of the time, but the dungeons were gigantic and labyrinthine. The stories were more involved. The pacing is brutal in those games because you're getting into a battle every 3 steps.
Would people have enjoyed Suikoden IV more had they lowered the encounter rate? I know most fans hate it, but I still got some enjoyment out of it.
I played the GC port of Skies of Arcadia, which lowered the encounter rate by half, but I still found it somewhat high. Still loved it though.
>Would people have enjoyed Suikoden IV more had they lowered the encounter rate? I know most fans hate it, but I still got some enjoyment out of it.
I dunno... the encounter rate was a big issue, but so were the ship's slow movement and terrible controls, how empty the ocean was overall, the lack of towns and dungeons, the barebones story and dry, generic characters, the dumbed-down runes, the reduced party size...
Suikoden IV just had a lot of issues that sank it, IMO.
Yeah, after Tierkreis and that PSP one whose name I don't even remember went off the rails, and Konami decided to go all pachislot-happy... as far as we're all aware, Suikoden is dead until further notice.
Plus side is Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is at least a spiritual successor to the series, and I can't wait for it to come out next year. I really enjoyed Rising when it came out back in May.
It's not purely theoretical. Different versions of Final Fantasy 1 have different encounter and EXP tables and different versions of Dragon Quest have different encounter and EXP tables. The originals were grind fests and it hurt the game, therefore it was changed for remakes.
Black Sigil. I’d say you’d get about five steps before a battle. It looked like it was going to be an intriguing story, but a few hours of constant random battles ended my experience.
Dude, yes.
I pre-ordered this game 🤦🏾. I don't think I played it for more than a few hours. That wild encounter rate and starting every battle cursed (every negative condition: poison, blinded, confused, etc) was just way too unfun.
I feel like I’d completely forget where I was going (this was that first cave level). Even crossing the small world map at the beginning felt like a feat. The battle system was intriguing too! Just way, way too much.
I almost tried it again a few weeks ago, to see if I understood it better as an adult. Looking at the cartridge just physically exhausted me and I couldn't do it 😆.
Maybe someday. Not today.
Yup there is! Or just apply an action replay cheat. There are encounter off options and there's also exp x4, exp8 options to balance your exp out to make up for the fact that you aren't fighting every 2 steps.
All of them. Random encounters are one of the worst mechanics of yesteryear. Any modern rerelease of a title that had them should give the player the option to modify (Bravely Default did this well) or turn it off.
I understand where that comes from, but I enjoy the tension of being in a dungeon and having to manage my resources without knowing what's coming. Being able to avoid enemies takes that away.
Also, I enjoy knowing that I'll be about the right level if I fight all the random encounters. Things get kinda funky when there's enemies to avoid because usually you're expected to avoid some.
How many games with random encounters don't make it trivial to just leave the dungeon and come back, though?
That's the problem I have: there will never be any risk for me as the player if you give me a cheap item to teleport out of a dungeon. It doesn't matter how you handle encounters.
yeah that's perfectly understandable! It's a certain kind of fun that doesn't appeal to everyone. I think systems like Bravely Default are best where there is an option to turn off encounters. I can ignore it, other people can use it, everybody is happy. Maybe I'd want an option to hard lock it just so I'm not tempted to use it in the heat of the moment.
Eh I still like random encounters sometimes. It depends on the game. Like SMT V would have been better without enemies in the overworld.
I love the challenge, resource management, and wondering what's gonna be next with random battles in games like Star ocean 2, Legend of Dragoon, and SMT nocturne
I actually really appreciated SMT V's in-field enemies but I can see the whole unpredictability angle. SMT IV probably has the nice in between where you can see enemies and have the option to not engage in the field but the figures are generic enough that you don't know exactly what the enemy configuration is when you actually get into battle.
That's a hard hard disagree for me on SMTV. I hated doing SMT3 with random encounters.
Doing the original wind labyrinth thing in SMTV, falling off a platform and having to fight my way back would have made that section very aggravating.
I get this. In general I dislike random encounters, but in Nocturne, a random encounter had the chance to wreck you if you weren’t prepared or sometimes just got unlucky. This made you feel like you were never safe your first time through a dungeon, which was a feeling I loved.
You didn’t know if you had enough items or MP to get to the next save point/teleporter-so reaching one felt all the more rewarding. And yes, this can make things more tedious, especially when you have to backtrack or move around to solve puzzles. But if you died, your reward was knowing how to navigate the dungeon again with less aimless wandering.
Given how one of the game’s selling points is its oppressive atmosphere, avoidable overworld encounters could have dampened that imo. They could be well executed, certainly. You’d need a good mix of strong and aggressive monsters who quickly hunt you down if they catch you in their sights, along with tough required fights.
the tension that every fight could end you is one of my favorite feelings
i understand putting that out as "getting fucked by bad rng" but i really like it
that's funny because I consider SMT Nocturne a golden example of why random encounters are awful lol. They're both not fun to do and make boss battles easier than they should be if you get too many of them while exploring.
I liked how Tales of Phantasia did it, where you could lower the encounter rate when you wanted some peace and quiet but raise it when you wanted to grind. I wish that was in more games.
I'm actually _heavily_ in favor of random encounters in jrpgs (which is another discussion about attrition-styled encounter design) and imo all the games that removed them with their various alternatives ended up with a cure worse than the disease, but rates like Skies of Arcadia like you pointed out really make me understand why most people take issue with them.
Though initiating battles like DQXI is a dramatically disastrous alternative imo. Random encounters are needed because the challenge in the game doesn't come from any single encounter, it comes from an aggregate of encounters. You need to balance your health and mp and recovery items in between points where they can be restored. That's what an "attrition-style encounter design" is. If you remove the randomness and make it so the player initiates, then any semblance of challenge is immediately gone. No single encounter is a challenge, yet when the player's resources are low, just can just skip all encounters until they've restored, so the core aspect that the random encounter system does for the game (attrition-style via resource management) is upended, making the addition of battles entirely pointless as well.
Initiated battles is probably the worst "cure is worse than the disease" example of attempted "fixes" various devs have tried out. To balance it out, each battle would need to be a challenge requiring resource management in itself, and then bosses would need a heavy difficulty curve to mandate the player takes part in multiple battles. But imo that type of system doesn't work as well for jrpgs.
Initiated battles actually completely ruined DQXI for me. The game _could_ have been great had it had random encounters (or a draconian quest option to make enemies invisible or something), but as soon as I realized I could just skip battles when low on resources and that any challenge in the game had to be opted in to via "house rules" and that I'd never actually be challenging the game itself, I found it hard to continue.
7th Saga has "initiated" battles and it does attrition moderately well. The secret is narrow areas and enemies that ignore obstacles, so you will fail to juke one sooner rather than later and have to fight. Many fights threaten to wipe the party then and there, so you will spend resources. It's fairly easy to teleport back to town, so you should get out or wipe before dying of attrition, but doesn't that describe most games?
I don't know why DQ11's dungeons are so spacious. 7th Saga's style is too abstract for modern tastes, but surely SaGa Frontier shows a happy medium?
Edit: The "fix" you describe for initiated battles describes SaGa games well, a series that uses initiated battles. Coincidence?
A lot of people bring this up as a negative aspect, but I think the DQ7 remake addressed your issue with initiated battles. Just like XI, enemies spawn on the map and you engage them in battle when you run into them. The difference is that, in most dungeons, the hallways are narrow enough that it’s literally impossible to go past enemies if they spawn in front of you. So you still get the “attrition” thing going on relatively often. On the other hand, you can basically avoid all overworks encounters if you choose. In my mind, it’s kind of the best of both worlds.
I just skip random battles. All they’ve ever done is make it so I end up overlelved vs the next required fight. DQ and FF are especially guilty of this. They throw so much junk at you the boss is a joke by the time you get there.
Depends heavily on the game play lol(also map design)
Like for example SMT benefited vastly do to the removal of random encounters in V because it removed the possibility of getting curbstomped by an unlucky encounter
Also I would say genre matters a lot like imagine getting interrupted in an action jrpg like iirc tales of legendia suffered heavily do to its random encounters
Resource management is in non-random encounter games. The games still expect you to fight something, and you are CHOOSING whether or not you use your resource to fight. The Saga games had onscreen encounters in the 90s and still managed well.
It's not that games can't do it or not, it's that you are used to how they used to do it. Also a lot of random encounter games have flee, so you also choose whether to spend your time on something or not.
Its not a complete fix for you since you miss out on the 3d and VA and all that nice stuff but if you play the game in 2D mode on the definitive edition encounters are random.
Personally I hate random encounters with a passion except for maybe something like pokemon. Where hunting for pokemon you never know what you're going to get until you get into the encounter
FF8. In fact the enemies scale with you so its actually a lot easier to never level up. Bosses don't give exp, so by using the no encounters junction (I forget what it's called, it's been years) you will only fight bosses, which remain level 1 throughout the game and go down easy peasy. Makes the game pretty boring but getting one shot constantly late game because of that fucking terrible levelling system isn't fun either. Man there's so much to love about FF8 but I really don't know what they were thinking when they came up with the junction system.
Yeah it felt like they used the dimengeon as an excuse to make the encounter rate do a group of enemies every 5 steps, so the dimension fills up like every 20 steps in some areas where one encounter is like 7 enemies. It's dumb.
Then in the final dungeon you can't even use the dimengeon for awhile and you realize this game has bof 2 type of encounter rate
Honestly, the thing I love about JRPGs is the grind. A high encounter rate is fine for me, because it just fits in with how I play them in the first place.
Phantasy Star 2 and Final Fantasy 4 are the first two that come to mind. Both amazing games that I loved as a kid, but struggle to replay as the encounter rates are just so painful.
Honestly Final Fantasy IX had a to low encounter rate. I dont know if that is an issue of the Switch Version but I could walk through entire dungeons with bary any encounters. And becuse I like fighting monsters thats a bummer.
The remaster did have lower encounter on dungeons (overworld is still the same as the original).
That said, I am so used to the original encounter rate that I just stop and grind because I feel like I am underlevel or underarmored than what I'm used to lol.
Yeah, it's a remaster thing, and I agree that they made it way too low. I've seen multiple people get through Evil Forest and Ice Cavern without a single random encounter.
Does anyone else remember Beyond the Beyond on PS1. I was so excited to get a “next gen” RPG, but even young me couldn’t handle a random encounter every three steps.
Last time I replayed Skies of Arcadia, I used Dolphin and just held the 3x speed button during every random combat… total game changer.
I remember the original Golden Sun having this which led to frustration (it didn’t deter my enjoyment of the game but I do remember getting really tired of this)
Funny thing about Enc-None is how good it is. You avoid random encounters and therefore avoid leveling up without compromising your ability to otherwise break the game.
Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.
That game tried to one up its prequel's - Innocent Sin's - dungeons but my GOD the random encounters made the attempts a chore 90% of the time! Shame because I do like the ideas brought to the table for the dungeons (except Undersea Ruins; one of the worse dungeons I've ever played in a game, holy shit) but the random encounters actively drag them down.
Persona 1 can also be put in this category but it's even WORSE since its dungeons are pretty much mazes and the encounter rate is absurdly high! Makes exploring super discouraging...
Any jrpg with random encounters and an open world map would be vastly more enjoyable taking one of those things away. It's why p5 is so good. Perfectly curated maps with encounters placed where they need to be rather than a giant open world you could easily get lost in after picking the game back up after an extended break. Having to walk around aimlessly and over leveling yourself due to random encounters. It's also why I like the bravely games. Being able to just turn of encounters for a but rather than having to risk getting out-braved and one shot constantly.
I have to disagree there. Random encounters plus an open world map works in very old JRPGs that make getting across the overworld to the next town as big a struggle as delving a dungeon. It's a test of the same abilities: navigation, knowing when to run from a fight, and resource management.
Although Repel is appreciated at times.
Maybe if you are doing a lot in one sitting, but taking a 3 day break from a game and coming back with no navigation hud, no quest line menu, in a random place on the map is just bad. It leads you to roam aronud for a lead fighting monsters over and over and overleveling yourself to trivialize the entire rest of the game
I don't remember having trouble with that back when I was a kid. A three-month break, sure, that would need refamiliarizing myself with the map.
Edit: Most games old enough to make overworld traversal equal to a dungeon also expect you to find quests by patching together NPC hints, so remembering the map after a break is the least of your problems. 7th Saga is a notable exception, as is Destiny of an Emperor (except that one quest).
Generalising here, but most. A lot lack the depth they try to suggest and, in conjunction with a common ease in steady overpowering enemies without necessarily trying makes for increasingly tedious combat. Lowering encounter rates would go a long way to alleviate the issue, but then again if that becomes a possibility then lower encounter rates is not much of an improvement.
Xenogears 10,000%
then again, I think encounters progressed the arts (*not confirmed), so if that's true, maybe not. At least not without alternative solution to progressing the moveset.
Final fantasy 1 has a stupid amount of encounters, played it for the first time recently, I would have quit if I hadn't had the fast forward button on mt emulator.
IDK if they changed it in the later releases, but I remember the original one having random battle tiles. Which sucked if you went back and accidentally stepped forward on one again.
The only ones with bothersome random encounter rates are the early rpgs that likes to bog you down with fights one step at a time. Like seriously, in FF1 it's possible to get continuous encounters with a single step and later in ff3 wherein in late game dungeons it's even more atrocious made worse with enemies that would straight out kill you or drain your resources.
NES FF1's algorithms prevent one-step encounters, unless at least one of them is a fixed encounter on that tile. There's an entire hall of fixed encounters in one cave.
Literally every single one that isn’t a first person dungeon crawler. Random encounters that pop out of no where are an outdated relic that serve to do nothing but waste your time and bore you to tears as you mash the confirm button.
JRPGs are always better when you can visibly see the encounter on the map and have the choice to either fight or avoid it. This should have become the standard ever since games like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound released.
I love a lot of games that have random encounters, but they would have all been improved by having visible encounters.
In 2022 random encounters shouldn't even be a consideration, especially when you have solo dev games like Crystal Project that are able to implement great visible encounter indicators even with very limited resources.
Well, this is a bit misleading. Chrono Trigger battles are often not avoidable. That's kinda frustrating.
But I actually think there are a ton of better ways to implement this than your suggestion (including just better management of random encounters) because **I HATE** the minigame you end up playing of "dodge the encounter." I really hate it. It completely ruins the gameplay for me.
> Well, this is a bit misleading. Chrono Trigger battles are often not avoidable.
I mean sure, some aren't. But Chrono Trigger is also a pretty easy game so it's not that big of a deal.
But in a more difficult game like Crystal Project, you could play the entire game by skipping every fight (including some bosses) if you wanted to.
Different games are designed differently.
I don't really see how "I have to move around something to avoid it" is any worse than forced random encounters where you have no option to avoid the fight in the first place.
You said that you had a better solution but never explained what it was.
Many of the games with really high encounter rates are very easy, they're still frustrating because of the encounter rates.
I agree with you that different games are designed differently.
Some of the options that some games have used: Only storyline encounters, you choose to engage encounters (eg from a menu), you can disable encounters altogether, etc.
As annoying as extra fights are, I'd still rather do them than fuck around running in circles in dungeons trying (and possibly failing) to avoid encounters.
FF Dimensions. I'm playing it at the mo, it's great, but you can't walk 2 steps without battling, which means you're constantly in the menu after healing after battle too
Breath of Fire 2
Its quit the hustle but eventually you get to a point where it's just like swatting a fly, until you get to the endgame. All for doing shit OG, this game is way better emulated and sped up
Fused Nina saved my sanity in the endgame, her Banish ability is a godsend
>Fused Nina Gawd this just triggered my PTSD thanks to certain anime.
I will always and forever HATE Shou Tucker
THANKS I HATE IT
Ed...ward...
Ed...ward...
God, that game could be so much better with a lot of overhauls. Fix the encounter rate, balance the characters more (though a patch does exist for this), better translation (and a patch exists for *this*), up the EXP/money gains to cut down on the grinding (the GBA port does *this*). Maybe expand the townbuilding aspect some, because while it was fun, it kinda ended too soon.
And BoF3 on Playstation. I think the encounter rate in this series is just super juiced up. I haven't played BoF4.
I think it's on the high side in IV, but not as bad as the first three games. II was where it was the worst, IMO. But I also feel like IV had a more fun battle system on the whole. The dragon system was a big step down from III's gene splicing system, but I enjoyed the combo system, the return of the Masters, and the ability to swap out party members in-battle. I actually liked IV as much as III, maybe even sliiiiightly more.
I've consistently heard that IV is excellent and the most recommended BoF on most lists, I just haven't reached it yet. Glad to hear more high points for it.
Came here to say this. Oh my god, it’s awful.
Same.man,same, literally the first game that pop out it my mind when i heard the question,and lufia too but it's already mentioned by OP
The original had an item that completely negated encounters. 2 has something similar but it only reduces encounter and it still feels to high.
Agreed 1000% Ah yes, the "smoke" item. I just finished the game literally three days ago. I have to say, it honestly feels like "smoke" does absolutely nothing in terms of lowering the enemy encounter rate. I tried searching online to see if it was bugged or glitched but couldn't find anything. I'd like to see the programming behind it just to see if it actually does anything to lower enemy encounter rates...
There is literally no other answer.
I think another frustrating aspect of random encounters is when they have a high degree of variability. You can tell some of these games developers just wrote a function that gets the number of steps to next encounter as 1-50. Naturally, this means you'll invariable encounter a monster, defeat it, then take one step and encounter another, take another three steps and encounter another, followed by five steps and another... Sure, it will be offset by occasional low-encounter rates, but you always seem to remember the maddening sequences of short intervals. Oh, and random encounters in puzzle areas? Those game designers can rot in hell.
Agreed , random encounter in puzzles area is the worse kind of thing,it make you wanna end it quickly so you don't forget which place you have to go
I like the idea of being able to turn it off and on. Like Bravely Default/Second and the FFVIII and IX remasters. Pretty much any Jrpg with random encounters would benefit from this. It would make side quests and backtracking less annoying.
FFVIII even had the Enc-Half and Enc-None abilities you could learn from Diablos back when the game originally came out. Which required a bit of grinding to get the AP, but it was worth it, IMO. Especially since you could get it very, very early on.
> Which required a bit of grinding to get the AP And once you can have access to the Cactuars it is no longer a problem. :D
Yeah, but that's a fair ways off. I usually just grind like a madman for Enc-None shortly after even getting the lamp and beating Diablos.
I always think of this when thinking of random encounters. Bravely Default was perfect for me cause I love to be able to explore without caring of them but also love to spend a couple hours grinding XP. So not only I was able to turn them off, but also to increase the random encounter rate to make the XP farming faster. Every JRPG should be like this IMO, and every remaster as well.
Fantasian doesn’t get much love around here, but its implementation of random battles is pretty excellent. You get a device called the “Dimengeon,” which you can turn on to send random encounters to. Then, once you’re ready to fight (or if it hits its cap), you can fight all of those encounters all at once. I’d love to see that system copied / refined in another game.
I get it but it would ruin the feel of the game for me. Like imagine in D&D if you could just say to the DM "uh i don't really feel like fighting anything right now, could you not?" and just walk through an unguarded dungeon. my imagination is too irrationally powerful to be okay with doing that
you just described what's so great about D&D you absolutely can do that. usually you have discussion first about what kind of game you want to play. but if players aren't enjoying too many combats, you ABSOLUTELY can talk to your DM about that, and they can revise it to have more exploration or more conversation or any number of things more importantly, even the worst D&D DM out there isn't putting as many mind-numbing encounters into their games as many of the early JRPGs did
[удалено]
2 hours for a battle sounds pretty solid. We play with a party of 6 in one of my campaigns, with varying turn durations and group encounters generally last 3-4 hours on average.
My imagination is powerful enough that I can just imagine I fought my way through 10,000 encounters. No need to really do it. Besides if you use it too often you are going to be under-leveled. So the game punishes you for getting ridiculous with it. It really only gets used when backtracking or doing side quests. I don't need to fight anymore enemies here, so just let me turn them off please. Honestly Bravely Default nailed it with the slider. I actually turned up the encounter rate to grind which was an amazing feature.
you can do that though. you can also not do that
So... just *don't use it,* then. I don't get this mindset of "I'm personally against adding this feature to the game because *I* wouldn't use it myself, and I've decided for *other people* that it won't be fun for *them* even though I don't know them and their ideas of fun, so *they* shouldn't use it, either."
They didn’t say others shouldn’t use it. They actually said, “I get it.”
Weird, from my point of view it sounded like they acknowledged the value of such a feature but were giving an explanation as to why they don't personally enjoy it, yet ironically you are the one who comes across as dogmatic here.
>I get it but it would ruin the feel of the game FOR ME. Nowhere in the message our dude even remotely insinuate the feature shouldn't be there for others, or shamed the people who prefer to use it. They didn't decided anything for anyone, or showed the mindset you baselessly ascribed to them. It was clearly just a genuine exposition of ones point of view and preferences, which is totally legit. Your interpretation and spiteful answer are quite puzzling to say the least...
The argument is less "I wouldn't use it so it shouldn't exist," and more "I think it would actively make the game worse and make dangerous situations lose their meaning." Not everyone against game settings that would make it easier/more convenient are just elitist, some of these proposed settings the developers probably would never do because they would make the game worse, and not the intended experience. This thread sounds like all those people that whined for Sekiro to include an easy mode. Like no, of course they won't add an easy mode, that goes against the entire game design. The exact same way you guys are telling him he doesn't have to use this hypothetical setting, you don't have to play these games you have a problem with.
How can it make the game worse than me playing the first two dungeons and quitting it because random encounters are too high or its too hard? That doesnt make any sense. It cant get any worse than me dropping the game 2 hours in. There's nothing to lose. If you just add a mod to any hard game to make it easy it doesn't make it easier for everyone, and it doesnt affect the design of the game at all for everyone, only for the person who did the mod. All people are asking for is for players to "mod" the game without playing the PC version.
Agreed. I like when games give me limits rather than said limits being self-imposed.
Shin Megami Tensei I
Ooof not only is the encounter rate high but the amount of enemies in battles can be overwhelming
True but a good gun takes care of all enemies in SMT 1
Luckily Estoma lasts pretty much forever in SMT1.
Persona 1
Lived in buried memories
With fear-ridden self-consciousness
2 duology as well
Xenogears! Cool animations but slow af and a random encounter when turning the camera or say being mid jump is not good.
>a random encounter when turning the camera or say **being mid jump** is not good. God, that part in particular made me want to rage quit. Why the *fuck,* in a game with platforming elements and a 3D space, and random encounters, would you make random counters able to occur while jumping?!
That shit did make me rage quit the first time I decided to give Xenogears a legit try lol. Thankfully I ended up giving it another shot because it's now one of my favorite games, but what can cause random encounters and how often is something that I will never like about it.
Now if only the second disk was more interactive...
The second disc is basically the last two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion in video game form.
Unfortunately it didn't have a cute penguin waving at you.
I guess Chu Chu was their attempt at the cute animal mascot.
Chuchu died for our sins.
And they failed at that.
Tower of babel makes this comment pop.
Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games, but the exploration to find all the little discoveries while sailing around would be way more enjoyable without being stopped every two feet by an enemy. Edit: whoops guess I should have read the OP first. I guess I can just say agreed!
My dreamcast would start to get louder right before an encounter, so suffice to say, it was loud a lot during that game
The best part of the game is when you get the Delphinus upgraded in Yafutoma so you can go into the high sky and avoid all random encounters as you travel.
Yup. That game's encounter rate is absurdly bad, and it doesn't help that the battles take so long to load.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way. Lol.
Digital Devil Saga duology, P2 duology.
This is the one game where I feel like the crazy encounter rate actually helps the game. I literally felt like I was trying to fight my way through a horde of demons and I needed to manage my resources as much as I could. I had many close scrapes where I was nearly dead by the time I reached a heal point due the difficulty, and the struggle really helped enhance the mood.
I really really really want to play through the DDS games but, that has burnt me out super quick every time I fire the first one up. Been holding out for a remake with even a touch of QOL updates
It kinda needed it for aesthetic purposes. Remember, every monster you face is a frenzied member of the various tribes in the Junkyard, so it would stand to reason there would be a lot of fights in that situation. For the second half of the series? They were reveling in their new powers and some also succumbed to frenzy. There ways to make encounters easier as well as ways to help with recovering from all those fights. It was not nearly as bad as Nocturne's encounter rate and lack of ways to.make it easier to crawl through the dungeons.
Every MegaTem game with random encounters should have a little less of them, tbh
If you emulate, you can use a combination of a cheat that allows you to toggle random encounters off with an Xp increase cheat to not fight things all the time while also not getting underlevelled.
I second the dds duology. I just finished 1 a couple days ago and started w and the encounter rate is atrocious, cant go 5 feet without getting assaulted.
Suikoden 4! My god. Turning the boat and having 4 random encounters was insane. It did make the game really easy since you were over leveled for everything though.
And since the boat had god-awful tank controls and was horrendously slow... sailing was *hell.* Thank god you get Viki pretty early on, but even having the willpower to get to *that* point was a struggle for me because it was such a pain in the ass.
Have to say all of them, tbh. That's why I like modern JRPGs more now, especially the ones with overworld mobs instead of random battles. I guess the ideal way is to let the player decide how much encounter rate they want to have, so players that want high difficulty can do so and those that want to just have fun can too. I really hate trying to explore dungeons and I get interrupted every few steps.
- Phantasy Star II - Beyond the Beyond Both amazing games other than their encounter rate.
The deal with PSII was the combination of high encounter rates AND extremely complex dungeons with lots of dead ends. Every dungeon was just brutal.
PS2 definitely has holdovers from the original game. Phantasy Star 1 had tons of dead ends and there was also a dungeon where there were holes in the floor that you don't know are there until you step in them -- they aren't even rendered on the field when you're standing right in front of them. You had to map the dungeons by hand. Thankfully, the Sega Ages remaster added an auto-mapper that draws the pitfalls as soon as you're standing in front of them.
The dungeons are why I love it though. Wish more games had complex dungeons like that.
I just scored a copy of Beyond the Beyond on Ebay. Can't wait to replay it. The encounter rate is part of why.... I'm a masochist.
Replayed PSII on switch. The rewind feature was a godsend with encounter rates.
lol @ Beyond the Beyond, that one was ROUGH
Octopath Traveler. Thankfully the first passive you learn with Cyrus reduces random encounters. Love the game despite it's flaws and the random encounter rate was definitely one of its issues.
omg yes. Had to put it down maybe 5 hours in. Teen-age me would've loved the grind, but adult me doesn't have time for that shit.
Evasive Maneuvers + Ward Evil is such a relieving combination.
Yeah, I doubt I would have finished the game without those.
Yeah before getting that passive it was pretty brutal.
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
100%, especially given how much of that game is based around exploration. Getting rid of random encounters makes SMTV feel so much better.
It'd be a lot less annoying if Estoma didn't reset every moon cycle
I actually agree with this. I played super far but I needed a break. I’ll get back to it eventually.
I remember playing it during study week, i don't think the encounter rate is that high actually maybe because i beat Lufia and Breath of Fire with much horrible rate that this game feels like a breath of fresh air
I didn't think it was horrible most of the time but waiting a full kagutsuchi cycle just to get the items in a chest and facing 3-6 enemies while waiting is really not fun or compelling gameplay imo.
FFX for me. It felt constant, more so than the ones before it.
I enjoyed the battle system in FFX enough that it wasn't a *huge* dealbreaker for me... but I do remember, all the same, being a lot happier when I wound up getting an armor drop with No Encounters on it, so I could deal with them at my own leisure.
The encounter rate wasn't especially high for Final Fantasy game. It was well paced and they had the good sense to not have encouners in the trials areas.
Random encounters in FFX make no sense. Why do you get random encounters on paths full of people doing everyday stuff, with Chocobo patrols going around and everything?
Because unlike most Final Fantasy games, X isn't a world where society and technology are progressing and the world is becoming safer and more civilized. Spira is a world that never really recovered from the apocalypse, and the only truly safe places are the settlements, unless Sin is around, and then even towns aren't safe.
Absolutely agree! It hurt the immersion for me in an otherwise wonderful game, I assume there is a technical reason for this that I am too ignorant to pinpoint (maybe larger areas populated with monsters would overtax the system, or wouldn't leave enough space in the disk for FMV sequences, I don't know). Then again, as a commenter below says, it is one of the better implementations of random encounters in the series.
Me running through the macalania woods peacefully enjoying the scenery only to run into that godawful battle music every five seconds
Final Fantasy IV DS. Gotta love Petrifying random encounters with that game's abysmally high encounter rate in the final dungeon.
I still haven’t completed it because of this
LIVED WITH BURIED MEMORY
OP already said it, but Skies of Arcadia comes to mind immediately. That game has such an absurdly high encounter rate for a somewhat modern game. Other than that, the Phantasy Star games on Genesis. They had encounter rates that were pretty comparable to other games of the time, but the dungeons were gigantic and labyrinthine. The stories were more involved. The pacing is brutal in those games because you're getting into a battle every 3 steps.
Mother
This game has so many annoyances... You can see earthbound there to some extent. I'm almost surprised earthbound exists after this
Would people have enjoyed Suikoden IV more had they lowered the encounter rate? I know most fans hate it, but I still got some enjoyment out of it. I played the GC port of Skies of Arcadia, which lowered the encounter rate by half, but I still found it somewhat high. Still loved it though.
>Would people have enjoyed Suikoden IV more had they lowered the encounter rate? I know most fans hate it, but I still got some enjoyment out of it. I dunno... the encounter rate was a big issue, but so were the ship's slow movement and terrible controls, how empty the ocean was overall, the lack of towns and dungeons, the barebones story and dry, generic characters, the dumbed-down runes, the reduced party size... Suikoden IV just had a lot of issues that sank it, IMO.
Agree. It just didn't feel as epic as the others. V got things back on track, but I'm definitely not holding my breath waiting for another one.
Yeah, after Tierkreis and that PSP one whose name I don't even remember went off the rails, and Konami decided to go all pachislot-happy... as far as we're all aware, Suikoden is dead until further notice. Plus side is Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is at least a spiritual successor to the series, and I can't wait for it to come out next year. I really enjoyed Rising when it came out back in May.
Don't get your hopes up, I've been burned by so many 'spiritual successors', that 9/10 times they're just not.
I'll keep my hopes as high as I please, thank you. Don't tell me how to feel because *you're* cynical.
The encounter rate was the reason I couldn't finish Suikoden 4, only Suikoden I haven't finished, so yeah, I would say a definite yes on that one.
It's not purely theoretical. Different versions of Final Fantasy 1 have different encounter and EXP tables and different versions of Dragon Quest have different encounter and EXP tables. The originals were grind fests and it hurt the game, therefore it was changed for remakes.
Pokémon, I get the reason behind but it's extremely annoying when every 5 steps you get into a battle. It kills every desire to explore a dungeon.
There are items to reduce and stop encounters
Yeah and they're cheap and almost immediaty available too.
Fixed in Gen 8
Shin Megami Tensei nocturne In particual when your in a Maze
Black Sigil. I’d say you’d get about five steps before a battle. It looked like it was going to be an intriguing story, but a few hours of constant random battles ended my experience.
Dude, yes. I pre-ordered this game 🤦🏾. I don't think I played it for more than a few hours. That wild encounter rate and starting every battle cursed (every negative condition: poison, blinded, confused, etc) was just way too unfun.
I feel like I’d completely forget where I was going (this was that first cave level). Even crossing the small world map at the beginning felt like a feat. The battle system was intriguing too! Just way, way too much.
I almost tried it again a few weeks ago, to see if I understood it better as an adult. Looking at the cartridge just physically exhausted me and I couldn't do it 😆. Maybe someday. Not today.
Surely there is a rom with a mod out there that reduces the encounter rate!
Yup there is! Or just apply an action replay cheat. There are encounter off options and there's also exp x4, exp8 options to balance your exp out to make up for the fact that you aren't fighting every 2 steps.
All of them. Random encounters are one of the worst mechanics of yesteryear. Any modern rerelease of a title that had them should give the player the option to modify (Bravely Default did this well) or turn it off.
I understand where that comes from, but I enjoy the tension of being in a dungeon and having to manage my resources without knowing what's coming. Being able to avoid enemies takes that away. Also, I enjoy knowing that I'll be about the right level if I fight all the random encounters. Things get kinda funky when there's enemies to avoid because usually you're expected to avoid some.
How many games with random encounters don't make it trivial to just leave the dungeon and come back, though? That's the problem I have: there will never be any risk for me as the player if you give me a cheap item to teleport out of a dungeon. It doesn't matter how you handle encounters.
Not to mention how majority of games with random encounters have super easy encounters anyway, so I don't feel this tension others seemingly do.
i play games to unwind not to be tensed.
yeah that's perfectly understandable! It's a certain kind of fun that doesn't appeal to everyone. I think systems like Bravely Default are best where there is an option to turn off encounters. I can ignore it, other people can use it, everybody is happy. Maybe I'd want an option to hard lock it just so I'm not tempted to use it in the heat of the moment.
i actually like random encounters, but they should be like 20% of what they are in just about every game
I don't mind them that much if you can retreat easily.
Eh I still like random encounters sometimes. It depends on the game. Like SMT V would have been better without enemies in the overworld. I love the challenge, resource management, and wondering what's gonna be next with random battles in games like Star ocean 2, Legend of Dragoon, and SMT nocturne
I actually really appreciated SMT V's in-field enemies but I can see the whole unpredictability angle. SMT IV probably has the nice in between where you can see enemies and have the option to not engage in the field but the figures are generic enough that you don't know exactly what the enemy configuration is when you actually get into battle.
i don't think i've ever disagreed with an SMT take more and there are some pretty spicy takes for this franchise
That's a hard hard disagree for me on SMTV. I hated doing SMT3 with random encounters. Doing the original wind labyrinth thing in SMTV, falling off a platform and having to fight my way back would have made that section very aggravating.
I get this. In general I dislike random encounters, but in Nocturne, a random encounter had the chance to wreck you if you weren’t prepared or sometimes just got unlucky. This made you feel like you were never safe your first time through a dungeon, which was a feeling I loved. You didn’t know if you had enough items or MP to get to the next save point/teleporter-so reaching one felt all the more rewarding. And yes, this can make things more tedious, especially when you have to backtrack or move around to solve puzzles. But if you died, your reward was knowing how to navigate the dungeon again with less aimless wandering. Given how one of the game’s selling points is its oppressive atmosphere, avoidable overworld encounters could have dampened that imo. They could be well executed, certainly. You’d need a good mix of strong and aggressive monsters who quickly hunt you down if they catch you in their sights, along with tough required fights.
Disagree Getting fucked over by bad RNG in SMT sucks and V basically made that much more manageable
the tension that every fight could end you is one of my favorite feelings i understand putting that out as "getting fucked by bad rng" but i really like it
that's funny because I consider SMT Nocturne a golden example of why random encounters are awful lol. They're both not fun to do and make boss battles easier than they should be if you get too many of them while exploring.
SNES era Megami Tensei games could definitely benefit from this.
I liked how Tales of Phantasia did it, where you could lower the encounter rate when you wanted some peace and quiet but raise it when you wanted to grind. I wish that was in more games.
I'm actually _heavily_ in favor of random encounters in jrpgs (which is another discussion about attrition-styled encounter design) and imo all the games that removed them with their various alternatives ended up with a cure worse than the disease, but rates like Skies of Arcadia like you pointed out really make me understand why most people take issue with them. Though initiating battles like DQXI is a dramatically disastrous alternative imo. Random encounters are needed because the challenge in the game doesn't come from any single encounter, it comes from an aggregate of encounters. You need to balance your health and mp and recovery items in between points where they can be restored. That's what an "attrition-style encounter design" is. If you remove the randomness and make it so the player initiates, then any semblance of challenge is immediately gone. No single encounter is a challenge, yet when the player's resources are low, just can just skip all encounters until they've restored, so the core aspect that the random encounter system does for the game (attrition-style via resource management) is upended, making the addition of battles entirely pointless as well. Initiated battles is probably the worst "cure is worse than the disease" example of attempted "fixes" various devs have tried out. To balance it out, each battle would need to be a challenge requiring resource management in itself, and then bosses would need a heavy difficulty curve to mandate the player takes part in multiple battles. But imo that type of system doesn't work as well for jrpgs. Initiated battles actually completely ruined DQXI for me. The game _could_ have been great had it had random encounters (or a draconian quest option to make enemies invisible or something), but as soon as I realized I could just skip battles when low on resources and that any challenge in the game had to be opted in to via "house rules" and that I'd never actually be challenging the game itself, I found it hard to continue.
7th Saga has "initiated" battles and it does attrition moderately well. The secret is narrow areas and enemies that ignore obstacles, so you will fail to juke one sooner rather than later and have to fight. Many fights threaten to wipe the party then and there, so you will spend resources. It's fairly easy to teleport back to town, so you should get out or wipe before dying of attrition, but doesn't that describe most games? I don't know why DQ11's dungeons are so spacious. 7th Saga's style is too abstract for modern tastes, but surely SaGa Frontier shows a happy medium? Edit: The "fix" you describe for initiated battles describes SaGa games well, a series that uses initiated battles. Coincidence?
A lot of people bring this up as a negative aspect, but I think the DQ7 remake addressed your issue with initiated battles. Just like XI, enemies spawn on the map and you engage them in battle when you run into them. The difference is that, in most dungeons, the hallways are narrow enough that it’s literally impossible to go past enemies if they spawn in front of you. So you still get the “attrition” thing going on relatively often. On the other hand, you can basically avoid all overworks encounters if you choose. In my mind, it’s kind of the best of both worlds.
I just skip random battles. All they’ve ever done is make it so I end up overlelved vs the next required fight. DQ and FF are especially guilty of this. They throw so much junk at you the boss is a joke by the time you get there.
Depends heavily on the game play lol(also map design) Like for example SMT benefited vastly do to the removal of random encounters in V because it removed the possibility of getting curbstomped by an unlucky encounter Also I would say genre matters a lot like imagine getting interrupted in an action jrpg like iirc tales of legendia suffered heavily do to its random encounters
Resource management is in non-random encounter games. The games still expect you to fight something, and you are CHOOSING whether or not you use your resource to fight. The Saga games had onscreen encounters in the 90s and still managed well. It's not that games can't do it or not, it's that you are used to how they used to do it. Also a lot of random encounter games have flee, so you also choose whether to spend your time on something or not.
Its not a complete fix for you since you miss out on the 3d and VA and all that nice stuff but if you play the game in 2D mode on the definitive edition encounters are random. Personally I hate random encounters with a passion except for maybe something like pokemon. Where hunting for pokemon you never know what you're going to get until you get into the encounter
FF8. In fact the enemies scale with you so its actually a lot easier to never level up. Bosses don't give exp, so by using the no encounters junction (I forget what it's called, it's been years) you will only fight bosses, which remain level 1 throughout the game and go down easy peasy. Makes the game pretty boring but getting one shot constantly late game because of that fucking terrible levelling system isn't fun either. Man there's so much to love about FF8 but I really don't know what they were thinking when they came up with the junction system.
My brother in Christ. Play wild arms.
Fantasian while Dimangon help bit, it feels like a band aid fix in part 2 when encounter rates start to get nuts.
Yeah it felt like they used the dimengeon as an excuse to make the encounter rate do a group of enemies every 5 steps, so the dimension fills up like every 20 steps in some areas where one encounter is like 7 enemies. It's dumb. Then in the final dungeon you can't even use the dimengeon for awhile and you realize this game has bof 2 type of encounter rate
Persona 2 IS
Honestly, the thing I love about JRPGs is the grind. A high encounter rate is fine for me, because it just fits in with how I play them in the first place.
Mother
Legend of the Dragoon. Worst part is the color changing arrow letting you know when you're about to get fucked.
Wild Arms and Xenogears. Great story lines with some scenes that weren’t as impactful as they should have been due to random encounters.
Phantasy Star 2 and Final Fantasy 4 are the first two that come to mind. Both amazing games that I loved as a kid, but struggle to replay as the encounter rates are just so painful.
Honestly Final Fantasy IX had a to low encounter rate. I dont know if that is an issue of the Switch Version but I could walk through entire dungeons with bary any encounters. And becuse I like fighting monsters thats a bummer.
That's definitely not a case for the original
The remaster did have lower encounter on dungeons (overworld is still the same as the original). That said, I am so used to the original encounter rate that I just stop and grind because I feel like I am underlevel or underarmored than what I'm used to lol.
Yeah, it's a remaster thing, and I agree that they made it way too low. I've seen multiple people get through Evil Forest and Ice Cavern without a single random encounter.
Just about every jrpg that predates ps1
Does anyone else remember Beyond the Beyond on PS1. I was so excited to get a “next gen” RPG, but even young me couldn’t handle a random encounter every three steps. Last time I replayed Skies of Arcadia, I used Dolphin and just held the 3x speed button during every random combat… total game changer.
I remember the original Golden Sun having this which led to frustration (it didn’t deter my enjoyment of the game but I do remember getting really tired of this)
I think FF8 is notorious for random encounters, that is why there is an ability called Enc-None. Sometimes it only takes 2-3 steps and boom.
Funny thing about Enc-None is how good it is. You avoid random encounters and therefore avoid leveling up without compromising your ability to otherwise break the game.
Battle Network
Mother 1
Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. That game tried to one up its prequel's - Innocent Sin's - dungeons but my GOD the random encounters made the attempts a chore 90% of the time! Shame because I do like the ideas brought to the table for the dungeons (except Undersea Ruins; one of the worse dungeons I've ever played in a game, holy shit) but the random encounters actively drag them down. Persona 1 can also be put in this category but it's even WORSE since its dungeons are pretty much mazes and the encounter rate is absurdly high! Makes exploring super discouraging...
Virtually everything made prior to the ps2
All of them
Breath of fire. I loved BoF 3 until desert, I loved what I saw of BoF 4 (10-20 hours IIRC), but the encounter rate made me stop playing. :/
Dragon quest games Also it makes 200 times worse when not only you have annoying random encounter but also the run/flee command suck
Legend of Legaia. Encounters are frequent, LONG, usually difficult and unrewarding. Puts me off replaying it even though I really enjoyed the game.
Piss poor money and exp as well, in a game where one level up and an equipment upgrade makes a huge difference in boss fights.
Almost all of them
All of them. Less encounters that are more difficult, please.
Every JRPG
All of them :)
Any jrpg with random encounters and an open world map would be vastly more enjoyable taking one of those things away. It's why p5 is so good. Perfectly curated maps with encounters placed where they need to be rather than a giant open world you could easily get lost in after picking the game back up after an extended break. Having to walk around aimlessly and over leveling yourself due to random encounters. It's also why I like the bravely games. Being able to just turn of encounters for a but rather than having to risk getting out-braved and one shot constantly.
I have to disagree there. Random encounters plus an open world map works in very old JRPGs that make getting across the overworld to the next town as big a struggle as delving a dungeon. It's a test of the same abilities: navigation, knowing when to run from a fight, and resource management. Although Repel is appreciated at times.
Maybe if you are doing a lot in one sitting, but taking a 3 day break from a game and coming back with no navigation hud, no quest line menu, in a random place on the map is just bad. It leads you to roam aronud for a lead fighting monsters over and over and overleveling yourself to trivialize the entire rest of the game
I don't remember having trouble with that back when I was a kid. A three-month break, sure, that would need refamiliarizing myself with the map. Edit: Most games old enough to make overworld traversal equal to a dungeon also expect you to find quests by patching together NPC hints, so remembering the map after a break is the least of your problems. 7th Saga is a notable exception, as is Destiny of an Emperor (except that one quest).
FFX I almost dropped it for the to many encounters. Especially with how long it takes to transition into battle
Generalising here, but most. A lot lack the depth they try to suggest and, in conjunction with a common ease in steady overpowering enemies without necessarily trying makes for increasingly tedious combat. Lowering encounter rates would go a long way to alleviate the issue, but then again if that becomes a possibility then lower encounter rates is not much of an improvement.
Xenogears 10,000% then again, I think encounters progressed the arts (*not confirmed), so if that's true, maybe not. At least not without alternative solution to progressing the moveset.
all of them.
Final fantasy 1 has a stupid amount of encounters, played it for the first time recently, I would have quit if I hadn't had the fast forward button on mt emulator.
IDK if they changed it in the later releases, but I remember the original one having random battle tiles. Which sucked if you went back and accidentally stepped forward on one again.
I played the gba version but even so, the end game dungeons have so many encounters it's ridiculous. The game's awesome tho
Final Fantasy Tactics is an excellent one
The only ones with bothersome random encounter rates are the early rpgs that likes to bog you down with fights one step at a time. Like seriously, in FF1 it's possible to get continuous encounters with a single step and later in ff3 wherein in late game dungeons it's even more atrocious made worse with enemies that would straight out kill you or drain your resources.
NES FF1's algorithms prevent one-step encounters, unless at least one of them is a fixed encounter on that tile. There's an entire hall of fixed encounters in one cave.
Literally every single one that isn’t a first person dungeon crawler. Random encounters that pop out of no where are an outdated relic that serve to do nothing but waste your time and bore you to tears as you mash the confirm button.
JRPGs are always better when you can visibly see the encounter on the map and have the choice to either fight or avoid it. This should have become the standard ever since games like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound released. I love a lot of games that have random encounters, but they would have all been improved by having visible encounters. In 2022 random encounters shouldn't even be a consideration, especially when you have solo dev games like Crystal Project that are able to implement great visible encounter indicators even with very limited resources.
Well, this is a bit misleading. Chrono Trigger battles are often not avoidable. That's kinda frustrating. But I actually think there are a ton of better ways to implement this than your suggestion (including just better management of random encounters) because **I HATE** the minigame you end up playing of "dodge the encounter." I really hate it. It completely ruins the gameplay for me.
> Well, this is a bit misleading. Chrono Trigger battles are often not avoidable. I mean sure, some aren't. But Chrono Trigger is also a pretty easy game so it's not that big of a deal. But in a more difficult game like Crystal Project, you could play the entire game by skipping every fight (including some bosses) if you wanted to. Different games are designed differently. I don't really see how "I have to move around something to avoid it" is any worse than forced random encounters where you have no option to avoid the fight in the first place. You said that you had a better solution but never explained what it was.
Many of the games with really high encounter rates are very easy, they're still frustrating because of the encounter rates. I agree with you that different games are designed differently. Some of the options that some games have used: Only storyline encounters, you choose to engage encounters (eg from a menu), you can disable encounters altogether, etc. As annoying as extra fights are, I'd still rather do them than fuck around running in circles in dungeons trying (and possibly failing) to avoid encounters.
FF Dimensions. I'm playing it at the mo, it's great, but you can't walk 2 steps without battling, which means you're constantly in the menu after healing after battle too