Random Encounters Hate

[CriticalGaming]

I am a huge fan of RPG's and especially JRPG's as most of you either know or can probably guess based off my avatar. From Final Fantasy games to Dragon Quest to now the Yakuza games. Some of my favorite games of all time are out and out RPG's.

One thing that seems to swirl around the RPG genre as a whole is the huge divide between people who absolutely love or absolutely hate random battles. You'll be walking around and exploring only to get a screen flash before you are transported into a random fight no seemingly no reason. It's a mechanic that has been a staple of RPG's since day 1 and technically kind of started with tabletop RPG's. Sure your DM has full control over when a fight happens but to the players the encounters can feel pretty random. This is done to either add tension to a dungeon, forcing players to be careful with not only the way they explore but also to control their resource usage. In a video game, random encounters are there to make sure the player has every chance to get the exp they need to defeat the boss fights along their way.

But some games lately have started to move away from that model. The upcoming Bravely Default 2 is one key example. Bravely Default 1 and Bravely Second on the 3DS both had random encounters, however there were options in the menus that let you turn them off completely. Dragon Quest 11 litters the world with random monsters that the player can fight or avoid if they so choose. Final Fantasy 15 had monsters randomly in the world that were easy to avoid if the player didn't want to bother with it. And Infamously Chrono Trigger had monsters you could see on the map to mostly avoid.

However this ability to see the random encounters does not mean the random encounters are gone. It just means you can see them and that's not a difference. In fact in a lot of cases with these visable encounters, you still have to fight at least some of them or risk being underleveled for bosses that will stomp your face in. Additionally there are even some random fights that are unavoidable either because they surprise you during exploration or are simply in a narrow path in which you cannot avoid them.

So to me, both systems are basically the same. I happen to love random fights because I like the freedom of overleveling the story content if i want to. I like to grind in RPG's because I like showing up to boss fights like Goku and slapping them down like a bunch of punks, but that's just me.

I just don't get why people have such a hate for them, it's part of the genre. You know that normal fights are part of the style of game, hell they are a part of every game in a way. Very few games let you go from boss to boss without forcing you to fight some guff inbetween. So I don't know what about that system in RPG's is so upsetting. At least with RPG's fighting random battles gives you some noticable gain like money and levels and such. What do you gain by fighting wave 5 of random enemy ambush in an Uncharted game? Nothing. Those fights are there to make the game longer and seem more exciting and that's it. If they were gone, it wouldn't change the odds of your success during the next boss fight. Whereas in an RPG you might have gotten a couple of extra levels during your trip through the dungeon so that by the time you got to the boss you are noticably more powerful and are more capable of fighting it.

What do you guys think? Random Boss yay or nay? Why?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I just don't get why people have such a hate for them.

Because I just want to cross freaking Mt Moon without fighting a Zubat every 3 steps.

 

[Dalisclock]

I think it's less people hate them on principle but how they feel a way to drag out gameplay length. And as you mentioned, the fact you often can't avoid or spot them in advance and thus prepare comes across as annoying. Eathbound, for example, had encounters you could see and sometimes get the drop on the enemies. Not to mention they can occur in ridiculous amounts in certain areas that makes walking across the room a chore.

 

[laggyteabag]

Not a fan.

Trying to travel from A to B, and constantly being harassed by often underleveled encounters, is one of the most frustrating features that plagues a lot of RPGs.

I don't mind pokemon's method of encounters occurring in in long grass, but not on paths, but encounters that can happen anywhere, are just super frustrating.

 

[happyninja42]

I don't have an issue, in theory with random encounters. As you pointed out, it's a staple of tabletop games for decades. GM rolls a die, checks a table while the party travels, maybe gets a random encounter, maybe doesn't. I think my issue with them in video games, is how frequently the system triggers them, and where. I mean if I can barely move 2 grid spaces before another fight triggers, you're doing it too much.

I also take issue with them in areas that it doesn't make sense. Like, I'm in a city, and it's a market square, and there are happy civilian npc's wandering about, and I suddenly have a random fight encounter in the middle of them. I'm sorry what? Unless it's either guards (because I'm on the run) or criminals (in theory we got mugged in the market), why in the fuck is there a random fight here?!

I think the problem, is how completely disconnected they are from everything in the story. In a movie/tv/book, there will be plenty of examples of random encounters that don't really do much for the overall narrative, but help move the character development along. When the hobbits find their various magical weapons, when they encounter the trolls and are about to be eaten until Gandalf shows up. The spiders later on in the woods, various goblin fights, etc. Those are all, fundamentally "random encounters." They don't have anything to do with actually dealing with Sauron and ring, or Smaug. But they either help equip the heroes for the upcoming battle, or help them overcome some previous personal hangup. Like being afraid of fighting, but finding the courage to stand up with Sting, to defend their friends. Stuff like that.

So it gives the random encounters PURPOSE. In RPG's, at least video game ones, as a GM at a table could easily work in some narrative weight to random encounters, there is no narrative connective tissue. It's just a bunch of mobs in your face that you smack down, to make your various numbers bigger. So if I'm actually invested in the story, but find myself constantly being sidetracked by these annoying minion fights, it gets tedious. The game is actively preventing me from enjoying it's story, by tossing these speedbumps in my way.

So I would like it if they had some alternative method of level advancement. Perhaps more social encounters that let you level up via helping npc's and having fun little side stories, that don't rely entirely on combat prowess. Including skills that let you avoid combat, like social skills or intelligence skills (charm/diplomacy/lockpicking/etc), that give you a way through some challenges, that have nothing to do with hitting something with a stick until it dies, but is still challenging and requires skill investment, but equally nets you experience, on par with the combat rewards.

Or, they could just not have such a massive level gap between various plot battles. It's not really that hard I think, to actually do the math of exp to level, and see, based on what you've done with the story missions, what level you would end up. So if you've built it where the party would only be, at best, level 10 by the end of the Prologue, don't make the very next plot battle be level 25! That just demands you to go out and grind. Which, frankly, for some, can be tedious. It's one of my biggest problems with JRPGs, just how much time you are forced to wander around, killing shit, just to be high enough for the next mission they put in your story path. I would often tag out with my wife, and let her run around and grind, as my eyes were just beginning to bleed from the repetition and monotony of it.

 

[Kyrian007]

I think there's a scale, for me anyway. Because plenty of games I like use random encounters of the seen and unseen variety. However, if they are too frequent for my taste it does negatively affect my enjoyment of the experience. I guess its not the random encounters themselves I really care about. But I hate grind, and too many random encounters (whether they are necessary for leveling or just too high an encounter rate) equals too much grind.

Not to pick on your favorite, but I preferred FF 8 to 7. Now, I wouldn't argue that 8 is the better game. But when I played them... my gaming time was pretty limited. I wasn't still in elementary, middle, or high school and didn't have all the free time anymore. To me it seemed like 8 with its junction system let me bypass 90% of all the tedious random encounters while FF7 basically forces you to grind in order to level up materia (ugghhhh, materia levels up so slowly.) With 8, once you fight a monster once (provided you draw 3 full racks of any spell you don't have from it) you never have to fight that monster or draw that spell again. I could get through a replay of 8 in a long weekend, no chance I could do that with 7. Its just more convenient and satisfying an experience for me, even though it isn't the better game.

 

[CriticalGaming]

. I mean if I can barely move 2 grid spaces before another fight triggers, you're doing it too much.

I feel like this is an exaggerated expression that I've seen many people point out. But in all the years of rpg playing I've done, I have never played a game in which the encounter rate was so high. There is never a moment in which you are triggering fights that often in any game I can recall. Are there areas in some games where the encounters are maybe too high, sure, but not every two steps.

I think a lot of it comes from people also being lost or exploring the dungeon or area in which they don't actively know how much distance they cover between fights so the random encounters give the illusion of appearing very frequently.

Perhaps more social encounters that let you level up via helping npc's and having fun little side stories, that don't rely entirely on combat prowess. Including skills that let you avoid combat, like social skills or intelligence skills (charm/diplomacy/lockpicking/etc), that give you a way through some challenges, that have nothing to do with hitting something with a stick until it dies, but is still challenging and requires skill investment, but equally nets you experience, on par with the combat rewards.

Actually this is something that more RPG's probably should adapt. Because Persona does this, at certain points in the game if your party is so crazy strong, whenever you hit an enemy encounter the game will not give you the fight and instead just give you the rewards. DBZ Kakarot does this as well in which you can fly into enemies you are way overpowered for and the game just goes "You won" and moves on without game interuption.

I don't think social events should really affect your battle capability because of one of your own reasons. The Narrative Disconnect. Why should my cooking skill also give me power? Why should the local Waifu liking me more make me better in battle. At least with random fights the power gain is obvious, the more you fight the better you fight.

Not to pick on your favorite, but I preferred FF 8 to 7. Now, I wouldn't argue that 8 is the better game. But when I played them... my gaming time was pretty limited. I wasn't still in elementary, middle, or high school and didn't have all the free time anymore. To me it seemed like 8 with its junction system let me bypass 90% of all the tedious random encounters while FF7 basically forces you to grind in order to level up materia (ugghhhh, materia levels up so slowly.) With 8, once you fight a monster once (provided you draw 3 full racks of any spell you don't have from it) you never have to fight that monster or draw that spell again. I could get through a replay of 8 in a long weekend, no chance I could do that with 7. Its just more convenient and satisfying an experience for me, even though it isn't the better game.

I think you are just trading one grind for another in this example. You can arguably do less random battles in 8, but each battle is much longer as you sit there and spam draw until you get everything you need out of a fight.

In 7 there isn't really a NEED to level the materia, the levels you'll gain in materia just playing through the game (so long as you keep character levels up) is good enough to beat it. The materia grind only really comes into play if you plan to do the extras. Which points back to the draw system in 8. Drawing spells is mandatory in 8, and leveling materia in 7 is optional. So I don't think the comparison tracks.

But it's all about perception, you do less encounters in 8 and even though they are longer it doesn't feel the same as doing a lot of quick fights. 8's leveling system didn't really do itself any favors and practically required you to invest in a grindy mini-game to power up "properly".

 

[Jarrito3002]

I would not say they are same that is a bit flawed.

Now random encounters have been replaced with token encounters. That is what I and some people call the new method of seeing the encounter on field and choosing to tackle it.

And that is the main crutch that makes it different is the option to choose and the agency can not be downplayed. Agency is the vinegar that turns this cucumber into a pickle. Is a pickle a cucumber sure but its whole different beast just because of this important additive.

When people have the option to choose the fights it creates less of a drag and interruption. Its the player going out of their way to make themselves strong and grind rather than game throwing enemies at you to ensure you have enough experience.

And not even battles think about backtracking. You as vet in the trenches of RPGs knows that backtracking is a thing for that one chest that out of way or this high level monster pit that you have to tackle later. To come back and do all the work with fighting early monster that exp gain is nonexistent if better to not fight at all is a huge quality of life improvement.

I will play a game with random encounters just for some old school goodness from time to time but I think the token encounter system is the perfect evolution to the random encounter system in my opinion.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Random encounters can be annoying because they can be interruptive. Sometimes, I just want to get from point A to point B, and random battles with a creature (or several creatures) three times my size that I ostensibly didn't see coming is the last thing I feel like dealing with. Or conversely, when I WANT to grind out some levels or collect items, and I have to walk in circles looking for a fight and hope the RNG nets me the fight with the creatures I need.

 

[happyninja42]

I feel like this is an exaggerated expression that I've seen many people point out.

Yes, it's an exaggerated expression. It's called hyperbole. I've maybe never had it happen with just TWO steps, but I can recall some times, where the random encounter table, that apparently updates with each movement of your avatar, triggered REALLY fast. Is it just a bad roll on the variable table? Yeah, but it shouldn't be like that at all. If I can't make it across your room without having 3+ encounters, maaaaybe scale back your randomization system a bit.

Actually this is something that more RPG's probably should adapt. Because Persona does this, at certain points in the game if your party is so crazy strong, whenever you hit an enemy encounter the game will not give you the fight and instead just give you the rewards. DBZ Kakarot does this as well in which you can fly into enemies you are way overpowered for and the game just goes "You won" and moves on without game interuption.

I don't think social events should really affect your battle capability because of one of your own reasons. The Narrative Disconnect. Why should my cooking skill also give me power? Why should the local Waifu liking me more make me better in battle. At least with random fights the power gain is obvious, the more you fight the better you fight.

Yeah it's not the most logical thing, but given you can often invest your combat prowess in things that you haven't actually used IN combat (like never having picked up a 2handed sword, but you can pump skill points into 2 handers because you know there is a boss ass buster sword later on or whatever), it's no different than investing your cooking prowess in combat in my opinion. If progression is divorced from in game utilization of skills (Like how Fallout lets you pump skill points into whatever you want, regardless of how you got those skill points) versus direct skill reflection IN game (like how Skyrim relies on you using the skills to level them up, barring training), then you have to kind of just accept that it's not going to make 100% logical sense. But I mean, in games where people frequently walk around with hair that defies all laws of physics, tensile strength of hair follicles, AND all laws of fashion sense (I'm looking at you Seymour! and all of your ilk!), I'm not terribly worried about "Yeah but the game system doesn't accurately reflect to logic!", my retort to that is "....have you SEEN his hair? Logic means NOTHING here!!"

 

[CaitSeith]

No mention on how Etrian Odyssey (and Persona Q) handles random encounters? That series puts a spin on random encounters by giving an indicator on how likely your next step will trigger a random encounter. Green means no immediate random encounter, yellow means an encounter will happen in less than a dozen of steps, and red means you probably be ready to battle before you take the next step or two. Some of the issues with random encounters is how unpredictable they start (it makes it seem the rate to be higher than it actually is); with that radar you don't feel like you're just taking two steps between battle and battle.

 

[CriticalGaming]

No mention on how Etrian Odyssey (and Persona Q) handles random encounters? That series puts a spin on random encounters by giving an indicator on how likely your next step will trigger a random encounter. Green means no immediate random encounter, yellow means an encounter will happen in less than a dozen of steps, and red means you probably be ready to battle before you take the next step or two. Some of the issues with random encounters is how unpredictable they start (it makes it seem the rate to be higher than it actually is); with that radar you don't feel like you're just taking two steps between battle and battle

That actually originally happening in Legend of Dragoon on PS1. There was an arrow over your head that changed colors the closer you got to triggering a random battle.

I don't think it's a viable approach to a game today, considered it would be rather emersion breaking unless it was slickly incorporated into the game's style somehow.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Random encounters are dumb, simply put. I'd rather know where most monsters hang around and go fight them myself on my own terms. If I am super over-levelled for the area I don't want to keep having low level enemies appearing. Or if I just want to get through an area it shouldn't be a start-stop affair. A smart adventurer would likely see where these monsters are and take precautions to avoid them if needed. I find it hard to believe monsters can constantly and repeatedly get the drop on said character steadily throughout only one location, unless these places are positively INFESTED up to the walls in creatures.

No mention on how Etrian Odyssey (and Persona Q) handles random encounters? That series puts a spin on random encounters by giving an indicator on how likely your next step will trigger a random encounter. Green means no immediate random encounter, yellow means an encounter will happen in less than a dozen of steps, and red means you probably be ready to battle before you take the next step or two. Some of the issues with random encounters is how unpredictable they start (it makes it seem the rate to be higher than it actually is); with that radar you don't feel like you're just taking two steps between battle and battle.

It's a smart way to do it and definitely helps. I wouldn't say it's perfect, I still prefer enemies on a map. But for games with this sort of grid-based format it works very well for what it needs to do

 

[CaitSeith]

That actually originally happening in Legend of Dragoon on PS1. There was an arrow over your head that changed colors the closer you got to triggering a random battle.

I don't think it's a viable approach to a game today, considered it would be rather emersion breaking unless it was slickly incorporated into the game's style somehow.

Yeah, totally a legit reasoning for its viability in modern games, as HP GUIs or numbers appearing on the screen whenever someone takes damage are much less immersion breaking. /s

 

[CriticalGaming]

Yeah, totally a legit reasoning for its viability in modern games, as HP GUIs or numbers appearing on the screen whenever someone takes damage are much less immersion breaking. /s

Combat elements are a bit different than a persistant ui element that is constantly reminding you of how much of a video game you are playing.

That being said they could do something to make it narratively make sense, something like Dead Space's health meter which would be a part of the character's outfit. This meter or device could change colors when enemies where "near" thus triggering an encounter.

 

[CaitSeith]

Combat elements are a bit different than a persistant ui element that is constantly reminding you of how much of a video game you are playing.

That being said they could do something to make it narratively make sense, something like Dead Space's health meter which would be a part of the character's outfit. This meter or device could change colors when enemies where "near" thus triggering an encounter.

Point taken.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I think random encounters in modern games are simply a holdover from technical restrictions in early 8-bit games. Am I wrong? It made sense when they were limited to sprites and less dynamic environments, but since then, technology can handle so much more. They could afford to make encounters more fluid, sensical and less jarring, but I think random encounters just worked their way so deeply into the identity of the JRPGs genre, changing it now is effectively changing the genre, so they persist to this day.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I think random encounters in modern games are simply a holdover from technical restrictions in early 8-bit games. Am I wrong? It made sense when they were limited to sprites and less dynamic environments, but since then, technology can handle so much more. They could afford to make encounters more fluid, sensical and less jarring, but I think random encounters just worked their way so deeply into the identity of the JRPGs genre, changing it now is effectively changing the genre, so they persist to this day.

I think you're wrong in that regard because games like Chrono Trigger, and The Secret of Mana had enemies on the map visable for the player. If anything i think it was kept throughout RPG's in order to keep the player in "danger" while exploring. I believe the original idea was to keep the player under threat in order to try and make the player weigh the pros and cons of continuing to explore versus getting to the end of the dungeon and moving on.

And like i said, just because a lot of game let you see the encounters now, doesn't really mean that the random encounters are gone, they just aren't random anymore but for the most part they are still just as mandatory as they ever were.

It's the same meal, just a different flavor.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I am a huge fan of RPG's and especially JRPG's as most of you either know or can probably guess based off my avatar. From Final Fantasy games to Dragon Quest to now the Yakuza games. Some of my favorite games of all time are out and out RPG's.

One thing that seems to swirl around the RPG genre as a whole is the huge divide between people who absolutely love or absolutely hate random battles. You'll be walking around and exploring only to get a screen flash before you are transported into a random fight no seemingly no reason. It's a mechanic that has been a staple of RPG's since day 1 and technically kind of started with tabletop RPG's. Sure your DM has full control over when a fight happens but to the players the encounters can feel pretty random. This is done to either add tension to a dungeon, forcing players to be careful with not only the way they explore but also to control their resource usage. In a video game, random encounters are there to make sure the player has every chance to get the exp they need to defeat the boss fights along their way.

But some games lately have started to move away from that model. The upcoming Bravely Default 2 is one key example. Bravely Default 1 and Bravely Second on the 3DS both had random encounters, however there were options in the menus that let you turn them off completely. Dragon Quest 11 litters the world with random monsters that the player can fight or avoid if they so choose. Final Fantasy 15 had monsters randomly in the world that were easy to avoid if the player didn't want to bother with it. And Infamously Chrono Trigger had monsters you could see on the map to mostly avoid.

However this ability to see the random encounters does not mean the random encounters are gone. It just means you can see them and that's not a difference. In fact in a lot of cases with these visable encounters, you still have to fight at least some of them or risk being underleveled for bosses that will stomp your face in. Additionally there are even some random fights that are unavoidable either because they surprise you during exploration or are simply in a narrow path in which you cannot avoid them.

So to me, both systems are basically the same. I happen to love random fights because I like the freedom of overleveling the story content if i want to. I like to grind in RPG's because I like showing up to boss fights like Goku and slapping them down like a bunch of punks, but that's just me.

I just don't get why people have such a hate for them, it's part of the genre. You know that normal fights are part of the style of game, hell they are a part of every game in a way. Very few games let you go from boss to boss without forcing you to fight some guff inbetween. So I don't know what about that system in RPG's is so upsetting. At least with RPG's fighting random battles gives you some noticable gain like money and levels and such. What do you gain by fighting wave 5 of random enemy ambush in an Uncharted game? Nothing. Those fights are there to make the game longer and seem more exciting and that's it. If they were gone, it wouldn't change the odds of your success during the next boss fight. Whereas in an RPG you might have gotten a couple of extra levels during your trip through the dungeon so that by the time you got to the boss you are noticably more powerful and are more capable of fighting it.

What do you guys think? Random Boss yay or nay? Why?

I never thought of the tabletop reference but you’re absolutely right. The random battles are basically the digital version of rolling dice.

I’ve gone through a full 360 degrees and then some on the subject personally. It started as mostly a hardware limitation thing that I just merely accepted, then slowly got tired of, then ultimately wound up thinking it’s a neat old school mechanic compared to the stale predictability we have today, or worse the RNG difficulties of rogue-likes.

It would’ve been cool if the FF7 Remake had the classic random battles as an option.

 

[happyninja42]

I never thought of the tabletop reference but you’re absolutely right. The random battles are basically the digital version of rolling dice.

I’ve gone through a full 360 degrees and then some on the subject personally. It started as mostly a hardware limitation thing that I just merely accepted, then slowly got tired of, then ultimately wound up thinking it’s a neat old school mechanic compared to the stale predictability we have today, or worse the RNG difficulties of rogue-likes.

It would’ve been cool if the FF7 Remake had the classic random battles as an option.

See for me, I don't "hate" the mechanic, but it's definitely not one I enjoy, or look forward to when I dip my toes into a JRPG or similar game. It's more an aspect that I tolerate. If I'm lucky the game will include something like an item you can equip to turn them off (which is awesome), or at least have enjoyable banter between the characters while I'm running around, to break up the monotony (like FF 15). But if given the choice to do away with it entirely, in lieu of something else, I'd be down for it. Because there's nothing fundamentally interesting in repetition of easy fights, just to grind up xp. In MMO's, that's when I would turn off game sound and load up a podcast or something. Or pull up a movie on my tv nearby and remove my headphones entirely. If your game mechanic, actively makes me disengage with your game to tolerate it, you probably need to come up with another system for character progression.