Why I Love Random Battles

[Velocity Eleven]

The thing that's really been grinding my gears recently is all the hatred for random battles

Now here's the thing, I'm not saying that random battles is the only way RPG battles should be done, nor am I saying it is inherently the best way. Overall it is my favourite way though I am willing to accept that games without them can have battles implemented in an interesting way that works.

I have been noticing that random battles in games arnt as prevelent as they used to be, and I hear so so many complaints about them that are completely unjustified.

So first of all I will address my own reasons for liking random battles. Then I will address the common complaints I hear and finally to be fair I will explain a something that I dislike about random battles (I'm trying to be subjective as I can).

What I Like About Random Battles
1. I like random battles because it is an effective method to make absoloutly sure that the skill required in order to defeat enemies is completely focused on the actual events during the fights. If I know that I can't "avoid" fights then it feels more of a challenge to me to be able to actually kill the enemies.

2. I find they enhance the exploration element as you do not have to worry about physically avoiding specific enemies on the field

3. It allows for more of a strategic approach, this is because finding enemies on the field and running toward or away from them involves twitch-based skill. I'm not saying twitch-based skill is bad, but I tend to find that it's not as interesting when it comes to running to/from enemies in RPGs. The game can still have twich-based mechanics inside the battles themselves (I like how Shadow Hearts did that)

Addressing Complaints About Random Battles
1. I can't choose who I fight

Well in most games you cant choose who to fight, in most cases you always know who the badguys are and you fight them.

2. They're too random

The law of large numbers, considering the amount of time spent playing these games the amount of randomisation will average towards the mean. But even so, the battles aren't so random that its like playing "heads or tails" (as some people make it out to be)

3. It takes no skill

True, but why is this a problem? Adding more events that require skill doesnt make a game better, as I said before it means that the skill is focused entirely during the battles. If for example Sonic The Hegdehog "added skill" to it (such as finding power-ups in order to level-up your jumps) then the other features would have to be lessened in importance in order to balance out the difficulty. Also games with random battles have skill in different areas

3. I get into one every 3 steps

That's really over-exagerating, even saying 10 steps is over exagerating

4. I was just one step before entering a town and I got into a damn battle

And what is it about that "one step away" feature that adds any sort of dissatisfaction to the entering of a battle? would the battle have been any different from a battle that heppened two or three steps away? If it takes (on average) 10 battles to get from point A to point B then what difference does it make "when" on that journey you entered the battle? (Provided that enemies are the same throughout the path, but a couple steps outside a town is barely going to make a difference)

5. (In response to above) If I had just gone one more step then I wouldn't have had to enter this battle, I was so close to avoiding that battle

True, but how is that relevant? If getting into a battle just before entering a town is a negative, then is it not feasible to say that reaching a town in just enough steps that the next step was going to trigger a battle is just as positive as that is negative? You could also use that logic to say that "one step before town" is a positive as it guarentees a 0% chance of any battles for the rest of that journey

6. We now have the technology so that we don't need random battles anymore

So? Just because technology can handle more doesnt mean that it directly translates into a fun experience. People still play Chess and they enjoy it, regardless of how much data the current consoles can handle

7. They slow the game down

This doesn't make any sense, a game feature can't slow a game down as it is a part of the gameplay. If you removed the random battles, you wouldnt be "speeding up" the game, you'd be changng it. You could also say that Super Mario Bros. would be faster if there were no pits or enemies, but then you'd just have a different game

8. The animations takes soooooo long

Seriously? Most of these complaints I hear talk as if an attack takes half a minute to complete, these complaints are really over-exagerated. Even so I think people are just being far too impatient for their own good. (This isn't directly linked to random battles but it kinda is)

9. It's not realistic

And why does that matter? I am well aware that people dont enter "random battles" in real life, games are supposed to be about overcoming challenges, whether they be presented in a way that reflects the real world or not

10. It's not immersive

I disagree, I find random battles to be very immersive. This is because of reasons stated in my "What I like about random battles" section

11. It's just about selecting "Attack" until the enemy dies over and over

That is usually an over-exageration, but even if it wasn't the point is still invalid. Even if that was the case, it doesn't link with the actual random battles themselves, there are many action games have this exact "problem". It may be true that a game with random-battles does this but its not the "random battle" feature that causes it

12. (In response to above) But it is, you said before that random battles allow for more strategy style gameplay and so it does link as the twich-based effect of avoiding/chasing enemies is not there

(Actually, nobody's asked me this before but I thought I'd fill it in just in case somebody does)

Well, that is a valid point. However if game has both random battles AND combat so easy that you can get through the whole game by button mashing, then thats probably just an overall poorly designed game.

All this really proves is that random battles can't do everything, nothing can.

13. I just want to get to the end of this frickin' dungeon but enemies keep popping out

Hey, it's a game, you're not always going to get what you want. You will have to overcome challenges on the way. All games do that. Things will always get in your way when you play games.

What I Dislike About Random Battles
The main thing I find annoying about random battles is when you're trying to grind. Having to run in circles I find is rather awkward. It sure is better than waiting for enemies to respawn but its a problem that could easilly be fixed. Cross Edge had it so you had random battles, but you could also manually enter a battle by the single press of a button. What I would like to see is an "enter another battle?" option at the end of every fight

 

[GloatingSwine]

What I Like About Random Battles
1. I like random battles because it is an effective method to make absoloutly sure that the skill required in order to defeat enemies is completely focused on the actual events during the fights. If I know that I can't "avoid" fights then it feels more of a challenge to me to be able to actually kill the enemies.

This assumes that there should be some special distinction between being in a fight and not being in a fight. Why should that be the case? Your characters are your characters whether they are currently fighting or not, the game is the game whether you are fighting or not.

3. It allows for more of a strategic approach, this is because finding enemies on the field and running toward or away from them involves twitch-based skill. I'm not saying twitch-based skill is bad, but I tend to find that it's not as interesting when it comes to running to/from enemies in RPGs. The game can still have twich-based mechanics inside the battles themselves (I like how Shadow Hearts did that)

No it doesn't. There is no strategic element to entering a random battle, that's why it's random. It adds no strategy at all, in fact it removes a great deal of it by simply lumping you in a situation and making you deal with it with the only possible way of affecting that on your part as the player being to maybe equip the appropriate skill or spell.

 

[Kasawd]

I find that the encounters need to be placed at a happy median of quantity, seeing as leveling is an integral part of any RPG.

Say, for example, the mass amount of encounters in some final fantasy dungeons can become extremely frustrating and maddening whereas Lost Odyssey has too few to allow for proper pacing in the game.

I suppose it could all come down to the type of enemies you encounter in said instance in ratio to how many times you encounter them.

 

[TheScarecrow]

I will give my reply to this when I have the time, and if I remember to.

 

[Generator]

Well, I'm bored, so I'm going to go ahead and counter your more relevant counter arguments (as in, I'm going to address your counters to all of the complaints that I personally would've made about random battles).

(I'm trying to be subjective as I can).

First of all, may I just ask, why? Assuming you meant that you wanted to be objective, the enjoyment of or frustration with random battles is completely subjective in the first place, so trying to be objective about it is pointless.

1. I can't choose who I fight

Well in most games you cant choose who to fight, in most cases you always know who the badguys are and you fight them.

That's a strange way of addressing this. A game without random battles allows you to skip unnecessary battles, whereas to skip a random battle, you must wait for the game to load up the fight if you want to skip it. Sure, there are always forced fights, but in random battles, there are many, many more.

3. I get into one every 3 steps

That's really over-exagerating, even saying 10 steps is over exagerating

Well, that's debatable, and completely dependent on the game. Plus, if someone finds random battles so annoying that they exaggerate to this degree, they're obviously having no fun, effectively killing the point of playing a video game in the first place.

5. (In response to above) If I had just gone one more step then I wouldn't have had to enter this battle, I was so close to avoiding that battle

True, but how is that relevant? If getting into a battle just before entering a town is a negative, then is it not feasible to say that reaching a town in just enough steps that the next step was going to trigger a battle is just as positive as that is negative? You could also use that logic to say that "one step before town" is a positive as it guarentees a 0% chance of any battles for the rest of that journey


13. I just want to get to the end of this frickin' dungeon but enemies keep popping out

Hey, it's a game, you're not always going to get what you want. You will have to overcome challenges on the way. All games do that. Things will always get in your way when you play games.

As for these two, they're essentially the same complaint as above: "I'm not having fun." It's pointless to play a video game if you're not having fun, and a lot of people do not enjoy random battles. You, on the other hand, do. That's fine, different tastes for different gamers. However, it brings me back to my main point:

(I'm trying to be objective as I can).

There's no point. Taste in games is a completely subjective thing: it's different for everyone. It's fine that you enjoy random battles, but trying to convince someone else to enjoy them is futile, because just as you may not enjoy some genres of games, other gamers simply do not like this style. If you have to convince someone they're having fun, they're not really having fun.

And that's my long, pointless speech. Well, that killed a good 20 minutes. Now what?

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

I do not like random battles for the following reasons:

They force me to fight enemies that are unnecessary to fight. There are always enemies you will have to fight. In Oblivion, when you are taking back Kvatch you have to kill the Daedra occupying the city. It is a necessary part of the game. However, when walking about Cyrodill, there is no reason to kill every random Daedra you see as it does nothing to progress the story. You can if you want the experience, are in the mood for combat or plan on storming an Oblivion gate.

However, If I were to be playing Oblivion modified with random encounters, I would have to fight and kill every single Daedra that randomly appears to challenge me. This would slow down the game, as when I am traveling I am usually headed to an objective to kill the specific things there that I need to kill to progress the quest/guild line/plot.

Furthermore, I like things that exist to be rendered on the playable map. Loading a separate screen for combat makes me very aware that I am holding a plastic controller, fighting a string of pixels, rather than battling my way through an epic dungeon. This breaks the suspension of disbelief that I, as the games audience, have- or, applied more specifically to videogames, it breaks immersion. While in your post you argued that it does not break immersion, the argument you gave for it was a simple reference back to your arguments for random combat to be fun and challenging. If Oblivion had a quest where you piloted an airplane and got in a dogfight with the Red Barron over the Imperial City, that would most likely be fun and challenging, but it would also severely break immersion.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

There is no strategic element to entering a random battle, that's why it's random.

Of course entering a random battle doesnt involve strategy, just like how entering a level on Super Mario Bros, isnt either

and yes they're random, it means that you wont be able to come up with the "perfect" set-up for each situation... but you can come up with the perfect set-up for each cluster of possible situations, which I think takes more effort... and you may not have a good set-up for a particular battle, you have to use your strategic thinking to make the best out of that scenario then in taht case

Furthermore, I like things that exist to be rendered on the playable map. Loading a separate screen for combat makes me very aware that I am holding a plastic controller, fighting a string of pixels, rather than battling my way through an epic dungeon. This breaks the suspension of disbelief that I, as the games audience, have- or, applied more specifically to videogames, it breaks immersion.

I never understood this... for me it's the existance of all the inner maths that provides the immersion, not its reflection on realistic situations

 

[Axeli]

Let me assure you that you are simply crazy.

 

[Amnestic]

And what is it about that "one step away" feature that adds any sort of dissatisfaction to the entering of a battle? would the battle have been any different from a battle that heppened two or three steps away? If it takes (on average) 10 battles to get from point A to point B then what difference does it make "when" on that journey you entered the battle? (Provided that enemies are the same throughout the path, but a couple steps outside a town is barely going to make a difference)

Yes. Study has shown that the closer people come to attaining a goal (beating a test, reaching a safe zone, etc.) and not making it - though in this case only temporarily - the more dissatisfied they will be than if their failure had occured further from the goal in the first place.

So having a random battle just before you get into a town is demonstrably worse in a player's eyes than getting one twenty steps away.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

Yes. Study has shown that the closer people come to attaining a goal (beating a test, reaching a safe zone, etc.) and not making it - though in this case only temporarily - the more dissatisfied they will be than if their failure had occured further from the goal in the first place.

So having a random battle just before you get into a town is demonstrably worse in a player's eyes than getting one twenty steps away.

that makes sense if put onto a larger scale, like a fighting game if you got the enemies health down to a very small amount and then you died it is worse than just dying instantly... this is because there is a direct penalty for "losing late" it means that there was more time spent playing the game that was resulting in failure and less time/oppurtunities are granted to continue attempting the challenge

Let me assure you that you are simply crazy.

explain

 

[kurupt87]

Random battles are generally disliked, and for good reasons.
Personally I do enjoy a random battle, but they are definitely more annoying when you are not in the mood to battle.
The only truly better thing about random battles is just that, their randomness. Like you said, you don't know precisely what you will be fighting, so you must have a variety of options available rather than just the one, which is harder and more tactical.
Also reinforces the ambush aspect of the random battle. This doesn't work when you're on a grind though, as it's you on the hunt, so particularly sensitive immersion meters beware.

 

[Axeli]

1. I like random battles because it is an effective method to make absoloutly sure that the skill required in order to defeat enemies is completely focused on the actual events during the fights. If I know that I can't "avoid" fights then it feels more of a challenge to me to be able to actually kill the enemies.

How does the fact you are randomly forced into fight make the fights require more skill? I don't get the logic here.
I don't see why you'd be less focused just because you see the fight coming. If anything, it should let you make some rough plan of action before you actually engage the enemy, which always adds a bit of depth.

2. I find they enhance the exploration element as you do not have to worry about physically avoiding specific enemies on the field

It makes exploration a pain in the ass. Just because you can't see them coming doesn't meant the fights aren't there to disturb your exploration. If a game has visible enemies instead of random battles, you can still walk from point A to point B in a straight line and just pretend they aren't there and get the same amount of time waste as with random encounters.
Worrying about the ticking time bomb which is the number of steps since the last fight is much more annoying than simply dodging the enemy if you so wish. In fact I'd say that visible enemies only add some life and depth to the places you explore.

3. It allows for more of a strategic approach, this is because finding enemies on the field and running toward or away from them involves twitch-based skill. I'm not saying twitch-based skill is bad, but I tend to find that it's not as interesting when it comes to running to/from enemies in RPGs. The game can still have twich-based mechanics inside the battles themselves (I like how Shadow Hearts did that)

Twitch spaced based or not, random encounter system has no counter part. There's no more strategy based version of avoiding an enemy at all, it's simply beyond your control.

1. I can't choose who I fight

Well in most games you cant choose who to fight, in most cases you always know who the badguys are and you fight them.

I'm not however force fed pointless fights every fifteen seconds in a manner that breaks me away from the immersion of the scene. And in most other games I am usually at least given the freedom of how to approach my enemies even if no the choice whether I will at all.

3. It takes no skill

True, but why is this a problem? Adding more events that require skill doesnt make a game better, as I said before it means that the skill is focused entirely during the battles. If for example Sonic The Hegdehog "added skill" to it (such as finding power-ups in order to level-up your jumps) then the other features would have to be lessened in importance in order to balance out the difficulty. Also games with random battles have skill in different areas

Problem isn't the lack of skill, but the lack of any kind of control at all. Wham, fight! You just get interrupted by battles for no reason all the time and it feels like a chore. And when your core gameplay irritates the player 99% of the time it makes it's sudden appearance, something is wrong.

3. I get into one every 3 steps

That's really over-exagerating, even saying 10 steps is over exagerating

It doesn't matter. Every fifteen or twenty steps is still irritating, and by the numbers, you acknowledge that too often is annoying. There goes a line there for you too, because at core random encounters are an annoyance.

4. I was just one step before entering a town and I got into a damn battle

And what is it about that "one step away" feature that adds any sort of dissatisfaction to the entering of a battle? would the battle have been any different from a battle that heppened two or three steps away? If it takes (on average) 10 battles to get from point A to point B then what difference does it make "when" on that journey you entered the battle? (Provided that enemies are the same throughout the path, but a couple steps outside a town is barely going to make a difference)

Hand a bag of candy to a kid and then pull it back the last second. Try putting the bag of candy on a table where the kid can't reach it as soon as he sees you holding it. Observe the results.
You honestly cannot be so disconnected from basic human reactions not to see why this pisses off people.

6. We now have the technology so that we don't need random battles anymore

So? Just because technology can handle more doesnt mean that it directly translates into a fun experience. People still play Chess and they enjoy it, regardless of how much data the current consoles can handle

FFXII and XIII have shown how much better their way is. The only difference to random battles is that they aren't random - the only reason not prefer them is if for some weird reason you like to get pulled into fights at random moments without any kind of warning. What is so great about that?

7. They slow the game down

This doesn't make any sense, a game feature can't slow a game down as it is a part of the gameplay. If you removed the random battles, you wouldnt be "speeding up" the game, you'd be changng it. You could also say that Super Mario Bros. would be faster if there were no pits or enemies, but then you'd just have a different game

Slow it in a bad way. Fights that you can see coming and can plan for or try to avoid if you feel so don't break the pace.
Randomly tearing down the screen for a fight does. It's like listening to song that is interrupted every five seconds by a funny sound effect.
You'd usually give the audience a moment of suspense or anticipation before changing the pace of your work (unless you go for a startling or surprising effect, but that hardly ever will work with random battles). Changing the scene or style just like that, snap, is only distracting and pace-breaking, especially if you do so every minute.

8. The animations takes soooooo long

Seriously? Most of these complaints I hear talk as if an attack takes half a minute to complete, these complaints are really over-exagerated. Even so I think people are just being far too impatient for their own good. (This isn't directly linked to random battles but it kinda is)

No one even thinks of it when they have to wait for a few seconds once. Or twice or thrice. Every less than half a minute and it starts to feel like chinese water torture.

9. It's not realistic

And why does that matter? I am well aware that people dont enter "random battles" in real life, games are supposed to be about overcoming challenges, whether they be presented in a way that reflects the real world or not

The problem is that it does neither stay within the innate logic of the game's world or contribute any necessary gameplay gimmick that would make it excusable.

10. It's not immersive

I disagree, I find random battles to be very immersive. This is because of reasons stated in my "What I like about random battles" section

It's not, it jumps you from one scene to another one with its own rules and system than the rest of the game's world. Without any logic or warning, thus breaking the immersion.

13. I just want to get to the end of this frickin' dungeon but enemies keep popping out

Hey, it's a game, you're not always going to get what you want. You will have to overcome challenges on the way. All games do that. Things will always get in your way when you play games.

At least I could see the fricking orc army looming on my path in Dragon Age or FFXIII and mentally prepare myself for the tedious challenge. I see me goal, I see my challenge and I proceed to kick ass.

Instead of seeing my goal and being randomly threw some fight or another at my face. No anticipation, just a random challenge at a random time. Like suddenly being asked a random quiz questions on a way to school instead of being told that there will be exam next Thursday.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

as I suspected people are blowing this up into huge proportions, aking a mountain out of a molehill...

I seriously dont "get" any of the points you've made. But then again I've never "got" this concept of "immersion" people go on about... for me the element of immersion is about how the world presents its challenges and goals, its all about the logic and the maths. Oblivion which is supposed to be "immersive" is the epitome of everything I hate about RPGs... character creation, level-when-use systems, multiple story outcomes, missables, and such

 

[slightly evil]

in pokemon if you want to speed things up a bit you can take the battle animations off, I was thinking something like this but then I thought: but why? give the option sure > bigger market, but then you're just trying to sell it to people who don't want it. it gives that lovely geekish 'leveling up' feeling of achievement.
also; did they take random battles out of FF12? I've manafed to block most of those memories and I know the combat sucked but if so it explains why everyone hated it.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

The fact that the monsters exist outside the playable environment also annoys me

but the battle itself is a playable environment, when you consider the sheer quantity of set-ups you can have, along with the tens (or hundreds) of battles moves you have. I would say the battles are very playable

in pokemon if you want to speed things up a bit you can take the battle animations off, I was thinking something like this but then I thought: but why? give the option sure > bigger market, but then you're just trying to sell it to people who don't want it. it gives that lovely geekish 'leveling up' feeling of achievement.
also; did they take random battles out of FF12? I've manafed to block most of those memories and I know the combat sucked but if so it explains why everyone hated it.

I find that if I have the option to turn animations off, then I do it but if I can't then it's just satisfying to know that neither can anyone else, because having them turned on in that case doesn't effect my playing

I LOVE the "geeky" level up feeling, its the biggest reason I play RPGs

FF12 didnt have random battles, but unlike most people I think FF12 did non-random battles well

 

[Velocity Eleven]

I like random battles in rps because you can just wonder around and get a bunch of xp.

acquiring EXP is a genius concept, where there's an infinite resourse of power that can be acquired regardless of the situation... without EXP, fighting the battles would be pretty pointless. AND the great thing about EXP is that its value is entrely subjective, is not like a key that unlocks a door, its a personal value

 

[Chipperz]

Yes. Study has shown that the closer people come to attaining a goal (beating a test, reaching a safe zone, etc.) and not making it - though in this case only temporarily - the more dissatisfied they will be than if their failure had occured further from the goal in the first place.

So having a random battle just before you get into a town is demonstrably worse in a player's eyes than getting one twenty steps away.

that makes sense if put onto a larger scale, like a fighting game if you got the enemies health down to a very small amount and then you died it is worse than just dying instantly... this is because there is a direct penalty for "losing late" it means that there was more time spent playing the game that was resulting in failure and less time/oppurtunities are granted to continue attempting the challenge

No, you're not getting what he says - Imagine you're in a race, a decent length one, say a marathon.

Ten minutes out of the start you remember you're a gamer and fall flat on your face, it's no big deal, you were doing OK but not great and you can get up, dust it off and keep going.

OR

You have a decent run, not great because the psychopaths that have trained every day since they were three finished all twenty-six miles in the first thirty minutes, but at least you're beating the guy who's doing it on stilts fo so-called "charity". You keep running round the last corner to see the finish line and then BAM! You trip over your own foot and go down, face first in sight of what you've been running at for hours. You can get up and keep going, but you just know that guy on stilts is going to be in front of you when you get up.

If you genuinely think the two examples would affect you exactly the same, then you're lying to yourself. It's human nature to set a goal and be more frustrated by setbacks the closer you get to it. You can see the town, you want to get to the town, but the game has decided to arbitrarily hold you up for at least a good thirty seconds... Oh! It's one of the joke monsters! The shitty ones that are designed for you to steamroll! Great, this will take less time to kill than the loading screen to get here! And it didn't even drop any decent treasure!

You can try to deny it, but this is VERY different from just stepping out of the dungeon and being attacked as you start off on a half-mile journey with the vaguest idea that the town is "to the west" because the map's shit.

 

[Axeli]

as I suspected people are blowing this up into huge proportions, aking a mountain out of a molehill...

I seriously dont "get" any of the points you've made. But then again I've never "got" this concept of "immersion" people go on about... for me the element of immersion is about how the world presents its challenges and goals, its all about the logic and the maths. Oblivion which is supposed to be "immersive" is the epitome of everything I hate about RPGs... character creation, level-when-use systems, multiple story outcomes, missables, and such

Let's put it this way:

Do you even know if you are talking about random battles or just turn-based combat? Because those aren't inseparable.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

Yes. Study has shown that the closer people come to attaining a goal (beating a test, reaching a safe zone, etc.) and not making it - though in this case only temporarily - the more dissatisfied they will be than if their failure had occured further from the goal in the first place.

So having a random battle just before you get into a town is demonstrably worse in a player's eyes than getting one twenty steps away.

that makes sense if put onto a larger scale, like a fighting game if you got the enemies health down to a very small amount and then you died it is worse than just dying instantly... this is because there is a direct penalty for "losing late" it means that there was more time spent playing the game that was resulting in failure and less time/oppurtunities are granted to continue attempting the challenge

No, you're not getting what he says - Imagine you're in a race, a decent length one, say a marathon.

Ten minutes out of the start you remember you're a gamer and fall flat on your face, it's no big deal, you were doing OK but not great and you can get up, dust it off and keep going.

OR

You have a decent run, not great because the psychopaths that have trained every day since they were three finished all twenty-six miles in the first thirty minutes, but at least you're beating the guy who's doing it on stilts fo so-called "charity". You keep running round the last corner to see the finish line and then BAM! You trip over your own foot and go down, face first in sight of what you've been running at for hours. You can get up and keep going, but you just know that guy on stilts is going to be in front of you when you get up.

If you genuinely think the two examples would affect you exactly the same, then you're lying to yourself. It's human nature to set a goal and be more frustrated by setbacks the closer you get to it. You can see the town, you want to get to the town, but the game has decided to arbitrarily hold you up for at least a good thirty seconds... Oh! It's one of the joke monsters! The shitty ones that are designed for you to steamroll! Great, this will take less time to kill than the loading screen to get here! And it didn't even drop any decent treasure!

You can try to deny it, but this is VERY different from just stepping out of the dungeon and being attacked as you start off on a half-mile journey with the vaguest idea that the town is "to the west" because the map's shit.

the main difference being is that falling flat on your face is a "failure" to reach the goal, getting the boss down to 1HP is a "failure". With such failures, the penalty for failing late rather than early is that teh time leading upto the failure is large

entering a random battle (unless it is a hard one) is not a failure, its just a task.

Using your race example (where each racer runs on their own equally lengthed track), I would say this is a better analogy: imagine ice is randomly placed on the track (slowing you down) and the ice is placed randomly over different racers tracks... does it really matter at which points the ice is laid? the ice doesnt cause failure directly rather it alters the skill requirements.

it is a fallacy that many people have that the later events are inherently the most important... like in a football (soccer) match, if one player scores a goal in the last 5 seconds and that gives the team the win, then suddenly its as if that person is the cause of their victory, but ignoring all events that lead upto that point

 

[Kotaro]

3. I get into one every 3 steps

That's really over-exagerating, even saying 10 steps is over exagerating

Really depends on the game. Although that complaint would easily apply to most MegaTen games. While great, they do tend to have a random-encounter rate that borders on ridiculous (Persona 3 and 4 and Devil Survivor are possible exceptions).