Do you like enemies on screen or random encounters?

[FranklinX 37]

In some games you will touch enemies on screen and will go into battle. However, many traditional games will have random encounters. Which one do you like better?

[Free To Play 3]

Random encounters are SOOOOOO much easier to program around. Just don't put the encounter rate to high. It gets annoying after every three steps and you get stuck fighting a bunch of stupid enemies.

[Broken Messiah 20]

Depends on the game, I think I like a mixture, the enemies randomly pop up and chase after you on screen.

[FranklinX 37]

Random encounters are SOOOOOO much easier to program around. Just don't put the encounter rate to high. It gets fucking annoying after every three steps and you get stuck fighting a bunch of stupid enemies.

 

I hate high encounter rates. They are so annoying!

[Enigma 10]

honestly, i cant stand random battles,

i will only accepted it if the occurrence is low, and only certain areas

or certain areas with varying occurrence

I remember playing final fantasy and getting into a fight every 5 steps -_- when i ran out of potions and stuff i had to save constantly and find a way to warp back to avoid death

 

Enemies on screen can't always be done and can be a tad overwhelming in swarms, but if thats the effect they are meant to have then it works greatly

but at the same time it shouldn't be over whelming

 

btw here is the event code for on the screen enemy using default battle system

BASIC:

[PG 1]PG 2

graphic: enemy(look in rtp)

movement: approach

trigger: Player touch or event touch

Event commands

Battle Proccessing: Enemy Troop

Control Self Switch A

 

PG 1[PG 2]

conditions: self switch a

graphic: none or enemy corpse

movement: fixed

trigger: n/a

event commands

n/a

 

RESPAWNABLE:

PG 1 is exactly same

 

PG 1[PG 2]

conditions: self switch a

graphic: none or enemy corpse

movement: fixed

trigger: parallel

event commands

wait: # frames - 20 frames = 1 second <-- respawn time

turn self switch a off

"enemy will reappear/ respawn"

[Free To Play 3]

I hate high encounter rates. They are so annoying!

Yeah, that was the problem with like, every final Fantasy game ever.

 

@Enigma That's a great eventing system, You should put that in the resource centre.

Edited December 29, 2010 by Free To Play

[Crym 10]

I've never had that kind of problem with final fantasy games ever usually it's the other way around. I actually like a some what high encounter rate, if you've prepared right it should be no problem, of course it doesn't need to be so high that you start a fight every 2 or 3 steps.

 

I do prefer the enemies on screen in some games if it's done right, some of these games use this method to limit the level at certain points (encounters don't respawn). This makes over leveling impossible and keeps everything at a challenging pace, take the Grandia series (especially Grandia II) stayed challenging because once you fought it was gone there was no extra training (Grandia II opened an area after almost completing the game that you could train in a little extra, but the exp sucked so much it was pointless).

 

I honestly think that it depends on the circumstances. I have done a game where the enemies were on screen but invisible and moving around, (added an item so you could see them later on), this gave an illusion of random encounters early on and limited the number of fights on the map.

[Bigace360 38]

I hate random encounters espically when your playing pokemon, and that one pokemon will only appear at night with a 20% chance and your sitting going around in circles in the grass area looking for the legendary dogs while a bunch of ratatta keep popping out. That and the high encounter rate thing, when u move like every 4-10 steps and an enemy appeares espically when your trying to hurry up and save. As a programmer its easy to add into the game, as the player its an ass to play around. Thats why i like reat-time RPG's (Star Ocean 3 & 4, FF12, FF13, Infinitive Undiscovery, KH series, etc...) as i can see the enemies on the map and dodge them when i'm in a hurry, unless the enemy as some sort of speed advangage then i'm forced to fight it.

Edited December 30, 2010 by bigace

[Broken Messiah 20]

In Shin Megami Tensei Personal you could have battles but with the rush command the whole party will auto attack.

[rgangsta 43]

Enemies on screen is way better. That way you can avoid unnecessary battles.

[YelloMagic 1]

The main problem with a lot of RPGs with randomized fights (especially older ones)is that the encounter rate seems to be set high to compensate for the fact that the enemies aren't very bright or tough and could be handled pretty easily by themselves. The game just tries to wear the player down with a barrage of boring fights. Making the enemies invisible until a fight starts can also strip them of personality- it can make them seem anonymous. That old video game gimmick of recoloring older enemies to make new ones is a good example of this. But I think that these setbacks could be definitely be overcome through creativity!