Random battles in RPG's

OK, I recently started playing Final Fantasy 6 on GBA.

The game is really good. The characters are extremely interesting and the story is compelling.

However, I hate the random battles thing. When you're exploring an area, you're constantly interupted by some random battle. The random battle is some monster that has nothing to with the main storyline, and a lot of times you're just pressing "A" over and over again.

I remember Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door didn't have that, and that great.

Who's with me? NO MORE RANDOM BATTLES POP-UPS IN RPG GAMES!!

It is a tad annoying when your trying to rush to save point and you keep getting attacked but it is the only way to gain expirence and make your party strong enough for the major bosses.MagicHat1

I think there is a very good alternative to random encounters to level up. Its called side-quests! Much more difficult to do than random encounters ... but it sure does make the game less annoying!

Genia

I don´t like random encounters, one system that i like for RPGs is the one on TALES OF VESPERIA (real cool game), in wich you choose your fights 90% of the time.

I never had a problem with them,even in my WRPG's like morrowind, mattykovax

Random battles are a relic from an age of lesser technology. The reasons for their initial inception and use are long gone, but we hold onto them because JRPG developers for the most part treat innovation like southerners treat democratic presidential candidates (of the northern variety, anyway). There's no reason we shouldn't be able to at least see an enemy as it approaches.

Even if you like grinding, you have to appreciate the upside of representing the monsters on-screen. Consider games like Tales of Vesperia and Persona 4 where this feature allows you to string battles together and take on enemies all at once, rather than have to fight three separate battles for the same XP gain. It's also more atmospheric to actually be able to see the threat in front of you rather than being suddenly warped to the battle screen to find that you were "ambushed" by a 30-story monstrosity. Chrono Trigger did it right on the SNES, but most devs ignored it. Hell, I can't even get a New Game+ in my JRPGs half the time.

Anyways I find random battles an antiquity of game design that should be done away with along with plotless grinding. On the other extreme I hate games that have areas certain areas where creatures don't respawn so there's only a certain amount of EXP to get in the game.smerlus

[QUOTE="smerlus"]Anyways I find random battles an antiquity of game design that should be done away with along with plotless grinding. On the other extreme I hate games that have areas certain areas where creatures don't respawn so there's only a certain amount of EXP to get in the game.LordAndrew

It honestly, for me, depends on the battle system/game

If I already don't like the game/battlesystem, the constant fighting will piss me off.

People are way too picky about such minor details... anyway, I much prefer turn-based combat, I favor strategy over reflexes. But on the subject of random battles, I see no problem with it what-so-ever. I wish more games today would have random battles. I dont mind having enemies on the field for me to fight there and then but what I don't like is the whole "walk upto enemy, enter battle sequence as if random battle" to me that is just the worst.

I dont like having a limited number of enemies in a room which automatically respawn with an "exit room, re-enter room" feature, that just bugs me

Meh, I like random battles and non-random battles. I don't care either way.

OK, I recently started playing Final Fantasy 6 on GBA.

The game is really good. The characters are extremely interesting and the story is compelling.

However, I hate the random battles thing. When you're exploring an area, you're constantly interupted by some random battle. The random battle is some monster that has nothing to with the main storyline, and a lot of times you're just pressing "A" over and over again.

I remember Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door didn't have that, and that great.

Who's with me? NO MORE RANDOM BATTLES POP-UPS IN RPG GAMES!!

[QUOTE="MagicHat1"]It is a tad annoying when your trying to rush to save point and you keep getting attacked but it is the only way to gain expirence and make your party strong enough for the major bosses.redban2

i like them to an extent. if you get random battles every now an then, it keeps you on your toes at all times. however, it becomes overkill (and takes you out of the game world)when you are getting one every 3 seconds of exploring.

dq8 came up with a surprisingly simple happy medium. a party member early on gets a skill that allows them to callfor a battle at will. id say that it would make for a perfect exuse to seriously lighten up the random encounter rate (sadly, dq8 didnt. it was one of my few gripes with the game).

i think that with technology nowadays, random encounters need some sort of prelude before the battle itself to make the transition more fluid. a 2-3 second long cutscene showing enemies jumping on screen and forming ranks would do the trick.

i think that with technology nowadays, random encounters need some sort of prelude before the battle itself to make the transition more fluid. a 2-3 second long cutscene showing enemies jumping on screen and forming ranks would do the trick.

LoG-Sacrament

???? random encounters + long set-ups is how the industry USED to work. Havent you noticed them desperately trying to get rid of the load time for battles, some games even bragging that you go from walking around straight into battles with no interruption??? As you can see alot of people already hate the fact that their exploration is getting interrupted every couple of steps taken and then to compound the problem there are load times to start the battle. Then there are the super super impatient who dont even like attack animations lol.

I like them for the most part, but they can get a bit old after a while.

At first I couldn't stand random battles but now I have no problem with them. A good example of mypersonal type of battle system is Rouge Galaxy. Random encounters with active free time. Random battles do get repetitive though so I mix rpgs up by their battle system so they don't overly become a chore to fight.

Morrowind doesn't have random battles. Sure, the enemies in the game can be a little suicidal and try to attack you on sight but there are mods for that on the PC version where only creatures with the Blight will charge to their deaths. Anyways I find random battles an antiquity of game design that should be done away with along with plotless grinding. On the other extreme I hate games that have areas certain areas where creatures don't respawn so there's only a certain amount of EXP to get in the game. As someone else pointed out there are these things that were invented a while ago called Side Quests that are actually grinding with a plot to it so it makes it feel less like grinding and more like an additional story. win win.smerlus

>

^ Side quests aren't necesarily grinding if done properly.

Fallout 1 was made under the rule that every quest has to have at least 3 ways to be solved (stealth, combat, diplomacy), also it had (usually) neutral random encounters and could be completed without fighting anyone.

This is not the case for Fallout 2 and 3, though sidequests do have multiple ways to be completed.

Deus Ex also allowed great freedom (sneaking, hacking distactions) and with Shifter (or Shifter Plus) mod you where rewarded XP for this.

[QUOTE="LoG-Sacrament"]

i think that with technology nowadays, random encounters need some sort of prelude before the battle itself to make the transition more fluid. a 2-3 second long cutscene showing enemies jumping on screen and forming ranks would do the trick.

???? random encounters + long set-ups is how the industry USED to work. Havent you noticed them desperately trying to get rid of the load time for battles, some games even bragging that you go from walking around straight into battles with no interruption??? As you can see alot of people already hate the fact that their exploration is getting interrupted every couple of steps taken and then to compound the problem there are load times to start the battle. Then there are the super super impatient who dont even like attack animations lol.

I don't mind as long as you have an item or skill which can be set to allow you to skip all random battles when you want to, Lost Odyssey did not have this and I cba to play it again for this reason, even though I would actually like too :(. Once your lvl 99 in most jrpg you dont want to keep getting into radom battles where all you do is normal attack to win easily, its boring...

Thats the thing that kinda made me not fully like Lost Odyssey, random battles just get annoying and make you run around in a area yelling fight me so I can lvl up.

How much cooler would DQ8's world map have been if it was populated with monsters?King9999

Random battles are great. Makes grinding up easier, and also gives you hopes of finding rare mobs or rare loot.