Random Encounters in old JRPG's

[Anim8rDude Anim8rDude]

I love random encounters! Not knowing which enemies you might end up fighting & the possibility of getting blindsided (or getting a totally BS enemy formation or something) keeps things interesting & makes the player to adapt to a bit more situations.
I also find that it forces you to find the most reliable & efficient strategies possible. Like I'm not saying default to using "the longest unskippable cutscene" spells, but maybe something faster & better! Atlus games wouldn't be the same without random encounters!
That's what I think anyway

 

[Deleted member 660650]

I like it. It can be annoying sometimes. (I'm currently playing Cyber Knight on SNES, and it's annoying there)
But that's part of the genre's rules. You either accept the rules of the game, or you go play something else. It's like Soulslike. After you die, all enemies will resurrect. You may not like it, you may get angry, but enemies won't stop resurrecting; those are just the rules of the game, and they won't change.

When I like the game but not its rules I bend the rules to my liking!!!

lolol

 

[hazys]

The players who complain the most about random encounters aren't playing the game right, in my experience. They hoard consumables until the final boss, they don't strategize or engage with the combat system, and if they lose they assume they have to grind more. Any decent JRPG can be cleared with zero grinding, if you use the tools the game gives you.

 

[Sneedolphus]

Random encounters themselves aren't an issue, it's the combat length that's the problem which is why SMT games like Nocturne and IV tend to keep the attention of people that are relatively new to the genre even for their 100+ hr long runtimes.
Same goes for Persona 3,4,5 even though the encounters aren't random per se, there are parts of the games where you are more or less forced to go through multiple battles but there is no issue since they fly by.
Another example would be the Dragon Quest series which lets you speed up the combat itself substantially through the settings of the games making the random battles fly by.
Final Fantasy games are good with that as well except for some borderline cases like 9 which had really slow loading times on real hardware.
I have dropped games that I liked their graphics, music and setting before due to slow combat alone, for example Breath Of Fire III.

 

[Deleted member 660650]

The players who complain the most about random encounters aren't playing the game right, in my experience. They hoard consumables until the final boss, they don't strategize or engage with the combat system, and if they lose they assume they have to grind more. Any decent JRPG can be cleared with zero grinding, if you use the tools the game gives you.

Yes this is a valid point for "decent" JRPGs that are not dying simulator and a piece of cake for new gamers especially little kids lolol.

 

[Vexicrypt]

The players who complain the most about random encounters aren't playing the game right, in my experience. They hoard consumables until the final boss, they don't strategize or engage with the combat system, and if they lose they assume they have to grind more. Any decent JRPG can be cleared with zero grinding, if you use the tools the game gives you.

Thats the thing, for me its not about losing (its hard to actually die in some JRPGs anyway) neither I mind the gring in general. Like I said, its about the encounter rate, which can get annoying if set too high. Random encounters themselves are fine, I even gave a good example of how they should be done in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 660650]

Thats the thing, for me its not about losing (its hard to actually die in some JRPGs anyway) neither I mind the gring in general. Like I said, its about the encounter rate, which can get annoying if set too high. Random encounters themselves are fine, I even gave a good example of how they should be done in my opinion.

Yep. If the game is easy and every battle takes like 10 seconds it's still annoying as hell when some games forces a random encounter BS every 5 steps lol.

 

[NOTthatHARD]

I don't think anyone actually likes random encounters, we just tolerate them.

 

[Turbo Kid]

I love random encounters. Random encounters are good for keeping you on your toes since you never know what kind of enemies you're going to face and thus whether or not your health and status should be at their best. Or whether or not you're going to run into some rare creature with a rare item. I like those kind of surprises. Players should NOT be able to predict every enemy encounter by seeing them on the map. That makes the game stupidly easy and removes all tension. You're out in the wilds, where danger is everywhere, and unpredictable things can happen a.k.a. random encounters.

I think gamers have gotten a bit too soft these days. They can't handle random encounters. They can't handle some grinding. The find old school tank controls for horror games terrifying. They get mad when they don't know what to do in a game when it's their own fault for not talking to every NPC or interacting with everything. They claim that things in old point n click games don't make sense when the truth is that they just don't have lateral thinking skills. They claim that these things are relics of the past. No, it's just that gamers today are too soft and want everything easy. That's my opinion

 

[Vexicrypt]

I love random encounters. Random encounters are good for keeping you on your toes since you never know what kind of enemies you're going to face and thus whether or not your health and status should be at their best. Or whether or not you're going to run into some rare creature with a rare item. I like those kind of surprises. Players should NOT be able to predict every enemy encounter by seeing them on the map. That makes the game stupidly easy and removes all tension. You're out in the wilds, where danger is everywhere, and unpredictable things can happen a.k.a. random encounters.

I think gamers have gotten a bit too soft these days. They can't handle random encounters. They can't handle some grinding. The find old school tank controls for horror games terrifying. They get mad when they don't know what to do in a game when it's their own fault for not talking to every NPC or interacting with everything. They claim that things in old point n click games don't make sense when the truth is that they just don't have lateral thinking skills. They claim that these things are relics of the past. No, it's just that gamers today are too soft and want everything easy. That's my opinion

Thats not my point here though. What I said has nothing to do with random encounters being bad in general, not being able to handle the grind or gamers being "too soft". My issue is encounter rates and I explained my point pretty clearly, I think.

 

[Mirai1412]

The players who complain the most about random encounters aren't playing the game right, in my experience. They hoard consumables until the final boss, they don't strategize or engage with the combat system, and if they lose they assume they have to grind more. Any decent JRPG can be cleared with zero grinding, if you use the tools the game gives you.

I was like this, until recently

 

[Turbo Kid]

Thats not my point here though. What I said has nothing to do with random encounters being bad in general, not being able to handle the grind or gamers being "too soft". My issue is encounter rates and I explained my point pretty clearly, I think.

Sorry, I tried reading all of that but it's just a wall of text with no paragraph break and I kind of gave up

There are usually items and accessories in some games to control encounter rates though. Players have to earn them.

 

[Yousef Yousef]

I like random encounters tbh

 

[Graw]

I prefer random encounters to visible encounters. I ended up dropping Dragon Quest 9 and switching from the 3DS version of DQVIII because the visible encounters made the games boring. I found I was spending more time in dungeons trying to avoid battles than actually exploring and getting through the dungeon and it wasn't fun.

 

[Vexicrypt]

Sorry, I tried reading all of that but it's just a wall of text with no paragraph break and I kind of gave up

There are usually items and accessories in some games to control encounter rates though. Players have to earn them.

I mentioned that as well. Replying without reading the whole post kinda defeats the purpose, don't you think? You blame gamers for being soft and yet want more quality of life from a post that doesn't need paragraths because you "kind of gave up" and made your assumptions anyway.

 

[bubbyrude]

The worse one to do it is Mother on NES

playing through it now and yeah this is definitely making it a slog
"Starman appeared. Ultra Barbot appeared. Starman appeared. Run. Run. Run."

 

[nobitakun]

I have a dejavu because this topic has appeared before, and I continue thinking the same (obviously). Random encounters are great when the rate has good pace and complementarily there are items or skills you have to earn to control the rate.

A "no, they are bad" answer means the game didn't apply them correctly, but an answer like "no, they are old, now people don't play like that" is just a nonsense reason that I hope does not come from a person under 25 years old lol.

 

[BedrockParts]

For alot of the JRPGs with random encounters that i've played it doesn't really bother me until like the end game or the final dungeon where the encounter rate is unbearably high or i've played so much it becomes more of a nuisance

Except for like the first persona game which i got annoyed with the encounters almost instantly but maybe that's because its the first game i played that had that mechanic and i haven't gotten used to it yet.