Should retro RPGs with random encounters have given you the option to avoid them entirely at your leisure?

I know some RPGs like Chrono Trigger more or less do so since the monsters are actually present in the map and can thus be (for the most part) avoided, but I'm referring to the more common encounter system where they are entirely random and cannot be seen or avoided. One could, of course, argue the encounters are present precisely to add an element of danger to dungeons and the overworld, but I find this is not often done in a way that is satisfying. In many cases, after a while, it just gets monotonous and annoying, and I find myself just running from battles.

Granted, this may be mostly an issue in the later gen RPGs, where the encounters are rarely challenging, whereas at least in the early RPGs, you actually have to go into dungeons prepared, stocked up on items, and being careful not to waste said items or your MP/spell charges frivolously. That is perhaps where the random encounter system is probably the best.

In any case, if the choice was there to somehow turn the encounters off, how much would you have made use of it? It would certainly make dungeons traversing a hell of a lot quicker, but of course, it also makes bosses more challenging, since you won't get experience from battles and you'd have only the dungeon loot to rely on for income. It might have made for a neat little New Game+ sort of option for replays, at least.

What do you opine?

>>11889554 (OP)
Every game should have an option to skip the gameplay, also I hate videogames.

Yes. Earthbound presented the near perfect system: every enemy was visible, could potentially be avoided, ran away from you once you were over leveled, and had some fun interaction like back attacks depending on how you/it touched and nearby enemies running over to join the battle if they were close.

FF's invisible enemy move based encounter % chance is the worst way to do RPGs, and not giving players the ability to at least reduce or remove encounters (at least not until well into the game, eg Enemy Away materia in FF7 which isn't obtainable until 7-8 hours into the game going fast) made the games far more tedious than they needed to be.

I wish SE would make a 16-bit FF with all the lessons we've learned about menu based RPG design since the 1980s. Won't happen but it's fun to dream.

I think the aggravation of random encounters is the balance to the fact that you have so much time to make each decision in battle

>>11889554 (OP)
For Final Fantasy and the jrpgs inspired by Wizardry, I think they should have kept the forced random encounters in dungeons (tight spaces where you're easily ambushed), but for the random encounters on the overworld given you a choice of running away before the battle started.

>>11889562
Yeah, Earthbound's way of doing encounters was pretty fucking cool.
>>11889567
As I said, it appears to me the main flaw in this system lies in the fact that in most such games, most random encounter monsters are nothing more than time-wasting shitters, and you get sick of them after a while. Were they properly balanced so they actually made you sweat a bit and forced you to use your stock of items and spells, they'd be something you'd dread but in a way that you'd ultimately see them as part of the challenge of tackling a dungeon. Ideally, such a system would make it so that if you're getting bodied, it's because you're not properly equipping your team, you're being wasteful with your resources, you're not employing the right battle strategies, or a combination of the above. Of course, few games get this balance right, and so encounters are either too easy and so a waste of time, or way too difficult and so make you feel like you either need a lot of luck, a lot of grinding, or both.

Anyone who doesn't like random battle just wants faster pace gameplay. Similar to people who don't like atb. Or the encounter rate just doesn't suit them.

I have no issue with random encounter except in certain games. In those games it's usually due to encounter rate. Ff4 can be brutal because of guaranteed battle spots.

Atb is a gem but I think it's dying out. The way expedition 33 tried to make it "fun" turning it into stationary elder scrolls is very questionable to me.

>>11889554 (OP)
In an action RPG you can't run from enemies so why should you be able to here? Same thing except random vs predetermined encounters. Also if you don't incorporate this you will end up with large difficulty spikes at bosses requiring you to grind, but for how much? It will be more trial and error just to get to the right exp level since you will be further away. Plus then inevitably players will have to go into long grinding mode or plan their grinding ahead not knowing how much to grind so I would say no.

>>11889557
Kek this. Just make everything an interactive movie where you have to click shit and all the decisions you make result in the same outcome.

>>11889557
If the random battles are the gameplay, how is it that I can turn them off and still play the game?

Exploration isn't gameplay? Non-combat based sidequests aren't gameplay? Boss fights (which aren't affected by turning off random battles) aren't gameplay?

I turn encounters off:
-If I'm already at the level I want to be for the next boss and I'd run from battles anyway (if you're over-leveled bosses are too easy to be fun), not having encounters on saves time
-If I'm trying to explore in something like FF8 where the encounter rate is absurdly high but every town gets new dialog and events often.
...If I had encounters on I wouldn't spend 15 minutes traveling between towns just to check out if anything is new, I'd just skip all that exploration like I did originally on PSX.
>>11889594
>In an action RPG you can't run from enemies
You just turn around and run away unless that game has battles that transport you to an instance with walls all around.

>>11889625
>Exploration isn't gameplay? Non-combat based sidequests aren't gameplay? Boss fights (which aren't affected by turning off random battles) aren't gameplay?
These are all gameplay though... What kind of retard dust did you snort this morning?

>>11889653
Anon...

>>11889554 (OP)
Absolutely 1000% this should be an option.

First of all, since experience and rare drops and stealable items and money are all going to be connected to random battles there's plenty of incentive to do them without being forced to. if the game is balanced properly the player would *want* to engage in battles consistently so you're not getting your ass handed to you by overleveled enemies or finding that you can't afford weapons or items because you're broke all the time. If a player can just turn off random battles from minute 1 and still breeze through the game you designed a shitty game.

So with that being the case, why make them obligatory all the fucking time instead of giving the players the ability to moderate the experience? As long as turning them off is a trade-off and not a win button what's the fucking problem? The challenge in the game comes from the bosses and fixed encounters at key points. Having to fight pointless, unwanted fights that usually aren't even challenging and mostly serve as speed bumps is just an inconvenience most of the time.

If there is no actual incentive for the player to keep encountering random foes in an area because they're already at the level they need to be and they've completed the bestiary entries and fought every variety of enemy in that area and stolen all the rare steals and farmed all the rare drops then for fuck's sake, just let us walk from point a to point b. At some point they become a form of repetitive busywork that provide no challenge or enjoyment. just a fucking slog. Let the player decide if they're at that point.

Pokemon did it right.

>>11889554 (OP)
No, you’d be able to explore without restriction and obtain the best equipment hassle free. The whole point is that you’re supposed to feel trapped, surrounded by a den of beastly foes, completely unaware when you will be attacked next.

>>11889554 (OP)
Under no circumstances should a game force you into a "random encounter". It's the most logically retarded thing possible. You see your character, you see the world around you, you see interactive objects, but for some reason, there are just hordes of invisible and waiting to attack you that you can't see? What the fuck is that? The sins of these games could have been overcome had they simply included enemy sprites that wandered around and denoted encounters. I'd argue there's even a reasonable balance to be found here: they could have included visual representations of enemy groups in wide open areas with sprites, but then add random, invisible encounters to tiles like forests where it's reasonable to assume that you might not know what's coming. Except, that's never the case. It's just you in some fucking rock dungeon or wide open grass field running into giant purple gay men or goblins or jellyfish trying to rape you. It makes no sense and it's cancer. JRPGs are garbage.

>>11889638
Yeah but then you can't progress through the dungeon, can you? Also they usually respawn room by room so it's like being subject to random encounters when you try to leave.

I think the bigger issue is your combat is boring

Replaying FFVII on Steam a couple years ago with the ability to turn them off made me never want to play an older JRPG without that ability ever again. Luckily there are usually cheats through emulation where you can toggle it on/off.

>>11889625
You can play through an entire jrpg without having to earn any exp points? Pretty impressive, anon

>>11889754
Why even play them then

>>11889562
>FF's invisible enemy move based encounter % chance is the worst way to do RPGs, and not giving players the ability to at least reduce or remove encounters (at least not until well into the game, eg Enemy Away materia in FF7 which isn't obtainable until 7-8 hours into the game going fast) made the games far more tedious than they needed to be.
The enemy isn't really invisible. But Wild ARMs 2 had random encounters like standard RPGs did, but it had a feature where an exclamation mark would appear over the character's head, and if you pressed the cancel button, you could cancel the encounter entirely.

You should try out DQIII clones that have random encounters the moment you finish one random encounter.

>>11889851
>toggle
as in not permanent
however I would be fine with a low/reasonable encounter rate, many old ones have it way too high which is especially annoying when you're stuck and/or make a point to search every nook and tranny

>>11889554 (OP)
>Should retro RPGs with random encounters have given you the option to avoid them entirely at your leisure?
yes. fortunately they all have this option thru emulators

Visible overworld sprites that lead to an encounter is the way and easy to implement in dungeons and overworlds that aren't a giant flat plane with no obstructions. It's not that the Japanese didn't know this either as they already did this in some JPC RPGs before Dragon Quest was out. Those don't exactly lack the RAM to keep track of these wandering encounters though, which I can imagine might be a problem in an early Famicom RPG so just making it a % on move is much more economical. Too bad that's what people copied though.

>>11889920
>random encounters, but there is no point
Not entirely true, you can get an item to recover the health you lose to the pointless random encounter.

7th saga's fantasy radar used for encounters was cool.

Wild Arms 3 has a "migrant level". Basically you have a certain amount of encounter skips at each migrant level which reset at inns or you can collect little gems that increase the number while youre in dungeons. The ecounter rate is way too fucking high tho in some areas so when you enter with 0 youre going to be fighting constantly. I've already sunk so much time into this game i have to finish it now even tho I'm burnt out of it

I mostly just have two issues with random encounters:

1. If they are set at an absurdly high rate. It goes from fun to frustrating when every two steps puts you into a fight. This is especially true for games that take time to load the fight.

2. When you can have random encounters in areas that really should be "safe".

All in all though, as much as I loved classic JRPGs, I also don't miss random encounters. Feels like they were a relic from a time when it was hard to impossible to just show the enemies on-screen that well wore out their welcome. Even Dragon Quest and Pokemon, two of the most traditional and resistant to change JRPG series out there, have ditched them. Still like turn-based combat though.

>>11889554 (OP)
>Should games let me skip the part where I actually have to play them?
No. And you can always run away from encounters in JRPGs so people acting like it's an issue are just salty casuals that shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion on the matter.

I mostly just have three issues with random encounters:

1. If they are set at an absurdly high rate. It goes from fun to frustrating when every two steps puts you into a fight. This is especially true for games that take time to load the fight.

2. When you can have random encounters in areas that really should be "safe". It's ridiculous that you can get into random encounters in towns/areas where NPCs are just standing around, in towns, in small houses, etc. I hear that Skies of Arcadia was especially bad with this and you could get into random encounters on your own damn airship?

3. When you can have random encounters in an area where you are expected to run around to solve a puzzle, such as one where you have to push around blocks or so. I'm trying to concentrate on the damn puzzle, stop tearing my concentration away every 10 seconds to fight the same fodder over and over and over!

All in all though, as much as I loved classic JRPGs, I also don't miss random encounters. Feels like they were a relic from a time when it was hard to impossible to just show the enemies on-screen that well wore out their welcome. Even Dragon Quest and Pokemon, two of the most traditional and resistant to change JRPG series out there, have ditched them. Still like turn-based combat though.

Was Zelda II the first game where random encounters had visual cues?

>touch the monster = encounter
>bigger monster = harder encounter
>on the path = no encounter

>>11889920
>You should try out DQIII clones that have random encounters the moment you finish one random encounter.

I still remember that dragon ball card battle rpg on SNES where you couldn't make 2 steps without getting a random encounter. If you used the fast flying, it happened even more often. Good thing I played it on an emulator, otherwise it would've been unbearable.

>>11889554 (OP)
>Chrono Trigger more or less do so since the monsters are actually present in the map and can thus be (for the most part) avoided
lmao
There are multiple, multiple, multiple, MULTIPLE parts in that shitty, shitty game where boring, press-A-to-win segments are unavoidable and inescapable. There's often a way to fuck with the RNG for encounters in jRPGs, especially on emulators, but not in Shitty Trigger. >>11889562
iirc, in Breath of Fire, you could save state, count the number of steps to your next encounter, reload, walk one less step than the encounter number, enter the menu, exit and repeat.
In 7th Saga, you can avoid encounters for a good long while if you're good at watching the crystal ball.

>>11889920
I've been playing DQIII and the encounters are a little much. Maybe shouldn't have went double Wizard.

Most good RPGs already have items or abilities that let you decrease/increase encounter rates.

If you're turning off mechanics you're not playing the game to play the game, you're just checking off a list to say you "beat" it.

>>11889557
unavoidable filler encounter aren't gameplay. Also you weren't born.

>>11889554 (OP)
>Granted, this may be mostly an issue in the later gen RPGs, where the encounters are rarely challenging
Some early CRPGs also solved this by having a Quick Combat option for when you didn't want to waste time on weaker enemies.

why do JRPGs insist on having turn based battles? It feels like the evolution of that design decision has been concluded before in WRPGs and japs can't figure out how, so you have these schizophrenic games with schizophrenic fanbases. It just seems like a twisted subgenre that mocks itself at every turn with no apparent innovation since fucking Dragon Quest. Really, it's not serious, when the considered peak of the genre by the genre alternatives is Earthbound. Compare it to PS:T kek

>>11890573
>why do JRPGs insist on having turn based battles?
Because they’re based.

>>11889562
Don't get me started on the absolute fucking crock of shit the enemy away materia is. Everything about it is a sick joke.

Fist of all, afaik it's one of only three materia in the game that is obtained purely by RNG. And not the manageable kind of where you just might have to reload and try again, but the incredibly cruel sort of multi-layered RNG where you not only have to hope the thing shows up as a prize at the chocobo races to begin with but then have to also engage in the futile (in my experience) hope that it's the random prize you happen to win. And to find out whether not not that's the case you have to proceed through the entire chocobo race. Every. Fucking. Time. In true JRPG fashion, it takes what was a fun and rewarding little diversion and turns it into a nightmare of endless repetition until you hate everything about it but you have to keep going because otherwise all those hours (and yes, it will take HOURS) of beating your head against the wall was for nothing.

Just make it a fixed fucking prize. Make it hard to get if you must. Put a powerful enemy inside the chest that contains it. Make me steal it form a rare enemy. Make it the reward for some prolonged sidequest. Hell, if had to be a chocobo race item just give it to me for reaching rank S. That was tedious enough. But making it so you have absolutely no fucking idea when you will actually get it and the only recourse being sitting through the short track race (which still takes like 4 fucjing minutes) over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until you win it by blind stupid luck is unacceptable. I honestly might have spent as much time just trying to get this stupid fucking thing as playing the entire rest of the game

And the truly insulting part is, IT DOESN'T EVEN PREVENT RANDOM BATTLES, just makes them slightly less frequent. And you have to level it up....by getting xp...by fighting random battles. What the fuck.

>>11889845
>>11889851
>>11889595
>>11890305
I'm not saying you don't have to fight random battles or grind for exp at some point. I'm just saying you can turn it off occasionally to do other things because the gameplay doesn't consist entirely of that. Random battles are part of the process, not the entire process, and sometimes they're just in the way.

Also, I guarantee 90% of the faggots posting "why even play then" or other similar bullshit played most of these games on emulators for the first time and absolutely turned off random battles at some point because there is no JRPG where they don't eventually become a pointless nuisance in certain circumstances. As always, this board is full of people striking a pose that has little to do with how they actually do things in real life.

And the thing is, turning off random battles isn't eve the thing people should be butthurt about. That's a trade-off of sorts. The real "why even bother playing the game" feature is the shit like toggling invicibility on or off or infinite limit breaks

>>11889554 (OP)
In games that care about attrition and have time limits: no
In games that don't: yes

The SNES SMT games were obviously made for Estoma. You're not supposed to still be fighting encounters after you outlevel them beyond recruiting demons.

>>11890463

>>11889845
Low-level runs have been an RPG thing since Zelda 1's 3-heart challenge, FF8 gives an early means to prevent random battles through Diabolos, FF9 gives ways to avoid EXP gain, all leveling in FFX and Mana Khemia is done manually, FF12 has "Weak Mode" that caps your levels at their initial values, Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix allows you to equip a No EXP ability, and Bravely Default lets you straight-up turn off gaining EXP, money, JP, and even battles altogether.

There are multiple guides and videos of people doing challenge runs of various levels of absurdity.

>zelda's not an RP-
*pees in your mouth*

>>11890026
Yeah I'm certain Zelda 2 invented symbol encounters, and it was further refined by SaGa and Earthbound.

mario 1 shouldn’t have encounters. i enjoy the exploration but the battles and jumps are too hard for me. thank god for modern jumpless games

>>11890026
No. Seen overworld sprites into encounter as early as 1985. That's ignoring any early wargamelike RPGs where there are no seperate encounters and enemies are always visible.

>>11890026
I don't remember if any Ultima games before 3 have it, but Ultima 3 has it. 1983.

>>11890761
Yeah before that in the overworld in Ultima 2 it was kind of like roguelike combat, you just fought as two overworld sprites. In Ultima 3 if you touch an overworld enemy you go into a tactical battle mode like a light SRPG.

So I'm afraid to tell you that once again Japs have ripped off an old Ultima game you have no familiarty with.

>>11889554 (OP)
I want to play JRPG hacks where the encounter rate is quartered, but the enemies have 4x health and 2x attack power. And receive 4x experience from each battle.

>>11890724
based pisser

>>11889554 (OP)
No but you should be able to repel low level shitters that just waste your time. Meaning it's already fine as is.

>>11889554 (OP)
there's probably a way to do it that's not shitty.
like how could you make random encounters that the player is excited when they happen?

>>11889668
tall grass?

>>11889554 (OP)
This has been solved since the fucking NES. Holy Water removes battles if they're lower level than you. If they're not, you should be fighting them.

>>11890724
I chuckled at ur posts ending.

>>11890873
That’s just fucked up if that’s actual pee. I’m guessing it isn’t but damn why do people like fucking w animals.

>>11890724
>FF8 gives an early means to prevent random battles through Diabolos
This makes the game easier, though.

A lot of games let you manipulate encounter rate. Including items or spells that let you ignore them.
You should never be at "leisure" to avoid them, though, no.

>>11890625
>Also, I guarantee 90% of the faggots posting "why even play then" or other similar bullshit played most of these games on emulators for the first time and some other asinine bullshit holy fuck this runon sentence never ends
Nah, we just played them on original hardware when they were relevant. People used game genies and shit back then as well, we just called them faggots when we saw their gil capped out or everyone with max stats.
If a game has random encounters, they are part of its design. They represent a fluctuation to your growth angle, a "vibe check" for you newer friends, of the players control over the game's pacing. You fight too little, the game is harder and you can get more challenge to enjoy out of it. If you fight too many, the game becomes easy because you clearly focus on preparation over adaptation. Either way, taking them out when the entire game's difficulty is effectively determined by how much you grind is literally removing a core element of the game. Go play your shitty PR cashgrab. Or better yet, just watch a longplay on youtube because just pressing buttons isn't what makes it a game.

>>11891429
>we

>>11890625
You're so clueless. You could at least say that they used fast forward.

>>11890625
>>11891752
>is that a heckin' Persona 5 character? That's literally me.

>>11891261
If you understand the game, yes.

>>11891943
No, simply as. FF8 is retardedly easy if you can tie your shoes.

>>11891947
Then mirror your life and do a no GF run

>>11891951
>no GF run
That's my entire life, bro.

>>11891951
...except i've had a girlfriend
....and i've redpilled her
...and do you know if she's still on my rotation?

>>11891963
That hairline vanishing faster than a SEED's memory

>>11890736

>>11891429
>You fight too little, the game is harder and you can get more challenge to enjoy out of it. If you fight too many, the game becomes easy because you clearly focus on preparation over adaptation.
...which is why an encounters toggle is nice. Everyone knows why they exist, we get it.
I played many of these games on orig hardware, but when replaying one for the 3rd, 6th, 20th time I can appreciate an encounters toggle so I can:
-explore all the little details without wasting hours of my time on encounters or skipping all that stuff.
-stay at an appropriate level to be fun and mildly challenging without wasting my time running from every battle.
Nothin' wrong with that.

>>11889554 (OP)
this anon >>11889674 has it right. The moggle charm is OP as fuck, since you can go straight to the end dungeon, grab endgame equipment, and leave to do the rest of the game with an overpowered setup

Pokemon has it right with the repels: only good for a set number of steps, and no good against high level enemies

>>11889554 (OP)
No. Hallway games that involve nothing more that walking to the next infodump custcenes are crap that only reddit and kotaku trannies enjoy.

>>11889595
Also know as the Bioware model of game design.

>>11890625
I played Dragon Warrior and FF1-VI on the original console and loved it. Levelling and combat are the meat and potatoes of the RPG experience and if you don't like that then you don't like RPGs and prefer visual novels waifu simulators.

>>11892938
>...which is why an encounters toggle is nice.
Just like infinite money is "nice." And just like infinite money, fucking with encounters to the point of toggling them completely fucks with the entire foundation of the encounter system. As others have mentioned, other series like pokemon have items that are consumables that can reduce or eliminate encounters for a short period of time. Consumable. Short period of time. Everything else is just saying you don't feel like playing the game and just want to cheat through it, which isn't necessarily terrible, but having the ability to ignore game design inherently without the need to outside modification is fucking retarded direction. You don't make systems that connect to that many core elements and make them completely fucking optional because you are effectively telling the player that most of the fucking game is optional. This kind of shit is why people hate the modern interpretation of "QoL." You're asking for a shittier experience for the sake of making it more digestible.

It's kind of like if you decided in run n' gun games you didn't like facing enemies and just wanted to walk to the next badly done cutscene. Any well designed RPG will have you figuring out how to deal with many encounters in a row as part of the challenge.

>>11893672
You're not hearing me. I would have run from those enemies anyway. Why waste time loading the battle and going through the post battle screens when I could toggle enc-off and not waste my time on that? I already beat all the RPGs I play on original hardware years ago, I can replay them however I want to. This isn't "sullying the purity of the game" or whatever you're obsessed with.
It's not cheating, at all, and it's nothing like having infinite money. I'm just skipping battles I'd have run from anyway.
If anything it makes most RPGs harder because you level less if you don't battle everything. I can't believe a grown man gets that upset over how others play RPGs. Chill out.

>>11893731
>You're not hearing me. I would have run from those enemies anyway.
Then run from them. Thats part of the encounter system that you want to remove from the game. In FF1 literally the main reason to pick Thief was to run from encounters. That was his primary job until he became a Ninja, and even then, it was still valuable. If you could turn off random encounters, the class would be fucking pointless.
> I can replay them however I want to.
Nobody said you can't, just that your faggy hangups shouldn't be part of the core experience. If you can't even handle some miniscule load times before pressing the run command and waiting for it to go off then you are truly fucking coddled.

>>11893748
>hangups
I'm not the one getting mad and calling people retarded because they want to save some time in a video game they've beaten before...
If I didn't have enc-off I would never explore as much as I do. I like finding hidden stuff and rare npc dialog and I don't want to end up way overpowered just because I explored and fought every battle.
....If you don't like an encounters-off toggle, then don't use it. Shrimple as that. But I can think for myself and I like having it.