Put random encounters back in my JRPG

[Dark_Castle]

It was absolutely due to the technical limitation for games like FFVII. The encounters were used to mask load times as well.

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To some extent, maybe, but if games like Grandia could have visible enemies, a juggernaunt like FF has little excuse to say they're limited by tech. Even older jrpg has non random encounters.

It's by choice. It's because most jrpg, especially older ones on PS1 had very tight dungeon design, the spaces to accommodate both environment objects and enemies are too restricted. I mean can you imagine making enemies walking around in temple of ancients? Too suffocating. It boils down to the level design of the game is what I'm trying to say.

 

[Marukoban]

I was talking about JRPGs... Even then they're minorities, the majority of them (JRPGs with random encounters) either don't have them, a rare equip/skill or they're way too late to get. They need to be available very early in game (or even at the beginning).

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No, it has been around for JRPG since NES and has been very common.
It has been on DQ (the premier JRPG franchise) since the very first entry on shop in your very first location.
It is available everywhere starting from DQ2.
It was in Lufia 1 too which was released on NES.

 

[Solo Kazama]

No please dont. It was soo annoying in some games. Wanna explore and see scenery? No u wont, lets pop up encounters in your face.

Handle it a FFXII way

 

[DarkLordMalik]

To some extent, maybe, but if games like Grandia could have visible enemies, a juggernaunt like FF has little excuse to say they're limited by tech. Even older jrpg has non random encounters.

It's by choice. It's because most jrpg, especially older ones on PS1 had very tight dungeon design, the spaces to accommodate both environment objects and enemies are too restricted. I mean can you imagine making enemies walking around in temple of ancients? Too suffocating. It boils down to the level design of the game is what I'm trying to say.

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So again it boils down to technical limitations of its time. You are just trying to say a lot of words to explain the same thing that I just said.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

Bring back the worst thing about jrpgs, nah i'll pass.

 

[KtotheRoc]

I've been playing some old school JRPGs recently. I can say that I am not wild about random encounters. Particularly in games where the encounter rate happens every few steps.

Nope. I don't miss them in modern JRPGs.

 

[Burny]

You can run away in any Pokémon and you have items to remove encounters. I'll take that over outrunning a Pikachu trying to eat my ass

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Luckily, none random encounters can be paired with so many mechanics to avoid them. Any item mechanic reducing random encounters can make roaming opponents non aggressive. You could simply walk around a roaming monster, as you're seeing it in the first place (radical notion, I know). Xenoblade had it so that monsters far below and some far above your level would be automatically non aggressive.

But no, let's regress to having a forced menu thrown into our faces every five to ten ingame steps while traversing an are (Pokemon). How about also introducing every random encounter with an unskippable 15-20 seconds animation, to reinforce the impact of being attacked by the 5th random critter while walking 20 steps from the cave entrance to the exit?

Sorry OP, but you've lost me here. Random encounters are a technical workaround and material of games from two decades ago. How do you populate an area with complex enemies you might not have believably roam the environment? You randomly interrupt free traversal and show a static combat screen.

For me it's overstayed its welcome. Trying to get into Pokemon Black as an adult had me balk at the unwanted and unwelcome interrupts with shitty, unnecessary encounters that I just fled from when I wanted to traverse an area. Why not just do away with the mechanic then altogether? Well, because Pokemon's design at its core hasn't progressed past early 90s RPGs. With BotW, at least one Nintendo franchise did recently, so there might be hope for Pokemon, too.

 

[Jader7777]

DWOOP DWOOP DWOOP

A Bad Opinion has appeared!

> Fight
Item
Bad joke
Reminiscences about old days
Flee

 

[Dark_Castle]

So again it boils down to technical limitations of its time. You are just trying to say a lot of words to explain the same thing that I just said.

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Not really. Tight dungeon design is not technical limitations. It just means different approach that favors different kind of encounter system. Just play Dragon Quest VII on 3DS and you'll know what I'm talking about. Tight dungeon + visible encounters = battles non stop + hassles that accompanied attempt to avoid only to get caught anyway.

 

[EarthPainting]

I enjoy random encounters in overworlds, but I don't really like them inside of dungeons. I guess I don't like visible encounters in dungeons all that much either though. A good dungeon or cave has puzzles and themed gimmicks, but having to fight dudes distracts from that. Developers probably know this, because most of these locations in the genre are hallways with dead ends and sometimes a chest here and there.

I guess I'm just salty because I came from playing Daikaiju Monogatari, and that game's encounter-design was hindering an otherwise cute game. Maybe more developers need to embrace the Bravely Default philosophy. Random encounters, but you can determine your own frequency.

 

[NiceOne]

No, it has been around for JRPG since NES and has been very common.
It has been on DQ (the premier JRPG franchise) since the very first entry on shop in your very first location.
It is available everywhere starting from DQ2.
It was in Lufia 1 too which was released on NES.

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Actually, Lufia 1 is a SNES game. Also, I don't think they're common, at least the ones that work properly (BoF2 and Lufia 1 are examples of ones that are busted) as many ones only try to reduce the number of random encounters instead of completely eliminating them when fighting weaker monsters.

Anyway, one of the most things I hate about random encounters is that they're endless (for most games anyway). The majority of non-random encounter games don't have enemies that respawn next to you when you're not moving. Sometimes I only want to explore (or find my way when I'm lost) and games with random encounters can that experience nauseating (at some point quite literally)... or at least just remove random encounters on the overworld please.

I think OP's just sour because he/she played ones with bad implementations (I'm going to assume that DQ7/DQ8/DQ9 and the Lunar remakes are examples of what OP played just recently).

 

[Ascheroth]

Random encounters:

• I walk, there is a random encounter, I run away. I keep my walking going on. It's going to take some time for another encounter to appear.

Non-random encounters:

• I walk, there are enemies coming at me, I have to dodge them by zig-zagging, they circle back at me, they move faster than me, I get a fight anyway, I run away. I keep my walking going on. Oh shit they're already there. Repeat.

How is that better ?

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Random encounters:

• I walk, there is a random encounter accompanied by a fancy screen-transition effect that takes a few seconds, I try to run away, but fail 2 times in a row, finally it works on the 3rd try. I walk 3 steps and the next random encounter happens.

Non-random encounters:

• I walk, there's an enemy that notices me and starts coming at me. I stun it with an attack and run past it. There are a bunch of other enemies up ahead but they avoid me because I'm much stronger than them.

Tbh all I'm getting from this is that you prefer good implementations of random encounters over bad implementations of visible encounters, which I can agree with. There are definitely games with visible encounters where parts of your criticisms apply, but I can't think of one I played recently that does everything wrong.

Encounter rates in non-random jrpgs are even worse. They don't even have a threat level, they just straight up respawn after a ridiculously low timer. I don't buy this.

Non-random encounter JRPGs are the ones I found to not value my time the MOST.

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But that is exactly not how random encounters work. They are not REALLY random, in that once you had any kind of battle there is a grace period when encounters are impossible so you can actually go somewhere. That the games are designed so as to control how many fights you would expect to get into to reach your destination.

On the other hand, monsters on screen tend to force me to kill every single one of them because they all chase the player and you can't really run away from them.

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I feel like I must be playing the wrong JRPGs with visible encounters (or perheps, actually the right ones :P ) because I really can't think of any where I'm forced to kill every visible thing, where monsters constantly outrun me, where I can't see the threat level of the enemies in comparison to my own, where weak ones don't avoid me and can't be killed without actually initiating a 'real' battle and where I have no means to control aggro via equipment or items.

Ar Tonelico had another great system. You can only get so many in a certain area. Fight enough and they're gone.

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Yeah, I liked that system too.

 

[Marukoban]

Actually, Lufia 1 is a SNES game. Also, I don't think they're common, at least the ones that work properly (BoF2 and Lufia 1 are examples of ones that are busted) as many ones only try to reduce the number of random encounters instead of completely eliminating them when fighting weaker monsters.

Anyway, one of the most things I hate about random encounters is that they're endless (for most games anyway). At least the majority of non-random encounter games don't have enemies that respawn next to you when you're not moving.

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I agree some JRPG has terrible rate for random encounter, but it can be done well and most of the popular JRPG has good balance on the rate.
I also forgot Lufia 1 is on SNES since it looks much worse than Lufia 2. I stand corrected on that.
Regarding the bolded, have you tried DQ7 3DS? I prefer they would've stuck with random encounter like the original PS1 release.

 

[SageShinigami]

Bravely Default and Second are the only JRPGs where I enjoyed random encounters, and that was because you could alter how often they showed up, even putting it down to zero if you just wanted to reach a save point. I'm okay with that.

Otherwise nah, I like the way it is now.

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Hey. This is a good post.

Take the J out of RPGs more like it.

I fucking hate that term, I don't care what the reasons for using it are.

Back in my day they were just RPGs and WRPGs were just super niche. If anything should get its own little pet name it should be WRPGs. "J" RPGs I find a xenophobic term that usually tries to lump those types of games together as outliers when I'd say they outnumber the other types by a large margin, with more mainstream, long running series under their belts.

Was that term even a thing until last gen?

More on topic, I actually kinda miss random battles in RPGs more than most. I don't mind them as much as most people do.

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I'm never going to stop saying JRPGs.

 

[NiceOne]

I agree some JRPG has terrible rate for random encounter, but it can be done well and most of the popular JRPG has good balance on the rate.
I also forgot Lufia 1 is on SNES since it looks much worse than Lufia 2. I stand corrected on that.
Regarding the bolded, have you tried DQ7 3DS? I prefer they would've stuck with random encounter like the original PS1 release.

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I said the majority not all. I played DQ9 and it wasn't good that enemies seem to infinitely appear around you when standing still and not all games with visible encounters are necessarily better than ones that are invisible, but I'd take being cornered with several enemies that I can't run off (some JRPGs handle it better by making you pass them temporarily or even make those enemies you escaped disappear) than spammed every few steps of never ending fighting just to move from a point to another, exploring or just even trying to progress when you're stuck in a game.

 

[MilkBeard]

Going back to play old Final Fantasy and other old school JRPGs is a pain precisely because of random encounters. I always found myself dreading dungeons because of this. But now that games have changed, I enjoy dungeons much more because I'm not worrying about how many steps until I get interrupted. I think this is what makes me furious about random encounters; I simply don't like being interrupted by imaginary battles that whisk you away. Having them on the map makes the connection more real, and you can avoid them.

However, I wouldn't mind if they make it less annoying with lower rates, and an optional slider like Bravely Default. However, enemies on the map is the way of the future.

The way Chrono Trigger did it is nice. You could even randomize the way they appear on the map, but once you kill them, they should be gone until whatever the reset function is. There are also games where they will have enemies naturally in the habitat, but it will sometimes randomly generate enemies that come by (because the maps are big enough) and you can avoid them. The game can always trick you by making them appear off-screen and then have them approach you.

 

[Riversands]

Omg. I literally laugh reading the title. Omg!! This is so funny. Imagine you've already got 4K TV, but you want to go back to CRT TV.

Random encounters are designed because the hardware at that time were not powerful enough to handle pixels and stuff in the game. At least that i what i was told. But it makes sense though

 

[Marukoban]

I said the majority not all. I played DQ9 and it wasn't good that enemies seem to infinitely appear around you when standing still and not all games with visible encounters are necessarily better than ones that are invisible, but I'd take being cornered with several enemies that I can't run off (some JRPGs handle it better by making you pass them temporarily or even make those enemies you escaped disappear) than spammed every few steps of never ending fighting just to move from a point to another, exploring or just even trying to progress when you're stuck in a game.

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Eh I disagree. I say both cases are equally bad.
Enemies cornering you means you are not given a choice anyway whether to fight or not.
Also I don't think you understand what I meant by DQ7 enemies on field. In DQ7 enemies can spawn on top of you right after battle and trigger the next battle immediately.
You are not even being cornered, you are just forced to take next battle without even pressing any button.

My favorite implementation for visible monsters on field is actually Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song.
The game actually builds a mechanic for field exploration allowing you to use skills to sneak around monsters.
Also each type of monster has movement and sight pattern which you can abuse to avoid encounter.
Now that is the type of encounter mechanic I can behind.
The usual monsters visible on field giving illusion of choice is no better or worse than usual random encounter system.

I think people here has irrational hatred against turn-based even though it's just another game design choice.
It can be good if done well just like any other game mechanic.

 

[NiceOne]

Eh I disagree. I say both cases are equally bad.
Enemies cornering you means you are not given a choice anyway whether to fight or not.
Also I don't think you understand what I meant by DQ7 enemies on field. In DQ7 enemies can spawn on top of you right after battle and trigger the next battle immediately.
You are not even being cornered, you are just forced to take next battle without even pressing any button.

My favorite implementation for visible monsters on field is actually Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song.
The game actually builds a mechanic for field exploration allowing you to use skills to sneak around monsters.
Also each type of monster has movement and sight pattern which you can abuse to avoid encounter.
Now that is the type of encounter mechanic I can behind.
The usual monsters visible on field giving illusion of choice is no better or worse than usual random encounter system.

I think people here has irrational hatred against turn-based even though it's just another game design choice.
It can be good if done well just like any other game mechanic.

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My point wasn't about the choice of fighting or escaping, it's about the number of battles. Only a few games (w/random encounters) have finite fights whereas the opposite is the exception not the norm (even Earthbound have respawing enemies, but they only respawn when you move and the game has mechanic were weaker enemies could be instantly defeated without even transitioning into the battle screen). About the other point, with the exception of some DQ games and Lufia remakes, escaping enemies (when they're not set encounters like Chrono Trigger) is usually manageable.

 

[Dreamboum]

Omg. I literally laugh reading the title. Omg!! This is so funny. Imagine you've already got 4K TV, but you want to go back to CRT TV.

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I'm using a CRT TV...

 

[Riversands]

I'm using a CRT TV...

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That's just an analogy. I dont even have 4k tv. But you know my main point

 

[Deleted member 2254]

Random encounters are simply filler to make the game feel longer despite not having that much content. Why have 50 hours of meaningful content when you can cheap out with 10 hours and have the rest of it walking towards your destination encountering all kinds of repetitive randomly generated battles that only test your patience, not your skills?

 

[Slacker247]

Also came to mention Bravely Default's slider.

To be honest I can get frustrated with both at times, some of the reasons you just covered. But it's nice see a more living, breathing world too.

 

[HBK]

Monsters moving aimlessly takes me out of the experience super fast

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God forbid we could design RPGs/adventure games where we don't have to kill thousands of creatures to progress through the story lol

I don't care about turn-based/realtime, random encounters/mobs on the map, or any other stupid distinction, just gimme something that's enjoyable to play and I'll play it.

Random encounters have a lot going against them though.

 

[Revolsin]

Yeah....Hard 'no thanks' on that one.

The only reason for example SMT4A's Twisted Tokyo was bearable was because the encounters weren't random. I went through the entire thing conserving my MP and HP by just not fighting and keeping my distance.

It let me strategize and conserve my resources, and save my time, instead of being forced to go through a million encounters on every single run-through.
I would've given up TT within the first boss if it encounters were random.

 

[Taruranto]

Eh I disagree. I say both cases are equally bad.
Enemies cornering you means you are not given a choice anyway whether to fight or not.
Also I don't think you understand what I meant by DQ7 enemies on field. In DQ7 enemies can spawn on top of you right after battle and trigger the next battle immediately.
You are not even being cornered, you are just forced to take next battle without even pressing any button.

My favorite implementation for visible monsters on field is actually Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song.
The game actually builds a mechanic for field exploration allowing you to use skills to sneak around monsters.
Also each type of monster has movement and sight pattern which you can abuse to avoid encounter.
Now that is the type of encounter mechanic I can behind.
The usual monsters visible on field giving illusion of choice is no better or worse than usual random encounter system.

I think people here has irrational hatred against turn-based even though it's just another game design choice.
It can be good if done well just like any other game mechanic.

Click to shrink...

DQ7 is an awful example of visible enemies, so I don't understand why people keep using it, even people who like visible enemies agree they were badly integrated.

There is certainly value to random encounters in games like SMT:Nocturne or the EO series in which they contribute to the feeling of dreariness and despair, but in something like a Tales of? No point in those, if well implemented visible enemies will be less intrusive and better than random encounters.

 

[noyram23]

I'm ok with random encounters as long as they have QoL from Bravely Default in which you can set the frequency or even turn it off. Random encounters is probably the biggest hurdle why I can't get too much into old jrpgs recently (looking at you Persona 2)

 

[preta]

Just to lay this to rest once and for all... (ha, as if)

Neither random encounters nor turn-based combat were created due to technical limitations.

Both visible encounters and real-time combat have existed in RPGs since the 80s.

 

[HBK]

Just to lay this to rest once and for all... (ha, as if)

Neither random encounters nor turn-based combat were created due to technical limitations.

Both visible encounters and real-time combat have existed in RPGs since the 80s.

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That's not how it works. You can have something in a game and not in another because of "technical reasons", as the first game displays less stuff and the other one displays more therefore can't afford what's "missing".

You could argue those are design decisions but then that would just mean there is no such thing as a "technical reason", as you could always have made another technical trade-off.

 

[Gelf]

The hate on random encounters suggests to me that a lot of people were somehow enjoying classic RPGs despite not liking 90% of the play time, which seems odd to me. I don't mind random encounters at all but I'm only interested in playing RPGs where I enjoy the battles.

This technical limitations argument holds no weight as far as I'm concerned as mechanics born out of that can still have their place when well implemented. It's too short sighted and limiting to dismiss any mechanic entirely.

 

[signal]

Honestly surprised at the number of people here who seemingly want zero combat in their JRPGs. It's a lot of "no put them on the map so I can avoid battling!" or "as long as its like bravely default and I can turn them off!"

 

[IwazaruK7]

I have to dodge them by zig-zagging, they circle back at me, they move faster than me, I get a fight anyway, I run away.

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Romancing SaGa 2 :( Also don't run unless you wanna break formation

 

[PensivePen]

I prefer random encounters since in a game with a good encounter algorithm the player will generally fight just as many battles as they need to be the right level for the next area. It doesn't ask me to decide how many battles I should be facing when I have no way of knowing that kind of information as someone that's a player and not a designer.

My actual preference would be for every battle to be a hand-placed, unique encounter, but I struggle to think of any JRPG that actually does that outside of tactics games like Fire Emblem of course, where positioning and the scope of the battles makes it much easier to create unique scenarios. It'd be a hell of a lot harder in a traditional, turn-based rpg with no positioning to do something like that.

 

[IwazaruK7]

Honestly surprised at the number of people here who seemingly want zero combat in their JRPGs. It's a lot of "no put them on the map so I can avoid battling!" or "as long as its like bravely default and I can turn them off!"

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Don't you see? Most mainstream players who play jRPGs, play them mostly for plot, characters, music or whatever. People who play jrpgs for gameplay are fewer.

I'm using a CRT TV...

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my man (or whom you wanna be)! u know that 240p game looks awful on 4k.

so far you only made me sad with crisis core dislike. but u made me happy with Hamauzu appreciation thread

But you know my main point

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Your point is not 100% solid because 4k tv is best for 4k content (or at least fullhd). While crt is best way for old content.

 

[Aniki]

In regards to your complaints, I don't think there is a significant difference between random encounters vs. visible encounters. I think the main reason people prefer visible encounters is that it removes the element of surprise and gives the player some agency, which decreases feelings of frustration among some players when they want to avoid battle (even if there isn't much of a functional difference between the two, it's all perception).

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This is the reason i enjoy visible encounters much more than random ones. I decide when to engage. How often did i just want to explore without fighting for a while, sigh. I know, in most RPGs you can get items that stop random encounters for a while, but often you will not get those until you're much further into the game. And yes often you can't avoid visible encounters in games that have them. Though i'm pretty good in doing just that in most games, experience i guess :P
Anyway i much rather have to content with that than with random encounters, which give me no control at all.

The exception would be if i could control the encounter rate myself, like in the Bravely Default games. I hope future games that will have random encounters will feature this crucial innovation.

 

[IwazaruK7]

control the encounter rate myself

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Like in smt nocturne you had demon who could increase/decrease encounter rate

 

[MilkBeard]

Honestly surprised at the number of people here who seemingly want zero combat in their JRPGs. It's a lot of "no put them on the map so I can avoid battling!" or "as long as its like bravely default and I can turn them off!"

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It's not really about wanting zero combat. It's about being able to avoid combat when you don't want to be interrupted, at least for me. Some games have excellent combat and I want more of it. But in random encounter #1,234 where I'm just mashing, I just wanted to walk through the map and get the treasure, I don't want to play it. It's a nuisance. But I would take more complex types of random encounters if the battles were always fun and they had algorithms that change their frequency and quality.

i.e. it's more about not wanting to be interrupted by an invisible mechanic.

 

[preta]

That's not how it works. You can have something in a game and not in another because of "technical reasons", as the first game displays less stuff and the other one displays more therefore can't afford what's "missing".

You could argue those are design decisions but then that would just mean there is no such thing as a "technical reason", as you could always have made another technical trade-off.

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And by your own logic, if they really cared about having visible encounters they would have sacrificed something else to ensure they could have them.

 

[signal]

It's not really about wanting zero combat. It's about being able to avoid combat when you don't want to be interrupted, at least for me. Some games have excellent combat and I want more of it. But in random encounter #1,234 where I'm just mashing, I just wanted to walk through the map and get the treasure, I don't want to play it. It's a nuisance. But I would take more complex types of random encounters if the battles were always fun and they had algorithms that change their frequency and quality.

Click to shrink...

The game should have given you an airship by then! I tend to drop JRPGs that have a combat system I don't like within like single digit hours of playing them, but otherwise I tend to enjoy battles throughout.

Depends on how the game is designed though I guess. The longer into a game you are I think the more you end up hating random battles. I can remember really hating them by the end of Tales of Destiny 1 but never hating them throughout FF7.

 

[HBK]

And by your own logic, if they really cared about having visible encounters they would have sacrificed something else to ensure they could have them.

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Or maybe, just maybe they just didn't care about "random encounters or not" and they just took the option which was easier from a technical standpoint.

Unless the OG games' designers expressed how those came to be, it's not unreasonable to assess that random encounters existed because it was easier for a number of technical reasons.

 

[Trode]

I agree with the OP. Most jrpgs do non-random encounters badly. The dragon quest 7 remake comes to mind, the cramped hallways of the dungeon ensured you constantly got bombaded with attacks. Its annoying because the original ps1 version had an extremely generous encounter step, you could go an entire floor without triggering an encounter so it feels like a real downgrade in all regards.

 

[MilkBeard]

The game should have given you an airship by then! I tend to drop JRPGs that have a combat system I don't like within like single digit hours of playing them, but otherwise I tend to enjoy battles throughout.

Depends on how the game is designed though I guess. The longer into a game you are I think the more you end up hating random battles. I can remember really hating them by the end of Tales of Destiny 1 but never hating them throughout FF7.

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Yeah that's true. For example many of these mainstream games have good combat that works and is fun for the main battles and some random encounters, but you are forced to fight so many that it runs it into the ground. Their simplicity keeps them from being entertaining in these instances.

I love FF VI for example, but the game forces a ridiculous random battle rate on you, and the battles aren't interesting enough to keep you wanting to fight. I think they tweaked the rate lower for newer versions though, which helps. They also did this for IX, which makes the dungeons infinitely more enjoyable (for me).

 

[Vault]

getting into a battle every 1 to 3 steps isn't fun at least if i can see the enemy i can attempt to avoid battle

 

[Marukoban]

DQ7 is an awful example of visible enemies, so I don't understand why people keep using it, even people who like visible enemies agree they were badly integrated.

There is certainly value to random encounters in games like SMT:Nocturne or the EO series in which they contribute to the feeling of dreariness and despair, but in something like a Tales of? No point in those, if well implemented visible enemies will be less intrusive and better than random encounters.

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People against random encounter in this thread also keep saying about random encounter every few (some posters say 3) steps.
Why bring the terrible example to boost the unfounded argument?
Good random encounter design can give good pacing and usually have option to avoid (which as I've stated has been common since the very first DQ). You don't have to think whether you are strong enough or not as long as you play according to progress.
Similarly visible enemies tend to not mean you can skip everything. You are just given illusion that you can, when in fact you are either gated by the hallways or the character progression.
Visible enemies and random encounter are 2 different mechanics, both of which can be good or bad. None of them are inherently bad.

I prefer random encounters since in a game with a good encounter algorithm the player will generally fight just as many battles as they need to be the right level for the next area. It doesn't ask me to decide how many battles I should be facing when I have no way of knowing that kind of information as someone that's a player and not a designer.

My actual preference would be for every battle to be a hand-placed, unique encounter, but I struggle to think of any JRPG that actually does that outside of tactics games like Fire Emblem of course, where positioning and the scope of the battles makes it much easier to create unique scenarios. It'd be a hell of a lot harder in a traditional, turn-based rpg with no positioning to do something like that.

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SaGa Scarlet Grace literally remove any sort of non-event encounter (And dungeon).
I hope it will get localized.

 

[Aniki]

Like in smt nocturne you had demon who could increase/decrease encounter rate

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Yeah, like i said many RPGs give you that option, just not from the beginning.

 

[Taruranto]

People against random encounter in this thread also keep saying about random encounter every few (some posters say 3) steps.
Why bring the terrible example to boost the unfounded argument?
Good random encounter design can give good pacing and usually have option to avoid (which as I've stated has been common since the very first DQ). You don't have to think whether you are strong enough or not as long as you play according to progress.
Similarly visible enemies tend to not mean you can skip everything. You are just given illusion that you can, when in fact you are either gated by the hallways or the character progression.
Visible enemies and random encounter are 2 different mechanics, both of which can be good or bad. None of them are inherently bad.

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Games like DQ7 tend to be outliers when it comes to visible enemies based on my experience- most games with visible enemies tend to be pretty good at them. You see the enemies, there are good chances you can avoid them, or they will just straight up ignore you. On other hand, it's very easy to find a game with a terrible encounter rate and even if you can somehow mitigate it you will still have to deal with them while exploring/solving puzzles (And with" deal with them" I mean getting warped into another arena, waiting for it to load, fight the enemies or run)

I'm not even against random encounters, at the end of the day I quickly get used to them, but if I have to compare the two directly on average I find visible enemies much better.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

Random Encounters are one of the big reasons why I never got into jRPGs

 

[Echo]

I think it could work for same games. Like it works in World of Final Fantasy without bothering me.

On the other hand, if something like FFXV had random encounters that would be terrible.

Edit: To clarify, speaking strictly of modern full-3d titles.

 

[Necronomicon]

Bravely default nailed random encounters. Not only because of the sliders but also for the autoplay of battle. You could register moves and then let the game fought the bland random encounter without your help

 

[Fettbacke]

Random encounters are the reason why i will never replay the original releases of Final Fantasy VI-X.

Enemy encounters in JRPGs are often aweful. Its the bullshit random encounters or they are visible but they are way to fast or spawn right under yout feet. In Shin Megami Tensei IV the enemies are visible but they move fast, they spawn fast and there are sh*t like traps and such. In the end it feels more like random encounters.

Xenoblade did it great imo. Its easy to avoid them and they ignore you if your level is high enough.