Topic: Tales of Symphonia: Scores.

[Urkel]

I've yet to play an RPG that didn't use random battles that I didn't like. Yeah, double negative. Sue me. Anyway, I think that's because RPG makers that let you see enemies beforehand are actually concerned about not using outdated game mechanics, and therefore tend to make a better game overall.

I believe Nintendo understands this. Nintendo knows how to make t3h funs. Just look at the RPGs they've worked on:

Super Mario RPG. Square made this one, but I'll bet a hojillion dollars it was Nintendo's hand in the development that kept this game random battle free. The game was beloved by many.

Earthbound. No random battles. Beloved by many. And by many, I mean the scary obsessive fans that inhabit Starmen.net that somehow STILL find a way to update a website every day for a game that came out a decade ago.

Paper Mario. No random battles. Beloved by many.

Mario & Luigi. See above.

I think I made my point. Nintendo knows that random battles != fun. Nintendo puts the game into Role Playing Game.

I honestly believe that random battles would be virtually extinct if the Final Fantasy games didn't use them anymore. It's an uber-popular series with a lot of influence. I think most other developers see its success, and say "Hey, Final Fantasy uses random battles, and that series is considered to be top-tier. Millions of people love it. What's good enough for Final Fantasy is good enough for us."

All I know is, when I play an RPG with a lot of random battles, I start thinking to myself "I swear, if I get into ONE more battle before I reach the exit, there's going to be a murder-suicide on the news REAL soon."

[Mario]

Pokemon.

[Bill Aurion]

Well Pokemon only has random encounters you can't avoid in cave areas...Hopefully they'll work it out so you won't have to in future games...  

[Caillan]

Remember you can avoid random battles in most of the Pokeworld (except for that accursed Mt. Moon). Just use 'cut' on the grass and the Pokemon will bother you no longer.

[Urkel]

Quote
Originally posted by: Mario
Pokemon.

It's amazing how you can make me feel like an idiot with just one word.

Yeah, I forgot about Pokemon.

There's a slight amount of justification for random battles in Pokemon. Since that game is about catching rare creatures and such, a bit of randomness is acceptable. Still, they need to update that game and figure out a way to have you catching rare Pokemon without random battles.

[DrZoidberg]

this topic has been cleaned, carry on.

[Dizzy]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Having to clean outdungeons is better than random encounters, after all you can at least clean out the dungeon. Also, dungeons seem more alive with monsters running around instead of empty halls with random encounters coming out of nowhere...

This is what I call gaming advanced, they will keep making more games like this until they find a better way to present the monster in RPG games.

[Syl]

Quote
Originally posted by: Urkel

Quote
Originally posted by: Mario
Pokemon.

It's amazing how you can make me feel like an idiot with just one word.

Yeah, I forgot about Pokemon.

There's a slight amount of justification for random battles in Pokemon. Since that game is about catching rare creatures and such, a bit of randomness is acceptable. Still, they need to update that game and figure out a way to have you catching rare Pokemon without random battles.

That would completely and 100%ly ruin the game to me, it wouldn't make the monsters "rare" anymore.  Just doesn't work.

I honestly don't see whats so bad about random battles, you keep mentioning issuse that i just don't think exist.

I have to admit that Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi did battles very well, because what you do to an enemy outside of the battle screen effects what happens to it at the start of battle.  Earthbound, however, did *NOT* do it well, earthbound is one of the few instances where i wish the game had random battles, as trying to go so far after an enemy is really a pain.  

I'm not saying that every game without random battles is bad, far from it.  I just prefer random battles... I don't see any issue with them, they just make the game far more enjoyable to me.  I know theres no way in hell i would have been able to train nearly as much as i have in certain games if the battles weren't random.   Espicially the golden suns, for instance.

[Bill Aurion]

"That would completely and 100%ly ruin the game to me, it wouldn't make the monsters "rare" anymore. Just doesn't work."

Yeah it could...You'd just see the "rarer" Pokemon a lot less often...Of course, accomplishing this feat in 2d is a lot harder than it would be in 3d...

[Mumei]

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill
"That would completely and 100%ly ruin the game to me, it wouldn't make the monsters "rare" anymore. Just doesn't work."

Yeah it could...You'd just see the "rarer" Pokemon a lot less often...Of course, accomplishing this feat in 2d is a lot harder than it would be in 3d...

I would hate that... You could just enter and exit the room repeatedly until you saw the ones that you wanted.  And then you could save your game and repeatedly catch them until you got the exact stats that you wanted.  It would take away the effort of catching a bunch of the same one in hopes of getting the exact one you want... It would make it too easy .

[Bill Aurion]

I'm sure you could make it so you couldn't do that, but *I'm* not the programmer...

As I said, it would be a lot easier to implement in a 3d version of the game...

[Mumei]

I didn't say anything about the implementation.... It would have that same problem regardless of whether it was a 2D or 3D game....

[Bill Aurion]

Uh, not in the 3d Pokemon game I picture...Since the overworld would be Zelda-esque, pokemon would be constantly coming and going from the area...Rarer pokemon could be made to appear only after a predetermined amount of time or after fighting a number of common pokemon...Just because you can't think of a way it could work doesn't mean that it never can and never will...

[Mumei]

It just works better as a game with optional random battles.  If you don't want the battles, stay out of the grass.  It would be so easy to only fight the ones that you wanted to fight; it would take the challenge out of getting a good one.  

[KDR_11k]

Syl: Random encounters are absolutely uncontrollable, too frequent and even if you flee often involve at least ten seconds intro and outro anims. Another problem are zoomed battles. Or, more exactly, zoomed+random is the problem. You walk a random number of steps (in a good game there should be no random factor!), the screen fades over, you fight or flee or whatever, the screen zooms out, repeat. The problem is that designers tend to be lazy. If a game has random levels, they'll just say "Oh, just tack on 2 hours worth of dungeons here" or if it has random encounters "Oh, make this 50m cavern take 30 minutes, will you?". Hell, the first mission in Final Fantasy 8 involves running 70m through a seemingly empty cavern and fighting the boss. This happens with an adjustable time limit and can take 20 minutes (half of which go to the boss, but still... 10 minutes for three screens).

[Syl]

Quote
(in a good game there should be no random factor!)

You obviously don't play *NEAR* enough online games if you think that, if diablo II wasn't 99% randomised, theres no way in hell i would have devoted the 2.5 years i did to the title.

Same thing with most RPGs, if the battles weren't randomised then i would have never been able to bother to get my characters up to a higher level/go for that rare item (Golden sun).  Tis part of the reason i was so undertrained in most RPG's that *aren't* random, because it forces you to go through the same area again, fighting the same enemies, AGAIN, in the exact same spots, its just far far less interesting and quickly becomes duller.  Leveling up in chrono trigger is a complete bitch because the only place thats logical is the black omen, and you have to go through the entire damn thing once you start.
Earthbound, luckily, is slightly more random with enemy placement, but I hated having to track down the enemies worth fighting.

Randomizing makes games have *much*more enjoyable and not nearly as monotomous replay for me, espicially games that end up requiring gameplay that will be repeated (RPG's, for instance)

Randomnes, though it might have something to do with lazyness, is also carefully balanced in itself.  Its also very useful.  

[KDR_11k]

Okay, okay, should have phrased that differently. I meant no randomness in critical game elements. But then the goal of an RPG is NOT to give you control over your character but to make the character's actions depend on the character instead of the player... IMO that's bad game design, but I guess nobody cares.

So far I haven't had a single game with visible enemies where killing everything wasn't enough to get out of the dungeon appropriately leveled. Diablo 2 is a good example: It's possible to clean out a dungeon and cleaning out every dungeon once gives you enough experience to proceed, no need to repeat a dungeon except for powerlevelling or items.

[Syl]

http://www.gamerdad.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=901&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
^Strangely on topic with what this thread has turned into.