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WHAT IS THE PERFECT ENCOUNTER RATE?
Posts
McBick
1339
McBick
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CloseWhat do you think the perfect encounter rate is? And does it matter how large the area your currently in is? I've played games where I would get an encounter every 2-3 steps making it very annoying to travel through dungeons, but I've also played games where I would walk 15 steps before running into an encounter making me under leveled at boss fights. So what are your thoughts?
The Perfect Encounter Rate depends on many factors, some of which you've pointed out, including:
1) Dungeon size (one hallway vs. several floors)
2) Length of Battle in time (Frequent, long battles are unbearable)
3) Avg. drain on resources (HP/MP/Items)
4) EXP per battle (How much EXP is necessary to proceed)
5) Game's overall focus on combat
It really comes down to "Is this fun?" If your game's combat is fun and players are just running around fighting stuff for kicks, you don't have to worry as much about encounter rate, but if they're heading straight to the exit and keep getting interrupted, you should consider revising. The answer is going to be vastly different for every game.
The best solution in this situation is always going to be "Have someone playtest it." In fact, have a friend playtest and watch them as they play - you'll get to see how other people play your game, and you can see if they get frustrated or if they're having fun with your battles.
1) Dungeon size (one hallway vs. several floors)
2) Length of Battle in time (Frequent, long battles are unbearable)
3) Avg. drain on resources (HP/MP/Items)
4) EXP per battle (How much EXP is necessary to proceed)
5) Game's overall focus on combat
It really comes down to "Is this fun?" If your game's combat is fun and players are just running around fighting stuff for kicks, you don't have to worry as much about encounter rate, but if they're heading straight to the exit and keep getting interrupted, you should consider revising. The answer is going to be vastly different for every game.
The best solution in this situation is always going to be "Have someone playtest it." In fact, have a friend playtest and watch them as they play - you'll get to see how other people play your game, and you can see if they get frustrated or if they're having fun with your battles.
CyberDagger
10
author=McBick
What do you think the perfect encounter rate is?
Depends on how hard the encounters are. If they're harder, they shoulf be less frequent.
author=McBick
And does it matter how large the area your currently in is?
Yes. Very frequent encounters are even more frustrating in large areas.
author=McBick
I've played games where I would get an encounter every 2-3 steps making it very annoying to travel through dungeons,
So you already know not to do it.
author=McBick15 steps is in no way a bad average ammount of steps between encounters, especially in large areas. I'd say the problem there is with the design of the bosses themselves or the experience yields, not the encounter rate.
but I've also played games where I would walk 15 steps before running into an encounter making me under leveled at boss fights.
Zero. Every random encounter I have ever seen in an RPG required almost no thought to beat and was thus a pointless exercise in tedium. There's no point in having a game mechanic that only serves to waste the player's time.
Whatever encounter rate you have it will always seem too frequent or too far apart to the players at different points in the game. So you should also think about giving them some control over when to increase/decrease the encounter rate, or outright avoid/provoke battles. So in short, emulate a Touch encounter system. =P ...Also, always make possible to escape from battles with a 100% chance.
Alternatively: 42 steps.
Alternatively: 42 steps.
Crystalgate
694
author=slashphoenix
The Perfect Encounter Rate depends on many factors, some of which you've pointed out, including:
1) Dungeon size (one hallway vs. several floors)
2) Length of Battle in time (Frequent, long battles are unbearable)
3) Avg. drain on resources (HP/MP/Items)
4) EXP per battle (How much EXP is necessary to proceed)
5) Game's overall focus on combat
Some of those factors seems like addressing the issue in the wrong order. You should not adjust encounter rate depending on the EXP income, rather you should adjust how much EXP the encounters give depending on the number of battles the player is expected to fight. Likewise, I recommend adjusting how much resources the player has according to the encounter rate rather than the opposite.
That leaves factor 1), 2) and 5) which all are related to how many encounter you can have without boring the player. That I think is what you should take into account when deciding encounter rate, how much can the player fight while still being entertained. Factor 3) and 4) are more about how many encounters you must have to keep the game balanced and it's better to adjust numbers so that the "must have" is equal to what's fun rather than adjusting the encounter rate away from what's fun.
@Crystal: Agreed! I should've clarified, those numbers are definitely all related, but balancing EXP per battle is a lot easier than adjusting the encounter rate, because it shouldn't have unintended negative effects. Likewise with resources.
Random encounters can be fun and might be easier to add than touch encounters, but at the same time they can get really frustrating, especially with big dungeons or dungeons with lots of exploration (side hallways, hidden items, etc.)
Another note is the player's focus. If you've set up the player to be really geeked to fight a particular boss, making her slog through 2 hours of dungeon is going to kill that adrenaline. Similarly, if the player's focus is on solving a puzzle (flipping switches, moving blocks, etc.) don't make him fight monsters constantly while doing it - it'll distract the player from the puzzle, make him forget the solution, and in general be really frustrating. A good example is FFX, whose puzzle sections (the Cloisters) had 0 encounters, which was very important because the puzzles were often really complex - battles would only have tried the player's patience.
Random encounters can be fun and might be easier to add than touch encounters, but at the same time they can get really frustrating, especially with big dungeons or dungeons with lots of exploration (side hallways, hidden items, etc.)
Another note is the player's focus. If you've set up the player to be really geeked to fight a particular boss, making her slog through 2 hours of dungeon is going to kill that adrenaline. Similarly, if the player's focus is on solving a puzzle (flipping switches, moving blocks, etc.) don't make him fight monsters constantly while doing it - it'll distract the player from the puzzle, make him forget the solution, and in general be really frustrating. A good example is FFX, whose puzzle sections (the Cloisters) had 0 encounters, which was very important because the puzzles were often really complex - battles would only have tried the player's patience.
Don't get me wrong, I get liking touch encounters because they give you control over a tricky situation, but I don't get why people get so high and mighty about touch being outright better than random.
Randoms, (with a decent encounter rate, that is) are good because they let you compartmentalise battles and dungeoning. You can walk through teh dungeon, go to puzzle areas, hunt down chests etc without ever worrying about battles; they just come randomly and at no bearing on your location (although I do always think that specific puzzle areas should have encounters removed, as there's nothing worse than trying to solve some complicated or multi-part puzzle and continually being interrupted).
Now touch encounters give you the ability to actively avoid the battle (as opposed to just hitting "Escape) or to jump into them at will (as opposed to running in circles for ten seconds), but the fact is that it mixes the dungeon and combat togther in a way that is not always favourable. Having monsters clump near chests or exists, for example. I don't like the notion that picking up a chest is going to essentially guarantee I have to get into several fights, or that if I want to escape the dungeon I'll train a heap of monsters behind me. Random encounteers avoid this problem entirely, while touches can't avoid it at all without actively positionoing all touches at places far away from key sections, which basically just turs the dungeon into battle-battle-battle-empty-empty-chest-empty-empty-battle-battle, which, imo, is no better than random encounters anyways.
Just sayin', yo.
@Topic:
Perfect encountere rate is entirely dungeon specific. Large dungeons with open spaces and big areas want much lower rates, while smaller or cramped dungeons can be higher.
The best way to look at it, imo, is by looking at a percentage value of how far you can geet across a map before being interrupted. A tiny map might have a 20 encounter and dhave you interrupted halfway through the map. S'fine. A huge big mofo map with a 20 encounter will only let you get 5% of the way across before being interrupted, which is unacceptable.
Ask yourself how many encounters are likely to happen in each given map relative to their size?
Randoms, (with a decent encounter rate, that is) are good because they let you compartmentalise battles and dungeoning. You can walk through teh dungeon, go to puzzle areas, hunt down chests etc without ever worrying about battles; they just come randomly and at no bearing on your location (although I do always think that specific puzzle areas should have encounters removed, as there's nothing worse than trying to solve some complicated or multi-part puzzle and continually being interrupted).
Now touch encounters give you the ability to actively avoid the battle (as opposed to just hitting "Escape) or to jump into them at will (as opposed to running in circles for ten seconds), but the fact is that it mixes the dungeon and combat togther in a way that is not always favourable. Having monsters clump near chests or exists, for example. I don't like the notion that picking up a chest is going to essentially guarantee I have to get into several fights, or that if I want to escape the dungeon I'll train a heap of monsters behind me. Random encounteers avoid this problem entirely, while touches can't avoid it at all without actively positionoing all touches at places far away from key sections, which basically just turs the dungeon into battle-battle-battle-empty-empty-chest-empty-empty-battle-battle, which, imo, is no better than random encounters anyways.
Just sayin', yo.
@Topic:
Perfect encountere rate is entirely dungeon specific. Large dungeons with open spaces and big areas want much lower rates, while smaller or cramped dungeons can be higher.
The best way to look at it, imo, is by looking at a percentage value of how far you can geet across a map before being interrupted. A tiny map might have a 20 encounter and dhave you interrupted halfway through the map. S'fine. A huge big mofo map with a 20 encounter will only let you get 5% of the way across before being interrupted, which is unacceptable.
Ask yourself how many encounters are likely to happen in each given map relative to their size?
25. 100 and above almost never shows. Less than 10 and you get into nuisance territory.
Also, the perfect encounter rate is contingent on having either items or equips that can custom the rate, since other people won't share your feelings (the definition of perfection must include other people, or it isn't perfection).
But none of this is ideal. A better system is exp-less where your party is more or less maxed (that is, you don't need the experience, they give different rewards), and enemies are instead a sort of resource drain and/or puzzle-based battles. Something like Okami where you gain boosts outside battle.
Also, the perfect encounter rate is contingent on having either items or equips that can custom the rate, since other people won't share your feelings (the definition of perfection must include other people, or it isn't perfection).
But none of this is ideal. A better system is exp-less where your party is more or less maxed (that is, you don't need the experience, they give different rewards), and enemies are instead a sort of resource drain and/or puzzle-based battles. Something like Okami where you gain boosts outside battle.
For modern games and modern players, don't go by encounter rate... go by player exhaustion.
What this means, is to make a test run of a dungeon and then guage the point at which the player's party becomes exhausted (low ability to restore one's self, usually by magic reserve). If it's at halfway, the encounter rate is too high. I noticed this while I was playing Final Fantasy Dimensions... every single dungeon-like area or save point "checkpoint" within that area lasted a little beyond my party's exhaustion. It never failed, as if each dungeon or checkpoint were specifically engineered to be a certain playtime length.
Modern players didn't grow up with random encounters, making them frustrating. The people who grew up with random encounters largely do not play games of that sort any longer. It's better to shoot for the low encounter rate, and if a player isn't strong enough to defeat a boss by the time the end of the dungeon is reached, then the game must be rebalanced, either by making the monsters stronger, more lucrative, or by making the boss weaker.
But speaking for all players, it's best, in this day and age, to give the player control over the encounter rate. I remember an item in one of the Dragon Warrior games that increased the encounter rate to 1 every step for as long as the item were equipped or used. You can also create different encounter rate zones based on where the player is choosing to walk and where not to walk... giving the inconspicuous paths lower rates.
What this means, is to make a test run of a dungeon and then guage the point at which the player's party becomes exhausted (low ability to restore one's self, usually by magic reserve). If it's at halfway, the encounter rate is too high. I noticed this while I was playing Final Fantasy Dimensions... every single dungeon-like area or save point "checkpoint" within that area lasted a little beyond my party's exhaustion. It never failed, as if each dungeon or checkpoint were specifically engineered to be a certain playtime length.
Modern players didn't grow up with random encounters, making them frustrating. The people who grew up with random encounters largely do not play games of that sort any longer. It's better to shoot for the low encounter rate, and if a player isn't strong enough to defeat a boss by the time the end of the dungeon is reached, then the game must be rebalanced, either by making the monsters stronger, more lucrative, or by making the boss weaker.
But speaking for all players, it's best, in this day and age, to give the player control over the encounter rate. I remember an item in one of the Dragon Warrior games that increased the encounter rate to 1 every step for as long as the item were equipped or used. You can also create different encounter rate zones based on where the player is choosing to walk and where not to walk... giving the inconspicuous paths lower rates.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
It depends on how big your dungeons are.
You want enough battles for the player to have an almost guaranteed chance (like 98% or so) of encountering every enemy at least once. That's every enemy, though, not every enemy group. Each enemy will almost certainly appear in multiple formations - this keeps the battles against enemies you've already fought a little different.
If the player has fought all the enemies in the dungeon, and is still getting in more battles, you have too many battles.
(This is the main thing to consider IMO, but there are other aspects to the equation also. If you have a dungeon that's massive, adding more different enemies is usually going to be a better solution than reducing the encounter rate, though you may also want to do both if it's really massive. If the dungeon is a single 20x15 room, you probably don't want random encounters at all: you want an evented gauntlet. If you don't have enemy groups and all the battles are against single foes, then enemy skills might be the thing you want the player to experience at least once each, rather than just enemies. The same thing might be true if the player has ways to sometimes dispatch enemies before they can act. If the same enemy appears in multiple dungeons, things get messy.)
You want enough battles for the player to have an almost guaranteed chance (like 98% or so) of encountering every enemy at least once. That's every enemy, though, not every enemy group. Each enemy will almost certainly appear in multiple formations - this keeps the battles against enemies you've already fought a little different.
If the player has fought all the enemies in the dungeon, and is still getting in more battles, you have too many battles.
(This is the main thing to consider IMO, but there are other aspects to the equation also. If you have a dungeon that's massive, adding more different enemies is usually going to be a better solution than reducing the encounter rate, though you may also want to do both if it's really massive. If the dungeon is a single 20x15 room, you probably don't want random encounters at all: you want an evented gauntlet. If you don't have enemy groups and all the battles are against single foes, then enemy skills might be the thing you want the player to experience at least once each, rather than just enemies. The same thing might be true if the player has ways to sometimes dispatch enemies before they can act. If the same enemy appears in multiple dungeons, things get messy.)
Also, the quality of encounters matters nearly as much as the quantity.
If possible, try to mix up enemy strengths and weaknesses, with a few pushover enemies, a few seriously strong ones, a few that require elemental/strategy but are otherwise easy. Too many easy are boring, too many hard and you get frustrated, and there should be at least a few enemies (but not too many) that require you think some instead of just bushing away with weapons.
Also, auto-run is good thing to have, because on the off chance it is too much, having too much and having no means of retreat means people will probably ditch your game.
If possible, try to mix up enemy strengths and weaknesses, with a few pushover enemies, a few seriously strong ones, a few that require elemental/strategy but are otherwise easy. Too many easy are boring, too many hard and you get frustrated, and there should be at least a few enemies (but not too many) that require you think some instead of just bushing away with weapons.
Also, auto-run is good thing to have, because on the off chance it is too much, having too much and having no means of retreat means people will probably ditch your game.
Crystalgate
694
author=Zachary_Braun
For modern games and modern players, don't go by encounter rate... go by player exhaustion.
What this means, is to make a test run of a dungeon and then guage the point at which the player's party becomes exhausted (low ability to restore one's self, usually by magic reserve). If it's at halfway, the encounter rate is too high.
This is an example of what I mentioned that I don't think you should do.
What could happen if you do it the way that you suggest is that the player ends up having to fight more monsters than what's fun. Imagine you playtest a dungeon and find out that after about 15 encounters they start to get boring. However, you also find out that the player still has 50% of his MP left at that point, so you adjust the encounter rate so the player is expected to run into 25 encounters. Now the player has to fight 10 more encounters after they started to get boring in order for the dungeon to be exhausting enough.
What you could do instead is to increase the MP cost of all skills by say 60%. Likewise, with your example where the player is exhausted at halfway point, you can lower the MP cost of skills instead of lowering the encounter rate. Basically, don't adjust encounter rate according to exhaustion, adjust exhaustion according to encounter rate (which in turn is adjusted according to fun.)
The perfect encounter rate is 0%. Random encounters died years ago and no one wants them to come back.
Crystalgate
694
author=Fallen-Griever
If your battles get boring at all then there is something wrong, and it isn't the encounter rate.
I've never seen any game where you can encounter the same set of enemies again and again in the same stage without it eventually getting boring. Pick for example one stage in Megaman X and imagine it thrice as long. Most players would get bored before that stage is over.
Sailerius
The perfect encounter rate is 0%. Random encounters died years ago and no one wants them to come back.
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hey
hey sai
just because you have an opinion does not mean your "millions of downloads" agree or that your thoughts are unanimously accepted by everybody in the world
Looks like... evidence to the contrary.
I seriously wonder what games people are playing that they haven't seen random encounters.
The point to random encounters depends on managing several factors.
And no, it's not just exhaustion. When we say boring we mean one of several things:
Having played 3 of the above games (FFX2, DQ8, FF7), I can list another rule:
I seriously wonder what games people are playing that they haven't seen random encounters.
The point to random encounters depends on managing several factors.
And no, it's not just exhaustion. When we say boring we mean one of several things:
- Too easy (enemies die in one hit)
- Too hard (Someone here hates tales of Legendia, but its combo system is a good guide. Even though enemies can take multiple hits, you can also dish them out in rapid succession. In general, if you don't have some way to string hits together, limit monster battles to four party turns at most using the best physical or magic attacks)
- No way of mitigating exhaustion (this doesn't come up much because most people don't seem to understand it. If you fight hundreds of monsters and none of them drops any useable recovery items, this means even if you find a save point, you're still getting frustrated. Not that you should gain 100 potions in one room either, but you SHOULDN'T be completely exhausted. You should have used maybe 5 potions and gained two by the time you get to a savepoint. Or better if the savepoint is save only and needs an additional point to recover)
- Frustrating exp gain (if you have to grind for more than one hour, not including battle length and still manage not to level up even once, and it isn't level 50, the balance programmer is being a jerk)
- Lack of variety for enemies (this includes having different weakness types, not just sprites. There should be some enemies that are very weak to physical and some that are very weak to magic, and some weak only to a certain element)
- Lack of thematic appropriateness (Or, the robots in a cave rule. If it doesn't make any sense to put a certain monster there, don't put it there. If it doesn't make any sense to put any monster there (Tales of Legendia, again, we have an earth temple that unlike the others is neither hot nor cold nor humid, but extremely peaceful as established in the plot. The first half of the temple has no monsters at all) then don't load it with random encounters)
- And finally... "some jerk put monsters in the puzzle room." (That said, you can call monster attacks as a penalty for screwing up the puzzle)
Having played 3 of the above games (FFX2, DQ8, FF7), I can list another rule:
- World map random encounters is acceptable. In dungeons, monster touch sprites makes more sense (this was especially true of DQ8, where the random encounters made sense in the field, but became annoying in dungeons).
