Encounter Ratio Settings

[Rodak]

I was curious about the "Enable Settings" box you can check in the Game: General Settings: Adv: Encounter menu.

The Help Files do not make the use of this check box clear, or what happens if you uncheck it.

I experimented with the ratios and never really found one that was any better than others. I wound up resetting them so many times I forget where they started. While I could easily just look at Fu-Ma to see what they used, I value the opinions of the people here more than anything Fu-Ma has to say.

So, what settings do those of you making "non-active" battle systems use?

[Deleted]

Is the enable settings the encounter ratio? If so I'll get back to you on this. I recently tested it a lot and found what I think is an excellent set of percents.

[Dungeon Warden]

The Enable Settings box is used to choose between the step ratio method used in the Adv tab and a straight precentage found under the Custom tab. If the box is checked, then the precent option will be grayed out.

[Rodak]

No wonder I did not figure it out. I did not think to look for changes in other menus when I used that box. Thanks DW. And I might as well say it again..."Bloody File Sharing Systems!!"

And William, I believe your input on the ratios would be welcome. I think I like the idea of changing the ratio as they walk rather than using just one percentage chance for all steps (as would happen if I used the "check box" about which I originally asked).

[Dungeon Warden]

Here are the ratios I use:

1-3 steps 0%
4-10 steps 2%
11-20 steps 5%
21- 35 steps 7%
36-50 steps 10%
51+ steps 20%

I don't like going straight from one encounter to another so I set 1-3 steps to zero. Then I increase the chance at each point. You could set 51+ steps to 100% if you like. The player should have an encounter at least once every 50 steps or else they may think there are no random battles and get sloppy.

You might think the frequencies are low but encounters still happen quite often with these numbers.

[Deleted]

Yeah, mine are pretty close.

1-5 = 0%
6-10 = 0%
11-30 = 2.5%
31 - 50 = 25%
51+ = 100%

[thetruecoolness]

Or you could have an epic style system and do away with random battles. Just have enemy's move randomly on the map, and have it when the party touches one a battle commences, of course it would have to be an event battle.

This is what I have done as I have developed a strong dislike for random battles, as I always like to explore the whole map, and end up getting into way to many battles. Also the whole you can only walk 5 steps before getting in a battle, like most games, gets really annoying real fast.

But the posted ones do seem good.

[BloodKnight]

I'm leaning towards using the encounter ratios for battles on the field, as using events takes up a lot of memory, and making it look feasible(not having the character go through the them and getting stuck, and making them disappear) is just too much work.

[The Smurf]

"Or you could have an epic style system and do away with random battles. Just have enemy's move randomly on the map, and have it when the party touches one a battle commences, of course it would have to be an event battle."

i do this in dungeons and dungeon-like areas. its quite fun, and not as tedious as one might think. i just have the event move 4 steps to the right whenever it is defeated to get out of the way. of course, when your on the right it doesnt move, but oh well.

i'm sure i posted that before, but it fits here, so...


-the smurf

[Deleted]

Couldn't you just use the temporary removal command?

[Rodak]

williamkirk said:

Couldn't you just use the temporary removal command?

I believe (and I may be wrong) that this refers to an event battle with no model, just wandering far and fast. It is an alternate to setting random battles while retaining the illusion of random battles I considered myself (so am likely projecting my thoughts onto these poor people who left a tiny bit of room for interpretation!).

In this case Temp Removal would take it off the map completely. If you randomized the battle in the script this would be disastrous.

[thetruecoolness]

Well what I was talking about was with the model, which is like an epic/RPG style game (Earthbound comes to mind as another good example). These games still retain turned based battle, but have the enemies move on the world map, so you can see them and avoid them, which is more realistic, and less frustrating to me than a random battle system. Of course to each their own, and this would take up a bit more memory, but not too much, as event duplicate, and temporary removal would work well. Temporary removal would work since if the person exited and came back to the map the enemies would reappear, so then they wouldn't have to worry about running out of things to battle with.

[Rodak]

thetruecoolness said:

Well what I was talking about was with the model, which is like an epic/RPG style game (Earthbound comes to mind as another good example). These games still retain turned based battle, but have the enemies move on the world map, so you can see them and avoid them, which is more realistic, and less frustrating to me than a random battle system.

OK, my problem is minimal exposure to recent games (recent meaning about 1989 to now). But I know what you mean now, and use both systems in my game. I just found that there were so few good matches for monsters in the character database that I gave up on doing that for all my battles.

That's when I came up with the fast moving "blank" event battle with random enemy units in it's script.

Since you have not been on "The Boards" that long you may not have heard my Philosophy on Realism.

While I understand the attraction, and have no problem with those who prefer realistic games, I don't like it. I always say... "Keep your Realism out of My Fantasy" to annoy Realism Nuts. I just don't see the point.

Am I the only one who sees Realistic Fantasy as an Oxymoron?

This must be why I like Jack Kirby and Vaughan Bode so much.

[Dungeon Warden]

I supposed that technically Fantasy is anything that couldn't happen in reality, so it is an Oxymoron in one sense.

On the other hand there is what is called Low Fantasy, fantasy based on the real world. Everything is the same as in our reality except for one thing. Usually it's that magic really works, but any fantasy element could be used.

I agree that there doesn't need to be a lot of reality in fantasy, but it should seem real. Some possible explanation should be given for why things happen even if that explanation doesn't hold water. Why can't you see enemies until you touch them? Maybe they are hiding in tunnels under the ground. You can sense where they are but you can't tell what's there until they pop out of their holes. Problem solved.

I don't mind random encounters as long as they don't happen every few steps. I like to be able to explore without having to fight my way down a tunnel or around a room. I believe more powerful enemies can be used to guard passageways (as I have done in my game), but weaker enemies (with low XP and treasure) can be used as random encounters.

I also plan to use the idea of combat zones, areas with lots of random enemies to fight for the sole purpose of leveling up. If random enemies are few and far between (which is nice for exploring) it can take forever to level up. Combat zones are areas you can go to when the next challenge is too hard at your present level. These are more useful for people who just want to get through the game quickly and do very little exploring. It's the best of both worlds.

[vespuleth]

hmmm, dw's post made me think of a few things.

first, a cool feature for all of you psuedo random encounter folks would be to have something display on the screen to inform the player of his chances of getting in a fight. like a small dot or sword that changed color the more inevitable a fight was, or the closer a roaming enemy is. that way they have some heads up, and even if they cant control it all, they get some sense of control from knowing.

my other idea comes from dw combat areas. now this would only work in certain scenarios, but if in the game, some war was going on, the player could always go and fight in missions to gain xp, or something.

just my two pennies.

[Dungeon Warden]

Your first idea reminds me of Legend of Dragoon, where an icon would appear and change color when an encounted was about to happen. You couldn't do this with random encounters but I suppose you could do it when the party entered a dangerous area. Interesting idea.

There are no wars in my game (except near the end, if I get that far ) so the second idea doesn't help me, but it is an interesting idea none the less.

[Deleted]

Yeah, for a bit I was thinking of maybe doing what Breath of Fire 3 did for battles on the world map, but decided against it because even though it'd be cool at first it would get stale later and people would stop doing it.

I thought of something just now though.

I have a Custom Indirect Effect on all of my party members that runs a script/event (same script/event for all) every step the player takes to resize their proportions. Couldn't I just make a variable, add to it every step, and make a script that sorts based on that variable and sorts based on the Map Number, and calls a script that randomizes and enters the player into a battle? I think by doing that you could maybe do the Legend of Dragoon type thing. Even without running the battling manually you could still change a VFX display on the party leader (or 2d effect somewhere on the screen) for the different colors. I might do that myself.

[Deleted]

I got it to work. I have it set up like this:

before yellow = no battle (1-10 steps)
yellow = low chance of battle (11-30 steps)
red = high chance of battle (31+ steps)

I'll post a tutorial on exactly how to do it soon. I ran into another problem though, a BIG problem...

[Dark Knight Of Lodis]

My encounter ratio started at 0, and then with each category of steps increased by 5% originally. Then I realized that that is actually an INSANE amount of battles and cut it in half.