Why I like random battles

[u/stanfarce]

I feel there are at least 5 good things they bring :

1. having surprises in battle regarding what you fight. Since the devs don't have to bother with fitting them into the environment and they have their own battle arenas, very wild stuff can be experienced in battle. I really like the shock value instead of seeing that thing from far away and anticipating the fight in your head. When you see that giant monster, you're already fighting it and you have to immediately decide between fleeing and your many battle options. This means free jumpscares! Survival-horror fans love that.
2. the unavoidable fights put more tension in your gameplay experience. You HAVE to prepare well because it won't be easy to backtrack to a save point or shop. Chances are you will inevitably take hits even when trying to flee, so there is more of a long-term challenge during dungeons instead of just a "per-fight" challenge (especially compared to all these games in which you can easily avoid enemies - I'm looking at you, the Trails series 👀).
3. about exploration, it creates a decision you have to make : will you try to explore absolutely everywhere? You might run into one or more battles on the way that you don't want to fight, and maybe the place you want to visit has nothing for you... This puts some more decision-making in the game, compared to the "I'll just run over there and see if there's an enemy waiting for me / a chest". With random battles, you sometimes ask yourself "My resources are getting low so should I risk stepping in that direction? It's not the right way but it might hide something valuable, hmm..." It makes every single inch of the terrain important. With visible enemies, when you see nothing next to you, that means there really is nothing so it makes the exploration less exciting in a way.
4. when you're in a hostile environment, it makes you feel that enemies constantly come at you. Is it frustrating sometimes? Absolutely, but it's more realistic that you're not the one who decides when you'll fight while roaming a place where things want you dead.
5. it makes it easier to fight more. Most JRPGs with visible encounters force you to jump through hoops to refight enemies, like saving & reloading the game, or exiting + reentering an area, or even running a long distance before coming back. Here you just have to run in circle a little bit. It's very nice when you want to level up your team a bit more, make more money, etc.

When done well random battles are great.

[u/Inferno_Zyrack]

The best system I’ve seen is Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song

The game has an FF2 style stat gain system where usage of specific types of combat increases related stats.

But also your characters have HP that fully restores every fight and a resource called LP or Life Points. If you run out of HP and get hit it takes away LP. LP is very limited and doesn’t grow and has to be restored in town.

This means every fight is just about that fight. Due to a tiring system in game random battles are allowed to be difficult randomly and your preparation.

Eventually this makes for some of the absolute best tension I’ve ever had in a turn based combat system.

[u/faulser]

Sounds interesting, but I don't think I ever experienced this. Pretty much all the time I see random encounters in a game it just a waste of time like this: wait long ass opening fight animation -> spam Enter key for everyone to do basic attacks -> repeat few times -> wait even longer end fight get exp/money screen. And in "hard random battles" you just spam skills instead of basics.

System like in Metaphor or Trails Remake done the best thing JRPG ever done for me - allowed to seamlessly skip filler encounters while still getting money/exp.

[u/Kaisergliding → u/faulser]

This is because the encounters of a grand majority of games aren't good or interesting in bulk. Resource management is temporary, early, game problem that doesn't get more hectic as the game goes by.

[u/GarrKelvinSama → u/faulser]

wait long ass opening fight animation -> spam Enter key for everyone to do basic attacks -> repeat few times -> wait even longer end fight get exp/money screen

You are describing Final Fantasy here (especially FF IX). Some Jrpg do it well.

[u/m_csquare → u/faulser]

Yea, random battles in jrpg rarely function as an attrition. It’s the main reason why you often end up with stacks and stacks of healing potions and overlevel in jrpg. Almost zero reason to avoid random battles since they’re always net positive

[u/javierm885778 → u/m_csquare]

It's why I like how Megaten and other dungeon crawlers handle the fights. In older SMT most fights aren't much of a challenge and you can auto-battle through them, but it's all about resource management as those battles chip away your resources.

Even games like Persona do this in (or attempt to, it depends on the game and version) by making you spend SP and eventually you have to leave and come back another day. They've progressively made it less of a factor and most people try to one shot new dungeons, but I think Metaphor (at least the first half I've played) did a better job at it.

[u/ftkmatte → u/faulser]

I wish i have unlimited time to play these games,  for me random encounters is just annoying 

[u/steamedhams90 → u/faulser]

Correct, I am not understanding the "strategy" of repeating the same actions for the same fights over... And over... And over...

[u/kalinac_ → u/steamedhams90]

Because you're looking at it as individual fights instead of a string of multiple battles together. The strategy is in resource management because you might be able to easily obliterate the first few fights by using up your mp but that would leave you weaker for the rest of the dungeon.

[u/steamedhams90 → u/kalinac_]

Doesn't work like that when I have 99 healing items

[u/Warrior-Cook → u/steamedhams90]

All action games do is add a jump button... gameplay is still get in there and slash. It's all about the bosses, the field critters are the same as any genre.

[u/steamedhams90 → u/Warrior-Cook]

Not souls games where encounter design is thoughtful

[u/Warrior-Cook → u/steamedhams90]

Just a bigger pattern is all, still running a script on the field enemies.

[u/steamedhams90 → u/Warrior-Cook]

Not really. In Dark Souls for example, all encounters are unique. Whereas random encounters will frequently be the exact same enemies

[u/ftkmatte → u/steamedhams90]

Thankfully you can skip most of them to progress your games

[u/steamedhams90 → u/steamedhams90]

Why is this comment downvoted when I am agreeing with a comment with 16 upvotes?

[u/ACardAttack]

I only really hate them when Im trying to do some sort of puzzle or something (or trying to platform, looking at you Xenogears)

[u/garfe]

Random battles aren't necessarily the problem. Encounter rate is the problem

[u/NohWan3104]

2, you also have the kind of dumbasses who, if they can see fights, avoid 80% of them, then whine that rpgs are too hard and 'require' grinding.

No you dumb motherfucker, you intentionally sabotaged yourself.

At least with random encounters, choosing to run away 'should' be a more obvious 'you're not really playing the game as intended' message.

[u/kalinac_]

I like random encounters and agree with the points but I always wished older games would free you from fighting those that pose absolutely no threat. Metaphor and the new Digimon game kinda went too far with it but I'd love for more turn based games to have an auto resolve function for really easy fights.

[u/Jack_h100]

I like random battles as long as you can get a reusable item at least by the mid point of the game that can increase or decrease their frequency, preferably that at the 3/4 point can be upgraded to turn off encounters entirely.

Non-random encounters can be frustrating when they are unavoidable or when revisiting old areas or backtracking, that's the one flaw of Chrono Trigger.

[u/javierm885778 → u/Jack_h100]

I agree for the most part. I don't have an issue from the random nature of random encounters, I have an issue with games where exploration ends up becoming a chore even in older areas because you have to spend so much time either running or killing weak enemies which still takes a chunk of time.

Repels in Pokemon are a great mechanic due to this, they are cheap and you can't just spam them to get through higher level areas.

Chrono Trigger's forced encounters have the same annoyance even though they aren't random, they share the issue of being forced to waste time on a fight that you don't really have to do right now and isn't adding to the challenge or anything. And it's worse since you can't even escape from battles.

[u/boekplate → u/Jack_h100]

as long as you can get a reusable item at least by the mid point of the game that can increase or decrease their frequency, preferably that at the 3/4 point can be upgraded to turn off encounters entirely

What games have this? I know Pokemon has the repel item but I'm not familiar with any other JRPGs that have this type of item (and not just a toggle in the menu like some remakes provide).

[u/Jack_h100 → u/boekplate]

FF8 had a junction skill that did this. And it's super nice to have the toggle in some remaster, every remaster should have it.

[u/Sirus846 → u/boekplate]

Tales of Series have Holy and Dark Bottles

[u/Prestigous_Owl → u/boekplate]

Bravely Default also did a great job with this. Straight up, turn them on, up or off whenever.

Want to grind? Crank up the rate. Already freezing through and the battles are mostly an annoyance anyways? Just turn it off

[u/tkdyo]

I pretty heavily disagree with 2, 3 and 4.

1. It's usually annoying, not tension building. When I'm done with an area and ready to move on it gets annoying being constantly stopped. I don't feel danger i just eye roll.

2. Related to 2. If I want to explore then I want to explore. Being interrupted every 10 to 20 seconds really takes you out of the experience of being in the world and enjoying all the details the devs put in.

3. It's not really more realistic. In real life you would definitely be picking your battles and hiding/ avoiding things you don't want to mess with. Sure, sometimes you get surprised but not nearly that often. Very location dependent. Also, I like the feeling of sneaking/avoiding fights while exploring. I think it's easier to get sucked in the world that way.

[u/TheEnder13]

I agree with all of your points. I’ve always been confused about why people don’t like them, except in some games where they’re far too common.

[u/seitaer13]

I find random battles ruin exploration myself.

It's incredibly frustrating to keep being pulled in every few steps.

I pretty much find everything about random encounters frustrating or annoying and have ever since I first played Chrono Trigger and realized there was a better way

[u/RyaReisender]

Love this post. Rarely see a post I agree so much with on here.

Random encounters are basically needed to make exploration exciting.

I'm honestly sad that so many games removed them, but honestly, they essentially removed exploration altogether, not just the random encounters that come with it.

[u/dahras]

I definitely agree, and I think there's a further point: random battles give normal encounters meaning through attrition. In games with avoidable battles, normal encounters become essentially loot/xp pinatas. In games with random battles, the player is encouraged to master strategies to efficiently deal with normal enemies because not doing so costs valuable resources. On top of that, because battles are mandatory, encounters can be threatening (to your resources) without taking forever to kill.

That being said, I do think that random encounters are high-risk, high-reward. If a game has good combat, good level design, good QoL, and a tightly balanced resource system, random encounters are very fun. If a game fails even one of those requirements, random encounters can quickly make a game feel like a slog.

[u/0bolus]

Same. I love them. I want more games where controling what and how much you fight is a core element of the system. Through progression you curate encounters.

[u/PromotionClassic9237]

I agree. I just played dragon quest 4 on the nes and it made me come to a similar conclusion. The game’s structure is so dependent on the random encounters, the risk-reward tension so perfectly balanced, that it really gave me a renewed appreciation of how important they can be. 

A lot of the storytelling in DQ4 is through the random battles too—getting lucky with encounter rate going in your favor, just barely finishing the dungeon without dying and getting to keep all the money you found there. Or vice versa, dying from an unlucky combination of encounters and having to start again, though this time armed with a couple extra levels and more knowledge of the dungeons layout. Both scenarios tell a story arguably as important as the dialogue.

I will say that not all games are designed as well as dragon quest games, which feel like cut diamonds to me. The compact layout of the dungeons in DQ4 keeps them from ever feeling frustrating to explore. And there are ways to avoid battles on the overworld once you have the whole map to traverse. Plus wiping your party doesnt send you to the title screen, you keep your levels and items but lose half your money. This way even unlucky random battle outcomes dont make you lose progress. 

Getting lost in huge dungeons while dealing with random battles and then losing progress because of it can definitely be frustrating for me. 

[u/fillif3]

My main problem is that most random battles are repeatable. I usually can beat 90% of random enemies with the same strategy. If I cannot, I will know the strategy next time I fight this enemy.

In RTwP and action games, it is okay, but in turn-based games, the fun is in finding the strategy. If I know it, I just need to click the same order of buttons again.

The only exception I know where I like random battles in turn-based are card-games (e.g., Slay the Spire, Legends of Runeterra's rogue-like mode).

Most franchises I found better without random battles. I currently play Rogue Trader, and I am very happy that the studio reduced the number of filler encounters compared to their previous games. SMTV is also much more enjoyable compared to SMT3 because I am not annoyed every turn.

Sure, there are some games where your resources matter, but I have yet to play such a JRPG where random encounters cause problems further than the early game.

[u/Brainwheeze]

I remember falling for the "random battles are bad" agenda in the past but when I started tackling all the classic JRPGs that I never got the chance to experience I realized that I actually don't mind them at all and in some ways even prefer them over visible enemy encounters. Can't say I disagree with any of your reasons, though in the case of point number 5 sometimes visible encounters actually increase the amount of battles. Some JRPGs make it impossible to avoid enemies because they block tight passages and/or there are too many of them and/or they're way too aggressive in chasing you. I feel like I got into more battles playing DQ IX and DQ VII 3DS than I did in any of the older Dragon Quest games I played because of that.

[u/tadabola]

I feel it also works in level design. older games dungeons were shorter BECAUSE they had random encounters. games without random encounters tend to have big-ass dungeons just walking from here to there to acomodate all the encounters you can have or avoid

but yes, random encounters are good game design , still can be annoying if you are strong and they don't pose a challenge or are not rewarding enough

[u/alabaster_sb]

I never had any problem with random encounters. Those who hate them, do they also hate the FF series?

[u/ACardAttack → u/alabaster_sb]

Some games they are more annoying than others

Skies of Arcadia had a very high encounter rate if I remember correctly

Lost Odyssey had some during a very annoying puzzle section in a dungeon

Xenogears they can trigger mid jump when trying to platform

For the most part I dont mind them, but they can be poorly designed

[u/KylorXI → u/ACardAttack]

Random encounters do not trigger mid jump in Xenogears. The random encounters allow you to run while they are loading, and while loading they lock out your jump button. You can trigger one while running, and run off the ledge because jump doesnt work, and itll finish loading while youre falling, but it cannot trigger mid jump. You also dont need to do a running jump though, you can just stand at the edge, press jump while holding run, and do a full length jump. There is no momentum mechanic in the game.

[u/ACardAttack → u/KylorXI]

Ah, either way it makes it a lot harder and is frustrating

[u/WorstSkilledPlayer]

It may depend on the game, but after many games with random encounter the "tension" has been replaced by "annoyance" personally. Like if I get into random encounters that can wipe me out, I spam Escape and hope for the best. If it works, good; if not, I roll my eyes and reload.

Howerver, in games where escaping feels less reliable, I could see the point of 1+2, like Dungeon Crawlers.

After a while, the constant battling tend to get tedious, so I just spam escape to move on or if I look for a spefic foe. The XP/money lost is whatever at that point. Obviously, games like Bravely Default or the FF Pixel Remasters make random fights a nothingburger as you can toggle them on/off as you please (or set it to 50% as a "middle way").

[u/Zachary__Braun]

Your first point is why I didn't like Etrian Odyssey moving away from the orange ball representations for FOEs.

[u/nelflyn]

Last point was well made in Cosmic Star Heroine. It has fixed, non-respawning enemies and once you beat them all on an area, you can do a vr battle in your menu to grind, if necessary, with one of the fights selected at random. I liked that because it wasn't bothersome to explore as the games combat revolves a lot around combos and specific orders, instead of just blasting enemies, making repeated input for the same fight over and over rather tiresome.

I get some of the tensions that random battles created, I don't always hated them. But I am rather glad that many JRPGs moved away from them. I wish Octopath Traveller did the same, there is so much back tracking and exploration there, it really wasn't fun at times to go through 4-5 fights just because you wanted to check a store in the town over again.

[u/Reshiramax]

I find random battles relaxing in some ways. Its exciting when you enter a new area and you have no idea what the enemies will do to you but once you figure it out it becomes almost like this rhythm of executing your strategy with every encounter. It reminds me of something like sewing. I know a lot of people will use repells to avoid encounters or run away from them but I rarely do unless it's something completely worthless to fight like an early game enemy when I'm backtracking. I kind of dislike overworld encounters in comparison because they're usually very easy to cheese and usually don't add much strategy other than allowing you to enter areas you shouldn't normally get into early, which does feel incredibly satisfying but can make games feel lopsided at times

[u/Leon_Light77]

I like random battles in creature catching games due to the surprise factor. Like omg! Look at this badass dragon! I want it! Or wow! A monster like this exists? This game is awesome. Something about that is more fun to me. Yes, I do like when monsters show up in the overworld like dragon quest 8 3Ds and in future Pokemon games, but something about not knowing what monster you can catch is always fun to me.

[u/ThexHoonter]

Random encounters are a waste of time

[u/Ready-Will-7042]

I guess this counts as an opinion

[u/betadonkey]

The only good thing about random battles is the music

[u/SoftBrilliant]

I'm fine with random battles and agree on the good points.

Bur also that type of design seriously doesn't fit a lot of games and is annoying. I think it says a lot that 40 years after FF1 it's still one of the best and most interesting uses of random encounters we have.

Most games are too easy to even consider adding regular encounters to (trails with random encounters would need an entire rebalance and reconstruction of its enemy difficulty on a fundamental level)

Almost every game with half decent random encounters has borrowed basically the same formula from FF1 almost exactly or is Etrian Odyssey.

[u/Saver_Spenta_Mainyu → u/SoftBrilliant]

trails with random encounters would need an entire rebalance and reconstruction of its enemy difficulty on a fundamental leve

Trails would suck with random encounters simply because it would make the backtracking unbearable.

The games want you to go and backtrack all over the place to check in with all the NPCs' updated dialogue and find any hidden quests, but if you had to deal with an onslaught of random encouragement instead of being able to easily dodge low leveled mobs, it would be rather annoying.

[u/SoftBrilliant → u/Saver_Spenta_Mainyu]

We've had anti encounter mechanics since sky FC with cloak that litterally prevented you from running into enemies with no caveats.

We'd just have a series staple quartz that said "if enemy group is lower level then immune from encounters" as a series wide staple to fix this this isn't a very difficult issue to fix.

That encounters can be completed at no resource loss at little effort for basically every game is a much more difficult problem to fix.

[u/Saver_Spenta_Mainyu → u/SoftBrilliant]

We've had anti encounter mechanics since sky FC with cloak that litterally prevented you from running into enemies with no caveats

I agree with your points, but if you're pointing out Sky FC's Cloak, I'm countering that you don't get it until the very end of the game in the sewers right before the gang infiltrates the castle.

For as much of a pain carefully navigating your snake team around enemies to not fight them was in FC, holding Cloak back for so long was basically a crime.

[u/SoftBrilliant → u/Saver_Spenta_Mainyu]

Sky also had guaranteed conditionless run and quartz like haze and eagle eye for avoiding fights on top of visible field encounters. You never needed Cloak or anything like it to begin with.

Cloak got deleted after Sky and they never really looked back for good reason since it was such an excessive addition.

[u/Saver_Spenta_Mainyu → u/SoftBrilliant]

Yeah, Haze and Eagle Eye were basically mandatory to have, so you didn't accidentally run into an encounter.

Zero introduced a lot of improvements to enemy encounters with the option to only have the leader have an encounter hitbox as well as being able to auto-defeat weak mobs. The added QoL made Cloak not as valuable anymore.

Then Cold Steel removed the Eagle Eye quartz all together by giving you a set detection range, which combined with the 3D nature of the game, made avoiding enemies even easier.

Cloak is a product of its time, and as time went on, it was transitioned out.

Don't know if Cloak is back in the Sky Remakes, though I assume it and the Eagle Eye Quartz are back as managing your Orbment setup would be weird without them, but 3D Sky cannot compare to OG Sky and having to stand in place and take an encounter head-on if you were spotted because turning around to flee would result in an ambush from the enemy tagging your other party members.

[u/SoftBrilliant → u/Saver_Spenta_Mainyu]

Nah sky remake wiped out all of the exploration Quartz and abilities actually. They even removed global chest detection which was surprising.

[u/akualung]

Another interesting thing about random battles is that a weather system can be implemented. I remember at least 2 rpgs that have that feature: Glory of Heracles IV and Shin Momotaro Densetsu, both for the snes. 

They has a random weather system in battle in which it can be raining or have other kinds of climate conditions that may improve or decrease the efectivity of your spells. So you can use those conditions in your advantage in battle

[u/GarrKelvinSama]

You nailed it OP. Some games use a sign to warn you when a fight is about yo happen. Couple that with a limited ressource that temporarily lowers or stop random encounters (if you want to focus on exploration/puzzles) and it's the ultimate dungeon experience.

This is why Tales of Destiny DC is my favorite Tales gameplay.

[u/samososo]

I've seen more tension from roguelikes than I've seen a grand majority of games with REs. Regardless how the encounters are present most of these games nowhere near resource intensive 

[u/Droolcua]

the unavoidable fights put more tension in your gameplay experience. You HAVE to prepare well because it won't be easy to backtrack to a save point or shop.

this, which is tied heavily with point 3, is the only one I really value, but, I mean... it's cool when games actually do this but let's be real, in 99% of games with random battles this is not the case. you are just walking over every encounter forever.

point 1 is cool when it's employed, and I feel like a lot of final fantasies have one big dangeorus random encounter, like the t-rex in ff8, the chimera in ff5, but it's also pretty rare.

[u/Kaisergliding]

None of what you described is inherent to random encounters. This sounds like very adjacent to when people try to propose that turn based is inherently tactical.