Does anyone actually like random battles in RPGs?

[lordcookies]

Well i HATE random encounters (this is this kind of hate where i would summon an imp from the very depths of hell to burn the feckin' game xD) and i'm gonna tell you why.
When you are 1 step away from a town, almost dying, no potions, almost all of your party is cursed or poisoned, and in that freakin square of land, a random encounter ocurrs, AND i lose the battle... I just feel like crying. Damn it sucks.

 

[Bane_Star]

The Third Plausible choice is currently impossible to impliment. All creatures in the entire world are organised and placed, but an internal AI controls their movements and when you come across a creature, its because its Actually there at that exact time. This means you would encounter creatures of any possible level, at any given time, if your in the wrong place. It would be a great game, but as I said, impossible to impliment yet. (p.s. I'm working on it)

Isn't that basically an MMO?

Not One MMO tracks the location of any individual creature, instead they have spawn points which 'teleport' in a creature of a given type at a given location. Thats just Linear Mapping.

A true Encounter would have birthed the creature, grown it, raised it, had it interact with other creatures maybe even defeated other players, and has a set of skills and abilities based on its personal experience, until such time that the player encounters it. Once its killed. Its dead, its body decomposes and adds nutrients to the soil, etc etc. It will never return.

 

[Devildoc]

I can tolerate some random battles if the story is good but it's not a feature I like, in fact in DQ games they annoy the hell out of me because they're SO frequent even with holy water (which supposedly cuts down on the encounter rate). I prefer visible enemies like Chrono Trigger.. you can make some of the battles scripted/surprise leaping from the background, etc, or unavoidable sure. But being able to evade some trash fights is nice from time to time. I'm glad later Tales games also use visible enemies and actually like that approaching them from behind gives you an advantage and being attacked from behind gives a disadvantage.

It's kinda like menu based combat.. it's not a system I particularly enjoy but will tolerate if the story and presentation and skills and exploration and customization are good.

Hands down though I love me an action JRPG over a menu based random encounter JRPG any day. Tales of.. series took the reigns of "favorite JRPG's" after Final Fantasy started becoming Final Sci-Fi with FF7. Now I'm willing to give FF13 a chance, because well.. the hype.. and they're coming out with FFv13.. which is an action RPG so if that reviews well, and I like that, I might get the menu based FF13 to go with it.. IF I get a PS3 in the first place.. waiting on ToV PS3 US release confirmation.. the day that gets confirmed I buy a PS3. If not.. well I'll wait and see if FFv13 is really good and then maybe get a PS3 for it and FF13... and then be really sad that I don't get to play ToV.. cause I don't really want a 360.. bad piece of hardware.. but a good library but some of that is coming to PS3 anyway (Ninja Gaiden II is another one I'm interested in). But yeah.. love what I've gotten to play of ToV so far, but haven't been able to finish since it's not my 360.

 

[the Tadman]

The random battles aren't the problem for me. But when i lose precious potions or get owned on the way to some far away land. That just ruins it for me...