Turn Based and Random Encounters Gamplay and You!

[Littaly]

It has it's ups and downs. Can't say I hate it, I like turn based games as much as most games, but they can be done in a ton of different ways, some better some worse. I do not in any way accept the argument "oh my god it's so unrealistic, why are they just standing there doing nothing?", if that's your opinion, you are missing the whole point. I can however give skeptics the point that they often tend to get tedious and "time wasty" (hurray for new words) after a few hours unless handled well.

Random encounters I'm less fond of. First of they have this nasty habit of getting in the way of what you're trying to do. For example, trying to find your way out of an extremely frustrating, badly designed area often becomes even more frustrating because you have to stop every 20 seconds to fight a battle. In addition they often bring something even worse with them: level grind (ironically, when level grinding the enemies seem to appear much less frequently). Personally I'm more of a fan of games that handle turn based RPG encounters in the same fashion as Crono Trigger or Mario&Luigi where you have more control over what battles you wish to fight.

 

[Spirultima]

You can eat during a turnbased battle and still play it without problems or any loss in skill, so it's great (sometimes)


And Final Fantasy 7 doesn't use real turnbased combat...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Time_Battle#Parties_and_battles

Technically, it did, the ATB made you wait for your next turn.

 

[Monocle Man]

God, I hate them...

It's really frustrating. Let me get to the damn objective!

One of the many things that turned me off Final Fantasy.

Oh you think that was bad, try playing Dragon Quest VIII. I couldnt fucking explore anything from the get go because i kept dying in random encounters. Then when i tried to go back to a village for supplies i would die along the way.

And there I was, thinking Dragon Quest VIII was a game that did it well.

Really? Well i guess everyones experience is different. I hate being taken from point a to point b just on a straight line when i play RPGs. So naturally i wanted to explore as soon as i got to the world map. There were so many "random" encounters it almost felt like the game just wanted me to get on with the story at its own pace not mine.

It did start pretty annoying, but I just stayed near town till I hit level 3, after that nothing really stopped me anymore.
Also, there was a dungeon missing between Dhoulmagus' lair and whatever there was before that, that monster was merciless at level 25 kept me busy for an hour or two. Revive, heal, accelerate....
It was a pity Dhoulmagus was finished after that. He was a great villain.

 

[Spirultima]

Random Encounters only made sense because at the time they didn't have the technology for real-time battles. Today it doesn't make much sense that a Giant Dinosaur can pop up in front of your party out of nowhere.

Turn Based Encounters are usually pretty boring, though some games can do them well. I mean I think Final Fantasy XII did a good job with it's battle systems.

That game made me sick in the stomach, they changed what Final Fantasy was famous for, plus the only reason why it was any good was because of Bathier.

So because they changed it to something that most people like, it's bad?

Good example: Linkin Park, they got famous for there nu metal music, they went to soft music in there most recent work, stick to what your famous for, not what people want, because the majority are idiots, cater for them, someone will do it better and the majority will switch over, keep to your own work, you keep what made you what you are.

 

[CakeDragon]

Random Encounters only made sense because at the time they didn't have the technology for real-time battles. Today it doesn't make much sense that a Giant Dinosaur can pop up in front of your party out of nowhere.

Turn Based Encounters are usually pretty boring, though some games can do them well. I mean I think Final Fantasy XII did a good job with it's battle systems.

The battle system was the one thing that I liked about FF12, yet everyone else hated it.

I liked the XII battle system, it was turn-based but active as well, it felt not too different from the Kingdom Hearts layout, just with time gauges.

Random battles worked well in XII as well, if you saw an enemy you could run round it to avoid aggro. However, taking you to a separate battle screen gets a bit tedius after a while. Especailly The Last Remnant, loading the battle screen takes bloomin' ages and really breaks up gameplay too much.

 

[bjj hero]

Good example: Linkin Park, they got famous for there nu metal music, they went to soft music in there most recent work, stick to what your famous for, not what people want, because the majority are idiots, cater for them, someone will do it better and the majority will switch over, keep to your own work, you keep what made you what you are.

Imagine if Madden stuck with 2d sprites... Things move on. 12 was still turn based, in a similar way KOTOR was. You can pause and pick actions at any time. It's just presented differently.

I enjoy turn based games. I love digging out games like shining force, dragon quest and phantasy star 4. I dont always want twitch responses and adrenaline. Ill play Street fighter of COD4 for that. I do feel we should move on from random encounters though.

Its far fetched when Im "surprised" by things like giants, slugs or giant birds. If I cant avoid them I should at least see them coming. My other reason is its annoying to explore or go to another area and be bugged every few seconds by shitty monsters. Particularly when you can demolish them in single hits.

To briefly mention Linkin park, I have no time for the band. Having said that a lot of peoples tastes change as they grow up. As a band you cant be expected to write the same stuff for 5-10years. Otherwise you end up like Status Quo or AC DC.

 

[Nazulu]

Oh God, this is biased to death! I got sick of turned based games because a lot of it is just chance and hardly any skill. You know, criticals, chance of poison, dodging, etc.

I've played them all, FF games, Golden Sun games, Pokemon, etc. And if you honestly think they have better gameplay than RTS and FPS games then your talking out of your ass!

I believe they all serve a purpose but when I play a turned based game that requires me to get past a boss by hoping my fireballs don't miss, then it's fucked basically.

 

[skcseth]

I like turn based games (to an extent), but I'd still rather play an FPS. As for random encounters, I hate them because A) if I need to back track through a room I've already cleared of enemies to make sure I didn't miss a crate, I'd like to do so without having to clear the room again. And B) You can have a lot more than 2 enemies in a room with today's technology, you'd be surprised.

 

[quack35]

I don't mind turn based combat sometimes.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

I really liked the way the "turn-based combat" was done in Valkyrie Profile 2. And I liked how you could avoid fighting if you wished as well.

 

[KissofKetchup]

For me, the reason I dislike turn-based games is becuase it pretty much is outdated for video games. Back in the day when the technology wasn't there for you to have 10 enemies with their own A.I. script turn based gameplay made sense. But now that we are in the era of multi-core processors, games can be much faster paced than their predecessors. The only games that I really liked that were turned based was the Advance Wars series and Pokémon. But that's because it was before I really got into FPS and racing games.

As for random encounters, I'm all for them, especially in RPG's unless the random encounter interrupts the gameplay.

 

[Zefar]

Oh God, this is biased to death! I got sick of turned based games because a lot of it is just chance and hardly any skill. You know, criticals, chance of poison, dodging, etc.

I've played them all, FF games, Golden Sun games, Pokemon, etc. And if you honestly think they have better gameplay than RTS and FPS games then your talking out of your ass!

I believe they all serve a purpose but when I play a turned based game that requires me to get past a boss by hoping my fireballs don't miss, then it's fucked basically.

So RTS and FPS are the gods of gaming? :/ Sorry but RPGs are not as random as you claim them to be.

Critical might happen but it's rarely the round ender. Unless now you have a full Critical build or something but then you already own people.

Poison damage is pretty much worthless in most RPG games I have played in. It's mostly too weak or they have to high defense against it.

Dodging is really only applied to characters with a high rate in it. When it's high he's expected to dodge things. In most RPGs like Final Fantasy and such, dodging is pretty low.

RPGs are not THAT random and those random things are not the round ender. It's how powerful your group is and what skills you use. Some games like Pokemon forces you to focus on more than one pokemon, Yes, the later ones really does this. So you can't run around with one pokemon only and expect to own everything.

Kinda funny that Team Fortress 2 have installed Critical hits to the game. Fallout 3 have also done this.


I for one don't mind RPGs, there are ones that are much better than most FPS and RTS today. It's fun to control your group of heros and completely wipe the floor of any monster you meet when you get powerful. I don't care what type of weapons they use. As long as it's unique which most RPGs are or at least Final Fantasy games are, they are fun to play.

 

[Aqualung]

Sorry but, I despise both random encounters and turn based games very much. Sure, it provides a chance to enjoy scenery, and strategically plan your battles, but it lacks the same thrilling pace of real-time. To be fair, the only games I play of that genre and like are Pokemon games for handhelds, so I'm not totally against the style. Still.. I don't get how one can find it entertaining. Just my opinion.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Turn based combat is all right, if the turn is not too long.
And random encounters just rule. It's raining Firelance...

 

[Akula]

Although I'm a big fan of classic JRPG's like FF I-VI, Breath of Fire Series, etc., I absolutely hate random encounters. I hate having to walk down a corridor and get attacked by the same group of monsters 20 times. It's an even bigger pain when you're trying to explore a level or take a wrong turn and have to endure double the fights. It's not like its challenging in any way in most cases, just forces you to employ the same strategy against the same group of monsters over and over again. It makes it feel like level grinding. I'm glad that most random encounter games are obsolete these days but I don't understand why old school JRPG's couldn't make the enemies visible on screen like Lufia II or Earthbound did.

As for turn based combat I don't mind it, especially when you find it in tactical RPG's and RTS games. The only time i tend to hate turn based combat is when it becomes repetitive and redundant thanks to random encounters.

 

[Nazulu]

So RTS and FPS are the gods of gaming? :/ Sorry but RPGs are not as random as you claim them to be.

You little, I want to hurt you so much. I stopped reading after this sentance. Why you ask, well for one I didn't say one was better than the other and I didn't say all RPGs are completely random.

Some are just random like some games from all genre's are complete shit! However every single RPG game that I have played does contain those elements, if this somehow offends you, get over it. Talk to me properly or don't talk at all.

 

[Zefar]

So RTS and FPS are the gods of gaming? :/ Sorry but RPGs are not as random as you claim them to be.

You little, I want to hurt you so much. I stopped reading after this sentance. Why you ask, well for one I didn't say one was better than the other and I didn't say all RPGs are completely random.

Some are just random like some games from all genre's are complete shit! However every single RPG game that I have played does contain those elements, if this somehow offends you, get over it. Talk to me properly or don't talk at all.

Then let me quote something you said

I've played them all, FF games, Golden Sun games, Pokemon, etc. And if you honestly think they have better gameplay than RTS and FPS games then your talking out of your ass!

You said all of those where worse than ANY RTS and FPS. That's just wrong. I played some pretty bad RTS games in my time and boy can Pokemon beat them alone. Same goes for FPS which is known to have some pretty rotten ones in their series. Claiming any FPS is better than a random Final Fantasy game is not right either.

Offends me? :/ Hardly, it's just that you kinda overreact. I played a lot of RPGs and random poison, critical, dodge have never really turned the tides in a battle for me. My level did thou.