LOE - Armageddon (Encounter Type Poll)

[legendoferthia]

I brought this up a long time ago, but I am going to take another poll. Out of the two possible methods below, which one do you think should be used to handle encounter types?

Option 1: Creatures on the map following the heroes and when touched battle is activated, but is limited to showing one sprite and generating a battle of 100% the sprite on the map (creature) and then 2 other randomly selected creatures in the area. Creatures would respawn over time.

Option 2: Battles will be randomly generated similar to MM2 (I think that is how it worked not 100% sure, haven't played it) by walking on the map and is more realistic in terms of random creature generation. There will be no need for respawning with this option, but it will give more loot and exp. Also, encounter rates won't be every 2 steps but at a decent rate. Of course, main creatures such as guardians, quest creatures, and the such will still have sprites on the map.

Remember, combat is still a bit different than Might and Magic in terms of encounters. The battles still have to be activated.

So which option do you prefer, option 1 or option 2?

[Lord13]

Option 1. has better feeling to know when a combat is close, so you have the option to avoid it by going back or something. Ofc they can be some nasty ambushes (like option 2).

[GrayFace]

Remember, combat is still a bit different than Might and Magic in terms of encounters. The battles still have to be activated.

What do you mean? Getting to choose to fight or not to fight in option 2?
Anyway, option 1 seems right, with 1 addition: I think it should show the strongest creature on map. However, as you described it, it seems the creatures would be generated at the time battle is triggered and reloading may get me different creatures?

[legendoferthia]

Thanks for the feedback Lord13! I can see the benefits and drawbacks of both options. So far the vote is tied. I am counting votes here and on the FB page. Thanks for placing your vote.

[legendoferthia]

@Grayface
Thanks for the vote as well. Just saw your post now. Option two would be random (for the most part). You could still run from combat though.

How it works (currently) with sprites on map is that the creature that will 100% be in battle will show as the sprite. The odds of having more enemies of the same type are also higher, but there are chances of other random creatures as well. As for strongest, it is indeed possible to show that as well, but it would mean more randomness in regards to creature placement.

EDIT: Yes reloading would get you different creatures based on how it work currently with sprites on map. I could always create fixed creature parties as well (not so random). It would take a bit of adjusting though since there are over 600 enemy events and respawns placed in the world.

[GrayFace]

This is very bad. It should be possible somehow to persist the additional monsters. Can RPGMaker set random seed? If not, you can still use a custom random number generator and store random seeds for monsters or even 1 base random seed from which you can get random seeds for specific monster using its ID.

[legendoferthia]

I could store the actual random encounters into arrays. This would capture and save each group encountered instead of 100% random all the time. Basically it would randomly generate the group once, and then it would save it, then it would load the same battle for that one group. I can also just set fixed enemy parties for each sprite on map and no randomness. This would be the closest to MM (fixed creatures).

*I have decided to keep the sprites on map but also have a little randomness with the encounters (kind of like an ambush). This will be helpful for gaining exp and loot while waiting for creatures to respawn, but the random encounters will be set at low frequency.