Visual or Non-Visual Encounters

[CraftGeek]

I'm going to be working on the monsters and encounters in my game and wanted to see what everyone thought. Do you prefer visual encounters (where you can see the enemy and fight if you want to) or non-visual encounters (default, where you're walking and you encounter monsters)? Let me know what you think.

Thought I would ask this hear, since it's about monsters. How do you determine the strength of your monsters (HP, MP, ATK, etc.)? I'm interested to see how everyone finds that balance (still working on that one).

 

[Zarsla]

I pefer visible encounters from a game design lens, as it let's me control the amount of battles I have. On top, of that it's eaiser to do evented systems dealing with battles as well.

For balancing I use Yanfly's Clasdms Based Enemies to help with balancing.

For my game in particlar monsters in duegons, are the average of the each stat of the team × level based multipler
then +/- a random decent number. It keeps it balanced yet even.
HP: teams average * multipler +/- 100
MP: teams average * multipler +/- 75
ATK,DEF &AGI: teams average * multipler +/- 15

 

[CraftGeek]

Thanks, I'm leaning toward visible, but testing both to see which one will work for my game. I'll have to check out Yanfly's Clasdms Based Enemies. I usually have a pretty hard time getting everything balanced with the monsters.

 

[Gregorius]

My vote would also be more toward visible encounters (at least in dungeons/locations). If in the world-map, you could do random/invisible, but it becomes too much guesswork from the player's perspective (and aimless wondering) if that's the way it is everywhere. Then, if the player wants to just grind, they could chase the monsters down (or let them catch you), and if not, then they could just run away.

 

[AnnTenna]

I vote for visual encounters too. But if your game has narrow corridors and a meeting can't be avoided, I think, then it's not a good idea.

 

[CraftGeek]

Thanks for the advice, I'll be working on my monster database this week.