What makes great encounters in RPGs?

[Captain Shrek]

When I say encounters here, I want to talk about something very specific; essentially the placement and type of enemies you "encounter" as you progress through the game. One thing to be noted is that mechanics of the game plays a very important role in determining what kind of encounters are actually challenging and fun as opposed to being annoying. But in this discussion I would like to isolate the placement aspect as much as possible. Thus I am talking in a general sense of the term.

Having said that, the following things make great encounter design in my opinion:

1) Logical placement:

You are in a forest of the tropical lands of Oznia. You are attacked by Frost Giants. It turns out that these miserable creatures are attacking you because...

This is what distinguishes a random encounter from a hand-placed one. A random encounter in a tropical forest should be creatures that make sense in that setting and environment. But a hand-placed encounter can be an unusual choice which when explained to fit into the story doubles the enjoyment since there is a mystary!!! associated with it.

2) Challenge rating:

You complete you battle training from the mercenary guild and step out of the town. You are ambushed by a band of bandits, who take you hostage if you surrender or leave you be if you challenge their leader in a single combat with your well placed taunts and defeat him.

For the second option to be viable, the game requires you have to have enough POSSIBLE capacity to succeed in BOTH Taunt checks and Combat prowess at the same time. If you fail at either and don't surrender, then C&C bitch.

3) Variability:

While searching for the hidden lair of the Swamp witch you are suddenly assaulted by a swarm of dangerous Ziggu flies. You curse filthily and exclaim "NOT AGAIN!!!"

A good encounter is of course which is non-repetitive.

4) Challenging:

After assassinating the lord Mal'panis of the Lomar Empire, you fail your stealth check while escaping his bed chamber and your path is obstructed by his loyal and mute bodyguard Tomba brought from the jungles of Tarambis. In the first round you critical hit him and he dies agonizingly in a pool of his own blood...

Well, that was disappointing AND anti-climactic. Unless you are damn lucky (make that double damned) this should not happen.

5) Rewarding and meaningful:

You fight the terrifying Imp summoned by the orcish lich zugzug and after a terrific battle he drops........ the Scepter of the kings????

How the hell did that happen? He should be holding the spear of Avernus! Which is a strong weapon capable of fighting demons/devils (whatever is the opposite type of an imp).

 

[Excidium]

The enviroment. In almost every CRPG, the encounters could be happening in a forest, in a mountain, in a cave, in a city or in an empty, featureless room and it would play the same. How many CRPGs made use of something as basic as higher ground or cover?

Good video on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GvfkzMeSGfQ#t=1950s

 

[Psquit]

strip clubs with nude chicks cover in nutella. ^what he said.

 

[shihonage]

Variety.

 

[Crooked Bee]

They should be as deadly as possible, that's my only strong preference.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Knights of the Chalice should be used as a basic case study on how to make great encounters, at least in my opinion :D. Here's why: I had one encounter in a fortress (sorry, I forget who owned this fortress...) where I met a magic user along with their usual retinue of giants and other assorted baddies. The encounter played out differently each time I attempted it; some times I'd get initiative and manage to confuse some enemies and watch them walk into braziers, others they managed to slaughter my party after some bad rolls on my part. Also, the encounter was tricky due to the fact that when you enter, you start combat in a damn doorway and have very little room to maneuver so each decision to move one guy or another is critical to your ensured success as you didn't want to get screwed by having your wizard get flanked.

There are a lot more awesome encounters in that game that it's tough to dissect each one. In short, the game has tons of great encounters if you go along the rather thin story line :D.

 

[tuluse]

A game with good encounters is one that forces you to change your tactics and try new things, while also communicating the fact to player that they need to try something new and didn't lose because of bad rolls.

It's hard to say what makes individual encounters good or bad without looking at the game as a whole.

 

[DraQ]

placement

No mentions of actual placement (as in positioning) found - other than Dramatic Popcorn's and Excidium's responses, but I'm talking about the OP.

 

[DeepOcean]

Good encounter are the ones that cause this: How, I'm going to defeat this? Instead of: OK , I will just spam my Finger of Doom 2000 spell again.

A good encounter should require a radical change on tactics instead of just: I will use the green spell this time, instead of the blue one.

 

[Roguey]

Something interesting to distinguish it from all the other battles. Usually requires a high chance of total party wipe.

The enviroment. In almost every CRPG, the encounters could be happening in a forest, in a mountain, in a cave, in a city or in an empty, featureless room and it would play the same. How many CRPGs made use of something as basic as higher ground or cover?

DA:O sometimes had groups of archers on elevated ground to give them an accuracy bonus, occasionally with a trap or a barricade placed in the path to reach them.

 

[sea]

I'll quote my past self from September here in another identical thread. It's my own RPG Codex Infinite!

Like designing interesting videogame challenges in general, you have to look at the different properties of a game environment or scenario and modify them in interesting ways.

For example:

• Spatial. Is an environment big or small? Is it wide open or claustrophobic? Is it empty or full of objects to navigate around? Is there terrain elevation or is it flat? Are the enemies close to the player or far away?
• Temporal. How fast do enemies move? How fast do they attack? How long does it take the player to close the distance to them? Is there a time limit on defeating them? Do the enemies perform some special action if the player waits too long?
• Abilities and traits. What abilities and skills does the player have available? What do the enemies have available? How do they use them? Which abilities are effective? Which ones are ineffective? Are there many enemies, or only a few? Are they powerful or weak? Do they have resistances and immunities?
• Goals and scenarios. Does the player need to capture an enemy instead of kill him/her/it? Does the player have options in navigating the encounter? Is the player forced into combat, or can it be avoided? Does the player have party members and allies, or are they gone for the duration of the encounter?

In truth, I'm stealing this from here, albeit adapting it slightly to an RPG-style format: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167214/rational_design_the_core_of_.php?page=7

The point is, depth and complexity in any game comes from the potential in its systems and mechanics for interesting combinations. The best RPG combat is like a puzzle - success should be contingent on figuring out the right way to deal with a situation, rather than simply level grinding so you can curb stomp enemies. Brute force should be just as effective in certain situations as using magic spells, or subterfuge.

Similarly, the worst encounter design is usually a direct result of the developer never modifying those basic attributes of combat - the same old caves, the same old copy-pasted enemies, the same old skills being used over and over again. Games like Dragon Age II, for instance, don't have shitty combat necessarily because the rules are bad, or even the "enemy waves" thing, but because the developer failed to put them in interesting and varied contexts.

This is usually very difficult to include, of course, especially in a game not focused entirely on combat, so you rarely see it. The reason why many RPGs aren't that much fun, especially more modern ones, is largely because with such a limited number of attributes within the gameplay systems, you can only have so many different combinations before you run out of new challenges to create, and suddenly you are limited to only aesthetic variations (i.e. new enemy skins and models).

The best games in this respect that I've played have been the two Icewind Dale titles - they have lots of combat, and sometimes it's a bit repetitive, but the enemy variety and the requirement to exploit their weaknesses, the environment's own layout, special items, etc. makes it consistently fun and engaging, plus there are chances to avoid combat in many places if you take the time to talk to people. As far as combat itself goes, they are almost perfectly paced and balanced.

 

[DeepOcean]

I good encounter should have different enemies capable of dealing with different tactic used by the player

Varied landscape, with enemies taking advantage of it, Ice Wind Dale games had that happen pretty often when you get a lot of archers standing across some gap/high above you/etc. Also, variety of ways to close those gaps would be something neat (levitation, climbing a rope/ladder/sneaking into a side passage/etc)

Actually deadly traps.

Actual ambushes that don't boil down to a bunch of people in a narrow passage way that actually benefits player instead of disadvantaging them.

And of corse variety of enemies, to create at least an illusion of them working together against you, with one of the mages dropping down grease while another immideately ingites it, cleric buffing his allies with a quick prayer, fighters holding up their shields to protect the archers who are raining arrows on your party. Sigh.

Yeah, if you are attacking enemies, it actually makes sense that they prepared fortifications waiting for you with barricades blocking your progress, archers on high walls with wizards waiting to dispel any spell you cast . You should need to search for a weakness, send a thief to discover a hidden side entrance full of traps so you can infiltrate on enemies lines and backstab the motherfucker that is stopping you from casting fear on those archers in the wall. There is a mercenary camp, with alot of caged wild animals waiting to be sold, you can infiltrate with your thief to open the cages and use your druid to comunicate with the animals and assume control of them, so a very hard fight would be easy with the mercenaries having to fight you and the animals at same time. There is a terrible swamp, between you and the enemy camp, trying to fight in this swamp is impossible because you are going to be slowed because of the terrain and the enemy archers are going to make alot of new holes in you but if tou have a mage you can levitate, use a ranger to avoid the worst parts of the swamp and discover a safe path. The friendly army is advancing and asked for you do a scout, you discovered that there is a series of small fortifications that could easily warn the enemy army with a system of fires, you can approach each fort with a thief, kill the guy responsible for the fire and put your group on a position that is impossible for the rest of the enemies to reach the fire or just use a water based spell to make impossible to use the fire.

 

[octavius]

Playing FRUA modules I'm constantly amazed by how lowly amateurs can provide me with better (challenging and more varied) encounters than most professional designers. OTOH, I'm also disappointed that so many FRUA authors also think lots of random encounters is a good idea. Fortunately it's very easy to remove the random encounters or reduce their frequency.

 

[MicoSelva]

I generally agree with OP.

 

[made]

Varied landscape, with enemies taking advantage of it, Ice Wind Dale games had that happen pretty often when you get a lot of archers standing across some gap/high above you/etc.

What advantage did the archers in IWD have by being placed "high above you" on a 2D plane? You could still mow them down with fireballs just as easily.

In FFT on the other hand, terrain actually gives tangible bonuses in combat, affects movement, and geomancy spells. One of the reasons why that game had probably the best and most varied encounters in any RPG I've played.

 

[DeepOcean]

With alot of possibilities, I still don't know why game designers insist on caves full of goblins with alot of goblins groups with 10 melee goblins and one shaman that only know fireball as a spell. The encounters should work like a puzzle with many different solutions, if you want the trash goblins, Ok, but at least put here and there really good combat encounters. I liked the commandos series alot, I could easily see that working with RPG mechanics and turn based combat.

 

[Lord Andre]

Beyond the details that are tied to the particulars of whatever rule system you're using, beyond that, I would say this:

When making an encounter you have to think like an evil DM: "How can I twink this encounter in order to maximize my chances of killing 1-2 players but avoid a total party kill ?"

Shit developers think like this. "At this point in the game, the expected damage output of the party is x. I will put in monsters with 50% of x hitpoints. Done."

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

A game with good encounters is one that forces you to change your tactics and try new things.

Pretty much this. Utilising the terrain as well, something that I've never seen in recent 'RPGs' and I don't mean abusing fog of war or enemy line of sight because the AI is fuckall retarded. This should also force the player to build a varied party that can adapt and defeat/maneuver around any encounter if he/she is bright enough to do so. (was currently playing icewind dale 2 and it was extremely irritating how you could break the game with a couple of monks in your party)

Encounters being challenging and rewarding was already mentioned but I'll repeat them here anyway. There is nothing more satisfying and immersive than leading your party into a rapehole and having to fight tooth and nail to avoid the namesake of said hole. Personally I rarely cared about the storyline of most RPGs, it was that feeling of fear and unease that I wanted when encountering a mob that could easily thrash me and giving it all I had to beat them.

 

[Sensuki]

Something interesting to distinguish it from all the other battles. Usually requires a high chance of total party wipe.
DA:O sometimes had groups of archers on elevated ground to give them an accuracy bonus, occasionally with a trap or a barricade placed in the path to reach them.

and on Nightmare mode they all had that fucking knockdown skill, I don't know if you've ever played DA:O on Nightmare but thats what I did on my first and only playthrough and every single encounter with groups of ranged opponents was absolute aids, because your entire party pretty much got continuously knocked down several times and because there were so many of those encounters, it got old really fast. Difficult but fucking cheesy.

 

[Lancehead]

Emergence is something that can make for interesting encounters. A very basic example is the factions in New Vegas. If you piss of Legion, for example, enough they'll send assassins after the pc. It's possible that when they find you, you're near an NCR patrol. So now you have the aid of NCR with whom you can easily dispatch the assassin party. Another similar example is luring lurkers in Gothic II to attack goblins.

 

[Crispy]

Something needs to be said about weaker encounters here.

While it's generally true that challenging foes are the most memorable, all encounters regardless of their strength have the potential to stand out when it comes to how well they fit within the particular milieu, how they integrate with the story and make sense in why and where they're placed, and their ability to make an impression on the player once dealt with.

If there's anything I hate it's meaningless trash encounters. They're invariably on the weaker side, usually placed simply to slow you down, soak up your time and/or resources and generally be annoying.

These are however the best opportunities for a developer to put more thought into encounter design as a whole. It's easy to place ultra-powerful creatures around every corner and laugh maniacally knowing the player is going to soon hopelessly crush his forehead against his desk out of desperation. But a few well thought-out, sensible encounters with creatures who can easily be dispatched, but that may make the player reflect on his decisions to do so, or even just to admire how far he's come in his progress, add a whole new meaning to playing the game itself.

Dragonlings that have to be killed for the safety of the town. Orc tribe pups who've all been diseased. Predatory birds that are otherwise harmless interfering with the livelihood of a fishing village.

These are examples of encounters that can impact the player's impression of a game just as much as the Foozle at the end.

 

[circ]

Yeah factions are an interesting and viable encounter mechanic IMO. Things get more personal and LARPy when you feel like you're encountering more than faceless cloned thugs in the wilds.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I enjoy when i have the chance to influence how an encounters starts and in what conditions. Take Age of Decadence for example, i could poison the enemies wine before entering combat, making the fight easier, developers should allow the player to set the stage in a lot of the "major" fights, adding reactivity instead of focusing only on mob composition.

 

[Gozma]

a high stakes (game-wise, as in winning or losing) nonlinear puzzle where I also learn shit about the game and system that plays out with significantly different permutations every time I try it

yeah I know

 

[sser]

Foreplay.