When did delay become a desirable game feature?

I am little calmer now. Getting the pilgrim hat helped. Pixels yay.

I do hope they:

1) lower the frequency of encounters, OR
2) ideally, let us opt out of them

AND

1) make encounters more interesting (I have no doubt they will) AND
2) load quicker (also no doubt that this will improve)

I understand why some people like encounters, and I understand why they're in the game. But based on comments here and on other threads there may be a significant part of the population that would benefit tremendously from the ability to opt out of encounters, either as a permanent opt-out (like a check-the-box in the Options tab) or in a scene-by-scene opt out. Forcing players to do these, for me, is like punishment TBH, I get nothing out of it except frustration. Huge negative for me.

 

Yes except for ambushes, I think.

Things affecting visibility: dense forests, night, fog. Plus, the range at which you can see the encounters should also be limited, and influenced by the size of the enemy. You would be able to see dragons at far range, because of their size, but would be able to see small wolf spiders from a shorter range.. though still be able to avoid them. Standing on hills would enhance your vision. Flying creatures like dragons would even be seen over forests.

Everyone go pledge for mounts :>

 

@Budner,

Honestly, I agree with you on some of your issues, like I said I don't like hidden encounters, I think they should be visible on the map... but encounters are avoidable as it is, if you stick to roads... and they become more frequent the more of a dangerous area you're in, like the marsh. So, even as it stands, its just a matter of avoiding dangerous areas.

 

i had random encounters multiple times while on a road

 

Not me, yet.

 

I doubt this will ever be the case, as the devs have always referred to overland map encounters as "random encounters".

If you can see them ahead of time, they aren't random.

Personally, I agree and would prefer to see them and avoid them as well, but I have a feeling that is not meant to be...

 

Yeah I had several encounters on the road, or at least immediately adjacent to the road.

Also, many of the interesting/quest areas on the map are without roads (swamp, Greymark, etc.), so you can't always use the roads to access the many great features in the game.

@redfish, visible encounters would also be a great solution since you could avoid them or interact with them in your discretion. Great idea.

I can honestly say that if the encounter frequency doesn't change, I can't see myself playing this game.

I've played games forever. I can' t remember a more annoying game feature.

 

I don't think you should be able to "opt" out of encounters as it would really break the balance of the game....

I'm not sure how the devs feel about this, but it's like saying you go through a dangerous woods you should be able to turn off the dangerous part.

 

wasteland 2 has random encounters with an overland map. The good part? Investing skill points in the wilderness skill (or whatever its called), raises your percentage to be able to avoid the encounter (via hiding, or whatever).

That seems to strike an excellent balance.

 

As far as I know, yes, you are being punished but you are not alone, !!! I feel punished too !!!.

 

Having options like hide/run away/bribe might work, if they don't have a 100% success rate. I don't know how the devs feel about that.

 

I have never 'completed' a single CRPG ( from Telengard 32 years ago till now ) that had random encounters in it, they bored me shitless.

I have had 12 random encounters now in less than 30 minutes of play - 25% of those the scenes were empty, so I encountered random 'air'. Rest of the times I just ran straight through because I did not fancy getting surrounded immediately after loading into those scenes and then dying and having to wait god knows how long to resurrect on the spot to immediately get targeted and killed again. So basically I am spending a good proportion of my time waiting for scenes to load...

I play games to be entertained, distracted, waste some of my own spare time - not to be trained like a dog to be 'patient' etc - life is too short, time is precious and the amount of money most of us have probably invested in this means our expectations will be a lot higher than paying a standard price for other triple 'A' titles...

Many of you will probably defend 'it' because you are 'protecting' your investment but surely some innovation in gameplay and game mechanics is not too much to ask ?

 

I would love to get a random as I'd actually be doing something. Right now my experience consists of. . Log into overworld map. Attempt to enter Owl's Head. Game Crash. I am about to abandon this first quest but holy crap if I abandon the first initial quest I feel like such a quitter LOL.

 

Have you tried changing your Video settings to Fastest for Quality Level ?

 

Yeah my cpu is on the "fastest" setting by default. But anyway, Darkstarr just informed me that my computer is only utilizing 3gb of it's 4gb of ram which is part of my issue, the rest is that most of the scenes use at least 4gb of ram so i'm going to have to get a new computer it looks like.

 

Yeah, they still have a lot of work to do to stabilize the client. I suspect a lot of it has to do with memory management. As far as load times, we should keep the pressure on. This is not an open-world game, so the unavoidable scene transitions we are forced to go through endlessly must not be further punished by long load times. It will be a game killing experience. They should strive for no more than 10 second load times on the recommended spec.

Regarding random encounters...yes, they do appear to be too numerous based on some ad-hoc feedback. I've actually only had 1 encounter so far, but I've also played very little on the overworld map. And yeah, I encountered what appeared to be an empty scene at night. But hey, bugs.

I don't think that encounters should generally happen along the roads. These are supposed to be well lit, well traveled and even patrolled (supposedly, at least according to original intent). Not saying there shouldn't be any along roads, but those should be very few and/or based on some overall roaming logic.

But encounters should be more frequent at night. They should be more frequent in certain areas, like dense forests, near dungeons, perhaps near contested areas for high value resources, etc.

 

Or just get more mem

 

I'm going to have to see if that's possible, when I added the last two gb last time the guys at Fry's told me my computer couldn't take more than 4gb. It's an old dell inspiron 531 i bought in like 2005 or something.

 

Perhaps a "perception" skill could be raised increasing your awareness of your surroundings, revealing things on the map such as monsters and beasts (tracks?) on the map, allowing you some degree of RE avoidance. I also found it quite jarring being taken to 2 RE encounters 1 hex after another. The first with wolves the second empty. Both happened on the road btw.

 

People don't like random encounters?! I'll admit the random encounters in the pre-alpha are pretty boring, but they still have potential. In Fallout 3, random encounters were my favorite part of the game. As Dippy Bird would say, SotA's random encounters just need "a little polish".

All hail the dippy bird.