Encounter Rate

Aztec Triogal

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I realized this when playing Final Fantasy V about a year ago...

One of the things I find interesting about this game, as well as annoying, is how often you get into battles. Sometimes when you're walking through a dungeon, you can barely take a step before you're launched into another battle. Given how low your HP and stats are throughout the game, it really makes it difficult to survive in several parts. So you're thinking "so what?" and "why isn't this is the FFV forum?"...

The answer is because I think that Square does a lot of leveling designing in their games to make them as smooth as they can be. In long games like Final Fantasy X, you can make a slow leveling slope and the battles will stay relatively easy throughout the game. You have more time, so your natural progression can be slower. You don't need to get into as many battles, because you have that lower encounter rate.

My point is that, because games like Final Fantasy V were so short and that leveling platform was so steep, they needed a way to keep the palyer in the game. I think their answer for that was an extremely high encounter rate. In other words, you get drug into a lot of battles just so you can keep up with the progress of the game... which is kinda scrunched because you could not make long games in that time.

Their only other options would have been to start you off really high, meaning that the game was easy in the beginning... but incredibly hard at the end. Or they could have just made the differencial between your first badguys and the final boss very small... but that would have taken away from the epic nature of the game.

Oh man, this is kinda cool. I guess it never dawned on me before. Thoughts?
 
yeah ive noticed that as well FFIV and FFV are notorius for that -_- i hate the frequency of random battles >_< thats why i prefer X VII and VI - the battles arnt as frequent and you still are drawn into the game - yet you can be at whatever level you wanna be at ^_^

But yeah - i like your suggestion i think that if you were at a higher level at the start it would be easier and more fun to play - plus the learning curve would have been faster. i never got round to completing IV or V because of the number of random battle - it annoyed me so >_<
 
Haven't taken notice of that actually, since the only Final Fantasies I've even touched were VII to X-2. But yeah, I can see where you're coming from, and if you ask me, it seems quite practical the encounter rates would be that way, and differ slightly from the later installments.

Speaking of encounters, I do remember that were some weapon abilities in Final Fantasy X that had "No Encounter." Was this ever featured in the other games? To me, it was like heaven. I was running through levels without a care in the world, lol.
 
I've never noticed the earlier games having a higher encounter rate, but i have noticed that only VI, VII, VIII, X and X-2 have the 'no encounters' ability. I find the games a lot easier without random battles.
 
They had No Encounter in FF8 and Encounter Down Materia in FF7.

As far as I know there was a No Encounter item in FF6.
 
FFX seemed the worst at it...

"Ohh! 2 centimeters away from a save crystal! Good! Only Rikku is left alive with no MP and no potions!"

*Damn Tonberry...*

ALways seems to nip me in the ass once per playthrough.
 
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