Playing the old Gold Box game Gateway to the Savage Frontier made me realize that having one of the best combat engines in the history of CRPGs doesn't help when the encounter design is boring, unimaginative and downright lazy.
I'm currently at Tuern and probably 1/3 though the game and so far there has been few unique and even fewer memorable battles. On every map you fight the same fucking battles again and again. Thankfully most maps have a limit of about 5 random encounters (but they are all the same random enconters) but on some maps I have succumbed to something I very rarely do - using the Flee option or saving and reloading in order to escape the utter tediousness of fighting the same fucking group of Northmen for the hundreth time. Even the set encounters get repeated in this game, like in Luskan where you fight the same group of Pirates and Margoyles in the five different mansions.
Even the "boss" battles are boring, with the boss being just a regular Kraken Captain or Hosttower Mage, of which you have killed dozens already.
Congratulations to Don Daglow on this "achievement" of lazy and unimaginative encounter design. And ditching the Parley option was just icing on the cake. Even going into Taverns in you had just the option of Fight or Leave. No drinking, relaxing and talking.
My other "favourite" when it comes to poor encounter design is Knights of Legend. You never ever meet a mixed group of monsters. It's always 6-10 of the same type. In this game the first thing I did was purchasing horses for my party so that they could run from random encounters.
Honorary mention must go to th Bard's Tale games that threw random encounters at your every few seconds (1 and 2) or steps (3). But at least the random encounters were totally random and varied.
Now to the games that did it right.
Of all the games I've played I think Baldur's Gate 2 is in a class of it's own when it comes to good and varied encounter design. In how many other games than the Baldur's Gate game do you get to fight against several other parties of adventurers?
And then there's all the "boss fight" against Dragons and Liches (both of which are far better implemented than their weak Gold Box counterparts) and the other Bhaalspawn.
Even though the combat system could have been better (I disliked it at first, but have grown to like it) the enocunter design and wide range of options more than makes up for it, IMO.
The Icewind Dale games also had quite a good encounter design, but hade more filler combat and less special encounters than the BG games. But it was a nice change to go from very powerful single enemies to fighting large groups of enemies. Especially the Severed Hand had some very good battles against armies of shadowed elves.
Of the old school games I think Pool of Radiance, Death Knights of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn and Pools of Darkness had good and varied encounter design.
I liked the huge battles in PoR. Much more fun with one mother of all battles than dozens of smaller copy pasted battles that only serve to annoy the player (unless you are a compulsive grinder) and whittle down the HP of the party.
These games also had limited and varied random encounters.
I played Death Knights of Krynn before Gateway to the Savage Frontier and it's remarkable how one game could do it right and the next one do it all wrong. In DKoK nearly every battle was unique and there was usually a reason for the encounters, while in GttSF it's just "Monsters Attack! Fight or Flee?"
Of the other old school CRPGs most of the classics had adequate encounter design, but most of them were rather random and thus quite varied.
I'm currently at Tuern and probably 1/3 though the game and so far there has been few unique and even fewer memorable battles. On every map you fight the same fucking battles again and again. Thankfully most maps have a limit of about 5 random encounters (but they are all the same random enconters) but on some maps I have succumbed to something I very rarely do - using the Flee option or saving and reloading in order to escape the utter tediousness of fighting the same fucking group of Northmen for the hundreth time. Even the set encounters get repeated in this game, like in Luskan where you fight the same group of Pirates and Margoyles in the five different mansions.
Even the "boss" battles are boring, with the boss being just a regular Kraken Captain or Hosttower Mage, of which you have killed dozens already.
Congratulations to Don Daglow on this "achievement" of lazy and unimaginative encounter design. And ditching the Parley option was just icing on the cake. Even going into Taverns in you had just the option of Fight or Leave. No drinking, relaxing and talking.
My other "favourite" when it comes to poor encounter design is Knights of Legend. You never ever meet a mixed group of monsters. It's always 6-10 of the same type. In this game the first thing I did was purchasing horses for my party so that they could run from random encounters.
Honorary mention must go to th Bard's Tale games that threw random encounters at your every few seconds (1 and 2) or steps (3). But at least the random encounters were totally random and varied.
Now to the games that did it right.
Of all the games I've played I think Baldur's Gate 2 is in a class of it's own when it comes to good and varied encounter design. In how many other games than the Baldur's Gate game do you get to fight against several other parties of adventurers?
And then there's all the "boss fight" against Dragons and Liches (both of which are far better implemented than their weak Gold Box counterparts) and the other Bhaalspawn.
Even though the combat system could have been better (I disliked it at first, but have grown to like it) the enocunter design and wide range of options more than makes up for it, IMO.
The Icewind Dale games also had quite a good encounter design, but hade more filler combat and less special encounters than the BG games. But it was a nice change to go from very powerful single enemies to fighting large groups of enemies. Especially the Severed Hand had some very good battles against armies of shadowed elves.
Of the old school games I think Pool of Radiance, Death Knights of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn and Pools of Darkness had good and varied encounter design.
I liked the huge battles in PoR. Much more fun with one mother of all battles than dozens of smaller copy pasted battles that only serve to annoy the player (unless you are a compulsive grinder) and whittle down the HP of the party.
These games also had limited and varied random encounters.
I played Death Knights of Krynn before Gateway to the Savage Frontier and it's remarkable how one game could do it right and the next one do it all wrong. In DKoK nearly every battle was unique and there was usually a reason for the encounters, while in GttSF it's just "Monsters Attack! Fight or Flee?"
Of the other old school CRPGs most of the classics had adequate encounter design, but most of them were rather random and thus quite varied.
