Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Random Encounters Done Right

OK. I'm bringing back up the topic of random encounters because I just had some REALLY good experiences with random encounters in Solasta.

Holy crud! I went into the Badlands and suddenly got attacked by several orcs, two ogres and a tougher orc (can't remember what it was called). One of the toughest fights in the game that I've had so far and VERY exciting. My level 3 characters were surprised/ambushed in the middle of the night while resting on the road, and hey swarmed my 4 PCs and pounded on them. My half-orc barbarian went into a frenzy as soon as he could and got resistance, thankfully, tanking a good number of attacks against him. My druid barely got the chance to heal him and my sorcerer who was also taking a pounding. Fortunately, my sorcerer was able to cast Shatter a few times, and they were mostly clustered together. And fortunately my characters were rolling well. But dang! Exciting fight.

What I like about Random Encounters if they are done right:

1. You get to fight a variety of monsters; not just the ones who are set for the main storyline quests. In Solasta, I've fought elementals in the wild, wolves, eagles, orcs, goblins, ogres, bandits, and many, many more.
2. There are consequences for trying to rest in dangerous areas. You never know when an enemy might surprise attack you while you're trying to rest, and the more dangerous the area, the more dangerous the potential enemies that could attack you.
3. Makes the world feel a bit more alive. Instead of having a static world where nothing ever changes, random encounters provide sudden, surprise encounters. Even if you've played the game 1000 times, you might still have a different experience combat-wise because you could be roaming to an area that doesn't have enemies and suddenly have enemies pop out at you. You never know when you might round a corner and suddenly have someone attack you. It makes every door a bit more frightening and every corner a bit more nerve-wracking, especially if you're not doing well. Suddenly, sneaking becomes so much more valuable. I mean, I've played BG3 for over 500 hours, and I know where everything is in EA. I know when to sneak and when it's fine not to, and I can prepare for every fight and gimmick everything because I know exactly how to kill every single enemy in the game. After awhile, it gets stale and boring. Random Encounters would mean that suddenly, as I'm heading towards the bog, a pack of wolves pop out at me. Surprise! Wasn't expecting that.

That said, don't get me wrong, when Random Encounters aren't done right, it is pointless and stupid. However, if done well, Random Encounters can be VERY rewarding and fun.

I would like random encounter chances to happen when you long rest in non-secure areas. You are safe to long rest when you do it at an inn or inside the Druid grove, for example. Camping in a dangerous area should trigger a chance for a random encounter. This would help fix the current situation of being able to spam long rests without many consequences. With how compact the world is in this game, having random encounters while walking around seems less practical. There just aren’t many open areas that you have to walk through. Also, I assume that the developers are working hard on pacing of the game, so random encounters while out and about could mess with that.

Solasta's weakness is using the same few maps for random encounters over and over again. Maps like that should be very generic without notable buildings or landmarks so the repetition isn't as noticeable.

BG3 has much larger areas though. I'd like BG3 to have a system that would (re-)populate the existing map with monsters and encounters. After clearing the Blighted Village new goblins should come from the Goblin Fort eventually to investigate. Wolves and other beasts should smell blood where a battle took place and come for dinner. You should always be on your toes in the Underdark, never knowing when a drow or duergar patrol or a hook horror shows up. It's things like this that make the world feel real and alive i.e. immersive. BG3's world is static, scripted and lifeless. The missing day/night cycle is already very bad and the lifeless maps are the final blow.

The free magical teleportation from anywhere system would make random encounters largely pointless in BG3 of course. I would also like that system to be redesigned into one where the party actually travels from A to B by foot, just much faster. Solasta beats BG3 here as well with their fast travel system that moves the party on a map with the possibility of being interrupted by hostiles. I really dislike BG3's fast travel system both thematically and mechanically. Portals like that only the player can use don't make sense in Faerûn or any credible RPG setting, and mechanically they are just so convenient that they destroy any feeling of epic adventure, travel or distance. It's a gamey gimmick made real in Forgotten Realms and it sucks.

If done right, random encounters would be a great system to discourage Long Rest spam in BG3. There could be some amount of guaranteed safety if you rest sparingly, but once you start spamming rests the enemies should also become more and more likely to find you. There really needs to be an incentive to play well and manage your resources efficiently rather than just smashing the Long Rest button whenever you've spent a spell slot. A good (not frustrating) random encounter system would go a long way to fix that.

It would also give scouting, fleeing or otherwise avoiding combat a real purpose. If you don't have to go through them or kill them, you could avoid a random encounter and save your strength. Would give Rogues and Rangers a purpose. Perhaps talk your way out of it.

Hello. I am against random encounters. it's only interesting the first time. then they get annoying. I just finished another playthrough of Dragon Age Origin. and only made sure that I hate random meetings. in Baldur Gates 2 and Passfinder they were just as annoying. and I remember trying with all my might to avoid it.

I wouldn't like random encounters. I agree with with middle tab that they get annoying quite fast. If Larian is looking into solutions on how to reduce rest spamming, I hope they consider just having certain areas where you cannot do long rests (e.g. Spider caves). This already exists in the hag's lair, so I think it's likely they're planning it for other areas too.

Just disabling resting in certain locations doesn't solve the problem. You're not locked inside the hag's lair, you can leave at any time and rest right on the doorstep. The map's not that big either, so it doesn't even take long to run outside. It may dissuade some players from backtracking on bigger maps, but not the determined ones. You can't lock the player inside either, because that can lead to an unsolvable game state if you're, for example, too low level to deal with the hag.

Random encounters strike me as a way to cheese the game: spam rests and farm experience and loot via random encounters. Remove all rewards? That would feel artificial in its own way. But a static world is a problem as well, so I honestly don't know.

Right now you're actually encouraged to spam long rests, and that's a big problem. By playing efficiently and resting as little as possible, you're skipping a huge part of companion interactions. You have to rest three times between landing on the beach and getting to the grove if you want to get the most camp scenes, it's ridiculous. So in light of that, are Larian even interested in preventing rest spam? They seem to have integrated it into their design.

+1 to all

In favour of it esp. when long resting. Random encounter chance might be very low (way lower than in games such as Pathfinder) but it can still be there.

Again, IF DONE RIGHT, Random Encounters can be VERY good and fun. I agree, BG1 and 2 and Icewind Dale and Pathfinder, they all had baby, horrible, random encounters. There was nothing challenging or fun about them. They were just annoying. I'd still spam Long Rests, but I'd have to fight off random encounters three or four times, slaughtering tons of goblins or whatever, just to get a single Long Rest. It was annoying.

But I witnessed the Random Encounters in Solasta several times, and I've found them to be quite rewarding. You're roaming through more civilized areas, and the random encounters you run into aren't as bad. A group of bandits ambushes you while you rest, or you happen upon them on the road. Nothing huge, but gives you the sense that you're really traveling through a world and you randomly encounter enemies on the way, clearing the roads for travelers and such. I agree that the maps are fairly redundant, but then many things in Solasta would have been WAY better with more budget. They ran out of money, in my opinion, to REALLY polish that game and make it awesome.

But anyway, then while traveling through some bad areas, THAT'S when the Random Encounters became challenging and fun and gave variety to what you fight and face. Getting into a Random Encounter every time you long rest is not fun, but if it happens sometimes, at random, that can be fun. Like, "Holy Crap! While resting, some zombies came up out of the small hamlet nearby."

In BG3, they could still do Random Encounters during traveling and whenever you short or long rest. Certain areas have a higher percentage for potential for random encounters. So, you crash on the beach. Random Encounter chance is higher because you just crashed and there's a lot of activity in the area. Maybe you have a chance encounter with some surviving thralls from the ship. Maybe you encounter an imp that was brought over from the Hells. Maybe some crazy infected person, like you, tries to kill you because they're not good and they think by killing you they'll have a higher chance of survival. There could be a gazillion possibilities for lower level characters instead of running into 3 intellect devourers that aren't really intellect devourers because they're so severely nerfed. (Maybe even some panicked fishermen who you can talk down off a ledge so they don't try to just kill you. Maybe you could even talk them into getting out of there... or you chance encounter them fighting some intellect devourers and you're working to save them.)

Then you get to the other side of the nautiloid where there are goblin bodies. Random Encounter chance decreases a bit, but is still relatively high. After all, the goblin bodies are fresh. The goblin leaders sent out a bunch of them to check out the crashing nautiloid. Maybe some are still lurking around somewhere. You round a bend in the path and random encounter spawns two goblin scouts on the path. You head off the path to the south down the cliff and across the rocky ledge. Take a short rest. There, random encounters are way low. It's almost like a rest area with low chance for getting ambushed because you are off the beaten trail and it would be hard to get at you. You come back up and head to the dank crypt, face Gimblebock and his crew and Mari and Barton and their crew. Chance of random encounter is VERY low. Another good place to either short or long rest. You can literally shut the doors and lock them, and the dungeon is small enough that random encounters would be 0. This would make for the first good Long Rest Camp.

You clear the dank crypt and make your way back out. Chance of random encounters increases again (though keep in mind chances for random encounters should always be low... like 0-10% chance every five minutes of gameplay or every short or long rest. I'm just throwing those percentages out there, but the point is the percentages should be low all the time... not like random encounters happening constantly). You leave behind the crypt and find Lae'zel, etc. You're nearing the grove, so chances decrease again because the game is gearing up for you to fight the supposedly big grove gate fight to save Aradin. In the grove, 0% chance of random encounter. You could sleep there as much as you want. Make your way out again after the grove gate fight and random encounter chances increase again. The goblins are looking heavily for you and the weapon and the grove. So they're patrolling the area more. You head up to the Harper Lookout. Boom! Chance Encounter occurs. You surprise a group of 8 boggles. They're trying to avoid all the goblins running around. You could Persuade them to not attack you and let you check out the Harper Lookout Camp and be on your way, OR you could fight them.

You head down to the woods and random encounter wolves eating corpses near Bogrot (Moonhaven). You have the ability to use Animal Handling to chase them off, or they attack you. You try to short rest near where you meet Scratch. Random Encounter occurs and you get attacked by giant spiders that descend on you from above. (Note: All of these things don't happen in a single playthrough or in a single day, but maybe they happen at various days and times while you're playing the game.) The giant spiders surprise you, so some of your characters get webbed before they can even go. Suddenly, the random encounter turns into quite the deadly encounter that is difficult to escape from. Maybe next time you should try to return to the grove or something before resting. It's a dangerous world out there, and random encounters make that much more real.

By the time I'm done with BG3 EA currently, I feel like the entire world is pretty much dead. There is nothing left alive anywhere, and those who are alive are stuck in Groundhog's Day, repeating the same things over and over and over again for days upon days on end.

As for XP and Loot farming, if players are going to do that, more power to them. I would think most players would not want to bore themselves with such things, but if that's what they want to do in order to become gods in the game before they really need to be, that's their choice. I, for one, HATE grinding, so even if a game allows me to grind experience and loot endlessly, I'm not going to do it IF the game makes it so I don't need to. If I can beat all the enemies without grinding, HECK YEAH, I'm going to beat all the enemies without grinding, and THAT'S the kind of game I want to play. I don't want to play a game where I have to mindnumbingly grind in order to continue.

So yeah, if done poorly, Random Encounters would suck. I don't want them slowing the pace down too much or making it so that you become so high level just because you fought a bunch of random monsters that you can beat anything you encounter including boss monsters like Grym. But if they pepper Random Encounters into the game, THAT would spice it up and make it feel more alive.

You have wolves in the game already, and boars and bears and ravens and other such animals. Why not have us encounter more of them randomly? You have many types of monsters already in the game. Why not encounter more of them randomly to spice things up and make everything less static?

Imagine entering the bog on your first playthrough and encountering a giant toad. Then, on a different playthrough, you enter the bog and encounter stirges. Then, on another playthrough, you enter the bog and have to fight a banderhobb. Or maybe during one playthrough, you camp in the bog after fighting the redcaps, and you encounter 8 mites. Guess you should have maybe gone back to rest for the night at the grove instead of in a bog with a nasty hag living in it.

And yeah, I would LOVE for fast travel to be more like Solasta with the potential to be interrupted. I LOVE fast travel because I hate going through areas I've already cleared out and explored. But again, I only love fast travel if done right. In Solasta, you fast travel through a dungeon and a random encounter might interrupt you. Phase Spiders attack on your way back to the dungeon exit. I still fast travel at a super fast speed, but it's not me mysteriously teleporting from the middle of a dungeon to any fast travel point whenever I feel like it. I should not be able to fast travel from the middle of the Underdark to Moonhaven instantly. I should have to at the very least foot it to the nearest Portal with the chance of being attacked on the way, and then teleport to Moonhaven. That, at least, makes more sense from a world-building standpoint.

Oh, and unlike Solasta, I don't need to see a picture of my character moving at super speeds while fast traveling. I do like how BG3 just fades to black. You can still do this with Random Encounters. I travel from the middle of the Underdark to Moonhaven? Fade to black. Random Encounter occurs. Game determines where on the way to the portal I was attacked and puts my characters in formation on the path with enemies ambushing. Gricks attack! Dang! I guess travel in the Underdark really is dangerous. Yeah?

And, again, it doesn't have to be a fight every time. It can be, "You spot a group of carrion crawlers making their way on the path. Do you try to hide? Do you attack so that you gain Surprise?" Oh! Suddenly, Shadowheart's armor that gives her Disadvantage on Stealth is a LOT more of an issue. She might have better protection, but she's not as good at avoiding random encounters with that suit on.

Unless that is what actually triggers the random encounter chance. If you elect to "fast travel" you also elect to take a chance on hitting a random encounter. Just a thought.

Challenging and fun are both words what takes alot, I mean alot of time. I cant understand why they cant use their community. If theres for example 100 kids, who make 1 challenging and exciting battle for them, that sounds good to me. If one of them last 15-30 min, thats lots of content for free.

Neverwinter Online has been big success, theres lots of community content. Sometimes I feel like they didnt check the standards though. Theres tons of crap too.

I am not a fan of random encounters. For me they slow down the pacing too much. I like how fast travel currently works in BG3. I like that BG3 doesn’t waste my time with lots of trash mobs or doubling back.

Random encounters would be great !
The easiest solution to the teleportation fast travel system is to simply cut gale's references to it and instead have your party say something along the lines of 'hmmm I marked the location on a map just in case we need to find our way back here again' , then "fast travel" by map/way-points would simply be an abstraction of real walking/travel over the map.
It would also be nice to not be too random in the encounters and keep them within reasonable limits so that they blend in to the world/story and do not frustrate players or incentivize xp/loot grinding. One way to do this is by dividing the map along "thematic" zones defining the random encounters you can get, by including both positive and negative random events ( bandits vs. traveling merchant), by minimizing loot carried to some frequently needed/bought items (some food, gold, perhaps a healing potion or low level scroll), by level-scaling the combat encounters, by decreasing probability of encounters after the first 2 ones (to represent the fact that once you killed the random bandits showing up at your camp, there is probably less of them around to come disturb you in your sleep).

For instance in the blighted village you could design random combat encounters with goblins (1 or 2 melee, and 1 archer/magic user), refugee/survivor that sells simple healing potions/magic arrows. Around the crypt, bandits/survivor of raided merchant caravan would be the logical/natural choice, in the crashed nautiloid area there could be brain eaters and a once saveable enthralled npc, etc. etc. etc.

Edit: basically, i'm arguing for something that gives the appearance of randomness/spontaneous world, but which is still very much a 'carefully' designed encounter a la Larian, only with some randomness incorporated in terms of event probability, and outcome (positive or negative encounter, concrete npc's that spawn - e.g. goblin mage or cleric). By making the probability of random encounters decrease sharply after a certain threshold value (let's say after first neg. and after first pos. in given area) it would effectively entail Larian adding few encounters made the way they like it without becoming a 'mob generator' or generic xp/loot grind/abuse mechanic. It would increase re-playability at a basic level and add an element of curiosity to each rest on top of the opportunity it would provide to Larian to help build in-world immersion and lore (actually meeting people simply living their banal forgotten realms fantasy stereotype lives).

That is nice to say "if they are done right" ...
The problem here is that we (as a comunity) arent able to agree on what does that even mean ...

There is single group that would appreciate Random Encounters anytime, anywhere and ... well, basicaly just any.
Then there is other group that would appreciate Random Encounters not being implemented at all ...
And then there is lot of small fractions moving litteraly everywhere between those two big camps.

And the fun part? Every single one of them believes that their way is "done right" and everyone else is wrong.

Agreed.

I also don't like trash mobs or doubling back. By "doing Random Encounters right" I mean peppering encounters into the game to spice it up and make the world seem more alive, and to provide more variety.

Most games don't do it well. They throw trash enemies at you that you fart at and kill. I don't want anything like that. I'm talking real and varied encounters.

Let's take the bog as an example. One playthrough, maybe no random encounters. On playthrough, I encounter some boggles and am given a choice to Persuade them to leave me alone, to attack, or to hide from them. Next playthrough, maybe I'm unlucky and get two random encounters; a giant toad and redcap and the second encounter is a swarm of stirges (enough to provide at least some sort of challenge. First encounter on my way to Ethel's. Second on my way back from the Swamp Dock as I'm fast traveling. The first does not surprise my party and I can attempt to hide to avoid. The second does surprise. Next playthrough, I'm lucky and no random encounters during my time in the bog.

Just enough to make it so that you, the player, know that the world isn't just totally scripted and static.

No one wants trash mobs or tedious uneventful doubling back.

That's not what is being suggested here by asking for fun meaningful random encounters or repopulating dead areas with creatures, or changing fast travel so it could be interrupted by said creatures.

+1

+1 more.

And I'll agree with others - I DON'T want numerous trash mobs or tedious doubling back. There's a happy medium somewhere between "lifeless world while fast traveling or manually walking through areas you've already been" and "random encounter with trash mobs every time you travel"

Importantly, random encounters need to be infrequent and interesting (no "fight 10 goblins on an open field" cough cough DAO). Not all of them should be combat, and most of them should add to the lore/worldbuilding of BG3 - cool enemies, building upon something you've done in game (e.g., defeating the 3 goblin leaders unlocks an encounter relating to the now-leaderless goblins), and/or non-combat interactions. The goal is for players to say "oh, what's this?" instead of sighing in frustration.

Solasta's random encounters are mostly tedious and obnoxious, though. They never present you with interesting scenarios and their use of the same repeating maps gets old quickly. At later levels you just spam them with the strongest spells you have to quickly deal with them and move on, because they most often happen as you are about to rest anyway. For a game that is already 90% combat having even more combat, but without any design or twist to it, is actually detrimental in my opinion.

What BG3 could and should perhaps have instead are premade fights that happen if you long-rest in specific areas, like the Underdark. Carefully designed ambushes that make the player consider their camp as a combat map. Or maybe even situations you can talk your way out of, like if you were, say, to try to long-rest in the defiled temple and there were goblins accosting you. Anything with thought put into it is ways above randomized filler that there is already plenty of. Like, in Pathfinder, I would rather take all the story-related preset road encounters over the ones I just skip every time because there's enough padding in the game as-is.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, so to say Solasta does them right may be a stretch. I've had some good experiences, but the maps are redundant and there are no real scenarios involved.

The main point is that some random encounters with substance would be fun. Have some set ones.

1. 4 goblins spot you and question you. You can fight, persuade, deceive or intimidate.
2. A bear lumbers out of the woods. It looks aggressive. You make a successful Nature roll. He's just scared. A successful Animal Handling and he goes away. Fight him, and after he takes some damage he flees. Chase him and kill him for food or let him go.
3. You find a fisherman on the path. He's wounded. You help him, and he tells you about his friends who are also hurt. Follow him to his friends and get ambushed by intellect devourers because the guy was actually Body Thiefed by one.
4. While sleeping in the Underdark, flumphs wander nearby.
5. While short resting in the Underdark, you spot a behir moving about attacking some gnomes. Do you help, even though it is a powerful monster?

I dont think Larian can avoid "trash mobs/battles", the game is simply too wide and complex. But they could give us exciting characters so its fun to battle with them. Ive suggested Battle Personalities to them. Blizzard is great example, they usually do a few abitilites, but they do them extremely well. Larian likes to do a ton of stuff poorly. Narrator could be used to make more exciting battles too. Music.

MMORPGs tend to be full of trash mobs/battles, yet people like to play them, because its all about self-progression. CRPG doesnt have that possibility, but theres indeed lots of main Characters.