I previously made a thread thanking Obsidian for the absence of random *combat* triggers on the world map:

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/100032-a-huge-thank-you-for-not-having-random-combat-triggers-on-the-world-map/

 

While a number of people seemed to agree, almost everyone seemed to be in support of the random text adventures you encounter -- e.g. the skuldr attacking the huana girl when transitioning between districts in Neketaka.

 

Text adventures don't involve loading screens, and those were one of the main things I feared for random combat triggers.

 

Here are some ideas:

 

    - have at least a few text encounters unique to each island; this would help make each island more distinct

 

    - implement a fatigue mechanic; if you travel too many days without resting, your party members interrupt via a text interaction

      (for example, a character is so tired that they trip on a root and incur a penalty until rest, as described in a text adventure)

    - implement fog-of-war while travelling by ship
      (don't show storms on world map, instead depict rain, wind, thunder etc. as player gets closer to the invisible trigger)

      (the "lantern" upgrade and using a spyglass could expand the radius of sight)

 

   - have the player randomly encounter ships that don't appear on the world map

     (ensure that they have the option to avoid combat somehow, such as through paying a hefty toll)

 

Another advantage of text encounters is that they don't involve voice acting, so I wouldn't think they'd be as expensive to produce as DLC. (But I'll be the first to say that I have no experience working on games, and don't mean to downplay the amount of work that might be involved!)

One problem is that there's only a finite number of text adventures that can be written; eventually the player will exhaust them.

 

I had an idea for *repeatable* encounters to make the world feel more inhabited: Set up random encounters with enemies, but the "combat" would be handled via checks and dice rolls *within* the text adventure.

 

In other words, the player wouldn't be forced into a loading screen and then in-engine combat with Smokey the Xaurip; the text adventure would describe how the xaurip wounded Eder's foot and made off with some of the party's gold and (replaceable) supplies.