Dynamic encounters: Patrols, Respawns, Spawn points

[Lephys]

I believe the term "respawn" is being used rather liberally in this thread, to simply mean "things spawning in where there were previously things," and nothing more.

 

And I second that about enemies spawning out of thin air. Dragon Age 2, FTL!

 

Seriously, that's done in oodles of games with big spiders, though. "Oh, they were on the ceiling, and your party is incapable of looking upwards, LOL! Also, it's isometric, so you can't SEE the ceiling, LOL!"

 

I'd much rather walk through rooms SATURATED in layers of webbing, so that any nooks and crannies are actually quite muddled into the rest of the terrain, and you simply never know where spiders CAN come out of. Not just "Oh, they were right in the middle of the room, just dangling from the ceiling, waiting to strike, but you couldn't see them! HAH!"

 

Might as well put traps on the ceiling, too, that are never visible/targetable/disarmable. Walk through the middle of the room, and FIRE SHOOTS FROM THE CEILING, COOKING YOUR ENTIRE PARTY! Now you have to figure out why that happened. "Where is that trap? I don't see one anywhere! I keep having my Rogue search the area!"

 

Also, on the DA2 reinforcement note, even if things don't rappel from the ceiling randomly, and they actually come from another room or corridor and make their way to you, I don't think they should instantly arrive the SECOND you kill the last thing in Group 1. That's way too scripted. If you know it's possible your foes called for help, it should take some certain amount of time for reinforcements to hear them, come running, and actually make it to the room. If you efficiently dispatch your foes, you should be able to hide and/or set up an ambush for the reinforcements.

 

That's another time when reactive vocal cues would be handy. Maybe your person with amazing hearing/senses can distinguish running footsteps from a ways down the corridor, and say "Someone's coming...", rather than the floating-perspective player simply having to do all the work for your characters. "Crap, red circles flashed for a second in the hallway! Someone's coming! Why didn't my expert Ranger hear that? These are STONE CORRIDORS! And the enemies are wearing METAL BOOTS!"

Edited February 23, 2013 by Lephys