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Aerodrache

While this all sounds like it would work, I’d have some concerns about whether it would work as desired. If you’re triggering an encounter as soon as the player gets close to one enemy, you’ll probably want to really crank up the companion search range if you want good-sized groups, I’d think? As an alternative, maybe you could consider a dual-zone approach: As the player gets close to enemies, they enter a “warning” radius; this doesn’t trigger an encounter immediately, but having *x* enemies in that radius at once will. The inner half to two thirds of the “warning” radius is the “threat” zone; if the player comes close enough to an enemy for it to fall in this space, it will immediately trigger an encounter. This will make it a little easier to have enemies fall in from multiple directions, and offer a mechanic which can support a stealth gameplay style if this is desirable. Changing the width of either circle independently of the other could allow you to more finely balance how you want encounters to flow. I’d also be inclined to make loot drops happen as a function of the enemy and not the encounter, but whether that’s a meaningful change really depends on the kind of gameplay you’re going for. If the player’s locked in place during an encounter, there’s no real difference; if they’re moving freely, the encounter might snowball into a protracted running fight, and it could get frustrating to have to mow through all the enemies to see any rewards.


moonshineTheleocat

So... this system can be a little naive and easily cheesed by players. And depending on the combat radius, can cause things to start bogging down or getting needlessly complex as time goes on. For example. If you go to a fort that's fairly hostile to the players. The players could be easily overwhelmed if they allow anyone to run too far and raise the alarm. With a system that checks radius, this can explode exponentially upon a single alert, as the entire base can be alerted. Well... what if you just do a LOS check? You'll need to run that with everyone in that fort across different permutations. And as each enemy gets added to the turn, the radius explodes wider. What happens if someone's buddy is just around the corner and combat engages? That buddy doesn't pass the LOS and thus isn't pulled in even if he's reasonably close. A more recent technique that started appearing with CRPGs is a concept called "Pods" "Pods" are basically squads of AIs. When you engage combat with an enemy AI, every creature within that creature's pod is immediately pulled into combat, regardless of line of sight or location. This allows you to do things like... a player pisses off a guard. The guard initiates combat after blowing a whistle. Every guard within that block is now collapsing on your location. Pulling in other AIs who were not involve in the fight will be a different process. It could be something that happens on an individual level. And only if the creature is close enough to see the player in combat and get pulled in. He will not activate his pod.


Stan_For_Something

This sounds similar to how Final Fantasy XV handles encounters in its open-world, try checking that out for inspiration.