Part 29: Behind The Fangs Part IV: - Random Encounters On The World Map
a cartoon duck posted:
Full disclosure, I'm sure I had a good idea what the more battles option does when I commented on it a year ago, but nowadays I am not quite so sure. Still, I'm still pretty certain it doesn't affect the encounter rate on the world map, especially since world map encounters don't exactly matter in the long run.
Well, I just went back and checked, and it actually does affect the encounter rate on the world map... in a way!
Behind The Fangs: Part IV - Random Encounters On The World Map
Here's the event that governs the random encounters on the world map. The event runs if we have seen the story cutscene with the "magic sword" Valnar and Alaine found in that cave, and if Valnar is in the party (so for instance not if we're controlling Nyria and the knight). It also only runs if we're not currently in bat form. It's a parallel process that starts out by checking in a pretty interesting way if we moved our character - it writes our X and Y coordinates to a variable, then does the same 0.2 seconds later.
Then it compares the X coordinates for the two variables, and if they're not the same, the variable "Kampftester" is set to a random number between 1 and 30. If they are the same (i.E. there has not been any X axis movement), then there is a comparison between the Y coordinates for the two variables. If they're the same (i.E. there has not been any Y axis movement either), "Kampftester" is set to 0.
If they aren't the same, then there is a check for switch "WENIGKAMPF", which is a switch that is turned on if you say you don't want many battles in the beginning. If you don't have that switch set, "Kampftester" is set to a random number between 1 and 30. If you do have it set, "Kampftester" is set to a random number between 1 and 50.
Finally, there is a check for the value that "Kampftester" is set to. If it's 30, then a separate event that governs the level-dependent random encounters is fired, and a battle happens. If not, then we wait 0.1 seconds and repeat the event.
So, what have we learned?
- This event seems to work quickly enough that it can fire about every time you take a step.
- If you move on the X axis, there is a 1 in 30 chance you will get in a random battle.
- If you move on the Y axis, there is a 1 in 30 chance you will get in a random battle, unless you have the "not so many battles" option enabled, in which case you have a 1 in 50 chance you will get in a random battle.
- The "not so many battles option" therefore only actually affects the random battle chance if you're walking up or down. If you're walking left or right, it doesn't do anything.
Somebody please tell me I misunderstood this event, because this seems fucking stupid otherwise.