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[Relix]

I searched and there doesn't seem to be a topic about this subject.

You all know that enemies have to respawn, else you would run out of things to kill/to be killed by - unless the objective is to kill them.

Some games respawn the enemies as soon the player moves away from their spawn, like in Megaman games. This can sometimes lead to unfair things in platformer games (Ninja Gaiden).

Then there's the option to respawn the enemies after set time, which usually causes minor annoynce but it is not usually unfair like the above example.

And finally, the option to respawn them when the players re-enters the area, for example, in Zelda games the area counts as the world map but in dungeons it counts as one room inside the dungeon. The most player friendly way but also the most boring.

And, the point of this topic, I'm trying to find a way to respawn the enemies while keeping it fair to player but I'd still want them to be wary of the enemies all the times.
So, which would be the best way to respawn them?

[Jonas Kyratzes]

The only answer that makes sense to me is it depends on what game you're making. There are no absolute rules about these things.

[Relix]

I knew I'm forgotting something, I'm making a Megaman meets Zelda hybrid game. So fast paced platforming with puzzles in dungeon like places. I wan't it to be changeling but not unfair.

I'm kinda favoring the enemies respawning when the player re-enters the area type, but I dunno if it's perfect for it.

[magnum_opus]

Well one of the more annoying things in Metroid was having to constantly re fight your way through a section because you weren't sure where to go, but that was as mostly a consequence of the difficulty of those sections. Even still in a situation with puzzles if back tracking is likely it can be a hassle.

Why not a combination, a certain percentage respawn any time you enter plus an additional amount based on how long you've been gone?

[Relix]

That's sounds possible and good choice. So if the players accidentally leaves the room, the enemies won't respawn or at least not all of them. But how I would choose which enemies to respawn, randomoly?

[magnum_opus]

Depends on how you populate the room. If it's a bunch of just one type, yeah random is fine. Otherwise I'd respawn the easier enemies first, personally. Obviously if you decide to take this route you can sort it out in the playtesting.

[Relix]

Well, usually the easier enemies are most annoying, but I'll figure it out once the time comes.

[magnum_opus]

My general sentiment is that I don't want to (possibly) lose half my health because I lost my bearings during a puzzle.

[tzachs]

Another way to go about it, is trying to think of how it would be in the "real world".

Let's say that I go inside a forrest which has x bears in it and a chance of y% to ecnounter a bear. After I kill it (with my bare hands obviously) I go and return to the forrest. Now there are x-1 bears in the forrest so now the chance of me running into a bear is less than y%. If I kill another bear I will have even less chance, and so on.

You can make it work like this in the game as well, every time you kill a monster in a certain area, lower the percentage of the monster reappearing in that area. This way, if a player gets stuck in a maze for a long time, it will get easier and easier as time goes by, until he will be able to walk almost freely in the maze and find the way out...

[Relix]

My general sentiment is that I don't want to (possibly) lose half my health because I lost my bearings during a puzzle.

That's true. Of course using fair level desing, puzzle rooms wouldn't contain too hard enemies, just minor hinderances.

*snip*

That sounds at first good solution, but eventually everything would be empty and boring. But, if combined with the "Enemies respawn after x time", maybe it can then work, instead of lowering the percetance, the enemies would take more time to respawn. So the player could've enough time to solve the puzzle even if they keep changing rooms often.

But, what about in the world map type area, which is just used to travel from place to place, would it be fair to have the enemies respawn everytime on re-enter? If the player could've the ability to teleport to major locales later in the game.   

[SirNiko]

Can you give us an example of a small section of your game? I think this is going to be dependent on the types of monsters you've created (how difficult are they to defeat? How much time does it take a player to defeat them? Does the player see a net gain or loss in resources while fighting them?) and the types of puzzles (are the puzzles simple, ie, cross a room or get a key and bring it back, are they multi-room affairs where you backtrack frequently in the process of getting one door unlocked?).

[Relix]

Well, near the beginning of the game, you've to travel trough a sewer, it's mostly straight forward, but you sometimes have to close or open vaults which are in the same room or nearby. There's little backtracking but at most two rooms only.

No item based puzzles, but later on you can go back with new item to go farther to get some optional stuff.
There are bat type aliens that go Hadouken on you and fairly harmless lizards that can swim on water. At most, they could take like two or three hits to die, they drop stuff which can be sold for money - but it's unlikely that player would know about this yet.

The most changeling part of the sewer is swimming in toxic water, which poison you if you spend too long in there. And getting poisoned in my game is fatal if you don't use antidote.

And of course, at the end awaits a boss monster.

This is first dungeon type area the player goes onto, you could say that it's rather tutorialist, minimal backtracking and no big treahts.

Most dungeon type areas would be like this, I'm not of backtracking so I try to desing the dungeons to have minimal backtracking.

The overwolrd areas are like the areas in CaveStory.

Does that help?

[SirNiko]

The "drop stuff to sell for money" mechanic suggests you should make monsters that respawn when the player moves them offscreen by a small margin. I envision late-game players wanting to backtrack back and forth to collect monster drops. Getting loot for killing monsters changes the formula a bit because it makes it rewarding to kill additional foes instead of just annoying (though it can still be annoying).

I'd go with a Ninja Gaiden / Megaman style of monsters that respawn as soon as they scroll off the screen a bit, though give a fair margin of error so that monsters don't respawn just barely off the screen. Just watch out for parts where the player might backtrack a bit when fighting a monster or to climb up to make a jump and respawn something they did not intend to respawn, like those annoying eagles in Ninja Gaiden that you accidental respawn if you take a few steps back right after killing one.

Will there be a leveling system Castlevania SotN style, or is player growth limited to the items they find or buy?

[Relix]

Yeah, I figured that could be the case, so I could make the enemies respawn off-screen in the overworld part, while still keeping the dungeons more calm with different respawn system - that could potentially confuse the player tho...

The player growth is kinda limited, you gain more healt for finding hearts, Zelda style. Then you can learn more moves, most of them are fighting moves while some aid only in the platforming, cash or the monster loot is used to get some of them in form of training fee.

Dunno if you have played any of the Monster Hunter games, but it's pretty much item based, I intended to do similar system where the player can craft secondary items (potions, explosives ect..) out of the monster loot. Some of these items in a way, count towards the character growth, but only temporaly.

So in short, would off-screen or re-enter respawn for overlworld and the "Enemies respawn after x time and the x time is higher if all or most enemies are killed" type for dungeons be fair and good?

[Sir Raptor]

My idea is that strong enemies, ones that take multiple hits to destroy, should not respawn unless you leave them offscreen, or even if you enter a new room and reenter the old room. Meanwhile, low level monsters that die in one hit could insta-spawn onscreen at a reasonable pace, like in Castlevania or Ghosts & Goblins.

[Relix]

But then again, like I earlier said, the more easier killable enemies are usually the most annoying ones. I haven't played either of those games tho, so dunno if it gets too annoying in them.