Will enemies re-spawn like most RPGs, or will they perma-vanish (well not technically) like in the Gothic series?
Respawning? I donât believe so. However, they could have another person move in to take their place.
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If people simply respawned itâd hurt the authenticity of the game and setting. There might be some generic guard type with variable looks and stats, but it sounds like itâs possible to actually kill specific people and have there be a certain effect, whether that means a father being replaced by a son in a particular trade or something else.
Plus, consequences.
3 Likes
I agree with @Flashfire. I think for common NPCs like guards a respawn would be appropriate as the local powers-that-be would post a new soldier. However, specific members of town or NPCs who are part of quests should permanently die. Although itâs more complex to program, I would prefer a system where another NPC can fill a dead NPCâs role in town in the event of a kill. After the replacement dies it makes sense the town would just go without a blacksmith/baker/etc. with the townie NPCs dead.
If i remember correctly every NPC should be unique so their death will be permanent.
I think NPCs shouldnât respawn. But wild animals? Maybe somehow⊠
I want respawing âbanditsâ ârobbersâ out int the wild, if it is an open world game - I like to go out and explore and fight random people
I understand key persons, shopkeepers etc should not respawn. (maybe have close family or friends fill in their place if it was a shop or a smith).
But a HUGE yes to respawning bandits and animals in the wild! (Hope there will be bandits) 
4 Likes
Huge NO to respawning enemies. Itâs not realistic and annoying as hell. Neverending groups of bandits in forest on a small land of Bohemia? Seems a bit weird, no? Reminds me Far Cry 2.
I think respawning of enemy could be good in some case, if it will not be conspicuous. At least animals could repawn. 
I think NPCS can respawn, but they are different from the previous npc, lets say if you kill a fisherman, another fisherman would eventually come by and start to fish there. so its the same type of npc but with a new face and perhaps different clothing.
There could be some forms of ârealistic respawningâ like enemy soldiers. Often in these days the nobility hired mercanaries for war and when some of them get killed they just hire a replacement (if having the funds and enough mercenaries around in the area). But this respawning mechanism should follow strict and realistic rules like time constraints and stuff (maybe even embedded in overall story and gameplay like having an advantage to fulfill quests in the enemy camp (spy/assassination action???) while the enemy troops are lower in numbers and waiting for reinforcements). Similar constraints should be true for wild animals killed by the player.
Apart from that NPCs living in the area and having a certain steady job (like the smith, butcher or innkeeper) should be unique persons, gone and not replaced if killed. Only exception could be new immigrants once in a while taking over open jobs from people who got themselves killed. This could be very well embedded in the overall quest structure and story as well (trust/distrust new people? building new relationships? helping new people around?..
FarCry 2 was one of the worst re-spawning systems ever (I would say DA2 was the only one that was worse). As soon as you left the area everyone would come back to life, which is certainly not what most games have. Most re-spawning systems have a period of time that passes such as a month of in-game time before a select type of enemy re-spawns. In the Gothic series enemies would only respawn once when a new chapter was cleared (3 in total) or in Gothic 3âs case a year had passed (Which unless youâre trying to do it, you likely wonât see happen in a playthrough) Consider for a moment how small the map will be. Do you really think there will be enough things to fight over in such a small space?
Maybe youâre different, but I would rather the game not end within the first hour of play.
Ahem, I think you overestimate the importance of fights. And you underestimate the strength of your enemies. If you try to kill everyone in the first hour you will just die. 
According to the gameplay videos shown so far a single sword fight against a single human enemy can take several minutes to be solved (or just seconds if your enemy is far better than you or the other way round). Itâs not a hackânâslay game or fast-paced action combat game like Skyrim where you click your enemy to death with one blow or two blowsâŠ
Hi internet,
let me present you a little analysis on the topic.
For me there are 3 major aspects of enemy systems - respawn policy, placing policy (random placing vs. zones-of-operation defined placing), and level scaling. These aspects are not interrelated and each can stand on its own beside any other of the rest depending on other systems of the game (like leveling system - which incorporates xp rewarding policy) and design goals. As such letâs throw level-scaling and placing policy outta the window and never mention them here again out of context as these are a different story completely.
So regarding respawn policy there are 2 major approaches - (nearly) no-respawning and ever-respawning systems.
1) No-respawning - represented by Gothic 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2 and a bunch of old âisoâ RPGs
Iâve just recently finished Gothic 1 yet again (after some 10 yrs pause) so my experience with the system is as fresh as it could get. For those infidels who didnât play it the game is one of the first modern type open-world RPGs (map area is about 1,5 sq km BTW - it is a mastery to place some 30-40 hours of gameplay and story there and at the same time not lose the battle for the joy of exploration). It uses zones-of-operation defined placing of enemies so there are logically designed areas where enemies of certain types are manually placed. This creates zones into which or behind which you cannot get if you are not good (as a player) or experienced (as a character) enough. Therefore you unfold the map as you progress and it feels very natural. If you kill these enemies they vanish âfor goodâ. The game story is split into 6 acts and some act transitions (start of acts 2 and 5 I think) trigger a one-time respawn of most enemies. They appear in the same place but in different numbers. There is no level-scaling. There are no repeatable quests. The leveling system is XP based - for each kill or quest you get XP points. For each level you get skill points. You buy new skills from teachers for the XP and/or money. You also decide upon your allegiance and therefore go through the story along three relatively separate ways with different flavour.
Why it is there:
- strict control of available XP pool for the player. It is simply given, that you go through certain sections of the game at a very narrow span of levels. You cannot get more XPs. You cannot grind, you cannot exploit.
What I love about it:
- persistence - you really feel like you have impact on the world
- the occasional respawns refresh the empty areas a bit
What I hate about it:
- the story is designed in such a way that you have to travel around a lot, going repeatedly through the same areas along the same roads. And for the whole act or two, except for the initial cleansing, there is nothing to do. Literaly nothing. Even on this incredibly small map the travelling is tedious even if you sprint the whole time.
- the act trasition triggered respawn feels very artificial although it is a welcome refresh
- player tends to minmax the system getting the most from it to the point where you decide to exterminate whole camps full of people just to get XPs.
- you act grind-mindedly nonetheless. You are forced to look everywhere, kill everything and accomplish the biggest set of quest possible. (this is actually even worse in Gothic 2 as it is even more polished in this way that the XP pool available to you at certain points is even more tightly controlled. If you miss on some XP available you have harder time playing the game and you have to take advantage of holes in the design and technology alike)
2) Ever-respawning - represented by Elder Scrolls series, new Fallouts (3 and NV)
Why it is there:
- For the sake of boredom prevention. You always have a fight to fight.
- You train your skills by using them. When you donât use them they âdeteriorateâ (slowly, but still). Therefore you need to have things to do. So you either flood the world with entities (like chests to have enough places for your lockpicking training) or you respawn them (animals).
What I love about it:
- If well balanced the encounters are much better distributed along the timeline of your game walkthrough
- It diesnât clash with zone-of-operation placing policy at all. New Vegas proved it.
- Old areas never get boring. There is always a potential threat. You have to pay attention.
- You can go out for hunting not when you have to but also if you just simply want to.
- I do what I want and enjoy to do. I do not minmax the system as much and I may pay more attention to the world instead state of my character
What I hate about it:
- It is very easy to seem your impact on the world is limited
- Enemies of the same type or class appear on the same spots (this applies to Elder Scrolls technology only, it is not an inherent part of this design paradigm)
- you tend to grind very heavily just to level up your skills. At least at the beginning where you suck at everything. Even if the fight systems are far from perfect you have to fight and you force yourself to do so.
- it very easily tends to feel artificial
- both new Fallouts show that you get to the max level (or put max skill point to most desired skills) way before the end of the game and that respawning stuff and XP based systems are not a very good friends.
- As you have unlimited pool of XP available you quite easily become an unbeatable badass. As such you tend to later evade fights because there is no challenge. Itâs just a busywork. Level-scaling is one of the solutions to this but it then feels incredibly weird if designer goes wild with it (Hello, Oblivion).
Conclusion
I think a hybrid with significant cooldown of respawn where (and if) respawn is desirable is the best approach. With low XP reward for repeatable tasks (kills and quests alike) for XP based leveling system. Or a Witcher system, where each repetition lowers the XP reward which is effectively still the same. For training based systems the best approach really is respawn but one has to pay extra attention to logic of the world. Generic randomness is as enjoyable as it sounds - not much. Itâs also stupid to respawn the staff of an emptied guardpost immediately as the player is far enough to not notice it visually (hello, Far Cry 2).
So what do we do? I canât tell you
EDIT - Our levelign system is training based so something similar to TES series. This might give you a clue where weâre headed but detailed specifications of our system are yet to be disclosed.
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Saying this without knowing how to put it into place, I like the hybrid idea and I think there should (if possible) be a way for the game to âunderstandâ that youâve fought some basic enemies (bandits, animals to hunt, etc.) already in a certain area. So, if theyâre the type of enemy that respawns, you will never get the same initial XP boost you did the first time you killed them. In fact, each time you come back to that area, the XP reward is less and less (that Witcher system, like you mentioned).
Keep in mind I have NO idea at this point if it would actually work. But, letâs say the first time you fought ârandom banditâ you got 100 XP. Random bandits are probably not uncommon. Maybe thereâs nobody there if you go through the same spot the next day or two (after all, the guy that killed the bandit may still be around!), but say a week later another one can be encountered (hey, itâs safe to be a bandit here again!). Kill him and you get 75 XP, then 50, then 25, and so on. Or each time the XP reward is half what it was before (100, 50, 25, maybe capped down to 10 each time after).
With animals, if thereâs an actual hunting quest of some kind, reward a certain amount of XP for that. Otherwise, XP given for random hunting ought to be very low. It wouldnât completely prevent grinding (same with the bandit example), but it would let people grind if they wanted to while forcing them to do it for a LONG, LONG time to see any benefit from it. If anything, the benefit probably comes more from having animal skins, teeth, etc. they can trade or sell (or the coin a bandit had stolen from others).
All of this can be time-based for locations. If someone has hunted the area empty of animals, where do more come from? How long does it take for any new ones to show up? For that matter, bandits arenât infinite either. Itâs a factor based on time and logic in-game, and if you wanted to you could probably cap the total number of bandits possible for a given area based on the expected completion time for the game itself (say, no more than one bandit respawn every 5 in-game hours, understanding that people will probably put in more than the expected playtime if they want to grind).
Is this sensible? Possible?
I should have also mentioned that our leveling systems is a certain type of training based system (so like Skyrim) not XP based. So it is a bit pointless to craft design ideas with XPs in mind here.
Anyway in XP based systems I much more prefer having limited possibilities of progression of combat system (so that I donât suck that much at the start) and rather have XP reward from story elements. For the story evolving based on my inputs and decicions is where the RP of RPGs is for me.
2 Likes
Makes sense to me, with having leveling based on things other than XP. That would probably limit the grinding aspect too, if itâs more progression/story-based.
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To all the people who say ânoâ to respawning enemies.
I say âyesâ to no spawning for important characters and so on.
But a bandit group and maybe a lone cutthroat thief who want to kill you and rob your corpse. YES OFCROUSE they should respawn!
I like imerrsion in games. But donât forget that this is indeed a game and not a simulator.
So please to all of you who say no to respawning, think a little bit about it. If this game gives us the abillity to roam the land as we want, and we have clensed the land from all the bandit hideouts (if there are any) and lone cutthroat along the roads maybe hiding in between some trees waiting for someone to walk past him. (again if there are any).
When all these guys are dead and you have finished half the game - you want to go out and roam a little again and there is only sillence. No one will try to kill you at all, you will only find empty hideouts and so onâŠ
I think there should be a deasent time inbetween respawing groups and locations. And I think it should be huge distances between loactions with such events. But to be honest a the game would be more than a bit dull with nothing respawing at all. This is a game and it is supposed to be fun.
I am also against the standard respawn, for several reasons. It is also besides the alread mentioned points:
- Unrealistic.
- Inconvenient and tedious in a game, when one has to fight over and over again the same enemies at a certain point. In Fallout (3 and NV) and Skyrim was this annoying and sad,
however in the Dead Island it has killed the game for me. - You have the feeling that you did accomplish nothing in certain terms, and that your actions may be futile.
A hybrid approach may indeed solve the problems, and even add to the game more
medieval flavor.
So a respawn for animals over a certain periode of time may be realistic, simply due to the shift of hunting grounds, territories and wandering of the animals to evade competition.
But humans are a different kind of thing, because humans have a much longer maturation process.
This could be good compensated with âevent triggered respawnsâ:
Like migration of different brigand bands, reinforcements sent by the HRE, slowly rising discomfort and poverty of the locals slavic populus due to war and unrest, refugees or warbands from the balkan region, poland and hungary, or even just new lords which recieve the land from the higher feudal hierarchie.
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It should always be dangerous to walk around in the woods. Some bandits etc. should respawn. Maybe at random places.
Animals should also respawn. But please donât have Wolves and Bears atack you on sight. They would normally run away ore stay away from you.