Final Fantasy Omnithread - All FF, all the time.

[charliepanayi]

Also the voice acting sounds trash.

Based on a few seconds in a trailer they showed.

I never understood the antipathy towards voice acting in the FF series, I always thought it has been OK (FFX had some weak spots, but it had some great voices like Auron and Bender/Wakka too).

[Zohar]

The latest frothing news is that it's going to have cheats built-in from the start, not unlike the current Steam release – instant HP/MP refilling and skipping of random battles. It seems very weird to me that this is one of the first features they are announcing.

I honestly don't get why people are so upset by this sort of thing. "Oh no! You're making the game more accessible to people and somehow it ruins my gaming experience!"
It sounds really whiny to me. The only reason I can fathom for being bothered by this is because people might confuse someone's achievement ("I beat the game!") with your so-called "pure" achievement ("I beat the game!"). But first, FF games are never very hard to beat, unless you either do specifically hard things or put limitations on yourself (no materia challenge, single character challenge, etc.). In which case, just say "I beat FFVII with no MP use" or whatever.

(I'm using a hypothetical you, not Jorpho).

[mosc]

I AM a little upset that they seem to think turn based gameplay is dead. To me it's a central element of the series and of JRPG's in general. I have mixed feelings about FFX overall but I have to say I found the combat mechanics close to perfect and it's as close to pure turn based as they ever did.

[Zohar]

I don't think I would say "JRPGs in general" - there have been action RPGs that have "real time" battle elements for a pretty long time, I can remember many on SNES and I'm sure there were some on the NES as well. I don't know what's going to happen with the remake, but I actually like FFXIII's battle system, for example. Though yeah, FFX was pretty fun and well executed (except for the whole "swap out your teammates so they each get at least one useless action this battle" thing).

[Xanthir]

Yeah, FF7 has at least two *very clear* episode breaks - after leaving Midgar (this is the Disc 1 break for a reason), and after Temple of the Ancients. (I forget where the Disc 2 break is, but it's somewhere around there I think.)

[rmsgrey]

Yeah, FF7 has at least two *very clear* episode breaks - after leaving Midgar (this is the Disc 1 break for a reason), and after Temple of the Ancients. (I forget where the Disc 2 break is, but it's somewhere around there I think.)

Ummm. Disc 1 runs all the way to Aeris/Aerith's death. Disc 2 ends after Sister Ray. Disc 3's plot is just entering the North Crater, fighting your way to the bottom, and defeating the final boss fights.

Plot wise, the game basically splits into the first two discs, with the third disc mostly just a chance to run around finishing off the sidequests and giving everyone master materia...

[Dark567]

Which is essentially the problem. The actual game is really only broken up into two parts directly. I also have to wonder if doing something like breaking off Midgar into its own episode would be doing the game a disservice. One of the coolest aspects I've ever had playing a game was stepping out of Midgar the first time only to realize there was this entire world to be explored. Breaking that out into a separate episode would just make it feel like you were suddenly playing another game.

I dunno. I'd rather have one big game with a clear design vision and cohesion then a bunch of small ones where it risks lacking that.

[Felstaff]

Most of the game, story-wise, happens in disc one. The disc one break is just after Temple of the Ancients. The disc two break is after Diamond Weapon attacks Midgar and they use Junon's cannon to blow it away and the shield protecting the North Crater.

I'd say there's plenty of episodesworth of material there, as the story is sweet jesus convoluted. I'd break it down thusly:

1. Midgar: blowing up the reactor, Aeris's capture, Wall Market, Shinra building, escape
2. Eastern continent: Kalm, Chocobo Farm, Mythril Mines, Fort Condor, Junon, Rufus's ascension, crossing the sea
3. Western continent: Costa del Sol, Gold Saucer, 'the date', North Coral, Nibelheim, 'Cloud/Tifa/Sephiroth's past'
4. Chasing Sephiroth: 'everyone else's past' (Cosmo Canyon, Wutai, Rocket Town, Gongaga), Temple of the Ancients, Bone Village, Forgotten City [end of disc 1]
5. Summoning Meteor: [disc 2] Icicle Inn, travels by Highwind, rise of the Weapons, Cloud's fall into the lifestream, Mideel, Sister-Ray [end of disc 2]
6. Confronting Sephiroth: [disc 3]'farming/finishing off side-quests' (Sunken Gelnika), Northern crater [end of disc 3]

Six episodes, released monthly, at $9.99 a pop. Roughly the price of a month's subscription to a non-F2PMMO. I'd pay for that.

[Zohar]

Yeah I think Felstaff has it right. Except I imagine each episode would be more like 20-30$.

[LaserGuy]

Ugh. The combat looks terrible. I can't stand that modern RPGs only let you control one character at a time instead of the entire party. The game becomes more about tricking the AI into doing what you want than anything else.

[Jorpho]

I honestly don't get why people are so upset by this sort of thing. "Oh no! You're making the game more accessible to people and somehow it ruins my gaming experience!"
It sounds really whiny to me. The only reason I can fathom for being bothered by this is because people might confuse someone's achievement ("I beat the game!") with your so-called "pure" achievement ("I beat the game!"). But first, FF games are never very hard to beat, unless you either do specifically hard things or put limitations on yourself (no materia challenge, single character challenge, etc.). In which case, just say "I beat FFVII with no MP use" or whatever.

(I'm using a hypothetical you, not Jorpho).

It just seems to me like they're saying, "We have completely given up hope of creating a battle system with wide appeal, so we're just not going to try." And after all, there was no shortage of people less than pleased with the battle system of ... well, actually pretty much any of the games, just pick one. Maybe not FFIX or FFX.

One of the coolest aspects I've ever had playing a game was stepping out of Midgar the first time only to realize there was this entire world to be explored.

Seems to me a lot of people disliked that moment since it was where the game stopped being this neat sci-fi distopian epic and turned into every other RPG.

[Whizbang]

One of the coolest aspects I've ever had playing a game was stepping out of Midgar the first time only to realize there was this entire world to be explored.

Seems to me a lot of people disliked that moment since it was where the game stopped being this neat sci-fi distopian epic and turned into every other RPG.

To be fair, Squaresoft is the console RPG maker that all the others imitated. You can't really fault them for making games similar to vastly popular games they made before.

[Zohar]

It just seems to me like they're saying, "We have completely given up hope of creating a battle system with wide appeal, so we're just not going to try."

How does it seem like that? Are they making a terrible battle system? Do people even know what it's going to be like? Do they think they're like "Oh, we're just gonna let people skip battles so we'll make this a shit system no one will use. We'll still spend months or years working on it, perfecting it, making it look gorgeous, playtesting it, making sure it plays well and isn't buggy, but we're totally expecting people not to use it."

It's completely an accessibility issue, and I wouldn't be surprised if the people who are opposed to it have, at some point at least, said "there are too many girls playing games these days" or some other such garbage that tries to keep their club special and elitist.

[Jorpho]

Do they think they're like "Oh, we're just gonna let people skip battles so we'll make this a shit system no one will use. We'll still spend months or years working on it, perfecting it, making it look gorgeous, playtesting it, making sure it plays well and isn't buggy, but we're totally expecting people not to use it."

Something like that. Why would they spend months or years, etc, if they're constantly thinking, "Well, the people who don't like it are just going to skip it entirely anyway, so why bother?" It's not like the release of things that are buggy and play poorly is unknown these days.

Surely it would be better if they said, "This system was meticulously designed to compliment the story and enhance the game. If you turned it off, it just wouldn't be the same; we're too proud of what we've done to let people have such a diminished experience." Or maybe something slightly less pretentious.

(I for one sure as heck don't care what other people do with the game.)

[Zohar]

Still doesn't make sense. The only thing it does is acknowledge that other people have limitations on how they play games, and that experiencing their story, music, visuals, world, etc., are still worth it even without the battle. An RPG is more than its battle system.

[Dark567]

Ugh. The combat looks terrible. I can't stand that modern RPGs only let you control one character at a time instead of the entire party. The game becomes more about tricking the AI into doing what you want than anything else.

It doesn't help that outside of Kingdom Hearts every implementations of the action RPG Squarenix has done seems lack luster. Really wish they would just do a really pretty version of the battle system from VII, but maybe I'm just old now.

[Xanthir]

Something like that. Why would they spend months or years, etc, if they're constantly thinking, "Well, the people who don't like it are just going to skip it entirely anyway, so why bother?" It's not like the release of things that are buggy and play poorly is unknown these days.

Because they're not thinking that, they're thinking "This is a fun battle system, and part of that fun is the challenge we build into it. But no matter what we do, that challenge won't be right for some people. At the very least, some people have disabilities that prevent them from engaging in the fast-paced action we're designing this system around. It's not very cool to tell those people 'Fuck off, this game isn't for you' when this is a story-based RPG - there's lots to enjoy besides the battle system! So we should make sure that those who can appreciate the battle system for what it is get the best damned experience we can give them, and those who can't don't get super-frustrated or have to skip the game entirely.

Surely it would be better if they said, "This system was meticulously designed to compliment the story and enhance the game. If you turned it off, it just wouldn't be the same; we're too proud of what we've done to let people have such a diminished experience." Or maybe something slightly less pretentious.

There has never been a game for which that is true, unless it's a fighting game where the fighting is literally the entire game. And even then, if you've got interesting ending cinematics or something, most people will "earn" a few, and then watch the rest on YouTube if they really care.

But for RPGs? Hell no, fights are designed to be somewhat interesting to play, with a small number of well-designed boss fights and tons of scrub fights that need to meet a minimum level of entertainment while fulfilling their primary goal of padding out gameplay and feeding the hedonic treadmill of watching numbers go up.

[Jorpho]

An RPG is more than its battle system.

Surely it should ideally be a combination of a battle system and those other things that would be greater than the sum of its parts?

It doesn't help that outside of Kingdom Hearts every implementations of the action RPG Squarenix has done seems lack luster.

The World Ends With You was pretty delightful. (Kingdom Hearts GBA, its immediate predecessor, was pretty cool too. I have no idea how the PS2 remake turned out.)

Surely it would be better if they said, "This system was meticulously designed to compliment the story and enhance the game. If you turned it off, it just wouldn't be the same; we're too proud of what we've done to let people have such a diminished experience." Or maybe something slightly less pretentious.

There has never been a game for which that is true, unless it's a fighting game where the fighting is literally the entire game. And even then, if you've got interesting ending cinematics or something, most people will "earn" a few, and then watch the rest on YouTube if they really care.

But that's just it – won't people who only care about the cinematics just watch them on YouTube anyway? I recall reading that the Smash Bros. people didn't bother with cinematics in the latest version of the game since all the movies from Brawl ended up on Youtube in short order, so they just decided to stick them there to begin with.

Perhaps this is just the inevitable consequence of the rise of Let's Plays, and this is how it's going to be from here on out.

But for RPGs? Hell no, fights are designed to be somewhat interesting to play, with a small number of well-designed boss fights and tons of scrub fights that need to meet a minimum level of entertainment while fulfilling their primary goal of padding out gameplay and feeding the hedonic treadmill of watching numbers go up.

Earthbound, or at least Mother 3, managed to do a darn good job of it.

[Zohar]

"Ideal game" means something different to different people. I'm a relatively dexterous person with no vision, hearing, or coordination problems. I have no problem playing games, including FFs. For me, an ideal RPG would have (among other things) a clever and sensible battle system, that also takes into account the setting it's built in, and complements the story. For my friend who has a hand-eye coordination disability, and can in no way play any timed-events sort of game, an ideal game would include battles that can either be skipped entirely, or are slower, tolerate a lot of errors, and in no way dependent on reaction time. To many people I'm sure that sounds boring, and in any case it certainly doesn't fit every single game in existence. What they're doing here is saying "Here, we hope we've done this really awesome thing for people who are into it! But we acknowledge not all gamers are the same, here's more options. You don't have to use them if you don't want to! You can play the game as if they didn't exist! Do what you want to do - have more choice!"

And you seem to think it's bad?

As for your assertion that this would be like watching a Let's Play, I would suggest you go play something like Gone Home and tell me if you think you get the same experience playing it as you do watching a video of it. YMMV, but for me those things would be vastly different, and that's an incredibly bare bones game (it's basically exploration with voice overs). In a game like Final Fantasy, where in addition to the exploration you have a myriad of choices, mini games, and experiences you can direct and control, the difference is even greater.

[Xanthir]

Perhaps this is just the inevitable consequence of the rise of Let's Plays, and this is how it's going to be from here on out.

No, this is the consequence of the industry slowly realizing that not everyone who wants to play videogames is an able-bodied neurotypical who is capable of fast-paced twitch gaming, but those people still often want to play the videogames featuring that sort of gameplay because the rest of the game is interesting to them.

Again, as Zohar said, you don't have to use them if you don't want to. You can play the game as if they didn't exist. This is no different than difficulty settings in video games. (Which have both existed for decades, and been decried by self-styled "purists" for decades.)

[Jorpho]

"Ideal game" means something different to different people. I'm a relatively dexterous person with no vision, hearing, or coordination problems. I have no problem playing games, including FFs. For me, an ideal RPG would have (among other things) a clever and sensible battle system, that also takes into account the setting it's built in, and complements the story. For my friend who has a hand-eye coordination disability, and can in no way play any timed-events sort of game, an ideal game would include battles that can either be skipped entirely, or are slower, tolerate a lot of errors, and in no way dependent on reaction time. To many people I'm sure that sounds boring, and in any case it certainly doesn't fit every single game in existence. What they're doing here is saying "Here, we hope we've done this really awesome thing for people who are into it! But we acknowledge not all gamers are the same, here's more options. You don't have to use them if you don't want to! You can play the game as if they didn't exist! Do what you want to do - have more choice!"

The thing is, all the old-timey Final Fantasy games were already accommodating – you could select the "Wait" option for battles, and suddenly they become "in no way dependent on reaction time". If the battle system is dependent on twitch-gaming for its challenge, then that suggests a certain lack of imagination for something that's supposed to be an RPG.

And you seem to think it's bad?

I think it's a bad sign that they're making a big deal about it at this particular stage of development, or rather "hype cycle".

As for your assertion that this would be like watching a Let's Play, I would suggest you go play something like Gone Home and tell me if you think you get the same experience playing it as you do watching a video of it. YMMV, but for me those things would be vastly different, and that's an incredibly bare bones game (it's basically exploration with voice overs). In a game like Final Fantasy, where in addition to the exploration you have a myriad of choices, mini games, and experiences you can direct and control, the difference is even greater.

Consider looking at it the other way – would Gone Home have been somehow improved by the addition of random RPG battles? Wouldn't it have to have been a rather different game from the very start before such an addition would have been welcome?

[Zohar]

I think it's a bad sign that they're making a big deal about it at this particular stage of development, or rather "hype cycle".

You are literally the only person I see making a big deal out of this.

Consider looking at it the other way – would Gone Home have been somehow improved by the addition of random RPG battles? Wouldn't it have to have been a rather different game from the very start before such an addition would have been welcome?

I really don't get how this has anything to do with my argument. You said playing a game without battles is the same as watching someone else play, I asked you to consider an example that a game has more value to it than its battle system. Again - consider it a third way - if Final Fantasy was an endless series of battles, without any plot, any music, no characters, just constant battles - would that be as fun? Since it's not as fun, doesn't that mean the rest of the stuff has inherent value on its own? Why do you object to people accessing it? Consider it a fourth way - the "no materia challenge" or "level 1 challenge" or whatever - all these challenges that intentionally make the game harder, usually do it by not using some of the core elements of the game. Is that wrong? According to your logic, the game was designed so you use all aspects of the battle system. Would someone not doing so be playing it wrong? Is that counter to the game's design?

Seriously, I really don't understand why you get so flustered about this completely optional feature. Do you really think someone said "Let's make the game more accessible!" and then the people who design the battle system were like "Oh well in THAT case we'll make a super-shitty battle system! Job done!" ?

[Jorpho]

You are literally the only person I see making a big deal out of this.

I very much doubt I'm the only one.

I really don't get how this has anything to do with my argument. You said playing a game without battles is the same as watching someone else play, I asked you to consider an example that a game has more value to it than its battle system. Again - consider it a third way - if Final Fantasy was an endless series of battles, without any plot, any music, no characters, just constant battles - would that be as fun? Since it's not as fun, doesn't that mean the rest of the stuff has inherent value on its own?

I already said, "Surely it should ideally be a combination of a battle system and those other things that would be greater than the sum of its parts?"

It seems to me possible that they have considered what they have come up with for the battle system makes such an insignificant contribution to the experience that the battles might as well be skipped entirely.

Why do you object to people accessing it?

Where did I object to people accessing it? Did I ever say "I don't want people to play games!" or anything even remotely along those lines!?

Do you really think someone said "Let's make the game more accessible!" and then the people who design the battle system were like "Oh well in THAT case we'll make a super-shitty battle system! Job done!" ?

I don't think accessibility in particular factored into the decision at all, except maybe as a convenient excuse after the fact.

And to be quite, quite, clear, I do not intend that as some kind of commentary on ableist privilege or insistence that certain people shouldn't be able to play games or any other kind of bizarre reasoning along those lines. It just seems to me more likely that the developers have grave misgivings about the quality of the battle system. It could be seen as an admission that they recognize that they've made something that definitely won't appeal to anyone – and that could well mean that they've made something that will only appeal to very few.

[Zohar]

I never said you're the only one complaining, just the only one I see complaining. I still don't get it. Does a game that has a "mute music" option necessarily have terrible music? The game doesn't even have a release date. They can push it back or forward as much as they wanted. Do you think they just said "Fuck it, we'll go with what we have and just make sure people don't have to suffer through our terrible game" ? That is some conspiracy-theory-level imagination.

[Jorpho]

Does a game that has a "mute music" option necessarily have terrible music?

Considering many games don't even have that option, it suggests someone played the game and said, "I think people might like to switch this music off", and no one else said, "This music is an essential component of the atmosphere we are trying to create here and we can't just switch it off".

The game doesn't even have a release date. They can push it back or forward as much as they wanted.

So you don't think it is in any way unusual that they would choose to put particular emphasis on this feature at this time?

[Zohar]

No. For two reasons:
1. I don't think they put particular emphasis on it, I think they mentioned that it exists and that's about it.
2. I think it's a perfectly reasonable feature to have, and by adding two sentences in their announcement about how they're making the game more accessible, they're making sure a large group of people who might not have been interested in the game before, now have a reason to tune in and hear what it's about.

As for music, I would guess at least half of the games I've played recently had extensive audio preferences. And several games have had color-blind mode as well (which I imagine you don't like either?).

[Chen]

I'm pretty sure they mentioned it because the FF VII re-release on the PS4 that just came out also had those 3 cheat functions in them. And they seemed to be decently received by the fan base.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I've started playing type-0 on PC. Not too far in. Still deciding what I think of it.

The game frames the narrative as a military documentary, which I found made the opening tedious.
There are fourteen playable characters. They play differently, but only three feel like characters to me so far. I'll be interested to see if the narrative actually has distinct places for all of them.

It could be seen as an admission that they recognize that they've made something that definitely won't appeal to anyone

Yes, they made a video game. Nothing they make will appeal to everyone. Apart from ablism/ disability concerns, some people aren't too fond of JRPG mechanics, or have a low tolerance for random encounters. Adding the cheats in is probably very easy technically (they'll probably code it anyway for testing) and doesn't affect the users who chose not to use them, so it's a pretty high reward over risk if it makes the game enjoyable for anyone.

[rmsgrey]

I would regard it as an oversight for a game to not include separate volume sliders at least for sound effects, music and voices (if any). It's something I can accept in a budget title, but anything with aspirations of being a full-price game, let alone an AAA title, should offer the chance to rebalance the sound at least to that extent, otherwise you'll have either the people who like the background soundtrack or the people who otherwise have trouble hearing vital cues unhappy.

As for the ability to skip battles, I'd regard it as a net positive - I've yet to come across a game where the combat system is so engaging that there's never a point I'd be willing to skip a battle just to get on with the plot or sidequest or whatever bigger goal I'm chasing at that point, except ones where the combat was all there was to the game. Heck, the games in the Total War series offer an "auto-resolve" option for battles - and they're hardly a series noted for half-assed combat. Sometimes you just don't want to spend 20 minutes annihilating hopelessly outmatched peasants...

Yes, it's possible to use a skip feature as a way around actually balancing a feature properly. It's also possible to open up a game to a wider audience by making some elements of it optional so people can pick out the bits they enjoy playing...

[Jorpho]

I don't think they put particular emphasis on it, I think they mentioned that it exists and that's about it.

They haven't said all that much about the game at all at this point, though. That strikes me as emphasis.

As for music, I would guess at least half of the games I've played recently had extensive audio preferences.

A lot of games (especially indie ones) tend to have rather forgettable music anyway.

And several games have had color-blind mode as well (which I imagine you don't like either?).

You seem furiously determined to read something into my posts that I never intended. Perhaps you are trying to be ironic?

I'm pretty sure they mentioned it because the FF VII re-release on the PS4 that just came out also had those 3 cheat functions in them. And they seemed to be decently received by the fan base.

A case can easily be made for the original FF7 battle system being broken and too much trouble to fix. (There's at least one whacking great bug, i.e. the magic defense stat.) That's why this seems troubling.

(To be clear, I doubt they made the change because they were trying to make the game accessible to people with slow reaction times, because as I already mentioned, the original battle system already had a setting for that.)

[Zohar]

Oh, you mean two full trailers released showing information about the story, the graphics, the music they're using, the battle system, the characters, revealing the voice actors, the episodic structure of the game, all of that is irrelevant. What's really important is the 10 seconds it took you to read the sentence stating they're going to allow you to skip battles.

[Xanthir]

(To be clear, I doubt they made the change because they were trying to make the game accessible to people with slow reaction times, because as I already mentioned, the original battle system already had a setting for that.)

Yeah, you said that earlier, and I skipped over it because it didn't make any sense.

It seems pretty clear from the gameplay videos that they've totally changed the combat system - it appears to be a realtime free-roam combat system. It's definitely not the FF7 ATB system, unless they're hiding it really well. This requires completely different affordances for slow-reaction time and similar things.

So the original FF7 combat system doesn't have anything to do with this, unless you're trying to say that they should have just used the old system if they cared about slow reaction times? I'm just really confused by this point you're trying to make.

[Jorpho]

(To be clear, I doubt they made the change to the FFVII re-release because they were trying to make the game accessible to people with slow reaction times, because as I already mentioned, the original battle system already had a setting for that.)

Oops. Fixed that.

It seems pretty clear from the gameplay videos that they've totally changed the combat system - it appears to be a realtime free-roam combat system. It's definitely not the FF7 ATB system, unless they're hiding it really well. This requires completely different affordances for slow-reaction time and similar things.

So the original FF7 combat system doesn't have anything to do with this, unless you're trying to say that they should have just used the old system if they cared about slow reaction times? I'm just really confused by this point you're trying to make.

If they've made the combat realtime free-roaming, and decided that they needed to make couldn't make affordances for people with slow-reaction time, then what other affordances have they decided to do away with? What if it barely even resembles an RPG at all anymore?

[Xanthir]

lolwut

You know plenty of RPGs have roughly this kind of combat system these days, right? In particular, FF has been iterating on the concept since 12.

[Zohar]

What if, and I know, this is kind of a mind-blowing concept so please bear with me, but what if people like different things in games? And what if RPGs could have such a range of gameplay options that not every single system ever developed is perfect for all people ever? I know, it's a huge leap in logic, but it's almost as if people are different from one another.

[rmsgrey]

Having more options is a good thing in general - it allows players more freedom to find a version of the game that they enjoy.

Having to develop for more options is a bad thing in general - it means each option gets a smaller proportion of the testing and development time.

Traditionally, a lot of cheat-codes in games have been features that were included for testing purposes (allowing playtesters to bypass various parts of the game in order to focus on the parts they're actively testing) and just not deactivated in the final version - meaning they've been thoroughly tested for stability, if not for fun.

Whether you think skipping combat is a good thing or a bad thing depends whether you think the increased range of options for the player outweighs the increased testing requirement for the developers.


It may also be worth considering that several FF games have had unlockable abilities to increase or decrease the rate of random encounters, so making combat skippable in general is roughly equivalent to starting the game with an "Encounter None" accessory in your inventory.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Come to think of it, there's precedent:

Bravely default has an option to skip encounters. The game also has (IMHO) a solid combat system. The game's combat is also strictly turn based combat and probably one of the most disability friendly 3DS games in existence. I used it when I had reason to backtrack.

It's a nice thought that they'd add features for reaction disabled gamers, but I'd be surprised if the game has anything more than subtitles in that regard.

I also think the fact that the feature was mentioned is insignificant. People want to know if the game gives you the ability to put a hat on a cat (as FFXIII-2 does). Gag orders and lack of feature finalization can make for weird combinations of what can be revealed and when.

I think when I make my own JRPG (realistically never) there will be three options in this regard. 1) no random encounters (this will interfere with the ability to get achievements) 2) all random encounters (the traditional way) 3) Only the interesting random encounters (The default option).
With interesting encounters specific groups of enemies become less likely after you fight them a number of times. The encounter rate for areas in general goes down after you start exhausting the options, out level the area, or are past the point in the plot where you need to be there.

[rmsgrey]

The problem with limiting random encounters is that they're the emergency pressure release valve for the game - if a player gets stuck somewhere, they can always go fight easy encounters until they're able to progress again. Obviously, this causes problems with trying to control the player's experience and force a particular sort of experience out of the game - if someone's willing to massively over-level early then there's not much you can do to make the rest of the game interesting/challenging for them without forcing everyone to spend hours grinding unless you sacrifice the ability to make the game easier for yourself by grinding...

Of course, there are other ways of allowing players to reduce the difficulty of future combat encounters without forcing them to spend hours fighting just to get from one town to the next - such as having a dedicated arena mode where you can fight in relative safety, but not advance plot...

[Zohar]

I felt Chrono Cross did great in that regard - you only level up during story events (after beating specific bosses), all of your characters level up whether they were in the fight or not (important in a game with 40+ characters), and fighting regular battles only gave the characters you played with a few minor attribute boosts from time to time. Then again, that game had no random encounters.

[Quizatzhaderac]

I feel making all the XP plot XP interferes with the pacing of the game: The peak of character growth is always hitting at the same time as a peak in the intensity of the plot or combat (boss fights). I tend to do a lot of thinking about my characters' builds mid-dungeon: when I have less otherwise to think about, but I'm still gaining XP.

@rmsgrey that's why I proposed it an option. Even if I was sure the game had a consistently excellent difficulty curve throughout I wouldn't want to force someone to play my game a certain way when I could easily leave an option open to them.