I've played some W8, but not W6 or W7 yet. I wondered what differences there were between these games, in terms of the way your party encounters monsters. For example, in W6/7, once you have defeated an enemy group, do they spawn back, perhaps randomly in terms of creature type, at some later time? Say if you rest more, do you then encounter more spawned enemies in a particular area, effectively 'rebalancing' the game's difficulty factor? Or, once you have defeated an enemy group, does that area remain monster-free? Do monsters scale upwards, as you level up? Thanks for any comments.

Semi-OT aside: how does this game mechanic compare to D.W.Bradley's "Wizards & Warriors"?!

Now I haven't played W6 and W7 for decades, but if I recall correctly, those games still have random encounters, so you just get an encounter every few steps. It's not like W8 where they run around on the map and respawn frequently.

I think monster level scaling was also new in W8. No other wizardry game has that.

I am not familiar with Wizardry 6 or 7, but I can describe how it worked in earlier Wizardries.

Wizardry 1-3 and 5 have 3 types of encounters: Random, placed, and scripted.

Random encounters can happen any time you take a step or turn. These encounters are infrequent, and you do not get a chest or any item drops if you win such an encounter.

Placed encounters are typically placed in a room; when you enter the room, you are likely to get into an encounter. The monster groups are exactly the same as in random encounters, except that they drop a chest when defeated, and if opened (watch out for traps! they can be nasty, especially in Wizardry 5) may contain item drops. Once a placed encounter has been won, the encounter will not appear again in that spot until the level is reloaded (for example, if you go up and down stairs).

Scripted encounters appear in event scripts. The original has 3 such fights (that I recall): Murphy's Ghost, the Monster Allocation Center, and, of course, the final boss. The enemies in these fights are fixed, though the number of enemies may sometimes differ. When defeated, there's no chest, but depending on the fight, you might get fixed item drops as a reward.

In Wizardry 5, you can also attack NPCs; if you win, the NPC will disappear until you pay to resurrect it in town.

I'll describe Wizardry 4 in a separate post here in this topic.

Wizardry 4:

In this game, there are basically 2 types of encounters: wandering and scripted.

Wandering encounters appear at a specific spot on the level, and then wander around. If you happen to move into a wandering encounter, you get into a fight, and after the fight, the enemy is gone until the level is reloaded. Sometimes you encounter parties of adventurers, and if you have already fought (and killed) one of the adventurers individually, the adventurer in question will be dead at the start of the fight. Each adventuring party has a rallying cry that is displayed when the encounter starts, and at least one of them is a clue.

Scripted encounters appear in specific spots, and typically can't be re-fought without reloading the level.

One thing to note is that, in Wizardry 4, saving takes you back to the title screen, and reloading the save reloads the level, causing enemies to respawn. (The PSX version has one difference here: Saving doesn't take you back to the title screen (despite the option still being "SAVE AND QUIT" when the language is set to English), though loading that save will still reload the level.)

There are random encounters in W6 and W7, areas are never free from monsters. Monster encounters don't scale to party levels.

For 6 & 7, there are both fixed fight locations and random encounters. Many squares will always contain a fight, but with one of a random set of monsters. Once that square has been cleared, those monsters won't respawn. There are some other squares that contain fixed fights with specific monsters, which also don't respawn. You can still get random monster encounters on all these squares later, though. Every time you move, there's a chance you'll be attacked, even if you're just rotating in place.

For 7, there are a few areas that can be "reset," causing the squares to repopulate with monsters. The basement of the bean puzzle resets every time you pull the lever, and the area underneath Orkogre Prison resets every time you enter the open central area. The crossroads square in the Hall of the Past has a fight every single time you enter it, too.

Great, thanks a lot everyone for the info! Just to double-check a few things please:

* In W7, say I stick to one particular area (map), explore it thoroughly, and fight everything I encounter, effectively "clearing it". Am I right in thinking that if I continue to stay in that area, and not leave it (so as to not "reset" its monsters), and just move about say "on the spot" in a simple forwards-backwards-forwards-backwards fashion, then I will continue to encounter random monsters? And if so, this monster generating mechanism will continue to occur, effectively indefinitely, so long as I keep moving? So, although all fixed/scripted monsters have been killed in the area, the map will never ever be entirely monster-free, so long as I continue to move? Thanks for clarification.

* What about resting? In W8, resting appears to generate additional monsters. (That's the impression I get. After a fight, if I don't then rest, then fewer monsters appear to respawn.) Is that not the case in W7? Is it *only* your party's *movement* that generates a never-ending "stream" of random monsters to fight? If so, then it sounds like W7 is an easier game than W8, because you won't get punished with additional spawned monsters to fight by resting your party.

* Are there any RPGs that feature a monster encounter mechanic whereby once you clear one particular map/area, it's absolutely completely cleared, no matter how much you continue to move about in it, and also no matter how much you rest? I like the idea of clearing one particular area for good, and then taking my time to wander about in it, to do additional more thorough exploring, just to make sure for instance that I've solved any puzzles that need doing, or spoken to anyone I need to, in order to complete quests etc. I find that once the fights are over, I've won, and I don't want any more enemy encounters - in any one particular "cleared" area that is.

Thanks a lot for any additional comments.

Edit: spelling error fixed.

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is like this, so you might want to try that game. Might and Magic 3 is *almost* like this, except that overworld monsters respawn if you haven't destroyed their lairs (though only if you step on a specific square), and I believe at least 2 overworld areas have broken scripting causing the enemies to respawn even after destroying their lairs. (Both games (or all 3, if you count Clouds and Darkside separate) can be found in the Might and Magic 1-6 collection available on this site.)

Also, as I have mentioned, in Wizardry 4, if you can kill all enemies on a floor, the enemies will not respawn until the floor is reloaded. However, that game feels more like a (rather difficult) adventure game disguised as an RPG, and I do not recommend it if you haven't played Wizardry 1. It also is rather unusual in many respects. Note that Wizardry 4 (like other early Wizardries 1-5) does not have a rest mechanic; you need to go back to a specific spot (a pentagram, of which there's at least one on each dungeon level) to recover your spells and summon replacement monsters. (I originally put "town" instead of "a specific spot", but Wizardry 4 is different.)

Really, I think you are thinking waaay to complex about this. Just think of it as being a 5% chance to encounter an enemy per step you make no matter what (and a higher chance when moving on certain cells).

And sleeping is also just a 30% chance to get surprised by an encounter (in older Wizardry games there is no sleeping at all without returning to town). Oh sure there are:
Baldur's Gate series
Icewind Dale series
Pillars of Eternity
Avernum series
Avadon series
Geneforge series
Nethergate: Resurrection
Lords of Xulima
Eternal Eden

Not played yet, but I assume these have it as well:
Planescape: Torment
Tyranny
Torment: Tides of Numenera Oh right, forgot about Might & Magic: World of Xeen.

Might & Magic X also allows for complete permanent area cleaning.

1. Yes. This is one of the more effective ways of farming XP. Simply go to an area that has monsters with good XP values, and run around and/or spin in place until you get into a fight. Difficulty level also affects this. You're more likely to encounter a random monster on expert, monster packs are at +1 size, and you're more likely to get additional packs in a single encounter. On easy, it's reversed: lower encounter rate, packs are at -1 (to a minimum of one) and the chance for additional packs is decreased. So fighting moderately easy monsters on expert can get great XP.

2. It's pretty common to get attacked while resting. Encounters are calculated based on time passing. Every time the clock advances, you have a chance for an encounter. Standing in place doesn't advance the clock, but any activity or movement advances it one tick. Because the health/mana regeneration from resting is fairly low, you're likely to spend a lot of time resting (and getting attacked) until you've discovered some good healing fountain locations. You won't get any NPC encounters while you're resting, though, so I tend to spin instead unless I need the regen. PST actually has an unusually large number of respawning enemies for an infinity engine game. Hive thugs respawn almost constantly, and there are two separate infinitely-respawning areas. One of those is actually a randomly-generated maze/dungeon that doubles as a fast travel system.

I could mention Undertale as another game with finite enemies in each area. However:

1. Even after you kill all enemies in an area, random encounters will occur, and then immediately end.

2. It might not be a good idea to slaughter every single enemy in the game. Doing so can affect the plot and even the ending.

Most RPGs have this in at least some areas, such as many of the ones mentioned. (I'll also note that another mechanic seen at times is where you can clear a map temporarily, for the duration of your visit to it, but if you leave the area and return there will be another loadout of random encounters. Champions of Krynn in particular tended heavily towards this mechanic, using it in nearly every area)

Ones where every area can be permanently cleared are comparatively rare on the other hand; the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Dragon Age: Origins.

Actually it became quite common in modern PC games: no respawn, sometimes - level scaling, sometimes both (like in DA:O).

Also that's why many like "old-school" RPGs - which feature respawns, no level scaling, etc. What''s the point in seeing your character(s) becoming stronger, if monsters become stronger as well (thus negating any kind of progress), or if monsters are finite (which heavily limits the way you can play the game, and you can't see the power of your mega-characters, because everything killable is dead). BG had respawns and famrable enemies. BG 1 actually respawned enemy the moment its spawn location is covered by fog of war.
IWD1 had respawning enemies in some areas. Example - Shadows in one of areas.
It is possible that enhanced editions removed respawns, but that's just another reason to stick to classic versions.

FWIW, Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor has this. It's basically one long dungeon crawl, with very few random encounters and a fair number of secret doors. Once a set encounter is resolved (and 99% of all encounters are set) the enemies never respawn, even if you leave and return. Later in the game, it can feel weird — and even a bit spooky — dashing through a now completely empty dungeon on your way to that one room to finally close out a side quest.

Enemies scale in 8, but it seems they scale PAST you the moment you hit a threshold. I've ended up with unwinnable save files because I saved after leveling up only to be permanently pinned between two groups of monsters I used to be able to handle just fine. As early as the Monastery this happened, where I was in the basement and as soon as my party hit like 4 or 5 or 6, the level of the slimes surrounding me turned out to be about 7-9 instead of 1-3ish.