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An Explanation of the Final Fantasy Encounter Table

When discussing the FF encounter table, it's best to think about it like a deck of cards. When you grab the deck -- 256 cards in total -- the vanilla game would simply deal out those cards, one at a time, going through the deck one step at a time. As cards are flipped, cards above a certain value would cause an encounter (with a higher card value being required on the oceans as oceans see less encounters, while a lower card value is needed in dungeons as dungeons get more encounters). The randomizer, in turn, "shuffles the deck" but, in essence, keeps the basic "card flipping" mechanic.

Of course, when discussing this we need to mention that there are actually two tables to look at: one that defines when you get encounters, the other that indicates what encounter you get. Any zone of the game (with the overworld being broken into 8 x 8 tile squares, with different encounters on the sea, on rivers, and on land, while dungeons are broken up by floor) will have eight different encounter groups you could see, depending on where you are in the group encounter table. If we stretch the deck of cards analogy out, the game will flip a deck of 256 cards comprising eight suits and, depending on the card that flips, you will either get an encounter, or not, from one of those eight suits, leading to one of the eight encounters in that zone.

Now, it's important to note that the deck isn't just dealt out, over and over; the game actually follows a pattern, dealing the deck out straight through once, then again, then for some reason going backwards through the deck, then forwards once more. At that point the process then repeats.

It's also worth mentioning that the randomizer allows you to lower (or raise) the encounter rate on the overworld (and the ocean) and in dungeons (each with their own slider). That means you can make more, or less, encounters in the zones if you so desire (as an example, the "usual" rates for overworld/dungeons most randomizer players use is 60%/70% where they are in the vanilla game). Using our deck of card analogy one more time, that would mean you could tell the game that encounters can happen on lower-value cards (creating more encounters) or only on higher-value card (reducing the number of encounters you see).

Finally, this discussion is most important when we're talking about Hard and Soft Resets. A hard reset on an emulator is like walking over to your original NES and pressing the power button. A soft reset, meanwhile, is like pushing the reset button on that console. For the game (both vanilla and the randomizer) these two different types of resets matter because a hard reset will take you back to the start of the encounter table (the top of the deck) while a soft reset will keep you on the encounter slot you're currently at (on that card, moving you to the next card with the next step). In this way you can work your way through the encounter table, avoiding encounters you don't like and continuing on into the "deck" via the soft reset. Then, if you discover a section of the encounter table you like (maybe an early encounter you want to grind on, or a long run without encounters early in the table) you can "scum" that table, over and over again, via the hard reset.

Learning to manipulate the table, to work with how it shuffles itself and to see what monsters come up where, is a valuable skill as you proceed deeper and deeper into your randomizer experience.