Explore: No Surprise Battles, Please!

Apologies if this has been brought up before, I skimmed the forum and didn't see it.

Most battle encounters in Explore are very obvious. You've got a picture of the enemy, text that displays their level, and a bright red button that you can either click to engage or not, depending on how well-equipped you think you are.

But then there are those 'trick' battle encounters where it's not apparent that you're about to get into a fight, because both buttons are green and don't say anything about enemies. I just encountered a jay in the Taiga for the first time and suddenly found myself in a battle with a 40+ HP bear when I was at less than 10 HP myself. It seems like those encounters are purposely stacked to be more in your favor (getting the first move, etc) but it's still not fun to be unwittingly thrown into a battle you have little to no chance of winning, just because you guessed the wrong green button.

Yes, I could probably just look at the user-run explore encounter guide and spoil myself on every single thing and be told how to play the game 'correctly', but I'd rather discover some stuff for myself! I just don't want to get murdered while I'm looking for herbs and NBWs, please. :'D

I would suggest that these encounters be tweaked by making the 'wrong' choice that leads to battle more apparent. Make it a red button like every normal battle encounter. In this case there would still be an element of surprise since you wouldn't know the species or level of the enemy, but you would at least have a heads-up to heal before engaging!

No support. Surprise attacks add some realism, and they are easy to avoid after you know what to look out for. Running out of HP doesn't have any serious long lasting consequences other than being slightly annoying, so you just learn from the injury like a real wolf might.

No support. I like the variation and having to learn the patterns. You can always retreat. As far as I know, there is no mechanic that ever doesn't allow you to flee.

@Twisted Is it true that there aren't any serious long lasting consequences? Because according to the Grouse House illness guide here, lead wolves can potentially get a variety of illnesses from losing a battle, INCLUDING some contagious and potentially lethal ones such as Influenza and Poison.

If I willingly click on a red button and get into a battle I wasn't properly prepared for, that's on me.

If I guess 'wrong' on a green button and suddenly my lead wolf is spreading the flu to half the pack and I can't afford enough cures, that's not fun gameplay IMO.

Yeah, and get hit one last time on the way out because you're a scrub for not spoiling yourself on every single Explore encounter beforehand, I guess?

I *did* retreat from the surprise bear battle before I got totally destroyed but it kinda sucked the fun out of exploring a new biome for the first time.

If there wasn't the risk of serious injury/illness I wouldn't care as much, it really would be only an annoyance. But the illness mechanic is already kind of overkill IMO, I deal with enough of those surprises on hunts and rollover.

Games should be fun, impossible surprise battles aren't fun, but that's just me!

Illnesses only spread if your wolf has them at rollover. You could always keep cures on hand for the transmissible or deadly ones just in case, if you are worried. I personally like that explore has survival consequences as, like I said, it adds an element of realism and it's generally not too difficult to prevent diseases from spreading like crazy as long as you don't just ignore it.

No support! I think they're a fun surprise actually and when you pick the wrong choice just once you aren't likely to do so again. It makes learning about a new biome fun for me and I have to pay more attention and read the descriptions when I get 2 choices like that. The prompts usually have some sort of hint that a battle is possible if you choose incorrectly, so it's not 100% out of the blue.

And like others have said, retreating has no real negative consequences, illnesses only spread at rollover, and a healing salve can make up for lost HP from the first attack or during the retreat. So there aren't huge negative effects from the mechanic. 

I think if surprise battle encounters were taken away, it would make exploring less interesting. I can avoid surprise battles not because I look at spoilers and studied all possible encounters, but because I remember my previous choices and learn from them.